Are SSPX priests more strict than regular priests?

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I just notice at the homilies done by SSPX priests at a church I go to from time to time for the EF of Mass that they seem to talk very I guess old school in how they view other beliefs.

For example around the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, the Priest said “Luther was a wretched man who caused thousands of souls to go to hell”. Now I don’t know if that is true or not, but compared to my normal diocese priests, they would never say something like that. My parish priest wouldn’t even promote “40 Days for Life” because it “might offend people who have different beliefs” in my church.
 
But also a heretic who caused fracture in the body of Christ. In fact, he is known as an arch-heretic, an heresiarch.

SSPX priest are very thoroughly trained in the theology and doctrine of the Church. They also, as a group, have that specific charism of caring on the tradition of the Church as they see it was lost after Vatican II.

However they are not necessarily stricter. Clearer, more adamant, yet often more loving and understanding. Because of their deep understanding of Church doctrine and of Scripture, you will find in them a very forgiving personality and a deep, deep love of souls and concern for their salvation, in the most truest sense.

They will not dismiss your sins as mere hiccups, nor sugarcoat the truth. Many other priests in the FSSP, ICRSS, etc, are very much the same.
 
Strict does not equal holy.

The strictest most religious people of Jesus day were the Pharisees and Sadducees (kind of like todays theologians and clergy) and they were the ones Jesus was at odds with most.

Strict cold legalism is not equivalent to religion. True religion is to visit widows and orphans and to work the works of Mercy.
 
I, for one, would scrupulously avoid any and all SSPX contact. The spirit of disobedience and ego dwells there. How else to explain their lack of submission?

As to charity, or the lack thereof, Archbishop Sheen said it most brilliantly:
“There are two kinds of ‘atheism’: the atheism of the right, which professes to love God and ignores neighbor; and the atheism of the left, which professes to love neighbor and ignores God.”
  • Archbishop Fulton Sheen
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Didn’t Pope Francis allow them status to hear confessions and witness Matrimony last year?
I know they are technically irregular still. I don’t understand why. What are they doing that is causing them to be not in communion with the Vatican? The Mass is the Tridentine Mass. It isn’t like they perform it wrong, if anything they are the most reverent priests I know of.

What is it they differ with the Holy See that keeps them from being regular and in full communion? I find the priests to be passionate about what they do and I see nothing wrong with that.
 
We live in an age where the majority are liberal, atheists and nones; who project a peace and love attitude, providing no rules are bothered with and everyone tolerates everything.

In essence we are as thick, I’ll disciplined and affraid of criticism as the Muslims claim we are.

I see no issue with truth claims, if they can be substantiated. Luther was an idiot documented as trying to remove and edit heaven knows what in order to suit his purposes. Knowing that things didn’t mean anything close to what he put forward on day one. It amuses me, that people care who they offend so much, it’s to the point they are afraid to believe anything at all in concrete terms. Discarding the whole purpose of caring about said people/beliefs in the first place.

How laughably pathetic. Why have any belief at all.
 
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This is true.
He removed books from the Old Testament that didn’t fit his theology. Such as 2 Maccabees and purgatory.
He claimed it was because even Saint Jerome questioned the books in the Septuagint but not present in the Hebrew Bible , and dubbed them " apocrypha " . Of course the Council of Trent reaffirmed all of these books except 3 and 4 Esdras and the Prayer of Mannaseh putting them in an appendix to the Latin Vulgate.
Protestants today claim Catholics added these books afterward but that is historically inaccurate . Catholics and Orthodox use the Septuagint as their basis of the Old Testament. Actually Orthodox even more than Catholics. They have more books than Catholics in their Bibles 1 Esdras, 3 and 4 Maccabees etc.

Most don’t realize Luther actually wanted to remove Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation from the New Testament as well.
 
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That is the issue.

Moral relativism and agnosticism inevitably leads to nihilism
 
As to the SSPX, they did not like Vatican II and began the disagreement with Pope Paul VI. They went on, digging their heels in to disagree with Pope Saint John Paul II. In a nation in which the faith is rapidly disintegrating, they did nothing for unity and only gave those leaving the Church more ammo in their “defense.” Talks have never ceased - except perhaps when they did not feel like talking. Why speak with a Pope who will not concede to their demands?

