What SSPX Supporters and Critics Each Get Wrong

[00:00:02]The upcoming SSPX Episcopal consecrations have revealed a the woeful state of Catholic catechesis both from its critics and its supporters. Hello, Eric Sammons and welcome to Crisis Point.

[00:00:17]>> [music] >> Okay, I know the thing to do these days is you have to take a side, you have to defend it above all else and you can't say anything nice about the opposing side, you can't say anything negative about your own side. You just have to do that.

[00:00:47]I know that's the way of the world. If you are a supporter of Trump, you can't say anything negative about him. You can only say bad things about people like Obama or Biden and vice versa. We all know that. That's just the way it is.

[00:01:00]That's how you get clicks. That's how you get noticed. I think that's just the way people think these days.

[00:01:05]I just won't do it. I just simply can't do it. I find that I I'm just a person who will find the good and the bad the the the errors and the the the correct things on every side. Now, obviously I take sides. I'm not like you know, I'm not just sitting on the fence all the time. But even on quote unquote my side, I'm going to to to have criticisms of some some people. And and honestly, there are some things that you're not fully on one side or the other and that's okay. It's not like we're required to take a adamant stance on every single thing under the earth.

[00:01:44]Which leads me to of course the whole Society of Saint Pius X situation.

[00:01:49]If you ask me what side I'm on, I would probably say the society.

[00:01:54]But I'm not a I don't attend a society parish, never have. I have some real criticisms of the society.

[00:02:01]Yet, if you have make me pick a side, I would say, "Okay, the society in general, I think is is is done good work and generally it's right in its arguments. In general, it's uh been treated poorly by the Vatican." All that stuff.

[00:02:16]But if you ask me another way, which side am I on? Obviously, I'm on the Vatican side in the sense that I'm a member of the Catholic Church. I don't I don't identify as a as a member of a Society Saint Pius X Chapel. And so, it's kind of my side even when I think they're wrong about stuff. So, I just I I wanted to preface everything I say here by that because I do think we have the problem in our modern world that we just simply cannot think critically and recognize that sometimes people who aren't {quote} {unquote} on our side have good arguments. And sometimes people on our side have bad arguments.

[00:02:53]So, okay. I want to I want to highlight two situations like this where critics of the SSPX are woefully wrong. I mean, even falling into I would say heresy.

[00:03:07]And where supporters of the SSPX do the same thing with another issue. They literally fall into heresy.

[00:03:14]Okay, so let me bring up the first one.

[00:03:16]And I have actually have an article at Crisis Magazine. It was published yesterday, Thursday, the the 18th of June.

[00:03:23]And it's about the issue of outside the church, no no salvation.

[00:03:26]But I decided to write this based upon an article that George Weigel wrote. And he wrote it against the SSPX and he was accusing the SSPX declaration of Catholic faith they put out about a month or so ago.

[00:03:40]They he basically accused it of being heretical. Yet, in doing so, and honestly, I think this was an It's like any opportunity to own the trads in Weigel's view is a good one, even if if means he's going to be sloppy with his own theology to the point of that he himself is heretical. So, George Weigel, he writes, let me put up on the screen here.

[00:03:59]The declaration goes on to claim that, quote, every man must be a member of the Catholic Church in order to save his soul.

[00:04:06]And there is but one baptism as a means of being incorporated into her.

[00:04:10]This necessity concerns the whole of humanity without exception and embraces without distinction Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans, and atheists, end quote.

[00:04:19]Then Weigel continues, SSPX hell is thus quite well populated and includes your Lutheran, Anglican, Jewish, Muslim, and non-believing friends and relatives.

[00:04:28]This, however, Weigel continues, is precisely the extreme distortion of the old maxim ex ecclesiam nulla salus, no salvation outside the church, for which Father Leonard Feeney was excommunicated in 1953.

[00:04:43]The theological ground for that sanction being laid in a 1949 statement of the Holy Office approved by Pope Pius XII.

[00:04:51]Now, this really riled me up because this is an area I mean, I I at the risk of just sounding immodest, it's an area of expertise for me. I wrote a book, Deadly Indifference, where I talk about this issue a lot. And Weigel gets this 100% wrong. I mean, he just is completely wrong.

[00:05:11]I mean, just some factual things like, for example, Father Feeney wasn't excommunicated for his actual doctrinal beliefs, it was for disobedience.

