Welcome back. I’ve actually been looking forward to this follow-up, so I’m glad you wrote it. You’re clearly taking the crisis seriously, and I think you did a good job showing that this isn’t just surface-level confusion—it’s something deeper.
The one thing I’d just nudge a bit is where the explanation starts leaning on private revelations or historical reconstruction to fill in the gaps. That can get tricky fast.
For me, it keeps coming back to a simpler question: how do we actually identify real authority in the Church today—not just who seems right, but who can show they were truly sent?
Fair enough, I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. I didn’t mean private revelation in the strict sense.
What I was getting at is more the reliance on reconstruction to bridge gaps where the Church normally gives us something more concrete. That’s where I think things can get a bit unstable.
For me, it still comes back to the same point: how do you/we actually identify who has real mission and jurisdiction today in a way that can be demonstrated?
This is a response to an attempt to use the argument from prescription in defence of the Conciliar/Synodal Church. It isn't supposed to be a resolution of all issues, or even the most important ones.
That makes sense, S.D.—I understand you’re focusing on the prescription question here.
I’ll be interested to see how you address the broader issue when you get to it—especially how authority can be positively identified if prescription doesn’t hold. I look forward to that.
Louis: "how do you/we actually identify who has real mission and jurisdiction today in a way that can be demonstrated?"
Traditionalist bishops don't have jurisdiction (taking a look at the history of the Church, maybe they could have had jurisdiction if Abp. Lefebvre or Thuc consecrated them to fill a vacant see, following the example of St. Eusebius of Samosata, but as it is, they are merely sacramental bishops), and I haven't read anything actually demonstrating that they have mission either, and that is something that has to be proven, and not presumed.
On the other hand, Eastern Catholic bishops possess both mission and jurisdiction because they were consecrated to fill vacant sees in their churches by the Authority in their churches, just the same as it always was. The Modernist heresies are much less prolific there than in the NO, so it is to be expected that there are less offices lost due to public heresy. And even if the Authority appointing the bishops has defected, common error and the definite presence of a colored title makes the appointments valid through the supply of jurisdiction by the Church.
For Latin NO bishops it's more complicated, since they were consecrated (and by now also mostly ordained) in a rite which is not among the approved and received rites of the Church, and of which there are positive doubts as to its validity. However, we know from the history of the Church that one is able to possess episcopal jurisdiction even if he is not consecrated bishop (e.g. Henri, Duke of Verneuil was Bishop of Metz for 40 years and was never ordained priest or consecrated, Thurstan of Bayeux was Abp. of York for 5 years without being consecrated, and he was elected before he was even ordained a deacon, Pope Pius III was Bishop of Sienna for 43 years while only receiving ordination as a deacon), therefore, that is not a problem, as far as the transmission of jurisdiction.
The problem is, of course, the widespread public heresy among the NO clergy, which means that a great many of them cannot validly receive an office in the Church.
This doesn't mean, however, that every single NO bishop is to be automatically considered a public heretic, even if he never actually publicly confessed any heresy, because that would be against justice.
In short, the answer to your question is: by examining if a particular bishop has a colored title, whether he was appointed by the appropriate superior (and if the authority of the superior is doubtful, then whether the conditions for a supply of jurisdiction due to common error are present), and whether the appointee has confessed public heresy which would disqualify him from holding office.
Louis, I have been very carefully considering whether to continue allowing you to comment here or not. I and I know some of my readers are unhappy with the apparently monomaniacal repetition of the question you keep asking, on articles about other things, the AI tone of the messages and the lack of attention to what you're actually commenting on (I.e. this private revelation business). I would prefer not to block you but I am going to request, as a final measure, that you cease to repeat these same questions all the time on here. You have your own website to do that, and my impression is that you are spamming up my combox and those of other sites.
Regarding the point you keep returning to, I'm afraid I agree with others that your understanding is legalistic and fails to appreciate various distinctions.
