Anyway this row has broken out big time in the Catholic Church now, as even Bishop Schneider is saying recently. The SSPX is saying it will consecrate bishops on the 1st July this year, with or without Vatican approval, and this has become the Catholic equivalent of the gunfight at the OK corral. Both sides are loading their revolvers, sending out threatening (or at least loaded) letters across to one another and generally gearing up for the fight.
What has energised this whole clash is the rumour mill that is saying that the Vatican intends to excommunicate everybody in the SSPX this time, yes everybody, all the priests, religious, and anybody who goes to their masses. Bear in mind that the SSPX has over a thousand religious members, including about 700 priests (the rest are brothers etc) and maybe about 1 million adherents worldwide. This would be an incredible step and hence the arguments are being thrashed out a lot online because if the Vatican took this step then everybody would be scrutinising their actions to the nth degree. And frankly I think the Vatican is losing this debate already. I think their objections to this step are fraying at the edges, e.g.:
Obedience
They are saying that this SSPX step is disobedient to Canon Law and proper Papal authority, and obedience to ecclesiastical authority is a dogma of the Catholic faith. The SSPX reply is basically two fold, that the normal Canon Law rules don’t apply because we are in a state of emergency, with so many abuses going on and which is catered for under Canon Law, and secondly what is the unity and head of the Church anyway? Yes its the Pope (and the SSPX recognise Leo as the proper Pope) but is it not also a unity created by a group of people who adhere to the doctrine of Our Lord, Jesus Christ? If you depart so spectacularly from His teaching can you still, realistically, claim to be a Catholic and crack a legal whip against such as the SSPX?
These are serious points, for example the Vatican has recently endorsed a document as the proper working paper for the recent synod, that has been described by important and well respected commentators as “horrific” and a “propaganda” piece for the LGBT community. It has condemned the Marian dogma of Co-Redemptrix, despite it being endorsed by popes and saints for centuries (a specific point that the SSPX has highlighted).
Sure obedience is important, the Church is a reflection of what we are told heaven is like, which has for example choirs of angels that have a specific hierarchy, but obedience is one doctrine among so many in the Catholic Church. Is it such a good look for the Vatican to crack down so spectacularly on one alleged breech of that doctrine while seemingly looking the other way on so many other abuses? Does that not come across as people who are on a control or power trip as opposed to people with a genuine concern for Catholic doctrine?
For example look at the LGBT issue, in the universal doctrine of the Catholic Church all of those practices are ‘disordered’ and some are said to be sins so bad that they ‘cry to heaven for vengeance’. Yet look at that Vatican document and you also have people like Fr James Martin SJ, almost a spokesman for the LGBT community who has blessed same sex marriages and who is in such good standing that he is a regular and esteemed visitor to the Vatican.
SSPX now recognised as in full Communion with the Catholic Church
For ages the Vatican was somewhat ambiguous in its statements about the SSPX but now it has come out and absolutely said that of course the SSPX is in good standing in the Catholic Church, that is of course before the 1st of July and this gunfight anyway!
But that itself is very interesting, an oversized proportion of Catholic media has been talking for decades about the SSPX been in schism and now they have been proven spectacularly wrong. For example the SSPX were kicked out of the Chartres pilgrimage walk that they revived (they have a separate one now) and most countries have a Latin Mass Society which lists the various Latin masses going on and they nearly always blank out the SSPX masses. The point is that if these commentators got it so wrong for decades, on this obviously very related point, why believe them now when they exclaim x or y against the Society?
Rome states that the SSPX should stay within this full Communion and the Bishop issue will be resolved
But the second glaring point that arises from this is if the SSPX were always in full Communion with the Catholic Church, why not give them bishops long since? Well why not? Believe it or not the SSPX has been in discussions about trying to get bishops appointed to them for over half a century, yes half a century (they were in such discussions for many years before 1988) and nothing ever happened. Meanwhile the Vatican is happy to recognise Catholic bishops appointed by the Chinese Communist Party!
So if you pause to think about it, this position is the one now held by the critics of these upcoming SSPX consecrations: they should not go ahead with the consecrations and their lack of bishops issue will be resolved in time, via discussions with the Vatican. That is what they are told to do, but if you pause to think about it that is a dishonest position.
If they have spent over 50 years seeking a Vatican approved bishop, were in full communion and still didn’t get one, then everybody has to recognise, surely, that the ‘conspiracy theory’ here is the true state of affairs. That ‘theory’ obviously is that the Vatican is waiting them out and is deliberately not appointing bishops to them in order to destroy them in time. That is the only honest, truthful, analysis here if you recognise that even the Chinese Communist Party have got their Vatican appointed bishops in the meantime.
That being the real position, then everybody has to ask themselves, where do you stand on that? Do you think its right and proper to do that to the SSPX, do you think this is a correct implementation of Canon Law?
SSPX were supposedly in schism because of their failure to fully implement Vatican II
During these over half a century of discussions the only thing the SSPX could get out of the Vatican as a reason for not appointing bishops, was their failure to implement fully Vatican II. But its notoriously the case, a point that Pope Benedict agreed with them on, that the massive changes that have come to the Catholic Church in the late 20th century came about after Vatican II, in the ‘spirit of Vatican II’, and these changes, a few ambiguous phrases notwithstanding, were not mandated by that Council.
To clarify this point the SSPX have now come forward and simply asked the Vatican, what exactly was stated in Vatican II that they do not adhere to? There have got no reply because there is no reply, the current Catholic Church has implemented gigantic changes without in fact the approval of an ecumenical council. Here are a few quotes from that Council from which you can judge who is really abiding by the wishes of the Bishops who assembled then:
“Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.
...
The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.”
(Sacrosanctum Concilium, article 36 no.1 and article 116.)
Rome states that the faithful can go to other traditional orders
The other argument that the Vatican is now using to justify this, is that there is no problem with those Catholics who wish to go to the Latin mass anyway, they can get those sacraments elsewhere away from the SSPX, because there are other traditional orders and also Latin masses periodically said in diocesan churches (indult masses).
This argument though is not proving very persuasive, almost all the people who attend those masses said by those other orders, are very conscious of a recentish Vatican document known as
Traditionis Custodes. That document pretty much abolished them, albeit over time and with a layer or two of bureaucracy, e.g. none of these masses can be said in established Catholic Churches, no seminarian can study or celebrate later those masses without explicit permission from Rome etc.
What has happened though is that this edict has only been partly implemented, yes some US traditional communities have been decimated by it for example but its patchy how its implemented in most places. Most people who go to these masses, including commentators like Michael Matt of
Remnant TV, can see that the only reason the Vatican haven’t abolished them yet is because of the existence of the SSPX. The Vatican cannot close them down completely or too suddenly because they would all go to the SSPX, hence the Vatican need to crush the latter first, and so this community is not in favour of these upcoming excommunications and are not buying the comforting words coming from the Vatican towards them at this time.
In any case just a few thoughts on this exploding debate.
