It really strikes me as an attempt to stem the bleeding. I became a neo-Catholic when I was a teenager. In college I studied theology and Church history and began to realize that something was very off about how things were going and grew more and more "conservative" (orthodox). My orthodoxy grew as I became more serious about my faith, especially after I underwent Marian consecration (de Montfort's formula) and became an RCIA catechist. That was when I started to really pay attention to traditionalist arguments. It took the COVID lockdowns and the discovery that the SSPX weren't a bunch of whack jobs to finally push me over the line into traditionalism.

More and more orthodox-leaning neo-Catholics are coming to the same conclusion I did, probably even faster than I did, since it took me about 20 years to get to this point. I think that's freaking out the American hierarchy.

@James Manning Of the relatively few people who care about the Church, more and more are coming around to traditional orthodoxy. And you’re probably right that they are trying to stem the bleeding. There’s just no chance that younger, more traditional Catholics are ever going to lend an ear to a forum that has McElroy and Flores, no matter who they are debating with. The bishops are receptive to any solution that doesn’t include restoration, or even taking a critical view of the past 60 years.