Get Ready For SSPX Pandemonium

by Pat Archbold Thursday of the National Catholic Register

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April 15th is an unpleasant day in the United States and we await its arrival with dread. But in Rome and in Écône, Switzerland and around the world thousands upon thousands look upon the 15th with fear and hope all mixed together. April 15th is the deadline. And if you are smart, you should be paying attention too.  [LOL!]

By April 15th the Society of Saint Pius X will give their response to a “Doctrinal Preamble” outlining “certain doctrinal principles and criteria for the interpretation of Catholic doctrine … (while also) leaving open to legitimate discussion the examination and theological explanation of individual expressions and formulations contained in the documents of Vatican Council II and later Magisterium.”

The Holy See and the SSPX have been in discussion for a few years and have been going back and forth on this document for months and it all comes down to the 15th.

If they refuse to sign, it may well lead to a permanent schism which would be a disaster for all the souls involved, the Pope, and the Church as a whole.

If they do sign, it opens the door to regularization of the Society and an end to ...

Actually, if they do sign, it is not an end to anything. It's a beginning of, well hold on to your hats. It's gonna a be a bumpy ride.

If they do sign and the Pope offers them a Personal Prelature or some such thing, all hell is gonna break loose. Progressive forces within the Church will freak and then they will freak some more. To them, this is will be a clear sign that the Pope is repudiating Vatican II, dusting off the torture devices in the Vatican basement, and lacing up his Nikes preparing to chase down some Jews with a baseball bat. There will be no limit to the hyperbolic nonsense they will be spewing.  [Hahahaha!!!  I love this guy!]

But speaking of hyperbolic nonsense, there are dark forces within the Society who will likely reject any reconciliation and may figure that they are now unbound from their imposed silence. I speak, of course of Bishop Richard Williamson, whom I affectionately call a complete idiot. [There are others.  Nutjob, Ding-a-ling, Goofball, KSP....] There is almost no limit to the problems that this holocaust denying lunatic can cause.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth all across the spectrum.

But after all that, the Church will be in a much better place. We are better off with the SSPX within the fold.  [Ooooooo.....like me!  Secret SSPX sympathizer!  Oh, wait.  I typed it wrong.  SECRET SSPX SYMPATHIZER!!!  There, that's better.]

So, will they or won't they?

There are several indications that they may very well sign. Louie Verrecchio speculates:

Fr. Franz Schmidberger, District Superior of the German District of the SSPX (who had stated just last February that the Preamble is “unacceptable”), for example, penned a statement to be read in the Society chapels under his care on Sunday, March 25th, which stated in part:

We have thus arrived at a crucial point. Even if the letter (of the Preamble) strikes an unpleasant sound, there are legitimate hopes for a satisfactory solution. If this solution would be reached it would considerably strengthen all the orthodox forces in the Church. If not, it would weaken and discourage these forces. So it is not primarily about our brotherhood, but for the good of the Church.

On March 29th, the General House of the SSPX issued a statement of its own relative to this situation, saying in part:

Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, has urgently been inviting the faithful to redouble their fervor in prayer… that the Divine Will may be done.

The Society of St. Pius X, which wants only the good of the Church and the salvation of souls, turns with confidence to the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that she might obtain from her divine Son the lights necessary to know His will clearly and to carry it out courageously.

It appears to me that the Society is preparing its faithful for reconciliation under terms that may be less than perfect, but that nonetheless represent a pathway to healing for the Church as a whole.

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You think that the traditional movement in the Church would have gained any ground if not for the obstinate attitude of Archbishop Marcel and his followers?  I am not condoning his act of consecrating bishops without papal mandate.  But his calls for were legitimate.  And because of the fallout from the 1988 consecrations, we have traditionalist groups born out of every country.  And the traditional movement gained ground.

There are those who think that they are so faithful to the Church that they are willing to call members and even priests of the SSPX as cowards, traitors and dogs!

Yup.  There are those like that.  Lay and even clergy.  One you know very well.  Online all the time, recently, rarely...

This attitude is not the right kind of an attitude for someone who should be helping in harvesting souls in the Lord's field.

This is not the charitable attitude that these Vatican II fanatics cannot understand even if the same Council trumpets Ecumenism!

That is not how you bring people back home.

Have you ever seen a parent, who after seeing his long lost son, would shout and curse him for what he did?

Yeah, I have seen those.  In the slums where I used to live, our neighbors would call their children "P...I  ka!"  for staying outside a couple of minutes.  They were my playmates.  My parents did not do that to us.  But at a young age, I know that is was wrong.  I knew it hurt.

But for a priest, and an apologist to act that way, is not only uncharitable and unmerciful, it is downright cheap and unbecoming of a man ordained to absolve sins and be an agent of God's mercy.

Isn't this what this story is telling us?

God's mercy will be celebrated tomorrow.

That is the reason why the deadline for the response of the SSPX was set on this day.

Remember that.

Pray the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy tonight for this intention