May 01, 1995

In The Line of Fire: Fr. John Rizzo, Ex-SSPX

May 01, 1995/ Michael J. Mazza

Fr. John Rizzo woke up early the morning of Monday, February 8, 1993. It was 40 degrees below zero in Crookston, Minnesota, and he could hear the howling winds outside as he vested for the 5:30 a.m. Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows chapel. He had spent the previous night in the basement of the church, but really hadn't slept all that much. The moment of his carefully-planned escape from the Society of St. Pius X was almost upon him; yet his excitement was tempered by an overwhelming anxiety over his immediate future. He had in his pocket exactly $37 and a borrowed credit card, and a long drive ahead of him.

December 01, 1992

The Society of St. Pius X Gets Sick

December 01, 1992/ Thomas W. Case

Since the excommunication of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on July 1, 1988, the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has moved further and further into a posture of shoring up its existence as a separate church. Now that its leader has gone to his reward, the Society is a body without a head, and so obeys the law of separation: schism breeds further schism, charity is lost in rancor, and the end is chaos. Especially in the United States, unanimity has never been a characteristic of the Society. But before we get into this discussion, we should say something about the history of the Society in general, since with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre we have a serious and relatively respected protest movement. It is a movement that kept communion with the Church through 20 years of struggle and diplomacy, before going into formal schism on June 30, 1988.