In this episode of The Open Door, panelists Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Christopher Zehnder discuss A Manifesto of the New Traditionalism. It’s unique! Written from a Catholic Worker perspective, the Manifesto presents an integrated, dynamic for the redirection of the Catholic Church. Our welcome and returning guest is Larry S. Chapp. With Sean Domencic (another guest of ours) and Marc Barnes, he authored this statement of dynamic orthodoxy. Dr. Chapp currently owns and manages, with his wife Carrie, the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm in Harveys Lake, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Scientific Naturalism and its Challenge to the Christian Faith (T & T Clark, 2011). Among the questions we’ll ask are the following. Please feel free to suggest your own!

“Traditionalism” is, for many, either a battle cry or a bête noir. How did you come to organize your manifesto around this controversial theme?

On your view, what are the characteristics of a wrong-headed traditionalism?

Were Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin traditionalists? Was Jacques Maritain?

With regard to Vatican II, you reject “the rupturists on both the right and the left.” Can you give us examples of each?

You also criticize both the progressive and conservative forms of bourgeois individualism. Who, in an American context, are the bourgeoisie?

What is the ressourcement of Catholicism which you praise? Who have been its leaders?

Could you identify some of “the new pagan religions” of our era? What gives rise to them?

Is it fair to say that you are Thomists?

Could you explain what you mean by “the Theology of the Common Good” and its relation to personalism?

What is the link, in your view, between natural law and the preferential option for the poor?

You contend that “The necessary Liturgical Renewal was begun, betrayed, and left unaccomplished.” How, then, should we proceed at this point?

How has your Manifesto been received?