Doubtful Sacraments in the SSPX
The Price of Rapprochement with Modernist Rome

Sean Johnson
Aug 10, 2025








A. Introduction
In a previous post, I discussed some of the deleterious developments within the SSPX as a consequence of its quid pro quo negotiations with modernist Rome, which, among other factors, led to my departure from the local chapel. One of those developments was the arrival of a refugee priest from the conciliar church, who had never received conditional ordination, which represented a “checkmate” for my family and I, being aware as we are that, according to the SSPX’s own theologians, there are positive and probable doubts surrounding the new rites of episcopal consecration,1 and therefore priestly ordination, and that it is not permissible for Catholics to receive doubtful sacraments, as Fr. Cappello explains:
The Seraphim is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Not only in conferring, but also in receiving the sacraments it is illicit to follow a probable opinion concerning their validity, leaving aside a safer [opinion]. For although the proposition condemned by Innocent XI speaks expressly of only the one who confers, nevertheless it surely is the same for the recipient. The reason is that the recipient also, if he leaves aside the safer opinion, exposes the sacrament to the danger of nullity and thus commits an irreverence; further, if the sacrament be of necessity for salvation, he sins also against charity towards himself.
We affirm that this applies, where there is question of the validity of the sacrament in the strict sense, i.e. of matter and form, but not as regards the fruit of the sacrament.2

Consequently, as the gentlemen over at the WM Review note:

It is not legitimate to use these new rites, because their validity is at best a merely probable opinion. Instead, the safer opinion is to use the traditional rites, or nothing.
It is not legitimate to receive the sacraments administered with these new rites, for the same reasons. Instead, the safer opinion is to receive the sacraments in the traditional rites, or not at all.3

Formerly, the SSPX seemed to have accepted all this: Archbishop Lefebvre famously said that all conciliar sacraments labored under doubt, and consequently, the need to reordain.4 And we have the correspondence between +Tissier de Mallerais and a faithful regarding Dr. Coomaraswamy’s pamphlet, in which the bishop stated:

Thank you for sending me a copy of Dr. Rama Coomarawamy’s pamphlet “Le Drame Anglican.” After reading it quickly, I concluded there was a doubt about the validity of episcopal consecration conferred according to the rite of Paul VI.
The [phrase] “spiritum principalem” in the form introduced by Paul VI is not sufficiently clear in itself and the accessory rites do not specify its meaning in a Catholic sense.5

Today, of course, the SSPX has largely backtracked in the matter of the conditional repetition of doubtful sacraments (and not just in the case of episcopal consecration and priestly ordination, but also in the matter of confirmations), as can be gleaned from by Fr. Paul Robinson justifying the new praxis. This is no doubt a consequence of their imprudent conversations with Rome, which appear to have made them doubtful in regard to many of their former practices and positions touching upon sacramental validity, and brought about a reversal on many fronts.6
The purpose of this article, then, will be to survey the SSPX landscape in the hopes of discovering and revealing the extent to which the matter of doubtful ministers pervades the SSPX milieu, as a service to our readers who, having no other options, may be considering receiving sacraments from various SSPX chapels.

B. The Problem in America
The problem in the US District is bad, and getting worse (though few in the pews care). In a phone conversation I had with Resistance Bishop Gerardo Zendejas a couple years ago, he speculated there may be as many as a dozen refugee priests from the conciliar church assisting at various US District chapels who were never conditionally ordained. Msgr. Byrnes, Fr. McLukas, Fr. Pieroni, Fr. Zigrang, and Fr. Settimo come readily to mind. Fr. Feeney was conditionally ordained only belatedly after a few years in various SSPX chapels. And of course there were many other unconditionally ordained refugees circulating in previous years who only received conditional ordination after leaving their association with the SSPX (e.g., Fr. Voigt, Fr. Gallagher, et al.).
If readers have additional information regarding conciliar refugees currently dispensing sacraments at various SSPX chapels, please let us know in the comments box below this article.
What makes the problem all the more intolerable, is that these priests travel from city to city, and the faithful will often have no idea when one of them has visited his chapel on a layover, or come home to visit family, etc. In other words, just knowing that your priest was traditionally ordained is no guarantee that what’s in the tabernacle was consecrated by him. And the more questionably ordained priests the SSPX circulates in the US District, the more of a problem this becomes. It is not difficult to foresee that given the present trajectory, the issue will broaden, and combined with the Society’s reticence to inform the faithful in such matters, the faithful may soon find themselves in the unenviable position of being unable even to sift Mass venues in search of certainly vali sacraments.
Of course, this presumes the faithful even care. Most of those who did have already left the pews.

