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Struggle For Tradition: A Look At The Position Of SSPX
By John P. Connolly, The Bulletin
The Vatican made quite a stir last weekend when it decided to withdraw its excommunication edicts against four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), a traditionalist Catholic order that is still formally unrecognized by the Vatican.
In spite of the lifting of the excommunications, the society’s bishops and priests remain suspended from active ministry in the Catholic Church under canon law. The bishops are still barred from ordaining priests or exercising any authority in the Church under a 1976 papal decree leveled by Pope Paul VI that remains in effect.
John Vennari, editor of the Catholic Family News, a monthly traditionalist Catholic newsmagazine, took the time to talk to The Bulletin about the SSPX’s position and to outline where things stand between the order and the Vatican.
Mr. Vennari said that the SSPX sees itself as trying to preserve what the Catholic Church has taught for 2,000 years against new tendencies set out by the Second Vatican Council.
“Most people will agree that Vatican II did launch tremendous change in the Church,” said Mr. Vennari. “The nature of the change Archbishop Lefebvre said was contrary to what the faith should be, particularly in the new orientation toward ecumenism and religious liberty.”
Mr. Vennari said the new ecumenism is “a path to unity that never speaks about the need for the non-Catholic to convert to Catholicism.”
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of the SSPX, was excommunicated in 1988 with four bishops whom he had consecrated without the permission of the Vatican. The four bishops were consecrated in line with Archbishop Lefebvre’s desire to ensure preconciliar Roman Catholic tradition.
“In 1987, the year before he consecrated the bishops, [Archbishop Lefebvre] said, ‘I’ve been in dialogue with the Vatican for 14 years, and I’m in the exact same place I was 14 years ago’” said Mr. Vennari.
In many respects, the impasse between the Vatican and the SSPX is back to where it was in 1988, with some differences. Because the SSPX still has doctrinal differences with the Vatican, until those differences are resolved, unification will not happen.
“The resolution they’re talking about is not necessarily saying to the pope, ‘you have to denounce Vatican II,’ but any sort of regularization can only work if we can continue to resist the points of the council that we see as being out of step with traditional Catholic doctrine.”
But there are several other things that would need to happen before reunification would happen, as well.
Part of the irregular situation surrounding the SSPX is their assertion of a supplied jurisdiction. The sacraments of matrimony and confession can only be performed with permission of the diocesan bishop wherever they are performed. Since the SSPX’s irregular position occurred, some suspect that confessions and marriages are not validly performed by SSPX, because they are not done with the permission of the local bishop. SSPX says they have a supplied jurisdiction for their chapels, and the Vatican would need to recognize that jurisdiction should reunification occur.
The SSPX made the lifting of restrictions on the celebration of the more traditional form of the Roman Mass according to the missal decreed by Pope John XXIII in 1962 a condition of reunion with Rome. Liberating the older form of the Mass from prior restrictions meant any Roman Catholic priest could be allowed to say Mass according to the older rite without obtaining permission from the local bishop. Pope Benedict granted this request on July 7, 2007 when he issued his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.
Presently, the traditional form of the Roman Mass is said regularly with the blessing of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia at Our Lady of Consolation Church and Our Lady of Lourdes in Philadelphia and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Plymouth Meeting. Another Mass according to the traditional form was offered last weekend at St. Paul’s in South Philadelphia.
The SSPX maintains a local chapel, St. Jude’s Church, in Eddystone, Delaware County, without any connection to the archdiocese.
Mr. Vennari said the SSPX has a lot to offer the Church, especially in the area of vocations.
“Across the board from what I see, the more traditional the seminaries and religious orders, the more vocations they get,” he said. “They appeal the most to the ‘Sensus Catholicum,’ the Catholic things. When a man goes to seminary, he doesn’t want to be walking around wearing dungarees with a guitar strapped to him. He wants to be set apart and consecrated to God.”
The SSPX has seen growth in the years since the excommunications, opening schools where dioceses were closing them due to dwindling attendance. There are also many people who attend SSPX chapels for Mass that have swelled its numbers during a time where parish attendance is down.
