SSPX update?

[pnewton]

One point: according to the practice of Rome the marriages and confessions of the SSPX are given supplied jurisdiction if done in good faith…

This is **not **in accordance with the practice of Rome. The only canon lawyers that have given this opinion are those that sympathize with the SSPX. Supplied jurisdiction are for those who are unaware of a lack of validity, not those who deliberately choose to reject those ministers within the Catholic Church. The only time this might apply would be one who accidently went to an SSPX priest unaware that he lacked jurisdiction.

Please, for the sake of your soul, do not deliberately attend an invalid confession hoping for some loophole to kick in that does not apply. The only reason I mentioned this, as I do everytime, is to keep someone from seeing this post and thinking somehow they can receive valid absolution from an invalid sacrament.

Before anyone jumps into the confessional with an SSPX priest, here is Jimmy Akin explaining the canonical implications.

jimmyakin.org/2005/02/sspx_confession.html

 

[Justin_Swanton]

But how can error exist (for a Catholic) in a Church Ecumenical Council, specifically the Dogmatic Constitutions. If anything in those reflect new thought, then it is as protected as Trent and Nicea. If, as we believe, there is no new dogma, but only reformulations of current doctrine, then “error” can not apply. The most one can say is that it was imprudently worded. Considering the unique charism of the Church universal meeting in ecumenical council, I find even this highly suspect and extremely subjective.

Were knowledgable lay Catholics, or priestly societies given reign to dissect the Immaculate Conception after it was pronounced?

I meant error in the context of religious liberty, which teaches that within due limits adherents of false religions are not to be inconvenienced in the practice of their religion.

 

[pnewton]

The practice of the Church nonetheless does not require that faithful who have gone to SSPX confessions are obliged to reconfess. Contra factum…

Where did you get this idea?

 

[Justin_Swanton]

This is **not **in accordance with the practice of Rome. The only canon lawyers that have given this opinion are those that sympathize with the SSPX. Supplied jurisdiction are for those who are unaware of a lack of validity, not those who deliberately choose to reject those ministers within the Catholic Church. The only time this might apply would be one who accidently went to an SSPX priest unaware that he lacked jurisdiction.

Please, for the sake of your soul, do not deliberately attend an invalid confession hoping for some loophole to kick in that does not apply. The only reason I mentioned this, as I do everytime, is to keep someone from seeing this post and thinking somehow they can receive valid absolution from an invalid sacrament.

For the record I go to confession to a hospital chaplain who has no ties with the SSPX and is in perfectly good standing in his archdiocese.

I can only repeat what I said in a previous post: ex-SSPX members are not inconvenienced over the fact that they went to confession to SSPX priests, even though they could theoretically have gone to a local parish priest. Since the Church teaches that the Sacrament of Penance is required to absolve a sin for which there is only imperfect contrition, and since the Church also teaches that one cannot take chances with the sacraments - one must be ‘tutiorist’ with them - the only conclusion to be drawn is that SSPX confessions are considered valid by the Church, even though jurisdiction for those confessions is not supplied via the normal channels. Note that this is not an SSPX argument. It is an argument drawn from the practice of Rome and the local ordinaries worldwide.

 

[Melchior_1]

The practice of the Church nonetheless does not require that faithful who have gone to SSPX confessions are obliged to reconfess. Contra factum…

“Re-confess” implies that the “first” confession was valid. If a Baptism is invalid, the proper Baptism is not a “re-baptism”, it’s the proper Baptism.

Invalid means that it never happened, it has/had no power, non-existent.

The people who are going to invalid Confessions will need to take it up with God after they die why they continued receiving the Sacrament from those who had zero authority to give it.

 

[Melchior_1]

For the record I go to confession to a hospital chaplain who has no ties with the SSPX and is in perfectly good standing in his archdiocese.

