Long-time participant HE alerted me to the following from the site of the SSPX.
They are happy about the reception of so many former Anglicans entering into the Roman obedience.
As you know, Anglicans are able to enter full union with the Successor of Peter and also retain their English Anglican traditions and practices.
My emphases and comments:
GOOD NEWS:
900 Anglicans become Catholic at Easter
5-3-2011While celebrating the Paschal season’s glad tidings of joy, it is appropriate that we relay the good news of 900 Anglicans converting to Catholicism on Easter, a traditional time when converts are received into the Church. This encouraging number is all the more so when we consider that it included 61 former Anglican ministers. [Note, they didn’t write “priests and bishops”. The Anglican Ordinariate was formed after its future leadership adhered to the teaching of the Catholic Church expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.]
Despite some reservations about the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus and the personal ordinariate that has been erected for such converts from Anglicanism, [See my comment, above.] nonetheless we genuinely rejoice to hear of their recent conversion and sincerely welcome them as new members of the Mystical Body of Christ. May they unceasingly turn to their ordinariate’s patroness, Our Lady of Walsingham, for assistance in the restoration of the Faith of their Catholic ancestors, whose fervent devotion to the Blessed Mary Ever Virgin once caused their country to be called, Our Lady’s Dowry. [Do I hear an “Amen!”? C’mon! A loud “AMEN!”?]
We also pray for all of this year’s Easter converts that they will persevere in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and thereby earn the eternal reward of the beatific vision of Our Risen Lord. [“AMEN!”]
I would love to see someday a statement put out by the Anglican Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham rejoice over the reconciliation of the SSPX.
Perhaps one day soon will will see an Ordinariate (or something) for the SSPX which would make it possible to have manifestly full Communion with the Successor of Peter and also be able to preserve our Roman Catholic traditions and practices.
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The Church does not need an ordinariate for SSPX. They (SSPX) celebrate the same traditional Latin Mass used in the Extraordinary Form throughout the world. In every Mass they pray for the Holy Father by name. The are very devoted to Our Blessed Mother and big proponents of the Rosary. But regardless of what mistakes they think were made during Vatican II, and admittedly many were, SSPX needs to swallow their pride and submit to the Successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ. The Holy Father has bent over backwards to show them they are welcome back, but their recalcitrance — however long they wish to remain away — should never be rewarded with an ordinariate.
Seems to me their comment about how the SSPX does “sincerely welcome them as new members of the Mystical Body of Christ” is slightly problematic.
Didn’t their baptism as Anglicans make them members of Christ’s mystical body?
Yes, I understand they’re now coming into full communion with Rome, thus becoming more fully members of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, but this statement seems to me to imply they weren’t Christians in the first place.
Obviously written by one of the more sensible SSPXers. Hard to know where one would place the Anglican Ordinariate in the scheme provided by Bishop Williamson’s ecclesiology.
I’m honestly confused.
What do the SSPX believe these Anglicans have submitted themselves to? A failing authority that has practically abandoned its traditional moorings and placed its members of mainstream parishes on a path that diverges from its Divine Founder’s original intent? If they take their own ideas of separation and condemnation to their logical conclusions, they would warn these converts that they are being deceived and should come to the True Church as safe-guarded by them. Anything short of that borders on condoning the errors of “Modern Rome” and giving scandal to these young sheep.
However, if they are congratulating these converts on discovering a true aspect of Christian identity by submission, manifest submission, to this Divinely-established authority, the papacy, then are they not giving scandal themselves by simply paying lip-service to the Vicar of Christ during their illicit Masses while openly rejecting his immediate jurisdiction in their own order? Are they any different from the Anglo-Catholics who “play Church” all the while keeping their safe distance from any Roman involvement?
Invoke the historical exception of Athanasius all you want, but if the SSPX is trying to get more mileage out of the “state of necessity” argument, then they are running on fumes. And, as has been mentioned on this blog many times, the next generation of the SSPX is slowly getting ready to assume the reins of power as the likes of Abp. Fellay move closer to retirement (or pass away). These life-long SSPXers have only known separation, and will have identity crises if they are ever approached about reunification with the Holy See. They may never seek peace with Rome and its Bishop, whom they’ve been raised up to be suspicious of.
Time is short. There may not be another opportunity.
Amen!
