Fr Devillers, the former head of the FSSP, personally talked to me face to face on two occasions, and he thought my beliefs were compatible with traditional Catholicism. ‘You must understand pre_empirical, that Trads follow Thomas Aquinas completely, though’, he said to me.

So, I started reading Thomas Aquinas. I read too much of it, particularly in the scripture commentary. I found out through questioning the priests and lay people that none of them have actually read much of his work. The priests in their eight years of seminary never even touch Aquinas scripture commentary. I thought, how could a movement based on one man’s theology not read his works?

Then I started to talk about the Jews. See, in Thomas Aquinas commentary on Romans 11, he takes Zechariah in the Old Testament literally, just as I had done as an anabaptist. It was right there in the footnotes! Aquinas confirms that the Jews are a special people, that God will return some of them to Israel, and finally, convert them to Catholicism just before the end (also matching the 665 theory).

The priests hated this! They don’t like the Jews. I then realized, as you said, it is a cult, and is not consistent in their own beliefs. The priests don’t even know what is in their own favorite guy’s writing.

In that sense, I’m more traditional Catholic than they are, and I exposed way to many people as being shallow frauds. At least I read their Aquinas.