I can only repeat what I said in a previous post: ex-SSPX members are not inconvenienced over the fact that they went to confession to SSPX priests, even though they could theoretically have gone to a local parish priest. Since the Church teaches that the Sacrament of Penance is required to absolve a sin for which there is only imperfect contrition, and since the Church also teaches that one cannot take chances with the sacraments - one must be ‘tutiorist’ with them - the only conclusion to be drawn is that SSPX confessions are considered valid by the Church, even though jurisdiction for those confessions is not supplied via the normal channels. Note that this is not an SSPX argument. It is an argument drawn from the practice of Rome and the local ordinaries worldwide.

One also comes to the conclusion that I posted earlier, namely that “supplied authority” is only there when death is involved due, to a lack of faculties. This is within Canon Law, and we can look at other Sacraments and other situations as examples. As an aside, most Canon Lawyers agree with my take.

They have no legitimate ministry, they have no facilities. Invalid Confessions.

The very idea of advocating or legitimatizing invalid Sacraments is decidedly un-traditional and incredibly dangerous.

 

[pnewton]

• the only conclusion to be drawn is that SSPX confessions are considered valid by the Church, even though jurisdiction for those confessions is not supplied via the normal channels.

This is not the only conclusion. The other conclusion is that they are invalid. This is the conclusion I have found everytime I have come across it discussed by a canon lawyer outside the circle of the SSPX.

Your particular point would support any sort of confession being valid. Yet we know the Catholic Church requires confessors to have faculties through the bishop. If what you say is true, then the bishop and his authority would be totally irrelevant. I am curious as to where you came by such a line of thought.

 

[Justin_Swanton]

“Re-confess” implies that the “first” confession was valid. If a Baptism is invalid, the proper Baptism is not a “re-baptism”, it’s the proper Baptism.

Invalid means that it never happened, it has/had no power, non-existent.

The people who are going to invalid Confessions will need to take it up with God after they die why they continued receiving the Sacrament from those who had zero authority to give it.

OK. How about this: SSPX faithful who re-enter normal Catholic parish life are not obliged to go to confession and confess every mortal sin they confessed whilst in the SSPX.

 

[pnewton]

OK. How about this: SSPX faithful who re-enter normal Catholic parish life are not obliged to go to confession and confess every mortal sin they confessed whilst in the SSPX.

Again, where did you get this particular thought. It is your opinion? Is it something the Catholic Church has said? You keep saying it as though it were some well known fact.

A side note, even those who receive general absolution, though this be valid, are required to go to confession at the earliest opportunity.

 

[Justin_Swanton]

Again, where did you get this particular thought. It is your opinion? Is it something the Catholic Church has said? You keep saying it as though it were some well known fact.

From the practice of the Church (sorry to sound like a stuck gramophone). I know of no case where ex-SSPXers are obliged to confess sins they confessed in the SSPX. I was in the SSPX, came out, spoke to a cardinal, two bishops and several priests and nobody ever suggested I’d better go and do my confessions all over again. It was never an issue. Conclusion - one cannot be more Catholic than the Church. And please don’t ask me to say it again.

A side note, even those who receive general absolution, though this be valid, are required to go to confession at the earliest opportunity.

True.

 

[Dee_S]

To enter this discussion on validity, I do have experience in regard to marriages being invalid if they are performed by a priest who has been suspended i.e. has no faculties from his Bishop. In this case, the marriage would have to be convalidated in order for it to become a valid marriage.

So therefore, as the SSPX priests are all suspended the same would apply to their marriages - and it is not just something the Church or canon lawyers made up to thwart the efforts of the SSPX priests. Canon law cannot be varied or mitigated when someone has transgressed it, as Br Jr pointed out in an earlier post. These laws cannot be bent to suit.

Perhaps Justin, there were circumstances or reasons why the clergy you encountered did not point this out to you at the time. Or it could have been, that they knew you were confessing at the time to a priest in good standing and left that issue between him and yourself.

