Why don’t members of the SSPX simply switch to the FSSP?

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If the FSSP is in union with Rome and all, then why don’t all the members of the SSPX join them? After all, both of these groups offer the traditional Latin mass. What’s the difference? Thank you all!
 
Not every region has the option to choose.
It’s also a pretty nuanced topic.
 
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If I had to guess, the FSSP accepts the validity of post-Vatican II holy orders (bishops and priests), i.e., a priest ordained or a bishop consecrated according to the newer rites is truly a priest or bishop in apostolic succession. Depending on what SSPX bishop or priest you talk to, they might have just a little doubt about that. Similarly, the FSSP accepts Vatican II but just does not emphasize it all that much, whereas the SSPX has some doctrinal difficulties with certain aspects of Vatican II. The FSSP also does not have its own bishops, and the SSPX does, consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre to ensure a succession of traditionalist bishops. One SSPX bishop (Tissier de Mallerais) is very ill and is being cared for at an SSPX facility. I don’t know if Bishop Fellay has any sort of succession plan to consecrate “replacement” bishops, or if that is even seen as an issue “on the table”.
 
Batman2.0 said:
If the FSSP is in union with Rome and all, then why don’t all the members of the SSPX join them?
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AFAIK, FSSP accepts all the marriage annulments granted by the marriage tribunals and not overturned by the Roman Rota. FSSP do not have their own separate marriage annulment tribunals as does the SSPX. It appears that the SSPX will generally accept the Catholic marriage annulments, but unlike in the FSSP, there are some exceptions to this for the SSPX. For details please see:


Also, SSPX, unlike FSSP, believes it is better for Catholics to attend the Tridentine Latin Mass.
 
Aren’t both priestly societies? Are you asking about the priests, or lay people who attend their Masses?
 
Batman2.0 said:
If the FSSP is in union with Rome and all, then why don’t all the members of the SSPX join them? After all, both of these groups offer the traditional Latin mass. What’s the difference? Thank you all!
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That’s like asking why the members of the FSSP are not all in the Institute of Christ the King or why the Institute of the Good Shepherd was created instead of joining the FSSP…

Each religious order (even Society of Apostolic Life) have their own charisms.

Even though the FSSP was a “break away” from the SSPX after the ordination, there many differences between the FSSP and the SSPX besides Vatican II.

If the SSPX were to come into full communion with the Church tomorrow, the SSPX and FSSP would still remain separate.

Some reasons (besides the doctrinal/canonical issues of the SSPX):
  • The SSPX priests all live in Priories. The SSPX priests do not live in the rectories of their chapels. The recotories are only used on the weekends. SSPX priests live most of the week in a priory and then travel to the chapels for weekend Mass. That’s why they don’t have daily mass (except at their Priories and maybe on a Friday or Monday weekday mass when the priest first arrives from or just before he leaves for the priory.
  • So SSPX priests are kind of like a hybrid between Clerics Regular and Canon Regulars (even though they are neither). In other words, the SSPX lives in community during the week and then goes out to their missions on the weekends, etc.
  • The FSSP does NOT have priories & they don’t put the same emphasis on living in community as the SSPX does.
  • FSSP priests can be assigned to live on their own for several years. That’s something the SSPX will not do. The SSPX might send one priest by himself to a chapel for the weekend Masses, but that priest will return to the priory for 3 or 4 days a week. In other words the priory is the SSPX priest’s main residence.
  • Another way to look at it is like this: FSSP priests operate just like parish priests and their priority is running parishes. The SSPX operates like a bunch of missionary priests going on mission each week.
Point is: while they are both dedicated to the Latin Mass, they both have very different ideas regarding community life for their orders.

(cont)
 
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(cont)

While none of them take take vows, they each kind of operate similar to major branches of the religious orders
  • The SSPX operates like a Clerical Religious Congregation (like the Spiritans/Holy Ghost Fathers, Redemptorists, Passionists, Divine Word Missionaries, etc). They are very much a like a hybrid of Cleric Regular with Monastic, with a missionary approach to their ministry & spirituality.
  • The FSSP operates more like the a group of Cleric Regulars (Jesuits or Piarists) or Diocesan Priests. Like Diocesan priests, they really don’t have set spirituality to them, allowing their priests to adopt whatever kind of spirituality they want.
  • The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest operates like a group of Canons Regular (or at least Canons Secular). They also have a Salesian spirituality to them.
  • Institute of the Good Shepherd - I’m not really sure what they are like, but they were the first order founded to be 100% dedicated to the traditional Latin Mass. No bishop can make them pray the Ordinary Form of the Mass. Their entire purpose is to preserve tradition. In addition, the Institute was founded with the explicit task of offering a constructive and theological criticism of certain reforms born from the Second Vatican Council, a criticism which aims to offer the whole Church a fresh look at their own identity. So in many ways, they are like a “think tank for Catholic tradition.”
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
I don’t know if Bishop Fellay has any sort of succession plan to consecrate “replacement” bishops, or if that is even seen as an issue “on the table”.
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Given that one of the bishops ordained at the time was “disinvited” from the SSPX, and another is ill, and it has been 32 years since they were made bishops, it should come as no shock that the matter of more bishops has been contemplated.
 
