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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   23692 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

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Time for another news from the original culture war, the religious war. The affair might seem weird and obscure to normies, even well learned and informed normies, but might well turn to be of more importance than any other current habbenings.

The long awaited event, unauthorized conscecration of new bishops by Society of Saint Pius X finally happened, despite papal final warning.

And so did the inevitable response.

Yes, the big holy hammer fell as expected, the most trad catholics that ever tradded are catholic no more. Not only the leadership, but the lay followers too.

No surprise, there are few red lines remaining in today's catholic church, but unauthorized ordination of bishops without papal approval is one of them, and had always been so.

The church always wanted to prevent proliferation of vagrant priests and hobo bishops with no official position just wandering around the countryside and making trouble.

See Code of Canon Law, article 1387

Analogy from the secular world: Imagine army general one day walks into military base, meets private Billy Bob, is impressed and promotes him on the spot. "Billy Bob, you are now general too!"

You would not expect the general getting away with this in any organized military force of the world.

Where is no analogy with secular world is that the ordinations are illicit but valid.

The four new bishops are bishops, with all spiritual powers of bishops, and no one can take them away. They can do anything that bishop can do, including making more bishops, nothing can stop them.

This event can end with reconciliation like the first illicit consecrations in 1988, but this can also be beginning of full counter church arising from SSPX.

There were attempts in modern time, all flopped, even the most successful true trad church is not so important in grand scale of things. But the Vatican has still good reasons to be worried.

Where is no analogy with secular world is that the ordinations are illicit but valid.

This is interesting. It seems like as far as validity is concerned, bishops can self-replicate.

Now I am wondering about the possibility of some bishop (SSPX or mainline) due to some weird circumstance making some pink-haired lesbian a bishop, who then proceeds to consecrate every consenting christened person she runs across a bishop, and so forth. Think of all the mayhem they could wreck -- working in a bakery and randomly transsubstiating rolls in secret (or tetrapacks of supermarket wine), marrying ONS-havers for shits and giggles, baptizing frozen embryos, offering OnlyFans channels with the confession of the sin of lust included (like flights with carbon offset), and so forth.

I mean, as an atheist I am automatically (latae sententiae) excommunicated, but trying to catch the rest of the conditions would be a fun quest. (Personally, I would not throw a shoe at the pope, but all of the rest seem achievable as an illicit but valid priest.)

You can't be excommunicated if you were never Catholic in the first place. If you are a baptized cradle Catholic who lapsed in young adulthood, you are probably excommunicated latae sententiae for apostasy. But if you are just a rando, the Church doesn't claim any authority over you.

Archbishops Pierre Martin Ngo Dinh Thuc and Carlos Costa Duarte both consecrated a rather lot of people, sometimes for money and sometimes for being asked nicely. The former is mostly known for consecrating traditionalists(and one gay Nazi Spaniard who declared himself pope in a hallucinatory fit and founded a cult, which is mostly schizophrenia today but maintains a few traditional aesthetics) illicitly but those are his less problematic consecrations. Obtaining valid holy orders is done by all manner of people who are dedicated enough, most of them because they're crazy.

I have a couple of things to say.

The SSPX were morons to do this. One of their new bishops is a nutjob, 'crisis' doesn't hold water when you do it after Francis, and it's unclear why they were unwilling to engage in the Vatican's 'dialogue'- what was so urgent about needing to ordain bishops on this particular day? There's a lot of SSPX faithful, which I have been and almost was again, before the consecrations were announced. More bishops isn't a particularly unreasonable request with that many, and that spread out, a set of people. But bishops need to have jobs to do, and the Vatican will not approve bishops that are not appointed to a hierarchical position.

There seems to be genuine sympathy for the SSPX position from most of the hierarchy. I wasn't paying attention(nor around to) in '88. But the SSPX being a bit painted into a corner is a reality of the situation in a way it wasn't in 1988. There appears to be no one left under the illusion that there is a short term easy solution; even professor Grillo doesn't appear to believe that the Vatican can simply dismiss traditionalist concerns.

