Sspx alternatives in communion with rome

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Why does this subject have to be so polemical? It is old. If you have a problem with one group or another then fine, you are entitled to your opinion, but this fighting and arguing is childish. Rome has made it very clear where she stands on the issue. You can not change that. The people that attend SSPX chapels are generally very devout Catholics, more so than some I have seen. I think we would be served much better by focusing our effort not inside the Church as we are doing now, but elsewhere. Don’t forget that 500 years ago a lot of people broke from the Church and are wandering today. Without your help or a miracle, these people today may spend eternity in Hell.
 
mgrobertson79 said:
Well, In the Diocese of Charlotte we do not have a choice. Our Bishop has decided not to honor the desires of the Holy Father and implement Ecclesia Dei Adflicta. The closest TLM is at least 3 hours away. The Vatican says the SSPX is not outside the Church, also not in full schism and one fulfills one’s obligation by assisting their masses. We do have an SSPX chapel in Charlotte and though I have been there twice, I do not make it a habit.Though the SSPX has some barriers to overcome to full communion, only the Bishops are excommunicated, not the Priest. The Bishops are the only ones who participated in a schismatic act.
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Tha Vatican has NOT stated that one may fufill their Sunday obligation by attendance at an SSPX Mass. They addressed ONE situation involving ONE person. The faithful are specifically warned against the possible sin of schism by attendance on their Masses (per Ecclesia Dei). You’re correct that only the bishops are excommunicated (I can’t imagine that being a plus on ANY Catholic’s CV), but the priests are suspended ad divinis and possess no faculties for the sacraments they celebrate (rendering those sacraments illicit).

And to the poster who said this:

“But like I’ve already suggested, arguing anything in favor of the SSPX on this forum is an exercise in futility and you seem to be making the point for me better than I can.”

What is futile is to argue against historical FACTS. When people come on and posit that there really is no schism, no valid excommunication, etc., those who point out what the Church has officially said are not engaging in partisanship. They are simply unwilling to call a pig a cow.
 
parvenu74 said:
The Vatican upheld the excommunication of Call to Action. There was neither affirmation nor negation of the other groups excommunicated in this case.

There is, however, president to suggest that excommunications of those who attend SSPX Masses are null and void; for more info on the case of “the Hawaii Six,” see the SSPX’s USA website for more info (including scanned images of the letters and decrees in question): sspx.org/diocesan_dialogues/honolulu_&_hawaii6.htm.

But like I’ve already suggested, arguing anything in favor of the SSPX on this forum is an exercise in futility and you seem to be making the point for me better than I can.
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The reason “the Hawaii Six” case was overturned because the bishop who make the excommunications wasn’t because the SSPX aren’t in schism. Simply attending an SSPX Mass is not cause for excommunication nor an act of schism. The Hawaii Bishop handled the whole situation poorly.

Here’s a couple of good articles (one by Bruskewitz himself on why he took action with an intro by Chuck Wilson who represented the Hawaii Six).

cuf.org/Faithfacts/detai…w.asp?ffID=132
ewtn.com/library/CANONLAW/BOTHWAYS.HTM
 
JKirkLVNV said:
Tha Vatican has NOT stated that one may fufill their Sunday obligation by attendance at an SSPX Mass. They addressed ONE situation involving ONE person. The faithful are specifically warned against the possible sin of schism by attendance on their Masses (per Ecclesia Dei). You’re correct that only the bishops are excommunicated (I can’t imagine that being a plus on ANY Catholic’s CV), but the priests are suspended ad divinis and possess no faculties for the sacraments they celebrate (rendering those sacraments illicit).

And to the poster who said this:

“But like I’ve already suggested, arguing anything in favor of the SSPX on this forum is an exercise in futility and you seem to be making the point for me better than I can.”

