Quite a few of you have written to me about something that my good friend Fr. James Jackson, FSSP (recently moved from Colorado to Rhode Island) published in his parish’s bulletin. I received two such emails this afternoon. Father is the author of the terrific Nothing Superfluous: An Explanation of the Symbolism of the Rite of St. Gregory the Great – US HERE UK HERE . Now more important that ever: Be ready to give reasons.
All of us priests who are convinced that the Traditional Roman RITE or Vetus Ordo is of prime importance for Holy Church, has been getting questions from people about what he would do if Francis, or the Roman Congregations do in his name and by his will, tries to shut down the Vetus Ordo completely or disbands the Fraternity of St. Peter.
Is it wise to think about undertaking big projects – any projects – right now if everything is under threat in the wake of Francis’ own Plessy v. Ferguson document?
I’m with Sun Tzu: “If you fight with all your might, there is a chance of life; where as death is certain if you cling to your corner.”
Fr. Jackson, a retired Marine, has provided an answer. It was an of charity to be so forthright and to print this in his bulletin. In a time when doctrine and leadership are under attack from both within and without, people are understandably anxious. People want clarion call leadership, not the feeble “from behind” that has enervated nearly every aspect of the Church’s life.
This is Father’s response with my emphases:
“I’ve been asked more than once about whether we should pursue another project, given the hostility of not just the pope but many prelates, clergy, religious and laity to the Vetus Ordo. Could the pope just suppress the FSSP? Yes. And if he did, the bishop of Providence would be left trying to provide for your needs, which would be a daunting task for him. The worst-case scenario would be that we are ordered to leave the diocese and the parish would be closed. Could this happen? Yes. If it did, I’ve already made up my mind what I’m not going to do. I won’t go independent (I’ve seen way too much schism in that department), nor will I join the SSPX (as if they’d have me). I would instead retire, get a small house with my meager savings and hit the road in some area such as this one, going around celebrating Mass at people’s houses, all underground of course, keeping the Mass alive and waiting for better times. As a Society of Apostolic Life, we are very much working on each possibility and are planning how to fight like junkyard dogs, if needed. But more than anything, we trust our Lord 100% that He knew what He is doing when He permitted the Motu Proprio of this pope. Our Lord told us that there is only One Whom we should fear. And it isn’t the pope or some cardinal with a chip on his shoulder about tradition. – By now you’ve heard about the grave restriction of our work in Mexico. It is not 100%, and maybe we can hang on down there for better times, but better times may not be coming. To be honest, I have a feeling that this is the end of our work in Mexico. We will lose many battles, I think. Fraternity priests will be meeting in Nebraska from October 25-29 for a recollection and an ordination. Both Fr. Truong and I will be attending. We need to stand solid and united not just for our society, but also for the faithful we serve. Zoom meetings cannot accomplish this. So, we may not have Masses available for you during that week. Please understand that this might be the last meeting we have together as a Society.”
Maybe fight like “Devil Dogs”?
It seems to me that this is going to be the situation for quite a few priests.
As I mentioned before, before too long you may need those home altars and the necessities for Mass.
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The same authoritarian impulses that are causing so much damage in civil society seem to be afflicting the Church as well.
Joseph most faithful, pray for us.
Mirror of patience, pray for us . . .
Terror of demons, pray for us.
Protector of Holy Church, pray for us.
… some cardinal with a chip on his shoulder …
That’s almost the perfect inversion of “et tu, Brute?”
That should be on the coat of arms for the Custos Traditiones society –> QUIDAM CARDINALIS LIGNO IN HUMERO or similar. Since I don’t actually KNOW Latin I’m not able to play with declensions and word orders as much as is possible. I freely submit to help from the assembled peerage!
As a quick reminder, there are many who think the Pope is acting ultra vires by restricting the Eternal Rite. Two examples:
https://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2021/07/s-pius-v-and-traditionis-custodes.html
https://www.cardinalburke.com/presentations/traditionis-custodes (paragraphs 15 and 16 especially)
Other bishops and cardinals have opined in a similar way.
It therefore appears not to be disobedient to celebrate the Ancient Rite privately, regardless of what a Pope or bishop may say. So you can build those altars with a light conscience, folks!
