From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
I am from a town where the SSPX has recently established a vibrant chapel and has been extremely generous in providing Traditional Latin Mass and other Sacraments in the traditional rite. The local diocesan parish has also provided daily TLM but can no longer provide Traditional weddings. Recently there were a couple of weddings that took place at the SSPX chapel for which the local diocesan bishop had refused the necessary “permission”. The (diocesan) parish has announced that these couples’ marriage are of doubtful validity and that those who knowingly attended the wedding should go to Confession before approaching for Holy Communion.
Would you clarify what the canonical status of SSPX weddings (specifically those with denied permissions) is? Also is it true that attendance at such a wedding constitutes a sin? Thank you for all that you do those of us living in these confusing times.
Such unnecessary nonsense. For cryin’ out loud! Just give the SSPX priest delegation already! What are these bishops so afraid of? Why are they so spiritually stingy?
Alas, from the point of view of the current Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church, without that delegation, these weddings are invalid. For the sake of proper form, there has to be a officiating witness to the exchange of vows with proper jurisdiction (such as a pastor in his parish) or delegation of that jurisdiction (such as a visiting priest who comes to do the wedding). SSPX chapels are not parishes and their priests are not pastors with jurisdiction to witness marriages. Francis opened this up and made it possible for local bishops to give delegation to SSPX priests for weddings are their chapels. Most US bishops have done this, I think, and they also have a priest who acts as a kind of liaison in these matters. Some bishops are rather more narrow-minded and cold-hearted when it comes to the desire of people to tie the knot with the Traditional Rite, probably in the chapel where they grew up. But why have a pastorally sensitive heart toward these people? Right? They are only the most marginalized and now purposely persecuted group in the entire Church.
On another point, I’m not sure why/how the priest at the parish determined that “knowingly attending” these weddings is mortally sinful. First, if the parish needs to inform people, then they did not “knowingly attend” and therefore they did not fulfill one of the portions of committing a mortal sin, that is, knowledge that the act is mortally sinful. Secondly, there’s no prohibition in Canon Law that prohibits the faithful from attending invalid weddings.
Thirdly, while there might be an issue of scandal, to maintain that every scandalous act is mortally sinful would shock even the most hardened Jansenist.
That said, going to confession is certainly a salubrious act.
GO TO CONFESSION!
Here’s a thought. I recommend that everyone who attended these weddings go to confession. Get organized and go together. Go to confession, one after another, to the priest who, sua sponte, declared attendance at these weddings to be mortally sinful. It would be interesting to see his reaction as he walked into the church to hear confessions (assuming he does at all) and saw a hundred people already lined up, and have them, one after another, confess:
“Bless me Father. I attended a lovely wedding for which the cowardly and stingy bishop refused to give his permission.”
Even better would be lining up to go to confession to the bishop himself.
UPDATE:
I should in fairness add this.
When in 2017 the Holy See made it possible for SSPX priests to receive delegation for marriages, there was not a word about invalidity of previous SSPX marriages. It wasn’t said that the previous SSPX marriages needed any sort of fixing up such as a convalidation. Convalidation of a marriage is done to remedy some defect in what happened, such as lack of proper form. In the case of the SSPX priests, they didn’t have jurisdiction or delegated jurisdiction. You would think that if there was concern that all those previous SSPX marriages were considered by the Holy See to be invalid, some statement to that effect would have been made. Since 2013 things have been done in canonically strange ways. For example, the SSPX priests can hear confessions and validly absolve. But there was never a document explicitly stating that: it was suddenly … was. This provision was followed up with an indefinite extension for Confession in the 2016 Misericordia et misera, which does call it a “faculty.”
The 2017 Letter: HERE
What is also clear, is that Rome is SILENT on the issue of the SSPX’s arguments regarding the SSPX having “supplied jurisdiction,” etc.
The Church DID NOT say the 2017 Letter was issued because any invalidity of all previous marriages witnessed by the SSPX priests.
What the Letter DOES say is that the Letter was issued, much like the one in 2015 for the Catholic faithful to be able to receive valid absolution from SSPX priests (“such as to ensure the validity and liceity of the Sacrament [of PENANCE] and allay any concerns on the part of the faithful”), “(f)ollowing the same pastoral outlook [for WEDDINGS, as for CONFESSION] which seeks to reassure the conscience of the faithful…” so that “any uncertainty regarding the validity of the sacrament of marriage may be alleviated.”
