Sedevacantists and "Una Cum" [SSPX] Masses

[austinemarie]

You're conflating epikeia with supplied jurisdiction here. For marriages and confessions a trad priest can't rely on epikeia alone; he must have a faculty either from a bishop or superior with ordinary jurisdiction, or from the law itself. Supplied jurisdiction is granted in certain cases in canon law, in the 1917 and 1983 codes. From the 1917 code:

Canon. 209. In common error or positive probable doubt of law or of fact, the Church supplies jurisdiction both for the internal and external forum.

These are the conditions in which supplied jurisdiction is granted in the 1917 and the 1983 code, and it says nothing about it only applying if the see is vacant, the legislator can't be reached, etc. Epikeia can cover a lot of things, but it does not grant faculties for purposes of confession and performing marriages.

Ah, I'm learning (the good side of healthy discussions)! Ok, I'd have to ask more questions about the marriage and confession issue - that, as you state, a faculty must be obtained from a bishop or superior with ordinary jurisdiction, or specifically supplied by law. I think I understand what you mean - I would have to consult. However, on this matter, what comes to my mind is this: since the dispensation of the sacraments is principally disciplinary, I do not see how "epikeia" could not be applied here. Could you show me why?

These are the conditions in which supplied jurisdiction is granted in the 1917 and the 1983 code, and it says nothing about it only applying if the see is vacant, the legislator can't be reached, etc.

See Father Cekada's objection

 

In canon law, the principles of epikeia, cessation, obligation of Orders, and necessity (common need) can only be invoked in the absence of the legislator and of the clergy to whom the legislator has committed the care of souls (cura animarum). And since the resistance clergy all recognize Ratzinger as pope, they necessarily recognize him as the Supreme Legislator as well.

   

So if there is a question about interpreting the “mind of the legislator” (for the resisters to invoke epikeia), the continued binding force of a law (to invoke cessation), priestly or episcopal duty (to interpret the obligations of Orders) or the need to supply for dereliction of duty on the part of clergy with the cura animarum (to invoke state of necessity, common need or “emergency”), all a resistant priest need do is contact Benedict XVI, his Supreme Legislator. Ratzinger will then interpret the law, determine whether it still binds, ascertain the resister’s obligation, and give orders to deal with the emergency.

 

Why should the SSPX appeal to "common error or positive probable doubt of law or of fact" in order to invoke "supplied jurisdiction" to cover its dispensation of the sacraments, when there is the Supreme Legislator to solve this supposed "common error or positive probable doubt of law or of fact"

[NorthernTrad]

... it's the fact the I can't say that I am in full ecclesiastical communion with people who believe what the Novus Ordo teaches and embraces. [edited for emphasis]

How come this terminology is now so often used by traditional catholics: full and partial communion? I thought its use is one of the Novus Ordo novelties; that communion either existed fully, or did not at all - in the sense the word was used before Vatican II. Where am I wrong here? I must be wrong because the SSPX seems to me to take pride in its "partial" communion status with the [supposed] Holy See. That is the same way the Eastern Schismatics are described - in partial communion with the Church [sic]. But before Vatican II, any one in "partial" communion was actually a schismatic: outside the Church.

austinemarie,

You've misunderstood my use of the term.  It was St. Thomas Aquinas who said that recieving communion was a sign of full ecclesiastical communion.  The way I am using it here would be like the SSPV communion rules.  Because the Novus Ordo is not Catholic, you can't recieve communion there and then recieve at their masses.  I hope this clears up the misunderstanding.

[ancientpapacy]

Ok, I'd have to ask more questions about the marriage and confession issue - that, as you state, a faculty must be obtained from a bishop or superior with ordinary jurisdiction, or specifically supplied by law. I think I understand what you mean - I would have to consult. However, on this matter, what comes to my mind is this: since the dispensation of the sacraments is principally disciplinary, I do not see how "epikeia" could not be applied here. Could you show me why?

Epikeia is the equitable interpretation of law-- the idea of upholding the spirit of the law where the letter would be harmful. Epikeia can be invoked for disciplinary matters or the liceity of certain acts, not where the validity of a sacrament is in question. For confessions, a priest needs more than the power of order; he must have jurisdiction or as they say, "faculties." Thus epikeia can't be invoked, but as I said, canon law itself supplies the jurisdiction under the conditions already cited.

