The confrontation of identity trends in Catholic traditionalism in Mexico in the years after the Second Vatican Council

Abstract

Catholic traditionalism has been developed as a process of construction of identities, from the opposition to several of the innovations that brought the Second Vatican Council. Identities in the mexican catholic traditionalism can be classified in three main currents: the sedevacantism, which argues that the see of Rome is vacant since John XXIII, the lefebvrism represented by the Priestlly Fraternity of Saint Pius X which recognizes the popes after the council as rightful, but refuses to obey them and the radical post-conciliar anti-progressivism, which maintains obedience and full recognition to the papacy but rejects most progressive innovations. Two of these identitary currents, sedevacantism and radical postconciliar antiprogressivism, despite their matches, faced each other through a strong controversy, which served as part of a process of construction of identities based on differentiation with respect to otherness.