And that's how I took your "nuclear option." I realize the SSPX and Legion of Christ "issues" came up in the same time period, but that is where it begins and ends. I find it kind of appalling that you would even consider them in the same essay. The LC is one religious order that may stand or may crash and burn on its own merits.

The SSPX, on the other hand, is not constituted only by its "appreciation" for Church history and the liturgy, or even the musical and artistic heritage of the Church. It represents a different worldview. The notion that a recovery of the traditional Latin Mass is only a matter of aesthetics or nostalgia for the past misreads the entire issue. Yes, the SSPX has a "problem with obedience." But the real problem they have is with the interpretation of Vatican II and here they are in the company of Pope Benedict XVI, who has had his own problems with some of the documents themselves, to say nothing of the interpretations that have grown up around them. The Pope has acknowledged the legitimacy of some of the SSPX concerns about the Council. I think you should, too. It's never going to be a matter of "teaching" them to read the Vatican II documents through the "hermeneutic of continuity." They aren't going to be asked to affirm every document; in fact, there will probably be a discussion over what documents such as Gaudium et spes, Unitatis redintegratio, and Lumen gentium really mean. And that will be good for the Church.

well, certainly a unique solution to the problem. I notice in your article, a tendency to knock the Bishops and Priests of the "regular" dioceses. I understand your point, but my experience with Bishops and Priests of my Archdiocese have been very positive. They are not perfect, but overall, I believe that they do a fine job, under some very difficult circumstances.

I would like to see SSPX brought back into the fold. Let them keep their Latin Mass, traditional rites, etc, but subject themselves to the authority of the Holy Father. I do see that our "friend" Bishop Williamson seems to be in the news again. Perhaps this man should have his own talk show? He seems to love being in the spotlight, but I digress. I think that the Vatican and SSPX are working towards a reunification which will result in their accepting the authority of the Pope, while being allowed to keep their rites and tradition, which are after all, the rites and traditions that we all enjoyed years ago.

LC is another matter. I think Pope Benedict does not need to break them up, but he must purge the influence of Maciel. THis can only be done by outsiders. Appoint a Cardinal or Bishop and a group of priests from outside to run the Legion for a few 'reformative' years. Difficult but it can be done.

Fortunately, we have Pope Benedict in charge, so I am not worried.

Vatican II is an abomination. No truly self-respecting conservative would have a thing to do with Vatican II. I hope SSPX keeps its distance from the left-wing, post-Vatican II Church.

Good ideas, John. A merger with the Society of Jesus is a good idea. (Why did you leave out the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Benedictines?) I'm not familiar with the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. I'll look them up. A merger of the Legion and the SSPX? Less of a good idea. These two groups need to become part of the Church, not a parallel church.

Radical idea: Why not dissolve the LC and let the members choose for themselves, individually, where they want to go?

I agree with Paleo Catholic. Why is there this ideological tendency to think that everything must be made into a globalist, international organization?

What's wrong with having independent, autonomous societies?

It would be a cheapening of the SSPX to join the left-wing Vatican.

I think the Legionaires and Regnum Christi can clean-up and reorganize themselves without intrusive oversight or merging into the Jesuits (oh, my Lord!), the Oratory,which is has far too little heft, or the SPPX, which whom they have so little in common except bad publicity.

During the suppression of the Jesuits, other Ignatian orders like the Oblates of the Virgin Mary came into existence. I don't know how much the LC does with the Exercises, but the I agree with exLC above. Let each member choose.

"Left Wing Vatican?" Well, I have not previously heard Pope Benedict and his Curia referred to as "Left Wing." As I recall, when Benedict was elected, some Traditionalists were exuberant, Progressives depressed, as "God's Rotweiller" was going to clean house. Well, Pope Benedict is no liberal, he is not going to change doctrine, he is a conservative, but understands that you cannot turn back the clock. If the Traditionalists wanted Benedict to conduct Stalinist purges and excommunicate anybody to the Left of Benedict, they were disappointed. Benedict is basically conservative, but he understands that he is the Shepherd of ALL Catholics. He's not going to start ordaining women or married men, but neither is he going to excommunicate everybody who advocates it either.

Left Wing Vatican? Perhaps we should go back to selling indulgences like the good old days?

As if LC and SSPX were the only ones needing reform. More alarming and in greater need of reform is the outright descent by the myriad liberal Catholic parishes and the blatant cafeteria Catholicism and the neo-pagan lifestyles which are their fruit.


Statistics show that the average Catholic today is not different than the average non-Catholic. They proclaim to be "ardent Catholics" and claim they believe in the Holy Spirit the Lord and Giver of Life, yet at the same time they march with the forces which rationalize the destruction of life. They pray "Thy Will Be Done!" yet they unite their wills behind those who go directly against the will of God.

