I am an SSPX parishioner, sympathetic to the Resistance. I was sent the original article the other day by a European SSPX-attending friend, who was understandably a bit perturbed. He wanted my thoughts.
After reading the article, I, too, was a bit perturbed. Indeed, my “peace of soul” was lost for the entire remainder of the day. I thought I concealed it well enough but my wife asked me what was wrong. I played it off as “a long day,” because one really doesn’t want to say “I’m upset because a few priests we know have been accused of terrible sex crimes” around the children. My point is, these are disturbing allegations and they are liable to make anyone seriously question their “affiliation” or loyalties. Which, in my opinion, is exactly what the article intended, and is the chief evil of these sorts of articles. I wanted to have a knee-jerk reaction, but some things about the article seemed wrong.
A good night’s sleep, and a rereading of the article confirmed my initial hesitancy. When I read it the first time, my initial reaction was something along the lines of “Why in God’s name doesn’t the SSPX get it that this is disgusting? If a priest does this sort of thing they need to be castrated and burnt at the stake, and secular justice will be too merciful. The SSPX needs to do a thorough housecleaning!” As the comments section of CM website shows, this reaction is fairly typical. I imagine dramatic music and voice acting makes the video even more potent.
However, a more careful reading will show that, in spite of clearly sloppy and fairly unsubstantiated reporting and a few grammatical and punctuation errors which show just how little real editorial effort went into the piece, the piece is “well crafted” for its purpose. It was well written, in the sense that it starts off with the most scandalous/evil/dire accusation: “Fr. Angles raped a little boy who later committed ѕυιcιdє, bribed the family, and oh by the way he was totally a nαzι who loved to groom young boys”. Thus, everything in the article after that, regardless of whether it was substantial or not, takes the character of “supporting actors in this same drama.” Virtually every subsequent allegation just drags up whatever mud might exist and throws it wantonly, with the evident hope that some will stick.
Now, I never met Fr. Angles. But I did live in St. Mary’s for a few years immediately after his departure, under the rectorship of Fr. Griego. My “take” was that Fr. Griego had a very thankless job, because Fr. Angles was an extremely polarizing figure. Many in the town loved him and missed him terribly, and a few others hated him and castigated him mercilessly, and would probably even blame him if there was a drought or tornado. Interestingly enough, most of the folks who loved him were “my type of trad:” big families, educated in European (ie Catholic) history, aware of the malign influences of the Freemasons, godless enlightenment types, and yes, the Jews. Most of the folks that hated him were the type who said: “We need a good God-fearing Catholic President, because this is ‘Murica! And Father criminally undereducated my children because there wasn’t even any h0Ɩ0cαųst or social justice unit in high school history!” So, when I perceive that the strongest and most lurid “case” in the article consists of some “new” unsubstantiated hearsay (Gonzalez) and some very old allegations from an anti-SSPX article from the early 90s, uncritically reprinted even though to my knowledge some or most of the supposed witnesses never existed... it definitely lessens the credibility of the piece, to say the least.
The subsequent cases are all “old news,” in the sense that we already knew about them. The “few bad apples” comes to mind. It’s hard to weigh in on the truth of the Fr. Peignot or Fr. Abbet or Fr. Abraham happenings, because it’s “over there.” A journalist can easily dredge up some muck and spin it to fit their agenda, and it’s darn hard for anyone at a distance to make a clear judgment about guilt or innocence, let alone ascertain who knew what, who was covering for whom, etc. These men were probably all guilty of something and it seems that their crimes have come to light and they have been dealt with. (When I met Fr. Abraham in the UK in 2009, he was more or less in the same situation as Bp. Williamson: under “house arrest” and forbidden contact with the faithful. I didn’t know anything about him; frankly I assumed he had terminal cancer or something.) So while we do wish that certainly-known accusers could be impaled on a pike in the public square, it does behoove us to remember that things are not always so certain. These sins are called “secret” for a reason. I’m not trying to exonerate the SSPX leadership of all wrongdoing here, just pointing out that these cases are presented in the article as “news” when in fact they are more like “history.” And uncertain history at that.
The article clearly smears Fr. Ken Novak in a most unjust way, which will be particularly evident to anyone who has ever met the man. They try to imply that he’s some kind of cult leader/serial womanizer, which would be laughable if it weren’t so unjust and completely wrong. To me, anyone who publishes lies like this (which must clearly be malicious) loses all credibility. I mean, to the point where if they say that Pope Francis said something liberal, I would be inclined to doubt it, if the source was CM.
In summary, it seems like the only real revelations in this article are the allegations by “Jassy.” While at first blush this seems to point to terrible SSPX mismanagement, “Oh my gosh!! He said something inappropriate!! And he’s running a school?!” when you reread the nature of the allegations you perceive just how flimsy the case against the man is. At worst he was acting a bit sleazy/succuмbing to temptation for salacious information. At best he was legitimately trying to help his penitent and may have phrased himself badly in English. And there’s of course a huge difference between saying something inappropriate to a woman, and sodomizing a little boy. (Frankly even if the priest were caught at a whorehouse I wouldn’t say he deserved public shame and defrocking per se.) Being unfaithful to ones vows or committing a sin against the 6th and 9th commandments is a far cry from being a sɛҳuąƖ predator.
I thought the SSPX response was pretty good. Of course, in 2020, they could have responded with a meme or a simple “lol ur gαy” and it would have made the point just as well.
CM’s response to the SSPX was basically just a rehash of their article and a lot of hand-waving. But they proved their goal of dishonesty by bringing up the infamous “Fr. U” case. They talk about the SSPX’s great sin of harboring him, but neglect to mention how he, and anyone associated with him, were summarily expelled from the society, or how the Society warned the diocese in Pennsylvania about these priests, or how the diocese accepted them and dealt with the aftermath when they began molesting. To omit these facts which completely change the nature of the SSPX’s conduct in this case 180 degrees, tells us all we need to know about the sincerity or veracity of the article. ...which is undoubtedly why a lot of prior commenters in this thread have preferred to “shoot the messenger” rather than dive into the allegations.
Topic: Michael Voris Publishes Article on SSPX Abuse (Read 34803 times)