This just in from a certain prominent website: "The powerhouse organization of the radical traditionalist Catholic world is a sprawling international order called the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), founded by the late French archbishop, Marcel-François Lefebvre, in 1970. Although there have been recent attempts by the Vatican to pull SSPX back into the Catholic mainstream, the organization, all of whose priests were excommunicated in the late 1980s, has continued to... reject any reconciliation with the Catholic Church.

"Lefebvre was on an advisory committee to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which enacted several liberalizing and modernizing reforms within the church. But the archbishop refused to sign the council's final reports on religious liberty and the modern church, the first sign of a rebellion that would only grow in later years. In 1970, he founded SSPX as a seminary in Ecône, Switzerland.

"In 1974, Lefebvre publicly denounced as heretical the Vatican II reforms and the subsequent adoption of the new Mass, celebrated in local languages instead of traditional Latin. As a result, Pope Paul VI ordered the archbishop to shut down his Swiss seminary. But Lefebvre refused to comply, leading the Vatican to suspend his right to perform priestly functions (a step short of excommunication) in 1976.

"In 1988, Lefebvre took his most radical step yet, consecrating four bishops in defiance of the Vatican. Pope John Paul II responded by excommunicating Lefebvre and all SSPX priests, and declaring SSPX in formal schism with the church.

"In recent months, the Pope has extended an olive branch to SSPX members, inviting them to return to the church. But the sect's leaders rejected the suggestion outright..."


REMNANT COMMENT: I'd be happy to link to the rest of this lying piece of leftist propaganda but I'm not in the habit of sending more web traffic to the notoriously far-Left Southern Poverty Law Center.  Yes, that’s right—this slanderous rot has been recycled by the SPLC since 2006 when they first launched their "Intelligence Report" against so-called "radical traditional Catholicism".  The SPLC's full report against the Society of St. Pius X was again regurgitated in 2015 in an "Intelligence Report" that was sent to law enforcement agencies all across the country. Ironically enough, it was sent to me just yesterday and, for a moment, I mistook it for one of Michael Voris’ newly launched attacks on the SSPX.

The SPLC is attempting to coerce government agencies into listing the SSPX as a hate group and to equate the battle for orthodoxy in Christianity in general today with hate and hate groups. To this end, they have targeted the American Family Association, the SSPX, The Remnant, and countless other pro-life, pro-family, pro-Latin Mass groups.

So why is Michael Voris and Church Militant TV spending this entire week trying to vilify the largest traditional Catholic priestly fraternity in the world by conducting a so-called “FBI investigation" of the "schismatic" SSPX? That's a good question. Perhaps we should ask Mr. Voris, especially now during the run-up to the Synod on the Family which promises to blow the human element of the Church into full-blown schism. Michael has nothing better to do? Really?  

From our point of view and whether he realizes it or not, Mr. Voris is carrying water for the most dangerous secularist enemies of the Catholic Church today. In attempting to isolate the SSPX as a “radical” fringe group that is “outside the Catholic Church” he becomes a star witness for the SPLC, and thus ultimately aids those who threaten the freedom and wellbeing of large families, hundreds of priests who adhere to the old teachings on marriage and homosexuality, tens of thousands of children, and so many good and faithful Catholics whose only "crime" is to seek refuge in the SSPX and try to save the souls of their children during the worst revolution in history.

The last thing these folks need--the last thing any of us needs at this dangerous anti-family, anti-God and anti-Catholic moment--is Michael Voris trying to boost his ratings by publicly and loudly stabbing traditional Catholics of any sort in the back and playing directly into the hands of the infamous Southern Poverty Law Center.

For heaven's sake, Michael, knock it off! Stop carrying water for the bad guys.

Editor's Note: What follows is an article I wrote some 14 years ago while stranded in a hotel in New York City. We're posting it again today as a reminder to pray for all those who lost their lives on 9/11, and to recall how our nation turned back to God ever so briefly after that terrible day, only to abandon Him with an unholy vengeance in the days that followed. We were warned, it would seem, but we did not listen. One wonders what American will be 14 years from now, as our war against God, the family and the unborn now rages out of control and the threat of terrorism is as American as baseball and apple pie. MJM

NEW YORK (November 12, 2001)—I write these words from the twelfth floor of the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. Emergency vehicle sirens wail in the streets of Manhattan below my window. It seems that the city is crying again.

The television in my hotel room is on. I’m trying to learn more about the latest crisis to strike this poor city: an airplane—yet another American Airliner—has crashed into Queens. Over 240 passengers and crew are dead; nobody knows how many are dead on the ground where Flight 587 apparently exploded and plummeted into a residential neighborhood.

"Oddsfish, Chuck! Let's just call it 'annulment' then..."

Early reports are in, and it looks like Pope Francis, as expected, has radically reformed the process by which Catholics may annul their marriages, streamlining steps that many liberals in the church considered too cumbersome.

The move is the latest in a series of public relations initiatives, whereby Francis hopes to make his pontificate appear more responsive to the needs of lay Catholics, especially those who have "long felt marginalized" by the hierarchy (READ: Don't like Catholic moral theology).

The three main changes announced on Tuesday are: