Straining the SSPX Gnat To Continue Swallowing the Vatican II Camel

Speaking to the multitudes about the bad example of the scribes and the Pharisees, Our Lord condemned those who would excuse great offenses while treating comparatively minor offenses as completely intolerable:

“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the law; judgment, and mercy, and faith. These things you ought to have done, and not to leave those undone. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness.” (Matthew 23: 23-25)

Commenting on the meaning of the gnats and camels, Cornelius a Lapide wrote:

“He ridicules, I say, the preposterous zeal of the scribes, whereby they committed the greatest offenses while avoiding the least, says Origen, ‘in being so meticulous about little matters and so confident about great ones; so scrupulous about very trifling things, and so free and bold in the commission of serious crimes; in being superstitious about ceremonial washings, but devoid of true religion and charity, since they defrauded widows and poor people.”

Through their “preposterous zeal,” these hypocrites demonstrated that they lacked the moral authority to condemn others. Their harsh judgments served to condemn their lenient judgments; and their lenient judgments made the harsh judgments appear ridiculously hypocritical.

The masterstroke of Satan has been to trick the Church through obedience into disobeying her Tradition.

There is, of course, no shortage of examples of this hypocrisy all around us. As one example that is surely familiar to many serious Catholics, we can consider how one very high ranking cleric in Rome has handled two separate matters:

• On the one hand, his Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith produced Fiducia Supplicans, the 2023 document “authorizing” the blessing of same-sex unions. As the document’s introduction states, this was a clear “innovation”: “The value of this document, however, is that it offers a specific and innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings, permitting a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding of blessings, which is closely linked to a liturgical perspective.”
• On the other hand, his Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith also produced Mater Populi Fidelis, the 2025 document notifying Catholics that they should no longer use the titles of Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary. Although the saints have devoutly used these titles, the document informed us that it is always inappropriate: “Given the necessity of explaining Mary’s subordinate role to Christ in the work of Redemption, it is always inappropriate to use the title ‘Co-redemptrix’ to define Mary’s cooperation.”

Thus we have the work of Cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández. What the Church had always condemned is now blessed, and what the Church had always blessed is now condemned. This fits the pattern Our Lord described, and so the title of hypocrite is always appropriate for Tucho.

As it often happens, hypocrites such as the scribes, Pharisees and Tucho tend to show their propensity for straining gnats and swallowing camels in many different ways. In the passage below, Tucho managed to subtly display remarkable skill in swallowing camels by suggesting there is a possibility that God positively wills the plurality of religions, as Francis had told the world. He simultaneously showcased his capacity for straining gnats by threatening to condemn the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) for pertinaciously taking the steps that its leaders have, in good conscience, determined are necessary to follow the only religion that is actually positively willed by God:

“After clarifying certain points presented by the FSSPX in various letters, particularly those sent between 2017 and 2019 — including, among other topics, the question of the divine will regarding the plurality of religions — the Prefect proposed a pathway of specifically theological dialogue, following a precise methodology, on issues that have not yet received sufficient clarification. . . . The Holy See reaffirmed that the ordination of bishops without the mandate of the Supreme Pontiff, who possesses ordinary, supreme, universal, immediate, and direct power (cf. CIC, can. 331; Dogmatic Constitution Pastor aeternus, chs. I and III), would constitute a decisive rupture of ecclesial communion (schism) . . . .”

The uninformed might reasonably imagine that the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith speaks with the “mind of the Church” so to speak, but the informed know that his mind was the same one that has produced erotic books.

Surely none of us have the desire or ability to know what is actually in Tucho’s mind, but it seems that he takes perverse pleasure in doing what he can to oppose God and His Catholic Church. The uninformed might reasonably imagine that the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith speaks with the “mind of the Church” so to speak, but the informed know that his mind was the same one that has produced erotic books.

It would be bad enough if hypocrites such as the scribes, Pharisees and Tucho were merely in a position to render false judgments, but the greater problem arises when they can somehow influence others to share in their hypocrisy. Naturally, this calamity is especially likely when the hypocrites occupy positions of power. As such, it seems that it is a great work of charity to want to alert souls to the possibility that they may be following the “blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel” (Matthew 23: 24).