And some essential historical reading on how we got to the point where many people think the Pope can fundamentally change a rite with the stroke of a pen, and imagine themselves good Catholics by thinking thus:
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2018/10/tyranny-and-sexual-abuse-in-catholic.html
https://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2010-Brian-Novus-Disordo.htm
Father Jackson makes other good points in the bulletin:
– The way we get up in the morning is tactical, but strategically we need a plan. This works for most people with few exceptions. But the key to a strategic plan is knowing your predominant fault. If you don’t know it, then you’ll have to search for it. Once you find it, then you find what the opposite virtue is to the fault. All progress in the interior life has to do with progress in the virtue opposite to the predominant fault. More on this later.
What is the difference between going independent and going from house to house as an underground itinerant priest?
These are firm words from a priest firm in his Faith and in his calling. I am proud to know Father Jackson, albeit casually. But I know him well enough to say he means these firm – and encouraging – words.
Anita,
Good question. Maybe independent is setting up a church somewhere and claiming you have authority to be a pastor despite not seeking approval from an ordinary. Meanwhile, bouncing from house to house saying private masses is not intending to defy the local ordinary, it simply wouldn’t be seeking out his approval either. That’s my guess.
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Amateur Scholastic says,
And some essential historical reading on how we got to the point where many people think the Pope can fundamentally change a rite with the stroke of a pen . . .
The pope did not fundamentally change the rite. He promulgated a new rite.
Good question. Maybe independent is setting up a church somewhere and claiming you have authority to be a pastor despite not seeking approval from an ordinary. Meanwhile, bouncing from house to house saying private masses is not intending to defy the local ordinary, it simply wouldn’t be seeking out his approval either. That’s my guess.
Yes, Chrisc, I believe that is exactly correct. Way back in the 1990s, I remember a priest who had been “let go” from his diocese, who went to a neighboring diocese and just plain “set up shop”, running what had the outward form of a parish, but totally without any permission or approval from the local ordinary. This is what is meant by an “independent chapel”, I think. A stable (or semi-stable) arrangement – probably with donations being accepted, and baptisms, confessions, first holy communions, and weddings celebrated – all without interconnection with the diocese.
This is effectively nothing like what Fr. Jackson is saying. As far as I know (someone please correct me if I am wrong), when a priest goes on vacation to some far-away location, and stays with family or friends, there is nothing wrong with his saying mass in their home for a few days. He is just passing through, and he doesn’t need to ask permission from the local ordinary whether he is allowed to say mass. He can also talk to people, give spiritual counsel, and spiritual comfort. (I am not going to get into whether he can hear confessions, other than to say: it may be complicated.) It isn’t a stable situation at all, and it doesn’t pretend to be (or be “like”) a parish.
He can also (as far as I know) accept engagements to speak publicly at “events” being planned, again without asking permission of the local ordinary. (At least, on the assumption the event isn’t being staged to promote heresy or other evils). And this would presumably permit speaking fees payable to him – that works for other priests just fine, I don’t see why he couldn’t accept them. So he could even earn a bit of spending money.
TonyO wrote: “I am not going to get into whether he can hear confessions, other than to say: it may be complicated.”
If the situation with Francis and his cronies gets really out of hand (not that it hasn’t been bad enough already), I’m guessing that eventually we’re gonna reach a point in which we can say that we are in a “grave situation” or in “grave circumstances” (eg. persecution) as reasons allowed by Canon Law for dispensations from requirements such as clergy needing faculties to say Mass, the sacraments, etc. in his given location. Indeed canon law is very accommodating in this respect, allowing dispensations from many things based on “grave reasons”.
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Book, The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest. Are we at the new beginning? Home Altars and Priest holes? I have sadly known two laicized Priest from the old rite, now departed. I asked them if in an “emergency” could you perform last rites? They both replied, of course. Francis can try to destroy our Rites and our Priest ,He will fail. All the years from 1969 on the TLM never stopped. Our Priest both young and old are battle hardened warriors. God Bless them all!
“…nor will I join the SSPX”.
With all due respect, why not? The SSPX is not in schism with The Church.
Personally, my bags are packed, waiting by the door and ready for the short trip to our local SSPX should the hammer come down. I will assist our local FSSP in hosting a house mass & do whatever it takes to assist when the possibility presents itself but ignore the local SSPX? Certainly not.
My thought is that by doing what he’s doing, the pope may be trying to force people to the SSPX, then will cut the SSPX off. Two birds with one stone.
