A Traditionalist Catholic, Houghton was opposed to the reforms of Vatican II, on which he wrote many books.
[4] With the advantage of inherited wealth, Houghton decided to relocated to the south of France, an area he had known since his youth.
He settled in the region of Viviers, purchasing a property and a chapel (Our Lady of the Rose) in which, with the permission of the bishop, he continued to celebrate the Tridentine form of the Roman rite until his death on 19 November 1992.
In the 1960s, he spoke regularly at conferences and contributed incisive interventions to journals, citing evidence of "conversion by the Mass.
"[citation needed] Maintaining fidelity to the Pope and the Old Mass, Father Hougthon was far from following Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre and his first book, The Peace of Monsignor Forester in 1982, established his distance from the founder of Society of Saint Pius X.