Much of the recent commentary on the SSPX has stayed on the theological, moral, canonical, and historical planes, with a notable exception: Dr. Caterina Lorenzo-Molo’s philosophical analysis in an article at OnePeterFive, entitled “The Conciliar Legacy: the Displacement of Judgment from Truth to the Primacy of Intention”. I found her thesis to be remarkably insightful and relevant, although probably not in the way she hoped. In fact, I think that she unwittingly exposed the Achilles heel of the SSPX paradigm for all to see, a hidden and vulnerable flaw that its leadership and best apologists work tirelessly to conceal from public view.
As a telling aside, I was surprised by how unambiguously the author’s bio revealed her bias, stating that she has only been acquainted with the SSPX since 2020 (situating her relationship with this organization firmly in its honeymoon phase) and that “she prays that one day Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre will be elevated to the altars as a great saint and Doctor of the Church.” But setting aside this starry-eyed hero worship, Dr. Lorenzo-Molo’s primary intention seems to be to bring the full weight of her impressive education and linguistic sophistication to the defense of the SSPX, although it is unclear who her target audience might be.
To show you what I mean, this sample sentence should suffice:
When the metaphysical order of judgment is bypassed, reasoning collapses onto a Cartesian-style plane where questions are treated methodologically rather than ontologically. Reality is then filtered through Kantian mediation instead of participation in being, and the resulting Hegelian dialectic produces endless thesis-antithesis cycles—noise that traps the debate in an entropic loop (devolving situation) without resolution.
Don’t misunderstand me: as a philosophy student, this sentence absolutely delights me, and I’m sure readers who were astute and determined enough to make it this far into her article were also impressed. On the other hand, this style of writing seems more appropriate for an academic journal than for a popular media outlet oriented toward a broader audience.
Regardless, this kind of discernment does not appear to be Dr. Lorenzo-Molo’s strong suit, considering that in her opening paragraph, she provides a link to Kennedy Hall’s book on the SSPX, which is by far the worst thing I have ever read on the subject. I will charitably presume that she has not actually read Hall’s scrapbook of tweets and blog posts masquerading as a respectable publication, otherwise her educated sensibility would have been offended by the fact that he only cites one source critical of the SSPX in the entire book.
This preliminary context helps to set the stage for understanding why someone as intelligent as Dr. Lorenzo-Molo could neglect to apply her reasoning to the SSPX’s own epistemic paradigm. She asks what she considers the central, simple question: “Are we judging the truth of things, or the intentions of people?”
Allow me to rephrase and redirect this question: Are we also judging the truth of the SSPX’s situation, or are we judging the intentions of the SSPX?
Marcel Lefebvre, the SSPX, and the Society’s defenders have consistently used an argument in various forms that they are not schismatic because they do not intend to be schismatic. They do not allow the application of the “duck test” to themselves (if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck). No matter how much cumulative evidence, historical precedents, or pontifical declarations and censures are presented as proofs, including those coming in July, they do not identify as schismatics and never will.
This is nothing more than ecclesiastical identity politics, pure and simple. The SSPX is therefore guilty of engaging in the same Cartesian reasoning decried by Dr. Lorenzo-Molo, resulting in its absurd self-assertion as a “trans” ecclesial entity.
This is not where SSPX incoherence ends, however. Ironically, the SSPX also claims religious liberty for itself, declaring that it is immune from papal interference and coercion in its beliefs, worship, and governance, preferring to follow its own conscience rather than conform to the established laws and structures of Christ’s Church. The SSPX also exercises a kind of collegiality and synodality, setting up its own “college” or “synod” of bishops and leaders that exercises its own deliberation and administration independent of the Roman Pontiff and the Catholic college of bishops.
The SSPX even engages in a strange kind of ecumenism, considering itself to be in dialogue and communion with a pope, bishops, priests, and laity, that it also claims to be creating and sustaining a crisis in the Church so bad that the ordinary means of salvation aren’t even available to Catholics.
Finally, let us put another ridiculous canard to rest. According to Dr. Lorenzo-Molo, the thrust of her argument is that the claimant is being evaluated rather than the claim, and that the real elephant in the room that nobody wants to address is that “the liturgical reform and the broader doctrinal framework from which it emerged remains unadjudicated, as it has been for six decades.” I will allow the SSPX Superior General, Fr. David Pagliarani, to refute this for me:
But this interpretation [of the Second Vatican Council] is already clearly given in the post-Conciliar period and in the successive documents of the Holy See. The Second Vatican Council is not a set of texts open to free interpretation: It has been received, developed, and applied for sixty years by successive popes, according to precise doctrinal and pastoral orientations. This official reading is expressed, for example, in major texts such as Redemptor hominis, Ut unum sint, Evangelii gaudium, or Amoris lætitia. It is also evident in the liturgical reform, understood in the light of the principles reaffirmed in Traditionis custodes. All these documents show that the doctrinal and pastoral framework within which the Holy See intends to situate any discussion has already been firmly established (“Letter from Father Pagliarani to Cardinal Fernández”, February 19, 2026).
