Status of the SSPX

[Defensor_Fidei]

In a few other threads I see people mistakenly claim the Status to the SSPX the SSPX does not have.

The fact is that they were given an experimental Status as a “pious union of the faithful” for 6 years in the 70s and that was not renewed after the 6 year period. Since then the SSPX has set up seminaries, ordained priest and bishops against the direct orders of Rome. Their local ordinary has not given them any leeway either. People now mistakenly ascribe that they are a society of priests, which such status has never been granted to them. As such, since the 70s they have been a rogue group that was finally excommunicated.

The Masses [the SSPX] celebrate are also valid, but it is considered **morally illicit ** for the faithful to participate in these Masses unless they are physically or morally impeded from participating in a Mass celebrated by a Catholic priest in good standing (cf. Code of Canon Law, canon 844.2). ** The fact of not being able to assist at the celebration of the so-called “Tridentine” Mass is not considered a sufficient motive for attending such Masses. ** (ECCLESIA DEI)

 

[BulldogCath]

You seem to have answered the question yourself then without waiting for others to vote-why then did you make this a pole. You obviously have your own subjective skewed feelings towards the subject beforehand. It would have been nice to see what others felt without making this, as the first poster as you are starting the string-into a confrontational string which is sort of like Mysty did with her anti-kneeling campaign. It is rhetoric like this that just makes more of the “conservative” catholics go over to SSPX, SSPV or stop going to church all together as they feel no longer wanted, listened to, and banned from boards such as this. I guess that is why after Vatican II the church has gone from 75% attendance down to 15% as those 60% either go to traditional chapels or stay home and pray the rosary, as my grandmother did rather than go to the Novus Ordo Mass. Why not try and bring these people back-do all you want is the radical left wing to be attending Mass in the next decades to come?

God bless
Defensor Fidei:

In a few other threads I see people mistakenly claim the Status to the SSPX the SSPX does not have.

The fact is that they were given an experimental Status as a “pious union of the faithful” for 6 years in the 70s and that was not renewed after the 6 year period. Since then the SSPX has set up seminaries, ordained priest and bishops against the direct orders of Rome. Their local ordinary has not given them any leeway either. People now mistakenly ascribe that they are a society of priests, which such status has never been granted to them. As such, since the 70s they have been a rogue group that was finally excommunicated.

 

[Defensor_Fidei]

BulldogCath:

You seem to have answered the question yourself then without waiting for others to vote-why then did you make this a pole. You obviously have your own subjective skewed feelings towards the subject beforehand. It would have been nice to see what others felt without making this, as the first poster as you are starting the string-into a confrontational string which is sort of like Mysty did with her anti-kneeling campaign. It is rhetoric like this that just makes more of the “conservative” catholics go over to SSPX, SSPV or stop going to church all together as they feel no longer wanted, listened to, and banned from boards such as this. I guess that is why after Vatican II the church has gone from 75% attendance down to 15% as those 60% either go to traditional chapels or stay home and pray the rosary, as my grandmother did rather than go to the Novus Ordo Mass. Why not try and bring these people back-do all you want is the radical left wing to be attending Mass in the next decades to come?

God bless

You have a point. Perhaps I should not have posted the facts below the poll. However I am curious to know why you think the SSPX is a legtimiate order?

Church attendence is irrelevent. We can all manipulate the numbers. The Church has been growing. My parish for expample has doubled in size over the last 5 years to 3300 families. My parish is not the only one.

The fact is that the mess we are in was created by those who attended only the tridentine Mass. Tradition was so red hot back in the 50s and 60s, it destroyed our seminaries and brought in all the liturgical experimentations we seen now.

-Ted

 

[BulldogCath]

Defensor

I dont think it is legitimate and I do not attend there, as I go to TLM and NO masses, but I have gone to SSPV and SSPX masses at times, and I find these people to be beautiful and very very reverent. I dont like the bashing they are taking on this board-though I am new here and dont want to be out of bounds- I dont agree with leaving the church-I wish there were all still part of the church as I am a conservative Catholic and if I had some of these fierce Catholic conservative defenders of the faith with me I think we could fight off some of the advances that the left wing of our church is still pushing for. But some on the other string were demonizing these people and glorifying Moslems and Buddhists-That it nuts .

