Question for other Catholics who are "SSPX'ers"

[Catholicmilkman]

What if all the other confessors in one's area say "oh that's not a sin anymore"?

I find that hard to believe. Even in Detroit where the crisis hit the hardest I can find a conservative priest that will absolute me of my sins. If he was the only priest I could go to for confession then I'd just tell him that I still believed it was a sin at the time, I believe all priests have to absolve you if you say that. If he won't absolve you then go to your bishop, if he doesn't do anything then write Rome.

Certainly we cannot chose our bishops.  But we are only bound to obey the bishop in what is lawful and good.

Oddly enough I guess we can choose our bishop since we can move so easily today.

Quo primum aside, because that is a complicated discussion, and assuming you don't mean a new form of the Sacraments in the "form and matter" sense but rather the rite around the Sacrament, sure the Pope can make a new Missal and new rites around the Sacraments.

A change can either be lawful (the form of the Sacrament stays the same) or unlawful ("I baptize thee in the name of Yahweh").  It can be good or bad as well in its effects.

Yes, I mean the form but not the essential matter and form. Didn't Bl. Pius XII change the matter for holy Orders though? Adding the Chalice to it. As well there's no single form for Ordination between the East and West, so what then? I say as long as the form signifies the grace of the sacrament then yes even the essential form can change but not substantially. For example, the new missal still signifies the Body and Blood of our Lord for the remission of sins (possibly minus the English translation)

Let's take Communion under both Species.  Is it lawful?  Certainly.  Is it good?  I would argue not since one important reason Communion was restricted to the Host was to protect the Precious Blood from spilling.

If one believes that is the Blood of Christ, then I don't see how making Communion more "inclusive" and "Community Oriented" or whatever they were trying to accomplish with the Chalice is a good thing at the risk of the Precious Blood ending up on the floor.

I for one wish they'd bring holy Intinction back into Tridentine Masses for those who wish it. Rome has changed this discipline and made it lawful once again. The Hussite heresy is dead so why keep an outdated discipline?

As far as the New Missal as a whole goes, that's a whole discussion in itself, but I would argue there are things in there that aren't conducive to the faith or that further the Sanctity of the liturgy (e.g., the Sign of Peace).

If only they'd had put back the Kiss of Peace.

I don't claim anything that you are asking about is unlawful, but I think a lot of it wasn't prudent, some of it is just bad, and a portion of it is malicious on the part of Bugnini et al. (e.g., turning the altar around).

But I find it hard to believe that it (the new missal alone) is bad since it was apparently promulgated by the Church through Paul VI. In my mind either he didn't promulgate it or it has to be good, or possibly he promulgated in such a way (non-universally) that it doesn't fall under the Church's indefectability in Her rites.

Well, they were declared excommunicated latae sententiae - they weren't formally excommunicated, so there is hope that if it were adjudicated they would be found not guilty.

That is why I said "declared" instead of "decreed".

We don't have to follow the SSPX - there are good indult priests and even good Novus Ordo priests.  However, the SSPX were the ones willing to throw themselves in front of the V2 train when no one else was.  The indult, the extraordinary form, etc., is all a direct result of the SSPX and other traditional Catholics risking themselves and not taking no for an answer.  That includes Abp. Lefebvre and the other bishops.

Maybe, maybe not. We'll only know for sure in the next life.

BTW, just for clarity, the priests were not excommunicated - the excommunicaiton was only against the Abp. and the bishops.

They are in so far as they hold to the same supposed schism according to John Paul II.

I'll be able to show you that when you show me any Novus Ordo besides the ones on EWTN that follow the rubrics and Missal as promulgated by Rome.  ;)

Look up Assumption Grotto Parish in Detroit, they offer the novus missale in Latin facing East on the High Altar (I believe they don't even use the second altar anymore). Also there's St. Joseph's downtown.

How can someone accept what most people can't understand and the bishops won't clarify (V2 documents)?

By reading it themselves and using their own reason to understand the thoughts they convey.

Congress can make bad laws that bad people can take advantage of.  It's not a stretch of the imagination that Rome promulgated a bad Missal that people take advantage of and the V2 documents that people take advantage of.

It can be a stretch if the Church declared that it's against her nature to promulgate something evil.

What does Congress do to fix a bad law?  Repeal it and possibly rewrite it.  So should it go with the NOM and V2 in my opinion.

I hope.

I was referring to altar girls, and there was a canon law against altar girls when they started using them.

Gotcha.

That's is because you are assuming any disobedience means one is not subjugated.  That's not the case.

Not at all. The Pontiffs also say obedience as well in other places, like Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, "Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors.". The only way we can reconcile this is if the Popes don't have the authority to do what they've done.