I honestly could not have said it better myself. The matter of the council and its reforms has been thoroughly adjudicated, but the SSPX has rejected the results and is, therefore, permanently at a doctrinal impasse with the rest of the Church. Dr. Lorenzo-Molo seems to be using a “sleight of mind” trick to distract her readers from the real epistemic issue: Who determines whether there is a crisis in the Church, and who determines when it ends?
Now we have arrived at the bizarre crux of the matter: How much of the crisis is real and how much is a narrative creation of the SSPX? Few will deny that there has been some sort of crisis in the Church since the council, but the way you understand that crisis, its actors, events, and timeline of resolution will be dramatically affected by the worldview and presuppositions you use to interpret the past and present data.
This is a real problem that cannot be dismissed as a mere “Cartesian shift”. Your perspective changes what you perceive as a crisis. Somebody is walking toward you holding a knife: normal or crisis? A family member is breathing heavily: normal or crisis? You see lights on in your house as you are coming home at night: normal or crisis? Interreligious World Day of Prayer at Assisi: normal or crisis?
Is “the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ, the sole possessor of supreme authority over the whole Church” only supreme when the SSPX decides he is supreme? Is it a traditional Catholic practice to live in a state of indefinite juridical separation from Rome? Is the SSPX really in communion with Roman Catholics when it refuses to drink from the same chalice with them? Who interprets and applies Scripture and Tradition to the new challenges of the modern world, the Magisterium or the SSPX? Who determines if a marriage is valid or null, Catholic tribunals or SSPX tribunals? Do children raised in the SSPX believe they share the same faith as “Novus Ordo” Catholics? Why is it okay for the SSPX to theoretically reject religious liberty, collegiality, synodality, and ecumenism, and yet live out these supposedly false doctrines in practice?
If Dr. Lorenzo-Molo is willing to take an honest look at the SSPX and the situation it has created for itself within its historical context, she may see that its members and adherents are in the stupor of a Cartesian dream from which they may never wake up.
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“The matter of the council and its reforms has been thoroughly adjudicated . .”
Really? Then why is Pope Leo giving exegesis on it?
Here, here.
The “duck test” (if it quacks like a duck…) is equally applicable to der Synodal Weg luminaries who also “do not intend to be schismatic.”
But, no problem: Synodal/Shinto master Cardinal Hollerich–thirdly, with the homosexual lifestyle also on the same ambiguous table–offers the needed clarity: “In Japan, I got to know a different way of thinking. The Japanese don’t think in terms of the European logic of opposites. We say: It is black, therefore it is not white. The Japanese say: It is white, but maybe it is also black. You can combine opposites in Japan without changing your point of view.” https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/who-is-cardinal-hollerich.
In all three cases, the moment of the big decision (each irreversibly “coming out…”) is preceded by hundreds of lesser indecisions such that the big decision has already been made.
No remaining appetite for the non-demonstrable first principle of non-contradiction.
“Synodal/Shinto master Cardinal Hollerich, with the homosexual lifestyle also on the same ambiguous table–offers the needed clarity: “In Japan, I got to know a different way of thinking. The Japanese don’t think in terms of the European logic of opposites. We say: It is black, therefore it is not white. The Japanese say: It is white, maybe it is also black”.
We see in this a true paradigmatic change occurring within our Church. Ever since a boy I had the conviction [an opinion for the reader] that if ever the Church were to normalize homosexuality, that this would indicate who is present, exerting his influence within the Vatican. An Angel. One called Lucifer. We don’t pay proper heed to the witness of the saints. St Peter Damian, St Thomas Aquinas, and many others who condemned homosexuality as a morally grievous perversion.
Bravo. The SSPX needs to be reconciled to the Church. And notions that Lefebvre will be canonized one day are laughable.
I’m praying for the SSPX. A for whatever happens next week. I hope it will be a step towards unity. I guess we’ll see.
“And” for. Sorry
Unless and until the SSPX has a change of heart and returns to full communion with Rome and the Catholic Church, whatever happens next week has a zero chance of being “a step towards unity”. Sorry, but that’s nothing but wishful thinking, Mrs Cracker.
By what understanding of “coherence” do you apply to associate today’s “Rome” with the Catholic religion??
Well, God can work all things for good. Who knows? Even if we don’t see unity next week, perhaps God will use whatever happens on Wednesday for His purposes to bring us back together in the future.
I’m hopeful.
You’re right, mrscracker. I apologize for being snappy.
