WM Review on Catholic Family Podcast with Louie Verrecchio – One Peter Five's 'Non-Negotiables'
We discussed Mr Timothy Flanders' article 'What are the Non-Negotiables of the Trad Movement?'
We discussed Mr Timothy Flanders’ article ‘What are the Non-Negotiables of the Trad Movement?’
(WM Round-Up) – On Friday 23 January 2026, I appeared on Catholic Family Podcast with Kevin Davis and Louie Verrecchio.
The conversation was about a recent republication of a 2025 article on One Peter Five:
What are the Non-Negotiables of the Trad Movement? (Trad Godfathers, Pt. II)
The other two parts of the series are:
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Traditionalism at Sixty (Trad Godfathers, pt. I)
What are the Clans of Traditionalism? (Trad Godfathers, pt. III)
The article left a lot to be desired. Aside from a general lack of precision and a whitewashing of “the traditionalist movement” (itself an unfortunate term), it made the following claims:
First of all, our editorial stance names three non-negotiables which unite Trads with other non-Trad Catholics:
We accept Pope Leo as the reigning pontiff
Vatican II is the 21st Ecumenical Council of the Church
The New Mass and Sacraments are valid.
But none of these things define a traditionalist qua traditionalist, but merely say what a traditionalist is not. In other words, a traditionalist is not a sedevacantist. (I understand that sedevacantists are traditional in many ways, and I do not deny that my sede brethren deserve the name “Catholic.” But OnePeterFive promotes the “Recognize & Resist” (Papal Minimalist) view, and thus does not promote the sedevacantist view, which is typically coming from presuppositions which are Hyperpapalist or Papal Maximalist.)
The problem here is that “traditionalists” – even the limited number of persons named by Mr Flanders – have called each of these propositions into doubt. This setting out of “non-negotiables” represents either a significant lack of knowledge about the last 60 years, an attempt to whitewash history, or an attempt to retrospectively render normative the views of a minority on a much wider group.
I also took objection to the idea, expressed in the first part of the series, that Michael Matt of The Remnant Newspaper could credibly be called a “Trad godfather,” as he was 2 years old at the close of Vatican II.
We discussed these points, as well as Mr Flanders’ attempt to set out what he called the “Theological Schools Following Vatican I”. I mis-spoke when addressing this part of the work, speaking as if Mr Flanders was inventing these “theological schools” to describe attitudes following Vatican II. Nonetheless, his purpose for presenting them was to provide a schema for categorisation following Vatican II. I am unclear of the provenance of the theological notes applied to his schema, especially as he states that he himself chose to use the term “neo-Jansenist”, and the term “hyperpapalist” is thoroughly non-standard.
Criticism was sharp, but nonetheless Kevin Davis extended an invitation to Mr Flanders to join him on Catholic Family Podcast for a more detailed discussion.
HELP KEEP THE WM REVIEW ONLINE WITH WM+!
As we expand The WM Review we would like to keep providing free articles for everyone.
Our work takes a lot of time and effort to produce. If you have benefitted from it please do consider supporting us financially.
A subscription gets you access to our exclusive WM+ material, and helps ensure that we can keep writing and sharing free material for all.
You can see what readers are saying over at our Testimonials page.
And you can visit The WM Review Shop for our ‘Lovely Mugs’ and more.
(We make our WM+ material freely available to clergy, priests and seminarians upon request. Please subscribe and reply to the email if this applies to you.)
Subscribe to WM+ now to make sure you always receive our material. Thank you!
Follow on Twitter, YouTube and Telegram:
Twitter (The WM Review)
I found Louie's blog on this topic very useful: https://akacatholic.com/the-trad-movement-protestantism-in-drag/