A Concerned Catholic (Glenn Braganza)

Father Pagliarani has released a new letter marking the anniversary of Mater Populi Fidelis. "This disastrous text, devastating both in its content and in its inevitable pastoral consequences, will nevertheless have produced, indirectly, one positive effect: that of bringing back into the light the importance of formulas and titles. Indeed, the Modernist outlook, which tends to reduce the act of faith to a personal and intimate experience of God, leads to contempt for formulas, on the pretext that faith cannot be reduced or circumscribed by the use of concrete, 'technical' expressions, which are structurally incapable of expressing a lived experience. "This is why [Our Lady] is the missing voice at ecumenical meetings: she is inconvenient; she cannot be invited. She is the bearer of a message incompatible with the spirit of Assisi: the inflexible reminder of the exclusive rights of Christ the King, her Son, over all souls — in other words, the rights of the Truth in the face of error, and the prerogatives of the Church in the face of other religions. If she could speak up there, she would necessarily remind men, as Mother and Queen, that they are faced with a choice: 'Either my Son or the others!' "In no way can the Most Holy Virgin tolerate that her Son, the Truth incarnate, be considered as one path among others to the Father; in no way could she tolerate that Truth and error be treated on an equal footing in the name of human dignity and of a false freedom to choose between true and false." "It is therefore she alone who, in the present confusion of a triumphant Modernism, can obtain that our souls be preserved from error and indifference — the latter being sometimes that which leads to error, sometimes that which flows from it: the ripest and most pernicious fruit of the spirit of Assisi."

Is there really an SSPX growth strategy? A few influencers have recently discussed the "expansion strategy" of the SSPX in the USA. Now, I don't speak for the Society, but I probably have more inside knowledge than the average person. Every story needs a hero, and lots of people want the SSPX to be the competent, calculating adult in the room that takes back tradition amidst this conciliar circus. Anyone who actually attends an SSPX chapel would get a healthy chuckle out of this characterization! Don't get me wrong — the priests are wonderful. They are pious, forbearing, and have a true zeal for souls. But they are insanely overworked, and the entire organization is pretty chaotic. It's something of a minor miracle that they ever got to this point. The SSPX is not, never has been, and never will be anything more than a holding pattern. Archbishop Lefebvre called it "Operation Survival." The Society was formed to preserve the traditional priesthood — formation, education, sacraments, and discipline — when it truly seemed to be disappearing forever. But as the crisis went on, more and more laity wrote to the SSPX, begging them to send priests. And discerning an obligation to help, the Society sent them priests as they were able. Over the past fifty years, this missionary practice took shape in the form of priories and mission chapels. Priories are the established churches where SSPX priests live, say Mass daily, live in community, and often teach schoolchildren during the week. Living in community was an important aspect of Archbishop Lefebvre's original rule for priests. Some priories are large, like Post Falls or Saint Mary's, with over a dozen priests. Others are smaller, like Nicholville or Chicago, with only a handful of priests serving a chapel or two. The distance traveled is often immense. For example, the priory in Walton, Kentucky services chapels in North Carolina, Tennessee, and even northern Ohio! But the chapels are where the real missionary work happens. Every weekend, SSPX priests head to the airport and travel to their assigned chapel — sometimes two! There is almost no downtime. I have often seen Father running straight from his Uber into the sacristy with his carry-on bag after a flight delay. These priests basically pack a community's entire sacramental life into less than 24 hours. Confessions. Masses. Sick calls. Weddings. Baptisms. Then on Sunday night, they're back in the airport, with a full school day ahead of them. There are currently 120 mission chapels in the USA, and only slightly more priests than that. As you can probably imagine, this is a logistical nightmare which can tolerate almost no unexpected illnesses, flight cancellations, or vacations. My point in explaining all this is to emphasize that the SSPX is having its own Operation Survival at the moment. There is no "strategy" for expansion — the demand for sacraments already far exceeds their supply. Any growth you're seeing is not the result of SSPX machinations, but the grassroots Catholic Action of their lay faithful. If the SSPX comes to a new place, it is because a group of dedicated laity have asked them to come there, and have done the painstaking work of acquiring a location for Mass, establishing a sizeable congregation, buying altar linens and sacred vessels, training altar servers, assembling a schola, etc. The existing mission chapels are all "staffed" by lay volunteers doing all the same planning and execution...even down to scrubbing the toilets. Any expansions you see are spearheaded by the lay people in those communities. Remember, 99% of the time, THE PRIEST IS NOT THERE. The mission chapels have all seen an influx of new families due to Traditionis Custodes, and their existing lay faithful are doing the magnanimous work of planning, fundraising, and executing various expansion projects to accommodate these new orphans within their communities. The SSPX recognizes the conciliar authorities as true authorities, and they lean heavily on Supplied Jurisdiction to justify their missionary activity. I'm not here to argue to merits of that — but a huge part of supplied jurisdiction is that certain activities only become licit when the faithful NEED and ASK for them. Because of this, the Society is always walking a fine line between two realities in a state of extreme tension: 1. HUNDREDS of traditional communities are asking them for mass centers, sacraments, and schools, which, due to the state of the Church, they feel an obligation to provide, and 2. They cannot give the impression that they are setting up a parallel church (which, due to their growth, is only getting more difficult as time goes on). Threading this ecclesiological needle is almost impossible as it is, so we shouldn't make the situation any more confusing than we have to. I don't know any SSPX priests that would characterize themselves as going on any kind of "offensive strike." From their perspective, they're just doing what they've always done: fulfilling their obligation to provide the traditional faith and sacraments to the Catholic faithful that ask for them...after everyone else in the Church has refused.