Why cite SSPX practice as an example to be considered?
  • madorganist
    Posts: 906
    But we should stop saying Bugnini did anything, and say instead “the Blessed Pope Paul VI.” He did it.
    Along with Archbishop Romero, Pope Paul VI Montini is slated to be raised to altar this October, a century, a year, and a day after the Miracle of the Sun. I suppose then we'll have a canonized saint to blame for the Masonic changes to the liturgy.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,777
    CharlesW :
    "Pius V did not do as much codifying as rewriting."


    This old thing again, just because some scholar compared a few Missale and discovered some differences, does not make the Rite promulgated by Trent a confection. It also does not help that the scholars of that time wanted to show that the confection of the New Rite from disparate sources, to be something that has precedent in Church history.

    Those that have studied the ancient Missals are able to point out that the Trent Missal is almost identical to the Missal used in Rome before Trent. Of course there are differences between this Roman Missal and say the Sarum, Galican, Dominican... but these differences are mainly in Rubrics and Propers, not in the basic texts of the Ordinary.

    I am sure I remember that Benedict described the N.O Mass as a banal, of the time product...

    It is easy for any of us to look fondly on our creations, and to be convinced that our view is somehow better than others, we see this in many of the writings about the Liturgical movement, Vat II, and the various changes... But are those that were present making the decisions the best judges, what will history say about this period of Church history?

    It is all very well for Dom Gueranger (et al) to bring into more general knowledge half forgotten treasures from the Churches past, but this is different from imposing changes from the top down to what hitherto and been something that had grow organically from the bottom up. This can be shown by the many feasts that were celebrated locally e.g Corpus Christi and grew to become one of the more important Feasts of the Church year.

    Is a Trastevere bar the best place to write the Canon of the Mass?

    The top down approach to Liturgy has led to the mess we have today, and the impotence of Rome to reform bad practice.

    As for the Question in the title above,
    "Why cite SSPX practice as an example to be considered?" Because we would not want to cite the practice of -------* as an example to be considered.

    * insert here Balloon / Cowboy masses celebrated by German Cardinals, or perhaps the celebrations involving Card. Mahoney in California over the years. The examples available...
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    "Pius V did not do as much codifying as rewriting." You may want to give more evidence for this. When one examines Missals from the 8th century one is amazed as to how almost identical the Mass was to that from Trent.


    Even by then the liturgy had been corrupted because the civilization had collapsed and foreign invaders were in control of Rome. So even by the 8th century damage had been done. Given that, it is really surprising to me that anything was preserved.

    I suppose the east is lucky in not having a pope. No one has the real authority to change anything. We don't get along well enough to ever agree on much, so a council would never get anywhere even if called. BTW, only the emperor had the authority to call councils - another papal usurpation.


    Charles W—can you recommend a good history of the formation of the Tridentine Mass?


    I know of no such under one cover. Unfortunately, some of the most ardent promoters of the mass are biased and not reliable. I think Fortescue might have been a good example. He seemed to reach conclusions first then look for evidence to support the conclusions.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,930

    Charles W—can you recommend a good history of the formation of the Tridentine Mass?


    I know I'm not Charles W (unfortunately), but have you thought about Jungmann's The Mass of the Roman Rite? Excellent historical study - don't know that I necessary agree with all of his findings, but the scholarship is none too shabby.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    Thanks, Stimson. I haven't seen that one.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,930
    As far as the original question goes, speaking as someone who has attended Mass at Society chapels in the past, I can attest to the fact that SSPX practice isn't uniform by any means. You'll have parishes that encourage active liturgical life - full Gregorian chant, polyphony, chanting of the Divine Office - and then you'll have parishes where it's an uphill battle to get everyone to kneel during the Sanctus at the same time. Much like any other group, a lot of it comes from the general cultural milieu of the area where their chapel is located. As much as we'd like to think things have changed, "German" parishes will have a different mindset from "Irish" heritages (or insert ethnicity here). It does make a difference.

