Amen, Lover of Truth.  You said that in a more reasonable and genuinely caring way than I usually do ( okay, than I ever do ).  The only problem is that you quoted the Dimond Bros.  When they speak about the sedevacantist position, exclusive of their Feeneyite rhetoric, they are accurate.  But we don't need to be associated with those who, shall we say, come off as fanatical.  People already assume sedevacantists are fanatical.  If they go on Michael Dimond's website and hear him calling literally every public figure associated with the traditional movement heretics, including other sedes, it may make them run screaming.

I'll pray that Matthew hears you.  I think the SSPX breeds a certain type of personality.  It makes the crisis in the Church seem grave, but not urgent.  They act as if we can wait indefinitely for the situation to resolve itself, but who is going to resolve it if not the bishops of SSPX, who know very well that this is a Freemasonic takeover?  How can you have "dialogues" with die-hard Freemasons?  And for those who say this is just "conspiracy" and not theological fact, your own hero, Abp. Lefebvre, said the same thing, that Freemasons have usurped the structures.

I wonder if there is a correlation between having a large family and being in the SSPX.  It seems that as John Lane's family grew he switched from being a hard-line sedevacantist to defending the una cuм.  The larger your family is, the more you want a good life for your kids -- and the more you want a good life for your kids, the harder it will be to face the grim reality of our apostate age.  Of course I know many large Catholic families are sedevacantist.

How can I put this.  Sometimes it seems to me that the SSPX superficially uphold traditional Catholic rules, such as the family structure and the education of children ( while adding their own like the strict dress code which semi-Jansenistically goes beyond the pre-VII Church ), while ignoring that there is a problem with their theological stance.  They act as if the victory has already been won and that having a traditional Mass means everything has gone back to normal.  This makes them seem a bit like this: 

EVERYTHING IS FINE DADDY IS AT WORK MOMMY IS IN THE KITCHEN NOTHING WRONG HERE



But everything is not fine.  There is more to the crisis than the "Latin is Lovely" club or the "No Pants on Women" club would have you believe.  I am totally unconvinced by the elaborate Masses of SSPX, their showy ordinations and consecrations, or the Lourdes procession.  It feels like window-dressing to me, like it is playing off nostalgia for the FEEL of the pre-VII Church, but it doesn't have the SPIRIT.  We all want the ornate cathdrals and the glorious reign of Christ on Earth but not at the expense of His Truth! 

When I look at SSPX retreats and socials it just feels off to me, self-congratulatory, like "We're all in dresses and suits, look at all the pretty young couples, look at all the babies, we're flourishing."  Something is wrong underneath this idyllic surface.  It's like their desire for normalcy and some Catholic never-never land is so strong that those in SSPX don't understand or want to understand that GOD is being offended in the Novus Ordo by the man they call Pope.  He is also being offended by the very assumption of SSPX that it is HIS Church that has failed to this extent.  It's not and it cannot be. 

It's not about having Solemn High Masses with swinging censers and beautiful music.  It's about keeping the dogmas intact.  SSPX has the masses; sedevacantists have the dogmas.  Keep in mind that there have been other times in history where the Church has gone into the catacombs and been forced to go without the cozy trappings, the Vespers services, the Blessed Sacrament available for worship 24 hours a day, the armies of nuns teaching children, the great composers penning archangelic trumpet fanfares... None of this was possible under Henry VIII or during the Arian crisis, where priests had to serve Mass in private homes.  It is not your RIGHT to have these beautiful Masses and things are not normal just because you have them.  If the faith is not there, if the dogmas are not there, celebrating these glorious Masses can even be like putting lipstick on a corpse, to use one of my harsh metaphors. 

Of course I'm mostly speaking of the French FSSPX, who must have money to burn.  I've heard the Masses here are pretty lousy.