As such, we can step back and survey the landscape against which the current drama with the SSPX appears. For those who today suppose that they must be on the side of Rome if they want to remain faithful Catholics, there can be no cherry-picking of issues. If you are on the side of today’s Rome —as represented by Tucho’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith when the SSPX is threatened — then you cannot legitimately be opposed to anything else that Rome publishes with the same prominence. Thus, those who want to declare that we must condemn the SSPX because, well, Tucho condemns them have a few other things that they are obliged to swallow:

• The Fiducia Supplicans “authorization” for the blessing of same-sex unions
• Amoris Laetitia’s endorsement of Communion for the divorced and remarried
• The entire Synod and Synodality, with its blasphemous desire to create a “different church”
• Rome’s persistent message that all Christian religions are pleasing to God and capable of leading their adherents to Heaven

These endeavors have all been endorsed with the purported authority of the same men who would condemn the SSPX. So even if one decries these horrors publicly, there is no way to strain them out — if we must accept Rome’s judgments about religious matters today we must accept them all.

It is an unprecedented disaster, which necessarily changes the way in which we must evaluate all of these issues.

The obvious problem with this is that one cannot accept Rome’s judgments about religious matters today without thereby rejecting what the Church has always taught. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre saw this decades ago:

“In fact ‘the masterstroke of Satan has been to trick the Church through obedience into disobeying her Tradition.’ The Church was going to destroy herself by obeying revolutionary principles brought inside the Church by the authorities of the Church. From 1968 onwards, did not Paul VI himself speak publicly of the ‘auto-demolition of the Church’? On June 29, 1972, he admitted: ‘Through some crack, the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God . . . Satan . . . has come to spoil and wither the fruits of the Council.’ Paul did not want to see where the crack was. Marcel saw it and denounced it: it lay in the break with Tradition. Already, however, the Archbishop felt that his foresight would get him condemned: ‘Satan has played a masterstroke: those who keep the Faith are condemned by those who should defend and propagate it!’” (from the Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais biography of Archbishop Lefebvre, p. 468)

To grasp the true nature of the crisis in the Catholic Church we must recognize that there is a real mystery involved: “the masterstroke of Satan has been to trick the Church through obedience into disobeying her Tradition.” It is an unprecedented disaster, which necessarily changes the way in which we must evaluate all of these issues. It is no longer sufficient to insist that we must always follow the judgments of Rome.

Thus we are left with trying to look beyond the superficial appearances if we want to follow Our Lord instead of the blind guides. As a guide who was blessed with the vision that we need today, Archbishop Lefebvre understood that we must strain out the heresies while keeping the true Catholic Tradition. In his Spiritual Journey, he articulated this in terms of how Catholics are to be “Roman” when those in Rome no longer are:

“‘Romanitis’ is not a vain word. The Latin language is an important example. It has brought the expression of the Faith and of Catholic worship to the ends of the world. And the converted people were proud to sing their Faith in this language, a real symbol of the unity of the Catholic Faith. Schisms and heresies are often begun by a rupture with Romanitis, a rupture with the Roman liturgy, with Latin, with the theology of the Latin and Roman fathers. It is this force of the Catholic Faith rooted in Romanitis that Freemasonry wished to eliminate by occupying the pontifical States and enclosing Rome in Vatican City. The occupation of Rome by the Masons permitted infiltration of the Church by Modernism and the destruction of Catholic Rome by Modernist clergy and Popes who hasten to destroy every vestige of ‘Romanitis’: the Latin language, the Roman liturgy. . . . All must be restored in Christo Domino — in Christ the Lord, in Rome as elsewhere. Let us love to see how the ways of Divine Providence and Wisdom pass by Rome. We will conclude that one cannot be Catholic without being Roman. . . . Ours is the duty to guard this Roman Tradition desired by Our Lord, as He wished us to have Mary as our Mother,” (pp. 71-72)

These are the words of a man who loved God and His Catholic Church. And today we are told that we must strain the words and beliefs of this man who loved Rome in order to swallow the demands of those who want to bury Rome.

And so we need to ask: does God want us to accept unmistakable hypocrisy and follow blind guides? Or does He instead want us to imitate the Faith of Our Lady — Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces — who stood beneath the Foot of the Cross while the hypocrites wagged their fingers? Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!