Maybe a large portion of their priests will leave them behind and join forces with the Fraternity of St Peter. Either way, as a conservative and traditional Catholic myself, I believe that remaining in union with Rome is top priority. God bless ☦️
Not so sane. If you would trouble yourself to know anything about him, you would know how saintly Archbishop Lefebvre lived his life, and you would know what he said, which, saidly is not in complete accord with the current SSPX.
I am sure that Lefebvre did many good things, and God won’t forget those. God also will remember that Lefebvre died as an excommunicated, schismatic bishop who defied papal authority.
He’s no hero, and he has next to no chance of becoming a canonized saint.
But, sadly, Fr. Martin might???
Excellent analysis, Mr. Bartel. Thank you.
I wish the SSPX as members of the Body of Christ well.
That said, when a father sees his child straying from the normative path and the child wishes to speak with his father about the path he is on, the father does not refuse to meet with his son. What father, with a son asking for a fish gives him, instead, a stone? The Vatican falls back on legalisms whenever it suits their agenda.
Pithily hard your charity hits. Thank you.
Indeed, Pope Francis II meets with Bad Bunny but not with the SSPX. He sends in his steadand even more effeminate heretic who should have been sacked by now.
And when Dad has time for the harlot of Canterbury, but not his children?
Harlot?
Not a very long article; it’s a pity it wasted two pages for ad hominen time-wasting before getting to some now very stale points. Of course the SSPX doesn’t claim that it is not schismatic because it doesn’t want to be schismatic (something that nevertheless distinguishes it radically from real schismatics like the Orthodox churches which do not recognise Peter); it has never ceased pointing out that its refusal to follow (on certain points) authorities it fully recognises is a refusal to follow novelties that are at odds with longstanding ordinary infallible papal teaching. As Vatican I defined, the Pope’s teaching authority is not given to him to invent truths but to safeguard the faith of all time.
The equivocal passages in Vatican II and the various dodgy statements and actions of post-conciliar Popes have never been adjudicated in the light of tradition, but only in a self-referring year zero Vatican II “spirit” – all of it built on conciliar passages that were never intended to be dogmatic statements. This continues. The Vatican recently came out with a bit of terrible ordinary non-infallible magisterium stating that the term Co-Redemptrix is mistaken, whereas Pope John Paul II (and various other Popes) had used it several times in magisterial documents.
What goes on in the average parish is pot-luck,and often scandalous in the extreme. Even so-called conservative bishops sprout errors freely. No need to starting quoting chapter and verse from whatever the Vatican dicasteries feel like doing or saying at a given moment. Of course there’s a situation of crisis in the Church. Of course there are a billion and a half Catholics who can access sacraments and be saved – if they did not require competent guidance from the Church and if they can heroically persevere against all the obstacles to grace that standard practice places before them in their local parish.
But they do require competent guidance and an unobstructed view of what the Mass is, and in your average parish they do not get it. State of necessity. Traditionalists, who are aware of this incompetency and confusion, don’t want to expose themselves or their children to it; they want the best. The SSPX is not the Catholic Church but it’s in the vanguard. The law of the Church is not there to damage souls and hinder its own flourishing and should not be brandished against the SSPX for taking the means to continue its great work for the Church.
Sanctions against traditionalists are not the answer; Church authorities must revisit the texts of Vatican II and explain them in the light of tradition – or explain themselves where such an interpretation seems impossible. This post studiously avoided doing that. As long as the Vatican takes the same line, there will be no end to the “traditionalist” challenge.
Bartel should do a disclosure of his own bias, as he is a general anti-traditionalist, a former disgruntled one himself apparently, involved in a group aimed at helping people “recover” from catholic tradition, which can advocate “progressive” views, not surprisingly. He has been dead wrong about the sspx in the past and now, e.g. claiming them to be in schism all this time, but Rome itself has now clearly shown that not to be true, when they say that if the consecrations take place, then schism will occur, which means they can’t be in such now. As Bartel will no doubt reply with some riseable explanation for this, we can note in advance that statements from Fernandez and Leo clearly speak of a possible condition that may result in the future, contingent upon a future action, and nothing about a continuance of a current state. That Bartel still persists in this error and claims the sspx are the ones in denial erodes his credibility. People also need to know that part of what figures into schism can depend on intention, just as there is a distinction with heresy into formal and material; which is why one hears talk of “formal adherence” to schism. There is thus also a difference between a schismatic act and the state of schism.
Bartel tries to set up a kind of ad hominem attack on the author at the start, who has “only” been familiar with the sspx for 6 years, not enough according to Bartel’s “expertise;” notice also the snide remarks about her “impressive education” and such. (Bartel apparently doesn’t even have a bachelor’s degree yet?) Bartel is thus addressing more an article by someone and that person’s opinion, and it’s very odd he is not addressing, for example, the sspx’s latest statement that came out a couple of days go instead.