 

[Dee_S]

Again, where did you get this particular thought. It is your opinion? Is it something the Catholic Church has said? You keep saying it as though it were some well known fact.

To anyone who has been in the SSPX, it does amount to a ‘well known fact’.

Their priests spend an inordinate amount of time (as they do also in lengthy articles by so-called erudite theologians etc.)convincing the lay people who attend their chapels that they have what they refer to as “emergency jurdisdiction” which they claim God supplies to them because of the crisis in the Church.

That this erroneous belief is really the ‘nub of the disobedience issue’ is indisputable. It is hammered into anyone who stays to listen, or worse, any young man who has a calling to serve in the priesthood. They become sincerely convinced that they are the remnant that God has chosen to keep the True Faith alive while all else is in chaos & crisis, and that their Tridentine Masses (said with so much reverence) are what ‘brings down’ the much needed graces to the world - which in their opinion, do not flow as they should through the “bad” or “evil” New Mass.(Note Bishop Fellays sermons of late, & the latest one referred to on this thread)

In excuse for those of us who have journeyed “across the Great Divide” -I can only say that each experience is different in length and intensity for each person to fully shake off the painful effects wrought by these deeply inculcated convictions.

 

[Dee_S]

At risk of boring all here (but done for those who may be new to our thread) these extracts give the information needed in regard to the lack of validity of SSPX marriages and confessions.

The question is, do those receiving these sacraments genuinely not know this? Or is it a case of refusing to believe anything that Rome says that is contrary to their ‘mission’?

“The SSPX considers itself faithful to the Catholic Church and to the Popes, up to and including Benedict XVI. The SSPX bishops do not claim “ordinary” jurisdiction over the Society’s adherents, which would make the latter subject to them, not to the local diocesan bishops,[21] and would amount to an obvious challenge to the Holy See’s authority act of schism. Instead they say they possess an “extraordinary” jurisdiction. This is of specific importance in Catholic canon law in relation to the sacraments of confession and marriage.”
Absolution of sins

"To absolve sins validly, a priest must be given the faculty to do so,[22] a faculty that, normally, only the local bishop can give.[23] Similarly, in normal circumstances a marriage can be contracted validly only in the presence of the local bishop or the parish priest or of a priest or deacon delegated by one of these.[24] To overcome this difficulty, the Society says[25] that absolution and marriage under its auspices are valid, on the grounds of its interpretation of canon 144 §1 of the Code of Canon Law, which states: “In common error, whether of fact or of law, and in positive and probable doubt, whether of law or of fact, the Church supplies executive power of governance for both the external and the internal forum”, and canon 844 §2, which declares that, “whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, Christ’s faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, may lawfully receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid.” The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei has stated that, in accordance with canon 144 someone who confesses to an SSPX priest while genuinely not knowing that the priest does not have the required faculty will be validly absolved, but that, with this exception, the sacraments of Penance and Matrimony in which SSPX priests are involved are invalid.[26]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_situation_of_the_Society_of_St._Pius_X#cite_note-McNamara-26
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_situation_of_the_Society_of_St._Pius_X

 

[Melchior_1]

At risk of boring all here (but done for those who may be new to our thread) these extracts give the information needed in regard to the lack of validity of SSPX marriages and confessions.

The question is, do those receiving these sacraments genuinely not know this? Or is it a case of refusing to believe anything that Rome says that is contrary to their ‘mission’?

