On June 16th, Pope Leo XIV made a statement outside his residence at Castel Gandolfo concerning the Society of Saint Pius X, which was then preparing to consecrate four bishops without a pontifical mandate. The Pope affirmed that this decision grieved him, while concluding that he intended to press forward. "If they make that choice," he said, "it saddens me deeply, but we must move forward."
Move forward toward what?
A question immediately arises: in what direction do the Roman authorities wish to lead Catholics as they move forward? Toward what destiny must the Church advance, if not toward Heaven? Toward what progress must churchmen labor, if not the sanctification of the faithful? Does the SSPX not seek the same ends?
It is often useful to ask one's interlocutors about their vision of the future in order to understand their perspectives, their real hopes, and their more or less concealed desires. We ask a child what he wants to be when he grows up; a job candidate is questioned about where he sees himself in ten years; a prospective head of state is pressed to describe how he envisions his country at the end of his term. This method makes it possible to understand the true motivation animating the people of our time.
In the crisis shaking the Church — which has seen the superiors of the SSPX place themselves in opposition to the highest authorities of the Church — one is tempted to resort to this approach in an effort to resolve the conflict, dispel misunderstandings, and free oneself from the assumption of bad faith. To all those attached, closely or distantly, to the cause championed by Archbishop Lefebvre and the defense of Catholic Tradition — to all those who, hand on heart, proclaim their deference toward the Roman Pontiff and their love for Holy Church and her pastors — one might ask how they envisage the relationship between the Holy See and the SSPX in fifty years, or even in a hundred. Without a doubt, many would respond that they hope the tensions will at last be resolved, through the establishment by Rome of a structure that genuinely protects traditional works. They would dream of a sufficiently protected canonical structure allowing the traditional world, in its great entirety, to observe the liturgy and the catechism as it has always done — without enduring the difficulties to which the former *Ecclesia Dei* world has been subjected for forty years, without having to suffer those reversals that betray an authentic desire to see it disappear. This aspiration echoes the ideal cherished by Archbishop Lefebvre, who wished to live the experience of Tradition but with the assurance of not being deceived. Despite the vicissitudes of the times, this attitude neither underestimates the risks of isolation nor seeks voluntarily to break free of the entire structure of the institutional Church through which the channels of grace ordinarily continue to flow.
In posing this question, one would probably discover that very few are resigned to imagining the SSPX as a permanently autonomous structure, awaiting either the Parousia or the Church's full capitulation to every principle and practice observed by the Society in the smallest detail — thereby idealizing a situation that has never existed.
Some Curious Hopes
At the same time, when one considers the hopes that certain cardinals and bishops are currently nurturing with regard to faith and morals, one is left pensive. How can their proposals be reconciled with two thousand years of tradition, given that they stand in categorical opposition to it? One inevitably wonders what the Roman authorities truly think on these various points, and why they do not solemnly reaffirm the truth in order to put a stop to the errors that are proliferating.
Three years ago, as the German Synodal Path was drawing to a close, the entire Catholic world groaned, stunned to find itself in the midst of heterodoxy and to discover what certain bishops had been able to vote on autonomously. They had adopted the creation of a permanent synodal council, the opening of preaching to laypeople, access for women to sacred ministries, religious marriage for persons of the same sex, and so forth. The Holy See — whose duty it is to strengthen its brothers in the faith — reacted. It is difficult to say it did so firmly. Cardinal Parolin, Secretary of State, declared in *Civiltà Cattolica* on March 13, 2023: "The Synodal Path is taking decisions that do not correspond exactly to what the doctrine of the Church currently is." Is this formulation merely a diplomatic turn of phrase? Why not say that these decisions correspond in no way to the doctrine of the Church? What is that adverb "exactly" doing there? Could it be an act of charity to allow Christians to nourish false hopes, only to dash them in due course with a definitive declaration of refusal? Or is it intentional to leave glimmering before them the idea that things might nonetheless change one day? For what purpose does the adverb "currently" appear on the cardinal's lips? Are we to understand that, in a more or less near future, the doctrine of the Church might perhaps be otherwise?
Two years later, Leo XIV, freshly elected, addressed the subject of doctrinal change while speaking precisely of "the LGBTQ+ question," to use his own term. On July 30, 2025, the Pope addressed journalist Elise Allen in these words: "People want the doctrine of the Church to change; they want mindsets to change. I think we need to change mindsets before even thinking about changing the Church's position on a given question. It seems to me very unlikely, especially in the near future, that the doctrine of the Church will change with regard to its teaching on sexuality and marriage."
Here again, the formulation — diplomatic, some will say — has reason to perplex. Why say that change in this matter is "unlikely" when past pontiffs would have affirmed that it is impossible? For what reason — hardly a charitable one — does one allow some to deceive themselves with the belief that there exists a small possibility that things might nonetheless change, if only in a more distant future? And what does this appeal to changing mindsets correspond to, which would eventually make it possible to modify doctrine over time?
All of these questions explain the state of confusion in which a great number of Catholics find themselves, at a time when, for centuries, popes reminded them that on foundational matters of faith and morals, doctrine could not vary.
Must one hold out some hope to all those who oppose the doctrine expounded by the Church for two thousand years, leading them to believe that their repeated assaults might eventually prevail through sheer insistence?
Asking the Right Questions
And so, inevitably, in order not to be overtaken by dreadful doubts, one would like to put questions to the highest authorities in the Church and ask them, most humbly: Do you believe that in fifty or a hundred years, women will be able to become priests? Must one conclude that John Paul II was in error when he solemnly affirmed in the apostolic letter *Ordinatio Sacerdotalis* that "the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the faithful of the Church"?
Likewise: do you think that, in a century's time, it might be possible that, in administering the sacrament of matrimony, priests of the Catholic Church will not necessarily receive the consent of a man and a woman?
These questions will no doubt be judged reckless by those whom they would discomfort. Those who find the expression of such doubt unseemly will in the end make their peace with this doctrinal morass. And yet the answers would make it possible to understand toward what the Church must truly advance. They would have the merit of distinguishing a diplomatic formulation from an ambiguous statement, and would moreover free the authorities from intentions that may well not be their own. Beyond the sole question of the SSPX, this would make it possible to resolve the incomprehensions of a great many perplexed Catholics who, throughout the world, listen with anxiety to the discourse of churchmen and often lift their eyes toward Heaven, asking, always humbly: *Quo vadis, Domine?* Where are you going, Lord?
