Vatican: Pius X Society Ordinations Are Illegitimate

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ByzCath said:
There is no “crisis in the Church” nor is there any “state of necessity”. The pope has commented on this and said that there is none. As the pope is the supreme legislator in the Church he has the final say on this.
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…In the vision of Saint Hildegard, the face of the Church is stained with dust, and this is how we have seen it. Her garment is torn – by the sins of priests. The way she saw and expressed it is the way we have experienced it this year. We must accept this humiliation as an exhortation to truth and a call to renewal. Only the truth saves. We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred. We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen. We must discover a new resoluteness in faith and in doing good. We must be capable of doing penance. We must be determined to make every possible effort in priestly formation to prevent anything of the kind from happening again. This is also the moment to offer heartfelt thanks to all those who work to help victims and to restore their trust in the Church, their capacity to believe her message. In my meetings with victims of this sin, I have also always found people who, with great dedication, stand alongside those who suffer and have been damaged. This is also the occasion to thank the many good priests who act as channels of the Lord’s goodness in humility and fidelity and, amid the devastations, bear witness to the unforfeited beauty of the priesthood…
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H.H. BXVI
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2010/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20101220_curia-auguri_en.html
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What source do you have to support the claim H.H. says there is no crisis ?

It would seem easier for a non- Roman Catholic to claim there is no crisis than it would for a Roman Catholic.
 
At_Trent said:
Bishops in Italy are calling for the building of mosques, countless sodomites are still operating as if nothing is wrong, priests are still conducting experimental Masses chock full of abuses, new age spirituality is being mixed with liberal Catholicism and presented as Catholic, and a group of clergy who will have nothing to do with any of it are attacked for simply refusing to be anything but Roman Catholics.

The sodomites and liberals see too much of a return to traditional practices and are doing everything they can to tear the Church to pieces. If they can’t have the Church they want, they’d rather there be no Church.

How the SSPX can be faulted for refusing to affiliate themselves with those who fuel the crisis in an intentional manner is beyond my comprehension. One either accepts Roman Catholic doctrine and dogma or he/she doesn’t. The SSPX do. Technically, yes they are disobedient. Morally, they are righteous … and Roman Catholic to the core.
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Mosque promotion by Catholic Bishops ?
dici.org/en/news/italy-bishops-support-construction-of-mosques/
 
The new priests certainly don’t look very chipper do they? 😉 Jeez, crack a smile maybe? 🤷
 
PaulinVA said:
The bishops are saying that to protect our (Catholic) freedom of religion we need to protect everyone’s freedom of religion. Is that wrong?

(Could this thread have gone further astray?)
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Mosques in Italy ?

That’s about as wrong as it gets. If Christ embraced freedom of religion, He would have taught such. He instructed the Apostles to convert, not appease.
 
PaulinVA said:
The bishops are saying that to protect our (Catholic) freedom of religion we need to protect everyone’s freedom of religion. Is that wrong?
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  1. There is no need to build mosques in Italy in order to protect the freedom to be Catholic.
  2. Saudi Arabia isn’t allowing Churches no matter how many mosques are built in Italy.
 
Thanks will,

I didn’t see that one! These guys certainly love God. I hope their situation can be cectifies soon and they can be brought into the fullness of the ministerial priesthood in a normal cannonical state.
 
TrueLight said:
Emphasis is mine.

Very interesting point. I wonder if some of the SSPX priests will do the same.

People like being part of something different or defiant. Once they do reconcile, they will be just another traditional group.

Is there anything that makes them different from the FSSP aside from the fact that the FSSP is obedient to the Magisterium?
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I can’t see anything, other than culture. The founding member of the FSSP were SSPX. I guess the two societies would be duplicates in most ways. The only difference that I see is that the SSPX has lay brothers and I believe they have sisters.
PaulinVA said:
Brother JR, I always appreciate your posts. It is good to hear from someone who can see all sides of an issue and discuss them with compassion.

I would be interested to know what your SSPX friend thinks of the SSPX website. That is really where the “doctrine” , so to speak, of the SSPX resides.

