What do traditional folks really think of BW's criticism of the SSPX?

[Mike30]

It is not the sacramental character that demands respect but the office. These bishops are in a state of irregularity as they have no see, but they are still considered canonically bishops in the eyes of the church. That is why they demand respect. On the other hand, a laicized priest may still be sacramentally a priest, but he is canonically a layperson, and should be treated like one.

From everything I have ever been told or researched your analysis does not appear to be 100%completely correct. I will however hope that someone who knows the difference such as Brother JR, may see this thread, become interested and resolve the issue.

 

[Boy_Wonder]

I noticed that at the local SSPX, the families are very large. For example, there is one family with eight children, another with ten children, etc. But at the local Catholic Church most families are with two or three children. In fact, one of the ladies who is a helper at the Church has said that she had her tubes cut, because she doesn’t want any more children. So to say that the SSPX has done nothing at all of good, is not right. I see many SSPX people bringing many good and decent Catholic children into the world.

I didn’t say the individuals do no good. But to my knowledge the group as a whole is involved in nothing uplifting or in any ministry that wins people to the faith. They just seem to huddle together sullen, bitter, resentful, and full of distrust. Why?

 

[Boulder257]

I noticed that at the local SSPX, the families are very large. For example, there is one family with eight children, another with ten children, etc. But at the local Catholic Church most families are with two or three children. In fact, one of the ladies who is a helper at the Church has said that she had her tubes cut, because she doesn’t want any more children. So to say that the SSPX has done nothing at all of good, is not right. I see many SSPX people bringing many good and decent Catholic children into the world.

You could supplement the words “Mormon Temple” for SSPX and it is an accurate statement as well. Should we all become Mormon then?

 

[Tomdstone]

I didn’t say the individuals do no good. But to my knowledge the group as a whole is involved in nothing uplifting or in any ministry that wins people to the faith. They just seem to huddle together sullen, bitter, resentful, and full of distrust. Why?

They don’t like what happened after Vatican II, with many nuns leaving the Church, with the scandals, liturgical abuses, etc.

 

[Tomdstone]

You could supplement the words “Mormon Temple” for SSPX and it is an accurate statement as well. Should we all become Mormon then?

There are some good and decent Mormons also. I certainly respect many of them. I am not advocating that anyone join any group. I am only disputing the assertion that nothing good comes out of the SSPX.

 

[otjm]

They don’t like what happened after Vatican II, with many nuns leaving the Church, with the scandals, liturgical abuses, etc.

A lot of other people don’t like what happened after Vatican 2 either, but they have not joined the SSPX, and they are not sullen, bitter, resentful, full of distrust or huddled together. So that does not seem to indicate why so many people who are members of SSPX seem to come off that way.

 

[Boy_Wonder]

They don’t like what happened after Vatican II, with many nuns leaving the Church, with the scandals, liturgical abuses, etc.

Why would SSPX limit itself by defining their whole worldview only by what they DISAGREE with? Why can’t they have a more Christian outreach and ministry? Why can’t they promote the TLM instead of huddling together to grouse and complain and fight among themselves? That is dispiriting to watch. Christ is alive. Why won’t SSPX focus on that?

 

[pnewton]

Why would SSPX limit itself by defining their whole worldview only by what they DISAGREE with? Why can’t they have a more Christian outreach and ministry? Why can’t they promote the TLM instead of huddling together to grouse and complain and fight among themselves? That is dispiriting to watch. Christ is alive. Why won’t SSPX focus on that?

They are lot allowed to have any ministry within the Catholic Church because that requires a degree of unity with the Bishop of Rome that does not at this time exist.

 

[Mike30]

I know what you mean here, something I’ve thought about too. I cant imagine it being of the same kind

Yes they validly have received the sacrament consecrating them - and respect is due to that…but they are not bishops of the Catholic Church (as yet) so I would imagine that we are not bound to accord them respect at that level until they are in full communion.

**Firstly, in the strict sense of the word according to Archbishop Mueller, they are not considered ‘Catholic’ bishops - **as he said in this news interview on the SSPX.