For myself, I believe that formal apostolic succession continues in the world in places unknown or uncertain to us; that this is sufficient to account for the Church's ecclesiology on the matter; that in our own wasteland the Trad ministry is justified; and that even if it were not in itself, it would still be justified for us to make use of it.
I will offer you one article that touches on this issue.
I also believe that Mgr Guérard des Lauriers' account of missio and sessio may hold some instructive points.
Having said all this, please let me now be clear. Any further comments from you on this topic on WM Review or my notes are no longer welcome. Please feel free to refute me on your own site, but further engagement in the places mentioned will result in a block. You've just been too persistent on it in a way which has been annoying, and patience has run out. Feel free also to brush to sand off your feet, if that is how you see it – but I'd suggest that some reflection on your own methods might be more productive.
In spite of the hard words above, I bear you no ill will and I wish you well. Although the persistence has been annoying, I do appreciate that you have otherwise been polite, which is a rare commodity online.
"But this withdrawal from enforcement in matters of doctrine is one reason why it is difficult to say that those who are involved with the Conciliar/Synodal Church cease to be members of the Church on the grounds of a defective profession of faith: by and large, the Conciliar/Synodal Church permits them to profess the Catholic Faith."
But does it really permit that?
I am not quite sure I entirely grasp your contention that the Conciliar/Synodal church is not a false sect. For it seems to have its own constitutive element, namely adherence to the documents of Vatican II. Refusal to do so by a Catholic professing the actual Catholic faith has lead to excommunication from that Conciliar group, such refusal being at the root of their "enforcement in matters of doctrine", designated as acts of schism or disobedience.
The Conciliar church seems most akin to a freesmasonic lodge, namely all are welcome so long as one agrees that no religion is superior to another. If one professes the actual Catholic faith and its superiority, one is essentially expelled, e.g. deprived of the sacraments as the SSPX despite the claim of canonical irregularity and variable allowances. Therefore it seems as more than just an aggregate.
For the most part, the Modernist sect lets the faithful confess whatever they like, and rarely punishes them in any way at all, let alone excommunication. That's why going to a NO mass or being involved in a NO parish doesn't equal a defective profession of faith. I personally know people who go to a conservative NO, but are rather traditional, and definitely not heretics.
For its priests and bishops, it's true that the Modernist sect doesn't tolerate open criticism of Vatican II and its deforms, and I once met a NO priest who was punished for that reason. I've also known NO priests who are against the deforms but remain silent to avoid being persecuted.
I think the best description of the Crisis is that the Catholic Church is eclipsed by the false church of the Modernists, so that few can see the True Church, and many mistake the false church for the True Church that it eclipses. Those who publicly confess the Modernist heresies are members of the Modernist sect, and cease to be members of the Catholic Church, but those who do not confess heresy and are involved with the NO merely because they mistakenly believe that that is the Catholic Church (which is not hard to do because materially it seems to be the same body with the same name and succession of pastors) cannot be accused of leaving the Church. However confused, however ignorant, they have not left the Church and still remain Catholic, even though they are involved in the Conciliar church, which can thus be defined as an "aggregation of Catholics and non-Catholics", as the author put it.
There is the Catholic Church (composed of Catholics), the Modernist sect (composed of Modernist heretics that have usurped Catholic offices and churches, and the laity that shares their heresies and supports them in their goal of destroying the Church by radically changing it), and the Conciliar church (composed both of the members of the Modernist sect as well as of Catholics deceived into thinking that the Conciliar church represents the Catholic Church).
The Catholic Church is the body being eclipsed, the Modernist sect is the body doing the eclipsing, and the Conciliar church is the appearance to the observer that there is but one body.
If a man who didn't know what a total solar eclipse was went out of the house and saw it in the sky, he would think that he was looking at one body, the Sun, who had for some reason gone dark, and only an outer ring could be seen. If it continued that way for a long time, he would simply think that that is what the Sun looks like now. His children, born after the eclipse, would not even know a different Sun existed.
