Yet SSPX accepts Novus Ordo priests without re-ordination…
SSPX Priest: ‘My Conviction is that Novus Ordo Priests are Not Validly Ordained’
Fr. Michael Johnson, SSPX, on June 18, 2023
Although Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Garden Grove, California, does not officially belong to the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), priests of the Society currently take care of priestly duties there.
This past Sunday, June 18, 2023, Fr. Michael Johnson, SSPX, offered Mass at Our Lady Help of Christians and gave a sermon in which he briefly mentioned that it is his personal conviction that priestly ordinations in the 1968 Roman rite of Paul VI (“Novus Ordo” ordinations) are invalid.… READ MORE
Paul VI in 1976: Vatican II is Binding, New Mass is Obligatory and Replaces the Old
Abp. Giovanni Montini played “Pope Paul VI” from 1963-78 (image credit: Keystone Press / Alamy Stock Photo)
If you’ve been researching Catholic Traditionalism for a while, chances are you’ve come across the argument made by recognize-and-resist apologists that “Pope” Paul VI (1963-78) himself confirmed that his Second Vatican Council (1962-65) was neither infallible nor binding.
Pope Paul VI promulgated Dignitatis humanae on 7 December 1965, and the next day he closed the Second Vatican Council and stated: “The magisterium of the Church did not wish to pronounce itself under the form of extraordinary dogmatic pronouncements” [footnote: Pope Paul VI, Discourse closing Vatican II, 7 December 1965].
On Disobeying the Pope:
Comments on a recent One Peter Five Article
“Can a Catholic Ever Disobey a Pope?” That is the question currently being asked at One Peter Five. An article by that title was posted on July 17, 2020, written by Paul Casey.
The author begins by claiming:
“No one is ever allowed to disobey the pope. Period.”
The statement is made repeatedly on social media, usually in an attempt to end a debate. It’s taken as a given. No sources cited, no documentation provided. It’s merely assumed. It is, after all, obvious.
Coronavirus? “Our Lady” of Medjugorje cancels monthly Apparitions to Mirjana!
Coronavirus has led to an unprecedented lockdown of public life worldwide. Now even the demon at Medjugorje is shifting into low gear, announcing that one of the six “seers” will get no more monthly messages. Bummer!
Medjugorje is a small village in the European country of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which used to be a part of Yugoslavia. On June 24, 1981, a number of alleged visionaries began claiming that the Blessed Virgin Mary was appearing there, but not even the Novus Ordo bishops who officially investigated the claims ever approved of the phenomenon.… READ MORE
Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Society of St. Pius X:
Novus Ordo Bishop permits Lefebvrists to use Diocesan Churches
November 1, 1970, marks the official founding of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s Society of Saint Pius X. On that day, the local ordinary approved the Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Sancti Pii X (FSSPX or, in the United States, simply SSPX) for his diocese of Lausanne, Geneve et Fribourg (Switzerland) as a pious union (unio pia) on an experimental basis.
Before the official approval, however, the first seminarians gathered together in Fribourg in the fall of 1969, and thus the Lefebvrists are celebrating their big anniversary already.… READ MORE
The Case of Robert Grosseteste:
Historical Precedent for Recognize-and-Resist?
A large amount of traditionalist recognize-and-resist theology goes back to the research and argumentation of one man: the British writer Michael Treharne Davies (1936-2004). It is propagated chiefly by the Lefebvrist Society of St. Pius X, whose main lay apologist he was for decades, by the Fatima Center, by Catholic Family News, by The Remnant, and by similar organizations or publications.
Unable to use genuine traditional Catholic theology to back up their recognize-and-resist position, these false traditionalists — we like to call them semi-trads or neo-trads — attempt time and again to find some kind of precedent in Church history that they can point to and say, “See, we’re simply doing what was done back then.”… READ MORE
Unholy Orders:
50 Years of Invalid Ordinations in the Novus Ordo Church
It was exactly 50 years ago today, on June 18, 1968, that the head of the Vatican II Sect — “Pope” Paul VI, Bp. Giovanni Battista Montini — signed an “apostolic constitution” to change the Roman Catholic rite of ordination. The changes he introduced touched not only some of the more peripheral ceremonies but the very substance of the sacrament itself. The very words which Pope Pius XII, in 1947, had definitively decreed were necessary for the validity of the sacrament of holy orders, were changed by Paul VI in such a way as to render the ordination of priests doubtful and the consecration of bishops definitely invalid (although even a doubtful rite, in any case, must be considered invalid in practice, per Catholic teaching).… READ MORE
The Errors of Michael Davies:
A Comprehensive Refutation
MICHAEL DAVIES — AN EVALUATION by John S. Daly
(1st ed. 1989, 2nd ed. 2015)
FREE DOWNLOAD!
