HomeThe “new” SSPX deceptively tries to change the principles of its priests and followers. In other words, it is brainwashing them. Bishop Fellay acknowledged this fact in euphemistic terms, when he said that the N-SSPX is working to get its followers to adapt to the new conciliar “reality”.
Here are Bishop Fellay’s words: when he was asked in May 2016 “if the SSPX [can] be confident of the support of SSPX churchgoers for reconciliation [with Rome]”, he stated:
It will be quite a work, and it will take time to be able to bring the faithful to realize this new face in the history of the Church, this new reality ....
Bishop Fellay and the rest of the N-SSPX leadership continues tirelessly to justify the (false) conciliar church to make it seem acceptable to N-SSPX followers.
Recently, in a June 30, 2018 interview, Bishop Fellay defends Vatican II by saying the Council contains no heresies. Here are Bishop Fellay’s words:
We never said that the Council made heretical statements outright.
We trust that even Bishop Fellay’s supporters would not interpret his words here to mean that he is aware of heresies in Vatican II’s teachings but the SSPX has failed to point them out.
Faithful and informed Catholics know that heresy is an error about the Catholic Faith.
Here is how St. Thomas Aquinas explains this crucial truth:
We are speaking of heresy now as denoting a corruption of the Christian Faith. Now it does not imply a corruption of the Christian faith, if a man has a false opinion in matters that are not of faith, for instance, in questions of geometry and so forth, which cannot belong to the faith by any means; but only when a person has a false opinion about things belonging to the faith.
Now a thing may be of the faith in two ways, as stated above; in one way, directly and principally, e.g. the articles of faith; in another way, indirectly and secondarily, e.g. those matters, the denial of which leads to the corruption of some article of faith; and there may be heresy in either way, even as there can be faith.
Summa, IIa IIae, Q.11, a.2, respondeo (emphasis added).
Blatant errors are blatant heresies. Subtle errors are subtle heresies. But they are all heresies.
The truth is that Vatican II teaches very many errors which contradict the Catholic Faith.
For example, the landmark Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium, averages about nineteen errors for every page! Read Lumen Gentium Annotated, by Quanta Cura Press, © 2013, available at: scribd.com/doc/158994906 (free) & at Amazon.com (sold at cost).
Our calculation of approximately nineteen errors per page is based on the 406 footnotes in Lumen Gentium Annotated, which point out the errors in this landmark Vatican II document, and then we divide this number of errors by the 21½ pages of the official Vatican edition available on the Vatican’s website. 406 ÷ 21½ = 18.9 errors per page.
These errors are heresies because they are errors about the Catholic Faith (in contrast to errors on some other subject, such as geometry).
Here is how St. Thomas Aquinas explains this crucial truth:
Now it does not imply a corruption of the Christian faith, if a man has a false opinion in matters that are not of faith, for instance, in questions of geometry and so forth, which cannot belong to the faith by any means; but only when a person has a false opinion about things belonging to the faith.
Summa, IIa IIae, Q.11, a.2, respondeo (emphasis added).
Thus, Vatican II has very many heresies, although Bishop Fellay denies this.
Bishop Fellay and the “new” SSPX state that the problem with Vatican II is only that the council lacked safeguards to protect the truth against errors which occurred
later, according to Bishop Fellay.
On this issue, Bishop Fellay’s liberalism agrees with Bishop Gerardo Zendejas’s liberalism. Here are Bishop Zendejas’s words:
In the days of the Council, the teaching of novelties about humanism (man-centered Church) were [sic] opposed and then silenced by more or less honest means and men, but adherents thereof have since been installed in key positions of power during the post-Conciliar period, so that the new system DEMANDS obedience to such “personal” orientations against the whole previous Magisterium of the Church.
Quoted from Bishop Zendejas’s
Blue Paper #300. (capitalization in the original; other emphasis added).
Here are Bishop Fellay’s words:
We never said that the Council made heretical statements outright. But it did
remove the protective barrier against error and in this way caused error to crop up.
Here is the longer quote from Bishop Fellay:
[I]t was not about separating from the Church, but about distinguishing our position from the modern spirit, from the fruits of the Council. Meanwhile others too have admitted that something went wrong there. Many ideas and aspects that we have fought and are fighting against have meanwhile been seconded by others, too. We never said that the Council made heretical statements outright. But it did remove the protective barrier against error and in this way caused error to crop up. The faithful need protection. The constant battle of the Church Militant consists in defending the faith.
Concerning why Archbishop Lefebvre openly opposed the new teachings and risked excommunication, Bishop Fellay said it was due to historical reasons and due to the archbishop’s French temperament. Here are Bishop Fellay’s words (starting with the interviewer’s question):
Q: But not everyone who criticizes the “Council of the media”—and that includes Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, too—is willing to risk a conflict that leads to excommunication. Why did you not strengthen the ranks of those within the Church who were faithful to Tradition and fight for the truth in union with Rome?
Bishop Fellay: That is certainly due in part to the history of the French.
Since the French Revolution quite a few French Catholics have fought against the error of liberalism. Therefore, what happened during and after the Council was
perceived much more sensitively and more attentively than in Germany. It was not a matter of blatant errors, but rather of trends, of opening doors and windows. The reforms afterward showed this more clearly than the Council itself.
So, to explain why Archbishop Lefebvre strongly opposed liberalism and stood up for the Catholic Faith, Bishop Fellay points to the archbishop’s (supposed) French temperament, not his loyalty to the Catholic Faith!
Bishop Fellay declared that, after the council, it became even clearer that the problem was not error but rather was only new “trends”. Here are Bishop Fellay’s own words again:
[W]hat happened during and after the Council was perceived [in France] much more sensitively and more attentively than in Germany. It was not a matter of blatant errors, but rather of trends, of opening doors and windows. The reforms afterward showed this more clearly than the Council itself.
Conclusion
Bishop Fellay and the “new” SSPX state that what Vatican II teaches is not wrong (i.e., is not heresy). The problem is a removal of safeguards and bad “trends” later.
How far the N-SSPX has strayed from its founder, Archbishop Lefebvre! Here are the Archbishop’s words:
[W]e have to choose. Either we choose what the popes have taught for centuries and we choose the Church or we choose what was said by the Council. But
we cannot choose both at the same time since they are contradictory.
As Archbishop Lefebvre declares, we must choose! Let us choose the truth and reject the “new” SSPX!