Meg, I am not saying that the SSPX and other R&R groups are wrong for "not obeying everything that the conciliar popes have taught," I am saying that the SSPX and other R&R groups are wrong for "not accepting the New Mass as licit."
We are not talking about disobeying something petty, we are talking about disobeying a dogmatic canon of the Catholic Church concerning the MASS, the most important religious activity in Catholicism.
Do you revere and respect any conciliar popes whom you claim to be the "Vicars of Christ on Earth?" Is there anything that you obey which the conciliar popes have taught that has not already been taught by pre-conciliar popes? If not, then how can you, in good faith and conscience, consider these men to be the Vicars of Christ on Earth?
The new mass is valid but illicit. That's what +ABL taught, and it makes sense to me. It's a schismatic mass. That doesn't mean that the masses aren't valid. The Eastern Orthodox masses are valid too. But illicit.
I don't condemn people for attending the New Mass, even though that's what Resistance-type trads often do. However, the new mass has severe flaws. It was not actually promulgated according to the accepted rules of the Church (the conciliar church is another matter). The new mass is a sad made-up thing, meant to appease protestants and lukewarm Catholics by watering down the liturgy and making it all in the vernacular, so that everything that is said at the altar is understood by the faithful, and also so that they can "participate."
Masses in the Catholic Church are not supposed to be invented by a committee, as the new mass was. That's not how our religion has ever worked. It is, however, how the conciliar church works. The conciliar church has its new institutions: new code of canon law, new liturgy, new formula for canonizing supposed saints. You get the drift.
We do not have to adhere to the New Church as far as it has left the timeless traditions and teachings of the Popes before the Council. There is not much of an opportunity to obey good rules that the conciliar Popes have instituted, and I can't really think of what those might be. We are obliged to maintain our Catholic faith and we can reject novelties such as the new mass. That doesn't mean that we have to reject those who attend the new mass, or that we reject the pope. Just because we distance ourselves from a mentality ill father, this doesn't mean that he isn't still our father.