FSSR MUST BEARD LEO THE LION IN HIS DEN OF INIQUITY

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How can a Catholic tolerate Leo XIV - the 'pope' who maintains the Vatican II revolution, panders to the  pretender Protestant archbishopette Sarah Mullaly and sundry other heretics, who chooses cardinals and bishops only slightly to the right of Gustavo Gutiérrez - and who squats, as he does, on the Chair of St Peter?

Worse still: how can a Catholic accept that Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the soft-porn scribbler who inspired Fiducia Supplicans, is suited to prosecution of the uber-traditional, faithful Society of St Pius X (SSPX) and the Transalpine Redemptorist Order (FSSR), for crimes against the faith? Said 'crimes' being the former's intention of episcopal consecrations to preserve the faith that Rome intends to destroy, and the latter's declaration of sede vacante: "Leo is no pope and these churchmen do not obey God."

The FSSR's Father Michael Mary Sim says the Novus Ordo Mass has desensitised Catholics to the errors of Vatican II, as many other commentators maintain it was designed (by the widely acknowledged Freemason Annibale Bugnini) to do; to persuade the faithful to swallow these insults, to themselves as members of the body of Christ, and to their crucified Lord as its Head.

But if Chris Jackson of Hiraeth in Exile has his way, the FSSR will turn Rome's prosecution of the FSSR into so many heretical chickens coming home to roost. Canon 1720, Jackson says, requires that in an extrajudicial penal process, the accused be informed of the accusation and proofs, and be given an opportunity for defense. 

The FSSR should demand Rome "explain why Fiducia Supplicans is Catholic, why Abu Dhabi is Catholic, why Francis in Singapore was Catholic, why Leo’s interreligious program is Catholic, why the Synodal Church is Catholic, and why Fernández is fit to guard doctrine." You could say that would be an enjoyable exercise in table-turning. 

And while any Catholic who's awake will have heard rumours of Fernández' purple prose, Jackson provides EWTN News' exposé of same which decency forbids publishing here but you can read it for yourself. If you care to.https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-the-transalpine

From Radical Fidelity:

The Transalpine Redemptorists of Papa Stronsay were presented as the model of “traditionalism in full communion”, for nearly two decades.

 

Founded in the orbit of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, regularized under Benedict XVI, and canonically recognized as the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, they were held up as proof that one could preserve Tradition while remaining peacefully inside the post-conciliar structure.

 

 

“The pirates have boarded the ark of Peter. There is no room for us on the deck. We must climb to the high mast for safety.”

That experiment has now publicly collapsed. In their May 2026 declaration, The Dogma to Steer By, following their explosive October 2025 Open Letter, the monks have effectively crossed the line into a sedevacantist position: the post-conciliar claimants, they correctly argue, have imposed a religion incompatible with Catholic dogma, and Catholics cannot obey commands destructive of the Faith. The practical conclusion is unmistakable: the authority claiming to govern the Church is not functioning as Catholic authority at all.

 

Keep in mind that this is not the rhetoric of anonymous internet polemicists but the conclusion of a religious congregation that spent years trying to make “recognize and resist” work from inside the system.

 

The Redemptorist Inheritance

 

The original Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer was founded in 1732 by St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church, to preach missions especially to the poor and abandoned. The Redemptorists were marked by doctrinal clarity, missionary zeal, Marian devotion, and fierce opposition to the theological laxity of their age.

 

The Transalpine Redemptorists were founded in 1988 by Fr. Michael Mary Sim, originally as a traditional Redemptorist community attached to the wider SSPX world and encouraged by Archbishop Lefebvre’s resistance to modernism. Their purpose was simple: preserve the old Redemptorist life, the traditional Roman Mass, and the anti-modernist Catholic Faith.

 

Eventually they settled on Papa Stronsay, a remote island in Orkney, building Golgotha Monastery.

 

In 2008, encouraged by Benedict XVI and the apparent thaw represented by Summorum Pontificum, they sought reconciliation with Rome. Their canonical censures were lifted, and in 2012 Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen erected them as a diocesan institute under the name Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer.

 

For conservatives, they became the poster child of canonical normalization. That status is now in ruins.

 

When the Illusion Broke

 

The recent crisis did not begin with Francis, though Francis made it impossible to ignore.

 

The pressure intensified through years of conflict over liturgy, authority, and doctrinal compromise. Their apostolate in New Zealand became especially contentious. In Christchurch, tensions with diocesan authorities escalated until Bishop Michael Gielen expelled them from the diocese in July 2024.

