In this episode of the akaCatholic podcast, we’ll take a closer look at Bishop Fellay’s sermon as given at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary this past Sunday, February 8, 2026.
The sermon provides more insight into the Society’s view of the present situation, but even more importantly, it gives the sincere seeker of truth – including those who are joined to the SSPX – yet another opportunity to discern what’s truly Catholic and what is not, including the answer to a very important question:
Has the Catholic Church defected? Before answering for yourself, take a moment to listen to what Bishop Fellay has to say. You might be surprised…
[An article / transcript is available below the video for those who prefer to read.]
In a sermon given at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary this past Sunday, February 8, 2026, Bishop Bernard Fellay took the opportunity to talk about the “state of necessity” that requires the SSPX to consecrate new bishops with or without papal mandate.
The sermon provides more insight into the Society’s view of the present situation, but even more importantly, it gives the sincere seeker of truth – including those who are joined to the SSPX – yet another opportunity to discern what’s truly Catholic and what is not.
Bishop Fellay made it a point to stress that the problem at hand is in the Catholic Church, i.e., it’s not as if a non-Catholic adversary has somehow invaded the Church’s sovereign territory. Rather, in the SSPX view, the abandonment of faith in Rome is an assault on the faith that is coming from the sacred hierarchy itself.
Consider, for example, the following excerpts from Bishop Fellay’s sermon:
There is a major problem within the Catholic Church.
There is a crisis in the Church.
What is going on in the Church?
Look at the situation of faith today in the Church.
Catholic life is not made possible again in the Church.
Did you hear what he said? The crisis is such that it’s not possible to live a Catholic life in the Church!
One has to wonder, if it’s not possible to live a Catholic life in the society that he calls “the Church,” then how in God’s name can that church be the Catholic Church?
Simply as a matter of common sense, the answer is perfectly obvious, it cannot be the Catholic Church.
Bishop Fellay is suggesting that the Body of the Church isn’t so much being attacked by the contagion of error, rather, she herself – the Holy Catholic Church – is infected, and what’s more, what the SSPX calls “the Church” is complicit in infecting poor souls, allowing them to wither and die without the medicine of truth.
After having made it very clear that the disease is in the Church herself, Bishop Fellay gave a brief, and frankly a very decent, catechesis on the nature of the Church and the purpose for which Our Lord established it:
Our Mother, the Catholic Church, needs authorities and has authorities.
Making leaving no room for doubt that he is talking about the organization in Rome of today – the one that counts Tucho “Heal me with your Mouth” Fernandez among its authorities – Bishop Fellay immediately went on to say the following:
We even say with the Church that the Holy Father, the pope, has the supreme authority on earth.
In this, Bishop Fellay is underscoring what Fr. Pagliarani was at pains to make clear in hisrecent interview, namely, that the SSPX looks upon Leo as the “Holy Father,” whose papal authority they are pleased to acknowledge.
Bishop Fellay then discussed the Church’s mission and purpose, saying this:
For the Church, this goal has been given by the Founder of the Church, Our Lord himself, and it is salvation of souls… His mission, He entrusted to His Church and invested this Church with the means which are proportionate to this end… And all these [means] God has given to only one entity, the Catholic Church.
This portion of the sermon is, of course, entirely agreeable. Bishop Fellay went a bit further:
The council of Vatican I, Leo XIII, they explained as the first reason of the existence of the Catholic Church, the transmission of the Revelation. That means, of the faith, explaining which we find in all the books of the Revelation.
Without the faith, it is impossible to please God. Without the faith, it is impossible to be justified. That means to be brought from the state of sin into the state of grace. Without the faith, it is impossible to be saved.
Again, this lesson is praiseworthy, but Bishop Fellay wasn’t finished. He went on to teach a critically important truth, one that gets far too little attention in our day, namely, the Catholic Church is infallible in transmitting and explaining Divine Revelation.
On that note, he had this to say:
And that’s why God did provide this Roman Catholic Church with an incredible privilege which we call the infallibility, to be certain that this Revelation, which is what God told us, is brought from generation to generation.
