[Question:]{.underline} Can we say that the present crisis in the Church has destroyed its indefectibility?
[Answer]{.underline}: That the Church will never fail, and that it will always teach the same truths, and administer the same sacraments through its visible structure, is a teaching of our Faith, explicitly taught by Our Lord: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not” (Lk 22:32).
However, Our Lord did not promise that the indefectibility of this visible structure and of the teaching authority might not be obscured, through the sins and infidelities of members of the Church’s hierarchy. This is precisely what is happening now. The teaching of ecumenism implicitly denies the doctrine that “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” However, although it has been constantly reiterated, ecumenism has not been taught as a dogma, nor could it be. Likewise collegiality and the rethinking of Papal primacy, which implicitly mean a denial of the Pope’s supreme authority of government and teaching. Yet this has not been taught as a dogma, to deny the official teaching. Likewise, the question of religious liberty as opposed to the rights of the Church and the Social Kingship of Christ. The same can be said of the new concept of justification, to be shared with the Lutherans. Although accepted by a joint statement, this false theory was immediately contradicted by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
The end result is complete confusion, obscuring of the visible boundaries of the Church, obscuring of Catholic doctrine, now confused with and overlapped by false, modern, liberal, democratic philosophies. However, this in no way means that the Church has failed, regardless of how many people think that the Church is now different. The reality remains that doctrine has not changed (remember that Vatican II was not doctrinal, nor have the Popes since been doctrinal), and that the Church’s hierarchy and authority have not changed (although they are not being applied or used). It is simply that few are those now who are able to identify true doctrine, authority, and government in the Church from the infiltrated modern errors and liberalism. This is the supernatural miracle of the Church that despite the human weaknesses and betrayals of its members, it does remain indefectible.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.