Taking bets here on the SSPX

So this is where things stand with the Society of St. Pius X.

How long, then, until the Society's official position becomes that of sede vacantist? After all, that is the position of many of its members and adherents (members being priests and religious, adherents being those who attend their chapels). Indeed, knowing their history as well as I do, it has always surprised me that this was not declared their official position long ago.

After all, why not? They're already in schism. They treat the Chair of Peter as though it is empty, since they have not since their founding followed any directive of a single Pope. The way they treat the Chair is the way Clint Eastwood treated the empty chair next to him on the stage during the 2012 Republican National Convention.

For instance, when Paul VI told them not to ordain their first class of seminarians, they did. When John Paul II told them not to consecrate a bishop without their consent, they didn't just consecrate one bishop, they consecrated four (it was out of "necessity," they said, which was not their judgment to make, but the Pope's; and if the sede is not vacante, they would have, being the good Catholics they claimed to be). They furiously thumbed their noses at him.

They picked apart Bl. John Paul's encyclical Veritatis Splendor, as if it was some heretical document. They lambasted him for kissing a Koran (which I didn't like, either) worse than Jack Chick, James McCarthy, or John MacArthur have ever done in their worst "the Catholic 'Church' is the Whore of Babylon and the Pope the Antichrist" moments.

I doubt one in 725 SSPX chapels and less than 1 in 100,000 of its adherents pray the Luminous Mysteries created by JP2. It's cynical speculation, I grant, but I challenge someone to prove to me otherwise. I know my SSPX relatives don't. (They don't know what they are missing.)

Upon the ascension of Benedict XVI to the papal throne, they openly called his late 1960s book, Introduction to Christianity heretical. When the Holy Father changed the 1962 Missal's Good Friday prayer regarding the Jews, they refused to implement it, and have not done so yet.

The rest of their disobediences and living an autonomous, "I [do] it 'My Waaayyyyy'" ecclesial life are a matter of open record. So when will their de facto sede vacantism become de iure?

Let's take bets, OK? I say within two-and-a-half years, their superior, Bishop Fellay, will reluctantly deduce and announce that this is the Society's official position. "Gosh, I hate to come to this conclusion, but I have to admit -- we as a priestly fraternity have to admit -- that we can come to no other conclusion than this: That the Chair of Peter is empty, and has been since the death of His Holiness Pius XII of blessed memory. For no true pope would allow the heresies we have seen since 1958 to become part of the fabric of God's Holy Church."

Of course, that would mean that Matthew 16:18-20 shows Jesus didn't know what He was talking about. Oh, no, wait: They, the SSPX, are the faithful remnant. So the gates of hell, in their telling haven't prevailed! Ahhh. It all becomes clear.

Yes, I'm being snide and cynical. Sorry. Their blindness and hypocrisy drive me to distraction. They are the modern day Pharisees. Truly. The analogy is perfect.

Anyway, again, I say 2.5 years. Anyone have a different guess?