In yet another tiresome “warning,” Beckman cautioned Catholics in his diocese last week against involvement with the “excommunicated” Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). To date, the faithful have yet to heed any of his or the Synodal hierarchy’s threats leveled at them since the Society’s July 1 consecrations.
Beckman’s letter emphasized, again, that attendance at SSPX chapels could jeopardize their standing while noting that he explicitly forbade support for the ministry of SSPX-affiliated priest Fr. David Mary Engo.
The Conciliar Church’s desperate crusade against traditionalists was once again on display after a sweeping seven-page memorandum was issued by Bishop Mark Beckman of Knoxville, Tennessee.
The memorandum, which influencer Cullum Smith drew attention to on X, was dated October 22 and was titled Instruction to the Faithful About the SSPX. It marks the latest escalation in the diocese’s response to Engo’s decision to “associate himself” with the Society.
Beckman further instructed Catholics to refrain from attending Society Masses and frequenting their sacramental celebrations, retreats, conferences, and other religious activities which would constitute a “near occasion of schism.” Of course, the irony here is that Novus Ordo Masses have been proven to be spiritually harmful and that the conciliar authors rejected the perennial magisterium of the Church at Vatican II.
The memorandum follows developments that occurred earlier this month when Engo and diocesan priest Philip Conklin of Minneapolis publicly aligned with the SSPX.
Engo, who was incardinated in the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend, had been living and ministering in Knoxville with permission. However, he informed Beckman of his decision to associate with the SSPX as a “priest friend” and entered into an arrangement to provide pastoral care for a mission chapel affiliated with it.
The Dispatch
Beckman, seemingly threatened by a single hermit priest, subsequently withdrew Engo’s faculties and permissions while suspending him from priestly ministry. He also rescinded his permission to reside in Knoxville as a hermit and directed him to leave the diocese.
While Beckman, who recently banned the St. Michael prayer after Masses in his diocese, was careful not to explicitly state that Engo had incurred the penalty of excommunication, he warned that the priest’s continued ministry could expose him to that possibility. “A determination concerning his individual penal status belongs to competent ecclesiastical authority applying the relevant facts and law,” he said.
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Beyond the immediate controversy, Beckman’s instruction includes an extensive historical and theological critique of the Society, as if any Catholic in Western Civilization isn’t already thoroughly familiar with these arguments.
Like so many Synodal prelates, Beckman correctly, if unwittingly, diagnosed the disagreement as being fundamentally not about Latin or the traditional Roman liturgy, but about obedience to ecclesiastical authority and acceptance of the teachings associated with the Second Vatican Council.
In a recent interview with LifeSiteNews, Engo said Rome’s rejection of the Blessed Virgin’s title of “Co-Redemptrix” triggered his decision to leave the diocese after 30 years.
Around the same time that news broke of Engo’s “soft defection,” a social media account associated with the Society published a list of priests from across the globe who had joined the SSPX after the Society’s bishops were declared “excommunicated” in July 2026. Pro-SSPX Catholics saw this as a sign that the supposed excommunications had backfired.