Well, the Catholic Church is, fittingly, the Sun, since She illuminates the world with sanctity and heavenly doctrine, and the dark Moon obscuring the Sun is the Modernist sect, which has placed itself in the position of the Sun, obscuring it so that the observer can see but a tiny fragment of its rays (the true doctrine and Mass now found in few places). He thinks that what he is seeing is the Sun, but he sees that it has gone dark, as people inevitably recognize that what they think is the Catholic Church has changed its doctrine and its rites, and ceased to shine with the holiness and purity that they perceived in the past when they observed Her (even the non-Catholics). Those born after the change do not even know of a different church than that dark entity with a shiny edge they grew up seeing.
But to a few it is given to see that the Church is not that entity, that it is in fact two bodies that they see: one, bright, which is the Church, and the other, dark, which is obscuring the Church.
It seems you are looking at this from the perspective of the Catholic going to the NO. A Catholic can maintain Catholic beliefs despite attendance at a Protestant gathering for example, but a Protestant minister would expel a Catholic who displayed those beliefs.
So my question is more from the NO viewpoint. Is it really just an aggregate of different beliefs or is it actually bound by a religious belief that one must adhere to to be a member, namely Vatican II? As an official act, go to a NO bishop and state you don't adhere to the documents of Vatican II and you don't attend the NO mass on Sundays? What do you think his response will be regarding your membership in the Conciliar church, again constitutively defined as a religion by Vatican II?
I've had similar experiences with the NO as the one Mr. Wright described below. I was raised in the NO and I can tell you that the clarity and principled way of acting you are describing is totally alien to them. I once talked to the local NO bishop, who was well aware that I was assisting at a Mass "unauthorized by him" and said by a priest who is "outside the Church" (according to the NO bishop). I also disputed ecumenism with theological and canonical arguments. I got a lecture and that was it. The same with a NO priest when I used to assist at the NO a long time ago.
Welcome back. I’ve actually been looking forward to this follow-up, so I’m glad you wrote it. You’re clearly taking the crisis seriously, and I think you did a good job showing that this isn’t just surface-level confusion—it’s something deeper.
The one thing I’d just nudge a bit is where the explanation starts leaning on private revelations or historical reconstruction to fill in the gaps. That can get tricky fast.
For me, it keeps coming back to a simpler question: how do we actually identify real authority in the Church today—not just who seems right, but who can show they were truly sent?
That part still feels unresolved.
I don't think I've appealed to private revelations anywhere on this.
Fair enough, I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. I didn’t mean private revelation in the strict sense.
What I was getting at is more the reliance on reconstruction to bridge gaps where the Church normally gives us something more concrete. That’s where I think things can get a bit unstable.
For me, it still comes back to the same point: how do you/we actually identify who has real mission and jurisdiction today in a way that can be demonstrated?
That part is what I’m still not seeing resolved.
This is a response to an attempt to use the argument from prescription in defence of the Conciliar/Synodal Church. It isn't supposed to be a resolution of all issues, or even the most important ones.
That makes sense, S.D.—I understand you’re focusing on the prescription question here.
I’ll be interested to see how you address the broader issue when you get to it—especially how authority can be positively identified if prescription doesn’t hold. I look forward to that.
Louis: "how do you/we actually identify who has real mission and jurisdiction today in a way that can be demonstrated?"
Traditionalist bishops don't have jurisdiction (taking a look at the history of the Church, maybe they could have had jurisdiction if Abp. Lefebvre or Thuc consecrated them to fill a vacant see, following the example of St. Eusebius of Samosata, but as it is, they are merely sacramental bishops), and I haven't read anything actually demonstrating that they have mission either, and that is something that has to be proven, and not presumed.
On the other hand, Eastern Catholic bishops possess both mission and jurisdiction because they were consecrated to fill vacant sees in their churches by the Authority in their churches, just the same as it always was. The Modernist heresies are much less prolific there than in the NO, so it is to be expected that there are less offices lost due to public heresy. And even if the Authority appointing the bishops has defected, common error and the definite presence of a colored title makes the appointments valid through the supply of jurisdiction by the Church.
