If the SSPX keeps pumping blood into this false Rome, in a generation or two, unless God intervenes, the Catholic religion is dead.
Everyone on here has their particular "gift" to the Traditional Catholic community -- a "thesis" or single thought that they would like 100% of Catholics to consider.
Maybe I should modify the site so that each person can put in their 1-paragraph "summary" of their view of the Crisis...
Anyhow, here's mine!
We have to trust in God. God is in control; we don't need to get all excited. We need to do our best: keep the faith, pray, hope, and keep trying to convert those in Rome, even if it seems hopeless. That is how the saints acted.
We're not supposed to get frustrated and impatient. Sedevacantism strikes me as a clear-cut, quick & easy solution; one that appeals to the frustrated and/or impatient.
I'm a big picture person. I don't get lost in details. I'm not the type to read "cuм Ex Apostolatus Officio", then slam it down and say, "We have an impostor, not a pope!"
That is because I have an tendency to stability, loyalty, and circuмspection. I consider all the various angles, and keep the big picture before me always. I didn't side with the SSPX for just one or two reasons, and I'm sure not going to leave it for one or two reasons.
The way I see it (after attending Seminary for 3 1/3 years, reading literally hundreds of books, many of which were saints biographies, etc.), a sedevacantist and I could engage in the same Catholic practices, with only one difference between us. I don't deny the current Pope, while he does. Do you REALLY think God is going to hold it against ANY Catholic if they maintain prayer for the pope, and acknowledge his papacy? Let's see, we're CATHOLIC. Newsflash! Devotion to the Pope is a Catholic thing going back millenia, nevermind centuries. You think God will hold it against any of us, if we stick to traditional Catholic dogma, practices, morality, the timeless Traditional Latin Mass, etc., but fail to denounce the pope personally? Come on!
Just for starters, none of our exemplars -- the Saints -- were sedevacantist. We don't have any saints whose claim to fame was "seeing through the heretic" and being so "zealous for the purity of the Faith" that they denounced the man who the world held to be Pope. It simply isn't a Catholic virtue.
Furthermore, I believe that if you consider the SSPX and/or the 1962 Mass "evil", you are dangerously close to blasphemy, if you haven't already crossed the line. Because you're essentially saying that the Catholic religion has been routed, destroyed, defeated, mortally wounded by the devil. In other words, the gates have hell have prevailed against the Church. You know, the opposite of what Jesus Christ promised.
Yes, a man can hold his breath for 2 minutes, 5 minutes if he's really good, but 3 hours?
The Church can survive without a Pope for a few weeks, maybe even a few months... but 40+ years? 100+ years? That's called a F-A-I-L-U-R-E of Christ's promise to be with His Church till the end of time; that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Unless the General Judgment is this Sunday, something's wrong with that scenario. When the last Pope dies, the Angels sent to gather the elect have already packed their lunches and are pulling out of their driveways, headed for earth. How could there be a 40+ year delay?
Matthew