There's a reason why the majority of Catholics unabashedly unite their wills to pro-abortion leaders and dismiss the Church's teaching on contraception, and basic morality; these, no doubt claim to be "united" with the Church. The same goes for the many parishes which blend new-age religion into the liturgies (i.e. "In the name of god the creator, lord and spirit", and referring to God as "She" etc.) and the multitude of parishes which implement Gay-Lesbian outreach programs and have "special" Masses for men and women who simply need to be persuaded, as we all do, to go to confession to receive the grace necessary to avoid temptation, and to rid ourselves of our addictions, obsessions and evil inclinations.

Paramount is the salvation of souls from eternal separation from God. To speak about LC and SSPX as if they were the only ones who need to reform and fully "unite" themselves to the Church, while ignoring the elephant in the room is silly.

The zeal of LC and SSPX should be incorporated into mainstream parishes.

I think it's unreasonable and slipshod to link these two groups. Each has its own charisms and its own issues to deal with. While linking them may fit neatly into the author's peculiar 'weltanschaung', one should presume that the Vatican is less sloppy about addressing them.

Are you out of your mind suggesting that the Jesuits and the LC merge! I do not know who would revolt first!

Though I agree with Palaeo Catholic and Reader about the deleterious effects of V2, I think that the reincorporation of the SSPX can be instrumental in restoring Tradition to Rome, building upon Benedict's <i> Summorum Pontificum. </i>

Whatever be the failings of the SSPX, an infusion of disconsolate LC/RC personality cultists is a prescription for pandemonium. Lefebvre sought to preserve the ancient Faith, without V2 accretions of oecumenism, universal salvation, and other heterodoxies. Maciel was a deviant in more than one sense of the term.

As for the "hermeneutic of continuity", if one had fallen into a twenty year coma in 1962 and entered a "Catholic" church in 1982, "continuity" is not the first word that would leap to mind. <i> Omnes viae Viteburgas ducunt </i> would be more appropriate to express the hermeneutic of Reformation redux in ruined Rome.

"Hermeneutic" is, of course, Greek for "spin."

The only solution would be the following:

Pope Benedict would request diocesan bishops, parish priests, members of religious orders, seminary professores, catholic university theologians and the regular laity to give "<i>religious submission of mind and will</i>" to Vatican II teachings and the Magisterium of the last 5 popes.

Otherwise, if the SSPX ever comes around to accepting Vatican II and the Magisterium of the last 5 Popes, they would probably find themeselves the only ones to be in full communion with the Church ...

I'll wait for a decision from Rome on both.

"For all their (LC) orthodoxy, they are unrelentingly modern -- to the point that they long banned seminarians from even attending the Roman rite in its historic form."

This is precisely the reason why traditional Catholics are always suspicious of both LC'ers and Opus Dei followers. Besides the occassional cassock and bad press, there is indeed very little in common with the SSPX, as has been noted above.

I believe there are LC priests who want to learn the pre-Vatican II sacraments and liturgy. Perhaps they could, on their own, look into the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, a much more realistic option for the traditionally-minded clergy.

Joao,

Well said! Ultimately it does come down in both cases to the true meaning of obedience in service to truth. The LC needs to learn true obedience without the cult of personality attached to Fr Maciel. The SSPX needs to learn true obedience to the Magisterium as understood in Pope Benedict's hermeneutic of continuity. I disagree with those who say Vatican II was an abomination. I also disagree with those who say Vatican II was some kind of super-council, the ecclesiastical equivalent of the "best thing since sliced bread." Vatican II properly understood was a pastoral council with some dogmatic elements which Catholics must respect and give its proper due in continuity with the councils and magisterial teachings prior to it. Both the LC and the SSPX go too far in their uncritical acceptance of Vatican II (LC) and their overcritical rejection of Vatican II (some parts of the SSPX).

Your suggestions are almost absurd. At a time when we are questioning the concept of globalization, now you want to form a global religion where LC/RC would get together with the SSPX? !!! It is just absurd.

I belonged to Regnum Christi for years, I believe the Movement needs to disolve for the reasons you stated at the beginning. But do you really think that a mushy religion of the two will make these 2 groups better? Where does Truth stand in this type of reasoning? Our Holy Father understands that the Church needs the SSPX (no, I don't belong to the SSPX) because the Church has lost his catholicity. We need the SSPX to recover, don't you see the boat is sinking? Sounds like the Holy Father along with the SSPX and the Traditionalists, is alone but he realizes that we (the present Church) are completely off base.

Obviously you don't seem to know what the SSPX really stands for. Yes, you do: you have heard what the Progressists have been saying for the past 40 years. We all did, now it's time to take our blinds out and "see".

When I decided to leave RC, I never missed not belonging to a Movement. Very soon after I was called to the Tridentine Mass, and I have found everything, from great priests and great theology to make me realize that I did not need Regnum Christi or the Legionaries to start with. The Bible, and the saints are all we need. And probably better bishops too. We have a Pope we can trust.

