I wasn’t looking for a theology lesson this morning. Just sitting in the recliner in the living room, cats sleeping in morning sun through the windows, the new normal now while we’re scrolling. Outside, the pines are still damp from the rain yesterday.
Then a Newsweek headline stopped me cold: a Catholic group called the Society of St. Pius X warning the Vatican they had an “arsenal” of ways to defend their plan to consecrate bishops without papal approval.
Both sides were talking about Jesus. Both seemed convinced they were standing for the truth. It stayed with me.
I kept reading. Then I kept digging, because one reporter’s take never feels like the whole story. and Billal Rahman’s regular beat is immigration. Somewhere in that rabbit hole I started thinking about my own tradition, and that’s when it got uncomfortable.
I kept coming back to the upper room. Not the grand councils or anything later. Just those men. Fishermen mostly, a tax collector, a former zealot. The night before Jesus died, He washed their feet. Told them the greatest among them would be the servant of all. Simple bread and cup. Whatever came later, that room began with a servant washing feet.
That image wouldn’t leave me alone while I was reading about the SSPX.
From what I can gather, the Society of St. Pius X started in 1970 because an archbishop believed the changes after Vatican II were harming the Church. They want to keep the old ways: Latin Mass, the traditional teachings. In 1988 he consecrated bishops without approval and was excommunicated. That was lifted years later, but the group is still in a jam. Now in 2026 they’re planning to do it again on July 1. The Vatican has warned them plainly: do it and you’ll be excommunicated.
I can see they believe they’re trying to protect something important.
Before I as a Baptist get too comfortable, I had to turn the mirror around.
I grew up Southern Baptist here in Louisiana. I loved it — the hymns, the revivals, the preaching that held you up against Scripture and wouldn’t let you hide. That tradition helped point me to Jesus, and I’m grateful for it.
But I was grown before I really understood how the Southern Baptist Convention started. Back in 1845, the split with Northern Baptists happened over slavery. I’ve read the proceedings.
There’s a loose parallel that’s been bothering me. Folks in both cases believed they were protecting the faith as they understood it. I’m not saying they’re the same. They’re not. The contexts and the weight are different. Still, both show how human institutions, even ones born of conviction, can wound people and need honest looking at later.
I love my tradition. I’m not walking away from it. But I want to hold it with open hands. As a Southern Baptist trying to better understand my Catholic brothers and sisters, I keep thinking about that upper room.
It didn’t have an arsenal.
I put down the pad and stepped outside for a while. The air was heavy with humidity, and pine pollen dusted the puddles. I’m not sure I’ve landed anywhere clean with all this. Maybe that’s alright for now.
What headline has sent you down a rabbit hole lately?
Original photo by Benjamin Esteves on Unsplash