Some of their number saw the error of consecrating Bishops against the orders of St. JPII and sought reunion with the Holy See. They are the FSSP, and have everything the SSPX does, plus the virtue of obedience.

The SSPX headquarters are in Switzerland. What is it with Switzerland? 500 years ago, the rebels were Jean Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli. Now, it is the SSPX. Whole lotta’ disobedience going on there. Oh, and that Fr. Luther whom the SSPX condemns? Almost impossible to distinguish his attitude and ego from theirs.
 
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LoyalViews said:
However they are not necessarily stricter. Clearer, more adamant, yet often more loving and understanding. Because of their deep understanding of Church doctrine and of Scripture, you will find in them a very forgiving personality and a deep, deep love of souls and concern for their salvation, in the most truest sense.
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I’ve not known any SSPX priests. But I do know a FSSP priest. Many people think he was ‘strict’ but that isn’t exactly right. He certainly holds to the very clear and constant teaching of the Church. But he is a very kind and compassionate man. He could be serious but he could also joke around. He just didn’t joke around in Mass, confession or anywhere you shouldn’t.
jas84173 said:
He removed books from the Old Testament that didn’t fit his theology.
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That isn’t strictly true. Luther’s translation of the Bible contained all the books. But he relegated the Dueterocanonical books to an ‘apocrypha’ section. He did question several books in the Old and New Testament. But I do think it is fair to say he seriously challenged the canon and undermined its authority.
 
That’s true. Actually the 1611 KJV I have has all of the Deuterocanonical Books in the Catholic Bible along with 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Mannaseh included.
 
They are not out of communion, but the organization is suspended and has no canonical status in the church.
 
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SSPX tends to hold views that are very old school. Like from the time of Pope Saint Pius X (hence the name). The Roman Catholic Church in those days was not as ecumenical in its teachings, among other things.

At this point, the priestly capabilities of SSPX priests are limited in the eyes of Rome until the sect gets back into full communion with Rome. I believe their priests can hear confessions/ give absolution, and under certain circumstances may witness marriages.
 
jas84173 said:
Didn’t Pope Francis allow them status to hear confessions and witness Matrimony last year?

I know they are technically irregular still. I don’t understand why. What are they doing that is causing them to be not in communion with the Vatican? The Mass is the Tridentine Mass. It isn’t like they perform it wrong, if anything they are the most reverent priests I know of.
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Yes to your first statement, although there are some restrictions on when they can witness matrimony.

The SSPX has a long history of rebelling against the Pope post-Vatican II. Some of their members were even excommunicated for a while. Basically they did not accept the Vatican II reforms and insisted on doing things their way. When I was growing up, we subscribed to a Catholic newspaper at the strong suggestion of our pastor and every issue would have the latest fight between SSPX and Rome. For many years after Vatican II you couldn’t just go have a Latin Mass without some special procedures and permissions, so them just having the old school Masses was often disobedience right there.
 
Is not allowing a Latin Mass even legal?
The Council of Trent was very firm in their teachings of the liturgy in a very difficult time for the Church.
 
This is a summary of the post-Vatican II attitudes of the Popes towards the Latin Mass from the Wikipedia article on “Tridentine Mass”. (Marcel Lefebre and the excommunicated priests were SSPX.)
Pope Paul VI
Following the introduction of the Mass of Paul VI in 1969-1970, the Holy See granted a significant number of permissions for the use of the former liturgy. For example, elderly priests were not required to switch to celebrating the new form. In England and Wales, occasional celebrations of the Tridentine Mass were allowed in virtue of what became known as the “Agatha Christie indult”. However, there was no general worldwide legal framework allowing for the celebration of the rite. Following the rise of the Traditionalist Catholic movement in the 1970s, Pope Paul VI reportedly declined to liberalise its use further on the grounds that it had become a politically charged symbol associated with opposition to his policies.[91]

Pope John Paul II
In 1984, the Holy See sent a letter known as Quattuor abhinc annos to the presidents of the world’s Episcopal Conferences. This document empowered diocesan bishops to authorise, on certain conditions, celebrations of the Tridentine Mass for priests and laypeople who requested them.[92] In 1988, following the excommunication of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and four bishops that he had consecrated, the Pope issued a further document, a motu proprio known as Ecclesia Dei,[93] which stated that “respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition”. The Pope urged bishops to give “a wide and generous application” to the provisions of Quattuor abhinc annos, and established the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei to oversee relations between Rome and Traditionalist Catholics.

