IMO, this is just more insincere eyewash. Bp W. can not bring himself to admit that the sspx game is over. Always the eternal optimist. Can anyone really believe at this point that Fr. P has the “vision and fortitude,” that “he still needs to be given time,” that he “truly means to take on the heavy task in front of him of straightening out the Society?” I certainly do not. The Society is over. +W tries feebly to keep hope alive, but he succeeds only in cruelly prolonging the agony of doubt and indecision for numbers of sspx trads who look for clear guidance, but, alas, find little or none from the pen of the good bishop. Inadvertantly, perhaps, +W puts more time on the clock for an organization whose time is up, and for whom, clearly, the bells have already tolled.
I don't share his optimism. But a few thoughts.
1. He clearly points out that the real issue is one's ACTIONS, not one's words. So you should be looking at the SSPX and probably concluding the actions aren't there, and so they're hopeless. Or you will. He's just being fair, or "giving the devil his due". That's something to be commended.
2. As for when to declare the SSPX "dead", I think that is a matter of opinion rather than dogma. Even if I feel strongly about that opinion. Is it impossible to "approve of" a bishop with whom you disagree on something like this (i.e., a matter of opinion rather than dogma?)
3. To extend on #2, if you decide you can't approve of a bishop with whom you disagree on some minor point (pretty pathetic if you ask me), does that also extend to the whole group he associates with, all the priests under him, etc.? If so, it's pathetic to the 3rd power. Many Americans unfortunately fit into this category.
4. One could argue that +W is setting up Fr. P for a future verbal beatdown. That is, if Fr. Pagliarani fails to take the ACTIONS that are necessary to validate such stretched out, long shot hopes, wouldn't +W then have a clear cut case -- the kind that should convince most, if not everyone -- that the SSPX is hopeless?
Speaking of actions speaking louder than words (a concept everyone should know and understand), I have a few words for the Sean Johnsons of the world. He (and maybe a few others?) are freaking out that +W is giving the SSPX any credit or hope at all.
To Sean (and any others who agree with him) I would say:
+W hasn't Green-lit the SSPX, he never said the SSPX is overall fine, and he hasn't returned to the organization himself. He continues to be one of the main figures in the Resistance, for whom he has consecrated 3 bishops (so far) and has apparently provided (given? lent?) resources to start Resistance chapel(s). He has put his money where his mouth is, and he is certainly in the right place morally, spiritually, and theologically.
This isn't the first time that headline-readers and Attention-Deficit-sufferers have sized +W up wrong. The man is nuanced and precise in his arguments and criticisms. That is a good thing. It is only justice and TRUTH to "give the devil his due". I know the modern world likes to take anyone they disagree with and frame him as 100% evil (as if that could even
exist) and a literal reincarnation of Hitler (who, in turn, has been cast as
the devil incarnate). But that's not how it works in the real world.
In the real world, bad guys get a few things right, and even good guys get a few things wrong. I'm sorry if that means you're going to have to think (to quote +W, "It huuuuuurts!") but:
you have to think. If that's devastating news for you, then too bad. And we're all going to have to continue to exercise the not-so-glamorous virtue of Patience.
Good guys can't be like the NPCs (non-playable characters) in video games, whose speech is limited to what the programmers put in: "Orange man bad."
Or sports fans -- it's all so simple for them as well: "Bears good. Packers bad."
Going around saying "SSPX bad" and never distinguishing or saying WHICH things they're bad in, IN WHAT WAY(S), TO WHAT EXTENT or IN WHAT DEPARTMENTS aren't doing the Church, the Truth, or God any favors.
When you go around with a team mentality, you're expecting people to join your team out of emotion, religious fervor, because they're impressed with this or that person, etc. and then you wonder why you don't get any converts! You'd have to set up tents and have a Southern Baptist-style religious revival if that's what you're after. You'd need some good emotional propaganda too.
But if you want to win reasonable people over, you have to use reason. You have to
distinguish, which St. Thomas Aquinas said was proper to the wise man.