2 hours ago
The following is taken from The Recusant - Issue #66 [Summer 2026]
Worlds Apart: Forty Years, Two SSPXs
In the late spring of 2026, in the run-up to the SSPX's episcopal consecrations, there appeared on one of the SSPX's youtube channels the first video of three, the second and third appearing during May and June at intervals of a few weeks. We will focus on the first one, entitled: Traditio Part 1: Becoming a Priest. It is clearly meant to be a sort of pro-SSPX propaganda effort aimed at outsiders, presenting in as sympathetic a light as possible the SSPX apostolate. As its title suggests, the first video focusses on seminarians and their journey to the priesthood, culminating in the day of their ordination.
The video as a whole is typical of what we have come to expect from the modern, toothless, inoffensive SSPX. And yet, although its defects are obvious to us, there will no doubt be many who don't remember the old SSPX, for whom they are anything but obvious. In cases such as these, a direct comparison can often be a useful aid. Was the SSPX of yore really so very different to the SSPX of today? Well, as luck would have it, forty years earlier, back in 1986, the SSPX made exactly the same sort of video. It was filmed at the SSPX's USA seminary, in those days located at Ridgefield, Connecticut. The content of each of these two video presentations is superficially very similar: they each focus on seminary life, the seminarians themselves, what it means to become a priest, and so forth. But there the similarity ends. The contrast in both style and content could not be more clear and the reader might just as well pause reading and watch the first five minutes of each video to see for himself:
The old SSPX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TtyDeSYB84&t=13s
The new SSPX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9UQYkXffG0
And what a contrast it is! Behold, the SSPX pre- and post-Archbishop Lefebvre. The most obvious difference between the two, the difference which immediately strikes the viewer, is of course the production quality. The 1986 film looks like it was shot on a primitive VHS camcorder; the sound is fuzzy and wobbly, so is the picture, the colours fade and return, the picture is occasionally unclear. A quality so poor it warms the cockles of the heart! The 2026 production value is, by contrast, like a modern Hollywood film. But that is by the by: perhaps forty years of technology is enough to explain it — what matters most is the content.
Every word in the 2026 video is there for a reason. The speech of the various interviewees is careful and calculated, there is very obviously a script and there has clearly been a lot of careful editing. The 1986 video, by contrast, seems to have been shot on the hoof, somebody just pitched up with a camera, pointed it at any seminarians who were passing by and recorded whatever happened to come out of each man's mouth!
In the SSPX's 2026 presentation, everything feels holy, everything is aesthetically pleasing, everything looks comfortable and beautiful and impressive. The 1986 film is a lesson in what the SSPX used to look and feel like, however. Everything is poor, with a make-do-and-mend feel, where material wealth and impressive external appearances are clearly not a priority. For instance, the seminary chapel in Ridgefield has a low ceiling and the altar is almost round the corner from some of the pews: clearly a converted room and the best they could do at that time. The 2026 video is unable to show viewers the seminary chapel because, despite the new seminary having been built a decade or more ago, the chapel is the only part which is still not finished. The viewer is therefore given a view of the seminary buildings with the open fourth side of the cloister, and then later on a shot of the model showing what it will look like when finished.
And it is not just a question of architecture and nice buildings. The SSPX's 2026 film seems to focus a great deal on the beauty of the liturgy. The premise appears to be that the truth needs to be presented and the Church spoken about as though it were still the 1950s, and the condemnation of error is a mere optional extra. There are lots of shots of priests wearing beautiful vestments, inside beautiful churches. In the 1986 presentation by contrast, everything is a lot more rough-and-ready but the crisis in the Church, the errors of Vatican II and the apostasy of the conciliar modernists is placed front and centre from the very start and is presented as being the reason why the SSPX exists. To give just one very obvious and easy to understand example, let us take a look at the opening words in each video:
Opening Lines
2026 SSPX:
"Modern man is bombarded constantly with new information…"
1986 SSPX:
"The smoke of Satan has entered the bosom of the Church…"
Those opening lines provide a pretty good summary of each and the difference between the two. But just in case anyone is not convinced, let us look a little closer.
The Content: A New and Inoffensive SSPX
Both films have seminarians speaking to the camera right from the start and at regular intervals throughout, as well as interviews with priests and commentary from a narrator. That is where the similarity ends. What does each one say? Well, the 1986 SSPX video is exactly as it should be, it is what one used to expect. It says that there is a crisis in the Church, that Vatican II itself is to blame due to its errors, that the problem is not merely abuses or interpretations of Vatican II, that there is a war going on and that the SSPX is on the front line sending priests into battle against the evil modern world and its ally, the conciliar church.
The 2026 SSPX video is very different. Let us break it down. A brief "Introduction" section is followed by four segments each given the title of one of the SSPX's seminaries (in order: "Écône Switzerland," "Dillwyn USA," "La Reja Argentina" and "Zaitskofen Germany") with footage from each of the respective seminaries in the background. The content of the last three is rather boring: "Dillwyn" talks about the seminary academic curriculum, "La Reja" talks about the daily timetable and "Zaitskofen" talks about the minor and major orders which lead to the priesthood.
