"Recognize and resist" (often shortened to "R&R") is the name traditionalist Catholics use for a stance toward the papacy: the reigning pope is acknowledged as the true pope, yet his teaching or government may be openly resisted where it is judged to depart from Tradition. It is most closely associated with the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), but versions of it run through much of the papal-critique media. It is defined against sedevacantism, which concludes that recent popes are not popes at all, and against what its proponents call "false obedience".
What trad media commonly claims
Authority is recognised; its misuse is resisted. A Catholic Kansas essay describes it as keeping the pope's legitimate authority while actively opposing perceived doctrinal deviation. The SSPX's British district argues that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre questioned how papal authority was used, not whether the pope possessed it (FSSPX UK). A 2016 SSPX column calls sedevacantism a temptation and points to saints who resisted popes without denying their office (sspx.org). The Society's page on the state of necessity frames the choice as capitulating under the pretext of obedience or resisting by refusing a false obedience, reasoning that also underpinned its 2026 consecrations.
Infallibility is narrow. FSSPX.News argues that Bellarmine and Cajetan already held papal infallibility, so Vatican I's definition did not overturn the older teaching that a pope may be resisted (FSSPX.News).
Obedience to God comes first. Peter Kwasniewski's True Obedience in the Church (Sophia Institute Press) argues that a Catholic's duty to God can override papal directives. Catholic Family News reported (CFN) that he calls Traditionis custodes "manifestly an attack on the patrimony of the Church and on its common good." The historian Roberto de Mattei makes a related historical case in Love for the Papacy and Filial Resistance to the Pope (book listing).
Popular voices. According to the critical Substack Big Modernism, Taylor Marshall's 2019 book Infiltration rejected sedevacantism while defending recognize-and-resist. In August 2026 Integrity Magazine asked whether he was abandoning the position, noting that he now regularly promotes Leo XIV. OnePeterFive has paired the phrase with the view that "submission to the hierarchical authority of the Church is itself an essential part of the traditional faith" (OnePeterFive). Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who went further, was declared excommunicated for schism in 2024 (DDF; see explainer).
Critics on both flanks. Sedevacantists call the position incoherent. Fr. Benedict Hughes of the CMRI writes that, for refusing obedience to a lawful pope, "there is no theological precedent for such a thing" (CMRI). Novus Ordo Watch describes R&R as "recognizing someone as a true Pope but then resisting his teachings and his acts of governance" and argues that the traditional teaching is to recognise and obey (Novus Ordo Watch). From the other direction, a former SSPX priest writing at Where Peter Is calls the stance theologically untenable.
What the documents say
- Vatican I, Pastor aeternus (1870). Chapter 3 teaches the pope's primacy of jurisdiction, binds clergy and faithful to obedience in discipline and government as well as faith and morals, and rejects appeals from papal judgments to a council. Chapter 4 limits infallibility to ex cathedra definitions on faith or morals, and states that "the Holy Ghost was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard sacredly the revelation transmitted through the apostles" (text).
- Vatican II, Lumen gentium 25. Even when the pope does not speak ex cathedra, his authentic teaching calls for religious submission of mind and will. Its weight is gauged by the character of the documents, frequent repetition and the manner of speaking (LG 25).
- Catechism. CCC 882 describes the pope's full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church. CCC 891 locates infallibility in definitive acts. CCC 892 says that ordinary teaching not proposed infallibly is owed "religious assent", which, "though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it" (CCC 892).
- Code of Canon Law. Canon 752 asks for a religious submission of intellect and will to non-definitive doctrine. Canon 751 defines schism as the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him. Canon 1364 §1 attaches automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication to schism; it was applied to Viganò in 2024 and cited in the 2026 SSPX decree. In the 2021 revision of Book VI, obstinately rejecting the teaching of canon 752 after a warning is punishable under canon 1365 (Book VI). Canon 1373 (its number unchanged by the 2021 revision) punishes publicly inciting hatred or animosity against the Apostolic See, or provoking disobedience to it, with an interdict or other just penalties. A canonist in Catholic World Report notes these penalties are not automatic. Canon 212 §3 also gives the faithful the right, and sometimes the duty, to make their views known to their pastors.
- CDF, Donum Veritatis (1990). The instruction accepts that a theologian may have real difficulties with non-irreformable teaching and should put them to the competent authorities rather than to the mass media (nos. 24, 30). It distinguishes this from "dissent", including organised opposition (nos. 32–33) (Donum Veritatis).
- Leo XIV (2026). In his 25 March catechesis he presented the hierarchy as born of Christ to proclaim the Gospel (Vatican News). His 29 June letter to the SSPX warned that tearing the Church's unity is a sin of extreme gravity (vatican.va).
The historical and scholarly record
The resistance tradition predates the SSPX. Bellarmine's De Romano Pontifice (II.29) allows resistance to a pope who issues destructive commands while denying that inferiors may judge, punish or depose him. The Jesuit Domenico Palmieri (1891), as cited by the SSPX, held resistance to unjust papal acts lawful but not resistance to ex cathedra teaching.
Recent public criticism has mostly taken the form of petitions to the pope, such as the 2016 dubia on Amoris laetitia (NCRegister) and the 2017 Correctio filialis (FSSPX.News).
The Holy See's judgments on the SSPX turned on submission, not criticism. In 1976 Paul VI objected that a group, and not the pope or a council, was deciding which traditions bind (Paul VI). John Paul II's Ecclesia Dei (1988) traced the schism to an incomplete notion of Tradition (§4) (Ecclesia Dei). The 2026 decree followed consecrations carried out against an explicit papal request.
A Where Peter Is review of Kwasniewski's book concludes that "Catholics are bound to set aside their personal preferences and submit intellect and will to the authority of the Church."
Where reasonable Catholics disagree
- Commands versus teaching. Catholic moral theology has always held that no one may obey a command to sin, and Bellarmine allowed resistance to destructive commands. The dispute is whether ordinary liturgical or disciplinary laws can fall into that category. Kwasniewski argues that Traditionis custodes does. Where Peter Is answers that this substitutes private judgment for the authority recognised by canon law and LG 25.
- How much assent non-definitive teaching requires. LG 25 and CCC 892 grade assent, and Donum Veritatis separates respectfully raised difficulties from dissent. Even Where Peter Is, a leading critic of R&R, distinguishes prudential disagreement with a pope from dissent (Mike Lewis).
- Public versus private channels. Canon 212 §3 allows the faithful to make their views known. Donum Veritatis 30 directs theologians to the competent authorities, and canon 1373 penalises incitement against the Apostolic See. Catholics disagree about where public criticism becomes incitement.
What the official texts do not leave open is a settled refusal of submission to the pope as such: that is how canon 751 defines schism, and it underlies the Holy See's 2024 decree on Viganò and its 2026 declaration that the SSPX is in schism.
Key sources
- Pastor aeternus, chs. 3–4 (text); Lumen gentium 25; CCC 882, 891–892
- Code of Canon Law, cann. 212 §3, 751, 752, 1364, 1365, 1373 (Book VI); Donum Veritatis 24, 30–33
- Leo XIV, letter to the SSPX (2026); FSSPX.News, "Resisting an Infallible Pope?"; Where Peter Is, review of True Obedience