SSPX mass OK?

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We believe in hops out here. An IPA will do.

Have a good New Year. It surely will be “interesting”.
Truce-

Thanks - same to you, my friend. We can take it up again when the 2010 stats come out!
 
Well a lot of them believe in salvation outside the Church.
For the record, they do no such thing. But they do hold the doctrine of Baptism of Desire. Nobody can enter Heaven unless he is, before death, ‘incorporated’ as a Member of the Body of Christ. The question is, how is this accomplished, especially for souls who have not been baptized at infancy or reared in the Faith? There are those (such as Tradycja, unless he has changed his mind since I last read one of his postings) who hold that this can be achieved only by a physical administration of water. The SSPX – along with many Catholic authorities of the highest standing – reject this dismissal of Baptism of Desire, & the SSPX have on their website a very full discussion of the matter.
 
You are dreaming that the SSPX amounts to any significant number - taking the number of 1 million that was bandied about, which is a world wide number if anything (it certainly does not represe4nt the number os SSPX followers in the US), it amounts to approximately 1 person in every 1,147.
So you have nothing to worry about. Why keep posting here?
 
Truce-

Thanks - same to you, my friend. We can take it up again when the 2010 stats come out!
I would like to see the stats just on New Year’s Day. I know around some places, the SSPX Mass will be the only game in town that day.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by ishiac
An invalid excommunication is never a true excommunication.
My apologies for not having read all of this thread; I hope I’m not repeating someone else.
Let’s not go too fast here. This statement is true as a general case, irrespective of the decree issued in 1988:
An invalid excommunication is never a true excommunication.
We haven’t yet got as far in the argument as asserting that the 1988 excommunication was invalid: The general principle must be allowed to hold. An excommunication is a disciplinary action of the pope, and it is not protected by infallibility. Therefore it is theoretically possible for a pope to issue it invalidly. It is a separate question whether this is what happened in 1988 or any other time.
If the Holy Father can not excommunicate …
Secondly, the 1988 decree against the SSPX was not actually issued by the Holy Father. The Vatican did nothing for 20 years to disabuse the Faithful of this misconception. See this matter discussed at

tradwiki.com/w/index.php/Replies_to_false_claims_about_Mgr_Lefebvre_%26_the_SSPX

& elsewhere. But Pope Benedict XVI remembered who had issued it when he lifted the decree. Check it yourself in Summorum Pontificum, the document lifting the excommunication. The latter document is seen to be a far more well-crafted piece of legislation: apart from anything else, it is crystal clear about who is issuing it, and on whose authority.
pnewton continues:
Code:
If the Holy Father can not excommunicate without it being a matter of opinion, then excommunication does not practically exist.
That’s putting it too strongly. The decree could always be canonically appealed. In the particular case of the 1988 decree of excommunication, there are extremely strong arguments for its invalidity, particularly its ignoring, without explanation, some very clear paragraphs of canon law which protected Mgr Lefebvre & the others from censure.
The SSPX has always been willing and wanting of a full understanding of truth with Rome; they were never granted this to take place under Pope John Paul II so don’t falsely accuse them till you objectively and truthfully look at the events that really transpired.
pnweton replied:
I have looked at the event and am very much in disagreement about the cooperation of the SSPX in the past, at least some of the bishops. The mere fact that you made such a broad, sweeping statement (always been willing and wanting of a full understanding) should raise an eyebrow.
The record does show enough unfortunately-worded responses that one cannot use the word , always – except that the record also shows outrageous provocation and injustice directed against the SSPX. It is clearly now time to draw what lines can be drawn, and to move on, than to try to argue the 100% innocence/culpability of either side. This does appear to be what the Holy Father – and the leadership of the SSPX – are trying to achieve.
 
The record does show enough unfortunately-worded responses that I have to agree, pnewton, except that the record also shows outrageous provocation and injustice directed against the SSPX. It would be better, i think, to draw what lines can be drawn, and to move on, than to try to argue the 100% innocence/culpability of either side. This does appear to be what the Holy Father is trying to achieve.
You are correct. There has been a lot of injustice brought against them. We still see claims here that the SSPX does not except the validity of the Holy Father or that their Mass is invalid, both of which are clearly false. We also still see the statement those excommunications were valid. At one time, this claim had merit and could be hotly debated. Now, whether they were or weren’t is entirely moot. As to schism, we should stick now to what the Church is saying about an irregular communion and let that debate go as well.

