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Will Cardinal Müller Meet With the SSPX?

File photo of Archbishop Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at Vatican

In a report that seems not 100% verifiable is now confirmed, the National Catholic Register has picked up a story that there is a September 21 meeting date between Cardinal Müller, head of the CDF, and Bishop Fellay, superior general of the Society of St. Pius X.

You may recall that there were ongoing talks during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI between the traditionalist society and Rome, seeking possible grounds for reconciliation and regularization. During that process, Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications on the four SSPX bishops — excommunications that dated back to Archbishop Lefebvre’s illicit episcopal ordinations (without the necessary mandate from Rome) in 1988.

The canonical status of the SSPX is anything but clear, which has been brought to light again recently by the refusal of Bishop Zubik of Pittsburgh to sell the SSPX a parish that was for sale (despite their history of selling closed parishes to other religions) and when he subsequently issued a warning to Catholics of the diocese after the SSPX was ultimately successful in completing the purchase of a different closed-down parish building that had been for sale.

In that announcement, he wrote:

The purpose of this notification is to assist Catholics in understanding that the Society of St. Pius X is not in full communion with the Catholic Church. The society does not have canonical status in the church. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI stated: “As long as the society does not have a canonical status in the church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the church.” The Society of St. Pius X is separated from the Catholic Church. The former St. James church building in the West End is not a Roman Catholic church. The Roman Catholic faithful are to know that free and willful participation with this group, including reception of the sacraments, implies an act of separation from the Roman Catholic Church. This is a serious matter that no Catholic should take lightly.

For many years, the irregular situation of the SSPX has progressed along an inscrutable track. Tradition-minded Catholics who wanted to attend a traditional Latin Mass but only had access to an SSPX chapel sought guidance from Rome. And over the years, this guidance has come in various and contradictory forms.

In a letter on May 3, 1994, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, answered a question sent to him about the SSPX as follows:

As far as your question is concerned, I would like to point out immediately that the Dicastery for ecumenism is not concerned with the Society of St Pius X. The situation of the members of that Society is an internal affair of the Catholic Church. The Society of St Pius X is not another Church or Ecclesial Community in the sense that this Dicastery uses those terms. Certainly, the Mass and the sacraments administered by the priests of the Society of St Pius X are valid.

A year later, in 1995, a letter was written by Msgr. Camille Perl in response to a question about attending SSPX chapels to meet one’s Sunday obligation. In part, he wrote:

In order to answer your questions we must explain the Church’s present evaluation of the situation of the Society of St. Pius X.

1. There is no doubt about the validity of the ordination of the priests of the Society of St. Pius X. They are, however, suspended a divinis, that is prohibited by the Church from exercising their orders because of their illicit ordination.

2. The Masses they celebrate are also valid, but it is considered morally illicit for the faithful to participate in these Masses unless they are physically or morally impeded from participating in a Mass celebrated by a Catholic priest in good standing (cf. Code of Canon Law, canon 844.2). The fact of not being able to assist at the celebration of the so-called “Tridentine” Mass is not considered a sufficient motive for attending such Masses.

3. While it is true that the participation in the Mass and sacraments at the chapels of the Society of St. Pius X does not of itself constitute “formal adherence to the schism”, such adherence can come about over a period of time as one slowly imbibes a mentality which separates itself from the magisterium of the Supreme Pontiff.

And yet in a 2003 letter in a way that shows some evolution of thought, Msgr. Perl responds to additional private correspondence that was made public when he wrote:

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.”

Moving ahead another two years, On November 13, 2005, Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy and President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, said in a televised interview:

We are not confronted with a heresy. We cannot say in correct, exact, precise terms that there is a schism. In the fact of consecrating bishops with [sic] a papal mandate there is a schismatic attitude. They are within the Church. There is just this fact: there is a lack of a full, a more perfect—as was said during the meeting with Bishop Fellay—a fuller communion, because the communion does exist.

After lifting the excommunications, Pope Benedict gave more specifics in his letter to Bishops concerning the status of the SSPX in 2009:

The remission of the excommunication was a measure taken in the field of ecclesiastical discipline: the individuals were freed from the burden of conscience constituted by the most serious of ecclesiastical penalties. This disciplinary level needs to be distinguished from the doctrinal level. The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers – even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty – do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.