 

Officially, the issue was framed as obedience and unity. In reality, traditional Catholics recognized the familiar pattern: canonical recognition lasts only so long as one behaves like a museum exhibit rather than a Catholic priesthood.

 

Then came October 2025. Their Open Letter was not yet a formal sedevacantist declaration, but the premises were already there.

 

They wrote: “Through years of trials and experience we have come to the unfortunate conclusion that the Traditional Catholic Faith, and the way of life and worship which is its natural expression, is incompatible with the new, modern Church. They simply cannot coexist.”

 

That sentence alone destroyed the polite fiction. They continued: “The chain of command has been broken.” And: “We can no longer remain silent while the Faith is undermined and the sacred priesthood is reduced to a functionary of a new religion.”

 

Then the line that many had thought, but few clergy dared to print: “We will not be complicit by silence in this ongoing destruction of the Church.” Once that was admitted, the rest became a matter of logic.

 

the heresy of religious indifferentism

 

The Dogma to Steer By

 

The May 2026 declaration simply says openly what the earlier letter implied. The monks insist first on a fundamental Catholic principle: “Authority in the Church is ministerial. It is not absolute. It exists to hand on faithfully what has been received, not to innovate, manipulate, or destroy.” This statement is completely in line with Catholic teaching as espoused at Vatican I.

 

Then comes the inevitable conclusion and application: “When a superior departs from his own obedience to Christ the King, his command is no longer the arm of Christ but the gesture of a man.” This is of course the death blow to the conservative slogan “the Pope must be obeyed no matter what.” No, authority binds only insofar as it serves the Deposit of Faith.

 

 

Does Leo remind anyone of a certain member of the animal kingdom?

 

They continue: “If the shepherd commands what destroys the flock, he is not acting as shepherd.” And still more plainly: “These churchmen disobey God.” The document therefore serves, in no uncertain terms, as a judgment against the hierarchy, showing it has become an instrument of contradiction to the very Faith it claims to guard.

 

The monks then return to the liturgical question, where the revolution became visible to ordinary Catholics: “Tolle Missam, Tolle Ecclesiam. Take away the Mass, you destroy the Church.” They explain: “The attack on the immemorial Roman Rite was never merely disciplinary. It was doctrinal. The lex orandi was changed because the lex credendi had first been altered.”

 

The Public Repudiations

 

Then follows their explosive list:

“We repudiate Amoris Laetitia, which places human affection above divine law.”

“We repudiate Traditionis Custodes, which persecutes what the Church herself canonized.”

“We repudiate Fiducia Supplicans, which attempts to bless what God condemns.”

“We repudiate ‘the Synodal Church’ as distinct from the Divinely constituted Catholic Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

The final line is crucial as they are saying what so many of us has been saying , or at least been thinking, for a very long time: something distinct from the Church is presenting itself as the Church.

 

“Whatever may be the cost to us, with the Apostle we must say: even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel other than that which you have received, let him be anathema,” reads their final apostolic note.

 

The Confession That Matters Most

 

Perhaps the single most important line in the document is the confession of their own former hope: “We believed it was possible to live as faithful children of Tradition within the structures of the modern Church, preserving the old Mass and the old Faith while remaining under authorities who no longer believed either. We did not know how wrong we were.”

 

Critics who just want to dismiss these godly men, must really take a moment and consider the following. These are not lifelong sedevacantists looking for confirmation, but men who tried the Benedict solution.

 

They accepted regularization and they spent seventeen years inside the Ecclesia Dei framework until it became unbearably clear that they were in communion with something alien to the Catholic Church. Now they are saying it does not work. Their testimony carries a weight that no argument can match.

 

The Not-so-quiet Part

 

For years, many clergy attempted to maintain the fiction that one could indefinitely “recognize and resist”: acknowledge the authority, reject its commands, denounce its teaching, but never draw the theological conclusion.

 

The Transalpine Redemptorists are saying the conclusion must finally be drawn. If the new religion is incompatible with Catholicism, if the chain of command is broken, if the liturgical revolution destroys the Church’s visible life, and if the authorities commanding these things “disobey God,” then Catholics cannot continue pretending this is merely a bad papacy.

 

Papa Stronsay has now added their voice to the choir of those who declare that the Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church and said the not-so-quiet part very loud indeed. The time has come that more hear, and heed, this message.

Note: I know by the time of this article being published many have already covered the story, such as my colleagues Stephen Kokx and WM Review, but if you haven’t read the document yet, do so by clicking here.

Our Lady, Co-redemptrix, pray for us…

Our Lady, Mediatrix of all Graces, pray for us…

Viva Christo Rey!