Interesting ideas on a tough topic. I think, regardless of how things pan out for the Legion, this generation will learn, or relearn, that the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit, and does things a bit differently than the secular world, or secularized Catholics expect. Some orthodox Catholics might be shocked that their views and ideas will not be adopted by the Vatican, the Holy Father and the Holy See in dealing with these organizations.
If the Jesuits are still around after all that's gone on in their order, especially the last 40 years, I expect the LC and RC can survive this. After all, no perfect person founded any order, so all founders are by definition sinners, to some degree or another. Now we have a very extreme case of a sinner, far beyond anything in the past, founding an order. If it was a secular organization, I would expect collapse. But, with God's grace, anything is possible. God sometimes works through the Church, people, and groups in ways that we don't like. Like Jonah, we want to see, even demand to see Nineveh destroyed. But God sees good in people and things we don't, so he shows a mercy we would not. That's why he is God and we are not. Now, we will have a chance perhaps to really understand this so important but often forgotten truth.

To SSPX members and orthodox Catholics in general: If you go far enough right you can end up on the far-left. Or, another way to look at it: If you go far enough right, you fall off the deep end. We all need to remember the Church is not left or right, it is the middle, and if it's not, it's not the true Church.

The Pope and Vatican are left-wing in the sense that they both support the third-world invasion of the West. In this sense, they are enemies of the West and its preservation.

They also support miscegenation and oppose traditionalists like my family, people of pure European blood who wish to keep it that way.

Ratzinger was a "reformer" in Vatican II and condemned the traditionalists who opposed Vatican II.

Need I say more?

I have problems with some of Bishop Williamson's views (e.g. some of his public comments about women) but I think it unwise for the Vatican to insist on litmus tests for historical interpretation. The standard story of the Holocaust is not a Christian dogma and no one should be compelled to affirm it as a condition for full communion with the Church. To do this is to substitute a type of Holocaustianity in place of the deposit of faith that Catholics must affirm.

SSPX Member,

Is your screed just a pardoy of how you view the SSPX? If it is not, then they deserve never to enter the Church.

My wife and I attend Mass at an FSSP church, and have a stronf attachment to the Tridentine Mass. My wife is Black and I am White, so I assume we would be unwelcome in your SSPX chapel.

I am not sure if anyone will comment on this theme, but is SSPX Member's view on miscegenation consistent with the SSPX in general, or is his racist view strictly confined to his own "pure European" blood?

Whoa! "Pure European blood?" It's statements like this, that cause many mainstream Catholics to regard SSPX as a bunch of kooks out of the middle ages. Williamson is a buffoon and while he is certainly entitled to his views, I no more regard him as being worthy of being a "Bishop" than I regard Maciel as being a "saint." I see a lot of posts from members of various "movements" and religious orders knocking the Bishops and Priests of the various Dioceses as not being "holy" enough or "devout" enough, but as I have said, fanaticism is not the same thing as devotion, I'll take my Bishops and Priests from the dioceses, flawed though they may be, over the kooks, self appointed "saints" and other buffoons I see in the various "movements."

Many of the fringe on the radical right wanted Pope Benedict to clean house....he might just take them up on it, and not in the way that they intended.

I live in the archdiocese of Los Angeles and my suggestion is to send the SSPX and LLC guys (those who eventually square themselves away with Pope Benedict XVI), to do missionary work in the schools and parishes of the remote outposts of Los Angeles where children and adults have been unfairly exposed to abominable faith formation.

Someone else before me suggested putting them in parishes and I couldn't agree more.

They also support miscegenation and oppose traditionalists like my family, people of pure European blood who wish to keep it that way.

Need I say more?

No. Not a word more. You've said quite enough. Nobody wants to keep you from your studies of Mein Kampf. Run along!

Ha ha ha very funny. You can be anybody you want on the Internet.

Shame those fell for an obviously fake poster. The SSPX has numerous chapels in Asia, Africa, and South American. Archbishop Lefefbvre founded countless dioceses and schools in French-speaking Africa. The SSPX has a TRADITIONAL Catholic attitude on race, rejecting both Protestant-style exclusiveness and Vatican II subservience to Jewish racism.

The SSPX who are not yet in full communion already have chapels within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. When they fully reconcile, the separatists can go to the local sedevacantist chapels run by the CMRI.

As for the LC, they are also present in our archdiocese ministering at a couple of local campus minister centers and through Hispanic media evangelization with the Hombre Nuevo apostolate. You can hear them in Spanish on Radio Guadalupe 87.7 FM or at one of their many gatherings at the LA Convention Center.

We are also blessed with many -- relatively young ever-faithful -- diocesan priests. Just google "Los Angeles Times and Cassock." Even Karl Keating's e-letter picked up the story of one marvelous pro-life diocesan priest who "wears hip wraparound sunglasses with an old-fashioned cassock."

A very perceptive post especially about the projection of the leader's own penchant for secrecy onto the LC members. Ithink many of the followers would not be aware of the ways this kind of projection works so it is not surprising that they might not accept that as an explanation. But they would feel very dsturbed and uneasy about all of this, and that is a healthy sign.

As for Vatican II and the NO Mass - as a Pope loving, Latin Mass loving, OUr Lady loving Catechism loving Catholic - I thank God for the gift of Vatican II [which as the Pope says, has YET to be understood ] and the NO Mass. For in both the greatest gift of all , Jesus himself, comes to us.