The SSPX also has the SSPX Brothers and the Sisters of the Society of St. Pius X founded by Mother Gabriel, the real-life sister of Archbishop Lefebvre.

Seriously, read his biography by Bishop de Mallerais (It’s HUGE) or for something smaller, The Little Story of My Long Life, which is a joy to read. Archbishop Lefebvre had a great sense of humor!
 
Batman2.0 said:
If the FSSP is in union with Rome and all, then why don’t all the members of the SSPX join them? After all, both of these groups offer the traditional Latin mass. What’s the difference? Thank you all!
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Well, that’s the main difference. Someone who would leave SSPX for FSSP would (at least implicitly) acknowledge that there was no good reason for SSPX to be, um, unfriendly to Popes, Roman Curia, that there is no good reason to be in SSPX.

After all, an organisation is rarely full of people who think it was a bad idea to join it (and are willing to acknowledge that publicly), especially if leaving it is not made much harder artificially.
 
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They appear to have different views of ecclesiology.
 
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If so it would be on both ‘sides’.

Hmm where is the ‘primacy of conscience’ that is so often extolled regarding ‘other’ people? You know, the people whom we are supposed to ‘tenderly accompany’ when they have ‘difficulties’ with Catholicism. Seems like we are only tender with certain groups. Others are more likely to get ‘tenderized’ (i.e., pounded on).
 
from Dolphin:

“An aspect of stubbornness and pridefulness is also involved”.
stpurl said:
If so it would be on both ‘sides’.
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The split was over 30 years ago. Most of the current members weren’t involved. It’s not like two brothers who had a falling out, it’s more like two first cousins, for now.

I’d guess the members of both groups likely are thinking about their ministries, rather than the fact they are not in the other group.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
I don’t know if Bishop Fellay has any sort of succession plan to consecrate “replacement” bishops, or if that is even seen as an issue “on the table”.
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If he does, he will “re” excommunicate himself…unless somehow the Pope agrees to the proposal. If he doesn’t, I don’t see how the SSPX could survive. Once all current living bishops die, that’s the last generation of SSPX priests, no? Unless I’m missing something, SSPX has a ticking clock…they either reconcile fully with Rome prior to that happening, or they go full blown schism and start consecrating new bishops.
 
No offense but why would a faithful Catholic want to read books by or about a schismatic?
 
If Catholics can read books by Orthodox authors (who are truly schismatic) then I don’t see a problem with reading books by Archbishop Lefebvre (who was not a schismatic).
 
twf said:
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HomeschoolDad:
I don’t know if Bishop Fellay has any sort of succession plan to consecrate “replacement” bishops, or if that is even seen as an issue “on the table”.
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If he does, he will “re” excommunicate himself…unless somehow the Pope agrees to the proposal. If he doesn’t, I don’t see how the SSPX could survive. Once all current living bishops die, that’s the last generation of SSPX priests, no? Unless I’m missing something, SSPX has a ticking clock…they either reconcile fully with Rome prior to that happening, or they go full blown schism and start consecrating new bishops.
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No, there is a third option. They could get priests the same way the FSSP does — from diocesan bishops. The FSSP has no bishops, and does not lack for priests. I want to say that this would require full regularization first, but it might not — there is no reason, in the nature of things, that a “regular” bishop could not ordain a priest, in the old rite, then release him to the service of the SSPX.

This would, of course, require the SSPX to admit that the new rite of consecrating a bishop is equally as valid as the old rite is (i.e., that a bishop being consecrated in the new rite does not reflect a break in apostolic succession). Can they do that? Would there be priests in the SSPX, and laity who adhere to the SSPX, who would have a problem with that? Especially with regard to the latter, I’d say there are. And what would they do, if one of these priests were assigned to their chapel or priory?
 
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