Present canonical status of the SSPX
Present canonical status of the SSPX
Though the Holy See speaks of the bishops involved in the Ecône Consecrations as having committed a "schismatic act", it does not regard the Society as such as being in formal schism, like, for example, the Old Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy. Nor does it necessarily regard all of the SSPX's members and supporters as formally schismatic. However, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which is the competent authority of the Holy See for relations with the Society of St. Pius X and other traditionalist Catholic clergymen in a state of dispute with Rome,[14] has expressed, in letters signed by its Secretary Monsignor Camille Perl, the judgement that "many in authority" in the Society do conform to the definition of schism,[15] and that those who attend SSPX Masses might be in danger of "imbib[ing] a mentality which separates itself from the magisterium of the Supreme Pontiff", leading over time - according to Perl - to a "formal adherence to the schism".[16] The second of these letters also declares that attendance at SSPX Masses, since they are celebrated by priests suspended from priestly functions, is for Catholics "morally illicit" in normal circumstances.[16]
On the question of the Society as a whole, the President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, has in a 2005 press interview stated that a "situation of separation" had come about as a result of the illicit episcopal consecrations, "even if it was not a formal schism."[17] In a television interview the same year, he also stated: "It cannot be said in correct, exact, and precise terms that there is a schism. There is a schismatic attitude in the fact of consecrating bishops without pontifical mandate. They are within the Church. There is only the fact that a full, more perfect communion is lacking – as was stated during the meeting with Bishop Fellay – a fuller communion, because communion does exist."[18] In yet another interview he said: "The bishops, priests and faithful of the Society of St Pius X are not schismatics. By the illicit episcopal consecration Archbishop Lefebvre performed a schismatic act. For this reason the bishops consecrated by him are suspended and excommunicated. The priests and faithful of the Society are not excommunicated. They are not heretics. I share Saint Jerome's fear that heresy leads to schism and vice versa. The danger of a schism is great, for instance through systematic disobedience to the Holy Father or denial of his authority. It is a question of a service of charity (love of neighbour) through which the priestly society obtains full communion with the Holy Father and recognizes the holiness of the new Mass."[19]
The Holy See views the four SSPX bishops as validly consecrated but excommunicated. It regards the priests ordained by them as ordained validly but illicitly, with the result that they are by law suspended from exercising their priestly functions.[20][21] No decree of excommunication has been issued against the priests or other religious of the Society (which does not have lay members), and an attempt by a diocesan bishop in Hawaii to excommunicate laypeople who attended SSPX Masses was annulled by the Vatican.
The SSPX and its supporters claim that its bishops are neither schismatic nor excommunicated, arguing that their actions, while extraordinary in nature, are canonically legitimate because the Roman Catholic Church is in a state of grave crisis.[citation needed]
The SSPX considers itself faithful to the Catholic Church and all its infallible teachings, while rejecting what it sees as novelties in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. It has officially recognised Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI as Popes.
One of the Society's four bishops, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, has declared that Pope Benedict XVI "has professed heresies in the past! He...has never retracted his errors. When he was a theologian, he professed heresies, he published a book full of heresies."[22] In the same interview Bishop Mallerais said of the Second Vatican Council: "You cannot read Vatican II as a Catholic work. It is based on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. ...I will say, one day the Church should erase this Council. She will not speak of it anymore. She must forget it. The Church will be wise if she forgets this council."[22]
Similarly, Bishop Richard Williamson has said of Pope Benedict XVI: "His past writings are full of Modernist errors. Now, Modernism is the synthesis of all heresies (Pascendi, Saint Pius X). So Ratzinger as a heretic goes far beyond Luther's Protestant errors, as Bishop Tissier de Mallerais well said." Williamson added that the documents of the Second Vatican Council "are much too subtly and deeply poisoned to be reinterpreted. The whole of a partly poisoned cake goes to the trash can!"[23]
The four SSPX bishops do not claim ordinary jurisdiction over those who receive sacraments from SSPX priests and bishops. An appeal is made to canon 144 §1 ("In common error, whether of fact or of law, and in positive and probable doubt, whether of law or of fact, the Church supplies executive power of governance for both the external and the internal forum") and canon 844 §2 ("Whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, Christ's faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, may lawfully receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid") of the Code of Canon Law in regard to the sacraments of penance and matrimony, for whose validity ordinary jurisdiction is normally required, to justify their actual exercise of a jurisdiction alleged to be supplied extraordinarily, not only for these sacraments,[24] but even for marriage dispensations and annulments.[25]
Since it is agreed that SSPX priests are not "non-Catholic ministers", canon 844 does not apply to their situation. But canon 144 clearly does apply in some cases of sacramental absolution, so that someone who confesses to an SSPX priest without knowing that he lacks the faculty to exercise the power of order (cf. canon 966 §1) will be validly absolved by him.[20] Its application to a marriage contracted before an SSPX priest who clearly has no link with the local Ordinary or parish priest (cf. canon 1108 §1) is much less certain, and is still more difficult to uphold with regard to dispensations from marriage impediments and especially to marriage annulments, a reason which has induced some priests to abandon the Society.[26][27]