The main problem with these three segments (as with the video as a whole) is what they don't say, what they pointedly avoid saying, no matter how badly it needs to be said. It's all so inoffensive that it includes nothing that a Fraternity of St. Peter seminarian couldn't also say. There is no hint of a crisis in the Church, no mention of the New Mass, modernism, etc. The introduction segment is equally inoffensive, and contains this little gem from a seminarian about what led him to Écône:
It is true that many people were initially drawn to Tradition through the liturgy. But usually they quickly discover that it is about more than just the liturgy. The speaker is about to be ordained after almost six years at Écône, yet he doesn't say anything (or if he did, it was edited out!) about modernism, the errors of Vatican II, or even the crisis in the Church, when explaining his decision to become an SSPX priest. This gives the impression that today's SSPX is not much different to the various "Indult"/"TLM" groups approved by Rome: it's all about the beauty of the liturgy, in other words. This is unfortunate, since it reinforces what many of us have been saying about the SSPX for a while. It would be nice to be proved wrong for once!
The problem of Archbishop Lefebvre...
The first segment following the introduction ("Écône, Switzerland") is where they have front-loaded all of the "crisis in the Church" talk, because it is where they talk about Archbishop Lefebvre. Therefore they have, it seems, killed two birds with one stone. They get to tick the box so that no one can claim that they haven't mentioned the crisis or Vatican II at all, and they also get to tie it all to their long-dead founder as though it is all a historical footnote and nothing more, almost a personal issue which he had and which died with him. Then, after spending all of twelve minutes talking mostly about what a nice, spiritual man he was, they can then move on and spend the remaining fifty-odd minutes (out of seventy-five) talking as though there is no crisis in the Church.
And what they manage to say about Archbishop Lefebvre is without doubt the most insidious and misleading part of the entire video and is worth looking at more closely. What is wrong with it? Several things. So far as we can see:
1. By framing it as a historical footnote they mislead the unsuspecting viewer into thinking that this was "then but not now" or possibly "Archbishop Lefebvre but not us." That was a '60s and '70s thing, in other words — there's no hint of the same problems being even worse today!
2. They completely misrepresent the Archbishop's attitude regarding modern Rome.
3. They ignore the many things Archbishop Lefebvre said which condemn their own behaviour today and which show just how unfaithful to him they have been.
4. They leave the viewer with an overall impression of the Archbishop which is totally misleading and as inoffensive as possible, a caricature in other words. He was just a smiling old man who sat in his rocking chair handing out Werther's Originals to his little grandchildren — not the hard-as-nails Traditionalist who really existed!
Let us take a look and you can see for yourself.
This is followed immediately by the figures "1969" flashed up on the screen in very large font, as though to signal that this is all a historical issue.
So the Church was entering a profound crisis in the late-'60s and 1970s? What happened next, did the crisis pass? What did he do in the 1980s? What was the solution which he bequeathed to the SSPX by the time he died in 1991? No mention. And it is all very well saying that the Archbishop knew the answer, etc. — what was or is that answer, exactly? Again, no further details are given. This is just a '60s and '70s thing, clearly.
This is so misleading and such a misrepresentation of Archbishop Lefebvre that we will allow him to refute it in his own words:
Look at that! "The conciliar church" — when was the last time you heard that phrase from the SSPX? Here is the Archbishop again:
Like the conciliar church, one no longer hears about "Eternal Rome" — again this is because the 2026 SSPX no longer distinguishes. Indeed, even concerning Vatican II, we are told:
Got it? So there were these unspecified "errors," already there before the Council, which (coincidentally!) became worse during the very time when Vatican II took place and afterwards. Well, well! Might there be some sort of causal link? Don't expect to find an answer to that question in this video! Secondly, why not say what the errors are (or were?) — why this coyness about naming them? Religious Liberty, Ecumenism, Collegiality, the New Mass. There, I just named the main ones — it's not hard.
Lastly, notice how the errors got worse especially afterwards because of what was done "in the name of the Council." What a loaded phrase that is: it clearly implies that Vatican II was used as an excuse by unscrupulous men who took its name in vain. It wasn't really the Council's fault, in other words. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what indultists and "conservatives" have been claiming for years; Bishop Fellay too, in his infamous May 2012 CNS interview. One need hardly add that this is very much at odds with what Archbishop Lefebvre maintained, and the old SSPX too — as we shall soon see.
What about the impression of Archbishop Lefebvre which the viewer is left with? Judge for yourself:
Again, "the Church" — no distinction. I'm pretty sure he would have taught you to hate the conciliar church every bit as much as he taught you to love the Catholic Church of Tradition!
That last remark, made by an elderly Fr. Hogan, is factually untrue and the video's editors ought to have been more on the ball. Firstly, Archbishop Lefebvre was an ambassador for the Holy See, not to the Holy See. More importantly, it is not true that "he never refused to go to Rome, even in all the difficulties…" — as though he was at the beck and call of the modernists to the day he died. What a disservice this does to the memory of Archbishop Lefebvre!
