The following is taken from The Recusant - Issue #66 [Summer 2026]


Worlds Apart: Forty Years, Two SSPXs

In the late spring of 2026, in the run-up to the SSPX's episcopal consecrations, there appeared on one of the SSPX's youtube channels the first video of three, the second and third appearing during May and June at intervals of a few weeks. We will focus on the first one, entitled: Traditio Part 1: Becoming a Priest. It is clearly meant to be a sort of pro-SSPX propaganda effort aimed at outsiders, presenting in as sympathetic a light as possible the SSPX apostolate. As its title suggests, the first video focusses on seminarians and their journey to the priesthood, culminating in the day of their ordination.

The video as a whole is typical of what we have come to expect from the modern, toothless, inoffensive SSPX. And yet, although its defects are obvious to us, there will no doubt be many who don't remember the old SSPX, for whom they are anything but obvious. In cases such as these, a direct comparison can often be a useful aid. Was the SSPX of yore really so very different to the SSPX of today? Well, as luck would have it, forty years earlier, back in 1986, the SSPX made exactly the same sort of video. It was filmed at the SSPX's USA seminary, in those days located at Ridgefield, Connecticut. The content of each of these two video presentations is superficially very similar: they each focus on seminary life, the seminarians themselves, what it means to become a priest, and so forth. But there the similarity ends. The contrast in both style and content could not be more clear and the reader might just as well pause reading and watch the first five minutes of each video to see for himself:

The old SSPX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TtyDeSYB84&t=13s
The new SSPX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9UQYkXffG0

And what a contrast it is! Behold, the SSPX pre- and post-Archbishop Lefebvre. The most obvious difference between the two, the difference which immediately strikes the viewer, is of course the production quality. The 1986 film looks like it was shot on a primitive VHS camcorder; the sound is fuzzy and wobbly, so is the picture, the colours fade and return, the picture is occasionally unclear. A quality so poor it warms the cockles of the heart! The 2026 production value is, by contrast, like a modern Hollywood film. But that is by the by: perhaps forty years of technology is enough to explain it — what matters most is the content.

Every word in the 2026 video is there for a reason. The speech of the various interviewees is careful and calculated, there is very obviously a script and there has clearly been a lot of careful editing. The 1986 video, by contrast, seems to have been shot on the hoof, somebody just pitched up with a camera, pointed it at any seminarians who were passing by and recorded whatever happened to come out of each man's mouth!

In the SSPX's 2026 presentation, everything feels holy, everything is aesthetically pleasing, everything looks comfortable and beautiful and impressive. The 1986 film is a lesson in what the SSPX used to look and feel like, however. Everything is poor, with a make-do-and-mend feel, where material wealth and impressive external appearances are clearly not a priority. For instance, the seminary chapel in Ridgefield has a low ceiling and the altar is almost round the corner from some of the pews: clearly a converted room and the best they could do at that time. The 2026 video is unable to show viewers the seminary chapel because, despite the new seminary having been built a decade or more ago, the chapel is the only part which is still not finished. The viewer is therefore given a view of the seminary buildings with the open fourth side of the cloister, and then later on a shot of the model showing what it will look like when finished.

And it is not just a question of architecture and nice buildings. The SSPX's 2026 film seems to focus a great deal on the beauty of the liturgy. The premise appears to be that the truth needs to be presented and the Church spoken about as though it were still the 1950s, and the condemnation of error is a mere optional extra. There are lots of shots of priests wearing beautiful vestments, inside beautiful churches. In the 1986 presentation by contrast, everything is a lot more rough-and-ready but the crisis in the Church, the errors of Vatican II and the apostasy of the conciliar modernists is placed front and centre from the very start and is presented as being the reason why the SSPX exists. To give just one very obvious and easy to understand example, let us take a look at the opening words in each video:

Opening Lines

2026 SSPX:
"Modern man is bombarded constantly with new information…"

1986 SSPX:
"The smoke of Satan has entered the bosom of the Church…"

Those opening lines provide a pretty good summary of each and the difference between the two. But just in case anyone is not convinced, let us look a little closer.


The Content: A New and Inoffensive SSPX

Both films have seminarians speaking to the camera right from the start and at regular intervals throughout, as well as interviews with priests and commentary from a narrator. That is where the similarity ends. What does each one say? Well, the 1986 SSPX video is exactly as it should be, it is what one used to expect. It says that there is a crisis in the Church, that Vatican II itself is to blame due to its errors, that the problem is not merely abuses or interpretations of Vatican II, that there is a war going on and that the SSPX is on the front line sending priests into battle against the evil modern world and its ally, the conciliar church.

The 2026 SSPX video is very different. Let us break it down. A brief "Introduction" section is followed by four segments each given the title of one of the SSPX's seminaries (in order: "Écône Switzerland," "Dillwyn USA," "La Reja Argentina" and "Zaitskofen Germany") with footage from each of the respective seminaries in the background. The content of the last three is rather boring: "Dillwyn" talks about the seminary academic curriculum, "La Reja" talks about the daily timetable and "Zaitskofen" talks about the minor and major orders which lead to the priesthood.

