A reader recently commented (see here) that while they are interested in our arguments, they often find the writing too heavily laden with “insider information’ and philosophical terminology. This is a fair observation. Admittedly, terms such as “displacement of judgment” and “entropic time loop” can sound abstract if they are not applied to something concrete. At the same time, the terminology has not been adopted for ornament or obscurity. It has become necessary because the Conciliar-Synodal crisis itself has been made unusually dense, tangled, and difficult to judge.
In ordinary times, Catholics should be able to simply trust that the hierarchy is guarding and preserving the deposit of Faith. But the last sixty years have not been ordinary times.
The recent pastoral letter from the Diocese of Cubao concerning the SSPX gives us an opportunity to make these ideas concrete, as it allows us to show, what we mean by the “displacement of judgment”—the refusal to judge the real object in dispute, while shifting attention to secondary questions of authority, “obedience”, canonical status, “reconciliation”, and “pastoral” management. The letter is useful precisely because it is not an obscure theological treatise. It is a public “pastoral” document, and yet its very structure shows the problem we have been describing. But the unprecedented 60-year old unusual situation has made the highest order of reasoning and metaphysical adjudication vital—and admittedly, metaphysical reasoning/ adjudication is not an everyday mode.
And so here, we will demonstrate as to why and how this “pastoral” letter is a textbook case of the displacement of judgment and how and why it contributes to the entropic time loop.
We will go direct to the point and immediately proceed to demonstrate how and why:
1) The object--is the SSPX objectively correct in its critique of Vatican II, the liturgical reform, religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, etc--is never adjudicated.
2) Instead they begin from other planes, asserting vs. presenting an argument--papal mandate, canonical authorization, “communion”, juridical consequences, “reconciliation”, and “pastoral” accompaniment—for those (the faithful) whose choices and acts have not been adjudicated either, merely presumed and asserted as wrong.
3) But before one can judge obedience/ “disobedience”, one must first judge what one is being asked to obey--and for over 60 years, this has been ignored and obscured.
4) Authority has replaced adjudication. But authority does NOT proclaim reality. Reality simply IS. Unfortunately, the bishop NEVER investigates whether there really exists the state of necessity that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the SSPX have argued since the 1970s. And the bishop here, has proceeded to judge without investigation or demonstration of error—not really a very Thomistic nor Catholic thing to do. For those familiar with philosophy and metaphysics, we can call this authority before form.
5) The conclusion is assumed in the premises—the consecrations lacked papal mandate, therefore they are schismatic, therefore they are excommunicated, therefore the sacraments are illicit, therefore the faithful must leave—but none of these conclusions follow until prior doctrinal dispute has first been judged. The entire chain rests on an unexamined assumption that is neither prudent, charitable, nor just.
6) “Unity” is treated as institutional rather than formal. But what is this “unity” really about? Because the correct thinking is—unity is first unity in Truth not merely unity in visible governance. Otherwise one can preserve institutional unity tolerating doctrinal corruption—and this simply cannot be. We do have an immutable deposit of Faith.
7) There is no engagement with the SSPX’s decades old arguments with decades old material published in many places. The bishop ignores all this. Hence, they are passing assertions off as arguments—and even if this is not their intention, structurally, it is what is happening.
8) The “pastoral” concern is directed toward the wrong object. The bishop is concerned that faithful attached to the SSPX lose access to the sacraments, but ignores the bigger underlying reason as to why they went to the SSPX in the first place—the crisis in the Church. Real pastoral care requires addressing the cause, not merely redirecting them elsewhere.
9) Dialogue is proposed after judgment has already been rendered. Where is the dialogue there? The decree has already been determined (albeit wrongly)—schism, excommunication, illicit ministry, invalid confessions, invalid marriages—so the doctrinal question has already been closed. The bishop has placed the cart before the horse. They presume the canonical conclusion without judging the object that would determine whether the state of necessity applies. This is structurally intellectually dishonest—regardless of their intention.
