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Notes -
SSPX consecrating new bishops
I'm posting in transnational Thursday because Vatican inside baseball.
On Monday, the SSPX superior general announced in a homily given at their French seminary the intention to consecrate new bishops on July 1st(https://sspx.org/en/publications/sspx-announces-future-episcopal-consecrations-57012). Rumours had been swirling for years of new bishops in the near future, with some evidence(often leaked documents discussing the possibility) usually provided, and their public communications arm running stronger-than-normal defenses of the first ordinations, at Econe in 1988. Those rumours had sprung into overdrive following the deaths of two SSPX bishops over the past few years.
As a 'why now', it must be mentioned that although the two SSPX bishops are old by tradcath standards, they are quite young by RCC cleric standards; at 68 and 67 they are several years away from the normal retirement age and over a decade from the mandatory retirement age. This decision had no doubt been a while in the making, but from a personnel replacement standpoint it would not be viewed as necessary, at least not right now. What probably does drive an accelerated timetable is the current head of the dicastery for the doctrine of the faith(DDF, formerly known as the inquisition- and responsible for addressing crises of this nature), Victor 'Tucho' Cardinal Fernandez, referred to by his many enemies as 'Cardinal Kissyface' after one of his more ridiculous scandals. He is an isolated and... controversial pope Francis appointee who is widely viewed as incompetent and the prospect of having him botch the handling of the situation could either create sympathy or simply allow them to outline granting permissions in exchange for token concessions as the easiest way for pope Leo to handle it. And this poor opinion of Cardinal Fernandez is not due to my trad bubble; prior to his appointment his predecessors- both conservative and moderate liberal- had maintained a dossier on the reasons not to let him climb any higher in the church hierarchy. Cardinal Fernandez cannot make a unilateral decision, but he is the bureaucrat to whom everything else will be delegated. It should also be noted that pope Francis left a lot of people in senior positions in the RCC feeling very alienated and scandalized, and that moving before the wounds heal is one way to avoid the universal condemnation of 1988.
The SSPX, in a press release later this week, claims that the 2019 declaration on religious liberty signed by pope Francis at Abu Dhabi represents a grave enough situation to justify the ordination of bishops without canonical permission; it's worth noting that this happened seven years ago, and that some level of discussion on new ordinations had been going on, with seemingly very little having been actually said, for years at this point. Setting a date for the thing is a typical society negotiating tactic and stalling is a typical Vatican one, as well.
Functionally no progress on a permanent deal for regularization had been ongoing since the Abu Dhabi declaration but this is mostly due to Vatican-side church politics. The permanent deals outlined during the 2010's had always taken for granted that the SSPX would be permitted to ordain new bishops and generate their own turnus(a short list of (usually three)names submitted to the Vatican, one member of whom is recommended to the pope by the relevant department), so this is not a dealbreaker- if anything, it's probably an accelerant for talks. There is a confirmed meeting between the SSPX superior general and Cardinal Fernandez next Thursday, but the SSPX is pressing to deal with the pope directly. A rumour which I can't source, but trust the veracity of, says that the SSPX has four turnuses already drawn up. No doubt the implied threat is that, absent permissions for four specific men, all twelve will be consecrated a bishop; this is genuinely much worse from the Vatican's perspective than simply allowing the four most moderate names permission, and pope Leo knows that even if Cardinal Fernandez doesn't.
The only additional factor known at this time is China. In the PRC, like in most countries where Catholicism is illegal, there had long been tolerance for the underground church ordaining bishops without permissions. This changed with a Rome-China deal, in which the PRC government was allowed to pick bishops with agreement given from Rome before ordination, in exchange for lifting persecutions. The PRC has not upheld its end of the bargain, and the Vatican has accepted this. This... complicates condemnation of new SSPX bishops as schismatic, and their biggest enemies within the RCC are themselves an even bigger headache, particularly in Germany. For those two reasons, I believe the most likely scenario to be that Rome gives no permissions, but also does not condemn the ordinations after the fact, and declines to excommunicate the clergy involved(yes, the excommunications are automatic, but 'automatic excommunication' does not mean what you think it does- it means that the excommunication takes effect at the canon law equivalent of an indictment, not a conviction), with the consecrations not affecting much at all.
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