C. The Problem in Europe:
The problem in Europe is difficult to quantify, not only because of the scarcity of information available, but also because of the variety of languages. That said, the sources we do have provide shocking information.
For example, a recent interview by former SSPX priest, Fr. Fabio Callixto (SSPX - Argentina) states as his reason for leaving, the refusal of the SSPX to conditionally ordain conciliar refugees as it once did. He cites as an egregious example the SSPX District of Poland, which he claims is presently circulating an astounding 17 conciliar ordained priests who have not received conditional ordination!7 That number is even more astounding when one considers the relatively small size of the Polish District (i.e., much smaller than the US District).
If this is what is happening in Poland, what must be happening in France? We know of Fr. Belwood, for example. How many others?
And of course, we recently had the fiasco of Bishop Hounder, sent by Francis to “retire” at an SSPX boys school in Switzerland in 2017. Initially pretending he was only there to enjoy a peaceful retirement, it soon came out that Francis had sent him there to help facilitate the reintegration of the SSPX into the conciliar church. In an interview with Die Tagespost, Hounder explained:

For a long time I have been involved in the process of dialogue between Rome and the Society. Since the Headquarters of the SSPX are based in Menzingen, Switzerland, it was thought that a Swiss bishop should be involved. That’s why the Ecclesia Dei Commission, in charge of dialogue with the Society, asked me. This led to constant contact with the representatives of the Society here in Switzerland. I sent the reports to Rome. Now I will continue carrying out this mission. My main concern is the unity of the Church. The division in the Church must be overcome. We must not forget: The Society of Saint Pius X has many followers.8

By 2021, he would be celebrating public pontifical Masses at the chapel, and by 2023 he would be “consecrating” holy oils at the Chrism Mass for use in the German (and surrounding) districts, and this despite the fact that he was neither ordained a priest in the traditional rite, nor consecrated a bishop in the traditional rite by a bishop who was himself consecrated in the traditional rite.
If you were an SSPX Mass attendee in central Europe, where would you go for certainly valid confirmation, or who would you call for last rites?
Fr. Callixto tells us in the same interview cited above that:

When Bishop Tissier went to give confirmations in Germany in 2023, he asked who had consecrated the holy oils. When he was told that they had been consecrated by Bishop Huonder, he immediately sent for the oils consecrated by himself, which he had brought with him. This, surprisingly, in the middle of the ceremony.9

What an incredible revelation! Not because +de Mallerais had the courage to safeguard the validity of the confirmations, but because to the best of my knowledge, he never publicly protested the insertion of +Hounder into the SSPX milieu. He knew this questionably consecrated bishop was an agent of Francis and held his peace. He knew all Hounder’s sacraments were doubtful (at best), and said nothing.
Meanwhile, at least a couple SSPX priests were covertly approaching Bishop Faure (Resistance - France) to obtain certainly valid holy oils. But did these priests ever explain their concerns to their faithful? Did they ever protest to +Fellay or Fr. Pagliarani? But this is another matter for another time.
So much for poor Europe.

