Frequently Repeated Points of Difficulty with the SSPX
But the SSPX do not accept the Second Vatican Council... ... or the Mass of Paul VI... ...so they are simply not Catholic. ... I prefer the Tridentine Latin Mass, but I do accept the Mass of Paul VI. The Pope has said that the SSPX have no canonical standing within the Church... The SSPX confessions are invalid"
But the SSPX do not accept the Second Vatican Council..."
Will, that's not exactly right. The SSPX do accept that Vatican II was a valid Ecumenical Council. What they do is repeat what was said in the Council itself (but is usually forgotten) - that it was not making infallible pronouncements. Pope Paul VI himself said this. And this is stated in what is called the 'Nota Praevia' inserted into the document Lumen Gentium, on Pope Paul VI's personal instructions, that affirm 'No pronouncement of this Sacred Caouncil is to be taken as infallible unless specifically stated to be so". In the event, not one document was so identified. What the SSPX have said from the very beginning is that the Vatican Council belongs to the "Ordinary Magisterium" (infallible documents belong to the Extraordinary Magisterium) and as such are infallible only in so far as they repeat previous infallible doctrine. Hence they say that the Council is to be understood in the light of the immemorial Tradition of the Church. They do accept Vatican II on these terms. Mgr Lefebvre and others refused to sign two of the council documents - Lumen Gentium and Dignitatis Humanae - precisely because they contradict previous immemorial doctrine (DH), or at least leave the door wide open to misinterpretation - deliberate or otherwise (LG). Pope Paul knew this about LG but instead of demanding it to be reworded he simply ordered the Nota Praevia added at the beginning.
The SSPX have never once repudiated an infallible Catholic doctrine.
"... or the Mass of Paul VI..."
Again, one must be careful.
Archbp. Lefebvre insisted that the Novus Ordo Missae of Paul VI, when said in Latin according to the rubrics (rules for celebration) must be accepted as valid unless and until there is a contrary statement made by a Pope or by an Ecumenical Council conviked by the Pope. *And he expelled any seminarians who did not accept this.* However, he insisted that the Old form of Mass had not been abolished (which Pope Benedict affirmed) and that the New Mass, because of its omissions and ambiguities, and other reasons, (not even mentioning the versions being regularly carried out against the rules) was more harmful than helpful, and he advised against attending. But he said that if one could not get to an Old Latin Mass, and were troubled in conscience, it was better to attend the New Mass than not. (One may not agree: but I am repeating for the record what his position was).
"...so they are simply not Catholic. ..."
The SSPX are definitely Catholic. The Decree of Excommunication (which the SSPX and others always insisted was invalid) was lifted by Pope Benedict. That means they are inside the Church. But a double standard is applied in many places (although not, e.g., in Lourdes, where they regularly offer Sung Latin Mass in the Basilica, with permission of the bishop) ... They are apparently not Catholic enough to be allowed into parish churches, but they are too Catholic to be allowed the courtesies granted to any and every other Faith in the name of Ecumenism. Thus they were excluded from Chartres Cathedral just a month after there had been a large gathering of Buddhists.
"Although I prefer the Tridentine Latin Mass myself, I do accept the Mass of Paul VI."
The Mass is not actually the main issue. There are five main issues:
(i) The dropping of the condemnation of Marxism at the Council.
(iii) The danger of a false notion of Collegiality, which would demote the Papacy to the role of chairman of the College of Bishops (which, by the way, is a name with no legal standing). This was being very strongly promoted by certain bishops in the Vatican Council and Archbp. Lefebvre was one of the staunchest defenders of the Papacy, both during and after the Council.
(iii) The adoption of a false concept of Ecumenism (which drops the aim of actually converting the non-Catholic)
(iv) The adoption of the false tenet of Religious Liberty, which was promoted at the French Revolution - the Catholic position is that the practice of a religion other than the one established by Christ the King - which is the Catholic Church - may be tolerated in certain places and times as the lesser of evils, but that it cannot ever be claimed as a Right.
(v) The false idea that Development of Doctrine can entail actually reversing what had previously been universally accepted. Doctrine can develop what was already there at the time of the Apostles, but it cannot reverse it.
The Pope has said that the SSPX have no canonical standing within the Church...