The main problem with these three segments (as with the video as a whole) is what they don't say, what they pointedly avoid saying, no matter how badly it needs to be said. It's all so inoffensive that it includes nothing that a Fraternity of St. Peter seminarian couldn't also say. There is no hint of a crisis in the Church, no mention of the New Mass, modernism, etc. The introduction segment is equally inoffensive, and contains this little gem from a seminarian about what led him to Écône:

Quote:[08:20] "...I had always been drawn by the liturgy. Even though I very much liked what I was doing, I felt that something was missing. And it was this love of the liturgy which led me to knock at the door of the seminary."

Quote:[14:45] "Many had realised in the 1960s and '70s that the Church was entering a period of profound crisis. But no one had, like Archbishop Lefebvre, this particular grace, this supernatural foresight to understand deeply what the causes were and above all, to offer appropriate remedies."

Quote:[16:50] "There was never, absolutely never, any idea of separating from the Church."

Quote:"Such things are easy to say. To stay inside the Church, or to put oneself inside the Church — what does that mean? Firstly, what Church are we talking about? If you mean the conciliar church, then we who have struggled against the Council for twenty years because we want the Catholic Church, we would have to re-enter this conciliar church in order, supposedly, to make it Catholic. That is a complete illusion. It is not the subjects that make the superiors, but the superiors who make the subjects." ('One Year After the Consecrations' — Fideliter, July-Aug 1989)

Quote:"Far from us be this miserable thought of separating ourselves from Rome! On the contrary, it is in order to manifest our attachment to Rome that we are performing this ceremony. It is in order to manifest our attachment to the Eternal Rome, to the Pope, and to all those who have preceded these last Popes who, unfortunately since the Second Vatican Council, have thought it their duty to adhere to grievous errors which are demolishing the Church and the Catholic Priesthood." (Consecrations Sermon, 30th June 1988)

Quote:[17:00] "Most certainly there was a reaction, a reaction against modern ideas or rather against errors, errors already condemned by the Church, which were making their way in a little before the Council but which crystalised at the time of the Council and then especially afterwards, much more clearly, in the reforms made in the name of the Council."

Quote:[18:20] "I was ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre and had the great privilege of having had him throughout my seminary years and even having had him as a professor in the first year. The Archbishop taught us the acts of the Magisterium, so the encyclicals of the Popes, and made us love the Church."

Quote:[18:45] "He was very fatherlike in the seminary. … [19:40] A man who was an ambassador for the Holy See, he never refused to go to Rome, even in all the difficulties which he undertook."

Quote:"It's over. The talks between Rome and ourselves are over. The more one thinks about it, the more one realizes their intentions are not good. ... Rome wants everything to go Vatican II, while they leave us a little bit of Tradition. … But there is no point in such meetings. It has all been talked out long ago." (Letter to the four bishops-elect, 12th June 1988)

"Yesterday evening, a visitor came, sent from the Nunciature in Berne, with an envelope containing an appeal from our Holy Father the Pope, who was putting at my disposal a car which was supposed to take me to Rome… I leave you to judge for yourselves the timeliness and wisdom of such a request." (Consecrations Sermon, 30th June 1988)

"We do not have the same outlook on a reconciliation. Cardinal Ratzinger sees it as reducing us, bringing us back to Vatican II. We see it as a return of Rome to Tradition. We don't agree; it is a dialogue of the deaf. I can't speak much of the future, mine is behind me, but if I live a little while, supposing that Rome calls for a renewed dialogue, then, I will put conditions. I shall not accept being in the position where I was put during the dialogue. No more. I will place the discussion at the doctrinal level. … If you do not accept the doctrine of your predecessors, it is useless to talk!" (Fideliter 66, Nov.-Dec. 1988)

"Humanly speaking, there is no chance of any agreement between Rome and ourselves at the moment. … However, one day they will be obliged to recognize that the Society represents a spiritual force and a strength of the Faith which is irreplaceable and which they will have, I hope, the joy and the satisfaction to make use of, but when they have come back to their Traditional Faith." (Conference to priests and seminarians, Écône, 6th Sept. 1990)

"Since the episcopal consecrations there has been no more contact with Rome … It is absolutely impossible in the current climate of Rome which is becoming worse. We must not delude ourselves. The principles which now guide the conciliar church are more and more overtly contrary to Catholic doctrine. … All the false ideas of the Council continue to develop, to be reaffirmed with ever greater clarity. They are hiding less and less. It is absolutely inconceivable that we can agree to work with such a hierarchy. … We are dealing with people who have a different philosophy to ours, a different way of seeing, who are influenced by all modern subjectivist philosophers. For them there is no fixed truth, there is no dogma. Everything is evolving. That is a totally Masonic concept. This is really the destruction of the Faith." (Fideliter 79, Jan.-Feb. 1991)

Quote:"We have done all we could, trying to help Rome to understand that they had to come back to the attitudes of the holy Pius XII and of all his predecessors. Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself have gone to Rome, we have spoken, we have sent letters, several times to Rome. We have tried by these talks, by all these means, to succeed in making Rome understand that, since the Council and since aggiornamento, this change which has occurred in the Church is not Catholic, is not in conformity to the doctrine of all times. This ecumenism and all these errors, this collegiality — all this is contrary to the Faith of the Church and is in the process of destroying the Church… 'And why Archbishop have you stopped these discussions which seemed to have had a certain degree of success?' [Because] it is clear that the only truth that exists today for the Vatican is the conciliar truth, the spirit of the Council, the spirit of Assisi. That is the truth of today. But we will have nothing to do with this for anything in the world! That is why, taking into account the strong will of the present Roman authorities to reduce Tradition to naught, to gather the world to the spirit of Vatican II and the spirit of Assisi, we have preferred to withdraw ourselves and to say that we could not continue. It was not possible. […] I think it is my duty to provide the means of doing that which I shall call 'Operation Survival,' operation survival for Tradition. Today, this day, is Operation Survival. If I had made this deal with Rome, by continuing with the agreements we had signed and putting them into practice, I would have performed 'Operation Suicide.' There was no choice, we must live!" (Consecrations Sermon, 30th June 1988)

