Knee Deep in the Hooplah

So in order to keep getting the full evil karma experience, every time I do something convenient or utilitarian that raises my karma I go back to Moriarty’s Saloon and just open his terminal over and over again.

Just need a look under the hood.

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The short, simple version is this:

There’s a splinter group of ultra conservative (religiously and politically) “Catholics” who have for several decades claimed that the Church has strayed from the true Catholicism since the Vatican II reforms of the mid 20th century. They have been warned about their actions by multiple popes at this point.

The breaking point this week was that they consecrated bishops within their sect after being expressly forbidden to do so by Pope Leo. Essentially this group is denying that the current pope is truly part of the succession of St Peter — more or less they’re saying the pope isn’t Catholic enough.

This may not seem like a huge deal from the outside, but it is essentially treasonous in terms of severity. So they have been kicked out of the Catholic church.

Whereas the SSPX lot's main areas of difference are disagreement with the whole Vatican II reforms of the 1960s. Among other things, these reforms included the Church officially releasing the Jews from any culpability in the death of Jesus and stating persecution of the Jewish people was contrary to church law (I know, what took them so long).

-The Society of St Pius X (SSPX) is founded by, basically, a Nazi. It attracts a whole lot of Nazis who, as fascists do, claim it’s about Tradition and Traditional Values like the Latin Mass and not about being virulently antisemitic.

- SSPX schisms in 1988 by ordaining bishops without permission because Pope John Paul II is too liberal. If they expected to actually start a new church or get the majority of Catholics to come to them, they are disappointed.

- So disappointed in their Holy War that wasn’t, the SSPX bishops that got ordained (and were defacto excommunicated although nothing specific was said by the Vatican about that) asked for permission to return in 2009 and were allowed to.

- The popes in that time had no taste to deal with this mess, so they basically allow the sect to continue while making pleas for unity.

- As part of that unity, in 2017 Pope Francis decreed that marriages and confessionals performed by the SSPX were legal and canonical because otherwise there would be a hot mess.

- Now in 2026, SSPX decides that the time has come to test Pope Leo’s resolve and announces that they’re going to confirm their own bishops without papal permission.

- The Vatican puts out a bunch of announcements that boil down to “No, no, think of unity.”

SSPX: Sounds weak and woke to us. Time for Holy War II, Electric Boogaloo! What do you think of that, Chicago Bob?

Pope Chicago Bob: You pull out a knife, I pull out a gun.

At this point in time, the Vatican has announced that ANYONE who remains in or supports SSPX is excommunicated, right down to & including the laity who go to their churches. No SSPX weddings or confessions taken are blessed by God.

Now, there’s an out for people who just showed up at one of their churches for Easter & Christmas - they can just quietly go elsewhere and that’s cool. And probably laity who were deep in SSPX will do the same and keep their heads low.

But it’s my understanding (via Claire Willett) that if you’re SSPX clergy who want back, you need to find a non-SSPX bishop to vouch for you, essentially be on probation for a while, and send the Pope handwritten letters of repentance and reconciliation.

The SSPX has come back with the usual “You’re so mean, we just really truly CARE about tradition and you were So! Mean! to us, why are you so cruel?” response of a bully facing consequences. If it was supposed to bring people flocking to their side, it hasn’t. If it was supposed to make Pope Leo even dignify it with a response, it didn’t.