In light of this situation, it is my intention henceforth to join the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” – the body which has been competent since 1988 for those communities and persons who, coming from the Society of Saint Pius X or from similar groups, wish to return to full communion with the Pope – to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

And last December, Cardinal Müller made a very strong (and seemingly partially contradictory to Pope Benedict’s letter) statement about the SSPX when he said:

The canonical excommunication of the bishops for their illegal ordinations was revoked, but a de facto sacramental excommunication remains for their schism; they put themselves out of communion with the Church. After that we are not closing the door and never will, but we are inviting them to be reconciled. But they too must change their attitude, accept the conditions of the Catholic Church, and the Supreme Pontiff as the definitive criterion for membership.

And yet strangely, after all of this, the SSPX were allowed to say Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica just last month – on the altar of Pope St. Pius X. How can this be possible if they are “out of communion with the Church”? What sort of signal does this send to those Catholics either within or outside the SSPX? Is it hopeful? Or is it just more of the same back and forth?

For Catholics who love the Church’s traditional Roman liturgy and sacraments, the situation with the SSPX — and the enormous confusion that it generates — is burdensome. The first time I caught up with an old college friend and told him that I had been attending the traditional Latin Mass, he asked me, “So, you’re a schismatic?”

It seems that nobody knows for certain whether the SSPX is in the Church or out of it, or whether it simply has one foot in both places. The questions over the jurisdiction of their sacraments, the “schismatic mindset” of their priests, the fact that their faculties are not suspended and no one currently in the society is under an actual excommunication (but apparently, the CDF would have us believe, they persist under a “de facto” one) makes the entire situation one of the murkiest theological problems in the Church today.

It’s gotten so ugly that it has spread to other orders. The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate have been under investigation and suppression by the Vatican under the auspices of their “crypto-lefebvrean tendencies” related to the preference of many in their religious community for the traditional Mass.

With all the ecumenical activity going on between Rome and various other Christian and non-Christian religions, it seems worth considering the idea that Catholic unity is for Catholics, too.

I don’t know the answers, but I’d very much like to get some. I am not involved in any way with the SSPX. The group has its share of problems, and they’re not insignificant. But they’re also fully doctrinally Catholic in every way and their masses are valid. They hold no heretical positions. They adhere completely to the teachings of the Catholic Church as they existed at the time of the Second Vatican Council. They don’t have their own patriarch or pope, but rather recognize the authority of the Roman Pontiff. The idea that they are in any substantive way “outside the Church” seems specious at best. How can a group be outside when everything they believe is perfectly compatible with the perennial teachings of the Church?

This makes the rumored upcoming meeting all the more important, and unfortunately, all the less likely to bear fruit. If Cardinal Müller does meet with Bishop Fellay, what will they discuss? Where can they go from here?

This rift within the Church is a wound — a deep one — and there’s no healing in sight. It’s truly a tragic situation.

31 thoughts on “Will Cardinal Müller Meet With the SSPX?”

  1. “excommunications that dated back to Archbishop Lefebvre’s illicit
    episcopal ordinations (without the necessary mandate from Rome) in 1988.”

    The 1988 episcopal consecrations were in no way illicit. There was and still is a “State of Necessity,” for which Canon Law explicitly allows. They were 100% necessary.

    Since they were necessary, because of the State of Necessity, then the Archbishop and the 4 bishops of the SSPX were not validly punished. The so-called excommunications are unltimately null and void.

    Reply
    • Yes, I’ve heard the arguments. The fact remains that only the supreme legislator of the Church can decide whether or not a canonical necessity actually existed. So until a pope says, “Yes, actually, this was warranted,” around and around we go.

      Reply
      • Not quite. Canon Law allows for the subjective belief of state of necessity even if no such state exists. So, even if Abp Lefebvre was wrong, his sincere belief (an that can not be reasonably denied) that there was a state of necessity requires the mitigation of the punishment. His excommunication was therefore un-canonical.
        Of course, that does not mean Abp L. acted rightly or without blame. As you say, we will have to await the a Pope’s decision officiallising or not the state of necessity.
        But in the mean time, if allowing divorced and remarried people to receive communion , and redefining the natural law do not represent a state of necessity… I don’t know what does.

        Reply
        • The Pope is the authoritative interpreter of Canon Law and PRIOR to the illicit Consecrations he ruled there was no state of necessity and he told Mons Lefebvre that.

          http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=1220

          Look,I pray daily for a reconciliation but if it ever does occur, many in the sspx will not accept it anyways.

          How tragic it is that we are now in the third generation of sspx youth being taught that the Popes are heretics, that the Church
          teaches error etc and one ironic consequence of this intractable
          situation is that there is not one sspx priest who could take
          the Oath against Modernism because such an oath precludes the possibility of the Church teaching error:

          THE

          OATH AGAINST MODERNISM

          Given
          by His Holiness St. Pius X September 1, 1910.

