Introduction
On 29 July 2026, Rorate Cæli published a lengthy guest piece on the canonical status of the Society of Saint Pius X, written under the pen name “Brother Linus Pio” and presented as the fruit of several years of research. It is offered as a monograph. It concludes that the Society is schismatic, that its sacraments are criminal and sacrilegious, that its Masses do not satisfy the Sunday precept, and that Archbishop Lefebvre taught heresy.
The piece may appear well organized, and it is generally courteous in tone, and it assembles a genuinely impressive body of citations—Trent, Pius VI, Pius IX, Pius XII, Van Noort, Billot, Guéranger, de Sales, and more. A reader unfamiliar with the material will come away persuaded, because the weight of the authorities appears overwhelming.
That appearance is the problem. The authorities cited are real authorities, and the citations appear scary and weighty. But the argument they are made to support is not built out of them. At the decisive points, the piece does not reason; it asserts, and then it quotes an authority which addresses a different question. This is characteristic of the structure of the work as such. And, yes, I understand that what I have just done is assert something without proving the assertion, but that will be accomplished throughout the piece, so, please, be patient.
What follows is not an attempt to answer every claim in seventeen pages, because that would require many more pages than 17, which would turn into a small book. As an aside, I have already written a full-length book which deals with many of the things found in Brother Linus’ piece, that is, in substance, if not exact points or citations. It is practically impossible to refute every possible assertion or citation that authors can muster up in defence of their position or used as offensive against your own, because, quite frankly, there just isn’t enough time, and it would be boring to do so.
As an example, one could comb through the texts of Theologians, Doctors, and Scholastics until one's heart is content, and one would come away perplexed, because those men would disagree with each other, sometimes sharply, on serious issues. So, what is a man to do? Well, this is why the Church has given us Manuals and perennial Dictionaries. If there is a conflict between Cajetan and Bellarmine, or Suárez and Liguori, what are we to do? We go to the reference texts that are approved for teaching and formation and have been in use as standard texts for long periods of time, and that come from an age of sound theology and philosophy. The point being, you can cite as many sources as you want, but that does not settle an argument, especially if an argument is not even made, and if the citations don’t support the non-existent argument, or if you happen to be quoting a thesis that was never adopted by the Church in her praxis. If asserting and citing were enough to make strong arguments, then we should all become sedevacantists, because they can produce lists of citations as long as your arm, and those citations come from some of the greatest minds in the history of the Church.
Theology is a science, and a science, in the truest sense, must be used as a tool or method to generate proofs for things reasoned, and not merely asserted. The assertions must be tested, and those tests must survive reassessment and further testing when new data is available, and, eventually, the conclusions may be adopted as scientific fact. If we fail to do that, we are not, in fact, doing science, but science fiction. The study in question is not really a study, but more a syllabus of selections of reading material that is loosely cobbled together to assert a conclusion to an argument that it fails to make. Whatever it is, it is not theology, because it is not scientific. This goes for the canonical assertions as well, as we will see.
At any rate, it is characteristic of this milieu of writing—lengthy pieces written against the Society—to find a lot of verbal spaghetti thrown at the wall, as if the author desires to throw a whole pot and see how much will stick. In this case, the noodles fall to the floor, and the arguments are flaccid and far from al dente. Even worse, it seems that the water was unsalted.
In any event, this piece is an attempt to show that the load-bearing claims fail, and that when they fail the rest has nothing to stand on.
I. Seventeen Pages on Schism, and Schism Is Never Defined
The word "schism" and its cognates appear throughout the piece. It is the conclusion of Section I, the conclusion of Section II, the whole burden of Sections III and V, and the substance of six of the nine numbered points in the Summary.
The term is never defined.
Canon 751 is not quoted. Neither is canon 1325 §2 of the 1917 Code. Neither is the Summa, II-II, q. 39, which is where a Catholic theologian goes for the nature of the sin. No manualist is cited on the constitution of the delict. The reader is never told what schism is, and is therefore in no position to judge whether the acts described amount to it.
The law is clear. Canon 751 defines schism as subiectionis Summo Pontifici aut communionis cum Ecclesiae membris eidem subditis detrectatio—the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff, or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him. The 1917 Code is materially the same.
More importantly, the theology is not obscure either, and it is more demanding than the legal texts. I say it is more important because Canon Law is a code of human law that is meant to be used in the governance of a society that is spiritual in its end. Therefore, canons relating to what amount to sins must be based on sound theological principles about what a sin is, in relation to what is moral and theologically accurate.
St. Thomas treats schism in the Secunda Secundae not among the sins against obedience but among the sins against charity. The schismatic is one who intends to sever himself from the unity which charity effects. The formal element is a disposition of the will, and this will must intend to create a rupture in the union of charity.
From this the tradition draws a distinction the piece needs to erase, and which it therefore never mentions. Cajetan gives us a concise definition of schism, in relation to disobedience, which is relevant to our purposes: “Disobeying, even obstinately, the Sovereign Pontiff does not constitute a schism. What constitutes a schism is refusing to submit to him as head of the whole Church.”[1] Cajetan is used here because he represents the best of the commentary on Aquinas, and his definition matches the consent of the tradition.
For an act of disobedience to be schismatic, the one who disobeys must, in refusing obedience, intend to separate himself from the unity of the Church and refuse to recognize the Roman Pontiff as head. Schism is the withdrawal of subjection to the Pope as such, not the refusal of a particular command.
Regarding disobedience, it would be advantageous to quote an SSPX article here at length, for two reasons. First, because the SSPX article is correct in what it proves, and second, because Brother Linus did not quote any SSPX source material, which is odd, considering he attempted to tear them down:
In Catholic doctrine, obedience is not an absolute, not even obedience to the Sovereign Pontiff.
As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches: “The abuse of authority can occur […] when what is commanded by the superior is contrary to the end for which the authority was instituted, for example, when he orders an evil act, contrary to the virtue that this authority is intended to promote and protect. In this case, not only is one not obliged to obey the superior, but one is even obliged not to obey him, as the holy martyrs faced death rather than obey the impious orders of tyrants.”
The same teaching can be found in Leo XIII's encyclical Diuturnum illud (June 29, 1881).
Moreover, if the unjust order of the superior constitutes a danger to the faith, the disobedience itself must be public.
It is again Saint Thomas who affirms this: “When there is an imminent danger to the faith, the prelates themselves must be publicly rebuked by their subjects. This is why Saint Paul, who was subject to Saint Peter, publicly rebuked him because of the imminent danger of scandal concerning the faith. And, as the Gloss says, quoting Saint Augustine, regarding Chapter II of the Epistle to the Galatians, ‘Peter himself thus gave superiors an example: if ever they should stray from the right path, they should not refuse to be corrected even by their inferiors.’”
The great Dominican theologian Juan de Torquemada (1388-1468) summarizes all the above in these terms: “If the Roman Pontiff commands something that is evil in itself, that is, contrary to divine law, to the faith, or to the salvation of souls, in such a case, separating oneself from the Roman Pontiff by disobedience is not illicit and, consequently, should not be called schism.”
