It is not an easy task to conceptualize the Crisis in the Church, to break down what has happened since the Council, and the division the conciliar reform has caused. Prior to the Council there was little or no political spectrum dividing the Church of traditionalist, conservative, moderate, progressive, and liberal.
But that is sadly the reality now. It is likewise no small thing to break down the different sub-movements within the Latin Mass movement, that is the Ecclesia Dei groups (FSSP, etc)), the SSPX and like-minded independents, and the sedevacantists.
And coming to terms with how faithful Catholics have been treated by the hierarchy since the Council, and how to view our relationship to that hierarchy, is like trying to climb a high mountain. But I propose that it all boils down to a de facto state of the Latin Church being divided into two Latin Churches, the traditional one verses the modernist one.
While the eastern Catholic Churches have succumbed somewhat to conciliar modernism, for the most part they haven’t in comparison to the Latin Church (i.e. the western Church). One point of view is to view us traditionalists as the “true Church” in the vain of what St. Athanasius declared during his time, “they (the Arians) have the churches, but those Catholics faithful to Tradition are the true Church of Jesus Christ.”
Yet it isn’t that simple today. Many within the mainstream are truly Catholic, and the mainstream still is a valid, licit hierarchy that represents the true Church of Jesus Christ. So the ecclesiology of the Crisis gets complicated.
We should not view the Novus Ordo mainstream literally as a false Church, even though there is a de facto false religion of modernism within the structure. On the other hand, we should not view ourselves in practical reality as part of the same Latin Church, because a particular Church is defined by its liturgy and praxis.
Tridentine Catholicism and conciliar Catholicism are so different that de facto they have a different liturgy and praxis. Therefore the two are not in reality the same particular Church, but practically speaking two particular Churches, or at least like two particular Churches, that is two deferent Latin Churches, both united to the pope and Rome, but in reality largely separate communities.
Latin Mass Catholics of all stripes rightly largely avoid the Novus Ordo mainstream because, besides the fact it embraces modernism whereas we reject it, remaining faithful to Tradition, we are in reality two different communities. This would be the same de facto reality if say the Greek Catholic Church adopted a Protestantized form of its liturgy and accompanying system of novel devotion. Whereas a remnant of Greek Catholics, however small or marginalized, retained their ancient liturgy and tradition, yet they would retain formal unity and membership in the Catholic Church, in union with Rome, and only from a great distance in union with each other.
In that very plausible scenario, the two communities would practically be two distinct Greek Catholic Churches. I think this is what Bishop Fellay of the SSPX was once getting at when he proposed that there be a universal structure throughout the Latin Church for the Tridentine rite, beyond particular traditionalist societies of priests, with its own canonical structure, jurisdiction, and bishops, what ideally would be an “apostolic administration.” The reality was and is that traditional Catholics are somewhat separated from the rest of the “reformed” Latin Church, in our liturgy and entire outlook.
We follow the Tradition, whereas the 99.9% of Catholics who identify as Latin rite Catholics as a matter of fact do not. There is in reality the traditional Latin Church, and the Novus Ordo Latin Church, while both formally remain united to the Faith and the papacy. On one hand, I think coming full circle to accept this as the hard raw reality helps give clarity and peace of mind. Accepting the fact that “we” are not “them,” that we are two different communities, helps alleviate the strain of navigating our relationship with the authorities, that is our local bishop and those presently in control of the Vatican.
On the other hand, it creates relative peace between us and “them” by acknowledging the reality, so that our differences can be once and for all soberly discussed. The SSPX itself heroically had tried many times to do this with the authorities in Rome, especially in their 2012 formal, sit down doctrinal discussions with authorities in Rome, which would later rightly be characterized as a “dialogue of the deaf” on the side of the Roman authorities.
They simply could not or would not even directly acknowledge the central doctrinal problems raised by the Society. Instead of working to address contradictions between conciliar and pre-conciliar texts, their method was to, using circular reasoning, or shallow argument from authority alone, argue there are no errors simply because the authorities say there are not.
It is time to face the reality. Besides the sad fact, truth be told, that most professed Catholics in the hierarchy and the laity are either heretics or heterodox, therefore to be avoided, per Scripture, they represent an altogether new version of the Latin Church.
They have split the Latin Church into two Latin Churches, not we. We simply maintaining the practice prior to the Council is to like being a large granite rock, while they are a divisive, torrential current.
If you belong to the Novus Ordo rite, you are of this new Latin Church, and must, for the sake of your soul and sanity, leave and join the traditional Latin Church, which, despite its own internal flaws on the human level, is, compared to the mainstream, preserving the Catholic Faith and therefore the Catholic Church. Coming to that conclusion will bring you peace and confidence in the face of the modernist bullies forcing new depths of modernism and liberalism on us.
Step outside of the torrent and into solid ground. If you are in eastern Oklahoma, seek out the ancient Mass at Most Precious Blood or Sts. Peter and Paul in Tulsa, Holy Cross in Wagoner, or at Clear Creek abbey near Hulbert. If closer to Oklahoma City, check out St. Michael’s chapel (SSPX) in the suburb of Bethany, or St. Damien’s in the suburb of Edmund.