          To
          be sworn to by all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers,
          religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological
          seminaries.

          I
          . . . . firmly embrace and accept each and every definition that
          has been set forth and declared by the unerring teaching authority of the Church,

          Reply
          • The priests of the SSPX do take the Oath against Modernism. They do not teach that the Popes are heretics and they point out error in the Church when they see error. They have an obligation to do so. And we also have the right and DUTY to point out error when we see it.

            As for the unerring teaching authority of the Church – yes this is what we all obey. However, when the current teaching authority of the past 50 years or more teaches things that are the exact opposite of what was taught by the unerring teaching authority of the Church for 1900 years – well then, my friend – ya got trouble.

            To give you one example – Outside the Church there is NO salvation. This has become “even atheists who are good, and do good, can be saved.” This is the exact opposite of the unerring teaching authority of the Church always taught. So is this just a new ‘interpretation’ or is this a new teaching, or is this just a matter of discipline? One of the first principles of philosophy is that of non-contradition which says something cannot be right and wrong at the same time, given the same parameters. Either atheists have turned their backs on God so don’t believe in being saved and won’t be, or they can be saved (even against their will!) while they are atheists.

            Sometimes it’s hard to believe what we hear and read now is Catholic. It sounds more like what the Anglicans when through beginning in the 1930s. First it was birth control, then divorce, now they have sexually perverted bishops – is that where we want to go?

          • If the sspx clerics do take the oath against modernism they do so dishonestly or with mental preservation or some such thing for the sspx teaches the church teaches error whereas the Oath says differently but if that makes no difference to those who take that Oath of what use are they to anybody?

            Mons Lefevbre is constantly criticised by the Feeneyite EENS gang for his acceptance of B o B and B of D

            As for pointing out error, agreed.

            But what has never been acceptable is to establish a petit ecclesia schism with tribunals that supplant the authority of the Pope and which schism also sends its vagus priests and bishops all over hell and creation in direct opposition to the Council of Trent.

            Ever single Mass celebrated by the sspx is illicit and sacrilegious accord to Catholic Tradition; so, other than you supporting a schism with its duplicitous oath taking and daily violations of Trent, its vagus bishops and priests, its sacrilegious Masses, how’s that whole tradition thing working out for ya?

            EENS is where the sspx are and we know what happens to those who die EENS, you just told us.

            O, and as far as we can know with any degree of certainty, Mons Lefebvre died excommunicated; that is, EENS, but we all know he is considered a saint by the sspx and nothing is to be gained by prolonging this exchange.

            I do pray for a reconciliation but I expect the possibility of that happening is less than the possibility the next Pope elected will be a Japanese women named, Midori.

            I think all of this strum und drang with the sppx and the Catholic Church is meant to keep their coffers full; the only way they will return to Rome is to arrive there to accept the surrender of the Magisterium to them for in their praxis one can see that they conceive of themselves as the true church

          • perhaps you ought to find a time machine and go back to the days of trent. the irony is that you are likely to find yourself very alone and the sympathy with archbishop lefebvre very great!

  2. Adding to the confusion is the fact that so many overt heretics have recently come out of the wood-work in the Church and they are considered ‘in full communion’ yet the SSPX bishops and priests are considered schismatic….
    Such is the “diabolical disorientation” that we were warned about by Sr. Lucy.
    The only way this situation can be fully resolved is if the Pope grants the SSPX jurisdiction without the SSPX having to do anything, except perhaps accommodate a visit from a papal legate now and then. This would be the only way to keep the SSPX from splitting and also avoid having to finally admit that VII needs to be clarified in accord with tradition.
    However, I would bet every dollar I have that this Holy Father cares nothing for traditional Catholics or restoring clarity and unity within the Church.

    Reply
    • i agree with everything you said, rod, and the tone with which you said it. tone is very important, a kind of language of the heart, of which our Lord was extremely sensitive. a case in point: the boanerges (sons of thunder) james and john called for fire to fall from the sky at the samaritan towns that would not greet our Lord and His disciples. Of course, we know that Jesus rebuked them harshly for condeming the schism in such terms. that is what i felt about the quotes above which appear to be using some of the medieval language the popes used at that time to assert their imperial majesty. i think we have to measure and balance the SSPX with the warnings and prophecies of marian seers and saints which warned about the latter-day success of the modernist “heresy of all heresies.” archbishop lefebvre was very clear that he viewed their estrangement as a temporary one due to the apparent stranglehold that the cancer of modernism was having on holy Church. And as someone else said, above, we have to recognize the amount of good that likely has come because of their stance. would the desire for the “hermeneutic of continuity” and the “reform of the reform” have such prescience if they had not been there? i think not. i think it were well to perhaps imagine what our Lord might think of the whole matter. the SSPX has objected on a basis of principle they are sure is related to what they have stated is the apparent “rupture” between the “magisterium of the ages” and the present one, where after all, korans are kissed, and accomodations are made so very beholden to groups of zwinglians essentially at best, and outright mockers of God’s written word at worst, where they still talk of the desire to join up with the U.S. Episcopal Church which is ordaining practising homosexuals as bishops (john robinson)!

