The Sspx

January 25, 2009

+JMJ+

Ok...I've done allot of reading on the Society and understand their views fairly well. I agree with many of thier sentiments (a great desire for a return to traditional piety) though obviously am repulsed by any aversion to the reforms of Holy Mother Chruch. I believe that the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite can and should be celebrated as beatifully as the EF so often is.
Now...because of my great affiintiy for the traditions of the Church, I am being questioned by many friends about where the SSPX stands. I must admit I am very confused myself. I know the Bishops were excommunicated due to their illicit consecrations. However, thier seems to be debate as to whether or not the order itslef is schismatic (how does this related to the priests laity etc)...and what needs to be done to remedy this situation. I have two friends who have joined them this past year...to my great sorrow, and for obvious reasons would like to know where they stand.

Thanks in advance!

+Per Mariam

January 25, 2009

[quote name='Servus_Mariae' post='1761251' date='Jan 25 2009, 01:41 PM']+JMJ+

Ok...I've done allot of reading on the Society and understand their views fairly well. I agree with many of thier sentiments (a great desire for a return to traditional piety) though obviously am repulsed by any aversion to the reforms of Holy Mother Chruch. I believe that the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite can and should be celebrated as beatifully as the EF so often is.
Now...because of my great affiintiy for the traditions of the Church, I am being questioned by many friends about where the SSPX stands. I must admit I am very confused myself. I know the Bishops were excommunicated due to their illicit consecrations. However, thier seems to be debate as to whether or not the order itslef is schismatic (how does this related to the priests laity etc)...and what needs to be done to remedy this situation. I have two friends who have joined them this past year...to my great sorrow, and for obvious reasons would like to know where they stand.[/quote]

As far as I understand, the formal term "schism" means a group that has deliberately separated themselves from their church of origin, with the schismatic group believing they are now the true church while the group they've left has gone astray. A schismatic sect has no intention of ever rejoining the church they split from, though they are usually eager to accept members from it.

So, it's hard to say in the case of the SSPX. It depends on whose comments you read, and when. If they think that Vatican II was erroneous and they're the only real Catholics now, they're in schism. If they think there's a bit of a misunderstanding about their status and that administrative details and grandstanding got them into a situation they hadn't wanted, then they're not. Both have happened to various groups throughout church history. It's hard to tell for sure until it's all over.

I don't read a lot of official SSPX stuff, because it's just not that important to me, :idontknow: but what I did seemed to be in complete denial of any irregularity of their status at all. So... it's strange.

January 25, 2009

I agree that it is hard to say with the SSPX. However, their priests and bishops have been told by the Church that they are not to celebrate the sacraments and they continue to do so- surely that is not a sign of unity?

Their biggest problem is that of obedience. They always claim to recognize the Holy See, but they also use scathing language to criticize certain actions by the Pope (WYD, for example).

January 25, 2009

[quote name='aalpha1989' post='1761318' date='Jan 25 2009, 03:32 PM']I agree that it is hard to say with the SSPX. However, their priests and bishops have been told by the Church that they are not to celebrate the sacraments and they continue to do so- surely that is not a sign of unity?

Their biggest problem is that of obedience. They always claim to recognize the Holy See, but they also use scathing language to criticize certain actions by the Pope (WYD, for example).[/quote]

I'm kinda confused myself-their FAQ section about re: John Paul II is basically a page dedicated to dissing everything about him. But, they claimed to recognize his authority. I don't think they send very clear messages. -Katie

January 25, 2009

[quote name='philothea' post='1761306' date='Jan 25 2009, 12:22 PM']As far as I understand, the formal term "schism" means a group that has deliberately separated themselves from their church of origin, with the schismatic group believing [b]they are now the true church[/b] while the group they've left has gone astray. . . .[/quote]
I am no fan of the SSPX, but I do not believe that the SSPX claim to be a Church; instead, they are a "priestly fraternity."

