Impoverished Thoughts: Finding Hate Where None Exists

The Southern Poverty Law Center ("SPLC"), describes itself as "a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society."  We should all seek to eradicate racism and hatred; it's our duty as True Catholics. Unfortunately, the SPLC seeks to demonize anyone who doesn't conform to their left-wing notions concerning alleged "hatred." They embody the Modernist notion that to proselytize is to "hate" another. Quite frankly, it's the embodiment of true Charity. If you have the Truth, the only way to salvation, you want to bring as many people into that saving Truth as possible, so they can avoid eternal damnation.

The SPLC website at www.splccenter.org, lists "Radical Traditional Catholicism" as a "hate group" on par with the likes of the Neo-Nazis and the KKK. Such a designation is nothing less than rank calumny fortified by fallacious arguments. Below I reproduce parts of an essay on their site entitled, "The Radical Traditionalist Catholic Movement" written by Heidi Beirich. She is touted as having a PhD, and director of research and special projects for the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. One can only hope she obtained her doctorate from one of those fly by night mail-in correspondence schools, and I had to suppress laughter that she is director of research.  She has written an essay about Traditionalists which distorts the facts, uses shoddy research with no citations, employs faulty reasoning, and misrepresents the teachings of Traditionalists. I submit this essay is an example of the very thing the SPLC disavows--hatred-- directed towards Traditionalists. I refuse to refer to someone who does "research" and writes on elementary school level as "Dr."; therefore she will be referred to as Ms. Beirich. I will point out the most egregious errors about Traditionalists Ms. Beirich puts forward, followed by my comments in red.

Though tiny in comparison with the approximately 70 million Americans who are mainstream Catholics, "radical traditionalist Catholics" may form the single largest group of hard-core anti-Semites in America.


Really? What constitutes this core of anti-Semitic hatred? What polls has she conducted regarding the attitudes of Traditionalists towards Jewish people?

With more than 100,000 followers in the United States – famously including actor Mel Gibson and his father Hutton Gibson – the radical traditionalist movement embraces a host of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. It has significant financial and publishing resources, and, in a growing number of cases, is interacting with white supremacist and Holocaust denial extremist groups. Leaders of the growing, energetic movement routinely pillory the Jews as "the perpetual enemy of Christ" and worse.

I don't know of any statistics concerning the number of Traditionalists in the U.S. Is she including sedevacantists, along with SSPX and those independents who recognize yet resist Modernist Rome in her statistics? What about Conclavists/mysticalists? She later makes statements against sedevacantists, but who, exactly, are covered by her statistics and in her definition of "radical Traditional Catholicism"? It's never made clear.  I guess "you people" all think alike!
 "Significant financial and publishing resources"? Name one major Traditionalist publishing house the likes of  Intervarsity Press or Zondervan Press (both Protestant). While an individual Traditionalist can be anti-Semitic, you can hardly ascribe it to all of us. Can you imagine if she had written that all Moslems hate America and want to blow things up? Something tells me SPLC never would have put it online.


Also known as "integrism" or Catholic separatism, radical traditionalism is largely unknown to mainstream Catholics. Radical traditionalists are also unrelated to the many Catholics who call themselves "traditionalist" because they prefer the ancient Latin Mass, though radical traditionalists also prefer their liturgy in Latin. The official Roman Catholic Church condemns radical traditionalists for their anti-Semitism. In turn, radical traditionalists generally reject the modern Roman Catholic Church and its universalistic theology.


So if you're in union with Modernist Rome (FSSP, Motu Mass) you're not classified as a "radical Traditionalist." That's because you buy into the heretical worldview of Vatican II which the world (and the SPLC) loves. Traditionalists are condemned for having the One True Faith and rejecting Vatican II, not due to anti-Semitism. She IS correct that we reject the Modernist's universalisitic theology!! Not all are saved, and converts must be made since there is only One True Church outside of which no one can be saved. Consider the DENIAL of this dogma by His Wickedness "Pope" Francis, which he made just recently:

"The Christian who would bring the Gospel must go down this road: [must] listen to everyone! But now is a good time in the life of the Church: the last 50 or 60 years have been a good time - for I remember when as a child one would hear in Catholic families, in my family, ‘No, we cannot go to their house, because they are not married in the Church, eh!’. It was as an exclusion. No, you could not go! Neither could we go to [the houses of] socialists or atheists. Now, thank God, people do not says such things, right? [Such an attitude] was a defense of the faith, but it was one of walls: the LORD made bridges. First: Paul has this attitude, because it was the attitude of Jesus. Second, Paul is aware that he must evangelize, not proselytize."