    The only traditional community I have seen which has anything approaching a liturgical hegemony of sorts would be the Institute of Christ the King. But I get the feeling that their seminary training is much more focused on the aspect of aesthetics than other communities - one of their patrons is St. Francis de Sales, after all.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,460
    This article is 110 years old and gives some pointers to what members of the Liturgical Movement were thinking at the time.
  • Thanks, Stimson, and a_f_hawkins. I love reading anything on all these matters that is historically and doctrinally sound. And don’t have axes to grind.

    Kenneth
  • Tomjaw, that sounds like the false dichotomy I always see in these discussions. That seems like the “hermeneutic of rupture” that Benedict inveighed against. I am with him on the “hermeneutic of reform.” Particularly as we are enjoined to apply V2 to ALL licit rites of the Roman Church, those who reject it don’t offer a lot that is helpful. See the letter from Ecclesia Dei on the reason for going to an SSPX Mass.

    stimson’s comment on the uniformity if ICR Masses as opposed to SSPX is not the first time I’ve heard that


    Kenneth
  • CharlesW, here we come to what I call the Sacred Doctrine of the Floating Popes, according to which all was sweetness and light before about 1961. You trace trouble back to the 8th Century, but my reading of the Christian West and Its Singers indicates a lot of things were a mess a lot of the time.

    It is surprising in ANY era that anything survives, and the liturgy and the Church are ALWAYS under attack. I can’t put my finger on it right now, but the NLM website some years ago ran a quote from St Alphonsus Liguori on how badly the Mass was performed, and in 15 minutes. Popular literature from the Middle Ages documents how badly prepared many diocesan priests were. There was dancing of the Sarabanda in the sanctuary after it was brought back from the New World—though I have had trouble finding a source for this repeated claim—and priests dressed up as a knight for Masses whose musical setting was based on a really annoying French pop song, the Armed Man.

    It is a wonder that ANYthing holy survives life among us.

    Kenneth
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,777
    @ amindthatsuits

    Having a reasonable knowledge of Vatican legislation pre 1962, I see trends but these trends were not endorsed by those that framed the documents, say the down grading of the Sanctoral cycle. Over all we can see contradictory 'advice', or at least papal documents saying one thing but papal practice saying another.

    In all this paperwork I can see things I like and things I do not like, this is irrelevant if we pick and choose how are we different from the German bishops that pick and choose what Commandments to follow? The only choice I make is what year to follow c. 1950, and our priests and congregation do not complain.

    As for Vat II can you please tell me what it tells me I must do that is different from what went on before? I here lots about a Pastoral council (what ever that is?) and how no doctrine has been changed, so what are these changes?

    I can understand the no salvation outside the church argument (I don't think it is a difference more a poor translation) Ecumenism, good idea lets see how it works in practice, etc.

    Reading some people they would accuse the BVM of being a non active participant in the Crucifixion (Scripture tells us the BVM was present but then gives no further action in relation, it appears the BVM said nothing this does not imply she was not a participant!)...
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,229
    When one examines Missals from the 8th century one is amazed as to how almost identical the Mass was to that from Trent.


    That's what I've learned, too.

    In fairness, I believed all the foo-foo dust of the revolutionaries that the Novus Ordo would reflect the ACTUAL Mass of the 6th C (or whatever). But I've overcome my Jesuit education, by and large....
  • I continue to be perplexed that SSPX is mentioned casually and naturally as a version of Catholic practice to be considered. Their Masses are not valid. End of discussion.


    I don't want to be overly blunt, here, but…to say the SSPX Masses are invalid is Precisely Wrong.

    The interesting thing about the SSPX is how their bishops demand absolute obedience from their priests. Yet, the SSPX bishops do whatever they please, and take orders from nobody. It's a curious (unsustainable?) situation. I've often privately wondered what would happen to an SSPX priest who acted toward his bishop the way the SSPX bishops act toward Rome.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,777
    the way the SSPX bishops act toward Rome


    How does this differ and in what way to the practice of the German bishops to Pope Benedict, or the English bishops? I am sure that other countries have their share of bishops that seem to follow Judas as their role model from among the Apostles.