One could not be clearer. And, let us repeat, this is not the isolated opinion of a theologian, but the unanimous teaching of the entire theological tradition.
In any event, for schism to manifest, there must be the animus schismaticus. It is the thing that distinguishes the schismatic from the disobedient subject, and without it the category has no boundaries. On the definition the piece works with in practice—grave disobedience in a matter reserved to the Pope—a great many canonized saints are schismatics, and so is a substantial part of the fourth-century episcopate.
The piece cannot establish the animus in Archbishop Lefebvre, and so it does not try. It substitutes an inventory: eleven bulleted accusations, none of them argued, several of them stating the conclusion in their own wording ("a schismatic tribunal").
Again, we find spaghetti thrown at the wall, but, alas, it does not stick.
The list looks very official, like a real list, and the reader may have the impression that the list makes an argument, but it doesn’t. Because a list of acts of material disobedience, however long, does not become a schism by accumulation. The question is what those acts were for—whether they were done with the will to break from the Church or with the will to remain in her under conditions the actor judged to be extraordinary. And, as has been established, even if the reasoning of the Society were off, and an act of disobedience were immoral, it would still not a schism make, because schism and disobedience are not the same thing.
Perhaps Brother Linus had in his head a syllogism that he has applied wrongly, something like:
Schism is a sin.
All schism includes some element of disobedience of the pope.
Therefore, all disobedience of the pope is schism.
I am not even sure if that is a true syllogism, but it is about as true as Brother Linus' conflation of schism and disobedience when tested against the tradition.
In any event, there is no question that the Society recognizes and submits to the pope in principle, and from our reading, even if the relationship between the Holy See and Écône is strained, that strain does not make a schism.
“But the pope said it was schism!” Well, technically, in this case, Pope Leo hasn’t said anything yet, if he will at all. And Pope Leo has also said that Catholics are “already one” with actual schismatics and heretics, so we must ask ourselves if Pope Leo even believes in schism the way the Church has always understood it.
Everything that follows in this reply is downstream of Brother Linus’ failure to define the term for the very accusation he levels at the Society. A work which never defines its central term is free to slide between illicit, irregular, disobedient, and schismatic as though they were interchangeable. The piece does this repeatedly, and it is how the argument appears to move.
II. The Premise That Is Not Divine Law
The whole of Section I rests on one sentence:
The right to select bishops belongs solely to the Roman Pontiff. This is a matter of divine law; it comes from Jesus Christ Himself.
Everything in the section is derived from here. To paraphrase his assertion: Because it is divine law, no necessity can excuse a violation of it; because no necessity can excuse it, the 1988 consecrations were necessarily schismatic; because they were schismatic, the Society founded on them is schismatic.
Now, the argument is valid in itself, but it is not sound, because the premise is false.
Nothing is offered in support of the premise except an analogy—that as Christ alone chose the Apostles, so the Vicar of Christ alone chooses their successors. This is not an argument, and it is not even a good analogy. The Apostles appointed successors without reference to Peter. Paul appointed Timothy and Titus, and directed Titus to ordain presbyters in every city, and the New Testament records no papal mandate for any of it.
The texts adduced after the analogy—Pius VI, Trent, Pius IX, Pius XII—establish that the appointment of bishops is reserved to the Roman Pontiff. Not one of them establishes that the reservation is of divine law. That distinction is the entire question, and the piece does not appear to notice that there is a distinction to be made.
There are at least three independent proofs that the reservation is ecclesiastical, meaning a matter of Church governance and custom, and not of divine law.
First, the practice of the first millennium. For centuries, bishops were elected in a variety of different ways, which included popular election, as in the case of Saint Ambrose; or sometimes at the directive of a civil ruler; and, what I believe was most often the case, by a regional synod of neighbouring bishops.
Papal appointment as the universal mode is a development of the second millennium. And that development does not happen swiftly, and takes on a variety of forms and practices until it approaches what we see as normative today.
If the reservation were divine law, the Church spent her first thousand years in continuous violation of it, as well as much of the second thousand years.
Second, and conclusively, the practice of concordat. For centuries the Holy See granted to Catholic sovereigns the right of nomination to episcopal sees—in France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Bavaria, and elsewhere. The Church cannot alienate what belongs to her by divine law. That she repeatedly did grant this right, by solemn treaty, over long periods, and without any suggestion that she was exceeding her competence, is a demonstration that the right is hers to dispose of. It is therefore ecclesiastical.
Third, the present Code. Canon 377 §1: the Supreme Pontiff freely appoints bishops or confirms those legitimately elected.
Divine law does not include alternative procedures, and the present Code recognizes that bishops may be chosen otherwise and then confirmed.
Related to the three aforementioned points, we should consider the Council of Trent. The Council debated at length whether the jurisdiction of bishops comes to them immediately from God or mediately through the Roman Pontiff. The Spanish and Italian parties could not be reconciled, and the Council deliberately declined to define the question. It remained an open dispute among theologians for four centuries afterwards.
This is relevant because the understanding that the selection of bishops is of divine law and the question of whence jurisdiction comes are closely linked.
The reference to Trent touches on the piece's use of its sources more generally. Trent is cited in Section I as though it settled the matter, but that is not what happened.
What is divine law, and what Lefebvre actually did
Now, something in this area is of divine law: that no bishop can possess jurisdiction over a portion of the flock independently of the head of the Body of Bishops. A bishop who claims a see, or subjects, or governing authority that is territorial and habitual, apart from the Roman Pontiff is claiming what cannot be had without him. That much is certain, and the Society has never disputed it.
But this brings us to the distinction on which Section I turns, and which Section I collapses. Episcopal consecration confers the power of order—a sacramental character, indelible, conferred validly by any bishop upon any suitable subject. Appointment to a see confers jurisdiction—the power of governance. Now, as has been established by the historical record, men were appointed for generations to sees, possessing jurisdiction, and these were not papal appointments. Of course, the Society has not done this in any way, and it is abundantly clear about that.
Archbishop Lefebvre—and most recently, Bishop de Galarreta—conferred the power of order, and the bishops so consecrated were given no see, no territory, no diocese, no subjects, and no governing authority. They were consecrated in order to confer the sacraments which require the episcopal character—orders and confirmation—which are acts of the power of order, not of jurisdiction.
This distinction renders the authorities cited in Section I irrelevant for this context, because each one speaks of jurisdiction.
Monsignor Van Noort is quoted to the effect that it would be nonsensical for someone to take charge of part of the sheepfold without the agreement of the one who rules the universal sheepfold. That is a statement about taking charge—about jurisdiction. Nobody took charge of anything.
I did chuckle when I saw Van Noort called to action for Brother Linus’ piece. Is he aware that Van Noort is standard reading in Society seminaries and theology classrooms? I have never been either a Society seminarian or a student of one of their colleges, but even I have volumes of Van Noort that I reference. Why do I have them? Because the first time I visited the college in Kansas, a professor—a priest of the Society—gave me Van Noort's standard volumes on Dogmatic Theology and was told I must read them.