Why should the SSPX appeal to "common error or positive probable doubt of law or of fact" in order to invoke "supplied jurisdiction" to cover its dispensation of the sacraments, when there is the Supreme Legislator to solve this supposed "common error or positive probable doubt of law or of fact"

Because these principles were promulgated and are valid even for so called "normal times." The code was compiled under St. Pius X and promulgated by Benedict XV. Why would they put in this provision if they didn't expect it to be used?

 

In canon law, the principles of epikeia, cessation, obligation of Orders, and necessity (common need) can only be invoked in the absence of the legislator and of the clergy to whom the legislator has committed the care of souls (cura animarum). And since the resistance clergy all recognize Ratzinger as pope, they necessarily recognize him as the Supreme Legislator as well.

   

So if there is a question about interpreting the “mind of the legislator” (for the resisters to invoke epikeia), the continued binding force of a law (to invoke cessation), priestly or episcopal duty (to interpret the obligations of Orders) or the need to supply for dereliction of duty on the part of clergy with the cura animarum (to invoke state of necessity, common need or “emergency”), all a resistant priest need do is contact Benedict XVI, his Supreme Legislator. Ratzinger will then interpret the law, determine whether it still binds, ascertain the resister’s obligation, and give orders to deal with the emergency.

 

Epikeia, as I said, has to do with equitable interpretation of law, not merely determining the "mind of the legislator."

The comments cited are polemics disguised as canon law interpretation. Fr Cekada has engaged in the same sort of pope-sifting and arbitrary interpretation that his side  accuses SSPX of doing. He accepts some acts of Pius XII and denies the validity of others. He ignores the Holy Week legislation of Pius XII. He decides arbitrarily which laws no longer bind because their purpose has ceased. He actually argued that the Leonine Prayers need no longer be said on those grounds. I don't think that last opinion, in particular, plays all that well in Peoria. In short, Fr Cekada's interpretations are just as biased, or more so, than the ones he rejects.
 

[austinemarie]

austinemarie,

You've misunderstood my use of the term.  It was St. Thomas Aquinas who said that recieving communion was a sign of full ecclesiastical communion.  The way I am using it here would be like the SSPV communion rules.  Because the Novus Ordo is not Catholic, you can't recieve communion there and then recieve at their masses.  I hope this clears up the misunderstanding.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought your use of the qualification "full" was a presupposition that communion could be "partial" (if this were true, I'd love to see how, from the traditional teaching of the Church). I think I now understand your use of the term.

[austinemarie]

Epikeia is the equitable interpretation of law-- the idea of upholding the spirit of the law where the letter would be harmful. Epikeia can be invoked for disciplinary matters or the liceity of certain acts, not where the validity of a sacrament is in question. For confessions, a priest needs more than the power of order; he must have jurisdiction or as they say, "faculties."

 

With your explanation, I think I have a better understanding of the subject.

Thus epikeia can't be invoked, but as I said, canon law itself supplies the jurisdiction under the conditions already cited.

I don't understand how. Could you explain briefly?

I'd like your reactions to these:

Justified by necessity? It just occurred to me to point out [and I state this based on the assumption that the Novus Ordo is the Roman Catholic Church outside of which no one can be saved]:

• Setting up a marriage tribunal, you would agree, is not a necessity.
• Ordaining priests in the old rite is not a necessity. If the SSPX applies to Rome for deputation to ordain priests in the putatively valid New Rite of ordination, the next morning of the application, we'd hear: "deputation granted!" So there wont be need to have recourse to "supplied jurisdiction."
  
• Hearing confessions in the old rite is not a necessity. If the SSPX applies to Rome for deputation to hear confessions in the putatively valid New Rite of Penance, the next morning of the application, we'd hear: "deputation granted!" So there wont be need to have recourse to "supplied jurisdiction."
• Setting up of chapels indiscriminately all over the world is not a necessity. Since the publishing of the Ecclesia Dei et Afflicta, the SSPX should have joined the FSSP to fight for the setting up of chapels all over the world with permission from Rome. With the present Motu Proprio, why say Mass without deputation? If the SSPX works like the FSSP and puts a strong fight to have more Latin Masses approved, before long, given her influence and spread today, we'd have many Novus Ordo parishes with at least a weekly Indult Mass. So not even indiscriminate setting up of chapels is a necessity - how this is done with no regard to local authority!
  
• etc

So where exactly is the "necessity" today?

Thanks for the time.