God bless you
Defensor Fidei:

You have a point. Perhaps I should not have posted the facts below the poll. However I am curious to know why you think the SSPX is a legtimiate order?

Church attendence is irrelevent. We can all manipulate the numbers. The Church has been growing. My parish for expample has doubled in size over the last 5 years to 3300 families. My parish is not the only one.

The fact is that the mess we are in was created by those who attended only the tridentine Mass. Tradition was so red hot back in the 50s and 60s, it destroyed our seminaries and brought in all the liturgical experimentations we seen now.

-Ted

 

[Defensor_Fidei]

Bulldog,

Certainly there are beautiful people there, people who think that they are doing the right thing. People who think they are very reverent. However, point out the status of the SSPX is hardly bashing and is in no way scandalous. What is bashing and scandalous is not telling the truth about the status of the SSPX.

-Ted

 

[pnewton]

I would recommend anyone new to this question to use the search engine on the “Ask an Apologist” forum. They have an appropriate answer there with the documentation.

 

[Catholic29]

pnewton:

I would recommend anyone new to this question to use the search engine on the “Ask an Apologist” forum. They have an appropriate answer there with the documentation.

Great suggestion, consider it done.

And for the answer courtesy of Jan Wakelin:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=38

In an apostolic letter issued by Pope John Paul II on

July 2, 1988, ECCLESIA DEI , he provided a definitive statement regarding the schismatic acts committed two days earlier by Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre and a number of associates. In the document, the pontiff did a number of things:

1. He confirmed the existence of a schism and the consequent excommunication of those directly involved.
2. He explained the origins of Lefebvre’s move into schism.
3. He made a direct appeal to the faithful not to support the Lefebvrist schism.
4. He warned that formal adherence to the Lefebvrist schism was a grave sin (i.e., a mortal one if done with adequate knowledge and deliberate consent) and that it incurs excommunication.
5. He instituted a commission “whose task it will be to collaborate with the bishops, with the departments of the Roman Curia and with the circles concerned, for the purpose of facilitating full ecclesial communion of priests, seminarians, religious communities or individuals until now linked in various ways to the society founded by Archbishop Lefebvre who may wish to remain united to the successor of Peter in the Catholic Church while preserving their spiritual and liturgical traditions in the light of the protocol signed on last May 5 by Cardinal Ratzinger and Archbishop Lefebvre” (ibid. 6 a).
6. He affirmed that, in spite of Lefebvre’s move into schism, it was still legitimate to desire to worship according to the Latin liturgical tradition. He therefore ordered a “wide and generous application” of the directives previously issued to facilitate this.

The complete document* Ecclesia Dei* can be seen here:

vatican.va/holy_father/j…a -dei_en.html

---

Jan

"Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up. " G. K. Chesterton

 

[Defensor_Fidei]

The status questionis not in regard to excommunication, but rather if they can ever be rightly called an order or pius union.

It is very easy to demonstrate the excummunication, but I still see people mistakenly ascribe the status “order or priests” to the SSPX. Excommunicated or not they have never be granted such status.

-Ted

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Defensor Fidei:

The status questionis not in regard to excommunication, but rather if they can ever be rightly called an order or pius union.

It is very easy to demonstrate the excummunication, but I still see people mistakenly ascribe the status “order or priests” to the SSPX. Excommunicated or not they have never be granted such status.

-Ted

Well then ted, it would seem that the Society of St Pius X are mistaken as well.

From their own website, Societ of St Pius X in the United States of America, I take the following quote from the top of their page, “The Society of Saint Pius X is an international priestly society”.

So it would seem that they call themselves a priestly society.

But now it really doesn’t matter as the SSPX are excommunicated and in schism.

 

[Fogny]

BulldogCath:

You seem to have answered the question yourself then without waiting for others to vote-why then did you make this a pole. You obviously have your own subjective skewed feelings towards the subject beforehand. It would have been nice to see what others felt without making this, as the first poster as you are starting the string-into a confrontational string which is sort of like Mysty did with her anti-kneeling campaign. It is rhetoric like this that just makes more of the “conservative” catholics go over to SSPX, SSPV or stop going to church all together as they feel no longer wanted, listened to, and banned from boards such as this. I guess that is why after Vatican II the church has gone from 75% attendance down to 15% as those 60% either go to traditional chapels or stay home and pray the rosary, as my grandmother did rather than go to the Novus Ordo Mass. Why not try and bring these people back-do all you want is the radical left wing to be attending Mass in the next decades to come?

