Isn't it rather the opposite?
Isn't the Church of the pure of Vatican II in reality the last entrenched bastion of neo-modernism that would impose a pseudo-unity of the Church, a "full ecclesial communion," by converting all Catholics to the new liturgy and the new theology of the Council?
Cardinal Müller: The Prototype of the Conservative in the Church?
Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, born in Mainz in 1947, was a man after Benedict XVI's own heart. Indeed, it was Benedict XVI who, on July 2, 2012, appointed him Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and, by the same token, entrusted him with the Presidency of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. Two years later, on January 12, 2014 – Pope Benedict having resigned in the interim – Pope Francis elevated him to be a cardinal.
And it was this new Cardinal Müller who, in the autumn of 2014, five years after the first doctrinal discussions of 2009-2011 with the Society of Saint Pius X resumed – in his capacity as President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission – received in Rome Bishop Bernard Fellay, then Superior General of the said Society.
The dialogue reached a point of no return on June 6, 2017, when Cardinal Müller, on behalf of the Holy See, sent Bishop Fellay a letter demanding that, in the event of a canonical normalization of the Society, or a restoration of "full communion," the members of the SSPX "declare, explicitly, their acceptance of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and those of the post-conciliar period, granting to said doctrinal affirmations the degree of adherence due to them" and that they recognize "not only the validity, but also the legitimacy of the Rite of Holy Mass and of the Sacraments, according to the liturgical books promulgated after the Second Vatican Council" 1 .
The rest is history: unable to accept these conditions, Bishop Fellay once again expressed his regrets to Rome, offering yet another explanation regarding the deep-seated causes of the crisis that has plagued the Church since the Second Vatican Council. The year 2018 saw the election of Fr. Davide Pagliarani as head of the Society.
But before that, barely a month after the letter was sent to Bishop Fellay, on July 1, 2017, Pope Francis dismissed Cardinal Müller from his position as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. His successor, Prefect of what has now become a Dicastery, was the Jesuit Luis Ladaria Ferrer. Gerhard Müller had already been critical of Pope Francis's doctrinal and pastoral orientations.
On December 20, 2023, the Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith denounced, in a statement the Declaration Fiducia Suplicans by which the Vatican authorized the blessing of couples in irregular situations, cohabiting couples, divorced and remarried individuals, and even same-sex couples.
According to him, this document should be seen as a "doctrinal leap" and a "risk of blasphemy."
In addition, during a question-and-answer session at the Call to Holiness Conference 2025 , held in Michigan, Cardinal Müller was critical of the implementation of the motu proprio Traditionis custodes , describing as "problematic" and "unpastoral" the fact that some bishops are limiting the celebration of the traditional Roman Rite according to the 1962 Missal.
Previously, on May 20, 2024, Gerhard Müller had celebrated, according to the rite of 1962, the pontifical Mass of Whit Monday at the closing of the Chartres pilgrimage organized by the Association Notre-Dame de Chrétienté, which earned him the label "Friend of the traditionalists and enemy of Pope Francis" on the front page of the Libération newspaper website .
The Consecrations of July 1st: The Consequence of a Doctrinal Battle
There is, however, "many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip," and it would have been quite wrong to expect that Cardinal Müller would also take a stand, alongside Bishop Schneider and Bishop Strickland, to justify and defend the consecrations of July 1, 2026. Unfortunately, exactly the opposite has happened.
In an interview published on the German website of the international magazine Communio , and which took place on March 19, the cardinal answers Jan-Heiner Tück's questions at length in a way that is not at all in favor of the decision taken by Don Davide Pagliarani, denouncing instead "a schismatic attitude" and a "false appeal to a state of necessity."
Beyond the reproaches and accusations of "schism," this statement by Cardinal Müller has the great merit of posing the problem which pits Rome against the Society of Saint Pius X on its true level. Far from the impoverished declarations of a Cardinal Sarah 4 or a Monsignor Eleganti 5 , this kind of discourse has the great advantage of clarity.
The cardinal indicates from the outset precisely where the point of contention lies: “The real problem does not reside in the liturgy—that is, in the classical (post-Tridentine) and renewed (post-Vatican II) ritual forms—but in the doctrine of the faith, which they [the members of the Society of Saint Pius X] consider compromised by the renewed liturgy. Certain formulations of the Second Vatican Council lend themselves to dubious interpretations, such as the idea that Muslims, like Christians and Jews in the Abrahamic tradition, recognize the Creator and worship the one God with us.”
The cardinal then indicates the points in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council where the Society denounces a contradiction that renders this teaching incompatible with the constant teachings of the Magisterium of the Church: the doctrine on the value of non-Christian religions in Nostra Aetate ; the doctrine of ecumenism in Unitatis Redintegratio ; the doctrine of religious freedom in Dignitatis Humanae .