The real Archbishop Lefebvre refutes his own caricature!
So what in fact was the Archbishop's attitude towards Rome from 1988 onwards? Did he continue to dialogue with them right up to the end of his life? As before, he is so clear that unlike the modern SSPX we can afford to let him speak for himself:
That was after June 1988 — on the other hand, prior to June 1988, while communications were still open with Rome, what was the reason and the spirit in which he "went to Rome" (to use Fr. Hogan's expression)? Once again, we will let him speak for himself:
Other Evidence of Softening
There were some other clangers which we spotted — there may be more. For instance, whereas the SSPX used to be an implacable opponent of the evil modern world, the 2026 SSPX seems to treat it with kid gloves. The one and only time that this comes up is when the Superior General, Fr. Davide Pagliarani, says that the problem with the modern world is that it gives people too much information which distracts them.
And then there is a subtle but telling bit about the formation of priests and what kind of a man the SSPX are looking for. At around 11 minutes (at the start of the "Écône, Switzerland" segment) the rector of Écône, Fr. Bernard de Lacoste, tells us that, in addition to virtue and good health, he considers "SSPX priest material" to be a young man who has:
Now obviously there is a sense in which this is true: nobody wants a priest who is a raving lunatic or a paranoid schizophrenic! But "balanced" — really?! The whole world is going to hell in a handcart, the "balance" throughout the whole world is tipped so heavily in favour of Christ's enemies that speaking the truth is progressively being made illegal, it is increasingly difficult for a good man to find and hold onto honest employment and it is almost impossible for parents to protect their children's innocence and shield them from immorality, perversion and degeneracy of all kinds. And you're worried about being "balanced"? Perhaps a little more of the crusader spirit is what's needed, or the spirit of the martyrs (how "balanced" were they?!). Or is it perhaps just me? I leave you to make up your own mind.
When it comes to the curriculum, the 1986 video says that the seminarians spend two years of philosophy studying St Thomas Aquinas, "...whom St. Pius X called 'the antidote for modernism'." In the 2026 video, however, (then-) Fr. Goldade describes those two years as: "The study of psychology, cosmology, logic, metaphysics." [27:30] Metaphysics is presumably their study of the Summa. Logic, OK, yes, but psychology? And the cosmology will almost certainly be Fr. Robinson's view of how Genesis has misled everyone and creation is really billions of years old. One need hardly add that that too is a serious change since 1986.
No Longer Resisting the Conciliar Church?
All this pales into insignificance, however, when compared to the fact that the conciliar church is no longer considered something distinct from the Catholic Church. And yet the Archbishop was consistent in his rejection of the conciliar church:
In 1990 he wrote to Bishop de Castro Mayer that:
And in a similar vein, in the preface to his 1990 book Spiritual Journey, he declares that:
One can search the 2026 SSPX in vain for any hint of recognition that the conciliar church even exists. And how can they fight against what they no longer believe exists? They can't.
And What About the SSPX of 1986?
We have quoted the man himself at some length — what about the old SSPX? After the 1988 consecrations, the leading SSPX priests wrote to Rome asking to be excommunicated too:
What a difference to the modern SSPX! And yes, in case you were wondering, the 1986 video A Sign of Hope represents that old SSPX fairly accurately. Not only do they say several things which the modern SSPX wouldn't be caught dead saying, but the overall focus is just different. You really need to watch the whole video to see exactly what I mean, but in the meantime here are a few choice extracts to try to illustrate the point:
Worlds Apart: Forty Years, Two SSPXs
In the late spring of 2026, in the run-up to the SSPX's episcopal consecrations, there appeared on one of the SSPX's youtube channels the first video of three, the second and third appearing during May and June at intervals of a few weeks. We will focus on the first one, entitled: Traditio Part 1: Becoming a Priest. It is clearly meant to be a sort of pro-SSPX propaganda effort aimed at outsiders, presenting in as sympathetic a light as possible the SSPX apostolate. As its title suggests, the first video focusses on seminarians and their journey to the priesthood, culminating in the day of their ordination.
The video as a whole is typical of what we have come to expect from the modern, toothless, inoffensive SSPX. And yet, although its defects are obvious to us, there will no doubt be many who don't remember the old SSPX, for whom they are anything but obvious. In cases such as these, a direct comparison can often be a useful aid. Was the SSPX of yore really so very different to the SSPX of today? Well, as luck would have it, forty years earlier, back in 1986, the SSPX made exactly the same sort of video. It was filmed at the SSPX's USA seminary, in those days located at Ridgefield, Connecticut. The content of each of these two video presentations is superficially very similar: they each focus on seminary life, the seminarians themselves, what it means to become a priest, and so forth. But there the similarity ends. The contrast in both style and content could not be more clear and the reader might just as well pause reading and watch the first five minutes of each video to see for himself:
The old SSPX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TtyDeSYB84&t=13s
The new SSPX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9UQYkXffG0
And what a contrast it is! Behold, the SSPX pre- and post-Archbishop Lefebvre. The most obvious difference between the two, the difference which immediately strikes the viewer, is of course the production quality. The 1986 film looks like it was shot on a primitive VHS camcorder; the sound is fuzzy and wobbly, so is the picture, the colours fade and return, the picture is occasionally unclear. A quality so poor it warms the cockles of the heart! The 2026 production value is, by contrast, like a modern Hollywood film. But that is by the by: perhaps forty years of technology is enough to explain it — what matters most is the content.