Does Brother Linus think the Society would misunderstand Van Noort so badly as to make an incredible theological blunder?
Father Berry is quoted to the effect that authority to teach and govern the faithful was conferred on the Apostles as a body and can be obtained only by incorporation into that body. The words "to teach and govern" are in the quotation. Berry is describing jurisdiction. Again, not what is claimed by the Society bishops.
Pius XII is quoted from Ad Apostolorum Principis to the effect that no one can lawfully confer episcopal consecration without the mandate of the Apostolic See. The word is "lawfully,” which refers to an act governed by the law of the Church, which again proves that the election of bishops is an ecclesiastical matter, and not divine law. All things being equal, and ignoring a state of necessity, we can say that it would be illegal or illicit to consecrate without papal permission, but that is it. We will discuss what Brother Linus curiously avoids on this topic below.
At any rate, on the point genuinely of divine law—that jurisdiction comes through the head—there is no dispute between the piece and the Society, and five pages of authorities are expended proving what the Society affirms. On the point actually in dispute—whether the sacramental consecration of a bishop without jurisdiction, in circumstances judged to be extraordinary, is a schismatic act—the piece offers one unsupported sentence; a sentence from Scripture that Scripture doesn’t even verify.
III. The Canons the Piece Did Not Open
Section III argues at length that an unjust excommunication would still bind.
Now, the tradition settles this for us, despite Brother Linus’s misuse of quotations from Pope Pius IX and others, which are not used in their context—more on that below.
You will have to forgive me for this citation; I do not have the physical copy of the tome in hand, and it has not been digitized, so I have pictures of it from the Écône seminary, which I will include here as references. In the Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique, which was compiled under the guidance of Canon Raoul Naz, we read about unjust and invalid censures:
If, on the contrary, the defect is merely accidental, and does not bear upon a point or a formality required under pain of nullity, the censure may be valid, but will remain unjust—that is, violating the law and right; against this unjust penalty, unjust because unlawful, there will be grounds for lodging an appeal or instituting a recourse. Finally, a censure may be materially unjust, because lacking foundation (striking an innocent man falsely accused), and yet have been imposed with all the legal forms (citation, proofs in the external forum, and all required formalities); it will then be said to be formally valid, though materially unjust. Thus justice pertains rather to conformity with the natural law, with the truth; validity depends on the observance of the juridical formalities required under pain of nullity. Cf. Wernz, op. cit., n. 162.
3. All authors agree in recognizing that a manifestly unjust and invalid censure in no way binds the one struck by it, and produces no effect in the internal forum any more than in the external. This doctrine is at least insinuated by the Code at canon 2219 § 2: for if the legislator maintains the obligation of observing a "doubtfully just" penalty, he gives it to be understood that this obligation no longer exists (by virtue of the natural law) for a penalty that is certainly unjust. However, when the penalty is notorious and the nullity of that penalty, while certain, is not equally notorious, the censured person may indirectly and per accidens be held to observe the penalty in the external forum; and this not by virtue of the censure itself (which, not existing, could not bind), but by reason of the scandal and the contempt for ecclesiastical authority which might result: it is obviously supposed that this scandal cannot be dispelled. But it goes without saying that the censured person will not, under these conditions, be deprived of any of the goods of the Church, at least the invisible goods: suffrages, indulgences, prayers, etc. It is no less clear that he will not consider himself struck by any of the penalties provided against those who contemn the censure. (Translation done by AI, but I am fluent in French and can attest to its accuracy—it was just faster to use the robot)
You will notice that Naz makes reference to the fact that “all authors agree.” This means it is the consensus of the tradition on the matter. Also, it speaks of penalties that are manifestly unjust or invalid as having no effect internally or externally on the accused. Manifest means the constitutive elements of the accusation or charge are plain for all to see.
The Society does not do what it does in secret, and the letters from Tucho Fernandez are not hidden, and the code of Canon Law is abundantly clear, as we will see, but, unfortunately, Brother Linus never considers what is so manifestly clear in the Code.
This also suffices to refute Brother Linus’ appeal to Unigenitus, which is concerned itself with a set of heresies imbibed by Jansenism. Jansenist authors defended their rights to take matters into their own hands because they believed their heresy was justified. The SSPX believes that a state of necessity allows for the consecrations of bishops without a mandate to ensure that Catholics have access to priests who will not preach to them heresies.
The Jansensists were not heretics because they preached austerity as such; they were heretics because they preached heresies, some of which find a home in the New Springtime. Even some traditional authors have fallen into the trap of labelling elements of the so-called Traditional Movement “Neo-Jansenist,” which is regrettable, because it doesn’t follow at all. Jansenist authors were vehemently opposed to, among other things, frequent reception of Holy Communion, and they were proponents of liturgical antiquarianism; also, they sought to “purify” the devotional life from things like the Sacred Heart devotion, among others. If the term Neo-Jansenist is used as an accusation, some writers believe that Traditionalists can fall into a sort of scrupulosity or rigorism, then this is true. But all Catholics can fall into those spiritual and intellectual traps. In fact, it is a form of rigorism to interpret Canon Law, especially when it pertains to disputed moral questions, in a way that allows no liberty or the legitimate freedom of conscience in the Catholic sense. Whatever a Neo-Jansensist is—which is not a doctrinal term—it does not pertain to the SSPX as a group; a group that preaches frequent reception of Communion, devotion to the Sacred Heart, and the right for Catholics to reconcile their troubled consciences with the spirit of the law when the letter is used to bring death to souls.
In any event, Brother Linus never asks the important question, which is whether any excommunication was incurred.
That question is governed by the Code, in canons the piece does not cite.
The consecration of a bishop without a pontifical mandate carries a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See—canon 1387 of the present Code, which stood at canon 1382 before Book VI was reordered in 2021. It is worth noting in passing that the 1917 Code, at canon 2370, imposed only suspension for this offence; the excommunication was introduced by a decree of the Holy Office in 1951, in response to the consecrations in China. This is a canonical penalty, and canonical penalties are governed by the Code's own provisions on culpability. Those provisions are canons 1323 and 1324, and they are the heart of the Society's canonical defence.
Canon 1323 provides that no one is liable to a penalty who, when violating a law, acted under the compulsion of grave fear, or by reason of necessity or grave inconvenience, unless the act is intrinsically evil or tends to the harm of souls. The same canon provides that no one is liable who thought, without fault on his part, that such a circumstance was present. Canon 1324 §3 provides that in the mitigating circumstances there enumerated, the accused is not bound by a latae sententiae penalty, though lesser penalties or penances may still be imposed.
That this is not even considered in Brother Linus’s piece is, quite frankly, criminal. A seventeen-page assessment of the Society's canonical status does not open the canons which determine whether the penalty at issue was ever incurred.
If I may, could we find out how Brother Linus is qualified to talk about Canon Law, especially since he tells us that his work is the result of several years of study?