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Lest He Tear You to Pieces: A Short Message to the Synodal Spawn who are Breathing Threats of Excommunication Against the Faithful

 

“The pirates have boarded the ark of Peter. There is no room for us on the deck. We must climb to the high mast for safety.”

 From a pretty astute reader ("over the transom" as Ann Barnhardt would say)"

  

I don't know if the FSSR are correct in the final conclusions they draw in their declaration. But after the events of the last 13 years, it is possible that they may be, at least in part, correct.

 

My questions, comments and observations:

 

Vatican II is distinct from "the spirit of Vatican II". One was a Non-binding, Ecumenical Council on pastoral care. The other is the implementation not of the formal documents of Vatican II but of the call to align the Church to the modern world. This "realignment" was a process, it occurred over time.

 

The ultimate goal of "the spirit of Vatican II" is not to implement the conciliar Church' but rather to prepare the Church to accept the "process of change" and its "democratization." The purpose was to prepare the church faithful to reject the Church's hierarchical structure, aka the Apostolic Mark, replacing it with the new mark of democracy, aka Synodality.

How much, (if at all), each Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, Priest taught the heresy of Modernism and whether they knew it was heretical depends on that individual. Note that the Church doesn’t/can't teach heresy, it is the individual/s who teaches heresy.

Like the battleship which is the Barque of St Peter, the Church is designed to take a lot of damage and abuse and still remain intact and unsinkable, continuing on with her mission. In an emergency the Church supplies Jurisdiction. 

 

(Below is a theoretical litmus test. It is not perfect, but will distinguish between those that belong to Christ and those that don’t. (Warning, it's a theoretical question only - don't actually try to test it!)

 

Have Novus Ordo priests (when properly authorized by the diocesan bishop), conducted successful exorcisms?

 

Yes, they have, although reportedly not as easily as pre-Vatican II priests did. Only the Church has the authority to exorcise: the Protestant churches do not. Once the separation of the Church and the new Synodal church is completed, only the Church that belongs to Jesus Christ will have the authority to do so.

 

 

Vatican’s new Synodal document just crossed a line, elevated homosexual testimony, redefined sin, and demands a total “paradigm shift” away from Catholic teaching.

 

The “Synodal Church” is a new church. It denies one of the four Marks of the Church. The Novus Ordo does not; it stops short of denying the Church's hierarchical nature. While the Novus Ordo Church is "conciliar", it still remains Apostolic. From Christ to the bishops.

 

Both the Novus Ordo/Vatican II Church and the new Synodal church are based on moral relativism and sentimentalism. Modernism does not deny anything, it is all about what a person feels is right for them at that time. The nature of the modernist heresy is that it ultimately does not believe in any external objective truth. The conciliar Church prepared the faithful for the Synodal church.

 

A feature of the modernist attack on the Church is that it moved slowly. So slowly that the faith of the shepherds and the sheep was eroded, not rapidly changed. The change is so gradual that without realizing it, most of the faithful openly accept it as normal.

 

So, the questions are:

 

1. Which, if any, of the post Vatican II Popes, Paul VI through to Benedict XVI, crossed over to openly manifest heresy, or apostasy?

 

                  Francis was an Antipope. I am almost certain Leo XIV is also an antipope. If so then the Holy See is currently vacant and the cardinals (those remaining who have not apostatized by joining the new Synodal church) will need to elect a pope. If there is none left in the Church, or they won't elect a Pope, then an Imperfect General Council would need to be called to elect a new Pope.

 

FYI, (It is my understanding) that between Feb 2014 and Sep 2023 all cardinals appointed by Francis were also received and blessed and appointed by Pope Benedict XVI on the same day.

 

Only the 21 most recently-named cardinals were "appointed" by Francis after Pope Benedict's death, lowering the number at any putative conclave to fewer than the required 120. However, in the past, cardinals appointed by an antipope have later been ruled valid, due to the Church supplying the authority.

 

2. What about the post-Vatican II Holy Orders and Sacraments? Does the Church supply Jurisdiction?

 

 

Final Observation:

The Church Triumphant, the Church Penitent, and the Church Militant are all one Church. (They therefore have the same canon). The head of the Church is not separate from the body. Christ, who is Truth, does not change, therefore neither does the Church. 

 

The SSPX is often accused of being in "an irregular canonical relationship with the post-Vatican Council II Novus Ordo Church" which occupies the Vatican. The accusation made against the SSPX - that they are not in schism but rather in an “irregular canonical relationship” - is a very useful "confession through projection."