Fr Z writes:
I respond with what Benedict XVI wrote in July 2009 in Ecclesiae Unitatem (my emphases and comments):
Benedict XVI : 4. In the same spirit, and with the same commitment to favouring the repair of all fractures and divisions within the Church, and to healing a wound that is ever more painfully felt within the ecclesiastical structure, [Fr Z: They are, in the Pope's mind, not clearly in union.] [MOF: this is a loaded term, as is the newly-invented term 'not in full communion". Before Vatican II you either were in the Church (in communion) or out of it. And there was a whole theology of the Body of Christ and individual souls. Nowadays, I regret to say, being 'in full communion' usually means "going along with the novelties of the post-Vatican II church which, however, are not legally binding on any Catholic". Obviously the SSPX do not agree with the 'mainstream' view - but that does not in itself prove that they are not entitled to a hearing.] Benedict XVI : I decided to remit the excommunication of the four bishops illicitly ordained by Msgr. Lefebvre. In making that decision my intention was to remove an impediment that could hinder the opening of a door to dialogue and thus invite the four bishops and the Society of Saint Pius X to rediscover the path to full communion with the Church. [Fr Z: Again, they are, in the Pope's mind, not clearly in union.] [MOF: See above. I am bold enough to suggest another reason: it has never, since 1988, been explained how the provisions of Canon Law, exempting from penalty, can apply to every one else except the SSPX; or why, despite their absolutely legitimate request for a Appeal, this was always denied. Because of these glaring anomalies, laypeople in their thousands were not deterred by the ever-mounting penalties thrown at the SSPX, each of which depended on a previous penalty that was itself at the very least open to the most serious doubt. This is not how to build the Church on a Rock. Benedict very wisely decided to quietly drop this alleged penalty. Yes, he did also have the motives he stated.]
Benedict XVI : As I explained in my Letter to Catholic bishops of 10 March this year, the remission of the excommunication was a measure taken in the field of ecclesiastical discipline, to free individuals from the burden of conscience constituted by the most serious of ecclesiastical penalties. [Fr Z: That means that they are free to go to confession.] [According to Canons 1321, 1324, 1325, which were promulgated by Bl. John Paul II, and have never been revoked, they always were.] Benedict XVI : However it is clear that the doctrinal questions remain, and until they are clarified the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers cannot legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church. [That is completely true. The SSPX are holding to what has been believed 'always, everywhere, by everybody' to quote S. Vincent of Lérins - a statement which was adopted and 'canonised' at Vatican I as a measure of infallibilty - and it is the others who have deviated. See also below] Benedict XVI : I deeply desire and pray that the priests and bishops of the SSPX will be reconciled with the Roman Pontiff and, in so doing, obtain a clear canonical status and be able legitimately to exercise ministry within the Church. [MOF: Two salient points here:
(i) Bp Fellay, Superior of the SSPX, has pointed out that there is no point taking things out of their correct order: while the doctrinal divisions remain - and that means, before the official organs of the Vatican return to Catholic Truth - a legal or 'canonical' status would be meaningless. S. Benedict, whose very emblem was the olive, symbol of peace, wrote 'From a false peace: Lord deliver us'. All that would happen, pointed out Bp Fellay, is that when the next crisis came, without doctrinal agreement the 'canonical status' would fall apart. Bp Fellay, late last year, pointed out that the SSPX do not now, nor have they ever, rejected a single infallible doctrine or any Canonical Creed. To repeat, they are being pressurised to go along with innovations that have already been condemned in the strongest terms. Bp Fellay said, 'We are not the problem! We are the thermometer! When there is a fever, it is no use blaming the thermometer! When the fever goes down, so does the thermometer!
[cont’d]
[cont’d]
At the same conference, Bp Fellay also said:
In 2000 the SSPX said: "Before we begin serious talks, we want this: (i) Give the Traditional Latin Mass to everybody; (ii) Remove the Decree of Excommunication. And everybody said: "Bp Fellay is requesting the impossible!" Now the actual reply we got was, "We agree that the Traditional Latin Mass wasn't suppressed: Cdl Sodano, Ratzinger, Castrillon Hoyos, Medina, and many others all agree"... We said, "So why don't you do it?" and they replied, "But the Secretaries and the Under-secretaries don't agree!"
