Posted on 01/18/2007 6:42:00 AM PST by NYer
From a makeshift pulpit inside an Indiana Quality Inn, a baby-faced priest angrily denounces the Jews, saying they mean to "destroy all Christian nations."
In offices in State Line, Pa., an intense, bespectacled man tirelessly recounts how the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia "predicts the anti-Christ will come from Jewry" and warns of the Jews' role in the coming "New World Order."
At a gathering near the Philadelphia airport, men in priests' collars and brown monk's robes rage against the "Judeo-Masonic" conspiracy to destroy the Catholic Church, the "Marxist-Jewish" scheme to wreck American schools, and even an elaborate 9/11 plot, "predicted by the Blessed Virgin Mary 84 years ago."
For most Americans, the world of "radical traditionalist Catholicism" is so remote and little-known -- it entered the nation's consciousness, just barely, with revelations about the strident anti-Semitism of actor Mel Gibson and his father, Hutton -- that it may seem wholly irrelevant to the modern world. Is it really important what a group of people, many excommunicated and most gathered behind the walls of their monasteries and other institutions, think about the Jews? That many believe there was no Holocaust? That some say every pope since 1958 has been illegitimate, and a few even insist the real pope has been kidnapped?
The fact is, it does matter. As explained in a remarkable and sweeping story by the Intelligence Report's Heidi Beirich, the best estimates suggest there are 100,000 radical traditionalists in America, a number that appears to be growing. And while the size of this movement is dwarfed by the 70 million mainstream Catholics in this country, these energetic men and women are having an influence.
For one thing, the open anti-Semitism that characterizes the movement is leaking into other subcultures, some of them especially dangerous.
Last September, Father Nicholas Gruner, leader of the International Fatima Rosary Crusade and a key player in the radical traditionalist milieu, celebrated a special morning Mass at the Washington, D.C., conference of The Barnes Review, a Holocaust denial journal, also attended by neo-Nazis and other white supremacists. In February 2006, John Sharpe, head of the Legion of St. Louis and another leading radical traditionalist, sold books at a conference of the racist magazine American Renaissance that also played host to neo-Nazi David Duke. (Last December, Duke spoke to a Holocaust denial conference hosted by the Iranian government.)
In one case, the simmering anti-Semitism of the radical traditionalists may even have affected the thinking of a serial-killing terrorist. A new book by Maryanne Vollers, Lone Wolf: Eric Rudolph: Murder, Myth, and the Pursuit of an American Outlaw, suggests that Rudolph may have been influenced by radical traditionalism, in addition to his known ties to the neo-Nazi theology of Christian Identity.
The movement also may be gaining influence on the larger political scene. A case in point is that of Christopher Ferrara, leader of the American Catholic Lawyers Association. Ferrara, who writes for the anti-Semitic, radical traditionalist journal The Remnant, was the lawyer for the family of Terri Schiavo and a key player, along with Republican and Christian Right leaders, in getting Congress to pass a law to keep the severely brain-damaged woman alive. It was later overturned.
In the United States, we are accustomed to thinking of race as the critical fault line splitting our society. But in the world at large, religion is just as divisive.
From Iraq to the former Yugoslavia to uncounted other regions, religiously based violence has recently torn apart societies that once included people of different faiths living together in peace. Even in the United States, with its strong tradition of religious pluralism, religious conflicts seem to be increasing almost yearly. One would think that radical traditionalists would understand this. After all, Catholics historically have been among the most despised minorities in America, with hatred of "papists" driving the Know Nothing party in the 1850s and swelling the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s to almost 4 million members. The same kind of demonization that Catholics were subjected to in the past is now being practiced by extremist Catholics who describe all Jews as the "synagogue of Satan."
I think too much is read into the term "perfidious." It simply means faithless, and can be just as easily applied to pagans and infidels. In this case, it is a cognitive translation from the Latin, which is not meant to be as perjorative, not simply a statement of fact. It does not have the same import as it would when applied to a forger or double-agent.
I've read books by Chaim Potok - very good author. "My Name is Asher Lev" is very good and amusing, especially when the young artistically gifted kid responds to a bully by drawing a picture of the bully being dragged into hell by demons. He leaves the picture where the bully can find it, and from then on the bully did everything he could to avoid Asher Lev!
As far as Mark Potok, Morris Dees probably said that the SPLC swimming pool needs a new set of marble tile, so go out and find a threat we can make some money on.
And to yours! God bless all of you, on your journey home! Thank you for the support.
I've not seen that one. I'll have to pay closer attention.
Can someone let me know next time these folks have a conference? I want to set up a tinfoil hat stand!
Why does everyone in a black suit w/ a white collar tab, or anyone in roughspun robes have to be Catholic? I'm not convinced here that we're talking about members of our fold.
Typical for the Southern Poverty Law people... Maybe we could follow suit, and use Jim Bakker as our model for any discussion about protestantism.
Great comments, thanks!
God bless you and yours!
He may have written about it in the Remnant, I'm not sure as we don't get that anymore.
But I think there is a chapter in his book on EWTN ("A Network Gone Wrong"--the one with an empty nun's habit on the cover) about it. It's been a while since I read it so I hope I'm not mischaracterizing his argument, but I remember him as saying that organizations like the AHC are essentially "Judaizers"--in the same or a similar sense as the opponents of St. Paul.
I have also met people in the AHC and went to one of their conferences in NYC. Nice folks...and they run the gamut of opinion among themselves. I know Roy Schoeman is somewhat critical himself of *some* of the aspects of the AHC..he's more on the trad side of things.
Which makes a funny dynamic in itself...the trads think you're too pro-Jew, and the Hebrew Catholics think you're too trad. Oh well. :)
Exactly! HUUUUUGE amounts on all sides. Much ink could be spared if people just took it easy and *listened* to what the other person was saying rather than a) jumping to conclusions and b) focusing on being "right" all the time. It really makes me nuts.
Basically the way I use "traditionalist" is....which Mass would you rather go to on a weekly basis...the 62 Missal or the 69 Missal. How other people use it I dunno.
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