_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We've had an open Resistance situation since 2012.   It is 2021 and only a trickle of priests have been ordained.

There have been many excuses, but in that time period, it would have been possible to ordain two to three seminary classes of priests.
If, the Bishop(s) had the will to do it.  

And during that critical time, Resistance chapels, worldwide, have withered on the vine or been prey to the neo-SSPX.

So, if you accuse me of having little Faith, I counter the Bishops you defend for not passing on the continuity of Faith though the priesthood.

I *completely* disagree with you and (apparently) so do the Resistance bishops. Namely, that "it's a crisis, we gotta ordain priests, at any cost, despite qualifications or lack thereof, despite psychological problems or other skeletons-in-the-closet on the part of the candidates."

Fr. Pfeiffer is firmly in that camp. And he can have it! After all, it's served him "so well" (NOT!)

Just for starters, you can't create priests like you create a website or something. YOU HAVE TO HAVE CANDIDATES. Then those candidates have to be trained for a minimum of 6 years, and they have to have a vocation. They have to persevere in their seminary training. Remember, the devil is alive and active in seminaries, trying to sow discord, doubt, crisis, etc. in both professor and seminarian. The devil knows where his biggest threat is. So you can't discount the attacks of the devil in the formation of priests, especially today. Didn't +ABL say that each vocation was a miracle? And that was in the 70's, was it not? It's much worse today. The 80's were the good-old-days compared to today: before smartphones, Social mєdια, Cancel Culture, 15 genders, and many other bad things.

Do you know what the average age is, for exposure to porn (usually via smartphone) in 2021? Something like age 8 or 9. Talking about the general population of course. Isn't that awful? There is no innocence left except a few islands here or there. And to go a step further, the "porn" these kids see is nothing like classic "nudie magazines" or a lingerie catalog. We're talking some seriously depraved stuff. And it's extremely pervasive now with smartphones. Each public school kid is just one classmate-with-a-cellphone away from losing their innocence.

I would rather have no priest than a bad priest. At least I have a chance of saving my soul in the former case. Wicked, badly trained, and/or poorly-formed priests are why we had the Protestant revolt, as well as Vatican II. People leave the Church and sometimes lose the Faith completely due to a bad priest. Never underestimate the evils that come from bad priests.

Archbishop Lefebvre certainly believed this. He didn't rush the ordination of priests -- he made sure every priest he ordained had the proper spiritual, philosophical, and theological formation. The Resistance follows in his footsteps today. Deo gratias!

 I counter the Bishops you defend for not passing on the continuity of Faith though the priesthood.

You really act like they can just "get off their duff" and create priests, as if it completely depended 100% on their own will and say-so, like you or I could get off our duff and mow the lawn. The lawn mower is there, and gas is cheap and available. All it takes is the WILL and the lack of laziness, and the lawn gets mowed, right?

You can't be that stupid.

Unless you can give me a list of good candidates for the priesthood -- well trained in philosophy and theology -- who were refused ordination by the Resistance bishops over the past 9 years, you really need to shut up.

No offense. 

Oh, and to give you a clue: back in 2012 there was only ONE bishop in the Resistance, Bishop Williamson. The others were consecrated later (by +Williamson, I should point out!), no more than 1 per year. And the most recent was only a handful of years ago. Incidentally, this consecrating of bishops was "Tradidi quod et accepi" if I ever saw it.

The crisis is 10x’s worse than in +ABL’s time. 

I disagree that the raw material of pious men is lacking.  Just the number of conservative, thinking men rejected by the SSPX is one example of a good pool of candidates.

There was another “pool of men” suggestion by +W that never got off the ground. It was individual working men selected and mentored under the direction of assigned chapel priests.  They would complete their studies, be tested and ordained.

Finally, I don’t agree that the seminary candidates need six years.  That’s not a set requirement, but an +ABL preference.

Catholic men can be vetted and credited for previous course work.
Many an ex-SSPX seminarian fit this profile.

If the resistance bishops prepared for and recruited seminarians for the priestly Church militant, they would come.

The crisis is 10x’s worse than +ABL’s time...and we need priests!

Would Bp. Zendejas ordain me? I could be a priest. Just kidding, I am not up to the responsibility. But how many priests has the resistance ordained in these nine years? I heard about one under Fr. Chazal, and of one who was ordained by a sedevacantist Bishop after leaving Fr. Pfeiffer, but I don't hear much about priests from Bp. Faure's seminary. I think in these times they should reduce the time before ordination. There are seven Billion men in the world and a few dozen faithful resistance priests to convert them. They made St. Matthias a Bishop only after casting lots. That was enough. Surely in these times we can form a priest in less than seven years. They don't need a perfect formation. We have cell phones. If a difficult situation comes up just have the priest call Bp. Zendejas on his cell phone. For most situations a pious man with the Holy Ghost inside of him would suffice.

No, I doubt Bishop Zendejas would ordain you (but “Bishop” Pfeiffer might, since you both share the same goal of producing as many “priests” in the shortest timeframe possible).

But if you kick back with a cognac and cigar for a moment and reflect, you just might consider that the Resistance has only had bishops since 2015 (ie., 6 years, not 9).  You might also reflect, upon a particularly mellow puff, that priestly formation takes at least 5 years (if you cut out the year of humanities and the year of spirituality).

Then, sipping that cognac, it might also occur to you that Resistance seminarians are rarer than 4-leaf clovers, and much as some would like a repeat performance of Thuc (who consecrated any stranger with a good story), the Resistance bishops aren’t going there.