 

The SSPX has not changed from the “pre-Vatican II” Church, which was and still is one with the Church Triumphant and Church Penitent.

 

Therefore it is the Novus Ordo Church which is in "an irregular canonical relationship” with the rest of the Church, and with its High Priest Jesus Christ. https://papastronsay.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-dogma-to-steer-by.html?m=1https://papastronsay.com/resources/documents/The%20Dogma%20to%20Steer%20By.pdf

 

 

 Lord Jesus Christ, crucified for us, have mercy on us

 

'THE SONS' SAY LEO'S NO POPE, CALL FOR IMPERFECT COUNCIL

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"If the See of Peter were to teach error, then beyond any possible doubt, the person teaching that error IS NOT A CATHOLIC POPE. And if he is not a Catholic Pope, he is no Pope at all." 

The Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer (TransAlpine Redemptorists, FSSR) comprises 30 members in New Zealand, Scotland and the US. Declaring today that Leo XIV is no pope and neither were his post-Vatican II predecessors, the FSSR could well be dubbed the Mouse That Roared - on behalf of the millions of Catholics worldwide whose rationality and sensus fidei have already led them to the same conclusion. 

"The Church has declared that: “This See of St. Peter always remains unimpaired by any error.” One sentence. A shaft of light for discernment through this darkness: the pre-Vatican II Popes taught the truth. The post-Vatican II claimants teach error. If Indifference is heresy and error all they who teach it cannot be legitimate successors of Peter.

"We are not making a canonical judgement — only the Church can do that. But we are making a judgement of faith and practical necessity. We must choose whom we will follow. Will we follow the Popes who taught the faith without compromise, or will we follow those who have led the flock into the abyss of indifferentism?


"We call for an Imperfect General Council, a meeting of all Catholic bishops of the world who have kept the true faith, to pronounce on the status of the present papal pretender, Leo XIV, and on the status of his Conciliar Church predecessors."https://www.permariam.com/p/traditional-redemptorists-reject 

The Transalpine Redemptorists were founded in 1987 with the blessing of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. The founder, Fr Michael Mary, derives his holy orders from +Lefebvre. 
Stand back for the inevitable hysterical outbursts from opponents of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) who one might say are legion. ("My name is Legion; because we are many" (Mk 5,9).



Among those opponents the most distinguished must surely be Cardinal Tucho "Kiss Me With Your Mouth" Fernandez, who has threatened the SSPX with excommunication. (The same prelate has stipulated also that priests' blessings of sodomitic couples should last "only about 15-20 seconds" - meaning, official heresy's okay providing you keep it short.

Speaking of heresy and and its little sister, heterodoxy, England's Cardinal Vincent Nichols says that a UK court and hospital can usurp the rights of parents. Germany's Cardinal Reinhard Marx reckons the display of crosses on government buildings will cause “division, unrest, and animosity". America's Cardinal Joseph Tobin wants the Church to welcome sodomites. US Cardinal Robert McElroy says to oppose sodomy is "demonic".

Monsignor Flavio Pace, Secretary, Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, makes the sign of the cross as if receiving the blessing from the Anglican leader.

Mrs Sarah Mullaly, a lady with LGBTQ and babykilling sympathies whom Anglicans regard as head of their heretical sect, has blessed conciliar cult prelates in St Peter's Basilica and had red-carpet treatment from Leo XIV who's widely regarded as the Catholic pope. 

While dallying with Protestants and promoting heretics, Leo refuses to meet the legitimate bishops and priests of the SSPX, who along with the FSSR is the only order still faithful to the Catholic religion - obviously, as the SSPX is the only order Leo is persecuting. The FSSR has been also persecuted, by exile from their Diocese of Christchurch New Zealand, by Leo's proxy, Bishop Michael Gielen. Who (fancy that!) like Leo and Francis sports the satanic Cardinal Bernardin pectoral cross. 

It all prompts one to ask, whatever happened to Our Lady of Fatima? Catholic priests used to say Fatima was fuddy-duddy, so pre-VatII, but now they never even mention her. Perhaps because Sr Lucia of Fatima revealed that "the devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Virgin. [He] does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God.

"In this way the devil will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them. A decisive battle is the final battle where one side will be victorious and the other side will suffer defeat. As the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer have declared today (https://papastronsay.com/resources/documents/The%20Dogma%20to%20Steer%20By.pdf) and as Sr Lucia of Fatima has stated: "Hence from now on we must choose sides. Either we are for God or we are for the devil; there is no other possibility."

