The Pillar Catholic portal reports on a recent episode of its podcast discussing the Society of St. Pius X’s (SSPX) upcoming episcopal consecrations without a papal mandate. The hosts, JD Flynn and Ed Condon, analyze the SSPX’s document “Annex II,” which argues that such consecrations would not constitute schism. The article presents the SSPX’s canonical and theological defense as a serious engagement with Church law, framing the issue as a technical debate about jurisdiction and the nature of schism within the current ecclesial landscape.
The central thesis of this analysis is that the SSPX’s defense is a sophisticated but ultimately bankrupt exercise in theological naturalism, which operates on the fatal modernist premise that the post-conciliar hierarchy possesses any legitimate authority. By accepting the legitimacy of the “popes” since John XXIII, the SSPX places itself in formal communion with a series of manifest heretics, thereby rendering its own canonical arguments null and void. Its attempt to navigate canon law while denying the fundamental reality of the sede vacante is a perfect illustration of the “hermeneutics of continuity” condemned by St. Pius X—a refusal to confront the radical rupture of apostasy.
The Fatal Premise: Accepting the Legitimacy of the Heretical Hierarchy
The entire SSPX argument in “Annex II” proceeds from the unexamined and heretical assumption that the individuals who have occupied the Vatican since 1958 are valid Roman Pontiffs. This is the foundational error from which all other errors flow. The SSPX, by recognizing the “papal” authority of John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and the current antipope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), places itself in communion with a line of teachers who have explicitly and repeatedly promulgated heresies.
The Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX, issued with the full weight of the Magisterium, condemns numerous propositions held by these post-conciliar “popes.” For example:
* **On Religious Liberty (Syllabus, Error #15):** “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.” This was dogmatically condemned. Yet Vatican II’s *Dignitatis Humanae* and the “popes'” consistent promotion of religious freedom as a right are direct affirmations of this condemned error.
* **On the Church’s Relationship to the State (Syllabus, Errors #19, 20, 24, 25, 27):** The Syllabus rejects the notion that the State defines the rights of the Church, that ecclesiastical power requires civil permission, that the Church has no temporal power, or that the State can interfere in the governance of the Church. The post-conciliar “papacy” has consistently embraced these errors, subordinating the Church to the secular state and embracing the “separation of Church and State” condemned in Error #55.
* **On the Nature of the Church (Syllabus, Error #21):** “The Church has not the power of defining dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion.” The post-conciliar magisterium, through its ecumenical dialogues and statements, has repeatedly refused to define Catholicity as the unique path to salvation, instead promoting a relativism that the Syllabus anathematizes.
By participating in the “magisterium” of these heretics—attending their “liturgies,” receiving “sacraments” from their ministers (whose orders are also suspect due to the radical reform of the rite of Holy Orders), and acknowledging their authority—the SSPX is in formal, objective communion with heresy. As St. Robert Bellarmine, cited in the Defense of Sedevacantism file, teaches: a manifest heretic is “not a Christian” and therefore “cannot be the head of the Church.” The SSPX’s entire canonical position collapses because it treats as Pope one who, by manifest heresy, *ipso facto* ceased to be Pope the moment he publicly taught error. Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law confirms: “Every office becomes vacant by the mere fact… if the cleric… Publicly defects from the Catholic faith.”
Canonical Fictions and the Illusion of “Schism”
The SSPX’s “Annex II” argues that its planned consecrations, done without a papal mandate, would not be schismatic because the requesting “pope” (Leo XIV) is either not a legitimate superior or is a heretic who has forfeited his office. This argument, while correctly identifying the heresy of the current occupant, fatally stops short. It correctly diagnoses the disease but then proposes a treatment that assumes the patient is still alive.
The argument is that one is not schismatic for not obeying a non-superior. This is true in principle. However, the SSPX’s decades-long posture of “recognizing” the antipopes while “resisting” their errors is a duplicitous scandal. It teaches the faithful that one can be in “communion” with a heretic, a doctrine condemned by the Church. The very act of seeking “recognition” from the conciliar hierarchy, of negotiating “regularization,” is an implicit acknowledgment of its authority. This is the modernist “dialogue” and “integration” condemned in the Syllabus and by St. Pius X in *Pascendi Dominici Gregis*.
True canonical reasoning, from the unchanging pre-1958 Magisterium, holds that in the absence of a legitimate Pope (the *sede vacante*), no one can lawfully receive episcopal consecration *with* a papal mandate because there is no one to give it. Conversely, a bishop consecrating another *without* a papal mandate in a *sede vacante* situation is not schismatic because there is no legitimate superior to schism from. The act would be valid but illicit, potentially supplying a need in a time of crisis. The SSPX, however, has never consistently taught the *sede vacante*. Its 1970s and 1980s statements often referred to Paul VI and John Paul II as the “Sovereign Pontiff.” Its current “defense” is a tactical, not doctrinal, position. It wants to have its cake and eat it too: the canonical cover of “not being schismatic” while still maintaining a facade of loyalty to the “Holy See.” This is the essence of Modernism: to hold contradictory positions in a synthetic, ambiguous manner.
The Omission: The Primacy of Christ the King Over All Human Systems
The most damning “silence” in the entire SSPX discourse, and in the Pillar podcast’s discussion of it, is the complete absence of the doctrine of the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ as defined by Pope Pius XI in *Quas Primas*.
