Here is a video wherein I suggest the great Hilaire Belloc would be shocked by the American Traditionalist YouTuber Taylor Marshall recently denouncing the Latin Mass Superiors of the Fraternity of St. Peter and Institute of Christ the King as being, in effect, cowards.
Marshall would seem to suggest they need “hair on their chests” and are overly-concerned with effeminate finery. He would seem to have the superior path, knowing better than these seasoned soldiers and moreover his own opinion polls are wheeled out to “prove” his point!
Watching this left me aghast.
As I explain on the video, I hardly know Dr Marshall’s work, as I watch little YouTube. (I would far prefer to be curled up with an old book from Belloc!)
Thus the video is not meant to address Marshall and his work as a whole. For that I am ill-equipped to comment!
Rather, I focus on Marshall’s remarks pertaining to the Fraternity and Society. For both his comments themselves and the uncritical way many seem to lap Marshall up trouble me. I am disturbed as I know Belloc would be disturbed and, as I argue in the video, virtually all pre-Vatican II Catholics would be.
But to be fair to Dr Marshall, as I try to be in the video, I suspect he means well, but is moving too fast, succumbing to the manic pressures of our abnormal times.
This video also features a personal tribute to the great Institute of Christ the King, who have inspired my wife and I for so many years living in France, Spain, England and Ireland.
Finally, the video also references an article at Rorate Caeli By Dr Joseph Shaw on Taylor Marshall’s criticism of the FSSP and ICKSP.
That article is here: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-statement-of-superiors-general-and.html
I should say I am indebted to Shaw’s piece (insightful as always). Without Shaw, I would likely never have even known about this “Rambo Traditionalism” apparently now running rampant in America. That “Traditionalism” may owe much more than many realise to Twenty-First Century pop culture on the Internet, where ridiculous opinion polls may be taken more seriously than centuries of obedience and tradition . . .
At any rate, Shaw’s article encouraged me to look into this deeply unhelpful phenomenon and the video is the result.
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