    I don't think the SSPX bishops have been caught lying, unlike say the English...
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,460
    Even by then the liturgy had been corrupted because the civilization had collapsed and foreign invaders were in control of Rome. So even by the 8th century damage had been done. Given that, it is really surprising to me that anything was preserved.
    Rome had ceased to be the capital of the Western Empire in 286AD. When Ambrose and Augustine were in Milan, it was the imperial capital, moving to Ravenna in 402AD soon after the death of Ambrose. Rome had been left to the Roman senate, and the pope (and the Visigoths, and the Vandals).
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,229
    How does this differ and in what way to the practice of the German bishops to Pope Benedict, or the English bishops?


    Here in the USA, we often find Bishops who simply ignore Rome altogether. So do their priests. That's not unique to the USA of course.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • mmeladirectress
    Posts: 1,095
    >> it is a remarkable thing to me that you think I will become an Anglican because I adhere so closely to the teachings of St John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
    oh I never said any such thing. I said that comments about the Mass being "overlaid with whitewash" reminded me of something a person I knew said (critical of the Mass), who considered himself an Anglican at the time. Happily, since then he has returned to the Church of his heritage.

    Certainly I will pray for you and hope you will for me also. thanks
    Thanked by 1Incardination
  • Disobedience to Rome, Vatican II, and the pope is rife in the US. But for that disobedience the average Catholic Sunday mass would be giving pride of place to chant in English or Latin, to our patrimony of sacred choral music, to the use of the organ as most suitable for the Roman rite, and.... Disobedience to the disobedient is punishable by summary dismissal from service. It is remarkable how that the disobedient clergy of all ranks cannot tolerate so much as a whiff of disobedience to themselves. And, equally culpable are those disobedient people in the lay caste who rebel against those scarce priests who attempt to shed the pop-mass paradigm, and make life difficult for those musicians who wish to be obedient to the council.
  • toddevoss
    Posts: 162
    CharlesW_ on the development of the roman rite - I also suggest "The Organic Development of the Liturgy" by Alcuin Reid. To see some of the thinking he is trying to contrast see the classic and massive "The Mass of the Roman Rite; Its Origins and Development" by Josef Jungmann which StimsoninRehad recommended. Reid is not objecting to Jungmann's excellent scholarly excavation of the "facts" of its development , but his subjective judgments (or some of them anyway) about what is "problematic" with the Mass of the Roman Rite and what reforms were desirable - which was one of the factors that drove at least some of the various aspects of the Novus Ordo.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    I also suggest "The Organic Development of the Liturgy" by Alcuin Reid.


    I have that. It's the Jungmann I don't have and haven't read.

    Rome had ceased to be the capital of the Western Empire in 286AD.


    By the time of the Danubian/Balkan/Illyrian emperors, Aurelian, Diocletian, Constantine, and others, Rome was wherever the Emperor was located and the capital moved with him. These were emperors who came from the military who essentially took away command of the legions from senators who had traditionally been hereditary commanders.

    Justinian toyed with the idea of putting the empire back together until a plague killed nearly half the empire. They were also suffering from the effects of unstable weather patterns which were disastrous for agriculture, along with some volcanic activity. For example, it rained for eleven months at Alexandria around the year 150. Alexandria normally gets one day or so of rain from May until fall. After the Roman Warm Period ended, the climate became more unfavorable and plagues more common. All this significantly weakened them.
  • DixitDominus, that is covered in my note to the first post. It was a silly mistake, and I knew better.

    But SSPX masses are not licit, and SSPX is not obedient—-to which point Jackson’s comments are apposite, as they have been recently. And perhaps very often, but I don’t come here much any more.

    Kenneth
  • How does this differ and in what way to the practice of the German bishops to Pope Benedict, or the English bishops?


    In lots important ways: such as getting approval to ordain, etc.

    But I'm simply not convinced pointing to bad behavior of Bishop So-And-So justifies bad behavior by the SSPX bishops.

    The SSPX bishops do as they please—they take orders from nobody. The hilarious part is that they demand strict obedience from their priests.
    Thanked by 1toddevoss
  • SSPX bishops do as they please—they take orders from nobody. The hilarious part is that they demand strict obedience from their priests.