Every word in the 2026 video is there for a reason. The speech of the various interviewees is careful and calculated, there is very obviously a script and there has clearly been a lot of careful editing. The 1986 video, by contrast, seems to have been shot on the hoof, somebody just pitched up with a camera, pointed it at any seminarians who were passing by and recorded whatever happened to come out of each man's mouth!
In the SSPX's 2026 presentation, everything feels holy, everything is aesthetically pleasing, everything looks comfortable and beautiful and impressive. The 1986 film is a lesson in what the SSPX used to look and feel like, however. Everything is poor, with a make-do-and-mend feel, where material wealth and impressive external appearances are clearly not a priority. For instance, the seminary chapel in Ridgefield has a low ceiling and the altar is almost round the corner from some of the pews: clearly a converted room and the best they could do at that time. The 2026 video is unable to show viewers the seminary chapel because, despite the new seminary having been built a decade or more ago, the chapel is the only part which is still not finished. The viewer is therefore given a view of the seminary buildings with the open fourth side of the cloister, and then later on a shot of the model showing what it will look like when finished.
And it is not just a question of architecture and nice buildings. The SSPX's 2026 film seems to focus a great deal on the beauty of the liturgy. The premise appears to be that the truth needs to be presented and the Church spoken about as though it were still the 1950s, and the condemnation of error is a mere optional extra. There are lots of shots of priests wearing beautiful vestments, inside beautiful churches. In the 1986 presentation by contrast, everything is a lot more rough-and-ready but the crisis in the Church, the errors of Vatican II and the apostasy of the conciliar modernists is placed front and centre from the very start and is presented as being the reason why the SSPX exists. To give just one very obvious and easy to understand example, let us take a look at the opening words in each video:
Opening Lines
2026 SSPX:
"Modern man is bombarded constantly with new information…"
1986 SSPX:
"The smoke of Satan has entered the bosom of the Church…"
Those opening lines provide a pretty good summary of each and the difference between the two. But just in case anyone is not convinced, let us look a little closer.
The Content: A New and Inoffensive SSPX
Both films have seminarians speaking to the camera right from the start and at regular intervals throughout, as well as interviews with priests and commentary from a narrator. That is where the similarity ends. What does each one say? Well, the 1986 SSPX video is exactly as it should be, it is what one used to expect. It says that there is a crisis in the Church, that Vatican II itself is to blame due to its errors, that the problem is not merely abuses or interpretations of Vatican II, that there is a war going on and that the SSPX is on the front line sending priests into battle against the evil modern world and its ally, the conciliar church.
The 2026 SSPX video is very different. Let us break it down. A brief "Introduction" section is followed by four segments each given the title of one of the SSPX's seminaries (in order: "Écône Switzerland," "Dillwyn USA," "La Reja Argentina" and "Zaitskofen Germany") with footage from each of the respective seminaries in the background. The content of the last three is rather boring: "Dillwyn" talks about the seminary academic curriculum, "La Reja" talks about the daily timetable and "Zaitskofen" talks about the minor and major orders which lead to the priesthood.
The main problem with these three segments (as with the video as a whole) is what they don't say, what they pointedly avoid saying, no matter how badly it needs to be said. It's all so inoffensive that it includes nothing that a Fraternity of St. Peter seminarian couldn't also say. There is no hint of a crisis in the Church, no mention of the New Mass, modernism, etc. The introduction segment is equally inoffensive, and contains this little gem from a seminarian about what led him to Écône:
Quote:[08:20] "...I had always been drawn by the liturgy. Even though I very much liked what I was doing, I felt that something was missing. And it was this love of the liturgy which led me to knock at the door of the seminary."
It is true that many people were initially drawn to Tradition through the liturgy. But usually they quickly discover that it is about more than just the liturgy. The speaker is about to be ordained after almost six years at Écône, yet he doesn't say anything (or if he did, it was edited out!) about modernism, the errors of Vatican II, or even the crisis in the Church, when explaining his decision to become an SSPX priest. This gives the impression that today's SSPX is not much different to the various "Indult"/"TLM" groups approved by Rome: it's all about the beauty of the liturgy, in other words. This is unfortunate, since it reinforces what many of us have been saying about the SSPX for a while. It would be nice to be proved wrong for once!
The problem of Archbishop Lefebvre...
The first segment following the introduction ("Écône, Switzerland") is where they have front-loaded all of the "crisis in the Church" talk, because it is where they talk about Archbishop Lefebvre. Therefore they have, it seems, killed two birds with one stone. They get to tick the box so that no one can claim that they haven't mentioned the crisis or Vatican II at all, and they also get to tie it all to their long-dead founder as though it is all a historical footnote and nothing more, almost a personal issue which he had and which died with him. Then, after spending all of twelve minutes talking mostly about what a nice, spiritual man he was, they can then move on and spend the remaining fifty-odd minutes (out of seventy-five) talking as though there is no crisis in the Church.
