Vatican-SSPX: Let’s Play

Concerning the matter in the title, I beg not to be counted among the optimists. I do not believe in the least that any sincere reconciliation effort will come from the Vatican. If any rapprochement were to be seen, it would probably only be aimed at dividing the SSPX, as already seen in 2011.

Still: it shall be allowed, I hope, to play a bit. Let us imagine, them, what would be reasonable and acceptable to the right side.

The principle that what the Church has always held stays, and that the SSPX has the right to refuse strange novelties, is too banal to merit discussion. The principle that in whatever V II documents have declared that is in harmony with Truth cannot be logically denied is also too banal to waste time on it. The fact that V II was a merely pastoral Council is also an undisputable fact for every sound Catholic.

The problem is, if you ask me, another: control. The Vatican might want to attract the SSPX in a mortal embrace, and they might even be ready to make concessions for this. But the SSPX will – I am sure of this – not accept any agreement that puts them at the mercy of the V II Church. Not with Benedict as Pope, much less with Francis.

Therefore, the issue, and the litmus test of the Vatican's honesty in any agreement, will be that of independence.

Own seminaries, own finances, complete freedom from episcopal interference, and – as unavoidable consequence – complete freedom to criticise Pope Francis and V II left, right and centre. Nothing else would be acceptable, nothing less should be accepted, and nothing else will.

Unacceptable for the Vatican? So be it. Profitable in the longer term, or just the Catholic thing to do? Welcome.

In theory, there would be an upside for Francis: the “mercy” rhetoric and the “inclusiveness” propaganda, and the personal satisfaction of having “succeeded” where Benedict failed. In practice, it will never happen: those who hate Catholicism, that is, Francis' audience and applauding public, would turn against him faster than you can say “Ricca”, and the myth of the revolutionary Pope would die a fast but horribly painful death, without making him more popular among true blue Catholics in the least. A heretic remains a heretic even if he embraces a saint.

Back to the issue of acceptable compromise, it is clear there can be no compromises on what is not negotiable (the issues of the Liturgy, of religious freedom, etc). It is also clear it would be suicide – an act Fellay or his would never commit – to deliver themselves to the mercy of V II Popes, who would – this, or the next, or the following one – subject the SSPX to the FFI treatment.

This, I think, is the inescapable frame of any serious discussion, or lack thereof.

Of course, the SSPX would not maintain that all of VII was evil. V II was a modernist mixture of truth and lie, and one can't deny the truth just because the Devil says it. Rather, the SSPX will maintain that everything that is not truth must be expunged from the teaching and the praxis of the Church; and that V II was, as a whole, the work of the devil in its mentality and inspiration, which both must be expunged from the Church, too.

Will, or should, the SSPX demand that the Vatican goes back to sanity before accepting reconciliation? Of course not. If the work of the SSPX can go on in exactly the same way, to refuse a freely offered reconciliation would be tantamount to elevating the SSPX to a parallel church, of which the Vatican is not worthy. It would be like refusing the blessing of a priest because one does not like the priest. One may despise the man, but one will still recognise the office.

This is, I think, the only possible frame of a reconciliation. At the same time, this is why the reconciliation will not work as long as The Most Astonishing Hypocrite In Church History (TMAHICH) is in power.

Even a “gratuitous” exercise of “mercy” would be too expensive for the Vatican.

They know perfectly well how mercilessly the same people would attack them, who are now the beneficiaries of the fake “mercy” they peddle around.

M