      Reply
  3. Adding to the confusion is the fact that so many overt heretics have recently come out of the wood-work in the Church and they are considered ‘in full communion’ yet the SSPX bishops and priests are considered schismatic….
    Such is the “diabolical disorientation” that we were warned about by Sr. Lucy.
    The only way this situation can be fully resolved is if the Pope grants the SSPX jurisdiction without the SSPX having to do anything, except perhaps accommodate a visit from a papal legate now and then. This would be the only way to keep the SSPX from splitting and also avoid having to finally admit that VII needs to be clarified in accord with tradition.
    However, I would bet every dollar I have that this Holy Father cares nothing for traditional Catholics or restoring clarity and unity within the Church.

    Reply
  4. I pray that Bishop Fellay regains his good sense and refuses to meet with the NewChruch officials until they are moved to return to the Traditions, Doctrines AND DOGMAS prior to the Second Vatican Council. The NewChurch is an Apostate Church-!!!!!1

    Reply
    • a good deal of it is, but the problem with your argument is its absolutist’ colouring of the entire Church. I’m quite certain that you cannot find fault with a Fr John Hardon sj for example.

      Reply
    • You don’t convince no matter how much you talk. for all the saints and devout ones of that time were warning about the advance of both philosophical and theological modernism. for example cardinal newman saw it coming for two decades even before he joined up with Holy Church. He and Dr Pusey, Cardinal Wiseman, Manning, Leo XIII, St Pius X. There is a whole direction to their warnings which you would do well to take heed. Our Lord is perfectly able to reach higher than your appeals to Trent and find fault with you for not recognizing the whole history and course of the Great Apostasy.

      Reply
  5. Let me see if I’ve got this straight: since 1988 the SSPX has been given mixed messages from “Rome.” A veritable mish-mash of yes you’re out, no you’re only a little bit out, well, you’re not exactly out but we’d like to kick you out, never mind you’re in, but out. In the mean time we have known sexually perverted BISHOPS in the US and elsewhere given the red carpet treatment whenever they traipse over to Rome – and get the hug and kiss treatment. PLEASE!!

    This week I listened to a long talk by Bishop Fellay recounting what happened in the discussions he suffered through with Rome. Quite an interesting story: again, yes you’re in, no you’re not but just sign here and we’ll forget the whole thing. The SSPX have never preached heresy, they have never said the Pope is not the Pope, in fact they pray for him and his intentions with every Rosary.

    Even in St. Augustine’s time there was the thought that an individual or a group could step aside, sometimes for a very long time, before balance returned to the Church. This is one of these times. Can any of us even imagine what our Church would be like today without the Traditionalist orders, and congregations fighting tooth and nail to keep our Faith intact.

    Reply
    • “Hence we teach and declare that by the appointment of our Lord the Roman Church possesses a sovereignty of ordinary power over all other Churches, and that this power of jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, which is truly episcopal, is immediate; to which all, of whatsoever rite and dignity, are bound, by their duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, to submit, not only in matters which belong to faith and morals, but also in those that appertain to the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world; so that the Church of Christ may be one flock under one supreme pastor, through the preservation of unity, both of communion and of profession of the same faith, with the Roman pontiff. This is the teaching of Catholic truth, from which no one can deviate without loss of faith and salvation.”

      So, yeah, the SSPX is not just heretical in its praxis but in its doctrine as well for it teaches that “true obedience” is disobedience.

      The first paragraph, Hitler-was-worse, attempt at justifying a schism is so far beneath the level of moral decency of any soi disant traditionalist and a dozen weather balloons would need to be attached to that crummy justification just so it could rise to the level of a bad dream by an otiose moribund traditionalist.

      Please post for us the clerical expert in Saint Augustine’s time who thought that a schism was defensible just as long as it was for a short time and please post for us what it was he taught justifying a schism for any length of time for it is quite well known what identifiable saints have taught about schism and what is quite well known in Catholic Tradition is that a schism is never ever justified even for a second.