"'For myself, personally,' I said, 'I have no confidence in them. For years and years I have been mixing with these people and for years I have been seeing the way in which they act. I have no further confidence in them. However, I do not wish people within the Society and Traditional circles to be able to say afterwards: You could easily have tried, it would have cost you nothing to enter into discussion and dialogue.' That was the opinion of the Superior General and his assistants. They said, 'You must take into consideration the offer which is being made and not neglect it. It's still worthwhile to talk with them.' … Very soon, however, we realized that we were dealing with people who are not honest. … I nevertheless went to Rome for the conversations, but without any confidence in their success. … I wished to go as far as possible in order to show what good will we had." ('One Year After the Consecrations' Fideliter, July-Aug. 1989)

"For fifteen years we dialogued to try to put Tradition back in its place of honour, in that place in the Church which it has by right. We ran up against a continual refusal. … Our true faithful, those who have understood the problem and who have precisely helped us to continue along the straight and firm path of Tradition and the Faith, were afraid of the approaches I made towards Rome. They told me it was dangerous and that I was wasting my time. Yes, of course, I hoped until the last minute that in Rome we would witness a little bit of loyalty. I cannot be blamed for not having done the maximum." (Fideliter 79, Jan.-Feb. 1991)

Quote:[11:45] "Certainly for a young man of today it is more difficult to perceive this call [to the priesthood] because a young man today is a child of today's society which has immersed him in a world of continual information, stifling, at least in part, his capacity to take a step back, to distance himself and to reflect deeply..."

Quote:"...aptitudes which are of a psychological order: to be balanced, to have common sense, because the priest must enlighten people, give them good advice, show them the way to heaven."

Quote:"I remark, first of all, that the expression 'conciliar church' comes not from me but from Mgr. Benelli who, in an official letter, asked that our priests and seminarians should submit themselves to the 'conciliar church.'" (Conference on 11th Jan., 1979)

"It is easy to think that whoever opposes the Council and its new Gospel would be considered as excommunicated, as outside communion with the Church. But one may well ask them: communion with what Church? They would answer, no doubt, with the conciliar church." (I Accuse the Council, p.xiii)

"This talk about the 'visible Church' on the part of Dom Gerard and Mr. Madiran is childish. It is incredible that anyone can talk of the 'visible Church' meaning the conciliar church as opposed to the Catholic Church which we are trying to represent and continue." ('One Year After the Consecrations' Fideliter, July-Aug. 1989)

Quote:"...the conciliar church, having now reached everywhere, is spreading errors contrary to the Catholic Faith and, as a result of these errors, it has corrupted the sources of grace, which are the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments. This false church is in an ever-deeper state of rupture with the Catholic Church."

Quote:"It is the strict duty of every priest [and layman! — Ed.] wishing to remain Catholic to separate himself clearly from the conciliar church, for so long as it does not profess the tradition of the Church's Magisterium and of the Catholic Faith."

Quote:"We have never wished to belong to this system which calls itself the conciliar church, and defines itself with the Novus Ordo Missae, an ecumenism which leads to indifferentism and the secularisation of all society."

Quote:[1:40] "The Curé of Ars showed us that it isn't many priests that we need, but just a few good ones, a few faithful, devoted priests. He was told, the Curé of Ars, by the devil when he saw him one time that if there were two other priests like him, the whole world would fall out of the devil's dominion. And there were just twelve Apostles to begin with."

[3:45] "I came to see more and more that even in Rome the teaching of the Church really isn't taught any more. …well for example, about the Gospels, that the Gospels aren't historical, that there are things there that were written just by the evangelists themselves, putting words into Our Lord's mouth that He didn't really say. … I started to look at the other side of it and see that the real explanation for the confusion, for the crisis in the Church today, is Vatican II itself, it's not abuses of Vatican II. [Narrator:] This is the reason for the founding of the Society of St Pius X…"

[4:50] [Archbishop Lefebvre:] "We cannot accept this ecumenism, bad ecumenism, false ecumenism, with Jews, with all religions, with Protestants. That is a scandal, a great scandal for our faith, for the faith of the faithful. That is a great mystery, but we cannot accept that. We must remain true Catholics, faithful to Our Lord Jesus Christ."

[7:20] "Bishop de Castro Mayer, bishop emeritus of Campos Brazil, is the only bishop who dared to speak out with Archbishop Lefebvre in opposition to the errors of Vatican II and its humanistic and ecumenical spirit."

[11:45] "In the army they call it bootcamp. If you want to make a soldier, you've got to put him through some training. And the priest is a soldier of Christ so he's got to be trained and trained properly. Otherwise he's just not going to be able to take the heat of the action. He's going to get out there at the front and the bullets are going to start flying…"

[14:50] "[The seminarians study] two years of philosophy…according to the principles of St. Thomas Aquinas, whom St. Pius X called 'the antidote for modernism.'"