“The SSPX considers itself faithful to the Catholic Church and to the Popes, up to and including Benedict XVI. The SSPX bishops do not claim “ordinary” jurisdiction over the Society’s adherents, which would make the latter subject to them, not to the local diocesan bishops,[21] and would amount to an obvious challenge to the Holy See’s authority act of schism. Instead they say they possess an “extraordinary” jurisdiction. This is of specific importance in Catholic canon law in relation to the sacraments of confession and marriage.”
Absolution of sins

"To absolve sins validly, a priest must be given the faculty to do so,[22] a faculty that, normally, only the local bishop can give.[23] Similarly, in normal circumstances a marriage can be contracted validly only in the presence of the local bishop or the parish priest or of a priest or deacon delegated by one of these.[24] To overcome this difficulty, the Society says[25] that absolution and marriage under its auspices are valid, on the grounds of its interpretation of canon 144 §1 of the Code of Canon Law, which states: “In common error, whether of fact or of law, and in positive and probable doubt, whether of law or of fact, the Church supplies executive power of governance for both the external and the internal forum”, and canon 844 §2, which declares that, “whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, Christ’s faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, may lawfully receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid.” The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei has stated that, in accordance with canon 144 someone who confesses to an SSPX priest while genuinely not knowing that the priest does not have the required faculty will be validly absolved, but that, with this exception, the sacraments of Penance and Matrimony in which SSPX priests are involved are invalid.[26]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_situation_of_the_Society_of_St._Pius_X#cite_note-McNamara-26
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_situation_of_the_Society_of_St._Pius_X

Before anyone cries “Wikipedia!”, looks like there’s some actual citations on there.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

From the practice of the Church (sorry to sound like a stuck gramophone). I know of no case where ex-SSPXers are obliged to confess sins they confessed in the SSPX. I was in the SSPX, came out, spoke to a cardinal, two bishops and several priests and nobody ever suggested I’d better go and do my confessions all over again. It was never an issue. Conclusion - one cannot be more Catholic than the Church. And please don’t ask me to say it again.

It may be that in your case and the others which with you are familiar, the bishops were being pastoral. Something many traditionalists decry, but which nonetheless has it’s place.

I have no idea what your sins are or what you said to those priests, bishops, and cardinal, but they may have seen clearly enough that your sins were not of the kind that wouldn’t be confessed again anyway. That is habitual or ordinary sins (even mortal) that an ordinary layperson may commit and repeat and confess then recommit throughout their lifetimes - ie, envy, anger, even impurity and theft

Perhaps in the instances you mentioned, the shepards were glad enough to have their one lost sheep back, and aware enough of it’s trials while lost, that stepping through the exercise of reconfessing sins that you (in your ignorance) thought were properly confessed at the time.

It is the priests and bishops of the SSPX who accept ordination, knowing they *will *be suspended immediately. And who offer sacraments knowing that they *are *suspended, who bear the greater burden.

 

[ringil]

Uh, did you guys miss this post? It’s kind of an unfortunate statement by Fellay.

Isn’t this sort of. . . . problematic for the SSPX?

 

[pnewton]

Conclusion - one cannot be more Catholic than the Church. And please don’t ask me to say it again.
.

I won’t as long as you understand that presenting it as fact is a classic logical fallacy. True, one can not be more Catholic than the Church which is why I wanted to know if this was a Church position, which it is not. Argument from absence is only somewhat valid if it could be expected to be known. Considering the seal on confession, I would be surprised if any priest or bishop ever commented on an individual need to re-confess. It is a matter that is only between one person and a confessor.

Well. Both arguments are laid out here. I am fine with just disagreeing on this, as long as no one is encouraging SSPX confession.

 

[Justin_Swanton]

At risk of boring all here (but done for those who may be new to our thread) these extracts give the information needed in regard to the lack of validity of SSPX marriages and confessions.

The question is, do those receiving these sacraments genuinely not know this? Or is it a case of refusing to believe anything that Rome says that is contrary to their ‘mission’?

