More Catholic Than the Pope: An Inside Look at Extreme Traditionalism [Paperback]

"Faithful remnant, or fanatic schismatics?" That is a question posed in a large font at the top of the back cover. The conclusions that the author's of the book come to can be inferred from the title: "More Catholic Than the Pope: An Inside Look at Extreme Traditionalism". Extreme! That means bad, bad, bad in our modern ecumenically-toned, ever-so-moderate, religious language. Extreme equates to fanatic, fringe, and zealot. Obviously the authors are not going to come out defending these traditionalists that (?) think they are "More Catholic Than the Pope".

So far this seems like it will be a pretty entertaining, if one-sided, book. It even says "inside look," and tells us on the back flap that one of the authors was "a former adherent to the SSPX schism". Most people are probably preparing themselves for an expose' of the heretofore unrevealed facts and motivations and whatnot of these extremists.

However, If one will read the rest of the back cover, one will quickly realise that this is not what the book is about. This book is intended to be two things: history and canonical argument. It is also a third thing: dry as saw dust. I would not call it apologetic, as apologetical literature should be persuasive, and it's hard to persuade someone when your material is so boring that the reader is falling asleep.

On the other hand, I don't mean to be attacking the authors personally. I would guess that there really isn't a way of making this material enjoyable reading. But when I say "entertain" and "enjoyable," I don't mean in a simply profane sense. I mean that my attention constantly strayed, that while I could see the relevance of

each point made, I really didn't care a whit. The authors have shown that their subject is indeed the guilty party, but they've given us no reason to care whether they are guilty or not. They make a good (if dry and lawyerly) case, but it has no personal meaning to the average reader.

As an Orthodox Christian I felt especially distanced (in spite of my wife being formerly in the SSPX). This book came off as much more one-sided than the other things I've heard about them, though I guess that's the nature of such books. The most intersting thing I got out of the book was in the similarities I saw between the SSPX and our own Orthodox traditionalist groups. Some of the quotes and arguments from Lefevre could have come straight from the mouths of various Orthodox traditionalist Bishops and priests. The resemblance was quite frightening.

As far as enjoyability, I'd give this book 2 stars, but I think that's unfair given the material, and the fact that the authors did, in the end, provide a very thorough case (canonically anyway; their defense of Vatican 2 was very short). So, I'm giving the book 3 stars. If you are a Catholic and interested in the history of Catholic traditionalist groups, this book may be more to your liking than it was to mine.

you'll be disappointed. Essentially, this is a canon law brief against the Lefebvrist movement. As a lawyer and former medieval history graduate student, I found this mildly interesting, but no more than that. (Mr. Vere, one of the authors, is a canon lawyer, and one wonders whether this book is a slightly modified version of the equivalent of a master's thesis.) The book is typical of the "We're right, you're wrong" approach taken before by Mr. Madrid in his EWTN appearances.

For a short book, this volume contains too many grammatical and typographical errors.

Our Sunday Visitor Press, which has produced good work, markets the book misleadingly by using Mr. Vere's former attraction to "extreme traditionalism" to imply that this is an "inside look" at the movement. In fact, the book gives only the skimpiest outline, full of lacunae, of the history of Lefebvre's movement, and only hints at what attracts intelligent believers to it. One sighs with nostalgia for the author of ENTHUSIASM, Msgr. Ronald Knox, who, while expressing his disagreements cogently, treats earlier forms of "extreme traditionalism" with an insight, sympathy, and literary grace wholly absent from the current book.

I ocassionally enjoy e-mailing people like "pope" Michael (aka David Bawden), just to pick their brains and see what makes them tick. It's fun only in small doses and stops being fun when he starts spamming you with his rants. So knowing that there are people like him out there, people who consider themselves "true" Catholics and that who believe that the rest of the Catholic Church has gone serviously astray, I was eager to pick up this book to see what light it sheds on such folk.

The first half of the book was only decently written, It dwelt, I felt, far too much on Archbishop Lefebrve and his schism, and it didn't cover those that split off before him or after him, that still call themselves catholic. It treated the case in fact as if Lefebvre's people were the only ones that had split off. It quoted liberally from cannon law, but I felt that it was a circular argument, with valid points to make that were never really arrived at.

The second half of the book I felt was far more important, but sadly they spent less time developing it. In it they counter those arguments posed by "traditionalist" Catholics, but each argument only gets a very superficial treatment, maybe a quote or two to back up authentic Catholic teaching, and knowing the quality of Patrcik Madrid, I felt he could have developed each of these more in depth.

Lastly, I was a little sad that none of the anti-popes running around these days got any coverage at all. It could have added some humor to the situation, but perhaps someone elected by his parents and two other people is not worthy of much attention, sorry David.

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