Michael Matt: Here we go again, kids making America great again, one bomb at a time. But wait, there is more. The Neo Catholics declare war on the Society of St Pius the 10th, the many faces of the state of emergency from COVID and Davos to Bill Gates and gay confirmations. Still, who gets to declare that state of emergency? Well, how about these guys tonight: Cardinal Robert Serra, Bishop Athanasia Schneider, and the ghost of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
Hello again, ladies and gentlemen. I am Michael Matt. This is the remnant underground. Well, we did it, we are making America great again. I do not know what to say. I think the main thing at this point is to get ready for a media blitz because, being a midterm year, it is not popular. I just do not know what the propaganda mill has prepared for us, but I think it is going to be pretty powerful to get everybody on board. Obviously, most people are not on board with this, so I would say that is probably the most constructive thing we can do. First of all pray for the people who are going to die going to be killed here. This is not good. Trump has called for regime change. You can see what is going on over there already, kind of another color revolution. He warned that American lives are going to be lost. He called for the Iranians to take your government back, which sounds again like another color revolution we talked about last time, regime change. In other words, I am sorry, but no matter who you vote for, somebody said it, they said it right, no matter who you vote for, you are always going to get John McCain. That is just the way it is. And as you can see here, Iran has already retaliated. This was the scene at Abu Dhabi of all places, where Pope Francis famously signed the big peace accord. That is what it looks like right now over there. And why are we doing this? Well, is it not obvious if
News: If Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year, it could be within a few months
They have the wherewithal, the stored-up preserved knowledge to make a bomb very quickly if they wanted to do it. Iran is so dangerous, weeks away from having the fissile material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs. They are very close. They are six months away from having about 90 percent of the enriched uranium for an atomic bomb. Iran is gearing up to produce 25 bombs atomic bombs a year, 250 bombs in a decade. Ladies and gentlemen, time is running out. Iran will be capable of producing nuclear bombs without importing anything
Michael Matt: Three to five years. Okay, I guess they must have those weapons of mass destruction in Iran that we spent all those years looking for in Iraq. But in any case, the real consolation for all of us is that at least the entire international community is with us this time, right?
Prof. John: Israel is the only country on the planet that wants this war. The Chinese and the Russians are working overtime with the Americans to discourage President Trump from attacking Iran. The Europeans have no stomach for this fight. It is one country that wants this fight. It is Israel.
Michael Matt: Now I understand the response is always the same, little parroted thing, you are an anti-Semite. This is just ridiculous. It is like you are a racist. It does not matter; it does not really mean anything anymore. But again, I would stress that from the beginning of our coverage of this and going back for years now, we have always used Jewish sources, and as I have made very clear down here in the underground, the big concern that I have right now is not the Jews, not the Jewish even Zionists. The biggest concern that I have is the Christian Zionists, and they conflate Zionism with Judaism. We have gone over this in the past. Zionism, of course, is a modern political ideology. That is what we are opposing. Judaism is an ancient religion, and most of the people who practice that ancient religion are not in favor of this at all. So, in other words, we are going to war now for a hateful Christian heresy, and then we are claiming on top of it all that the Jews are all on board with it, which actually is authentically anti-Semitic, as we have gone over down here time and time again.
News: The founder of the Zionists was Tedder Herzl from Vienna, Austria. He did not believe in God. He did not believe in anything. Judaism is a complete religious movement and has nothing to do with any nationality or with any materialistic things. The Zionists often wave the flag of the promised land. The promised land, you say, God promised land, you say, the Torah. You do not believe in the Torah. You do not believe in God. You do not have culture.
Michael Matt: So what is this then? If you really want to be honest, if you are done kind of playing let us pretend and projecting all these Christian and pro-life ideas and morality and everything onto the current regime, when you are done with that, what is this? Because to me it looks an awful lot like Matthew 24 7, pun intended 24 7 the rise of antichrist, the beginning of sorrows. Nation will rise up against the nation, kingdom against kingdom. False prophets will rise up. Lawlessness will abound. And what we are looking at, ironically enough, or maybe not so ironically, is right in the Holy Land, the cradle of Christianity. What we are looking at is the stuff that traditional Catholics have always warned against: the rise of antichrist, the rise of something the ape of God, a new religion that will eclipse Catholicism, the religion of Jesus Christ, that will eclipse the true Messiah and bring on another Messiah. Do you want to know why so many Orthodox Jews do not agree with Israel at all? It is because they see that as a man made solution to a divine problem. They are waiting for God to send a messiah. What is happening in Israel right now is that powerful billionaires trillionaires the powerful elites, are making their own Messiah, and most of the Christians in this country are all on board with that.