I believe the main problem with the SSPX and with the “good will progressives” is its lack of good understanding of Vatican II. I offer here a link to a good balanced article to help how to faithfully understand and, more important, to live the last ecumenical council: www.saveourchurch.org/afterthecouncil.htm

Will, Marc, and Mark

“SSPX Member” is not a member of the SSPX and likely a Liberal doing a Black Flag operation out to defame the SSPX. The SSPX would denounce and expel someone who held such racialist views.

Sedevacantista scripserat: gens alba conservanda est.

Nusquam in Missa Latina inveniuntur talia verba qualia scripseras. Apud Sanctum Paulum autem leguntur: non est Iudaeus neque Graecus, non est servus neque liber, non est masculus neque femina, omnes enim vos unum estis in Christo Iesu.

[Translation:

Sedevacantist wrote: the white race must be preserved.

Nowhere in the Latin Mass are such words as you have written found. In St. Paul we read: there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.]

I think many of us knew what Sedevacantist's little phrase meant, but were unwilling to give him the satisfaction of a translation.

Of course, thankfuly Roland has been kind enough to render a translation and in so doing, demonstrate his impressive skills as a Latinist! Thank You Roland...

John, Bishop Williamson is undergoing a world wide with-hunt! He needs our prayers during this Persecution by the thought police (forget about the hundreds of children slaughtered and maimed in Gaza just last month)only this matters. Why? Because the enemies of the Church and within Her, want to STOP the reunification of SSPX (ergo tradition) and Holy Mother Church. This was all planned and orchestrated by the Church's enemies. The Pope and Bishop Williamson need our prayers and sacrifices during this Lenten Season. Wilfredo was correct, all this conjecturing is just nonsense, we need your rosaries! Not silly suggestions.

Well, I'm a Rad Trad and whoever wrote this tripe is trolling, pure and simple.

Some people want to believe the evils of the SSPX & FSSP sooooo badly that they create their own "evidence". Nice try! Go back to your deaconness and blessings in the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Kthxbai.

I am tempted to respond in kind, but... what could I do that the Novus Ordo leaders haven't done already? (Exceptions such as the devout portions of LC prove the rule).

Traditionalists certainly have their faults, but the one thing I've come to admire about fellow Rad Trads is that they are truly radical: They refuse to budge on the truth of the superiority of any of the Traditional Rites (Maronite, Melkite, Syro-Malabar, Latin Mass, and any of the 22 others) vs. the Novus Ordo.

And I will bet my next paycheck that if their nice, white "pure blood European" son brings home a devout Traditionalist Black woman, they'll embrace her with open arms while rejecting with horror purebred European Buffy McFeltbanner.

As an Ex-LC, I can only express how absolutely irritating it has been to read page after page of people explaining to "Ex LC/RC members" how we have been brainwashed, received tainted spirituality, need to prayerfully consider what we learned, blah blah blah. God so help me I should ever be so stupid as the poor saps being referred to. Honestly. Cease and desist from the condescending remarks and suggestions. We are fully aware of what we learned, what it meant to us and how to move on.

With full understanding that the Legion has needs for SOME reforms, perhaps some house cleaning is in order at the top, the congregation is not TAINTED! They are not infected, mind-wiped zombies. They are not ROBOTS. Their founder turned out to be a con artist and a good one at that. They will take all the good they can from their history, make any NECESSARY adjustments, move forward with confidence and will always be of great service to the Church.

If you really want to know what I was "brainwashed" with, something I will never undo, were these five things:
Love for CHRIST
Love for Mary
Love for Souls
Love for the Church
Love for the Pope

God Bless

Amen, P'OD EX. In RC all we want to do is, as the slogan goes, Love Christ, Serve People, Build the Church.

I think I will have to give up comboxes for Lent so I can go about fulfilling the mission.

Listen folks, you can be against miscegenation without hating other races or without thinking other races are inferior.

I certainly want my kids to marry within their own race. Guess what? So do all my black friends, Asian friends, and mestizo friends.

This ancient form of kin favoritism [opposing miscegenation - favoring one's own race] was generally accepted before the politically correct nonsense of recent times.

Regarding whites in particular, it is generally unwise for whites to engage in miscegenation simply because the children will not resemble the white parent on account of whites carrying recessive genes.

If you guys keep up this hyper political correctness, maybe we should just merge the ADL and Catholic Church into one entity.

Mark Shea is so anxious to find an anti-semite in every SSPXer that he uncritically will credit even an obvious troller like the one above whom he denounces.

Really, you'd think he have the stones to just come right out and say it: he thinks the Pope was wrong for making any overtures to the SSPX, and he hopes like Hell they stay outside, lest traditional Catholicism become the new paradigm. It would awfully cut into the neo-Cath apologetic business.

Beautifully timed, dude!