Edited January 25, 2009 by Apotheoun

January 25, 2009

the excommunications and penalties against the four bishops of the SSPX were rescinded as of January 21, 2009. the society itself still has no regular canonical status within the Church yet, pending talks between it and Rome. they are not in formal schism and the Ecclesia Dei commission has used very ambiguous language about their status.. wherever their precise status is at the moment, I think we can very clearly say it's moving in the direct towards full unity. it is acceptable to attend their masses if you have a serious reason to though it is not recommended at all.

the SSPX does not have an aversion to all reforms; if they did, they wouldn't use the 1962 missal of blessed John XXIII... they are against many of the reforms as they were actually done in the past (soon to be) 50 years since the Second Vatican Council.

criticism of various things John Paul II did does not translate into not recognizing his authority. John Paul II was not, gasp, shock, my favorite pope of all time (and I do not attribute the title "the great" to him myself)... John Paul II probably wouldn't rank in my top 10 favorite popes... that doesn't make me a bad Catholic, I just don't like a lot of things that he did.. and I'm not required to as a Catholic.

January 25, 2009

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1761432' date='Jan 25 2009, 04:49 PM']criticism of various things John Paul II did does not translate into not recognizing his authority. John Paul II was not, gasp, shock, my favorite pope of all time (and I do not attribute the title "the great" to him myself)... John Paul II probably wouldn't rank in my top 10 favorite popes... that doesn't make me a bad Catholic, I just don't like a lot of things that he did.. and I'm not required to as a Catholic.[/quote]

It's fine to not be a big fan of JPII, everyone is entitled to their personal opinions-but the fact that they seem to devote a lot of energy to criticizing him as a group, in public, while at the same time proclaiming that they are acceptant of his authority is kind of a mixed message, imo. -Katie

January 25, 2009

As far as I'm concerned, if they're in schism, I would know that they aren't being led by the Holy Spirit. End of discussiion.

January 25, 2009

"The bishops, priests and faithful of the Society of St Pius X are not schismatics. It is Archbishop Lefebrve who has undertaken an illicit episcopal consecration and therefore performed a schismatic act. It is for this reason that the Bishops consecrated by him have been suspended and excommunicated. The priests and faithful of the Society have not been excommunicated. They are not heretics." -Cardinal Castrillón [i]President of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”[/i]

And now the Bishops are no longer excommunicated.

Edited January 25, 2009 by KnightofChrist

January 25, 2009

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1761432' date='Jan 25 2009, 03:49 PM']the excommunications and penalties against the four bishops of the SSPX were rescinded as of January 21, 2009. the society itself still has no regular canonical status within the Church yet, pending talks between it and Rome. they are not in formal schism and the Ecclesia Dei commission has used very ambiguous language about their status.. wherever their precise status is at the moment, I think we can very clearly say it's moving in the direct towards full unity. it is acceptable to attend their masses if you have a serious reason to though it is not recommended at all.

the SSPX does not have an aversion to all reforms; if they did, they wouldn't use the 1962 missal of blessed John XXIII... they are against many of the reforms as they were actually done in the past (soon to be) 50 years since the Second Vatican Council.

criticism of various things John Paul II did does not translate into not recognizing his authority. John Paul II was not, gasp, shock, my favorite pope of all time (and I do not attribute the title "the great" to him myself)... John Paul II probably wouldn't rank in my top 10 favorite popes... that doesn't make me a bad Catholic, I just don't like a lot of things that he did.. and I'm not required to as a Catholic.[/quote]

I always love reading your posts on controversial topics because you say what I believe much better than I ever do. Just sayin'.

January 25, 2009

[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1761446' date='Jan 25 2009, 04:57 PM']"The bishops, priests and faithful of the Society of St Pius X are not schismatics. It is Archbishop Lefebrve who has undertaken an illicit episcopal consecration and therefore performed a schismatic act. It is for this reason that the Bishops consecrated by him have been suspended and excommunicated. The priests and faithful of the Society have not been excommunicated. They are not heretics." -Cardinal Castrillón [i]President of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”[/i]

And now the Bishops are no longer excommunicated.[/quote]

Ok, what exactly is their deal with Vatican II, though? Do they accept it or not? Or are they working toward that? I think there is a lot of grey area here...-Katie

Edited January 25, 2009 by Tinkerlina

January 25, 2009

[quote name='Tinkerlina' post='1761451' date='Jan 25 2009, 05:00 PM']Ok, what exactly is their deal with Vatican II, though? Do they accept it or not? Or are they working toward that? I think there is a lot of grey area here...-Katie[/quote]

I will have to look more into it. But Bishop Fellay has said they do accept Vatican II in that it does not reject tradition.

They are worried about the some of ambiguous language within the Vatican II documents.

