The SSPX, like the conciliar revolutionaries, knows that it must change the language Catholics use in order to change their way of thinking about ecumenism. For this reason, the SSPX has begun following the conciliar practice of calling heretics by the name “Christian”. For example:

• The SSPX called Anglicans by the name “Christian” in the December 4, 2015, DICI #326, p.3.
• The SSPX called various types of heretics by the name “Christian” on the following page. December 4, 2015, DICI #326, p.4.
• The SSPX called “Lutherans, Anglicans and Evangelicals” by the name “Christian” in its newsletter Catholic Tradition in Africa, Issue #15, 2015. p.4. (In reading this article, the reader cannot help but notice the irony in the title of this SSPX newsletter.)

These examples are only the latest of countless such examples of the SSPX referring to heretics as “Christians”, just like the conciliar church does. This practice is the opposite of the clear teaching of the Fathers, Doctors, and popes of the Catholic Church. For further examples of the SSPX following this conciliar practice, and to read the Catholic truth, see Catholic Candle’s article in the February 2015 issue.

The SSPX refers to heretics as “martyrs”

To further the un-Catholic goals of ecumenism, the conciliar church refers to heretics, who were killed for their heretical faith, as “martyrs”. For example, the landmark Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium, declares that the Holy Ghost has “strengthened” some heretics to the extent of the shedding of their blood. §15.

Similarly, the SSPX has begun following the conciliar practice of referring to heretics, who were killed for their heretical faith, as “martyrs”. Recently, the SSPX referred to heretics as “martyrs” four times, e.g., referring to people who had been killed as martyrs, both Catholic and Anglican. December 4, 2015, DICI #326, p.3. (In this DICI article, the SSPX is reporting on Pope Francis’ visit to Africa but the SSPX chose these words and is not quoting a conciliar source.)

This conciliar practice contradicts the Catholic teaching that only Catholics can be martyrs. Murdered heretic “missionaries” are not martyrs because they promoted a false religion and were not witnesses to the true Catholic Faith. All those who shed their blood (purportedly) for Christ, but are outside the Catholic Church, are damned and their death avails them nothing.

Saint Cyprian of Carthage, Father of the Church, teaches: [N]ot even the baptism of a public confession and blood can profit a heretic to salvation, because there is no salvation out of the Church. Letter LXXII, ¶21. He cannot be a martyr who is not in the Church. Treatise I, On the Unity of the Church, ¶14 (emphasis added).

Council of Laodicea showed the truth: No Christian shall ... turn to false martyrs, that is, to those of the heretics. Canon 34 (emphasis added).

The Council of Florence & Pope Eugene IV make Catholic teaching clear when they declare:

No one, even if he pours out his blood for the name of Christ, can be saved unless he remains within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.

Bull Cantate Domino, Denz. 714 (emphasis added).

St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church, declares the truth that even schismatics who hold the entire Catholic Faith but are outside the Church, are not truly martyrs:

[I]f, under the pressure of any persecution [e.g., by pagans], they [viz., schismatics] give their bodies with us to be burned for the faith which they like us confess: yet because they do all these things apart from the Church, not forbearing one another in love, nor endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, insomuch as they have not charity [since schism is a mortal sin against charity], they cannot attain to eternal salvation, even with all those good things which profit them not.

On Baptism, against the Donatists, Bk.1, ch.9 (emphasis & bracketed words added).

Pope Pelagius II taught the same truth:

Those who were not willing to be in agreement in the Church of God, cannot remain with God; although given over to flames and fires, they burn, or thrown to wild beasts, they lay down their lives, there will not be [for them] that crown of faith, but the punishment of faithlessness, not a glorious result, but the ruin of despair. Such a one can be slain; he cannot be crowned.

Denz. 247 (emphasis added; bracketed words added).

Writing on the topic “Concerning The False Martyrs Of The Heretics And Schismatics”, Pope Benedict XIV explains that the Church would never recognize a heretic to be a martyr even if he were killed for a dogma he held in common with the Catholic Church, because the Church considers him in light of his public (exterior) adherence to heresy. Pope Benedict XIV adds that this is true even if it were (hypothetically) true that the heretic were not culpable for his heresy, because of invincible ignorance of the true Faith. De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione, Bk. III, ch.20, ¶3.

These are yet further examples of the SSPX progressively following conciliar errors against the Catholic Truth.