May 2010 bring us an end to more arguements, perhaps once and for all. This has gone on long enough and I for one would be delighted to put all the blame aside for the sake of a solution.
 
Your parishes are closing, your seminaries are empty, you cannot import priests from Africa and India in large enough numbers to compensate for the boomer retiring priests. Face it, OJ, you will eventually be assisting at a Communion Service without a Consecration offered by a nun and a new age sermon. Such a thing already exists for daily Mass at one of our neighborhood churches in Oceanside, CA. Prepare, my friend, it is your future.
That is simply silliness. How long have you been round? I am working on the seventh decade. I have been watching far longer than most, even those my age, if for no other reason than that many my age were not watching. I have seen the turn around; the seminary here is far from empty; as they have just completed additions and renovations to be able to keep up with the influx. I have seen the drift away from reverance and the drift back - and over 40 years it seems as a drift, while in the time of the Church it is not much more than a long blink. I have seen the John Paul 2 priests who are focused on Christ, and have no need of the nonsense of their previous generations. I have watched the rise of Call to Action, and the greying of the same, and the youth who do not join them as they are dying off in their irrelevancy. I have seen and experienced the reverance of the priest from foreign lands and seen thier impact on local congregations. I have seen the rise of Perpetual Adoration and heard the comments of the older priests who mutter “neo Jansenism”; and watched the older priests die while Perpetual Adoration gains strength. I have seen form over function on both sides of the coin, and watched as battles have spun away into nothingness.

I have seen and experienced the power of prayer. And I have seen and continue to see the messages of the Gospel lived out in front of and all around me.

There have been doom sayers and nay sayers since the Gospel was preached by Christ Himself, and there will be so to the Final Judgement. And the Church will continue on, in spite of them, around them, with or without them. Benedict 16 was looking at Europe when he spoke of a Remenant Church; it is interesting how highly he speaks of the Church in the US (all the while never flinching from pointing out where we need to improve). and when a Pope as brilliant a theologian as he indicates that he does not forsee the dying off of the OF, then I am far more likely to listen to him than to someone who predictst the demise of the form of the Mass that nearly 100% of Catholics of the Roman rite attend weekly.

Do I think over time that the OF will change? Yes, but over decades of time, not years. Do I think that the EF will eventually see changes too? That, too, over decades, not years. And I would suspect that well beyond my lifetime, the two may meld into one, but I won’t be here to see it.

But the demise of the OF? There are no demographics anywhere, including what you have pointed out, that give any likelyhood to it.

He is risen! He is alive! He is among us!
 
And a good drop too. It had extra hops to preserve it, for the journey from England to India, which give it its distinctive taste.
Ah, but it is a tough call between and IPA and Ireland’s finest. In either case, barley is well treated.
 
Sorry, I am too busy to do your research for you. You might start with the SSPX docs on this board.
I skimmed this thread and I found that the SSPX are suspended and some sacraments may be invalid. No offense but please understand that I am not too able to trust documents from the SSPX.😃

Happy New Year!😃
 
Ah, but it is a tough call between and IPA and Ireland’s finest. In either case, barley is well treated.
It would indeed be difficult to rule on which of the two was the OF and which the EF – not to mention the traditional, but illicit, wee drop from behind the mountain.
 
I skimmed this thread and I found that the SSPX are suspended and some sacraments may be invalid. No offense but please understand that I am not too able to trust documents from the SSPX.😃

Happy New Year!😃
I too have lived through it all from Pius XII onwards, and without being oblivious – though otjm can claim a few extra years on me.

The whole question is very difficult, as can be seen by the very different replies given to the question at the very beginning of this thread – and all of them, I think, able to be supported by just enough evidence to merit some credibility.

