From: Father Thomas Asher | FSSPX

The source is not showing up.  Can you provide the link?

I'll tell you one thing, Jim: I attended holy Mass at the Los Gatos chapel in 2009 on the Feast of the Ascension, and there were very few people in the pews. The celebrant was a third stringer from the Trans-Alpine Redemptorists. I expected Father Emily to be saying the Mass. The priest was "effeminate", like a Conciliar priest is. Smiles, nods, feeble mind, etc. I got the distinct impression that the Society does not consider Ascension Thursday a major feast, and it is nearly certain that almost none of the regular congregation took the day off work. My disgust was immense, because I am a pre-Vatican II Catholic, not a modern Catholic. I reject the Council and the "reforms". In my opinion, the Feast of the Ascension is a Holy Day of Obligation, whatever the Conciliar Church or the Society feels.

I'll tell you one thing, Jim: I attended holy Mass at the Los Gatos chapel in 2009 on the Feast of the Ascension, and there were very few people in the pews. The celebrant was a third stringer from the Trans-Alpine Redemptorists. I expected Father Emily to be saying the Mass. The priest was "effeminate", like a Conciliar priest is. Smiles, nods, feeble mind, etc. I got the distinct impression that the Society does not consider Ascension Thursday a major feast, and it is nearly certain that almost none of the regular congregation took the day off work. My disgust was immense, because I am a pre-Vatican II Catholic, not a modern Catholic. I reject the Council and the "reforms". In my opinion, the Feast of the Ascension is a Holy Day of Obligation, whatever the Conciliar Church or the Society feels.

The redemptorists of stronsay opened dialogue with the conciliar church in 2008.  I suspect what you experienced in 2009 was similar to pre vat 2 conciliarism, and similar to what is now going on in the sspx.

Not necessarily.
The redemptorists opened dialogue with the conciliar church in 2008.
Ergo, he might have had a completely different experience with them in 2004 or 2006.

Sorry for any misunderstanding, but I was referring to the "experience" he had with the parishioners (not being at Holy Day Mass) and not with Fr. Alphonsus. 
But since you brought up brought up Fr. Alphonsus in 2004 or 2006, then the parishioners would tell you that Father had issues with the Redemptotist leaders before they opened dialog and thus was not surprised they made a deal after 2008. But as for Fr. Alphonsus manner or style in preaching would have been similar in 2004 to 2009 and beyond.

At the Walton, KY, SSPX parish............1st it was the change in the rubrics - e.g. , the standing instead of kneeling at certain times during the Mass , then the pastor accepting permission from the diocesan modernist 'bishop' to witness sspx weddings, now no obligation under pain of mortal sin to attend Ascension Thursday Mass, etc.......even most recently allowing N  O  priests in the sanctuary during a nuptial Mass.


Marcel Lefebvre -  Econe, July 29, 1976............"That the Conciliar Church " (as Msgr. Benelli himself called the Church in his letter to the Archbishop in June of '76) ,  " is a schismatic Church because it breaks with the Catholic Church that has always been.  It has its new dogmas, its new priesthood, its new institutions, its new worship, all already condemned by the Church in many a docuмent, official and definitive.
The Church that affirms such errors is at once schismatic and heretical.  This Conciliar Church is, therefore, not Catholic.  To whatever extent Pope, Bishops, priests, or faithful adhere to this new Church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church.   Today's Church is the true Church only to whatever extent it is a continuation of and one body with the Church of yesterday and of always.  The norm of Catholic faith is Tradition.  The demand of His Eminence Msgr. Benelli is, then , illuminating: submission to the Conciliar Church, to the Vatican II Church, to the schismatic Church.  For our part, we persevere in the Catholic Church, by the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

SSPX Walton's gradual subservience to newChurch is interesting to watch.

Like an open psychology experiment, with sad outcomes for many of the established trad families.

And how calculated it all was, with the SSPX putting a new trad chapel across the street from the Novus ordo St. Joseph parish.
Only a few years later, they "coincidentally" welcome the anti-pro life, conciliar bishop into the school.

