Are the SSPX schismatics or heretics?

[GerardP]

Priests who celebrate the sacraments when suspended or excommunicated commit a sin of schism, at least according to the traditionalist-friendly prominent canonist and member of the Apostolic Signatura, Archbishop Burke

The SSPX aren’t schismatic. They are justifiably disobedient by their exercise of true obedience. Those are two different things.

From archbishop Burke’s quote:

Quote:
A priest, who knowingly and willingly *chooses to attempt *to exercise priestly ministry *outside of the communion of the Church *and, thereby, assists and encourages others in breaking communion with the Church, clearly also commits the ecclesiastical crime of schism. --------------------

The SSPX aren’t attempting anything “outside of the communion of the Church”. That’s where your analogy fails. They’ve been shoved canonically outside of the diocesan structures.

Malachi Martin once said, “the bishops hate all exercise of papal power. Except when they took the Howitzer out and proceeded to blow Archbishop LeFebvre out of the water.”

Fr. Martin was amazed that the only exercise of real power from the Holy See was to attack a bishop who defended the Roman Mass. All the while sacrileges, heresy and abominations were allowed.

The SSPX are insisting that they are objectively “inside the communion of the Church” despite the canonical falsehoods and injustices perpetrated against them.

Strong objective arguments favor their position. This isn’t a matter of legalisms. There is an abuse of canon law and theological teachings that has been systematically used to undermine and destroy the faith of the laiety and the priesthood for decades.

It can be reasonably assumed that there is a de facto schism among many priests and bishops though they don’t have the integrity of the Protestants to actually leave the Church.

I know of multiple priests (diocesan and religious) firsthand that don’t believe the Pope has any power over them or any right to have power over them. These priests are considered “in full communion” on the books.

They are the true schismatics.

 

[Reformed_Rob]

What I understood from listening to Pete Vere’s set of lectures on them, they are schismatics.

He never said they were not heretics, but he never implied that they were.

From my experience with them, which has been a couple years, but I spent several months learning about them…

They are not denying any Catholic teaching. In fact, they are affirming it quiet well. Now there may be some here and there that like to teach against baptism of desire and things like that, but as a whole, they are good devout Catholics in their faith.

Some of them may be White Power Supremacists with Nazi leanings (read the history of the SSPX, very enlightening!), but besides that, they are trying to be good Catholics.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

Where did I say it was part of canon 144? The just cause is a reference to canon 1335.

1335 only refers to undeclared latae sententiae punishments. Hasn’t the PCED declared all SSPX priests suspended a divinis, thus making that canon irrelevant?

You are arbitrarily limiting the argument only to support your conclusion. This is Jimmy Akin’s argument. John Salza provided a rebuttal to it.

catholicintl.com/catholicissues/sspxconfessions.pdf

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The situation only has to be present where a reasonable community would be induced to believe that a priest has faculties.

I don’t have my commentary with me at the moment, but I will say that on its face the run of the argument seems somewhat absurd. I would bet money that the majority of communities under the SSPX are pretty well aware of their priests’ status, yet Mr. Salza wants to argue that we can ignore this because it would still be possible for them not to know. That sounds pretty Jesuitical to me, and I mean that in a bad way.

Mr. Salza’s reference to Rome’s declaration that Catholics may fulfill their obligations at SSPX chapels also makes me suspicious. If he is referring to the mysterious Msgr. Perl letter that seems clearly to be addressed to a private individual, then he should know that singular administrative acts do not establish precedent and that we cannot infer from this that all Catholics may fulfill their obligation there. It is also rather odd to ask why Rome might recognize the validity of Masses but not confessions. Hello! One requires faculties. That’s very simple.

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

What I understood from listening to Pete Vere’s set of lectures on them, they are schismatics.

He never said they were not heretics, but he never implied that they were.

Rob,

When were these lectures recorded? I ask, because Pete Vere is having some changes of heart as of late.

 

[Sure]

The SSPX aren’t schismatic. They are justifiably disobedient by their exercise of true obedience. Those are two different things.

From archbishop Burke’s quote:

Quote:
A priest, who knowingly and willingly *chooses to attempt *to exercise priestly ministry *outside of the communion of the Church *and, thereby, assists and encourages others in breaking communion with the Church, clearly also commits the ecclesiastical crime of schism. --------------------

The SSPX aren’t attempting anything “outside of the communion of the Church”. That’s where your analogy fails. They’ve been shoved canonically outside of the diocesan structures.

That’s laughable, of course they are. They are suspended a divinis therefore when they say Mass it is outside of the communion of the Church because they lack the permission to do what they are doing.