What is futile is to argue against historical FACTS. When people come on and posit that there really is no schism, no valid excommunication, etc., those who point out what the Church has officially said are not engaging in partisanship. They are simply unwilling to call a pig a cow.
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I will have to find it, but there is a document from the PCED that says ones Sunday obligation is fulfilled by attending their Mass. I think it is a letter and I trust them more so than ANY opinion on this board. I can’t dispute facts and hope that soon the whole situation is resolved. It is about time everyone starts working TOGETHER to fix the mess we find ourselves in today.
 
mgrobertson79 said:
I will have to find it, but there is a document from the PCED that says ones Sunday obligation is fulfilled by attending their Mass. I think it is a letter and I trust them more so than ANY opinion on this board. I can’t dispute facts and hope that soon the whole situation is resolved. It is about time everyone starts working TOGETHER to fix the mess we find ourselves in today.
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There is only one letter that I know of that says anything about fulfilling one’s Sunday obligation there and it’s been clarified by the Vatican that the letter was a private letter sent to one person in a specific circumstance. There were many assumptions that anyone could do this and the Vatican felt the need to make this clarification. If people had it right, no clarification would have been needed.
 
strix said:
Where I live, in Cambridge, England, the nearest regular Sunday mass is in London, 60 miles away, with a choice of indult or SSPX. I have not got a car, and the train is too expensive.

For my health, I spend the winter in southern Spain. There, the nearest ‘old mass’ centre is in Madrid, 400 miles away or so.

‘A lot of places one should be able to go to find the old latin rite.’ Oh really? Get real!
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I just need to walk up the hill to my regular parish church. The parish priest is on a rota to say the TLM about once a month.
 
bear06 said:
There is only one letter that I know of that says anything about fulfilling one’s Sunday obligation there and it’s been clarified by the Vatican that the letter was a private letter sent to one person in a specific circumstance. There were many assumptions that anyone could do this and the Vatican felt the need to make this clarification. If people had it right, no clarification would have been needed.
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Please provide a source for this clarification. Is it another PCED document or just word of mouth?
 
I found a document here
unavoce.org/articles/2003/perl-011803.htm

"In a previous letter to the same correspondent we had already indicated the canonical status of the Society of St. Pius X which we will summarize briefly here.

1.) The priests of the Society of St. Pius X are validly ordained, but they are suspended from exercising their priestly functions. To the extent that they adhere to the schism of the late Archbishop Lefebvre, they are also excommunicated.

2.)** Concretely this means that the Masses offered by these priests are valid, but illicit i.e., contrary to the law of the Church.**

“We have already told you that we cannot recommend your attendance at such a Mass and have explained the reason why. If your primary reason for attending were to manifest your desire to separate yourself from communion with the Roman Pontiff and those in communion with him, it would be a sin. If your intention is simply to participate in a Mass according to the 1962 Missal for the sake of devotion, this would not be a sin.”
 
mgrobertson79 said:
I found a document here
unavoce.org/articles/2003/perl-011803.htm

"In a previous letter to the same correspondent we had already indicated the canonical status of the Society of St. Pius X which we will summarize briefly here.

1.) The priests of the Society of St. Pius X are validly ordained, but they are suspended from exercising their priestly functions. To the extent that they adhere to the schism of the late Archbishop Lefebvre, they are also excommunicated.

2.)** Concretely this means that the Masses offered by these priests are valid**, but illicit i.e., contrary to the law of the Church.

“We have already told you that we cannot recommend your attendance at such a Mass and have explained the reason why. If your primary reason for attending were to manifest your desire to separate yourself from communion with the Roman Pontiff and those in communion with him, it would be a sin. If your intention is simply to participate in a Mass according to the 1962 Missal for the sake of devotion, this would not be a sin.”
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Thanks for locating it yourself. If you search the forums, you will see that this letter has been discussed at length.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say in your highlighted portions but you have not shown where it says that the faithful at large can fulfill their Sunday obligation at a an SSPX chapel. Again, if you’ll notice Msgr. Perl makes a very careful clarification that the response was
intended as a private communication dealing with the specific circumstances of the person who wrote to us
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It in no way says that anyone for any reason can fulfill their Sunday obligation nor does it say one can do so simply out of their attachment to the TLM. It does say that this specific person, in a strict sense, can. Unfortunately the person to whom this response was written never bothered to publish his original query. We don’t know what his circumstance is which I think is quite telling since the response was made public and many requests to see the original query have been ignored.

If I wrote the Vatican and said I was a 90 year old invalid who can’t make it to a licit Mass and that I lived next door to a chapel and my neighbor said he would carry me there for Mass, what do you think the Vatican would say? I’m afraid this is probably a case of “he who frames the question wins the argument” only this time the original question has been kept a secret.