[ancientpapacy]

• Setting up a marriage tribunal, you would agree, is not a necessity.
• Ordaining priests in the old rite is not a necessity. If the SSPX applies to Rome for deputation to ordain priests in the putatively valid New Rite of ordination, the next morning of the application, we'd hear: "deputation granted!" So there wont be need to have recourse to "supplied jurisdiction."
  
• Hearing confessions in the old rite is not a necessity. If the SSPX applies to Rome for deputation to hear confessions in the putatively valid New Rite of Penance, the next morning of the application, we'd hear: "deputation granted!" So there wont be need to have recourse to "supplied jurisdiction."
• Setting up of chapels indiscriminately all over the world is not a necessity. Since the publishing of the Ecclesia Dei et Afflicta, the SSPX should have joined the FSSP to fight for the setting up of chapels all over the world with permission from Rome. With the present Motu Proprio, why say Mass without deputation? If the SSPX works like the FSSP and puts a strong fight to have more Latin Masses approved, before long, given her influence and spread today, we'd have many Novus Ordo parishes with at least a weekly Indult Mass. So not even indiscriminate setting up of chapels is a necessity - how this is done with no regard to local authority!
  
• etc

So where exactly is the "necessity" today?

I believe I said the faithful need reverently celebrated Masses and valid sacraments, and the state of necessity justifies the measures needed to provide them.

That state of necessity would exist objectively whether the postconciliar pontiffs were real popes or not, and it would even exist if the Latin NOM is as valid and wonderful as the TLM. As long as the Liturgy celebrated in the local parish, in the real world, is unacceptable, the state of necessity exists. The need to provide the sacraments presupposes a place of worship, so I don't have a problem with chapels and mass centers and so on.

Since the publishing of the Ecclesia Dei et Afflicta, the SSPX should have joined the FSSP to fight for the setting up of chapels all over the world with permission from Rome. With the present Motu Proprio, why say Mass without deputation?

Principles have to be adapted to different situations. I happen to believe that SSPX should try to cultivate good relations with Ecclesia Dei societies and even Novus Ordo bishops and try to work with them if they are of good will.

• Ordaining priests in the old rite is not a necessity...
  
• Hearing confessions in the old rite is not a necessity...

There's a dogmatic issue: can you recognize postconciliar popes and pretend that their universal disciplines are heretical, or faventes haeresi? The answer is no.

Was it illegal for Mgr Lefebvre to have kept the old rites, which for him was at least a subjective necessity, meaning that he was convinced it was necessary?

The recent MP has come to his rescue to by declaring that the old rite was never abrogated; thus SSPX can have its cake and eat it too-- recognize Benedict without resisting him on this point.

[ancientpapacy]

Thus epikeia can't be invoked, but as I said, canon law itself supplies the jurisdiction under the conditions already cited.

I don't understand how. Could you explain briefly?

Epikeia can't be used as justification for administering an invalid sacrament. If you're a priest in Stalin's gulag, you can't consecrate a bishop under epikeia, because it's still invalid.

Similarly, the power of order suffices for a valid mass but not  for absolving.  For a valid absolution  the priest must have  valid orders and  jurisdiction, or  "faculties."
Even if these faculties were unjustly denied, they're still needed for validity.

However, there are at least three situations in which canon law automatically gives a priest jurisdiction: common error, positive probable doubt, and a penitent in danger of death. Thus all 'unapproved' trad priests have to rely on supplied jurisdiction.




 

[Caminus]

Back to Fr. Cekada's presumptuous preaching, the problem lies in the fact that the Church has not declared anyone to be an heretic as well as in the fact that the men who claim to be Popes have not joined a condemned, tacitly or actually, heretical sect.  All of Fr. Cekada's quotes refer to men and sects that had been judged by the authority of the Church.  If one retorts that the conciliar Church is a "novus ordo sect" one merely begs the question as this supposed "sect" has never been judged in anyway by the authority of the Church.  Fr. Cekada was bold enough to take it upon himself to authoritatively declare the revised rite of Holy Orders was "absolutely null and utterly void."  What's to stop him from authoritatively declaring on this matter as well?  One wonders how he can fit all the diabolical pride into that tiny frame.  With regard to imprecise polemical catch-phrases, such as "novus ordo sect," they are as dangerous as the imprecision found within the conciliar documents. 

If one objects further that the "heretic" Benedict has fallen from office by Divine Decree, the answer will be that such a judgment of the internal forum betrays how the Church forms her judgments.  The presumption is in favor of observable facts in the external forum, neither you nor I have the authority to strip a man of something to which he has a right.  According to all observable facts, Benedict has the right to claim the papacy, therefore it would be unjust for anyman to take that claim and title from him. 

