Shielding your conscience on moral or doctrinal or liturgical issues on anyone in the hierarchy right now won't get you to heaven.  You must study the Bible and the Magisterium to do that.  Christ said 2000 years ago towards those blue-collar folks who would hang their hat on the Jewish hierarchy, For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.—Mt 5:20.  A few hundred years later, most Arians were bishops and most Catholics trusted them.  Maybe they said things like "These are protected offices so God couldn't let 99% of all bishops be wrong." [...]

Wiktionary erroneously defines epikeia as "the principle in ethics that a law can be broken to achieve a greater good."  Of course, the notion that the end justifies the means can never be squared with Catholic moral theology.  As soon as one believes that the end justifies the means, one approaches the moral theology heresies of consequentialism and proportionalism.  I blogged against those errors here in a post called The Greater Good is Not a Catholic Moral System especially when applied to forcing people to take an experimental injection "for the greater good" a couple years ago. But St. Thomas Aquinas did hold epikeia to be an important virtue.  St. Thomas essentially [...]

Last week Cardinals worshipped the pagan gods with a turkey bone under the title of "western grandmother" in Canada. Cardinal Manning wrote in 1861, conglomerating numerous saints and Fathers: "Rome shall apostatise from the faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ and return to its ancient paganism... Then the Church shall be scattered, driven into the wilderness, and shall be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible hidden in catacombs, in dens, in mountains, in lurking places." The prophesy to "drive away the Vicar of Christ" may have a few meanings, found here and here and here (all non-traditional links.) The Cdl Manning quote above also reminds [...]

June and July mark some bittersweet anniversaries in the traditional movement.  It was on 30 June 1988 that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer did episcopal consecrations without the approval of Rome.  Pope John Paul II quickly wrote a document called Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, meaning "On the Afflicted Church of God."  This is a barely-veiled reference to imply that Archbishop Lefebvre himself was "afflicting the Church of God" by consecrating bishops without the Pope's approval.  Three weeks later, on 18 July 1988, the FSSP was founded with the approval of Rome to remain both canonically regular and maintain the old-rite sacraments. I believe one of the main [...]

Although canonically-irregular, the SSPX (Society of Pope St. Pius X) founded by Archbishop Lefebvre (above picture) in the 1970s, is not schismatic.  In traditional papal encyclicals, a "schismatic community" is a Christian community adhering to valid sacraments but without recognizing the primacy of place of Rome or the importance of the papacy.  An example of this would be the Eastern Orthodox:  The Eastern Orthodox have valid sacraments, but many do not realize the primacy of place of Rome (or believe it was transferred due to error a thousand years ago.)  In any case, the SSPX has always recognized the papacy and the primacy of Rome.  The reciprocal is also true, [...]