“When Bishop Fellay spoke with the pope, said to Benedict as a gentleman,” said Mr. Vennari. “He said, ‘Your Holiness, I wish you to consider that the people who come to our chapels suffer very much. They are denounced as being outside the Church; they are falsely denounced as schismatic; they are falsely denounced as excommunicated; they suffer in their families; and they would rather suffer all that and go to our chapels than go to your parishes.”
Mr. Vennari summed up the SSPX position in two statements from Archbishop Lefebvre.
“Our future is in our past,” says the first statement. “Since we have turned out back on our past, the church is in collapse.”
The second says that the “master stroke of Satan was to sow disobedience to all of catholic tradition through obedience.”
“If the popes [of today] tell me to disobey the popes of the past, then there’s no reason I should obey him now,” Mr. Vennari said.
And now that the excommunications have been lifted, the SSPX is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to continue forward with reunification at last.
John Connolly can be reached at jconnolly@thebulletin.us
In spite of the lifting of the excommunications, the society’s bishops and priests remain suspended from active ministry in the Catholic Church under canon law. The bishops are still barred from ordaining priests or exercising any authority in the Church under a 1976 papal decree leveled by Pope Paul VI that remains in effect.
John Vennari, editor of the Catholic Family News, a monthly traditionalist Catholic newsmagazine, took the time to talk to The Bulletin about the SSPX’s position and to outline where things stand between the order and the Vatican.
Mr. Vennari said that the SSPX sees itself as trying to preserve what the Catholic Church has taught for 2,000 years against new tendencies set out by the Second Vatican Council.
“Most people will agree that Vatican II did launch tremendous change in the Church,” said Mr. Vennari. “The nature of the change Archbishop Lefebvre said was contrary to what the faith should be, particularly in the new orientation toward ecumenism and religious liberty.”
Mr. Vennari said the new ecumenism is “a path to unity that never speaks about the need for the non-Catholic to convert to Catholicism.”
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of the SSPX, was excommunicated in 1988 with four bishops whom he had consecrated without the permission of the Vatican. The four bishops were consecrated in line with Archbishop Lefebvre’s desire to ensure preconciliar Roman Catholic tradition.
“In 1987, the year before he consecrated the bishops, [Archbishop Lefebvre] said, ‘I’ve been in dialogue with the Vatican for 14 years, and I’m in the exact same place I was 14 years ago’” said Mr. Vennari.
In many respects, the impasse between the Vatican and the SSPX is back to where it was in 1988, with some differences. Because the SSPX still has doctrinal differences with the Vatican, until those differences are resolved, unification will not happen.
“The resolution they’re talking about is not necessarily saying to the pope, ‘you have to denounce Vatican II,’ but any sort of regularization can only work if we can continue to resist the points of the council that we see as being out of step with traditional Catholic doctrine.”
But there are several other things that would need to happen before reunification would happen, as well.
Part of the irregular situation surrounding the SSPX is their assertion of a supplied jurisdiction. The sacraments of matrimony and confession can only be performed with permission of the diocesan bishop wherever they are performed. Since the SSPX’s irregular position occurred, some suspect that confessions and marriages are not validly performed by SSPX, because they are not done with the permission of the local bishop. SSPX says they have a supplied jurisdiction for their chapels, and the Vatican would need to recognize that jurisdiction should reunification occur.
The SSPX made the lifting of restrictions on the celebration of the more traditional form of the Roman Mass according to the missal decreed by Pope John XXIII in 1962 a condition of reunion with Rome. Liberating the older form of the Mass from prior restrictions meant any Roman Catholic priest could be allowed to say Mass according to the older rite without obtaining permission from the local bishop. Pope Benedict granted this request on July 7, 2007 when he issued his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.
Presently, the traditional form of the Roman Mass is said regularly with the blessing of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia at Our Lady of Consolation Church and Our Lady of Lourdes in Philadelphia and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Plymouth Meeting. Another Mass according to the traditional form was offered last weekend at St. Paul’s in South Philadelphia.
The SSPX maintains a local chapel, St. Jude’s Church, in Eddystone, Delaware County, without any connection to the archdiocese.
Mr. Vennari said the SSPX has a lot to offer the Church, especially in the area of vocations.