D. The Bizarre Situation in Africa
In 2018, the French news outlet Medias-Presse.info published a letter from then-SSPX African District Superior, Fr. Henry Wuilloud, seeking to explain why the Society had basically sub-contracted the services of the indultarian Institute of Christ the King, as well as a bi-ritual diocesan priest, to service some of their African Mass centers.10

As with the insertion of +Hounder in Switzerland, so too here in Africa: The faithful are made to undergo a conditioning process as part of the ralliement of the SSPX to the conciliar church, whereby Rome can be reassured that any objection to conciliar orders and sacramental rites has been purged from the faithful (and clergy). The SSPX must prove it can work shoulder-to-shoulder with modernists (whom Fr. Wuilloud tries to pass off as traditional), if it is ever to receive its public Roman approval (the de facto approval having been in place since at least 2015).
It is practically impossible to imagine Archbishop Lefebvre hob-nobbing with Ecclesia Dei priests, but this is the norm in the SSPX (and has been for quite some time).
Once again, these matters only come to light when some faithful complain. Usually, they sit quietly and say nothing. Those instances don’t get reported, but it is reasonable to project that if the African District leadership is not averse to using conciliar clergy in these locations, it is certainly not concerned about the validity of conciliar ordinations, and that being the case, it is likely there are more non-conditionally ordained refugees manning other SSPX Mass venues on the continent.

F. Conditional Ordinations in South America Dwindling
Fr. Callixto informs us in the interview cited above that, as regards conditional ordinations in Argentina (the land of Bergoglio), conditional ordinations have been fazed out. But as the keeper of record for ordinations in La Reja, he had access to the sacramental books, and tells us such was not always the case:

“The same priest, at the seminary in La Reja, was recording the ordinations for the other priests and, looking back, saw several ordination books signed as “sub conditione.” And this is no longer done!11

Corroborating evidence is also supplied in the comments box below this article by Fr. Juan Carlos Ortiz (ie., a longtime priest of the old SSPX, ordained by +Lefebvre, and since 2012 a Resistance priest, now in Columbia), who reports:

In Colombia the new-SSPX is allowing a priest doubtfully ordained with the new rite to offer PUBLIC Masses, hear Confessions and so on. He lives in the north of Colombia but I saw him saying Mass on the First Friday of this month in the new-SSPX Chapel in Bogotá. It was publicly broadcasted through their YouTube channel. Never the new-SSPX said this priest was conditionally ordained.

Doctrine gives way to policy, and the ralliement to the modernist pantheon is the supreme law in Menzingen. Be that as it may, I don’t quite see in this policy the respect for souls which the priestly life requires.

G. Conclusion:
The faithful have a decision to make: Comply with Church teaching, and avoid doubtful sacraments, or face the consequences. The proliferation of doubtfully ordained priests (and consecrated bishops) frequenting SSPX Mass venues is making this more and more difficult. Eventually, as the numbers of doubtfully ordained priests swell the ranks of the Society, it will become impossible to discern what is in the tabernacle, or what is in the holy oil vials, etc.
For 14 years, the SSPX clergy and faithful have sat quietly by, while Menzingen pulled the rug out from under them, and today they are starting to feel the consequences of their own apathy, being made to accept the ministrations of doubtful clergy. Bishop Williamson was expelled, and all said nothing. Hounder is placed next to Lefebvre in Econe (symbolic of the new orientation in Menzingen!), and still they said nothing.
Let them all drift off into conservative conciliarism, then. “Because you are lukewarm, I will vomit you out of my mouth.” But for those who are still concerned with such trivial things as sacramental validity, and have not stopped up their eyes from seeing the change in policy recounted in this article, your days in the SSPX pews are numbered. Its only a matter of time until my personal experience is repeated in your chapel.

1
Fr. Alvaro Calderon (SSPX professor at the seminary in La Reja, Argentina):
“But the positive and objective defects that this rite suffers, which prevent one from being certain of its validity, it seems to us that - until there is a Roman sentence, for which they would have to change many things - justify and make necessary the conditional reordination of priests consecrated by new bishops and, if necessary, the conditional re-consecration of these bishops. Such uncertainties cannot be suffered at the very root of the sacraments.”
(SiSiNoNo No. 267, November - 2014)
https://www.scribd.com/docuмent/270396261/Consagraciones-Episcopales-de-Pablo-VI-P-Calderon?ad_group=xxc1xx&campaign=VigLink&medium=affiliate&source=hp_affiliate&campaign=VigLink&ad_group=xxc1xx&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate
2
Felix Cappello, De Sacramentis, De Sacramentis, vol. 1, n. 25. Translated from Latin by Eric Hoyle, iIn Eric Hoyle, Priestly Ministry after the Vatican II Revolution: Confessional Jurisdiction – Long Version. Version 2.0, 6 Marhc 2022, pp 173-8. Citation provided by WM Review in the article cited below.
3
The WM Review
Can we receive doubtfully valid sacraments?
It's often assumed that Pope Innocent XI's condemnation applies to receiving doubtful sacraments, as well as administering them. But is this true…
Read more
8 months ago · 5 likes · 34 comments · S.D. Wright