The importance of these truths about the Church, her nature, her mission, her unique gifts and privileges, as described by Bishop Fellay for the benefit of the seminarians and others present for Holy Mass that day, cannot be overestimated.
In all, Bishop Fellay explained rather well what it means to say that the Church is a perfect society, infallible, and indefectible.
To summarize these truths briefly:
The Church is a perfect society: She has all the means necessary to accomplish the purpose for which she exists, namely, the safeguarding and transmitting of Divine Revelation, the preservation and teaching of the true faith, and all of this for the salvation of souls.
The Church is infallible: She is protected by Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost who guides her such that she cannot err in faith or morals.
The Church is indefectible: She will persist as such even to the close of the age, not just in theory, but rather she will persist in transmitting the true faith from generation to generation unto salvation, which is the very purpose for which she was established by Our Savior.
This is basic Catholic ecclesiology; it’s the Church’s long held understanding of who and what she is and why she exists, and Bishop Fellay is indicating that he and the Society of St. Pius X firmly embrace it.
That’s all well and good, but there’s a problem, a big problem.
When Bishop Fellay speaks of “the Church,” he is pointing directly at the false religion presently headquartered in the Vatican under the headship of a man who calls himself “Pope Leo XIV,” and whose authority the SSPX does not dare to question.
In other words, the SSPX is determined to convince poor naïve souls that this organization – the one that considers religious liberty a non-negotiable right, the one that professes that God uses the heretic communities as means of salvation, and even goes so far as to reassure the Jews of their enduring covenant relationship with God despite their rejection of Jesus Christ – is the Holy Catholic Church, the perfect, infallible, and indefectible society established by Christ for our salvation.
Could the contradictory nature of these claims possibly be made clearer?
The answer is yes, it can, as Bishop Fellay went on to demonstrate.
As for the current condition of this grotesque thing in Rome that he calls “the Church,” Bishop Fellay went on to discuss the authorities that the Church needs and has, as he previously affirmed, saying this:
Why do we say state of necessity? What do we mean when we say state of necessity or emergency? It’s not a question of bad will. It is not a question of judging why they [the Church’s authorities] do so. It is simply a fact …
He went on to speak more explicitly still, and this is important, pay close attention:
When we say state of emergency in the Church … we don’t look at the reason why they [the pastors of the Church who exercise authority] do what they do. We just see that, at a large scale, they are not able to fulfill what they are for, that is, save the souls.
At this, an explanation is in order, one that Bishop Fellay failed to provide. Consider the following from Pope Pius XII:
The person of Jesus Christ is represented by the Supreme Pontiff, who in turn must call on others to share much of his solicitude … Our Savior does not rule the Church directly in a visible manner, He wills to be helped by the members of His Body in carrying out the work of Redemption …
That those who exercise sacred power in this Body [the Church] are its chief members must be maintained uncompromisingly. It is through them, by commission of the Divine Redeemer Himself, that Christ’s apostolate as Teacher, King and Priest is to endure. (cf Mystici Corporis 17, 44)
In this, the Holy Father is telling us that the men to whom Bishop Fellay referred as the Church’s “authorities” are those through whom the threefold office of Christ – Priest, Prophet, and King – endures in the Church and in the world, not just from time to time, but as Bishop Fellay himself plainly noted, from generation to generation.
This applies most especially to the Supreme Pontiff. On this point, the First Vatican Council teaches:
What the Chief of pastors and the Great Pastor of sheep, the Lord Jesus, established in the blessed Apostle Peter for the perpetual salvation and perennial good of the Church, this by the same Author must endure always in the Church which was founded upon a rock and will endure firm until the end of the ages. (D1824)
To be clear, this means is that not only will the Office of Peter endure forever, the purpose for which it was established – to lead souls unto salvation – will always be carried out in the Church, even in those moments when the Petrine Office itself is vacant, as naturally happens in the life of the Church.