And they are in schism, so says Archbishop Burke and Bruskewitz and I trust their knowledge of canon law more than yours.

Interesting to note also, that Archbishop Burke says that “the faithful who approach a schismatic priest forreception of the sacraments, except in the case of danger of death, commit a mortal sin.”

 

[bear06]

The Marriages are not invalid. Confessions are given by supplied jurisdiction from the Church either through common error or through the spritual benefit of the person requesting the confession. The SSPX declarations of annulments are rare, they are often reviewing annulments already granted by the Church in which they are looking for error on the part of the diocese. Errors and abuses acknowledged by the recent Popes

.

For goodness sakes. This is getting quite old. You, my friend, have no authority in the matter and according to those that do, you are incorrect.

latin-mass-society.org/laitysspx.htm

Concretely this means that the Masses offered by the priests of the Society of St. Pius X are valid, but illicit i.e, contrary to Canon Law. The Sacraments of Penance and Matrimony however, require that the priest enjoys the faculties of the diocese or has proper delegation. Since that is not the case with these priests, these sacraments are invalid. It remains true, however, that, if the faithful are genuinely ignorant that the priests of the Society of St. Pius X do not have the proper faculty to absolve, the Church supplied these faculties so that the sacrament was valid (cf. Code of Canon Law c.144).

The problem is the crisis in the Church is well known so, you have invalid marriages being performed with diocesan approval, I myself have been in the confessional where the priest did not use the proper form for absolution. I had to go find another priest and make a second confession in the same day.

Just because there are others making a mistake does not excuse the SSPX from their mistakes. Stop pointing the finger elsewhere as an apology for them.

Actually it’s a lot of self-professed “conservatives” that despise them. Richard McBrien of Notre Dame said that the conservatives did the work for the liberals by fighting the traditionalists.

Provide evidence from a “conservative” not McBrien.

Since it was evident that the bishop was not going to tend to the flock that needed him, the faithful can in good conscience ask a priest without faculties to supply the sacraments and spiritual guidance, the Church supplies the faculties.

The SSPX doesn’t believe anyone in the “Novus Ordo” Church is going to do that. Doesn’t in any way make them credible. That said, we don’t even know what bishop they were talking about at this point in the conversation. Hopefully but the time I get to the bottom of this thread someone will have posted the link.

 

[bear06]

It’s interesting that McBrien and the SSPX share the same theological viewpoint that the morality of an action is determined by weighing the consequences. They both believe that sometimes it’s okay to do something that we would commonly call evil (like pre-marital sex or schism), if good consequences will flow from it.

And this point drives me nuts. Neither side can see it. They’re just two sides to the same disobedient coin. What’s the saying? If you go too far to the right or too far to the left you meet in the middle in anarchy?

 

[bear06]

Rob,

When were these lectures recorded? I ask, because Pete Vere is having some changes of heart as of late.

On what? I’d like a clarification on this point because I’d like to ask him if he has had a “change of heart”. Last time someone posted something about Pete it was dead wrong. I’ll happily give you all his reply.

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

On what? I’d like a clarification on this point because I’d like to ask him if he has had a “change of heart”. Last time someone posted something about Pete it was dead wrong. I’ll happily give you all his reply.

I don’t have any details. I’ll try to locate a link to what I read and send it to you.

 

[bear06]

I don’t have any details. I’ll try to locate a link to what I read and send it to you.

Mucho gracias.

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

I don’t have any details. I’ll try to locate a link to what I read and send it to you.

Bear06,

The following is a link to a “radical Traditionalist” message board that Pete joine a while back. Pete uses his real name. The link will take you to the search feature. It should already be set to all of the posts that Pete has written.

When Pete joined, the Traditionalists went off on him for one of his old books that attacked Traditionalists. The moderator of the site said to leave him alone… that he had a long discussion with him and he has changed a lot. You can probably locate the post I am referring to. The moderator’s name is Servitium. You can probably search his posts around the time that Pete signed up.

Here’s the link: angelqueen.org/forum/search.php?mode=results

 

[GerardP]

.

For goodness sakes. This is getting quite old. You, my friend, have no authority in the matter and according to those that do, you are incorrect.

latin-mass-society.org/laitysspx.htm

And you my friend have no authority to tell me I’m wrong.

So there.

Just because there are others making a mistake does not excuse the SSPX from their mistakes. Stop pointing the finger elsewhere as an apology for them.

No. The others mistake is the cause of the SSPX. As Bishop Fellay said to Card. Hoyos. “You clean up your problem and you’ll have no problem with us.”

