help me to understand please.
SSPX is a sedevacantist group?
They were never sedevacantist. They are a traditionalist society of clerics and religious. Their leadership was excommunicated because the founder ordained four bishops without permission. Canon Law considers that to be a crime and it carries the penalty of excommunication.
Over the years, they attracted more and more lay people with Traditionalist sentiments. Unfortunately for them, they also attracted some very angry people. This small crowd tainted their relationship with the rest of the Church.
What had begun as a legal case concerning the ordination of four bishops, turned into a 25-year war of arrogance, inuendos, accusations, confrontations and almost competition between the Traditionalists and the mainstream Catholics. People on both sides have acted shamefully.
This pulled the SSPS further and further away. Many analysts believe that the laity on both sides had more to do with the separation than the SSPX clergy and the mainstream clergy. One anthropologist that I read said that the bishops and religious leaders get most of their information from the people, which probably true. The stuff that was carried back and forth by the people can certainly influence the thinking of the leadership on both sides. Only history will tell.
In any case, a few years ago, Pope Benedict lifted the excommunication of the four living bishops, but not the founder, Archbishop Lefebvre. I believe that this is going to be a sticky issue that will have to handled with great diplomacy. The SSPX considers the Archbishop a saint and the Vatican sees him as a man who died outside the Church. I have no idea how theyâre going to handle that one.
In any case, talks began to bring them all home. Once the excommunication was lifted, the only thing left to do was to grant faculties to their priests. In order to get these faculties, the Vatican insisted that the Society had to agree to certain points. We still donât know what those were. Everything on the blogs is speculation. The Preamble, as the document is called, has not been made available to the public.
theyâre reconciling? so theyâre now under the Pope?
If it is true that they have agreed to the Vaticanâs demands, then the rift is over. They will be required to obey like any other group of priests, religious and laity. There will be no passes. That has a tough side and a good side. The tough side, no more passes. The good side, unity with other Catholics.
How large a group are they?
Theyâre tiny. They have about 550 priests and about 150 religious brothers and maybe another 150 religious sisters. By comparison to groups like Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and Salesians, this is a province to the rest of us (a region).
Because they are secular priests, they are not obliged to live in community. They can spread out more thinly than religious who have to live in communities of at least three. It gives the impression that there are many of them.
Are there a lot more like them?
I know there are more, but I have no idea how many groups. Maybe someone else can chime in with that answer.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, FFV