Bartel performs a slight of hand in which the issue of “adjudication” of the council is made one focus, when the real focus is the content that has emerged from the council, regarding which the SSPX is spot on. He also makes the “crisis” a big issue, although the sspx uses the term “spiritual necessity” in regard to the consecrations. This is different and more exact and easier to argue, e.g., now that rome has the restrictions on the old rite and is admitting their intent is to completely abolish it, if the sspx might be the only guarantee for the continuance of it, including by having new bishops, then so be it. The question before God would be whether that trumps merely human disciplinary laws. (Here one can get into the fact, noted by Pope BXVI, that what was always practised can’t now be declared dangerous or abolished, even if a pope should try to do so.)
In regard to the issue of discipline we also see that Rome has a selective use of canon law and discipline depending on the orthodoxy or political persuasions of the persons at issue. The heterodox get endless discernment and accompaniment or are even allowed their own quasi-independence from Rome- e.g., in China, where they also perform episcopal consecrations without papal mandate but suffer nothing (will Bartel do an article on why Rome allows this, I wonder); but the orthodox and tradition-minded get the ax in quick fashion and canonical sanctions are suddenly remembered. Mere human legalities are given higher order than the Faith itself. Anyone who denies the current state of things in Rome is being dishonest and likewise it doesn’t bode well if they embrace troubling things like synodality.
It would have been better for Bartel to address the sspx’s latest statement but instead he oddly addresses an article on a blog. Addressing the recent statement would only highlight the reality of the current state of things in the Church as well as the problems with VII, and this is what it’s really all about- people use talk of other things like discipline, obedience, as a deflection, but it’s ultimately about the sspx’s adherence to doctrine and worship as it always was before the Council and how that serves as a painful reminder of what has happened and about the council itself and its problems, for which there is still much denial. What the current crowd in rome wants is to stamp out belief and practice as it existed before the council. This is the old aim of erasing history so people have nothing to compare things with. There is only VII and after, there is only the novus ordo, etc. This is why, starting with Francis especially, there’s been an effort make it seem like Christianity or the papacy started with the council or even with Francis.
Thanks for this comment. I would only add that people in doubt should read what Pius X wrote about the modernists, particularly in his Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, where they will find much more than an answer to the Cartesian wrong turn.
Very well said.
Truth on the current political schemes of today’s vatican
A Roman Pontiff can only be a Vicar of Christ, if he abides In The Word of God, and thus affirms Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, And The Teaching of The Catholic Church’s Magisterium, The Deposit of Faith Christ Has Entrusted to His One Holy Catholic And Apostolic Church, in The Unity Of The Holy Ghost for The Salvation of Souls. A man who rejects those Baptized Catholics who affirm The Deposit of Faith, while condoning and promoting Baptized Catholics within Christ’s Church, who deny the Sanctity and Dignity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony and thus God’s Divine Will that we respect The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life from the moment of conception, is in a state of apostasy, having denied The Divinity of The Most Holy Blessed Trinity, and has no authority in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost.
Teilhard de Chardin is the source of the present Modernist infection in our suffering Church.
The author is rather insulting and juvenile in his comments about those he disagrees with over this issue. His tone was uncalled for and I am disappointed that this was allowed to be published as his prejudice clearly shows.
I thought it was a rather nasty diatribe, snooty as can be, more a war between internet posters than anything else….of course, that’s 90% of the internet today, arguing over things the internet says and attacking those who post on the internet, the more widely read, the more widely attacked. It read more as an argument in a comment section rather than worthy article.
Hear, hear!
https://www.amazon.com.be/-/en/Introduction-Life-Divine-Will-Piccarreta/dp/1947701258
Glad to have come across the above book just the other day – Introduction to Life in Divine Will & Mother Gabrielle narrating how the truths in same can sound ‘too good to be true’, the book thus providing the needed introduction for the 36 volumes of S.O.G.Luisa.
Good to also have read how Fr.Dominique Duten who has done the preface on the above book & his brother priest are also good promoters of Divine Will in France -land of St. Louise – whom after Luisa was likely named , how her heroic obedience as the essence of living in Divine Will with its infinite graces.
Easy to see how our Popes and many more thus yearn for closer unity with The Church for all esp. those who have been given much so that their good will also becomes blessing for generations – Adam to the last person – that the Reign of the Divine Will be hastened for the good of all of humanity . FIAT !
Did Mother Gabrielle or does the book about divine will discuss the SSPX? Can you help explain why this comment belongs to this thread? Thanks.