Without going through it with a fine tooth comb, I will suggest that one reason for this very protracted battle between what are now called the Trads and the Vatican is that the mainstream hierarchy threw its weight behind an untenable experiment: the suppression of immemorial facets of the life of the Catholic church, of which the traditional Latin liturgy was only the most highly-visible. this attempt – to impose a regime of novely – was achieved partly through documents that were sufficiently ambiguous that both sides could make capital out of them. Many left the Church in bewilderment; many tried grimly to slog it out within the visible structures of dioceses, parishes, and the New Order of Mass; a numerically small group invoked the Emergency clauses of Canon Law, as well as the general precepts of Divine Law, and refused to accept the novelties. For this they were given very heavy canonical penalties (while apostates, paedophiles and others were treated with kid gloves). The Trads responded by presenting the case that these sanctions were illegal, irregular, and invalid. However their own position was fraught with its own inherent dangers. The present pope does seem to be making a determined effort to reconcile those who continue to invoke State of Emergency rules.
please understand that I am not too able to trust documents from the SSPX.
😃
Unfortunately, there are enough fully-documented breaches of trust from the direction of the mainstream hierarchy that the pot will find it difficult to call the kettle black.

I agree with otjm that the atmosphere has changed since the 1970-s, when the Modernists seemed to be sweeping the world. The more crackpot varieties of Modernism were self-destructive from the beginning; those seminaries and religious Orders who lost their self-confidence and sense of direction mostly closed through lack of recruitment if not from literally a mass walkout.

Those who never did accept the trad thesis of a State of Emergency are, I suppose, unlikely to support the SSPX now. Those who do support that thesis are entitled to ask, ‘Now that it has been conceded that the Traditional Liturgy was not, in fact, ever abrogated – despite confident statements to the contrary for decades, by apparently trustworthy sources – what exactly are the SSPX still suspended for?’

Those who originally accepted the invocation of the State of Emergency will need to be attentive to what point this invocation can no longer be credibly applied. I am among those who are cautious. ‘One swallow doth not make a summer’. There are many cases in history of disaster occurring on the brink of victory when one side drops its weapons too soon. The case of the Cristeros in Mexico is worth looking up.

Vague allegations like, ‘the SSPX refuse to obey Vatican II’ run up against a problem. For some years, on this Forum & elsewhere, I have asked to be told exactly what we are obliged to obey. To this date I have not been given an answer.

The very best thing that could happen, is now happening. Honest and forthright discussion on this very question appears to be going on between the Vatican and the SSPX.

No-one can predict the future. But the statements from the Vatican that the SSPX have no canonical standing in the Church is an obvious inference from the Official Position that there was no State of Emergency to invoke in the first place: which is begging the question. Millions of Catholics who had the carpet pulled out from under them in the Seventies would disagree. The quiet revocation of the Excommunications, without any retractions at all being demanded of the SSPX, fills at least this greybeard with the hope that the Suspensions will also be quietly lifted: while a very clear statement from the Vatican on the more ambiguous passages of Vatican II would be the next greatest blessing of all.
 
That is simply silliness. How long have you been round? I am working on the seventh decade. I have been watching far longer than most, even those my age, if for no other reason than that many my age were not watching. I have seen the turn around; the seminary here is far from empty; as they have just completed additions and renovations to be able to keep up with the influx. I have seen the drift away from reverance and the drift back - and over 40 years it seems as a drift, while in the time of the Church it is not much more than a long blink. I have seen the John Paul 2 priests who are focused on Christ, and have no need of the nonsense of their previous generations. I have watched the rise of Call to Action, and the greying of the same, and the youth who do not join them as they are dying off in their irrelevancy. I have seen and experienced the reverance of the priest from foreign lands and seen thier impact on local congregations. I have seen the rise of Perpetual Adoration and heard the comments of the older priests who mutter “neo Jansenism”; and watched the older priests die while Perpetual Adoration gains strength. I have seen form over function on both sides of the coin, and watched as battles have spun away into nothingness.

I have seen and experienced the power of prayer. And I have seen and continue to see the messages of the Gospel lived out in front of and all around me.

