The SSPX is Approved Opposition
Plus, Trad Inc doesn't approve of me.
My article on Fr. Ripperger and the SSPX consecrations incurred the most awful wrath of Trad Inc, in the form of one Ryan Grant who linked to my piece on Twitter.
The efforts to characterize me as some gormless youth was not restricted to Grant, with a priest labelling me, “an insolent pup” as well as a lout whose parent’s neglected to restrict my internet access. Considering that I moved out of the familial nest before the internet was even invented, such an action on the part of my parents would have been somewhat difficult.
Grant’s objections were restricted to my challenge on Fr. Ripperger. He took no interest in my public ridicule of Taylor “Tay Tay” Marshall, the acting president of Trad Inc. So much for loyalty, as Grant was interviewed by Marshall back in 2020. Grant positions himself on his website as somewhat of an expert speaker on matters theological. Why, you too can hire him to speak while he muses between clouds of pipe tobacco. But Grant’s theological chops are somewhat confused, as Louie Verrecchio demonstrates in his objective yet cruel dissection of his interview with Marshall.
By the way Grant, it took me about ten minutes to do that research on you. For a guy who boasts about being a credentialed researcher in the Vatican Apostolic Library, your research chops appear to be rather infantile, so to speak.
My assessment on the SSPX consecrations as being schismatic due to their recognition of Prevost as pope didn’t rate a mention either by Grant. Only Fr. Ripperger was worthy of being defended, if you can call such a pathetic kindergarten display worthy of being described as a defense. Get your fellow schoolkids to point and laugh while you accuse me of being … a kid.
I have thought some more on the SSPX consecrations. I find the Vatican’s swift excommunication of the bishops and priests involved to be very interesting, because it instantly provides legitimacy to those same consecrations as well as to the SSPX. Those pulling the strings at the Vatican are not stupid, so this was done very much on purpose. Yet groups such as Bishop Donald Sanborn’s Roman Catholic Institute or the Institute Mater Boni Consilii do not rate being excommunicated even though they explicitly reject the current pope. By being ignored they are rendered powerless.
The SSPX is thus the Vatican’s approved opposition. In that context, the consecrations of the four bishops make perfect sense. The Vatican can bring to bear the weight of publicity against the SSPX, sucking up all of the media attention, approved or otherwise, while denying oxygen to the very real opposition of sedevacantist bishop Pierre Roy and the upcoming consecration of Fr. Michael Mary. As Bishop Roy states, the SSPX consecrations make no sense.
It is the occasion to underline a few differences between our perspective and that of the SSPX.
We consecrate Bishops in the absence of a true Sovereign Pontiff. As such, these consecrations are easily justified by the state of necessity of the Church. One truly struggles, to say the least, to understand how the state of necessity, in the case of the SSPX, can be invoked against the Sovereign Pontiff. Can it, actually? No, it can never be.
The SSPX bishops are consecrated as purely “sacramental Bishops.” As such, these Bishops are called to travel the earth and accomplish the sacramental acts that are commanded to them by the priests in charge of their community, the Bishops being thus under the authority of priests. One again struggles to understand how such a situation is compatible with the divine constitution of the Church.
In any other words, the SSPX recognises Prevost as pope, and as such there is no necessity for them to consecrate any bishops as there is no lack of bishops in the world who recognise the imposters squatting in the Vatican.
The issue of the great lack of bishops who do not bow to Prevost and his handlers is very real, however, and of dire concern. By consecrating Fr. Michael Mary, Bishop Roy aims to make a small but crucially important addition to the number of actual, valid bishops in the world today. But expect no excommunication of the key players involved in that ceremony. The very last thing that the Vatican wishes to do is draw attention to those who would truly seek to oust the heretical sodomite imposters from the One True Church.
Always keep in mind that where there is smoke there is fire. If your opponents purposely provide oxygen to your fire, then there is a very sound reason for such an action. To whom do they give oxygen and to whom do they leap to defend? Unravel those uncomplicated knots and you begin to draw a clear picture of the true nature of things. In the end, the truth is always simple and unadorned, which is why they always try and keep it complicated.
Our pastor talked about this at mass last Sunday. Generally, he's a decent homilist, but he lost me in all the arcane argle-bargle inside baseball. He likened the group to Martin Luther. He had a decent explanation of why Vatican 2 was valid. Sure, the Holy Spirit was there guiding things. But as I read more and more, I think Satan had a chair there as well.
Prevost lost me long ago, and his recent genuflection to immigrants was outrageous.
He has no clue how that divides us as a people and a Church. I don't want a multi-lingual service that sucks for both cultures. I don't want mass parts to be sung in ooga booga african languages.
There's a lot good about the Church. But there's a lot that has me questioning whether some of their teachings that are not biblical but the 'magisterium' are really a "because we said so" coming from the heretical sodomite imposter mean girl club.
Hell, look at that ridiculous synod. I poured over the thing. All the troubles in the world, and what's the focus? Homos and trannies. They even included unprecedented stories of the struggles of a few of them. Really? FFS all the trouble, all the issues of the modern day, and that's what our biggest concern as Catholics should be? What's so hard to understand about your sexual proclivities putting you in a state of mortal sin?
The Sanborn point runs backward. The sede lines were already excommunicated — Thục's consecrations incurred and were declared under the same canon decades ago; Sanborn's episcopacy descends from them. Rome doesn't issue fresh decrees to men who deny Rome exists, for the same reason it doesn't excommunicate Baptists: the penalty presupposes a subject. The SSPX gets paperwork because it insists it's inside. That's not "approved opposition," it's the only opposition with a canonical address.
You wrote punished = legitimized, ignored = feared. Every possible Vatican action confirms the thesis, which means the thesis contains no information. Bishop Roy's own line is the honest part: "necessity can never be invoked against the Sovereign Pontiff." So his solution is to remove the Pontiff, after which necessity justifies anything. That's not solving the SSPX's hard problem, it's deleting the constraint that made it hard. Resisting while remaining subject is the difficult, Catholic position; declaring the see vacant is the easy exit dressed as rigor.
Both the Ecclesia Dei communities and the sede groups split off from the SSPX — the FSSP from priests who left over the 1988 consecrations, the sede lines from men expelled for rejecting the pope. The Society that mainstream Catholics call schismatic is the trunk; its accusers on both flanks are the branches.
The endless spiral of purity-testing who's really Catholic is a dead: every circle it draws is smaller than the last.