It is hard to read through the site and not get the impression that they have already separated themselves from Rome. Whoever controls the web site is certainly a hardliner.
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I have never asked Father G that question. As a matter of fact, I’ll be seeing him for the celebration of the canonization of St. Francis, July 16. I invited him to attend our mass and he agreed. I’ll ask. I don’t like their site, because it’s tone is very hostile and does not compliment what I have seen in their clergy, with a few examples that I need not name.
romanitaspress said:
Brother JR, your first reply is incorrect: the brothers of the SSPX do in fact belong to the religious congregation, that is, they actually comprise as part of its integral members and their “rule” is listed within the SSPX’s statutes which apply to its clerics.
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Maybe you did not understand my response. There are different degrees of membership in a community. For example, when a Carmelite or a Franciscan says “Brother” he does not mean someone who is not a priest. He means every Carmelite or every Franciscan, those who are priests and those who are not. Those who are not priests are exactly the same as those who are priests. They have the same vows, the same duties and the same rights. They do not exist for the benefit of the work of the Carmelite or the Franciscan Order. They are friars for the benefit of their soul and to live the life of Carmel or Francis.

Then you have coadjutor brothers such as the Dominicans. They are truly Dominicans. They make the same solemn vows as the Dominicans who are priests, but their vocation is different from the Dominican who is a priest. Unlike the Carmelites and Franciscans, where everyone has the same vocation and the priesthood is a call within a call. Among the Dominicans, it is essential to be a priest. The brothers support the ministry of preaching through many different kinds of work, including some teaching.

Finally, you have lay brothers. These are the brothers that the SSPX has. These are men who make vows, but do not have the same rights or duties as the ordained. For example, the priests of the SSPX do not make vows. They are secular priests. The lay brothers, on the other hand, do not have the same rights and duties as the priests. They are subordinate to the priests. This is normal for societies and communities that have lay brothers. The groups are usually known as the brothers and fathers. The brothers do everything necessary to relieve the priests to do priestly ministry, this may include and usually does, all the domestic work, sacristy, grounds work, training servers, etc. But they would not go out on mission to preach, teach or run ministries as would Friars brothers. Nor would they ever be superiors of the SSPX or of a house. That would always be a priest. They would not have the autonomy that a coadjutor brother has, as do the Dominican brothers who hold PhDs in education, nursing, social service, theology. Nor would they ever govern a house full of priests, as would a Franciscan brother who is not a priest. Some run houses that are attached to a parish and the pastor is their subordinate.

The point I’m making is that they are not brothers as Brother David and I know brothers. They are what is called the lay brother, which is a model that is borrowed from monastic orders and from the Jesuits. Among the Jesuits, the fathers and brothers belong to the same order, but they make different vows. The brothers make perpetual vows and the fathers make solemn vows. The SSPX canonical brothers are more like Jesuit brothers.
Regarding the SSPX’s situation in particular, this all descends from the fact that there is a crisis in the Church which has brought about a state of necessity. From this, the SSPX has predicated all of its actions that appear to be abnormal or disobedient, but which in fact, coincide with the historic cases of St. Athanasius and St. Eusebius during the Arian crisis.
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You can find an excellent 2-part article about this matter here on their website: sspx.org/miscellaneous/supplied_jurisdiction/state_of_necessity_sisinono.htm.
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While the Church has faced many crises in her history, Bl. John Paul II refused the hypothesis that the Church is in such a crisis that it merits disobedience to the primacy. Pope Benedict has repeated the same thing. Read Light of the Wordl

If the Holy Fathers say that the claim is unjustified, it is inappropriate for the faithful to contradict them.
 
At_Trent said:
Mosques in Italy ?

That’s about as wrong as it gets. If Christ embraced freedom of religion, He would have taught such. He instructed the Apostles to convert, not appease.
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Actually, this is not as radical as people think. It may be radical to Italy. But it is not radical to Catholicism. In the 1200s the Holy See erected the Custody of the Holy Land and gave it to the Franciscans to run it. This came to pass because Francis had made an alliance with the Sultan at Dalmietta that if he allowed the friars to pass through his territory to the Holy Land, they would do three things:

a. Take care of the needs of the Christians.
b. Provide for the material needs of Christians, Jews and Muslims
c. Help the Muslims rebuild what the Christians had destroyed.

