Yet more marginalisation, stereotyping and scapegoating of traditionalism. Traditionalism as a vast right-wing conspiracy.

Catholic traditionalism is a small special current on the fringe or even outside the Church - still. The Viennese political scientist Thomas Schmidinger has shed light on the scene and tells what some groups have in common with right-wing extremists.

Nightmares for modernists.  This is what they are so afraid of

Many of them celebrate the pre-conciliar mass, but some are also anti-Semitic. Catholic traditionalism is a fragmented scene - but one that is gaining influence. The Viennese political scientist Thomas Schmidinger has taken a close look at the scene. In an interview, he talks about church-political ambitions and common enemy images.

Question: Mr. Schmidinger, how is Catholic traditionalism positioned in Central Europe?

Schmidinger: It is very different in each country. In Switzerland it is relatively strong, as it is in France. In Germany it varies greatly from region to region. But the scene is very fragmented. There are very different currents with varying degrees of closeness and distance to the official Catholic Church. The largest of these currents is certainly still the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, whose relationship to the Catholic Church remains unresolved to this day. It is followed by the Fraternity of Saint Peter, which is a splinter group of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X that is loyal to the Pope. Then there is a whole series of splinter groups, some of which are more extremist than the Fraternity of Saint Pius X and split off, for example, when there was this reconciliation process between the Fraternity of Saint Pius X and the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI. In addition, there are groups that have already split from the official church, so-called sedisprivationist and sedisvacantist currents, according to which the Chair of Peter is occupied by a usurper (sedisprivationist) or is orphaned (sedisvacantist). This goes as far as conclavists who have elected a modern counter-pope.

Question: How did it come about that there are so many small splinter groups?

Schmidinger: Groups that are very ideological and very convinced that they are the only true representatives of the true and pure doctrine tend to splinter over the smallest details. It makes no difference whether we are talking about Maoists or Catholic traditionalists. The more dogmatic and ideological a movement is, the more it tends to split on the question of who represents the absolute truth.

Question: But they share their origins as opposition to the Second Vatican Council?

Schmidinger: The vast majority. There have been smaller groups that have also developed before. For example, with Michel Collin or Clement XV, there was already a counter-pope in France before the Second Vatican Council, who bizarrely did not see himself as the only Pope at first, but more or less as a parallel pope. There are still a few smaller groups in France and Canada that are in this tradition. But the bulk of the traditionalist groups are working off the Second Vatican Council and have turned away from the Vatican to a certain extent because of the question of the "New Mass", but also the socio-political re-positionings in the Catholic Church such as the acceptance of human rights, reconciliation with democracy, ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue.

Question: So there are also attitudes that these groups share across all demarcations?

Schmidinger: The rejection of the Second Vatican Council, liturgically as well as socio-politically. All these groups claim to represent the only true form of Catholic teaching and thus also the only religious truth. They reject interreligious dialogue, but also ecumenism. So they are also quite strictly opposed to the churches of the Reformation. In addition, they have a very strong conspiracy-theoretical interpretation of what has led to the apostasy of the Vatican that they diagnose. All these groups more or less explicitly have the idea that with the beginning of the 19th century there was an infiltration of the Vatican and the Catholic Church by a Masonic, possibly also Masonic-Jewish conspiracy, which would have led to the Second Vatican Council and the apostasy of the Roman Catholic Church. One has to explain somehow why the Church, which was the only true one for over 1,900 years, should suddenly have fallen away from the faith.

Question: So it's a question of demarcation.

Schmidinger: In two respects: It also shows within the groups. These structures are very closed. If you are born into such a family, you hardly have a chance to get out again as a child. For example, they try to keep their children away from public schools so that they don't come into contact with the theory of evolution or sex education. In Germany and Switzerland, the Fraternity of Saint Pius X runs several boarding schools with schools. So they try to isolate the children and young people from the rest of society. This massively restricts the freedom to decide later on which form of religion one practices, and leaving such a group is often associated with a break with the entire family. This can be described as psychological abuse.

But it is also about dissociation from other religious traditions. They continue the idea that existed in the Catholic Church until the Second Vatican Council that the Jews were responsible for the murder of God, i.e. a religious anti-Semitic positioning. What also unites them is a very strict anti-modernism. This includes a strict anti-liberalism, but also an anti-socialism and anti-communism, a rejection of gender equality or of rights for homosexuals or bisexuals.