    Who says the SSPX doesn't accept Vatican II? I think this is pristine, unassailable evidence that they not only accept Vatican II, they implement it well.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    (Psst, CharlesW, we don't speak of the Roman (or Medieval) Warm Period(s) anymore. The earth maintained a stable global temperature until the 1950s, when we started global warming.)
  • Dixit Dominus and Chris: You put it very well. The false dichotomy again. Rejection of modernism does not entail submission to SSPX, which, as Dominus Dixit so rightly noted, is what SSPX demands. The list of “key concerns” on their website may or may not be good, but it is NOT good to demand that the Holy Father agree to your demands before you agree to be obedient to him.

    Our fellowship is with those who are obedient to Rome. Separated brethren are just that. This morning brings news that a (retired) bishop is now calling for schism. Count me out.

    In any case, if we ourselves are not responsible for any part of the Mass, our attitude should be gratitude for those who put in the effort and awed gratitude for the gift of the Eucharist. That means feeling just as much that you were at Mass at a suburban parish where moderately talented people provide modest but appropriate folk music as you would at a magnificent Gothic Church with magnificently performed polyphony and Chant.

    With gratitude that this list has gotten civilized, thanks to all who contributed. A very enlightening discussion.

    Kenneth
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,229
    a (retired) bishop is now calling for schism
    .

    Hmmm. I thought he was merely calling for another conclave-election. Does that constitute "schism"?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    This morning brings news that a (retired) bishop is now calling for schism. Count me out.


    I have thought that a schism exists in practice, if not by declaration, and has gotten worse in recent times. Confused and fuzzy leadership in the Church has not helped. It seems another mass of self-created confusion comes out of Rome each week, even with the fact that the media tends to amplify it and make it worse.
  • Kenneth,

    If you mean that one need not be a supporter or member of the SSPX in order to reject Modernism, I agree with you. Fundamentally, disobedience seems to be the teaching of Vatican II: don't do what the Church has always done; don't teach what the Church has always taught; claim the obligation of obedience to the disobedient; create so many "options" that it's impossible to violate the rubrics at Mass, except by following the letter of the council.


    Unless Pope Benedict is right, that all the documents of Vatican II must be read in the light of the magisterial teaching prior to that point, and in harmony with all of them, I find it perplexing that the council is even called Catholic.
  • It doesn't make sense to speak of Sacrosanctum Concilium guiding celebrations of the Extraordinary Form. The year 1962 is the reference point for the EF precisely because it is before Vatican II. In other words, the non-applicability of SC is one of the EF's principal features. Many principles enunciated in SC apply to the EF, but only because they were promulgated by the Church in prior decades and centuries.
  • madorganist
    Posts: 906
    Our fellowship is with those who are obedient to Rome. Separated brethren are just that. This morning brings news that a (retired) bishop is now calling for schism. Count me out.
    "Separated brethren" is merely the new (PC) way of saying "schismatic." They mean the same thing. To my knowledge, the Catholic Church has never declared the SSPX to be in schism, because they aren't. Disobedience and schism are not synonymous. Many―perhaps the majority?―of novus ordo priests aren't obedient to Rome. Are you saying that we should or should not be in fellowship with them? Polls show that a vast majority of lay "Catholics" do not accept magisterial teachings. Should we or should we not be in fellowship with these heretics who still have the appearance of being inside the Church?
    In any case, if we ourselves are not responsible for any part of the Mass, our attitude should be gratitude for those who put in the effort and awed gratitude for the gift of the Eucharist. That means feeling just as much that you were at Mass at a suburban parish where moderately talented people provide modest but appropriate folk music as you would at a magnificent Gothic Church with magnificently performed polyphony and Chant.
    What exactly constitutes "appropriate folk music" for the holy sacrifice of the Mass? I think many of us on this forum were unaware of such a thing.

    "The master stroke achieved by Satan is to have thrown everyone into disobedience by virtue of obedience. The most typical example of this fact is that of the ‘aggiornamento’ of religious orders. Through obedience the religious are made to disobey the very laws and constitutions of their founders which they pledged to observe when they took their vows." - Abp. Lefebvre
  • I was being a little provocative with the “separated brethren” comment and I apologize.