We were, in January, very likely to switch to the SSPX over impatience with the FSSP's tolerance for unrelated schizophrenia and pastoral insensitivity. That obviously went on hold in February and is now shelved more-or-less indefinitely. There are, to be clear, perfectly valid pastoral reasons to prefer SSPX priests, they don't tolerate dramatics in their chapels, don't tolerate trying to tie the faith to unrelated right-wing schizoidism, make sure there's a strong community life despite their limited resources, and crack down hard on things that need to be cracked down on. They're excellent confessors and excellent homilists. I wish, not for the first time, that Fellay had been able to talk the society into signing Benedict XVI's framework.

In other news about the society-

  1. Their oldest new bishop is 45(pretty close to the practical minimum for episcopal ordination in the regular hierarchy). They've also ordained the youngest, uh, tracked bishop in the world yesterday; Bishop Marc Hannappier is only 36, and is younger than any novus ordo bishop, any known sedevacantist bishop, any Orthodox bishop. This is what a high TFR looks like in practice.

  2. Cardinal Fernandez, Cardinal Parolin, and Pope Leo himself are all expressing uncharacteristic hope for a speedy resolution to the crisis. This is not the attitude I would expect them to have. Two of the three were quite anti-traditionalist under the last pontificate.

I wish, not for the first time, that Fellay had been able to talk the society into signing Benedict XVI's framework.

Amen, brother/sister/other. The new spirit of 'going back to the simple church of the Apostles' post-Vatican II was well-intentioned (in most cases) but it threw an entire neonatal ward of babies out with the bathwater, and the likes of traditionalists are sorely needed to bring back reverence and understanding to the liturgy etc. I thought the revision of the translation of the Novus Ordo was a good start (getting closer to the original Latin) but I genuinely don't think "should the Mass be offered ad orientem or not?" is a hill to die on particularly. I'm way more concerned about "we have forgotten what the Eucharist is, see the way receiving Communion is treated and how the Host itself is treated" and the trads are my allies there.

In my less irenic moments, I tend to be "were I pope, the first bunch of bishops I'd excommunicate lock, stock and barrel are the flippin' Germans. They're already desperate to be Lutherans, they can go all the way. And the other European hierarchies needn't think they can rest easy, either." Be glad it's Leo, not me, in charge!

The German state church is to Lutherans as the German R.C. bishops are to Catholics.

“Pastoral insensitivity?”

ardinal Fernandez, Cardinal Parolin, and Pope Leo himself are all expressing uncharacteristic hope for a speedy resolution to the crisis.

What does this mean? It appears the resolution was excommunication, and now they die off?

Excommunication can be lifted. It's meant to be an incentive for the person to act in the way the church wants (ostensibly also the way God wants, though of course due to human nature those two things aren't always the same), not a permanent separation.

https://kansasreflector.com/2024/07/11/in-this-kansas-town-an-insular-catholic-sect-leaves-some-residents-feeling-left-out/

The Society of St. Pius X, also known as SSPX, rejects many modern ways of living, requiring modest dress for women, enforcing strict divisions between genders and encouraging large families. As members of the group have gotten into political leadership, they’ve imposed those beliefs, jettisoning books that mention LGBTQ+ people from the public library and shutting down a municipal swimming pool.

This seems awfully close to authentic post-Apostolic Western Christianity. The church fathers are unanimous that women should be clothed and veiled, that genders should be separated, and that there should be no communal pool usage. This latter thing is funny because it’s like straight out of patristic writing. Romans would attend baths that acted as community leisure, and the Christian authorities forbade attendance because of gender mingling and opportunity for lust.

Sorry to see this happen, but yeah. Consecrating bishops is crossing the line.

And in a few years the "we are the real Catholics, Vatican II was a Satanic plot" set will be ordaining gay and women priests. Happened with other splinters before them, will happen to them.

SSPX is qualitatively different to the Union of Utrecht. The culture and internal structure of the specific breakaway sect matters.

This prediction just keeps getting made, but the SSPX just keeps being the same very conservative organization.

will be ordaining gay and women priests

Ordaining gay priests would be business as usual for Catholics. I assume you mean marrying gay couples.

Ha ha. No, I meant the "openly gay and proud of it, here is me living with my same-sex partner but not married, next year I'll be the first lesbian bishop in this diocese" kind of ordinations.

So ordaining unrepentant sodomites. I agree SSPX isn't into that kind of thing.

The lay faithful are only excommunicated if they adhere formally to the schism, which the Vatican defines in a 1996 note(cited in the current decree of excommunication) as referring to those who only attend SSPX masses.