One of the most prominent and influential writers of the traditionalist movement in the Vatican II Church was the English writer Michael Treharne Davies (1936-2004), shown above with then-“Cardinal” Joseph Ratzinger. No individual has written more prolifically than Davies on traditionalist issues, and probably no single layman, with the possible exception of Dietrich von Hildebrand, has enjoyed wider prominence, credibility, and trustworthiness than him. But is this respect Mr. Davies has enjoyed really well-founded?… READ MORE
John Daly destroys a foundational pillar of false traditionalism
Faith and Authority:
When is Disobedience Legitimate?
(Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy Stock Photo)
One of the foundational pillars of the popular “recognize-and-resist” position of the Society of St. Pius X and their theological cousins is the idea that whenever a lawful ecclesiastical authority, such as the Pope, abuses his office by giving a command that ought not to be given, then his inferiors have the right, perhaps even the duty, to resist it, that is, they are permitted or required to disobey by refusing to carry it out. Conversely, the recognize-and-resist adherents maintain that if an action is laudable and profitable to the Church or to souls and yet it is being forbidden by a legitimate Catholic authority for an unjust or insufficiently good reason, then it is licit to carry it out anyway, despite the superior’s prohibition. … READ MORE
One of the big names that is sometimes brought up in connection with traditionalist Catholic issues is that of Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977). Propped up by the thoroughly-discredited Michael Davies as an ultra-Catholic superhero who opposed many of the changes of Vatican II, von Hildebrand’s name has long been a favorite among Novus Ordo conservatives and traditionalists of a more intellectual bent.
Whether it be Michael Voris, Catholic Answers, The Wanderer, The Remnant, Keep the Faith, or EWTN, somehow everyone likes to have this thinker in their camp, if not for his critique of the post-conciliar debacle, then for his phenomenological and personalist philosophy, which is a big hit in the Novus Ordo Church and was promoted heavily by “Pope” John Paul II. … READ MORE
Excerpt from Chapter One: Davies’s Attitude to Authority
Instances of Hero Worship
One of the writers whom [Michael] Davies most frequently quotes is Dietrich von Hildebrand, an American layman whose name would probably be mentioned in a footnote or appendix to a reasonably comprehensive history of twentieth century philosophy – a man who had no significant theological status and simply wrote his opinions on Vatican II and its revolution as a private individual just as Davies does and just as the present writer is doing.… READ MORE
Most traditional Catholics know that Vatican II taught heresies and other errors. They rightly refuse to accept this false teaching. But when asked how it can be right to reject the teaching of a General Council of the Catholic Church, they reply that Vatican II was a special kind of council; it was non-dogmatic and non-infallible. As such it could err, and did err, and Catholics may reject its errors without doubting the legitimacy of the authority that promulgated those errors.
The Vacancy of the Papal Throne since the Death of Pope Pius XII
The Chair of St. Peter in Vatican City(image: shutterstock.com)
On this page we present a slew of links to articles, blog posts, books, audios, and videos dealing with the subject matter of the Papacy, Sedevacantism, the false theological position known as “recognize-but-resist”, the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), the Second Vatican Council, and the Novus Ordo Magisterium. We have tried as much as possible to group the links by topic. Due to the recent publication of the book True or False Pope? Refuting Sedevacantism and Other Modern Errors by John Salza and Robert Siscoe, there is a separate group of links relating just to that.… READ MORE
Chapter Ten: The Alleged Fall of Pope Liberius, His Alleged Excommunication of St. Athanasius, and other Anti-Papal Libels
“Glory not in the dishonour of thy father: for his shame is no glory to thee.”
(Ecclesiasticus 3:12)
Davies’s Comments on Liberius
The following extracts from Michael Davies’s writings all concern the same subject. They all say much the same thing. Indeed some readers will find them unbearably repetitive.… READ MORE
The Truth about Pope Liberius and the “Excommunication” of St. Athanasius
Now that Francis has successfully detonated his nuclear bomb called Amoris Laetitia — the “Apostolic Exhortation” effectively granting free rein to people in permanent adultery and other “irregular unions” to receive the Novus Ordo sacraments — the anti-sedevacantist “resistance traditionalists” are scrambling to justify their refusal to countenance the possibility that perhaps, just perhaps, a man whom anyone can see is truly the Vicar of Satan cannot also be the Vicar of Jesus Christ at the same time (cf. 2 Cor 6:15).
One of the most predictable internet sites in this regard is the famous indult blog Rorate Caeli, which quickly recycled the old litany of “heretical Popes” of the past to justify the current situation:
Why it is intrinsically impossible to be more Catholic than the Pope, is something we explained to The Remnant’s chief rhetorician Christopher Ferrara a few months ago, and it bears repeating:
Fr. Michael Johnson, SSPX, on June 18, 2023