4
https://dominicansavrille.us/questionable-priestly-ordinations-in-the-conciliar-church/
5
https://www.fathercekada.com/2013/11/28/sspx-bishops-on-bishops-and-bishops/comment-page-1/
6
One example of this would be their 2017 acceptance of Cardinal Muller’s guidelines for matrimony, whereby a conciliar authority receives the consent of the parties. In one well known instance in France, a couple refused to have their marriage performed by a priest who had received conciliar delegation, and instead opted to have it done by another Society priest who did not. Upon discovery, the French District applied for a sanatio in radice to the conciliar authority. And ever since then, as a matter of policy, delegations are performed at the District level for all SSPX weddings in France. Obviously, if the SSPX felt the need to apply for a sanation from the diocese, it strongly suggests they now doubt the status of all their previous marriages performed on the basis of supplied jurisdiction.
7
https://nonpossumus-vcr.blogspot.com/2025/07/entrevista-al-padre-fabio-calixto.html
8
https://dominicansavrille.us/conciliar-bishops-in-schools-of-tradition/
9
https://nonpossumus-vcr.blogspot.com/2025/07/entrevista-al-padre-fabio-calixto.html
10
https://www.medias-presse.info/le-superieur-du-district-dafrique-revendique-sa-demande-de-faire-appel-a-des-pretres-conciliaires-ou-ecclesiadeistes-pour-desservir-les-fideles-de-la-fsspx/112679/
11
https://nonpossumus-vcr.blogspot.com/2025/07/entrevista-al-padre-fabio-calixto.html

---

Subscribe to The Seraphim
By Sean Johnson · Launched 22 days ago
Welcome to The Seraphim, where you will find original articles and analyses regarding various aspects of the Church crisis, from a "sede-doubtist" perspective.

As for SSPX Masses, I will go only if I can reasonably find out about the ordination status of the priest. If an unknown priest shows up, I’ll ask around a little bit, maybe check online if there’s information to be had. Normally, there isn’t much time to do this. If I’m uncertain and I can leave without a disruption, that’s what I do. I’ve become accustomed to not having Mass or Sacraments. I had neither for nearly three years during Covid. The one Mass I could physically access was no longer an option because one had to have proof of the “safe and effective sickness 💉 to enter.
My health is not what it once was, so I can no longer work from 6:30-4:00, drive two hours, go to Confession, Mass, and adult catechism, eat dinner, drive another two hours, circle around 45-60 minutes in search of a parking space, walk home, go to bed at 1:00 AM, get up at 5:00 AM, and go to work the next day.
If you have regular access to a certainly ordained traditional priest, Mass, and Sacraments, don’t take it for granted. Go as often as you can because the time may come when it is taken away. 

Well said Seraphina. Sorry to hear you are so isolated. Circling around for 60 mins to find a park?? Reminds me of a joke that the young ladies might appreciate. Trying to find a good man is like trying to find a parking space at the shopping centre: all the good ones are taken, and the ones that aren't are handicapped!

