I had to read that one by ggreg a few times. I think what ggreg meant is people's memories, today, in 2019, remember you were committed to Pfeiffer in 2012ish, but he worded the sentence wrong which makes it seem like you supported Pfeiffer as recently as this new year.

I'm not saying I agree with ggreg's post at all. I'm just pointing out that particular part by ggreg that's confusing.

Please try to learn that in British English YOU can mean ONE (third person) as well as You (directed at Matthew).
I don't know the date he changed his mind about Fr. Pfeiffer.  The point stands that resistance priests and resistance people are in a continuous state of flux.

Please try to learn that in British English YOU can mean ONE (third person) as well as You (directed at Matthew).
I don't know the date he changed his mind about Fr. Pfeiffer.  The point stands that resistance priests and resistance people are in a continuous state of flux.

Yes. I know the grammar rules. That's both in British and American English. However, since you were addressing Matthew, you should have made it clear that "you" meant the third person, and not him specifically, in order to avoid confusion there.

I'd say Ggreg is contradicting himself, or being outright hypocritical here. "When I leave, it's different because they are a "nutter", they lack charity, or they are a liberal. But when other people leave, they maliciously slander the perfectly innocent group they left."

I haven't left anywhere.  I go to the SSPX, and various mainstream churches with outcast priests who say the TLM with a strong preference and the NO under threat or not at all.
Then once a month in my town we have a special mass which a visiting outcast comes to say.
The only change I have made is to not be fully committed to the SSPX and just go there about 40% of the time.


A nutter is a person who lets their strong emotions about the faith drive those under their care away from it.  They are so focused on the here and now that they disregard the scandal they cause to others and they make themselves such a poor example of what a Catholic should be that nobody wants to be associated with them.

They cannot see the wood for the trees.

This is why I go on results.  Because people who obsess over the process can continue for years with very poor results and nobody calls them out.

I haven't left anywhere.  I go to the SSPX, and various mainstream churches with outcast priests who say the TLM with a strong preference and the NO under threat or not at all.
Then once a month in my town we have a special mass which a visiting outcast comes to say.
The only change I have made is to not be fully committed to the SSPX and just go there about 40% of the time.
A nutter is a person who lets their strong emotions about the faith drive those under their care away from it.  They are so focused on the here and now that they disregard the scandal they cause to others and they make themselves such a poor example of what a Catholic should be that nobody wants to be associated with them.

Again, it's about fundamentals vs. accidentals, Greg.
You presumed to instruct me above about the "exception proving the rule" (which I am well aware of, BTW, and my past posts prove it) but can't you see how it applies here?
You will leave a chapel because some INDIVIDUALS (who don't represent the group, BTW -- no chapel has strict membership requirements, or they would be lambasted as a cult) completely lack charity, are bad persons, etc. Now wouldn't they be the exception which proves the rule (the chapel and priest itself could be great)?

And you want to talk about fruits?

Most talk of fruits at Trad chapels is anecdotal at best. I've seen or learned about (first hand) horrible things at my old SSPX chapel, and that was my old 1st choice! I'll tell you what: aside from the Resistance chapel closeby, there weren't any BETTER options in the area. The Indult chapel ironically named "St. Pius X" on Harry Wurzbach St. is much worse (much closer to the makeup of your typical Novus Ordo parish). Also, people tend to remember the few bad fruits and overlook the good fruits. That's human nature. Does the news tell us about all the good things going on, or mostly the bad? Mankind, as a whole, wants dirty laundry.

But I'll tell you the ultimate bad fruit: when the tree starts to destroy itself!

If one were to assume that the anti-Resistance position and rhetoric were the true position, then why does the SSPX have so many people leaving for the Indult/FSSP nowadays? It's like they got the message that the fight against Vatican II is over, it's time to lay down our arms, and "we must have real contact with the Conciliar Church; our status with them is important, and we don't want to be sedevacantist after all" so many SSPX parishioners are taking the hint and leaving for the Indult.

From reports I heard, the Ridgefield, CT chapel lost X number of people in the last few years. This was a true hemorrhage, too, not your typical attrition. 1/3 went to the Sedes, 1/3 went to the Indult, and 1/3 went to the Resistance.

When any group large or small stops believing in itself, in such a fundamental manner, isn't that a death-knell? The SSPX has stopped believing in the Trad movement, just like modern Americans and Brits no longer believe in their culture, to the point they are (as a whole) contracepting themselves out of existence.

There is a lot in common between those nutty positions.

Example, I have strong suspicions about the World Trade Centre attack (especially Building 7).  I don't tell my children and I don't go public about it to everyone I know.  Why?  Because they don't need to know and I have no way to prove it.    If they ask I'll tell them my suspicion.  I don't want to define myself as a person who questions all narratives since they then have an excuse to question the narratives they don't like.

I've never called anti-vaxxers anything since vaccinations are there to protect the herd and not the individual.  I've never been pro-vaccination and have only got my children vaccinated for single shot things like measles where the risk/reward seemed to make sense and even then only aged 4 when they were going to be exposed at school.  I'm against pseudo-science and quackery but not getting vaccinated is not that at all.  The world objects because anti-vaxxers are not playing into protecting the herd.  But in a world with abortion (where a majority agree with it), why am I worried about the herd?  They are killing themselves anyway.  Like arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Homeopathy is nonsense and the people who believe in it are idiots.  Not getting vaccinated, however, is perfectly reasonable and rational.  It is a risk-reward calculation.