“The SSPX considers itself faithful to the Catholic Church and to the Popes, up to and including Benedict XVI. The SSPX bishops do not claim “ordinary” jurisdiction over the Society’s adherents, which would make the latter subject to them, not to the local diocesan bishops,[21] and would amount to an obvious challenge to the Holy See’s authority act of schism. Instead they say they possess an “extraordinary” jurisdiction. This is of specific importance in Catholic canon law in relation to the sacraments of confession and marriage.”
Absolution of sins

"To absolve sins validly, a priest must be given the faculty to do so,[22] a faculty that, normally, only the local bishop can give.[23] Similarly, in normal circumstances a marriage can be contracted validly only in the presence of the local bishop or the parish priest or of a priest or deacon delegated by one of these.[24] To overcome this difficulty, the Society says[25] that absolution and marriage under its auspices are valid, on the grounds of its interpretation of canon 144 §1 of the Code of Canon Law, which states: “In common error, whether of fact or of law, and in positive and probable doubt, whether of law or of fact, the Church supplies executive power of governance for both the external and the internal forum”, and canon 844 §2, which declares that, “whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, Christ’s faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, may lawfully receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid.” The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei has stated that, in accordance with canon 144 someone who confesses to an SSPX priest while genuinely not knowing that the priest does not have the required faculty will be validly absolved, but that, with this exception, the sacraments of Penance and Matrimony in which SSPX priests are involved are invalid.[26]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_situation_of_the_Society_of_St._Pius_X#cite_note-McNamara-26
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_situation_of_the_Society_of_St._Pius_X

Notice that there is an ambiguity in the provision laid down by the Pontifical Commission. The circumstances which create an exception for an otherwise invalid confession could be extended to an otherwise invalid marriage. In other words, someone can contract marriage in the SSPX ‘genuinely not knowing that the priest does not have the required faculty’, which, in the logic of what the Pontifical Commission is saying, would leave the marriage valid as well.

Two observations on all this:

1. I have never heard of someone who married in the SSPX being obliged to exchange their marriage vows again once out. In our age of hypercommunication, this is something that would get around, fast. In a disputed issue like this, it is the Church’s praxis which ultimately decides the question.
2. One of the bishops I spoke to had a doctorate in theology (he is now Archbishop of Bloemfontein), and he stated categorically to me when I asked him that SSPX marriages are considered to be valid. It is possible to reconcile his statement with the affirmation of the Pontifical Commission by citing genuine ignorance of the faithful as I have done above.

 

[Justin_Swanton]

It may be that in your case and the others which with you are familiar, the bishops were being pastoral. Something many traditionalists decry, but which nonetheless has it’s place.

I have no idea what your sins are or what you said to those priests, bishops, and cardinal, but they may have seen clearly enough that your sins were not of the kind that wouldn’t be confessed again anyway. That is habitual or ordinary sins (even mortal) that an ordinary layperson may commit and repeat and confess then recommit throughout their lifetimes - ie, envy, anger, even impurity and theft

Perhaps in the instances you mentioned, the shepards were glad enough to have their one lost sheep back, and aware enough of it’s trials while lost, that stepping through the exercise of reconfessing sins that you (in your ignorance) thought were properly confessed at the time.

It is the priests and bishops of the SSPX who accept ordination, knowing they *will *be suspended immediately. And who offer sacraments knowing that they *are *suspended, who bear the greater burden.

Mrs Sally, if the priests and bishops concerned were being pastoral, surely they would have gently informed me, if my previous confessions were invalid, that I would need to make a general confession, their primary concern being the good of my soul. I didn’t tell them anything about my personal past life, so they had no idea of what I might have got up to.

 

[Justin_Swanton]

I won’t as long as you understand that presenting it as fact is a classic logical fallacy. True, one can not be more Catholic than the Church which is why I wanted to know if this was a Church position, which it is not. Argument from absence is only somewhat valid if it could be expected to be known. Considering the seal on confession, I would be surprised if any priest or bishop ever commented on an individual need to re-confess. It is a matter that is only between one person and a confessor.

Well. Both arguments are laid out here. I am fine with just disagreeing on this, as long as no one is encouraging SSPX confession.

It would not be possible for someone from the mainstream Church to go to an SSPX priest for a valid confession simply because he prefers his personality to that of his own parish priest, so no-one is encouraging anything.