Placing Vatican II in the Context of Church History, and Seeking Remedies for the Crisis

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Second Vatican Council

Inevitably, with the SSPX episcopal consecrations looming, and with a synodally-straitjacketed consistory of cardinals in Rome, the question of the last ecumenical council is on nearly everyone’s mind.

It’s been on my mind, too — and for a long time. In a podcast recorded with Conor Gallagher of TAN Books and released last week, we delved into many aspects of the Council, especially its historical context, its aim, its nature as an event, its aftermath, and some sticky points. People are saying it’s a helpful conversation. I pray it will be for the good of souls in this challenging time, when it is so easy to miss the forest for the trees, the means for the ends, the substantial for the ephemeral:

Footnote: How exactly is it reasonable to single out the SSPX for not assenting to certain confusing or problematic elements in Vatican II, when there are many Catholics (perhaps even the vast majority of those who claim to be Catholic) who would not assent to the traditional content repeated in Vatican II, if it were put into propositional form?

While we’re speaking of TAN, I’d encourage you to watch the shorter special video they produced on the riches of the Roman Canon, based in part on my book The Once and Future Roman Rite:

Those who enjoy reading a good book and getting multiple perspectives will appreciate the anthology I edited: Sixty Years After: Catholic Writers Assess the Legacy of Vatican II.

My take on the council as articulated in conversation to Conor Gallagher is developed more fully here:

On the Present Situation

I do a fair number of interviews. Naturally, they vary in how much is covered, how deep the answers go, and how “on fire” I happen to be in forming my responses. By the grace of God, this interview with Adrian Milag was full of fervor and clarity. I hope you’ll watch it:

Laurence Gonzaga, a good interlocutor of mine on Facebook, watched this video and wrote up his reactions, which, I think, well express the anxieties some people feel about traditionalists (the text has been slightly edited for length):

It’s always a struggle listening to any interview I’ve watched in full with Dr. Peter Kwasniewski because it sort of pushes me back a few, and sometimes many, steps towards the traditionalist worldview. I hesitated to press play but glad I did.

My overall affinities have ventured far from the typical set of traditionalist worldviews but I will still say that the traditionalist apologia, if you strip it of all its polemics or “better than the NO” language, is still quite compelling, and that’s why many young people and converts have been attracted to it, once they discover it. Dr. Peter is masterfully able to distill all the best articulations pro-TLM in such a short period of time. All of this summarized for me the countless hours and books I’ve read early on from the Traditionalist movement, across the Michael Davies classics, the SSPX liturgical books, Rhine Flows into the Tiber, Iota Unum, De Mattei’s history of Vatican 2, etc.

I’ll just add this:

1. Again, even while I can appreciate how and why Trad apologists and scholars will inevitably compare and contrast the TLM with the NO, I don’t think it is necessary. The TLM liturgy speaks for itself for those who ultimately have a psychological affinity towards all or most of the elements that the TLM provides for the human personality. This is why you can bring some folks to the TLM and either they are not into it, or they may like it, but not enough for it to become their mainstay liturgical preference.

2. I would probably be categorized by PK as a hyperpapalist on this but maybe I’d like to modify it just a bit. When I was a TLM-only Trad in the late 2000s there was an increasing cognitive dissonance in my experience considering my previous years of studying and apostolate in apologetics. Here’s this principal anchor of unity ecclesiologically in the papacy, while the more radical forms of traditionalism would, practically speaking, ignore or even oppose what he says and does, and same for the mainstream administration. After all, what function does the global Church really have if all you really need to do is preserve your TLM liturgy and catechism, closed off in your corner of a parish integrated with the NO, or your exclusively TLM parish, never to interact or consider anything that’s happening at your local diocese or neighboring parishes?

