SSPX Bishop Williamson: "Our Answer Will Be Negative"

[BrendanD]

These sacraments require faculties to be granted to perform them by the local ordinary. As the SSPX have separated themselves from the Church the local bishops do not grant them such faculties so their celebration of them are invalid.

The Vatican, the Pope, and his representatives have never even suggested that SSPX confessions/marriages might be invalid, and I highly doubt that anybody on this forum knows enough about the issue to make that determination. Supplied jurisdiction is way more complicated than that.

It’s as if some people want to believe that the Church would say nothing about the matter while 1 million+ Catholics are receiving invalid sacraments. If the SSPX could not give absolution, wouldn’t the Church have warned their flocks by now?

 

[pnewton]

It’s as if some people want to believe that the Church would say nothing about the matter while 1 million+ Catholics are receiving invalid sacraments.

The Catholic Church has warned them.

In the present circumstances I wish especially to make an appeal both solemn and heartfelt, paternal and fraternal, to all those who until now have been linked in various ways to the movement of Archbishop Lefebvre, that they may fulfill the grave duty of remaining united to the vicar of Christ in the unity of the Catholic Church and of ceasing their support in any way for that movement.

 

[BrendanD]

The Catholic Church has warned them.

I said warned that the SSPX can not give absolution. The Church has never in any way suggested that SSPX confessions are invalid. Those who say so are claiming to speak on behalf of the Church, and saying that the Pope and the Vatican are allowing thousands of Catholics to enter into invalid marriages without telling them.

 

[Spiller]

I wish I could believe that. But, I worry that they do hurt the Church. Do they matter to John and Jane Catholic in St. Suburbia parish? Probably not. But, to those of us who hope to see greater availability of the Latin Mass and a general reform of the liturgy in our dioceses, I think the SSPX hurts us. In my archdiocese, they actively “poach” people away from the diocesan Latin Mass. (There’s an argument going on right now about whether or not flyers promoting the SSPX chapel can be handed out on church property.) Meanwhile, the Archbishop says “Nobody wants the Latin Mass.” He’s right: only about 25 people show up each week. Of course, over 100 people go to the SSPX, but they’re not in his flock, so they don’t count.

Most Catholics in my home parish honestly believe that the Latin Mass is not allowed. They’re vaguely aware that there is some schismatic group who does them. They have no idea that there is a licit Latin Mass, and they’ve never heard of Cardinal Hoyos.

I think there’s a real crisis in the Church. I think the Church can be saved through the liturgy. I hate to see this being derailed.

As someone said in another thread: the SSPX is siphoning off the cream of the crop. I think they siphon it off and then poison it. Just think how much good those 100 traditionalists could do if they could only be faithful!

I tend to think they are draining-off the dregs, but I do have a question. Why not spend some time evangelizing SSPXers? The road has two lanes…

 

[pnewton]

I said warned that the SSPX can not give absolution.

Okey-dokey. The Church has also not said that Baptist preachers can not give absolution. Instead, the Catholic Church has defined specifically what is required for absolution, namely, faculties from the local bishop. Without this, one does not have proper matter for the Sacrament.

 

[BrendanD]

Okey-dokey. The Church has also not said that Baptist preachers can not give absolution. Instead, the Catholic Church has defined specifically what is required for absolution, namely, faculties from the local bishop. Without this, one does not have proper matter for the Sacrament.

The inability of a Baptist preacher to give absolution has nothing to do with a lack of faculties, it has to do with a lack of Holy Orders. SSPX, on the otherhand, are ordained Catholic priests. Your one-sentence explanation also doesn’t cover the issue of supplied jurisdiction, which they claim to derive faculties from.

I will say again, the Church has never suggested that SSPX confessions are invalid. The Pope has never suggested that SSPX confessions are invalid. The Ecclesia Dei Commission has never suggested that SSPX confessions are invalid. If it really makes you happy to appoint yourself as the interpreter of Canon Law and decider of the validity of sacraments, that’s fine, but it reeks of disobedience to claim that SSPX is giving invalid sacraments when the Vatican has never mentioned such a thing.

