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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.

This post is so absurd it is difficult to know where to begin. When you claim SSPX "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," you are creating an imaginary enemy that does not exist in fact.

First, I personally don't rant and rave. I present arguments--as anyone familiar with my style of posting will testify. But this has been even more true of SSPX bishops and priests who have engaged in theological argumentation primarily. The dialogues with Rome have been respectful and always reasonable.

Second, the SSPX has never questioned the legitimacy of the papacy nor has sought to undermine it. But it has been placed on the horns of a dilemma by actions of the conciliar popes themselves--since these actions fly in the face of all previous popes and councils. It has been forced to choose between the whole of our Catholic past and the last forty years, between tradition and recent papal novelties. It has chosen to side with the old faith rather than with the revolution.

You make other absurd claims. You write, "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."

First, we do not scandalize by merely speaking the truth. Subordinates have the right to resist superiors who are wrong and do bad things. In fact in today's climate it is hard to even think of what I or anybody else would say that could heap more scandal on a self-scandalizing Church. When the Pope prays with witchdoctors and voodoo priests and thereby gives legitimacy to their lunacies, or when he kisses the Koran, or when he ignores serious sexual abuse of children and teens--gay scandals which have been going on for decades with full knowledge of the Vatican--or when he elevates to the cardinalate a known apostate, it is hard to talk of doing more scandal than the Pope inflicts on himself. It is he who scandalizes the faithful, not the other way around.

Second, the letter from Msgr. Perle--no friend of SSPX--is the one who has stated SSPX followers have not left the Church, something we have always known but has taken years for him and others to admit. Why do you doubt such a statement of authority and continue to fight such a judgment? Are you not yourself resisting legitimate authority by making the ridiculous claims you continue to make? I say I am Catholic because I am, not because I wish to decieve others. I worship and pray and think as a Catholic. I may not be a good one, I may even be a bad one, but I am still a Catholic within the Church, whether you or Bishop Bruskewitz wish to believe this objective fact or not.

Again, you are wrong when you call Archb. Lefebvre "self-important," dismissing his lifetime as a humble missionary living in Africa. He was not one of those who dwelt in palaces in Rome or Paris, or sought for worldly notice. Econe was established, not by his own initiative, but because desperate young seminarians begged him to establish a seminary where they could pray the rosary and study the Church Fathers. He was simply adhering to the traditional faith as it has been handed-down from apostolic times.

Finally, it is not SSPX nor I who wish to have it both ways. It is Bishop Bruskewitz and you who want it both ways by wishing to be considered traditional Catholics by supporting a protestantizing revolution very far from traditional Catholicism. The confusion is yours, not ours.