With Vatican II and its aftermath, God has permitted an unprecedented crisis in the Church which, in various ways, appears to conflict with common understandings of the Church’s indefectibility. Some faithful Catholics consider that the gravity of scandals from the post-Vatican II popes challenges that indefectibility, leading them to conclude that the Chair of Peter has been vacant since Pope Pius XII. Others, sharing the same general concerns, have concluded that a prolonged period without a pope would itself throw into question the Church’s indefectibility. Traditional Catholics have debated these issues for several decades, often vehemently.

“In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most blessed Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered.” (Exorcism of Leo XIII against Satan and the Fallen Angels)

“[W]e have never wished to belong to this system which calls itself the Conciliar Church, and defines itself with the Novus Ordo Missæ, an ecumenism which leads to indifferentism and the laicization of all society. . . We ask for nothing better than to be declared out of communion with this adulterous spirit which has been blowing in the Church for the last 25 years . . . We believe in the One God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and we will always remain faithful to His unique Spouse, the One Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church.” (SSPX District Superiors, Open Letter to Cardinal Gantin, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, July 6, 1988)

In his Communism and the Conscience of the West, Bishop Fulton Sheen foretold the eventual rise of Satan’s ape church:

“In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be the brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ.” (p. 24)

Dear Francis,

We write to you as fellow sinners, in great need of God’s mercy. In various ways — especially through your Synod on Synodality and persistent opposition to proselytism — you have asked Catholics to have respect for all baptized Christians and their particular religious beliefs. This openness to the religious beliefs of others encourages us to explain our religion to you.

We are Catholics who believe the same truths, and retain the same religious devotions, that all Catholics enjoyed prior to Vatican II. We often call ourselves Traditional Catholics, while others refer to us as rigid and backward.

“For whom the Lord loveth, He chastiseth; and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with His sons; for what son is there, whom the father doth not correct?” (Hebrews 12:6-7)

“Living Tradition bobs along like a cork through the stream of evolving dogma. What a pleasant euphemism for the old heresy of dogmatic historicism.” (Fr. Dominique Bourmaud, One Hundred Years of Modernism)

Pius XII’s Humani Generis from 1950 was the last major encyclical warning Catholics about the dangers facing the Church prior to Vatican II. In it, he denounced what he termed the “imprudent zeal for souls” that led some Catholics to question the necessity of belonging to the Catholic Church:

“Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter of a few years ago, and based on the Sources of Revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing. Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation. Others finally belittle the reasonable character of the credibility of Christian faith. These and like errors, it is clear, have crept in among certain of Our sons who are deceived by imprudent zeal for souls or by false science.”

At this point in Francis’s Synod on Synodality, most rational Catholics who have paid attention have seen enough to know that it is a deliberate attack from hell on the Catholic Church. In hindsight, this ought to have been clear from Francis’s opening address of the Synod over two years ago, when he announced his intention to create a different church:

“Father Congar, of blessed memory, once said: ‘There is no need to create another Church, but to create a different Church’ (True and False Reform in the Church). That is the challenge. For a ‘different Church,’ a Church open to the newness that God wants to suggest, let us with greater fervour and frequency invoke the Holy Spirit and humbly listen to him, journeying together as he, the source of communion and mission, desires: with docility and courage.”

“Faith of our Fathers! Holy Faith! We will be true to thee till death.” (Faith of Our Fathers, Fr. Frederick William Faber)