[00:05:20]I think Father Feeney did have incorrect doctrinal beliefs, uh but let's just get to the facts right. But, Weigel basically is saying that any robust understanding of outside the church there's no salvation is essentially wrong. That if you think Muslims and Jews and and and Lutherans and Protestants are in hell, oh my gosh, we don't do that anymore.

[00:05:45]That's not what the Catholic Church thinks anymore.

[00:05:48]That's basically what Weigel was saying there, and he's completely wrong. The Church is not saying that, "Okay, it doesn't even matter if you're Catholic."

[00:05:55]Which is what Weigel is basically implying here.

[00:05:58]And that we don't want to talk in in scary terms of like maybe non-Catholics might be in hell.

[00:06:04]That's simply not Church teaching.

[00:06:06]Church teaching is it's a Church dogma that outside the Church there's no salvation. And the SSPX uh way of explaining this, let me read it again.

[00:06:15]Every man must be a member of the Catholic Church in order to be save his soul, and there's but one baptism as a means of being incorporated into her.

[00:06:23]This necessity concerns the whole of humanity without exception, embraces without distinction Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans, and atheists. That is 100% 100% Catholic teaching. There is nothing about that that is contrary to Catholic teaching.

[00:06:39]Now, some might say, "Well, you know, what about the where he said where it says, 'There's but one baptism as a means of being incorporated into her.'"

[00:06:46]What about martyrs? What about, you know, people who baptism of desire something like that? That is incorporated into the one baptism as the society themselves have made clear. They have rejected what I would call the you know, what you could call the Feeneyite interpretation. And that is by the way the idea, we can debate exactly what Feeney thought, but the basically what's condemned by the Church is the idea that only through water baptism can someone be saved.

[00:07:13]In other words, if somebody is martyred for the faith and they're not they haven't been water baptized yet, then they would be damned. That's not Catholic Church teaching. In fact, Catholic Church teaching is that's a baptism of blood.

[00:07:25]It's part of the one baptism that that unites you to Christ, and so those people can be saved. Likewise, there is a baptism of desire that that has existed, that idea has existed since the early Church.

[00:07:38]The problem though, of course, is people like Weigel have opened that up so much that that loophole, so to speak, opened up so much you could drive you know, everybody in the world in through it.

[00:07:50]The reality is if you look at church history, throughout the history until about the 1950s, 1960s, most Catholics thought of baptism of desire as a exception that proves the rule in the sense that it's very unlikely that most people would fall under that and it would be for people like me be a catechumen who was in classes on their way to Easter Vigil and gets hit by a truck.

[00:08:15]That person would fall under baptism of desire.

[00:08:19]But just some random person in Asia who is like a Buddhist or whatever, it doesn't mean they're all of a sudden have baptism of desire so we don't have to worry about them. That's never been the church's teaching, never been the church's practice either. Because if you look at how we sent missionaries around the world in order to convert people like that Buddhist.

[00:08:42]And so Weigel, in his effort like I said, to to own the trads, own the SSPX, he himself falls into error. And by the way, I've noticed other critics of the SSPX who would join with Weigel in criticizing the SSPX, they they agree that Weigel's completely off here.

[00:09:02]That he's very sloppy here. He's he's accusing the SSPX of something they don't believe, but more importantly he's acting like that statement that the SSPX made is somehow outside of church teaching when it actually aligns directly with church teaching. Now, I know a lot of Catholics, including many Catholic higher-ups and leaders and such over the past 60 years have talked about it such that they would open up heaven to everybody no matter whether or not they cared about Catholicism, knew about Catholicism, embraced Catholicism, were anti-Catholic, didn't matter.

[00:09:33]They're all anonymous Christians that we just let in.

[00:09:36]So Weigel definitely gets this wrong and this is and I've seen this that I've seen others critics of the SSPX who have basically trying to accuse the society now of heresy, which is just silly and isn't isn't accurate at all. We could have a debate about schism. I mean, I think there's at least a discussion to be had there, but not when it comes to heresy. The declaration of faith Catholic faith was completely in keeping with Catho- with Catholicism as it's always been understood.

[00:10:05]And so, Weigel gets this wrong. I I What I'm really disappointed though in with this Weigel column is that a number of outlets media outlets. I don't like to bang on other media outlets like our competitors so to speak of Crisis. I don't really consider them competitors.