I especially love how, when one of your kooks corks off, you guys chalk it up to conspiracy and Black Flag ops. It's always the fault of some shadowy enemy, ain't it? Part of the vast legion of monstrous Novus Ordos who patrol the web, looking for chances to destroy the SSPX by saying something nutty in a combox. It's not that the SSPX just has an unusually high Kook Quotient, is it? Those damn Swedes! Forcing Williamson to make all those nutty remarks. Does their cunning *never* end?

"Miscegenation"! Ha! Beyond parody! I eagerly await the pre-Civil War proof texting on the curse of Canaan and the dangers of soiling our blood with Hamitic taint. This thread is getting more wack with each post!

And the whackier it gets, the happier Shea seems to be.

As Dear Abby would say, "seek professional help."

For one who claims to be oh so proper and respectful and ultramontane, it sure is a hoot to watch Shea delight in every actual or even perceived failing of those notorious "Radtrads" he loves to villify.

Meanwhile, while straining at these SSPX gnats, the many elephants in the living room of the conciliar revolution go strangely unnoticed.

I have been an SSPX supporter since 1989 and can tell you that these priests and general lay folk are nothing like what the media are making them out to be.
They are all regular Catholics, or all colours, races, ages and backgrounds. They are enormously friendly and supportive, if not occassionally cranky and angry.
The care more about someone keeping the faith and preserving the Church's honour and traditions than they care about things like race, ethnic background etc.
Though I knew about Bishop Williamson's views on the holocaust, it was not promoted within the SSPX chapels and I have never seen any revisionist books at their bookstores ever.
I can firmly state that if any devout and curious Catholic of any race attends a SSPX chapel, they will be welcomed. If however they are a modernist or liberal, that is another story.

Well said on Mark Shea, Tom. You probably speak for MANY people who read this site.

I have many friends who were like him -- all of whom now attend the traditional Latin Mass after years of awful novus ordo sap and schmaltz. It takes them a while to get used to the colorful crowd some of us are, but just like any group of militant, most trads are fun, decent folks. Join the party, Shea!

Scott and Ken, knock it off... we all know Radtrads are foaming at the mouth, not welcome at parties, socially backward, conspiratorial cranks!

That's why it's best to view the whole Trad enterprise as some kind of sideshow that hopefully will be very marginal. If we keep trying to tag the movement by the worst aspects of its most marginal members (Williamson, anyone?) we can effectively preempt either the full reconciliation the Pope desires, or at least make the movement persona non grata if they are, regretfully, regularized.

So, knock it off with all this baloney about Trads being Faithful Catholics. Shea says they aren't, and the principle is, "Sheavius locutus est, causa finita."

PO'D EX LC illustrates a natural human response to the situation Legionaries and RC members have been put in, and I don't want to seem (or even be) cruel, BUT:

It's a little bit unseemly to take this particular moment, when an organization's internal disgrace has only just begun to come to light--we don't even know if Maciel's mamacitas had attained the age of consent--to start hurling stones at the rest of the Church. Some of us have interacted with the Legion and RC for many, many years; have cooperated with them where possible for the common good of souls; have welcomed their many good works while feeling profound discomfort about their apparent internal culture. But we minded our own business, figuring that this was simply another vocation we didn't understand.

We were wrong. We were being too charitable, or falsely charitable. There was something evil and sick at the top, and at the top of a profoundly top-down organization. Spend 30 years trying to conform your will to that of the Founder, then find out that the Founder is a lying pedophile... It really ought to make you step back and think: "What else was I wrong about?" "How much of Maciel's legacy was the result of his pedophilia and pathological need to dominate and exploit the weak?"

It won't be easy and it won't fun. I've written on these pages before how I myself was taken in by a sociopath, and have spent the last couple of years sorting out the dozens, even hundreds of lies I was told. It's a process of purification, akin (in a small way) to what Germans went through after World War II, what citizens of the Eastern Bloc experienced in the 80s.

It's a process anyone who was formed by the Legionaries needs to go through. It will bumpy and fitful, and people will backslide. (I've heard that there are already people on the Internet trying justify Maciel's procreative apostolate by saying he had a brain operation or something. Tell it to the boys he molested in the 50s.)

I'll pray for you, PO'D EX LC, and I don't mean that in the "screw you" sense. I've walked in your shoes, and they aren't comfortable. I wish you all the best, and suggest you find another, quite different spiritual home... like maybe the nearest Latin Mass, or chapter of Communion and Liberation. Heck, even a guitar-banging Charismatic apostolate might be better for you right now than sifting through the ruins of the organization from which you urgently need a stronger sense of detachment. God bless you!

NPR was playing tapes yesterday of Williamson saying he believed Sept 11 was a CIA/US government inside job. Anyone else hear this? What a nutjob!

David -- Are you from Louisiana? I went to college in New Orleans and David Duke of the KKK used to say the exact same thing on local talk shows. LOL! Hey, wait a minute....