[16:00] "In the name of Ecumenism, Catholics will refuse to honour Our Lady because it's not ecumenical, because it offends the Protestants. In the name of Ecumenism the Catholics will undo the sacrifice of the Mass because the Protestants don't like the notion of a sacrificial Mass, etc, etc. So in the name of Ecumenism you undo everything that's properly and distinctly Catholic and you reduce Catholicism down to the level of a common mish-mash. Which is exactly what all the other religions are doing, preparing the great one-world religion. As which Pope said in which encyclical? … St. Pius X said in his document on the Sillon, that's right."

[22:30] "The American bishops are going the way of the modern church and the modern church is going the way of the world, it's joined the world and it's abandoned our Lord Jesus Christ. … In the modern seminaries [the priest] is a kind of glorified social worker."

[24:25] "Archbishop Lefebvre has said that he could not form priests with the New Mass and I can see exactly what he means because…in the New Mass there's no notion really that it's a sacrifice."

[25:05] "Before I entered St. Thomas Aquinas seminary I spent a year in [a Novus Ordo] seminary, I stayed there for one year and the conduct of the priests and seminarians was totally different than here. Here everything's composed in a Catholic manner. When I was in the seminary the priests mostly were called by their first names by the seminarians. … In the day-to-day life there was no silence … I was told to see a psychiatrist because my religious beliefs weren't according to their standards. They felt we had to just go along with the modern world and the modern way of thinking. My rector told me he tried for a whole year to change my religious beliefs and was not able to ... I was like a Catholic going to a Protestant seminary."

[31:25] "They may not deny it explicitly but in the teaching that you get [in a Novus Ordo seminary] you're not taught that you're offering sacrifice to God. That's not taught at all, whereas here it is and that's the difference. … In Rome the new priests [often have] bitterness and cynicism because they don't have the sacrifice of the Mass."

[37:23] "[Families need] firstly to have many children. Large families are the normal seedbed of vocations because in large families the children are usually less selfish than in small families, they have to be. When the three boys are sleeping one on top of the other in bunks, you know, the bottom one can't rock all three or the other two will jump on him … pray the rosary in the home in the family every night. Mothers should pray for vocations and dedicate their children to the Mother of God when they're born."

[38:45] "[The conciliar church] is rotten, rotten to the core. … They're building their new church on sand and it's falling already it's falling severely. The Church is built on the rock, Christ is the rock and Christ gave us His Church which is Tradition. … If it's not built on that Tradition it'll fall, and it's falling. In America, in Australia, surely in the rest of the world, it's falling."

[40:25] "I wrote home to someone and said that Ridgefield is like a haven of holiness in a cesspool of sin. Because it's dreadful outside, beyond those walls, those gates, it's dreadful."

The following is taken from The Recusant - Issue 66 [Summer 2026]:


In 2026, modernist Rome really hasn't changed. They at least are consistent. The day after the SSPX consecrations they issued a decree that everyone is excommunicated and schismatic, just like they did in 1988. The following day Fr. Pagliarani sent an open letter to the Holy Father and the SSPX filed a canonical appeal. They don't want the label of "schism" hung around their neck — but notice that it is, once again, self-preservation and once again purely defensive, without any attack against modernist Rome.

Below is how the SSPX responded to modernist Rome's fraudulent "excommunication" back in 1988. Read it carefully, and try to imagine any SSPX superiors saying this sort of thing today. Then compare with the wishy-washy, toothless response of 2026. What a contrast!

Quote:"The Society promises You […] to devote all its energies to preserving Tradition and placing it at the service of the Church. In doing so, the Society of Saint Pius X does not merely maintain ancient customs; it fosters and preserves priestly vocations, religious vocations, and large, deeply Christian families — in a word, everything that manifests the vitality of the Church, of grace, and of the Catholic faith. Our intention is not to offer the Church a museum of antiquities, but rather the entirety of Tradition: fruitful, a source of spiritual life, embodied and lived out within souls. [...] I am certain that one day You yourself, or one of Your successors, will be able and willing to utilise this service, the offering of which, within the Church and for the Church, constitutes our sole reason for being." (Personal letter addressed to His Holiness on 21 November 2025)

The following are taken from The Recusant - Issue #66 Summer 2026. As found in this issue, the Analysis of Fr. Pagliarani's sermon is preceded by Archbishop Lefebvre's Consecration sermon of 1988:


Not the first time we have printed this sermon: but it is certainly worth revisiting. Compare it to the spirit of the modern SSPX and the sermon delivered recently at Écône.


Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:
Episcopal Consecrations Sermon
Écône, 30th June 1988

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Your Excellency, dear Bishop de Castro Mayer, my most dear friends, my dear brethren,

Behold, here we are gathered for a ceremony which is certainly historic. Let me, first of all, give you some information.

The first might surprise you a little, as it did me. Yesterday evening, a visitor came, sent from the Nunciature in Berne, with an envelope containing an appeal from our Holy Father the Pope, who was putting at my disposal a car which was supposed to take me to Rome yesterday evening, so that I would not be able to perform these consecrations today. I was told neither for what reason, nor where I had to go! I leave you to judge for yourselves the timeliness and wisdom of such a request.

