He is a die-hard anti-Resistance, if not a flaming accordista.

He caused a lot of trouble in Louisiana a few years ago, which helped to create a flourishing Resistance there. That should give you some idea.

Fr. Portugal was so zealous in his persecution of the Resistance, and was causing such trouble for the SSPX in that region, that his Prior (Fr. Zendejas) had to rein him in and take him to task. After that, Fr. Portugal moderated his behavior and rhetoric somewhat.

He was stationed in the Houston, TX priory for a few years. I don't know where he is now. But during those few years, a friend related to me something that Fr. Portugal said when he heard that I had been at a Mission Pilgrimage and he didn't know it. Fr. Portugal told that friend that he wanted to "kick my butt" and he wished he had known it was me while I was still there.

The next year, at the Mission Pilgrimage in San Antonio, we were both there again and this time he knew it. Did he confront me? Did he say anything to me? Not at all. I was right up in the front, helping lead the Chant as usual, and he looked my direction many times. But never a word between us.

In fact, such behavior seems to be a pattern with anti-Resistance types. They talk about you behind your back, call you names ("rebel", "disobedient", "bad Catholic", etc.) but when you're around, they don't say a thing.

Not to get off topic, but the same thing happened at my old SSPX chapel in San Antonio. A small group of people wrote letters to Fr. Rostand complaining about me and my wife, they talked about us behind our backs, and hassled people who attended BOTH the SSPX chapel and the Resistance chapel (St. Dominic's). But when I'm around -- I, who can take apart their ridiculous arguments like a cheap watch -- they are cowardly and silent. Which figures, if you think about it.

I see that pattern again and again. I just want to slap them and say, "Leave the intellectual little ones alone. Pick on someone your own size. How about you throw your ridiculous arguments at me and see what happens, eh?"

But to get back to Fr. Portugal, I can say that he was formed under +Williamson exclusively (he was ordained in 2001), and so I'm disappointed at his current neo-SSPX, anti-Resistance leanings. He ought to know better.

Fr. Bob at your local Novus Ordo parish is a flaming Modernist, but at least he wasn't formed at a Traditional seminary, and certainly not by Bp. Williamson! "To him who was given much, much shall be expected..." The Parable of the Ten Talents comes to mind.


Matthew

P.S. I would be grateful if one could tell me what priory he's at so that I can send him a coconut. (It's an inside joke between us. Hopefully he remembers...)

Eh... no. I can only imagine that you are implying his head is like to that of a coconut or that it is to hit him with? Absolutely not! It is actually a reference to a term he used for my siblings and I. You are welcome to speculate what the coconut means and maybe another poster here might know and give the answer (probably he/she was called the same thing?). However, it would no longer be an "inside" joke if you were told plainly, right? Unless you have our sense of humor, most would probably take offence with it...