The structure of canon 1323 also shows how much the piece would have to prove. It is not enough to argue that no state of necessity existed. Because inculpable error as to the existence of the necessity excuses; the piece would have to establish that Archbishop Lefebvre's judgement that one existed was culpable—that a man who had spent thirty years watching the dissolution of the priesthood could not have held that judgement in good faith. That is a heavy burden, and the piece does not even attempt to consider it.
Instead it forecloses the question by assertion:
There is never a necessity that would justify consecrating bishops against the will of the Holy Father.
Perhaps no authority or citation is given because the Code itself works against the crux of his assertion. The universal negative is simply the conclusion restated with emphasis. It is a circular statement that proves nothing, and can prove nothing.
However, he does cite three documents that, it seems, he believes will prove his case.
He cites Charitas, which addresses the consecrations carried out under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy: bishops installed in the sees of living, legitimate ordinaries, at the direction of a revolutionary state hostile to the Church, under an oath to a schismatic civil settlement, by men who denied Rome's authority to prevent them.
Ad Apostolorum Principis addresses the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association: a parallel hierarchy claiming jurisdiction over dioceses, erected at the direction of a Communist government, for the express purpose of establishing a national church independent of Rome.
Quartus Supra addresses the Armenian dissidents: a body which rejected the primacy itself and erected a rival patriarchate.
In each case the elements which constituted the schism are the elements absent in 1988. The documents cited by Brother Linus have as their context heretics or actual schismatics who set up rival jurisdictional structures in competition with the Catholic Church.
So, we can agree with Brother Linus that erecting heretical and rival ecclesial structures is wrong. But, perhaps I missed something, because that isn’t what the Society has done.
Not one of the authorities cited addresses the case actually at issue: a crisis arising within the hierarchy itself. The piece has assembled a body of law about intruders installed by hostile governments into occupied sees, and applied it, without argument, to a case which has none of those features.
Ironically, Charitas works against Brother Linus, because it was written with the intention of communicating the extraordinary provisions allowed by Pope Pius VI for the struggling faithful under the revolutionary regime in France, and the clergy who refused the oath and who had to minister in extraordinary ways.
Supplied jurisdiction, and canon 144
Section II makes a parallel argument about jurisdiction, and misstates the governing canon.
The piece says that the Church supplies jurisdiction in three cases under canon 144: danger of death, common error, and positive or probable doubt. Canon 144 §1 reads:
In factual or legal common error and in positive and probable doubt of law or of fact, the Church supplies executive power of governance for both the external and internal forum.
Danger of death is not there. It is a separate grant under canon 976. And §2 of canon 144, which extends supply to the faculties of canons 882, 883, 966, and 1111 §1, is omitted entirely. For an argument whose whole force depends on the canon being exhaustive, misquoting the canon is not a small matter.
The more serious error concerns doubt. Canon 144 names, first, positive and probable doubt of law—dubium iuris. Brother Linus gives a hypothetical example of the case of a priest who has probable reason to think his bishop has granted him faculties. That is doubt of fact about a particular grant. Doubt of law is doubt as to whether a law exists at all, or whether it extends to the case in hand.
Brother Linus has confused the categories, which are distinct, and the second category is more relevant for the Society.
Canon 14 then follows, and is also absent from the piece: laws, even invalidating and disqualifying ones, do not oblige when there is a doubt of law. If a positive and probable doubt of law exists as to whether the Church supplies in a state of necessity, then canon 144 supplies and canon 14 means the invalidating law does not bind. Neither canon is discussed.
Two further points on Section II.
The piece dismisses common error on the ground that nobody supposes SSPX priests have ordinary jurisdiction. But the doctrine of common error, in its dominant manualist form, does not require that anyone actually be in error; error communis virtualis obtains where a public fact exists of such a nature as would lead the community into error.
And then there is the fifth of the nine summary conclusions:
"Supplied jurisdiction" cannot be claimed as justification because this requires the minister first to have a canonical mission from the Church.
To translate what Brother Linus has said here: For jurisdiction to be supplied, one must already have jurisdiction. Pardon me?
The topic of Canonical Mission has become something like the golden goose of the anti-SSPX commentariat, and I am struggling to understand why that is. Canonical mission and jurisdiction are birds of a feather. The mission is the mechanism by which you are sent to teach and govern, and the mission gives you the jurisdiction to do so. It would be erroneous to send priests or bishops as if they claimed for themselves a mission, in the formal sense and not the sense of common parlance, but this is not and has never been claimed by the Society.
If supplied jurisdiction requires that the minister already possess the jurisdiction it supplies, then the Church supplies nothing to anyone, and ecclesia supplet is meaningless. But it is an obvious principle of the Church’s governance that the Church does supply for the reasons already discussed.
Having a Canonical Mission means that you have a legitimate—which is to say licit, or legal—ministry. Of course the Society does not argue that it has a legal ministry, in the sense that it is not operating in a way that breaks the letter of the law. That is the whole point of the State of Necessity, which Father Gleize summarizes nicely:
“A state of necessity is an extraordinary situation in which the necessaries of natural or supernatural life are threatened in such a way that to safeguard them one finds oneself habitually obliged to break the law. Now, law is essentially intended by legislators to procure these necessaries to their subjects. In the Church, the whole edifice of ecclesiastical law is by definition ordered to the preaching of the doctrine of faith and the administration of the sacraments.[5] If the application of the law goes against the end of the law intended by the legislators, it is no longer legitimate because self-contradictory. The subjects can and must take no notice of it in order to obtain the end of the law despite the authorities who apply the law contrary to the law.”
Admittedly, this poignant and concise summary is likely jarring to some readers, especially if we come from predominantly Anglo-Liberal nations, like America, Canada, etc. We have imbibed, to varying degrees, the sickness of Legal Positivism, which is essentially the notion that the Legislator makes the law, so it must be lawful. This mentality has arisen in modern times saturated with Revolution, and we are not accustomed to thinking otherwise. However, in the received European Tradition, which is still more active in some European mentalities, there is much more nuance. We may think of the maxim uttered by men like Saint Thomas Aquinas and others, which states, “An unjust law is no law.”
Premodern thinkers could understand this easily because they could understand the distinction between the law, which has been promulgated in a code of law and the Law, as in the metaphysical principle that guides legislation. For example, it is not unlawful, morally speaking, to have some sort of taxation. However, if it so happens that laws about taxation become so burdensome that citizens cannot afford their basic necessities if they pay their taxes, then the law is sufficiently unjust to be no law at all.
The law is meant to govern a society, spiritual or religious, so that it can obtain its end, which must include the common good of the subjects. So, an unjust law truly is no law at all, because it does not function as a law should and works against its purpose.
Now, the perennial understanding of Necessity applies to all societies of people, both secular and religious. It is easy enough for us to understand in the secular sphere, but how might we understand it in the religious sphere?