Catholics are faced now with Our Lady's choice: are we for God, or for the devil? For Catholics on the side of God, any excommunication - as threatened by 'Tucho' Fernandez - from Leo's conciliar cult may soon become a badge of honour. 

Cardinal "Kiss Me With Your Mouth" Fernandez, that is 

From Robert Morrison, writing for The Remnant Newspaper:

 

In the wake of the Pope’s April 27 meeting with an Anglican archbishop, Catholics are once again confronted with a pressing question: can the Church’s timeless doctrine coexist with modern ecumenism?

 

Drawing on Scripture, the First Vatican Council, and the warnings of St. Pius X and Pius XII, this article examines whether today’s ecumenical movement represents legitimate development, or a rupture with the Faith itself.

 

 

Fernandez v Lefebvre - whose side are we on?

In his 1995 article, the late Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais described the core conflict between Rome and the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) as follows:

“Modernist Rome has declared us schismatics because we hold a supposedly false notion of Tradition. I am going to show that it is the faithful of Tradition who have the true notion of Tradition and, consequently, that it is those who declare us schismatics, the neo-modernists, who have a false evolutionary notion of Tradition, which they call ‘living tradition.’

 

Tradition is essentially immutable, unchangeable: That, however, does not prevent it from being living . . . nor from undergoing a homogeneous development.”

 

Whereas the SSPX firmly holds to all of the doctrines taught by the Catholic Church prior to Vatican II — in the same sense in which they were taught — the SSPX’s primary opponents are generally divided into two camps: those who reject some of the Catholic teachings as they were presented prior to Vatican II, and those who might agree with the SSPX but are compelled to oppose the SSPX on the basis of obedience to Rome.

 

 

A snide sneer at the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer from enemies of  the SSPX  

In the minds of those bishops, priests, and religious of the SSPX who would rather be excommunicated than abandon their understanding of the immutable Catholic doctrine, the Faith cannot evolve in the way that Rome says it has. Only one side can be correct on this matter, and it behooves all Catholics to understand what is at stake.

Only one side can be correct: either doctrine is immutable, or it evolves.

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What is the Immutability of Catholic Doctrine?

 

One of the fullest descriptions of the immutability of Catholic doctrine comes from the decrees of the First Vatican Council:

“For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence, but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.

 

Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

 

‘May understanding, knowledge, and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along, and greatly and vigorously flourish, in each and all, in the individual and the whole church: but this only in its own proper kind, that is to say, in the same doctrine, the same sense, and the same understanding.’”

 

The quotation in the latter part of this statement is from St. Vincent of Lerins and sets forth the proper understanding of how Catholic doctrine can develop over time. Thus, doctrine can be more fully understood and explicated, but any purported development of Catholic doctrine would be false if it attempted to change the sense or understanding of what the Church had always taught.

 

So much for the lingering hopes of Trad. Inc.

We know from the words of St. Paul that there has always been a risk that innovators will attempt to change Catholic doctrine:

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.

 

For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. For I give you to understand, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:8-12)

 

St. Paul insisted that no authority — not even “an angel from heaven” — should be followed to the extent that it sought to change immutable Catholic teaching. He was quite clearly establishing that if ever there is a conflict between truth and apparent authority, we must choose truth.

Whereas Pius X had significant success against Modernism in the early 1900s, Pius XII had comparatively little success in 1950.

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 Closer to our time, St. Pius X sought to protect us against one of the most pernicious imaginable enemies of Catholic truth: Modernism. In his 1907 encyclical condemning Modernism, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, he cited both Pius IX and the passage above from the First Vatican Council to oppose the Modernist conception of truth:

“Thus then, Venerable Brethren, for the Modernists, both as authors and propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor indeed are they without precursors in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our Predecessor Pius IX wrote: ‘These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts.’

 

On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new — we find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ‘Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason’; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council . . . .”

 

St. Pius X would not have issued this warning if he had not witnessed the Modernists attempting to undermine Catholic doctrine. Moreover, if the Modernists’ assaults on immutable truth were easy to identify and resist, he would have had no need to condemn them so forcefully.

 

St. Pius X went even further to oppose Modernism in 1910, with his Oath Against Modernism, which, in relevant part, required clerics and professors to swear to uphold the immutability of Catholic doctrine as follows:

“I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport.

 

Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. I also condemn every error according to which, in place of the divine deposit which has been given to the spouse of Christ to be carefully guarded by her, there is put a philosophical figment or product of a human conscience that has gradually been developed by human effort and will continue to develop indefinitely.”