God bless

For those who do not understand what the fight is really all about I offer the link below. I understand that the SSPX is not in union with Rome which is a grave position but it is truly a sad state of affairs.

janghang.hs.kr/sanctamissa.wmv

 

[katolik]

Defensor Fidei:

You have a point. Perhaps I should not have posted the facts below the poll. However I am curious to know why you think the SSPX is a legtimiate order?

Church attendence is irrelevent. We can all manipulate the numbers. The Church has been growing. My parish for expample has doubled in size over the last 5 years to 3300 families. My parish is not the only one.

The fact is that the mess we are in was created by those who attended only the tridentine Mass. Tradition was so red hot back in the 50s and 60s, it destroyed our seminaries and brought in all the liturgical experimentations we seen now.

-Ted

Your last paragraph makes no sense. To put it nicely

 

[katolik]

ByzCath:

Well then ted, it would seem that the Society of St Pius X are mistaken as well.

From their own website, Societ of St Pius X in the United States of America, I take the following quote from the top of their page, “The Society of Saint Pius X is an international priestly society”.

So it would seem that they call themselves a priestly society.

But now it really doesn’t matter as the SSPX are excommunicated and in schism.

So are the hierarchs and priests of OCA,GOCA,ROCA,UOCA, and AOA, but who cares they ain’t but they is schismatic.

 

[Genesis315]

BulldogCath:

You seem to have answered the question yourself then without waiting for others to vote-why then did you make this a pole. You obviously have your own subjective skewed feelings towards the subject beforehand. It would have been nice to see what others felt without making this, as the first poster as you are starting the string-into a confrontational string which is sort of like Mysty did with her anti-kneeling campaign. It is rhetoric like this that just makes more of the “conservative” catholics go over to SSPX, SSPV or stop going to church all together as they feel no longer wanted, listened to, and banned from boards such as this. I guess that is why after Vatican II the church has gone from 75% attendance down to 15% as those 60% either go to traditional chapels or stay home and pray the rosary, as my grandmother did rather than go to the Novus Ordo Mass. Why not try and bring these people back-do all you want is the radical left wing to be attending Mass in the next decades to come?

God bless

I have a question about the percentages. Does that mean 75% of people claiming to be Catholics went to Mass? or went every week? Is that percentage drop from then to now or directly after the change? Can you clarify what those percentages mean specifically. Thanks!

I would just like to point out that if 60% of the people aren’t going to NO Mass, they must be staying home and not going to TLM either, because the NO Masses at my parish are packed (it’s a huge cathedral too), but the TLM indult that I attend weekly just uses a little chapel on the same premises and there is plenty of room–and people come from great distances to it. If this is available, why woudn’t these 60% of people come, since there should be more of them than are currently filling the cathedral (the 15% or whatever) during the NO Masses? My theory is this: Even the NO Mass is 75% senior citizens. I think the attendance is dropping because people are dying and the materialism of modern America has made younger people disnterested in church. I think the change in values that happened in the 60s would have caused a drop in attendance, regardless of the liturgy.

I will say, it is a shame that many abuses arise from the fact that priests try and cater to the new mentality in order to be popular.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

katolik:

So are the hierarchs and priests of OCA,GOCA,ROCA,UOCA, and AOA, but who cares they ain’t but they is schismatic.

Maybe according to the Catholic Church of katolik they might be, but according to the Catholic Church, the Church that Pope John Paul II heads, they are not.

 

[Defensor_Fidei]

ByzCath:

Well then ted, it would seem that the Society of St Pius X are mistaken as well.

From their own website, Societ of St Pius X in the United States of America, I take the following quote from the top of their page, “The Society of Saint Pius X is an international priestly society”.

So it would seem that they call themselves a priestly society.

But now it really doesn’t matter as the SSPX are excommunicated and in schism.

