SSPX seems to indicate a definitive break with the Holy See

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Constantine TG

I think we can argue that these novel ideas of theirs of “supplied jurisdiction” and of an “eternal rome” could be argued to be heretical. It will be interesting to see how Pope Francis deals with them. I think the SSPX bishops are badly miss-reading their man and Francis will surprise them, to much of an unknown.
“Supplied jurisdiction” is not heresy, but a misapplication of law. Canon Law could be changed to give the SSPX jurisdiction, or could be changed to remove all doubt as to their jurisdiction. Heresy is a refusal to believe eternal truth. The law falls far short of doctrine.

I doubt the Pope will address them at all; Bishop Felley has done nothing new to warrant further address.
 
There seems to be SERIOUS confusion between the term “Traditional Catholic” and SSPX. A “Traditional Catholic” is one who usually (not always, because of the general absence) attends a “Approved” Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite. The Traditionalist doesn’t subscribe to the liberal, “Church of Nice” agenda often rampant in the Church (look for the Obama Bumper Stickers in your Parish Parking lot)… Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and Justice Kennedy, among many others are shining pro-abortion examples of these “Catholics”. We are in full communion with Rome, we dont hold Mass at the Local Airport Hilton, and are loyal to our bishop.

SSPX have fallen away (unfortunately) due to illicit ordination of Bishops. Their Masses are always extraordinary form.

When I see an article (or a post) like the OP’s I wonder if there is a deeper resentment of Orthodox Catholic Teaching?
 
If I remember correctly andicould be wrong you know, I believe that Jesus said

"let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone."

I am not making light of anything nor do I support the SSPX . However, I find it quite unsettleing that so many people on this forum have such a thinly veiled dislike for the SSPX that they will take any and I do mean any opportunity to revile them. Heretics screams one. Schismatics screams another. Disobeying the Holy Father:eek: is the current favorite it seems.

So I suppose that the millions of Catholics who openly use contracepction, in defiance of the Holy Father and the Church, those who openly support a womans right to abortion or who have had one or more themselves, in defiance of the Holy Father and the Church, those who openly clamor and scream for the right to have women Priests, in defiance of the Holy Father and the Church are all right. They must be good if misguided souls. Compassion is the way to deal with them. These people number in the millions. Yet I don’t see the venom dripping about them on almost a daily basis

The SSPX has at most maybe a thousand or so members overall, spread out all over the world, yet they, this miniscule group is so egregious,so vile,so reprehnsible, such a danger, that they enrage the self righteous judges on this forum to the degree that no opportunity is spared to attack them.

It is sickening.
You know, I think now it is you who are being self-righteous and judgmental.The SSPX is so small that it really does not have any major impact on the Church–the majority of Catholics don’t even even know they exist. They aren’t saying anything.

However, the few (and I do mean few) Catholics on these forums who express their concern about the SSPX being in disobedience, etc. are judged by you, without you even knowing them, as self-righteous and hateful. I have not seen one post like that. Nobody has SCREAMED. But they have pointed out where the SSPX has done things that put them in the position they are in today. And without the venom you have just spewed toward others on these forums. You have grossly exaggerated the responses here.

The Church is not going to shut down if the SSPX doesn’t reconcile–that is a fact. They just do not and have not had that much impact on the Church worldwide. Their numbers and the numbers of their followers is miniscule compared to the 1.1 BILLION Catholics in the world. But it sure is a shame they are misleading people and putting their souls in danger, and that is why people object to their actions. Even one soul is precious to the Lord.

I think this thread is getting out of hand now.
 
You know, I think now it is you who are being self-righteous and judgmental.The SSPX is so small that it really does not have any major impact on the Church–the majority of Catholics don’t even even know they exist. They aren’t saying anything.

However, the few (and I do mean few) Catholics on these forums who express their concern about the SSPX being in disobedience, etc. are judged by you, without you even knowing them, as self-righteous and hateful. I have not seen one post like that. Nobody has SCREAMED. But they have pointed out where the SSPX has done things that put them in the position they are in today. And without the venom you have just spewed toward others on these forums. You have grossly exaggerated the responses here.

The Church is not going to shut down if the SSPX doesn’t reconcile–that is a fact. They just do not and have not had that much impact on the Church worldwide. Their numbers and the numbers of their followers is miniscule compared to the 1.1 BILLION Catholics in the world. But it sure is a shame they are misleading people and putting their souls in danger, and that is why people object to their actions. Even one soul is precious to the Lord.

I think this thread is getting out of hand now.
👍
 
I question whether members of SSPX do not want to return to “good standing”. At least among the ones I know, the conflict is distressing to them.
CB, if the conflict is so “distressing to them”, they know where the Church is. They can leave their SSPX chapels on their own without waiting for their leader to give them the go ahead.

Edited to add: CB, at least that is how I understood what you wrote. Maybe I misunderstood. If so, I apologize. :o
 
MODERATOR NOTICE
**
I deliberately left this thread open hoping that everyone would gather round the SSPX and the Holy See with prayer and positive support, not for people to pass judgment or argue.

