Where would The Catholic Church be at today without the SSPX?

[Lormar]

You better come out of your closet, George Sword, and brush up on recent history. As Vobis said, the FSSP was a break off from the SSPX, and the Institute came about the same time.

How anyone can say that the SSPX has made no impact is incredible to me.

 

[Bbigam]

Which answer best corresponds to:

The people (bishops, priests, lay followers) of the SSPX have been instrumental in preserving the TLM in the Catholic Church; however, they would have been even more influential and effective if they had expressed their love of the TLM through obedience to the Catholic Church instead of through disobedience. In short, the ends of the SSPX were worthy, but the means by which they sought those ends were wrong.

I was going to say something just like that, but much less profoundly. Good job!

 

[ProVobis]

however, they would have been even more influential and effective if they had expressed their love of the TLM through obedience to the Catholic Church instead of through disobedience.

How?

Don’t forget the Archbishop had already been suspended by Pope Paul VI. Yes he disobeyed that Pope too. And if Archbishop Lefebvre had quit at that point, the TLM would have been dead for sure. Except for Campos, the older priests were retiring or dying, bishops had absolutely no interest in ordaining priests to say the TLM and no one was teaching it. No 1984 Indult and no 1988 Ecclesia Dei. This is not a matter of opinion, this is fact. Continuity would have been broken and the TLM would have been just a happy memory.

 

[otjm]

While the question makes for interesting speculation, it seems that there are subsets and other issues being ignored.

The SSPX existed before anyone ordained the four bishops in question. Another question is whether or not, had they not been ordained then, would John Paul 2 have eventually given permission to ordain one or more bishops? I have yet to see any convincing evidence that he would not have; if it is out there I would be interested to see it.

And with that, the subset question may be: would it have been harder or easier for the Church to open up to the EF had those four bishops not been ordained (as LeFebvre at one point agreed to not do) at that point. They were already operating with the EF; things grew to hardened positions when the bishops were ordained.

Added to that, for those who speculate that without the SSPX we would not have the EF, one needs to pay attention to what the current pope has said about the Mass in general, the OF and the EF in particular, and remember that he has not been antagonistic to the EF - and last I checked, he tends to be the final authority.

So in short, The SSPX already existed when we got to the point of the ordination of the 4 bishops; it seems that the SSPX had, if not all the authority and reach they would desire, at least the ability to continue saying the EF and that the ordination of the 4 bishops was the event that threw the thing into a cocked hat, with each side hardening up. Had they not reached that precipice, perhaps things would have gradually opened up without as much division over the issue.

 

[Lycorth]

Without the SSPX, I believe the TLM and Traditionalism would not exist today. Sure, God would have chosen others to heed the call and keep the finest traditions alive, but the SSPX was what the Lord chose.

The SSPX isn’t perfect, and perhaps relations with Rome could have been handled more smoothly - by both parties. However, without the Society, Traditionalism might not have the impetus it has now, if it even would exist.

However, I think it’s absurd, in a sense, to think that traditional Catholicism would not have existed - the SSPX is proof that Christ meant what He said when He said that the gates of Hades would not prevail against the Church. There is no such thing as the chance of traditionalism not existing, because Christ’s promise is enough to comfort us - and the SSPX is proof that our Lord means what He says

 

[GeorgeSword]

The FSSP had been the SSPX and they came in 1988. What about the period before then? How many “orthodox” bishops were ordaining priests to say the Latin Mass before 1988?

So, if no bishops are doing this, it is perfectly fine for a bishop to go against the Pope and do it? Great logic.

 

[Bobby_Joe_1]

Without the SSPX, I believe the TLM and Traditionalism would not exist today. Sure, God would have chosen others to heed the call and keep the finest traditions alive, but the SSPX was what the Lord chose.

The SSPX isn’t perfect, and perhaps relations with Rome could have been handled more smoothly - by both parties. However, without the Society, Traditionalism might not have the impetus it has now, if it even would exist.

However, I think it’s absurd, in a sense, to think that traditional Catholicism would not have existed - the SSPX is proof that Christ meant what He said when He said that the gates of Hades would not prevail against the Church. There is no such thing as the chance of traditionalism not existing, because Christ’s promise is enough to comfort us - and the SSPX is proof that our Lord means what He says

Well said and bravissimo!:clapping:. Abp. Lefebvre stands on the shoulders of St. Athanasius and will, I believe, someday receive that recognition.

 

[ProVobis]

So, if no bishops are doing this, it is perfectly fine for a bishop to go against the Pope and do it? Great logic.

Didn’t say it was fine. There were great costs, no doubt, and severe punishments were already inflicted. The lesson was learned. What more do you want? Church history shows much disobedience, probably none of it justified by people such as yourself, but in the end it’s God who rewards or punishes.

 

[pnewton]

Well said and bravissimo!:clapping:. Abp. Lefebvre stands on the shoulders of St. Athanasius and will, I believe, someday receive that recognition.

I was wondering when St. Athanasius would turn up. The differences between the two are many. The similarities depend on what someone is already pre-disposed to think.

 

[Seamus_L]

The typical claims that the SSPX are doing what Protestants have historically done are just plain silly. Refusing to give up Catholic tradition doesn’t make you a Protestant, no matter who you must defy in order to do it.