Cdl Castrillon Hoyos said, " Some Faithful, and some Bps, think that if we do this, it will be a move against Paul VI, against the Novus Ordo, against the Second Vatican Council." {Bp Fellay's response was}, "I thought it was the Pope who is the Boss!" And now, seven years later, the "impossible" has happened – by personal intervention of the Pope.
I say now: don't be too carried away by the imperfections of this Motu Proprio – look at the broad picture. Some conversions are instantaneous – like that of S. Paul. But very many take much longer.
Look at the history of the Church. The general rule is that every serious crisis in the Church takes seventy years to run its course! Matters deteriorate for decades, then some turning-point is reached – and the recovery proceeds for the remaining decades. There is no magical instantaneous resolution of the crisis. Now this Motu Proprio was definitely the turning-point! We're not saying the crisis is over right now, but we do say that the hour has struck for the beginning of the restoration.
We would like a forest. We want a tree. After this Summer, the seed is in the ground. If we don't plant the seed, we'll never get the tree – or the forest!
To those impatient for an instantaneous solution: Did you really think the Pope would speak and everybody would make an overnight turnaround? That is not how human nature operates!
...We have now reached a very critical point in the course of events. The Novus Ordo Bishops, those who lived through Vatican II, are getting old. For them Vatican II was their baby. They cannot entertain the idea that it was all a huge mistake. The younger bishops are more unformed in the Faith, but they do not have this attachment to Vatican II.
Therefore the duration and the details of this crisis are not our concern. Our concern is that the Church get back on its tracks.
The Vatican insists that it is we who are the problem.
I said recently to Cdl Castrillon Hoyos: "Please forget about the SSPX and deal with your own problems! When you have done that, you will discover that the SSPX is no longer a problem!"
We are a thermometer of the state of the Church. A doctor ought not to get upset at his own thermometer! Cure the sickness and the thermometer will go down by itself!
We Catholics have a right to request Bishops – and the Pope – to act like Catholic Bishops, like a Catholic Pope.
Because we stick to the Faith, now it has come about that we are the point of reference!
They may say, "What, four bishops and 500 priests against 5,000 bishops and 400,000 priests? But the Catholic mind doesn't care about numbers – but the truth.
We are the Disturbing Element that keeps down the unchecked spread of Error. Our position is starting to influence other priests, bishops, Cardinals.
Since the issuing of the Motu Proprio, the SSPX have been asked for information. We did not force it; we said, "If anyone is interested, write and ask us for a CD". So far we have, on request, distributed 5,000 DVDs: 3,000 French, 2,000 German. The USA are not keeping records, but at least 700 have been sent out. Allowing for collaboration between priests, at least 10,000 have got in touch with the Old Mass.
At the level of doctrine it is the same. We must start at the beginning! We can't start building a house with the roof!
And this is not theory. I am telling you what we are seeing. There is a might in the Old Mass. It nurtures the Faith. Priests go back to the Traditional Latin Mass then begin to re-think their lives.
Priests have said, "By saying the Traditional Latin Mass I have understood the nature of the Priesthood."
All this requires, on our part, enormous energy, and we may say compassion, mercy, and firmness.
MOF: This talk was given at Athlone, Ireland, in late 2007. You should have heard the congregation groan when he said, "Major crises in the Church normally take 70 years to resolve!"
(ii) MOF: The SSPX, since 1988, never did claim they had 'canonical status'. They are providing Emergency Aid to the Church. They have the same 'status' as a man without a driver's licence driving an ambulance to the Emergency Ward when there was nobody else willing or able to drive. Archbp Lefebvre was meticulous to avoid any schismatic action, which is a very different matter from disobedience (which is a debatable point in itself). He did not appoint his own bishops to somebody else's diocese (which, I might add is exactly what S. Athanasius and S. Eusebius did during the Arian crisis) - he appointed 4 bishops, pro tem., sine locus - "for the duration (of the emergency), without a diocese". Where the diocesan bishop denies the laity their right as members of the Catholic Church, these bishops come in and provide it. But at every Mass, the SSPX priests pray at the prescribed point for the Pope and for the diocesan bishop. Mgr Lefebvre said, "We are keeping the pilot light going until the Church sees fit to turn on the gas again".
For those inclined to doubt that things are at emergency level - in your own parish or area, if you are lucky, the line is being held. But it is doing so with no firm backup whatsoever. If your priests (which God forbid) come to be replaced by others, the following is the kind of thing that happens without any public repudiation from Rome:
The SSPX confessions are invalid."