The Holy See itself granted authorisation to use the Tridentine Mass to a significant number of priests and priestly societies, such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, and the Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney. Some diocesan bishops, however, declined to authorise celebrations within their dioceses, or did so only to a limited extent. In some cases, the difficulty was that those seeking the permission were hostile to the church authorities. Other refusals of permission were alleged to have stemmed from certain bishops’ disapproval in principle of celebrations of the Tridentine liturgy.
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Pope Benedict XVI
As a cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger was regarded as having a particular interest in the liturgy, and as being favourable towards the older rite of Mass. He famously criticized the erratic way in which, contrary to official policy, many priests celebrated the revised rite.[94]

In September 2006, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei established the Institute of the Good Shepherd, made up of former members of the Society of St. Pius X, in Bordeaux, France, with permission to use the Tridentine liturgy.[95] This step was met with some discontent from French clergy, and thirty priests wrote an open letter to the Pope.[96] Consistently with its previous policy, the Society of St Pius X rejected the move.[97]

Following repeated rumours that the use of the Tridentine Mass would be liberalised, the Pope issued a motu proprio called Summorum Pontificum on 7 July 2007,[98] together with an accompanying letter to the world’s Bishops.[99] The Pope declared that “the Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the lex orandi (law of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Nevertheless, the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and reissued by St. John XXIII is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same ‘Lex orandi’”.[100] He further stated that “the 1962 Missal … was never juridically abrogated”.[101] He replaced with new rules those of Quattuor Abhinc Annos on use of the older form: essentially, authorization for using the 1962 form for parish Masses and those celebrated on public occasions such as a wedding is devolved from the local bishop to the priest in charge of a church, and any priest of the Latin Rite may use the 1962 Roman Missal in “Masses celebrated without the people”, a term that does not exclude attendance by other worshippers, lay or clergy.[102] While requests by groups of Catholics wishing to use the Tridentine liturgy in parish Masses are to be dealt with by the parish priest (or the rector of the church) rather than, as before, by the local bishop, the Pope and Cardinal Darío Castrillón have stated that the bishops’ authority is not thereby undermined.[103]
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The reason 1/2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh is included is because the KJV translators translated the Deuterocanon out of the Latin Vulgate translation - the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts being unavailable at the time - and those books were appended to the Vulgate itself and relegated to “Apocrypha”.

I imagine there was quite a bit of tension between the high Church Anglo-Catholic Anglicans who most likely all accepted the Deuterocanon - against the Puritan and radical Reformation leaning factions amongst the translators who probably wanted to due away with the Deuterocanon altogether, going so far as to excise even the Apocrypha between the Testaments. I imagine keeping all the books and putting them in a separate part between Testaments was an acceptable compromise for both parties. Fascinating stuff to ponder…

It was actually a pretty sly move on the part of the KJV translatiors - they simply slid the other Deuterocanonical books which contained things they were uncomfortable with like praying for the dead and the communion of saints, so they didn’t “remove” the books which had always and everywhere been accepted by Christians - they simply cut and pasted them into a separate section and called them Apocrypha along with the already accepted (in Western Christendom - Eastern is a slightly different story) Apocryphal books of Esdras and Manasseh.

Pretty darn shrewd of those English divines! I love the work they did, the KJV is IMO the finest example of the Bible in English. Just gotta ignore the incredibly inflammatory and mega polemical commentary in the beginning of some versions of the KJV - lest you get angry for being called a “popish fool” or “Papist scallywag!” clinging to your “Romish traditions of men” and residing in the bosom of “the great whore of Babylon”.
 
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I suggest people read this book by Matthew Arnold

http://amzn.to/2zuM8o0

And you can also listen to him being interviewed on Catholic Answers Focus here: https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/141

Start with the Catholic Answers Focus talk… very informative.

BTW - to the OP, if your diocesan priest will not promote 40 Days for Life, then you local Pro Life committee has a lot of work to do.
 
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