“Across the board from what I see, the more traditional the seminaries and religious orders, the more vocations they get,” he said. “They appeal the most to the ‘Sensus Catholicum,’ the Catholic things. When a man goes to seminary, he doesn’t want to be walking around wearing dungarees with a guitar strapped to him. He wants to be set apart and consecrated to God.”
The SSPX has seen growth in the years since the excommunications, opening schools where dioceses were closing them due to dwindling attendance. There are also many people who attend SSPX chapels for Mass that have swelled its numbers during a time where parish attendance is down.
“When Bishop Fellay spoke with the pope, said to Benedict as a gentleman,” said Mr. Vennari. “He said, ‘Your Holiness, I wish you to consider that the people who come to our chapels suffer very much. They are denounced as being outside the Church; they are falsely denounced as schismatic; they are falsely denounced as excommunicated; they suffer in their families; and they would rather suffer all that and go to our chapels than go to your parishes.”
Mr. Vennari summed up the SSPX position in two statements from Archbishop Lefebvre.
“Our future is in our past,” says the first statement. “Since we have turned out back on our past, the church is in collapse.”
The second says that the “master stroke of Satan was to sow disobedience to all of catholic tradition through obedience.”
“If the popes [of today] tell me to disobey the popes of the past, then there’s no reason I should obey him now,” Mr. Vennari said.
And now that the excommunications have been lifted, the SSPX is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to continue forward with reunification at last.
John Connolly can be reached at jconnolly@thebulletin.us
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Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of thebulletin.us.
gene54 wrote on Feb 3, 2009 2:40 AM:
" dominick, it is totally inaccurate regarding the information about Bishop Lefebvre; first of all, his was valid consacrated, secondly traditionalits, are not the same as sede-vacantists; the former accept the authoroty of the pope, and the latter don't...this false information mislead people to a total confussion. "
fredgarvin wrote on Feb 3, 2009 11:56 PM:
" gene54, simply stating the exact opposite of what dominick says, "his was valid consacrated" is not even a valid argument...at least dominick gives an argument, whether it's true or not I don't know, but just stating the opposite is not refuting his argument "
sara wrote on Feb 11, 2009 1:28 PM:
" I want to thank the Bulletin for the only balanced traditional Catholic article I have read since the lifting of the "excommunications" by the Holy Father.
Basically everything Dominick said about the SSPX is wrong, but there is neither time nor space to correct it. Even many sedevacantist writers will acknowledge the validity of Archbishop Lefebve's consencration- even if the info about the excommunication of one of the bishops is accurate (which there is signifigant reason to doubt), there were two bishops presiding, which is why there is always two bishops when ordaining a bishop- just like when the four bishops of the SSPX were ordained, there was Archbishop Lefebve and Castro De Meyer (forgive the mispelling).
If anyone wants to read and understand the SSPX's position, there are many good sites out there- starting with http://www.sspx.org. There is also http://www.cfnews.org/cfn.htm, www.fisheaters.com, http://www.fatima.org/- among many. I will simply say that anyone who has done any reading at all of pre-VII material can see the direct link between the SSPX's position and pre-VII, which is probably at least in part why many, many priests and bishops go out of their way to not even so much as quote anything prior to the Second Vatican Council. "
Basically everything Dominick said about the SSPX is wrong, but there is neither time nor space to correct it. Even many sedevacantist writers will acknowledge the validity of Archbishop Lefebve's consencration- even if the info about the excommunication of one of the bishops is accurate (which there is signifigant reason to doubt), there were two bishops presiding, which is why there is always two bishops when ordaining a bishop- just like when the four bishops of the SSPX were ordained, there was Archbishop Lefebve and Castro De Meyer (forgive the mispelling).
If anyone wants to read and understand the SSPX's position, there are many good sites out there- starting with http://www.sspx.org. There is also http://www.cfnews.org/cfn.htm, www.fisheaters.com, http://www.fatima.org/- among many. I will simply say that anyone who has done any reading at all of pre-VII material can see the direct link between the SSPX's position and pre-VII, which is probably at least in part why many, many priests and bishops go out of their way to not even so much as quote anything prior to the Second Vatican Council. "
dominick wrote on Apr 7, 2009 1:38 PM:
" Sara, thank you for your reply concerning my criticism of the SSPX.
