I recently spoke to an SSPX priest.  He said much of what the SSPX-SO is saying is true but what he cant quite understand is how a couple of priests doing their own thing in KY, and an exiled bishop in London who is calling for "a loosely associated network of priest " matches the four marks that our Lord said would be found in His Church, One, Holy,  Catholic, and Apostolic.  He can not see these four marks in the SSPX-SO. The very term "loosely associated" seems to contradict the entire concept of oneness.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

I have an idea of why the priest you spoke with may have opined as he did:

1) The SSPX priests of the US District just concluded a week of conferences in Winona at the annual priest meeting.

2) One of the major topics discussed was obedience.

3) I find that humorous, insofar as, if there was one topic you would think an SSPX priest was already up to speed on, it would be proper conceptions of true/false obedience, necessity, etc.

4) Theology 101, really.

5) Anyway, it does not surprise that the meeting would have rebuttal of the SSPX-SO arguments as one of their major themes.

6) Gradually, pounding away at the priests, the arguments slowly sink in.

7) Speaking with an SSPX priest last week, I noticed a bit of this softening in him, having come straight from the meeting.

8) He opined we ought not be too caught up in conspiracy theories; we may need to compromise to get a deal, not on doctrine, but on principles ABL would not have agreed with because of changing conditions; the situation in Rome is not the same; etc.

9) I was shocked....the Kansas City indoctrination is working away at him.  (For a refutation of these positions, see Arsenius' recent article posted elsewhere on this forum).

10) When you are surrounded by priests who are afraid to speak up, it starts to look like they are all on board.

11) You then start to doubt yourself, and the merits of resistance.

12) With regard to the assertion that Bishop Williamson's call for "a loose confederation of independent priests," his position was misrepresented at the priest meeting (and this is why SSPX priests are regurgitating this baloney this week):

13) Bishop Williamson did not say this was a normative practice, and therefore deny the unity and heirarchy natural to the Church.

14) He called for this only as a response to the crisis, as a safeguard and precautionary measure for the preservation of tradition.

15) Certainly Bishop Williamson does not deny heirarchy and unity in normal times; that is the part the speaker at the priest meeting left out.

16) As time goes by, and the indoctrination process sinks deeper into the remaining SSPX priests, I expect fewer and fewer of them to resist.

17) If that proves true, the remnant of tradition will have to grow organically, rather than by SSPX defections to the SSPX-SO.

18) 12 Apostles converted the world, and 5 seminarians grew the SSPX.....There are precedents that give cause for hope.

Pax tecuм,

Seraphim