The Cardinal understood this well: the Society of Saint Pius X sees the profound reason for the state of necessity in the Church in these faulty points, which are the poisoned source of doctrinal and moral relativism within the Church.
The decision to proceed with episcopal consecrations is simply the means taken to remedy this relativism by ensuring the continuity of truly Catholic preaching, free from these errors. “That is why,” the Cardinal concluded, “I insisted, during conversations with the SSPX, that their criticism of certain declarations of the Second Vatican Council would only be justified if the Council had actually taught what they attributed to it.”
However, according to him, the teachings of Vatican II are not the poisoned source of relativism, because they do not contain the errors that the Society believes it sees in them. “Rather,” he said, “those who attribute serious errors of faith to the legitimate Second Vatican Council are mistaken, contrary to proven Catholic hermeneutics.”
The Issue of Doctrine
But clearly, it is the cardinal who is mistaken when he attempts to exonerate the Council's texts from the accusations issued by the Society. "The idea," he says, "that Muslims, like Christians and Jews in the Abrahamic tradition, recognize the Creator and worship the one God with us" should be understood in the text of Nostra Aetate in accordance with "classical Catholic teaching according to which human reason is, in principle, capable of recognizing the existence and unity of God, while the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation are revealed only through supernatural faith."
It is undoubtedly true that natural reason remains capable, in every person and regardless of their religion, of attaining knowledge of a Creator God.
However, it must be noted that the text of the declaration Nostra Aetate goes further than that, for according to it, it is not only human reason but also the very "rules and doctrines" of these false religions which, "although they differ in many respects from what [the Church] itself holds and proposes, nevertheless often reflect a ray of the truth that enlightens all people" (§ 2). There is a difference between saying that the ray of truth that enlightens all people is the light of natural reason, present in every person, and saying that this same ray finds its reflection in the rules and doctrines of false religions. Nostra Aetate speaks not of natural reason but of religious rules and doctrines. § 3 speaks specifically of the "Islamic faith."
Section 4 establishes confusion at the level of the Jewish people, without making a distinction between the chosen people of the Old Testament and the people fallen from this election and unfaithful to God in the New Testament, confusion which appears when it is said that "the Jews still remain, because of their fathers, very dear to God, whose gifts and call are irrevocable" and when the text evokes the "so great spiritual heritage, common to Christians and Jews", while contemporary Jews continue to refuse to recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah announced in the Scriptures and as the very Son of God.
“Regarding ecumenism with non-Catholic Christians, Christian communities, and Orthodox Churches,” the cardinal claims that “the Council in no way called into question the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation or its full identity with the Church of the Apostles.”
Undoubtedly, and this is not what the Society criticizes in the decree Unitatis Redintegratio for. What it criticizes is that it has obscured, even to the point of denying, the idea that the Catholic Church is necessary as the sole means of salvation, to the exclusion of all non-Catholic Christian communities. And what the Society also criticizes in this decree as well as in the constitution Lumen Gentium , and in the subsequent documents of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is that it affirms that, if the Catholic Church is fully identical with the Church of the Apostles, non-Catholic Christian communities are partially identical to it insofar as there are "elements of sanctification and of truth" ( Lumen Gentium no. 8) and insofar as this Church of Christ is still "present and active" there (Declaration Dominus Jesus of August 6, 2000, no. 17).
“And as regards religious freedom,” the cardinal continued, “the declaration Dignitatis Humanae teaches nothing less than ‘the right of every human being—naturally rooted in the spirit and freedom of the person—to defend themselves against interference by the State in their conscience,’ that is to say, ‘the right of every person to choose and practice their religion free from all external constraint or internal manipulation, according to their conscience.’”
Cardinal Müller is missing some fundamental distinctions here. It is one thing to use coercion in the public forum to lead people to profess the true religion, and quite another to use coercion in the public forum to prevent people from professing a false religion. The social doctrine of the Church requires that the State exercise its authority in favor of the true religion, by using coercion in the public forum to prevent or dissuade the profession of error. The Church has condemned only the use of coercion to impose the true religion.
What the Society objects to in paragraph 2 of Dignitatis Humanae is not that it states “every human being has the right to defend themselves against state interference in their conscience,” nor that it states “a person has the right to choose their religion, free from all external constraint or internal manipulation.”
The Church has always taught this, in the sense that it has always said that no authority can exert coercion to lead people to embrace and profess the true religion. But the Church has also taught (this is the meaning of the doctrine set forth by Pius IX in Quanta Cura ) that the authorities have a duty to prevent, in the public forum, the practice of a false religion. It is therefore necessary to distinguish here between “the right to choose” and “the right to practice” one’s religion, free from all external constraint.
According to Church doctrine, choice should be free from all constraints, but practice, if it is a false religion, should not be free but rather should be prevented by some constraint, and it is on the negation of this second point that Dignitatis Humanae poses a real problem.
