Timothy Flanders

Timothy S. Flanders is an American Catholic writer and editor. The Avila Institute's profile says he earned a BA in Greek and Latin from Grand Valley State University in 2010 (Avila Institute). In 2019 he founded The Meaning of Catholic, a lay apostolate that its website says is dedicated to uniting Catholics against the enemies of Holy Church (The Meaning of Catholic). His book City of God versus City of Man: The Battles of the Church from Antiquity to the Present draws on Augustine and Christopher Dawson and argues for an alliance between the "strict" and "moderate" parties of Catholic orthodoxy, as he explained on the Catholic Culture podcast (Catholic Culture).

He became editor of OnePeterFive on 9 August 2021, shortly after Crisis Publications acquired the site (OnePeterFive). In a 2020 written exchange with the apologist Dave Armstrong he said he did not call himself, or his apostolate, traditionalist (Patheos). On Eric Sammons's Crisis Point podcast he discussed what it means to resist the pope, stressing a principle of charity under which one assumes the best of others unless there is manifest evidence to the contrary (Crisis Magazine).

On Leo XIV, he wrote in November 2025 that there is a traditional aspect to ecumenism properly understood (OnePeterFive), and in July 2026 he wrote that Cardinal Arthur Roche's statement that Leo would not change Traditionis custodes gave readers nothing one way or the other (OnePeterFive).

After the SSPX consecrations he publicly revised his position on the Society. In September 2026 he published "Timothy Flanders's Retractions on the SSPX", presented as the outcome of five years of study (The Meaning of Catholic), and argued on OnePeterFive that if SSPX clerics are schismatic they should be regarded as separated brethren (OnePeterFive). Integrity Magazine described the retractions as essentially an apology for having supported the Society, and reported a sharp public dispute with the author Kennedy Hall that it said marked the end of the traditional movement as it once was (Integrity Magazine). See papal-critique and resistance media.