Not only the leadership, but the lay followers too.

“And not just the laymen, but the laywomen and the laychildren too. They’re schismatics, and I excommunicated them like schismatics. I hate them!”

—Pope Anakin I

What role does good old Palps get in this world?

Pope Benedict XVI of course

Haha!

But then there are two popes!

Always sometimes TWO there are...

No more, no less. A Roman and an Avignonese.

I can only assume, in protest of Leo, they donned Android watches instead of Apple watches at the event.

The chutzpah of these guys. In the Roman rite of episcopal consecration, there is a colloquy involving the formal authorization letter from the pope.

”Do you have the apostolic mandate?”

”We have”

”Let it be read”

Here is what happened instead:

”Do you have the apostolic mandate?”

”It is the Catholic & Roman church, always faithful to the traditions received from the apostles, who in entirely exceptional circumstances demands that we provide for the upholding of these traditions, that is the deposit of faith & that we take the means necessary to transmit them faithfully to all men for the salvation of their souls. Since the Second Vatican Council up to the present day the authorities in the church have been animated by a spirit that is contrary to the faith & have been acting against holy tradition. They will no longer endure sound doctrine.”

The SSPX has gone mask-off since Leo was elected. They had a decent amount of support during the last pontificate from “mainstream” conservative Catholics who were dismayed with Francis, but that’s all gone now.

That is a pretty major level of chutzpah. Have they considered getting angry about the filioque or nailing some theses about Vatican II to a church door?

Yeah idk why they don’t just become Orthodox. Maybe they will now.

Traditional Catholics are not Orthodox for lots of reasons. Shared, uh, dislike of Vatican II is not enough to bridge serious disagreements about moral theology(indeed, the Orthodox have exactly the same moral theological weaknesses that the Trads complain about liberal hierarchs careening towards), very different history and devotional life, and a different set of dogmatic theology(the SSPX agrees, uncritically, with everything in Ott; they just have reservations about Vatican II- and specifically, a handful of paragraphs that the Vatican doesn't see able to name them as dissenting from, despite their criticisms). People really believe things.

the SSPX agrees, uncritically, with everything in Ott

This is incorrect.

  • They deny that "the Pope possesses full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, not merely in matters of faith and morals, but also in Church discipline and in the government of the Church."

  • They deny that "by virtue of Divine right the bishops possess an ordinary power of government over their dioceses."

  • They deny that "the Church is indefectible, that is, she remains and will remain the Institution of Salvation, founded by Christ, until the end of the world."

  • They deny that "The totality of the Bishops is infallible, when they, either assembled in general council or scattered over the earth, propose a teaching of faith or morals as one to be held by all the faithful."

With all due respect to the SSPX and the Roman Catholic Church, I don’t think this affair will turn out to be nearly as important as you seem to think it is.

One thing that did surprise me about Rome’s response was how all-encompassing it was. Not only are the bishops and priests excommunicated, but so are the laity (“As regards the lay faithful, those who formally adhere to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X are to be considered schismatics and excommunicated”). I’m not sure anyone predicted that. It’ll be interesting to see if the laity are as willing to openly defy the pope as the SSPX clergy are.

ETA: If this event ends up marking the final break between the SSPX and Rome, it’ll be interesting to see if the SSPX remains just as committed to its über traditional beliefs in 100–200 years, or if they’ll end up like the Old Catholic Churches that split off after the First Vatican Council, many of which now ordain women and bless same-sex marriages. Not that anyone alive today will ever see any such progression, of course, though the SSPX could end up in communion with some of the more traditional Old Catholics within our lifetimes.

Thé SSPX would tear itself to shreds and then die out before it got to that. They’re already walking a tightrope on being conservative enough to prevent an exodus from their own right wing hardliners and near associates; Williamson’s band of merry men is not something that they are eager to repeat(even if they did just consecrate Fr Goldade a bishop). Liberalizing churches also tend to go downhill very fast in this world. Add them up, and we might see some sort of tiny old calendarist equivalent jurisdiction, we might see them crack apart, we might see some sort of ROCOR equivalent where they merge into regular structures in such a way that allows them to have bishops, but we are very unlikely to see an old Catholic equivalent.

