Fr Isaac Mary Relyea recommends WM Review: 'One of my favorite sites'
'I love it,' the popular preacher, also calling Novus Ordo Watch 'awesome.' Although Relyea rejects certain conclusions, few have the integrity to speak like this about those with whom they disagree.
(WM Round-Up) – In a recent video, Franciscan mission preacher Fr Isaac Mary Relyea praised sedevacantists as “fantastic researchers,” calling “awesome,” and recommending The WM Review as “one of [his] favourite websites.
Relyea, who was formerly associated with The Fatima Center, is known for no-nonsense mission sermons about topics such as the Four Last Things. His videos and articles are avaiable at Soldiers of the Immaculate.
Whilst making clear that he is not himself a sedevacantist, Relyea referred to the “nonsense” of “the so-called good guys,” referring to them as “deaf, dumb and blind” and unable to “see what’s before them.”
He lamented the fear which many experience when confronted with sedevacantist ideas, and called his listeners not to be afraid of the truth.
Notwithstanding any caveats and warnings, Relyea’s praise speaks for itself. Here is the following exchange, starting around 23min 53s:
We made this clear: I'm not a sedevacantist, alright?
I guess, like I said before, I was falling into the recognize and resist [camp]—but if I put a link up to a particular article – and I’m pretty careful what we do here – and the article is 100% true, I don't have a… The truth will set you free. I said so.
Basically, it's a shame because the sedevacantists, you know…
[Interviewer: They are fantastic researchers.]
Yeah, that’s a very good point. Unbelievable.
Like, one of my favorite websites—I'll say it right now—is WM Review. I love it. I mean, these men, like Max just said, are some of the best researchers.
Their resources—which they have a list of books that all Catholics should read—and it’s phenomenal. Gold. When I say gold, I mean gold.
And they’re very charitable. They don’t… they're not condescending. They don't attack any person. They just say: this is what happened, and this is what the Church has always taught. And they put doctrine out there for you.
So, sites like that, I would always recommend. That’s it.And there’s not too many sites that I recommend, as far as sedevacantists. But, I hope that answers the question.
[Interviewer: I just thought I’d mention that, because I said that I had seven links. One of them is to novusordowatch.org, and they’ve got a good collection of content. Just that their conclusions on the validity of the Mass, and who’s the pope—I don't agree with.]
Yeah. Like, there's another site, and like, uh, when you’ve got to do research, it's awesome. Go on
—forget about it. They're sedevacantists. But let me tell you something: if you have to find out what's going on, who said this, it's all listed there. You know? They do tons of research.But you’ve got to be careful. But look at all the so-called good guys that are out there today, putting up their nonsense. And they’re deaf, dumb, and blind. They don't even see what's before them. So be careful, my friends.
And I’m not pushing sedevacantism on anyone. But you know what? Too many people don't want to deal with it. Too many priests don’t even want to mention that word or hear them out. Why? What’s the matter? You're intimidated? You can’t handle—because we’ve got chinks in our armour, and so do they. I’m sorry to tell you.
So, we’re living in total, unprecedented times, where there’s so much confusion.
And don’t be afraid of truth, though. Don’t be afraid of truth.
It is rare to find those with such open minds when it comes to the topic of the long term vacancy under which we are living. Few have a sufficient maturity and love of truth to be able to take the approach manifested by Relyea.
In fact, the common fate of such persons is to be labelled as sedevacantists themselves, and treated accordingly – no matter how false such an accusation might be.
This leads us to a phenomenon, which we could call “the absolute impermissibility of sedevacantism”—the way in which the idea of a vacant see is treated by some as uniquely unacceptable. For some, not to condemn the idea is to endorse it; to recognise any plausibility is to be pushing it; and actually to embrace it is to become more heretical than a real heretic, and more schismatic than a real schismatic.
We hope to discuss this topic further in due course. In the meantime, we thank Fr Relyea for his kind words.
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It's the charity towards all that The WM Review consistently and without fail practices that makes it so powerful. No unforced errors. This is the way to educate and persuade. Keep it up, gentlemen, and thank you for extolling the richness and fullness of our Catholic faith.
Some might remember that I was formerly a longtime dogmatic anti-sedevacantist, fitting perfectly the author’s indictment contained in the article’s penultimate paragraph. There were a number of converging factors which led me to reappraise the issue, and arrive at my current sede-doubtist position (ie., I’m not sure the sedevacantists are correct, but I cannot see how they can be wrong). Prominent among these converging factors were the doctrinal “building blocks” supplied by the many articles at WM Review, which calmly supplied for the many defects I THOUGHT existed in the sedevacantists thesis: It destroys visibility; it destroys apostolicity; it destroys indefectibility; it violates Vatican II’s “perpetual successors”; a universally recognized papal claimant is dogmatic fact; it is always schismatic to refuse to recognize the legitimacy of a papal claimant; etc. Against all these objections, WM Review supplied well-researched rebuttals, and when I was left with nothing but tattered arguments, my position began to seem dishonest.
The knockout punch was the WM Review’s Mr. McCusker’s LSN series on the argument from public heresy.