Amy Welborn links to an article on traditional Catholics, focusing on an SSPX chapel in LA. The reporter is one of many who are shocked, shocked! to find that traditional Catholics are not wackos living in bomb shelters but normal people with faith trying to raise families. The article has some interesting things in it, including quotes from people who claim to go to the chapel after experiencing horrible corruption in the Church proper. This would include the pastor of the SSPX chapel who was in a seminary in the late 1970's. My favorite part of the article is:

"The thing is, all the fuss over the Gibsons can distort what Catholic traditionalism is about. Mel Gibson is Southern California's only traditionalist star, but he isn't Southern California's only traditionalist. In some 20 or so chapels such as Radecki's, spread out from San Diego to Santa Clarita, hundreds of faithful congregate for the Latin Masses on Sundays and send their kids to traditional Catholic schools during the week. They're young and old, black and white, Latino and Asian, rich and poor. They are a fractious bunch—these are, after all, folks who have taken the radical step of breaking away from Rome—and they differ somewhat in their takes on the pope, the "conciliar church" (as they call mainstream Catholicism), and each other. At the same time, they're united in their disdain for the new Mass and for what they perceive as a grievously liberal Catholic Church.

It can seem like an unforgiving way to live, a lifestyle completely unsuited to our times. But the funny thing is, when you talk it through with people such as Father Radecki, you start to understand where they're coming from. Press accounts about Hutton Gibson notwithstanding, most traditionalists don't seem to be conspiracy theorists, or kooks. They're strict and rigid, but they're not nuts or hostile. They're just very traditional people who want to pray and live in a certain, just-so way. They find a way to make it work in the modern world."