N.B. Well said …
“There's good reason to believe that the upcoming SSPX excommunications will be far more permanent than those of 1988.
“1. In 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre was a renowned figure. He had plenty of enemies in the Roman Curia, to be sure — but he was also a highly influential missionary to Africa due to his prolific work in the Holy Ghost Fathers. He had brother bishops in Rome going back to pre-conciliar times, and they would have been at least somewhat sympathetic to him, even if they disagreed with his cause.
“In 2026, this is no longer the case. A generation of SSPX priests and bishops has now run its course in relative isolation from the conciliar structures. Those types of personal relationships are long gone.
“Sure, its possible that Bishop Fellay made some friends during his negotiations in the 2010s...but I think it's safe to say that SSPX sympathizers in Rome are few and far between these days.
“2. Benedict XVI wasn't exactly a traditionalist, but his attempts at a hermeneutic of continuity betrayed his desire for some kind of post-conciliar course correction. Reconciliation with the SSPX was a big part of that, as evidenced by Summorum Pontificum and the lifting of the 1988 excommunications.
“But under Francis, the hermeneutic of continuity died — and the eulogy was Traditionis Custodes. And to make matters worse, the cardinals he appointed make a future Benedict XVII exceedingly unlikely.
“You'd assume that Francis was opposed to the very raison d'être of the SSPX, yet he granted them more privileges than anyone else. He was also kind enough to eliminate most of their competition by issuing Traditionis Custodes.
“Unfortunately, while the more skittish SSPX faithful might have enjoyed the comforts of those papal privileges, the doctrinal crisis reached a fever pitch under that pontificate — and the chief architect of those problems is the man now presented to the SSPX for negotiations. Not good.
“3. Whatever doctrinal problems existed in 1988 have only gotten worse since then — or, in the words of Father Pagliarani, "received, developed, and applied for sixty years by successive popes."
“In 1988, there was collegiality, ecumenism, religious liberty, and of course, the Novus Ordo Missae to deal with. The most scandalous event in recent memory was the Assisi meeting.
“A reconciliation in The Big '26 would mean resolving all those original issues, PLUS Traditionis Custodes, Mater Populi Fidelis, Fiducia Supplicans, Amoris Laetitia, the Abu Dhabi declaration...to say nothing of the many public scandals that have hardened so many hearts since 1988.
“4. The Ecclesia Dei groups are now well-established, along with plenty of diocesan TLMs that have escaped Traditionis Custodes unscathed.
“Of course, anyone who's been in traditionalist circles for a while knows that the Missal is just the tip of the iceberg. Still, the existence of "safe, legal, and rare" traditionalist ghettos does a lot to neuter the opposition: If you've got a comfortable longhouse where you can just pretend the Novus Ordo doesn't exist, why rock the boat? (You aren't a schismatic, are you?)
“All of that to say...even if the Vatican attempts a copy-paste on John Paul II's response to the consecrations of 1988, the experience on the ground will be very different this time.
“And whatever your take on the issue, prayer and pursuit of personal holiness is never a bad response.”
@CullumSmith
(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Gerhard Müller has warned that the West is threatened by Islamic migration and “Orwellian” globalist elites and will not survive without a return to Christianity.
In an essay published by kath.net, the German cardinal detailed the political and religious problems the West is facing and traced them to their philosophical roots in the anti-Christian Enlightenment.
He said the Western world cannot survive without the Christian faith because “the West is nothing other than the cultural community of the Germanic and Slavic tribes and nations, which emerged from the legacy of the Western Roman Empire and are united in their faith in Christ, the Son of God and universal Savior of humanity.”
“Thus, Europe is Christianity in its synthesis with Greek metaphysics and the Roman will for order according to the principle of justice – that is, the will to give to each his due: suum cuique (Ulpian) or, to put it theologically, the inviolable dignity of every human being as the image and likeness of God.”
“Outside of this definition, Europe loses its formative soul and becomes a lifeless body that, like an ownerless territory, falls into the hands of the nearest and strongest neighbor,” he argued.
Citing the late Pope Francis, Müller said that “we are already in the midst of a Third World War, in stages.” Explaining, he said:
“Only the conceit of Western superiority remains alive,” Müller mused. “Should our secularism and materialism – as in the days of colonialism – be imposed as a panacea on the supposedly backward East and South, under the motto: Development aid only on the condition of legalizing same-sex marriage and the killing of children in the womb, euthanasia, and assisted suicide – and all of this for the sake of drastically reducing the population due to climate protection and the scarcity of material resources?”
More: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/europe-is-christianity-muller-says-the-west-must-return-to-the-faith-to-defeat-islam-globalism/