Send CathInfo's owner Matthew a gift from his Amazon wish list:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/25M2B8RERL1UO

Author Topic: What is SSPX Resistance?  (Read 8450 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Matthew

  • Mod
Re: What is SSPX Resistance?
« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2023, 11:48:41 AM »
Many Resistance members are/were resisting the changes in the SSPX starting in the mid 2000's and culminating with the acceptance of Novus Ordo ordinations into the SSPX priesthood and the slow acceptance of the conciliar church within the society itself. Potential invalid ordinations were the last straw.

Don't forget the most important:

1. The SSPX is fundamentally and foremost a "Priestly Society of common life without vows". It was formed NOT to offer a network of chapels to the Traditional movement, but rather to form priests in the traditional, pre-Vatican II way with St. Thomas Aquinas philosophy & theology, traditional spiritual formation, no TV, no Freud, inoculated against Modernism, etc. THAT was what the SSPX started out as. Of course, when the world started needing the Traditional Mass and the SSPX had all these well formed priests, well -- the nationwide "chain" of Traditional Mass centers with the SSPX "brand" was born.

I know I'm being a bit facetious, but the SSPX "brand" and its well-organized network of chapels was a good thing. Yes, they were almost too business-like at times, but they were usually very fair. (Less people = Mass less often). How else can you be impartial to all the thousands of Catholics clamoring for a weekly Tridentine Mass? But whoever your SSPX priest was, you knew what you were getting. You knew who ordained your priest (a certainly-valid, +Lefebvre-line bishop), you knew how he was formed, what knowledge he had, and that he had passed a certain baseline. And all those downsides to Independent chapels (up to and including "Is my priest a complete fraud/layman?" were completely put down and removed. It was honestly great while it lasted.

2. My point: the SSPX has always been about preserving the Catholic priesthood by forming priests in the traditional way. The Mass, and taking care of the Catholic Faithful, was always secondary. Of course the Mass and the Priesthood are intimately bound up together -- but I digress.

3. It is a fact that the SSPX has already changed their formation process, in significant ways. Teaching that we need to be subservient to the Modernist usurpers in Rome, failing to teach what the Traditional Movement (and by extension, +Archbishop Lefebvre) is all about, including its many justifications, totally re-prioritizing virtues like obedience and disinterestedness out of their proper place, and teaching Theology in English rather than Latin. They no longer form seminarians with a "we're at war" attitude. Quite the contrary. When you form soldiers (or priests) during a time of war, that war's existence should be front-and-center and help focus your efforts. It should certainly enter in to the formation process. But the new SSPX is about surrender and reconciliation, even though the life-and-death war between Catholicism and Modernism continues fiercer than ever.

This one "change" in the SSPX is a game-changer, a deal-breaker, and enough for me to abandon the SSPX. As the modern saying goes, "YOU HAD ONE JOB". The SSPX had ONE JOB: the formation of Trad priests in the pre-V2 manner. They have already ceased to do that. What good are they now? All they have now is some residual good -- a train doesn't stop on a dime -- which will decrease every year until it becomes 0.

Offline Ladislaus

  • Supporter
Re: What is SSPX Resistance?
« Reply #11 on: April 03, 2023, 11:53:28 AM »
This one "change" in the SSPX is a game-changer, a deal-breaker, and enough for me to abandon the SSPX. As the modern saying goes, "YOU HAD ONE JOB". The SSPX had ONE JOB: the formation of Trad priests in the pre-V2 manner. They have already ceased to do that. What good are they now? All they have now is some residual good -- a train doesn't stop on a dime -- which will decrease every year until it becomes 0.

Well put.


Offline Matthew

  • Mod
Re: What is SSPX Resistance?
« Reply #12 on: April 03, 2023, 11:59:08 AM »
Please take the EENS discussion to the proper subforum. Thank you.

Re: What is SSPX Resistance?
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2023, 12:07:17 PM »
One might argue that the "Resistance" is not resisting sspx.  Why?  Because the putative leader, Bp Williamson himself, has written recently that sspx has done a good work, and is still doing it.

Offline Matthew

  • Mod
Re: What is SSPX Resistance?
« Reply #14 on: April 03, 2023, 12:27:39 PM »
One might argue that the "Resistance" is not resisting sspx.  Why?  Because the putative leader, Bp Williamson himself, has written recently that sspx has done a good work, and is still doing it.

I have no less than 3 problems with your statements.

1. Bp. Williamson would be the FIRST to say that any of us could fall at any time. +W was fond of quoting Our Lord "God could raise up children to Abraham from these stones." He gave the warning that the SSPX could fall, years beforehand. The Resistance *has to* be larger than any man, even Bp. Williamson. What if he went Judas on us? Would that be the end of the Traditional Movement (or at least its sanest, non-Sedevacantist, branch)?

2. Related to #1, Bp. Williamson is not the Resistance itself, nor is he its spokesman. He is the oldest of the bishops, and probably the least active in terms of dealing with the Faithful i.e., the most retired of the 4 Resistance bishops.

3. You make the same mistake as many Pfeifferites, namely: mixing up one opinion, especially an exaggerated/simplified version of someone's opinion, and then taking it and pretending it's a dogma that +W is pushing "My way or the highway!". EVEN IF +W taught plainly and simply that the SSPX was doing great, he certainly isn't requiring *anyone* to hold to that personal opinion. No one in the Resistance is required to place their right hand on the entire stack of "Eleison Comments" and promise before God to uphold and teach everything contained in these papers. But that is *precisely* what Pfeifferites and others act like.

In other words, that ONE POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION of a quote or writing(s) is far from a dogma that +W pushes on all and sundry.

Personally, I think it easily reconciles with reality/the truth, namely: the SSPX is still doing much good today, like a train that has lost 1/2 its workers and been mortally damaged. But a train doesn't stop on a dime. The train is doomed, yes. But it will be going forward on inertia for some time. Is there any evidence +W has gone beyond this true statement?

The same thing happened after Vatican II. This isn't rocket science. Any older Catholics should instantly know what I'm talking about. Why would an organization adopting Modernism result in 100% of its priests becoming Modernist overnight? Spoiler alert: It wouldn't. As a matter of fact, those priests who want nothing to do with Modernism will have to die or be ejected before they'll ever be changed by the New Ways. They'll have to die out.