To be honest, I don’t even really know what SSPX is. I was trying to learn more when it was first mentioned here to me. I guess I’m super ignorant. I certainly wasn’t trying to promote anything in quoting fltradrc.
It would be really nice if someone could explain it to me simply and in straight-forward manner without opinion. There’s so much ugliness and fighting with a lot things I’ve read online about SSPX that it doesn’t help me understand at all. I can’t make heads or tails of it.
From what I’ve read it seemed like Pope Benedict smoothed over some things and now going to an SSPX mass satisfies Sunday obligation. No? Yes?
The SSPX, or Society of St. Pius X, is a group of secular priests under the leadership of three bishops who were consecrated in 1988 by their founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, as well as another bishop, in Econe, Switzerland, contrary to the commands of St. JPII. This resulted in the excommunication of all six bishops (there is a fourth bishop, by the name of Williamson, who was removed from the Society).
The reason for the founding of the SSPX was that Abp. Lefebvre saw many things going very badly in the Church after Vatican II. He wanted a way to form priests in the traditional way without exposing them to what he saw as corrupting and bad forces in the Church in the 1970s. At first the Holy See let them exist, but they were not particularly favorable toward them. Things got worse, however, and ended up spearheading in the 1988 consecrations.
Since then, the bishops’ excommunications have been lifted by Pope Emeritus Benedict in 2009. After that, there were some talks to reintegrate them fully into the Church, but these fell apart. However, there is supposedly a movement on the part of Pope Francis to resume this effort. He met with the superior of the SSPX very recently.
The SSPX has parishes all over the world, many of them in the USA. They are not in union with the local bishop. Whether or not one can legitimately fulfill his obligation there, it is probably best not to.
Also in 1988, the FSSP, or the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, was founded by a group of SSPX priests who were dismayed with the direction things were going and who wanted to reconcile with Peter, the Pope. So they did. Now the FSSP is growing, has two seminaries, does basically the same pastoral work as the SSPX, all in full and total communion with the Pope.
