It seems that, a little over a month after the Society of St Pius X announced its decision to proceed with the consecration of the new bishops that it judges it needs to sustain its apostolate, and but weeks after a hastily convened meeting between its Superior General and the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, together with the subsequent communiqués and the response of the SSPX, we have reached an impasse. The SSPX will not postpone the consecrations announced for 1 July and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith will not engage in ‘dialogue’ (whatever that in fact means – generally, or specifically in this case) unless they do.
The deadlock has been achieved in almost record time, fuelled by vehement and bitter commentary from far too many sides. Ultramontane dragons have awoken from their slumber to roar uncritically, relishing the prospect of excommunications and the definitive cutting off of the SSPX. But may one look forward to schism with apparent satisfaction? So too, others have opined that the SSPX should be done with ‘modernist’ Rome for good and simply move on without even consulting the Holy See. But how can one be in any sense Catholic without at least some communion with the Successor of Peter, even in times when the exercise of the Petrine office has given grave scandal?
It may be that this crisis has revealed much more than the existence of that ultramontanism that has its victims change the colour of their skin according to each passing papacy. We have also seen the emergence of a radical extremism based on the utter unacceptability to some of any use of the older forms of liturgical worship, spirituality and doctrine, which could be summed up by the mantra: ‘Vatican II changed all of that definitively and there is absolutely no going back’, and another similarly extreme position that has rejected the legitimacy of the ruling Pope and the exercise of the papal office for some decades now, commonly known as ‘sedevacantism’ – implicitly or explicitly denying that there has been a valid pope since their last favourite one.
We have certainly witnessed the former in the Stalinist persecution of the older liturgical rites mounted in the previous pontificate, and sedevacantism abounds on the internet and in some small but vehement communities. Significantly, though, the latter is something the SSPX will not tolerate.
So where do we go from here? Are the ultramontanists and the Vatican II fundamentalists and the sedevacantists to be left to celebrate a putative schism on 1 July, each according to their warped perspectives? Or can we somehow overcome this stalemate with some crisp, clear thinking and a great deal of charity on all sides before it is too late?
Let us start with an assertion that will certainly require charity from some: that the SSPX is acting in good faith. They have had their problem clergy, certainly, but they are by no means alone in that. It is nevertheless a fact that the vast majority of their priests, bishops and religious work tirelessly for the salvation of souls, as have clergy and religious for centuries. And they are growing substantially (which some regard as a significant problem). In that context they need new bishops to confer the sacraments: their two remaining bishops are not young and their workload is simply too great. According to their statements, they have been seeking the Holy See’s approval for consecrations for some time now but have received responses that offer no clear path forward, seemingly repeating the tactics of delay and obfuscation they perceived in similar circumstances in 1988.
The SSPX does not, of course, need the Holy See in order to consecrate bishops: they have bishops who can perform the consecrations themselves. They did not need to ask permission. But as Catholics they seek to maintain communion with the Successor of St Peter, and hence they have asked the Pope’s consent. This is surely a testament to their good faith. The request has woken up the dragons, to be sure, but from the Society’s point of view quite possibly in the hope of silencing their roars once and for all.
The roar is often about the SSPX’s lack of acceptance of the Second Vatican Council. Indeed, the ‘dialogue’ proposed by the Holy See was to include clarifications on ‘the distinction between an act of faith and the “religious submission of mind and will”, as well as the differing degrees of adherence required by various texts of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and their interpretation’, so as to establish ‘the minimum requirements for full communion with the Catholic Church’.
With all due respect to the Prefect and other officials of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Rite of Reception into Full Communion with the Catholic Church makes the minimum requirements clear: the ability to profess the Nicene Creed and to add, ‘I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God’ (emphasis added). This does not include the pastoral policies or theological opinions espoused at the Second Vatican Council, which, whatever their merits, are not revelations of God included in the Deposit of Faith – that which was revealed by God in the person of His Son, given to the Apostles and faithfully handed on in the Church’s Tradition (with the possibility of development and application to changing circumstances, certainly, but not of rupture).
In respect of the teachings of the last Council, as was recently pointed out, St Paul VI himself insisted: ‘Given the pastoral character of the Council, it avoided pronouncing in an extraordinary way dogmas endowed with the hallmark of infallibility; but it nevertheless endowed its teachings with the authority of the supreme ordinary magisterium’ (General Audience, 12 January 1966). The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the latter: ‘The ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Pope and the bishops in communion with him teach the faithful the truth to believe, the charity to practise, the beatitude to hope for’ (n. 2034). The exercise of the ordinary Magisterium is, therefore, subject to the Deposit of Faith.