 

 

'Pope Leo' welcomes the 'Archbishop of Canterbury' 

St. Pius X achieved partial success against Modernism, forcing it underground for a time. Unfortunately, it later resurfaced with even more deceptive subtlety. In his 1950 encyclical concerning errors of neo-Modernism that were threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine, Humani Generis, Pius XII wrote of the threats associated with the “evolution” of Catholic doctrine:

“Such fictitious tenets of evolution which repudiate all that is absolute, firm, and immutable, have paved the way for the new erroneous philosophy which, rivaling idealism, immanentism, and pragmatism, has assumed the name of existentialism, since it concerns itself only with the existence of individual things and neglects all consideration of their immutable essences.

 

There is also a certain historicism, which attributing value only to the events of man’s life, overthrows the foundation of all truth and absolute law, both on the level of philosophical speculations and especially to Christian dogmas.”

 

Whereas Pius X had significant success against Modernism in the early 1900s, Pius XII had comparatively little success in 1950. Those theologians whose ideas were condemned merely lowered their voices, and waited patiently for Pius XII to die.

 

When he finally did, these condemned theologians, including Yves Congar, emerged to help shape the ideas that dominated Vatican II and everything that has followed the Council for the past sixty years. We can allow Congar to help explain some of the changes that occurred after 1950, especially as it relates to ecumenism.

 

Congar, Ecumenism, and the Supposed Mutability of Catholic Doctrine

 

Although we should deplore the disastrous influence Congar had in advancing heterodox ideas, he is undoubtedly one of the most important witnesses to what he and his fellow progressives were able to achieve through Vatican II.

 

In his preface to the 1967 edition of True and False Reform in the Church — which Francis cited as an inspiration behind the Synod on Synodality’s work to “create a different Church” — Congar described the way in which John XXIII and Vatican II reshaped Catholic thinking, particularly with respect to ecumenism:

“In a few short weeks, John XXIII created a new climate in the church, and then came the council. This most significant breakthrough came from on high. All of a sudden, forces for renewal which had scarcely had room to breathe found ways to be expressed.

 

The cautious suggestions for reform mentioned in my text of 1950 have been surpassed by far. What is happening right now, insofar as it is positive, is certainly in line with what I had intended, yet it goes a great deal further, well beyond what one could have hoped for in 1950. . . .

 

But more than anything, two great changes already characterize the climate within the church and will continue to do so more and more: an ecclesiology based on the ‘People of God’ and ecumenism. . . . As for ecumenism, it has become or is on the way to becoming a dimension that touches the church’s entire life, even its internal concerns.

 

This change of perspective will entail reinterpretation, opening and broadening out our thinking to a degree that we cannot at present measure. But this link between ecumenism and the spirit of renewal, which I perceived and emphasized from the beginning, is equally apparent now from the other side; renewal is not only required by ecumenism as a sort of prelude, but renewal is also nourished by ecumenism.”

 

From Congar’s perspective, the ecumenism promoted at Vatican II was transformative and touched the “Church’s entire life.” No informed Catholic can honestly deny that ecumenism purported to reshape Catholic thought; but did it do so in a way that runs afoul of the immutability of Catholic doctrine?

However, for purposes of the new ecumenism, Vatican II was the true point of departure from what the Church had always taught.

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 We cannot answer that without knowing what the Church’s teaching actually is. In his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Dr. Ludwig Ott stated the Church’s teaching as follows:

• “The members of the Church are those who have validly received the Sacrament of Baptism and who are not separated from the unity of the confession of the Faith, and from the unity of the lawful communion of the Church. (S certa.).”
• “Membership of the Church is necessary for all men for salvation. (De fide.).”

 

As discussed in a previous article, we must of course allow for an elaboration of the latter teaching to account for the idea of invincible ignorance. Taken together, these statements form the core of the Catholic teaching that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church.

 

Whether we like it or not, this Catholic teaching can never be abrogated, and any legitimate development of it must follow the same criteria described by St. Vincent of Lerins (as quoted by the First Vatican Council): “May understanding, knowledge, and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along, and greatly and vigorously flourish, in each and all, in the individual and the whole church: but this only in its own proper kind, that is to say, in the same doctrine, the same sense, and the same understanding.”

 

To evaluate whether there has been an impermissible deviation, we can look to three sources, two from John Paul II and the other from Leo XIV. John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical on ecumenism, Ut Unum Sint, cited Vatican II’s documents to describe a new orientation toward non-Catholic religions:

The Second Vatican Council strengthened their commitment with a clear ecclesiological vision, open to all the ecclesial values present among other Christians. The Catholic faithful face the ecumenical question in a spirit of faith. The Council states that the Church of Christ ‘subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him,’ and at the same time acknowledges that ‘many elements of sanctification and of truth can be found outside her visible structure.

