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I've been going through different traditional positions for a while now. SSPX for some time, then reading sede material, then some Home Alone writers. Every time I think I've found solid ground, someone from a different camp comes along with arguments I can't answer. And these aren't stupid people. Some of them seem(?) to be top theologians.

What gets to me is that every group acts like their answer is the obvious one. Like if you just read this encyclical or that canon, it all falls into place. But then the next group says the exact same thing about completely different conclusions.

The thing that really started bothering me was the Home Alone argument "who sent you?"
I thought that was actually a strong point. You can't just give yourself jurisdiction. Fair enough. But people asking this question aren't answering it for themselves either. They've decided on their own that nobody out there has valid mission. Based on what authority? Their own reading. How is that different from what they're accusing everyone else of?
And honestly that's my problem with everything I've looked at. The SSPX decides on his own when you can resist the pope. The sede decides on his own that there is no pope. The Home Aloner decides on his own that there's no valid clergy to go to. Everyone tells they're not making a private judgment, they're just following Tradition, old popes, or the catechism, or whatever.

But who told them they're reading Tradition right? At the end of the day isn't every single one of us just... picking? And isn't that exactly what we say is the problem with Protestants?

For most of Church history, nobody had to figure this out. My great-grandmother went to her parish, received the sacraments, said her rosary and died a Catholic without ever having to evaluate whether her bishop had valid jurisdiction or whether some council taught heresy.
And now I hear that my salvation depends on getting the right answer to a question that actual theologians with decades of study can't agree on?

I was also reading about the Western Schism recently and what struck me was that back then, when there were two or three men claiming to be pope and literal saints disagreed on which one was real, the advice to ordinary people was basically: stay with your local bishop, keep receiving the sacraments, don't overthink it, God won't damn you for getting the wrong answer in good faith. There was even a theologian (Gerson) who wrote specifically about this and said sacraments on both sides were valid and you shouldn't withdraw from them. Nobody told people to stay home until it was all sorted out.

So why is it so different now? Why does everyone act like if you pick the wrong option you're going to hell? And is there actually any position out there that doesn't ultimately come down to "trust me, my private reading of the sources is the right one"?

When there are no trad priests or Masses near enough for you to get to regularly, then you stay home, read your Mass from your missal as best as you can, and take your spiritual communion. But if you can make the time to travel to it even a few times a year, then that's what you do. "Home Aloneism" is when you believe there are no validly ordained priests any more or anywhere, even at your nearby trad chapel, so you stay home. That's a terrible position to take. 

For us, we need the Mass and sacraments - and daily rosary. When we want to study or find something out, we have to "hit the books." Since V2 we can no longer learn, ask questions or take guidance from the closest priest - to a certain extent, we're pretty much on our own in that department.  

The OP kind of describes the results of "Divide and Conquer," the tactic that the devil's used since V2.     

 

Since when does being Catholic require a canon law/theology/history degree?


Since about 1965 I guess.