There have been doom sayers and nay sayers since the Gospel was preached by Christ Himself, and there will be so to the Final Judgement. And the Church will continue on, in spite of them, around them, with or without them. Benedict 16 was looking at Europe when he spoke of a Remenant Church; it is interesting how highly he speaks of the Church in the US (all the while never flinching from pointing out where we need to improve). and when a Pope as brilliant a theologian as he indicates that he does not forsee the dying off of the OF, then I am far more likely to listen to him than to someone who predictst the demise of the form of the Mass that nearly 100% of Catholics of the Roman rite attend weekly.

Do I think over time that the OF will change? Yes, but over decades of time, not years. Do I think that the EF will eventually see changes too? That, too, over decades, not years. And I would suspect that well beyond my lifetime, the two may meld into one, but I won’t be here to see it.

But the demise of the OF? There are no demographics anywhere, including what you have pointed out, that give any likelyhood to it.

He is risen! He is alive! He is among us!
I am 55, so it appears you have more experience. I am happy to agree with you that I believe that Christ’s Church will never perish from this earth. That promise, in itself, is good enough for me. As long as I know that His valid sacraments will always be available to heal and nourish my soul, I am content.

One thing that we may all neglect from time to time, is to pray for our priests and religious, especially the ones who baptized us, heard our first confession, gave us our First Holy Communion, offered the last Mass we attended, and with God’s grace will, finally anoint and bury us. Whether in a diocesan seminary, religious house of formation, or traditional seminary, it is a tremendous grace to hear and respond to the Lord’s calling. Bishop Fellay often tells ordinands that if they are not ready to be crucified for the faith, they are not ready to be ordained. And he tells priests that if they have somehow avoided Christ’s passion in their priesthood, they are avoiding some aspect of their calling to the Royal Priesthood of Melchizedek.

So perhaps we can offer a New Years prayer that all of these statistics make a significant turn for the better, especially the paltry 36% of Catholics who attend Mass once a week.
 
Thanks for the information here.
What Jimmy says there about confession applies as well for matrimony, since the required faculties are of the same source.

In regards to what Rome has instructed the SSPX to do: to stop celebrating the sacraments until in full visible union, to repent their disobedience, and to return to full visible union with Rome.

One of the reasons that the SSPX parishes are so problematic is that only the local ordinary may create new parishes, but the SSPX have done so.

Can. 515 §1. A parish is a certain community of the Christian faithful stably constituted in a particular church, whose pastoral care is entrusted to a pastor (parochus) as its proper pastor (pastor) under the authority of the diocesan bishop.

§2. It is only for the diocesan bishop to erect, suppress, or alter parishes. He is neither to erect, suppress, nor alter notably parishes, unless he has heard the presbyteral council.

§3. A legitimately erected parish possesses juridic personality by the law itself.

…]
Can. 519 The pastor (parochus) is the proper pastor (pastor) of the parish entrusted to him, exercising the pastoral care of the community committed to him under the authority of the diocesan bishop in whose ministry of Christ he has been called to share, so that for that same community he carries out the functions of teaching, sanctifying, and governing, also with the cooperation of other presbyters or deacons and with the assistance of lay members of the Christian faithful, according to the norm of law.

(vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P1U.HTM#C)

Note 515 §2. Diocesan Bishop. Not Ordinary, but diocesan bishop. In establishing parishes, the SSPX bishops act as diocesan bishops.

In assigning pastors, they act as the ordinary for those parishes; again, in this context, it can be seen as having perceived themselves as diocesan bishops, who are the normal ordinaries for parishes, tho’ deans and vicars forane can also be ordinaries for a parish; in such cases, tho’, they act as vicari for the diocesan bishop.

This means that the parishes are illicit and uncanonical; these SSPX parishes are outside the law by their very existence, save the rare few which predate the SSPX disobedience. Their appointed pastors are not licit pastors, and do not have faculties of pastors of parishes, since they are not, per canon law, parishes, since they were not erected by the diocesan bishop. Therefore, the pastor’s faculties do not apply (a valid and licit pastor has faculties to hear confession by virtue of being a licit and valid pastor).
 