Now you can see why Modernist Rome is loved by the corrupt world, and we in the True Church are hated, even as Our Lord was hated before us. "Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets." (St. Luke 6:26).

The radical traditionalists' understanding of what has gone wrong with the world boils down to a few basic issues. They are incensed by the Second Vatican Council's (1962-1965) historic declaration, "Nostra Aetate," which condemned "all hatreds, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism leveled at any time or from any source against the Jews."
They believe that most of the theological developments within the church since Vatican II have been egregiously wrong, especially with regard to reconciling with Jews and the followers of other faiths. They despise the Vatican's ecumenical outreach efforts to other religions. And they lament the fall of the Latin Mass and argue that the new Mass, "Novus Ordo," does not guarantee salvation.

Just a "few basic issues", you say? Ecumenism in all its forms is against the Catholic Faith. For some reason, Ms. Beirich has an obsession with the Jews. The Novus Bogus "Mass" does not guarantee salvation, but neither does the True Mass. No one can be certain of salvation, and even in the True Church we must "work out our salvation in fear and trembling." (Philippians 2:12 ).


The radical traditionalist subculture is notable for its conspiracy mongering. The most popular conspiracy theory dwells on the perils of the much-feared "Judeo-Masonic" plot. The alleged conspiracy involves ancient, shadowy fraternities such as the Masons and the Illuminati, who are seen as puppets in a Jewish master plan to destroy the Catholic Church. The theory is laid out in great detail in John Venarri's Alta Vendita, which has been compared to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an infamous tract also alleging a global plot by the Jews. Other plots abound in radical traditionalist circles, including a "Marxist-Jewish" scheme that is ruining American schools, a "Jewish-homosexual" alliance destroying the priesthood, and a 9/11 conspiracy that maintains the 2001 terrorist attacks were actually "predicted by the Blessed Virgin Mary 84 years ago."

John Vennarri recognizes Bergoglio ("Pope" Francis) and his booklet deals with Freemasons, not Jews. The other allegation about Marxist-Jewish schemes in schools, etc. might be held by individual wackos but not by the Traditionalist movement. Notice she does not supply a single citation to whom advances these wild-eyed theories.



Some radical traditionalists, including Hutton Gibson, embrace "sedevacantism," a word derived from Latin that refers to a period when "the see [or seat] is vacant." While the term is the official Roman Catholic word for the period between a pope's death and the election of his successor, many radicals are sedevacantists in the sense that they believe that there has not been a real pope for years (typically, since 1958). Some have adopted theories about rigged papal elections and even the idea that the authentic pope is secretly being held in captivity.

Here she does include sedevacantists in her definition of Radical Traditionalists, but also makes it seem we are all believe strange things, such as rigged papal elections (the "Siri Theory", i.e. Cardinal Siri was elected instead of John XXII, and the bizarre idea held by those who believe the Bayside "apparitions;"namely, that Paul VI was being held captive in the Vatican and an impostor-look alike put in his place). She does not even mention that the vast majority of Traditionalists base sedevacantism on theological principles taught by the Church through Her most learned theologians and popes.


If radical traditionalists belong to a particular sect – and many do not – it is typically the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). This sprawling international group, based in Kansas City, Kan., has published reams of anti-Semitic writings. In the late 1980s, Pope John Paul II excommunicated all SSPX priests and declared the sect formally in schism. Nevertheless, it has continued to grow. The sect reportedly has 20,000 to 30,000 members in the United States.


False. First, what constitutes "reams of anti-Semitic writings"? Praying for the conversion of the Jews so they can be saved? Horrors!! JPII never excommunicated the SSPX clergy--only Archbishop Lefebvre, Bishop de Casrto-Mayer, and the four bishops they consecrated in 1988. Anti-Semitism was not the reason and never entered the equation. A first year college student majoring in journalism could have done a better job in researching an article. Which leads me to the question, "Is Ms. Bierich incompetent or just a bald-faced liar"?

