The current Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) situation continues to be the catalyst for exposing many of the traitors within the traditionalist movement.
Ever since the SSPX tragicomedy started unfolding, the Priestly Society of St Peter (FSSP) has shown its true colors with monotonous frequency. The latest incident reeks of surreal absurdism.
Visitors at the St. John Vianney Chapel (FSSP) in Maple Hill, Kansas were recently given a document entitled Welcome to St John Vianney Chapel (intended for those who previously attended the SSPX).
Several commentators, including Ann Barnhardt, Catholic Esquire, and Kennedy Hall, have already weighed in on it.
The document is supposed to help lost SSPX souls discern whether they had incurred a canonical penalty and to instruct them on how they can “return” to full communion with the Synodal Church.
Before proceeding any further, the entire situation is drenched in bitter irony when one considers that the FSSP — which was founded by priests who betrayed Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society in 1988 — is now subjecting Catholics to a “loyalty test.” This is akin to putting Jim Jones in charge of beverages at your next cocktail party.
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The FSSP document was similar to the memo the Vatican published two days after the SSPX’s consecrations. Some of the questions included in it by which the FSSP proposed to measure “Catholicity” were:
- Did I believe the Church had fallen away from being the authentic Church of Christ?
- Did I hold that a pope was not a valid pope?
- Did I always consider the legitimate line of Successors of St Peter since 1955 as: Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, Leo XIV?
- Did I ever hold the Novus Ordo (English Mass) to be invalid?
Now, whether those who wrote these question realize it or not, they are a damning indictment not of the former SSPX soul who has to answer them but rather of the assumptions of the FSSP.
As we have seen so many times in recent months with so many Catholic Inc. apologists and synodal traditionalists, the FSSP has once again made itself guilty of the extraordinary reduction of Catholic orthodoxy to the acceptance of the postconciliar system of heretical beliefs, or, rather, “church.”
The document did not ask whether one believes the dogmas of Trent, Vatican I, or any of the other preconciliar magisterial teachings, but only whether the Catholic under scrutiny accepts every claimant to the papacy since Vatican II and whether one believes the Novus Ordo to be valid.
As has been pointed out here at Integrity Magazine and elsewhere before, this is because the Second Vatican Council constitutes the new religion’s only dogmatic council, and adherence to it is the minimum requirement for becoming a member of the Synodal Church — or, in the FSSP’s case, for remaining as a side chapel in its ecumenical Cathedral.
Demanding loyalty to the Church or to the Vatican II sect?
The question concerning the Novus Ordo is just as curious. Whether the abominable “new Mass” is valid or not is a sacramental question, not a litmus test for Catholicity. The FSSP also needs to explain when the Church started requiring, as a practical test for communion, that laypersons make theological judgements on sacramental validity.
The Dispatch
Then there is the bizarre question regarding the list of post-1955 “legitimate Successors of St Peter.” Never in history was one of the requirements for becoming a member of the Catholic Church retrospective historical affirmations concerning disputed ecclesiastical claimants. This is clearly the case in the postconciliar “church,” but historically, in the Catholic Church, the profession of faith required assent to revealed doctrine.
This also exposes once again the lie of unity within the postconciliar beast, as it seems the FSSP authors of this document are “doing their own thing” and making it up as they go along.
One can only wonder why there were no questions about the orthodoxy of Dignitatis Humanae, Nostra Aetate, ecumenism, collegiality, religious liberty, or whether Vatican II is consistent with previous magisterial teaching. Most likely because it would expose the FSSP for the hypocrites that they are.
FSSP priest: Vatican II produced ‘genuine good’
Recently, Fr. Sven Leo Conrad, president of the FSSP’s Academic Council, publicly articulated the Fraternity’s position in an article that appeared in Global Catholic.
With great bravado, Congar distanced the Fraternity from the SSPX with the hollow-ringing claim, “We are Catholic.”
In a stunning case of “that escalated quickly”, Conrad then rejected the label “traditionalist” altogether and insisted that the FSSP fully accepts the Second Vatican Council and that one cannot oppose “today’s Church” to “yesterday’s Church.”
It is safe to deduce, then, that in Conrad’s world of malleable Catholicism, the faith changes from “yesterday” to “today.”
Drunk on the synodal spirit, Conrad further claimed that Vatican II “produced genuine good” and described the SSPX’s separation from the postconciliar hierarchy as a “tragedy.”
This feigned lamentation of concern is rich coming from a priest of a fraternity which owes its very existence to the crisis following Vatican II. Without the liturgical revolution, Archbishop Lefebvre, and the SSPX’s resistance to the conciliar reforms, Conrad and his yellow-bellied cohorts would not have had their precious postconciliar pseudo-trad group.
Seeking permission to be traditional’ish
The FSSP inherited the traditional Mass through the resistance of Archbishop Lefebvre to Vatican II but now insists that the Council responsible for the crisis “produced genuine good” and requires prospective members to distance themselves from those who continue to oppose it.
Ultimately, the FSSP’s position is as fragile as a Fabergé egg. They claim to be all about the traditional liturgy and sacraments but are willing to accept the council that set into motion the persecution against them. Worse, to get a permission slip from their modernist overlords, they are willing to affirm the council’s theological principles that contradict Catholicism.
Thus, the “welcome” document, which was meant to be a pastoral aid, ended up being a concise statement of the FSSP’s schizophrenic ecclesiology.
Someone needs to tell the FSSP that the postconciliar revolution represents a break with the Catholicism of nearly two millennia, and no amount of “canonical regularity” can resolve that.
In the end, the Maple Hill questionnaire did not test adherence to the perennial Catholic faith but the candidate’s willingness to accept the postconciliar apostasy.
