Here's what I hold:

I hold and support what the Church has always taught, and that includes obedience to rightful orders, resistance to unrightful orders and the visibility of a divinely stablished Hierarchy. There is nothing lukewarm about it, especially when you notice that this draws fire from both the "progressive" and the "traditionalist" camps upon my ugly bald head.

Unfortunately, many so-called "traditionalists" are in fact Donatists (a condemned heresy St. Augustine fought against - a Donatist believes that a bad priest or Bishop is no priest at all, as if the primary minister of any Sacrament wasn't Christ Himself through the Church, His Mystical Body), Jansenists (another condemned heresy), etc.

Most N.O. Catholics are Pelagians (idem - a Pelagian considers that we don't need the Grace of God to gain Salvation).

I firmly believe that even if a Bishop is a bad bishop and a Pope is a bad pope, they still are part of the Hierarchy of the Church and their authority is given by God, not earned through personal sainctity. They can (and will, if they are bad) abuse this authority, and in this case we don't need to obey. When they act inside the limits of their rightful authority, however, they shall be obeyed.

I am against both papolatry (to think that the Pope, or a bishop, or a priest, or the niece of the maid of the step-sister of the guy who fixes the priest's car, for all that matters, is always infallible) and disobedience to rightful orders.

We are now in a very difficult moment in the History of the Church. Never did heresy get so widespread in the Church, not even in Arian times. It is even worse, because Arians had a Doctrine, albeit false, while Modernism hasn't. Modernists just believe that there is nothing to be believed.

The core of Modernism is disobedience, disobedience to Reason, to Tradition, to the Scriptures and to the Magisterium. To fight against modernism, what needs to be done is to use the weapons God gave us: the Mass, Obedience to rightful orders of the Church, which is visible (unless you become a Prot and start believing that the real Church is an invisible reunion of "faithful christians"...), the Rosary, and action inside the Church and submitted in Holy Obedience to the Roman Pontiff.

If the priest is a bad priest, go to the Bishop. If the Bishop is a bad Bishop, get in touch with Roman Catholic Faithful (www.rcf.org, I think) and they will instruct you about what a layman can do. If the Pope is a bad Pope, obey his rightful orders and hold fast to what the Church has always taught.

Once you leave the Church, which is visible and has a visible Hierarchy, you are bound to Hell. There is absolutely no Salvation outside the Church, which, I repeat, is visible and not an invisible reunion of "faithful christians" - who, BTW, would be the ones to decide who is and who isn't a "faithful chistian"...

If the good Catholics, if the ones who want the Doctrine of the Church upheld, the ones who want the Deposit of the Faith transmitted to the new generations, decide to give up and stablish a makeshift Church with an illicit hierarchy, they are going against the Church and in fact becoming Her enemies. As said St. Jerome (and I have this in a frame in front of me now), "I employed all my zeal on making from the enemies of the Church my personal enemies".

Victims of these people may be acting in good faith (with a small "f"), but will go to Hell nevertheless. That is why I am so adamantly opposed to illicit disobedience. Disobedience to rightful orders is in the core of Modernism, and those who disobey rightful orders, be it in the name of Tradition, Scripture or whatever, are in fact instruments of the Devil.

Hell is already overcrowded!, and we must teach the new generations the Truth, we need to help the Pope when he tries to get back the power that Paul VI, may God have mercy on his soul, lost, we need to support the good actions of the Bishops and oppose their misdeeds ***from within the Church***.

I will not abandon the Church Our Lord founded to take refuge in a cozy little chapel.

As there is no Eastern Rite around here, I will go to N.O. Parishes until I find one who is not that bad, and in those that are bad I will try to make a difference (I teach Theology in one of them, I have a radio talk show in another and I go to Mass - celebrated by an old priest who holds the true Faith - in yet another).

I will always teach my children to pray in Latin, and I will always support the stablishing of licit Tridentine Mass parishes in any diocese by any means I have.

But if I don't try to make a difference, if I don't fight for orthodoxy ***from within the Church***, not only I will be going to Hell but also many people who would have been reached in the N.O. Parishes if I only stood there will hold me company there, singing "Kumbaya" for all eternity!

