The populist RadTrad insurgency

The Francis pontificate has reignited the RadTrad movement. This is primarily a grass-roots insurgency, with a few impotent, aging prelates on their side. It's made possible by the Internet. The RadTrad movement is a virtual church–or counter-church. The electronic alternative to official Catholicism. It's like the Essenes who broke off from the religious establishment in Jerusalem and formed alternate Jewish communities in the desert. A separatist movement. 

The RadTrad movement has been around, in fits and starts, since Vatican II. These divisions were already represented at Vatican II, in conference rooms as well as floor debates in St. Peter's Basilica. 

Ironically, most RadTrads were born after Vatican II. They're like the first-generation kids of Muslim immigrants who self-radicalize in the host country. 

But here's another thing: the rise of spokesmen like Taylor Marshall is also made possible by the silence of "respectable" conservatives like Bryan Cross. Called to Communion is the nexus of bliss (Trekkies take note) into which converts and apologists like him retreat. The nexus of bliss exists outside the space-time continuum of Catholicism on the ground. It's all about Catholic ideas. Catholicism on gilt-edge vellum. 

The problem is that when "respectable" conservatives like Cross sit out the debate, that creates an opening for spokesmen like Taylor. Francis has plunged his church into civil war. When apologists like Cross refuse to take sides or offer a mediating position, that leaves a vacuum which is filled by Taylor and his ilk. He is giving voice to the concerns of many of the faithful. 

Presumably, the reason Cross says nothing is that, like many converts and apologists, he doesn't know what to say. Surely he finds some of the developments under Francis alarming or dismaying, but he doesn't know for sure where that will end up. 

Many Catholic apologists initially defended Francis. They made excuses for him. But when the direction of his pontificate become unmistakably clear, they fell silent. By vacating the field, RadTrad warriors like Marshall moved in. 

It's hard for Catholic conservatives to criticize the likes of Marshall when they have no constructive alternative. Sure, they can attack his explanation, but that's not a substitute for having their own explanation. Although the nexus of bliss is a comfortable hideout, it fails to answer the pressing question of what it still means to be Catholic when the ground is shifting under their feet.