It's a good demonstration of our Catholic remnant's "losing battle" with weakness of intellect, human respect and chronic concupiscence

At the Walton, KY, SSPX parish............1st it was the change in the rubrics - e.g. , the standing instead of kneeling at certain times during the Mass , then the pastor accepting permission from the diocesan modernist 'bishop' to witness sspx weddings, now no obligation under pain of mortal sin to attend Ascension Thursday Mass, etc.......even most recently allowing N  O  priests in the sanctuary during a nuptial Mass.

What do you expect from KY? 
I am convinced the state is cursed.

From: Father Thomas Asher | FSSPX

While we must urge and exhort the faithful to keep the traditional days of feast or of fast, it needs to be clear that they are not obliged under pain of sin to do so when the power of the keys has eliminated the obligation. Unfortunately, the faithful are sometimes convinced of an obligation that does not exist and then violate that "obligation" culpably. The sin is real in that case, despite the fact that the obligation is not. Let us not be the cause of such sins by being unclear or culpably wrong about these points ourselves in our communications with the faithful.

A number of considerations here:

1) Where is the accompanying announcement Fr. Asher should have provided which explained the scandalous nature, and deleterious consequences, of this legislation of the conciliar bishops (which the SSPX of old would certainly have provided)?

2) As with another famous SSPX.org article which (using the same pastoral rationale as Fr. Asher uses above) reaffirmed the conciliar laws of fast and abstinence are the binding laws, there seems to be no jurisprudential consideration of whether a law which has manifestly deleterious consequences for the sanctity and piety of the entire Catholic Church (not mrely the US District) aree in any real sence properly "laws" at all.  How can laws which attack the common good for which they were ordained be considered legitimate?  And if not legitimate, then the preceding laws continue in force.  

It seems the conciliarized SSPX is only concerned that the laws were promulgated by legitimate authority.  But if that is the only criterion for ascertaining legitimacy, without any reference ot the common good they are supposed to foster, then the bishops conferences could remove the penalty for abortion, and logically, the SSPX would have to explain to its people that, "traditionally abortion was punished by excommunication, but it no longer is.  We musn't have our people think it is an excommunicable offense, then procure one anyway, and suffer the real consequences.  Let us not be the cause of such sins by being unclear or culpably wrong about these points ourselves in our communications with the faithful."

3) Implicit in this submission to conciliar law (if it is law), is the acceptance of collegiality: It is the bishops conferences to which the 1983 code delegates the authority to transfer feasts, so the acceptance of this authority and laws is simultaneously an acceptance of collegiality (at least as regards the transfer of feasts, and also the new disciplinary laws of fast and abstinence).

4) Notice how, as with all modernist propositions, it is the pastoral justification which is advanced: "Oh, we would love to hold to tradition, but the plight of the poor faithful compel us to make an honest admission, lest we lead them into sin."  But is this not allowing the exception to disprove the rule?  In which direction do the scales tip between assessing the number of those who will sin according to the scenario Fr. Asher lays out, versus the number of those who, being dislodged from Tradition, now having no excuse to abstain from work on Thursday or attend Mass (i.e., the employers know it is no longer a mandatory holy day), encouraging the reduction in the life of the Church in public society and sectioning it off to Sundays-only, etc?

Presuming these conciliar laws really are laws in the technical and legitimate sense, is there some reason why the priest could not address such issues in the confessional or in private conferences, as they always used to?

5) Finally, notice the selectivity of these pastorally-based admissions of the SSPX: As Nadir observes on p.1 of this thread, where is the admission from the SSPX that there is no sin in receiving communion in the hand?  I would think that would be an even larger issue (its hard to say the word) "misunderstanding" in the weekly lives of Catholics than those "imagining" they sin by culpably missing Thursday Mass.  But if the fact that a law has been promulgated by the competent authority is now the only criterion for legitimacy (and therefore its binding nature), to be logically consistent, we ought to hear why communion in the hand is no sin.

And perhaps that will come soon!

No, it seems to mee that this announcement from Fr. Asher (as with the SSPX.org article on the new laws of fast and abstinence), though addressed to the faithful, was in fact intended to be received by Rome, to signify that the SSPX is on board.