The Siege Mentality and Charity

It can be difficult to be a traditionalist Catholic. The entire world is in opposition to us: from modern scientists who subjugate science to scientism and metaphysical naturalism, to protestants who demonize all Catholics, to people who just don't care one way or the other but have heard about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal and tend to paint all Catholics with the same brush, to Catholics themselves, those members of the conciliar Church who expend more energy condemning traditionalism than they would ever spend condemning abortion or homosexuality. It is understandable, then, that we traditionalists have a bit of a siege mentality, an idea that we are constantly under fire and have to defend ourselves at all times from a world out to hurt, tempt and deceive us. Unfortunately, this siege mentality gives rise to certain attitudes that, face it, just aren't very Catholic.

One big problem is charity: we tend to see all non-traditionalists as members of the evil, modernist world and so treat them badly almost as a method of pre-emptive self defense. One traditionalist, a woman who works in a local doctor's office, told me that she is ashamed of her fellow trads because they treat everyone at the office with such a lack of charity. She said that when the non-Catholics who work there have to deal with a particularly unpleasant person, they laugh and say, "He must be Catholic." Another traditionalist, a friend of mine who works at a bank, told me that she met a woman who had attended Mass at our church soon after moving to the area. She and her husband are novus ordo, and they were looking for a Catholic Church in town and attended ours because it was the only one they knew of at the time. They hated it. Everyone stared at them in a very hostile and unwelcoming manner because of the way they were dressed. No one spoke to them after Mass. Worst of all, they discovered that their car battery was dead, and when they approached people to ask for a jump they were ignored. This on a cold winter day! They finally had to call and pay for someone to come and give them a jump. When they finally found the novus ordo church in town (which bills itself as "the only Catholic Church" in town to differentiate themselves from us) and told their story, their new parishioners laughed and said, "Of course you had a terrible time! You went to that crazy schismatic church!" Needless to say, this couple never again attended a traditionalist church.

This isn't a new problem by any means, nor is it confined to traditionalist Catholics. It is an old, old tactic of Satan, used to sew discord within the Church and to keep converts to a minimum. As His Abysmal Sublimity Under Secretary Scewtape (TE, BS, etc.) wrote to his nephew, junior tempter Wormwood, "We want the Church to be small not only that fewer men may know the Enemy but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and the defensive self-righteousness of a secret society or a clique."

Traditional Catholicism is so small and so beset by the world that it often does feel like a clique. But we can't let ourselves think of it that way. As traditional Catholics we are called to stand against the world, it is true, but we must remember that our objective is to save souls, our own and others'. We can't do that if we present an exclusivist, elitist, snobbish front to the world. How can we attract souls to the truth when we make it so unpleasant for them? How can we bring people to tradition when we behave as if they are not worthy of it? We must lead by example, show by our actions the life of grace that we are supposed to be living. Traditional Catholicism already seems hard to those used to the world; we need to show that it is a joy to live this life for God. We can't do that if we behave as if living such a life turns us into pinched and unpleasant people.

Certainly we can't tolerate such things as immodest dress at mass. But the way to handle that is not to chase the people away, but to welcome them and inform them with charity of the proper dress code, so that next time they will know. We do want there to be a next time!

True charity means a careful balance between extremes, the extremes of approving of a sin or of disapproving of a sinner. Correction should be born of love; true love, not spiritual pride. Until we can achieve such a balance no one is going to point to us and say, "See how well these Christians treat each other!"