Edited January 25, 2009 by KnightofChrist

January 25, 2009

[url="http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/mershon/080711"]The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei confirms officially: Society of St. Pius X within the Church, not in formal schism; Catholics commit no sin nor incur any canonical penalty for Mass attendance[/url]

By Brian Mershon

January 25, 2009

[quote name='Tinkerlina' post='1761451' date='Jan 25 2009, 02:00 PM']Ok, what exactly is their deal with Vatican II, though? Do they accept it or not? Or are they working toward that? I think there is a lot of grey area here...-Katie[/quote]
I believe that the SSPX reject some of the hings taught at Vatican II. That said, I don't think it is that big of an issue.

Edited January 25, 2009 by Apotheoun

January 26, 2009

[quote name='Tinkerlina' post='1761438' date='Jan 25 2009, 03:52 PM']It's fine to not be a big fan of JPII, everyone is entitled to their personal opinions-but the fact that they seem to devote a lot of energy to criticizing him as a group, in public, while at the same time proclaiming that they are acceptant of his authority is kind of a mixed message, imo. -Katie[/quote]

I know they criticized JPII when he preached the mutual submission between husband and wife. (Can't find the quote right now.)

January 26, 2009

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1761802' date='Jan 25 2009, 10:45 PM']I know they criticized JPII when he preached the mutual submission between husband and wife. (Can't find the quote right now.)[/quote]

I'm not surprised based on what I read on their website. They really seem to have it out for JPII. -Katie

January 26, 2009

Of course they don't like JPII. As Archbishop Karol Wojtyla of Krakow, he pushed for some of the ideas in Vatican II that Archbishop Lefebvre took issue with. The Council sided with the future pope, and Lefebvre was left in the position of giving in or splitting. He chose to split, though not right away (meaning, to give him some credit, he at least tried to make it work at first). SSPX doesn't just disagree with the [i]interpretation[/i] of the Council...they take issue with some of the actual decisions made by the Council. There's a lot of history and politics that go into their views and decisions, but ultimately it comes down to a question of whether or not they accept the authority of the Magisterium, and pay it more than just lip service. Hopefully, they do, and we will see some real unity in the coming months.

From what I wrote on the other thread:

It wasn't just about the celebration of the mass. The Novus Ordo is not the only part of Vatican II they...fail to accept. There is also that minor issue of religious freedom, and the proper relationship between church and state. I am not going to claim that George Weigel (certainly a fan of JPII) is a fair chronicler of the disagreement, but he had this to say:

[quote]Why was religious freedom so controversial at Vatican II?

Some Council Fathers took a philosophical position that, once its premises were granted, was at least logical. "Error" had "no rights;" states should recognize this so that justice would be serbved; therefore, the optimum arrangement between Church and state was one in which the state recognized the truth of Catholicism and gave it a privileged place in society. Others, including a vocal French missionary archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre, were convinced that any Catholic endorsement of religious freedom meant endorsing the radical secularizing politics that had been let loose during the French Revolution. Still others worried that a conciliar defense of religious freedom would involve such a dramatic development of doctrine as to suggest that the Church had been gravely mistaken in the past. These concerns not infrequently overlapped in some bishops' minds.

On the other side of the issue were three clusters of bishops. The Council Fathers from the United States had lived an experience in which Catholicism flourished under a constitutionally mandated "separation" between Church and state. They did not think this way of arranging things should be considered inferior to the way things had been done in the Europe of altar-and-throne alliances. A second cluster was composed of those Western European bishops who, for theological and political reasons, were determined to distance the Church from ancien regime nostalgia. Then there were the bishops of east central Europe, many of whom had done time in prisons or under house arrest, who wanted a strong conciliar defense of religious freedom to strengthen them in their struggle against communism.[/quote]

The issue was unresolved by the end of the third session, so it was the fourth session that gave us "Dignitatis Humanae" ([url="http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html"]Declaration on Religious Freedom[/url]). Reading that document, it is clear that the Council sided with Wojtyla, the young archbishop from Krakow, and others of like mind...not Lefebvre.

While many will readily admit that Ratzinger was sharply critical of many interpretations of Vatican II that he felt to be illegitimate, he has always upheld the Council itself as legit. That is a very important distinction, and the same cannot be said of Lefebvre or SSPX. That is why the 1984 indult permitting more widespread use of the Tridentine mass was not enough to prevent the split.

[quote]Lefebvre's disdain for the revised Roman rite had never been the core of his dissent from Vatican II, which was theological, not simply liturgical.

