If the US Superior weren't completely on board with the agenda, he wouldn't be a superior.

I know of several +Williamson-era priests who are very talented, borderline brilliant, who are relegated to obscurity by the SSPX, some of them reporting to men who hadn't been ordained more than 2 or 3 years and who don't hold a candle to them in terms of experience, wisdom, intellect, or any other quality ... because these new ones have been properly indoctrinated as yes-men, whereas the former still have their anti-Conciliar attitudes about them.  I don't mention names only because I don't want to put them in "hot water" with the SSPX, but if I did mention them, all here would agree with me about their talents.

Fr. Peter Scott comes to mind.

He's been stationed in Nigeria for several years.  Yes, he is doing good work for souls there, yet his particular talent for succinct moral theology articles is going largely unused.  

Yes, you are right.

https://asccsanford.org/

The question is:  Who is doing the confirmations?

Yes, he's one of those whom I had in mind.  Brilliant man ... though I don't agree with him on everything. 

Another is Fr. Thierry Gaudray (France).

He was professor of Ascetical and Mystical Theology, Gregorian Chant, and Dogma II at Winona when I was there.

He was one of the 7 French Deans who protested the 2017 acceptance by the SSPX of Cardinal Muller's marriage guidelines.  He was demoted for his efforts.

He also refused to attend the visit of Cardinal Brandmuller (RIP) to the Flavigny seminary, which earned him a ticket to Menzingen.

And he also made a written protest to Bishop Fellay's response to the Letter of the Three Bishops, which also earned him a ticket to Menzingen.

Yet for all that, he told me that the Resistance was a scandal, to be running around without superiors (this was in about 2016 or so), and to quit contacting him. 


Back to Fr. Peter Scott, he told me he agreed with very little in my book.

But for all that, I felt those protestations were acts of self-defense, and there were still some suppressed sympathies there.

Obviously, Menzingen felt the same.




PS: If there's a saint in the SSPX, it might be this man^^^

Yet for all that, he told me that the Resistance was a scandal, to be running around without superiors (this was in about 2016 or so), and back to Fr. Peter Scott, he told me he agreed with very little in my book.

But for all that, I felt those protestations were acts of self-defense, and there were still some suppressed sympathies there.

Right, there are reasons they didn't go with the Resistance.  I do believe that part of it has to do with the comfort of being in a larger organization.  Imagine an older priest now setting out on his own without any real means of support, etc.  Also, had they told you they agreed with your book and with the Resistance, and this got back to the SSPX, they'd be sent packing quickly.

What I'm referring to is that if you hear them speak about various issues, the Conciliar Church, the New Mass, Modernism, etc. ... you will hear a completely different tone than what the new generations of priests have.  There's something about the way they THINK about the Crisis that is unacceptable to the neo-SSPX.

Right, there are reasons they didn't go with the Resistance.  I do believe that part of it has to do with the comfort of being in a larger organization. 

 [...]

There's something about the way they THINK about the Crisis that is unacceptable to the neo-SSPX.

On the first topic, yes, I recall Fr. Doran telling another priest I knew that he was not comfortable with the resistance, because he was never really comfortable with being on the fringe (i.e., the old serpent of legalism was secretly gnawing away at him, and it ended with him joining the conciliar Maronite rite).

On the second topic, yes, and that's why Menzingen sends such priests to places where they can exert little influence.

I suspect that there's an interplay of concerns, one being that of the discomfort with not being part of a larger organization, including practical concerns about who's going to provide for their material needs, or health issues (as many of the "old guard" are getting up there in years), which then feeds into this notion of not being a vagans priest, the former leading to rationalization in terms of the latter.  In essence, it would take a "red light" scenario for them to leave.  As long as they consider it to be a "yellow light" situation, they feel they can do more good for souls where they're at, not have to worry about their material needs, etc.  Until it gets to the point of creating a crisis for their own conscience, they don't feel enough of an incentive to leave.  So, for instance, a priest who harbored doubts about NO orders might be pushed to the brink by being stationed in the same priory as an NO priest who had not been conditionally ordained.  But short of something like that, they just don't see the urgency of parting ways with SSPX.

So this would explain why they haven't actually broken with SSPX.  What I'm more focused on here is that they do think differently about the Crisis than the younger generations, and for that reason they're kept out of positions from which they might exert any influence (priors, seminary professors, superiors, etc.), whereas ordinarily these more experienced priests are the ones you would WANT to have influencing and guiding the younger ones.

What does this mean?

Good question.  And I'm not even sure who said what, since both Bishop Williamson and St. Francis de Sales are cited.