Is it possible for reconciliation with Bishop Richard Williamson within the society?

“Williamson is a separate problem to this reconciliation process. It is simply unacceptable that a Christian or even more a bishop — ***of course he is not a Catholic bishop, as a bishop is only Catholic when he is in full communion with the Pope, the Successor of Peter, ***which Williamson is not — denies all that the Nazis had done against the Jewish people, their exterminations. How is it possible to be so cold-hearted about this? It is absolutely unacceptable, but this is a separate problem.
They [SSPX] need to accept the complete doctrine of the Catholic Church: the confession of faith, the Creed, and also accept the magisterium of the Pope as it is authentically interpreted. That is necessary. They also need to accept some forms of development in the liturgy. The Holy Father recognized the perennial validity of the extraordinary form of the liturgy, but they also must accept that the new ordinary form of the liturgy, developed after the Council, is valid and legitimate.”
Read more: ncregister.com/daily-news/archbishop-mueller-on-the-sspx-and-his-controversial-writings#ixzz2Sg89umVt

If they have been validly ordained as Bishops and are not Catholic Bishops, then what type of Bishops are they? I mean they either are or they are not. The same with SSPX Priests. They are either Catholic Priests or they are not Priests at all…

So which is it?

 

[Tomdstone]

Why would SSPX limit itself by defining their whole worldview only by what they DISAGREE with? Why can’t they have a more Christian outreach and ministry? Why can’t they promote the TLM instead of huddling together to grouse and complain and fight among themselves? That is dispiriting to watch. Christ is alive. Why won’t SSPX focus on that?

They agree with everything that was taught before Vatican II. They agree with the Latin Tridentine Mass. They define themselves by that - and that is something definite that they agree with.

 

[Tomdstone]

If they have been validly ordained as Bishops and are not Catholic Bishops, then what type of Bishops are they? I mean they either are or they are not. The same with SSPX Priests. They are either Catholic Priests or they are not Priests at all…

So which is it?

They are validly ordained Catholic priests and validly ordained Catholic bishops who are in an irregular and possibly illicit situation.

 

[otjm]

If they have been validly ordained as Bishops and are not Catholic Bishops, then what type of Bishops are they? I mean they either are or they are not. The same with SSPX Priests. They are either Catholic Priests or they are not Priests at all…

So which is it?

They are illicitly ordained. Their validity is like the validity of the Orthodox bishops and priests - they are validly ordained, but they are not Catholic.

 

[Mike30]

They are illicitly ordained. Their validity is like the validity of the Orthodox bishops and priests - they are validly ordained, but they are not Catholic.

Then what are they?

 

[otjm]

Then what are they?

They are validly but illicitly ordained priests and bishops who are currently in an irregular position with no jurisdiction, no authority, and confecting the sacraments while ordered by Rome to not do so.

As my be seen on another thread, they appear to have no intent at least as currently expressed, to reunite with Rome and they continue in their position until, most likely, one of two things happen - either they reconcile with Rome, accept the authority of the Pope, admit and agree to the statements as reflected in the last letter from the dicastery which Pope Benedict acknowledged as his personal requirements, or they push it (the letter) away, refuse to reconcile, and eventually find themselves in a far worse situation.

It would seem there is a possibility of them being declared formally schismatic should they continue on the path they appear to have chosen. Should that come about, there may be some who would separate off and seek either individual or small group reconciliation, similar to what happened with the FSSP.

It is a bit similar to the group called Old Catholics, except that as I understand it, that group has been declared schismatic and the SSPX have not. Both groups have valid ordinations, but illicit, and neither are referred to by the Catholic Church as Catholic.

Catholic means universal at its root; they are not universal as the highest authority in the Catholic Church has declared them irregular, having no jurisdiction and no authority.

 

[Dee_S]

They are not allowed to have any ministry within the Catholic Church because that requires a degree of unity with the Bishop of Rome that does not at this time exist.

:sad_yes:
“The term “College of Bishops” is used in Catholic theology to denote the bishops in communion with the Pope (the Bishop of Rome) as a body, not as individuals. The Bishop of Rome (the Pope) is an essential part of that body.”

