Are masses run by the SSPX acceptable?

[Josh_Elzner]

Have you written Pope Benedict XVI with your find and admonish him, because frankly friend, he certainly does not realize that your interpretation is correct and his is wrong.

You are interpreting Pope Benedict XVI to mean that he thinks the Society is not in schism. You still have not told me where he in any way disagrees with the other texts I have quoted. “wounds in the heart of the Church” is all that I have been given and that does not mean that he disagrees in any way with the obvious statement that the Society is in schism. How do you know that your understanding of that sentence in the Pope’s Letter is the right understanding.

It feels as if you do not want to hear what I want to say. You said you want to hear the truth and that I should talk and listen too. I was totally open–Maybe I had been mistaken on the state of the Society. It has become exceedingly more clear to me that I was not…

 

[PaulinVA]

ok, so now that you’ve done with that, what are you conserving, Paul? Because a conservative wants to conserve the status quo, a progressive wants to go past the status quo, and a reactionary wants to go back to the way things were. So Paul, what is it you want to conserve?

A conservative Catholic believes in the teaching authority of the Church. A conservative Catholic upholds the teachings of the Church. In normal conversation, conservative and liberal are known quantities.

What are they to conserve? Uhm, I’m not sure you can make a verb out of that. It isn’t valid to ask a liberal what he’s trying to liberate or a traditionalist what he’s trying to traditionalize, is it? It’s just a label.

On a practical side note, conservative Catholics are your friend. If you think of a continuum of thought, with traditionalists on one end and liberals on the other, the conservatives are sitting right next to you, both of us warily eying the liberals over there. If you can’t create allies among the conservatives, then you won’t have any success rolling out “traditional Catholicism” to the wider Church.

 

[Walking_Home]

You are interpreting Pope Benedict XVI to mean that he thinks the Society is not in schism. You still have not told me where he in any way disagrees with the other texts I have quoted. “wounds in the heart of the Church” is all that I have been given and that does not mean that he disagrees in any way with the obvious statement that the Society is in schism. How do you know that your understanding of that sentence in the Pope’s Letter is the right understanding.

It feels as if you do not want to hear what I want to say. You said you want to hear the truth and that I should talk and listen too. I was totally open–Maybe I had been mistaken on the state of the Society. It has become exceedingly more clear to me that I was not…

---

For good sakes Josh Elzner --you still at it. What would you do --if granted an audience with our Pope. Slam the “documents” on the table and admonish him (as maurin mentioned) --for not branding a big scarlet S on the Society’s forehead. Stop the pontificating and leave things between the Society and the Church — in the Pope’s hands.

 

[maurin]

A conservative Catholic believes in the teaching authority of the Church. A conservative Catholic upholds the teachings of the Church.

I don’t follow. A Traditional Catholic absolutely believes in the teaching authority of the Church. A Traditional Catholic absolutely believes in the teaching authority of the Church. I don’t follow your reasoning here.

What are they to conserve? Uhm, I’m not sure you can make a verb out of that. It isn’t valid to ask a liberal what he’s trying to liberate or a traditionalist what he’s trying to traditionalize, is it? It’s just a label.

I’m pretty sure you can make a verb out of that, even in this particular context. Although with Traditionalist and progressive, you may need to change terms.

On a practical side note, conservative Catholics are your friend.

I believe that. Some of my best friends think (like some others here at CA do) that I’m nuts for being not only a Traditionalist, but an SSPX’er to boot.

If you think of a continuum of thought, with traditionalists on one end and liberals on the other, the conservatives are sitting right next to you, both of us warily eying the liberals over there. If you can’t create allies among the conservatives, then you won’t have any success rolling out “traditional Catholicism” to the wider Church.

Paul, now remember we’ve made nice with each other, and I know you are as sincere as I am, so please do not be offended by what I’m about to ask you (promise first, or I won’t ask you).