[00:10:20]I I think they do good work. But, I feel like I have to say something here.

[00:10:25]I'm disappointed that a number of otherwise good Catholic outlets published this.

[00:10:32]First Things published it, Catholic World Report published it, and Catholic National Catholic Register published it.

[00:10:38]Now, let me explain how Weigel columns work. I know this from the inside because I'm part of this world.

[00:10:44]What happens is Weigel's representative sends out email about a week or so before the column is to be published with the column contents and says, "Okay, here's Weigel's latest column.

[00:10:55]Don't publish until June 17th, for example." And usually comes about a week in advance. And then what you're supposed to do is if you publish it, you then send him an honorarium. They actually are pretty it's like an honor system. You could publish without paying him a dime, but the idea is you then pay him because you you should and you should pay him if you run it. I mean, that that's the way it works. We pay all our authors at Crisis and every outlet should pay their authors who write for them.

[00:11:19]Well, a long time ago, like when I first started at Crisis, this is 5 years ago.

[00:11:23]I started getting these emails and I asked the previous guy who ran Crisis, my Michael Warren Davis, like, "What are these? Am I supposed to run these or what?" He's like, "Oh, no, they just send them out uh to all the different Catholic media outlets and ask them to run it. You're not obligated to it." So, of course, I was like, "I'm not going to run Weigel articles." First of all, they're being run everywhere else. At Crisis, we try to have unique content that's only run at Crisis. We don't We don't uh run things that are run elsewhere.

[00:11:48]But also, honestly, I'm not a big fan of Weigel because of things like this. I think he's often I think he's condescending and he's often very uh theologically sloppy. And so, I was like, "No."

[00:11:59]And at one point though, I had a a tiff with Weigel because I criticized him for his support of the Ukrainian war, I think it was, or something like that.

[00:12:08]Back in 2021 or 2022, whatever that was.

[00:12:12]And he and I had a back and forth. And I basically asked his person, his representative, "Could you please take me off the list? I don't want to receive these emails anymore because I'm not going to run them. Don't Don't waste your time."

[00:12:22]Well, they kept sending them to me. And I asked again, "Could you please stop sending these to me? I'm not going to run Weigel's article cuz I just delete these. So, stop sending them." Well, they just kept sending them to me. They just didn't take me off the list. And so, I saw this a week ago, and I almost publicized it before the the the embargo was up because I'm like, "I'm not obligated by the embargo since I asked you not to send these to me." But I was like, "No, I'll wait." But that's why I had an article the next day after Weigel's article ran because I knew about it for over a week. Uh but the point is is like the National Catholic Register, the the Catholic World Report and First Things, who are all good outlets, they didn't have to run Weigel's article. They should check what he writes before they run it. And in this case, they shouldn't have run it, frankly. I know they're going to get a lot of clicks because it's about the SSPX, but at the same time, it literally has, I think, an endorsement of a heretical understanding of Catholic teaching in it with in the example I gave. So, yeah. So, that there's an an example where I think critics of the SSPX get things wrong. They actually fall into heresy in this case because they embrace because they're just so desperate to show that the that the society is wrong.

[00:13:36]Now, on the flip side, let me give an example of the supporters of the SSPX falling into what I think is heresy.

[00:13:46]Now, I caused quite a kerfuffle on X, which let's be honest, we know X isn't the real world, it doesn't really matter that much.

[00:13:56]Excuse me, and and most people aren't going to be aware of this, but I caused a little bit of a of a big deal because I posted this, and let me put it up on the screen. I said, "I would go to confession to Father James Martin before I go to a priest of whom I was unsure if he had faculties, no matter how orthodox traditional he may be.

[00:14:15]That's not legalism, but basic Catholic sacramental theology. By the way, I do want to make a note, that last line I realize sounds totally AI generated.

[00:14:23]It's not this, but it's that. And I and I kind of cringe now reading it. I did not use AI [laughter] to write that X post. I think it'd be weird that you AI for that. I mean, I think it's weird to use AI to to write articles and things like that, but definitely not X posts. But anyway, the point is I was making, which hopefully is clear, is that I think I think it's important that a priest has faculties in order to go to confession. And if I'm unsure, I'm not going to go to him. And this is the point I made my last podcast, simply that Notice, I did not say I did not say an SSPX priest here because as of today, SSPX priests have faculties to hear confessions. And so therefore, it doesn't include them. But I am talking about the possibility that the Pope might rescind their faculties. And if that were the case, I would go to a I would go to Father James Martin before I go to an SSPX priest without faculties given to them by Rome.

