Vatican Reminder: Sspx Ordinations Are Illegitimate

[franciscanheart]

Doesn't matter why it happened, the ordinations are still illegitimate.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1310047661' post='2263980']You will see, once the FSSPX is regularized,[/quote]

as far as i understand, that is light-years from happening.

[quote name='franciscanheart' timestamp='1310057759' post='2264026']
Doesn't matter why it happened, the ordinations are still illegitimate.
[/quote]

[Lil Red]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1310048505' post='2263986']
Well no wonder the high numbers.

I heard the numbers for this ordination are even higher than the SSPX: [url="http://www.themonastery.org/?destination=ordination&gclid=CNPQ69q276kCFYsd2god-1wKYQ"]Get Ordained Online![/url]
[/quote]
lulz...

[fides' Jack]

Just to clarify something - illegitimate doesn't mean invalid, does it? I'm thinking about the root of the word as "lex" or "legit" which gives us our word "law".

Am I correct in deriving from all of this that the sacrament of ordination is valid, but not licit?

And isn't that also how the excommunications were incurred in '88? By ordaining in disobedience to Rome? Wouldn't that make these new priests and the ordaining bishop excommunicated, also? Maybe I'm missing something.

Also - to clarify my previous question - I realize that the excommunication surrounding the original SSPX members has been lifted.

[MIKolbe]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1310047661' post='2263980']
You will see, once the FSSPX is regularized, that their seminaries will remain just as full. It is quite likely, in fact, that they get even more applicants. Their charism is not disobedience. Unfortunately they are in a state of such right now, but this is temporary, and it will be resolved. As I showed in the past, they continue to pledge their loyalty to the Church, and that is why they work with Rome in the doctrinal talks with only the best of intentions- as family members resolving a dispute- not as a criminal speaking to law enforcement.
[/quote]


[quote name='havok579257' timestamp='1310053916' post='2264010']
how are they pledging their loyality to rome when they are ordaining priest when they were told not to.
[/quote]


This seems like a very good question.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1310048076' post='2263982']
Cam just told me that SSPX seminarians receive no degrees because, "The priesthood traditionally wasn't a degree specific path of education. There were requisites academically to be ordained, but any advanced degrees which included a bachelor's, were attained after ordination."
This link contains their academic program.
[url="http://www.sspxseminary.org/seminary-life/academic-program.html"]http://www.sspxseminary.org/seminary-life/academic-program.html[/url]
Incidentally, it looks like a huge amount of fun.
[/quote]
That does look pretty fun.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='fides' Jack' timestamp='1310060871' post='2264041']
Just to clarify something - illegitimate doesn't mean invalid, does it? I'm thinking about the root of the word as "lex" or "legit" which gives us our word "law".

Am I correct in deriving from all of this that the sacrament of ordination is valid, but not licit?

And isn't that also how the excommunications were incurred in '88? By ordaining in disobedience to Rome? Wouldn't that make these new priests and the ordaining bishop excommunicated, also? Maybe I'm missing something.

Also - to clarify my previous question - I realize that the excommunication surrounding the original SSPX members has been lifted.
[/quote]
SSPX ordinations are certainly valid. It's just saying that until reconciliation happens they don't rep the Church.


[indent]"As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers – even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty – do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church."[/indent]

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/letters/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20090310_remissione-scomunica_en.html

[MithLuin]

The men are ordained, and the ordination 'sticks', as it was bishops with apostolic succession doing the ordaining.

However, these priests do not have any place in the Catholic Church, so they cannot licitly minister as priests. They can't say a mass, hear a confession, or witness a marriage in any diocese. Licitly. [The exception would be deathbed confessions and the like, of course, which any priest may hear regardless of whether or not he has his bishop's permission to act as a priest.]

I do notice that the description of the SSPX seminary mentions 'power' as the key attribute of the priesthood twice. That is not language you usually hear outside of James' Joyce's [i]A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man[/i]. Sure, it's just the website, but it does make me wonder what they think the priesthood is all about.

Should the SSPX become a part of the Catholic Church again (I don't take this as a given, though I do hope they will be reconciled), then I would presume that they would continue to have vocations at a similar level within their community. Their seminary would of course have to be brought into line with current requirements from Rome, so no doubt some revamping would need to be done. (Like teaching what the popes after Pius X had to say!)

[mortify]

[quote name='MithLuin' timestamp='1310070792' post='2264098']
However, these priests do not have any place in the Catholic Church, so they cannot licitly minister as priests. They can't say a mass, hear a confession, or witness a marriage in any diocese. Licitly. [The exception would be deathbed confessions and the like, of course, which any priest may hear regardless of whether or not he has his bishop's permission to act as a priest.][/quote]

Right, in emergency cases such things are licit. The SSPX argument is that the Church is in a chronic emergency state.

[Ash Wednesday]

I just came here to say that I love Pope St. Pius X and that I was born on his feast day! Pope St. Pius X, pray for us and this situation!