 

[maurin]

---

For good sakes Josh Elzner --you still at it. What would you do --if granted an audience with our Pope. Slam the “documents” on the table and admonish him (as maurin mentioned) --for not branding a big scarlet S on the Society’s forehead. Stop the pontificating and leave things between the Society and the Church — in the Pope’s hands.

I agree, Walking Home, but I’m not quite convinced that Josh has any malintentions. I believe that all of this may be new to him, and he is sincere in his questions. If you look back at my posts from as little as a year ago, either here or at CCF, you will see me making similar posts as Josh. We are raised to be obedient to our Priests and to the Hierarchy, and it is painful to come to see their faults as it is for a child to come to see his father’s faults.

And Josh, that is not to imply that you will reach the same or even similar conclusions as I have when you have completed your quest.

 

[maurin]

You are interpreting Pope Benedict XVI to mean that he thinks the Society is not in schism. …

Nor have you demonstrated that Pope Benedict XVI believes that the Society is in schism. Documentation, Josh, that’s all I’m asking you to provide.

 

[PaulinVA]

I don’t follow. A Traditional Catholic absolutely believes in the teaching authority of the Church.

See, I told you that traditionalists and conservatives should be allies. A conservative believes in the teachings of the Church, and in the Church’s teaching authority. A traditionalist takes that further, and wants to practice that in a pre-1962 setting (for lack of a better way to describe it)

Paul, now remember we’ve made nice with each other, and I know you are as sincere as I am, so please do not be offended by what I’m about to ask you (promise first, or I won’t ask you).

Holding my breath. Go ahead.

 

[maurin]

See, I told you that traditionalists and conservatives should be allies. A conservative believes in the teachings of the Church, and in the Church’s teaching authority. A traditionalist takes that further, and wants to practice that in a pre-1962 setting (for lack of a better way to describe it)

Holding my breath. Go ahead.

you didn’t promise. I asked you to promise or won’t ask. Seriously. It is apparent to you that I will never win any awards in the field of diplomacy, and that I’m just a big Mack truck without even an emergency brake roaring down a steep incline, so I need you to promise that you won’t get angry or offended at what I would like to say without talking it all out first.

you gotta give me your word.

 

[PaulinVA]

you didn’t promise. I asked you to promise or won’t ask. Seriously. It is apparent to you that I will never win any awards in the field of diplomacy, and that I’m just a big Mack truck without even an emergency brake roaring down a steep incline, so I need you to promise that you won’t get angry or offended at what I would like to say without talking it all out first.

you gotta give me your word.

How hard could it be? It’s a public forum.

I promise that will not get angry or offended and will engage in discussion.

 

[Walking_Home]

I agree, Walking Home, but I’m not quite convinced that Josh has any malintentions. I believe that all of this may be new to him, and he is sincere in his questions. If you look back at my posts from as little as a year ago, either here or at CCF, you will see me making similar posts as Josh. **** We are raised to be obedient to our Priests and to the Hierarchy, and it is painful to come to see their faults as it is for a child to come to see his father’s faults.****

And Josh, that is not to imply that you will reach the same or even similar conclusions as I have when you have completed your quest.

---

Yes maurin – I agree.

 

[Josh_Elzner]

Nor have you demonstrated that Pope Benedict XVI believes that the Society is in schism. Documentation, Josh, that’s all I’m asking you to provide.

I don’t know what else to say. I see absolutely no grounds for your positions. Every single thing that I have read points in the opposite direction, but I am accused of distorting the documents, of reading into the Holy Father.

“Everyone should be aware that formal adherence to the schism is a grave offence against God and carries the penalty of excommunication decreed by the Church’s law.”

(Ecclesia Dei 5c)

www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_commissions/ecclsdei/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_02071988_ecclesia-dei_en.html

What else can the schism be?

 

[maurin]

I don’t follow. A Traditional Catholic absolutely believes in the teaching authority of the Church. A Traditional Catholic absolutely believes in the teaching authority of the Church.