It’s helpful to look at the history; old Catholics did originate with a handful of individuals who disagreed with papal infallibility, one of whom was a bishop. But it grew mostly not by recruiting likeminded individuals but rather by convincing people who wanted to start their own Catholic Church for other reasons of their position. Most old Catholics are descended from essentially mercenary projects- even if it was often unrelated political reasons rather than straight money that motivated them. The SSPX does not have mercenary origins. It continues to deny Mel Gibson communion for adultery despite his fame and large donations. It does not endorse whatever is fashionable on the political right(much to the chagrin of some members), and only cooperates with secular politics when it thinks it needs something.

It’s helpful to look at the history; old Catholics did originate with a handful of individuals who disagreed with papal infallibility, one of whom was a bishop.

It is more complicated than that. The whole succession of bishops goes back to 1723 where Jesennists had dispute with Vatican regarding ecclesiology, the remnants just joined forces with other rebels over time. These things tend to split and merge, for instance even Union of Utrecht had merger with Polish Catholics who then left after they saw the push toward liberalization. In a sense these wandering rebels just use random bishops to create their own priests.

The SSPX does not have mercenary origins. It continues to deny Mel Gibson communion for adultery despite his fame and large donations. It does not endorse whatever is fashionable on the political right(much to the chagrin of some members), and only cooperates with secular politics when it thinks it needs something.

Nevertheless they are strictly radical. They go hard against Vatican II and demand that the Catholic Church declares at least parts of it as in error. This never happened in Catholich Church for 2000 years. Even most egregious doctrines like Doctrine of Discovery are not outright dismissed as erroneous, they are declared as "product of their time" or some such. This is by the way exactly what Benedict XVI offered with hermenautics of continuity: interpret church documents in a way that gives primacy to more important dogmas and doctrines thus basically castrating them.

All in all SSPX are absolutely boneheaded:

  • The whole crusade against Vatican II is by itself one of the most radical and modernist stances currently available. If Pope can annul results of ecumenical council such as Vatican II then why not Trent or Nicaea? This only gives ammo to radicals. Vatican II will stand, there is no way it will be overturned or declared as erroneous as it would mean that the visible Church was in error for over 60 years now and counting. This creates orders of magnitudes more problems than it solves.

  • It will not even help. There are older documents like Summi Pontificatus and Plane Compertum Est by Pius XII in 1939, which (re)introduced concept of incluturation - incorporating local customs into Catholic life. This is at least as radical as Nostra Aetatum or Dignitas Humanae as it basically makes what "traditionalists" considered as idolatry permissible directly overturning Ex quo singulari from 1742 by papal fiat. And BTW SSPX consider Pius XII as a good and traditional pope and they have no problem with Summi Pontificatus, they just obsess over Vatican II. If you specifically focus on the inculturation vs idolatry doctrine and Magisterium, there were several 180 degrees turns at least since 600 till Vatican II and beyond. There are dozens or hundreds such historical documents for this or other topics, that can be used by progressive pope to bash over peoples head, Vatican 2 is not some unique aberration that changed pristine history of church Magisterium.

I studied SSPX and I even have some sympathies toward them. But I concluded that they are bunch of morons who at this point just revolt for revolt's sake. Their arguments are circular, illogical and ultimately come from place of pride - they use strong language more suited for online CW as opposed to theological disputes inside Cathoilicsim. They will never be a better deal than the one offered by Benedict: having personal prelature (bishop structure under pope himself sidesteping local diocesan bishops), just having to pay lip service to accept Vatican II as a valid ecumenical concil that is to be interpreted correctly, having full right to be custodians of Tridentine Mass and all that.

Instead SSPX chose confrontation. There will for sure be more splits and arguments inside the SSPX, the whole thing is unstable as it is self-defeating, the whole movement is based on personal reading of what the church teaching means and it will be their undoing.

They’re already walking a tightrope on being conservative enough to prevent an exodus from their own right wing hardliners and near associates

That's what happens when you start fissioning, and what will be the end result of cutting ties with Rome. The same kind of purity death spiral you see on the left, the really radtrad hardliners will find an excuse to break off from them for not being strict enough, and they'll end up with their bishops cutting loose and ordaining clergy for the breakaways and everything gets even smaller and smaller in a People's Front of Judea versus Judean People's Front kind of fallout.