Secondly, Don’t throw stones if you have no sin. Claiming illicitness and invalidity is hypocritical when you can’t guarantee licitness, validity or orthodoxy on top of that.

Provide evidence from a “conservative” not McBrien.

The book “More Catholic than the Pope” is a trainwreck of misinformation. It claims to be an “inside look” at traditional Catholicism. I asked the author how many SSPX priests he interviewed. Answer: Nothing. Real answer: None.

The SSPX doesn’t believe anyone in the “Novus Ordo” Church is going to do that.

My SSPX priest told me to go to the nearest valid priest Novus Ordo or Eastern rite if I fell into sin during the week and couldn’t get to him.

One of my local diocesan/religious confessors told me to continue to go to the SSPX because they are such good priests.

The SSPX chapel I go to is often visited by clandestine diocesan priests getting instruction. Some of which help out on occasion by saying the TLM and hearing confessions.

 

[TraditionalCath]

Are the SSPX schismatics or heretics? How about those who were specifically excommunicated when they left, like Lefebvre?

I would think those who were excommunicated would have been cast into the world of heresy, but I now hear a lot of people talking about them “never having their day in court” (whatever that means.)

they are not heretics. they exist in a state of schism, but they are not heretics at all. archbishop lefebvre was excommunicated along with 4 of the bishops he ordained. however, that does not mean they are heretics because they are not. i hope that clarifies it.

 

[Reformed_Rob]

Rob,

When were these lectures recorded? I ask, because Pete Vere is having some changes of heart as of late.

I’d have to find where I got them. I believe it was a set I got from St. Joseph Communication because I used to order a lot of things from them.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding, I got them 2 years ago which means they were probably going on 3 years old at the time of recordination.

Is Pete going to join the SSPX!!?

 

[Reformed_Rob]

they are not heretics. they exist in a state of schism, but they are not heretics at all. archbishop lefebvre was excommunicated along with 4 of the bishops he ordained. however, that does not mean they are heretics because they are not. i hope that clarifies it.

It does, but the problem seems to be that people will disagree with you.

Not me…I agree with you. But there seems to be some debate raging wild here.

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

I’d have to find where I got them. I believe it was a set I got from St. Joseph Communication because I used to order a lot of things from them.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding, I got them 2 years ago which means they were probably going on 3 years old at the time of recordination.

Is Pete going to join the SSPX!!?

No, I don’t think he is planning to join the SSPX.

 

[bear06]

Bear06,

The following is a link to a “radical Traditionalist” message board that Pete joine a while back. Pete uses his real name. The link will take you to the search feature. It should already be set to all of the posts that Pete has written.

When Pete joined, the Traditionalists went off on him for one of his old books that attacked Traditionalists. The moderator of the site said to leave him alone… that he had a long discussion with him and he has changed a lot. You can probably locate the post I am referring to. The moderator’s name is Servitium. You can probably search his posts around the time that Pete signed up.

Here’s the link: angelqueen.org/forum/search.php?mode=results

Well, the link didn’t work but I just entered his name in and I’m still wondering what you are talking about. I read his last 30 or so posts. Don’t notice a change at all. In fact, he started a thread called Fr. Moderator’s Meltdown. Maybe you’re just unaware where he stands and seemingly has stood for years. He loves the Latin Mass and I’m sure is rejoicing at the MP. That said, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to see him praising the SSPX anytime soon.

 

[bear06]

BTW, this gives a good indication of where Pete stands.

angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=194280&highlight=#194280

Let’s look at where “Fr.” M is coming from.

There is a very serious division among Catholic traditionalists. Some, like myself, make the case for Rome and the indult. Some, like AQ’s founder, make the case for the SSPX. Others fall somewhere in-between.

However, most wish that Rome and Econe would come to some sort of understanding so that the traditionalist movement could unite. (In my case, it’s 5 hours to the nearest indult, but only 90 minutes to the closest SSPX chapel).

That being said, there are handful like “Fr. M” who make a living off this division among trads. They would lose most of their worldly riches and influence if the indult and the SSPX were to reunite. This is because Rome would never allow them to be included in a deal with the SSPX, and even if Rome was, the SSPX wouldn’t want them

 

[bear06]

And you my friend have no authority to tell me I’m wrong.

So there.

 

[Sure]

How is it that the 2 most conservative and super-traditional bishops are also the strongest AGAINST the SSPX???

Am I the only one who find this amusing? Why is this? Maybe these fine traditionalist bishops recognize the work of the devil when they see it.