See, I told you that traditionalists and conservatives should be allies. A conservative believes in the teachings of the Church, and in the Church’s teaching authority.
Holding my breath. Go ahead.

Above, therein, lies the issue at heart: we don’t believe that the way the Council has been interpreted is Catholic. We don’t believe that some of the Council’s teachings are Catholic; the changing of the definition of the Catholic Church from “is the Church of Jesus Christ” to “subsists in the Church of Jesus Christ” is Catholic. The Council did not call for a new order of the Mass. Many of the changes in the New Mass are the changes the protestant deformers implemented in their communion services. And these are just a couple of examples.

I most certainly could be wrong–so please correct me if I am–but are not these some of the things that conservatives wish to conserve?

A traditionalist takes that further, and wants to practice that in a pre-1962 setting (for lack of a better way to describe it)

Most Traditional Societies use the 1962 Missal because Pope John XXIII was legitimately exercising his legitimate authority when he made changes to the Missal. We don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. Legitimate change by a legitimate authority is perfectly acceptable. It is normal. It is the way Christ set up His Church. But changes which are in contradiction to the past, or constitute a rupture with the past…these are things we deny.

I’m sure others much smarter than I could explain it to you better.

(are you angry?)

 

[maurin]

I don’t know what else to say. I see absolutely no grounds for your positions. Every single thing that I have read points in the opposite direction, but I am accused of distorting the documents, of reading into the Holy Father.

“Everyone should be aware that formal adherence to the schism is a grave offence against God and carries the penalty of excommunication decreed by the Church’s law.”

(Ecclesia Dei 5c)

www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_commissions/ecclsdei/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_02071988_ecclesia-dei_en.html

What else can the schism be?

Who is the current Pope, Josh?

 

[maurin]

I don’t know what else to say. I see absolutely no grounds for your positions. Every single thing that I have read points in the opposite direction, but I am accused of distorting the documents, of reading into the Holy Father.

“Everyone should be aware that formal adherence to the schism is a grave offence against God and carries the penalty of excommunication decreed by the Church’s law.”

(Ecclesia Dei 5c)

www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_commissions/ecclsdei/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_02071988_ecclesia-dei_en.html

What else can the schism be?

Josh, may I ask you, who were excommunicated? Was it the Archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre the Great, Bishop de Castro Mayer, the 4 consecrated Bishops?, or was it these 6, all the Priests of the Society and all of the faithful?

May I also ask, was Pope John Paul II still Pope when Cardinal Castrillon de Hoyos (at the time the head of E.D.) issued his statement which did not prohibit the faithful, citing conditions of course, from assisting at Society Masses and contributing to their collection plates?

If Pope John Paul II was still reigning at the time of the Cardinal’s statement, was the Cardinal “disciplined” for the statement he issued?

And if the Society was in schism, why would the head of E.D., a Cardinal in the Catholic Church, NOT prohibit the faithful from attending the Society’s Masses?

You are not making sense to me, Josh.

 

[Josh_Elzner]

Above, therein, lies the issue at heart: we don’t believe that the way the Council has been interpreted is Catholic. We don’t believe that some of the Council’s teachings are Catholic; the changing of the definition of the Catholic Church from “is the Church of Jesus Christ” to “subsists in the Church of Jesus Christ” is Catholic.

“Subsisting is a special case of being. It is being in the form of a subject standing on its own. This is the issue here. The Council wants to tell us that the Church of Jesus Christ as a concrete subject in the present world can be encountered in the Catholic Church. This can occur only once and the notion that subsistit could be multiplied misses precisely what was intended. With the word subsistit, the Council wanted to express the singularity and non-multiplicability of the Catholic Church”.

