#sspx

By the way, this might be the first time we've had both a Chicago Pope and Chicago Antipope. So there's that. I wrote all of this before the election of Leo XIV, but it still holds as true as I could make it. Most of my sources, as you'll note, are just Wikipedia pieces or direct links to sites.

Once upon a time (until his death in 2022), there was Pope Michael I of...Kansas.

A more serious look at his...Papacy (three followers plus his parents and maybe some Ultra Trad Sedevacantists on Tradcath Twitter).

And there was Gregory XVII

And Clement XV, his predecessor...in a small Sedevacantist cult known as the Apostles of Infinite Love in Quebec.

Greg 17 definitely carried on one tradition some popes indulged or covered up in...yeah, you guessed it...he was a rapist.

Wait, there's another Gregory XVII! But this one was Spanish. And also a rapist--running a cult church in Spain makes you a shoe-in for that sorta thing...c'mon...

You're telling me this guy (I'm pretty sure he was alive in the middle photo)... wasn't a sex pest of some sort (he definitely was).

He was blind, so...don't let lack of sight stop you from having a vision.

Unless that vision is to become Pope Greg so that you can abuse your self-appointed position of power to rape people and steal hand over fist from your cultists. Then maybe dream a little less antipapal and definitely less rapey. At least less rapey. Honestly if you want to become Antipope Gregory XXX Xander Cage, that's...fine. But you better drive the AntiPopemobile off a bridge and jump out with a cool parachute. Doing that while blind would be really impressive, like, I'd join your church because surviving that shit shows divine favor.

There was also a movie made making fun of him while he was Pope. Since it was made in Spain in 1986, I'm sure some of the humor might not be the most PC, but goddamn Spain, you just went for the throat like it was 1936 again. Good for you. Way to learn from years of Francoism, inquisitions, and Every Other Damn Thing the Church has put you through. I mean, you're not taking swings at the Big Guy in Rome, but a lot of your population is still Catholic and like Super Vocal about stuff so, hit where you can.

Following his death in 2005, the day after, like his liver wasn't even cold yet, Antipope Peter II (Manuel Alonso Corral), his successor, canonised him as a Catholic saint in the Palmarian Catholic Church as "Pope St. Gregory XVII the Very Great". So take that just Pope Saint Gregory the Great and all the other Saints Greg out there. They got you beat.

At least the Palmarians have a fancy (if a little tacky, but they might be compensating for their complete lack of legitimacy) antipapal cathedral-basilica. Peter II's successor , Gregory XVIII, was shunned by the Palmarians when he...stepped down as Pope, recanted his entire cult, and rejoined Rome as a layman, probably the only sensible guy in the bunch, just looking around and going, "Nah, we're not like serious with this, are we, guys? Like I saw the movie about the last Greg and it was pretty funny." Don't worry, you can still go there and high five Pope Peter III.

Just be sure to wash your hands after. Look at those creepy Swiss eyes. He's looking at the photographer like he just got caught with a whole bus full of nuns and nothing under his cassock.

Back to America, land of the impressive number of tiny dueling antipopes...

And of course there's the True Catholic Church (yeah, they didn't even try with that one) led by Pope Pius XIII and led from his See in...a chapel in Kalispell, Montana. I'm pretty sure that he was the one and only Pope of the True Catholic Church, but there might be someone in Montana wearing his hat and pimp ring.

I'm not going to get into the SSPX (Society of Saint Pius X) because I want to keep this light (lighter, anyway minus all the cults, rapes, and that sorta thing). Loosely put, they're a bunch of fucking mostly-French nerd-assed schismatics.

For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church [Rome], on account of its preeminent authority.

Mr Richard Williamson was no bishop, no pastor, no minister of the Gospel. He was no less than an agent of satan himself. He despised the church, despised humanity and despised the sacraments.

By all means, we must pray for his soul. But we must pray all the more fervently for the souls of the poor victims who were ensnared by him. Especially since, because he only celebrated the Tridentine Mass, they never received the chalice of Our Lord's blood from him (in effect, he never really gave them the sacrament).

May he find forgiveness in Christ, but may his victims be united to the same Christ from whom he endeavoured to separate them; and may no more fall victim to other wolves like him.

It's a truth universally acknowledged that at every major council, a group splits off. At Nicaea it was the Arians, at Trent it was the Protestants, at Vatican I it was the Old Catholics, and at Vatican II it was the SSPX.

SSPX stands for Society of St Pius X, and they basically rejected a lot of the ecumenical and liturgical reforms, and then consecrated a bunch of priests and bishops in direct defiance of the Holy See. Lots of excommunications all round, bad time for everyone. Then a group split off from them for not being traddy enough, and they called themselves the SSPV (Society of St Pius V). Not wholly sure what they're doing now, but they're still around. The Palmarians (super weird cult with their own pope) are also an offshoot of this "Lefebvrist" movement (Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre being the founder of the SSPX).

Currently they're in a "canonically irregular" situation, where they officially denounce sedevacantism and call themselves Catholic, but in practice they don't submit to the Pope's authority, they don't accept the Ordinary Form of the Mass, and they have an entirely parallel structure of priests, bishops, and dioceses. Their sacraments are valid, but illicit (mostly-- they can do confession, baptism and marriage). Basically JPII, Benedict XVI, and Francis have made various moves to get them back in by lifting excommunications, changing rules around the EF, and allowing certain sacraments to be celebrated, but they're still firmly one foot out the door and refusing to budge, which for orthodox Catholics is already too many feet.

SSPX apologists will make all sorts of arguments to say that their rebelliousness is justified and that they're not in schism, but the long and the short of it is that a) every heretic group thinks they're in the right and b) the attitude of non-obedience is really spiritually dangerous anyway.

And because I'm just a layperson with a philosophy degree, not theology degree, I'm also worried that I didn't provide enough context in the section of passages I decided to enclose in quotations. Whenever you see something that seems to be in contradiction to what you have been accustomed to understand as authentic Catholicism, please remember this passage from Pope Benedict XVI's letter to the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre:

"The Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962 – this must be quite clear to the Society. But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life."

We must avoid both traditionally heretical and liberally heretical interpretation and application of Vatican II.

Solemn Requiem Mass at the SSPX Chapel of St Michael the Archangel in Burghclere, Hampshire, England for Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallarais on Saturday 19 October 2024. 🙏

I think a lot of newer generations of Traditional Catholics can easily fail to appreciate just how crucial a role Bishop Tissier played in establishing the traditionalist movement within the Catholic Church - dare I say that without Father & later Bishop Tissier, we would not have had the historical giant that was Archbishop Lefebvre. I did know some of the well-known stories, such as his involvement as one of the first nine seminarians who went to Abp Lefebvre during the initial upheavals in the 1960s, and of course his later consecration as a bishop, but there were also many stories of his ongoing support to the Archbishop both in the early days of the Society, and later in the lead-up to the consecrations of which I was personally unaware until after his recent untimely passing.

Thanks be to God for such a wonderful man!