News: Right, we are commanded as Christians to support the government of Israel. We are commanded to support Israel as a nation. Is Genesis the same country as the one run by Benjamin Netanyahu right now? Yes.
Michael Matt: So again, it is no coincidence that the world is going to war right now in the Holy Land, and neither is it a coincidence. I am going to talk about this tonight, that at the same time, traditional Catholicism is gearing up for a huge major civil war coming under fire from all around, once again with the Neo Catholics now our friends and Neo Catholics raging against the Society of St Pius the 10th, like it is 1989. For those of you who are new to the movement, I say again, the Society of St Pius the 10th is the largest order of traditional Catholic priests in the world, started right after the Second Vatican Council. The council ended in 65 by 1970, Archbishop Lefebvre already started his Society of St Pius the 10th, which was all about Catholic restoration and the proclamation of the social kingship of Jesus Christ. Okay. What I find really conspicuous by its absence right now in all the pearl-clutching that is going on over the SSPX online and elsewhere among Neo Catholics, and maybe some of you have noticed this, what is conspicuous by its absence from all the rhetoric right now?
I will tell you nobody is calling for prayer and a peaceful resolution to this thing. And why not? We are five months out, friends, from the consecrations that the society is talking about doing on July 1, the consecrations of bishops. This is causing all the problems, right? Five months away, still a lot could change between now and the first of July. So why are the Neo Catholics already almost eagerly shouting schismatic at one million fellow Catholics? Does that seem misplaced? They have more than 700 priests now, many hundreds of religious, as I say, a million faithful. That is a lot of faithful Catholics. In the middle of a huge crisis in the clergy crisis in the priesthood shortage of priests, why are the Neo Catholics so eager to push these people out? I think that is the first thing we have to ask ourselves as we enter into this period again of the massive global circular firing squad over what it is really over the society? Because if you think about it from the Neo-Catholic perspective, nothing has changed.
Whatever is going to happen on July 1, it does not matter. These Neo Catholic critics of society, the loudest ones, have never supported the SSPX. They do not even know the players, so they are just making this thing up now. It is a very exciting moment for them, and I would say, why don’t you stay in your lane, because nothing changes for you. You were not society before you are not going to be society now. So why is this issue so important to you, unless there is something else going on here that maybe you do not want to say, especially because we still have a fairly new pope, and people are not quite sure where this is going? We are going to talk about Bishop Schneider tonight. He had a private audience with Pope Leo and came away hopeful. So why would you make this assumption that Pope Leo might not be persuaded to do exactly what Bishop Schneider suggested that he do that the Vatican do, which we quoted just last week? Let us do it again.
Bishop Schneider: And so this is my appeal on the issue of society to be more open and generous, learn from history, and give them the context. We cannot resolve the question now. It takes time to find our canonical form. It is not the first item in importance, but the first importance is to bring them in
Michael Matt: That whole canonical thing can be established later on. Let us get them back to the table. So why is it that Bishop Athanasia Schneider is the only one calling for a solution while there is still time, five months out? Why not? It is very suspicious. Could it be that at the end of the day, this really is not about the SSPX; this is more of an attack, an old attack, the renewal of an old attack on all traditional Catholics on the entire movement itself? It could be with the loudest critics of society, suddenly pretending that the crisis in the church is not that bad, at least not bad enough to warrant such a terrible thing as disobeying the Vatican. It seems that way. Something else is going on because we all know the crisis in the church is certainly severe enough to warrant extraordinary measures as provided in the Code of Canon Law. We know that.
News: When Pope Francis appointed this Cardinal to the job he has in Rome, these books surfaced as being part of his bibliography. Fernandez has demonstrated that he is completely unsuited to be a pastor of souls because he is doing things that pornographers do. This is a horrendous production done by a priest, done by someone, and the other scandal, of course, is when these earlier books came out, Pope Francis justified it, saying these were writings of an earlier, younger priest. These continue long after those earlier dates. In his case, I would say the pornographer started a long time ago, and he is doing things that no priest should do. I am disgusted. He should be removed. This is going to be a benchmark for Pope Leo. This man should be removed.
