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Catholics striving today to keep the Faith do not have an easy task. Here is the description by an observer of the present state of the Society of St Pius X in the USA as he sees it, both positive and negative. Let us take the negative first, not in order to spite the Society, but in order to take the measure of the problem. As the American patriot, Patrick Henry, said in 1775: “For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to hear the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

“Up till now the Society priests in the USA have not reacted to the Modernist infiltration of their Society. Most bend over backwards to justify every word and act of their Superior General. How they can justify the compromise in doctrine is a mystery to me. One of them says that just talking with Bishop Fellay will clarify everything. The handful of US seminarians that I have met with are being malformed, lost in justifying everything, even the ‘good’ found in Vatican II. Blind obedience is the drum they march to. Conspiracy theories are taboo in the seminary, so that as future priests they will be easy prey for the enemy. There was no reaction to the visit there of Novus Ordo Bishop Schneider, or to the ‘Argentinian assimilation.’ The ‘Resistance’ to Bishop Fellay’s modernism is absolutely not discussed, being dismissed as another revolt, like that of the ‘Nine’ priests in 1983.

“Yet SSPX Priors indiscriminately permit attendance at Masses of St Peter’s Fraternity, and they define Modernism as a ‘dust pile’ to be swept to one side. A newly ordained priest was sent to attend the installation of a local Novus Ordo bishop. Overall there is no fight against the errors of Vatican II, nor against the errors of the Society’s own Doctrinal Declaration of 2012. Worst of all is the doctrinal slide that has taken place within the Society since 2012, yet still SSPX priests are saying that they will take no action until they see something concrete.”

Such blindness can only be a punishment from God. What is he punishing? In the 1950’s Catholics seeking too much their own worldly comfort were punished by the Council of the 1960’s. To a faithful remnant God granted Archbishop Lefebvre, the true shepherd of the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Surely God was entitled in return to expect that these remnant Catholics would understand the problem, and flee the false solution of the 1950’s. But no. Since the late 1990’s the SSPX leaders and then priests and layfolk have been slowly but surely going back to “Fiftiesism,” or to the “Sunday Catholicism” of the 1950’s, which is a poor return on the multiple graces granted by him to the Society. It would seem that God has had enough. So he has, for instance, allowed a diocese in Argentina to set the example of granting official Church approval to the Society, dismissed by Society HQ as a “merely administrative measure,” but paving the way for a Roman or diocese-by-diocese complete Church approval which everybody would pretend not to notice, but which almost everybody would rejoice in. These Romans are masters!

However, Almighty God is still raising a Resistant remnant out of the Traditional remnant. The observer quoted above concluded: “I think that when the chips all fall, there will be a handful of Nicodemuses and Josephs of Arimathea from among the Society priests and Brothers, and hopefully Sisters. The “Resistant” faithful throughout North America are steady, with occasional newcomers, mostly from the Novus Ordo, or from nothing.” The same steadiness was evident in many Catholics’ reactions to the consecration of Bishop Faure. Here is a future for souls. But let us make no mistake this time round: Almighty God wants no more Sunday Catholics. He wants potential martyrs.

Kyrie eleison.