What's the deal with super online tradcaths?
February 15, 2022 10:53 AM   Subscribe

I'm defining 'super online tradcaths' here as extremely online seeming, usually hard-right right wing people who post A LOT about religious stuff, but to an outside observer it looks like they're basically 4chan people posting Catholic flavored 4chan stuff. Are these people related to existing Catholic right-wing cranks? Do online tradcaths show up at churches? What do churches or church organizations think about these people? Are tradcaths even on normie Catholics' radar?

I'm familiar with Lutheran and LDS doctrinal/organizational hijinks but don't have Catholic nerds in person to ask about things like this. I know from experience that prolific online representatives of one's religion can be astoundingly far afield from what you might want to call a normative community experience of the religion, and I'm interested in how this gulf manifests in religions I'm less familiar with in daily life.
posted by nixon's meatloaf to Religion & Philosophy (16 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
At least in the US, Catholicism has become increasingly reactionary and right wing. A silly example, but the pastor at my local hometown parish has spoken about the evils of yoga during some of his homilies, which is the kind of thing that would have seemed pretty out of left field to hear about during mass in metro Boston when I was growing up and attending church regularly 20 years ago. Of course the extremely online people you're talking about communicate in extremely online ways (the tradcath memes I see are so inside baseball in their tradosity that I can sometimes barely parse them), but they wouldn't necessarily be out of place in the church.
posted by cakelite at 11:15 AM on February 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


No longer a practicing Catholic in any meaningful way, so take it for what it's worth, but my sense is that the extremely online tradcath combines two phenomena:

First, you have the one family in every Catholic parish that has like eight kids and keeps the TV in the trunk of their car except when it's in use for network TV only. Not normative, but part of the fringe fabric of Catholic life.

Second you have a kind of Trumpism that tries to seem highbrow in order to reconcile this deeply un-Catholic mode with the Catholic framework.

So you combine those two things and you have these kind of Pious Milos running around who are not in a normal spectrum of Catholic experience.
posted by kensington314 at 11:20 AM on February 15, 2022


I'm an atheist. My parents are liberal Catholics who were young adults during the liberalizing Vatican II era.

But in the extended clan--when I get out to first and second cousins--we definitely have some families who are very conservative and very traditional. Not everyone, by any means. They are online and regurgitating all the things you'd expect from any generic online right winger. (I don't interact with them online, but I have a relative I'm close to who does and would get so stressed out they'd need to vent to me about the latest lies that were posted.)

For the right wing, anti-abortion is a big part of their identity but it's tied up with all the other standard racial and cultural bugaboos you get from upper middle class whites who still remember their grandparents' immigration stories. I don't think it's completely unfair to say that their mental model of an anti-poverty policy is getting nuns to instill some discipline in the (Black) youths.

My second hand take is that there are still plenty of parishes where a liberal Catholic would feel welcome and the homily will focus on loving your neighbor and social justice, and there are some where the priest will talk from the pulpit about how good Catholics vote against the baby killers (as was done at one relative's funeral). John Paul and Benedikt on one side, Francis on the other.

The area you're in definitely impacts which one you'll encounter. My most extreme relatives are in red states and their whole community and fellow parishioners will be reinforcing their opinions. The blue state ones generally not.
posted by mark k at 11:44 AM on February 15, 2022


I am a practicing Catholic. This sort of thing is extremely weird and these people do not show up at my church. When these people attend church, they have been largely attending Latin Masses presided over by priests in sympathy with them. This is a huge problem, both doctrinally and community wise, and Pope Francis has taken action to try to lock this down by limiting the Latin Mass and who can preside over it in order to bring these people back to doctrinal normalcy. Unfortunately, a number of them are also Sedevacantists, which is a word for absolutely off-book Catholics who think that they don’t have to listen to the authority of the broader church because they think Pope Francis is a false pope.

Catholics, at least in my parish, find these people so irritating and upsetting that twice a year the priest preaches about how we should not get involved in internet fights with people who are Wrong About Catholicism and using it to be awful, because it will only encourage them.
posted by corb at 11:47 AM on February 15, 2022 [28 favorites]


Are these people related to existing Catholic right-wing cranks? Do online tradcaths show up at churches? What do churches or church organizations think about these people? Are tradcaths even on normie Catholics' radar?

I married into a normal-ish Catholic family, but a pretty serious Catholic family. My husband did not become a priest, but his uncle was one and he kind of was expected to follow (he was under temporary vows when we met.) His aunt works for an order in a lay capacity.

One cousin has become what I think you mean by tradcath - 7 kids, homeschooling, girls all becoming midwives, lots of conspiracy theories and so on. So they are biologically related and came from the normal Catholic background. I think in this case a lot of things combined - trauma in the wife's family that I think had a big impact on her need for really structured beliefs and then a general family trend towards 'the more religious the better.' And from there it was probably more about who they fell in with than anything else. They are linked up with some American friends for support and attend a Latin mass online, I think.