I went to Rome for many, many days during the past year, even for weeks; the Holy Father did not invite me to come and see him. I would certainly have been glad to see him if some agreement would have been finalized. So here you have the information. I give it to you simply, as I myself came to know it, through the letter from the Nunciature.

Now, some indications concerning the ceremony and some relevant documents regarding its significance.

The future bishops have already sworn in my hands the oath which you find in the little booklet on the ceremony of consecration which some of you have. Thus, this oath has already been pronounced, plus the Anti-Modernist Oath, as it was formerly prescribed for the consecration of bishops, plus the Profession of Faith. They have already taken these oaths and this profession in my hands after the retreat which took place at Sierre during these last days. Do not, therefore, be surprised if the ceremony begins with the interrogations on the Faith, the Faith which the Church asks from those who are to be consecrated.

I also want to let you know that, after the ceremony, you will be able to ask the blessing of the bishops and kiss their rings. It is not the custom in the Church to kiss the hands of a bishop, as one kisses the hands of a newly-ordained priest, as you did yesterday. But the faithful may ask for their blessing and kiss their ring.

Lastly, you have at your disposal at the bookstall some books and flyers which contain all the elements necessary to help you better understand why this ceremony, which is apparently done against the will of Rome, is in no way a schism. We are not schismatics! If an excommunication was pronounced against the bishops of China, who separated themselves from Rome and put themselves under the Chinese government, one very easily understands why Pope Pius XII excommunicated them. There is no question of us separating ourselves from Rome, nor of putting ourselves under a foreign government, nor of establishing a sort of parallel church as the Bishops of Palmar de Troya have done in Spain. They have even elected a pope, formed a college of cardinals... It is out of the question for us to do such things. Far from us be this miserable thought of separating ourselves from Rome!

On the contrary, it is in order to manifest our attachment to Rome that we are performing this ceremony. It is in order to manifest our attachment to Eternal Rome, to the Pope, and to all those who have preceded these last Popes who, unfortunately since the Second Vatican Council, have thought it their duty to adhere to grievous errors which are demolishing the Church and the Catholic Priesthood.

Thus you will find among these flyers which are put at your disposal, an admirable study done by Professor Georg May, President of the Seminary of Canon Law in the University of Mainz in Germany, who marvellously explains why we are in a case of necessity: necessity to come and help your souls, to help you! Your applause a while ago was, I think, not a purely temporal manifestation; it was rather a spiritual manifestation, expressing your joy to have at last Catholic bishops and priests who are dedicated to the salvation of your souls, to giving to your souls the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, through good doctrine, through the Sacraments, through the Faith, through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. You need this Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ to go to heaven. This Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ is disappearing everywhere in the conciliar church. They are following roads which are not Catholic roads: they simply lead to apostasy.

This is why we do this ceremony. Far be it from me to set myself up as pope! I am simply a bishop of the Catholic Church who is continuing to transmit Catholic doctrine. I think, and this will certainly not be too far off, that you will be able to engrave on my tombstone these words of St. Paul: tradidi quod et accepi — "I have transmitted to you what I have received," nothing else. I am just the postman bringing you a letter. I did not write the letter, the message, this Word of God. God Himself wrote it; Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself gave it to us. As for us, we just handed it down, through these dear priests here present and through all those who have chosen to resist this wave of apostasy in the Church, by keeping the Eternal Faith and giving it to the faithful. We are just carriers of this Good News, of this Gospel which Our Lord Jesus Christ gave to us, as well as of the means of sanctification: the Holy Mass, the true Holy Mass, the true Sacraments which truly give the spiritual life.

It seems to me, my dear brethren, that I am hearing the voices of all these Popes since Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII, telling us: "Please, we beseech you, what are you going to do with our teachings, with our preaching, with the Catholic Faith? Are you going to abandon it? Are you going to let it disappear from this earth? Please, please, continue to keep this treasure which we have given you. Do not abandon the faithful, do not abandon the Church! Continue the Church! Indeed, since the Council, what we condemned in the past the present Roman authorities have embraced and are professing. How is it possible? We have condemned them: Liberalism, Communism, Socialism, Modernism, Sillonism. All the errors which we have condemned are now professed, adopted and supported by the authorities of the Church. Is it possible? Unless you do something to continue this Tradition of the Church which we have given to you, all of it shall disappear. Souls shall be lost."

Thus, we find ourselves in a case of necessity. We have done all we could, trying to help Rome to understand that they had to come back to the attitudes of the holy Pius XII and of all his predecessors. Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself have gone to Rome, we have spoken, we have sent letters, several times to Rome. We have tried by these talks, by all these means, to succeed in making Rome understand that, since the Council and since aggiornamento, this change which has occurred in the Church is not Catholic, is not in conformity to the doctrine of all times. This ecumenism and all these errors, this collegiality — all this is contrary to the Faith of the Church, and is in the process of destroying the Church.

This is why we are convinced that, by the act of these consecrations today, we are obeying the call of these Popes and as a consequence the call of God, since they represent Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Church.

"And why, Archbishop, have you stopped these discussions which seemed to have had a certain degree of success?" Well, precisely because, at the same time that I gave my signature to the Protocol, the envoy of Cardinal Ratzinger gave me a note in which I was asked to beg pardon for my errors. But if I am in error, if I teach error, it is clear that I must be brought back to the truth in the minds of those who sent me this note to sign. "That I might recognize my errors" means that, if you recognize your errors we will help you to return to the truth.

