KANSAS CITY (MO)
OnePeterFive [Manchester NH]
April 15, 2024
By T. S. Flanders
Ugly news broke last week from our friends at The Remnant, that Arnaud Rostand, former U.S. District Superior (2008 through 2014) for SSPX has pled guilty to sexually abusing seven “young boys.” It appears that the disgraced priest attempted to blame the SSPX for this, by claiming that he had “denounced himself” to the SSPX multiple times since 1998.
Michael Matt says that he will continue to support and defend the SSPX. OnePeterFive will do the same. But we agree with Mr. Matt when he calls on all Trads to unite the clans against this evil:
[N]o priest should ever be enabled to harm kids and get away with it—whether he is FSSP, SSPX, ICK, diocesan, etc. Surely, every layperson, every parent, every Traditional Catholic on the planet can agree with that!
As one community of believers, let us beg the SSPX to address this issue immediately.
Whether or not any blame can be placed on local or general policies or personnel from the SSPX is unclear. The enemies of Christ want to find any way to denounce the Trad movement, so any interest in truth and all its consequences is already sacrificed for ideological purposes.
Nevertheless, this is a report from The Remnant, not Church Militant. Mr. Matt wants to expose whatever evil is here, for the sake of the Trad movement, and I don’t think any traditional Catholic can disagree with that. Another traditionalist priestly fraternity recently suffered a terrible blow with the conviction of James Jackson, formerly an FSSP priest.
The traditional Catholic response to these ugly news stories is to do penance and reparation. The priesthood of Jesus Christ and the traditional movement have been scarred with this evil. The soul of man indelibly marked with holy orders has been sold to the fallen angels. This soul will burn in everlasting fire if he does not spend the rest of his life in sackcloth and ashes. The world – which does not care about the internecine squabbles among Catholics – rejoices that another Catholic priest has fallen. As the Holy Ghost declares, My Name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you (Rom. ii. 24).
Penance is not easy. What is easy is complaining on the internet. Or finding someone or something upon which to unload all the blame. Or becoming angry and despondent.
But these are not the ways of a Christian.
Nevertheless, our critics will say this absurd thing: “it is because the SSPX is not canonically regular that this evil occurred.”
Brother: do you not know that sexual abuse has been rampant in multiple dioceses and innumerable “regular” priests? We are living in the Third Pornocracy, and this is the evil which every Catholic should face.
Moreover, we are traditional Catholics who believe that the death penalty is not intrinsically evil. And for crimes such as this, the death penalty can not only cleanse the land which has been defiled by such poison, but also bring forth saving tears of repentance from the wicked man who has given his soul to Satan.
Neither the SSPX as a whole, nor the Trad movement is to blame. On the contrary, the SSPX and all Trads are showing the Church the solution to the sexual corruption in the priesthood: traditional asceticism, strictness of morals, Eucharistic reverence, and holy fear before the fires of hell.
The blame for the crime should go to the criminal himself. No one should be surprised if the fallen angels have been targeting the Trad movement.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death!
Timothy S. Flanders earned a BA in Greek and Latin from Grand Valley State University in 2010 with special studies in history, writing and Arabic. As a result of his studies, he converted from Protestantism to Eastern Orthodoxy and began working in education among ages Kindergarten to adult. He then pursued a Masters’ Degree in Christian history and theology with the Catholic University of Ukraine. In 2013, as a result of further searching, he converted to Roman Catholicism shortly after Pope Francis was elected. In 2019 he founded The Meaning of Catholic, a lay apostolate dedicated to uniting Catholics against the enemies of Holy Church. In 2021, he became the editor-in-chief of the online journal, OnePeterFive. He is the author of three books: Introduction to the Holy Bible for Traditional Catholics, City of God versus City of Man: The Battles of the Church from Antiquity to the Present and When the Gates of Hell Prevail: What Catholics Do in Dark Times, as well as a forthcoming book about Eastern Orthodoxy, published by St. Paul Center. He lives in Michigan with his wife and six children.