This photo says it all. My mom always said, "Birds of a feather flock together." So here we have the scandalous porn-writing head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith sharing an intimate moment with the pope, il papa, my daddy in the spiritual life. I'm heartbroken and shaking my head after reading the explanatory note from Fernandez. [Published at the end.]
Will I stop going to the SSPX? No. My conscience tells me that in order to be in "full Communion" with Rome these days, I must accept those things I know to be untrue and against the faith. Fernandez talks about Canon Law, but, according to Infovaticana the formula of the decree and the explanatory note "lacks penal efficacy." So am I excommunicated? Who knows? In today's sad situation the Vatican Tower of Babel speaks with the voice of Humpty Dumpty. You remember the egg's philosophy right?:
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
― Through the Looking Glass
Fernandez reigns as the Humpty Dumpty spokesman for the Vatican. Can we trust anything he says or does? I certainly can't.
Several months ago, Bishop Schneider said that excommunication of the SSPX would be invalid. Go here to read more. One thing he stated quite clearly:
“It is not a secret that there are strongly influential high-ranking clergy in our day, who simply hate all that is authentic Catholic tradition in doctrine and liturgy,” he wrote, and these people “would be happy if the SSPX could be just excommunicated, whereas in the same time they show the greatest possible tolerance towards all what is ambiguous and heretic in doctrine and liturgy, as it is the case with the so-called German Synodal Path.”
Schneider emphasized that for the neo‑modernist cardinals and bishops currently in power—who, in his view, support “sacrileges and heresies”—even a “minimal ecclesial integration of the SSPX would be unacceptable,” since they are “cowardly collaborators with the agenda of the world’s ideological elites.” Any agreement with the Society, he argued, would “unmask their betrayal of Christ and increase a reconquest of true Catholicity within the life of the Church in our day.”
Will Schneider be excommunicated next?
As I consider all these things I ask myself, whom do I trust more? Pope Leo and Cardinal Fernandez or Bishop Schneider. Goodness! I'll have to think about that...for a nanosecond.
It's a terrible thing to recognize that your father in faith is preaching a different gospel, a gospel of indifferentism and novelties. And that reminds me of St. Paul saying, "If any one [even an angel] preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema." Dare I say that the pope and Fernandez are no angels? No human is. We are fallen and subject to temptation and sin.
So where do I look for the truth? In what was handed on to the apostles by Jesus and transmitted by them over the millennia with correction from legitimate councils like Nicea, Trent, and Vatican I among others.
In the meanwhile, I'm sorry it has come to this, but I will continue to attend the SSPX in peace confident that the excommunications are invalid and that all will be well when God, as He always does, brings good out of evil. I will continue to pray for Pope Leo and poor, lost Cardinal Fernandez who is truly a pitiful and pathetic individual. May God shower them with grace and bring all persecution of the faithful to an end.
This morning I posted this on Facebook before I saw the decree of excommunication:
The sheep are discussing the SSPX consecrations. I overheard them complaining that they are being called black sheep because they are following a good shepherd disapproved by the master of the house. Poor sheep.
Full text of the Explanatory Note (InfoVaticana translation)
Prot. N. 99/2009
EXPLANATORY NOTE
From the time of Saint Paul VI until the most recent talks, recently held in this Dicastery, the multiple attempts to bring the adherents of the movement initiated by Mons. Marcel Lefebvre back into full communion with the Catholic Church have proved vain. This situation has been further aggravated by the recent episcopal consecrations celebrated without a pontifical mandate, against the will of the Holy Father, in open violation of canon law. Therefore, this Dicastery, in the faithful exercise of the functions entrusted to it, considers it necessary to state that such an act has constituted the crime of schism, with the canonical consequences for the sacred ministers and for the lay faithful involved. Indeed, as already declared in 1988, “such disobedience —which entails a practical rejection of the Roman Primacy— constitutes a schismatic act” (cf. John Paul II, Ap. Letter Ecclesia Dei, 3).
In this regard, from now on:
1. The sacred ministers belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X are in schism and must therefore be considered schismatics (cf. Ecclesia Dei, 5 c; Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Explanatory Note on the excommunication for schism incurred by adherents to the movement of Bishop Marcel Lefebvre, 24.08.1996, 5-6), remaining subject to the excommunication provided for by law (can. 1364 § 1 CIC).
2. As regards the lay faithful, those who formally adhere to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X are to be considered schismatics and excommunicated under the conditions established in the Explanatory Note of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts of 1996 (cf. ibid., 7), still in force, which this Dicastery makes its own.
3. Finally, the holy People of God are warned that the sacred ministers of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X administer the sacraments illicitly and that the sacrament of penance administered by them and the marriage assisted by them are invalid.
The Church, as a solicitous mother, will welcome with sincere affection and lively solicitude all those who wish to return to full communion. The Apostolic Nuncios will provide the procedures that the Ordinaries may use in the various cases.
Finally, all the faithful are exhorted to remain steadfast in communion with the Roman Pontiff, with the Bishops in communion with him and with the whole Church (cf. Lumen Gentium, 22; can. 751 CIC), and to abstain from participating in the celebrations and activities promoted by the aforementioned Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X.
From the Palace of the Dicastery, 2 July 2026
Víctor M. Card. Fernández
Prefect
Mons. Armando Matteo
Secretary for the Doctrinal Section
John J. Kennedy
Titular Archbishop of Ossero
Secretary for the Disciplinary Section
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