John Paul II considered [u]Dignitatus Humanae[/u], the Declaration on Religious Freedom, to be an interpretive key to the entire Council. Archbishop Lefebvre thought that [u]Dignitatus Humanae[/u] was heresy, and believed that an established Church in an officially Catholic state was the will of Christ. John Paul II had been one of the intellectual architects of [u]Gaudium et Spes[/u]. The Pope recalled that Lefebvre, whose "theology was quite different," had an entirely different "vision of the Church." Lefebvre's refusal to be placated by the 1984 indult made unmistakably clear his conviction that Vatican II had been a colossal act of irresponsibility and infidelity, of which liturgical change was only the most obvious manifestation.[/quote]

The ordination of the 4 bishops without permission (and the subsequent automatic excommunications) happened in 1988. Both John Paul II and Ratzinger worked very hard to prevent the schism, reaching an agreement with Lefebvre on May 5th. However, Lefebvre repudiated the agreement the next day, and in June announced his intent to go forward with the ordinations. As Weigel put it, "When the final choice had to be made, he hated modernity more than he loved Rome."

[i](All quotations taken from Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II)[/i]

January 26, 2009

Hold the phone on the SSPX having to fully embrace Vatican II.

From RORATE CÆLI

[center][url="http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/"]What will the SSPX have to do?"Vatican II is not a dogma of Faith," Roman sources say[/url][/center]

In her article on six questions related to the Decree which remitted the sanction of excommunication of the four bishops of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX), the Vatican correspondent for French newspaper La Croix (the Catholic-owned daily), Isabelle de Gaulmyn includes some well-known facts.

However, there is some new information in the text, which we present below.

1. Possible news conference by Cardinal Castrillón:

[indent]"This week, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, president of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, which is in charge of this reintegration, should explain it [the future possibilities] publicly to the press."

[/indent]
2. Letter of Cardinal Bertone. Regarding the question on whether this "reintegration encompasses an acknowledgment of the teachings of Vatican II", De Gaulmyn reveals that the decree was the object of a letter sent by the Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone, to Curial authorities:

[indent] "This is the whole problem. The decree published on Saturday does not speak of Vatican II, but it evokes indirectly the 'problem posed at the origin'. Not more than, according to our information, the letter sent by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone to the authorities of the Curia, in which he makes this gesture known."[/indent]

3. So, what about Vatican II? At least for the moment there does not seem to be any desire from those responsible for the discussions on the Vatican side to demand from the SSPX the express acceptance of one specific Council (the Second Vatican Council or, for instance, the First Lyon Council), since they may all be implictly included in more generic expressions. In the words of De Gaulmyn:

[indent]"The refusal of the teachings of the Council is the true cause of the rupture of the Integrists. For the constitution of the Institute of the Good Shepherd [IBP] by former members of the Fraternity, in 2006, its members explicitly vowed 'to have a positive attitude of study and communication with the Apostolic See, avoiding all controversy, (...) regarding certain points taught by the Second Vatican Council or regarding subsequent reforms of the liturgy and of the law, and which seem to us hardly reconcilable with Tradition.'

"[b]Nothing of the sort this time, according to our sources: 'Vatican II is not a dogma of faith', they say. From the moment in which the bishops and priests of the Fraternity recognize the Church, and the Magisterium of the Pope, that will suffice as an implicit acknowledgment.[/b]"[/indent]

-------------

Also some words from then Cardinal Ratzinger

"There are many accounts of it [the Second Vatican Council] which give the impression that, from Vatican II onward, everything has been changed, and that what preceded it has no value or, at best, has value only in the light of Vatican II. The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of super-dogma which takes away the importance of all the rest."

January 26, 2009

The article didn't seem to definitively say that they didn't have to accept Vatican II, just that they didn't have to specifically, publically accept Vatican II if it is implicit in more general agreements. It is not going to be possible for them to come back into full communion with the Church if they reject the council. I would still think it would be wise for them to issue a public acceptance if and when they intend to accept Vatican II in order to clear up confusion. As for Cardinal Ratzinger's quote-I don't see why that has anything to do with the SSPX not having to acknowledge Vatican II. -Katie

Edited January 26, 2009 by Tinkerlina

January 26, 2009

Whether the SSPX will have to issue a statement saying that they accept Vatican II or not will be up to the Pope and the leaders of the SSPX.

What people here at Phatmass think on this issue is really irrelevant.

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