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Sarabaites, Refutation Page & Defeatist Flüe
Refutation Page
These and similar beliefs are taking the traditional circles by storm lately.
Can you browse quickly through this website and refute the most important errors? And perhaps sum up or send links from your website with how a Catholic should conduct themselves today?
Perhaps TIA could also, at some point, make a full page as this website did, following their same presentation (as it is highly accessible) using the articles you already have with links to the specific articles, following this format. As people really need clarification today.
Most gratefully yours,
M.M.
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TIA responds:
Dear M.M.,
Thank you for your suggestion.
Most of these arguments are already refuted in our Questions Page, which has close to 1,000 answers or refutations to our readers in the last 24 years.
Just as a side note, we have not had the leisure to update it for a while. In other words, there are many more questions answered that are not yet available on this Page.
You may peruse them at will.
Cordially,
TIA correspondence desk
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A Defeatist Mr. Nich Flüe
I saw that you disregarded as a Hate Mail the challenge of Mr. Nich Flue to Dr. Marian Horvat and Mr. Atila Guimarães on the SSPX consecrations of Bishops.
I read his piece and found it quite weak intellectually. Was this the reason why you did not address it?
Keep up the good work.
In Christ Jesus,
E.J.
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TIA responds:
Dear E.J.,
We were not planning to address that challenge since the author is a sede-vacantist and our policy is not to discuss with partisans of this position. They are not really concerned about the crisis in the Church but only about disputing endlessly to show their followers that they “are right” and all those who do not agree with them “are wrong.”
However, since you are a long-time reader and supporter of TIA, we will answer you, without the intention of offering Mr. Flue a direct response.
Giving a logical structure to his article we see that:
- Mr. Flue does not consider Francis and Leo XIV as popes but as anti-popes;
- He does not address Dr. Horvat’s or Mr. Guimarães’ themes because “he is tired of Canon Law arguments” and being “lectured by Trads”;
- Instead of discussing Catholic doctrine, he turns toward prophecies that tell us to prepare for the Chastisement, and he insinuates that they predict the End Times, the end of History;
- In this preparation the only thing that counts is the reception of the Sacraments and attendance at the Latin Mass;
- SSPX can provide these two things to Traditional Catholics;
- Therefore, SSPX must have their bishops, and Bishop Schneider agrees with him;
- Since TIA agrees neither with SSPX nor with Mr. Flue, we lack charity, are indifferent and selective.
- We consider the Conciliar Popes valid Popes in their powers of jurisdiction and orders; we resist their progressivist doctrine, which pertains to their power of teaching.
It is permitted to any Catholic to respectfully resist a wrong doctrine of a Pope. Therefore, we take a
very different position from that
of Mr. Flue.
- The Petrine Primacy – the power of jurisdiction of the Pope – is not a “Canon Law argument”; it is a dogma of Faith. If one denies it, he ceases to be a Catholic. So, when Mr. Flue dismisses this topic because “he is tired” of it, what he actually does is to flee the battlefield: not a very honorable moral position for someone who “is ready for martyrdom.” This characterizes a fleeing Flue and a defeatist position.
- When it comes to prophecies, Mr. Flue believes that all prophecies predict the Chastisement, with the insinuation that they speak about the end of History.
There is no doubt that many prophecies predict a great Punishment,
but they also foresee that it will purify the Church and the world for a New Era, the Reign of Mary, which will
take place before the end of History. So, the desperate position he implies is not adequate. He should be spreading hope instead of disseminating despair.
Additionally, since Mr. Flue is so concerned about prophecies, he should take into consideration the words of Our Lord Himself when He said of our times: “For many will come in my name saying I am Christ and will seduce many.” (Mt 24:5) This is an invitation to vigilance and militancy, not to retirement from the fight because one “is tired.” Again, his position reflects a lack of vigilance and desertion from the fight, with a good chance of running into a rabbit hole in the field of one of these seducers. - Although the reception of the Sacraments and attendance at the Tridentine Mass is very important, this should not be the only concern of Catholics. If they love the Church more than themselves, they should fight to destroy her enemies and restore her.
- Given that Mr. Flue is so concerned about the Mass and the Sacraments, he should be a little more suspicious about the
’62 Mass that SSPX says, which is valid, but is a work of Msgr. Bugnini preparing for the Novus Ordo Missae. To point out this Mass as a source of pure water to his followers is imprudent, if he does so unconsciously; it is complicit, if it is a conscious act.
- The SSPX argument of necessity used in the consecration of bishops for the benefit of the faithful – here repeated by Mr. Flue –
was proved to be flawed by Dr. Horvat.
- The labels of lacking charity, being indifference and being selective used by Mr. Flue against TIA are hollow epithets that change nothing in the debate with SSPX. They were theatrical attacks along with some rhetorical emotional appeals to Dr. Horvat used by Mr. Flue to present himself as a serious polemicist. A goal that unfortunately he did not achieve.
As a side note, we comment to you how fitting it is that a sede-vacantist partisan is now very concerned about defending SSPX…
And Bishop Schneider? He is 100% in the Conciliar Church playing the “good cop” with the SSPX, while Card. Fernandez plays the “bad cop.” We know the game.
Cordially,
TIA correspondence desk
Posted September 24, 2026
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The opinions expressed in this section - What People Are Commenting - do not necessarily express those of TIA
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+PAX
In connection with the difficulties of the sede-vacantist position your correspondent Mr. Dylan Catlett has very recently quoted Prof. Plinio on the spirit of Liberalism. Our Holy Father St. Benedict said of a certain kind of monk:
"A third and detestable kind of monks are the Sarabaites, who ... still keep faith with the world in their works, while, as their tonsure shows, they lie to God. These in twos or threes, or even singly without a shepherd, shut up not in the Lord's sheepfolds but in their own, make a law to themselves of their own pleasures and desires: whatever they think fit or please to do, that they call holy; what they like not, that they consider unlawful."
Dom Paul Delatte, OSB, writes in his famous Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict (Burns, Oates & Washbourne, London, 1921):
"If the Sarabaite of history is extinct, his spirit is by no means so. Man has the unfortunate facility of seeing things not as they are, but as he is, of making the world after his own image and likeness. In the moral order, in the sphere of the will, where a mistake is not palpable, ... we easily come to distort all our decisions, to canonize what we do, to adore that which pleases us. It is delusion.
“(There is) a course of interior diplomacy, a chemical process of the mind: 'Petty obedience may be all right for the period of growth and formation, but I am a senior now. Are there not certain adjustments possible, certain legitimate interpretations of the law?' So,/ a man gently substitutes his own will for the law, until the fascination of self occupies the whole field of his interior vision; complete apostasy will not then be long in coming."
Abbot Delatte wrote those words during the reign of St. Pius X. It would be at least ironic if it could be shown that the sede-vacantists have fallen into the same trap as the Modernists.
In Christo,
Br. M.J., OSB, England