When assessing the theological tradition, we see five degrees of necessity:
1. Ordinary (or common) spiritual necessity is that in which any sinner finds himself in ordinary circumstances;
2. Grave spiritual necessity is that when a soul finds herself threatened in spiritual goods of great importance (e.g., faith and morals);
3. Spiritual necessity almost extreme is the status of a soul which, without someone else’s help, could be rescued only with great difficulty;
4. Extreme spiritual necessity is that status of a soul is situated which, without the help of someone else, could not be able to be saved or would be able to do so with such difficulty that her salvation would be considered morally impossible;
5. Grave general (or public) spiritual necessity is that when several souls find themselves threatened in spiritual goods of great importance (e.g., faith and morals). Canonists and theologians commonly adduce as examples of grave general or public spiritual necessity epidemics and the public spreading of a heresy.[2]
Now, a state of Spiritual Necessity is more urgent than a state of Material Necessity, because spiritual goods are higher and more vital than material goods. This is easily understandable if we consider parenting: if a father is a poor material provider but provides his children with the Faith and a good education, we would say he is a better father than a man who provides material wealth and comfort, but without the spiritual and metaphysical formation. Ideally, a father could provide both, but the material will always be secondary. Furthermore, we could say that a moral and religious society that serves Christ the King is superior to a wealthy society that is indifferent to Christ.
If we assess the degrees listed above, it should be easy to see that the fifth degree fits our present situation.
Notice how it is not necessary that all souls be deprived of requisite spiritual goods, but only that it is public or common. Can we say with a straight face that the spreading of heresy is not common today, and has not been for decades? I believe it is unnecessary to point out the myriad examples of spiritual deprivation in our day, but perhaps a paragraph summarizing the situation could suffice.
We live in an age of universal (meaning, in all places) spiritual deprivation. Liturgically, catechetically, educationally, and even legislatively, if we consider the effete and ineffective application of the law in the Church. Every Pope since John-Paul II has made public displays of Ecumenism that were universally regarded as condemnable before Vatican II (compare Assisi and the Pachamama event to Mortalium Animos, for example). The present head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has a history of writing what should be called theological erotica. The former head of the DDF, Cardinal Müller, seems to have denied, at least materially, perennial dogmas about the Blessed Mother.[3] Pope Francis okayed the reception of Holy Communion by couples in an objective state of mortal sin. And, practically speaking, parents the world over experience great difficulty in raising their children in the Faith because of the general state of parishes. Furthermore, Mass attendance is abysmal globally (even in Africa, it is not as you may think, at least in many countries), and statistics show us that the majority of Catholics do not believe basic dogmas like the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
During a bona fide State of Necessity, it is permissible to act against the letter of the law, or outside the letter when the legal custom or ordinances cannot cover the situation because of unforeseen events. What is required is that one does nothing intrinsically immoral. The consecration of bishops without a mandate or jurisdiction is not intrinsically immoral.
The Society’s actions are not schismatic and are proportional to the threat of destruction we are currently living under. It would be wrong to create a new jurisdictional structure, but it would also be wrong not to do everything possible, considering what is permissible during a State of Necessity, to help souls who are left orphaned.
In any event, critics of the Society seem to focus on this seemingly misunderstood topic of Canonical Mission and legitimate ministry endlessly, and Brother Linus does what they all do, and goes on about Extraordinary Mission, as if it has anything to do with the SSPX.
He gives us oodles of citations in Section II directed against the claim to an extraordinary mission.
Okay, very well, but the Society does not claim this. It has explicitly rejected it. Sure, the situation we are in presently is extraordinary, but that does not mean that an extraordinary mission, meaning a mission received directly from Christ, is claimed by the Society. Quite frankly, I am wondering if Brother Linus has ever read Archbishop Lefebvre, who stated a thousand times that what he was doing was a work of the Church and for the Church, and not a mission from God directly.
Brother Linus, along with the other critics who follow the same line of argumentation, are tilting at extraordinary windmills.
IV. The Sources, Read Whole
The piece's persuasive force comes from its citations. It is worth examining what several of them say.
The commentary on canon 1248. Section IV argues that the phrase ritu catholico in canon 1248 does not mean a liturgical rite but a Church sui iuris, and that since the Society is not a Church sui iuris, its Masses cannot satisfy the precept.
Two paragraphs later, it quotes the New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law in support. The quoted sentence says that the Mass must be celebrated in a Catholic rite, that is, in the liturgical rite of any Catholic Church sui iuris, but not in a church not in full communion though using a Catholic liturgical rite.
The commentary says ritu catholico means the liturgical rite. The piece has just denied that it does, and then quotes the denial's refutation as its proof.
Moreover, the commentary concerns a “church” not in communion with Rome, and not a society of priests who belong to the Catholic Church in a state of strained relationship.
Trent, Session 23, Canon 8. The canon anathematizes anyone who says that the bishops assumed by the authority of the Roman Pontiff are not legitimate and true bishops but a human figment. It was aimed at the Protestant claim that the Catholic hierarchy is a human invention.
Somewhere else in the piece, Brother Linus appeals generally to “Session 23” of the Council of Trent to give us nec rite ordinati nec missi, which means “neither rightly ordained nor sent.” Now, he has not given us the full quotation, which reads, qui nec ab ecclesiastica et canonica potestate rite ordinati nec missi sunt—those who have been neither rightly ordained nor sent by ecclesiastical and canonical power. It comes from Trent, Session 23, canon 7, if Brother Linus is wondering. And it is levelled at Protestants who have neither been ordained nor sent. It concerns the power of orders and jurisdiction.
Interestingly, Canon 7, which Brother Linus adduces against the Society, tells against him on this point. Among the propositions it anathematises is the claim that orders conferred without the consent or call of the people or of the secular power are invalid. The Council is condemning the Protestant doctrine that such consent is necessary—but in doing so it takes for granted that the civil power did in fact have a recognised part in the constitution of the clergy, and it does not condemn that part. It denies only that validity depends upon it. Nor could the Council have done otherwise, sitting as it did while Catholic sovereigns exercised the right of nomination to bishoprics by solemn concordat with the Holy See, a right the Church had granted and would go on granting. Another example, in a Canon that Brother Linus half-heartedly produced, that the election of bishops does not require a mandate directly from the pope as per divine law. Of course, we are speaking of bishops appointed to sees, which does not pertain to the SSPX.
In any event, the whole canon is aimed at Protestant ministers, men who lacked valid orders altogether and who claimed a call from the congregation or the magistrate rather than from the Church. The nec... nec is conjunctive: it condemns those who fail on both counts. It is not a text about validly ordained Catholic priests whose faculties are in dispute.
The loose citation of “Session 23” has nothing to do with the SSPX or the context we are concerned with.
The 1974 Declaration. Section V presents the Declaration as the beginning of the rupture, and the piece's first footnote directs the reader to it. The Declaration's opening words are an act of adherence to Rome—to Catholic Rome, guardian of the Catholic faith and of the traditions necessary to maintain it; to eternal Rome, mistress of wisdom and truth. Only then comes the refusal of what the Declaration calls the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies.
The piece quotes the second clause and not the first, attempting to demonstrate where the rupture began, all the while ignoring the enormously relevant statement that came before.
