I read at Rorate about a strong speech given by SSPX Bp. Bernard Fellay which is effectively a denunciation of Pope Francis and Pope Benedict and – yawn – you know the rest.

Here is a sample:

“The situation of the Church is a real disaster, and the present Pope is making it 10,000 times worse.”

[Bp. Bernard Fellay] said this in an address at the Angelus Press Conference, the weekend of Oct 11-13 in Kansas City. …

Bishop Fellay alluded to the SSPX/Vatican drama of 2012: “When we see what is happening now we thank God, we thank God, we have been preserved from any kind of Agreement from last year. And we may say that one of the fruits of the [Rosary] Crusade we did is that we have been preserved from such a misfortune. Thank God. It is not that we don’t want to be Catholics, of course we want to be Catholics and we are Catholics, and we have a right to be recognized as Catholics. But we are not going to jeopardize our treasures for that. Of course not.”

He continued, “To imagine that some people continue to pretend we are decided to get an Agreement with Rome. Poor people. I really challenge them to prove [what] they mean. They pretend that I think something else from what I do. They are not in my head.”

As for the discussions with Rome: “Any kind of direction for recognition ended when they gave me the document to sign on June 13, 2012. That very day I told them, ‘this document I cannot accept.’ I told them from the start in September the previous year that we cannot accept this ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ because it is not true, it is not real. It is against the reality. So we do not accept it. The Council is not in continuity with Tradition. It’s not. So when Pope Benedict requested that we accept that the Second Vatican Council is an integral part of Tradition, we say, ‘sorry, that’s not the reality, so we’re not going to sign it. We’re not going to recognize that’.”

“The same for the Mass. The want us to recognize not only that the [New] Mass is valid provided it is celebrated correctly, etc., but that it is licit. I told them: we don’t use that word. It’s a bit messy, our faithful have enough [confusion] regarding the validity, so we tell them, ‘The New Mass is bad, it is evil’ and they understand that. Period!’” Of course the Roman authorities “were not very happy with that.

He continues, “It has never been our intention to pretend either that the Council would be considered as good, or the New Mass would be ‘legitimate’”.