Pope Leo's stance on Latin Mass proves he knows the Trads

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Pope Leo appears to be relaxing restrictions on the Latin Mass.

This move shows he has a sharper perspective on online trad communities than many in Church leadership.

It all stems from his deep understanding of Catholic social media.

Trads Online vs Reality

If your only interaction with traditional Catholics was online, you’d be forgiven for thinking every Trad is a pope-hating conspiracy theorist who thinks Archbishop Viganò is the only thing standing between the West and Jewish space lasers.

Very intense. A lot of anger.

I believe that is the impression of American traditional Catholics in the minds of most Catholic leaders, lay and clerical. The crackdown was mostly reactive to the online experience.

But here’s the problem.

Go visit an actual Latin Mass parish. You’ll find something completely different. You’ll find smiling, happy people who love the Pope and love the Mass and want a place to raise their family around other faithful Catholics.

I’ve been to the Latin Mass community near me. A lot of them are my friends. Everyone’s really nice. No one hates the Pope. Same thing in Steubenville. Super nice people. No Pope-hating.

The Pressure Valve

From what I can see, here’s what was happening:

Young men discover traditional Mass online, and suddenly they become frustrated with their Novus Ordo parish. They get mad and find online communities that affirm that frustration. Eventually, they find their way to a Latin Mass parish.

But the parish ended the radicalization. There they can meet normal men with families who can , “Hey I get it. But it’s okay.”

The Latin Mass community is not where young men get radicalized. They get radicalized online. The Latin Mass is where they are brought back down to earth.

The restrictions cut off online Trads from finding community. They didn’t suddenly attend the Novus Ordo. They circled the wagons, stayed online, and lost the community that kept them tethered.

And that’s what I think we’ve realized in the years since Traditionis Custodes: the online Trad movement isn’t going anywhere.

There’s a particular demand in the Church for Latin liturgy that we ought to accommodate in real parishes. Because if we don’t, we risk those people having a disembodied faith.

Don’t crack down on the trads

Pope Leo emphasized the importance of having an “embodied” faith, meaning living your faith in real life with real people, not just online. The Latin Mass parish might be the only place where the online Trad guy can do that. He’s not going to the Novus Ordo. You could argue he should, but he’s not going to.

So what do you do?

Dial back hell? Sure, maybe. But the Church’s attitude recently has been to broaden the scope so more people can come in.

The crackdown on the Trad communities seems to be coming from a different place.

It seems the Church at large perceives the traditional Latin Mass communities as judgmental and subversive. So, in response to that perceived prejudice, we crack down. This leads to resentment and anger in those communities which leads to more division, which leads to more cracking down.

It’s a mess.

“Cracking down” on Latin Mass communities only causes those communities to become more isolated. Which is ironic, especially for a Church that cares so much about reaching people “on the margins” of society.

Some will say the restrictions were necessary because of legitimate problems in Latin Mass communities. But I don’t know a single parish that doesn’t have legitimate problems. I can’t tell you how many problematic parish secretaries I’ve dealt with. You're gonna ban parish secretaries?

Legitimate problem? Maybe. Absolutely the wrong solution.

What Now?

I see traditional Catholics becoming disenfranchised and feeling isolated from the Church.

That’s bad. The Church is at all-hands-on-deck time. We need every faithful Catholic we can get on board and rowing in the same direction. I don’t want to alienate people who can help make the Church better.

It’s bad to alienate devout Catholics. Even if you perceive them to be stuck-up and snobby.

Force rarely draws people close. It usually pushes them away. And we can’t afford to lose anyone right now.