This ignorance of Archbishop Lefebvre’s actual statements leads Linus to allege that Lefebvre taught heresy. His accusation is based on a fictitious representation of Lefebvre’s professed beliefs that only speaks to Brother’s ignorance on the matter.
Brother Linus is concerned with Lefebvre’s polemical language, but apparently he has no issue with his own polemics that invert reality.
Miaskiewicz on supplied jurisdiction. Section II asserts that there is no basis for the Society's position in the teaching of canonists, theologians, tradition, or ecclesial law. The footnote attached to the surrounding discussion cites Francis Miaskiewicz's Supplied Jurisdiction According to Canon 209—at page 8, which is to say from the introduction.
Miaskiewicz's dissertation is the standard American text on ecclesia supplet, and it works against Brother Linus. The dissertation is a sustained case for the broad interpretation that the Church supplies for the needs of the faithful in light of the reasons already discussed.
More could be said about Brother Linus’ misapplied source material, but this is enough.
V. What Had to Be Left Out
The following are the authorities and provisions which do not appear in the piece. Each of them is extraordinarily relevant.
- St. Thomas, Supplementum, q. 21—the unjust excommunication has no effect before God.
- St. Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice, II, c. 29—that it is licit to resist a Pontiff who harms the Church, by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will. This is the classical Catholic doctrine of resistance to a superior, and it does not appear once in seventeen pages devoted to the question of resistance.
- Benedict XVI's Letter to the Bishops of 10 March 2009, describing the four as ordained validly but not legitimately—and not describing them as schismatics.
- The grant of faculties for confession to Society priests in 2015, extended without term in Misericordia et Misera, and the 2017 provisions for marriages in Society chapels, which instruct local ordinaries to grant delegation. Faculties are jurisdiction. Rome does not delegate jurisdiction over the Latin faithful to men outside the Church, nor instruct her own bishops to cooperate juridically with schismatics.
- The replies of the Commission Ecclesia Dei in 1999, 2002, and 2003 which state that the Sunday obligation is, in the strict sense, satisfied at a Society Mass, while advising against attendance on prudential grounds. The piece confines these to a footnote and tries to explain them away.
- The canonical objections to the 1975 suppression—the competence of the local ordinary to suppress a society erected by his predecessor without the consent of the Holy See; the absence of any juridical mandate in the Commission of Cardinals which acted; the absence of a right of defence; the absence of promulgation in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis; the blocking of the appeal to the Apostolic Signatura. The piece describes the suppression and the ensuing suspension as lawful four times and argues for it nowhere.
- Any writer of the Society whatever.
The last of these requires a section of its own.
VI. The “Schismatic” Canonical Commission Accusation
Brother Linus, again, asserts that the canonical commission of the Society is “schismatic” before he considers the question or proves what he asserts. Of course, what schism is has been established in this piece, because it was not established in Brother Linus’s piece, so what remains is to see if his assertion that the tribunals are schismatic fits.
Let us consider, for the sake of this essay, the purpose of the Society commission’s role in the nullity question as it pertains to marriages.
Some background that is often forgotten. Before 2017, when Pope Francis extended permissions for local Ordinaries to grant delegation for marriages, the Society relied on the canonical tradition about marriages performed in “irregular” situations, the logic of which is expressed in Canon 1116, which reads:
- 1 If one who, in accordance with the law, is competent to assist, cannot be present or be approached without grave inconvenience, those who intend to enter a true marriage can validly and lawfully contract in the presence of witnesses only:
1° in danger of death;
2° apart from danger of death, provided it is prudently foreseen that this state of affairs will continue for a month.
- 2 In either case, if another priest or deacon is at hand who can be present, he must be called upon and, together with the witnesses, be present at the celebration of the marriage, without prejudice to the validity of the marriage in the presence of only the witnesses.
The danger of death provision does not pertain to the Society in general—although it could because it could pertain to any Catholic at some point—but the second provision is relevant.
Notice the words of the canon: “Cannot be present or be approached without grave inconvenience.” And, if the situation of grave inconvenience will last for at least a month, then the canon can be applied. Necessarily, it is a legal provision that, in general, must be left up to the discretion of the faithful in question and any priest who can help them. The context of the canon is that the normal structures cannot be accessed, for grave inconvenience, which can be interpreted broadly. And, it should be interpreted broadly, because the tradition implores us to do so by the maxim, favorabilia amplianda, odiosa restringenda (favours are to be broadened, burdens are to be narrowed.) This principle holds that a good legislator and a good judge will, as a default posture, lean toward liberty rather than restriction. When a law grants a favour, a privilege, or a permission, it should be read generously. When a law imposes a burden, a restriction, or a penalty, it should be read narrowly—exactly as written, and no further.
In the case of Society faithful, the grave inconvenience, especially before 2017, should be obvious: they were treated as schismatics and therefore disallowed from consulting their local jurisdiction for marriage in many cases. They were not schismatics; this posture held by so many churchmen was evil and wrong; nevertheless, it was the norm, and is still the norm in many places. It should be easy to see how the logic of the canon would apply. It should also be noted that this practice of being married in front of witnesses only, especially when no priest at all can be present, is not a new thing. While we think of the age of Christendom as an age filled with Catholic priests in every region, the burden of travelling longer distances and the remoteness of various localities was not uncommon, and it was not uncommon for couples to be married in such a way, and would then have their marriages recorded when a priest could finally visit. That is a physical impossibility, not a moral impossibility, but both impossibilities are sufficient. And, the Code does not say it must be an impossibility, but only a grave inconvenience.
Furthermore, without belabouring the point, it is also the case that, in so many places and for so many decades, diocesan marriage preparation courses have been repugnant, theologically and morally speaking. This creates a legitimate crisis of conscience for a Catholic seeking marriage, who would like to be formed for marriage in the Catholic sense, and not the sense of whatever monstrous mentality has impregnated so many dioceses.
So, the faithful of the SSPX have faced a double problem; they have not been considered part of the Catholic Church, and therefore recourse to a diocesan structure was futile; and their marriages have therefore not been recognized by the local diocese, and therefore, on the rare occasion where an annulment is considered, the diocese recognizes neither the persons in question nor the marriage.
Nevertheless, the marriages are true marriages, and therefore recourse to an annulment process must be afforded to them, because Catholics cannot be barred from the services of the Church relevant to the salvation of their souls, especially for dubious reasons and when they are not penalized officially.
So, the SSPX, over the years, has sought a way to remedy this situation to fill the gap that is not the fault of the laity, but is the fault of the Crisis in the Church.
The late Bishop Tissier de Mallerais gave an overview of how this would work within the Society.
It is grounded not in the canon on supplied executive power but in the lacuna canon—canon 20 of the 1917 Code, canon 19 of the present one—which provides that where the law makes no express provision for a case, it is to be resolved from parallel places, from the general principles of law observed with canonical equity (epikeia), from the jurisprudence of the Roman Curia, and from the common and constant opinion of the doctors.