I’m a bread baker and have looked up how to make hosts for communion. I have lots of flour stored. Just saying, maybe that’s my role.
Fr. Z, we need to come up with some system whereby faithful laity can make it known to displaced and cancelled priests that they can “come stay with us”, either on a short-time basis or a long-term basis. As in “sure, we’d be delighted to have you for a week or two”, or maybe “we have a guest room with your name on it, please come and make yourself at home.” A way that can be, at least in theory, not easily tampered with by those with malice in their hearts. Is that possible?
A lot of folks feel anger, discouragement and fear about various things in our world today, and sometimes it can be overwhelming. And so often the question people ask is, what are we to do? — meaning, about the overall situation.
That way of thinking is part of what discourages us; who can move the world?
But another way to approach it is to ask: what is God’s task for me? That is far easier to answer:
1. Be holy; stay holy; grow in holiness, through closeness to Jesus, with sacraments and prayer.
2. Be busy about the duties of your particular vocation. A married person has plenty to keep busy; so have I as a priest. If neither married nor a cleric nor in religious life, then be chaste and prayerful about what vocation may lie ahead for you, while you take care of the people around you and your work and other personal responsibilities.
This may upset people, but I am not responsible for saving the world (and neither are you). God has put me in a particular place, and where I am, I can keep busy doing good here. I pray for the larger concerns — for political leadership, for the pope, for the archbishop, for conversion of hearts and Divine assistance regarding various bad trends — but all that is in God’s hands. I do not, in fact, carry the weight of the world on my back, and God does not ask me to do that.
So be faithful, be busy about the tasks you know you have, and be at peace.
TonyO:
“He can also (as far as I know) accept engagements to speak publicly at “events” being planned, again without asking permission of the local ordinary.”
Secular events, sure.
It can vary depending on the Bishop, of course, but generally speaking, prudent parishes, schools, and organizations don’t book an outside speaker for an event or program without making sure where that outside speaker ranks on the Bishop’s welcome/not list.
Bob, thanks for that clarification. Prudent entities that are closely tied in to the diocesan structure, like parishes and diocesan schools, will do that. However, (and this has been true for decades) a goodly many of them don’t do that, and have been getting away with it either by saying “gee, we didn’t know he was a ‘problem’ speaker, sorry about that”, or because there is precious little actual oversight happening anyway. (This is, after all, what the liberals did for 30 years before they became the masters in the church bureaucracy.)
I have a suspicion that there are now quite a number of organizations that no longer have any close ties to the diocese – sometimes for the very good reason that the organization was formed in order to do battle with the bad men in the chancery – and simply would not have any interest whatsoever in whether the bishop was on the outs with Priest X, or would even be more likely to invite him precisely because the bishop thought X was a problem priest. I am thinking, for example, of Church Militant, when they invited a collection of cancelled priests to come speak, precisely because they had been cancelled.
What is the difference between going independent and going from house to house as an underground itinerant priest?
A word or two from the bishop. If the bishop grants faculties to a priest in a particular diocese, he can say Mass there in private whenever he wants. Under TC, permission is needed for a priest to continue saying the Latin Mass. If faculties or permission are not granted, he would be saying Mass independently.
But then a priest, or a bishop, may also revoke these permissions specifically. And one of the dicasteries now in charge of the Latin Mass could clarify, authoritatively, that the bishop’s explicit designation of places where the Latin Mass can be said is needed equally for private Masses.
Which is why I don’t think it particularly prudent to go around talking about private Masses and house oratories. This particular priest, for example, claims he will go “underground”. But now the whole world knows about it. It isn’t “underground” if everyone knows about it. And unless operational security is remarkably good (and trads are particularly chatty), people will usually end up knowing about house Masses and which priest is circulating where. And it will get back to the bishop, who again needs only say one word to turn itinerant into independent.
In a sense, it is fine for the bishop to know, because all lawful Masses are said in communion with the bishop. But it is not fine for the bishop to hear, because that means some disturbance has been created. And it is fine for the dicastery to know, because all lawful Masses are said in communion with the Holy Father, whom the dicastery serves. But it is not fine for the dicastery to read about it on one of the blogs they follow, because it looks like some sort of organized rebellion that needs to be stamped out to maintain order, and indeed could be with just one word from them.
C. Not a canon lawyer. In TC 6.5, it says that priests should request permission from the diocesan bishop to continue celebrating according to the old Rite.