Pope Leo XIII taught likewise in his Encyclical Satis Cognitum:
And so the Church is bound to spread among all men the salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ, and all the blessings that proceed therefrom, and to propagate them through the ages. Therefore, according to the will of its Author the Church must be alone in all lands in the perpetuity of time. (D1955)
This is important: The Church is bound to spread salvation through the ages, all ages, in the perpetuity of time.
In the Systematic Index found in the Denzinger, we find the following:
The end of the Church is to pour forth salvation procured through Christ and at the same time the benefits emanating therefrom upon all men of all ages…
Again, the Church was given all that she needs to pour forth salvation upon all men of all ages, in perpetuity. In other words, our age – albeit an age of widespread confusion – is no different in this regard.
And yet, the leaders of the Society of St. Pius X believe that the Catholic Church in our age is different.
The Church of today, as Bishop Fellay stated, simply is “not able” – his words, not mine – to fulfill the end for which she was established. Worse still, this falsehood, this impossibility, is being fed to their faithful, their school children, and even their seminarians.
And please, do not fall for the deceptive idea that the Church is able to save souls, it’s just that those who exercise authority in the Church, in our day, they are not able.
As the citations I shared from the First Vatican Council and the Holy Fathers Leo XIII and Pius XII make plain, as it concerns the protection and propagation of the faith, the dispensing of the graces of Redemption, and spreading the salvation accomplished by Christ among all men, there is no distinction to be made between “the Church” on earth and those who exercise sacred power in the Church.
At this, we must remind ourselves that the SSPX does not consider itself to be in possession of power in the Church, rather, they consider themselves to be helpers of the Church. In a 2022 interview, Bishop Fellay spoke of the 1988 consecrations, saying:
We were consecrated in a very difficult time. We do not desire a jurisdictional power; we are only here to serve. This is a capital point as Rome accepted that we are not schismatics. We do not claim to have power that we do not have.
In his recent sermon, Bishop Fellay once again made the point that the Society is merely seeking to serve the Church. He employed several analogies along the way, including the following:
If you are in front of a fire and there is no fireman, you don’t say, “Well, I am not responsible. I am not in charge.” No, you help to stop the fire. And that, we may say, that’s our situation.
So, according to the SSPX, the Church is on fire, and the reason she burns is due in large measure to the Holy Roman Pontiffs from Paul VI right up to Leo XIV. And what’s more, these men are not only guilty of fanning the flames of error and heresy, they are the very arsonists who set the Barque of Peter ablaze in the first place, and the result is that poor souls are perishing.
If you are a member of the SSPX – whether a priest or a layman – ask yourself:
Does this describe in any way the Church with which Our Lord promised to remain until the close of the age, the Church ever guided and protected by the Holy Ghost?
Does this sound even remotely like the Catholic Church, perfect, infallible, and indefectible?
Contrast the teaching of the First Vatican Council and the Holy Fathers that came after with Bishop Fellay’s contention that the authorities in the Church are not able to fulfill what they are for, that is, to save the souls. Contrast traditional Catholic ecclesiology with the idea that Catholic life isn’t made possible in the Church.
In short, what Bishop Fellay is alleging without plainly stating as much – and to be clear, it’s not just his opinion, rather it’s the position of the Society itself – is that the Church has defected.
To say that the Church has deteriorated to the point where it’s not possible to live a Catholic life in her parishes and dioceses, that it no longer transmits the true faith, and worse, the Church in our age isn’t able to save souls… This is a solid working definition of what it means to say that the Church has defected.
It’s difficult to say just how much, if any of this, is due to genuine confusion on the part of SSPX leadership, its clerics, and its faithful.
Although, I must admit that I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that the Society’s clerics sincerely believe that the decrepit organization presently in occupation of the Vatican is the one true Church of Christ.
The other possibility, one supposes, is that – after having spent so many years denigrating those who cannot help but to conclude that the Chair of Peter must be empty, and that the conciliar enterprise in Rome simply cannot be the Holy Roman Catholic Church – the SSPX is now so thoroughly saturated with pride that it would rather besmirch the good name of Holy Mother Church, even to the point of suggesting her defection, than to admit that those persons are entirely correct.
You can decide for yourself.