In essence, the Code, whether old or new, cannot foresee all circumstances that can arise because it is a code of human law; therefore, when a situation arises that the Code does not cover, the tradition distilled in the Code explains what was just summarized. Ultimately, some things are in the law or with the law, others are explicitly against the law, and others still are outside or not covered by the law.
Tissier cites Wernz-Vidal, "per quam iuris dispositio pro aliis casibus applicatur in casu simili de quo lex non disponit" (by which a rule of law is applied to other cases in a similar situation for which the law does not provide.)
The parallel place he identifies is the old Code's provisions on urgent dispensation from matrimonial impediments, canons 1043 to 1045: in danger of death, and again where an impediment is discovered when everything is already prepared for the wedding and the marriage cannot be deferred without probable danger of grave harm, the faculty to dispense from impediments of ecclesiastical law devolves upon the pastor, the assisting priest, or the confessor.
The present Code retains both provisions in substance at canons 1079 and 1080, so nothing in the argument depends on which law one consults. Now notice what the emergency in these canons actually consists in. The authority is not unreachable. The competent authority is functioning and would answer in theory. The sole obstacle is that using the ordinary channel would itself work grave harm through delay. The Church's answer is to supply jurisdiction to a priest who possesses none, so that souls are not injured by the operation of a procedure.
And a dispensation is the greater act, since it alters a person's capacity to marry, whereas a declaration of nullity alters nothing whatever but states the condition the parties were in from the beginning. If the Church supplies for the greater, the argument for the lesser is not outside the logic of the canonical tradition. One may dispute the extension—the Code's provision addresses an emergency measured in hours, and the necessity claimed here is a standing emergency due to the crisis and what has been explained—and a canonist is entitled to press that. What no one is entitled to do is pretend the argument has not been made, or that it rests on nothing.
Furthermore, that the faithful face an impossibility is not their fault, and it is unconscionable that one would seek to cherry-pick from Canon Law to work against the very purpose of the law, which is the salvation of souls. The faithful of the SSPX are Catholics, and therefore they have a right to what the Church offers; if that right is denied them by a circumstance that is ungodly and abhorrent, that is not their fault and they cannot be left orphaned.
The logic of the Code and the tradition is that in extraordinary situations, there can be provision for needs and circumstances not covered by the law. Using the Code against the welfare of Catholics who have committed no crime is evil, and for those who seek to do so, I would recommend reading the New Testament and see what Christ has to say about lawyers who lay burdens on the shoulders of the faithful that they do not help them with. As far as I can tell, the New Code has not abrogated the Gospel, and must be subject to Christ. “For the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth.”
Bishop Tissier summarized the actions of the Society in this regard in the following seven points:
Since our jurisdiction is only a supplied jurisdiction, it has the following properties:
1. It is not habitual, but is exercised ad casum, per modum actus. Consequently, our tribunals do not sit in a habitual manner and their members are not named ad universas causas, but only each time that it is necessary ad hoc casum. This is the case even if, for ease of function and to maintain competency and consistency, these are usually or always the same defenders of the bond and the same judges who are named.
2. It is not territorial, but personal.
3. It depends on the necessity of the faithful, and, consequently, only lasts for as long as the common necessity lasts. It will continue if the impossible were to happen and we could find one or other tribunal to judge marriage cases uniquely according to traditional norms. For in this case, the common necessity would remain.
4. It is a true jurisdiction, [jurisdiction supplied is true, in that it exists] and not an exemption from the obligation to receive a judgment from the Church. Consequently, we have the power and the duty to pronounce true sentences, which have the potestatem ligandi vel solvendi. They, consequently, are imposed obligatorily on the faithful who request them. The proximate reason for this is that we must be able to tell the faithful what they must do to save their souls—quod debent servare.
5. Our judgments are, consequently, not simply private opinions, for these could not possibly suffice when the public good is involved, as it is with every case in which the matrimonial bond is examined. In order to remove the doubt, our tribunals must have authority in the external form.
6. This supplied jurisdiction does not usurp any papal authority or divine right. This question could only arise when our judgments in the third instance replace the judgments of the Roman Rota, which acts in the name of the pope when it judges as a tribunal of third instance. However, this is not an usurpation of the pope's power of divine right, since the reservation of this third instance to the pope is but an ecclesiastical law.
7. Finally, our judgments, as all our acts of supplied jurisdiction, and the episcopal consecrations of 1988 themselves, will one day have to be confirmed by the Holy See.
Schismatics do not deny having territorial jurisdiction, they do not express the desire for recourse to the Holy See, and they do not go to painstaking lengths to synthesize with the present legal norms of the Church.
One may disagree with how the Society applies the logic and tradition of the Code to canonical actions, but their actions are grounded in the tradition of the Church, both canonical and theological, and are not set up as rivals to the Church. They help the faithful who have been violently afflicted and, in so many cases, abandoned. “I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you.”
VII. The Method of Brother Linus Considered in Detail
The piece presents itself as a monograph, the fruit of several years of research undertaken during seminary training, offered as systematically as possible. Its authority therefore rests entirely on its scholarship. It is fair to examine the apparatus.
For the magisterial and theological material, the citations are respectable. For the polemical claims—the claims which do the work of the argument—they are not. The proposition that the Society is in schism is footnoted twice to a YouTube punditry. Cardinal Müller is quoted not from the interview in which he spoke but at second hand from a polemical website. And, an interview with Cardinal Müller does not represent the teaching of the Church, or, technically speaking, a doctrinal work at all.
The study cited on consecrations against the will of the Pope is by the founding superior of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, who will obviously demonstrate bias against the Society, and the interest is not disclosed, or calibrated with a retort from the scholarship of the Society Bisig condemns. And, Bisig’s commentary is his own opinion, and is not a magisterial document of the Church, and, he has not yet been canonized or declared a Doctor; furthermore, much of the mentality behind Bisig’s work, which is common in Fraternity polemics levelled against the Society rests largely on foundations not accepted as the teaching and practice of the Church, such as the dispute about the nature of consecrations and divine law.
And Müller's phrase "de facto sacramental excommunication," on which Section III leans, is a coinage of his own; it is not a canonical category, appears in no code and no manual, and is presented as though it were a binding theological term.
Against this stands the more serious absence. Not one writer of the Society is cited anywhere in seventeen pages. Nothing from Archbishop Lefebvre's corpus, except for an out-of-context citation here and there. Nothing from Father Gleize or Father Calderon, who, while Brother Linus may not agree, cannot but be considered truly excellent theologians in their own right. Nothing from Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, whose work, including the biography of Lefebvre—which contains much theology and summary of canonical events—constitutes thousands of pages from whence Brother Linus could find the answers to many of his questions. Not one study from the Society's own publications. The windmill at which Brother Linus tilts throughout is "SSPX apologists"—an anonymous collective whose arguments the author reports in his own words—unfairly, badly, and inaccurately—and then refutes.
This explains the straw man at the centre of Section II. A writer who had read the Society's canonical case would know that it does not claim an extraordinary mission proved by miracles, because the Society has said so repeatedly and in print. Nevertheless, multiple pages are wasted refuting a position no one holds.
