The Catholic Trumpet: Revisiting the Catalog of SSPX Compromise

[Stone]

The Catacombs is gratefully sharing The Catholic Trumpet's revisiting and summarizing of Sean Johnson's Catalog of Compromise, Change, and Contradiction in the SSPX, first written in 2019:

Catalog of SSPX Compromise #1: New Mass – Sinful or Not?

The Catholic Trumpet [slightly reformatted] | April 9, 2025

Editor's Note: We will be posting one compromise at a time from Sean Johnson’s “Catalog of Compromise, Change, and Contradiction in the SSPX.” Though Mr. Johnson tragically continues to attend the conciliar-SSPX and defends Bishop Williamson’s scandalous position on grace in the New Mass, this does not nullify the objective facts he has documented. Truth stands on its own. And when a man who refuses to act on the truth still manages to compile a devastating record of betrayal—what excuse will you and I have if we ignore it? May these posts stir souls not to idle curiosity, but to clarity, conviction, and Catholic action. ‘Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.

#1: Change (New Mass Participation Sinful or Not?)

All the SSPX faithful should be well familiar with the little blue book, Christian Warfare, published by
the SSPX and promoted and used on their Ignatian retreats. In the section on the Examination of
Conscience, under the third commandment (page 289 in the 2006 edition) we find the following:

Have you attended and actively participated in the "New Mass"? Have you received Holy Communion in the hand?

Yet, in the new edition, this sentence was replaced with:

Have you received Holy Communion in the hand knowing that it leads to Sacrilege and loss of faith in the
Real Presence?

Have you attended and actively participated in non-Catholic religious services?

https://tradcatresist.blogspot.com/2018/...d-his.html

Clearly the SSPX no longer wishes to suggest attending the Novus Ordo is sinful.

[Stone]

Catalog #2: Counterfeit SSPX: Marry by Modernist Clergy
(SSPX’ers Married by Conciliarists?)

The Catholic Trumpet [slightly reformatted] | April 10, 2025

In the US District, the old (attached) SSPX Marriage Form M-2(a) required a signature of the marriage parties before a Society priest would consent to perform the wedding. That form includes the following passage:

"Moreover, I insist on my right to receive all the sacraments in an entirely traditional way, and consequently refuse to have my wedding celebrated by a priest who celebrates the new Mass, or in a church in which the new Mass is celebrated.”

Today, however, the SSPX has accepted to be bound by the April 4, 2017 "Pastoral Guidelines" of Cardinal Mueller (authorized by Pope Francis) which state, among other things:

"Insofar as possible, the Local Ordinary [that is, normally the local Diocesan Bishop] is to grant the delegation to assist at the marriage to a priest of the Diocese (or in any event, to a fully regular priest), such that the priest may receive the consent of the parties during the marriage rite..." https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2017/0...riage.html

This is a clear and direct contradiction to SSPX Marriage Form M-2(a) of the US District (which presumably has either subsequently been edited to bring itself into compliance with this new norm, or discarded altogether.

(SSPX Faithful married by a conciliar priest in a conciliar church in Canada)

[Stone]

#3: Contradiction – Is the Rome Agreement a Trap or Not?
(Trap vs No Trap)

The Catholic Trumpet [slightly reformatted] | April 12, 2025

Important Update:
We will be posting one compromise at a time from Sean Johnson’s “Catalog of Compromise, Change, and Contradiction in the SSPX.” As an important update, we discovered yesterday (April 10, 2025) that Mr. Johnson no longer attends the Neo-SSPX and now attends a SSPV chapel. His love for the Church and willingness to document betrayal within the Society is commendable. That said, we must charitably but firmly acknowledge that his continued defense of Bishop Williamson’s claim—that the New Mass can be a source of grace—represents a grave theological error, one which +Archbishop Lefebvre publicly and repeatedly rejected. We say this not to scorn, but to warn. The temptation to follow persons over principle is real—and only fidelity to the full Catholic position will preserve the Faith. We hope Mr. Johnson returns to the true Resistance and continues the good fight without compromise. May these posts stir souls not to idle curiosity, but to clarity, conviction, and Catholic action. “Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.”


One year after the episcopal consecrations, Archbishop Lefebvre warned the faithful that any overtures from modernist Rome were nothing but a trap:

"That is why what can look like a concession is in reality merely a maneuver to separate us from the largest number of faithful possible. This is the perspective in which they seem to be always giving a little more and even going very far. We must absolutely convince our faithful that it is no more than a maneuver, that it is dangerous to put oneself into the hands of Conciliar bishops and Modernist Rome. Itis the greatest danger threatening our people. If we have struggled for twenty years to avoid the Conciliar errors, it was not in order, now, to put ourselves in the hands of those professing these errors." http://sspx.org/en/one-year-after-consecrations

Bishop Fellay (under the most anti-traditional Pope in history) thinks otherwise. In his 8/24/16 Australian conference, he said:

"But in itself, you cannot imagine anything better than what is offered there. And such a thing that you cannot think ‘That’s a trap.’ It’s not a trap. And if somebody is offering something like that, we are offered something like that, it can be only because he wants good to us. He wants the good of Tradition, he wants Tradition to spread within the Church.”

