The SSPX and Unreality
Recently, a dispute has erupted between Taylor Marshall and various Catholic personalities regarding the SSPX. My opinion of Marshall is well known, so I don’t want to spend any time re-hashing that. In attempting to mediate the dispute, the “Right on Point” podcast wanted to do a show with Marshall and his former partner Timothy Gordon to discuss the SSPX.
The problem with such an invitation is that the discussion which would inevitably take place is divorced from reality. The discussion is not about the SSPX, but rather what two people unaffiliated with the Society have to say about how they could view the SSPX to benefit or not benefit them personally. This approach doesn’t involve the Society, doesn’t involve those negotiating with the Society, and it potentially damages efforts to bring about reconciliation and full communion.
What is that reality? Is the SSPX “schismatic?” Were/are they right all along? How can a Catholic participate in functions by the Society? For better or worse, there aren’t clear answers to these questions, and there never have been. One has always been allowed to attend their Masses, and even fulfill a Sunday obligation, so long as one isn’t doing so with a “schismatic mindset”, whatever that is. Their confessions for some time were likely invalid, until Pope Francis settled the debate by granting them jurisdiction, and extending that jurisdiction indefinitely. There are also ways that SSPX marriages can also be recognized. The Pope has even given Bishop Bernard Fellay jurisdiction over a Society priest in a canonical trial. I’m not sure how you can credibly claim someone is a “schismatic” if they are delegated by the Pope to have legal authority to oversee and potentially punish a priest in his name. Likewise, if one requires jurisdiction to lawfully hear confessions, you can’t grant jurisdiction to someone outside of the Church.
On the other hand, receiving communion is still questionable from the Society at Masses, and on repeated instances Rome has discouraged reception. Their priests are still technically operating without faculties, and alongside their bishops are technically suspended from priestly ministry outside of those areas the Pope has specifically made provision for. They cannot use the name “Catholic” in their Churches in most countries.
In short, the approach the Church takes with the Society of St. Pius X is an incoherent mess. Yet Church history is full of incoherent messes when dealing with healing schisms. Try making sense of jurisdiction and authority in the Eastern Mediterranean between Catholics and Orthodox in the 13th through 15th centuries. You can’t, its impossible. Attempts to restore communion between Rome and various Eastern Churches have always stopped and started at various speeds. Even with attempting to reconcile traditionalist groups with the Vatican, Rome would permit them to not have to accept the decrees of Vatican II, and in many instances, they never actually settled upon a definition of what precisely people had to accept. (Indeed, the question over how one is to understand Dignitatis Humanae is still ongoing. One must “accept” the document as not formally contradicting “past teaching”, but what that teaching is, and how its to be understood, is still discussed in this day in the CDF.) If you think this is messy, try understanding the relationship between the Catholic Church and St. Gregory of Narek through a strict understanding of legal “communion.” (He is a doctor of the Catholic Church despite technically never being in juridical communion with the Church in Rome!)
This messy reality is never discussed when discussions about the SSPX come up. The Church, while holding to a strict legal definition, has always employed wide discretion in how to apply the law when dealing with clerics outside of formal communion. Her goal is to ultimately promote pastoral care for everyone involved: to make sure Catholics don’t imbibe some of the more problematic errors, but to still try and provide care for individuals that are, by baptism and by faith, Catholic. This is not a perfect balance, and the Church’s often incoherence regarding the SSPX is evidence of this.
So if we are going to talk about the Society, we need to recognize this tension up front, and also take into mind the current position of the Church. The Church, while acknowledging this tension, is right now erring on the side of providing as much legitimacy to the SSPX as possible, so that the faithful can be given spiritual care inside and outside the Society. There are still differences, and these differences are real. Yet, as Bishop Athanasius Schneider (whom Pope Francis had delegated to carry out discussions with the Society) pointed out, these differences should not be a barrier to eventual full communion.
To the extent an analogy is helpful here, I will attempt to offer one. One should not look at the relationship between the SSPX and Rome as that of adversaries. There may have been past hostilities, but those hostilities have ceased. One could say that there is a cease fire between Rome and Econe, and that cease fire is pending upon a permanent resolution of conflict, in a matter agreeable to both sides. While there may be occasional bellicose rhetoric and even the flareup of hostility, both sides are doing their best to tamp down on it, and remain committed to negotiations. The end point of that negotiation is fraternal union, and the various steps along the way are an attempt to re-establish that union, so that it actually sticks.
Most of the dialogue surrounding the Society, especially on twitter and among various personalities,ignores this complicated reality. As a result, it should be rejected and ignored.
