Sunday Meditation: Discernment, Disagreement, Conscience, and the Fullness of the Truth

I follow a gentleman on Substack, D. B. Doherty, whose views on the SSPX situation conflict strongly with my own. I think it's an intelligent practice to study both sides of an issue to help discern where the fullness of the truth lies. That's what I've been doing ever since COVID sent us to the SSPX in recognition and appreciation of their zeal for souls. Up to now, I've found the arguments for the SSPX more convincing than those against them. So I continue, in good conscience, to attend the chapel. But I also continue to examine the arguments presented by those who disagree who I see as people of good will. I ignore the others. Let them rage.

Doherty, describes himself as an "armchair theologian." He warns that all of us who continue to connect ourselves to the Society are in serious spiritual danger. Recently, he posted this article:

How to Defend the SSPX and Accidentally Risk Your Soul

Here's a portion of what he wrote which I've re-formatted for convenience:

If you’re jumping into Substack comment sections defending the SSPX, understand what you’re doing. You’re publicly defending a movement Rome has declared schismatic. You’re encouraging others to trust it. You’re encouraging others to adhere to it. Every time you hit Post, you’re potentially persuading someone to separate themselves from the Church. If that’s what you want to do, fine. Just know what is at stake. You’re no longer a spectator. You’re participating. You’re persuading. You’re influencing. You’re asking people to choose one authority over another. If Rome is right... You’re not merely wrong. You’re leading people into schism. And if that persuasion leads someone into formal adherence... You’ll answer for that before God. For their sake... and for yours... you’d better be right.

He raises some good points and no one should either agree or disagree with the SSPX from a knee jerk position. So I ask myself questions. Is the Society actually in schism which is a repudiation of the faith? The decree says the Society "committed an act of schismatic nature," but is disobedience to the pope, although serious, in itself schismatic? The Society  claims they are not in schism; that, like Archbishop Lefebvre, they "adhere to Eternal Rome." Bishop Athanasius Schneider has declared over and over that the SSPX are not in schism and that the episcopal consecrations, while disobedient, would not be a schismatic act. On the other hand, the decree says it is and canon lawyer Fr. Gerald Murray agrees. Who's right? Many others with solid credentials who obviously love the Church, come down on one side or the other. The arguments continue bringing to mind the warnings of Our Lady at Akita, an approved apparition:

“The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate Me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres… the Church will be full of those who accept compromises, and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.”

How many cardinals and bishops who continue to wear the pectoral cross and carry the shepherd's crook have already left the service of the Lord? How many deserve the Biblical condemnation, "Woe to the false shepherds?" We've witnessed many and the scandals continue. Is it any wonder that chaos reigns?

So here we are once again, in the aftermath of the consecrations, in a situation of utter confusion. The decree excommunicates the bishops and says the Society is in schism by breaking the unity of the Church. Then a week later Pope Leo names Bishop Christian Würtz the new ordinary of Eichstätt in Germany. Why is this shocking and problematic? Wurtz endorses same sex blessings and says sodomy, a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance, is not sinful. So who exactly is breaking the unity of the Church when those who defend tradition are excommunicated and a heretic is made the ordinary of a diocese? I use the word heretic deliberately because heresy is the repudiation by a baptized person of a truth revealed by God in the Scriptures or Sacred Tradition. Did Bishop Würtz not incur a latae sententiae excommunication when he approved the heretical document of the German Synodal Path? I'm no prophet but it would not surprise me to see the man get a red hat making him eligible to vote in the next conclave. That's how scandalous Rome has become.

My other disagreement with Mr. Doherty's statement is that the Society, and presumably all of us who remain in the chapels, are leading people out of the Church. Wait a minute! I tell everyone NOT to leave the Church, to KEEP THE FAITH despite the scandals. More confusion! Where is the faith these days? In the German synodal path? Is Bishop Wurz teaching his spiritual sons and daughters the faith or leading them away from the Church by his heretical views? 

Can believing everything the Church teaches and listening to those who adhere to what Christ and the apostles taught really lead people out of the Church? I find that hard to believe. And I take comfort in the fact that I am following my conscience which I try very hard to form in accordance with God's law and the dictates of Holy Mother Church. 

And so I offer this from St. John Henry Newman on conscience:

IT seems, then, that there are extreme cases in which Conscience may come into collision with the word of a Pope, and is to be followed in spite of that word.....

But, of course, I have to say again, lest I should be misunderstood, that when I speak of Conscience, I mean conscience truly so called. When it has the right of opposing the supreme, though not infallible Authority of the Pope, it must be something more than that miserable counterfeit which, as I have said above, now goes by the name. If in a particular case it is to be taken as a sacred and sovereign monitor, its dictate, in order to prevail against the voice of the Pope, must follow upon serious thought, prayer, and all available means of arriving at a right judgment on the matter in question. And further, obedience to the Pope is what is called "in possession;" that is, the onus probandi of establishing a case against him lies, as in all cases of exception, on the side of conscience. Unless a man is able to say to himself, as in the Presence of God, that he must not, and dare not, act upon the Papal injunction, he is bound to obey it, and would commit a great sin in disobeying it. Primâ facie it is his bounden duty, even from a sentiment of loyalty, to believe the Pope right and to act accordingly. He must vanquish that mean, ungenerous, selfish, vulgar spirit of his nature, which, at the very first rumour of a command, places itself in opposition to the Superior who gives it, asks itself whether he is not exceeding his right, and rejoices, in a moral and practical matter to commence with scepticism. He must have no wilful determination to exercise a right of thinking, saying, doing just what he pleases, the question of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, the duty if possible of obedience, the love of speaking as his Head speaks, and of standing in all cases on his Head's side, being simply discarded. If this necessary rule were observed, collisions between the Pope's authority and the authority of conscience would be very rare. [Source]

I pray for the pope every day. I pray to love him with the filial love of a spiritual daughter. What a grief it is to find myself unable to obey him. We are in a violent storm these days one that's definitely rocking the barque of Peter which is taking water. Who's bailing? 

It's interesting that in St. John Bosco's dream about the storm there were only two pillars representing the Eucharist and the rosary. The papacy was not set up as a third pillar. Who is defending the liturgy and the Eucharistic sacrifice? The SSPX!  Who has refused to honor the Blessed Mother as Mediatrix of All Graces and Co-Redemptrix? Not the SSPX! 

I must and will follow my conscience and continue to attend the chapel while I pray daily for Pope Leo, Bishop Michael Burbidge, my ordinary, and Holy Mother Church. I'm confident that if I'm wrong, Jesus and Mary who love me so much will correct me. Until then, those who tell me I'm a lost soul in danger of hell can blow their hot air. Let them. I sit in the air conditioning of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, trusting that I will continue to be led where I should be. 

In closing I recall the end of A Man for All Season when St. Thomas More says to his executioner, "Friend, be not afraid of your office. You send me to God." Cranmer who lied and plotted to bring about More's death says, "You're very sure of that, Sir Thomas." And More replies, "He will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to him."

I love the Lord. He knows I love Him. If I'm in danger of hell by staying with the SSPX, He will not abandon me to error. I cannot, however, be in unity with some of the horrendous things happening in the synodal Church. Nevertheless, I embrace the Church of eternal Rome. Although she's covered in filth like so many desecrated images of the Blessed Mother, she remains the Bride of Christ. I will never leave the Church and pray to keep the faith until my last breath. And I offer all my grief for the Holy Father and especially those in the magisterium who follow the path of Judas.

My Jesus, I trust in You.