NB: As the YouTube video of this conference was removed for obvious reasons, we will divert the reader to Issue #37 of The Recusant, where he may find a transcription of the quoted passage, posted here:
http://www.stmaryskssspxmc.com/wp-conten...nt-371.pdf

[Stone]

#4: Truth Is a Duty—Until the NeoSSPX Says It Destroys Peace
(A strict right to know?)

The Catholic Trumpet [slightly reformatted] | April 14, 2025

+Archbishop Lefebvre:

"They have indeed a strict right to know that the priests who serve them are not in communion with a counterfeit church, promoting evolution, pentecostalism, and syncretism." https://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/Archbishop-lefebvre/Archbishop_Lefebvre_and_the_Vatican/Part_I/1988-07-06.htm

VS.

Neo-SSPX:

"Non-SSPX members [i.e., the faithful] do not have a strict right to be kept informed about the internal affairs of the SSPX, which is a religious congregation."
https://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/%E2...-soul-3073

[Stone]

#5 – Bp. de Galarreta: “Never a Deal” Becomes “Maybe a Deal”

The Catholic Trumpet [adapted and reformatted] | April 15, 2025


#5: Contradiction (Bishop de Galarreta vs Bishop de Galarreta):

On the matter of a practical accord with unconverted Rome, Bishop de Galarreta contradicted himself in
only one years' time:

Initially ruling out a merely practical accord, the bishop in 2011 said: "Following the Roman proposal, the real question, crucial, is: should we, can we, we take the path of a "possible" practical agreement first? Is it prudent and appropriate to maintain contacts with Rome leading to such an agreement? As far as I am concerned, the answer is clear: we must refuse this path because we cannot do something evil so that a good (a good which is, moreover, uncertain) can come from it, and also because this would necessarily bring about evils (very certain) for the common good that we possess, namely that of the Society and of the family of Tradition. [...] How then does this not go against the defence and public confession of faith, against the public need to protect the faithful and the Church? In this regard, if we make a purely practical agreement we are, in the present circumstances, already engaging in duplicity and ambiguity. The very fact is a public testimony and a message: we cannot be in "full communion" with the authorities who remain modernists."

https://www.cathinfo.com/sspx-resistance...ull-text)/

Very good!

But only one year later, the exact opposite:

"The Society’s position is much more precise and clear now than it was six months ago; it is much better, for we do not exclude the possibility of Providence choosing to bring about a return to the Faith through conversion [on the Part of Rome, presumably – Ed.] We have simply said: if there is not firstly a return on the part of Rome or of the next Pope to Tradition [...] but if this Pope wishes simply to allow Tradition, what are the conditions that would allow us to accept a canonical normalization, in view of the good that we could do in the Church and this good is considerable? We must not deny this possibility.”

http://archives.sspx.org/sspx_and_rome/b...3-2012.htm

The SSPX had "recovered its profound unity" at the chapter, putting the company ahead of the Faith.

[Stone]

#6: Contradiction - Bishop Fellay Suicidal?

The Catholic Trumpet [adapted and reformatted] | April 16, 2025

From a February/2009 interview with The Remnant regarding autonomy from the diocesan bishops:

"Brian Mershon: Do you foresee any oversight by territorial diocesan bishops once the Society is regularized?

Bp. Fellay: That would be our death.”

https://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archive...fellay.htm

Three years later, Bishop Fellay had apparently lost his fear of death:

Bishop Fellay: "It is still true—since it is Church law—that in order to open a new chapel or to found a work, it would be necessary to have the permission of the local ordinary. We have quite obviously reported to Rome how difficult our present situation was in the dioceses, and Rome is still working on it. Here or there, this difficulty will be real, but since when is life without difficulties?"

http://archives.sspx.org/superior_genera...8-2012.htm

[Stone]

#7: Bishop Fellay vs +Archbishop Lefebvre on Vatican II

The Catholic Trumpet [adapted and reformatted] | April 30, 2025

+Archbishop Lefebvre blames the Council:

"Without rejecting this Council wholesale, I think that it is the greatest disaster of this century and of all the past centuries, since the founding of the Church."

https://www.angelus.online/en_US/8362/12...ciple.html (Page now “no longer found” but can be found at https://ontario.sspx.ca/en/publications/...n-ii-39480)

Bishop Fellay excuses or downplays the Council:

"I think, we see that many things which we would have condemned as being from the council are in fact not from the council, but the common understanding of it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti...dnJigNzTuY