Father; is it permissable to go to an SSPX chapel? only the litrugy at the local NO parishes is so bad I have stopped going duirng the week, it is both unaffordable and impractical to attend either diocesan Parishes that offer the EF daily (2 hour round trip by car- I don’t drive/couldn’t afford the gas if I did) or the local (six hour round trip) FSSP chapel.
Its annoying that there is a beutifull SSPX chapel only 30 minuites walk away where the liturgy is reverent and by the book and I don’t have to put up with laity who think they run the Church.
What do the SSPX believe these Anglicans have submitted themselves to? A failing authority that has practically abandoned its traditional moorings and placed its members of mainstream parishes on a path that diverges from its Divine Founder’s original intent? If they take their own ideas of separation and condemnation to their logical conclusions, they would warn these converts that they are being deceived and should come to the True Church as safe-guarded by them. Anything short of that borders on condoning the errors of “Modern Rome” and giving scandal to these young sheep.
I’m not a part of the SSPX, but I’ve looked at their arguments carefully. They are not sedevecantists. They believe that the popes since John XXIII are the true successors of Peter. They have extreme theological reservations about Vatican II as a pastoral council, and they do argue to a certain extent a “hermeneutic of discontinuity” to use the Holy Father’s language, but they have no intention to form their own separatist church to counter Rome. And so, they rightfully celebrate the conversion of those to the “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic” Church from the errors of Anglicanism.
The statement they issued says it appropriately. This was a true conversion from error to truth. And, if those who strongly support the conciliar language of Vatican II are going to be consistent with the teaching of Unitatis Redintegratio, this is unrelated to ecumenism. And so, the SSPX put it correctly when they say “nonetheless we genuinely rejoice to hear of their recent conversion and sincerely welcome them as new members of the Mystical Body of Christ“. They are now united to the Pope in jurisdiction, faith and morals, and so they are fully incorporated into the Mystical Body. This is something to rejoice about, and the language the SSPX use in this case is entirely consistent with their criticism of the theology of Vatican II.
rfox2,
With all due respect, brother (or sister), I have also carefully read the SSPX’s arguments. However, simply claiming not to be a separatist church does not make it so. If there is nothing real or palpable in an SSPX parish when it comes to papal submission, the kids will pick up very quickly that Rome is “a little off”. As they grow up, they will take these implications to their logical conclusions. Suspicion will always kill trust.
I guess you could nickname it “Palpable Papality.” Does an SSPX parish have it or no? I say no.
It is unreasonable to think that the SSPX should suddenly stop administering the Sacraments to their faithful, as a legalistic token of “submission.” What then of the salvation of souls, which the 1983 Code reminds us is “the supreme law”? Even if conditions in the Church have improved since 1988, the main reason the SSPX carries on providing the Sacraments today is not the purported “state of necessity,” but rather the care of the souls who depend on their priests.
The Holy Father is surely looking at the SSPX situation with God’s perspective, which involves seeing past, present, and future all at once. There will (I hope and pray) be a formal reconciliation in God’s good time. In the meantime, the way to preserve SSPX souls from being lost is continuity within the structures they know. The issues of liceity and jurisdiction are not inconsequential, but they can be settled in the future.
In the case of Anglicanorum coetibus, the Pope never told the Anglican clergy (although he could have), “Stop pretending to say Mass and then we’ll talk.” Nor is he taking that sort of approach with the SSPX. Let us hope his course of action bears good fruit in both cases.
Would you mind explaining this a bit more? I’ve only been to three Chapels run by the SSPX. All have had a picture of the Holy Father prominently displayed, all have mentioned him in the Canon, and none have made any disparaging remarks about him during the sermon.
What is it that an “SSPX Parish” should be doing that you think they are not doing?
GOOD NEWS
900 Anglicans join the Modernist Newchurch at Easter
“While celebrating the Paschal season’s glad tidings of joy, it is appropriate that we relay the good news of 900 Anglicans converting to Catholicism on Easter, a traditional time when converts are received into the Church.”
Pray, why ought the SSPX rejoice, I wonder, that Anglicans have swum the Tiber to what the SSPX have called “Modernist Rome” to be received by what the SSPX have labelled the “Newchurch” by the “Newpope”, a pope they, themselves, refuse submission to?
It seems very strange to me that an organization of people who maintain their distance from the official Church should be so pleased to see that Protestants have joined it and are now in full communion with it.