And some of the splinters will go the other way, like the Danube Seven who claim they do too have apostolic succession since an independent bishop ordained them, even if they were ladies, so they in turn could ordain etc. etc. etc. all the womenpriests.

I too am surprised this happened, but I think Rome finally ran out of patience. The SSPX have been burning through second chances at a rate of knots, and Leo is young enough* that he doesn't have the sympathy with them that the likes of Benedict did.

*Yeah, he's seventy, but Benedict was ordained in 1951 and Leo was ordained in 1977. Whole different generation and experience of growing up with the new Mass.

The SSPX resistance already exists(and has six consecrations, not just two- despite existing for about a third as long and serving far fewer people), and is somehow on worse terms with the SSPX than either is with the Vatican. They may be insane and often criminally inclined, but they do exist and are not particularly trending left(they're busily purity spiraling into sedevacantism).

The SSPX will eventually get their excommunications lifted, probably without actually changing anything. They have a surprising amount of sympathy despite nearly universal condemnation of their recent stunt.

they do exist and are not particularly trending left

I think that happened more with the earlier breakaways*. The SSPX does seem to have had enough internal discipline not to go down that path yet, and I do think it was because of their willingness - however heel-dragging - to remain in communication with Rome. What happens now, with this decision, where the choice is starkly "pick SSPX or Rome, you can't have both", I won't attempt to forecast.

*Sinead O'Connor got 'ordained' as a 'priest' (her name in religion being Mother Bernadette Mary, this was after she was Rastafarian but before she converted to Islam) by one Bishop (soi-disant) Michael Cox, founder (naturally) of his own church, the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church. His lineage is that he was ordained by bishops of the Palmarian schism, who in turn had been consecrated by a Vietnamese bishop (whose own consecration was valid and licit). Cox was later consecrated as a bishop by these guys and went on his merry way of ordaining and consecrating his own picks.

Will the SSPX eventually fission off into the likes of these? The Palmarians, for one, are a sadder, smaller version of the Anglicans who like to cosplay: "look, we have the cope! we have the morse! we are too a Third Branch!"

look, we have the cope!

Heh.

The Palmarians are more of an enclosed cult that pretended to be tradcath long enough to convince a senile bishop who was unaware that Vatican II happened to ordain them bishops than a serious organization. Yes they're attention grabbing but they're also the brainchild of a schizophrenic gay Nazi and I wouldn't read too much into them as a reflection of... anything except themselves. Thuc consecrated a lot of people, at Palmar de Troya and the seminary professors in Mexico(who founded sedevacantism) are the only two anyone pays attention to; but he was a wandering dementia patient who happened to be a war refugee archbishop. Predictably, the Palmarians have seen lots of exodus to do various inane things, including one of their antipopes.

and I do think it was because of their willingness - however heel-dragging - to remain in communication with Rome.

This makes no sense in the current year, from a recruitment standpoint, if nothing else. Leaving the official structures of the Church in order to bless gay marriages means you will now be competing with 7 zillion protestant sects that have been doing it for decades (not to mention, increasingly, the mainstream Catholic Church itself). The only growth option is appealing to the trads.

SSPX Resistance, SSPX 2, SSPX Classic, SSPV, SSPX Cash, SSPX One, SSPX-MC…

No points for guessing which ones are fake.

The same kind of purity death spiral you see on the left,

Given the churches repeated and ancient schisming I think you have it the wrong way round. The left has the same sort of purity death spiral we see in Christianity.

And it all originates with the dirty splitters of the People's Front for Judaea.

I think it could go either way long term in terms of social teachings. Look at Palmarians.

Aren't the Palmarians basically a whacko cult with Catholic characteristics?

They're a whacko cult with Catholic aesthetics, they no longer believe Catholic doctrine(although many of their doctrines are strange recombinations of distortions of Catholic doctrine- eg the virgin Mary being present in the Eucharist) and have altered most of Catholic ritual beyond all recognition.

It seems clear that the Vatican wanted SSPX to die out as a movement, with its people folded into the mainstream Roman Catholic Church over time. The pope kept appealing to SSPX to avoid these consecrations in the name of unity; but, if unity had been his highest priority, Leo could have simply authorized the consecrations in the first place and avoided the problem. Given a choice between division and dying out, SSPX chose division; I think that they would quibble with the word “schism” for subtle canonical reasons that I am too evangelical to understand.