Please keep it positive or the thread will have to be closed.

Thank You**
 
MODERATOR NOTICE
**
I deliberately left this thread open hoping that everyone would gather round the SSPX and the Holy See with prayer and positive support, not for people to pass judgment or argue.

Please keep it positive or the thread will have to be closed.

Thank You**
If I said anything to provoke this response I apologize. But I am tired of the judgmental attitudes of some who post here towards this group. The same exact charges repeated over and over and over and over again. Check some of the old threads. It never changes. It never stops. Nothing new is ever brought up.

Is the SSPX wrong in its stance? I would say so, yes. Are they making a huge mistake? Again, I would say yes. But on the other hand are those who claim that the SSPX are heretics and schismatics or worse wrong? Yes they are. They have been told they are wrong and yet they continue. Why? There is only one reason. Only one.And it is very obvious.

The Holy Mother Church herself does not call or consider these people to be heretics or schismatics or worse. So what gives these self appointed judges here the right to do so? To sit and pontificate and attempt to justify their erroneous opinions

I do not support the SSPX, but I have been around long enough to see through all the pious hand-wringing and thinly veiled but oh so seemingly charitable attacks on this group that have been around since its very inception. I also know that the only reason that we now have the Extraordinary Form available to us in as large a fashion as we do is due to this one small group.

None of the other groups that now celebrate it were around in those dark days after the Council ended. Only the SSPX and a few elderly Priests scattered here and there. It was only after the indult that the Extraordinary Form was revived on a larger scale. And the SSPX was in no small part responsible for that.

I will tell you in one word what the major sin committed by the SSPX is and it is not disobedience. It is the sin of pride.

Of that I am convinced and I submit that it led to their current situation.

Again, I apologize if I said anything to ruffle the feathers of those whose duty seems to be to trash this group.
 
None of the other groups that now celebrate it were around in those dark days after the Council ended. Only the SSPX and a few elderly Priests scattered here and there. It was only after the indult that the Extraordinary Form was revived on a larger scale. And the SSPX was in no small part responsible for that.
I think Mr. Casey should close the thread and ban further discussion on the SSPX. The spewing of untruths on both sides is very offensive.
 
The same message, you’ll note, that Luther, Calvin, et al tried to push 500 yrs ago. SSPX is as wrong as they all were. God have mercy on their souls. :gopray:
The comparison with Luther and Calvin is mistaken, because they taught that ‘Roman corruptions’ had long deformed a simpler form of faith. The SSPX, on the contrary, insists that the highly developed form of faith, including all those up till 2nd Vatican, is to be followed. Because the Council Fathers then, and the Holy Fathers since, regarded the proliferation of non-liturgical practices among the faithful and types of popular theological fantasies had proliferated to the confusion of the faithful, the Archbishop and other traditionalists, including those who broke with the SSPX when he made the non-canonical consecrations, attributed to the Council and the subsequent popes the error of trying to simplify and modify the essence of Catholic teaching to be compatible with Protestantism, modernism, and universalism.

The error is the reverse of that of the Protestant schismatics, but is an error nonetheless.
 
I question whether members of SSPX do not want to return to “good standing”. At least among the ones I know, the conflict is distressing to them.

Possibly I could be convinced that they are “little different” from those in formal schism, but so far I’m not.

They do not differ doctrinally. They accept the legitimacy of the Pope. As I understand it, some of their past points of dissidence have been cured. One was the use of the language"for you and for all" in the consecration. They maintained it should have been “for you and for many”. The Church has officially come around to their view of it; possibly not because of them, but it did change. One of the problems was the effective (but not sanctioned by VII) ban of the TLM. That has also been largely corrected. Another has been their fear of being governed by some of the bishops. In some cases they had a legitimate concern. My former bishop vowed early on that he would not allow the TLM in this diocese, and for 25 years he was as good as his word. Our new bishop does allow, and even encourage it. Had the SSPX priests come under some of the bishops in this country, they probably would have been told to sit in a basement and count the cockroaches as their “ministry”. What would they have done if Cdl Mahoney commanded them to conduct “rainbow Masses”? Fortunately, Pope Benedict (and one hopes, Pope Francis) undertook to replace some of the nuttier bishops with some who are more faithful to the teachings of the Church and less intolerant of traditional expressions of the faith.

It is my hope that the SSPX will become regularized. I haven’t given up on that hope yet.
Code:
I was saddened by the announcement, because the Society certainly has fought the sedevacantists. When I was attending the local chapel in recent years (sometimes theirs and sometimes the FFSP), they were also operating in a spirit of charity rather than a spirit of constant criticism.
But they do falsely portray Paul VI and John Paul II. One of the leaders even cited Marcel Lefebvre as calling John Paul a “philo-communist” – and now they’re putting about nonsense about Paul VI being a communist sympathizer and collaborator.
 
Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱὲ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν

ειρήνη
 
While I do agree that much of what has been said on this thread has been repeated ad nauseam, it’s also important to remember that most Catholics have never heard of the SSPX and never will. The SSPX is not as big or as influential as traditionalists seem to think. It’s big and influential among traditionalists, but traditionalists are less than 1/2 percent of the world’s Catholics. Most people don’t know what traditionalism is.