Whoever is monitoring these comments needs to check the "Rules for Comments" rubrics because there seems to be a fair amount of nastiness getting through. I won't throw out any latin or words I hope nobody can understand. This story obviously strikes a chord in a lot of people from many different points of view. I'm a little saddened by the disunity on display frankly and since being Catholic, I don't have a ready biblical passage to whip out like my protestant friends do, I can remember one or two nuggets from the Good Book and the one that comes to mind about this story and the many responses is "Jesus Wept."

Well, There has been a lot of words and emotion flying, and a few people got upset. Some people who regard themselves as very pious and righteous have taken offense. Speaking as a regular, ordinary, less than devout Catholic, I can only say, welcome to reality. You can keep your personality cults. All this adulation of a man who turned out to be a pervert and a fraud. Some LC people say it's none of our business. OK, fine stay out of our dioceses then and stop preying on the emotionally and intellectually weak.

As somebody who was an altar boy in the old Latin Rite and who also grew up on the streets of Baltimore, I can recognize a con when I see it, and this whole schtick with Maciel was a big con. Archbishop O'Brien hit the nail on the head. We don't need any "parallel churches." "Living Saint" indeed. Another Bernie Madoff, except a 14 karat pervert in addition to being a fraud.

Clara, the first commenter, said it best. The MSM does a good enough job with ham-handed treatment of Catholic news, we ought to expect better from InsideCatholic.com

Expecting the sons of St. Philip to clean up this mess seems to me to be a recipe for disaster. I love the Oratorians, but there are less than 1000 Fathers and Brothers worldwide. The Oratorian call is very much focused on the individual, much as St. Philip himself was. A mass infusion of people used to a stricter rule would, IMHO, be crippling to the Oratorian charism. (Something similar, though on a much smaller scale, happened in 19th century England, involving Venerable Newman new Oratory and Fr. Faber's "Brothers of the Will of God". Faber decided that his newly founded community should join the even-more-newly-founded English Oratory. While the Birmingham and London Oratories survived, it led to lots of problems, which lasted for a long time.)

Scott and Ken, knock it off... we all know Radtrads are foaming at the mouth, not welcome at parties, socially backward, conspiratorial cranks!

RadTrad, yeah. But not all Traditionalists are RadTrads.

That's why it's best to view the whole Trad enterprise as some kind of sideshow that hopefully will be very marginal.

See, dude: this is how you guys get your reputation for paranoid nastiness. As I've made clear repeatedly I *support* Benedict's efforts to reconcile with the SSPX, precisely *because* I hope that Traditionalists who are *not* paranoid, anti-semitic, nasty kooks with a chip on their shoulder and a bizarre conspiracy theory or wack racist dogma will bring their very valuable gifts back into the fold of the Church and help her reclaim her rightful patrimony of worship. I don't want *those* guys marginalized. I want them front and center showing the Church the beauty of the liturgy.

If we keep trying to tag the movement by the worst aspects of its most marginal members (Williamson, anyone?) we can effectively preempt either the full reconciliation the Pope desires, or at least make the movement persona non grata if they are, regretfully, regularized.

I don't have to do anything to make the kooks in the SSPX persona non grata. Everytime they open their mouths they do it quite nicely. My hope is that, as the SSPX moves closer to reconciliation with the Church, the good and honest people who are involved because they just want to worship God will see the difference between Holy Church and the nuts like Williamson and the racists on this thread and will return to the fold, bringing with them the treasures of our heritage that they rightly love.

So, knock it off with all this baloney about Trads being Faithful Catholics. Shea says they aren't, and the principle is, "Sheavius locutus est, causa finita."

Shea says nothing of the kind. There are lots of Trads who have no interest in paranoid conspiracy theories, Jew-baiting, racist nuttery, vicious denunciations of all Novus Ordo Catholics as heretical half-breeds, rejection of the Council and of the teaching of the Church, as well as general kookiness. I firmly hope that Pope Benedict is able to welcome them into the fold ASAP--and that those who do drink from the poisoned wells I just noted will repent and join them as well.

Some of the comments on this thread make excellent points. I was indeed speaking tongue in cheek when I proposed amalgamating the SSPX and LC--it was less a practical suggestion than a kind of Dantesque punishment for the people who embody the worst traits in each group. Which, handily enough, popped up in the comment thread:

1) Dead-ender dedication to the soul-numbing techniques of Fr. Maciel as an end in the themselves. (We obey because we're obedient which helps us obey. This is the song that does not end...)Anyone who really, REALLY loves this kind of mind-control should join the Scientologists.

2) Tantrum Trads: People who, if you agree with them 80%, 90% or (worst of ALL) 95%, will treat you with contempt -- like bratty, coquettish girls alternately flirting with and abusing a waiter at Galatoire's.

I KNOW that the SSPX is concerned with more than the Mass. It has an extensive brief against the Church's development of doctrine on religious liberty. Know that, read books about it, have written about.

And I am not impressed. Just last night, I had someone insisting to me that the entire crisis over Humanae Vitae, and all that flowed from it, stemmed from... drumroll please...

...the Church's renunciation of the theoretical right of (now non-existent) Catholic monarchs to punish and repress heretics in some fantasy state of the future.

