Catholic Traditionalists: An Attempt to Refine the Definition
Referring to the research literature on Catholic traditionalism, as well as the works of the traditionalist Catholics themselves (whose most prominent representative was the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre), we invariably come across a whole variety of definitions and self-determination of traditionalist groups. These definitions are built, as a rule, upon the fact that the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) turned out to be the cause and the moment of birth for Catholic traditionalism. At the same time the very abundance of descriptive approaches and research emphasis on the subject of Catholic traditionalism (from the study of its political roots to the study of its fundamentalist foundations) complicates the problem of understanding this important religious movement of the XX—XXI centuries. Wishing, in turn, to participate in resolving this problem, in this article we set ourselves the goal of clarifying the boundaries for the definition of traditionalist Catholics. By traditionalist Catholics, we mean representatives of the religious groups united by the idea of partial or total rejection of the innovations of the Second Vatican Council (both within the Catholic Church and historically closely related to it). This article is dedicated to discussing this definition and clarifying its scope.
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