Besides, if everyone had it right with the headline “The Vatican Admits that the SSPX Mass Fulfills the Sunday Obligation” that the Remnant type papers ran, no clarification would be necessary.
 
I believe this whole situation will be resolved within the next few years to the satisfaction of most everyone. There will be a break of some of those who attend the SSPX chapels who are more sedevacantist than anything. I think the theological concerns of the society will be worked through and the canonical status will be regularized is short order. The Holy Father seems to want that to happen very soon, but the Bishops of the SSPX want to take their time. I guess that is best, that way it is a lasting solution.
 
mgrobertson79 said:
I believe this whole situation will be resolved within the next few years to the satisfaction of most everyone.
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I don’t think so. Let’s not kid ourselves, there are a great many people who don’t want any kind of resolution. What else would they do with their non-productive time except point fingers at the SSPX, which they really seem to enjoy?
 
Well, it is a shame that we’re discussing the merits of the SSPX on a thread about alternatives to them, but I must say that I don’t understand why any Catholic on either side of the issue would think knowing the precise status of the SSPX is of little import. It is incredibly important to know who is inside the Church and who is without, to know with whom one is in communion and with whom one is not.

I also find it increibly odd that SSPX adherents seem nonplussed by the suspension of their priests. Happy to accept the PCED letter as binding/authoritative if it will bolster certain claims of theirs, this strategy necessarily entails trumpeting an authoritative letter making perfectly clear that SSPX priests may not confect the sacrament. In any other situation it would be clear that a suspended priest gravely abuses the sacrament by confecting it.

Imagine sitting around in 1945 talking about where you and your friends are going to Mass on Sunday - all in the Roman Rite in force at the time. One says St. Adalbert’s, one St. Philomena, a third says “There’s this suspended priest who puts on really beautiful liturgies and says great homilies, so I’m going to go there and commune with him.” Do we seriously imagine this would not be seen as glaringly problematic? Even if one attempts to justify a suspended priest’s illict action, at any rate it cannot be a non-issue!
 
And now, more on topic, the Society of St. John Cantius (TLM alongside offerings of Latin NO).
 
BobP123 said:
I don’t think so. Let’s not kid ourselves, there are a great many people who don’t want any kind of resolution. What else would they do with their non-productive time except point fingers at the SSPX, which they really seem to enjoy?
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Give me a break, this is like saying that there are people that point fingers at the liberals but they don’t really want them to stop being goofs. Yes, you’re going to get your people on both ends of the spectrum who don’t want reconciliation but then you’re going to have your faithful in between who want to see all right with the Church. “A great many” is a an overstatement at best and it’s just plain wrong to say that people who point the finger at the SSPX don’t want reconciliation.
 
BobP123 said:
What else would they do with their non-productive time except point fingers at the SSPX, which they really seem to enjoy?** As I said, they’re simply unwilling to call a pig a cow, no matter how many “traditionalists” point to the little oinker and make mooing sounds.**
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Andreas_Hofer said:
Well, it is a shame that we’re discussing the merits of the SSPX on a thread about alternatives to them, but I must say that I don’t understand why any Catholic on either side of the issue would think knowing the precise status of the SSPX is of little import. It is incredibly important to know who is inside the Church and who is without, to know with whom one is in communion and with whom one is not.

I also find it increibly odd that SSPX adherents seem nonplussed by the suspension of their priests. Happy to accept the PCED letter as binding/authoritative if it will bolster certain claims of theirs, this strategy necessarily entails trumpeting an authoritative letter making perfectly clear that SSPX priests may not confect the sacrament. In any other situation it would be clear that a suspended priest gravely abuses the sacrament by confecting it.

Imagine sitting around in 1945 talking about where you and your friends are going to Mass on Sunday - all in the Roman Rite in force at the time. One says St. Adalbert’s, one St. Philomena, a third says “There’s this suspended priest who puts on really beautiful liturgies and says great homilies, so I’m going to go there and commune with him.” Do we seriously imagine this would not be seen as glaringly problematic? Even if one attempts to justify a suspended priest’s illict action, at any rate it cannot be a non-issue!
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But don’t most people church in the closest parish? I didn’t see too many on my block running to the parish on the other side of town after the local priest announced he had had an affair.
 
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