3. I agree that Traditionis Custodes was not good. It destroyed TLM communities which for the most part are not made up of the type of folks that TC was supposed to address. The anti-NO and pseudo-Sedevacantist types really do need to be dealt with. The schismatic mentality found in many of the loudest proponents of the TLM are the folks that need to be addressed. You don’t have to look far online to find these folks. Watch for these words: “new church”, “Freemason”, “true Mass”, “Novus ordite”, “Peterite”, etc. While this may not meet the definition of the canonical crime of schism, it may meet the definition of the sin of schism.

4. I like the admission that the NO can certainly be celebrated ad orientem. Early on my friends and I kept pestering our Carmelite priest friend to offer the Mass ad orientem. One day, at an evening Mass on Tuesdays that my friends regularly attended, instead of walking to the normal side of the altar, he walked and stayed at the front of the altar. We were so excited. With another priest friend, at the funeral Mass for my uncle, I requested the Liturgy of the Eucharist be entirely in Latin with the chanting of the Dies Irae. It would have been too radical for this young priest to do ad orientem at this parish. It certainly would have branded him politically at that time. But now, several years later, more and more of the priests being ordained for my diocese are regularly wearing their cassocks. Gregorian chant has been returning more and more to Episcopal celebrations of Mass. The more traditional liturgical elements are no longer being rejected. I think that’s because they are realizing that the vocations that are coming in are mostly conservative or traditionally minded men. And if they are to be consistent with their Spirit-led theology of Church culture, then it must be the Holy Spirit that is guiding this swing back towards tradition.

5. Just like within the TLM there are gradations of celebration with increasing degrees of ceremonial, personally, I prefer to add the NO and the Ordinariate forms in a full spectrum of liturgical options. This of course is just for me and my affinities. NO, Ordinariate, TLM, Eastern Rites. In a matter of a few years, the Anglican use will have a new church within 15 miles of where I live. I suspect, this will become my exclusive parish and I would no longer have to be this “roamin’ Catholic.” Until then, I have learned to tolerate and sometimes appreciate the local offerings of the NO, even with the frustrating homilies, the jazz band music, and happy birthday songs at the final blessing. Yes, it still bothers me. But I can get over it. Whether I like it or not, it is still the body of Christ.

Here was my reply, initially left as a comment on his page:

Historically the pope has been the center of unity, but he had almost nothing to do with the daily living of the Catholic life in this or that parish church or village. We need the unity, but we also need the sense of an organic tradition that we receive with our mother’s milk and practice because it’s good and true, right and holy — not because it’s been through a bureaucratic review process and stamped Approved.

For 3/4ths of the Church’s history, the liturgy Catholics worshiped with (or, more accurately, the wide range of local rites and uses) had never passed across a pope’s desk. It wasn’t until 1570 that a pope issued a universal missal — and even then, with guardrails to prevent the loss of other historic rites.

I am grateful that in revolutionary times like ours (post-French-Revolution), we have popes to remind us of fundamental truths of faith and reason, and even more, to condemn errors (e.g., Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae). However, normally, the pope should not be or be seen as everyone’s local pastor who calls all the shots and determines what Catholicism means day to day. This is indeed papalism on steroids.

Try on Pelican+

Thus, “ignoring the pope” can mean two very different things. It can mean dismissing him when he’s teaching an unpopular truth like the evil of homosexuality or abortion or contraception. Or it can be getting on with a thoroughly Catholic life of prayer, worship, works of mercy, family life, local culture, without constantly looking over one’s shoulder to see if the pope is nodding his head in approval, or fearing that he will decide one fine day to cut off a traditional practice like kneeling for communion that we’ve been doing all our lives and for many generations, or to impose a radically new custom that will throw everything into confusion. You see what I mean? That’s not the pope’s job, and I rejoice that there are still some Catholics left who understand that there isn’t a big fat equal sign between “Catholicism” and “the current pope.”

It is one of the signs of our religion’s internal crisis that people so often end with “after all, it’s the body of Christ.” This kind of reductionism and minimalism has not kept souls in the Church, has not prevented churches from closing down, has not kept vile abuses, horrible negligences, boredom and lameness at bay. We should desire the Church to be as strong and healthy as she can possibly be — not just for ourselves but for an increase in her evangelizing power! — and the strength, health, beauty, and holiness of how we worship have EVERYTHING to do with it.

