Has the SSPX Been Regularized?

[AlbMagno]

The second (I think) message of La Salette isn’t approved, and it contradicts what Christ promised about the Church and the gates of Hell/Death.

 

[Psychae]

Martin Luther and his followers broke away from the Church because they believed the Church was in error. The SSPX broke away from the Church because they believed the Church was in error. They still do. This is why I say the two movements are very similar.

The details are different but the impetus is the same: “I’m more Catholic than the Pope!”

 

[Psychae]

LOL

Wait, what?

 

[PetraG]

It’s always best to go straight to the diocesan office to ask whether some particular congregation is part of the official Church. Many fringe groups will tell you they’re perfectly fine Catholics when the bishop thinks otherwise.

This, except I’d clarify that to “Many fringe groups will tell you their priests have faculties in their diocese when the bishop says otherwise.”

 

[Psychae]

“The See of Peter and the posts of authority in Rome being occupied by antichrists, the destruction of the Kingdom of Our Lord is being rapidly carried out even within His Mystical Body here below (…) This is what has brought down upon our heads persecution by the Rome of the antichrists.” (Letter to the future bishops, 29 August 1987)— quote from Archbishop Lefebvre.

Here’s a link to that quote and a whole bunch of other anti-Catholic things Archbishop Lefebvre said, which you might find interesting.

 

[HumbleIOughtToBe]

More like Eye of the Tiber or The Babylon Bee.

 

[BartholomewB]

I do not think SSPX wants regularization, but the leaders have to present the idea they are actively seeking it, always on the verge, in order to retain maybe half their lay supporters, who desire it.

That’s certainly the impression they convey to me, as an outsider who has never felt the urge to set foot in an SSPX church. The SSPX leadership also seems to be uncomfortably aware that any reconciliation with the papacy will be rejected by a significant minority of the society’s membership who would then split off and form a new SS-[insert new acronym here] of their own.

 

[commenter]

If I had a time machine, I would go to 1970. I’d advise the pope to mandate the TLM be available in every diocese for those who request it. I’d also say appoint bishops committed to orthodoxy in implementing V2. The FSSP should have been started in 1970.

But families have to live in the present. Should a family in 2019 drive by the Diocesan TLM (avoiding the Diocesan prolife, the Diocesan youth ministry, Diocesan everything) because the Vatican was late doing some things - in order to get to a chapel (no parish)?

It’s troubling that threads on SSPX so rarely deal with the present, and so rarely mention families. Should children grow up outside a parish and Diocese now until certain officials say V2 is sufficiently clarified?

 

[Psychae]

Should children grow up outside a parish and Diocese now until certain officials say V2 is sufficiently clarified?

Of course not. Families should just go to church at whatever parish they choose, as long as it’s approved by the local ordinary.

I don’t understand why that’s even a question. If any Catholic really distrusts or disagrees with the Catholic Church and/or their Bishop so much that they feel compelled to attend a church that’s not approved by the local ordinary, well then… they should just be honest with themselves and say “The Catholic Church isn’t “Catholic” enough for me, so I’m leaving.”

 

[Dovekin]

Should children grow up outside a parish and Diocese now until certain officials say V2 is sufficiently clarified?

Of course, this is the ecumenical question. Until justification is sufficiently clarified. Until the filioque is sufficiently clarified. Until purgatory is sufficiently clarified. For every Christian group, there is a question or group of questions, like this. Saying it about the SSPX does not move the discussion forward so much as put it into the category of ecumenism, dialogue with non-Catholic Christians.

My impression of the situation can be gleaned from the Rorate Caeli article posted above:

the Holy See has granted, on a practical level, all priestly functions to the members of the SSPX. The assessment of catholicity has been made on the long term, and not in view of conditions still to be fulfilled.

What does remain to be fulfilled is Canon Law, specifically canons 752:

Canon 752: Although not an assent of faith, a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by definitive act; therefore, the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid those things which do not agree with it.

The Holy See has done what it can. The priests of SSPX have to show a willingness to respect non-infallible teaching, something that is required of every priest.

If I had a time machine, I would go to 1970. I’d advise the pope to mandate the TLM be available in every diocese for those who request it. I’d also say appoint bishops committed to orthodoxy in implementing V2.

Advice to mandate the TLM would probably have been ignored, like many other suggestions that go to the Vatican. It was not an unheard of idea. Advice to appoint bishops committed to orthodoxy was taken; it is ridiculous to think otherwise. It probably was not your idea of orthodoxy, but that of Paul VI and the members of the congregation for bishops.

 

[TheMortenBay]

I would go further, agree that the Ordinary form is valid

They have agreed that the Ordinary Form can be valid. They just don’t agree with its use or implementation.

 

[steph03]

steph03:

I would go further, agree that the Ordinary form is valid

They have agreed that the Ordinary Form can be valid. They just don’t agree with its use or implementation.

That sounds more like a play with words on SSPX’s part. It “can” be valid, just that no one should use it. Unlike most FSSP who say that the OF is valid, but that the EF is more complete. I would have been less patient than the Holy Father, but then again that is why he has the job and I don’t.

 

[commenter]

They have agreed that the Ordinary Form can be valid. They just don’t agree with its use or implementation

The “stumbling block” years ago may have been the Mass, but now it is “what happens to the independence/authority of the SSPX hierarchy”? My guess is they won’t support any regularization that affects the SSPX in any way.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

They have agreed that the Ordinary Form can be valid. They just don’t agree with its use or implementation

It is entirely possible that when there is a need in the SSPX for a new bishop, Rome might well say fine, but we are going to assign you a bishop who was consecrated in the new, post-Vatican II rite. If you accept the validity of that rite — and I do — that is fine. If you find the validity of the new rite doubtful, or think it is invalid, then that is going to be a problem.

If I had to guess, I would say that is the test of faith, if you will, that will be eventually required of the SSPX. That is no more and no less than the FSSP requires now — they do not have their own bishops and rely on the Church at large to ordain their priests, albeit in the traditional rite.

For that matter, Rome could say “you don’t need bishops, after all, the FSSP doesn’t have them”. Again, a test of faith.