For Latin NO bishops it's more complicated, since they were consecrated (and by now also mostly ordained) in a rite which is not among the approved and received rites of the Church, and of which there are positive doubts as to its validity. However, we know from the history of the Church that one is able to possess episcopal jurisdiction even if he is not consecrated bishop (e.g. Henri, Duke of Verneuil was Bishop of Metz for 40 years and was never ordained priest or consecrated, Thurstan of Bayeux was Abp. of York for 5 years without being consecrated, and he was elected before he was even ordained a deacon, Pope Pius III was Bishop of Sienna for 43 years while only receiving ordination as a deacon), therefore, that is not a problem, as far as the transmission of jurisdiction.
The problem is, of course, the widespread public heresy among the NO clergy, which means that a great many of them cannot validly receive an office in the Church.
This doesn't mean, however, that every single NO bishop is to be automatically considered a public heretic, even if he never actually publicly confessed any heresy, because that would be against justice.
In short, the answer to your question is: by examining if a particular bishop has a colored title, whether he was appointed by the appropriate superior (and if the authority of the superior is doubtful, then whether the conditions for a supply of jurisdiction due to common error are present), and whether the appointee has confessed public heresy which would disqualify him from holding office.
Louis, I have been very carefully considering whether to continue allowing you to comment here or not. I and I know some of my readers are unhappy with the apparently monomaniacal repetition of the question you keep asking, on articles about other things, the AI tone of the messages and the lack of attention to what you're actually commenting on (I.e. this private revelation business). I would prefer not to block you but I am going to request, as a final measure, that you cease to repeat these same questions all the time on here. You have your own website to do that, and my impression is that you are spamming up my combox and those of other sites.
Regarding the point you keep returning to, I'm afraid I agree with others that your understanding is legalistic and fails to appreciate various distinctions.
For myself, I believe that formal apostolic succession continues in the world in places unknown or uncertain to us; that this is sufficient to account for the Church's ecclesiology on the matter; that in our own wasteland the Trad ministry is justified; and that even if it were not in itself, it would still be justified for us to make use of it.
I will offer you one article that touches on this issue.
https://www.wmreview.org/p/leo-xiii-duties-of-laymen
Also the below:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060820033017/http:/www.strobertbellarmine.net/twisted.html
I also believe that Mgr Guérard des Lauriers' account of missio and sessio may hold some instructive points.
Having said all this, please let me now be clear. Any further comments from you on this topic on WM Review or my notes are no longer welcome. Please feel free to refute me on your own site, but further engagement in the places mentioned will result in a block. You've just been too persistent on it in a way which has been annoying, and patience has run out. Feel free also to brush to sand off your feet, if that is how you see it – but I'd suggest that some reflection on your own methods might be more productive.
In spite of the hard words above, I bear you no ill will and I wish you well. Although the persistence has been annoying, I do appreciate that you have otherwise been polite, which is a rare commodity online.
"But this withdrawal from enforcement in matters of doctrine is one reason why it is difficult to say that those who are involved with the Conciliar/Synodal Church cease to be members of the Church on the grounds of a defective profession of faith: by and large, the Conciliar/Synodal Church permits them to profess the Catholic Faith."
But does it really permit that?
I am not quite sure I entirely grasp your contention that the Conciliar/Synodal church is not a false sect. For it seems to have its own constitutive element, namely adherence to the documents of Vatican II. Refusal to do so by a Catholic professing the actual Catholic faith has lead to excommunication from that Conciliar group, such refusal being at the root of their "enforcement in matters of doctrine", designated as acts of schism or disobedience.
The Conciliar church seems most akin to a freesmasonic lodge, namely all are welcome so long as one agrees that no religion is superior to another. If one professes the actual Catholic faith and its superiority, one is essentially expelled, e.g. deprived of the sacraments as the SSPX despite the claim of canonical irregularity and variable allowances. Therefore it seems as more than just an aggregate.