The agreement was settled and Francis went through. When he returned to Italy, he informed the Holy Father. Later, the ecclesiastical province of Jerusalem was changed to the Custody of the Holy Land and the Franciscan Friars were sent there and they were to answer to no one, except the pope. They kept their promise. That is their relationship with the Muslims and Jews in Israel to this day.

St. Bonaventure argued in defense of the Jews who were in Spain and won. He got the Spanish crown to repay for the building of synagogues that the Christians has destroyed. and he got the Church to allow the Franciscans from Andalucía to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the problems between Christians, Jews and Muslims in Andalucía.

In the 1500s, the Dominican, Friar Bartoleme de las Casas, the Franciscan, Friar Junipero Serra separately filed complaints with the Spanish crown and the Holy See that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were being forced to become Catholic and that their temples and persons were being violated by the Catholic laity. The Holy See ruled that there could be no more forced baptisms and no further destruction of their temples and that evangelization had to come about through example, presence, catechesis and charity.

The Franciscans said that it was no surprise that Our Lady appeared as an Indian Princess, because God would bring the Indians to the Catholic faith through her love and example, not through the bullying of the laity.

In fact, the religious intolerance of both Muslims and Christians in Palestine almost cost the Church one her dearest and most ancient treasures, the Order of Carmel. The hermits had to flee to Europe to escape with their lives. After the Franciscans proved that they were not going to convert the Muslims or Jews, did the Carmelites return to Palestine and recovered their prior life.

The argument that to protect the religious freedom Catholics one must protect everyone’s religious freedom dates back to Francis of Assisi in the 13th century and was in practice by the Church and defended by Franciscans, Dominicans and Carmelites. I hope that helps clarify things a little.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
PaulinVA said:
Total number of SSPX priests who have a ministry in the Catholic Church?
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That would be zero.

As the Holy Father has stated in March of 2009 in his letter to the bishops on the lifting of the excommunications of the SSPX bishops, " As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church."

Here is a link to the article, Letter found on the Vatican website.
 
As I’m reading the decree rescinding the excommunications and the fact that the four bishops asked for it to be lifted, it tells me that they acknowledge it as valid. Otherwise, why ask that it be lifted? If something is not valid, you would take another approach. You would ask for a trial or some kind of verdict on its validity. The fact that Bishop Fellay asked for the excommunication to be lifted and that he tells the Holy Father the this state is a distressing one for them, says a great deal. It’s important to recognize this.

It’s equally important to recognize that the leadership of the SSPX knows that they do not exercise legitimate ministry in the Catholic Church. In other words, they are aware that everything they do is illegal. We can get into all kinds of hypothetical discussions as to why they would do something that they believe is illegal, but it would be pure speculation on our part to do so. No one can read the heart and mind of another. We can only pass judgment on that which is observable and measurable. What is observable is that they know that the ordinations and every other celebration of the sacraments is illegal. They also know that before the oils are dry, the newly ordained priest is suspended.

When you speak to the priests of the SSPX, they acknowledge that they are suspended. Most of them live in anguish because of it. It’s not something they want or enjoy. Some, very few, have a lackadaisical attitude about it. They could care less. Those are the dangerous ones. I believe that what the Holy Father said in his letter about arrogance and obstinacy is applicable to those few.

It is also true that we cannot leave our Catholic brothers and sisters hanging on a tree limb to swing in the wind. We have to do whatever we can to bring them into full communion with the Primacy. Obviously, they have to do their part too. Pope Benedict lays that out very clearly. They have to accept Vatican II as is, ecumenism and the Magisterium of the popes after Vatican II. He also lays out that the other side has to remember that the Church was not born at Vatican II. Both sides have to give up their positions and move with him. This is not being presented as an option to either side.