What the rest of the family thinks is "wow, that cousin really went off the deep end, wonder why?" and otherwise don't really care...or at least, the people who do care are just glad they are still Catholic. Certainly they show up at churches for family events. It's not...really a thing any more than my very very evangelical cousins are a thing, like, I don't support their support of Trump or beliefs about sin and sexuality, which they know, and we're...family that like argues and blocks each other about certain things but still sends messages of congratulations over the wall.

When I was considering becoming Catholic, a thing that just Did Not Happen because well, everything I learned and thought through, I was attending a Catholic Church that had a HUGE charismatic group that would meet and speak in tongues. I actually had an opportunity to meet with one of the priests present for and hear about (warning: gross) the Eucharistic Miracle of Naju in excruciating detail. This convinced me that although the Catholic church is not catholic in a lot of ways, it does contain a lot of weird multitudes.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:49 AM on February 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


I'm coming to say much of what corb said (except I'm no longer Catholic). There are also people who are still off the deep end, but not quite that far off the deep end. Just like Minneapolis had the parish of progressive Catholics for whom certain things were a bridge too far (eg lay preaching and/or schisming out of Catholicism, there were parishes that did both), I eventually discovered there was the polar opposite parish--the people who secretly wished (eg) Vatican II never happened, but for whom actually leaving was a bridge too far.

In terms of how much they're on people's radar... I grew up in the Chicago Archdiocese in the 1990s, which had a very "that's between you and God" attitude to many things under Cardinal Bernadin. (See my old AskMe where everyone tells me I grew up in a conservative parish because we didn't have wine at communion. Nope, just understaffed and not caring. It dawned on me that wine at communion started after Bernadin died.) I honestly had no idea until I went to college that there were parishes actively saying Mass in Latin. I guess I assumed the Vatican did at least on occasion and that there was a lunatic fringe doing so, but it never would have occurred to me that I could find such a parish. (Mass in Latin isn't a great litmus test, I don't think. But there has to be a critical mass of elderly*, fairly conservative Catholics for it to make sense unless you've gone off the deep end.)

*My dad is the "came of age with Vatican II" generation and is now 71. There aren't all that many people left for whom Mass in Latin was the norm in adulthood, and that's likely the "prefers Mass in Latin because they're kind of conservative, but still reasonably mainstream" demographic.
posted by hoyland at 1:25 PM on February 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


I think this question is more like "I see these people online who are engaged in making weird 4-channy meme content about the specifics of Catholic theology; do these people go to church, or what?"
posted by 4th number at 2:44 PM on February 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


Catholicism hosts — in some of the more disagreeable connotations of that term — a powerful, rich, secretive and very conservative lay organization known as Opus Dei.

They remind me somewhat of the Jesuits among the clergy when the Jesuits were at the very considerable height of their power, but also of the John Birch Society formerly, or the Federalist Society currently on the Far Right in the US.

I’d guess they are at the root of a lot of the 'super online tradcath' stuff you’re seeing.
posted by jamjam at 4:31 PM on February 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


I'm a Catholic (which, by definition, is "all embracing") and my experience has been that there are a variety of ways that members of the church present themselves during services or church events which give hints as to their preferred theology (e.g., head coverings for women, formality of attire, before the pandemic receipt of communion on the tongue, preference for the Latin mass, participation in optional celebrations and devotions, they may express unhappiness with Pope Francis, etc.).

When I attended mass as a child the mass and people's responses were in Latin (et cum spiritu tuo). But the second Vatican Council brought in a wave of fresh air. The altar was turned around so the priest faced the parishioners (instead of being a high priest offering a sacrifice to the cross above the altar). The liturgy of the Mass changed to Novus Ordo (the ordinary form, or non-Latin liturgy).

I tend to throw folks for a loop, because I do tend to be serious about my faith, but I am not serious about a sense of purity. Again, Catholic is supposed to be all embracing, and so when I go on weekend religious retreats or attend optional devotions, people sometimes get the impression I will agree with them, which is not always the case, so I try to steer clear of sensitive areas.

One set of books I would recommend would be the Joshua series of books by Joseph Girzone (Jesus is a Latin word, he would not have called himself that... Joshua is I believe roughly "God among us"). The characters in those books (in my opinion) would give you an idea of the different flavors of Catholics (in the USA, at least).

I am a computer programmer not a sociologist. But the phenomenon is rather complex. Many Catholics are extremely devoted to caring for the poor and hungry, the sick and are very charitable. C.S.Lewis used to say that churches that followed a "parish" organization tended to be less political, because the membership was drawn from a vicinity, as opposed to sharing an ideological bent. So kneeling next to you at Mass could be someone totally different from you and maybe someone you don't approve of. But, of course, the same may be true from that person's perspective of you.
posted by forthright at 6:45 PM on February 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


My extended family is largely tradCath and I am ex-Cath and used to have to go to their weird, unintelligible, overlong shaming ceremonies. I do continue to associate with these family members, while also disassociating from myself so as not to invoke the drama they crave. As corb notes above, this is very much (in my experience) a Latin Mass thing. ("Master, he is no") Latiners are the solidly far-right version of mostly soft-right modern Catholicism.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:52 PM on February 15, 2022


I'm not a Catholic, but I have a number of Catholic friends and acquaintances who have gravitated towards the alt-right in recent years. One of them is very active on Facebook and constantly linking to sites like Church Militant (a sort of Breitbart News for Catholics) with scare stories about Muslim immigration. This is a side-effect of Steve Bannon's attempts to export Trumpian populism to Europe. Those attempts have mostly been a failure, but they have had an impact on some Catholics who fear that 'Christian Europe' is under attack from the Muslim hordes. Expect more of this rhetoric in the next few months with the French presidential elections coming up. The Catholic vote in France is small but not insignificant.