Also, if one has good and solid evidence that a man is actually an heretic and manifested this fact of the internal forum in the external fora, then one may avoid them.  But as St. Thomas says, short of an authoritative decree from the Church, it would still be lawful for the faithful to attend a rite performed by such a man. 

With regard to the current matter, I think any reasonable dogmatic theologian prior to Vatican II would have been shocked by the flippant and irresponsible use of the canonical term 'heresy' by so-called sedevacantists.  In actuality, what they would censure as 'heresy' could just as easily be identified as 'error' or depending upon circumstances even simply a 'badly formed proposition.'  This fact alone should send chills down the spine of any man who takes up upon himself to so confidently censure the propositions of texts.   

[austinemarie]

So many weird things. So much confusion. So much misunderstanding.

Caminus, I just pray nobody tries to react to your last post which would mean discussing sedevacantism - that is outlawed on this forum. Why don't you try to see how your thoughts may be wrong. You just may be confusing issues. "... may ..."

One thing I'm sure of is that the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church is infallible, and this doctrine is so much misunderstood. I wish we could make very earnest studies on the subject - trying to see if there are other dimensions to the subject that have been obscured, that have been ignored. An earnest search would definitely yeild results.

I remember seeing this on TRADITIO some time ago.

For us, we are in full communion with all popes and all bishops who preceded Vatican Council II, celebrating exactly the Mass that they codified and celebrated, teaching the catechism that they composed, rising up against the errors that they condemned many times in their encyclicals and their pastoral letters. Therefore, judge carefully on which side the break has occurred....

 

We, on the other hand, have never wanted to belong to this system that styles itself the Conciliar Church and defines itself by the Novus Ordo Missae, the oecumenism of Indifferentism, and the secularization of all society.  Yes, we have no part, nullam partem habemus, with the pantheon of religions of Assisi; our own excommunication by a decree of your Eminence or another dicastery would only be incontestable proof of that fact. We cannot demand more than to be declared excommunicated from the infidel wind that has blown in the Church for twenty-five years, excluded from impious communion with the infidels....

 

Therefore, to be associated publicly with the excommunication that hit the six Catholic bishops [Lefebvre, Castro de Meyer, Fellay, Galarreta, Tissier de Mallerais, Williamson], defenders of the Faith entirely and wholely, would be for us a mark of honour and a sign of orthodoxy before the faithful. The faithful have, in effect, a strict right to know that the priests with whom they associate are not in the communion with a Counterfeit Church, progressive, pentecostal, and syncretist....

 

/signed/
 Fr. Franz Schmidberger, Superior General
 and the Twenty-Three Superiors of the Regional Seminaries and Autonomous Houses of the Society of St. Pius X worldwide

I used to think this is the basis of the traditional movement, not a mere desire for reverently celebrated sacraments.

It's all confusing, and sometimes, funny.

Our Lady, Cause of Our Joy today, please pray for us.

[Caminus]

Regarding the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium, it is to be understood as distinct from the mere operation of the authentic magisterium.  The difference between the two is one of constancy, which, with regard to the former, lies in the teaching of a particular doctrine over a period of time and place (universal) which amounts to a historic persistence that can be discovered by examining the acts of the papal and conciliar magistracy, which, taken individually are not infallible per se, but taken in their totality, amounts to a doctrine taught infallibly.  With regard to the latter, the authentic magisterium, which is an act of the papal or conciliar magistracy taken singly and as historically unique, is not and cannot be considered infallible. 

With regard to your quote from the Superior General of the SSPX, the difference clearly lies in the fact that he used the term "counterfeit church" in a metaphorical way, denoting a crisis of faith residing in the principle part of the Church, the hierarchy, whereas the sedevacantist uses the term in a strict, literal, juridical sense of an actual sect distinct and totally separate from the "true ecclesia." 

I agree that these are confusing times, but that only partially excuses the making of rash and unsound judgments.  Nothing within the sedevacantist thesis, even if I granted the supposed metaphysical certitude they pretend to have, is actually necessary or useful to speculative or practical Catholicism.  It is rather a superficial fix which in the end, after momentarily satisfying the mind and relieving oneself of intellectual burden, amounts to the multiplication of problems, fictional though they may be.  In the end, it will cause the mind to collapse on itself and seal off any person who does not share this opinion.  This thesis will create a gnostic sect which will refuse to admit that anyone else is Catholic but their own.