But, as someone whose understanding of the sacraments does not resemble Rome’s in the slightest, I am curious about this part:

Finally, the holy People of God are warned that the sacred ministers of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X administer the sacraments illicitly, and that the sacrament of penance administered by them and marriages assisted by them are invalid.

How, in Roman Catholic theology, does that work? I could sort of guess at a logic for penance, although I have zero confidence that I could predict Rome’s reasoning. But the rules for the validity of sacramental marriage have never made much sense to me. Rome recognizes the marriage of two baptized Protestants as sacramental, right? So why do the extra rules for Catholics affect the validity of the marriage instead of just its lawfulness? I know that rules added in the Counter-Reformation era were said to affect validity, even though they were new, and I find that difficult to explain.

if unity had been his highest priority, Leo could have simply authorized the consecrations in the first place

Kinda tricky to do that for a bunch who declare that the entire papacy and the structure of the Church has been invalid since Vatican II, including that you yourself got ordained under the new rubrics and possibly aren't even a proper priest at all. Would they even acknowledge that he had permission to authorise their consecrations?

They don't believe this. They believe some nitpicky and retrograde things, yes, but they unquestionably believe that the new rite of sacraments is valid(they do think the new rite of mass is sacriligious), that Leo XIV is the pope(their lay adherents aren't well heeled enough to be sedevacantists), that some post Vatican II teaching is infallible(they point to Humanae Vitae when asked for examples), and that the generally agreed upon diocesan bishops are legitimate ordinaries capable of making normal particular law.

The backflips they do to justify doing what they do are not 'the church ceased to exist'. Given the reality of the consecrations, my family will not be switching to the SSPX in the near-to-mid-term future(as had been a legitimate, and even likely possibility, in January), and so I am not particularly interested in exactly what those backflips are, but they are definitely 'backflips' and not simple lines of argumentation.

Thanks for the corrections. There are so many tiny splinters going all the way back to Utrecht that I can't keep track of them and don't particularly care, except when it comes to big news like this.

Leo could have simply authorized the consecrations in the first place and avoided the problem

No, he could not have. Bishops are bishops of dioceses and are consecrated as part of their appointment to a specific job. The job they are being appointed to doesn’t, officially, exist. Bishops are not just sacrament machines.

The ‘they’re not being appointed to a job’ is both the SSPX’s main defense against schism and thé reason these consecrations would never be authorized.

The Vatican’s preference was, from a well placed trad perspective, to wait for Bp Galaretta to die, then watch while Bp Fellay pushes the rest of the SSPX into accepting a deal(before the consecrations Fellay led the pro-regularization faction in thé SSPX and Galaretta was affiliated with the anti, and this is likely why Galaretta was the principal consecrator. Fellay on his lonesome was very very unlikely to agree to additional consecrations without permission), and creating some sort of job necessitating a bishop would probably have been part of that deal.

Rome recognizes the marriage of two baptized Protestants as sacramental, right?

Oookay. We're getting into the weeds here, but let's take a shot at it (to mix all the metaphors). Basically, it divides into two questions:

(1) Are Protestant marriages valid? Yes

(2) Are Protestant marriages sacramental? Well, does the denomination in question consider marriage to be a sacrament? Luther, for one, did not (the Reformation in general reduced down the seven sacraments to two or three).

The Church may indeed consider that marriage sacramental under certain conditions:

Question:
How are Catholics to view Protestant marriages?
Answer:
Generally speaking, Protestants have two valid sacraments, baptism and marriage, although they usually do not consider marriage to be a sacrament. Assuming the husband and wife are both validly baptized and that there are no impediments to the marriage, the Church presumes Protestant marriages to be both valid and sacramental.

I don't know enough about the different views in different Protestant denominations to say "marriages in denomination X are sacramental in their view and marriages in denomination Y are not".

The thorny question of "is this marriage between two Catholics licit, valid, both, neither, one or the other?" depends in part on the status of the minister. Marriage is the sacrament that spouses administer but if the priest assisting at the ceremony is not properly ordained, or if the couple are doing what they know is forbidden (as would be the case in defying the Pope and getting SSPX married) then they are breaking the rules (and rules came in due to a lot of confusion during the mediaeval period over "is this person/this couple truly married or not?" If you look at cases during the Tudor period, and not just in England but on the Continent, nobility and royalty were making and breaking marriage alliances based on 'were X and Y pre-contracted or not?').