“Perhaps one day soon will will see an Ordinariate (or something) for the SSPX which would make it possible to have manifestly full Communion with the Successor of Peter and also be able to preserve our Roman Catholic traditions and practices.”
They wouldn’t need an ordinariate to be able to preserve our Roman Catholic traditions and practices.
“They wouldn’t need an ordinariate to be able to preserve our Roman Catholic traditions and practices.”
I retract that remark; it isn’t what you meant. My apologies.
Jack Hughes: I know you meant your question for Fr. Z, but if I may give you my two cents: if I were in your shoes, and the local parish was insufferable and causing me to be discouraged in my faith, I would attend Mass at the local SSPX chapel. It is certainly not ideal, and perhaps you should still drop in on your local parish here and there, but liturgical piety should be Catholic and joyful. If that is what you receive at the chapel, then why not take advantage of that?
What a gracious comment from the U.S. SSPX website showing the sense that we are not all heretics and modernists.
Former Altar Boy says:
The Church does not need an ordinariate for SSPX. They (SSPX) celebrate the same traditional Latin Mass used in the Extraordinary Form throughout the world. In every Mass they pray for the Holy Father by name. The are very devoted to Our Blessed Mother and big proponents of the Rosary. But regardless of what mistakes they think were made during Vatican II, and admittedly many were, SSPX needs to swallow their pride and submit to the Successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ. The Holy Father has bent over backwards to show them they are welcome back, but their recalcitrance — however long they wish to remain away — should never be rewarded with an ordinariate.
The ordinariate will ensure that the once SSPX has reunited with Rome, (a) their properties will remain in dioceses regardless of whether or no the diocesan bishop wants them there, and (b) SSPX priests will be able to celebrate the TLM without inference from the diocesan bishop.
RichR: If there is nothing real or palpable in an SSPX parish when it comes to papal submission, the kids will pick up very quickly that Rome is “a little off”.”
Why not just leave out the SSPX reference and say:
If there is nothing real or palpable in a parish when it comes to papal submission, the kids will pick up very quickly that Rome is “a little off”.”
In every TLM community in my personal experience–as well as among individual SSPX adherents I have encountered–there has been apparent a conscious sense of papal fidelity. However, I suspect the presence of such explicit fidelity is by no means as universal in ordinary “Catholic” parishes. And I have seen pastors whose papal fidelity was hardly conspicuous.
Does the Pope exercise any jurisdiction on a practical level in an SSPX parish? Does an SSPX parish have any manifest unity with its territorial bishop? Is the Pope the superior of Fellay? If so, how is that seen on practical level.
Take the example of military soldiers. Imagine a situation where you have a person who dresses in his Marines uniform, calls himself a Marine, goes out and undertakes all sorts of military operations where he overtakes small governments, murders dictators, rescues hostages. He says his Pledge of Allegiance every morning, he has a photo of the Commander-in-Chief in his wallet, he says he is defending the American Way of life, and he always takes his flag out on the 4th of July. He uses American-issued guns and ammo, he has trained at American training camps for the Marines, and he talks very fondly of the President and Joint Chiefs of Staff to anyone who says otherwise. He believes in Americanism.
There’s one catch. He was kicked out of the Marines years ago. The missions he undertakes are on his own initiative, the arms he acquires are through illegal channels, and the US Government has tried to stop him from doing what he’s doing….but he knows better than to trust politicians. He thinks he is furthering the cause of American ideals and protecting American citizens from harm. He doesn’t think about the fact that he is ignoring the duly-elected authorities who are issuing reasonable orders for him to cease and desist.
That’s what I mean by having manifest unity with the Holy See. Simply saying you have fidelity to the Pope is silly when your Religious Order’s operations are independent of the Holy See.
Boy, some of you people never stop casting stones. You are calling SSPX disobedient? Are you always perfectly obedent to all of your lawful superiors, including GOD?
And another thing,SSPX are in communionwith Rome. It’s time for you to accept it.
There is no need of reconciliation for them, at least to your knowledge. They are reconciled. They are in communion. It’s time for you guys to stop making accusations against Them!
Rich,
If I understand what you are saying, in order for the SSPX to demonstrate “manifest unity” they must cease to exist and abandon all the souls in their care, correct?
I can think of more appropriate analogies, but want to fully understand what you are tring to say first.