What is this truth for them if not the truth of Vatican II, the truth of the conciliar church? Consequently, it is clear that the only truth that exists today for the Vatican is the conciliar truth, the spirit of the Council, the spirit of Assisi. That is the truth of today. But we will have nothing to do with this for anything in the world!

That is why, taking into account the strong will of the present Roman authorities to reduce Tradition to naught, to gather the world to the spirit of Vatican II and the spirit of Assisi, we have preferred to withdraw ourselves and to say that we could not continue. It was not possible. We would have evidently been under the authority of Cardinal Ratzinger, President of the Roman Commission, which would have directed us; we were putting ourselves into his hands, and consequently putting ourselves into the hands of those who wish to draw us into the spirit of the Council and the spirit of Assisi. This was simply not possible.

This is why I sent a letter to the Pope, saying to him very clearly:

"We simply cannot accept this spirit and proposals, despite all the desires which we have to be in full union with you. Given this new spirit which now rules in Rome and which you wish to communicate to us, we prefer to continue in Tradition; to keep Tradition while waiting for Tradition to regain its place at Rome, while waiting for Tradition to reassume its place in the Roman authorities, in their minds."

This will last for as long as the Good Lord has foreseen. It is not for me to know when Tradition will regain its rights at Rome, but I think it is my duty to provide the means of doing that which I shall call "Operation Survival," operation survival for Tradition. Today, this day, is Operation Survival. If I had made this deal with Rome, by continuing with the agreements we had signed, and by putting them into practice, I would have performed "Operation Suicide." There was no choice, we must live! That is why today, by consecrating these bishops, I am convinced that I am continuing to keep Tradition alive, that is to say, the Catholic Church.

You well know, my dear brethren, that there can be no priests without bishops. When God calls me — no doubt this will be before long — from whom would these seminarians receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders? From conciliar bishops, who, due to their doubtful intentions, confer doubtful sacraments? This is not possible. Who are the bishops who have truly kept Tradition and the Sacraments such as the Church has conferred them for twenty centuries until Vatican II? They are Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself. I cannot change that. That is how it is. Hence, many seminarians have entrusted themselves to us, they sensed that here was the continuity of the Church, the continuity of Tradition. And they came to our seminaries, despite all the difficulties that they have encountered, in order to receive a true ordination to the priesthood, to say the true Sacrifice of Calvary, the true Sacrifice of the Mass, and to give you the true Sacraments, true doctrine, the true catechism. This is the goal of these seminaries.

So I cannot, in good conscience, leave these seminarians orphaned. Neither can I leave you orphans by dying without providing for the future. That is not possible. It would be contrary to my duty.

This is why we have chosen, with the grace of God, priests from our Society who have seemed to us to be the most apt, whilst being in circumstances and in functions which permit them more easily to fulfil their episcopal ministry, to give Confirmation to your children, and to be able to confer ordinations in our various seminaries. Thus I believe that — with the grace of God, we, Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself, by these consecrations, will have given to Tradition the means to continue, given the means to Catholics who desire to remain within the Church of their parents, their grandparents, of their ancestors. They built churches with beautiful altars, often destroyed and replaced by a table, thus manifesting the radical change which has come about since the Council regarding the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which is the heart of the Church and the purpose of the priesthood. Thus we wish to thank you for having come in such numbers to support us in the accomplishment of this ceremony.

We turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary. You well know, my dear brethren, one must have told you of Leo XIII's prophetic vision revealing that one day "the See of Peter would become the seat of iniquity." He said it in one of his exorcisms, called "The Exorcism of Leo XIII." Has it come about today? Is it tomorrow? I do not know. But in any case it has been foretold. Iniquity may quite simply be error. Error is iniquity: to no longer profess the Faith of all time, the Catholic Faith, is a grave error. If ever there was an iniquity, it is this. And I really believe that there has never been a greater iniquity in the Church than Assisi, which is contrary to the First Commandment of God and the First Article of the Creed. It is incredible that something like that could have ever taken place in the Church, in the eyes of the whole Church — how humiliating! We have never undergone such a humiliation! You will be able to find all of this in [Daniel] Le Roux's booklet ["Peter Lovest-Thou Me?"] which has been especially published in order to give you information on the present situation in Rome.

It was not only the good Pope Leo XIII who said these things, but Our Lady prophesied them as well. Just recently, the priest who takes care of the Society's priory of Bogota, Colombia, brought me a book concerning the apparition of Our Lady of Buon Suceso, of "Good Success," to whom a large church in Quito, Ecuador, was dedicated. They were received by a nun shortly after the Council of Trent, so you see, quite a few centuries ago. This apparition has been thoroughly recognized by Rome and the ecclesiastical authorities; a magnificent church was built for the Blessed Virgin Mary wherein the faithful of Ecuador venerate with great devotion a picture of Our Lady, whose face was made miraculously. The artist was in the process of painting it when he found the face of the Holy Virgin miraculously formed. And Our Lady prophesied for the twentieth century, saying explicitly that during the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth century, errors would become more and more widespread in Holy Church, placing the Church in a catastrophic situation. Morals would become corrupt and the Faith would disappear. It seems impossible not to see it happening today.

I excuse myself for continuing this account of the apparition but she speaks of a prelate who will absolutely oppose this wave of apostasy and impiety — saving the priesthood by forming good priests. I do not say that prophecy refers to me. You may draw your own conclusions. I was stupefied when reading these lines but I cannot deny them, since they are recorded and deposited in the archives of this apparition.