Michael Matt: Go over to Wendt newspaper dot com right now. Check out our Italian correspondence new column, which answers the question that I know a lot of people have asked. You are talking about a state of emergency, but who gets to decide that there is a state of emergency? Who gets to make that call? Nobody. So we cannot use that argument, right? That is the game. The answer to who gets to decide is that the popes get to decide that. No, not popes from one hundred years ago. I am talking about the post-conciliar popes. Pope Paul the Sixth, or if you prefer Saint Paul the Sixth, famously talked about the smoke of Satan entering the church. He said the church is struck by those who are a part of her. Far from the springtime of Vatican Two, there is a darkest, deepest winter. He is talking about a crisis in the church, a state of emergency. The next pope, well, they killed the next pope, somebody did, I think John Paul the First.
Then you have John Paul the Second, who talked about the silent apostasy. That sounds like a state of emergency. You can find any number of references where he talks about a crisis in the church unprecedented. He says difficulties, both internal and external, have weakened the church’s missionary thrust towards non-Christians, a fact which must arouse concern among all who believe in Christ. He is talking about the fact that the church is not even converting people anymore because it has lost its identity. Pope Benedict the Sixteenth said Marxist methodologies in theology have produced rebellion, division, dissent, offense, anarchy, and great suffering. That sounds like a state of emergency, a crisis that would rise to that level in the church. Even Pope Francis called the sexual abuse synod because of the massive crisis in the clergy.
A crisis is a phenomenon that affects everyone and everything in the church. It involves ideologies, politics, economics, theology, ecology, and religion. And this is to say nothing of our daily reality what we have seen with our own eyes. This man, Gio Benitez, is an ABC anchor, a public figure being supported by his husband. It is 2026. That is Father Jimmy Martin, the Jesuit, giving a two-handed head blessing. It is not like Jimmy Martin is disobeying the pope. Jimmy Martin is not just some random Jesuit giving a two-handed head blessing of homosexual couples inside a Catholic church. He is the face of the synodal church.
Fr. Jimmy Martin: Coming out was passionately motivated in many ways. It was to say I am with you in this journey, and as I often say, I came out to let God’s love come forth. I think that is my deepest calling and that is my deepest aspiration, frankly, to be a black gay embodiment of Christ’s presence in the world
Michael Matt: It is not disobeying the pope, and that is the big issue. Of course, Cardinal Ted McCarrick, the worst sexual predator in the history of the church, never got excommunicated because he did not disobey the pope. The Vatican ran Archbishop Vigano out of the church quickly. Why? Because Archbishop Vigano was one of the most prominent whistleblowers against the crisis in the church since Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre himself. You see a pattern here. Fidelity to the church’s teaching, theological, liturgical, and moral gets you excommunicated. Everything else goes. But the Neo Catholics are upset and worried about the Society of Saint Pius the Tenth. That is a scandal.
Our sponsor tonight is America’s pro-life phone company, Charity Mobile. It has plans under fifty dollars, even talk and text only. You get a free phone, free activation, and free shipping when you switch to America’s pro-life phone company. Five percent of your bill every month goes to the charity of your choice, which I hope will be the Remnant, which is listed at Charity Mobile. Check them out at Charity Mobile dot com forward slash RTV and use the code RTV at checkout. The first big question that you need to ask yourself is the simple one about the Society of Saint Pius the Tenth. Is there or is there not a state of emergency in the church that is serious enough to justify consecrating bishops without a papal mandate? We just talked about popes admitting to a crisis in the church, all of them post-conciliar popes up until Leo. We do not know yet where he stands on the crisis.
We will find out soon enough. You just saw examples of it in the priesthood with Father Jimmy Martin associating with gay priests and married gay couples inside Catholic churches. We see that all the time now. Let us take it up another level, the geopolitical level, where the issue becomes more concrete. That is the role of Vatican Two in the establishment of a new world order. That is the concern, establishing a new world order where the social kingship of Jesus Christ used to be. That was what built Christendom, the kingship of Jesus Christ. Now, the church, as we have said many times, especially the Vatican, is pushing open borders language and rhetoric, pushing climate change concerns, and all of these things, which are moving in a different direction, more concerned with the brotherhood of man than with the salvation of souls. In order to get there, let us take a trip down memory lane.
