Following is part of what Bishop Williamson, one of the SSPX bishops, wrote on his own blog (or perhaps someone else is collecting his writings on that blog; in any case, it seems to contain his authentic writings). I think this leaves no doubt but that Bishop Williamson is publicly saying that both the current and preceding popes taught actual heresies.
But when we read the passage below, and the all the rest of the writings of Bishop Williamson and other SSPX bishops, they avoid the sedevacantist (that there’s been no pope since Vatican II) conclusion by saying that we must presume that these popes did not intent to be heretics, so they don’t fall into the category of “formal heretics,” and therefore are not automatically excommunicated from the Church due to heresy (as the sedevacantists say).
But, I in no way think that all the SSPX priests or laity at SSPX masses agree with Bishop Williamson. I’m not even sure that all of the SSPX bishops agree with Bishop Williamson. I’ve seen one other write the same thing. The others I can’t be sure about. Furthermore, things are always in flux. Perhaps even Bishop Williamson has changed his mind since wrote his blog.
bishopwilliamson-pablo.blogspot.com/
In which case God may allow his Conciliar Vicars to do worse yet, without their ceasing to be his Vicars. Does not Scripture declare at exactly the moment when Caiphas was plotting the crime of crimes against God, namely the judicial murder of Christ (Jn. XI, 50-51), that he was High Priest?
Secondly, it is true that the objective heresy of well-intentioned heretics is much more important for the Universal Church than their subjective good intentions, and it is also true that many objective heretics are subjectively convinced of their own innocence.
For this double reason when Mother Church is in her right mind she has a mechanism for forcing such material heretics either to renounce their heresy or to become fully-fledged formal heretics, and that is her Inquisitors, whom she endows with her God-given authority to define and condemn heresy, to maintain the purity of doctrine.
But what happens if it is the highest authority in the Church that is swimming in objective heresies ?
Who is there above the Popes that has authority to correct them ? Nobody !
Then has God abandoned his Church ?
No, but he is putting it through a severe trial, all too deserved by the tepid mass of today’s Catholics - and, alas, Traditionalists ?
Thirdly, it is true that both John-Paul II and Benedict XVI received a pre-Conciliar training in philosophy and theology. But by their time the worms of Kantian subjectivism and Hegelian evolutionism had already for over a century been eating the heart out of the concept of objective and unchanging truth, without which the concept of unchangeable Catholic dogma can make no sense.
Now one may well argue that both those Popes were morally at fault - say, love of popularity, say, intellectual pride - for falling into material heresy, but moral faults cannot replace authoritative doctrinal condemnation for purposes of turning them from material into formal heretics.
Therefore since only formal heretics are excluded from the Church, and since the only sure way of proving someone to be a formal heretic is not available in the case of Popes, a certain range of opinion on the problem of Conciliar Popes must remain open.
By the way, I am against all abusing maltreatment and disrespect towards SSPX bishops, priests, and mass attenders. They are members of the Catholic Church. They deserve courtesy, respect, and fraternal solicitude. They are not perfect. The editors and writers of the liberal Catholic newspaper National Catholic Reporter are members of the Catholic Church. They aren’t perfect either. And so many people have suggested that I’m not perfect that I feel that I must give some due consideration to that thought (maybe in a few years when I get more time).
Even so, even considering all my much justified humility, I would warn all people to stay a million miles away from the THINKING of the SSPX bishops, since it is a dark alley leading to a dead end.
By the way, if you do some Google-ing of Bishop Williamson, you can see that he is a favorite of the radical white supremacists and neo-Nazis. That could just be a misunderstanding on their part, I suppose, but…
Oh, apparently Bishop Williamson’s weekly columns are published on
dinoscopus.blogspot.com/ That blog can be read by invitation only.
, but the case remains open.