 

These elements, however, as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, possess an inner dynamism towards Catholic unity.’ It follows that these separated Churches and Communities, though we believe that they suffer from defects, have by no means been deprived of significance and value in the mystery of salvation.

 

For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church.’ Speaking of the lack of unity among Christians, the Decree on Ecumenism does not ignore the fact that ‘people of both sides were to blame,’ and acknowledges that responsibility cannot be attributed only to the ‘other side.’

 

By God’s grace, however, neither what belongs to the structure of the Church of Christ nor that communion which still exists with the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities has been destroyed. Indeed, the elements of sanctification and truth present in the other Christian Communities, in a degree which varies from one to the other, constitute the objective basis of the communion, albeit imperfect, which exists between them and the Catholic Church. To the extent that these elements are found in other Christian communities, the one Church of Christ is effectively present in them.”

 

It is not difficult to discern that there are ideas in this passage that at least implicitly contradict the Catholic teaching that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. Even if one could find some theoretical way to avoid concluding that John Paul II’s statement explicitly contradicts Catholic doctrine, there is no legitimate argument that it retains the same sense and understanding of what the Church had always taught.

By praying that the Holy Spirit will make Mrs. Mullally fruitful in her service as the senior “bishop” of the Church of England, Leo XIV unmistakably asserted his approval of the Church of England and his belief that God positively wills that the Church of England continue leading souls to practice a heretical religion.

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Me, bless an archbishop, no, no, it is you who should be blessing me!” Saint Padre Pio upon meeting Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1967 when Archbishop Lefebvre visited Padre Pio to ask for him to bless the Congregation of the Holy Ghost.

 

Decades earlier, with his 1979 encyclical from the beginning of his papacy, Redemptor Hominis, John Paul II himself had asserted that this ecumenical approach to non-Catholic religions was entirely new:

“What shall I say of all the initiatives that have sprung from the new ecumenical orientation? The unforgettable Pope John XXIII set out the problem of Christian unity with evangelical clarity as a simple consequence of the will of Jesus Christ himself, our Master, the will that Jesus stated on several occasions but to which he gave expression in a special way in his prayer in the Upper Room the night before he died: ‘I pray . . . Father . . . that they may all be one.’ The Second Vatican Council responded concisely to this requirement with its Decree on ecumenism. . . . 

 

There are people who, in the face of the difficulties or because they consider that the first ecumenical endeavours have brought negative results, would have liked to turn back. Some even express the opinion that these efforts are harmful to the cause of the Gospel, are leading to a further rupture in the Church, are causing confusion of ideas in questions of faith and morals, and are ending up with a specific indifferentism.

 

It is perhaps a good thing that the spokesmen for these opinions should express their fears. However, in this respect also, correct limits must be maintained. It is obvious that this new stage in the Church’s life demands of us a faith that is particularly aware, profound, and responsible.

 

True ecumenical activity means openness, drawing closer, availability for dialogue, and a shared investigation of the truth in the full evangelical and Christian sense; but in no way does it or can it mean giving up or in any way diminishing the treasures of divine truth that the Church has constantly confessed and taught. 

 

To all who, for whatever motive, would wish to dissuade the Church from seeking the universal unity of Christians, the question must once again be put: Have we the right not to do it?”

 

If the new ecumenical approach had simply been a matter of legitimately developing existing Catholic teaching, surely John Paul II would have been able to point to something other than Vatican II as the doctrinal source. However, for purposes of the new ecumenism, Vatican II was the true point of departure from what the Church had always taught.

 

The most recent example to consider comes from Leo XIV’s April 27, 2026 message to “Her Grace Sarah Mullally, Archbishop of Canterbury”:

“Your Grace, Peace be with all of you. In the joy of this Paschal season, as we continue to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead, I am pleased to welcome you and your Delegation to the Vatican. . . . Your Grace, in thanking you for your visit today, I pray that the same Holy Spirit will remain with you always, making you fruitful in the service to which you have been called.”

 

By praying that the Holy Spirit will make Mrs. Mullally fruitful in her service as the senior “bishop” of the Church of England, Leo XIV unmistakably asserted his approval of the Church of England and his belief that God positively wills that the Church of England continue leading souls to practice a heretical religion.

 

This is merely the most recent indication that false ecumenism constitutes a completely impermissible evolution of Catholic doctrine.