As I always say, each SSPX-er is a lost sedevacantist -- so far anyway.  One wrong move from Bp. Fellay and people will wake up, they'll start hemorrhaging from SSPX.  Then it will be time for the glorious Masses and the pilgrimages and processions and Vespers.  More importantly, it will be time to elect a Pope.

A Blessed First Friday to you all.

How can I put this.  Sometimes it seems to me that the SSPX superficially uphold traditional Catholic rules, such as the family structure and the education of children ( while adding their own like the strict dress code which semi-Jansenistically goes beyond the pre-VII Church ), while ignoring that there is a problem with their theological stance.  They act as if the victory has already been won and that having a traditional Mass means everything has gone back to normal.

But everything is not fine.  There is more to the crisis than the "Latin is Lovely" club or the "No Pants on Women" club would have you believe.  I am totally unconvinced by the elaborate Masses of SSPX, their showy ordinations and consecrations, or the Lourdes procession.  It feels like window-dressing to me, like it is playing off nostalgia for the FEEL of the pre-VII Church, but it doesn't have the SPIRIT.  We all want the ornate cathdrals and the glorious reign of Christ on Earth but not at the expense of His Truth!  

When I look at SSPX retreats and socials it just feels off to me, self-congratulatory, like "We're all in dresses and suits, look at all the pretty young couples, look at all the babies, we're flourishing."  Something is wrong underneath this idyllic surface.   It's like their desire for normalcy and some Catholic never-never land is so strong that those in SSPX don't understand or want to understand that GOD is being offended in the Novus Ordo by the man they call Pope.   He is also being offended by the very assumption of SSPX that it is HIS Church that has failed to this extent.  It's not and it cannot be.  

It's not about having Solemn High Masses with swinging censers and beautiful music.  It's about keeping the dogmas intact.  SSPX has the masses; sedevacantists have the dogmas.  Keep in mind that there have been other times in history where the Church has gone into the catacombs and been forced to go without the cozy trappings, the Vespers services, the Blessed Sacrament available for worship 24 hours a day, the armies of nuns teaching children, the great composers penning archangelic trumpet fanfares... None of this was possible under Henry VIII or during the Arian crisis, where priests had to serve Mass in private homes.  It is not your RIGHT to have these beautiful Masses and things are not normal just because you have them.  If the faith is not there, if the dogmas are not there, celebrating these glorious Masses can even be like putting lipstick on a corpse, to use one of my harsh metaphors.  

Of course I'm mostly speaking of the French FSSPX, who must have money to burn.  I've heard the Masses here are pretty lousy.

As I always say, each SSPX-er is a lost sedevacantist -- so far anyway.  One wrong move from Bp. Fellay and people will wake up, they'll start hemorrhaging from SSPX.  Then it will be time for the glorious Masses and the pilgrimages and processions and Vespers.  More importantly, it will be time to elect a Pope.

A Blessed First Friday to you all.

If you would replace "SSPX" with "Indult" I would agree with you completely.

You seem to have the SSPX mixed up with the Indult. The Indult normally gets criticized as being all about "smells and bells" appearances, and pretending it's the 1950's.

Sedevacantist chapels are far from perfect, my dear Elizabeth.  As I wrote it is the SSPX that shoots for surface perfection.  The SSPX have the pretty families and picnics.  We have worn-out priests who have to fly around the country and barely get any sleep, eccentrics like Joseph "The Prophet" Saraceno -- who goes to my chapel, Matthew knows him -- and dwindling numbers.  We have the troubles at SGG.  We have New Age-sympathizing nuns deserting CMRI.  In France, where FSSPX is HUGE, most likely because the French misguidedly believe they must follow their countryman Apb. Lefebvre, it is even worse.  The few sedevacantists there are like specks of dust being shed from the FSSPX comet.  They are truly marginalized and made to appear ridiculous.

Sedevacantists are a ragtag mess.  No one would want to be one if you judged us by our adherents.  But when you go to Church it is not your fellows in the pews that you are honoring with your presence; it is God.  The sedevacantist position, you see, happens to be the correct one theologically.  That is all this is really about.