Thank you for the asking ; may the Divine Will make up for anything lacking in the intention . Interesting how tradition mentions that St. Mary Magdalene settled in France – a home base of the current issues mentioned in the article at hand . Good to hear that there are good priests who are promoting Divine Will there . Luisa – as one born with original sin, as a Third order Dominican had taken up name of St. Magdalene . Name of Leo – linked to Louise – strong, noble.
https://en.luisapiccarretaofficial.org/biography
All of our recent Popes likely well familiar and appreciative of the truths of Divine Will writings as narrated by Mo. Gabrielle and others ; their intentions, efforts ,Fatherly precious blessings – geared towards same – ‘love God with His own Love ‘- Pope Francis . Effects of such blessings and good will incalculable .
Becoming ‘little’ in The Lord , may our prayers and good will set us and many more free from unneeded fears , rigidities etc :to be what we are meant to be in His holy Divine Will for the good of all . FIAT !
What is lacking is the information sought, and the answer is still wanting. I have read your obfuscation; thank you. I shall not ask again. Wishing you a good evening.
“On the one hand, he shows us the example of the good fight for the faith, Catholic morality, and liturgical Tradition; on the other hand, he invites us to obey those who are at the root of the very evils we are battling. How can this be done when cardinals can spread heterodox opinions — opinions condemned by the Guinean cardinal himself — without ever being corrected by Church authorities? What conclusion can we draw, if not that before giving our assent we must distinguish between teachings faithful to the perennial faith and those that express a new way of thinking, irreconcilable with the previous magisterium? Although the current pope has only recently assumed the papacy, his appointments to the highest offices as well as his speeches and homilies do not suggest any significant change.”
“How can this be done when cardinals can spread heterodox opinions — opinions condemned by the Guinean cardinal himself — without ever being corrected by Church authorities?“
It cannot be done because the claim that Vatican II did not change a Dogma of The Catholic Church is not True, by its adoption of a false conciliatory spirit that led to the anathema of Christ’s Charitable Anathema, a rupture occurred that eventually led to the invalid election of a man to the Papacy who justified his defense of sexual immorality by claiming prior to his invalid election to The Papacy, “ If there is a union of a private nature, there is neither a third party, nor is society affected.”- cardinal Jorge Bergoglio denying God’s Universal Call to Holiness, is a Call to be Temples of The Holy Ghost in all our relationships and experiences, ipso facto defecting from Christ’s One, Holy , Catholic, And Apostolic Church, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, The Spirit Of Perfect Divine Eternal Infinite Love Between The Father And His Only Begotten Son, Jesus The Christ, Who Proceeds From Both The Father And His Only Begotten Son, Jesus The Christ.
Canon 750 1. Those things are to be believed by divine and catholic faith which are contained in the word of God as it has been written or handed down by tradition, that is, in the single deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, and which are at the same time proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn Magisterium of the Church, or by its ordinary and universal Magisterium, which in fact is manifested by the common adherence of Christ’s faithful under the guidance of the sacred Magisterium. All are therefore bound to avoid any contrary doctrines. 2. Furthermore, each and everything set forth definitively by the Magisterium of the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals must be firmly accepted and held; namely those things required for the holy keeping and faithful exposition of the deposit of faith; therefore, anyone who rejects propositions which are to be held definitively sets himself against the teaching of the Catholic Church.[new]” “Canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law states that schism is “the refusal of submission to the supreme pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” Canon 1364 stipulates that the penalty for this crime is excommunication “latae sententiae,” i.e., automatically upon the commission of the offense.” Furthermore, “Canon 188 §4 states that among the actions which automatically (ipso facto) cause any cleric to lose his office, even without any declaration on the part of a superior, is that of “defect[ing] publicly from the Catholic faith” (” A fide catholica publice defecerit“).
Human beings are a herd of cats. I always try to craft my message with a view of the person I’m talking to and what will connect with them. I was once talking to an atheist with multiple STEM Phds. There was a guy present that started talking about archeological evidence of Noah’s Ark. I said to him, “I can talk to you about issues of faith and I can talk to him about issues of faith, but I can’t talk to you both at the same time.” As the atheist PhD was a cradle Catholic and most of his arguments stemmed from what he had been taught in CCD, I said that he was talking about a curriculum that was designed for children. I suggested that he try examining the subject as an adult. Five years later he was back at mass.
“Human beings are a herd of cats.”
Best exemplified by Linux users.
Tales of the Good Shepard. One the story of the Shepherd who refuses to shepherd the lost sheep. Content with the dwindling ninetynine. Superior General SSPX Davide Pagliarani had requested a meeting with Leo XIV.
However, that wasn’t granted. Instead Fr Davide was directed to meet with Cardinal Victor Fernández prefect DDF. The man who authored Fiducia Supplicans.
How can that be perceived as a pastoral attempt by Leo XIV to reconcile differences? A provocation to the SSPX Superior General? Or simply lack of interest in addressing fidelity to the Deposit of Faith. A moment to explain the primacy of the Roman pontiff to appoint bishops.
