Surviving the Experiment of Tradition: An Interview with Bethany 

Welcome home, Veronica 😊

Welcome back I didn't grow up in the SSPX but for a short time I went to SSPX chapel and a independent chapel with Sede vacanists. But because of my Dad we ended up coming back.

So happy you have educated your way into the Church ❤

I have a dear friend, brilliant guy, who grew up with a very similar experience in SSPX. I'm going to try to get him on my channel.

I’m so sorry you had to go through all of this as well! Glory to God that you have made it out! I will be praying for you through this healing journey! You are definitely not alone in this!🙏🏻💪🏼💕

Great comment, these videos illicit some very lengthy responses, thanks to the good work of the presenter and guests. Your part about the Independent Chapel caught my eye: I think I might be mixed up in one of them also: they make the sspx look like liberals, the latter which I also infrequently attend. It just appears these days that there is nowhere else to go: the novus ordo in my country is almost identical to the Anglican /episcopalian church. Imho the Fatima schtick is so overplayed, and even more extreme in the break-away chapel; I now glaze over every time it's mentioned.

@@SuppressioHibernicis Thank you for sharing! I'm wondering what country you are from? I definitely caution you, my friend, especially with the independent chapel. That experience led me down an even darker road spiritually than SSPX. I understand what you're saying about the Novus Ordo, as some parishes are worse than others as far as modernism and liberalism go. However, I also want to make you aware that going to Mass at SSPX and independent chapels does not fulfill your Sunday obligation according to Rome, unless that is the only church within a reasonable distance. That was a sin that I had to repent of when I finally came back to the true Church again, missing almost 2 years of my Sunday obligation. It would be better to go to the Novus Ordo, even if it is liberalized, than to miss your Sunday obligation by going to these schismatic counterfeit churches.

@@Summer1in3 thank you for your reply. From Ireland, so by virtue of that I'm actually surrounded by churches, many within walking distance, whereas I've to drive to get to the sspx and it's break-away groups. Was raised devout NO also, and served. Drifted away into the occult for years but when I returned was aghast to find rainbow flags on the flagpoles of some Catholic churches, as wokeism has engulfed Ireland. Then the NO fully embraced and coerced people into getting the 💉 , so it's really difficult to warm to that. Having been in several cults I'm very cautious not to get sucked into the almost pathological levels of religiosity I've observed, so I remain on the periphery. I'd be interested to hear what kind of Darkness you observed?

@@SuppressioHibernicisFirst of all, I just want to say that I am so thankful to God to hear that you were liberated out of the unimaginable darkness of the occult 🙏 I can imagine how inspirational the story of your journey is! God bless you! In regards to the rest of your comment, I understand exactly where you are coming from. Although I am American, I have some Irish heritage. It saddens me greatly to see the current state of Ireland, the land that St. Patrick won over from paganism and has slipped back into so many of its pagan ways. As far as the 💉 goes, I am in agreement with your stance. The events of 2020 was a driving force of my going to the SSPX and independent chapel, because I felt that they were handling things much better than the NO churches. However, they are not in line with the true Church. Any break off group doesn't have a leg to stand on, because they have separated themselves from the authority of Rome, the Magisterium and the Pontiff. The priests do not have true missions even, because a true missionary calling has to be established through the authority of the hierarchy. These priests act of their own accord and go where they want, instead of going where the Church sends them to minister. I did experience more of a darkness in the independent chapel. Whereas the SSPX acknowledges the Pope, although they do not listen to him or feel compelled by anything he says - the independent chapel outright disregarded Rome with an underlying vehemence that even SSPX didn't have. This environment slowly made me become so miserable, judgemental, and confused that I reached a breaking point where I was just done with it all. Interestingly enough, like Bethany, the last straw was a bad confession experience. I came out of the confessional crying and left the building. Side note, I found out later that there is substantial evidence that the independent priest at that chapel was not even validly ordained. That is another danger, these so-called priests that are independent might not even be validly ordained, but nobody has records because there is no hierarchy that they answer to. Anyway, thanks be to God, by His grace I was driven back to my lifetime long parish with my wonderful Benedictine monks once again. I heard this great analogy : The Church is like Noah's ark, it stinks, it's messy, but if you jump off the ark, you will drown. Instead of complaining about the stench, we just have to pick up a shovel and do what we can to clean up in our own capacity. We can't leave Our Lord Jesus, because of Judas. There is nowhere else to go. God will ultimately defend and uphold His Church, like He has throughout all the turmoil of the last 2,000 years. This thought has encouraged me greatly, and I hope it encourages you as well. God is in control, always. I encourage you to leave the SSPX, get back to the Church of Rome. I pray that you are able to find a more faithful one, though. I will be praying for you, my friend, and have thoroughly enjoyed our dialogue thus far ☺️