[00:15:25]And I wrote a later post that I explained this in more detail.

[00:15:29]And I think people just don't understand some basic sacramental theology and canon law.

[00:15:34]First of all, and it is confusing. And by the way, I'm not even trying to be condescending here. I'm not trying to be George Weigel about this.

[00:15:40]Because it is I do think it's confusing.

[00:15:41]I found a lot of Catholics don't understand this.

[00:15:44]For a sacrament to be valid, in general, it has to have the proper form, the proper matter, and the proper minister.

[00:15:52]And so, for example, with baptism, the proper form is I baptize you in the Father's name of Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The proper matter is and also that you pour and the proper matter is water and that you pour water over the skin of the of the person's head at least or dunk them.

[00:16:09]And the proper minister, actually in the case of baptisms, is anybody.

[00:16:12]And in the case of something like uh the Eucharist, the proper, you know, we know the proper form, proper matter, but the proper minister is a validly ordained priest.

[00:16:23]And so, every sacrament has has to have proper form, matter, minister. And so, for example, for confession, the proper minister is a validly ordained priest again. It's not somebody like me. I can't hear confessions, thank God.

[00:16:36]But there's also, in some cases, the the the minister has to have jurisdiction supplied to him by the proper authority in the church. And this applies to both confession and to marriage.

[00:16:53]And I'm not going to go on the details why that's that's the case. You can you can research that. Ask, you know, Claude or whoever.

[00:17:00]But the reality is is that these sacraments, confession and marriage, need the priest to have proper jurisdiction supplied to him by the proper authority. And so, what the what the debate is with SSPX priests is do they have proper juris- Do they have jurisdiction?

[00:17:19]Now, the argument on the Society of Saint Pius X side is that they do have jurisdiction, even if this is before So, okay, let me take a step another step back.

[00:17:31]Historically, from the time of the excommunications in 1988, the the thought was among uh at the Vatican and among most Catholics is that the priest did not have the SSPX priest did not have jurisdiction because the Vatican had basically excommunicated the bishops and they did not have they were not under a diocesan bishop. Therefore, they did not have faculties granted to them by the diocesan bishop to hear confessions.

[00:17:58]Now, in 2015, I think that's the year, Pope Francis actually granted all Society priests jurisdiction. And so, as of today, that still stands and therefore, in the eyes of everybody who's paying attention, Society priests have jurisdiction.

[00:18:15]However, the Society would argue from the beginning, from 1988 through 2015, that they did have supplied jurisdiction. And there's a number of different arguments that has to do with um it has to do with like people coming to them, whether or not they believe that they that you know, it's a coming for spiritual need. You know, you could argue from state of necessity. There's different arguments for I'm not going to get into the details now. Again, you could you could go to Society uh website at I'm sure it's on there somewhere. Ask Society priest, ask Claude, the I'm sure or whoever an AI would probably explain it well as well. I'm not going to get in that here. I'm not going to bore with the details. The point is there is a dispute.

[00:18:55]The Society would argue, even if the Pope were to rescind their faculties, they would still have supplied jurisdiction and therefore, their confessions would be valid. The Vatican and many other Catholics would argue, no, they don't have jurisdiction because it's clear the Pope the Pope hasn't given it to them. therefore they don't have their their confessions are not valid. Now, my point is when I say what did I say again?

[00:19:21]I would go to confession to Father James Martin before I go to a priest of whom I was unsure if he had faculties, no matter how orthodox or traditional he may be. Note, I'm not saying he doesn't have faculties, I'm saying I'm unsure of it.

[00:19:33]And for me personally, I I'm not saying by the way other people what their their their certainty is.

[00:19:40]I'm simply saying if I were and I I use this example in in another post on X. If I were in a state of mortal sin today or or let's say after let's say the Pope withholds, rescinds jurisdiction from the faculties from the SSPX priest in a month from now. And I'm in a state of mortal sin, I go into a church to hear to get confession. And Father James Martin is the one in one confessional and a society priest is in another confessional.