I can't speak with any certainty about what's going on in US Catholicism, but I don't think one should underestimate the influence of tradcath bloggers like Fr. Z. This isn't just a fringe movement. The culture war in Catholicism is very real and isn't going to go away any time soon.
posted by verstegan at 9:43 PM on February 15, 2022


I grew up Catholic but left the church before the internet really became a thing. The parish where I grew up attending church and school wanted parishioners to be more conservative than most were. There was definitely a vocal conservative minority -- e.g., the church organized a caravan to the March for Life every year but not many people went. And on one occasion I had to politely listen to someone insist that it all started to go wrong after Vatican II. But even the more active members of the church told me he was peculiar and to pay him no mind.

When I was in college my old parish got this super traditional priest who actually wore a cassock (all our other priests had always just worn the black pants/black shirt with collar) and apparently randomly showed up at people's houses to pray with them. He was generally disliked. He is probably up on a tradcath board somewhere.

Several years ago I checked out a local Latin mass because I was curious about the rite. Almost all the women were wearing head coverings and I walked out during the homily because it was all about how birth control was destroying society. Shortly after another local news story had broken about sexual abuse within the church.

The thing about Catholicism is that it is HUGE. It really contains multitudes, such that I don't know how typical my own parish was. My partner also grew up Catholic in the same county, and his parish was a lot more relaxed. Most of the people we knew in our both our respective parishes just wanted to go to mass on Sundays and go about their lives the other six days of the week. I imagine the spectrum of how general Catholics relate to tradcaths ranges from "surprised they exist" to "exasperated eyerolls" to "they do make some good points."
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 10:33 PM on February 15, 2022 [1 favorite]




This question is just begging for eyebrows mcghee to give her excellent perspective ao I hesitate to even comment.

In short the TradCaths are a minority of Catholics and furthermore a minority on the right wing of the political/cultural debate. Like everyone, there are cross pressured among cultural, economic, religious, foreign policy and other issues. They threw in with the Funionists to marry their desires for a conservative culturally milieu with their cohorts desires to fight Communism and to get lower taxes and business deregulation.

The TradCaths feel like they have gotten the short end of this stick i.e. the lower taxes and anti-Communism crowd got what they want but they feel like they didn't (see: legalized gay marriage, greater trans acceptance, dropping church attendance etc.).

Since religion and in particular traditional Catholic expressions of religion are their primary guiding principle, they feel where they went astray is anywhere they compromised or changed to accommodate the wider world (see: The Second Vatican Council reforms). They think if only they went back to what they perceive as a purer form of their religious expression then everything will be better*.

As to why they act so strangely online, I think that can be just explained as in 2020s, one outlet for people pushing a cause is being extremely online (see: QAnon's digital soldiers). Sure they could get out in the community and live a TradCath life that appeals to others and gains followers that way but that is hard and takes a long time. Being a very online poster gets you immediate feedback and makes you feel like you are doing something. This is no different than activism on any issue across the political spectrum.

If you want to read people on this topic let me suggest Rod Dreher - former Catholic turned Russian Orthodox...but I feel like there is a lot of overlap from an outsiders perspective. He constantly posts about cultural panic things. Bonus craziness: He's an Orban apologist.

If you want a left perspective on these movements and how they intersect with the greater right wing via Fusionism (and a bunch of other -isms) then let me recommend the Know Your Enemy podcast.


* The if-we-only-returned-to-a-purer-form-of-our-religion thing really reminds me of Under the Banner of Heaven. Which for the uninitiated is about a group of Mormon Fundamentalists who were drawn in to commit a grizzly murder in the name of being strict adherences to what they felt a purer version of their faith.
posted by mmascolino at 6:44 AM on February 16, 2022


One of my elderly relatives is Catholic and is friends with a pretty intense tradcath who's been trying to get her to join bizarre Italian far-right Catholic groups on Facebook. This person apparently only espouses middle of the road beliefs at mass and in sanctioned church activities, but online/in private is a different story.
posted by Stoof at 12:34 PM on February 16, 2022


jamjam: Catholicism hosts — in some of the more disagreeable connotations of that term — a powerful, rich, secretive and very conservative lay organization known as Opus Dei. [...] I’d guess they are at the root of a lot of the 'super online tradcath' stuff you’re seeing.

The tradcath group that is behind far-right parties like Vox in Spain is not the Opus but the equally opaque El Yunque, a new development from Mexico that is more interested in online trollery and disinformation tactics. And also, MAGA-type fascism, because why not.
posted by sukeban at 12:58 PM on February 16, 2022 [2 favorites]


« Older Need recommendation for ADULT size divided plates   |   How to capture loss on prior disallowed wash sale... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.