Catholic Traditionalism After Francis

Commonweal Magazine ^ | November 12, 2025 | Massimo Faggioli

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I wonder what Bishop Marcel Lefebvre would make of Cardinal Raymond Burke celebrating the pre–Vatican II “Latin Mass” in St. Peter’s Basilica on October 25. Lefebvre, of course, was a seminal figure in traditionalist Catholicism, who early on distanced himself from the reforms of Vatican II and in 1970 founded the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) to train traditionalist seminarians. The SSPX was canonically suppressed by the Holy See in 1975, but Lefebvre termed the action illegal and decided to ignore it. Then, in 1988, Pope John Paul II declared that Lefebvre was automatically excommunicated for consecrating four bishops that year without the Vatican’s permission.

The years between 1970 and 1988 were an uncertain period of negotiations between Lefebvre and Rome as it tried to contain a visible but fairly small movement. In July 1977, the year after the publication of his pamphlet I Accuse the Council!, in which he called Vatican II “the Yalta agreement of the Church with its worst enemies [and], in reality, a new betrayal of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church,” Lefebvre embarked on a tour of the Americas, including the United States. Mexico refused him entry; governments in other countries prohibited him from holding public Masses, and he was subjected to strong criticism from Church hierarchs in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Colombia.

That was almost fifty years ago, when Catholic traditionalism was led by a French prelate based in Switzerland, with a global but small following and a theological posture defending the tradition unadulterated by Vatican II. Today, the traditionalist movement is still small, but less marginal than it was in the 1970s, and its geographical center of gravity has shifted from French-speaking Europe to the United States. Its normalization relies on, and parallels, the crisis of faith...

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TOPICS: Religion
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