For the most part, the Modernist sect lets the faithful confess whatever they like, and rarely punishes them in any way at all, let alone excommunication. That's why going to a NO mass or being involved in a NO parish doesn't equal a defective profession of faith. I personally know people who go to a conservative NO, but are rather traditional, and definitely not heretics.
For its priests and bishops, it's true that the Modernist sect doesn't tolerate open criticism of Vatican II and its deforms, and I once met a NO priest who was punished for that reason. I've also known NO priests who are against the deforms but remain silent to avoid being persecuted.
I think the best description of the Crisis is that the Catholic Church is eclipsed by the false church of the Modernists, so that few can see the True Church, and many mistake the false church for the True Church that it eclipses. Those who publicly confess the Modernist heresies are members of the Modernist sect, and cease to be members of the Catholic Church, but those who do not confess heresy and are involved with the NO merely because they mistakenly believe that that is the Catholic Church (which is not hard to do because materially it seems to be the same body with the same name and succession of pastors) cannot be accused of leaving the Church. However confused, however ignorant, they have not left the Church and still remain Catholic, even though they are involved in the Conciliar church, which can thus be defined as an "aggregation of Catholics and non-Catholics", as the author put it.
There is the Catholic Church (composed of Catholics), the Modernist sect (composed of Modernist heretics that have usurped Catholic offices and churches, and the laity that shares their heresies and supports them in their goal of destroying the Church by radically changing it), and the Conciliar church (composed both of the members of the Modernist sect as well as of Catholics deceived into thinking that the Conciliar church represents the Catholic Church).
The Catholic Church is the body being eclipsed, the Modernist sect is the body doing the eclipsing, and the Conciliar church is the appearance to the observer that there is but one body.
If a man who didn't know what a total solar eclipse was went out of the house and saw it in the sky, he would think that he was looking at one body, the Sun, who had for some reason gone dark, and only an outer ring could be seen. If it continued that way for a long time, he would simply think that that is what the Sun looks like now. His children, born after the eclipse, would not even know a different Sun existed.
Well, the Catholic Church is, fittingly, the Sun, since She illuminates the world with sanctity and heavenly doctrine, and the dark Moon obscuring the Sun is the Modernist sect, which has placed itself in the position of the Sun, obscuring it so that the observer can see but a tiny fragment of its rays (the true doctrine and Mass now found in few places). He thinks that what he is seeing is the Sun, but he sees that it has gone dark, as people inevitably recognize that what they think is the Catholic Church has changed its doctrine and its rites, and ceased to shine with the holiness and purity that they perceived in the past when they observed Her (even the non-Catholics). Those born after the change do not even know of a different church than that dark entity with a shiny edge they grew up seeing.
But to a few it is given to see that the Church is not that entity, that it is in fact two bodies that they see: one, bright, which is the Church, and the other, dark, which is obscuring the Church.
It seems you are looking at this from the perspective of the Catholic going to the NO. A Catholic can maintain Catholic beliefs despite attendance at a Protestant gathering for example, but a Protestant minister would expel a Catholic who displayed those beliefs.
So my question is more from the NO viewpoint. Is it really just an aggregate of different beliefs or is it actually bound by a religious belief that one must adhere to to be a member, namely Vatican II? As an official act, go to a NO bishop and state you don't adhere to the documents of Vatican II and you don't attend the NO mass on Sundays? What do you think his response will be regarding your membership in the Conciliar church, again constitutively defined as a religion by Vatican II?
I've had similar experiences with the NO as the one Mr. Wright described below. I was raised in the NO and I can tell you that the clarity and principled way of acting you are describing is totally alien to them. I once talked to the local NO bishop, who was well aware that I was assisting at a Mass "unauthorized by him" and said by a priest who is "outside the Church" (according to the NO bishop). I also disputed ecumenism with theological and canonical arguments. I got a lecture and that was it. The same with a NO priest when I used to assist at the NO a long time ago.
It "has" led to the excommunication you mentioned, but in most cases it has not; especially for laymen.
As far as I know, even I am considered to be in good standing with them. I've never been censured or anything like that.
I have been lectured and hectored and told off though, but it's never more than that.