Or does the abdication of Rome for appointing bishops given to Xi Jinping pose an embarrassing betrayal of the Deposit of Faith? Should we believe Cardinal Zen on the matter or agree with Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin who cut the ‘deal’?
If the SSPX truly held the “deposit of faith” they would not need Papal primacy explained to them.
You, not “they” need to have papal primacy expained. The pope has no more right to depart from the Deposit of Faith than anyone else. His authority is exclusively to defend the Deposit of Faith, not ridicule it. When he undermines it, he must be disobeyed. Jesus is the head of the Church, not any pope.
It just seems as though almost all discussion of this starts either from the premise “SSPX is right” or the premise “SSPX is wrong,” and the rest of the arguments derive from those premises. I fear that will not be a productive approach. In any case, I found this essay useful. Basically, the SSPX’s own premises destroy its position. I always find myself dizzy after reading anything asserted by an SSPX follower.
Of course you do, because they talk in doublespeak. Their arguments are circular. It’s what happens in a mind-control group.
It would be inaccurate to say “SSPX paradigm is incoherent” where the extenuating circumstances they’ve inherited, are/would be a disarray qua circumstances. If we take the life witness of Lefebvre apart from the controversial consecrations and weigh him against the encyclicals of JPII, he -Lefebvre- could stand out in exceptional degree.
If we take the life witness of Lefebvre and weigh this too against VATICAN II and we found an exemplary manifestation of the Council vision and thrust, the one would be the victory of the other and the both would be the glory of the Church.
SSPX should back off a bit and invite the whole Church with the Holy Father to peacefully visit this, invoking the Holy Spirit.
And if you’re saying, “Where does this guy get this stuff from; who is he?” – THAT, would not be how this gets started right.
Not a very long article; it’s a pity it wasted two pages for ad hominen time-wasting before getting to some now very stale points. Of course the SSPX doesn’t claim that it is not schismatic because it doesn’t want to be schismatic (something that nevertheless distinguishes it radically from real schismatics like the Orthodox churches which do not recognise Peter); it has never ceased pointing out that its refusal to follow (on certain points) authorities it fully recognises is a refusal to follow novelties that are at odds with longstanding ordinary infallible papal teaching. As Vatican I defined, the Pope’s teaching authority is not given to him to invent truths but to safeguard the faith of all time.
The equivocal passages in Vatican II and the various dodgy statements and actions of post-conciliar Popes have never been adjudicated in the light of tradition, but only in a self-referring year zero Vatican II “spirit” – all of it built on conciliar passages that were never intended to be dogmatic statements. This continues. The Vatican recently came out with a bit of terrible ordinary non-infallible magisterium stating that the term Co-Redemptrix is mistaken, whereas Pope John Paul II (and various other Popes) had used it several times in magisterial documents.
What goes on in the average parish is pot-luck,and often scandalous in the extreme. Even so-called conservative bishops sprout errors freely. No need to starting quoting chapter and verse from whatever the Vatican dicasteries feel like doing or saying at a given moment. Of course there’s a situation of crisis in the Church. Of course there are a billion and a half Catholics who can access sacraments and be saved – if they did not require competent guidance from the Church and if they can heroically persevere against all the obstacles to grace that standard practice places before them in their local parish.
But they do require competent guidance and an unobstructed view of what the Mass is, and in your average parish they do not get it. State of necessity. Traditionalists, who are aware of this incompetency and confusion, don’t want to expose themselves or their children to it; they want the best. The SSPX is not the Catholic Church but it’s in the vanguard. The law of the Church is not there to damage souls and hinder its own flourishing and should not be brandished against the SSPX for taking the means to continue its great work for the Church.
Sanctions against traditionalists are not the answer; Church authorities must revisit the texts of Vatican II and explain them in the light of tradition – or explain themselves where such an interpretation seems impossible. This post studiously avoided doing that. As long as the Vatican takes the same line, there will be no end to the “traditionalist” challenge.
Very well said.
Even if all the traditionalists stopped objecting to various texts of Vatican 2, the progressive wing will not stop interpreting them contrary to Scripture and Tradition. The doctrinal and moral problems will not end until the Church clearly lays out which interpretations are permitted and which are not.
The Regressive wing only wants to remake the Church in their image.
As a result, the “hermeneutics of rupture” is their operative ecclesial mandate.
FATHER NICOLA BUX OPEN LETTER TO LEO
“Now that we are experienced in dialogue with people and groups outside the Church,” he writes, “should we not also, and above all, engage in dialogue within our own ranks, doing everything possible to ensure that none of those brothers and sisters whom the Lord has entrusted to us are lost?”
Father Bux, a priest of the Diocese of Bari and a former consulter to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, also urges Pope Leo to take three other key actions: to “revisit” Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum that liberalized the traditional Roman liturgy but which Pope Francis abrogated in 2021; ensure that the German ‘Synodal Path’ not decide on matters of doctrine, morality and sacramental practice; and to give a response to dubia (formal questions seeking clarification) that cardinals issued during Pope Francis’ pontificate but which Francis either did not answer, or, according to the cardinals, answered unsatisfactorily.
https://edwardpentin.substack.com/p/fr-nicola-bux-to-pope-leo-xiv-do
He’ll be excommunicated. Watch.
Do we know if any priest, bishop or cardinal guilty of sexually abusing children (or adults…) has been excommunicated, or at least sent to the Congo to nurse and minister to those sick with Ebola?
This is the sillliest article I have yet read on the SSPX. It’s getting to the point where CWR will publish anything.
I cannot see how anyone can claim that “The matter of the council and its reforms has been thoroughly adjudicated” when there have been several prelates in high places celebrating Mass with an idol on the altar, without any subsequent reparation for the sacrilege. No serious person can claim that the boundaries of ecumenism, one of the main issues with the SSPX, has been thoroughly adjudicated, when those who refrain from including Buddha or Pachamama in the Mass could be merely exercising their personal preferences and refraining from ecumenism, while those who do are merely being inclusive and ecumenical. Those who attend the services of false religions just to see what it’s like are permitted and often encouraged. In both word and deed, right teaching on this topic has been muddled and buried.
As I understand it, it’s not the SSPX claiming that the intention to commit schism is necessary under canon law, but canon lawyers that make the claim. The Canon Law Society of America has a commentary on canon law in which it says, of heresy, apostasy, and schism, that “All of these actions, if they are to fulfill these canonical definitions, must be born of “bad faith”. … It implies not only knowledge – that the positions taken are knowingly, consciously, and intentionally espoused, with full cognizance that they are in opposition to what is to be held “fide divina et catholica” – but also defiance – that the beliefs are denied or repudiated in rejection of the authority of God revealing or the church teaching.”
Also of note is canon 18, which requires that laws are subject to a “strict interpretation”, meaning the *minimum* that can be interpreted to be forbidden must be interpreted as forbidden. The defendant has the favor of the law.
Roberto de Mattai had this to say regarding the stance of the SSPX and the Vatican: “We thus find ourselves before the paradox. The Society of Saint Pius X, by invoking the state of necessity, grounds a large part of its justification on the primacy of pastoral requirements over strictly juridical and doctrinal considerations — thereby embracing that very primacy of pastoral practice which is a foundational mandate of Vatican II. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, by contrast, invokes Vatican II, yet does not acknowledge the weight of the pastoral argument and employs against the Society the terms and concepts of pre-conciliar theology, in the name of the binding force of doctrine and law.” I’m not sure if it’s really paradoxical for the SSPX to take Vatican 2 as the foundation for its argument, since they willingly accept nearly all of that Council and have raised objections only to particular points, based on how they’ve been interpreted and acted on since V2. Another of their lines of defense is that those points of V2 raise issues of conscience for them – conscience rights also being something emphasized by V2.
For the Eucharist to be validly consecrated, the priest must have the right intention, as well as the right matter and form. The SSPX has an overly rigorist interpretation of the requirements to have that right intention, and therefore strongly advises against going to a NO Mass. It would be nice if the DDF would address that one directly and publicly, along with their marriage “tribunal” practices, which seem likely to be leading people into adultery. There is no necessity that prevents a couple from getting advice on an annulment from the SSPX, and then getting the actual annulment from those who have the requisite authority. However, I have never heard that the SSPX says that NO attendees (or other non-SSPX Catholics) are not permitted to receive Holy Communion at SSPX Masses, so it is inaccurate to say that they will not “drink from the same chalice with” other Catholics. Eastern Orthodox typically do deny this.
Amanda, you are correct in your note about bad faith/intention being involved in schism. As you note, canon law commentaries just about all say such and it’s a basic point in the matter, and you don’t really need to be a canonist to know this/find it out. This is a further indication that Bartel does not know what he’s talking about when he dismisses this issue as irrelevant. You would figure he would at least do basic research. Does CWR do any vetting of articles so that contributors at least have the basics correct?
It is remarkable that people who know the Vatican’s immense difficulty in adequately disciplining McCarrick and Rupnik, and in deciding to publish Synod Group #9’s report without correction or public retraction, believe the Curia has miraculously acquired unquestionable rectitude and skill levels in Church discipline when it comes to the SSPX.
Difficulty or simple failure?
McCarrick wasn’t alone. Weakland absconded the offerings of widows to pay for the silence of his sodo-buddy. There have been others guilty of scandalous things.
As these two predators showed, the adage “heresy begins below the belt” has merit.
Maybe it’s time to have the laity form a group that is dedicated to procuring the services of private detectives to see how deep the rabbit hole is.
