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I am unfamiliar with the thoughts of the bishops in the SSPX and it was good to read something firsthand. I didn't find anything remotely unorthodox in this interview. It makes me wonder why hackles get raised at all. But I am still learning. He strikes me as a very pious and very intelligent man.

He is, which is why the SSPX's General Council stripped him of his position on the SSPX's General Council. While some SSPX laity have disputed this interpretation, every SSPX cleric with whom I have spoken, whether for or against Fr. Aulagnier, has privately admitted to me that this is the case. (Although when it comes to his parallel removal as a European District Superior and his reassignment in Quebec, those SSPX clergy sympathetic to Aulagnier have told me that this was also part of the punishment, whereas those in the Fellay or Williamson camp deny that this is obviously the case.)

What was Fr. Aulagnier's crime that warranted such drastic measures? It appears that he dared to be vocal about the SSPX's need to reconcile with the Church or risk permanent schism, and that he also had the audacity to break ranks with the rest of the SSPX leadership and support the Campos traditionalists in their reconciliation with the Church.

It seems that Bishop Fellay will tolerate all sorts of kooky public opinions promulgated by Bishop Williamson on the one hand, while on the other going to severe lengths to silence those like Fr. Aulagnier whose only crime is to want the SSPX to reconcile with the Church.

Even in Argentina, which if I am not mistaken, is the SSPX's most powerful district in South America, Williamson will continue to hold a position of major authority as a seminary rector. So please pray for Fr. Aulagnier and those forces within the SSPX who support him, that they will see their wish of reconciliation with Rome -- although it may be without the (F)SSPX.

Your assumptions are the merest gossip. You have no hard information at all about why Father Aulagnier was reassigned, nor what the motive behind Bishop Fellay's action was. In fact, it has been my understanding that he and Bishop Fellay are on the same page. You have been, moreover, mistaken before to think the reassignment was to place Father Aulagnier under Bishop Williamson's thumb. In fact, you were wrong then and it appears you have learned nothing from this error. Bishop Fellay may well have had an opposite purpose from what you imagine--to use a man like Aulagnier to better prepare North Americans for coming reconciliation.

Having said this, I'd like to add that while the Pope's encyclical is praiseworthy--and I myself, who am often critical of the Pope, have said so from the outset on this site--nevertheless, it these admissions of abuses and theological weaknesses are very late in coming and are not being followed up by any real actions. He still retains as his chief liturgist at the Vatican, for instance, the Bugnini associate responsible for bizarre anomalies and abuses at his own outdoor papal Masses. The Pope needs to do more than write orthodox encyclicals. His own behavior needs to be more orthodox.