Pius XI, in the encyclical instituting the feast of Christ the King, declared with absolute clarity: “the State must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders and Congregations… the annual celebration of this solemnity will also remind states that not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.” The Pope explicitly links the peace and order of society to the public recognition of Christ’s law. He condemns secularism (“laicism”) as a “plague” that has removed Christ from public life, leading to discord, egoism, and the destruction of the family and state.
Where is this doctrine in the SSPX’s “Annex II” or in the podcast’s analysis? Nowhere. The entire debate is framed in purely canonical, juridical terms about “jurisdiction,” “ordinary vs. delegated power,” and “schism.” This is a naturalistic, legalistic reduction of the Church to a human association. It treats the Church as a mere corporation whose problems can be solved by proper canonical procedures, forgetting that the Church is the **Mystical Body of Christ**, a supernatural society whose primary law is the salvation of souls.
The SSPX’s focus on preserving the “traditional Mass” and “discipline” while remaining silent on the duty of Catholic rulers to publicly profess the Catholic faith and enact laws in conformity with it, is a retreat into a ghettoized “traditionalism” that has abandoned the Church’s missionary and social mandate. It is a symptom of the same disease it claims to fight: a fear of the supernatural, a preference for the security of old rituals over the scandalous demands of the Gospel. Pius XI warns that when “God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The SSPX, by not demanding the public reign of Christ over the modern secular state, implicitly accepts the secularist premise that religion is a private matter. This is a capitulation to the very errors condemned in the Syllabus.
The Linguistic Tone: Bureaucratic Naturalism vs. Supernatural Faith
The language of the SSPX document and the Pillar podcast discussion is telling. Words like “jurisdiction,” “ordinary power,” “delegated power,” “canonical offense,” “recognition,” “regularization” dominate. This is the vocabulary of canon lawyers and corporate administrators. It is the language of the **abomination of desolation** standing in the holy place—the replacement of supernatural theology with canonistic naturalism.
Contrast this with the language of the pre-1958 Magisterium:
* Pius XI in *Quas Primas*: “the Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… He is the source of salvation for individuals and for the whole… The state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.”
* St. Pius X in *Lamentabili Sane*: condemns the error that “the interpretation of Holy Scripture given by the Church… is subject to more exact judgments and corrections by exegetes.” He defends the supernatural authority of the Church against the encroachment of human reason.
The SSPX discussion is entirely within the framework of human law and human judgment. There is no mention of **grace**, of the **state of mortal sin** of those who promulgate heresy, of the **final judgment**, of the **sacramental system** as the sole means of salvation. The silence on these supernatural realities is the loudest proof of its modernist infection. It debates the “schism” of a group that wants to be canonically regularized with a hierarchy that is, in the words of the *Syllabus*, “hostile to the well-being and interests of society” and which “has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power” (Errors #40, 24)—a description of the post-conciliar church’s abdication of its divine mandate.
Symptomatic of the Conciliar Revolution: The “Two-Prisoner” Dilemma
The SSPX finds itself in a classic conciliar trap: it wants to preserve the “traditional” elements of the Faith (the old Mass, old morals) while accepting the “new” ecclesiological principles (collegiality, religious liberty, ecumenism) implicitly by acknowledging the authority of those who instituted them. This is the “two-prisoner” dilemma of the “resistance” within the conciliar church. It is an impossible position because Catholic doctrine is integral; you cannot accept the authority of a teaching office that has defined errors without becoming complicit in those errors.
The SSPX’s proposed solution—consecrating bishops without a mandate from a “heretical pope”—is not a return to Catholic principle. It is a desperate maneuver within the conciliar system’s own logic. It accepts the conciliar church’s definition of “schism” as the supreme canonical crime, making that definition the ultimate criterion rather than the defense of the Faith. A truly Catholic stance, from the pre-1958 Magisterium, would declare the See vacant, operate on the principle of *epikeia* (equity) in a time of crisis, and work for the election of a true Pope by a legitimate, non-heretical College of Cardinals. The SSPX will not do this because it would mean definitively breaking with the “Vatican” it claims to be “resisting” but still acknowledges.
Conclusion: A Modernist Shell Game
The SSPX’s “Annex II” and the Pillar podcast’s sympathetic analysis represent a sophisticated form of Modernism. They use the language of tradition, canon law, and resistance to create an illusion of orthodoxy while carefully avoiding the one doctrinal position that would be truly counter-revolutionary: the declaration of the *sede vacante* and the repudiation of all post-conciliar “popes” as usurpers.
Their argument is a shell game. The pea of true Catholic authority (which requires a legitimate Pope who is not a manifest heretic) is hidden under the shell of canonical procedure. The audience is asked to focus on the shell of “is this schism?” while the pea of apostasy is palmed away. The SSPX cannot answer “no” to the question “Is John Paul II/Benedict XVI/Leo XIV the Pope?” without collapsing its entire 50-year strategy of “recognition.” Therefore, it must debate the finer points of canon law while its “popes” teach the errors of the Syllabus and *Lamentabili Sane* with impunity.
The only coherent position from the perspective of integral Catholic faith is sedevacantism. Any other position is a compromise with Modernism, a refusal to “fight bravely and always under the banner of Christ the King” as Pius XI demanded, and instead to fight for a place within the modernist structure under a banner of half-tradition. The SSPX’s plan to consecrate bishops is not a heroic stand; it is the final, logical step of a movement that, by its own principles, should have no bishops at all, because it has had no legitimate Pope since at least 1958 to send them.
Source:
Ep. 249: It is schism (pillarcatholic.com)
Date: 20.02.2026