What Jimmy says there about confession applies as well for matrimony, since the required faculties are of the same source.

In regards to what Rome has instructed the SSPX to do: to stop celebrating the sacraments until in full visible union, to repent their disobedience, and to return to full visible union with Rome.

One of the reasons that the SSPX parishes are so problematic is that only the local ordinary may create new parishes, but the SSPX have done so.

Can. 515 §1. A parish is a certain community of the Christian faithful stably constituted in a particular church, whose pastoral care is entrusted to a pastor (parochus) as its proper pastor (pastor) under the authority of the diocesan bishop.

§2. It is only for the diocesan bishop to erect, suppress, or alter parishes. He is neither to erect, suppress, nor alter notably parishes, unless he has heard the presbyteral council.

§3. A legitimately erected parish possesses juridic personality by the law itself.

…]
Can. 519 The pastor (parochus) is the proper pastor (pastor) of the parish entrusted to him, exercising the pastoral care of the community committed to him under the authority of the diocesan bishop in whose ministry of Christ he has been called to share, so that for that same community he carries out the functions of teaching, sanctifying, and governing, also with the cooperation of other presbyters or deacons and with the assistance of lay members of the Christian faithful, according to the norm of law.

(vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P1U.HTM#C)

Note 515 §2. Diocesan Bishop. Not Ordinary, but diocesan bishop. In establishing parishes, the SSPX bishops act as diocesan bishops.

In assigning pastors, they act as the ordinary for those parishes; again, in this context, it can be seen as having perceived themselves as diocesan bishops, who are the normal ordinaries for parishes, tho’ deans and vicars forane can also be ordinaries for a parish; in such cases, tho’, they act as vicari for the diocesan bishop.

This means that the parishes are illicit and uncanonical; these SSPX parishes are outside the law by their very existence, save the rare few which predate the SSPX disobedience. Their appointed pastors are not licit pastors, and do not have faculties of pastors of parishes, since they are not, per canon law, parishes, since they were not erected by the diocesan bishop. Therefore, the pastor’s faculties do not apply (a valid and licit pastor has faculties to hear confession by virtue of being a licit and valid pastor).
What you say would be unassailable if the Church were in a ‘normal’ condition. This is not, however, the case.
As I said in posting #113:
Statements from the Vatican that the SSPX have no canonical standing in the Church are an obvious inference from the Official Position that there was no State of Emergency to invoke in the first place: which is begging the question. Millions of Catholics who had the carpet pulled out from under them in the Seventies would disagree.
There is more to Canon Law than the collection of ‘positive laws’ (particular, individual paragraphs in the collection of laws).
There is a more general discussion of this at
On the Nature of Law: Divine, Natural, Ecclesiastical, Civil, Positive
http://www.tradwiki.com/w/index.php...ine,_Natural,_Ecclesiastical,_Civil,_Positive
and elsewhere.
Subordinate laws sometimes fail to achieve their purpose. They are merely applications of higher general laws to particular situations. Yet the particular or concrete situation can vary infinitely. It is impossible for positive law to envisage and provide in advance for all conceivable situations. This is why dispensations from law have always been allowed, often even foreseen, even by God. [This paragraph adapted slightly from[/COLOR] “The Episcopal Consecrations” by Rev. Fr. F. Pivert, ISBN 0-935952-54-3, page 4].First, a preliminary observation: The Church is a successful organisation on the Human level not least because she does define her terms. Only on this basis is constructive discussion possible.
With your patience, Aramis, I will respond to some of the points you raise, within this context.
 
I skimmed this thread and I found that the SSPX are suspended and some sacraments may be invalid. No offense but please understand that I am not too able to trust documents from the SSPX.😃

Happy New Year!😃
I think you are missing some important distinctions. The mass is valid, and the Eucharist is confected during mass. Confession and matrimony are not valid there. Those are the important things to remember. While valid, their mass is illicit. I personally don’t think one should attend an illicit mass, or be a follower of a disobedient priest. Except for that caveat I would be attending an SSPX chapel. Once they are in line again and are regularized you can count me in!
 
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