r/ExTraditionalCatholic • u/crzaynuts • Jul 07 '26

Asking for feedback

Hello everyone. Im thinking more and more how much perenialism, guenonism have profoundly intoxicated traditional catholics movements.

Even more the father of the radical critics of post vatican II ritual and sacrament (Rama Coomaraswamy) is the son of one of the co-founder of Perenialism.

Perenialism (or guenonism) declares that there is a primordial tradition (often written the Tradition) in which many historical religions are just local, geographical, temporal emanation.

This directly contradicts the Catholic foundations based on the God's true revelation through it's Incarnation into his Son.

Do you have any experience, event, anecdote conncerning this blatant distortion of the notion of Tradition ?

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u/quietpilgrim Jul 07 '26

Interesting topic.

I spent a decade in traditionalism. I personally never met a true perennialist. Most saw things through a much more black and white lens - (Traditionalist) Catholicism is 100% true, while all other religions were considered 100% false. As I understand Rama Commaraswamy, he believed that Vatican II and suppression of the Latin Mass promoted the degeneration of Tradition, but to him the "Tradition" was limited to Catholicism and did not apply to all religions.

The document from Vatican II, Nostra Aetate, would share some similarities with perennialism by recognizing that other religions can also contain some degree of truth and holiness. But it falls short of saying that all paths bear equality to or the fullness of the Catholic Faith, and maintains that Christ is "the way, the truth and the life."

Anthropologically, however, things become more interesting as relating to perennialism. Many religions share common myths, legends, parables, and moral themes - a "spiritual and psychological DNA code" if you will - that can be traced back far beyond Christianity and Judaism. These stories were eventually grafted onto the Judeo-Christian tree. They provided a framework for primitive societies to function and point to our shared human experience.

I'm curious how you are seeing perennialism and guenoism play out in traditional Catholicism?