I believe that we must be very careful here on a number of points. We must keep the above in mind. There are going to be people coming through here who had never heard of the SSPX or traditionalists. We must also keep in mind that the SSPX is not as big a deal in the real world as it is on CAF, FE, Cath Culture, RC and a few other sites. In my own town there is an SSPX chapel and very few people know that it’s there. Those who know are not interested or even curious. There is a community around the chapel, but I would guess that it’s not more than 200 to 300 families. Whereas the parish where we help out has 3500 families, seven Sunday masses with about 800 at each mass, three priests hearing confessions on Saturdays, three holy hours of adoration during the week, daily rosary, about 600 children in CCD, more than 150 teens in Life Teen, about 40 college age adults in young adults. There are four full-time priests, four deacons, two are full-time, and three religious brothers. Then there are several hundred lay people involved in about 35 different apostolates that the parish runs.

I’m describing one parish in our deanery. This is the case for most parishes in our deanery. Most of these people have never heard of the SSPX. If they come browsing through CAF and they see a thread on the SSPX, it’s all new to them. They’ll probably be curious and will try to read the thread.

That brings me to something else about which we must be very careful. None of these people whom I haven mentioned in these parishes are familiar with traditionalists or the SSPX. It does a great disservice to the traditionalist Catholic and to the SSPX if all they find on these threads are arguments and offensive words going back and forth about our Catholic faith, liturgy, clergy, laity, religious, popes and bishops. These folks don’t need to hear this stuff or read this stuff. They need to be properly informed as to what is the SSPX and what the canonical issues are. Then leave it at that.

When I first came here, it drove me bananas to see mainstream Catholics throw stones at the traditionalists and the SSPX. However, it also made me angry to see traditionalists hoping, wishing, pushing or marketing the EF and making statements such as “We have to promote the TLM so that more people attend” or “We have to pray that the TLM becomes the norm and the NO disappears”

I would leave the forum upset that Catholics reduced Catholicism to something that you can either throw mud at without concern for what it says to others who are lurking or to marketing one form of worship or another. Both positions are wrong. That’s not what the Holy See has in mind. Pope Benedict spoke to us a great deal about unity. Pope Francis is speaking to us about poverty and detachment. People are arguing over the SSPX and which side of the altar the priest should stand.

Helloooo . . . we should be listening to our popes and maybe we’ll get it right. Maybe we’ll find out that the priest can stand on any side of the altar and it won’t make any difference to God, if our hearts are soiled with anger, mistrust, judgment, and unkind words for others. However, if our hearts and minds are focused on being one body with many expressions of the one faith, if we tolerate those differences, if detach from our opinions and hold on to the voice of the Church, we may find that whatever form of the mass we attend will be a means to great peace and abundant grace.

Remember, grace builds on nature. If our hearts are twisted, grace can’t build much there.
 
While I do agree that much of what has been said on this thread has been repeated ad nauseam, it’s also important to remember that most Catholics have never heard of the SSPX and never will. The SSPX is not as big or as influential as traditionalists seem to think. It’s big and influential among traditionalists, but traditionalists are less than 1/2 percent of the world’s Catholics. Most people don’t know what traditionalism is.
^ This. I had never heard of the SSPX, (did I get that right) or Sedevacantism before I came here, and I attended a FFSP parish for most of my life.
 
^ This. I had never heard of the SSPX, (did I get that right) or Sedevacantism before I came here, and I attended a FFSP parish for most of my life.
It undoubtedly also depends on where one lives. There are a number of SSPX people around here, some priests and a parish. So, they’re more noticeable.
 
The SSPX website gives some information, but I don’t have a full understanding of their ministry. What else do priests do besides the sacraments? Are their “chapels” actual parishes, with the typical range of activities in a small RC parish? Do they have any other kinds of pastoral type ministries, such as health care chaplains, anything like Catholic Charities, prolife, marriage preparation, etc? RC priests spend much time in non-sacramental duties, wonder what SSPX priests do.

I was surprised at the extent of their parochial school system, even boarding schools. Are these run similar to RC schools? My guess is schools might be very small, but I don’t know. Operating a school takes a huge amount of strength and structure.

How do they attract seminarians, and laity, given that it’s almost 50 years since the TLM was in common use? Granted they might draw some young people who grew up in the SSPX but that has to be hard, given the SSPX is relatively small. Are people drawn to the SSPX for reasons other than liturgy? Are all the laity drawn from disgruntled, active RC laity, or does the SSPX evangelize any unchurched, or Protestants? It seems if the majority of a chapel are disgruntled types, it would be hard to keep anything going.

What is the role of laity in the SSPX? Do they “register” at a chapel/parish? Do they also belong to a RC parish at the same time? I can imagine some people who belong to a RC parish but also like to stop by the SSPX chapel when convenient; but that doesn’t sound like the type to keep the SSPX chapels/parishes going, let alone the SSPX schools. There must be some strengths here that I am unaware of.
 
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