Confessions of the SSPX are definitely accepted as valid by the congregation within the Vatican that is actually entrusted with these things.
I hate to spoil anyone's innocence, but the Vatican is not quite the smooth-running group of like-minded saintly individuals that we would like to see - 'we bear a treasure in earthen vessels' and there are pressure groups, infighting, jealousies - and worse - and the poor old Pope has to try to keep it all in order. Pray for him every day. The Catholic Church, with 1.2 billion members, is the largest, as well as the oldest, single organisation in the world today. Things are claimed in press conferences that do not actually correspond with the reality, and they are not always publicly corrected. The Italians, especially the Romans, know this very well. They have a proverb, "Canon Law is followed everywhere - except in Rome".
What is this all about? There is a difference between a power and the permission to use that power. All Catholic priests receive at ordination the power to forgive sins in Our Lord's Name - and to cast out devils - but as the exercise of this power requires judgment, the priest is forbidden to exercise this power until he has been given express permission by 'the competent authority'. In the Middle Ages, when there were many priests, only certain of them were allowed to hear confessions - except in cases of emergency, when all bets were off. 'The salvation of souls is always the primary law'.
Now there are certain grave sins whose remittance is reserved to the Holy See alone. These are known as 'reserved cases'. They would include Devil Worship (yes it does happen;) running an abortion clinic, etc. (The number of them was greatly reduced after Vatican II but many are still on the Statute books). Under Church law, if a priest hears the confession of a person who has committed one of these reserved sins, the priest is obliged to report the matter to the Holy See within thirty days to receive permission to absolve, as well as guidance for the imposition of an appropriate penance. From time to time SSPX priests have heard such sins in confession - obviously the priest cannot know this in advance. Now since the SSPX are not *really* excommunicated or schismatic, as the competent authorities do actually know (partly by virtue of Canon Law par. 1321, 1323, 1324) the SSPX priest always routinely sends the required notification to the Holy See. Every single time so far, the response received from the Vatican has been that “ALL is good and licit” and the SSPX priest is given the required permission to absolve.
This proves conclusively that, despite what the papers (and some bishops) claim, the SSPX priests can validly hear confessions. If the Society priests lacked any form of jurisdiction to hear confessions, the Holy See would have had to reply that the penitent needed to confess to a priest who had legal jurisdiction to hear confessions - or else (which would not make any sense) a specific statement that the SSPX priest could absolve this penitent, but not any others. This would be crazy (they can judge and absolve the worst sins but not the "little" ones?), but in any case it is never done. Remember that we are here dealing with the gravest matters - sins whose absolution is reserved - and hence mortal sin (assuming all other conditions are present). Yet even so, the Holy See replies to the SSPX that “all is good and licit.” The Holy See is thus making a de facto recognition of SSPX jurisdiction to hear confessions, a position that the Society and a number of canonical experts not connected with the SSPX have maintained for years in the face of what is obviously a difficult legal situation.
For those new to all this, the SSPX have claimed the protection of the Law - notably that involving emergency situations. Every Code of Law has Emergency clauses. For example, in a hospital the normal procedures for admission are waived when a patient is rushed in with a cardiac arrest. An ambulance is allowed to break the normal traffic laws for the greater good. Now canons 1321-4 specifically authorise a Catholic to be exempt from any Ecclesial penalty if he personally judges himself to be in a 'state of necessity'. Some have said that this makes the law unworkable. But such as it is, it is the Church's own laws promulgated by Bl. John Paul II in the New Code of Canon Law. Mgr Lefebvre, the founder of the SSPX, invoked this Law in 1988. Note that it was 40 years before the Pope officially endorsed what Mgr Lefebvre and others had always pointed out, and indeed begged the Vatican to publicly state: the traditional Liturgy was never actually abolished, and every priest until the End of the World has been personally indemnified against any penalty for continuing to use the Traditional Liturgy (and all that goes with it). The SSPX have always claimed that they cannot possibly be censured for doing what the Church had done for millennia, and be forded to adopt positions previously condemned. And the Latin mass is not actually the main issue, despite what the papers say. This is a real can of worms for those in the Vatican who are trying to force through certain Changes to Catholic Life which are not, in fact, possible.