 

The SSPX Position on Ecumenism and the Immutability of Catholic Doctrine

 

In their January 6, 2004 letter to the world’s cardinals, the SSPX’s bishops and first assistant general, Fr. Franz Schmidberger, presented the SSPX position on the ecumenical movement:

“How can we avoid placing ecumenism among the principal causes of this tragic state of affairs — that ecumenism initiated by Vatican II and promoted by Pope John Paul II? With the declared aim of establishing a new unity and invoking a desire to ‘focus on what unites us rather than on what divides us,’ ecumenism would rectify or reinterpret or simply cast aside those elements of Catholicism that appear to be a cause of division.

 

Thus disdaining the constant and unanimous teaching of Tradition which holds that the Mystical Body of Christ is the Catholic Church outside of which there is no salvation, ecumenism has destroyed, as it were, the most beautiful treasures of the Church, for instead of accepting that Unity founded on the plentitude of truth, it would establish a new unity upon a truth that espouses error.” (SSPX, From Ecumenism to Silent Apostasy, p. 6)

 

In the view of the SSPX, “disdaining the constant and unanimous teaching of Tradition which holds that the Mystical Body of Christ is the Catholic Church outside of which there is no salvation” does not constitute legitimate development of doctrine.

If, for the sake of avoiding censure from Rome, the SSPX were to give up its Providential role of defending the immutable Catholic Faith given to us by God, what would be the point of being Catholic at all?

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 Since the time of Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical Humani Generis, God has not guided the occupants of the papacy to speak firmly against impermissible doctrinal evolution. It is as though, in His loving Providence, God deigned to allow Pius XII and his predecessors to provide all of the guidance necessary to protect us against the evils that have plundered the Church since the Council.

 

 

As Fr. Davide Pagliarani, the SSPX Superior General, said in his April 19, 2026 interview, the SSPX’s role in God’s Providence appears to be to remain the witness to the immutability of Catholic doctrine, adhering to the holy wisdom of the pre-Vatican II popes against the impermissible aberrations promoted by Rome for so long:

“Now, the Tradition of the Church, which the Society of Saint Pius X strives to embody, itself represents a condemnation of these aberrations, unbearable to those who promote such tolerance. If one analyses the situation carefully, the sanctions, past or future, aimed at the Society of Saint Pius X, oppose not so much an act of disobedience but the fact that the Society constitutes a living condemnation with regard to the current ecclesiastical line.

 

The role that Providence seems to reserve for the Society of Saint Pius X is the singular one of being a sign of contradiction: which means, concretely, a thorn in the side of the reformers.

 

And the peculiarity of this thorn is that the more one seeks to remove it, the deeper it penetrates: it is not the thorn itself that determines this therapeutic effect, but the two thousand years of Tradition that it embodies and represents.

 

The Society of Saint Pius X may be sanctioned, the Tridentine Mass forbidden . . . but these two thousand years can never be suppressed. This is the real reason why, despite past condemnations, the Society has never ceased to be a voice that challenges the Church; and this also explains why it is not so simple to be tolerant of it.

 

A day will come when a pope decides to remove this thorn from his side: he will then be able to use it as a docile instrument to contribute—as is our deepest wish—to restoring all things in Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

Within the Catholic Church today, the SSPX is the only body of bishops, priests, and religious who are willing to witness to the immutability of Catholic teaching to the extent of choosing obedience to immutable Catholic teaching over obedience to the putative authorities who are distorting that immutable Catholic teaching.

 

The sedevacantists are obviously not in the same position because they do not recognize the putative authorities of the Church; and other Traditional Catholics are not in the same position because they do not have bishops and, even if they did, they must choose obedience to Rome. Only the SSPX is willing to be the “therapeutic thorn,” the sign of contradiction that puts into practice the all-important counsel of St. Paul:

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.

 

For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. For I give you to understand, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:8-12)

 

If the SSPX were to please the men in Rome (by ostensible obedience to wayward authority) rather than God (by fidelity to immutable Catholic truth), then who would remain to credibly insist that St. Paul was correct?

 

Although the salvation of souls is surely the most important basis for asserting the necessity of the SSPX consecrating bishops to continue its Providential role, this witness to the immutability of the Catholic doctrine is itself a sufficient basis for asserting that necessity. If, for the sake of avoiding censure from Rome, the SSPX were to give up its Providential role of defending the immutable Catholic Faith given to us by God, what would be the point of being Catholic at all? Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

https://www.remnantnewspaper.com/pope-meets-anglican-bishop-ecumenism-catholic-doctrine/?utm_source=

 

Even or especially if the heretic is the head of the Church of England 

 

Pope St Agatho, please pray for the Catholic Church