And what they manage to say about Archbishop Lefebvre is without doubt the most insidious and misleading part of the entire video and is worth looking at more closely. What is wrong with it? Several things. So far as we can see:
1. By framing it as a historical footnote they mislead the unsuspecting viewer into thinking that this was "then but not now" or possibly "Archbishop Lefebvre but not us." That was a '60s and '70s thing, in other words — there's no hint of the same problems being even worse today!
2. They completely misrepresent the Archbishop's attitude regarding modern Rome.
3. They ignore the many things Archbishop Lefebvre said which condemn their own behaviour today and which show just how unfaithful to him they have been.
4. They leave the viewer with an overall impression of the Archbishop which is totally misleading and as inoffensive as possible, a caricature in other words. He was just a smiling old man who sat in his rocking chair handing out Werther's Originals to his little grandchildren — not the hard-as-nails Traditionalist who really existed!
Let us take a look and you can see for yourself.
Quote:[14:45] "Many had realised in the 1960s and '70s that the Church was entering a period of profound crisis. But no one had, like Archbishop Lefebvre, this particular grace, this supernatural foresight to understand deeply what the causes were and above all, to offer appropriate remedies."
This is followed immediately by the figures "1969" flashed up on the screen in very large font, as though to signal that this is all a historical issue.
So the Church was entering a profound crisis in the late-'60s and 1970s? What happened next, did the crisis pass? What did he do in the 1980s? What was the solution which he bequeathed to the SSPX by the time he died in 1991? No mention. And it is all very well saying that the Archbishop knew the answer, etc. — what was or is that answer, exactly? Again, no further details are given. This is just a '60s and '70s thing, clearly.
Quote:[16:50] "There was never, absolutely never, any idea of separating from the Church."
This is so misleading and such a misrepresentation of Archbishop Lefebvre that we will allow him to refute it in his own words:
Quote:"Such things are easy to say. To stay inside the Church, or to put oneself inside the Church — what does that mean? Firstly, what Church are we talking about? If you mean the conciliar church, then we who have struggled against the Council for twenty years because we want the Catholic Church, we would have to re-enter this conciliar church in order, supposedly, to make it Catholic. That is a complete illusion. It is not the subjects that make the superiors, but the superiors who make the subjects." ('One Year After the Consecrations' — Fideliter, July-Aug 1989)
Look at that! "The conciliar church" — when was the last time you heard that phrase from the SSPX? Here is the Archbishop again:
Quote:"Far from us be this miserable thought of separating ourselves from Rome! On the contrary, it is in order to manifest our attachment to Rome that we are performing this ceremony. It is in order to manifest our attachment to the Eternal Rome, to the Pope, and to all those who have preceded these last Popes who, unfortunately since the Second Vatican Council, have thought it their duty to adhere to grievous errors which are demolishing the Church and the Catholic Priesthood." (Consecrations Sermon, 30th June 1988)
Like the conciliar church, one no longer hears about "Eternal Rome" — again this is because the 2026 SSPX no longer distinguishes. Indeed, even concerning Vatican II, we are told:
Quote:[17:00] "Most certainly there was a reaction, a reaction against modern ideas or rather against errors, errors already condemned by the Church, which were making their way in a little before the Council but which crystalised at the time of the Council and then especially afterwards, much more clearly, in the reforms made in the name of the Council."
Got it? So there were these unspecified "errors," already there before the Council, which (coincidentally!) became worse during the very time when Vatican II took place and afterwards. Well, well! Might there be some sort of causal link? Don't expect to find an answer to that question in this video! Secondly, why not say what the errors are (or were?) — why this coyness about naming them? Religious Liberty, Ecumenism, Collegiality, the New Mass. There, I just named the main ones — it's not hard.
Lastly, notice how the errors got worse especially afterwards because of what was done "in the name of the Council." What a loaded phrase that is: it clearly implies that Vatican II was used as an excuse by unscrupulous men who took its name in vain. It wasn't really the Council's fault, in other words. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what indultists and "conservatives" have been claiming for years; Bishop Fellay too, in his infamous May 2012 CNS interview. One need hardly add that this is very much at odds with what Archbishop Lefebvre maintained, and the old SSPX too — as we shall soon see.
What about the impression of Archbishop Lefebvre which the viewer is left with? Judge for yourself:
Quote:[18:20] "I was ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre and had the great privilege of having had him throughout my seminary years and even having had him as a professor in the first year. The Archbishop taught us the acts of the Magisterium, so the encyclicals of the Popes, and made us love the Church."
Again, "the Church" — no distinction. I'm pretty sure he would have taught you to hate the conciliar church every bit as much as he taught you to love the Catholic Church of Tradition!
Quote:[18:45] "He was very fatherlike in the seminary. … [19:40] A man who was an ambassador for the Holy See, he never refused to go to Rome, even in all the difficulties which he undertook."