    However, please see the letter from Ecclesia Dei quoted way back up at the top. I stand with that.

    And it sounds as if the objection of some is not doctrinal, but strictly aesthetic. The pagan historian:philosopher Arnold Toynbee revered medieval art but he said it had nothing to do with the Gospe. That is an extreme statement, but it is also true the Gospe thrived without Medieval art. It is not an essential part of the faith, “merely” a very good way to communicate it and experience. I love it, but it is not essential. Gregorian Chant should have pride of place. Beyond that...

    Kenneth

  • CharlesW, de facto schism, yes. As far as confusion coming from Rome, how does that differ from the Julius II’s Holy Leaugue of Cambrai? If a town didn’t support him, they got an interdict, which was then lifted and slapped on someone else as people changed sides, if I understand it.

    And if a priest teaches heresy in RCIA, (I for some reason don’t see who said that)how is that different than the sale of indulgences? The English historian AG Dickens, who read parish records, found one priest who ran a Shrine where he sold indulgences and flat out heresy. Piers Plowman begins with a similar story. Everyone knew it was going on at the time.

    And really, CharlesW, if one reads the Epistles to the Corinthians, has it ever been different?


    Kenneth
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    No, it has always been so and always will be. I think many look back to the relative peace in the Church during the first half of the 20th century and consider it some kind of norm. It wasn't, and much ill was seething below the surface waiting to erupt when given the opportunity. Vatican II and vacillation at the top was exactly what those enemies of the Church were waiting for.
  • Here is the call for schism that put me in a bad mood, and I apologize again for being provocative. When I read about this provision of Universi Domenici Gregis, I thought it ill-considered of St JPIi, because vile men don’t care what the law says, and so I knew we would soon be off to the races. Now, here we are. The problem for this bishop is that I have read no evidence Jorge Bergoglio ever campaigned for the job, unless one can see into his soul. He sure had a remarkable knack for being at the right place and saying the right thing, but even at dicastery meetings, he would spend more time talking to the waiters. As with our last President, he seems to have realized people paint their dreams onto his scowling, often silent demeanor. The St Gall group, yes, but what effect would deposing them have? They are so few, or so old, or so dead.

    I first read about it in The Dictator Pope, which is now out in English and is well worth a Kindle download. Not so deep as to demand a harcopy.

    http://okietraditionalist.blogspot.com/2018/05/okie-traditionalist-interviews-bishop.html?m=1
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    I am aware of that book, just haven't read it yet. It appears to me that the current pope is a South American with socialist leanings, who doesn't like the U.S. I also think there are some Peron elements there, too.
  • Fundamentally, disobedience seems to be the teaching of Vatican II: don't do what the Church has always done; don't teach what the Church has always taught; claim the obligation of obedience to the disobedient; create so many "options" that it's impossible to violate the rubrics at Mass, except by following the letter of the council.


    I must change this statement, to add emphasis and nuance. Disobedience seems to be the teaching of Vatican II. Among those who claim to interpret it rightly, a noisy group claim "don't do....." and all the rest.

  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,930
    I've often privately wondered what would happen to an SSPX priest who acted toward his bishop the way the SSPX bishops act toward Rome.


    In some cases, they get the boot and join +Williamson in the Marian Corps.

    I will give credit where it is due: Williamson is very knowledgeable when it comes to talking about church music. He was the driving force behind the first edition of the Society Hymnal and even wrote the foreword for it. The subject clearly matters to him - he's given multi-part sermon series on the place of women in the choir, for example. (I'll let you guess where he stands on that one.) He's still at it, too - his most recent Eleison Comments focused on Mozart and his music.


    Love him or hate him (and there's certainly good arguments for both sides) the man is certainly well-lettered; I'd almost say he was the smartest of the Four. It's a shame he's gotten to the place he's in now. But it isn't like this sort of thing hasn't happened in church history before. Arius was reportedly a very intelligent and holy man, as well.
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,229
    Here is the call for schism


    Please reconcile the text of that article with "schism."
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,211
    dad29, it is necessary to follow a link in that page.