News: What does opening up look like? Which activities, like schools, have such benefits and can be done in a way that the risk of transmission is very low? And which activities, like mass gatherings, may be in a certain sense more optional, so until you are widely vaccinated, those may not come back at all.
Michael Matt: Now we all know where that ended up. Thankfully, I think we all prayed our rosaries enough and got more satisfaction on that score than I ever thought we were going to get, thanks to guys like Thomas Massie and Senator Rand Paul. The truth is now emerging Finally
News: Melinda Gates is speaking out during an appearance on the NPR Wild Card with Rachel Martin podcast. The philanthropist reacted to her former husband, Bill Gates, being named in various documents within the latest release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
News: I think we are having a reckoning. I left my marriage. I wanted to leave my marriage. I felt I needed to eventually leave the foundation. It is just sad.
Michael Matt: And yet the pope in Rome lent the full weight of the Petrine office to the promotion of the agenda of Bill Gates.
News: It was March 27 2020, just two weeks after the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic, when the Holy Father made history at the Vatican. This blessing is usually reserved for special occasions like Easter, Christmas, and the election of a new pope. But an exception was made on this day as Pope Francis led an extraordinary moment of prayer, praying for an end to the coronavirus.
Michael Matt: That is where it all got started. This is the thing that many people do not realize: without the Catholic Church, the New World Order is not going to happen. He used the moral authority of his office in the Catholic Church to move on to mask the entire world, and he did it with influence from figures like Bill Gates. They were dominating that whole process. Fauci, Albert Bourla, and Klaus Schwab. Francis called for the vaccination of everyone using what was called a vaccine, many of which were developed with involvement from Gates. There were moral concerns and health concerns. Francis said you must take that vaccine. He mandated it. He closed the churches. He shut down the sacraments. How many people died in nursing homes because priests were not allowed into nursing homes? The priests shut down the sacraments and shut down schools.
This foundation is leading the charge to lower the world’s population. Melinda Gates, who is a Catholic, spoke about technologies developed in Africa to track which young women are not using contraception to provide contraception and sex education, and reduce large families because that’s not good for the planet, right?
Poppy Harlow: A very big goal that you have stated is to reach one hundred twenty million women with voluntary contraception by 2020. You are a Roman Catholic, you were raised Roman Catholic, and some have said it runs counter to that. How do you respond to that?
Melinda Gates: I grew up Catholic. I went through Catholic school. I am still a practicing Catholic, but over ninety percent of Catholic women in the United States use contraceptives because we believe in them. I use them, and if we believe in them and what they do for our lives, then all women should have access to those.
Michael Matt: Ultimately, people who watch this show would have known because we were covering it step by step. This was back when we were not being blocked by YouTube, so our videos reached millions of views. We found out and reported that the Vatican officially partnered with one of the most pro abortion and pro-contraception organizations in the world, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They are partnering with the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and now with the Vatican.
Pope Francis: The adoption of the 2030 UN agenda for sustainable development goals is an important sign of hope.
News: Bill and I value data. The numbers matter to us. Between 1990 and today, three hundred million women have had access to contraception. Each year, the Gates Foundation tracks data behind the Sustainable Development Goals.
Michael Matt: You can see some of these things that happened just a few years ago. The Vatican sent Cardinal Peter Turkson to Davos in Switzerland to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the World Economic Forum. There is much more to cover, but there is not enough time here tonight. I did a program where Klaus Schwab admitted that the co-author of Gaudium et Spes at Vatican Two, Dom Helder Camara, was his mentor. He invited him to speak at the World Economic Forum back in the 1970s.
Interview: I met a priest, whose name was Dom Helder Camara. I invited him to the annual meeting in Davos, but when I returned to Switzerland, I found out that he was forbidden at that time to speak in Switzerland because he was considered to be a communist.
Michael Matt: The connection gets really weird, friends. We don’t have time to do that tonight, but you can look it up. We’ll put the link down here. It was all connected with the packed catacombs. So it’s all obviously connected.
Sr. Nathalie: It’s really a pleasure to be with you tonight and an honor to have the privilege to share some thoughts about the spirituality of synodality that we are all learning and trying to live, especially for this elder camera public lecture.