Obedience is a very tricky thing. It can be used as a weapon for wickedness in the hands of the wicked, and we have seen exactly how that plays out in the sex abuse crisis.

People are too quick to assume that the overthrow of the traditional liturgy is “not a sin,” and that ordering a priest not to celebrate his own Roman rite or to stop celebrating it is “not a sin.” I am absolutely of a different mind. I think it is very sinful, destructive to the common good of the Church and the spiritual good of the clergy. Therefore, it is rightly resisted. In this case, disobedience is justified for a higher obedience.

Thus, my reply to Laurence.

The Society of St. Pius X

Some folks who watched the podcast with Adrian Milag were disappointed by my comments on the SSPX. Well, I agree — I could have done better on that topic. It’s not always easy to respond well “on the fly” to difficult questions. So, here’s a fuller response.

If there is any reason for the SSPX to exist, there is reason for it to continue to exist. I believe the way the Vatican and many chanceries have treated the Society for a long while now shows that its existence has been acknowledged as a pastoral reality in the Church’s life that is not simply to be condemned.

Now, if you say to over a million Catholics who are rightly attached to the traditions of the Church, “You need to become extinct by having no bishops after a certain point, and simply reintegrate into your local dying and heterodox diocesan parishes” (since very often there are no other alternatives, especially outside the USA and France), then you are simply denying that there is or ever was any reason for their existence. And this, to me, is absolutely ridiculous. I would call it delusional to the maximum.

The SSPX would not exist if the successors to the apostles were doing their jobs, if they uncompromisingly preached the truth, defended and handed on the traditional liturgy, nourished all the good the Holy Spirit is raising up. But manifestly they have not been doing that for a long time; exceptions are few and far between. Thus, it is obvious that the SSPX has a legitimate raison d’être; and thus, a legitimate claim to continue.

This is why, if Leo XIV were thinking clearly and were well advised on this matter, he would have extended a palm branch by approving their episcopal candidates, so that there would be a real and active connection between the Holy See and the SSPX—a possibility of working together for the good of souls. But I’m afraid that he will take a “hard line” at a time when a hard line is taken on almost nothing else.

The other day, I saw an amazing juxtaposition of headlines (Exhibit A):

Exhibit B: The archbbishop of Detroit savagely extirpated Latin Mass sites in Detroit and prepares to shut down 90 parishes, but praises a huge Islamic center. Which master is he working for? What religion does he belong to?

Until the kind of cognitive dissonance summed up in such headlines is resolved, the ecclesiastical chaos will continue, and so will diametrically opposed and necessarily divisive responses. Unity must be rooted in truth, not in will-power. And since this statement can itself be interpreted in opposed senses, let me be clear: until the traditional Roman Rite is free everywhere and always, and the rupture introduced after the Council is healed, there is no question that the Western Church is and will remain in a state of crisis.

Before we leave the topic of the SSPX, readers are no doubt aware that the headquarters released, on June 24, 2026, an Open Letter to the pope and the cardinals, accompanied by an extensive Profession of Faith.

You may read the Open Letter here:

BREAKING: SSPX Issues Open Letter to Pope Leo XIV and the College of Cardinals

The Profession of Faith (at the very bottom of that web page you’ll find a PDF version that includes all 127 footnotes) is a well-formulated, refined credal proclamation, utterly Catholic, through and through. It raises the question: How many of the current hierarchs of the Church could, in good conscience, make this Profession their own?

I believe the ante has just been significantly upped: it’s as if the Society is saying to the Vatican, “Here’s what we believe, in detail. Tell us where we have gone wrong, or why this is not a more than sufficient basis for working together.” More subtly, they are saying: “Do you believe the same things we do? Because if not, it is you that stand condemned, not we.”

Of particular note, Vatican II is not directly attacked; they say, more modestly: “I acknowledge in particular that modern errors represent a dreadful threat to the whole of the Catholic order, and that their penetration into the life of the Church, under the influence of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar reforms, has provoked a crisis of exceptional gravity.”