Your comments and those of many others ably demonstrate that this is not a serious article. Mr. Bartel believes that having a bee in his bonnet somehow renders his readers mentally retarded.
I think both sides in this issue have blood on their hands. The Popes refusal to meet and sending Cardinal “Tucho” Fernandez was a set up. Unworthy of the Vicar of Christ. The SSPX on the other hand has a strong tendency to see itself as the “True” Catholic Church awaiting a Vatican surrender. Meanwhile in this stormy period the laity and left behind.
Interesting read. Thanks.
I find that Pontiffs kneeling as grown men in homage to pagan jungle gods rather incoherent.
I find heretic Cardinals (e.g., Kasper and Hollerich) electing Pontiffs rather incoherent.
I find 90% of self-advertising “Catholic” universities rather incoherent.
I find the prevailing Church establishment to be rather incoherent.
Taken altogether, I was imagining the being “incoherent” was deemed by the Church establishment to be a feature, and nit a bug.
Why should any distinction be made about the SSPX?
What’s not to incohere about?
A very coherent set of illustrations!! Thanks Chris.
Wait and see. When the SSPX consecrate their bishops in July and Pope Prevost excommunicates everyone, including the janitors, the gardeners and the cooks, the ranks of the Catholic faithful affiliating with SSPX will SWELL ENORMOUSLY! Mark my word.
The “Catholic Faithful” can never affiliate with a group outside the One Holy and Apostolic Church. They wouldn’t be faithful if they did. It’s an impossible oxymoron.
Gerard: in your opinion only
Would this include pontificates that are outside the One Holy and Apostolic Church?
This is a real danger. If discipline is not conducted fairly, people will move toward the SSPX rather than away, as they will be perceived as the sane side. Traditionis Custodes created a lot of sympathy for trads, and excommunicating anyone who affiliates with the SSPX for schism would do the same. It’s too obviously false. The SSPX might be shifting away, structurally, but that is also due to Rome’s refusal to talk, and it isn’t something most adherents can do anything about.
When attending an Orthodox Divine Liturgy and receiving Holy Communion doesn’t result in excommunication for schism, not to mention all the various Protestant or synchretistic services out there, the joint Protestant/Catholic parishes and religious orders, it is hardly sensible to make attending an SSPX Mass or being employed by them a schismatic act.
Worse, there is very good reason to believe that Francis lied about the reason for issuing Traditionis Custodes. What was truly odd was his reference to his “predecessors” when it is posited only St. Peter has successors.
There is nothing, short of a supernatural event of the kind ordinary and sometimes obdurate sinners such as me don’t generally experience, that the Papacy of Francis wasn’t a regrettable and tragic result of Benedict’s resignation and the opportunistic machinations of the thoroughly odious St. Gallen Mafia.
I will admit, I think history will put Francis squarely in the “worst Popes club”. His major accomplishment was to make the question “Is the Pope Catholic” from a rhetorical question of the obvious to a inquiry of serious uncertainty.
This is a rather adolescent article from a “philosophy student” who uses terminology incoherently to trivialize what he hasn’t honorably tried to understand. He provides no evidence for any of his smug, condescending accusations.
He defers to another, who argues that because there have been many papal exhortations in the past sixty years, supposedly elucidating VII documents, there can be no basis for any remaining questions. How ridiculous. Are the expressed unresolved reservations of JPII and Benedict over particulars in the documents a case of their disobedience to Church authority?
”Is “the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ, the sole possessor of supreme authority over the whole Church” only supreme when the SSPX decides he is supreme?”
Well, since Catholic doctrine holds that popes are not ordinarily infallible, the premise is false, and the conclusion of projected intention is, again, juvenile. Jesus Christ is the head of the Church, not the pope. The pope’s job is to defend the Deposit of Faith, not ridicule it as Francis did, calling it museum pieces while declaring there is no such thing as immutable truth.
“….the SSPX also claims religious liberty for itself, declaring that it is immune from papal interference and coercion in its beliefs, worship, and governance, preferring to follow its own conscience rather than conform to the established laws and structures of Christ’s Church.”
More nonsense. Any and all Catholics owe loyalty to truth, and when they recognize a pontificate straying from truth and material heresy, any and all Catholics have an obligation to God to resist fallible men.
The list of false assertions are lengthy, but I have to get to bed. CWR should do better than publish a silly hit piece like this article.
a phrasing in the fourth line from the bottom should read: …when they recognize a pontificate straying from truth and perfoming material heresy…
Has anyone else lately noticed an increasing number of useful idiots on ecclesiastical and secular stages?
bottom line: both sides are conflicted.. obviously Rome is infitrated badly.. But SSPX has some really bad flaws as well.. this is not a quarrel between good guy/bad guy.. people tend to over-simplify conflict and then just add to the fog of war..where do we go from here..?? u tell me..I dont know..