10) Every paragraph discusses the SSPX’s relationship to Rome, but not Rome’s relationship to truth. The irony of a “pastoral” letter from a diocese that is clearly premised on a supposed pastoral council of Vatican II, now invoking “pastoral” again.
11) This entire letter contributes to the entropic time loop (see here, here, here, here, and here). Instead of returning to the original disputed object—Vatican II, the Novus Ordo, doctrinal ambiguities, Conciliar “reforms”—the discussion loops endlessly around canonical status, “reconciliation”, “obedience”, “unity”, “pastoral” integration—all of which break the very tenets of the enclosure they are in when it comes to the SSPX. In other words, they don’t practice what they preach and only selectively implement what they say. And the loop continues because every new event is judged downstream, while the upstream doctrinal object remains untouched—and with each cycle, the larger crisis further degrades.
13) The correct order: judge the doctrinal object; determine whether a state of necessity objectively exists; only then evaluate the juridical consequences; and only then discuss obedience, communion, and canonical irregularity.
14) But this “pastoral” letter reverses the proper order, as it begins with the juridical conclusion and never meaningfully examines the doctrinal object from which, every subsequent judgment must proceed.
15) And so the problem isn’t just that the bishop reaches the wrong conclusion, but that the very structure of the reasoning displaces the object to be judged and therefore cannot genuinely resolve the dispute it addresses.
To better express the absurdity of the situation, we summarize it as such—a dispute exists over whether an authority itself has erred, but instead of adjudicating that dispute, the authority simply cites itself as the reason it cannot have erred, then proceeds to punish those who challenge it.
Disciples of Austrian economics should be able to relate and understand. It is the old price-control absurdity. The government imposes a ceiling, shortages follow, and instead of asking whether the ceiling caused the shortage, it condemns shopkeepers, speculators, hoarders, and black-market actors for “creating disorder.” But the disorder did not begin with those who responded to reality, as it began with the refusal to adjudicate reality. Similarly, the letter condemns the SSPX’s canonical position without first judging the doctrinal crisis to which that position is a response.
Real-world examples include the U.S. gasoline shortages of the 1970s, where Nixon-era price and allocation controls contributed to shortages and long lines, even while public blame often fell on oil companies or external actors. The logic is the logic of price controls—suppress the signal, create the shortage, blame those responding to the shortage, and then call the management of the disorder “pastoral care”, which is not really pastoral, but we might say is essentially administrative evasion.
We saw the same absurdity during the 2020 global lockdown, where churches closed, public Masses were suspended, access to the sacraments was restricted, and the supernatural life of the faithful was treated as functionally “non-essential.” In many places, while diocesan churches and former Ecclesia Dei groups closed their doors and suspended public Masses, the SSPX continued to provide the sacraments. People who had never attended Masses by the SSPX even came knocking at their doors, asking for what the Novus Ordo world calls “Anointing of the Sick” (Extreme Unction), because their own parish priest was unwilling or unavailable to administer it. “Conservatives”, in particular, were shown to make more anthropocentric choices. See our description of their behaviour here. According to some priests we have spoken with, attendance at SSPX chapels increased dramatically, in some places even tripling.
And now, the very institutions that withdrew from the faithful—the Conciliar-Synodal Church of both liberals and “conservatives”—suddenly find their courage when it comes to condemning the Society and present themselves as the “pastoral” solution. The structural implication of the irony does not escape us. Was it supernatural, pastoral, and ordered to the salvation of souls to have shut down churches and paused the giving of sacraments? Meanwhile the SSPX remained open and continued their mission of saving souls and giving the sacraments in spite of the secular and more temporal concerns that governed those mandates. And as it was then and as it is now—the discussion is displaced into obedience, compliance, unity, canonical status, and “pastoral care.” But pastoral care cannot mean abandoning the sheep during the crisis and then condemning the shepherds who did not.
It’s been over 60 years. How much more are we willing to endure this entropic time loop, where the original doctrinal object is endlessly displaced and never judged?
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