A Realistic Assessment by a Latin of Latins?

AmConMag: Catholics May Be in Crisis, But the Laity is No Savior by Clase G. Ryn
Still, the time may be ripe for creative—even audacious—action to reviving a faltering tradition.

Bishops and clergy are not uniquely subject to the forces of corruption that have wreaked havoc in the Church. They have been affected by trends in the same society that the laity inhabit. In fact, the laity may well have been even more influenced by questionable views of life that have become increasingly prominent in Western society. Successful lay leadership would thus have to be acutely self-critical and discriminating. 
 
The challenge to Christianity in the last few centuries has not been confined to denying the existence of God. The basic terms of human existence have been reconsidered. Not only Christianity but the classical Greek and Roman heritage stressed the importance of moral character for personal and social well-being. Human beings were morally cleft, and they had to learn self-control and responsibility. Any genuine social betterment had to begin in this manner. For Christianity, the main obstacle to improving human existence was the fallenness of man. The crux of the moral-spiritual life was to recognize evil in self, repent, and reform self. A central purpose of civilization was to support this effort. 

But Western high-brow and popular culture alike have long portrayed such notions of self-restraint and character as vestiges of a perverse puritanism. We should not bottle up natural cravings but live out our dreams and longings. We are not to fret over little personal failings but show moral nobility by endorsing virtuous social and political schemes for transforming the human condition. Our goal should be not so much to love neighbor—the people just around us—with all of what it entails of personal, sometimes inconvenient up-close engagement. We should love mankind, whose advancement requires the mobilization of government. This shift from self-reform to socio-political reform proved very appealing in that it greatly relieved the moral burden placed on the person.

Latin traditionalists and "conservative" Latins might think themselves to be exceptions. However, for the most part Latin traditionalists do not engage or interact with Latins who are not traditionalists, except perhaps to dispute them into attending an EF Mass.  (There are those who offer a friendly invitation, without polemics, but they are in the minority it appears.)

Ryn criticizes the weak response by Catholic intellectuals to the liberalism creeping into their churches:

Many Catholic intellectuals continued to resist sentimental idealism. It did after all contradict a Christian view of human nature and traditional moral beliefs. But rationalistic bias made it difficult for Thomists to diagnose the root problem with the new moralism. They were used to giving primacy in moral philosophy to rational principles and rule adherence. Putting reason in charge—getting the mind to think right—was assumed to lead to proper willing. Moral character would somehow flow from or be the same as right reason. They did not see that the great appeal of sentimental humanitarianism was its capturing the imagination, stirring the entire personality with visions and images and benevolent-looking grand causes. The new spirituality also imparted a pleasant feeling of moral superiority. All that was required to be virtuous was to demand Social Justice and Human Rights.

Thomism is a bad vehicle for evangelization, and a poor one for catechesis, both of which were needed within the Latin churches. (Even Thomistic theology could not meet both roles, as much of it was speculative and unnecessarily complicated for neophytes and beginners, despite what the Dominicans and organizations like the Thomistic Institute are trying to do for faith formation and catechesis.)

He emphasizes the importance of a spirituality that recognizes the need for personal conversaion away from sin. 

The most nefarious element of the new spirituality may be that it takes little account of personal sinfulness as the central problem of the moral-spiritual life. It denies or downplays the importance of the moral struggle within the individual and the indispensability of character. Moral rationalism does not really understand how to arm the will against the lower desires. It employs such smarts as it has to formulate intricate rules and principles, but without character no amount of intellectual brilliance or teary-eyed sentiment can control the lower desires. 

However, I am not sure I know whom he is criticizing as "moral rationalists." 

The moral rationalists for their part are heavily invested in the belief that the crux of human conduct is for reason to guide us.

I don't know of anyone who preaches reason alone, rather than the use of the sacraments and some measure of asceticism.

That there is imagination and idealism that are very different from what has been described here is not in dispute. Sound imagination and idealism are indispensable to elevating life. The problem is addiction to dubious and even impossible dreams. Terrible evil and suffering has resulted from benevolent-looking but perverse illusion. Neither is the indispensability of reason in dispute. Knowledge must inform conduct. But not even the most intricate ratiocination will rescue souls that are captive to alluring but shoddy spirituality. Rules and principles will not steer people right if will and imagination are pulling them in a different direction. Unless we be guided by what Edmund Burke calls “the moral imagination,” which is sound will and imagination in one, some lower form of imagination will direct the person. Brilliant philosophers in the latter predicament will only argue themselves deeper and deeper into self-deluding illusion.

There is a need for a Christian culture, within our churches and homes at the very least, if not in the "public square." But what more would Professor Ryn advocate so that the "renewal of the moral-spiritual and intellectual life" is not superficial but deep?