SSPX Response to Dubia

A few days ago, I shared an article called A Catholic’s Dubia for the SSPX, which posed some serious questions. Here is a response, approved by the SSPX.

From Crisis

By an SSPX Priest

Recently, Crisis Magazine published an article titled “A Catholic’s Dubia for the SSPX,” in which the author, Daniel Waldow, asked a number of questions regarding the status of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) as well as its views on some questions of concern in the postconciliar Church. The answers below were written by an SSPX priest and have been approved for publication by his superiors.

Dubium I: Why does the SSPX stay in irregular canonical communion with Rome when other groups that exclusively celebrate the TLM, such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and the Institute of Christ the King, currently exist? Why does Rome approve of the FSSP and the ICK but not the SSPX? 

The SSPX’s legal status with regard to Rome is considered canonically irregular because it operates as a Priestly Society of Common Life Without Vows despite having been officially suppressed on May 6, 1975, by Bishop Mamie of Fribourg. The SSPX has always maintained that this suppression was of no canonical value on account of its motives and irregular form. Subsequent sanctions were imposed on the Society’s founder and upon the bishops he consecrated without a mandate in 1988, but these relate to persons rather than the institution. 

With regard to the FSSP and the ICK, it seems that they are tolerated by Rome:

• in part because they restrain their public activity to championing the traditional liturgy of the Church merely as a preference for an anterior form of worship rather than as a strict right and a doctrinal imperative; 
• in part because they make no public stand against the doctrinal errors that presently ravage the Church; 
• and partly because the Roman authorities, in consequence of their silence on doctrinal issues, are happy for them to minister to traditional Catholics who might otherwise turn to the SSPX. 

Dubium II: Why did Pope Benedict XVI state, in a letter to all Catholic bishops, that the reason the SSPX does “not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church…is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons?” What are these doctrinal reasons and “doctrinal questions”?  

Pope Benedict XVI is quite right about the underlying cause of our difficulty with Rome—it is doctrinal. Any apparent disobedience of the SSPX is just a consequence of doctrinal disagreement. 

At the center of the doctrinal problem is the heresy of Modernism that Pope St. Pius X fought so hard to eradicate from the Church at the beginning of the 20th century. This heresy is a cancer with many mutations, each of which destroys some part of the order created by God for the salvation of souls. As a whole, it evacuates the supernatural, puts faith at the service of reason, reason at the service of sentiment, and expects God to be at the service of man who has proudly enslaved himself to his own passions. 

In opposition to Rome, the SSPX sees the Second Vatican Council as being instrumental in introducing four principal modernist errors into the life of the Church—errors that have caused a catastrophic collapse in faith and morals. These errors are: false religious liberty, collegiality, false ecumenism, and the effective denial of the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice through the introduction of the New Order of Mass.

False religious liberty

Contrary to the Council’s Dignitatis Humanae, while every man should have the liberty to profess the one true religion, no man has a right to publicly profess a false religion, and this is so because it is against the common good. Think of the diffusion of pornography; it might be classed as “free expression,” but all righteous men can see that it shouldn’t be allowed because of the natural and supernatural damage it does to society. False religious liberty has been unambiguously condemned by the Church (cf. Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, 1864).

Collegiality

Collegiality, promoted in Lumen Gentium, is the erroneous theory that Christ did not actually establish the Church as a hierarchical institution with the pope as its visible head. Instead, the pope and the bishops form a college—the pope being the principle of its unity. This sounds like hair-splitting, but what followed makes the error clear. 

The new idea of a college first diminished the official power of the pope as Vicar of Christ; then the power of each bishop over his diocese was diminished by his forced submission to his episcopal conference. Finally, 60 years on, synodality is perhaps the endgame of this project, which turns the Church completely on its head so that God is disenfranchised of His hierarchy altogether and is expected to serve the inspirations of a minority of synodal activists.

False ecumenism

False ecumenism, promoted by Unitatis Redintegratio among other documents of the Council, accords to false religions prerogatives that belong exclusively to the one true religion, especially the capacity to lead souls to salvation and being part of the one Church of Christ. Effectively, false ecumenism is a vain search for a lowest common denominator religion with the aim of brotherliness, but which comes at the expense of faith. It is condemned repeatedly by the Church (cf. Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, 1928).

These three errors are simply the poisonous echo of the “liberty, equality, fraternity” mantra of the French Revolution, which sought to replace the religion of God with the religion of man.

Denial of the propitiatory sacrifice

The fourth principal error is a natural fruit of the first three errors of the Second Vatican Council: the effective denial of the Mass as a propitiatory Sacrifice. The Mass is the re-presentation of the same unique and perfect sacrifice of Calvary offered by the one Priest of the New Testament, Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the salvation of souls. By permitting His sacrifice to transcend time, Our Lord calls the faithful to unite themselves to Him as victim, participating in His death, which is the ultimate act of His love, so that they may participate in His life for all eternity. 

