A guest article by James Baresel.
Justified or schismatic? For most commentators on the Society of Saint Pius X episcopal consecration, that is the question. For a few, more nuanced in their thinking, the question is either justifiable or (for the bishops alone) worthy of excommunication? But is it possible that the consecrations were materially unjustified without meeting the conditions for excommunication, much less formal schism?
On the foundational question, very few writings by theologians and canonists and—to my knowledge—no magisterial texts are directly on point. That these sources often leave out pertinent nuances ought to be a truism. The Council of Trent taught that penitents must confess mortal sins by type and number—without mentioning the equally true doctrine that priests can dispense them from doing so for grave reasons. Only consummated sacramental marriages are indissoluble, yet many texts state “marriage in indissoluble” without that qualification.
Virtually no traditional sources explicitly address the question of whether papal rights over episcopal consecrations absolutely take precedence over the doctrine of justified disobedience in all conceivable circumstances or whether there can be unmentioned exceptions. For this reason, I asked several priests—mainly non-traditionalist conservatives—how Catholic principles would apply if a malicious pope prohibited all priestly ordinations and episcopal consecrations in a large enough area over a long enough time period for substantial numbers of Catholics to be at risk of losing access to the Mass and sacraments.
Three conservatives (a theologian, a canon lawyer and a former civil lawyer) said consecrations would be permissible and two traditionalists (a canon lawyer and a philosopher) agreed. Just one, a conservative, insisted they would be unjustified but seemed to deny the entire Catholic doctrine of justified disobedience. The others were unsure. All but two of the priests I consulted condemned the SSPX consecrations, one was unsure about them and one defended them.
Opposition to the SSPX consecrations was based on the principle that only the Mass and sacraments, not a particular rite of the Church, are strictly necessary. But Canon 1323, which deals with the question, states that “No one is liable to a penalty who, when violating a law or precept…acted…by reason of necessity or grave inconvenience.”
Normally, of course, grave inconvenience would not apply to simple inability to attend Mass in a particular rite —i.e. a pope refused to allow the establishment of Roman Rite churches in a historically Eastern Rite region or if all there were no clergy who were both available to offer the Tridentine Mass in a particular region and willing to do so. In this case, however, we are faced with restrictions being put on the Tridentine Mass in favor of a liturgy which—while meeting the essential criteria of a Catholic rite—was created upon heterodox principles. Losing public access to the Tridentine Mass could only be a very real inconvenience for the defense of orthodox under such circumstances.
Arguments about what would happen to the Tridentine Mass without new SSPX bishops are necessarily speculative, with both sides often too confident that their speculation is accurate. It is unlikely the Vatican would ever attempt complete suppression. Attempts to impose the Novus Ordo lectionary on it or some sort of bi-ritualism on traditionalist priestly societies and religious orders might well become more likely. Consecration of bishops dedicated to its preservative are probably unnecessary but its only assured security.
If bishops can indeed justifiably be consecrated despite a papal prohibition under dire circumstances, Canon 1323’s allowance for grave inconvenience and the precarious state of the Tridentine Mass make it hard to see how doing so at the present time would be outside the realm of prudential judgement—if every reasonable effort had been made to obtain papal authorization or some other real security for the continued use of that liturgy.
Unfortunately, the SSPX has not only failed to make every reasonable effort, it has failed to make a bare minimum of effort. Refusal to recognize that the Novus Ordo contains the strict essentials of a Catholic rite and that Vatican II’s ambiguities probably allow for orthodox interpretations—or even to commit to a “positive attitude of study” as Archbishop Lefebvre did in 1988—is just the tip of the iceberg.
SSPX superior general Father Paglariani made it perfectly clear that he did not want the pope to authorize episcopal consecrations as part of a canonical regularization of the Society. He wanted the consecrations authorized to facilitate the Society’s ability to continue functioning in a canonically irregular way. This is canonical irregularity by preference.
Moreover, the SSPX does not treat its irregular as a backup plan (providing the Tridentine rites to with no other access) and a safeguard (assuring priests will be ordained for the Tridentine rites). It sees itself and allied organizations as the only contexts in which orthodoxy is assured—specifically because these contexts assure agreement with SSPX errors—and canonically regularity as dangerous when not a betrayal of “tradition.” An article[1] on the Society’s website, for example, states that attending Tridentine Masses offered in canonically regular settings constitutes a minor danger to orthodoxy and that attending them when it is the only way to attend Sunday Mass is a matter of prudential judgement rather than obligatory.
Hence the Society’s history of responding to canonical regularizations of traditionalists—including formerly irregular “independent chapels” and, on a larger scale, the Apostolic Administration of Saint John Vianney—by opening rival chapels.
Given that these errors are a central part of the Society’s impasse with the Vatican, it cannot be justified in administering prohibited episcopal consecrations.
Unjustified, however, is one thing, worthy of excommunication another. Canon 1323 covers not just circumstances of necessity and grave inconvenience as exempting from penalty but also those who “thought, through no personal fault, that some one of the circumstances existed.” Canon 1324 prescribes that “the penalty prescribed in the law or precept must be diminished, or a penance substituted in its place, if the offence was committed by…one who erroneously, but culpably, thought that some one of the circumstances existed.”
Heterodox individuals decisively shaped the documents of Vatican II and the liturgical “reform.” For over half a century, few in the Vatican have attempted either to correct the heterodox ideas in question or show how the ambiguities in the official texts can be interpreted in Catholic ways. Many, including popes, have doubled down on rupture, if sometimes claiming a spurious continuity while doing so. If Leo has shifted Vatican policy to rubber stamping the decisions of bishops friendly to the Tridentine Mass, nothing has been done to protect Catholics from hostile bishops. Members of canonically regular clerical societies devoted that liturgy have been expelled from dioceses for exercising their canonical right to not concelebrate.
Rome, not the Society, is responsible for the crisis and for promoting the errors to which the Society’s mistakes are an overreaction. Hence it is possible, if not likely, that the SSPX bishops have believed the consecrations justified either “through no personal fault”—or at least with the diminished responsibility for which Canon 1324 requires a diminished penalty. SSPX suspicion of canonically regular contexts is a misapplication of the principle of avoiding dangerous influences—not a desire for the formal institutional separation of schism.
Should that be the case, the closest historical parallel might be the Great Schism. During the schism, each claimant to the papacy excommunicated all of his rivals’ adherent. After it, the Church treated those on the wrong side as guilty only of a circumstantially understandable factual error rather than of formal schism.
Unfortunately, the longer the SSPX remains in a state of de facto separation—and, it cannot be stressed too much, the longer it takes Rome to issue necessary clarifications, distinctions, explanations and reaffirmations of traditional theology—the more likely it is that a permanent formal schism will eventually be the result.
[1] https://sspx.org/en/news/father-should-i-attend-mass-advice-attending-non-sspx-latin-masses-26188
