May Catholics attend SSPX masses?

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The situation is similar to the PNCC years ago. They didn’t intend to set up a new denomination, just dealing with recent abuses. The early members were angry at their local RC diocese, but it was still their diocese.

As decades passed, people grew up in the PNCC. They now appear to have no anger at the RCC diocese, they seem to have nothing to do with it.

Now they have developed their own permanent structures, own traditions, own momentum. The SSPX is a few decades behind, but same path.

The PNCC always calls their chapels “parishes”, and people “parishioners”, and the SSPX rarely calls them that, but I think that is the reality.
 
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The PNCC declared themselves not subject to Rome fairly early on, and over time has significantly deviated from Catholic belief (though they remain considerably more orthodox than other Old/Independent Catholic jurisdictions). The SSPX has remained pretty consistent with acknowledging Rome and denying schism. There may be individuals within who have different ideas, but overall the situation with the PNCC is not an equal comparison.
 
Fuerza said:
The PNCC declared themselves not subject to Rome fairly early on, and over time has significantly deviated from Catholic belief (though they remain considerably more orthodox than other Old/Independent Catholic jurisdictions). The SSPX has remained pretty consistent with acknowledging Rome and denying schism. There may be individuals within who have different ideas, but overall the situation with the PNCC is not an equal comparison.
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From the PNCC pov, they haven’t deviated one inch from Catholic belief. They emphasize that on their websites.

Administrative Independence early on can lead to unintended theological divergence in the long run. Or not.
 
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They now accept birth control and remarriage after divorce. They also deny the need for individual confession and now grant only general absolutions at their liturgies. Those are just off the top of my head.
 
Fuerza said:
They now accept birth control and remarriage after divorce. They also deny the need for individual confession and now grant only general absolutions at their liturgies. Those are just off the top of my head.
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Most changes came later.
They also are farther along on the path, which SSPX might, or might not, be at an earlier stage. Or maybe they are in a different path.
 
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Our SSPX chapel has frequent Masses in a nearby Diocesan church on Sundays after the last scheduled morning Mass. You should write to the bishop of Syracuse and make sure he knows he is being disobedient to the Pope because it appears he is clueless to the faith which you are such an expert on.
 
commenter said:
Most changes came later.
They also are farther along on the path, which SSPX might, or might not, be at an earlier stage. Or maybe they are in a different path.
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Not a good comparision.

I understand that the PNCC has diverged pretty far from Catholic beliefs, no longer believing in original sin, the infallibility or the authority of the pope, Immaculate Conception or Assumption of Mary, and some PNCC websites say they have 8 sacraments and much more.

The SSPX has not swayed in this way. From what Bishop Athanasius Schneider who was assigned to work with the SSPX, states in his book Christus Vincit, the SSPX are faithful to the Pope and their diocesan bishops, accepting all infallible teachings. They are praying for the pope and bishops at every Mass and many chapels have photos of Pope Francis and their diocesan bishops on the walls.

There are certain fallible teachings from Vatican II that have caused a good portion of the crisis in the Church that they do not accept and keeps them from being regularized but Pope Francis has worked with them and has legalized much of what they do, including confessions, weddings and some Masses.
 
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giuseppeTO said:
Our SSPX chapel has frequent Masses in a nearby Diocesan church on Sundays after the last scheduled morning Mass. You should write to the bishop of Syracuse and make sure he knows he is being disobedient to the Pope because it appears he is clueless to the faith which you are such an expert on.
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“Like” to the first sentence! Not sure about the second.

I am aware the situation is much more amicable in some places than others, due to differences in dioceses
and local SSPX. This reinforces my belief that reconciliation will be on individual level, or chapel by chapel…when/if you are ready…rather than some international one-size-fits-all, everybody all at once or nobody, edict.
 
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IMHO there will come a time when some of the uncertainties in the fallible Vatican II documents and the troubling aftermath of the spirit of Vatican II will be cleared up by a future pope and there will be reconciliation with the SSPX but that’s just my opinion or my hope.
 
Thistle responded “I see supporting them as being tantamount to disobedience to the Pope” Don’t we all have an obligation to protest to the Bishop if they are being disobedient to the Pope? He obviously sees this allowance in our Diocese as a form of Papal disobedience. I also attended an SSPX Mass offered in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome not long ago. So it also follows that the Archpriest of St. Peter’s is also being disobedient to the Pope.

Perhaps the Pope and Thistle “see” it differently?
 
giuseppeTO said:
Our SSPX chapel has frequent Masses in a nearby Diocesan church on Sundays after the last scheduled morning Mass. You should write to the bishop of Syracuse and make sure he knows he is being disobedient to the Pope because it appears he is clueless to the faith which you are such an expert on.
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The SSPX are not in full communion with Rome. Why? Because of their disobedience!
 
thistle said:
The SSPX are not in full communion with Rome. Why? Because of their disobedience!
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They were automatically excommunicated after ordaining four bishops without permission during the papacy of St. Pope John Paul II but the excommunications were lifted under Pope Benedict XVI.

They are in communion with Rome though are not considered regularized.

If they were not in communion with Rome Pope Francis would not allow them certain legalities but the Pope has.
 
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MagdalenaRita said:
If they were not in communion with Rome Pope Francis would not allow them certain legalities but the Pope has.
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I said not in FULL communion with the Church. That’s why the priests have some of their faculties suspended.
 
I hung out with the SSPX crowd for a few months last year, went only to the TLM (primarily SSPX) for a while. The SSPX line is that the excommunications were never licit and that Archbishop Lefebvre acted out of necessity.
More importantly, they claim that there is no such thing as “Full Communion” and “Partial Communion.” They say it’s a phrase that was invented after Vatican II. That second part is true. But even if I find the phrase “partial communion” to be lacking and counter productive, it doesn’t make it a lie. It’s not because the SSPX are not Catholic, they are. It’s not because they practise something which is illegal, they don’t. It’s because they’re not working with the Bishop Ordinary and the Pope. I had a first hand experience with this when I went to a diocesan TLM. I was there for my Sunday obligation, but this day a young man was welcomed into the Church. The service was precided over by a young priest of the Diocese and on this day, the only two seminarians of my country were there, serving as first and second acolyte respectively; the one I knew already, a seminarian with the Diocese and the other a seminarian at the Christ the King seminary.
And I thought to myself: I’ll never be up there. As a seminarian with the SSPX I’ll never serve a diocesan priest together with two other traditionally minded seminarians of my country. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be a Catholic priest, or that I would be 'outside the Church", but full communion? 😔
 
Thistle, I respect your right to have an opinion on this. I disagree with you and others like you on this board who conflate a very complex situation, which is being dealt with on many levels from the Pope to the local Bishops, down to a blanket statement which was a press release from 1988. You are “behind the times” on this as the Holy Father has granted to SSPX priests and those who assist at Mass at an SSPX chapel, Papal jurisdiction to hear Confessions and to perform the Sacrament of Matrimony (which almost always involves a Nuptial Mass). And, as you know, there is no priest or Bishop in the SSPX who is currently excommunicated.
 
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TK421 said:
The SSPX itself says that they do not have churches. They are called “chapels” because they are not canonically a church.
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It could be they use the word chapel rather than church because the word church would be taken by some as a separation from the Catholic church or an independent church, which would be an incorrect assumption.
 
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