They can call themselves anything they want, what is really troubling is many Catholics think that they were originally sanctioned as a Priestly Society, which they never were and never had been. ABL continually not only ignored Rome, but also open and notoriusly opposed Rome at every chance he had.

-Ted

 

[Defensor_Fidei]

katolik:

Your last paragraph makes no sense. To put it nicely

It make plenty of sense. If the Tridentine Mass is supposed to be the panacea to all our problems, then we should also note that the people who have caused the trouble we are in now, only knew of the Tridentine Mass when they were coming up with all these ideas.

Our semninaries were loaded with homosexuals well before Paul VI’s Missal came out. The majority of the priests in my diocese were all ordained before 1968, yet we have all these problems. It is easy to pin the blame on the NO and Vatican II, but the truth is that if the Tridentine Mass is the universal cure, look how well it worked 40 years ago.

-Ted

 

[BulldogCath]

The solution to this problem is quite simple-and I think I have seen this on other Catholic websites so excuse my plagerism-make the TLM mass one of the masses offered in each Parish each and every Sunday-this would make all happy and then Goodbye SSPX and my family and I would not be arguing every Holiday over Turkey dinner whether the Trads are correct or the Novus Ordo are a fake and invalid Mass and I would get to eat dinner without a lump in my throat.
Defensor Fidei:

It make plenty of sense. If the Tridentine Mass is supposed to be the panacea to all our problems, then we should also note that the people who have caused the trouble we are in now, only knew of the Tridentine Mass when they were coming up with all these ideas.

Our semninaries were loaded with homosexuals well before Paul VI’s Missal came out. The majority of the priests in my diocese were all ordained before 1968, yet we have all these problems. It is easy to pin the blame on the NO and Vatican II, but the truth is that if the Tridentine Mass is the universal cure, look how well it worked 40 years ago.

-Ted

 

[Defensor_Fidei]

BulldogCath:

The solution to this problem is quite simple-and I think I have seen this on other Catholic websites so excuse my plagerism-make the TLM mass one of the masses offered in each Parish each and every Sunday-this would make all happy and then Goodbye SSPX and my family and I would not be arguing every Holiday over Turkey dinner whether the Trads are correct or the Novus Ordo are a fake and invalid Mass and I would get to eat dinner without a lump in my throat.

I agree with your solution. Logistically it is not an easy solution to implement.

-Ted

 

[katolik]

Defensor Fidei:

It make plenty of sense. If the Tridentine Mass is supposed to be the panacea to all our problems, then we should also note that the people who have caused the trouble we are in now, only knew of the Tridentine Mass when they were coming up with all these ideas.

Our semninaries were loaded with homosexuals well before Paul VI’s Missal came out. The majority of the priests in my diocese were all ordained before 1968, yet we have all these problems. It is easy to pin the blame on the NO and Vatican II, but the truth is that if the Tridentine Mass is the universal cure, look how well it worked 40 years ago.

-Ted

Mr.Ted:
Those seminarians were fighting for the dismantling of the Tridentine Mass. They said it, but they didn’t want it. Those priests and bishops were optimistic that with a new simplified liturgy in the vernacular would make the Church stronger. 40 years of this and this isn’t the case. They were antiTraditional Mass not pro-.

Were’nt talking about the past we’re talking about the future.
The Tridentine Mass is supposted to be dead because the Novus Ordo was supposted to be our salvation from on high , but it is not. The Novus Ordo Mass was forced on Catholics in about 5 years over the Traditional Mass and it eradicated almost all other rites. Not like Pope Pius V’s Quo Primum which allowed others to use their venerable rites. Did you think that if the NO Mass supporters in the 1960’s loved the Traditional Latin Mass why would they ban it in their dioceses and churches?

 

[katolik]

katolik:

So are the hierarchs and priests of OCA,GOCA,ROCA,UOCA, and AOA, but who cares they ain’t but they is schismatic.

The Pope may say that they ain’t in schism but if you ask one of their priests or bishops if they would say that the Papal Infallibility or the Immaculate Conception is a dogma essential to be kept to attain eternal salvation. If they don’t consent to these dogmas are they heretics? da,da,da,da,da!