The USA went to the moon.  Scientists can bounce lasers off reflector equipment left there by Apollo 15.  Moveover the Soviet Union had huge incentive to expose it as a fraud, if it were a fraud, but they did not then and have not still to this day.  Loads of Soviet era space scientists would have had the knowledge and evidence and during the breakdown of the former Soviet Union when nuclear materials were being stolen, any Russian publishing hard evidence of fake Apollo would have sold 50 million copies of his book.  I lived in Russia during that period and ANYTHING was up for grabs.

It would be simple enough for Russia to sling a rocket at the moon today and take pictures of the untouched landing sites that are supposed to have lunar landers and other equipment on them and broadcast the pictures back to earth.  V. Putin would LOVE to shame the USA and it would bring enormous shame and spawn a thousand conspiracy theories and cause complete distrust in the US government that they had made up such a huge lie.  China are also easily capable of a moon orbit and also have a huge incentive to embarrass and shame the USA for geopolitical reasons.  It would be a no-lose proposition for either country.

Recently China bounced a laser off the reflector left there by the Apollo 15 astronauts.

https://gbtimes.com/china-just-bounced-a-laser-off-reflectors-on-the-moon-placed-by-nasas-apollo-15-mission

Neither Russia nor China cannot do it because those sites were ALL visited and the all have tracks and rocket parts left behind.

To refuse to believe the moon was visited is nutty and makes one a nutter.

The real reason people believe conspiracy theories such as fake Apollo missions and flat earth is that it makes them feel like they are a member of a special group that have some secret insight or knowledge as to how the complex world works.  It gives meaning to their otherwise ordinary lives and makes them feel in control in some small way.  Much the same thing drives the resistance which is why there is a higher correlation between resistance members and people who hold to groundless cօռspιʀαcιҽs.

But I'll tell you the ultimate bad fruit: when the tree starts to destroy itself!

If one were to assume that the anti-Resistance position and rhetoric were the true position, then why does the SSPX have so many people leaving for the Indult/FSSP nowadays? It's like they got the message that the fight against Vatican II is over, it's time to lay down our arms, and "we must have real contact with the Conciliar Church; our status with them is important, and we don't want to be sedevacantist after all" so many SSPX parishioners are taking the hint and leaving for the Indult.

From reports I heard, the Ridgefield, CT chapel lost X number of people in the last few years. This was a true hemorrhage, too, not your typical attrition. 1/3 went to the Sedes, 1/3 went to the Indult, and 1/3 went to the Resistance.

When any group large or small stops believing in itself, in such a fundamental manner, isn't that a death-knell? The SSPX has stopped believing in the Trad movement, just like modern Americans and Brits no longer believe in their culture, to the point they are (as a whole) contracepting themselves out of existence.

Overall is the SSPX growing or shrinking?  I believe it is growing, albeit slowly.
Is the SSPX fragmenting?  Is there a uber liberal faction of the SSPX that wants to split away from the conservative faction?  The SSPX has always had small breakaway groups.  I've nothing against the resistance breaking away, if they are worried about a potential deal with Rome, but they should acknowledge that no deal was done by Fellay.  Until a deal actually happens and the terms and conditions are understood and the SSPX has clearly made an unacceptable compromise, then I am left wondering what exactly is being resisted?
The calls and the doom from 2013/14/15 have not panned out.
My experience of Resistance members' families in the UK is that they are smaller than the average SSPX member taken as a mean, modal or median average.  I know of a couple of big families but I know of lots of small families and unmarried people and people who were shacked up and fornicating in their 20s and 30s and came back to the SSPX when their Halcyon days were over and now I believe are over-compensating.  You see this frequently with reverts and converts like they are trying to make up for lost time.

It really depends on the spirit you base it on. If you are struggling merely because you're a stubborn, combative or irresponsible person and you can't stand people who disagree with you because you hate to lose face or money or some other worldly thing, yeah well that's not good.

If you are struggling because you are genuinely trying to do right by the Faith, by God, by His Church and along the way you offend your friends, your family, your coworkers, or even your co-religious as it may be, and provided you are objectively right, you are doing exactly what you should be doing as a Catholic.

I agree with one proviso.  Being right still needs to look at the long term results.  Because it is very difficult to know beforehand that you are objectively right.  As you rightly say it is confusing. There are those who think Fr. Pfeiffer is a much maligned holy saint of a man and is being attacked by the devil.  How does one objectively know?

I remember SSPX priests saying JP2 was good and was a prisoner in the Vatican.  That use to be the narrative in the early 1980s.  I didn't believe it then as it made no sense to me.  He didn't behave like a prisoner at all.  Even at that age I sensed that people were telling themselves the narrative they wanted to hear.  Very few people are able to avoid drinking their own kool-aid.

Someone who drags their wife and children halfway around the world to live "the Catholic life" in Fatima and ends up with 8 out of 9 children losing their faith has not done exactly what they should be doing.  Results matter.

My method was to observe the successful families in the parish where the mother and father were clearly in love, and the children pleasant and sociable and practiced their faith with some joy and didn't live under a cloud of "the world is evil" misery and make an amalgam of their views.  Imitation is always easier than innovation and I am lazy.