Michael Matt: And now, speaking of the lunatics of Davos, the President and CEO, the man who succeeded the Field Marshal, he just resigned from the World Economic Forum due to what? Well, there were some things in the Epstein final, so he resigned. Yet the Vatican was all in with the lunatics of Davos, all in with the World Economic Forum.
News: The Vatican has opened an international conference to discuss the role of the mind, body, and soul in the future of healthcare. It features conversations from leaders in the humanities and scientific communities, such as Dr Anthony Fauci. Albert Bourla is the CEO of Pfizer, the first company to produce an effective vaccine against COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. Pope Francis has repeatedly called for universal vaccine distribution among the world’s poorest countries. He will close the conference with a message for all the participants. Other speakers include Chelsea Clinton, Sydney Crawford, and the lead guitarist of Aerosmith, Joe Perry.
Michael Matt: And of course, when you see something like that, Fauci being invited to speak at the Vatican, it should be no surprise that the Vatican mandated full compliance all the way down the chain of command to the pews where we sat.
Bishop Robert McElroy: I want to say to all of the Catholics in San Diego and Imperial Counties that there is only one real pathway for us as a society out of the pandemic, and that is through embracing vaccinations by the whole of our community. I encourage you to get vaccinated. It is safe, it is effective, and it is holy in keeping with Catholic teaching. As Pope Francis has said, if you receive a vaccination, you’re not only helping to protect those around you, whom you love so much, but you’re helping to protect the whole of our world.
Michael Matt: Bishop McElroy, very soon after he said that, became Archbishop, and then he became Cardinal.
News: That’s right, and this is a big deal. Cardinal Robert McElroy will take over his new role as Archbishop of Washington, DC in a few months. The Vatican Press Office made this announcement today. McElroy has also expressed support for LGBTQ plus youth and often denounced bullying directed at them. He is 70 years old, and he replaces the retiring Cardinal Wilton Gregory, who steps down after navigating the Archdiocese following the fallout of the clergy sexual abuse crisis.
Michael Matt: You’re worried about the canonical standing of the SSPX, some of you. This week, we were all exercised because His Eminence, Robert Cardinal Sarah, has a few reservations regarding the SSPX’s consecrations. Really. Why would you do that to him? He’s a good man. He stood with us in tradition. He went out of his way. He went out on a limb. I have great respect for his eminence, and I recently told him so. But here’s the thing, friends, why the pearl-clutching over Cardinal Sarah? Since 1988, how many Cardinals do you know who actually approved of the SSPX or Archbishop Lefebvre? I’ve been at this from the beginning, and I can’t think of a single Cardinal, not one. I don’t think such a Cardinal exists. And you know why?
Because if there was one who supported Archbishop Lefebvre all along, he would never have been made a Cardinal in the first place. So why are we pretending like we’re shocked that Cardinal Sarah isn’t a big SSPX supporter? Why all the pearl clutching? Cardinal Sarah never claimed to be a Latin Mass traditionalist. He’s been in the Novus Ordo establishment his entire career. He says and offers the new Mass, so why would he say, oh, yeah, we should disobey the Pope and do some Bishop consecrations in the future? Why would he? And see, that’s just the state of emergency in the Church. In a nutshell, even the best men, even the best Cardinals, do not agree that the Novus Ordo crisis rivals the Arian heresy as Archbishop Lefebvre said it does. That’s what makes Archbishop Lefebvre so unique. He stood up and said, wait a minute, this is all wrong, and that’s the crisis, the emergency, the revolution. A lot of these men are good men.
They see the crisis, and you know who I’m talking about, they see the crisis. They know something’s really wrong, but they don’t know what to do about it. Friends, Gerhard Cardinal Muller, His Eminence, whom I consider a friend, I’ve interviewed him. He’s a very good man and a great example of one of the Cardinals of the Church who’s just waking up rapidly over the past few years. But to my knowledge, he doesn’t agree with the SSPX decision to consecrate bishops either. For the same reason, even though he was one of the most courageous Cardinals, probably the most courageous Cardinal in the Church, who came right out on international TV and told the Catholic world to resist the Vatican to their face.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller: The basis of the Church is the Word of God, which is Revelation, and not our strange reflections about these things. This is a system of self-revelation, and the occupation of the Catholic Church is a hostile takeover. If they succeed, that will be the end of the Catholic Church, and we must resist.