This should be sufficient to unblock matters, but the Dicastery’s officials would no doubt point out that for clergy of the SSPX (and others) seeking regularisation the practice has long since been to require an oath promising fidelity to the Church and to the Pope and accepting the teaching of n. 25 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium on the Magisterium of the Church and on the adherence due to it. This is where the issue of ‘the religious submission of mind and will’ arises, though one could observe, firstly, that if this can be a matter of ‘dialogue’, then its meaning must be somewhat elastic, and secondly, if the ordinary Magisterium is exercised as the Catechism envisages, there should be no problem with the religious submission of mind and will to what is taught.
The oath goes on to require acceptance of the validity of the Mass and the sacraments celebrated with the intention of doing what the Church does, and according to the rites found in the Latin typical editions of the reformed rites, as well as the promise to adhere to the common discipline of the Church and its laws. Fair enough, even if there is much to say about both.
But it also requires that the cleric undertake the obligation to follow a positive line in interpreting doctrine under the guidance of the Magisterium in respect of certain doctrines taught by the Second Vatican Council, or regarding later reforms of either the liturgy or canon law, which some may find difficult to reconcile with previous declarations of the Magisterium. This could be read as a ‘gagging order’, stifling critical comment, debate or even scholarship – a promise that no authority has the right to exact – in order to protect ‘the’ Council, and all its works, from criticism. Presumably many of the clergy who have signed this oath over the years have simply smiled whilst doing so.
For it must be said again, particularly to Roman curial officials: the Second Vatican Council and its opinions, orientations and teachings do not constitute a ‘super-dogma’ to which we must ascribe in order to be Catholic. On the contrary, given its pastoral nature, we are quite entitled to engage in critical analysis of its policies and teachings. It may even be that some of them have passed their expiry date and that today new approaches may be required. The reality of the fruitful ministry of the SSPX in our post-Christian world may itself have much to contribute to such a discussion. If we can respectfully give the last Council and its pastoral efforts their proper place, in continuity with the Church’s Tradition, we can move forward.
So too, the stalemate can be overcome if we understand the true nature of ecclesiastical authority and obedience. As one recent pope taught at the beginning of his pontificate:
‘The power that Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors is, in an absolute sense, a mandate to serve. The power of teaching in the Church involves a commitment to the service of obedience to the faith. The Pope is not an absolute monarch whose thoughts and desires are law. On the contrary: the Pope’s ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to his Word. He must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism …
The Pope knows that in his important decisions, he is bound to the great community of faith of all times, to the binding interpretations that have developed throughout the Church’s pilgrimage. Thus, his power is not being above, but at the service of, the Word of God. It is incumbent upon him to ensure that this Word continues to be present in its greatness and to resound in its purity, so that it is not torn to pieces by continuous changes in usage.’
(Benedict XVI, Homily, 7 May 2005)
These principles apply mutatis mutandis to any ecclesiastical superior – they are stewards, not personal proprietors of the goods, spiritual or material, with which they have been entrusted, or indeed of the people they are called to serve. It thereby follows that the obedience they command is obedience to Christ and to His teachings. A pope, priest or prelate who wilfully departs from this and imposes his own thoughts or desires contrary to the Deposit of Faith as handed down in Tradition is legitimately disobeyed. In such a case it is in fact he who is disobedient.
Obedience is not owed to the positivist whims of dictators, be they priestly, papal or episcopal, but to the Truth as faithfully taught by its ministerial stewards. Ecclesiastical obedience is about making oneself available to serve – to serve the demands of Truth as it calls us to the conversion of our lives, and to serve the mission of the Church through the discernment of God’s will by our legitimate superiors. It is not slavery to the whim, preference, political programme, opinion or ideology of another, whatever rank he or she holds.
If we understand this we can begin to see why, for the salvation of souls, the SSPX (and others), in an epoch of doctrinal, moral and liturgical confusion and scandal, and a widespread decline in the practice of the Faith, regard certain reforms as unwarranted innovations imposed by authority and decide instead to remain faithful to that which has been handed on in Tradition and which has worked well for centuries (and which bears fruit still). Such material disobedience to the new ways posited by authority is motivated by the love of Christ, by fidelity to the Deposit of Faith and by the desire to save souls. As such it is hard to judge it to be that formal disobedience which of its very nature involves a rejection of Christ, of His Church and of the Faith itself.
