(LifeSiteNews) — Just months before the consecration of new bishops on July 1st, the SSPX is again making headlines for being “schismatic.”
But are they really?
I decided to go on their famous pilgrimage from Chartres to Paris to dig deeper.
Saturday morning, 6:30 a.m.
Already, crowds have gathered in front of the Chartres Cathedral, carrying huge backpacks with everything they’ll need to sleep outside, eat, and treat blisters and sunburns for the next three days.
The organizers are expecting over 6,000 pilgrims this year, and the enthusiasm around me is palpable. I hear German, English, and French spoken by young pilgrims from all over the world, waving banners of their patron saints and Vatican flags.
After a beautiful traditional Mass celebrated in front of the Cathedral (during which we pray for the Pope at the Canon), the pilgrimage organizers announce the order of departure. We pick up our banners, ready for our first day of walking in the extreme heat, and leave Chartres through its quiet streets, singing songs to Our Lady.
Every few hours, we’re given the luxury of being able to sit down in a field to rest, and volunteers meet us along the way to encourage us and give us bottles of water.
Hours pass.
We walk, we drink water, we pray, we sing, we talk, and we support each other, even perfect strangers.
The sun gets hotter, and fatigue starts to set in. Next to me I overhear a fellow pilgrim encouraging his little brother by reminding him of Jesus’ sufferings on the Cross. I see young scouts walking with their troops, proudly waving banners without a murmur of complaint about their painful feet.
At every break throughout the day, volunteer doctors and nurses, and even nuns in full habit, care for pilgrims. Priests in cassocks walk with us, offering encouragement and confession.
By the time we reach the campsite, my exhaustion is complete. I find my tent and fall quickly asleep.
The next two days follow a similar program. We pilgrims get up early, drop off tents and equipment, and set out again, every painful step bringing us closer to Paris.
On Pentecost Sunday, Bishop Bernard Fellay, one of the last surviving bishops consecrated by Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre, celebrates a beautiful Pontifical High Mass in a field large enough to accommodate thousands of us pilgrims and the many visitors who have joined us.
I approach one of the numerous priests stationed around the field and ask for confession. He smiles and says, “That is why we are here.” Afterwards I return to kneel at my place, a muddy spot in the field covered in roughly cut grass and wild mint, and my eyes fill with tears at the sheer beauty of the liturgy and the angelic choir.
The following day, we triumphantly enter Paris, our accumulated exhaustion forgotten in our joy at having walked and suffered under the banner of Christ the King.
Many Catholics have been lied to about the SSPX. I know, because I was one of them. We’ve heard it all: the SSPX is schismatic, heretical, and its founder deliberately defied Rome to create his own church and follow his own rules.
But attending the pilgrimage destroyed every lie we’re told about the Society.
If the SSPX and its founder had truly wanted to break away from the Catholic Church, why would they pray for Leo XIV during the Canon of the Mass? Why would they fly the Vatican flag or make pilgrimages to Rome or reaffirm their allegiance to Roman Catholicism?
All these actions point to fidelity to Tradition in a time of crisis, not rebellion.
The theme of this year’s pilgrimage was the need for vocations. The message was one of urgency and underlined the Society’s reason for consecrating new bishops: Without bishops, there would be no priests. And without priests, there would be no sacraments.
Despite harsh criticism from all sides, even from Catholic bishops, the priests and bishops of the SSPX I’ve listened to have always spoken charitably about the hierarchy of the Church (while nevertheless condemning doctrinal errors as is their duty).
I come away from my first pilgrimage with the SSPX convinced that their mission is and always has been the same: to ensure the survival of the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ and bring souls to God through the traditional liturgy.
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