That last remark, made by an elderly Fr. Hogan, is factually untrue and the video's editors ought to have been more on the ball. Firstly, Archbishop Lefebvre was an ambassador for the Holy See, not to the Holy See. More importantly, it is not true that "he never refused to go to Rome, even in all the difficulties…" — as though he was at the beck and call of the modernists to the day he died. What a disservice this does to the memory of Archbishop Lefebvre!
The real Archbishop Lefebvre refutes his own caricature!
So what in fact was the Archbishop's attitude towards Rome from 1988 onwards? Did he continue to dialogue with them right up to the end of his life? As before, he is so clear that unlike the modern SSPX we can afford to let him speak for himself:
Quote:"It's over. The talks between Rome and ourselves are over. The more one thinks about it, the more one realizes their intentions are not good. ... Rome wants everything to go Vatican II, while they leave us a little bit of Tradition. … But there is no point in such meetings. It has all been talked out long ago." (Letter to the four bishops-elect, 12th June 1988)
"Yesterday evening, a visitor came, sent from the Nunciature in Berne, with an envelope containing an appeal from our Holy Father the Pope, who was putting at my disposal a car which was supposed to take me to Rome… I leave you to judge for yourselves the timeliness and wisdom of such a request." (Consecrations Sermon, 30th June 1988)
"We do not have the same outlook on a reconciliation. Cardinal Ratzinger sees it as reducing us, bringing us back to Vatican II. We see it as a return of Rome to Tradition. We don't agree; it is a dialogue of the deaf. I can't speak much of the future, mine is behind me, but if I live a little while, supposing that Rome calls for a renewed dialogue, then, I will put conditions. I shall not accept being in the position where I was put during the dialogue. No more. I will place the discussion at the doctrinal level. … If you do not accept the doctrine of your predecessors, it is useless to talk!" (Fideliter 66, Nov.-Dec. 1988)
"Humanly speaking, there is no chance of any agreement between Rome and ourselves at the moment. … However, one day they will be obliged to recognize that the Society represents a spiritual force and a strength of the Faith which is irreplaceable and which they will have, I hope, the joy and the satisfaction to make use of, but when they have come back to their Traditional Faith." (Conference to priests and seminarians, Écône, 6th Sept. 1990)
"Since the episcopal consecrations there has been no more contact with Rome … It is absolutely impossible in the current climate of Rome which is becoming worse. We must not delude ourselves. The principles which now guide the conciliar church are more and more overtly contrary to Catholic doctrine. … All the false ideas of the Council continue to develop, to be reaffirmed with ever greater clarity. They are hiding less and less. It is absolutely inconceivable that we can agree to work with such a hierarchy. … We are dealing with people who have a different philosophy to ours, a different way of seeing, who are influenced by all modern subjectivist philosophers. For them there is no fixed truth, there is no dogma. Everything is evolving. That is a totally Masonic concept. This is really the destruction of the Faith." (Fideliter 79, Jan.-Feb. 1991)
That was after June 1988 — on the other hand, prior to June 1988, while communications were still open with Rome, what was the reason and the spirit in which he "went to Rome" (to use Fr. Hogan's expression)? Once again, we will let him speak for himself:
Quote:"We have done all we could, trying to help Rome to understand that they had to come back to the attitudes of the holy Pius XII and of all his predecessors. Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself have gone to Rome, we have spoken, we have sent letters, several times to Rome. We have tried by these talks, by all these means, to succeed in making Rome understand that, since the Council and since aggiornamento, this change which has occurred in the Church is not Catholic, is not in conformity to the doctrine of all times. This ecumenism and all these errors, this collegiality — all this is contrary to the Faith of the Church and is in the process of destroying the Church… 'And why Archbishop have you stopped these discussions which seemed to have had a certain degree of success?' [Because] it is clear that the only truth that exists today for the Vatican is the conciliar truth, the spirit of the Council, the spirit of Assisi. That is the truth of today. But we will have nothing to do with this for anything in the world! That is why, taking into account the strong will of the present Roman authorities to reduce Tradition to naught, to gather the world to the spirit of Vatican II and the spirit of Assisi, we have preferred to withdraw ourselves and to say that we could not continue. It was not possible. […] I think it is my duty to provide the means of doing that which I shall call 'Operation Survival,' operation survival for Tradition. Today, this day, is Operation Survival. If I had made this deal with Rome, by continuing with the agreements we had signed and putting them into practice, I would have performed 'Operation Suicide.' There was no choice, we must live!" (Consecrations Sermon, 30th June 1988)
"'For myself, personally,' I said, 'I have no confidence in them. For years and years I have been mixing with these people and for years I have been seeing the way in which they act. I have no further confidence in them. However, I do not wish people within the Society and Traditional circles to be able to say afterwards: You could easily have tried, it would have cost you nothing to enter into discussion and dialogue.' That was the opinion of the Superior General and his assistants. They said, 'You must take into consideration the offer which is being made and not neglect it. It's still worthwhile to talk with them.' … Very soon, however, we realized that we were dealing with people who are not honest. … I nevertheless went to Rome for the conversations, but without any confidence in their success. … I wished to go as far as possible in order to show what good will we had." ('One Year After the Consecrations' Fideliter, July-Aug. 1989)
"For fifteen years we dialogued to try to put Tradition back in its place of honour, in that place in the Church which it has by right. We ran up against a continual refusal. … Our true faithful, those who have understood the problem and who have precisely helped us to continue along the straight and firm path of Tradition and the Faith, were afraid of the approaches I made towards Rome. They told me it was dangerous and that I was wasting my time. Yes, of course, I hoped until the last minute that in Rome we would witness a little bit of loyalty. I cannot be blamed for not having done the maximum." (Fideliter 79, Jan.-Feb. 1991)
Other Evidence of Softening
There were some other clangers which we spotted — there may be more. For instance, whereas the SSPX used to be an implacable opponent of the evil modern world, the 2026 SSPX seems to treat it with kid gloves. The one and only time that this comes up is when the Superior General, Fr. Davide Pagliarani, says that the problem with the modern world is that it gives people too much information which distracts them.
