As Menzingen keeps insisting that they won't end up like the rest (i.e., the FSSP, Campos, Institute of Christ the King, etc.) who have openly surrendered to modernist Rome and have accepted Vatican II as part of Tradition, how would the official act of the sellout "on that big day" be explained to the "pay-pray-and-obey" crowd that still follow them (assuming they would even dare ask for an explanation)?
(Note: Just to be clear here, the sellout has already happened. I'm just referring to the ceremonious signing with balloons, trumpets . . . and perhaps tightly clad Vatican acrobats!)
I've often wondered about this question, if only for amusement.
How would Bishop Fellay finally pull it off before the microphone that day? How would he explain away the modernist merger with a straight face? How would he not look like a complete "I really drove a hard bargain with those sharks down at the used car lot" telling the traditionalist world that the SSPX would operate under Rome but (somehow miraculously) hold its own against ANY and ALL compromises with modernism?
Well, first of all, Bishop Fellay has time and time again proven himself to be a crypto-rationalist--that is, in short, . . . objective reality takes a back seat to ideas and concepts manufactured by the mind for its convenience. That ought to provide some clues as to how he would handle the "explanation."
If it all somehow fits neatly together in his slippery-slope, relativistic mind, well hey, that should be good enough for his underlings to accept! He, after all, "has the grace of state" (just like John XXIII, Paul VI, and the rest did).
Being the one to constantly tell his audience what they want to hear; being the one to endlessly splice and dice the definitions of terms once clear to us (calling Pope Francis a "genuine modernist" but then later backing down and saying, "Well, . . . not quite in the "formal" sense . . ."; saying that the religious liberty of Vatican II was meant "in a very limited sense"), it should be small fete for him to do as the modernist Romans do as far as the official sellout line:
1. Keep the traditionalist-sounding "fighting" words strategically placed here and there in order to further tranquilize the die-hard, "no matter what," Menzingen loyalist drones in his fold.
2. Change or further complicate the definitions of these traditional battle-cry fighting terms, so that contradictions to them in real practice can be easily blended away, appealing to the sheer "complexity" of how things really are. (Good bye, "Yes, yes, no, no.")
3. Gradually introduce new terms or put the emphasis on Happy Meal-sounding terms along the lines of this "re-branding" fiasco.
4. Subtly reframe or reword the portrayal of the crisis and its true culprits, hoping that this shift goes unnoticed:
Examples:
a. the term traditional "apostolate" (thereby immediately downgrading Tradition to a mere "flavor of the day" and making its propagation a mere "apostolate" amongst equals such as the "Novus Ordo apostolate," "the social justice apostolate," etc.
b. that Vatican II was the "cause" of the modernist errors of our times (no, Vatican II contained errors itself; it wasn't just the "cause" of errors).
c. speaking of a "return" of Tradition to the Church (not quite . . . the TRUE Church and Tradition are no more separable than fire and heat.
So, in the end, Bishop Fellay will make no compromises after all with modernism, as promised, . . . if by "compromises" he so happens to mean ("in a very limited sense of the word") X, Y, and Z (in effect, a condition so rhetorically "out there" that it can safely be presumed never to come into fruition).
Bishop Fellay will never subscribe to the Hermeneutics of Continuity, as he assures his followers, because in his mind one won't be necessary--Vatican II and Tradition already being "one" in his mind and the real problem lying in being able to convincingly articulate this pre-existing and indisputable connection in a manner that can peacefully sit side-by-side with ABL's venerable 1974 declaration. I have no doubt Bishop Fellay could do this in his sleep.
So, no need to admit to anything or alarm the good and obedient PXers still remaining with radical new beliefs and polices. No guitar beach Masses and cool new shades necessary! Just use the same old façade and the traditional-sounding talking points--but let there be no end to the dicing and slicing of their actual definitions (i.e., Fr. Themann's funky new concept of "prudential truth"), making room for every kind of modernist poison to creep in under traditionalist cloak.
Bishop Fellay . . . "Modernism in Motion"