@@Summer1in3 apologies, to have missed your reply when it came in; only seeing it today, and thank you for such a conscientious one. That is interesting about your experience of a bad confession: it goes against the whole idea of feeling that a weight has been lifted from you. Would you suspect that it see was on account of an invalid ordination of the confessor? The sspx breakaway or "resistance" tend to cultivate in many of their congregation a meanness of spirit which doesn't sit well and I suspect will damage, psychologically, the children of the congregation later down the line. Thank you for your prayers and I too have enjoyed the conversation: good to know there's more out there who can sense something not quite right.

Yes it was a nightmare! It truly was heartbreaking that happened in confession, because that is supposed to be so vulnerable and healing! Keep fighting the good fight! Thank you for the comment!

JMJ Hi Antonio! I intentionally designate these videos as addressing Traditionalism and not just the SSPX because the issues under discussion do crop up in every kind of trad community; the FSSP and ICKSP are not exempt just because they're operating within the Church. We're not saying the problems are as serious or noticeable in every single community, but they are more widespread than you would think, and I talk to people from all over the US and other countries, too, who can vouch for this. Traditionalism as a whole is not synonymous with Catholicism. It has its own flavor that easily becomes negative, elitist, and schismatic; not that it necessarily will in each individual, but by and large those tendencies are manifesting more and more and we want people to be aware of the dangers involved when aligning oneself with that ideology.

@@mrshappycatholic oh ok that makes sense. It reminds me of Pope Francis’ accompanying letter to the bishops after publishing Traditions Custodes where he was concerned those attending the TLM would conflate preferring the TLM to also being traditionalist and rejecting the teachings of the Church post Vatican II. Happy to say I love the TLM and I accept the teachings of our Church, Vatican II and respect the primacy of the authority of the Papacy.

@@TonyG8297 That's wonderful to hear! We can love it all - every part of our patrimony - the old and the new, and still be faithful to the Church. Thank you, Antonio. :) God bless you!

JMJ Thanks for your comment! I would respond by saying that we never said there was anything wrong with modesty or suffering. Of course the theology of suffering is an important part of our faith, but you mention "suffering with joy", which is not taught or made possible in an environment like what Bethany was describing. An over-emphasis on suffering and basically teaching people to be miserable, to expect misery, and to see it everywhere, is not healthy, and that is what she and many others have experienced in Traditionalist circles (a carry-over from Jansenism). Jesus said He came that we might have joy and have it in abundance. That is what we look forward to in Heaven. But we are not to downplay the importance and value of happiness and joy here on earth and the gift that is if granted by God. If the dominant emphasis is on suffering - on the negative - life gets very dreary and too hard for most people to bear. The reason for our joy, the hope that makes it possible to persevere, the glory of what we look forward to, the love that sustains us on our way, those things are inspiring and motivating, and quite often they are not getting enough emphasis in traditionalism. Modesty, though a virtue, is often reinforced as a more external rather than an internal practice, and then it becomes this superficial box to be checked and held accountable for and the inner disposition that should generate our outward demonstration of modesty gets lost in the shuffle. Again: the reason behind the value and importance of modesty needs to be upheld and glorified and not just left at: "Dress the way we tell you to or you'll send your neighbors to Hell." There's also an imbalance in how modesty is made the entire burden of the woman, as if a man could not be immodest, or has no responsibility for his own vulnerability to the immodesty of others, when in fact there are things he himself can do to be better able to resist those inevitable temptations. Why this is not being addressed with as much care as women are being brow-beaten into conforming to certain standards of modesty (which have never been binding under sin or included in any catechism or moral manual of the Church's publication) is beyond me. There's obviously a disconnect when you observe girls who attend the Society Masses (for instance) buttoned up and full-skirted for Mass and then wearing a bikini on the beach or skin-tight jeans when out with their friends, a not uncommon occurrence. These are the kinds of issues we were addressing in the video.

