Why is the “Recognize and Resist” position as exemplified by Taylor Marshall and many other so-called theologians and bloggers so bad? There are many quotes that could be rendered to demonstrate why this is, but let’s present a couple from Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Satis Cognitum On the Unity of the Church:
The Church has always regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own… He who dissents even in one point from divinely revealed truth absolutely denies all faith, since he thereby refuses to honor God as the supreme truth and the formal motive of faith. From ancient times, the Church, which is the Spouse of Christ, was viewed as the “pillar and bulwark of truth,” because Christ Himself declared Himself to be the Truth. “I am the way the truth and the life, no one goes to the Father but by Me.” Truth, like God is unchanging. If it were to substantially change, there would be nothing true, nothing good or beautiful in the world or anywhere else. Because Christ established the Church in truth, it is IMPOSSIBLE for it to teach or promulgate error. The Church is both Indefectible and Infallible, this means it could never change its teaching on itself, nor its teaching in the Universal Ordinary Magisterium or in its Extraordinary Magisterium. To do so would blaspheme the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth who is God — the “unforgivable sin” as Our Lord Jesus Christ calls it. But Vatican II did just that, and therefore defected from the Faith. It proves that an evil entity took it over back in 1965.
Recognize and Resist people maintain that Chirst’s Church can give us evil teaching, evil liturgy, evil laws. The term “heretical pope” is a demonstration of such nonsense, because a true pope cannot possibly be a manifest heretic! A true pope, if he were to do such things would drop dead on the spot. By the very fact that the Vatican II popes have officially done such evil things tells you that they cannot be popes, and that the True Church is in eclipse and a false church has taken over the Vatican and its various institutions.
Recognize and Resist individuals such as Taylor Marshall and institutions such as the Society of St. Pius X move in and become a “replacement magisterium.” THEY will now be the official interpreters of Vatican II and Catholic doctrine. But where in Catholic teaching does it say that just anyone can assume that role? This exists nowhere in Catholic dogma. And they call Sedevacantists arrogant!
From Jonathan Byrd a former R&R blogger:
We have done harm to the faith, we did the very things Modernists have
done — namely we have twisted words to suit new meanings. In fact, we
have lost what it means to be Catholic by explaining away the Faith to
justify how people like Francis [Bergoglio] could call themselves Catholic
and be the Pope.
Exactly! Instead of redefining Bergoglio these people redefine Catholic doctrine in order to justify the likes of Francis. Like a broken clock, Taylor Marshall and R&R promoters may be right a couple times a day, but who can ever really trust the time it tells—and who can ever really trust what they say?