In a recent post on X, Rev. Fr. Nicolás E. Despósito voiced his criticism of the SSPX, writing:
Is the SSPX just controlled opposition? They claim to defend Tradition but destroy faith in an infallible Church. Recognizing a Pope only to treat his Mass and Sacraments as poison makes popes out to be Vicars of Satan. They aren’t the saviors of the Church; they are false shepherds who substitute their own judgment for what they believe to be the Magisterium.
The only accurate, logically consistent Catholic diagnosis of the current crisis is the lack of authority to teach, rule, and sanctify on the part of Leo and his Vatican II predecessors. True Roman Catholicism demands submission to the Vicar of Christ—which is exactly why those propagating a new, non-Catholic religion cannot possibly possess that divine authority.
There is much here with which I agree.
The Society of St. Pius X does claim to defend the treasures of Catholic tradition. In fact, SSPX seems to view itself as the voice of tradition, not only for its own faithful, but for “Confused Catholics” (as Archbishop Lefebvre called them) located throughout the entire world as well.
Even so, Fr. Despósito is entirely correct when he states that the SSPX destroys faith in an infallible Church, to which I would only add that one would have to abandon reason almost entirely in order to assume that they do so mistakenly. More on this momentarily.
For now, let’s consider Msgr. G. Van Noort’s treatment of the Church’s gift of infallibility:
The Church’s preaching is the proximate rule of faith because all the faithful as such, be they uneducated or learned, can safely and directly determine the material object of their belief on the basis of that preaching and indeed they must. For precisely as believers, i.e., as far as regulating their belief is concerned, they can never be obliged to do research in Scripture and Tradition. For by granting the Church the gift of infallibility, God has seen to it that its preaching will never waver from the data of Scripture and Tradition in even the slightest detail. (Dogmatic Theology, Volume III, The Sources of Revelation, Divine Faith)
Did you get that? In order avoid wavering in matters of faith even in the slightest detail, safely persisting on the sure path of truth, one need not be learned in theology, rather, one need only place their trust in the Church’s ordinary magisterium as their rule of faith.
Of this rule, Pope Pius XII stated the following:
The Church’s living Teaching Authority functions as the proximate, universal criterion for truth in matters of faith and morals. (cf. in Humanae Generis 18)
Does the Society believe Msgr. Van Noort’s description of the Church’s gift of infallibility? Do they instill this belief in their faithful?
Absolutely not, in fact the exact opposite is true. The SSPX routinely does battle against the preaching of those who, in the Society’s opinion, exercise the Church’s living teaching office, chief among them, the man they call pope.
The lifeblood of the SSPX, i.e., that which animates its daily missionary activities, isn’t so much their desire to preserve the Catholic priesthood and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (which they do in fact desire), rather, it is fueled primarily by the proposition that the Catholic Church is not only fallible, its teachings are at times quite dangerous.
Is it at all likely that the Society’s clerical leadership – as emersed as they are in the pre-conciliar magisterium – actually believe that this attitude can be reconciled with the Church’s traditional ecclesiology?
My opinion is a resounding no but take that for what its worth.
In any event, by destroying faith in an infallible Church in this way, the Society’s leaders instill not faith but fear in their followers, convincing them that passage through this valley of tears on the Barque of St. Peter, even with the Vicar of Christ at the helm, is manifestly unsafe.
The reason for this is simple: As the SSPX has it, the Holy Roman Pontiffs – all of them, at least since the time of Paul VI – simply cannot be trusted to protect the faithful from the poisonous food of error, in fact, the most current reigning popes have been one of the principal purveyors of grave errors that endanger the soul.
The alternative with which the frightened faithful are left is so obvious that it need not even be stated explicitly: Those who wish to attain to salvation must hold fast, not to the Church’s contemporary (aka living) preaching, but rather to the SSPX, treating it as a lifeboat by entrusting the care of their souls and the souls of their children to the Society alone.
It is true, as Fr. Despósito stated, SSPX clergy most certainly are not the saviors of the Church. In fairness, however, it must be admitted that the Society has never (at least as far as I am aware) made such an audacious claim for itself.
