Again at Rorate today, there is a careful examination of the SSPX Decree and Explanatory note by an anonymous canonist who clearly knows what he is talking about. Here is a dense summary. Let’s call this…
What Does The Decree Really NOT Say?
With my emphases and comments:
- The July 2, 2026 DDF Decree does not amount to a mass excommunication of SSPX bishops, priests, and faithful. On its face, it directly names only six bishops.
- The four newly consecrated bishops and Bishop de Galarreta are treated under canon 1387, concerning episcopal consecration without pontifical mandate. Bishop Fellay is treated under canon 1364 §1, the general canon on schism.
- Grave disobedience and schism are distinct canonical offenses. Schism requires withdrawal of submission to the Roman Pontiff, not merely an illicit act, however serious.
- The SSPX’s continued profession of recognition of papal authority makes the DDF’s move from illicit consecration to formal schism juridically uncertain. [When there is uncertainty, latitude must be given.]
- A major distinction must be made between incurring a latae sententiae penalty and having that penalty declared. A declaration requires canonical process, including notice, defense, and reasons in law and fact. [A canonical process… for how many people?]
- Therefore, the Decree cannot be read as declaring all SSPX priests excommunicated. No priests are individually named, accused, or given opportunity for defense.
- Canon 1335 §2 is important because, when a latae sententiae censure has not been declared, the faithful may request sacraments or sacramental acts for any just reason, and the minister is not barred from providing them. [People can frequent the SSPX chapels for Mass and… confessions.]
- The DDF’s Explanatory Note is legally weak if treated as more than commentary. It is not itself a law, penal precept, decree, or judicial sentence, and therefore cannot expand the Decree’s juridical effect.
- Since penal and right-restricting texts must be strictly interpreted, the narrower reading of the Decree must prevail over the broader claims of the Note.
- An executive dicastery cannot create a generally binding penal norm for a whole community without clear papal legislative authorization, and no such authorization is cited. [more below]
- There is tension between the Decree and the Note. The Decree warns that priests and faithful would incur excommunication by adhering to schism [seemingly “in the future” or “from here on out”], while the Note seems to treat them as already schismatic. The Decree is therefore best read as conditional and future-oriented.
- A collective excommunication of SSPX priests or faithful by this document would be canonically defective. Imputability, necessity, fear, ignorance, and other excusing or mitigating factors [NB] must be assessed individually.
- On the sacraments, [NB] the Decree does not revoke SSPX faculties for confession or marriage. Pope Francis’s grant for confessions and the 2017 arrangement for marriages are not expressly withdrawn. [Under can. 21, repeal of a prior law is never presumed. A Dicastery can’t do that unless there is some added note about a Pope signing on. Even then, to remove doubt, it should have to come from a Pope. But it is now highly unlikely that any bishop will delegate to an SSPX to witness a marriage.]
- Final conclusion: the Decree clearly names six bishops as excommunicated. It does not excommunicate SSPX priests as a body, excommunicate faithful who attend SSPX Masses, or change the practical canonical position of faithful seeking SSPX sacraments.
The piece at Rorate has more details, citations. This is the accurate skeleton.
This is excellent news. My parish’s TLM was suppressed a while back, and I’ve since been driving to the nearest TLM, forty miles from my home. But it is understood that even that TLM, held in that parish school’s gym, is on the chopping block. The SSPX has a priest visit my city twice a month to celebrate Mass in a motel conference room. I’m grateful for the SSPX.
Ah…oooohh….ouch!
I cannot agree with the canonist about the effect of this decree. [This should be interesting.]
If anything, ..I caution that dismissal like this kept me away from the traditional Mass well after Benedict gave us Summorum.
Whatever his canonical objections, …he isn’t the pope. He can’t authoritatively endorse or reject the decree. [He wasn’t claiming to. He was examining it in light of canon law itself.]
He may be completely correct that the substance would not have passed muster in 1950. …Sadly, this is 2026; [?!?] the Church has tolerated sloppiness–even from popes–for some time. [So you have embraced the “lio” invited by Francis and the slide into antinomialism.]
If a deeply disobedient act [“deeply”… not a category in law] may not constitute schism, routinely committing schismatic acts–offering Mass to the public without faculties [Please demonstrate how that is schism.]–certainly would. And, if the Society has never formally repudiated the authority of the pope, …neither have they admitted to the pope having binding authority on their Society. [Qui tacet consentire videtur.] Thus, they don’t need to repudiate the pope’s authority because they never agreed he had authority in the first place. [I don’t know where you got that.]
I would like to see the Society reconciled to the Church. From my encounters with their …followers…online, I see a great deal of passion for faith in that arena. Would that the rest of the Church would have the same guts.
Yet, …it needs to happen correctly. [That’s the whole point the canonist in question was making.] Leadership of the Society–and their priests and parishioners [They aren’t parishioners. The SPPX doesn’t have parishes.]–have need to publicly admit to the pope’s authority as binding on them. [They don’t?] Same as the rest of us.
Legalistic handwringing of this sort by this canonist won’t do. [So, you are of the mind that the present powers that be don’t have to follow the law in order to do what they want. And they want to get at the SSPX. I am minded of the scene in Man For All Seasons after Richard Rich leaves and More is pressed to arrest him: MORE: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law! ROPER: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law! MORE: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ROPER: I’d cut down every law in England to do that! MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you–where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast–man’s laws, not God’s–and if you cut them down–and you’re just the man to do it–d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes. I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.
]
This and the InfoVaticano article has eased my conscience after a serious discussion with my wife concerning our Sunday routine.
