John-Henry Westen: An open letter to Cardinal Sarah on the SSPX

(LifeSiteNews) — Yesterday, on February 22, 2026, Cardinal Robert Sarah—a respected voice for tradition in the Church—published an impassioned essay in the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche. Titled “Before it is too late!”, it’s a direct intervention against the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X’s (SSPX’s) announcement of episcopal ordinations without papal mandate.

Sarah calls this a grave threat to Church unity, urging fidelity to the Pope as the successor of Peter. Among his strongest words: “One cannot claim to disobey the Church in order to save it. Disobedience to the Pope cannot be the ordinary path of salvation for souls.” And even more pointedly: “It is through obedience that Christ saved the world. It is not by rebellion that we will save the Church.”

These quotes capture his core plea: stay in the boat of Peter, no matter the storm. Now, with that context, here’s my response to His Eminence.

An open letter to Cardinal Sarah on the SSPX

My dear Cardinal Sarah,

As you began your essay with a quotation from Sacred Scripture, so do I begin this open letter with a portion from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.

I read your recent essay in Le Journal du Dimanche with interest and, I must confess, great heartache. You call for unity in the Church, invoking the rock of Peter and the necessity of obedience to the successor of Peter. You warn against the SSPX’s planned episcopal ordinations without mandate, labeling it disobedience that risks souls. But Your Eminence, as I read your words, all I could think of was, “Where have you been?” I was so happy to finally hear from you about the crisis in the Church, but you intentionally referred to symptoms and ignored the painfully obvious cause of the cancer devouring the Church.

READ: Bishop Strickland urges prayers for Pope Leo, SSPX amid consecrations dispute

Where have you been these past nine months, as the Church has been engulfed in flames under Pope Leo’s reign? The whole edifice seems to be burning down, and your silence has been the loudest thing on earth. You wear the red of martyrdom, a symbol of willingness to shed blood for the faith. Yet under the grave dangers facing the faithful today, you and your brother cardinals have been conspicuously absent.

Pope Leo, like his predecessor, has welcomed Father James Martin, SJ, with open arms, elevating a voice that twists Catholic teaching on sexuality and promotes ideologies contrary to Scripture and Tradition. Leo permitted the LGBT pilgrimage into St. Peter’s Basilica itself—described by a courageous bishop and many faithful as the abomination of desolation entering the Holy Place, echoing the warnings of Daniel and Our Lord in Matthew 24. And let’s not forget Leo’s declaration that if you’re not against the death penalty, you’re not truly pro-life—a direct assault on the pro-life movement and on centuries of magisterial teaching from popes and doctors of the Church who upheld capital punishment as just in principle, when necessary for the common good.

The list of horrifying bishop appointments, the allowance for the anti-Catholic Communist Party in China to name bishops under Popes Francis and Leo are changing the face of the Church of the future. Where was your voice, Cardinal? Why no public outcry against these outrages that endanger souls far more than any SSPX consecrations?

Your essay speaks eloquently of defending Tradition, but your prolonged inaction speaks volumes louder, leaving the faithful to wonder if your greatest concern is political calculation. Are you and your fellow cardinals seeking favor with Leo to advance some particular agendas?

You decry the SSPX’s disobedience as a path to perdition, but I can tell you without reservation that the faithful are profoundly grateful—indeed, overjoyed—that the SSPX did not obey during the COVID crisis, when Francis gave the example for the unprecedented shutdown of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass worldwide. Dioceses complied en masse, locking churches, denying the Eucharist to the laity, and even refusing last rites to the dying in their hour of greatest need. The SSPX, however, kept the Mass alive, preserving access to grace and the Real Presence when it was needed most urgently.

Was that not true obedience to Christ Himself, prioritizing the supreme law of salus animarum—the salvation of souls—over blind submission to bishops mandating depriving the faithful of the Holy Sacrifice, which arguably contradicted divine law? History vindicates them: countless faithful were sustained spiritually because of their courage. Why condemn them now for consecrations when their past “disobedience” prevented widespread despair and even apostasy among the flock?

You preach obedience now, but I must ask: Where is your own obedience to Francis—and his magisterium now furthered by Leo? You urge unwavering fidelity to the Pope, yet have you personally blessed homosexual couples as Fiducia Supplicans explicitly encourages? If obedience is the very heart of faith, as you so passionately claim, why this hesitation on your part? Should we not embrace the spirit of the law rather than give niggardly compliance only with the letter? The spirit of Fiducia Supplicans is amply demonstrated by both Francis and Leo with their support for James Martin, SJ and his embrace of homosexuality.

Your Eminence, do you now fully accept the radical changes that Leo upholds and enforces? Do you believe, as the revised Catechism under Francis teaches, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”? This flatly contradicts the witness of Sacred Scripture, St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope Pius XII, and the unbroken tradition that affirmed its legitimacy.

Do you now hold that divorced and remarried couples, without annulment or a commitment to continence, can under some circumstances be admitted to Holy Communion, as Amoris Laetitia and the Acta Apostolicae Sedis proclaim as official magisterium? These are ruptures with prior infallible teaching that sow confusion and scandal.

Do you affirm that the Novus Ordo is the sole legitimate expression of the Roman Rite, endorsing the severe restrictions on the Latin Mass as decreed in Traditionis Custodes, the subsequent rescript, and rigorously enforced under Leo? The Mass of the Ages of the saints and martyrs is being systematically suppressed. Are you good with this?

READ: Liturgy expert suggests SSPX consecrations influenced by Vatican document on Mary’s titles

If obedience demands acquiescence to all this, how do you reconcile it with your professed love for authentic liturgy and the deposit of faith?

Finally, dear Cardinal Sarah, we must confront a painful but unavoidable possibility—one that echoes through Church history with its some 30 documented anti-popes who illegitimately claimed the throne and led souls astray. What if Francis and Leo are such figures—anti-popes whose elections or actions render their authority null? Their pontificates have been marked by welcoming notorious dissenters like Father Martin, permitting what Scripture condemns as abominations to enter the Holy Place, inverting foundational pro-life teachings, and dismantling the ancient rite of the Mass.

Anti-popes like Clement VII during the Western Schism or Benedict XIII sowed similar confusion through invalid claims, heretical inclinations, or failures to uphold the faith intact, forcing the faithful to discern true authority through prayer, reason, and adherence to perennial truth. If Francis and Leo’s reigns mirror these historical precedents—perhaps due to irregularities in their elections or manifest departures from orthodoxy—then obedience to them isn’t fidelity to Peter but unwitting complicity in error. The gates of hell will not prevail against the Church, as Christ promises, but we must test the spirits, as the beloved apostle urges in 1 John 4:1, and cling to the unchanging magisterium.

Before it is too late, as you yourself warn, will you consider this possibility? True unity isn’t blind allegiance to a man but communion with Christ and the immutable truths He entrusted to His Bride the Church.

I beg your prayers dear Cardinal Sarah for me a sinner, and that you forgive my impertinence in replying with such vigor. As a father of eight children who are mostly in their twenties and have lived all their adult lives under two disastrous pontificates, I beseech your understanding. These two men – Francis and Leo – have harmed the faith of my little ones (Mt. 18:6). And I have concern for your soul and those of your brother cardinals too, since by your silence you are aiding and abetting in this confusion of the little ones.

I pray for you, dear Cardinal Sarah, for your faithful confreres and for the entire Church in this time of the decisive battle between Our Lord and the reign of Satan. By the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, may God grant us all clarity, courage, and the grace to defend the faith without compromise.

In Christ and His beloved Mother,

John-Henry Westen