“[t]he phrase subsistit in is intended not only to reconfirm the meaning of the term est, that is, the identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church. Above all, it reaffirms that the Church of Christ, imbued with the fullness of all the means instituted by Christ, perdures (continues, remains) forever in the Catholic Church”.

ewtn.com/library/Doctrine/subsistit.HTM

 

[PaulinVA]

maurin, why would I be angry? I know what you believe. Nothing new there. If there’s an attack on me implicit in your post, I don’t take offense. I’m not actively trying to “conserve” anything that I can put my finger on, so that part of the post isn’t insulting at all.

I actually have not given any of this much thought except in the last year. Last half year, maybe. I predate Vatican II by a few years, but most of my life has been in the post conciliar years. I mentioned before that I even played guitar in folk Masses in the seventies.

Was the council valid? Were things promulgated that were “wrong”? Is the Church off the rails? Do we need renewal? Well, I will answer yes to the last two. How we got here? I don’t know. Could be VII. Could be too much of the sixties. Could be a lot of things.

I think that, in the end, we both want the same thing. Do I think that latin is the end all and be all? Well, I bought a book to teach my self latin last month. Someone here made a comment that it’s part of our Catholic identity, and I agree. Is a return to 1962 the answer? I don’t know.

But, I do think that we agree much more than we disagree. We want to see our fellow Catholics following the teachings of the Church the way that generations of Cathlics before us have.

 

[maurin]

maurin, why would I be angry? I know what you believe. Nothing new there. If there’s an attack on me implicit in your post, I don’t take offense.

no attack on you personally, Paul. No. But we reject not only the interpretations of the Council, but some of the teachings of the Council (as I cited) as not at all Catholic, and the New Mass as uncalled-for by the Council, and protestant in its changes.

The last 2 phrases alone are enough to get me gutted on this forum, but it’s an honest answer.

I actually have not given any of this much thought except in the last year. Last half year, maybe. I predate Vatican II by a few years, but most of my life has been in the post conciliar years. I mentioned before that I even played guitar in folk Masses in the seventies.

Was the council valid? Were things promulgated that were “wrong”? Is the Church off the rails? Do we need renewal? Well, I will answer yes to the last two. How we got here? I don’t know. Could be VII. Could be too much of the sixties. Could be a lot of things.

I think that, in the end, we both want the same thing. Do I think that latin is the end all and be all? Well, I bought a book to teach my self latin last month. Someone here made a comment that it’s part of our Catholic identity, and I agree. Is a return to 1962 the answer? I don’t know.

But, I do think that we agree much more than we disagree. We want to see our fellow Catholics following the teachings of the Church the way that generations of Cathlics before us have.

I was born in '63, and I do remember, as a small child, the interim Mass between the Traditional Mass and the NO Mass. And I remember the introduction of the New Mass. I remember my parents and grandparents just kind of looking at each other, as if they were thinking, how strange. But they, as did us children, embraced it obediently. Until I was about 12, and then we stopped going to Mass with any consistency.

My dissolute life lead me back to the Church, the NO Church, and I overcame many addictions with the help of the Priests. But the deadliest of the addictions from which I suffered and against which I still battle, was treated as “normal,” and was playfully mocked as “too pious, too old-fashioned.” Can you believe that? Purity is old-fashioned? And it wasn’t one Priest or 2 Priests who advised me in that vein. Only in the SSPX did I find the Truth and was given the Spiritual Armor to combat my disorders effectively, and the desire to want to combat them effectively. It is in the Traditional Mass where I find the Cross He so desperately wants us to pick up and follow Him.

For me, I found my life and my heart’s love in the Traditions of the Church.

 

[maurin]

“Subsisting is a special case of being. It is being in the form of a subject standing on its own. This is the issue here. The Council wants to tell us that the Church of Jesus Christ as a concrete subject in the present world can be encountered in the Catholic Church. This can occur only once and the notion that subsistit could be multiplied misses precisely what was intended. With the word subsistit, the Council wanted to express the singularity and non-multiplicability of the Catholic Church”.