I hear about “formal adherence”, yet about a year and a half ago we had a priest who briefly tended to our chapel and actually invited our diocesean bishop to visit. He told us to not forget Bishop Libasci is our ordinary and to pray for and respect him. I’ve never heard a priest of the Society try to encourage a separation.
The internet fallout was predictable. (The following are not verbatim but sum up the spirit of the internet I have witnessed).
“Fernandez said exhort, which isn’t a prohibition of going”.
“If they just got booted from the Church they are not Catholic, and not subject to the rules anymore”.
“If you go to confession outside the Society you are compromising”.
“Pope Leo likes ketchup on his hot dogs”. (I think this is, sadly, true).
I finally decided to tune it out and do exactly what our Society priest said months ago: don’t become a bundle of fear and just keep practicing the Faith.
My only routine change for now will be doing confessions elsewhere. I want a valid absolution without any legal debates.
In true Vatican II style. It does not matter what is actually written. Only the perception of what people can be made to believe is written.
You can see this in Archbishop Hebda’s recent decree. He himself a canon lawyer and not anonymous.
Bishop’s will say; Formal Schism and excommunication of everyone. Bishop Hebda formally declares their confessions invalid even though clearly not his to declare.
There are those in the Holy See deliberately creating confusion and tearing open old wounds to try to solidify this schism with not just SSPX but through them all tradition. Otherwise there is no excuse for the utter lack of any mercy on the part of Pope Leo. I pray for mercy from the Holy See and for Pope Leo to be intelligent enough to not just trust in that tight circle around him but to honestly look at the people he is attempting to have abandoned with no Shepard. No dioceses in the US after traditionis is equipped to Shepard with the thousands of faithful that the SSPX currently take care of.
Fr Gerald Murray reaches basically the same conclusions here:
https://youtu.be/VMyv7O-P0yo?is=PIJIbjd1J7i-D0Ai
It is shameful that this was done in such a sloppy and ambiguous way.
Whether you think excommunication is warranted or not, the pope is supposed to provide clarity, not “make a mess.”
And this is a mess.
Thanks Fr. Z. This and the full post at Rorate is excellent stuff — very well done.
However, what Dan said; what matters is perception, not what is written. So there is a need to present a better perception that what the Vatican offers as a perception. Hence, building on a lot of what you have said over the years, the SSPX needs to be the very best of sons, always rising to the occasion to support the endeavors (where possible) of their local diocese. Suffer the humiliations and make them shut the door in your face. Outdo them in every act of charity, be the ones that the non-Catholics look up to as model Christians who are known by their love.
At the early Mass at the seminary in Dillwyn, VA this morning, (new) Bishop Goldade was the celebrant. Attendance was just as heavy as last week prior to the consecrations, so for a variety of reasons (including this excellent article…thanks Father Z for the needed summary) the deceptive threat of schism was ineffective. The homily by a seminarian on the Feeding of the 4000 drew a parallel of Christ providing for the physical needs of the crowd in ancient Israel in the Gospel to the SSPX Bishops providing spiritual food for the Faithful in the Church today. In both cases the motivation was love and mercy for those in need.
“So, you are of the mind that the present powers that be don’t have to follow the law in order to do what they want. ”
Um, well, …no.
I have rarely been very pleased with the present-day Church’s actions about most concerns. I very much preferred Pope Benedict’s efforts to fit “pastoral” concerns AND fulfill canon law. As well, I have long been impressed with Thomas More. Ironically, I learned of his existence first during ROTC summer camp. Our entire cadet wing watched that very movie. …I could wish the Church and the military–and the nation–could act with such principle. I have been quite disgusted with the Church’s practical view of …adequate direction.
Even so, …if we all would wish SSPX be reconciled with the Holy See, …SSPX has need to want such a reconciliation themselves. …I simply don’t see such intent. [As regrettable as that is, we still need to stick to the law as it is.]
The canonist may raise legitimate concerns about the decree in reference to canon law. In practice, it’s the same general aim: We’ll use the minutiae of the law to effectively over-rule and reject the overall premise.
I could wish that Pope Leo, his Curia, and the hierarchy would be as…precise…as canon law could be said to require.
I don’t think I will be seeing such concern soon.
More’s the pity.
[Indeed, it is a pity. Here’s another pity. The antinomian spirit and/or sloppiness that produced this dreadful canonical mishmash is the same that informs dioceses to throw innocent priests under the bus – and drive over them with a steamroller – at the hint of an accusation, violating their rights and entirely ignoring the LAW which establishes proper procedures to be followed. This anarco-tyranny has resulted in rock bottom morale among diocesan priests and grave mistrust of their bishops.]
Thankful for this post Father. Honest, truthful, and with charity.
And thank you for the corrections made to folks above who prefer their own interpretation (sadly, calumniating the sspx) versus seeing the reality of the current laws.
Praying for the Pope and all priests, and thankful for the sspx.
To echo other commenters, yes, the ugly part is that the perception of the judgment’s effect will overwhelm any of its inherent flaws.
@jflare29,
The Vatican’s sloppiness of the past half-century and toleration of said sloppiness hardly supports its sloppiness now, though it’s an interesting defense. The least they could do is let their yes be yes and no be no, especially where the law is concerned, no?
What you call “the minutiae of the law” is, to this lawyer, giving the law’s subjects the procedural and substantive protections it provides on its very own terms and to which they are due. (If memory serves, this itself is an idea we owe to medieval canonists). This is a fundamental principle that should be applied generally whether we like it or not.
The law is not just some blunt instrument for those who hold its power to reach their own foreordained conclusions as expeditiously and conveniently as possible; at least, it should not be so used, and for myself will give anyone who speaks out regarding such carelessness or malpractice a generous ear.