****
 
I can tell you one thing, if Matthew brought his family to my sedevacantist chapel I would certainly be less lonely, as he is more intelligent than most sedes on the cօռspιʀαcιҽs and Jєωs and all of that.  I always say we need a sedevacantist Bishop Williamson.  Sedes are politically naive in my opinion, at least in America.

I don't blame or hate those in SSPX or even Novus Ordo.  If it took Thomas Droleskey until the age of 55 or 56 to become sedevacantist, how much more can I expect from others?  It's funny how everyone thinks we have made a "religion" out of our position, but the truth is, our position IS the Catholic religion, and that is why we are so passionate about it.  Droleskey writes about how he was repelled by the fervor of sedevacantists before becoming one; and now he himself is the most perfervid of sedevacantists with lessening readership, repelling everybody just as he used to be repelled.  

Being a sedevacantist is like seeing a UFO.  You want people to know they really exist.  So you end up talking until you're blue in the face, trying to convince everyone, and of course people stare at you as if you're a lunatic.  They have to see one themselves to believe it, and then the shoe is on the other foot and THEY'RE the lunatic.

You must be hit with the grace of God before becoming a sedevacantist.  Probably never once in the last thirty-odd years has someone said "You know what, Bob, you're right -- SSPX is schizophrenic and I'm going to be a sede!"  No one has ever been converted through any other individual.  God has to give them the grace directly from Himself.  But once you know the truth, it can be hard to shut up about it.  

We have worn-out priests who have to fly around the country and barely get any sleep, eccentrics like Joseph "The Prophet" Saraceno -- who goes to my chapel, Matthew knows him -- and dwindling numbers.

Don't associate me with Joseph Saraceno too much now... he put me on his e-mail list, and I got to read some of his insanity. That's all.

He most recently said he was Elias, and that God treated him like a Father! He predicted the End of Time to occur on Pentecost Sunday, 2009. The man is a few beers short of a six pack. His elevator doesn't go to the top floor. He's a few bricks short of a load. He's not operating on all eight cylinders. He's a few french fries short of a Happy Meal.

Matthew

That last comment was about Joseph Saraceno by the way.  I just reread your comment and this finally registered:

"He most recently said he was Elias, and that God treated him like a Father!"

Well, now you have gotten me scared.  I figured him for one of those who thought he was one of the two witnesses in the Apocalypse, but the second part of your statement is truly terrifying.  Did you really mean to say Father and not son?  Please tell me that is a typing mistake.

It is worth mentioning that he lacks any and all reverence for the Virgin Mary, being one of those, like a Protestant, who thinks she is lesser than all of the male saints and just a woman.  Does that tell you something?   Does that sound like Elias to you?

I'm not offended.  I recognize a certain kindness in your (willful?) resistance to the obvious truth.

Really?  So is it the Church or Christ who is lying when we take communion in one species, since Christ said we must eat His body AND drink His blood?  ( But only in one place, just as it is only in one place that He says you must be born again of water AND spirit, when elsewhere He just says spirit. )

Or do you somehow have a blind spot that makes you interpret Scripture literally like a Protestant, not accepting the workings of the Holy Ghost through the Magisterium over time as it clarifies doctrine?  

You seem to have some Protestants in your family; perhaps you need to root out the infection in your blood.  The best way to do that is ask yourself, do you really think ALL sedevacantist priests around the world are wrong?  Do you think Eamon Shea is wrong?  I know you must at least respect him, who has taught in schools, though I am admittedly a neophyte as well as sinner.

Has it occurred to you that you are the one willfully resisting?  That YOU need to change on this issue and join your loving, nonjudgmental brethen who will not mock you or gloat over your "defeat," but rather rejoice over your bravery, so that we can continue to fight for what really matters?  

Has it also occured to you that if you are correct than the Church truly has failed because there are NO Feeneyite priests, as you yourself admit?