    The retired bishop, on his own blog April 7, published a statement he apparently did not write, contending that Pope Francis was not validly elected and that cardinals should proceed to a new conclave. If the bishop actually embraces sedevacantism, it would seem that he is rejecting hierarchical submission to the Pope, which would be enough to meet the canonical definition of schism (cf. canon 751).
  • And yet, I remain unconvinced of "schism". From my read (admittedly quickly and not leisurely), I did not see definite pronouncements against popes or bishops, but a question that ultimately is submitted to the college of cardinals. Doctors of the Church have discussed whether a pope can be excommunicated, or whether - in such a case - there might be legitimate reasons to question the validity of the election, and the author of the internal article provides a context for which this might have happened in the case of the election of Francis.

    The author of the internal link, however, clearly states in summary:
    In any event, the entire problem is above the level of anyone else in Holy Mother Church who is below the rank of Cardinal.

    That would not indicate a rejection of Ecclesial authority. He supposes a possibility and then states that is above the paygrade of all but the college of cardinals.

    We can agree or disagree with the article. But I think we fall into the very trap we would accuse sedevantists of - namely, that they are their own supreme authority - when we casually try to define the validity, licitness, schism, or heresy of individuals and/or groups on our own discernment.
    Thanked by 2bhcordova dad29
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,229
    Chonak, your analysis is correct with the big "IF" about 'embracing sedevacantism.'

    However, the definition of 'schism' per the Canon you cite (and per Fr. Hardon's most excellent Catholic Dictionary) leaves room to speculate that Cdl. Burke could be 'in schism.'

    I suspect that declaring 'schism' is something Rome will not do, just as they have not really done so in the case of SSPX (with a couple of prominent exceptions.)
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,211
    God forbid, dad29; there is no room for such speculation. The esteemed cardinal plainly remains at work, at the Pope's service, and his call for clear and sound teaching, and even his criticism, is not an act of disobedience, let alone a refusal of submission to the Pope.
  • RachelR
    Posts: 44
    (How fitting that I should find this discussion here, as working with CMAA resources to restore Sacred Music in my then-parish has ultimately turned me into a Traditionalist.)

    Background story: In early 2012, I helped get a tiny, devoted Schola started at my local parish. I had thought, “If only we sing sacred music, the parish will embrace it.” Surely, it was just a feeling of helpless ignorance that was the cause of the ugliness, irreverence, and hideous music I had experienced here and for twenty years growing up in Catholic parishes in the Eastern U.S.

    How naïve I was! (Breathtakingly so.)

    The three years of the Schola’s hopeful, diligent work, and its rejection by the parish’s powers-that-be led me to question how we Catholics got here. "Here" meaning, among other things, having tried to explain the musical directives in the documents of VII to our pastor, and having been politely and resolutely ignored. That was eye-opening! (Spoiler alert: The documents of VII don’t seem to really matter in parish life—unless you are haplessly trying to restore Tradition. Then you will be stoned with them.)

  • RachelR
    Posts: 44
    Moving forward: This led me on to a study of the history of the Council, as well as learning about Fatima and other approved apparitions of the B.V.M., and many other related things, eventually including the positions of the Society of St. Pius X. (Meanwhile I had moved to a different part of the state, and had a baby. Alas, the state of affairs at the new parish was far, far worse than the previous parish. The pastor here preached outright heresy in his homilies.)

    So, with my bran-new child in my arms at Mass here, hearing the heresy, and in my mind’s eye sorrowing over the devastation that the New Ways (Novus Ordo Mass, new calendar, new Divine Office, etc.) of the 1960s had wreaked on more than three generations of Catholics of my family—completely hollowing out the faith of great-aunts and uncles, aunts and uncles, all of my siblings—I knew it would be wrong of me to continue to take this precious child to it, to have her faith de-formed by it. The New Ways had destroyed the Faith all over the world.