                     People forget what those days were like before the TLM was again made more available. I heard many a story from my Mom about how the late Father Cepon (one of the only priests saying the TLM in the Chicago area) was harassed and threatened along with his followers. People were ordered off church property and somewhere I even have a copy of a restraining order. On one occasion, my Mom was in a group of parishoners who showed up expecting to hear Father say the Latin Mass, only to find he had been ordered out and when his replacement began saying the Novus Ordo mass, they rose as a group and silently walked out. The priest disgracefully shouted at them from the altar "You will not intimidate me"

In those days, espousing any liberal left wing cause was ok, but if you were a Latin Mass Catholic you got treated like a criminal. I can sympathise with anyone who took refuge at an SSPX Chapel.

 

[Lormar]

Seamus L

I’ve been praying for Fr. Cepon for over twenty years. An elderly friend of miine knew him well.

The story you told is not an isolated incident. There were far too many like that. Most of the people here have no idea of what went on and don’t want to know.

 

[palmas85]

The typical claims that the SSPX are doing what Protestants have historically done are just plain silly. Refusing to give up Catholic tradition doesn’t make you a Protestant, no matter who you must defy in order to do it.

                     People forget what those days were like before the TLM was again made more available. I heard many a story from my Mom about how the late Father Cepon (one of the only priests saying the TLM in the Chicago area) was harassed and threatened along with his followers. People were ordered off church property and somewhere I even have a copy of a restraining order. On one occasion, my Mom was in a group of parishoners who showed up expecting to hear Father say the Latin Mass, only to find he had been ordered out and when his replacement began saying the Novus Ordo mass, they rose as a group and silently walked out. The priest disgracefully shouted at them from the altar "You will not intimidate me"

In those days, espousing any liberal left wing cause was ok, but if you were a Latin Mass Catholic you got treated like a criminal. I can sympathise with anyone who took refuge at an SSPX Chapel.

One of the best kept secrets around is just how badly Traditional minded Catholics were treated in those days. And it went a long way. I remember a sermon once where the Priest chastised several elderly women who had requested to be allowed to say a rosary either before or after Mass. In the sermon he preached about the need for social justice and how we should be spending our time away from Mass engaged in some active action to bring about a change in society instead of as he put it" engaging in old time devotions such as rosaries and novenas which no longer had any place in or relevance to the faith" He particularly blasted rosaries as being “un Christ centered and an affront to modern Catholic thought and sensibilities”

Yeah, progressives don’t want to hear about such things,.They think it better to sweep them all under the rug and pretend that they never happened.

 

[dbreit2000]

I think you are doing a great disservice to many here by using acronyms. I for one don’t know what SSPX or TMC stand for, as I suspect many others don’t know as well. If you are truely trying to educate and inform, you might try to be less haughty in your debates and try to make sure everyone knows what you are actually debating.

 

[Layman]

The stick used against the SSPX is disobedience. It’s an odd one, in that **they wanted to say an old mass that was never abrogated, we’re told. While all bishops at that time were sponsoring new masses that did not obey Vat. II instructions. **

I read somewhere that the Catholic Universe announced that from January 1970 the old rite was not to be said any more. That was how the Church got the notion that it was, effectively, abrograted.

Subsequent hostility and lack of interest made technical abrogation a moot point. No bishops willing to sponsor it or hostile to it + no seminarians being taught it + old priests dying off = no TLM.

**Una Voce is an organisation of laymen, as is the Latin Mass Society;
Laymen can’t say Mass;
No priest = no Mass;
Bishops opposed to TLM or pro the N.O = no TLM seminarians;
No TLM seminarians = no TLM priests.
No TLM priest = no TLM Mass; **

People who say that it could have survived don’t know what it was like in the 70’s/80’s. A friend told me that an old non-SSPX priest said the Easter Triduum is a room in a hotel in London in the 70’s and people came from all over the world to hear it. It just wasn’t being said any more.

So Abp. Lefebvre did what he did. His little group were a constant rebuke to modernists, progressives and Mass-mutators out of all proportion to their numbers.

If you read his Letter to Confused Catholics you can see how, from a traditional perspective, the Church in France that he came back to had gone to pot. Something had to be done.

His consecration of 4 bishops was the schismatic act. Laypeople who went to SSPX masses were not schismatic unless their intention was to separate themselves from the Church. The SSPX bishops are not now schismatic as their excommunications have been lifted. I don’t think their priests were ever in schism either, unless they intended to be; they just say Mass ilicitly and hear confessions and perform Marriages invalidly as they don’t have the permission of the local bishop.

Which means very little to 99.999% of Catholics, anyway, as they don’t even known what the SSPX is, never mind where their chapels are.

Looking forward to more TLMs being available in the future.

 

[Onegin]

On a related note, I think that it’s important to also realize that Archbishop Lefebvre’s disagreements didn’t begin and end with Vatican II. In his writing, he heavily criticizes modernism itself as being an idea that began way before it was introduced into some of the Vatican II documents.

Given that Pope St. Pius X was also heavily involved in preventing the spread of the modernist heresy in the early 1900’s, these ideas were alive and well back then. According to Lefebvre, this type of thought goes back as far as the French Revolution, which, he appears to argue, really got the ball rolling with modernism.

 

[maurin]

So, if no bishops are doing this, it is perfectly fine for a bishop to go against the Pope and do it? Great logic.

GeorgeSword,

perhaps you are not acquainted with all the Bishops who have “gone against the Pope” 's wishes. Of course I am referring to all of the Bishops in Europe, Canada and the US who wrote extensively against Pope Paul’s ‘Humanae Vitae’.

Anyone care to add any more contemporary instances?

The point here, George, is that disobedience is not a strong argument against the Society. There are too many examples of bishops who are in so–called ‘good standing’ who work against Popes both of recent memory and Papa Benedict XVI in or order to advance their own agendas in contradiction to what are the “norms” of Vatican II.