Some of my favorite passages are nos. 96-109 on the social kingship of Christ and Catholic Social Teaching, a perfect summation of integralism; nos. 122-126 on the Holy Mass and the liturgy (practically a synopsis of what I’ve been writing for the past 20 years in my books and articles on the sacred liturgy; I was relieved that they did not specify the 1962 liturgical books but simply spoke of “the traditional liturgy of all time,” which, in fact, means the pre-55 Roman Rite), and nos. 145-50 on modern errors and why denunciation of them is necessary, not just reaffirmation of truths.

I must say, the hyperventilating reactions against this document by some professional, mainstream Catholic theologians are extremely telling, as are the contemptuous insults they direct at the Society and anyone who dares not condemn it utterly. In fact, many of these people are now busily and enthusiastically “outing” themselves as modernists of one stripe or another. This, too, is Divine Providence at work: it’s beneficial clarity when the wolves tear off their sheep’s clothing and show their fangs.

One more interview!

On Friday, June 26, Robert Nugent of the Decrevi Determined to Be Catholic YouTube channel interviewed me. We had a wonderful conversation. Although it started with the topic of ad orientem, it quickly moved to other related topics — mystery and mysticism, the way the old rite facilitates prayer and the new rite impedes it, the fallacy of modern man as uniquely different, the role of the senses and fine arts, the errors of iconoclasm and naturalism, the reintegration of Thomism with its liturgical milieu, the “sunk cost” fallacy that entraps ecclesiastical Boomers, and more. Quite a lot, in fact!

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Postscript: A New Novel

And now for something completely different…

Os Justi Press is pleased to announce the release of The Garden of Perfect Clarity, a powerful, gorgeously-written novel by Roy Peachey. Set in China, the story follows the fortunes of a youth flung violently from one social environment to another, facing ordeals in the midst of political upheavals. Finding unexpected friends, mysterious manuscripts, and narrow escapes, he discovers that nothing is quite as it seems—neither Asia nor the West, neither the past nor the future, neither wisdom nor foolishness.

Evoking the works of Borges, Dickens, and Vodolazkin, The Garden of Perfect Clarity contemplates time, transformation, memory, and repentance in the engrossing story of one man’s search for his identity—and his awakening to the deepest truths about life and fidelity. The novel has won acclaim from its first readers.

Poet and essayist Dr. Anthony Esolen: “A work of genius, conceived and executed with the sure touch of an artistic master.... There is no preaching here, but an honest and often sorrowful foray into that wilderness known as the heart of man.”

Sinologist Dr. Anthony E. Clark: “Peachey has accomplished what few writers have.... As an historian of China's long history of exchange with the West, I finished this novel with a new and illuminated way of viewing of the worlds I have studied for decades.”

Novelist Eleanor Bourg Nicholson: “Draws us compellingly into a wood between the worlds... . The place we will find is as mysterious as it is beautiful.”

Superior of the English Apostolate of the FSSP, Fr. Armand de Malleray: “Peachey’s captivating novel starts fast and carries on at similar pace as the main character undergoes one trial after another…. An urban metaphor for Chinese civilisation and the harrowing Cultural Revolution, the city is vividly described, to the point of feeling alive to the reader.”

Biographer and man of letters Joseph Pearce: “A mystical odyssey and a musical tapestry, where the epic imagination meets the Catholic poetic muse.”

For a look inside or to purchase, visit the publisher’s site. It’s also available at Amazon sites around the world.

Robert Morrison reviews The Garden of Perfect Clarity at The Remnant, calling it “a deeply Catholic novel about revolutionary deception, the loss of reality, and the light that only grace can restore… a meditation on our own age of puppet masters, confusion, and the urgent need to reclaim truth… one of the most important books you’ll read this year.”

I’d also just mention that the book itself turned out very beautifully, in both paperback and hardcover editions.

Here’s the author reading us an excerpt: