Fr. Z and Jeff Mirus on SSPX Confessional Validity

[Yves_Congar]

These confessions are clearly invalid as Fr. Z shows here:

wdtprs.com/blog/2013/05/again-about-validity-of-absolutions-by-sspx-priests/

and Dr. Mirus shows here:

catholicculture.org/commentary/otc.cfm?id=1080

However, the Remnant persists in their obtuse and stubborn denial:

remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2013-0531-c-jackson-sspx-confessions-part-2.htm

Obviously, SSPX priests have received no faculties from their bishop to hear confessions. I’m not sure why this is an issue in Traditional circles…

 

[YoungTradCath]

Not to be rude or sarcastic, but why are you making it an issue, then?

 

[runningdude]

I’d image that Rome has not formally declared SSPX confession valid or invalid to neither encourage them, nor hinder any lingering validity due to “supplied jurisdiction”. The vague situation allows the greatest potential for the salvation of souls.

 

[Lormar]

The Vatican doesn’t have to “formally declare” anything. The facts are all we need to know.

 

[Boulder257]

Not to be rude or sarcastic, but why are you making it an issue, then?

I probably shouldn’t speak for the OP, but I will anyway. I have seen several threads on this forum where people try to argue against the point being made by the OP. Perhaps they were just sharing some recent developments/understandings to shed some more light on the subject.

I, for one, will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were trying to provide clarification. I’m not going to read anything else into it.

 

[Boulder257]

Not to be rude or sarcastic, but why are you making it an issue, then?

It’s already been made an issue by several posters on this forum. Perhaps the OP was just sharing with us some recent discourse on the topic to shed further light on the subject. Quite frankly, the issue had already been raised, several times, by other posters. This post was probably just in response to that.

 

[pnewton]

The vague situation allows the greatest potential for the salvation of souls.

I do not know if that is necessarily so, but then I do not think the situation vague in the least. As confessions require faculties to be valid, a declaration that the SSPX has no ministry within the Church makes it invalid, period. An SSPX priest might have supplied jurisdiction if the person making confession was clueless as to the nature of the priest. However, going to a known SSPX priest precludes the possibility of this error.

 

[YoungTradCath]

It’s already been made an issue by several posters on this forum. Perhaps the OP was just sharing with us some recent discourse on the topic to shed further light on the subject. Quite frankly, the issue had already been raised, several times, by other posters. This post was probably just in response to that.

fair enough I suppose

 

[porthos11]

I do not know if that is necessarily so, but then I do not think the situation vague in the least. As confessions require faculties to be valid, a declaration that the SSPX has no ministry within the Church makes it invalid, period. An SSPX priest might have supplied jurisdiction if the person making confession was clueless as to the nature of the priest. However, going to a known SSPX priest precludes the possibility of this error.

Right. They make a big deal out of legal or common error in the argument, but what they kinda fail to see is that there is NO legal or common error, as their suspension is well-known. There can be legal error on the part of a particular penitent who may not know, but it’s stretching it to say there is common error.

 

[PaulinVA]

porthos11:

Quote:

Right. They make a big deal out of legal or common error in the argument, but what they kinda fail to see is that there is NO legal or common error, as their suspension is well-known. There can be legal error on the part of a particular penitent who may not know, but it’s stretching it to say there is common error.

How can your published strategy be that of common error? The minute you publish it’s no longer error!

Posted from Catholic.com App for Android

 

[jwinch2]

I do not know if that is necessarily so, but then I do not think the situation vague in the least. As confessions require faculties to be valid, a declaration that the SSPX has no ministry within the Church makes it invalid, period. An SSPX priest might have supplied jurisdiction if the person making confession was clueless as to the nature of the priest. However, going to a known SSPX priest precludes the possibility of this error.

Agreed.

This argument often seems to hinge on what Rome said, or did not say, in relation to the SSPX and their ministry, whether they are or ever were, in schism. etc.

In reality, all of that is just clouding the issue. The fact is that no priest, SSPX or otherwise, has a valid ministry within the see of a given bishop, unless he has been given faculties to do so by that bishop. The only exception to this I am aware of is priest who is an exempt religious and is providing the sacraments for the members of his own community. If however, he wishes to celebrate the sacraments outside of the community, he must also have valid faculties to do so.

In your scenario above, even if a member of the faithful did not know he or she was going to a priest who had not been granted faculties, it would seem incumbent upon that priest to inform the person who was seeking the sacraments of the situation. The only exception to this that I am aware of is an emergency situation where it is not prudent to wait for another priest to be available (car accident, grave illness, etc.)

 

[porthos11]

How can your published strategy be that of common error? The minute you publish it’s no longer error!

Posted from Catholic.com App for Android

Ain’t that the truth. I was thinking more of the decree lifting the excommunications (which was explicit in confirming the suspensions of SSPX priests), but you’re right, the article putting forward the argument of common error is actually self-defeating.

 

[runningdude]

I do not know if that is necessarily so, but then I do not think the situation vague in the least. As confessions require faculties to be valid, a declaration that the SSPX has no ministry within the Church makes it invalid, period. An SSPX priest might have supplied jurisdiction if the person making confession was clueless as to the nature of the priest. However, going to a known SSPX priest precludes the possibility of this error.

The church makes binding what it says is binding. It said that the SSPX has no right to offer confession (as confession is a ministry of the church). It did not comment on the validity of the confessions offered in defiance of its lack of ministry.

 

[pnewton]

It did not comment on the validity of the confessions offered in defiance of its lack of ministry.

Not on them specifically, but the Catholic Church has decidedly commented in Canon Law. You know that counts for them too don’t you? The SSPX is not in schism. Therefore canon law applies to them. The SSPX cannot have it both ways, in the Church but exempt from canon law. Those that go to the for confession are playing fast and loose with the sacrament, rolling the dice as it were hoping some technicality applies that does not. I know not every canon lawyer agrees with this, but the only ones I have heard that support the SSPX also have shown a bias for them in other areas. Thus, I doubt their objectivity. I think what we see here is people making an argument for something that they want to be so, arguing backwards from their desire to a justification for that desire.

 

[Mike30]

Question’

Since outside of thios forum the SSPX is virtually unknown to the average Catholic, what would happen in the following scenario?

A Catholic, who has never heard of the SSPX or its position in the Church passes by an SSPX Chapel and feeling the need to go to Mass he steps in. He sees a photograph of the Holy Father and Archbishop Lefebrve and assumes that the Chapel is in fact a valid Church. Seeing the different Altar arrangement, he remembers something his grandmother told him years ago about confessing prior to receiving Holy Communion and goes to the confession line, since SSPX Chapels routinely have confessions prior to every Mass. He makes a sincere confession and is contritr. He is absolved by the Priest, says his penance, probably a bit more than one Hail Mary, attends the Mass and receives Holy Communion.

Was the confession and absolution valid?

 

[runningdude]

Not on them specifically, but the Catholic Church has decidedly commented in Canon Law. You know that counts for them too don’t you? The SSPX is not in schism. Therefore canon law applies to them. The SSPX cannot have it both ways, in the Church but exempt from canon law. Those that go to the for confession are playing fast and loose with the sacrament, rolling the dice as it were hoping some technicality applies that does not. I know not every canon lawyer agrees with this, but the only ones I have heard that support the SSPX also have shown a bias for them in other areas. Thus, I doubt their objectivity. I think what we see here is people making an argument for something that they want to be so, arguing backwards from their desire to a justification for that desire.

My argument is that the church would rather the “role of the dice”, than condemn those who stubbornly hold to the SSPX to be denied the sacraments. I am not a canonist by any stretch, but it is my understanding that the law favors leniency where there is ambiguity.

 

[pnewton]

Question’

Since outside of thios forum the SSPX is virtually unknown to the average Catholic, what would happen in the following scenario?

A Catholic, who has never heard of the SSPX or its position in the Church passes by an SSPX Chapel and feeling the need to go to Mass he steps in. He sees a photograph of the Holy Father and Archbishop Lefebrve and assumes that the Chapel is in fact a valid Church. Seeing the different Altar arrangement, he remembers something his grandmother told him years ago about confessing prior to receiving Holy Communion and goes to the confession line, since SSPX Chapels routinely have confessions prior to every Mass. He makes a sincere confession and is contritr. He is absolved by the Priest, says his penance, probably a bit more than one Hail Mary, attends the Mass and receives Holy Communion.

Was the confession and absolution valid?

As I understand it, this is precisely the kind of situation to which this exception applies. It does not apply to appease “stubbornness.”

 

[Mike30]

What exception are you talking about?

 

[pnewton]

What exception are you talking about?

Exception may not be the legal term, but I when one understands that canon law is clear that a priest needs faculties, I do not know a better term to describe the principle, *the church provides. *

 

[Yves_Congar]

As I understand it, this is precisely the kind of situation to which this exception applies. It does not apply to appease “stubbornness.”

How can “common error” apply to this situation? One person’s ignorance is not “common” error.