Many people believe Abp. Lefebvre disobeyed for a just reason.  But even if one doesn't, it is a long way to go from "disobedient" to "denying the Pope's authority".

I'm one of those people. Also what about obeying his Authority?

Besides, you are mixing situations.  He bound the SSPX bishops because of the consecration of bishops, not because of disobedience.

The consecrations were an act of disobedience, no? If you read ED, that's what he said: 3. In itself this act was one of disobedience to the Roman pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the Church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience--which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy--constitutes a schismatic act. [Code of Canon Law, 751.]

[littleway]

"it is a long way to go from "disobedient" to "denying the Pope's authority"."

This kind of reasoning can and does often lead to sedevacantism. It's easy enough to uphold the disembodied, abstract principle of obedience to "the Pope" (a simplistic way of looking at things in the first place), while simultaneously excercising private judgement (or blindly following the private judgement of "leaders" one is attracted to) about "the Pope"/ magisterium. Forget all the abstract stuff for a second - as someone who has lived among an sspx community and understands all their different stripes, I have seen a kind of smugness about the elevated notion that "we pray for the Pope and obey him in all things that aren't sinful, unlike those infidel modernists/ sedes/ protestants/ pagans etc"!

I'll be attacked for saying this, maybe rightly so, but even the notion of "obedience to the Pope in all things that aren't sinful", which is absolutely hammered (disproportionally) into the sspx flock, is treated in a way too abstract, pie-in-the-sky way by most people who have suspended their conscience in their (usually selfishly-motivated) allegiance to the sspx. I respect many people who are aligned to the sspx, but I also know that most of them simply want an escape from the hard world, a genuinely pure (but naive) desire for purity and goodness, a justification for their impotence/ neuroses or, in some worst cases, a noble embellishment of misanthropic tendencies. That's the reality, for all the high-and-mighty emotionalism and polemics and make-it-up-as-you-go apologetics that many "sspx'ers" use to fill the void that comes from being "outsiders" or "sensitive souls"  in whatever form. In reality, there are very few who are aligned to the sspx out of genuine piety, courage, humility etc. That few who are are definitely like the salt of the earth - truly beautiful people who genuinely seek sanctity for themselves and their children out of love for Christ. 

I'll always be grateful that I met such people, and wish them all the best in their genuine struggles with their consciences, but personally I saw just as many "misers, tricksters, drunks, gamblers" etc, as Augustine said about his congregation, among the sspx congregation, as I do among the (admittedly very good, compared to most) congregation of the NOM Capuchin Church I go to.

We're all fallen - the garbage spouted out by and practised by the sspx community smells just as bad as the same stuff spouted out and practised by the average NOM community. When it comes down to it, one community is in communion with the Apostolic Church and one isn't. Concretely/ "organically", however you want to say it - one is part of the Body, for all its faults, and one is just up in the ether, like the dreams of a romantic teenager. 

[Papal_Follower]

How about this: "Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors." (Pope Pius XI, Encyclical, Mortalium animos, January 6, 1928, The Papal Encyclicals, Claudia Carlen, I.H.M., McGrath Publishing Co., 1981, pp. 317, 318).

By that reasoning 90%+ (statistic out of my ear, but you get the point) of the Novus Ordo bishops are excommunicated.

I think in regard to the statement in question, only an inquiry by the Pope, an inquisition in regard to each bishop in question, to be summoned to a tribunal and that tribunal would with the Pope's blessing find out any misdoings and crimes.

[littleway]

Maybe the Pope, as custidan of the Church, should just have patience, rather than getting into politics etc.

[Distributist]

Let's try this again since my other thread got hijacked.

How do you as an Catholic who supports the Society of St. Pius X reconcile your position with the solemnly defined dogma: "We declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."?

I have become a fan of Voiceofcatholicradio.com.

I have many of their shows burned to disc and have ordered some past shows, awaiting them now.

They are clear they love and recognize Benedict as Pope.Much morethan most NO/Diocese folks.

[ggreg]

Let's try this again since my other thread got hijacked.

How do you as an Catholic who supports the Society of St. Pius X reconcile your position with the solemnly defined dogma: "We declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."?

I content myself that I am very subject to the vast majority of all those Popes who ever lived and from what we know about what they taught and believed, it appears that they would not be very happy with the last four.  Since I have no indication of any special revelation given at the second Vatican council and plenty of evidence that it was a disaster for faith and morals, vocations and the like, I am going with the bigger numbers.

I'll admit that I look at the word and actions or the Pope, sift them using my common sense and considering what Popes and councils have said and taught in the past and what clerics long loyal to Tradition have to say about it, and then act accordingly, based on the principle that divinely revealed truth does not change. So I am not "subject" in the sense that my grandfather was to say Pius XII.  I can't speak for other Traditionalists, but it would be dishonest of me to suggest I was subject in the sense that you possibly mean it.

