If the SSPX had consecrated 30 to 50 bishops, Rome would have been forced to negotiate. That is the assessment of Professor William Thomas, a Vatican theologian and classmate of Pope Leo XIV, who argues that the Society’s recent consecrations, while historic, did not go far enough to compel the Vatican to take the traditionalist movement seriously.
Thomas praises the traditional liturgy and warns that suppressing the Latin Mass will not resolve the underlying doctrinal disputes. The crisis is not liturgical; it is doctrinal. And the Vatican’s response to the SSPX reveals a hierarchy more interested in punishment than dialogue.
The conversation turns to the synodal project, which Thomas sharply criticizes for its plans to involve non-Christian religions in its implementation. Synodality, he argues, is fundamentally incompatible with the Church’s divine mandate to evangelize. It replaces apostolic tradition with ambiguity, a new religion of process rather than truth.