As for SSPX Masses, I will go only if I can reasonably find out about the ordination status of the priest. If an unknown priest shows up, I’ll ask around a little bit, maybe check online if there’s information to be had. Normally, there isn’t much time to do this. If I’m uncertain and I can leave without a disruption, that’s what I do. I’ve become accustomed to not having Mass or Sacraments. I had neither for nearly three years during Covid. The one Mass I could physically access was no longer an option because one had to have proof of the “safe and effective sickness 💉 to enter.
My health is not what it once was, so I can no longer work from 6:30-4:00, drive two hours, go to Confession, Mass, and adult catechism, eat dinner, drive another two hours, circle around 45-60 minutes in search of a parking space, walk home, go to bed at 1:00 AM, get up at 5:00 AM, and go to work the next day.
If you have regular access to a certainly ordained traditional priest, Mass, and Sacraments, don’t take it for granted. Go as often as you can because the time may come when it is taken away. 

I am sorry ... and THIS here is yet another example of what neo-SSPX do to the faithful with their hubris in refusing conditional ordination, which just the mere charity of putting souls like yourself at peace.  In this case, given the general state of uncertainty, your practice has been to miss out on the Sacraments when you can't ascertain the ordination status of some unfamiliar priest.  Again, the SSPX have been more and more sly, refusing to publish the priest's name in the bulletin and the priest often does not announce his name.  There was one Sunday I missed receiving Holy Communion myself, since there was a strange priest there (who seemed suspicious), and I could not ascertain his ordination status.  That's actually what inspired me to set up this site here.

https://sspxfakepriests.substack.com/p/gallery

This way, there's perhaps just a bit of hope to visually identify the suspect.  While there are others lists out there, like Catholic Candle, I felt that what was missing was putting the names together with pictures (though CC did have a few).

I will be adding a certain "Father" McLucas to the list (also an accused sɛҳuąƖ predator) ... who has also been "assiting" at SSPX chapels.  Sean Johnson listed him in the article and I've found some pictures.

So, that's why I was hoping to get as complete a list as possible, hoping to get to a point that if the priest you see is not in the above gallery, it's very likely that he's valid.  You can't be 100% certain of course, since they could throw a last-minute new priest out there.  I wonder if there's a way to keep an eye out on "who's on deck", as it were, at the training center in Phoenix.

But for my missing the Sacraments and your missing them, and God only knows how many others ... the arrogant neo-SSPX will have to answer to God, since we can't "waste" 30 minutes of a bishop's time to set things right and put the consciences of the faithful at peace.

Just for the record, could I ask?  Are you one of those "evil" sedevacantists?  Evidently only sedevacantists have this problem, and they're the ones who made up this crackpot "theory" about there being some positive doubt about the New Orders, based upon nothing other than the fact that they completely changed the essential form of the Rite of Episcopal Consecration to something entirely novel that may slightly resemble something in the Eastern Rite that may or may not even be a consecration Rite (vs. an installation Rite of someone who's already a bishop).  So, based on that trivial nothingburger, those wicked sedevacantists made up this absurd theory that there MIGHT be some prudent and reasonable doubt.

But, even then, the list with pictures would be of limited usefulness in situations where you go to a chapel less than regularly for various reasons.  Even if you show up on a Sunday and the regular priest is there, you can't be sure whether what's in the ciborium in the tabernacle is actually the Blessed Sacrament, since the week before they could have brought in some fill-in.

Just as a tip, in cases like that, keep an eye out for whether the current priest (if he's known to be valid) is consecrating a ciborium during the Mass, and if he is, make sure you're in the very back for Holy Communion, the hope being that the ciborium in the tabernacle will "run out" and so the priest has to switch to the one he had just consecrated during the Mass.

I used to know an Indult / Motu priest (ordained prior to Vatican II), who would always consecrate the ciborium also when he offered the Tridentine Mass, and then would distribute Holy Communion from that one, not the one in the tabernacle, which seems contrary to normal practice.  Since he also said the NOM, I doubt it was because he felt it might be invalid ... but I imagine one or another of the faithful there may have asked him for this. There were a couple of prominent families close to this priest, and who bankrolled a lot of that church's Tridentine Mass operation, so I suspect they may have had something to do with it.

But, it really is sad that the faithful are in this position with SSPX ... where you have to keep an eye on what the priest is doing, or wait until the same priest has been there two weeks in a row, or receive Holy Communion as far toward the end of the line as possible hoping that he switches ciboria.  Those are the types of things that Indult Mass attendeeds used to have to do.

