Bishop Sanborn gave an excellent conference here in London yesterday and despite having interviewed him numerous times, I had not, until yesterday, heard him present a short case on the Catholic solution to the crisis we find ourselves in.
The bishop made clear that the issue was not the personal heresies of JPII or BXVI or even that creator of new sedevacantists, Francis, or our feelings about the New Mass. The issue was and is: what are the PRINCIPLES that underlie your current stance?
This is not always something we can see immediately. Some are still stuck in feelings of revulsion from the obvious non-Catholicity of the Novus Ordo, others are confused by the schizophrenia of the SSPX or its newest sect, "the Resistance." But if you are able to step back and look back at the real question: is Vatican II a Catholic Council or is it not - then the path to what logically follows becomes crystal clear (N.B. the terms "maybe," "kind of," or "only a 'pastoral' council" have no precedent or purpose in Catholic theology and are used by people entirely unserious in dealing with these matters). Those (laymen or clergy) who fail to give you a clear answer on whether Vatican II is Catholic or not are as Modernist as those they seek to condemn.
By the Feast of the Epiphany the conference will be available to those who are Gold Subscribers and above. A short preview of it will be available in the coming weeks.
As a postscript it was a confirmation to me of what a sad state of affairs Traditional Catholicism in Europe really is in. People in London turned up in droves some time back to hear Fr. Joseph Pfeiffer spend two days simply speaking ill of Bishop Fellay and the SSPX, saying absolutely zero that was doctrinally relevant, but we had a very small turnout for a Bishop who took time out of his trip to come down to London from the North to present a thoroughly coherent approach to the current crisis. I suspect many stayed away simply because they were afraid that Bishop Sanborn would challenge the sandcastles they have built for themselves.
Perhaps it is its obsession with internecine disputes that is precisely why Europe represents the past of Traditional Catholicism, and America, with her seminaries, priests, and churches built by faithful not content to meet in hotels and meeting halls, is its future.
