I have tried to stay out of the tribal warfare surrounding the SSPX because I do not belong to anyone’s faction. I just want to be left alone to practice the orthodox Faith.
I am a convert, but I am not an uninformed one. Before entering the Catholic Church, I studied Catholic theology, Church history, papal authority, canon law, Vatican II, Tradition, and the Magisterium. I read the Summa cover to cover. I have continued studying ever since.
I understand why the consecration of bishops without a papal mandate is treated as an extraordinarily grave canonical act. I also understand why the SSPX believes that a state of necessity exists. Both are true.
What I cannot ignore is the glaring difference between the severity shown toward the SSPX and the patience Rome repeatedly extends elsewhere.
Rome negotiates in secret with a Chinese government that intrudes into the appointment of bishops. It tolerates years of open doctrinal pressure from the German Church over sexual morality, ordained ministry, ecclesiology, and other matters touching the deposit of faith.
The Church now permits pastoral blessings of same-sex couples while insisting that doctrine has not changed. We are repeatedly told that the synodal Church must listen, accompany, dialogue, build bridges, and seek fraternity with Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, nonbelievers, and nearly everyone else. The Church puts women who support abortion into key roles in the curia. The Church considers it “wrong” to deny Communion to a politician who openly advocates for multiple heresies.
Yet Catholics who adhere to Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the perennial Magisterium are treated as though they are the one group beyond patience, dialogue, accompaniment, or pastoral mercy. This contradiction is difficult to ignore.
For me, however, this is not merely an argument about Vatican II, canon law, obedience, schism, or the internal politics of the Church.
I am largely homebound. I have never attended an SSPX chapel, but SSPX priests have been among the only priests willing to come to my home and provide pastoral and sacramental care to me over the last three years.
My registered parish has not been able to send its priests because I now live outside its geographic boundary. The local bishop is apparently a stickler for these rules, but he writes glowingly about accompanying the “marginalized” every June.
I have been offered visits from extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, but that does not meet the same spiritual need. I need a priest. I need Confession. I need priestly Communion. I need spiritual direction and pastoral care from someone able to hear me, counsel me, absolve me, and bring me the Sacraments.
Over the last several years, the priests who have actually come to my home have been two from the local SSPX church. The people now being casually denounced online as schismatics are, in practical terms, among the only clergy who have shown up.
So when people celebrate punitive action against the SSPX or casually shout “schismatic,” they are not discussing an abstract factional dispute. They are discussing something that may leave people like me without meaningful access to confession, Communion, spiritual direction, and regular priestly care.
I am not rejecting the papacy.
I am not joining a tribe.
I am trying to remain an orthodox Catholic who follows Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium in good conscience.
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