Y'all will just have to do better than that. You'll have to leave behind people like John Vennari who claim that the Novus Ordo is a liturgy for a new religion that worships man, and leave behind the conspiracy theorists and sullen schism-lovers who have come to enjoy the frisson of spiritual pride they get from condemning popes for heresy.

Ironically, I think the best thing that could happen to the cause of real Tradition would be the incorporation of the SSPX into the mainstream of religious orders -- precisely because the group would lose its curious outlaw "legitimacy," and become just one more group with distinctive theological opinions... like the reconciled Feeneyites, or Dominicans who hold really firmly to their order's traditional teaching on Grace and secretly believe that the Jesuit (Molinist) theory is heretical. That loss of "specialness," of a gnostic claim to being purer than the Church and more Catholic than the pope, is what's really (now, after Summorum Pontificum) holding back certain people among the SSPX from working with Rome. Happily, I think the leadership of that order values catholicity highly enough to overcome this prideful temptation. At any rate, I hope and pray that's true.

Regarding this sentence:
Its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, remains above moral reproach

How can you possibly say this, Mr. Zmirak? He died excommunicated, for goodness sake.

To me, to say that he "remains above moral reproach" is a smack in the face to every FSSP member who took the harder path of obedience and stayed in the Church.

And to say something like that so casually, as if it is to be taken for granted, Mr. Zmirak, I cannot accept.

We can and should pray for his soul, but he did a lot of things that deserve moral reproach. Ordination against the will of the Holy Father is something that deserves moral reproach.

From London, UK, 2/26/09


The Holy Father and my Superior, Bishop Bernard Fellay, have requested that I reconsider the remarks I made on Swedish television four months ago, because their consequences have been so heavy.

Observing these consequences I can truthfully say that I regret having made such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them.

On Swedish television I gave only the opinion (..."I believe"..."I believe"...) of a non-historian, an opinion formed 20 years ago on the basis of evidence then available and rarely expressed in public since. However, the events of recent weeks and the advice of senior members of the Society of St. Pius X have persuaded me of my responsibility for much distress caused. To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said before God I apologise.

As the Holy Father has said, every act of injust violence against one man hurts all mankind.

+Richard Williamson

Excellent article! As one who was former RC (along with my wife) who now is a self-proclaimed traddy (Oh no. Mark Shea is going to explode again!!!) who has frequented SSPX chapels rather than subject my family to proximate occasions of sin at Novus Ordo Masses while traveling, I relate to this article big time!

Excellent stuff John! Keep up the good work. Your previous L of C and RC article was right on.

What are the Mark Sheas of the world going to do when the Pope canonically regularizes the SSPX? It probably won't be pretty to watch.

Interesting who is "more Catholic than the Pope" now, huh?

John, seriously. Excellent stuff!

What are the Mark Sheas of the world going to do when the Pope canonically regularizes the SSPX?

Be perfectly content. What will Brian do when he realizes he is now stuck in the same church with all us Paul VI rite half-breeds who are not pure?

...nailed it.

I'm one who almost always attends the Novus Ordo Mass celebrated in the vernacular. That said, I believe all Catholics owe a great debt of gratitude to the SSPX in general as well as Bishop Williamson in particular. They have done far more than just express an extensive brief against the Church's development of doctrine on religous liberty. This is a cavalier dismissal which trivializes the real wisdom of the SSPX.

While the SSPX, it's founder, it's leaders, and it's adherents may not be perfect (Who is in this world?) they have preserved the ancient traditions of the Church as no one else has from what I can tell. Tradition, as we know, has always been a pillar of the Church. It has been much maligned while being marginalized by things like the'hermeneutics of continuity'. I suspect the Church's liturgies and sacraments didn't magically begin providing prevenient grace and sanctifying grace after 1962. Something tells me that God found Himself in the lives of our predecessors. Who knows, maybe He didn't mind those days so much. The SSPX has continued to be assaulted by the world at large and by fellow Catholics. Yet they've remained stalwart. It seems a little admiration is in order here.

We, it could be said, find ourselves in an era where the Church is kind of irrelevant. Sometimes it seems the Church is just struggling for air. People react differently when their survival is at stake. Bishop Williamson, it seems to me, has taken a choleric approach and said, in effect, "The heck with all you haters. I love my Church which has existed for thousands of years and will still be here when all of y'all are dead and gone." What's so wrong about that? Rather than condemn him for certain indiscretions, why don't we take a cue from him? It can't hurt.

John Z.'s post was right on the mark!

I found this site-
http://fringewatcher.blogspot.com/
and searched on Williamson, found-
Anti-Semitism - "Jewish conspiracy obsessed" would be putting it mildly. The best documentation is a pro-Williamson outline of his pronouncements provided originally by the Feeneyite British racial nationalist Tom Sparks. It includes the bishop's assertions that "not one Jew killed in the gas chambers" and that Hitler was "liberating Germany from [Jewish] control." See: Thomas Sparks Quotes SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson On "The Jews". Christopher Blosser addresses these same concerns (and provides a number of related links) on his blog. During his tenure as rector at the seminary in Winona, he had the reading shelves stocked with "holocaust revisionist" literature like The Revisionist and The Barnes Review as well as neo-Nazi Ernst Zündel's Power Report.