“[t]he phrase subsistit in is intended not only to reconfirm the meaning of the term est, that is, the identity of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church. Above all, it reaffirms that the Church of Christ, imbued with the fullness of all the means instituted by Christ, perdures (continues, remains) forever in the Catholic Church”.

ewtn.com/library/Doctrine/subsistit.HTM

for one thing to subsist in another, Josh, implies two different entities. In order to reach the conclusion of the last sentence of what you posted above is definitely a case of the grass is blue and the sky is green.

St. Pius X, ora pro nobis.

 

[Josh_Elzner]

Josh, may I ask you, who were excommunicated? Was it the Archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre the Great, Bishop de Castro Mayer, the 4 consecrated Bishops?, or was it these 6, all the Priests of the Society and all of the faithful?

May I also ask, was Pope John Paul II still Pope when Cardinal Castrillon de Hoyos (at the time the head of E.D.) issued his statement which did not prohibit the faithful, citing conditions of course, from assisting at Society Masses and contributing to their collection plates?

If Pope John Paul II was still reigning at the time of the Cardinal’s statement, was the Cardinal “disciplined” for the statement he issued?

And if the Society was in schism, why would the head of E.D., a Cardinal in the Catholic Church, NOT prohibit the faithful from attending the Society’s Masses?

You are not making sense to me, Josh.

We are allowed under conditions to attend the Divine Liturgy at Orthodox Churches, but that doesn’t mean that these Churches are not in schism.

I am not saying that every person who attends a SSPX Mass is a schismatic. The Church has said, though, that formally adhering to the schism brings one excommunication. It has just not been defined in what exactly this consists.

“As the Motu Proprio declares in no. 5 c) the excommunication latae sententiae for schism regards those who “adhere formally” to the said schismatic movement”.

"Even if the question of the exact import of the notion of “formal adherence to the schism” would be a matter for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it seems to this pontifical Council that such formal adherence would have to imply two complementary elements:

a) one of internal nature, consisting in a free and informed agreement with the substance of the schism, in other words, in the choice made in such a way of the followers of Archbishop Lefebvre which puts such an option above obedience to the Pope (at the root of this attitude there will usually be positions contrary to the magisterium of the Church),

b) the other of an external character, consisting in the externalising of this option, the most manifest sign of which will be the exclusive participation in Lefebvrian “ecclesial” acts, without taking part in the acts of the Catholic Church (one is dealing however with a sign that is not univocal, since there is the possibility that a member of the faithful may take part in the liturgical functions of the followers of Lefebvre but without going along with their schismatic spirit). "

catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=1224

“While it is true that participation in the Mass at the chapels of the Society of St. Pius X does not of itself constitute “formal adherence to the schism”, such adherence can come about over a period of time as one slowly imbibes a schismatic mentality which separates itself from the teaching of the Supreme Pontiff and the entire Catholic Church”.

“Thus far the Church has not officially declared what Constitutes “formal adherence to the schism” inaugurated by the late Archbishop Lefebvre”.

ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CEDSSPX2.HTM

I am not challenging any single person, but is not the *Society *clearly in schism if one can formally adhere to it.

God bless.

 

[PaulinVA]

no attack on you personally, Paul. No. But we reject not only the interpretations of the Council, but some of the teachings of the Council (as I cited) as not at all Catholic, and the New Mass as uncalled-for by the Council, and protestant in its changes.

The last 2 phrases alone are enough to get me gutted on this forum, but it’s an honest answer.

Well, I agree that the last forty years haven’t been entirely good for the Church. But, being honest, I’m not comfortable at all taking your course of action.

This is my own take on the matter - by following the Church, I am indemnified against anything that the Church might teach or require that ultimately might be judged by history as wrong. The decision to create and continue to use the NO, if objectively wrong, is a millstone around someones’ neck, not mine. I am being obedient to the Church, and in that, I am right.

It will indeed be interesting to see how this plays out in the next 50 years.