[00:20:05]I would go straight to the line for Father James Martin.

[00:20:09]And that freaked man, it just blew people's mind. But honestly, I didn't think it was that controversial to say that. And of course, I picked Father James Martin on purpose because everybody should know my opinion of him. I think he's a terrible priest.

[00:20:21]I think he's leading many souls to hell.

[00:20:26]But I would pick him over society priest. Not because I think he's holier, not because I think he's more orthodox or more traditional. I don't think any of those things are true.

[00:20:36]Yet, I would pick him because of sacramental theology. I would be in doubt as to whether the society priest the confession were valid. If I'm in a state of mortal sin, I want to be sure.

[00:20:49]As sure as I can. Obviously, you can't be 100% sure ever.

[00:20:54]We could go into a confessional of a priest who actually was wasn't validly baptized and his and this has happened.

[00:21:00]And so he all of his sacraments he he celebrates are valid. It can happen.

[00:21:05]Claiming it can. I'm just simply saying responsible for what I know.

[00:21:10]And I I would sure I would doubt the validity of the confession from the Society of Saint Pius X because I'm not convinced by the society arguments for supply jurisdiction.

[00:21:23]I know other good Catholics who are.

[00:21:26]And I'm not saying even that they're wrong. I'm just simply saying I am not convinced. And so if I'm not convinced, I'm not putting my soul in jeopardy of potentially going to an invalid confession. I'm going to go to the Father James Martin valid confession. Now, what led this into heresy, I think of many SSPX supporters, I don't think by the way that the you know SSPX priest would I don't know. I don't think they would say that Father James Martin uh confession's invalid, but I saw a number of people online saying it was. Why? Because he's a heretic. There Here's the logic.

[00:22:03]Father James Martin is a heretic. A heretic is automatically excommunicated.

[00:22:07]Excommunicated priests cannot hear valid confessions.

[00:22:10]You know, A B C D. That's the argument.

[00:22:12]That's the logic. However, that just isn't how it works. That is not how it works and it's been clear from the teaching and the practice of the church for almost 2,000 years.

[00:22:23]The church has made it very clear over and over and over again that that uh up the sacrament celebrated by a priest who may be a heretic or may engage in any more immoral activities is still valid. It is still valid. Why? Because I know Canon law says if you're a heretic, you're automatically excommunicated. The problem is is that I don't have the authority and you don't have the authority to declare Father James Martin a heretic and therefore he's excommunicated.

[00:23:02]And so therefore, his his sacraments are still valid. If he were excommunicated formally by the church for heresy, yes, then we'd have an issue. Now, by the way, not all the sacraments would be invalid.

[00:23:14]Even excommunicated priests can celebrate a valid mass. Again, it's to do with jurisdiction. An excommunicated priest can't hear valid confessions because he wouldn't have jurisdiction anymore. However, his mass would still be valid. It would not be illicit, but it would still be valid. I know this would be confusing. There's a lot of distinctions here, but we it's important that we keep them straight.

[00:23:37]Also, he just to confuse things a little bit more, in a state of true emergency, for example, I get hit by a bus and I'm in danger of death and I I I'm in a state of mortal sin and I want to confess and a a laicized priest, a priest who, for example, left the priesthood and got married, he can validly hear my confession in that case because it's the state of emergency. It's one of the arguments, not the only one, but it's one of the arguments of the Society of Saint Pius X defenders is we're in a state of emergency kind of generally, so therefore, that makes the their sac- their confessions valid. I know they also have a different argument with supplied jurisdiction that's a little bit that's different than that, but that's one of them you hear.

[00:24:17]So, we have all these different situations, but what I do know is right now, there's no reason to doubt, frankly, the validity of the confession of somebody like Father James Martin or a maybe a bishop like a Cardinal Cupich or Cardinal McElroy, somebody we don't like and we know is really problematic.

[00:24:39]Think about the the alternative. If if what I'm saying is not true, if what I'm saying is not true, that if ipso facto a a priest holds heretical beliefs, therefore, he is automatically excommunicated, therefore, his sacraments are invalid because he doesn't have jurisdiction. If that were true, it upends the entire sacramental system.

[00:25:00]It definitely upends at least the entire sacramental system behind confession.

[00:25:05]Because you can't know.