There’s a certain irony that Lefebvre picked Williamson as one of the four because he was afraid the bishop Rome would pick out for him wouldn’t be a good one.

Yes! College was not even on the table as an option for me and my sisters!

I can’t believe a “bishop” would even say that. It is a mortal sin to get drunk or high because it negatively impacts our intellect which is the highest gift God gave us. Wouldn’t it be more glorifying to God then to educate ourselves and thus wouldn’t deliberately promoting the suppression of the edification of intellect then be an offense to God and ergo sinful?

Pope Francis publicly endorses blessing the grotesque & monstrous act of Sodomy. I'd say this 'pope' may have something to answer for, especially considering the fact that Sodomy is one sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance. God Almighty. 😢

I agree, the responsibility pushed on young women is extremely damaging. Also no one is taught about purity and what immodesty and impurity actually are. So sorry to hear it fed into your disorder, that must have been so hard.

Oh my word! I relate to this sooo much! I’m so very sorry you have had to suffer this wound as well!❤️‍🩹 it was all lies they feed us! But no more! No more living in fear. We are perfectly and wonderfully made! ❤️

I am former SSPX. In our time there "potato sacks" were cautioned against. Modesty can simultaneously be attractive and feminine.

​@@littlerock5256 that's nice you experienced that.... all the sspx parishes I grew up in didn't necessarily recommend them but they certainly never objected to the potato sacks woman wore...

@@AnaMT1985 No woman has to wear a "potato sack," but if she chooses to dress frumpy who, exactly, should be doing the objecting? The priest? Her friends? Much of what Bethany said we did not experience, and no one needed therapy. There were a number of young converts in our 5 years there. The main problem with the SSPX, as Bethany stated, is that the recognize & resist position is not Catholic and not tenable. To hold it one must trample on Catholic teaching on the papacy, and that is most certainly not a traditional thing to do. The SSPX is functionally sedevacantist; to pick and choose what one will accept is not submission. They need to either embrace that or fully integrate into the conciliar structure. This fence sitting between the two renders them lukewarm on both sides and we know what Our Lord said he would do with the lukewarm.

lol I had the same thoughts many times!

@AnaMT1985 I have heard an SSPXer speak approvingly of a young woman who wore clothes described as "shapeless, baggy clothes, like potato sacks." 😔

JMJ Bethany's husband was a catechumen when they got married and entered the Church shortly after. It became a timing issue because at first they thought he could be baptized right away, but then found out that he would have to wait until Easter. COVID stuff was going on, so everything was a little up in the air sacramentally, too. :P but yes, they waited until he was committed and through his formation to join the Church.

@@mrshappycatholic thank you! My son is trying to bring his girlfriend into the Church and she is not convinced yet. She is a very staunch Church of Christ member. Otherwise, they are almost literally perfect for each other and my whole family loves her. She loves all of us too! Hoping it all doesn't take too long since he is 29 and she is 27.

Yes I did! Growing up in a divided household it was very important for me and my spouse to be on the same page❤️

@@bethanygrant4350 oh, so you get it! Is there a way we can connect privately? I think I heard you say you are glad to communicate with people?

@@lesliehanson6614 yes absolutely! I would love that!