Replies

Sorry, your take is erroneous.

Uh, no.

SSPX is schismatic and its followers are flirting with schism.

Do you consider the evangelicals schismatic? How about the Eastern systems? Because I assure you they attract far more Catholics than SSPX. They are the major threat to Catholicism today, not estranged spiritual siblings.

This article is seven years old first of all, and posting it was designed to stir the pot and inflame tensions here. A lot has changed in the past seven years. Narses cited a letter above which expressly states that attending an SSPX Mass is allowed in the event one does not have access to an appropriate Mass. While this may not be the case in Bishop B's diocese it is the case in most other dioceses. Regardless, that wasn't even my point and it's not my place to stand in judgement of them.

ROME has stated it is acceptable to attend SSPX Masses in certain circumstances and even contribute to the collection. My point was and still is that it is laughable to call SSPX a major threat to the Church. It is a MINOR issue. If people are leaving union with Rome for whereever, SSPX, fundamentalism, New Age, WHATEVER, it behooves Rome to take a long look in the mirror, discover why and fix the problems rather than attacking the people who leave.

Let's try an analogy and see if that helps.

Hussein was a threat to the USA. Evangelicals are a threat to the Church (mutatis mutandis..)

But USA citizens KNOW that Hussein was a threat--he was a 'foreign power,' external to the country.

Now when the CPUSA had its people in the Federal Government during the presidency of FDR, the threat to the USA was more significant than the threat posed by Joe Stalin? Why? Because we took for granted (erroneously) that US citizens were all 'on our side.'

Similarly, Catholics recognize the Evangelicals as threats--they are 'outsiders.' But the FAR more significant threat is from 'insiders,' validly (but illicitly) ordained priests and Bishops who we "think" are on our side.

This applies, by the way, to dissident Bishops such as Weakland, Mahony, Bernardin, and their ilk EQUALLY, to the right-thinking Catholic.

Hope that helps.

Re-stating: in the SPECIFIC case of Lincoln, SSPX was more a threat than the Evangelicals. They were the wolves in sheep's clothing. BB is right.

Someone who makes the mistake of leaving the only Church founded by Jesus Christ Himself (that would be the Roman Catholic Church) to become a Presbyterian or a Missouri Synod Lutheran or an independent Evangelical or Pentecostal or simply to hang out at home develping his or her own preferred ideas as to the meaning of Scripture through five or six prisms of translations not guaranteed by the Vicar of Christ on Earth directly or indirectly at least may be honored for the personal integrity of NOT claiming to be Roman Catholics.

Not so our schismatics. They want the right to rant and rave against legitimate Church authority, to undermine the authority of the papacy, to make a career of drawing upon the papacy and the Church the worst forms of vile hatred witnessed in centuries and justify it all as does UR on the basis that some monsignor in the Vatican issued a document conceding the validity (never in question) of SSPX Masses and even the acceptability of contributing to the expenses of same MODESTLY (all essentially a 16 centuries old rejection of the Donatist heresy of the 4th Century that held the Masses of unworthy and sinful priests as invalid) and that such misbehavior as encouraging the schismatics ius justified among schismatics so long as they can delude themselves that there is some sort of emergency (in their minds the convenient availability only of the normative Mass of the Church). They have such a right civilly. They can be atheists, Zoroastrians or devotees of Astarte if they wish, as far as the law is concerned.

What the schismatics do not have a right to do is to dishonestly scandalize others by claiming to be Catholic while engaging in rank disobedience and defiance of legitimate authority. SSPX people are not attacked for leaving. They are attacked for leaving while fraudulently claiming to have stayed. As the living saint of Lincoln, Nebraska says: They cannot have it both ways.

The SSPX bishops have been excommunicated as was their self-important founder and schismatic-in-chief Marcel Lefebvre, who, now dead, has likely learned the truth the hard way.

SSPX is not major by way of number of adherents. There are only so many gullible cranks and eccentrics available to it. Rather, as their now dead schismatic-in-chief Marcel well understood, the creation of another illicit line of eccommunicated bishops and the sort of priests they will ordain is the worst attack that can be levelled at the Church. Like their Masses, the consecrations of their bishops and the ordination of their priests are valid but UNLAWFUL and perpetuate a spirit of rebellion first seen when Lucifer informed God "non serviam".

In the spirit of Lucifer, they should adopt "non serviam" as part of the SSPX coat of arms, be honest enough to admit that it is their inspiration, and stop sullying the good name of Catholic by their ridiculous charade of claiming that defient disobedience of the Successor of Peter is somehow "traditional" Catholicism. As we well know, it is not.