[00:25:07]I actually asked somebody online, "Okay, so we all agree, I think we you know, at least he and I would agree, that many priests today, maybe even most, probably hold some heretical beliefs.

[00:25:21]They probably do.

[00:25:23]Does that mean their confessions are invalid? Because obviously they're excommunicated according to you, and therefore the confessions are invalid."

[00:25:28]And he basically said, "Yeah, probably."

[00:25:31]Think about that. Think about the consequences. This is why the church has said, by the way, that even if a a priest holds some heretical views, his his confessions are still valid if he has faculties.

[00:25:45]That means you have reason to doubt almost every confession you've ever been to.

[00:25:53]I mean, cuz you don't know for sure, no matter how awesome you think the priest is you're going to for confession. You don't know if perhaps he holds some heretical views.

[00:26:03]I'm willing to bet there's a society priest or two that holds heretical views.

[00:26:08]I'm willing to bet that there's a Fraternity of Saint Peter priest or two that does. I'm willing to bet, you know, I just it's not that hard, sadly, to hold some heretical views.

[00:26:20]And I bet there are some priest more likely not traditional priest that holds some really heretical views, especially in progressive priest.

[00:26:30]Yet, their confessions are not invalid, assuming they have faculties.

[00:26:36]And that's because, ultimately, when you go to confession, who are you going to? You're not going to a priest under you're not getting you got not getting absolved by his power. You're getting absolved by Jesus Christ himself working through that priest.

[00:26:53]And how does he work through the priest?

[00:26:55]Through the church. The church is his body. Therefore, unless the church says that priest doesn't have faculties, he does.

[00:27:05]And if the church excommunicates, formally excommunicates a priest, then yeah, he doesn't have faculties anymore.

[00:27:11]And if the church says that society priests do not have faculties for confession, what does that mean?

[00:27:21]I think it's it I think it means they don't have faculties for confession.

[00:27:25]I at least doubt that they have faculties for confession, and therefore I wouldn't go to them unless I were in danger of death.

[00:27:32]That's me.

[00:27:33]I'm not telling people what to do. You can decide for yourself. If you attend the society if you if you're a Society of Saint Pius X uh attendee, you go to chapels, and you think they're still valid, you're sure of it, okay.

[00:27:46]That's your conscience. That's what you have to decide in your conscience, and you will have to answer for at the final judgment. Jesus might very well say, "Yes, you were right."

[00:27:56]But I know for me, on my conscience, I can't do that. I wouldn't be able to do that. And so that's why I would go to a Society of Saint I'm sorry, go to Saint Father James Martin.

[00:28:06]I mean, the funny thing is going to Father James Martin for confession, it what it demonstrates is the mercy of God and the power of God that he works through these fallible unworthy priest.

[00:28:22]I guarantee you every holy priest you know would say he is unworthy to hear confessions and to give absolution.

[00:28:29]Yet he knows he has confidence that Christ works through him.

[00:28:35]And so I really do think we need to get these things straight. We need to understand we can't like some of the critics of the SSPX start accusing them of heresy and basically embracing heresy ourselves to do so. Nor can we, if we support the SSPX, which I would say I'm in that general group, can we then say that okay, uh embrace heresy and and start saying things like, "Oh, if a if a priest if I know a priest has some heretical thoughts, I know his confessions are invalid." That's just that's ridiculous. That goes It's the Donatist heresy, yes.

[00:29:06]I know people don't like hearing it called that talk about that, but that is what it is, the Donatist heresy, the idea of a a um a priest kind of loses his ability to save uh celebrate valid sacraments because of his unworthiness.

[00:29:23]Okay, so I just want to I I wanted to talk about that, but I also want to follow up on that a little bit more, the faculties issue.

[00:29:33]As of today, June 19th, 2026, Society priests do have faculties because of Pope Francis.

[00:29:41]They do have and and Tagle has not rescinded them.

[00:29:44]Now, after the the um the uh consecrations, episcopal consecrations on July 1st, we don't know what's going to happen.

[00:29:53]But there are probably, I would think, maybe three or four different options. One is he could excommunicate the bishops, but he could he could not rescind the faculties of the priests. I hope he makes it very clear what he's doing here, by the way.

[00:30:09]Because the the the the the priests of the of the of the Society had their did not have faculties before 2015, according to the Vatican.