    As these changes to the Church’s worship were completely diabolical in their effects, I could only reason that “by their fruits” I could know them to be so, all right. I have come to believe that Communists and Freemasons infiltrated the Church in the 1930s (at the latest, probably before) and took the reigns of ecclesiastical power. We had been warned for centuries of a catastrophic destruction of the Church of just such apocalyptic proportions—by Our Lady of Good Success, St. John Bosco, Pope Leo XIII, at La Salette, at Fatima, among several examples.

    And, if such people are ruling over us—Communists, Freemasons, etc.—even if they HAVE Christ’s authority through their ordinations, we STILL cannot obey them if they command us to do wrong. This is where my sympathy for the Society of St. Pius X comes in.

    In the hindsight of the last 50 years I can see that the fruits of the New Worship are evil—and so I no longer participate in these New Ways. Our obedience to the hierarchy’s demands to acquiesce to the New Worship has led generations of us to (unwittingly!) help them destroy the Faith on earth as it had been known until our times. I learned about Obedience vs. Holy Obedience from Archbishop Lefebvre’s "Open Letter to Confused Catholics". (A good read for all Catholics, published before any of his ecclesiastical censures, in 1986.) Yes—we Catholics must obey the divinely-instituted and sacredly ordained hierarchy-- UNLESS they command us to disobey Christ and His Church. Even if they look like they ARE the Church. This is where the importance of the deposit of Tradition comes in. This is how we can evaluate when the change of the “rules” is okay, and when it’s not.

    The founding members of the SSPX (and also others folks, at the time) saw early on after the Council what we are seeing through the lapse of years: the almost total destruction of the Church (also: Western Civilization!) through the destruction of its rites. Obedience is only good as far as it honors God; slavish obedience to a tyrant is not holy obedience, for example. If anyone commands us to harm the Church, Christ’s Holy Bride, we must not obey. And this is simply what the SSPX bishops and priests are doing. They are not in rebellion against the Church—they simply will not obey the New Ways that have been spiritually deadly to the beloved former Catholics of my family, and, really, the whole world.
  • madorganist
    Posts: 906
    Eventually the point comes where many conscientious Catholics ask themselves:
    1. What is the difference between liturgical abuse and sacrilege?
    2. Is this garbage not potentially harmful to souls, including my own?
    2. How can sitting through this possibly fulfill a religious obligation?

    We cannot say for sure whether Abp. Bugnini was a Freemason. What was can say with certainty is that his name appears on the Pecorelli list, which was an expose of ecclesiastical Masonry by an Italian journalist who belonged to the lodge himself. We know for a fact that Protestant ministers were involved in the creation of the novus ordo liturgy, and the watering down of "difficult" teachings in the new rite is certainly more compatible with Masonic religious indifferentism than the traditional Latin rite. Make of it what you will.
  • TCJ
    Posts: 986
    I have never understood why so many people are up in arms about the SSPX due to the issue of obedience when you can step into just about any post-Vatican II Catholic church these days and find it full of disobedience, heresy, and blatant non-adherence to the actual Mass (changing prayers, ad-libbing, ignoring rubrics, focusing on people and not God, etc.).
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,078
    "So many people" are up in arms about the SSPX? I dare say if you stood outside any OF parish on Sunday and asked people heading into Mass if they knew what the SSPX is you would find that about 1/1000 people do. Then if you asked people coming out of Mass what the homily was about or what one of the readings were you'd get maybe 1/3 who could provide decent and accurate summaries. Indifference and ignorance rule the day among ordinary Catholics.
    Thanked by 1madorganist
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but SSPX is irrelevant to most Catholics, as well as, to the bishops. Its influence and effects are limited to its own small circle.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,930
    The circle is getting ever-so-slightly bigger. Since I reverted almost ten years ago, most of my friends who had even heard of the Society thought they were out-and-out schismatics. Nowadays, most of them are fairly sympathetic, and quite a few of them are discussing getting married in SSPX chapels. Slooooowly but surely.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    I think it might depend on where you are. Here in my southeastern part of the U.S. they have no presence at all. I understand they are big in France where they are tied to the monarchist party.