In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI moved to regularize SSPX with the church, though his announcement was marred by revelations of Holocaust denial by SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson. SSPX ordered Williamson to stop articulating his historical views about the Holocaust and, in the months after the pope's announcement, began purging its website of anti-Semitic material.


The SSPX began purging its website of doctrine that offends Modernists, like the need for conversion to the One True Church. Bp. Williamson's views about a matter of secular history are his own, he was not speaking on behalf of the SSPX, nor of Traditionalists in general. Interestingly, Ratzinger took a hard line against a wacky idea totally unrelated to Faith or Morals, yet his "bishops" who deny dogma and cover-up pedophiles (and, like Rembert Weakland, are practicing sodomites themselves) go untouched by the Vatican, or receive a slap on the wrist at worst! Bp. Williamson has since been expelled by the SSPX for being too Catholic!

Two deceased priests – Father Denis Fahey and Father Leonard Feeney – serve as the primary inspiration for today's radical traditionalist Catholics.

Says whom? Fr. Feeney was a heretic, and the SSPX, SSPV, CMRI, (and many independents as well) DENY Holy Communion to those who hold to the heretical views of Feeney on Baptism of Desire and Baptism of Blood. Fr. Fahey is by no means "the theologian" who inspires Traditionalists. Where is she getting this "information"?


While spouting the same kind of anti-Jewish propaganda as the Nazis, Fahey crafted an argument that he believed should exempt him from the label of anti-Semite. Fahey claimed he didn't hate the Jews per se, but merely opposed their "naturalistic aims." Since he also argued that Jews can't help but work to further those aims – communism, the destruction of Christianity and the like – this was a distinction without a difference. Today, radical traditionalists, including the Society of St. Pius X, continue to claim they are not anti-Semitic, just against "Jewish naturalism."

No citations. Traditionalists are against Naturalism, regardless of who espouses it. Fahey is claimed to have said many things. He is not a pre-Vatican II theologian and no Traditionalist groups pay him any type of homage. Perhaps some individuals do, but the same could be said of some "conservative" Vatican II sect members.

Feeney also preached against Jews, often on the Boston Common with his followers. Although he was finally excommunicated for disobedience in 1953, he rapidly founded his own order, Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and started a newsletter, The Point, that was suffused with anti-Semitism. Feeney's newsletter blamed Jews for controlling and biasing the press and for creating communism. One article lambasted Jews for their role in "anti-hate" initiatives. Another, published in April 1958, was entitled "Newspapers and The New York Times: Other Jews and Minister Sulzberger" and summed up the Jewish "problem" like this: "Essential to the understanding of our chaotic times is the knowledge that the Jewish race constitutes a united anti-Christian bloc within Christian society, and is working for the overthrow of that society by every means at its disposal."
Feeney reconciled with the church in 1974, four years before his death. But his anti-Semitic ideas remain popular in radical traditionalist Catholic circles and in the New Hampshire monastery founded by his followers. The monastery still endorses Feeney's anti-Semitic ideology, to the point that a New Hampshire bishop criticized it in 2004 as "blatantly anti-Semitic" and "offensive." The bishop isn't the only one who sees Feeney as anti-Semitic. One white supremacist has created an online archive of Feeney's writings (www.fatherfeeney.org) for the benefit of fellow Aryans. It is part of the so-called "World White Web."

The Vatican took him back without abjuring his errors!! Hence, it is the Vatican II sect, not Traditionalists who are aligned with Feeney! Yet we are given the mantle of "hate group"! Please note that this is still guilt by association. Paul VI deserves condemnation for taking him without an abjuration, but I can not condemn the members of the Vatican II sect of being in alignment with his views, theological and otherwise. 

With all the real hatred in the world, the last thing we need are baseless diatribes against good people from second rate intellects promoting an agenda which uses propaganda posing as "scholarship." Hopefully, Ms. Beirich will put her writings to good use by hanging them next to the Charmin.