We cannot deny the good that existed prior to Vatican II nor can the SSPX deny the good of Vatican II and the Church after Vatican II. As Pope Benedict says, we cannot deny that many things have happened that were not supposed to happen. However, bad things happened before Vatican II as well. Let’s not be naïve. Heresy and heterodoxy is like Capri pants. It is just pedal pushers with a new name.

I will continue to repeat my advice to the lay supporters of the SSPX. Keep quiet. You’re not helping. You’re hurting the SSPX clergy and religious. For once, you must stop thinking about you and what you want or what you need. Think about these men and women.

Think about how it hurts every SSPX priest, brother and sister every time a bishop runs up against negative attitudes, arrogant comments, offensive statements, or gets wind that you’re sending people to an SSPX chapel. What it looks like, from where the bishop sits, is that the SSPX clergy is undermining his diocese and his jurisdiction. Why? Because most bishops don’t hang around on Catholic internet forums. Otherwise, they would know that most SSPX priests and religious do not try to compete with the local diocese or proselytize. Of course there are some who do; but they’re not many.

Most of the proselytizing is being done by lay people. Why? Because the faithful can be very unfaithful even to those whom they claim to love. There is such a thing as love that kills. If you love someone so much that you don’t know what not to say and when not to say it or where not to say it, you’re killing the beloved. Ask yourself if you’re doing it because you love them (SSPX) or because you love yourself. In the latter case, the priests of the SSPX are just commodities that provide what you want.

No human being should be looked at, treated and dealt with as a commodity. I see a lot of that here when it comes to the priest of the SSPX. I don’t see love. I see “They preach what **I **like to hear. They celebrate mass as I believe it should be celebrated. They do things the way that **I **believe should be done.” There are too many “I’s” in there.

I’ll give you an example. When I first met the FSSP, my immediate reaction had nothing to do with the mass, the Latin, the chant or their churches. My immediate reaction was, “What a bunch of loveable men. I really like them. They are so sweet and they feel so genuinely spiritual.” I could care less if they were celebrating mass in Swahili. Eventually, I would have noticed that too. My point is that my attraction was to them as persons, not what they could do for me. What they could offer me (all the above) is nice, but I can live with it and without it. My getting to heaven does not depend on the EF or the OF. What I prefer is irrelevant. What is relevant for my eternal salvation is my fidelity to my vocation. Part of my vocation is to love my brother as myself.

The priests of the SSPX are not commodities, because I’m not a commodity and I don’t want to be treated as one. I want you to welcome me, because my way of life and my person has value, not because of what I can do for you or because I do what you like. That’s almost offensive. I want the same for the SSPX priests.

Be kind to these men. Don’t badmouth the Church in their name or in their defense. Remember, they are human beings who want to be loved and deserve to be loved. After that, they are priests. You can’t be a priest, unless you’re human. I’ve never seen an ordained panda. 😃

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
Brother JR, very good post. Yes, the dichotomy of the SSPX is that they acknowledge their state in the Church and then engage in all sorts of canonical gymnastics to basically ignore their state (suspended) and perform daily activities as if they were not suspended.

I disagree with the cult of personality anywhere it appears, whether it is celebrities or priests or whatever. People are just people. They should not be treated as commodities, but also should not be treated as gods. Just people. Some have something interesting to say, some don’t.

I agree totally with the idea that people should not nessassarily try to find a place where everything is the way they want it. “I like the choir there”, “The priest says just what I want to hear”, etc. An expression from somewhere is “Bloom where you are planted”. This can apply very well to someone’s geographic parish.

A lot of the posts here talk about people driving long distances to find the perfect place for them to worship - quiet, reverent, people dress well, whatever. I understand that, I really do. But, and I’m talking to myself here as well, don’t we need to learn to participate in the sacramental life of the Church with all of the members of the Church, even the ones who annoy us?
 