Of course, you well know the apparitions of Our Lady at La Salette, where she says that Rome will lose the Faith, that there will be an "eclipse" at Rome; an eclipse, see what Our Lady means by this.

And finally, more recently, the secret of Fatima. Without a doubt, the Third Secret of Fatima must have made an allusion to this darkness which has invaded Rome, this darkness which has invaded the world since the Council. And surely it is because of this, without a doubt, that John XXIII judged it better not to publish the Secret: it would have been necessary to take measures, such steps as he possibly felt himself incapable of doing, for example completely changing the orientations which he was beginning to take in view of the Council, and for the Council. These are the facts upon which, I think, we can lean.

We place ourselves in God's providence. We are convinced that God knows what He is doing. Cardinal Gagnon visited us twelve years after the suspension: after twelve years of being spoken of as outside of the communion of Rome, as rebels and dissenters against the Pope, his visit took place. He himself recognized that what we have been doing is just what is necessary for the reconstruction of the Church. The Cardinal even assisted pontifically at the Mass which I celebrated on December 8, 1987, for the renewal of the promises of our seminarians. I was supposedly suspended and, yet, after twelve years, I was practically given a clean slate. They said we have done well. Thus we did well to resist! I am convinced that we are in the same circumstances today. We are performing an act which apparently — and unfortunately the media will not assist us in the good sense, the headlines will, of course, be "Schism!" "Excommunication!" to their heart's content — and, yet, we are convinced that all these accusations of which we are the object, all penalties of which we are the object, are null, absolutely null and void, and we will take no account of them. Just as I took no account of the suspension, and ended up by being congratulated by the Church and by progressive churchmen, so likewise in several years — I do not know how many, only the Good Lord knows how many years it will take for Tradition to find its rights in Rome — we will be embraced by the Roman authorities, who will thank us for having maintained the Faith in our seminaries, in our families, in civil societies, in our countries, and in our monasteries and our religious houses, for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Quote:"What is the significance of this day, precisely? Why are we here? How are we to understand these consecrations? ... What does this mean for us?"

Quote:"The more the Faith is attacked, the more it disappears, the more this duty becomes urgent, because, without the Faith, it is impossible to please God, it is impossible to live well, it is impossible to be saved. And today we are taking exceptional measures, proportionate to this necessity."

Quote:"Now, some might consider that we are faced with a dilemma. We are choosing the integral Faith, but we are separating ourselves from the Church. We would be in the process of choosing between the Faith and the Church. In order to preserve the Faith, are we breaking with the Church? This is a false dilemma. We belong to the Church first of all through the Faith, through the integral profession of the Faith, through the integral profession of the Faith of the Church. ... we belong to the Church because we profess the same Faith. It is therefore a false dilemma into which we cannot enter, because we cannot choose between the Faith and the Church; no one can choose. We want the Faith of the Church in order to remain in the Church. We want the Church through the Faith, in the Faith."

Quote:"It is very important to understand this, even if those facing us do not wish to understand it. All of this is not a matter of opinion, it is not a matter of personal sensibility, nor an option: it is a necessity."

Quote:"We are accused of not loving the Pope, we are accused of not respecting him. But it is precisely because we love the Pope, sincerely, as the Vicar of Christ, as the head of the Church, that we no longer wish to see the Pope humiliated in the company of false shepherds, representatives of false religions. How many times have we seen this throughout all these years?"

Quote:"It is because we love the Vicar of Christ that we no longer wish this humiliation for the Pope, a humiliation which falls upon the whole Church, treated on an equal footing with false religions."

Quote:"But then, we have explained all of this many times. We have explained it in almost every language that exists on the face of the earth. Why are we not understood? Why, fundamentally, do we speak different languages? ... We speak the language of the Faith, the language of Tradition. And, before us, we are dealing with a language which operates at another level, which speaks of other things. It is the language of inclusion, of listening, of dialogue and of accompaniment."

Quote:"We want the Faith. And then, in the Faith, we accompany people. We listen to people in the Faith, in order to bring them to the Faith and to convert them."

Quote:"We also live these consecrations in hope. We do not live them in controversy, nor in tension, nor in bitterness, nor in resentment. We live these consecrations in joy and in hope."

Quote:"In 1988, those who condemned the Society foresaw its dissolution. Providence had another plan. Why did Providence have another plan? Your presence here today demonstrates it. God has not abandoned us, and God will not abandon us."

Quote:"Because the supreme law, the law of God, is the salvation of souls. This is why God has not abandoned us and will not abandon us; He will always provide us with means proportionate to our needs. If the work of the Redemption can encounter obstacles on the part of men, it will never encounter obstacles on the part of God. But the more we suffer, the more we struggle, the more we strive to be faithful to Him, the more He is with us, and He shows us this."

Quote:"If we continue to seek the will of God, the good of souls, whatever the cost, we shall never lack anything."

Quote:"But above all, these consecrations must be understood and lived in a spirit of charity: charity towards souls, and charity above all towards the Church. The more souls are disoriented and confused, the more we must seek them, the more we must support them."

Quote:"The more the Church is dishonoured, the more the splendour of her divinity is obscured, the more we must love her, we must serve her, and we must be ready to pay any price to serve the Church."