Michael Matt: You see, this crisis is not some imaginary thing, friends. Archbishop Lefebvre would absolutely agree with Cardinal Muller on that, and Cardinal Muller didn’t always feel that way, but he’s moving in the right direction, as are Cardinal Sarah, as is Cardinal Burke. And we, the sheep, are willing to meet the shepherds halfway, aren’t we, for the good of the Church, for the good of our souls, including our own.
But where does it leave us now on the question we’re addressing tonight on the SSPX? Where does it leave us when even the best shepherds do not agree on how to save the sheep from the wolves coming closer every day? We’re in occupied territory. We’re behind enemy lines, friends, and we’ve said so many times. One thing is for sure. And again, for those of you who are new to all this, you’re like, what is going on?
One thing you can’t do is rely on that expert Catholic guy on YouTube to give you the goods on the SSPX or the revolution in the Church. Why not? Because that fella, God bless him, is by definition diabolically disoriented by a half-century or more, maybe a full century, going back to Pius X. Where would he have gotten the education? He didn’t, unless you were a traditional Catholic, attending one of these traditional Catholic schools, homeschooled, aware of it from the beginning, or had really militant parents. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be aware of it. Most of these guys went along with the community, the hand and altar girls, and everything else. They’re just sort of waking up now. That’s not a big deal. I like the Latin Mass, but I go to the new Mass every day. The majority of people are like that. I’m not criticizing, just saying that’s where they are.
So you go to those guys, God bless them, they’re coming in the right direction too. What should we do about the SSPX? Is it okay to go to their Masses? What do you think they’re going to say? It’s like asking Sean Hannity what he thinks of the Gaza genocide. You can do it, but what’s the point? How do you know? How do any of us know what is really going on here? Who can you trust? Who are the folks in the SSPX? Do we even know that? Many people are being told on YouTube that the SSPX is comprised of arrogant rebels who are really hateful and bad. Now you can ask me, Michael, is that true? I will say no, it’s not true. I’ve known these people all my life, but why would you believe me? Don’t believe anyone.
Somebody said, Michael Knowles, talking about this war, said for the next few weeks, don’t pay attention to anything on Twitter. Don’t believe anything you see. And that was about the war. We’re kind of at that point, don’t believe anything you’re seeing, don’t believe anyone. You have to develop your own independent thinking about this stuff, based on the Church, on people you can really trust, based on the teachings of the Church. You have to look into it. You can’t expect tribal compliance to steer you in the right direction.
No, don’t believe me unless I’ve passed some litmus test in your mind. Apply it to me, apply it to everyone. Your litmus test should start with one question: qui bono, who stands to gain from the defense or criticism of the SSPX you saw on YouTube? Find out why they’re saying it, where they’re coming from, before you imbibe it or take it seriously. You can’t even go to society right now. You can’t ask them, is your consecration legit? Of course, you can’t, and their answer won’t be satisfying. You can’t go to the Fraternity of St Peter. I have respect for the Fraternity; my best friends go there. If you ask them, they’ll say, well, you know what we’re doing. Okay, so I wouldn’t go to the SSPX.
You see the problem, friends? This is the nature of the crisis, and it leaves a lot of us asking, how do we figure this out? Let me help. At the end, we’ll talk about a bishop I know, the slam dunk assistant you need, who will make you feel better. I could even plead my own case. I’ve been in this movement for a long time. My whole thing is to unite the clans. We need all the clans. You don’t see me attacking the state of a contest because the revolution, the enemy, is the revolution. The state of accounts is not attacking the Bride of Christ.
Even more pertinent, do you think I am the Society of St Pius X? I keep saying no. Why do I do that? Not snobbery, not looking down at them. I received a second confirmation from Archbishop Lefebvre, one of the great honors of my life. But am I SSPX? No. My father did not go along with the 1988 consecrations. From 1988 onward, I have been immersed in this, trying to find the truth, seeing good men, including my father, on both sides. For the last 30 years, I have attended diocesan traditional Latin Mass exclusively, the same place, same church, same pastor. Not because I have a problem with the Society, but because God gave me an oasis with the sacraments and Mass for my family. It worked out very well, thanks in part to a chapel of the Society of St Pius X across town, providing a counterbalance for the approved Mass I attend, headed by a pastor who even goes to SSPX weddings and serves as the diocesan witness. He has great admiration for them.
