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I like Chris Ferrara, I’ve met him and heard him speak - and frankly, I’m surprised that his article would have this tone.

My feeling is: stop calling names and “defining” Catholics, just welcome anybody who has finally woken up and had to admit that Francis is (not unintentionally) destroying the Catholic Church, and go on from there.

Personally, I don’t like the term “Traditionalist,” precisely because it has now become a church-politics definition. Also, in practice it means a tiny group of often hostile bow-tie wearing men and their hijab-wearing women who regard US Catholicism in 1952 as the apex of the Church. It wasn’t; I lived through it, and the Church would never have collapsed so quickly with VII if it hadn’t already been seriously undermined by the “Greatest Generation” (not Boomers, btw - we were the victims; even the 1968 riots were led by people about 15-20 years older).

I’d like to just go back to using the term Catholic. Let others scream their insults at Catholics who are orthodox - and even the “Neocons” that Ferrara mentions actually are orthodox, if somewhat timid about it - but we shouldn’t define ourselves right out of the box as a splinter group. Unfortunately, the person who cannot claim the title of Catholic happens to be the Pope. And that’s the problem.

We need to unite and get him out of there, and I think Lawler has finally been forced to admit this.