The SSPX Slugfest
Right around Easter Sunday 2020, Catholic social media erupted into chatter (often quite contentious) over the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). A well-known Catholic online personality, Dr. Taylor Marshall, reported that he had attended Easter Sunday Mass with his family at a SSPX chapel near his home. This brought an immediate reaction from Michael Voris at Church Militant, Timothy Gordon, and other prominent Catholic online commentators. For a week we saw a raging battle swinging to and fro over the legitimacy of SSPX. Then, Church Militant released a mini-documentary reporting on alleged serious cases of sexual abuse from SSPX priests and subsequent attempts at coverup on the part of the parent organization. Whether or not these allegations have substance is not yet clear at the time this article’s posting, but the firefights now raging in response to the Church Militant’s SSPX video are intense and brutal.
Hank Igitur (an obscure yet non-prominent Catholic online commentator in his own right) offers the following observations:
Readers wishing to better understand both sides of this heartbreaking story are encouraged to visit the following sites:
Church Militant‘s short documentary describing the abuse allegations.
SSPX.org statement on the Church Militant article here.
Regardless of the outcome, or where the truth lies between the Church Militant and SSPX positions regarding these allegations, one thing seems pretty certain: the devil is laughing at us.