One of the reasons I no longer give money to the Society of St. Pius X is that their leadership is drunk on liberalism. That and they don’t know how to use their resources.
Take, for instance, Angelus Press. In the 1990s, Angelus was everything a Lefebvrist publishing house should be. Today, as a result of the Society’s human respect-driven branding campaign, it is but a shadow of its former self.
IHS Press, Mediatrix Press, In the Spirit of Chartres, Hugh Akins and others have arguably taken Angelus’ place, which has essentially gone the way of TAN.
The latest Society flop is FSSPX/News. Launched in April of 2017, the Society’s replacement for DICI is, sadly, yet predictably, an utter disaster. Ostensibly meant to inform Society faithful from a Traditional perspective about the goings on in the world, FSSPX/News is basically a more conservative version of National Catholic Register. At times, an even less conservative version of it.
The articles on the FSSPX News website are not “news” reports but instead dutiful copy and paste jobs performed by pro-“regularization” priests and SSPX lay employees. Almost all the articles are parroted from the French-based La Croix.
The naiveté of those involved in the operation manifests itself in two ways. 1) The stories selected for publication and 2) How current events are "reported" on.
Indeed, whoever is running FSSPX News is a) unfamiliar with the fault lines between “conservative” Catholicism and Traditionalism b) unfamiliar with how Abp. Lefebvre understood the crisis in the Church and c) unfamiliar with how to provide the truth about current events.
There are simply too many cartoon-like “reports” to draw your attention to. But it seems as though those who select the stories are driven by several goals.
- To make it seem as though Tradition is growing (this is often done by quoting “conservative” Bishops and Cardinals on issues like Amoris Laetitia, abortion, and the like). This gives the appearance that the Society has many allies in the conciliar Church and that a deal with Rome would only help turn the tide in the Church.
- Criticize the Pope and Modernist Rome but only by quoting extensively non-SSPX priests and Bishops (an indirect, subtle method the SSPX uses in order to say to those opposed to a deal with unconverted Rome that the Society hasn't changed).
What this strange brew of liberalism and Tradition results in is a defanged, confused Society that, to use a sports analogy, is playing not to lose instead of playing to win. Put another way, FSSPX News is more concerned with how its reporting makes them appear to non-SSPX’ers than with reporting the truth themselves. Of course, this is to be expected. As Bp. Fellay once said, he is not interested in making a lot of noise these days.
In one article on the FSSPX News site, neo-conservative Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput was featured. The article (which oddly can no longer be found on the website) reported on Chaput’s support of a nationwide group of college students known as the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. Embarrassingly, the article simultaneously praised Chaput for his work but then the last paragraph of the article clarified that Chaput was no friend of the Society.
In another article just published this week on the death of dubia signator Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the SSPX wrote this shocking sentences
Bishop Meisner was acquainted with Cardinal Karol Wojtyła and shared with him a keen sense of the interdependence of Christian faith and the moral fabric of society. “Without God, there is no culture.” He became close friends with Pope John Paul II and, like him, was a fearless defender of the sacredness of human life. “With the de facto legalization of abortion [in Germany], we have led society onto a path that leads to inhumanity and barbarism.”
Who knew? John Paul II — who denied the Social Kingship of Christ and who 'excommunicated' Marcel Lefebvre — possessed a “keen sense of the interdependence of Christian faith and the moral fabric of society.”
The last paragraph of that particualr essay added this:
Despite his conservative leanings, the late Cardinal, admittedly, was not a friend of Tradition and was not favorable toward Summorum Pontificum. Moreover, he was also critical of the SSPX’s activities, particularly within his former diocese. Even so, Meisner remained a stalwart champion of a conservative approach to Catholic moral teaching despite criticism from his fellow German churchmen.
Ah, yes. Meisner was a “conservative.” Santo Subito!
It's high time the Society of St. Pius X got out of the “news” business and got into the truth telling business. FSSPX News has simply become an occasion of sin (human respect) for them.
A simple suggestion would be to build up the Angelus Press blog and provide actual commentary on current events instead of twisting and turning to write an "objective," AP-style report on the wicked events going on in the world. Lay folk in these times shouldn't just be informed about what is going on. They need to hear what their shepherds think!
What the SSPX needs to do is get back to preaching doctrine and reminding the Pope that he needs to convert to Tradition. To remain silent in the face of such a calamitous, ruinous papacy and to instead draw the attention of Catholics to the domestic policies of India (read here) is a betrayal of the mission Abp. Lefebvre gave to his brethren.
