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Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 2015

To: parishioners attending the SSPX Masses

From: Soldiers of Christ (signing below) who have severed ties with the “new” SSPX

We are writing to explain why we no longer attend the Masses of the SSPX or give them any support of any kind, moral or financial. We are writing to explain our decision, which we made after much thought, prayer and receiving sound advice, over a long period of time.

We explain our decision to you, because we wish to avoid causing scandal (concerning the reasons why we have left) and also to set forth our reasons why we think you should act likewise. However, we are not sitting in judgment regarding the subjective culpability of those who disagree with us.

Pope Francis has now given the SSPX ordinary jurisdiction (i.e., faculties to hear confessions). Pope Francis limited these faculties to less than one year, remarking that he “trust[ed]” the SSPX would work out a permanent agreement during this time. This expiration (of confession faculties) holds the SSPX’s feet to the fire, to ensure the SSPX does not take its new “rights” for granted and remembers it needs to prove itself to the Vatican.

However, this ordinary jurisdiction is the conciliar church’s declaration that the SSPX is no longer the enemy. Just as if Planned Parenthood were to declare that a particular “right to life” group was no longer an enemy, likewise the conciliar church is telling us that, step-by-step, the SSPX has changed its colors and is no longer the enemy of modernist Rome.

We, who sign this letter, declare that we have separated from the SSPX and declare that, with the help of God’s grace, we dedicate our lives to open battle against the conciliar modernists, until their conversion.

The surest sign that the SSPX had been on the right path in the past, was that modernist Rome frequently attacked and calumniated the SSPX. The surest sign that the SSPX leaders had been good and strong in the past, was that modernist Rome (falsely) “excommunicated” them. It is a badge of honor to be hated by the modernist enemies of Christ the King!

Some people will object that the SSPX didn’t do anything to get this present recognition (confession-jurisdiction) from Rome and so we should not “blame” the SSPX for it. But enemies at war don’t do favors for each other. This recognition is a suitable milestone showing how very far the SSPX has fallen in the recent years. This is like (in the above example) the “right to life” group progressively softening its stand on abortion but not doing any particular act at the specific moment Planned Parenthood “recognized” the group as no longer the enemy. So likewise, our response to this objection is that the SSPX did a great deal of liberalizing to achieve this recognition from Christ’s enemies, even if there were no single SSPX act at the very moment Pope Francis did his “favor”.

Below, is a very short list of SSPX liberalism. This list includes no “rumors” but only SSPX leaders’ words and deeds, published in the SSPX media or in other media to which the SSPX gave interviews.

The “new” SSPX has liberalized in countless ways. It has said false favorable things promoting: religious liberty, the documents of Vatican II, the new code of canon law, the conciliar profession of faith, collegiality, ecumenism, conciliar “ecclesiology”, the new mass, the “blended” mass, the indult mass, the holiness of conciliar popes, conciliar false canonizations (e.g., “saint” Faustina, the false visionary), conciliar false devotions (e.g., the conciliar “Divine Mercy” devotion of “saint” Faustina), women wearing trousers, a liberalized, permissive standard for “natural family planning”, the conciliar teaching that the Jews did not commit Deicide, Pope John Paul II’s teaching that the Jews are our Elder Brothers, the ugly Pope John Paul II –style crucifix with a bent cross-piece, Pope Benedict XVI’s hermeneutics of continuity, the lack of encouragement to have large families, denial of the true distinction (Archbishop Lefebvre made) between the Catholic Church and the conciliar church, etc.

We stop here, but the list of the “new” SSPX’s liberalism and scandals is much longer. This list leaves aside the proven SSPX falsehoods which oppose even common natural honesty. This list leaves aside the SSPX leadership’s (objective) grave sins against natural justice, in the way the SSPX has treated its priests who strove to remain faithful to Archbishop Lefebvre and Catholic Tradition, as well as the (objective) mortal sins of denying the Sacraments to laymen because they tried to remain faithful.