This sublime truth, however, is ecumenically inconvenient for those who value only “the things that unite us” with other religions—especially the Protestants. The New Order of Mass was created as a lowest common denominator liturgy, to be virtually indistinguishable from the liturgies of those who deny the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice.

These four doctrinal errors may be seen as the four cardinal errors of the crisis of the Church, and their consequences are both legion and astonishing. For 60 years, the entire doctrinal, liturgical, devotional, institutional, and moral life of the Church has been in dramatic decline, and the astonishing thing is that Rome refuses to accept that the Council has been the instrumental cause of that decline. 

The SSPX’s opposition to these doctrinal errors within the Church is a “non-negotiable” in its dealings with the Roman authorities. 

Dubium III: Does the SSPX teach that the following are intrinsic evils—i.e., actions which are always and everywhere evil in virtue of their object and which, thus, can never be justified regardless of intention or circumstances: (1) reception of the Eucharist under the species of bread by the laity on the hand, (2) distribution of the Eucharist by a lay extraordinary minister during or outside of Mass? 

Neither the reception of the Blessed Sacrament in the hand nor the administering of the sacrament of Holy Communion by the laity is an intrinsic evil, and both were practices of the early Church. However, the Church, in her wisdom and in accordance with the natural development of her institutions and law, subsequently forbade these practices on account of the duty of reverence due to the Blessed Sacrament. The earliest ordinance is claimed to be that of Pope St. Sixtus I (c.114-124). The reason for this interdiction is not difficult to understand: every particle of the consecrated host is the Real Presence and is at greater risk of being lost or treated with disrespect if placed into the unconsecrated hands of those who assist at Mass, among whom there may well be impostors with malicious intent. 

Furthermore, reservation of the Blessed Sacrament to consecrated hands is a powerful sign of faith in both the Real Presence and the sacredness of the priesthood. Conversely, allowing the Real Presence to be treated with familiarity, and even carelessness, destroys that faith. 

Dubium IV: Does the SSPX deny the sacramental validity of the Eucharistic consecration in the Mass of Pope Paul VI? 

The SSPX does not deny the sacramental validity of the Eucharistic consecration in the Mass of Pope Paul VI when the due matter, form, and intention are present.

Dubium V: Does the SSPX think that priests and laity commit a sin, either due to object or circumstances, by celebrating and assisting at a Mass of Pope Paul VI? 

The SSPX teaches that the Mass of Pope Paul VI is defective as a liturgical rite and, even if valid and offered with reverence, it will tend to weaken faith over time. A Brief Critical Study of the New Order of Mass, also known as “The Ottaviani Intervention,” remains the seminal work of explanation in this regard, and the experience of the last half-century confirms its conclusions.

So, does the SSPX think that priests and laity commit a sin, either due to object or circumstances, by celebrating and assisting at a Mass of Pope Paul VI? The SSPX answers, “not necessarily,” because it distinguishes between the evil of a defective rite and the act of attendance at such a rite. The rite is objectively deficient and will necessarily erode faith over time. Attendance at such a rite is not intrinsically evil because circumstances may exist—ignorance, charity, coercion, etc.—to make it excusable.

For example, a soul with a genuine desire for sanctity who has never heard of the TLM, or has never been in a position to understand the nocive effect of the Mass of Pope Paul VI, would not sin by attendance at this rite on account of what the moral theologians call invincible ignorance. Indeed, the soul might spiritually benefit by attendance, but this is not on account of the rite per se, only per accidens. On the other hand, if a soul perceives the deficiency of the Mass of Pope Paul VI and has no sufficient reason to justify attendance, then that soul would sin.

Dubium VI: Does the SSPX think that Catholics should attend a Mass of Pope Paul VI on a Sunday or holy day of obligation if that is the only Mass which they have access to? 

With reference to the Dubium V response, because the Mass of Pope Paul VI is a defective rite that puts the faith of its attendees in peril, the SSPX counsels that no one should attend the rite, noting that the obligation to attend Mass cannot override the common good.

Now, emphasizing the distinction between the morality of the rite in itself and the morality of attending the rite, circumstances may excuse attendance and sometimes even render it necessary. Aside from the case of invincible ignorance, attendance at a Mass of Pope Paul VI might be necessary to avoid an imminent greater evil, such as family disunity. In such cases, logically, one must make a further distinction between “being present at” and participating in the rite. The Catholic who is not invincibly ignorant should not participate in the rite.

A comprehensive article treating the question may be found here.