At the moment, there are exactly 0 American seminarians at the SAJM (ie., they all want to be independent). Not sure how many elsewhere.  The point being, who, exactly, are the bishops supposed to ordain?

The Resistance is a remnant of the SSPX remnant, and 33 years after the Consecrations, the number of young men who understand Lefebvre is exponentially smaller (see Holzhauser’s vision regarding the continual cleaving of the remnant).

Too few have the sand (or the stability) for it.

The crisis is 10x’s worse than in +ABL’s time.

Finally, I don’t agree that the seminary candidates need six years.  That’s not a set requirement, but an +ABL preference.

Who cares what you think. Your opinion means NOTHING. And yes, my opinion means just as much (nothing). Only the Church's opinion matters.

I don't do "opinions". Opinions are like butts. Everyone has one, and it stinks.

And the Church has chimed in loud and clear on the matter. The Council of Trent -- the long-overdue fix for that Crisis in the Church which more-or-less occasioned or even caused the Protestant Revolt -- decided that there would henceforth be SEMINARIES where candidates for the priesthood would be trained -- both spiritually and mentally -- before being considered for ordination. No longer would a man attach himself to a bishop as an "apprentice" and learn a few ropes here or there, before getting ordained.

This decision of the great Council of Trent was the remedy for the sad state of priests in the 14th and 15th centuries. Priests ignorant of the Faith, lacking in theology and Church doctrine, living like laymen, living in concubinage... And yes, they were SELLING INDULGENCES. That wasn't a misunderstanding or slander from the Prottys. Catholic priests were in a sad state, due to lack of priests caused by the recent Black Death plague. Bishops thought it was a good idea to rush-ordain men to the priesthood, due to people like Incredulous saying, "and we need priests!".

That didn't work out so well then -- and it wouldn't work any better now. You can't force God's providence.

That's how you end up with a clown show like Fr. Pfeiffer's "seminary" in Boston, KY. Fr. Pfeiffer's reasoning and your own, Incredulous, are one and the same. And that is NOT a good thing.

As Fr. Cekada once said (probably the wisest thing he ever said) -- I forgot the exact words, but something to the effect that the Tridentine Mass must be said by a Tridentine priest. And the Council of Trent was quite clear on this matter. How can we cleave to the Tridentine Mass, while rejecting Trent's guidance on formation of priests? Sorry, can't do that.

Well, wonderful! We agree.

One question, from the SSPX side: if Bp. +Williamson, Bp. +Zendejas, and all the four Resistance Bishops, also spoke to the Holy Father, and obtained Ordinary Jurisdiction from him, without compromise, would that really be such a bad thing or would it, as I hold, be a really good thing, for all Tradition?

God Bless.

Hello Xavier-

I would have to write an entire article to explain why, unfortunately, this would neither be practical nor possible, but let’s start with this from Archbishop Lefebvre, shortly before he died:

“It is, therefore, a strict duty for every priest wanting to remain Catholic to remain separated from this conciliar church.”

Everyone is familiar with this quote, because it is a stumbling block for the ralliement (and the fact that, in preaching retreats to priests from Spiritual Journey Bishop Fellay passes over that quote, admits it is no mere contextualized misunderstanding), but unfortunately not much time is spent by many on meditating WHY Lefebvre said that, beyond the obvious desire not to compromise doctrinally.

There was a deeper and more subtle reason:

From the time of the consecrations until his death, Lefebvre was under continual pressure, ad extra et ad extra, to reach back out to Rome and try to rebuild bridges and repair relations.  He gave several Fideliter interviews rebuking those false faithful who had one foot in modernist Rome, and one in tradition; who wanted to collaborate with those who left him after the consecrations (FSSP); etc.

He gave his reasons for these rebukes:

When one exposes oneself to their priests, their Masses, their socialization, one’s fidelity to the faith weakens.  You surround yourself with people who have misplaced canonical approval above doctrinal integrity, and slowly, slowly, it starts to occur to you that these people aren’t so bad after all.  They say their Rosary!  They say the old Mass!  They are not so different from us!

But reaching that point, you will formalize your compromise and accept a practical accord.

“But what’s wrong with that, if there was no compromise?”

There is always compromise.  Practical collaboration softens the victim, and prepares the terrain for the sellout.  We saw it work on the SSPX via the GREC initiatives; we saw it work in Campos (where Fr. Rifan had been meeting with Rome for years);,we even have the acknowledgment by Cardinal Cottier that, “reconciliation carries within itself an internal dynamism..we must be patient.  Gradually, we must insist upon additional steps, like concelebration...what is important is that there no longer be rejection in their hearts.”

Lefebvre understood this psychological process of betrayal, and to date there have been none who have ever collaborated, then signed a deal, and avoided compromise: Not La Barroux (despite all Dom Gerard’s protestations to Lefebvre that he will never compromise; not Campos; not the FSSP; not the SSPX.

Nobody.

Only a fool does not learn from history, and the wisdom and prescience of Lefebvre’s admonition that it was a strict duty to remain separated from a conciliar church has been proven accurate time and time again.

As he said to those wanting to collaborate with the FSSP, “They need to make yo their minds about what dude they’re on.”  

You choose tradition, or you choose conciliarism, but you can’t choose both.

I feel like being a non Sede is kind of inherently an attempt to "have both" at a certain level.

"He's the Pope but I want nothing to do with him" only makes sense if you accept EO ecclesiology rather than RC ecclesiology.