      Reply
      • Who’s talking about schism? We would have to pull back and define our terms so we could continue this discussion. I don’t find any reference to Hitler in my post so I don’t get the reference. And gee, thanks for the ‘tolerance’, and ‘love’ and ‘mercy.’ Your reply really made me feel good to be a Catholic. Oh, but maybe because I’m morally indecent, a soi disant, and an otiose, moribund traditionalist I should be happy you even might consider me a Catholic.

        Reply
        • Hitler-was-worse is in reference to your attempt to justify schism by citing the actions of pederastic prelates.

          If you weren’t writing about schism in your – step aside – referent, what were you writing about?

          O, and you studiously avoided the fact that the sspx clearly does teach heresy.

          I didn’t intend to hurt your feelings and so i apologise for doing so

          Reply
          • I understand that you have a deep and abiding dislike for the SSPX. It’s not my favorite group, either.

            But you do your arguments a disservice when you allow them to slide into hyperbole.

            I am aware of not a single heretical thing taught by the SSPX, and to the best of my understanding, neither is anyone in Rome. Nobody is saying they embrace heresy, save you.

            Further, that their masses are illicit because of their odd canonical situation does not, under any concept of the word I understand, make them “sacrilegious.” The PCED has gone so far as to say that Catholics in good standing can not only meet their Sunday obligation at these masses but may even make monetary contributions to the society.

            Your condemnations, whatever the spirit that motivates them, go too far.

          • Dear Steve. M.J. follows the dictum of Flannery O’Connor that to the hard of hearing you yell and to the nearly blind you rhetorically paint with bright bold colors.

            I know that the Magisterium is treating the schism with kid gloves and that much of what it says is couched in the language of diplomacy in order to win back to the church its lost sheep but they are not unaware of the heresies of the SSPX.

            The criminal and sacrilegous Masses of the SSPX according to Tradition:

            AD APOSTOLORUM PRINCIPIS

            And when We later addressed to you the letter Ad Sinarum gentem, We again referred to this teaching in these words: “The power of jurisdiction which is conferred directly by divine right on the Supreme Pontiff comes to bishops by that same right, but only through the successor of Peter, to whom not only the faithful but also all bishops are bound to be constantly subject and to adhere both by the reverence of obedience and by the bond of unity.”

            Acts requiring the power of Holy Orders which are performed by ecclesiastics of this kind, though they are valid as long as the consecration conferred on them was valid, are yet gravely illicit, that is, criminal and sacrilegious.

            Contrary to Catholic Tradition the SSPX’s heretical teaching is that the Church Supplies when it comes to their vagus Bishops and Priests which is not only a heresy but an act of intentional deception; that is, it is lying to those who succor it for the SSPX well know what the Church supplies does NOT refer to to their vagus bishops and priests acting within the legitimate Jurisdiction of Catholic Bishops.

            The major schismatic act concretising the petit ecclesia (not the only one) of the SSPX was to establish Tribunals supplanting the universal jurisdiction of the Pope and those Tribunals issue declarations on nullity dispense from vows etc. There is no way in the hell of this schism that the SSPX will vacate the decisions already taken by those Tribunals.

            I will provide a link in moments re this perfidy

            The SSPX also teaches heresy to those who succor their schism by claiming that the SPX is to be obeyed in all that it says and does but that disobedience to the Pope is acutally obedience to God; that is, the SSPX completely inverts (in a satanic fashion) the ilfallible teachings of Vatican I.

            Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world

            And it does no good for the SSPX to claim it does not have to obey Pope A or Pope B owing to their modernism etc for even if a Pope were a devil, he would still have authority over them – that is Catholic Tradition.

  6. http://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/Archbishop-Lefebvre/OpenLetterToConfusedCatholics/Chapter-18.htm

    For Mons Lefebvre, it was his will that had to prevail and so for he and his followers, true obedience is disobedience (1984) ) especially if that disobedience is directed at the universal jurisdiction of the Pope whose authority was taught infallibly at Vatican One but when it came to the matter of disobeying him?

    Well, sir, woe betide the men ordained personally by Mons Lefevbre his own self for if they dared disobey him, they were excommunicated from his petit ecclesia even though their disobedience was anchored in the very same disobedience is true obedience claim that he used against the Popes; that is, what is permissible for him to use against the Popes is impermissible for others to use against him, a Bishop emeritus.

    Of course, that is rank hypocrisy but one is not supposed to notice such things about Mons Lefebvre.

    ABS could write a ton more about this matter but what little has been written so far ought to be enough for those who truly hold the Catholic Faith of Tradition.

    Reply

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