We can also begin to see why, in 1988, the SSPX judged it necessary to proceed with episcopal consecrations. Much can be said about the factors surrounding this event, and more trust on all sides would have been a great grace at the time, but it may fairly be asserted that the motivation for the material disobedience was the perceived urgent need to ensure the sacramental life and ministry of the SSPX in the face of the possibility of its extinction. We know now that, most probably, the fear that the Holy See would not have honoured its side of the agreement was unfounded, but in the charged environment of the times that was by no means clear to all.
We can also see why, today, the SSPX would proceed to consecrate new bishops even without the permission of the Holy See. They do have souls to feed, and as we were taught as children, it is legitimate to steal sufficient food to ward off starvation when that is truly necessary. A father must be able to feed his children. No one is obliged, or can be ordered under obedience, to die of starvation, material or sacramental. Superiors may not command suicide.
Many question the SSPX’s insistence on proceeding illicitly to consecrate bishops, but when the Holy See’s immediate response to their announcement is a command to cancel the consecrations and once again to enter into indeterminate ‘dialogue’ (with authorities appointed by a pope whose doctrinal fidelity has been severely questioned), one can understand their lack of trust.
One would have hoped that the more than unfortunate, if not indeed scandalous, papal acts such as kissing the Koran and syncretist gatherings in Assisi could be consigned to the past. Yet the papal office has been stained more recently by controversial, perhaps even idolatrous, ceremonies involving the Pachamama in the Vatican itself, by a departure from the hard but clear teaching on the impossibility of divorced persons receiving Holy Communion when not properly disposed, by a doctrinal about-turn in respect of the legitimacy of the death penalty, by the seemingly deliberate disingenuity involved in permitting so-called ‘spontaneous’ blessings of people in same-sex relationships, and by the assertion that the plurality and diversity of religions is willed by God, together with the statement that ‘All religions are paths to God … like different languages’. These, surely, figure on the list of issues the SSPX would themselves like to ‘dialogue’ about. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, along with several saints, might also have a thing or two to say about them.
Thankfully Pope Leo does not appear to be given to kissing Korans, or to idolatry, apostasy or heresy. He has even declined to pray whilst visiting a mosque. Deo gratias. His critics will insist that he has signed off on a number of questionable episcopal appointments and seems to have remained too silent when unacceptable events have taken place under his window, as it were. It cannot be easy to be the Pope. It is true, however, that he has not yet received the Superior General of the SSPX in private audience – an event which could go a long way to reassure and build mutual trust and understanding.
At the beginning of his pontificate the Holy Father is uniquely placed to turn this deadlock into an opportunity for a new and fruitful beginning, promoting unity for the good of the whole Church. This will require determination on his part, at times in the face of the opposition of some of his collaborators and the roar of the dragons, but with crisp and clear thinking and truly pastoral charity it is possible.
It will also require the SSPX to trust the Successor of St Peter – something that it has found quite hard to do in recent decades and, at times, not without reason. But thankfully they have consistently prayed for the pope of the day regardless, and have not fallen into the ecclesiastical quicksand of sedevacantism.
If ever there were a good intention for our Lenten sacrifices, it is that the Holy Father personally be given the grace, wisdom, insight and will to work for the regularisation of the SSPX. At this point, only he can do it – perhaps by enlisting the help of key individuals and empowering them to move this matter to a successful conclusion on his behalf.
Pope Leo – and indeed all of us, especially those opposed to the SSPX for whatever reason – would do well to take to heart the motivation of a pope who himself tried his best to heal divisions and to build up the unity of the Church:
“Looking back over the past, to the divisions which in the course of the centuries have rent the Body of Christ, one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity. One has the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden. This glance at the past imposes an obligation on us today: to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew. I think of a sentence in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, where Paul writes: ‘Our mouth is open to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return … widen your hearts also!’ (2 Cor 6:11–13). Paul was certainly speaking in another context, but his exhortation can and must touch us too, precisely on this subject. Let us generously open our hearts and make room for everything that the faith itself allows.”
(Benedict XVI, Letter to the Bishops, 7 July 2007)
Dom Alcuin Reid is the Prior of the Monastère Saint-Benoît in Brignoles, France, and a liturgical scholar of international renown. His principal work, The Organic Development of the Liturgy (Ignatius, 2005), carries a preface by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.