 

[pnewton]

I will say again, the Church has never suggested that SSPX confessions are invalid…

I am going to bow out, at least until we meander back on topic. Believe the argument from silence if you want. Good luck with that.

 

[BrendanD]

Personally, I wouldn’t claim to know one way or the other whether the SSPX can absolve and marry or not. It’s just so far from the authority of the laity to decide, and I don’t think armchair theologians on the internet should act like they know for certain that SSPX confessions are invalid.

Actually, I think we should hope that they are valid. It would be really sad if people have been entering invalid marriages all this time without even knowing.

 

[rpp]

This thread is way off Topic. It is about Bishop Williamson’s response to the recent proposal from the Holy See.

It is not about the validity of Sacraments administered by SSPX priests.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I never said, and NEITHER HAS THE CHURCH, that any or every religion was salvific. How dare you accuse me of beleiving such. I believe very much in Nullus Salvus Extra Ecclesiam, as do you. I am a traditional Catholic, as traditional as you. Except i dare say even more so, since I am in full communion with the Pope, the VIcar of Christ. Just in case you forgot, Catholics traditionally are.

And why would i NEED to explan Cardinal Kasper? I disagree completely with Kasper, and i think hes a fossil who was just given a cushy post to make his exit more comfortable.

He is a priest & a bishop & cardinal - what happened to respect for one’s elders & betters ? Insulting someone who has his position & responsibilities from a Pope may be many things, but is it “traditional” ? Maybe he has good reasons, based in Catholic tradition, for what he says - is it really so unlikely that he may have a far better understanding than a poster on the forums ?​

The bishops & cardinals need no enemies, when they have other Catholics to find fault with them

Furthermore, Kasper is NOT THE CHURCH! He is a single man. His views, in the long run, matter very little. Are you seriously so undeducated that your entire case against the Church of Rome is built upon some naive foibles of a dinosaur of a cardinal?

He’s younger than the Pope - is the Pope a “dinosaur” ? As for the weight to be given to Card. Kasper’s views - Cardinal Ratzinger was “a single man”; if Cardinal Kasper is speaking as a private individual & no more, that’s one thing; if OTOH he is speaking as a Curial official, he can’t be so readily dismissed.​

Come on, can’t you do better than that? If you had even bothered to read my post, you’d see that this is what i see as bad ecumenism. But of course, you didn’t serioisly read my post, because you are too busy being the broken record of the SSPX, talking for them before YOU understand.

And, of course, in all your talking, you FORGOT TO ADDRESS THE POINT! Religious liberty exists whether you like it or not. I know exactly why Jesus died! His death was necessary to attone our sins, which were possibly in the first place because God gave us free will. The freedom to believe him or not. Are you denying free will? That would make you no better than the Calvinists. Although, both you and Calvin seem to have little problem with creating splinter groups.

The SSPX complaint is based on different grounds (Mgr. Lefebvre wrote a book about it, which is (or certainly was) published by the Angelus Press).​

What they object to is that Dignitatis Humanae teaches that men have not simply the moral liberty to choose their religion, but the liberty to practice it in public - & they have not just that, but a liberty to do so that is founded on human nature. They have a point - for the teaching of DH implies that the previous Catholic refusal to allow any public worship, in states in which the dominant religion was Catholicism, to any religion except Catholicism, was an injustice. But if refusing public expression to (say) Protestantism in Spain was unjust, this implies that the 1953 Concordat was unjust. It implies that previous Popes, & the previous theological tradition of the CC, was unjust, & in error, in denying that non-Catholics had a right founded on human nature to the public exercise of their religions. If the Council had taught that non-Catholic religious practice could be tolerated, it would have echoed what was already part of Catholic Tradition; but it went further, & taught there was a right founded in human nature.

The difference may not seem much - but this issue is explosive. The problem is, that the Council, verbally at least, is going counter to 16 centuries of teaching & practice on this issue. If only the issue were one of moral freedom ! It’s not. There are some related issues, but that is the heart of the problem.

The “negative answer” is therefore understandable