"While the individual members of the college of bishops are each directly responsible for the pastoral care and governance their own particular Church, the college as whole has full supreme power over the entire church: The college of bishops, whose head is the Supreme Pontiff [the Bishop of Rome] and whose members are bishops by virtue of sacramental consecration and hierarchical communion with the head and never without this head, is [also] the subject of supreme and full power over the universal church.[2]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Bishops

 

[Dee_S]

If they have been validly ordained as Bishops and are not Catholic Bishops, then what type of Bishops are they? I mean they either are or they are not. The same with SSPX Priests. They are either Catholic Priests or they are not Priests at all…

So which is it?

The bishops of the SSPX were consecrated against the express authority of the Holy See, and as a result, even though the excommunications were lifted, they do not have any authority from the Pope. They are well aware of this and have erroneously claimed an “emergency jurisdiction” for sacramental functions only, in order to confer Confirmation and Ordinations. It is also why (previously) no bishop was supposed to be in a leadership position, so as not to give the impression that he was acting as a normal bishop would.

This extract comes from a most interesting article called Episcopal Jurisdiction and the Roman See. It is well written and referenced, and does make the picture clearer.

"One of the most important contributions to sacred theology in recent years is to be found in the Holy Father’s teaching about the immediate source of episcopal jurisdiction within the Catholic Church.** In his great encyclical letter Mystici corporis**, issued June 29, 1943, Pope Pius XII spoke of the ordinary power of jurisdiction of the other Catholic bishops as something “bestowed upon them immediately” by the Sovereign Pontiff.[1]

"More than a year before the publication of the Mystici corporis the Holy Father brought out the same truth in his pastoral allocution to the parish priests and the Lenten preachers of Rome. **In this address he taught that the Vicar of Christ on earth is the one from whom all the other pastors in the Catholic Church “receive immediately their jurisdiction and their mission.”**2]

“Furthermore, it means that the Bishop of Rome can, according to the divine constitution of the Church itself, remove particular cases from the jurisdiction of the bishops and transfer them to his own jurisdiction. Finally it signifies that any bishop not in union with the Holy Father has no authority over the faithful.”

  "It does not conflict with the truth that the residential bishops have ordinary jurisdiction, rather than merely delegated jurisdiction; in their own Churches.  Actually it is a certainly true explanation of the origin of that ordinary jurisdiction in the consecrated men who rule the individual communities of the faithful as successors of the apostles and as subjects of the head of the apostolic college."

"It means that the power of jurisdiction of these men comes to them from Our Lord, but through His Vicar on earth, in whom alone the Church finds its visible center of unity in this world."
the-pope.com/fenton1.html

 

[april32010]

I noticed that at the local SSPX, the families are very large. For example, there is one family with eight children, another with ten children, etc. But at the local Catholic Church most families are with two or three children. In fact, one of the ladies who is a helper at the Church has said that she had her tubes cut, because she doesn’t want any more children. So to say that the SSPX has done nothing at all of good, is not right. I see many SSPX people bringing many good and decent Catholic children into the world.

 

[Tomdstone]

Why give a sarcastic shrug when a husband and wife are raising a large family and bringing up these children with decent morals and good Christian values?

 

[Mrs_Sally]

I noticed that at the local SSPX, the families are very large. For example, there is one family with eight children, another with ten children, etc. But at the local Catholic Church most families are with two or three children. In fact, one of the ladies who is a helper at the Church has said that she had her tubes cut, because she doesn’t want any more children. So to say that the SSPX has done nothing at all of good, is not right. I see many SSPX people bringing many good and decent Catholic children into the world.

I think that varies by location. In this area, I know many larger Catholic families. My very lovely parish has quite a few, and also families built through adoption. In any case, that is really not enough to justify remaining outside the Church.

 

[Tomdstone]

I think that varies by location. In this area, I know many larger Catholic families. My very lovely parish has quite a few, and also families built through adoption. In any case, that is really not enough to justify remaining outside the Church.

I didn’t say it was. I simply say that it is not true that the SSPX has done nothing good.