[Aloysius]

[quote name='Papist' timestamp='1310054972' post='2264016']
It is family members resolving a dispute alright. Like a teenager disobeying Mom and refusing to take responsibility for wrong doings while insisting Mom is wrong.
[/quote]
more like a son who, after hearing many jarring things from his parents that made it seem like they would not be giving him the inheritance that was due, demanded his inheritance up front and left the house. though prodigal, instead of squandering it on things his parents would be against, he went off and built another house to as much specifications as the parents' house he had thought he would inherit, and went about running that house and living exactly how his parents had always taught him to live, with the notable exception that he was no longer living with/under his parents.

now we see the parents trying to assure us the proper inheritance is intact (and no right thinking person would argue it was never in danger), and this son torn, still feeling the painful wounds of what it was like when it seemed the inheritance was threatened, and thus the son is torn between the option of keeping up the house he has built away, or risking coming back to the old house where he had felt the threat before.

it may be about swallowing pride and submitting and trusting and being obedient, but it'd be nothing but sanctimonious to sneer at the difficulty with which such things are approached on the SSPX side.

the inheritance, of course, is the Faith, and the liturgical spirit that embodies it. it was threatened, Summorum Pontificum admits that it was unjust for the traditional liturgy to have ever been supressed. and large numbers of officials within the Church spread nothing but heresy and disobedience FROM WITHIN. It was, in fact, an elder son who stayed living with the parents who was squandering the inheritance. Sure, the one son may have imprudently stormed out of the house, but he built a house in which he tried to follow the parents' wishes more deeply, he didn't squander the inheritance but attempted to preserve it; while certain elder sons within the house squandered the inheritance to the point where much of what passes for Catholicism in some places is nothing but feeding the pigs... except they are not pigs in a faraway land, but pigs that have been invited into the house.

the SSPX prodigal son certainly needs to come home, at which time those certain elder brothers will not be pleased when we slaughter the fattened calf to celebrate, though I know the large majority of the people here will join in the celebration gladly. and the Church will wisely run out to greet him when he does, and we will be all the better because they will come back with the full inheritance intact with them.

anyway, I think it's distasteful the way some sit in the house of the parents of this story smugly looking out the window into the distance to sneer at the SSPX prodigal son out there, we should have more of the attitude of the publican and less of the attitude of the pharisee when we evaluate the actions of the SSPX, in my opinion.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Ash Wednesday' timestamp='1310208316' post='2264919']
I just came here to say that I love Pope St. Pius X and that I was born on his feast day! Pope St. Pius X, pray for us and this situation!
[/quote]
Lucky. I love his pre_Pope name: Guiseppe Sarto. So darn Italian!

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='Lil Red' timestamp='1310058226' post='2264027']

[/quote]

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='dUSt' timestamp='1310048505' post='2263986']
Well no wonder the high numbers.

I heard the numbers for this ordination are even higher than the SSPX: [url="http://www.themonastery.org/?destination=ordination&gclid=CNPQ69q276kCFYsd2god-1wKYQ"]Get Ordained Online![/url]
[/quote]
That's silly and you know it. Did you even look at the academic schedule? They're every bit as qualified as any diocesan priest.

[quote name='havok579257' timestamp='1310053916' post='2264010']
how are they pledging their loyality to rome when they are ordaining priest when they were told not to.
[/quote]
Basically every single thing spoken or written by the SSPX reaffirms their loyalty to the Holy Church and the Pope. I'm not going to go find any quotes for you because it's mind-numbingly easy to do so. Spend an hour reading some articles on their website.

[quote name='Lil Red' timestamp='1310058226' post='2264027']
as far as i understand, that is light-years from happening.
[/quote]
Light years? Doubt it.



Also I think Al is a genius.

[Vincent Vega]

I too think Al is a genius, but I must disagree with his assessment of this situation.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1310230228' post='2264973']
Basically every single thing spoken or written by the SSPX reaffirms their loyalty to the Holy Church and the Pope. I'm not going to go find any quotes for you because it's mind-numbingly easy to do so. Spend an hour reading some articles on their website.

[/quote]
And yet, actions speak louder than words.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='MissScripture' timestamp='1310230677' post='2264980']
And yet, actions speak louder than words.
[/quote]
They consider this to be an ongoing state of emergency. I think they're incorrect about that, but it's not that they reject the rule itself.

[Skinzo]

It's best to read the Holy Father on the subject. As he told the bishops in his letter the reasons the SSPX does not have a canonical mission is [b]doctrinal:
"[/b]The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers – even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty – do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church."
"
light of this situation, it is my intention henceforth to join the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” – the body which has been competent since 1988 for those communities and persons who, coming from the Society of Saint Pius X or from similar groups, wish to return to full communion with the Pope – to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This will make it clear that the problems now to be addressed are essentially doctrinal in nature and concern primarily [b]the acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar magisterium of the Popes."


http://blog.beliefnet.com/pontifications/2009/03/popes-letter-on-sspx-excommuni.html


S.

[/b]

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Skinzo' timestamp='1310336462' post='2265462']
It's best to read the Holy Father on the subject. As he told the bishops in his letter the reasons the SSPX does not have a canonical mission is [b]doctrinal:
"[/b]The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers – even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty – do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church."
"
light of this situation, it is my intention henceforth to join the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” – the body which has been competent since 1988 for those communities and persons who, coming from the Society of Saint Pius X or from similar groups, wish to return to full communion with the Pope – to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This will make it clear that the problems now to be addressed are essentially doctrinal in nature and concern primarily [b]the acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar magisterium of the Popes."


http://blog.beliefnet.com/pontifications/2009/03/popes-letter-on-sspx-excommuni.html


S.

[/b]
[/quote]
Did anyone say otherwise?

[4588686]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1310242271' post='2265035']
They consider this to be an ongoing state of emergency. I think they're incorrect about that, but it's not that they reject the rule itself.
[/quote]


Every Schismatic and/or heretical group that still asserts it's Catholic identity claims to be engaging in their disobedient actions because of some higher, truer form of obedience.