As we shall now show, these difficulties posed by the texts of the Council are so serious as to create a real state of necessity in the Church, because they jeopardize the salvation of souls.
Where Is the Schism?
Contrary to Cardinal Müller's assertion, the arguments put forward by the Society are not "fallacious arguments intended to avoid fully submitting to the Pope's authority." For there is indeed a contradiction, a rupture if you will, between the teachings of Vatican II on the points raised and the constant Tradition of the Magisterium of the Church. To this evidence imposed upon us by the principle of non-contradiction, what is the response of the Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith? "To admit this would not only be fundamentally erroneous, but would also constitute the hermeneutical self-destruction of the Church, the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim. 3:15)."
Should we then admit that the Tradition of the Church is reduced to the Second Vatican Council alone, and that the Church itself is reduced to the post-Conciliar Popes? Should we admit that the Church, the pillar and foundation of truth, practices correct hermeneutics by preaching sometimes yes and sometimes no?
The Cardinal criticizes the Society for adopting the attitude of those who believe they can remedy crises "by retreating into the sullen corner of a Church of the pure, the last bastion of orthodoxy that would impose its complete reintegration into the Catholic Church by converting the latter to its own inner circle."
Wouldn't it be rather the opposite? Is not the Church of the pure of Vatican II in reality the last entrenched bastion of neo-modernism which would like to impose a pseudo-unity of the Church, a "full ecclesial communion" by converting all Catholics to the new liturgy and the new theology of the Council?
We could thus endlessly hurl the accusation of autocephaly—or schism—at each other. But the criterion of true communion, that of the unity and apostolicity of the Church, is not that of the majority: the smallest group is not necessarily the schismatic stronghold. This criterion was given to us by Saint Vincent of Lérins: it is the criterion of the constancy and universality of the profession of faith throughout time.
And this positive criterion is itself coupled with a negative one: that which currently contradicts the explicit profession of faith of the Church cannot represent the principle of unity and apostolicity. Now, on all the points raised, the documents of the Council cited by the Cardinal represent and express this contradiction.
It is therefore not the Fraternity that is moving away from the unity of the Church by refusing to admit these points of doctrine, but rather all those who want to impose them against the constant Tradition of the Catholic Magisterium.
What Dialogue?
Moreover, Cardinal Müller presents all these points of doctrine, clearly opposed to the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church, as having an absolutely binding force, albeit to varying degrees. Therefore, one cannot use the words of John XXIII, who presented the supposed “Magisterium” of the Council as “a pastoral type of Magisterium,” to diminish or even deny the binding force of the teachings of Vatican II.
“The idea of a so-called pastoral council,” he says, “is more a matter of media hype and has no dogmatic significance. An ecumenical council is the highest authority in the Catholic Church on matters of faith and discipline.” […] “There is, of course,” he clarifies, “a hierarchy of truths, ranging from faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation—necessary for salvation—to the legitimacy of the veneration of images, which, while not necessary for salvation, fosters piety.” What the Church proposes to be believed must be determined, in its graduated authority, by the doctrinal context and by the intention of the bishops and the Pope.
But it remains true that the context always imposes a certain degree of authority. “Although Nostra Aetate,” the cardinal adds by way of example, “is, from a literary point of view, a simple declaration, its affirmations are binding like dogma, for example, when it affirms that all people form one community and have their origin and their end in God (NA 1). That Christians and Jews worship the same God is a binding doctrine of the faith.” And he concludes very categorically: “The Council must be accepted in its entirety by every Catholic, each according to the intention of the affirmations: doctrinal explanation, moral instruction, or indication of measures necessary today, such as interreligious dialogue or engagement with modernity.”
The state of necessity is all the more apparent. On the one hand, because these grave errors, which represent the major obstacle to the salvation of souls, are undeniably presented as the subject of a teaching whose value is binding. On the other hand, and above all, because there can be no question of correcting anything: Cardinal Müller wrote this in his letter of June 6, 2017, to Bishop Fellay, where he demanded from the Society unconditional adherence to the texts of the Council and the post-Conciliar period.
The meaning of the "theological dialogue" recently proposed to Fr. Davide Pagliarani by Cardinal Fernandez during their meeting on February 12th also becomes clear. This dialogue was intended to establish "the different degrees of adherence required by the various texts of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and their interpretation."
Cardinal Fernandez made it clear that while dialogue about the Council was possible, its texts could not be corrected. This aligns perfectly with Cardinal Müller's remarks. The Holy See's intention is to continue this same dialogue with us, a dialogue already undertaken between 2009 and 2011 at the request of Pope Benedict XVI.
This dialogue aimed to have the Society accept the well-known hermeneutic of "renewal in continuity," according to which the break in the Council's texts with Church Tradition is only apparent, while the continuity is real.
A pointless and futile dialogue.
Its only purpose, if any, would be to confirm the urgency of the state of necessity and to justify the initiative of the consecrations of July 1, 2026.