If any reader is uninformed so that he cannot himself think of examples of the “new” SSPX doing and saying each of these things, he can inform himself using the SSPX leaders’ own words and deeds (linked back to the SSPX’s own media and accompanied by careful analysis), provided here:

This (above) short list of SSPX liberalism does not even address the SSPX’s (objective) grave sins of omission. We hold that there are so many liberal influences affecting us in the world, that most Traditional Catholics gradually become conciliar if their priests simply remain silent about the principal errors of our time, as SSPX priests now usually do. It is evident that Fr. Daniel Cooper spoke for a great many SSPX priests when he declared: Very rarely is there a good reason to … be attacking Vatican II from the pulpit.1 For love of Christ the King and of the Catholic Faith, we reject the “new” SSPX pastors!

The Catholic Faith is the most important thing we have. Thus, as we noticed the SSPX becoming more liberal, this greatly distressed our Catholic hearts. Even when the SSPX liberalism was less frequent and of a weaker strain, we did not wish to take even a small risk with our most precious gift, viz., the Catholic Faith. The distress of our Catholic hearts increased, as the SSPX liberalism became ever-more frequent and ever-more virulent.

For this reason, we refuse to attend any SSPX activity. We treat the SSPX as the indult/liberal group it has become. We only attend the Mass and receive the Sacraments from those priests who stand up against that liberalism which the SSPX is now progressively embracing. We choose obedience to the Catholic Faith, rather than collaboration in the destruction of the Faith.

Some people will think we are taking risks, because we terminated all contact with the SSPX which, in the past, had provided us the Mass, the Sacraments and the day-to-day exposition of the Faith. We respond that we realize the “risks” (so to speak), that we take. We “risk” being cut off from the increasing liberalism which attacks our Faith. We “risk” being no longer mistaken for supporters of liberalism (because we no longer support the SSPX). We “risk” demonstrating with our actions, that the Faith is paramount and that we will not unite with those who seek unity with, and the approval of, the enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ. We “risk” showing to the world that we have the ultimate loyalty to Pope Francis and the ultimate respect for Bishop Fellay, by demonstrating to them the charity of standing firmly and publicly against their deadly errors.

The uncompromising Catholic Faith is more important than having access to the Sacraments. On Sundays on which we have no Mass, we keep the day holy in our families. Some of us did this in the 1970s when, for the sake of the Faith, we did not have the Mass. With hearts full of trust in Providence, we joyfully make this sacrifice out of love for Him Who is our King as well as the Priest and Victim Who made His Infinite Sacrifice, even unto death on the Cross.

Some of us are old enough to have fought for the Faith during the devastation of the 1960s-70s. For those of our readers who now have the strategy of “fighting from within” against the SSPX’s progressive liberalism, we warn you that this strategy was the most common one among our Catholic friends and acquaintances then. Almost all of those well-intentioned Catholics became progressively blinded by imperceptible little steps and became members of the new conciliar religion. Only a very tiny minority later saw their strategy was erroneous and left the conciliar church with their Traditional Catholic Faith intact.

So, to our friends who disagree that the time has come to leave the SSPX Masses even though the SSPX is becoming increasingly liberal, we ask you: Where is your line in the sand? If you don’t have a line in the sand, how will you avoid losing the Faith through gradualism, as did countless people, staying in their local parishes in the 1960s?

We understand some people will misunderstand us and our decision. God’s Will be done. We understand that some people will calumniate us as “sedevacantists” (i.e., those who hold that we have no pope – a position we reject). Such falsehoods will not make us shrink from our resolve to protect our Faith, even if we must thereby suffer something for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Solemnly calling God as our witness and with our Final Judgment in mind, we sign this letter as Soldiers of Christ, who have been signed with the sign of the Cross and confirmed with the Chrism of Salvation:


  1. Quoted from Fr. Cooper’s July 2015 letter to SSPX parishioners in Arcadia, California, p.2 (emphasis added).