What was once known as the “Traditional Catholic movement” is self-destructing.
The July 1 consecrations of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) and the subsequent excommunications was arguably the primary catalyst that set off the implosion. The first to make one of the greatest 180-degree turnabouts in Catholic influencer history was Dr. Taylor Marshall. Not only did he go from denouncing Jorge Bergoglio as a “heretic” in 2022 to now claiming that he asks for his intercession, but he has also vocally turned on the Society. The latter estranged him not only from many of his supporters, but also from his one-time ally, Kennedy Hall.
In July, shortly after the consecrations and Marshall’s attacks, Hall published two rebuttals against his old friend, titled “A Consideration of Marshall’s Arguments Contra-SSPX,” which can be read in two parts.
While Hall still made an attempt to be charitable in his response to Marshall, the gloves came off when another friend, Timothy Flanders, published his own essay on the topic, which was just shorter than the Bible, and in which he distanced himself from the Society in no uncertain terms.
Flanders has been the editor of OnePeterFive for several years. He was, of course, a colleague of Hall at both OnePeterFive and Pelican+, both of which Hall has since parted ways with. Flanders’s essay, titled “Timothy Flanders’s Retractions on the SSPX,” was essentially an apology for ever having supported the Society.
For Hall, this was a declaration of war, and in his counter essay, “Against Tim Flanders and His Diabolism,” he wrote: “I will attack when necessary, and I will do it with a clean conscience, because it is right and just to defend the innocents who are hurt by men like Tim Flander.” Hall also said:
We don’t get to decide when war breaks out, and sometimes that war is a civil war, so former confreres become enemy combatants. All the same, if the bullets are flying and they are in my direction or the direction of those I love, then if you are in my crosshairs, I will pull the trigger and sleep easy.
Elsewhere, Hall said: “I called Michael Lofton an Enemy of the Church, because he was and is. I will call Tim Flanders an Enemy of the Church, because anyone who gains people’s trust and then waffles back and forth, only to cause them to be confused and disheartened, has troubled consciences and souls.”
Just to be clear that he meant business, Hall further stated: “I am not one for boycotts, so I won’t tell you what to do with your time or money, but if you love Catholic Tradition, I would avoid OnePeterFive and wouldn’t give them a dime.”
The line had thus been drawn in the sand: between Hall and Pelican+; between Hall and Flanders; and between Hall and Eric Sammons, editor of Crisis Magazine, who denounced the Society in a July 7 video titled “Can We Still ‘Unite the Clans’?”
And if there was any confusion about why Hall could no longer associate with his former allies’ positions, Sammons and Flanders clarified it when the two appeared together on the Crisis Point podcast.
The two editors took sixty-odd minutes to publicly denounce traditionalism beyond their own brand of TLM-onlyism while swearing allegiance to the Novus Ordo Church and Leo XIV. Throughout, they regurgitated the same old tired tropes and arguments, such as the “bad dad” metaphor, and proved once and for all that they were never Traditional Catholics in the first place.
The Dispatch
While the discussion between Sammons and Flanders was riddled with absurdities, contradictions, and multiple incoherencies, some moments stood out. It was clear that their dispute with the SSPX is no not about mere prudence, episcopal consecrations, or strategy, but about the SSPX’s refusal to accept the Novus Ordo Missae.
According to Flanders, “the crux of the issue” is the Society’s position “that the new rite is a poison to the faith and should be avoided.” He pointed to the Mass celebrated by the pope and said that, while one may dislike such things as a female lector, it “is not a sacrilegious Mass, not a poison to the faith,” and described the SSPX position as “untenable.” He also argued that the SSPX will never be accepted by Rome until it permits the faithful to participate in Rome’s own Mass and receive “the Eucharistic bread of the pope himself.”
Sammons followed the logic even further and asked how someone can claim communion with the Roman Pontiff while refusing Communion from the pope himself. He also rejected the advice given by the SSPX that one should refrain from attending the Novus Ordo when it is the only Mass available, calling that position “completely wrong.”
Even if the only available Mass is a “happy-clappy” celebration with “banjos or whatever,” Sammons said, a Catholic is morally obliged to attend rather than deliberately miss Sunday Mass.
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Bizarrely, Sammons also stated elsewhere that he understands that sending your children to the Novus Ordo could harm their faith and concluded that the new Mass has been “Protestantized,” yet he still insists that Catholics should attend. What is worse about this line of thinking is that Sammons, like so many others, thinks that the Catholic Church can promulgate a Mass that is harmful to the faithful. One can only wonder whether Sammons realizes the serious implications of these claims.
Meanwhile, Flanders’s solution is akin to committing spiritual suicide as he urged viewers to simply beg their apostate bishops for crumbs. He argued that traditionalists should attempt to “win the heart of your bishop,” who is “the father of your diocese.” One must do this even if your “bishop” is a flaming heretic hell-bent on destroying Catholicism, he implied, and any suffering he causes must be patiently endured.
Traditional movement is dead
While all this was going on, another former Pelican+ contributor, Gen Z influencer Nick Cavazos, announced that he hasn’t attended the Latin Mass since December 2025 and now finds himself “in the world of the New Mass.”
What that news as well as the Crisis Point podcast made clear is that the Traditional movement as it had been known as is officially over. Influencer Fred Simon made note of the development with a clever meme on social media platform X.
Ultimately, Sammons and Flanders, like other so-called Trad voices online, merely remain traditional in their liturgical preferences, aesthetics, and criticisms of post-conciliar abuses. But when forced to choose, they choose the post-conciliar imitation of Tradition presented by the Conciliar Church.
Whether one agrees with his or the Society’s position on an array of issues, Kennedy Hall deserves credit for standing firm while his former colleagues folded like wet matchbooks.
