I should have done that. I could have been blissfully ignorant. I intended to put him on ignore as of two or three years ago. For a short time I did, and then I stupidly unignored him.
Based on the recent decision of the Supreme Court in which the Anglican Diocese of Fort Worth, after leaving, or I would argue, being left, by the Episcopal Church (insofar as my view is that when a schism occurs whoever changed the doctrine or praxis in a manner which results in a departure from the ancient doctrine that has the historic attribute of Catholicity as defined by St. Vincent of Lerins is the party which is responsible for the schism, due to Galatians 1:8-9, provided the other party did everything possible according to the principles of reconciliation set forth by our Lord in the Gospels and also by the Apostles in Acts, and further demonstrated by the early church specifically with regards to Nestorius in terms of the attempts at dialogue using the neutral Patriarch John of Antioch as something of an intermediary), it should in principle be possible for a Roman Catholic diocese to put the Vatican on ignore until a new Pope is elected.
Now this all being said, the rebuke of this church by the Vatican was welcome, but I regard it as insufficient, since the fact that Fiducia Supplicans made the bishop of Lexington think that he could get away with this is itself extremely problematic.
The rebuke was enough to make me pull back from adopting a Sedevacantist position with regards to Pope Francis*, but in my view Fiducia Supplicans remains a stumbling block and it needs to be retracted. And considering Bishop Strickland was deposed despite having done nothing wrong, surely the bishop of Lexington should be deposed, and indeed ideally replaced by Bishop Strickland. That would be an appropriate conciliatory move.
*I have never agreed with the Sedevacantists who reject the Papacy of Pope Paul VI, even though I do think Pope Paul VI was a poor leader and is primarily responsible for the SSPX schism, since he approved changes to the liturgy which actually contradicted the instructions of the Second Vatican Council in Sacrosanctum Concilium.**
Another problem I have was the severity of his actions towards the “Black Nobility” as they were called, probably by anti-clericalist elements of the Italian Republic, of the Vatican, for these strike me as being excessive; rather than abolishing them outright, a reform and a crackdown on practices which invited problems, like issuing Vatican City license plates which allowed Vatican City nobility, the former nobility of the Papal States, a certain impunity with regards to obeying traffic laws in Rome and in Italy which even diplomats did not necessarily have, would have been sufficient, since to a large extent these nobility were devout Catholics many of whom volunteered their time providing military service to the Pope alongside the Swiss Guard.
Indeed had they been retained, or if they are restored in the future, I might add, their contributions could in theory reduce the amount of ceremonial duties performed by the Swiss guard and the guard duties performed by Vatican City gendarmes, allowing for the Swiss Guard to improve overall security and allowing for more Gendarmes to be put on the Piazza and in St. Peter’s so as to better protect tourists from pickpockets and other petty criminals (as it is, the Vatican CIty Gendarmes do an amazing job, but with an unpaid, fully trained volunteer force of a few hundred volunteer soldiers from the various units sometimes referred to as the Noble Guard, comprised of Vatican City nobility, living in Rome and speaking the language fluently, it is easy to see how such a force could complement the Gendarmes and the Swiss Guard in a variety of ways. Indeed, the Vatican City nobility could even be democratized, in a sense, by granting membership on the basis of merit to Catholics who could live in Rome and support themselves financially and provide part time military, police and emergency services in the Vatican itself and at its extraterritorial posessions around Rome (which the Gendarmes and Swiss Guard are also partially responsible for), such as the other three major basillicas (St. John Lateran, the actual Cathedral of Rome, and the Lateran Palace, which was historically the residence of the Pope until security concerns many centuries ago caused the Popes to instead relocate to the more defensible Vatican Hill), and also St. Mary Maggiore and St. Paul without the Walls, and of course in the countryside there is the Castel Sant’Angelo.
**Actually my only objection to
Sacrosanctum Concilium was its suppression of the office of Prime, which I regard as a particularly beautiful and important part of the Divine Office, or the Liturgy of the Hours as it is also known in the Catholic Church; fortunately that suppression does not impact those communities which use the traditional Latin mass, nor does it affect, as far as I am aware, the Eastern Catholic churches, most or all of which historically celebrated Prime (I recall one Eastern church which only celebrated Terce, Sext and Noone, but I can’t remember which one it was, and it is possible it was the Maronite church, which is the only Eastern Catholic church which implemented reforms similar to those made to the Roman Rite and the Ambrosian Rite.
