Hardness can be subjective. If one has a feather in one hand and an egg in the other which one is harder? Obviously, the egg. On the other hand if one replaces the feather with a stone, which one is harder? If you don't know have an egg/stone fight and see.
Those of us connected to the SSPX these days find ourselves between a rock and a hard place. The rock is the faith taught by Peter and the apostles that has been continuous throughout the centuries. Yes, changes have taken place, but always in accordance with Scripture and Tradition. Divine revelation ended with the last apostle. There can be no changes to revealed doctrine and morality. Sins against chastity, like sodomy, can't be evil yesterday and legitimate signs of love as declared by some bishops in good standing today. Any so-called shepherd who proclaims it is a hireling at best or a ravening wolf in shepherd's clothing.
Never, in the course of 2000 years have novelties replaced the firm/hard teachings of the faith, the rock. Plenty of heretics, most in Roman collars, have done their utmost to substitute their personal preferences for the rock solid teachings of the Church, but all have failed. While modernism today, the synthesis of all heresies, seems in ascendence it too will fail!
I'll give one example. The creed was introduced in the 4th century to address the Arian heresy denying the divinity of Christ. Yes, heresies began almost the minute Jesus ascended into heaven. And the Church needed to address these things as they arose.
The first Council of Nicaea addressed a number of issues, but the primary reason it was called was to address the heresy being promulgated by a Catholic priest, Arius. As I said, most heresies have been the work of men in Roman collars. The bishops at Nicaea wrote the creed defining Jesus as "true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father." And that's the same creed we pray today at Mass.
But heresies continue today as hard-hearted men in black (or red) attack the doctrine of the faith and introduce modernist theories in every nook and cranny of the Church. Fr. Charlie Curran immediately comes to my mind since he was stirring things up at Catholic University while I was down the street as a senior at Trinity College (now a university). Curran swept up Church teaching on sexual morality and dumped it in the dustbin.
It was 1968. The pontifical group examining birth control recommended going the way of the Protestant churches which fell like dominoes after the Anglicans' Lambeth conference of 1930 approved contraception in rare cases for married couples. Artificial birth control soon became the norm for anyone for any reason, and, not surprisingly, it birthed the evil spawn of abortion not long after.
Curran continued to teach at Catholic University despite attempts to remove him. A faculty strike and student dissent neutered the board of directors who reinstated him during what's been described as "a coup." I remember the huge protest groups on campus that included nuns and priests in habits and clerics. Curran's rabid support for sexual immorality continued until he was finally removed and forbidden to teach at Catholic universities almost two decades later. He moved to Southern Methodist where he championed his sexually permissive opinions including support for sodomy. Needless to say, he was a big fan of Pope Francis.
I wonder if today the Vatican would allow Curran to teach at the pontifical university. At 92, he's obviously too old, but the conciliar church seems fine with his views. He was simply ahead of his time. If he were young enough maybe the pope would make him a bishop and give him a See like he recently did for sodomy-promoting Bishop Christian Würtz. Things have certainly changed since 1968 and Pope Paul VI's release of Humanae Vitae. Who in the magisterium even addresses the intrinsic evil of contraception today?
So here we are between a rock and hard place: the solid rock of the Catholic faith and the hard hearts of those heading the conciliar church. But we haven't discussed the "chip off the old block" yet. To what do I refer? The sensus fidei fidelis of the laity who embrace the truth of Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
The sensus fidei fidelis is a sort of spiritual instinct that enables the believer to judge spontaneously whether a particular teaching or practice is or is not in conformity with the Gospel and with apostolic faith. It is intrinsically linked to the virtue of faith itself; it flows from, and is a property of, faith.[62] It is compared to an instinct because it is not primarily the result of rational deliberation, but is rather a form of spontaneous and natural knowledge, a sort of perception (aisthesis)....
60. Three principal manifestations of the sensus fidei fidelis in the personal life of the believer can be highlighted. The sensus fidei fidelis enables individual believers: 1) to discern whether or not a particular teaching or practice that they actually encounter in the Church is coherent with the true faith by which they live in the communion of the Church...to determine and put into practice the witness to Jesus Christ that they should give in the particular historical and cultural context in which they live (§65).
61. ‘Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God ; for many false prophets have gone out into the world’ (1Jn 4:1). The sensus fidei fidelis confers on the believer the capacity to discern whether or not a teaching or practice is coherent with the true faith by which he or she already lives....
62. The sensus fidei fidelis also enables individual believers to perceive any disharmony, incoherence, or contradiction between a teaching or practice and the authentic Christian faith by which they live. They react as a music lover does to false notes in the performance of a piece of music. In such cases, believers interiorly resist the teachings or practices concerned and do not accept them or participate in them. ‘The habitus of faith possesses a capacity whereby, thanks to it, the believer is prevented from giving assent to what is contrary to the faith...
63. Alerted by their sensus fidei, individual believers may deny assent even to the teaching of legitimate pastors if they do not recognise in that teaching the voice of Christ, the Good Shepherd. [Source]
The priest who witnessed our marriage told us that, historically, the laity always bring the Church back when things go wrong. Fulton Sheen, soon to be canonized, said the same thing:
“Who’s going to save our Church? It’s not our bishops, it’s not our priests and it is not the religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that the priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops, and the religious act like religious.”
And that the pope acts like a pope!
The fight over the SSPX today is not about the Traditional Latin Mass and liturgical reverence, although that's important to the fitting worship of Almighty God. The fight is really over doctrine. It's about canonizing every jot and tittle of Vatican II which, although described as a "pastoral" council effectively undermined doctrines about the nature of the Church in the world: the social kingship of Christ on the earth not just in heaven and the doctrine that outside the Church there is no salvation. All faiths, including paganism, are pathways to God.
The SSPX is fighting for doctrinal truths taught for two millennia. That's why my husband and I are staying put. Yes, Bishop Burbidge has brought in the FSSP to offer the TLM, but the fight is bigger than that and we belong to the Church Militant, not the Church See-Saw. The laity at the chapel seem to understand that instinctively from the sensus fidei.
So where does that leave us? Gamaliel said it well and Rome would be wise to listen:
I say to you, refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if this council or this work be of men, it will come to nought; 39But if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest perhaps you be found even to fight against God. Acts 5:38-39
Time and Providence will tell where the truth lies. As for my husband and me -- we will continue to choose the space between the rock of the faith and the hard hearts at the Vatican for whom we pray. That space for us is the SSPX.
May Jesus Christ be praised.
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