[00:30:18]And so, after this, he could for So, he could excommunicate the bishops involved. So, that the men being consecrated and the and the bishops consecrating them, he could excommunicate them, but allow Society priests still to have faculties. That is one possibility. Another possibility is he excommunicates the bishops involved, both consecrating and consecrated, and he removes the faculties of all Society priests. He makes it clear all the faculties for confession and marriage are rescinded from society priests.

[00:30:49]Now of course society would still defend say they have supplied jurisdiction.

[00:30:52]They're still valid. Okay, fine.

[00:30:55]Another option the Pope could do, he could excommunicate the bishops involved consecrating and consecrating and also all the priests of the society.

[00:31:05]There is talk that he might do something like this.

[00:31:08]If he did that then they would not have faculties obviously because they're excommunicated. They don't have jurisdiction. Now again, I know the society would say they still do.

[00:31:16]The point is I'm saying from the Vatican point of view.

[00:31:19]So that's another option. He could the Pope could even go further and excommunicate people who attend society say it's an it's an act of automatic excommunication if you attend an SSPX chapel. I don't know. I mean I I I really don't think he would do that.

[00:31:35]But I think everything's on the table right now. Now I do think what I think is more likely to happen than anything is he's going to do something but it's not going to be done clearly and and and completely in conformity with canon law.

[00:31:50]Because that's just the way the Vatican's worked over the past 15 years or so. Is they do these things kind of haphazard. They don't really care about the details. I hope whatever they do it's very much in line with canon law. I hope I hope that's it because that otherwise it just gets to be a mess. And I could see the the SSPX appealing because they would want their day in court and they deserve their day in court by the way.

[00:32:13]If they're excommunicated by the Pope, they have every right to appeal it to the Pope obviously. I mean there is no appeal beyond the Pope but at least to appeal under canon law to say, could you please look into this more carefully and here's our arguments for why. And again you know the the the this the the the see is judged by no one. The Roman see you know is judged by no one. So I'm not saying you could appeal to somebody else but at least appeal to the Vatican.

[00:32:39]You know, priests, bishops have that right in general. So, we have to pray and fast that that that honestly this mess just gets fixed.

[00:32:49]I mean, there's no better way of putting it.

[00:32:52]I made very clear I think the Vatican has treated SSPX horribly over the years. I also am clear that I think that the Pope should should allow the consecrations, approve the consecrations. Just say, "Yes, you can do it. We're not going to We're not going to stop you. And we're going to And we're not going to do anything.

[00:33:08]We're not going to excommunicate you."

[00:33:10]It doesn't look like that's what he's going to do, but I'm still praying for a miracle that he would do that.

[00:33:14]That would solve a lot of problems, and I think it is the right thing to do.

[00:33:18]Um you know, obviously the SSPX could back down. They could say, "No, we're not going to Actually, we're going to We're not going to back down."

[00:33:26]We're going to talk We're going to try to talk more to the Vatican. We're Oh, we don't think we need the bishops right now, or whatever the case may be.

[00:33:32]That's also a possible thing. And And I you know, they should Maybe they should do that. If the Pope won't back down, maybe they should back down.

[00:33:41]Actually, I say they I think they should. I don't think they should consecrate on July 1st if they're not allowed if they're not approved by the by the Pope.

[00:33:47]Um but but there's a lot of different things that could happen here, and so I think we need to be praying and fasting that this all gets sorted out. I do worry. The more I talk to SSPX affiliated people, the more I worry that they are headed down a path that they can't come back from.

[00:34:04]Now, some would say they're already down that path. I don't think that's true.

[00:34:08]I've always thought that a reconciliation was possible.

[00:34:11]Maybe not under Pope Leo, but a reconciliation was possible where they're fully canonically regularized, whatever term you want to use.

[00:34:20]But I think that um I think it's getting more and more unlikely, and I think that's sad uh because obviously we need them. We need them fully in the church, however you want to define that, fully canonically regular, doing their work their good work in, you know, within the confines of fold of the wider church. That we we obviously need that, so.

[00:34:40]Okay, I I'm going to cut it off there. I had some other things I wanted to talk about related to this, but I think I'll I'll just kind of hold off on that. So, again, pray and fast for this whole situation that it might be resolved to the glory of God and for the good of the church.

[00:34:54]Okay, everybody, until next time. God love you and remember the poor.