Question: Conspiracy narratives, rejection of modern achievements such as democracy and liberalism - that sounds as if there are also overlaps with the New Right.

Schmidinger: In some countries, especially in France for example, there is a very close proximity. The Le Pen family, for example, has close contact with the Fraternity of Saint Pius X. In Austria, the mainstream of right-wing extremism, based on classical German nationalism, has always been rather anti-clerical. This means that there are fewer points of contact with the FPÖ than, for example, with right-wing circles within the ÖVP. In Germany, the AfD is more likely to have people from evangelical fundamentalism than from Catholic traditionalism. But of course many of the values pursued by Catholic traditionalists overlap with the extreme right, especially the anti-Islamic and anti-Jewish positions.

Question: Do these traditionalist groups also have an impact on society?

Schmidinger: Not very much, they are too small for that. All candidacy projects of right-wing Christian splinter groups have actually always failed in different elections. What has not failed, however, is the attempt in Austria, for example, within the ÖVP, i.e. the classical Christian social party, to bring individual candidates on the right fringe into local councils or parliaments as compromise candidates between very conservative and traditionalist currents, partly with the help of evangelical fundamentalist groups. However, these are selective co-operations of different right-wing Christian currents that join forces, for example, on the abortion issue. How sustainable these co-operations are is questionable. From the point of view of classical Catholic traditionalism, long-term cooperation with evangelical fundamentalists is actually impossible, simply because the churches of the Reformation are heretics from the point of view of Catholic traditionalism.

"Due to the many church departures, especially of the liberals, the relative weight of the conservatives, but also of the traditionalists, thus becomes greater."

- Quote: Thomas Schmidinger

Question: What about the influence within the church?

Schmidinger: I wouldn't say that the Society of Saint Peter, for example, is a very influential group, but they certainly provide parish priests. But they are not as influential as large conservative - but not traditionalist - movements like Opus Dei. There is cooperation at certain points, for example on the abortion issue or in the rejection of gender mainstreaming or the hostility to sexual diversity. In Vienna, for example, there are always demonstrations against the Pride parade from this traditionalist spectrum, where sometimes conservative groups join in.

But the strategy of these traditionalists, especially those within the Catholic Church, is rather a long-term one. They reckon that the liberal Catholics will eventually leave and that they, as the most faithful Catholics, will eventually have the majority within the Church and be able to take it over, so to speak.

Question: What is the development of the membership of these traditionalist groups?

Schmidinger: Statements on membership figures are difficult in this scene because the largest organisations are exclusively associations of priests. Only the priests are members of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, the laity are not officially counted. But there is a tendency for the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, but also the Fraternity of Saint Peter and some of the other groups to grow. But that does not apply to all of them. The more extreme the currents, the smaller they are. Often they gather around a charismatic leader. When that is no longer there, some groups disappear. But especially during the Corona crisis, the scene as a whole, and the Fraternity of Saint Pius X in particular, tended to gain in popularity. This is also due to the fact that the mainstream parishes of the Catholic Church have complied with all the requirements of the state and stopped their services for a while. Some people who were already on the conservative fringe of these mainstream congregations ended up with the Fraternity of Saint Pius X. They explicitly opposed the state measures and opposed vaccination and especially, of course, compulsory vaccination. That has also been part of the growth.

Question: In view of this, is the idea of gradually taking over the Church realistic?

Schmidinger: Not in the short term, but some of these groups think in terms of centuries. What is true is that in all popular churches the liberal believers are becoming fewer. Moreover, liberal or progressive Christians are much less organised and much less power-oriented than the large conservative or even traditionalist organisations. Liberals tend to be involved in mainstream parishes rather than power-conscious cadre organisations. Due to the many people leaving the church, especially the liberals, the relative weight of the conservatives, but also of the traditionalists, is thus greater. In Austria, for example, we may be talking about 2-3,000 traditionalists in total. That is still far from a majority. But these people are organised in very power-conscious cadre organisations. In this respect, I do not see a danger of these forces taking over the Catholic Church in the coming decades. But I do see a tendency for these groups to become stronger in relation to the weakening liberals.

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