If fidelity to the Church’s perennial dogmatic teaching is the test of Catholicity, Cardinal Müller may have accused the wrong side…
Diane Montagna recently published Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s June 26, 2026 intervention at Leo XIV’s “extraordinary consistory of cardinals.” The latter portion of Cardinal Müller’s intervention consisted of the following statement related to the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX):
“The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X has sent an open letter to all the cardinals. It is our duty by virtue of our office, both individually and as a college, to reject the scandalous accusation that the Roman Church has departed from the Catholic faith. In the face of the schismatic act of episcopal consecration carried out without the prior grant of communio with the Pope, there must be no ambiguity. In pastoral and liturgical matters, one may proceed with pastoral sensitivity. I propose the establishment of a commission, along the lines of the former Ecclesia Dei, to enable those who have embraced this schismatic position to return to full communion with the Pope. But the boundary into schism is definitively crossed when the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, as the visible principle and enduring foundation of the Church’s unity in revealed truth, is violated. During the Council of Trent, the distinguished Polish Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius said to the Protestants of his own day—and his words apply equally to the Lefebvrists of our own time: Catholicus non est, qui a Romana ecclesia in fidei doctrina discordat. He is not a Catholic who is at variance with the Roman Church in the doctrine of the faith.”
As we can see, Cardinal Müller is particularly concerned about the “scandalous accusation that the Roman Church has departed from the Catholic faith.” In his view, it is not Rome that has departed from the Catholic Faith, but the SSPX. As such, he applied the words of Cardinal Hosius to the situation to assert that the SSPX is not Catholic: “He is not a Catholic who is at variance with the Roman Church in the doctrine of the faith.”
The Society stands accused of being too Catholic for a Rome that increasingly prefers theological compromise.
While it is certainly fair and necessary to ask whether the SSPX is Catholic, Cardinal Müller’s strong opposition to the SSPX also invites us to apply the same question to those gathered at the consistory of cardinals. After all, according to Our Lord’s words from the Sermon on the Mount, those judging must be ready to be judged by the same measures:
“Judge not, that you may not be judged, For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother: Let me cast the mote out of thy eye; and behold a beam is in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7: 1-5)
From these words, we can see that the judge should first evaluate his own behavior in the matter which he is judging. And so it is entirely reasonable and necessary for Catholics to consider whether the cardinals and Leo XIV are themselves “at variance with the Roman Church in the doctrine of the faith,” individually and as a college. To help determine this, it is useful to consider the following partial list of infallible Catholic teachings from Dr. Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, which we can group according to two broad categories of contemporary errors they oppose:
These infallible truths oppose the ideas of false ecumenism promoted by the pope and cardinals:
- “Membership of the Church is necessary for all men for salvation.”
- “The Sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for the salvation of mankind.”
- “The justification of an adult is not possible without faith.”
- “Without the special help of God, the justified cannot persevere to the end in justification.”
- “Souls who depart this life in the state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision.”
These infallible truths oppose the cafeteria Catholicism (which encourages souls to remain in their sins) promoted by the pope and cardinals:
- “God gives all the just sufficient grace for the observation of the Divine Commandments.”
- “The Human Will remains free under the influence of efficacious grace, which is not irresistible.”
- “There is a grace which is truly sufficient and yet remains inefficacious.”
- “Without special Divine Revelation, no one can know with the certainty of faith if he be in the state of grace.”
- “The grace by which we are justified may be lost, and is lost by every grievous sin.”
In one way or another, these infallible truths of the Catholic Faith are all opposed by the official positions of today’s Vatican, as expressed in the teachings of Francis, Leo XIV, Cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the Synod on Synodality. This reality compels us to return to Cardinal Müller’s words above:
“He is not a Catholic who is at variance with the Roman Church in the doctrine of the faith.”
The most obvious conclusion we can draw from this is that many of those gathered at the extraordinary consistory of cardinals are not Catholic. It also follows that Leo XIV and the cardinals are either quite comfortable with this unholy travesty or incapable of understanding the Catholic Faith. In either case, these men have enormous beams in their eyes, making it impossible for them to fairly judge the SSPX. And, if we want to honestly apply Cardinal Müller’s test, we can see that those in the Vatican who will condemn the SSPX are not themselves Catholic.
The question is no longer whether the SSPX is Catholic, but whether today’s Vatican still measures itself by the same Catholic standard.
Why, though, do such men seek to judge the SSPX in the first place? As we can see from the “Profession of Catholic Faith of the Society of Saint Pius X to enlighten souls in the face of modern errors,” condemned by Cardinal Müller, the problem is that the SSPX actually believes all of the infallible truths in Dr. Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma and opposes the errors that contradict or obscure those infallible Catholic truths. In other words, the problem with the SSPX is that they insist on following the unadulterated Catholic Faith at a time when Rome wants everyone to follow a dumbed-down religion that caters to the lowest common denominator of Christian belief.
Thus, the SSPX will be condemned by non-Catholics because they insist on being Catholics. God did not have to permit this reality to become so clear, but He did. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
