Steubenville Teachers Will Save Vatican II Before Eternal Souls

While proclaiming to the world their undying loyalty and obligatory fealty to Vatican II, more than twenty leaders and professors at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio also unwittingly managed to expose the real rift and divide in the Catholic Church, and its true source.

In their June 25, 2026 letter, leaders and professors at this university, fairly well known for being charismatic with a conversative bent, “with humility,” asked the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) to reconsider consecrating four new bishops on July 1, 2026.

The SSPX has always been clear that the reason they need to concentrate more bishops is to maintain their ability to ordain traditional priests who teach the doctrines of the faith and offer the traditional form of the sacraments consistently with the timeless teachings of the Catholic Church for the salvation of souls. And yet, the Steubenville professors ask the SSPX to risk their future, and the salvation of souls, to preserve “unity” with Rome.

If you thought this plea was made honestly and in good faith, that notion can quickly be dispelled by the simple fact that the letter relied heavily on the teachings of Vatican II in support of their position. But the SSPX openly raised many concerns with Vatican II. Considering Vatican II is a primary source of contention between Rome and the SSPX, their attempt to convince the Society to change its mind in order to be compliant with Vatican II rings quite insincere.

Do not kid yourself. They know full well that Vatican II is itself at the heart of the dispute between the SSPX and Rome. In fact, none of the concerns raised by the SSPX, which drive their entire position that there are a crisis and state of necessity in the Church, are addressed at all in the university letter.

And is it not odd if Church unity really mattered to SSPX detractors why no one asks Leo to maintain Church unity and simply grant papal permission to consecrate the bishops? Does petitioning Leo to make a minor concession, the same concession he is willing to grant to the Chinese communists, not even cross their brilliant, theological minds?

Of course it crosses their minds, but there is much more going on here. None of these professors or Leo himself really care if four new bishops are consecrated. Why would they? What concerns them is preserving the revolution against the Catholic Church formally commenced at Vatican II.

For modernists in Rome and Steubenville, “unity” is a code word for accepting all of Vatican II.

For the Vatican bureaucrats, the Vatican II documents represent the revolutionary constitution that grants them the authority to dismantle the Catholic Church under the guise of synodality using their apparent apostolic authority under pain of being arbitrarily labeled a schismatic. Vatican II authorizes them to deconstruct the Catholic Church at all levels, even doctrinally, and rebuild a new, man-centered religion on top of its ruins.

For the Steubenville professors, Vatican II represents job security. For decades, many of these professors have dedicated their careers and scholarship to upholding Vatican II. Conciliar documents form the basis for their lengthy doctrinal work, support their charismatic initiatives, and, above all, allow them to signal loyalty to the revolution by openly accepting Vatican II, despite its errors and devastating consequences for the salvation of souls.

The professors do not attempt to address the substantive issues involving the SSPX consecrations because they cannot. They simply assume as true the act of consecrating bishops without papal permission constitutes “schism.” They assume Vatican II harmoniously continues the long-standing Tradition of the Catholic Church, despite the last 70 years of doctrinal chaos, the destruction of religious vocations, and the closing of thousands of parishes as Catholics fall away from the faith. In other words, they assume there is no crisis in the Church.

For a group of individuals that claim to teach the faith for a living, their deflection and unwillingness to directly engage the SSPX on the issues speaks volumes.

These scholars know there are problems with Vatican II—not just ambiguities as they frequently claim—but serious problems that strike at the heart of the faith. But they make a living off squaring the circle. Someone needs to make excuses for the Council, and when Vatican II leads to laxity in moral teaching and spirtual practice, there is no shortage of Catholics willing to pay for a get out of hell card. There are big money and reputations on the line with maintaining the Vatican II status quo.

Moreover, calling out Vatican II errors does not tend to win one many friends in modern academic Catholic circles. In fact, criticizing Vatican II will likely win a Catholic teacher a ticket on the unemployment line.

If getting to the truth and the salvation of souls were a primary concern for those professors who signed the letter, they would be asking why the Vatican does not want the Society to consecrate bishops. They would ask what is it about Vatican II that compels the Society to remain steadfast and perpetuate its own existence in the face of threatened excommunications? Do the statistics and evidence tend to support the Society’s position that there is a crisis in the Church? Is the Society dividing the Church, or could Vatican II be the source of division?

Sadly, those questions are not being asked, nor will they be any time soon by those in Catholic academia.

At the end of the day, what we are dealing with here is an institutional bias against the SSPX, one of the only few societies with a significant following that openly and boldly points out the errors of Vatican II while seeking to preserve the authentic Catholic tradition on the ground. The SSPX position not only threatens the Vatican II revolution but the livelihoods and popularity of those paid to defend the Council.

For now, those Steubenville professors can pat themselves on the back and clink their wine glasses at the next faculty party because they publicly attempted to defend the Council and Leo’s synodal agenda against those John Paul II arbitrarily labeled schismatic back in 1988. But on their judgment day, they will not be able to tell the Lord they tried to defend the Truth.