Reason #3443 to avoid the Indult.

Another reason:
If you are in a SHARED FACILITY (a church used for Novus Ordo and Tridentine Masses) those devout Tridentine/Latin Mass Catholics will be stepping on Sacred Particles during their glorious Tridentine Mass, if the janitor hasn't been through, since the last Novus Ordo Mass!
But do you consider that the Novus Ordo Mass is completely invalid? Great. Then you're receiving a cookie instead of Our Lord when the priest distributes communion from the Novus Ordo-consecrated wafers in the tabernacle.

Either way, you're cooked.
If you're going to go Indult (assuming you don't have an issue with the New Rite of Consecration/Ordination), you AT LEAST have to limit yourself to locations where the Latin Mass community has "its own" chapel/church -- where no Novus Ordo Mass is said.

Reason #3443 to avoid the Indult.

Another reason:
If you are in a SHARED FACILITY (a church used for Novus Ordo and Tridentine Masses) those devout Tridentine/Latin Mass Catholics will be stepping on Sacred Particles during their glorious Tridentine Mass, if the janitor hasn't been through, since the last Novus Ordo Mass!
But do you consider that the Novus Ordo Mass is completely invalid? Great. Then you're receiving a cookie instead of Our Lord when the priest distributes communion from the Novus Ordo-consecrated wafers in the tabernacle.

Either way, you're cooked.
If you're going to go Indult (assuming you don't have an issue with the New Rite of Consecration/Ordination), you AT LEAST have to limit yourself to locations where the Latin Mass community has "its own" chapel/church -- where no Novus Ordo Mass is said.

Oh, 100% ... but the point is that we're close to getting the SAME POINT with neo-SSPX.  Traditional Catholics were told to avoid the Indult not only for this reason, but also because you'd start getting contaminated with Modernism.  Now we have SSPX priests denying the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture, teaching that Vatican II is 95% Catholic, and the rest can be reconciled with Traditional with the right "hermeneutic", etc.  AND, even on the front of trampling consecrated particles of the Blessed Sacrament, we hear more and more about the SSPX holding events (e.g. confirmations, wedding, etc.) in Novus Ordo church buildings.

So I point the neo-SSPX gaslighting trolls to this post here.  Matthew is NOT a sedevacantist, and he too appears to have some questions about the validity of NO Orders and/or Masses.  Then, at one point, good old Sean Johnson was so HOSTILE to sedevacantism that he demanded a few times that Matthew ban all SVs, and then at another time he accused me of unnatural vice for simply quoting Archbishop Lefebvre (without comment) where the Archbishop said that SV might be true ... and yet the entire time Sean remained adamant in his doubts about the NO Orders.  You had the one SSPX priest who was caught on video saying the same thing from the pulpit, and my own R&R independent priest says they're outright invalid.  At one point when another "priest" tried to take "communion" to one of the members of his chapel in the hospital, Father reprimanded the putative priest and told him not to bring those cookies to his faithful.  That incident was related to me by the "priest" who had actually been on the receiving end of those comments.

But that has been part of the latest SSPX propaganda and gaslighting campaign, trying to make this seem like it's something concocted by those wicked sedevacantists, just out of thin air, with our resident troll Borat here claiming it was the Dimond Brothers in particular (since they're even more hated by the average Traditional Catholic than even sedevacantists in general) ... even though the Dimond Brothers were still in diapers when the first (non-sedevacantist) Traditional Catholics began questioning the validity of those Orders.  Despite having been corrected on this matter repeatedly, Borat continuest to repeat the false assetion ... clearly indicating bad will.

"How they act as if the Crisis in the Church is over."

It seems to me that the SSPX has given up fighting against modernism and the Masonic, religion of man propagated throughout the world using the Catholic structure.  
They seem content preaching virtuous sermons, distributing the sacraments and not making waves.  

When we think about our Lord being crucified for always condemning the lies and errors of the church leaders of His time.  He made waves.  
Is the servant above his Master?