Source : wikipedia
Though the Holy See speaks of the bishops involved in the Ecône Consecrations as having committed a "schismatic act", it does not regard the Society as such as being in formal schism, like, for example, the Old Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy. Nor does it necessarily regard all of the SSPX's members and supporters as formally schismatic. However, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which is the competent authority of the Holy See for relations with the Society of St. Pius X and other traditionalist Catholic clergymen in a state of dispute with Rome,[14] has expressed, in letters signed by its Secretary Monsignor Camille Perl, the judgement that "many in authority" in the Society do conform to the definition of schism,[15] and that those who attend SSPX Masses might be in danger of "imbib[ing] a mentality which separates itself from the magisterium of the Supreme Pontiff", leading over time - according to Perl - to a "formal adherence to the schism".[16] The second of these letters also declares that attendance at SSPX Masses, since they are celebrated by priests suspended from priestly functions, is for Catholics "morally illicit" in normal circumstances.[16]
On the question of the Society as a whole, the President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, has in a 2005 press interview stated that a "situation of separation" had come about as a result of the illicit episcopal consecrations, "even if it was not a formal schism."[17] In a television interview the same year, he also stated: "It cannot be said in correct, exact, and precise terms that there is a schism. There is a schismatic attitude in the fact of consecrating bishops without pontifical mandate. They are within the Church. There is only the fact that a full, more perfect communion is lacking – as was stated during the meeting with Bishop Fellay – a fuller communion, because communion does exist."[18] In yet another interview he said: "The bishops, priests and faithful of the Society of St Pius X are not schismatics. By the illicit episcopal consecration Archbishop Lefebvre performed a schismatic act. For this reason the bishops consecrated by him are suspended and excommunicated. The priests and faithful of the Society are not excommunicated. They are not heretics. I share Saint Jerome's fear that heresy leads to schism and vice versa. The danger of a schism is great, for instance through systematic disobedience to the Holy Father or denial of his authority. It is a question of a service of charity (love of neighbour) through which the priestly society obtains full communion with the Holy Father and recognizes the holiness of the new Mass."[19]
The Holy See views the four SSPX bishops as validly consecrated but excommunicated. It regards the priests ordained by them as ordained validly but illicitly, with the result that they are by law suspended from exercising their priestly functions.[20][21] No decree of excommunication has been issued against the priests or other religious of the Society (which does not have lay members), and an attempt by a diocesan bishop in Hawaii to excommunicate laypeople who attended SSPX Masses was annulled by the Vatican.
The SSPX and its supporters claim that its bishops are neither schismatic nor excommunicated, arguing that their actions, while extraordinary in nature, are canonically legitimate because the Roman Catholic Church is in a state of grave crisis.[citation needed]
The SSPX considers itself faithful to the Catholic Church and all its infallible teachings, while rejecting what it sees as novelties in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. It has officially recognised Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI as Popes.
One of the Society's four bishops, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, has declared that Pope Benedict XVI "has professed heresies in the past! He...has never retracted his errors. When he was a theologian, he professed heresies, he published a book full of heresies."[22] In the same interview Bishop Mallerais said of the Second Vatican Council: "You cannot read Vatican II as a Catholic work. It is based on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. ...I will say, one day the Church should erase this Council. She will not speak of it anymore. She must forget it. The Church will be wise if she forgets this council."[22]
Similarly, Bishop Richard Williamson has said of Pope Benedict XVI: "His past writings are full of Modernist errors. Now, Modernism is the synthesis of all heresies (Pascendi, Saint Pius X). So Ratzinger as a heretic goes far beyond Luther's Protestant errors, as Bishop Tissier de Mallerais well said." Williamson added that the documents of the Second Vatican Council "are much too subtly and deeply poisoned to be reinterpreted. The whole of a partly poisoned cake goes to the trash can!"[23]
The four SSPX bishops do not claim ordinary jurisdiction over those who receive sacraments from SSPX priests and bishops. An appeal is made to canon 144 §1 ("In common error, whether of fact or of law, and in positive and probable doubt, whether of law or of fact, the Church supplies executive power of governance for both the external and the internal forum") and canon 844 §2 ("Whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, Christ's faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, may lawfully receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid") of the Code of Canon Law in regard to the sacraments of penance and matrimony, for whose validity ordinary jurisdiction is normally required, to justify their actual exercise of a jurisdiction alleged to be supplied extraordinarily, not only for these sacraments,[24] but even for marriage dispensations and annulments.[25]
Since it is agreed that SSPX priests are not "non-Catholic ministers", canon 844 does not apply to their situation. But canon 144 clearly does apply in some cases of sacramental absolution, so that someone who confesses to an SSPX priest without knowing that he lacks the faculty to exercise the power of order (cf. canon 966 §1) will be validly absolved by him.[20] Its application to a marriage contracted before an SSPX priest who clearly has no link with the local Ordinary or parish priest (cf. canon 1108 §1) is much less certain, and is still more difficult to uphold with regard to dispensations from marriage impediments and especially to marriage annulments, a reason which has induced some priests to abandon the Society.[26][27]
Source : wikipedia
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