Racialist views - Bish. Williamson recommends the racialist South African Aida Parker Newsletter in his September 1, 2002 newsletter. His excessive concern for the "white race" is discussed in his November 2005 newsletter. When at Winona the bishop displayed copies of The David Duke Report, put out by the well-known American white supremacist leader.

Oklahoma Bombing Conspiracy Theory - Touched on in his May 5, 1995 newsletter; Bish. Williamson repeatedly stated in his sermons that the Oklahoma bombing was secretly carried out by the US government. (This theme would be replayed in his 9/11 conspiracy theories.) The Oklahoma theory appears again in February 1, 1997.

His apology notwithstanding, it looks like he's more than just a non-historian with an, um, unconventional view about one subject -- the holocaust -- but someone with a longtime history of defending racist and conspiracy thories. Is it at all possible that the SSPX made him a bishop without knowing his longheld views?

If someone can convince me that this website is incorrect or the SSPX does not typically condone these views, I'm open and willing to be convinced.

John Z: "You'll have to leave behind people like John Vennari who claim that the Novus Ordo is a liturgy for a new religion that worships man..."

Don't just toss that out there without defending the novus ordo. Explain why the Mass was changed. Explain why it the novus ordo was written primarily by Archbishop Bugnini with the consultation of several Protestant ministers. Explain why Bugnini was exiled to Iraq at the time many suspected him of being a Freemason. Explain why the novus ordo stole several dozen things from Anglican and Lutheran services, such as the vernacular, facing the people instead of God, etc. Explain why you believe the novus ordo is so great even though the 75 percent attendance rate during the 1962 missal usage has dropped to a third of that in the States and about 2 percent in places like France.

If one is going to be a cheerleader for the novus ordo, then I want to hear why that liturgy is good, not why the traditional Latin Mass (the one all the saints recognize) does not get your attendance because you can't get along with a few "rad trads."

Ken,

There's really no point in looking silly by attributing to me all sorts of opinions that weren't implied in what I wrote. I know that many of my fellow Trads are twitchy and gunshy for a reason, but really -- we all need to get out of the habit of hearing ONE assertion we disagree with or don't understand, then launching into a rant.

I agree with most of Michael Davies' critiques of the Novus Ordo, as I've written many times and in many places. Like Michael Davies, I don't agree with labeling a sacramental form accepted by the Vicar of Christ as implicitly heretical. I DO attend the Traditional Mass whenever possible, or an Eastern rite. I DIDN'T refuse to attend papal Masses at the Vatican because I regarded them as rites of apostasy cooked up the synagogue of Satan. Call me a mushy moderate, if you want. You'd actually be the first!

I started this thought over at Mark's, but while Zmirak is obviously being humorous here, the LC/Jesuit thing actually hits an important point in the Church's oversight of Orders. The Church goes through periods of differing attitudes about Orders. Sometimes, as today, there seems to be a tone of encouraging new movements. At others, the Church pulls in the reins and says, "Let's cool it on new foundations unless they really have a purpose." Same as with new devotions.

Look at the Fraternity of St. John that used to be in PA. When I first saw them on _Mother Angelica Live_ 10 years ago or so, I was only starting to understand all the technicalities. They seemed cool, and they were talking about "all the wonderful new Traditional Mass-only Orders." However, as they were former SSPXers, I didn't understand why we needed *another* order for former SSPXers when the Fraternity of St. Peter already existed.

Several years after that, I heard of the stories that they'd all been kicked out of the SSPX for being homosexual, and then another year or two went by before the group was dissolved, and the bishop who was supporting them resigned.

Similarly, it now seems that the main purpose of the LC/RC movement is not to promote any really unique spirituality. The only things that make it "unique" are the approach to criticism of the Order and the Church (that itself is similar to the official policy of the KofC), and the allegedly "cult-like" practices regarding recruitment and training.

Most of what I've read about RC confuses me as to how it's different from Opus Dei.

Ever since Vatican II, the two Carmels have been considering some kind of merger. OCD's are hardly "discalced" anymore, and OCarm's have adopted Teresian spirituality as their own.

The idea that LC, in its root spirituality, is redundant to the Society of Jesus (or other Ignatian orders that may have cropped up) may not be without merit.

Lastly, let's not lump all Jesuits in the same boat. Remember that, when the Vatican issued the ban on ordination of active homosexuals or anyone who suppported the gay rights lifestyle/movement, the Jesuits were having their being General Congress or whatever. The African Jesuits wondered why we needed such a document at all; it seemed so obvious. The European Jesuits blamed it on the overly conservative and prudish Americans. The American Jesuits said that, as the document gave no room for exceptions, it was not properly "pastoral," and they were going to just ignore it completely.

What about a merger with Opus Dei? They are both conservative lay groups and I think they will complement each other nicely.