Timothy Flanders — founder of The Meaning of Catholic and author of City of God vs. City of Man — published his "Retractions on the SSPX" this morning, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. He walks back statements going back to 2022 ("any Catholic can commune at an SSPX chapel with no sin whatsoever") and February 2026 (that the SSPX already has "same faith and sacramental communion"). What changed his mind: the oath every SSPX priest takes never to celebrate the Mass of Paul VI "even under threat of ecclesiastical penalties," and the Society's official position that the new rite contains "a poison harmful to the faith." In the patristic, Eucharistic ecclesiology of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Flanders argues, a priest who refuses in principle to partake of the local bishop's Eucharist has set up a rival altar — schism in the moral sense, "whether they are excommunicated or not." He is careful to distinguish the Society's priests from the faithful in the pews, and he cites the Holy See's own position that the schism of laity who attend SSPX Masses "is not to be presumed automatically."

Before that, Joe reads the story of the relief of Vienna: the two-month Ottoman siege, Blessed Marco d'Aviano's Mass on the Kahlenberg at dawn on September 12, King Jan III Sobieski and the charge of the Winged Hussars, and the king's dispatch to the Pope — "Venimus, vidimus, Deus vicit." I came, I saw, God conquered. In thanksgiving, Pope Innocent XI extended the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary to the whole Church.

SCRIPTURE (Douay-Rheims):

• Matthew 5:23-24 — "If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath any thing against thee; leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother."
• 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 — "For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread."
• Judith 15:10 — "Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou art the joy of Israel, thou art the honour of our people."

SOURCES:

• Timothy Flanders's Retractions on the SSPX, The Meaning of Catholic (Sept. 15, 2026) https://meaningofcath.substack.com/p/timothy-flanderss-retractions-on
• The SSPX & the Lay Nobility, Timothy Flanders — the companion essay he asks readers to take first
  https://meaningofcath.substack.com/p/the-sspx-and-the-lay-nobility
• St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8; Letter to the Philadelphians 3-4 https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0109.htm
• Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, Catholic Encyclopedia https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07254a.htm

TIMOTHY FLANDERS:

• The Meaning of Catholic - https://meaningofcatholic.com/
• Substack - https://meaningofcath.substack.com/

Most Holy Name of Mary, pray for us. Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

#SSPX #TimothyFlanders #ACatholicTake #Catholic #TraditionalCatholic #LatinMass #BattleOfVienna #HolyNameOfMary #Sobieski #CatholicNews

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