You can figure out how to work with these different groups if you know what you’re doing. Drop partisan tribalism, figure out where the truth is and where the good guys are; you can do this. If this litmus test applies to me, a layman, think how much more it applies to a bishop of the Catholic Church who is not in the SSPX. That is the gift, the grace God has given us, a bishop willing to look into all of this and provide answers, a faithful shepherd giving answers in the middle of this crisis.
Bishop Schneider, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, is not retired. He is active, which means he has everything to lose. Bishop Schneider had a private audience with Pope Leo the 14, and I interviewed him about it. It was a beautiful audience, and many things were said, giving us hope. And he can anticipate further audiences with the Pope. You would think he might say, well, I won’t comment this time, let’s stay out of it, I have nothing to gain from defending the Society.
But he didn’t do that. If you go over to our website or a bunch of other websites right now, there’s a viral letter from Bishop Athanasius Schneider, and he pulls no punches. He argues that an Episcopal consecration without papal mandate is not by itself a schismatic act, that this act of disobedience does not rise to the level of schism. That is a current, active Bishop telling you that.
He says, quote, according to the 1917 Code of Canon Law, an Episcopal consecration carried out against the will of the Pope was punished not with excommunication, but only with suspension. By this, the Church clearly manifests that she did not consider such an act to be schismatic.
I’m citing some of Bishop Schneider’s arguments, not necessarily to convince you, but to give you peace of mind. This is not as simple as that guy on YouTube says. It is not a slam dunk. They are not bad Catholics. There is a lot more going on here.
Bishop Schneider argues that this division over the SSPX will be the fault of Rome if they do not change course. Think about that. You just visited Pope Leo a couple of months ago, and now you are saying to the Pope, with all due respect, if you fail, it’s on you. It’s your job as Chief Shepherd to prevent this.
If a bishop of the Catholic Church is willing to say that to the Holy Father he just met, he knows personally, you know, there is much more going on. Bishop Schneider argues that the real crisis is doctrinal and liturgical. The current crisis surrounding the announced but as yet unapproved Episcopal consecrations in the SSPX exposes before the eyes of the whole Church a wound that has been smoldering for 60 years. This wound, he says, is the state of emergency, an ecclesial cancer of doctrinal and liturgical ambiguities.
Friends, we are off the hook. We can pray for a solution and see the Society making their highest attempt, doing their best not only for themselves but for everyone attending the Latin Mass. The Church is on fire. Bishop Schneider uses that analogy. He has used it before, including in a recent interview in Africa. He says, when the house is burning, those who use proven tools to save it are not traitors. They are firefighters.
His conclusion is that the Church is on fire, and crushing the Society of St Pius X would not put out the fire. It would silence one of the few bodies still fighting it. Cui bono, who benefits from what Bishop Schneider just said? You do, your children do, all the clans do. Bishop Schneider is not SSPX, but he knows that in God’s providence, they provide the counterweight for the entire counter-revolution. They cannot be anathematized, excommunicated, or thrown under the bus, even if the modernist Vatican wants to do that.
Friends, if the Society were really what that YouTube guy says, horrible and arrogant, they could have consecrated bishops in secret easily. But they didn’t. The Society of St Pius X, the sons of Archbishop Lefebvre, presented themselves before the reigning Roman Pontiff and honorably announced their intentions, not in defiance, but in love, for souls, for the Church, for the Holy Father. They knew the penalties but were ready to pay the price for a public defense of tradition that benefits us all. Even outside the Society, we are beneficiaries.
They do not intend to leave the Church. They never have, they never will. If they are willing to become sacrificial lambs for the rest of us, don’t we owe it to them to meet them halfway? From the Vatican’s perspective, there is no appeasing them. From their perspective, we are all the same. We all need to be silenced, shut up, run out of the Church.
Holy Mother Church, the castle, is on fire and being infiltrated. It is the only castle we have. We cannot leave her. The Church needs all of her sons to man the walls and fight, to find a way to fight. Some fight from inside the walls, others from the outside. But if we see them as brothers in arms, together we are stronger. The Vatican fears that, if we see ourselves as an alliance, that undermines their goals. They have tried to break us up since 1988.
Friends, we are all in the same clan, just on different fronts of the same battlefield. Traditi quod et accepi, the faith handed down to us by our fathers, must be handed down to our sons. That is our first obligation. The revolution can only win if we fight each other instead of fighting them, which is why this is not going to happen, not this time, and please God, never again.