I agree that truth is higher than obedience. But I keep coming back to a deeper question: Who safeguards the truth? For me, this isn't really about canon law. Canons can change. Truth can't, because Truth is Christ. If Leo XIV is the valid successor of Peter ( I believe he is) , then my trust isn't first in Leo as a man. It's in Christ's promise to preserve His Church. Popes can make mistakes, and history shows they have. But I don't believe Christ would allow His Church to definitively lead the faithful away from the truth He entrusted to her. That's where I'm struggling with the SSPX. My trust has to be in Christ's promises more than in my own ability to judge when the Church has lost her way.
In my opinion, the biggest problem is that they preserved the tradition and the Latin form of the Mass, but did they preserve their faith in God? Faith is not just about rituals and tradition. If Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, it was because they strictly observed the law and religious regulations, yet failed to truly worship God and care for other people. One cannot exist without the other tradition without God inevitably leads to pride. I know that the Society of Saint Pius X wanted to restore the Church to the path it followed before the Council, but they relied on human resources rather than on God. As a religious community, they continued to grow, attracting more and more members. Even if their bishops, because of old age, were eventually unable to carry out certain responsibilities, their strong growth in this postmodern, increasingly atheistic age—marked by declining faith, fewer believers, and fewer priests would sooner or later have become even more evident. Obedience is essential in the life of faith, yet they showed fear because they focused on human limitations instead of trusting in God's providence. Rather than believing that God would enable them to overcome the crisis and preserve order despite human weaknesses and difficult circumstances, they placed their confidence in what was merely human. In my view, they ended up making the worst possible decision.
I feel like we are in a window looking back on time. When Luther challenged the Catholic Church. When the church was so powerful and entwined with politics and power. Luther’s arguments for splitting made sense. But look what happened. The world revolted against the church, revolutions, persecutions of Catholics. Beheadings, torture. Catholics can not be excummunicated by Rome. The Catholics excommunicate themselves…I can attend any church, but if I participate in it I have excommunicated myself from the Catholic Church. If the flock of the SSPX follows the priests and participate, they have excommunicated themselves. They will no longer be Roman Catholics but SSPX Catholics. Can their leaders be so caught up in themselves they cannot see this? They are not demonstrating humility but ego. Jesus was so against this type of arrogance. A great grief and sadness this week.
Todays first reading i think is helpful as the Church goes through this time: Ephesians 2:19-22 Brothers and sisters: You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
Does Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe not excommunicate himself by performing a clearly blasphemous sodomite mass? In doing so he is in league with the devil.
Jesus told many saints that those in authority in the Church must be obeyed, even when they are wrong. I forget which saint, but He told her that even if her confessor told her to not do what Jesus Himself told her to do, she MUST do what the confessor said.
https://www.google.com/search?clien...ate=ive&vld=cid:329b5a6f,vid:dym2f9RYFPI,st:0 It's funny, I enjoy Taylor Marshall, but it's been some time since listening to one of his clips. In the above, he helps clarify between illicit and schismatic acts. In some inaccurate statements above, I notice misunderstandings. I recommend taking the time to digest Marshall's comments concerning the recent consecrations.
Also, the following accents the necessity of a visible Church: https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/...3625fd-e49f2c02f2-387680386&mc_cid=e49f2c02f2
I’d reckon far more people on the ‘liberal’ side of The Church have excommunicated themselves than on the traditional side. However, the perverts are in power and can sustain the illusion of being ‘in good standing’.