It also explains the pattern which runs through the whole work: at each decisive point an assertion appears where an argument is required:
• That the appointment of bishops is divine law—asserted, with an analogy in place of proof, and with no theologian or canonist cited for it.
• That there is never a necessity which could justify the act—asserted, as a universal negative, against the express provision of the Code.
• That neither necessity nor epikeia can justify the act—asserted, with epikeia nowhere defined and the Summa's treatment of it nowhere cited. The rest of the tradition on the matter is not treated either.
• That the Society is therefore necessarily schismatic—asserted, with the word "necessarily" standing in as the claim, and with schism still undefined.
• That there is no basis for supplied jurisdiction in the teaching of canonists, theologians, tradition, or ecclesial law—asserted, as a sweeping negative, and footnoted to a canonist who holds the contrary.
• That the case of doubt most certainly does not apply, and that the Society's reading is completely incorrect—asserted, twice, with emphasis in place of demonstration.
• That Archbishop Lefebvre lost faith in the Catholic Church—asserted, as a claim about interior disposition, yet Lefebvre’s entire life and legacy speaks to the opposite.
Section V makes yet another elementary blunder, with the hopes that it will put the nail into the SSPX coffin once and for all.
It is stated that the Society's claim to preserve the tradition, is the claim of all schismatics—Donatists, Novatians, Old Catholics, Protestants, sedevacantists. This is obviously meant to convey to the reader that since the SSPX claims to hold fast to tradition, it must be like the other schismatics. However, those groups are also heretics. I will concede that it would be unfair to label sedevacantists as heretics because, as a whole—even though the various groups are different in significant ways—they do not deny defined teaching, but have a disagreement about the fact of putative papal elections in light of scholastic opinions on the elections of heretics to the papacy. Also, to be pedantic as possible, I will concede that an argument could be made that not all sedevacantist theologians should be labelled schismatic, because they do not deny by their will any union with Rome, but their absence of recognition is based on what was just described. That being said, there are various sedevacantist groups who explicitly refuse to commune with other Catholics in principle due to their belief that those Catholics belong to an antichurch—this I reject and I believe is objectively schismatic.
In any event, the claim proves nothing, because it has always been made by the orthodox party as well. Athanasius made it against a majority of the episcopate. Cyril made it against Nestorius. The Nicene party made it under Constantius when the sees of the East had fallen. That a body says "we hold what has always been held" tells us nothing at all about whether the body is right, and an argument built on the observation is an argument that would have convicted a number of saints.
Father Faber, whom the piece quotes at length near its close, saw the difficulty clearly. If all the manifestly good men were on one side and all the manifestly bad on the other, he wrote, no one would be deceived; it is good men, good once and we must hope good still, who are to do the work of Antichrist. Faber is right, and Faber does not tell us which party is which. That is what has to be argued.
The fact that Brother Linus brings in the activity of the Devil, and applies it to the liturgical crisis, and then puts the SSPX in the Devil’s camp is, quite frankly, melodramatic at best, and evil at worst. Brother Linus has engaged in something like End Times fantasy fiction and made the SSPX the army of the powers of darkness. Not only is this claim unprovable, but it belongs to the realm of the absurd.
It isn’t even theological or canonical, and if we are stretching the categories, perhaps we could call it a mystical argument. Well, if Brother Linus is a mystic, then he is a very bad mystic, and I wouldn’t go to him for any prophecies.
By Brother Linus’ own line of argumentation, we could conclude, following his disastrous method, that he is a schismatic and does the work of the Antichrist. I won’t assert that, because I won’t make assertions that are unfounded which condemn entire groups of people, without proving those assertions soundly—that is Brother Linus’s method, and it is not mine, because it is not a Catholic method.
Conclusion
Now, this is the end of the piece, which has, against my wishes, become something like a short book or a booklet, and I will follow in Brother Linus’ footsteps and make an assertion—however, my assertion is proven by everything heretofore written: Brother Linus’ alleged study does nothing to prove what is asserted therein, and, if he were one of my students when I taught high school religion, I would have told him to rewrite the thing, or he would fail for producing nothing other than a melodramatic hitpiece buttressed by out-of-context and irrelevant citations.
If he had consulted ChatGPT, even the free version, he could have had the robot spit out a more coherent piece.
He has not proven that the SSPX is schismatic, but he has proven that his supposed theological and canonical expertise is in schism from the science of theology and the canonical tradition.
NOTES
[1] Commentary on the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas, II-II, q. 39, a. 1, n. III.
[2] This is taken verbatim from A theological study of the 1988 Consecrations, found here https://sspx.org/en/theological-study-1988-consecrations-1-31444. It is a summary of concepts from P. Palazzini, Dictionarium morale et canonicum, under the word “caritas”; Billuart, De charitate, diss. IV, art. 3; Genicot, S.J., Institutiones Theologiae moralis, vol. I, 217, A and B, etc. Palazzini, Billuart, and Genicot are standard pre-conciliar scholastic authorities: Pietro Palazzini (1912–2000), later a Cardinal of the Roman Curia, edited the Dictionarium Morale et Canonicum (Rome: Officium Libri Catholici, 1962–68), a four-volume Latin reference work of moral theology and canon law; Charles-René Billuart, O.P. (1685–1757), Dominican theologian and commentator on St. Thomas, authored the Summa Sancti Thomae sive Cursus Theologiae (Liège, 1746–51), of which De charitate forms part of volume five; and Eduard Genicot, S.J. (1856–1900), a moral theologian at the Louvain College of the Society of Jesus, authored the Institutiones Theologiae Moralis (Brussels, multiple editions), a widely used seminary manual.
[3] “Beyond a Gnostic-dualistic misinterpretation of the virginitas in partu as a denial of the reality of Jesus’ humanity, the Church’s doctrine must be explained in the sense of the reality of the Incarnation. It is not about specific physiological peculiarities in the natural process of birth of Jesus (such as the birth canal not being opened, the hymen not being broken, and the absence of birth contractions), but rather about the healing and saving influence of the Redeemer’s grace on human nature. …
Because of her “yes” to God becoming man of her, Mary’s relationship to Jesus, even in the act of giving birth, should already be seen from the perspective of the eschatological salvation that came about in Christ. The content of the faith statement, therefore, does not refer to physiologically, and empirically verifiable somatic details. Rather, it recognizes already in the birth of Christ the initial signs of the eschatological salvation of the Messianic end time which dawned with Jesus (cf. Is 66:7-10; Ezek 44:1-2).
In any theological interpretation of Mary’s freedom from “pain” in the salvific event of the Savior’s birth, one should also take into account the biblically-based doctrine that Mary followed the way of the cross (Lk 2:35; Jn 19:25). With Mary as model, Christian spirituality recognizes in every birth, accepted by a woman in faith, an experience of the salvation that has come in the end time.”
Gerhard Ludwig Müller, “Die Jungfräulichkeit Marias in der Geburt”, in Katholische Dogmatik. Für Studium und Praxis der Theologie (Freiburg: Herder, 2003), p 498.