I am sorry for the verbosity, but it saddens me much to see that so many otherwise good Catholics are falling into a death trap. The Devil never puts a single trap. He always puts two, one on each side of the way. Even if you don't fall into the "liberation theology"/feminist/newage/wicca/"Spirit of Vatican II" trap, you may still fall into the SSPX/sedevacantist trap while trying to avoid the former.

Here many fell into the latter, and sometimes all of us laugh a bit about those who fell into the former (the msgs sent from the V2 list)...

Arcta via est qui ducit ad vitam, my friends, and I hope you don't forget it.

I wouldn't attend an SSPX Mass if I had a Novus Ordo Mass I could stand without going out screaming, or even, preferably, an Oriental Rite in union with Rome. I see the SSPX as I see, for instance, the "Russian Orthodox Church". Homilies are probably more orthodox in a "Russian Orthodox" church, and undoubtedly the liturgy is a lot better than the average N.O. Mass, but Ubi Petrus Ibi Ecclesia...

Anyway, if I were in the Russian countryside I wouldn't think twice before going to their Mass to attend my obligation.

When I lived in "liberation-theology" diocese of Vitória do Espírito Santo ("Victory of the Holy Spirit" - what an irony!) I spend four months without Holy Communion because I would get so mad with all the abuses in the liturgy (you can't imagine it) that I just couldn't go to Communion. I really fell like killing the priest sometimes.

After a long time I found a little chapel where an old priest celebrated a reverend Novus Ordo mass (although there were some things I don't like but that are unfortunately licit to do, like having a woman reading; at least there were no guitars or E.M.s). When I went to Confession I was crying, and I told Father Nuñez: "May God bless you, for without you I would be lost in this land of Communists". :)

Would I go to SSPX if they were around? If I hadn't found Father Nuñez, perhaps I would go there if some day I caught myself going out after the priest with hollow point ammo in my .38 Taurus (support Brazilian industry! Buy Taurus handguns!). :)

The problem is that the liturgy would be so much better that it would be too easy to fall in and start disobeying too.

1 - As bad as it is (and it certainly is), to receive the Most Holy Sacrament on one's dirty sinful hands and give communion to oneself is allowed if the Bishop gives this indult. You don't fight against this going away from all this people who are being convinced that it is the right thing to do and joining an illicit chapel. Besides, you would be deprived of Absolution, unless you got back to Fr. Gimmefive for Confesion.

2 - I would go to the less noisy Nervous Ordeal parish I could find, silently pray the Rosary all Mass long and receive Communion on the tongue, preferably on my knees or at least genuflecting. It would make people think about it. Then after some time I would go to the priest and volunteer for CCD teacher to try to make a difference (as I did in Espírito Santo). If he wouldn't allow me to, I would make some leaflets about Communion in the hand and distribute them.

3 - Our Lord is there, suffering. If the people who are there don't respect Him, at least you would be there respecting Him and praying for them.

If it is absolutely impossible to go to a N.O. Mass - and I mean impossible, totally unbearable, not just being forced to see an abuse or to grab the front pew when people try to hold your hand. I am talking about, for instance, rock music that is too loud to allow you to pray the Rosary, while beautiful girls, wearing something that seems to be made with the fabric of half a neck-tie, try to grab you by the hip all Mass long, or something along this line - if it is absolutely impossible to find a N. O. Mass that you can stand without grave danger for your Faith, then perhaps you could go to an SSPX Mass.

I say perhaps because I think it is a lot easier to put your Faith in danger when the liturgy you are attending is reverent, solemn and beautiful and, while you are totally at ease, absorbed in the beauty and reverence of true worship, you hear heresy or you are induced by the priest to disobey. A N.O. priest surrounded by "Eucharistic" Ministerettes won't put your Faith in danger: it will make you mad at him, and it is a holy wrath as long as you don't do something you have no authority to do (like killing him or yelling at him). A "Traditionalist" priest preaching disobedience and/or heresy, on the other hand, has a lot more chances of making it through to your inner thoughts.