A)What is the force of that ‘should request’?
B) Are we sure this applies to private masses?
@C.: “ Which is why I don’t think it particularly prudent to go around talking about private Masses and house oratories.”
But nobody is going into specifics here. Even if the powers that be are reading these comments, they remain completely clueless about where the faithful may be having their TLM privately.
“ But it is not fine for the dicastery to read about it on one of the blogs they follow, because it looks like some sort of organized rebellion that needs to be stamped out to maintain order, and indeed could be with just one word from them.”.
Stamped out? Ha! They can issue all of the oppressive decrees they want, but how are they going to enforce them? How exactly do you go about making sure that priests don’t say the TLM in private? If a TLM is happening in the private chapel of one of the faithful, how exactly are they going to make sure that activity stops?
As I mention above, the more oppressive Francis and his cronies become, the more we get pushed into “grave circumstances”/“grave reasons” that canon law mentions throughout as exceptions for the rule, making any underground TLM activities completely licit.
This is about the salvation of souls for crying out loud, and no neo-modernist bishop can get in the way of that!
ChrisC,
I’m not any sort of lawyer, either, but work under codes and regulations in my own field.
I read it as the “shall” applies to bishops.
TC regulates bishops, defining their purview and responsibility. It leaves them some discretion as to how.
I am a former parishioner of Fr. Jackson, and he is a tower of strength and wisdom. But with Francis running the show, I suspect that all bets are off regarding obeying this or that canon law. I wouldn’t fault anybody, including me, for attending the Mass of a priest without faculties, independent, SSPX, etc., (and you can supply for yourself what might be included in that “etc.”)
@Chrisc,
I recommend reading this article by a canonist, arguing that the entire document is full of loopholes and get-out clauses, to the point that it basically loses all legal meaning:
https://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2021/07/29/the-enormous-loophole-in-traditionis-custodes/
The FSSP may have to change the color of the tears on their logo to red. :-(
If the bishop grants faculties to a priest in a particular diocese, he can say Mass there in private whenever he wants. Under TC, permission is needed for a priest to continue saying the Latin Mass.
@C.: As I understand the situation, you are missing a couple of points here.
1. A Catholic priest does not need “faculties” to say mass. He can say mass because he is a priest. (As long as he has not been suspended or penalized by a canonical process and had this right taken away.) Sure, he needs faculties to absolve sins in confession, or to witness and bless a marriage, but NOT to say mass.
2. Canon 903 says: A priest is to be permitted to celebrate even if the rector of the church does not know him, provided that either he presents a letter of introduction from his ordinary or superior, issued at least within the year, or it can be judged prudently that he is not impeded from celebrating. .
That, of course, is if he is saying mass in a church of which he is not the rector. It doesn’t require permission from the bishop.
3. Then canon 932 §1 says The eucharistic celebration is to be carried out in a sacred place unless in a particular case necessity requires otherwise; in such a case the celebration must be done in a decent place.
“Necessity” is an interesting term. I am no canonist and will happily accept correction from any canonist, but it appears to be a broad term that allows for many sorts and degrees of necessity. It has been generally been understood that if a priest is traveling and does not have reasonably easy access to a church, he can say mass in his hotel room. Or, if he is staying with family or friends, in their home – if necessity requires. And in my experience, “necessity” has usually been taken very broadly indeed. I don’t know what the outer limits are, but even relative necessity seems to have been sufficient, in the cases I have seen.
I would dearly love to hear someone authoritative speak to this, but if a priest has been ordained into FSSP, I would think that his saying mass according to the vetus ordo is, itself, “a necessity” sufficient unto Canon 932, if none of the churches that the bishop has permitted the TLM at is reasonably nearby. That is, Traditiones Custodes itself creates the necessity.
Now, if a priest has been forbidden by the bishop from saying a given mass in a given location or specific time, then sure, he can’t say that mass. But that requires the bishop to act specifically to initiate a restriction on him. Until the bishop so acts in a specific way, he can say a mass if the canons don’t forbid it.
So, in general, (as I understand it) the canons are set up to presume he has permission to say mass, and there has to be something specific to stand in the way in order for him NOT to be able to exercise that power. Sure, in order to use a specific church that is not his “home” church to which he is assigned, he needs the permission of the pastor or rector, but if he isn’t USING such a church, he doesn’t need permission from one of them.