TrueLight said:
I’m not sure I’d be able to spend so many years in training only to join an order that is not exactly okey-dokey with the Pope.
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I think there’s an old football quarterback expression that goes along the lines, don’t throw the ball at where they are but where you expect them to be. The same goes true for many professions which require years of training. True, many of them will go only with their own convictions but I’m sure that there are at least a few who do have high hopes for full reconcilation as well.
 
ProVobis said:
I think there’s an old football quarterback expression that goes along the lines, don’t throw the ball at where they are but where you expect them to be. The same goes true for many professions which require years of training. True, many of them will go only with their own convictions but I’m sure that there are at least a few who do have high hopes for full reconcilation as well.
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Here’s a question for you. We know from the catechism that when you seek forgiveness from sin, you must be truly sorry for the sin. Someone who has had a vasectomy, for example, can’t ask for forgiveness and at the same time say that they would do it again.

So, about these SSPX priests who are pursuing illicit ordination, which is a sin. For them to be forgiven, don’t they have to be sorry and say that they were wrong to have sought ordination from the SSPX? Wouldn’t that be part of any reconciliation of the SSPX with the Church? If the individual priests never express remorse, how can they, as individuals, be reconciled?
 
PaulinVA said:
Here’s a question for you. We know from the catechism that when you seek forgiveness from sin, you must be truly sorry for the sin. Someone who has had a vasectomy, for example, can’t ask for forgiveness and at the same time say that they would do it again.

So, about these SSPX priests who are pursuing illicit ordination, which is a sin. For them to be forgiven, don’t they have to be sorry and say that they were wrong to have sought ordination from the SSPX? Wouldn’t that be part of any reconciliation of the SSPX with the Church? If the individual priests never express remorse, how can they, as individuals, be reconciled?
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Your question is an excellent one. There are parts to this answer.

First, the person seeking reconciliation must truly want it. That’s pretty obvious. Second, we can only judge what we see. Objectively, any Catholic man who seeks ordination from someone who does not have the authority to ordain him acts contrary to the law of the Church. Objectively, this is grave moral matter. However, now come the third part. As I always tell my novices, “The human soul, mind and conscience are hidden corridors through which only God may walk.”

The highest law of the Church is to save souls, including those of bishops who ordain without permission and those who are ordained by them. The Church does not pass judgment on their internal disposition only on the observable. Therefore, she states that the ordination is illegal and the newly ordained priest is suspended. You can’t suspend the bishop, because he’s already suspended. The Church does not pass judgment on the person, only on the act. Her job is to try to save souls. To assume to know that a person is subjectively culpable of grave sin has two sides to it. There would be a sin of presumption on the person making the judgment and it can unnecessarily push the guilty party away rather than bring him home. We leave that call to be made by the individual. He needs to confess and seek absolution for what he knows to have been a deliberate act of defiance. If he does not comprehend how his actions are a deliberate act of defiance, then he is not culpable.

To have grave sin you must have:
  • Grave matter
  • Knowledge
  • Full consent of the will
In this case, knowledge may be impaired. I can hear what the Church says. But I can also have such strong feelings about the situation that they impair my ability to fully understand. In the remission of the excommunications and the letter that followed, Pope Benedict XVI mentioned that these priests are misguided. However, they are good men. We must reach out for the good in them, avoid being misguided ourselves and resist the temptation to walk through the corridor where the heart, mind and conscience await for God’s judgment.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
PaulinVA said:
Here’s a question for you. We know from the catechism that when you seek forgiveness from sin, you must be truly sorry for the sin. Someone who has had a vasectomy, for example, can’t ask for forgiveness and at the same time say that they would do it again.

So, about these SSPX priests who are pursuing illicit ordination, which is a sin. For them to be forgiven, don’t they have to be sorry and say that they were wrong to have sought ordination from the SSPX? Wouldn’t that be part of any reconciliation of the SSPX with the Church? If the individual priests never express remorse, how can they, as individuals, be reconciled?
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Is admitting wrongdoing the only way for them to be reconciled? Do you see any possibility of reconciliation without the SSPX admitting wrongdoing?

In other words can you see any scenario where the Pope might say, you were misguided, however what is most important is reconciliation. Welcome back! 🙂
 
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