I wish there were not any divisions in Catholicism, but there are. In this article, I’m going to show the roots of the three factions of Western Catholicism as found in recent Church history. This is not to further divide, but so that readers may better understand the motivations of such groups. It’s also to teach the first group listed below how to better evangelize the other three groups.>Traditional Catholics are those I usually label Apostolic Catholics because their roots in both doctrine and liturgy go back historically to what Jesus Christ gave to the Apostles. This group was nearly wiped out by “the changes” to doctrine and liturgy that took place in the 1960s. However, tradition was salvaged at a great cost by a few bishops, priests and laymen. >Foremost in this group was Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (in picture above, the man to the right.) From him sprung not only the SSPX, but even the canonically-regular traditionalist communities (who are not infrequently ashamed to mention his name for reasons of self-preservation.) This group has a powerful voice online, but liturgically makes up only 1% of the world’s Catholics. (Doctrinally-speaking, this group might be as high as 5% of the world’s Catholics.)

Originally published in Padre Peregrino. Read original article