The day we get a Pope who despite his faults appears to believe the same truths as I do and countless other Popes did is the day I'll be subject and very loyally subject until death, I would hope.

I sincerely hope and pray that the neo-Catholics and those who hang off every utterance of the Pope feel as "subject" to a future Pope who because of his staunch  and uncompromising defence of the truth makes Catholics a target for persecution and martrydom. Somehow I think they might be found lacking then.

We have to work out our salvation in fear and trembling but please note that we are required to "work it out" and not just follow like dimwitted lemmings.

[StevusMagnus]

How do you as an Catholic who supports the Society of St. Pius X reconcile your position with the solemnly defined dogma: "We declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."?

As far as attending SSPX Masses, Rome itself through ED has said it is not a sin & fulfills the Sunday obligation if gone to out of love & devotion for the TLM. ED is an administrative arm of the Pope and until he corrects this statement it is binding as his own view.

Therefore SSPX mass-goers have nothing to reconcile with your quoted statement.

[Catholicmilkman]

How do you as an Catholic who supports the Society of St. Pius X reconcile your position with the solemnly defined dogma: "We declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."?

As far as attending SSPX Masses, Rome itself through ED has said it is not a sin & fulfills the Sunday obligation if gone to out of love & devotion for the TLM. ED is an administrative arm of the Pope and until he corrects this statement it is binding as his own view.

Therefore SSPX mass-goers have nothing to reconcile with your quoted statement.

The EDPC has never been given papal authority to judge on any matter authoritatively as far as I've read. Source please? The same letter also states that if you have a diocesan Tridentine Mass then you must go to It instead of the illicit SSPX Mass, no?

[StevusMagnus]

Jonathan,

Have you actually been a member here since '06 and made over 3,000 posts and are actually asking me for the source of what I said? Have you honestly never heard of the Msgr. Perl letter? Surely, you are playing dumb. I even posted it to you in another thread.

At the risk of extreme redundancy I hereby post it again:

http://www.unavoce.org/articles/2003/perl-011803.htm

...Points 1 and 3 in our letter of 27 September 2002 to this correspondent are accurately     reported. His first question was "Can I fulfill my Sunday obligation by attending a     Pius X Mass" and our response was:

   

"1. In the strict sense you may fulfill your Sunday obligation by attending a Mass     celebrated by a priest of the Society of St. Pius X."

   

His second question was "Is it a sin for me to attend a Pius X Mass" and we     responded stating:

   

"2. We have already told you that we cannot recommend your attendance at such a     Mass and have explained the reason why. If your primary reason for attending were to     manifest your desire to separate yourself from communion with the Roman Pontiff and those     in communion with him, it would be a sin. If your intention is simply to participate in a     Mass according to the 1962 Missal for the sake of devotion, this would not be a sin."    

   

His third question was: "Is it a sin for me to contribute to the Sunday collection     a Pius X Mass" to which we responded:

   

"3. It would seem that a modest contribution to the collection at Mass could be     justified."...

In a previous letter Msgr. Perl explained the authoritative weight of these letters:

http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CEDSSPX2.HTM

...f. You want to know how authoritative our responses are. We Must indicate to you that     this letter accurately reflects the practice and pastoral solicitude of this Pontifical     Commission, but it is not an official declaration of the Holy See. Those declarations are     fundamentally limited to Quattuor abhinc annos of 3 October 1984 and Ecclesia Dei of 2     July 1988, both of which were published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. The Holy Father     does not ordinarily make detailed statements on very specific questions such as those     which you have submitted. He entrusts such responses to the variou dicasteries and     organisms of the Holy See which have competence in particular areas. With regard to the     matters which you have brought up, the competence belongs to this Pontifical Commission.

   

g. The Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts rules primarily     on the interpretation of the law. Any more Authoritative response to your questions than     the one we have given would be more likely to come from the Congregation for the Doctrine     of the Faith. The fact that that Congregation has transmitted your dossier to us indicates     that at this time our response should be sufficient. Statements of dicasteries and     organisms of the Holy See which touch on faith and morals are not considered infallible,     but should be taken as norms of moral certitude....

[matthew_talbot]

I obey any authority in my life, be it The Holy Father, The Local Ordinary or my boss at work, in all but that which is contrary to the will of God. Obedience has not one, but two opposites: disobedience and false obedience. many conservative Novus Ordo Catholics engage in false obedience, i.e, whatever an authority in the church commands must be true. As regards The holy Father. he is infallible when speaking in an Ex Cathedra fashion on matters pertaining to Faith. He is not impeccable. We cannot judge his soul, for he has no superior on earth. But we can and must judge his words and actions.