A Consideration of Tim Flanders’ Remarks on the SSPX

Preamble To begin, it must be put into the public record that this is NOT an attack against Tim Flanders as a person. Tim and I have been friends for a long while, and I owe a debt of gratitude to Tim for helping me get started as a writer and podcaster. He helped me to publish my first two books, and we have recorded a number of shows together. Tim and I have shared zillions of text messages and voice notes over the years, and we have supported each other, as friends do, through personal life traumas and obstacles. I have nothing but respect for Tim as a friend and as a man. Nevertheless, Tim is a writer, and so am I. We agree on a lot of things, and we disagree on some things. His views are public, and my views are public — which makes our work fair game. So, given that the SSPX is, clearly, very important to me, and the fact that Tim has begun publishing and broadcasting opinions that I believe are incorrect about the SSPX, I have decided to address some of them here. Let it be known that I spoke to Tim and told him I was going to do this before publishing. In any event, with the preamble out of the way, the majority of this essay will concern what Tim published in his article The SSPX and the Lay Nobility, and a couple of comments will be made about some of Tim’s opinions expressed in recent podcasts. Also, because Tim and I are so familiar with one another, I have decided to refer to him as simply “Tim” throughout the piece, because calling him Mr. Flanders, or using some other formality, seemed cold to me as I was writing, given our personal relationship. So, I hope the reader understands that by referring to him by his first name, it is, in this case, a sign of respect and fraternal affection. Where We Agree Tim says the SSPX confesses dogmas that a great many bishops will not confess. He says the Society defended the right of every Catholic to the Ancient Rite when almost nobody else would. He says that all of us owe a debt to Archbishop Lefebvre for his defence of the Kingship of Christ. He says the Society’s guardianship of the Deposit of Faith and the liturgy is its strength, and that the whole Church should be grateful for it. He says the excommunications of 1988 were disproportionate and did harm. I agree. I would strengthen the claim about the 1988 affair and add that the excommunications were unjust and invalid when considered in light of Canon Law as it should be understood with the canonical tradition. Also, I tend to agree with a lot of what he says about the topic of the Lay Nobility, as far as it goes, and he makes a number of interesting points about how Catholics used to act in the past. I believe Tim’s greatest strength is his command of Catholic history, and he demonstrates his deep knowledge of Catholic history in the article. The piece is offered as thirty-seven theses. It accuses the Society of an error against the Church’s teaching on sacramental grace, of a position that “seems schismatic,” of spiritual abuse, and other things. The charges are serious, so we will assess the charges seriously, and to do so we must put our feelings aside and be objective, even if the response seems severe. Mere Tradition with Kennedy Hall is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

There is no thesis in the Theses Tim presents the article as a Thesis, hence the numbering of the assertions. A Thesis is a form of argumentation wherein the thing itself is offered for disputation. For that to be possible, it must make sense as a whole, and each assertion must be defensible on its own, while also building on the statement that came before. It is a perennial method, and figures like Thomas Aquinas give us the best examples. Now, when examined, we find that Tim’s Thesis is not really a Thesis, but is instead a collection of assertions that argue different points, some of which build on the previous points, and some of which can be completely stri