Quote:[11:45] "Certainly for a young man of today it is more difficult to perceive this call [to the priesthood] because a young man today is a child of today's society which has immersed him in a world of continual information, stifling, at least in part, his capacity to take a step back, to distance himself and to reflect deeply..."
And then there is a subtle but telling bit about the formation of priests and what kind of a man the SSPX are looking for. At around 11 minutes (at the start of the "Écône, Switzerland" segment) the rector of Écône, Fr. Bernard de Lacoste, tells us that, in addition to virtue and good health, he considers "SSPX priest material" to be a young man who has:
Quote:"...aptitudes which are of a psychological order: to be balanced, to have common sense, because the priest must enlighten people, give them good advice, show them the way to heaven."
Now obviously there is a sense in which this is true: nobody wants a priest who is a raving lunatic or a paranoid schizophrenic! But "balanced" — really?! The whole world is going to hell in a handcart, the "balance" throughout the whole world is tipped so heavily in favour of Christ's enemies that speaking the truth is progressively being made illegal, it is increasingly difficult for a good man to find and hold onto honest employment and it is almost impossible for parents to protect their children's innocence and shield them from immorality, perversion and degeneracy of all kinds. And you're worried about being "balanced"? Perhaps a little more of the crusader spirit is what's needed, or the spirit of the martyrs (how "balanced" were they?!). Or is it perhaps just me? I leave you to make up your own mind.
When it comes to the curriculum, the 1986 video says that the seminarians spend two years of philosophy studying St Thomas Aquinas, "...whom St. Pius X called 'the antidote for modernism'." In the 2026 video, however, (then-) Fr. Goldade describes those two years as: "The study of psychology, cosmology, logic, metaphysics." [27:30] Metaphysics is presumably their study of the Summa. Logic, OK, yes, but psychology? And the cosmology will almost certainly be Fr. Robinson's view of how Genesis has misled everyone and creation is really billions of years old. One need hardly add that that too is a serious change since 1986.
No Longer Resisting the Conciliar Church?
All this pales into insignificance, however, when compared to the fact that the conciliar church is no longer considered something distinct from the Catholic Church. And yet the Archbishop was consistent in his rejection of the conciliar church:
Quote:"I remark, first of all, that the expression 'conciliar church' comes not from me but from Mgr. Benelli who, in an official letter, asked that our priests and seminarians should submit themselves to the 'conciliar church.'" (Conference on 11th Jan., 1979)
"It is easy to think that whoever opposes the Council and its new Gospel would be considered as excommunicated, as outside communion with the Church. But one may well ask them: communion with what Church? They would answer, no doubt, with the conciliar church." (I Accuse the Council, p.xiii)
"This talk about the 'visible Church' on the part of Dom Gerard and Mr. Madiran is childish. It is incredible that anyone can talk of the 'visible Church' meaning the conciliar church as opposed to the Catholic Church which we are trying to represent and continue." ('One Year After the Consecrations' Fideliter, July-Aug. 1989)
In 1990 he wrote to Bishop de Castro Mayer that:
Quote:"...the conciliar church, having now reached everywhere, is spreading errors contrary to the Catholic Faith and, as a result of these errors, it has corrupted the sources of grace, which are the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments. This false church is in an ever-deeper state of rupture with the Catholic Church."
And in a similar vein, in the preface to his 1990 book Spiritual Journey, he declares that:
Quote:"It is the strict duty of every priest [and layman! — Ed.] wishing to remain Catholic to separate himself clearly from the conciliar church, for so long as it does not profess the tradition of the Church's Magisterium and of the Catholic Faith."
One can search the 2026 SSPX in vain for any hint of recognition that the conciliar church even exists. And how can they fight against what they no longer believe exists? They can't.
And What About the SSPX of 1986?
We have quoted the man himself at some length — what about the old SSPX? After the 1988 consecrations, the leading SSPX priests wrote to Rome asking to be excommunicated too:
Quote:"We have never wished to belong to this system which calls itself the conciliar church, and defines itself with the Novus Ordo Missae, an ecumenism which leads to indifferentism and the secularisation of all society."