Do they, however, “substitute their own judgment for what they believe to be the Magisterium,” as Fr. Despósito alleges?
Absolutely they do, even going so far as to substitute their own judgment over and against the doctrines taught by the Second Vatican Council, the same having been solemnly promulgated by a man they accept as “His Holiness Pope Paul VI.”
To be clear, I do NOT wish to suggest that conciliar teaching is safe to embrace, nor that Paul VI and his successors are true popes, but only that Fr. Despósito is entirely correct in saying that our Catholic faith demands submission to the Vicar of Christ, a submission the SSPX steadfastly refuses to give.
In his critique of the SSPX, Fr. Despósito said:
Recognizing a Pope only to treat his Mass and Sacraments as poison makes popes out to be Vicars of Satan.
No argument here, but I would only add (and Father would likely agree) that the post-conciliar putative popes are manifestly and obviously vicars of Satan, period.
As for the institution over which those men reign, the Roman Catechism tells us plainly, without even a hint of ambiguity:
This Spirit, first imparted to the Apostles, has by the infinite goodness of God always continued in the Church. And just as this one Church cannot err in faith or morals, since it is guided by the Holy Ghost; so, on the contrary, all other societies arrogating to themselves the name of church, must necessarily, because guided by the spirit of the devil, be sunk in the most pernicious errors, both doctrinal and moral.
First, notice the reason why we have faith in an infallible Church, a faith that the SSPX destroys: It is due to the perpetual indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the one true Church of Christ.
As for those institutions that believe and profess the most pernicious errors, both doctrinal and moral, like the conciliar church routinely does, they are guided by none other than the spirit of the devil.
This being so, Fr. Despósito is well justified in accusing the SSPX of making the putative post-conciliar popes out to be vicars of the devil, as if one and the same man can be both a Vicar of Satan and a Vicar of Jesus Christ.
At this, we come to some points of disagreement in Fr. Despósito’s commentary, namely the proposition that the only accurate, logically consistent Catholic diagnosis of the current crisis is that the post-conciliar claimants to the papacy lack the authority to teach, rule, and sanctify.
While it is true that these men lack authority, that’s not so much a diagnosis as it is an observation insofar as no one has the authority to undermine, much less directly oppose, the salvific mission of the Holy Roman Catholic Church as they do.
A genuine diagnosis is one that identifies the cause of this lack of authority:
It stems from the fact that each and every one of the post-conciliar putative popes publicly, notoriously, and obstinately professed and propagated a false religion that stands in stark opposition to the one true faith, i.e., these men were not (and are not) Catholic and, therefore, no more eligible for election to the papacy than any run of the mill non-denominational self-described Christian.
Unfortunately, the RCI, Bishop Donald Sanborn, Fr. Nicolás Despósito, and others who hold fast to the so-called “Thesis” disagree. They maintain that:
A man who intends to substantially change the Church, imposing upon her the modernist heresy that is the new religion given to us by Vatican II and its subsequent reforms, a religion which is substantially different from the Roman Catholic Faith founded by Christ, can – and in fact have been – validly elected pope.
The individual elements that comprise the above statement, many of them repeated nearly verbatim, can be found on the website that the RCI created specifically to explain the Thesis. There one can access many thousands of words dedicated to making the case that the Thesis is logically consonant with Catholic theological principals. Do plan to visit the website to read their arguments in full when you have time, lots of time.
In the interim, I ask you:
Does the Thesis (briefly summarized above) – which proposes that a man, who can only be understood as an enemy of the Church, can be validly elected pope and then go on to take material possession of the Office of Peter- strike you as a logically consistent Catholic proposition?
For my part, the answer is obvious: The Thesis is no more logically consistent from a Catholic standpoint than the Society’s notion that one can acknowledge a man as pope but must publicly and persistently resist his living teaching authority in order to protect oneself from grave error.
But guess what: That is neither the only nor the most troubling thing that the Roman Catholic Institute and the SSPX have in common. Stay tuned for more on that in my next post.