You are right that many "sedevacantist" traditionalists believe in the validity of Lefebvre's consecration -- but then, they also are the ones who use priests and bishops from the Lefebvre line. Not all sedeplenist traditionalists have believed in the validity, and this issue was even brought up in the publications of the SSPX itself.
You are correct that there were two bishops (and not the usual three) presiding for the illicit 1988 consecrations, and that even without the third bishop such consecrations made upon valid Catholic priests would be considered valid.
However, as you must know, those men receiving the consecration had been privately ordained priests at the hand of Lefebvre. If Lefebvre himself was not a bishop nor even a priest (which is what many maintain), then those men were never priests -- therefore the 1988 "consecrations" were ineffectual and void.
You're probably a victim of the SSPX's propaganda. They always bring out the fact that a real bishop, Castro De Meyer, was a co-consecrator. But they usually omit mentioning that Lefebvre *alone* had ordained these men priests. So if Lefebvre was not a bishop, the whole thing collapses. Richard Williamson has said in public (the SSPX since removed it from their web site) that episcopal consecration can turn a layman into a bishop, but if you study Canon Law you'll see that this idea is outrageous and has never, ever been practiced in the Church.
The SSPX position is not at all pre-VII, actually; they refuse the Traditional Latin Mass in favor of John XXIII's Modernized Missal of 1962. They allow men ordained in the new rite of Holy Orders to distribute "sacraments." The follow the 1983 Code of Canon Law. They shun all other traditionalists and (against the writing of pre-Vatican II popes) they call them names like "sedevacantists" instead of fellow Catholics. What, exactly, is traditional about the SSPX at all? Some incense and some vestures? (They don't even do *that* properly -- see the traditionalmass.org site for articles about how the SSPX "bishops" don't even wear their vestments properly!)
Echoing the sentiment of others here, I'd like to thank the Bulletin for good and unbiased coverage of this issue. "
You are right that many "sedevacantist" traditionalists believe in the validity of Lefebvre's consecration -- but then, they also are the ones who use priests and bishops from the Lefebvre line. Not all sedeplenist traditionalists have believed in the validity, and this issue was even brought up in the publications of the SSPX itself.
You are correct that there were two bishops (and not the usual three) presiding for the illicit 1988 consecrations, and that even without the third bishop such consecrations made upon valid Catholic priests would be considered valid.
However, as you must know, those men receiving the consecration had been privately ordained priests at the hand of Lefebvre. If Lefebvre himself was not a bishop nor even a priest (which is what many maintain), then those men were never priests -- therefore the 1988 "consecrations" were ineffectual and void.
You're probably a victim of the SSPX's propaganda. They always bring out the fact that a real bishop, Castro De Meyer, was a co-consecrator. But they usually omit mentioning that Lefebvre *alone* had ordained these men priests. So if Lefebvre was not a bishop, the whole thing collapses. Richard Williamson has said in public (the SSPX since removed it from their web site) that episcopal consecration can turn a layman into a bishop, but if you study Canon Law you'll see that this idea is outrageous and has never, ever been practiced in the Church.
The SSPX position is not at all pre-VII, actually; they refuse the Traditional Latin Mass in favor of John XXIII's Modernized Missal of 1962. They allow men ordained in the new rite of Holy Orders to distribute "sacraments." The follow the 1983 Code of Canon Law. They shun all other traditionalists and (against the writing of pre-Vatican II popes) they call them names like "sedevacantists" instead of fellow Catholics. What, exactly, is traditional about the SSPX at all? Some incense and some vestures? (They don't even do *that* properly -- see the traditionalmass.org site for articles about how the SSPX "bishops" don't even wear their vestments properly!)
Echoing the sentiment of others here, I'd like to thank the Bulletin for good and unbiased coverage of this issue. "
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dominick wrote on Jan 29, 2009 9:54 AM:
But most contradictory of all, the SSPX bishops and priests have a questionable lineage, since they all ceom from Lefebvre. Lefebvre himself was ordained priest by an ineligible, Achilles Lienart who had been excommunicated and ineligible himself for the office of episcopacy. So Lefebvre never was a priest, therefore not a bishop, therefore all SSPX priests and bishops will need to be reordained because right now they can't forgive sins or confect the Eucharist. "