In the time between the consecrations of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) and the Vatican’s decree of excommunication a day later, the former “Association of the Friends of the SSPX” came out in full force against the order.
The distancing began before the proverbial ink on Cardinal Fernandez’s letter had even dried. On July 1, the day of the consecrations, Dr. Taylor Marshall leapt into action to explain to his viewers how the SSPX “entered into schism.” The consecrations caused “scandal” and “division,” he said — two words that perfectly describe what Leo has been doing since the 2025 conclave, fulfilling Marshall’s prescient (now deleted) warning that Leo was going to be the “worst case” scenario.
Early on in his podcast, Marshall read a quote from Pope Pius IX that said: “Whoever the Roman Pontiff judges to be a schismatic for not expressly admitting and reverencing his power must stop calling himself Catholic.”
This is a peculiar argument coming from Marshall given that he has released multiple podcasts defending Archbishop Lefebvre, whom he described as “saintly.”
“I don’t believe it was a schismatic act,” he said of the 1988 SSPX consecrations on a show he published in 2020. “I believe his [Lefebvre’s] excommunication … was invalid.”
What is different today for Dr. Marshall? What has changed? The SSPX effectively repeated 1988 on July 1 but now Marshall says they “entered into schism.” Only he can answer that question.
Pius IX’s quotation and its principle is entirely correct in normal times of Church life, but we are not in such a period. The men who have donned the white papal vestments since Vatican II have habitually rejected what the Vicars of Christ throughout Church history have said and done. They have abdicated the duty to preach the Catholic faith to all nations to convert them; they have repeatedly insisted they are “one” with non-Catholics; they have relentlessly enforced spiritually harmful disciplinary decisions on Catholics across the world; and they have made impromptu as well as formal magisterial statements that blatantly contradict established Church teachings on faith and morals.
Galatians 1:8 warns that anyone — even an angel (or a “pope”) — who preaches a Gospel contrary to the Word of God is to be considered anathema. If that description doesn’t apply to post-conciliar authorities like Fernandez and Leo, then it doesn’t apply to anyone. That being true, to “disobey” such men is to follow Christ.
It is likely the case that Dr. Marshall will adopt a sort of “conservative” middle-ground position in the years ahead. He may even return to the Novus Ordo Mass or Eastern Rite Liturgies on a regular basis, as he admitted he would do in a recent podcast in the case that Ecclesia Dei gets shut down, despite telling his audience on a program in 2020 that he was “done” attending the Novus Ordo for good.
Matt Gaspers was also quick to leave his “sympathies” for the SSPX behind. In an X post, he pushed back against the newly-minted American SSPX Bishop Michael Goldade in under 24 hours, something his former mentor John Vennari would never do.
“With all due respect to Bishop Goldade, juxtaposing ‘the Catholic Church’ with ‘the modernist church’ is bad ecclesiology. In fact, such language contradicts the SSPX’s own Profession of Faith released last week,” he said.
In another post, Gaspers told a social media user: “While I do respect the SSPX and generally think they do good work, I don’t agree with all of their positions, including the one you mentioned, namely telling people not to attend canonically regular parishes for Mass. Unfortunately, it seems to me that there is a schismatic mentality among some SSPX clergy and some of the laity who attend SSPX chapels, some, not all.”
The “schismatic mentality” Gaspers is referring to opposition to “canonical regularization” with the Conciliar hierarchy. But that was precisely the policy the Society maintained for years. Perhaps Mr. Gaspers has forgotten that after the 1988 consecrations, Archbishop Lefebvre said he would only make an accord with the Vatican if they were preaching the doctrines of Pius IX, St. Pius X, etc. Likewise in 2012, the late Society Bishop Tissier de Mallerais said that the “irregularity” is in Rome and not with the Society, and that a personal prelature would be to “regularize the war.”
The Dispatch
The strongest sympathy shown to the SSPX by Gaspers so far was an X post when he said they are being mistreated by Rome because Leo continue to meet with Orthodox and Protestant delegations.
While on its face this is true, it misses the larger issue that only Trads who are willing to say that the new ecclesiology, new theology, and new liturgy and calendar are not in rupture with the past are able to have their Latin Masses approved by the Synodalists in Rome. This is not very Counter-Revolutionary.
Meanwhile, Eric Sammons, editor of Crisis Magazine, claimed on X that he is a real friend of the Society.
“But what is a true friend? It’s not someone who simply agrees with everything a friend does. It’s someone who wants the best for the friend,” Sammons remarked. “The consecrations were a mistake and should not have been done. As a friend of the Society, I’m not going to pretend I think otherwise.”
Sadly, Sammons & Co. just don’t get it. We pray they will one day come to see their positions as erroneous. We hope to work together with them at that point to better oppose the apostates in Rome and across the world. In the meantime, we don’t need their so-called friendship or sympathy. Placing oneself in a cage inside an ecumenical zoo constructed by Modernists only serves to further enable the synodal operation.
Sounding like Modernists
Traditionalists who are putting great distance between themselves and the SSPX are, perhaps unknowingly, speaking in concert with less-than-praiseworthy figures.
The chairman of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Franz Lackner, effectively called for the excommunication in his statement expressing support for Leo while lamenting the Society’s “schismatic” actions, and praising the importance of Vatican II.
Cardinal Parolin, the great appeaser of Xi Jinping, made similar comments.
“I don’t think there’s much to say about this episode. First of all, I want to express my deep regret because, speaking of the unity of the Church, such an act deeply wounds the unity of the Church,” he remarked. “This is clearly a schismatic act in itself, because we know that episcopal ordinations without papal mandate break the unity of the Church and are subject to very specific sanctions, which are essentially excommunication.”
Meanwhile, the “old friend of Traditionalism,” Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, described the consecrations as “more than a schism; it is heresy in practice.”
On the far left side of things, Mike Lewis of Where Peter Is could barely conceal his delight: “Welcome clarity. The Catholic Church has now formally declared that the SSPX is in schism. There is no more ambiguity. That debate is settled once and for all. They are a non-Catholic group. If you adhere to their schism, you have also broken communion with the Church.”
Perhaps none of this should come as a surprise. “Traditional” Catholics who insist on remaining within the structures of the post-conciliar Church and who seek to intentionally put themselves under men who, in one way or another, adhere to the Vatican II religion (even its conservative variant) inevitably find themselves defending its priorities, speaking its language, and defending its decisions.
Undoubtedly, during a normal period in the life of the Church, every Catholic should obey disciplinary decisions regarding the consecrations of bishops. But again, we are not living in such a time. We live in an era when bishops, priests, and laity who adhere to the faith of all time and who want to continue doing so are punished by a man who has written lurid books on sexuality and who thinks the title “Co-Redemptrix” is “always inappropriate.”
The former “friends” of the SSPX have made their choice crystal clear. The only remaining question is whether they will abide by their public remarks when the Synodal Church turns its ire against them.