Quote:"The greatest of the sacrifices that God can ask of us is that of being treated as rebels, when we want to serve and love the Church as a Mother."

Quote:"We want to serve her as a Mother. A Mother in difficulty, overwhelmed, suffering; a Mother who is also sometimes betrayed; a Mother who needs, and deserves, that we help her, that we do something in the name of all that she has given us."

Quote:"Everything that we have received, we have received through the Church, in the Church. The Faith which we wish to bear witness to today and by which we wish to live comes to us from the Church. It is in the name of what we have received from her, and it is in the name of what she is — the Spouse of Christ, His Mystical Body — it is in the name of all this that we must do what is possible, as much as possible, to help and support her."

Quote:"Could we remain indifferent, doing nothing? 'It is not our problem'? That is not what is asked of us. Can the Society remain indifferent? No. That would be to betray the Church, that would be to lack charity; we cannot do this."

Quote:"[There is] one particular sin to which I draw your attention. This sin is always the same, from the beginning of humanity until today: it is the exaltation of man. We are saturated, we are literally saturated everywhere with this exaltation of man. Man who is altogether wonderful, man who is perfect, man who is astonishing, man who supposedly possesses infinite dignity. Well, in reality, all of this leads to pride. And, in the long term, it leads to contempt for God and to apostasy, to silent apostasy. That is where it comes from.

And the more man is exalted in a mad, fanatical way, the more, ultimately, he is distanced from God, and he is distanced from his perfection and his true good; it is a disaster. Man, full of rights, full of himself, incapable of turning towards God, incapable of recognising that he is wounded by sin and that he needs the Redemption. He needs Our Lord, he needs His Most Precious Blood. This is the great evil of today, of all history: the evil which encompasses all the others. This plague is a scourge, an obsessive idea which, it must be acknowledged, penetrates deeply even into the Church. This plague makes people blind; it paralyses souls. This is not what brings souls back to God."

Quote:"This wisdom of the Cross is the only antidote to this humanism which leads to indifference, to apostasy. You must always keep this humanism in your sights."

Quote:"This means that you must first preach through the innocence of your life; it is the innocence, the purity of your life, of your morals, which will give a moral authority to everything that you will preach."

Quote:"To be a lamb also means, and above all, perfect docility, perfect submission to the will of God. Just as Our Lord is constantly subject to the will of His Father, so you, by virtue of an even higher dignity from today onwards, must always seek His will."

Quote:"... Our Lord, just as He is perfectly docile to the will of the Father, so He never bends before the spirit of the world. In order to serve the Father perfectly, He necessarily comes into conflict with the spirit of the world, with the spirit of the prince of this world. And likewise the bishop: just as he is docile to the will of God, so he constantly asserts before the world the rights of Our Lord, and not the rights of man. And a lion never flees, a lion does not retreat and, above all, a lion does not bend. Never bend before this spirit of the world, do not move, do not retreat; the consecration will give you an irresistible strength. From today onwards, throughout the whole world, there are people who are watching you, listening to you. In thirty, forty years, they must be able to say: They did not bend. They did not bend the knee before this spirit of the world. They bent the knee only before Our Lord the King."

Quote:"They did not bend … That is the most beautiful thing that could be said about you at your death, the most beautiful memory that you could leave."

Quote:"Why must a bishop be like a serpent? It is in order to discern, grasp, and detect the duplicity, ambiguity, and cunning that exist in the world and among the enemies of the Cross. Your worst enemies will not attack you head-on; they will try to make you slide gradually into a perception of the Faith, of the Christian life, and of relations with the world that is a little more up to date. That must be understood."

Quote:"This is what it means to be like a serpent: to grasp the duplicity, the ambiguity, and the cunning that exist in the world, and to speak, to preach like doves: simply, without duplicity and without fear, without equivocation, without ambiguity."

Quote:"And what else does Jesus say, what does Our Lord say? 'The brother shall deliver up his brother, the father his child, and you shall be hated by all because of Me, because of My name. Do not fear all this, for there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nothing secret that will not be known.' 'Do not fear all this,' Our Lord tells us. 'Let Me act, let Me judge; I Myself will intervene when necessary.' He has only one concern. What is it? 'Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.' Every man who will acknowledge My rights, My divinity, My Church, My Faith. 'Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.'"

Quote:"Another bishop, who is your model, closer to us, not yet canonised: Archbishop Lefebvre, certainly. Of him also one can say: zelus fidei sollicitus et multa perpessus. He had only one concern: it was the Faith itself, and, for this, he suffered greatly. This Faith, he saw clearly how it is summed up in the Holy Mass, in the defence of the Holy Mass, of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord. What wisdom! How was he able, so many years ago, to grasp the causes of the crisis with such clarity, such insight, such strength?"

Quote:"It is the wisdom of the Cross; the Cross that he carried was the source of his wisdom. Today, more than ever, his spirit is among us, he encourages us, he prays for us, he prays for you in particular, he shows us the path to follow, guided by this wisdom of the Cross."

• Comparing the SSPX then and now, 1988 - 2026
  
  
• “World’s Apart: Forty Years, Two SSPXs” (Analysis of two videos: 1986 vs. 2026)
  

I'm an adept of philosophy of Integral Traditonalism and I share ideas Traditionalistic Catholicism. I deplore the Decline of Western Civilization and Culture and the death of Traditional world. I'm learning Latin and support Latin Tridente Mass