What a difference to the modern SSPX! And yes, in case you were wondering, the 1986 video A Sign of Hope represents that old SSPX fairly accurately. Not only do they say several things which the modern SSPX wouldn't be caught dead saying, but the overall focus is just different. You really need to watch the whole video to see exactly what I mean, but in the meantime here are a few choice extracts to try to illustrate the point:
Quote:[1:40] "The Curé of Ars showed us that it isn't many priests that we need, but just a few good ones, a few faithful, devoted priests. He was told, the Curé of Ars, by the devil when he saw him one time that if there were two other priests like him, the whole world would fall out of the devil's dominion. And there were just twelve Apostles to begin with."
[3:45] "I came to see more and more that even in Rome the teaching of the Church really isn't taught any more. …well for example, about the Gospels, that the Gospels aren't historical, that there are things there that were written just by the evangelists themselves, putting words into Our Lord's mouth that He didn't really say. … I started to look at the other side of it and see that the real explanation for the confusion, for the crisis in the Church today, is Vatican II itself, it's not abuses of Vatican II. [Narrator:] This is the reason for the founding of the Society of St Pius X…"
[4:50] [Archbishop Lefebvre:] "We cannot accept this ecumenism, bad ecumenism, false ecumenism, with Jews, with all religions, with Protestants. That is a scandal, a great scandal for our faith, for the faith of the faithful. That is a great mystery, but we cannot accept that. We must remain true Catholics, faithful to Our Lord Jesus Christ."
[7:20] "Bishop de Castro Mayer, bishop emeritus of Campos Brazil, is the only bishop who dared to speak out with Archbishop Lefebvre in opposition to the errors of Vatican II and its humanistic and ecumenical spirit."
[11:45] "In the army they call it bootcamp. If you want to make a soldier, you've got to put him through some training. And the priest is a soldier of Christ so he's got to be trained and trained properly. Otherwise he's just not going to be able to take the heat of the action. He's going to get out there at the front and the bullets are going to start flying…"
[14:50] "[The seminarians study] two years of philosophy…according to the principles of St. Thomas Aquinas, whom St. Pius X called 'the antidote for modernism.'"
[16:00] "In the name of Ecumenism, Catholics will refuse to honour Our Lady because it's not ecumenical, because it offends the Protestants. In the name of Ecumenism the Catholics will undo the sacrifice of the Mass because the Protestants don't like the notion of a sacrificial Mass, etc, etc. So in the name of Ecumenism you undo everything that's properly and distinctly Catholic and you reduce Catholicism down to the level of a common mish-mash. Which is exactly what all the other religions are doing, preparing the great one-world religion. As which Pope said in which encyclical? … St. Pius X said in his document on the Sillon, that's right."
[22:30] "The American bishops are going the way of the modern church and the modern church is going the way of the world, it's joined the world and it's abandoned our Lord Jesus Christ. … In the modern seminaries [the priest] is a kind of glorified social worker."
[24:25] "Archbishop Lefebvre has said that he could not form priests with the New Mass and I can see exactly what he means because…in the New Mass there's no notion really that it's a sacrifice."
[25:05] "Before I entered St. Thomas Aquinas seminary I spent a year in [a Novus Ordo] seminary, I stayed there for one year and the conduct of the priests and seminarians was totally different than here. Here everything's composed in a Catholic manner. When I was in the seminary the priests mostly were called by their first names by the seminarians. … In the day-to-day life there was no silence … I was told to see a psychiatrist because my religious beliefs weren't according to their standards. They felt we had to just go along with the modern world and the modern way of thinking. My rector told me he tried for a whole year to change my religious beliefs and was not able to ... I was like a Catholic going to a Protestant seminary."
[31:25] "They may not deny it explicitly but in the teaching that you get [in a Novus Ordo seminary] you're not taught that you're offering sacrifice to God. That's not taught at all, whereas here it is and that's the difference. … In Rome the new priests [often have] bitterness and cynicism because they don't have the sacrifice of the Mass."
[37:23] "[Families need] firstly to have many children. Large families are the normal seedbed of vocations because in large families the children are usually less selfish than in small families, they have to be. When the three boys are sleeping one on top of the other in bunks, you know, the bottom one can't rock all three or the other two will jump on him … pray the rosary in the home in the family every night. Mothers should pray for vocations and dedicate their children to the Mother of God when they're born."
[38:45] "[The conciliar church] is rotten, rotten to the core. … They're building their new church on sand and it's falling already it's falling severely. The Church is built on the rock, Christ is the rock and Christ gave us His Church which is Tradition. … If it's not built on that Tradition it'll fall, and it's falling. In America, in Australia, surely in the rest of the world, it's falling."
[40:25] "I wrote home to someone and said that Ridgefield is like a haven of holiness in a cesspool of sin. Because it's dreadful outside, beyond those walls, those gates, it's dreadful."
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre
![[Image: 1986-vs-2026.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/3NywDGmY/1986-vs-2026.png)