Break the rules = break the law = illicit.

Can. 1108 §1. Only those marriages are valid which are contracted before the local ordinary, pastor, or a priest or deacon delegated by either of them, who assist, and before two witnesses according to the rules expressed in the following canons and without prejudice to the exceptions mentioned in cann. 144, 1112, §1, 1116, and 1127, §§1-2.

§2. The person who assists at a marriage is understood to be only that person who is present, asks for the manifestation of the consent of the contracting parties, and receives it in the name of the Church.

Can. 1109 Unless the local ordinary and pastor have been excommunicated, interdicted, or suspended from office or declared such through a sentence or decree, by virtue of their office and within the confines of their territory they assist validly at the marriages not only of their subjects but also of those who are not their subjects provided that one of them is of the Latin rite.

Can. 1110 By virtue of office, a personal ordinary and a personal pastor assist validly only at marriages where at least one of the parties is a subject within the confines of their jurisdiction.

The "local ordinary" is the bishop of the diocese where the parish in which the marriage is taking place is located. Clearly, if it is being performed by an SSPX priest (who are now excommunicated) then it's not happening with the permission of the bishop and the priest has not been delegated by him.

Thank you for the reply. I am sorry that I didn’t wait to post until I had time to lay out my thoughts better and to respond more promptly.

In trying to understand the Roman Catholic view of the sacraments, the best examples for me have been baptism and the eucharist, both because we Protestants also acknowledge them as sacraments – whether individual denominations use that word or not – and because the R.C. view is pretty clearly defined: There are certain requirements of form and matter, and if they are met you have a valid sacrament ex opere operato. If those requirements are met under forbidden circumstances you have a sacrament which is valid but illicit. So far I understand.

As a Protestant I regard marriage as a creation ordinance, and I do not see a category of sacramental marriage distinct from natural marriage. But Rome does, and interestingly it puts a wedding between two Protestants in a Protestant church into the sacramental category. So such a wedding must meet the requirements of form and matter, and it must do so with an officiant who is not in communion with Rome and whom Rome does not regard as a validly ordained priest.

My expectation would be that a wedding of two Roman Catholics performed by an SSPX priest would be valid but illicit. They have met at least the same requirements of form and matter as the Protestant spouses have, but they have done so in contravention of canon law. Yet the Vatican’s announcement and the canon you quoted say that such a wedding is invalid. What gives? I am particularly weirded out by this passage:

Only those marriages are valid which are contracted … according to the rules expressed in the following canons and without prejudice to the exceptions mentioned in cann. 144, 1112, §1, 1116, and 1127, §§1-2.

Does this mean that canon law can add requirements to a sacrament, affecting its validity as well as its lawfulness? If so, that’s a rather startling claim. If not, this canon law must be restating requirements of form or matter that already exist for other reasons; but then how are Protestant marriages, which don’t meet those requirements, valid? Consider two silly thought experiments:

  1. An SSPX priest performs a wedding of two Lutherans. (Let’s say they all want to thumb their noses at Pope Leo.) Is this marriage valid?
  2. The pope amends canon law to require that baptisms be performed with holy water to be valid. Does this genuinely invalidate other subsequent baptisms?

Edit: Corrected some typos, and now pinging @urquan too.

The problem is with the wife and husband to be. If they are both Catholics, for a valid catholic marriage they need to be married by a properly ordained catholic priest. If two Catholics get married by protestant pastor, their marriage is invalid from catholic perspective. This is an interesting situation - for instance if there are two atheists who married in front of Elvis and who later convert to Catholicism, their marriage is considered as valid natural marriage and it is automatically promoted to sacramental marriage upon baptism. If one of them was atheist but the second one was baptized catholic in apostasy and they both married in front of Elvis, then their marriage is null and void from catholic perspective, they are just living in concubinage as lovers. They need to remarry right after baptism of the atheist and after the apostate goes through general confession (the special confession taking into account his whole life).

This seems strange, but from the standpoint of Catholic Church the Catholics as soon as you are baptized you are bound by the canon law for life. You agree that the Church is providing the legal structure to your life. Protestants or atheists did not do that, so they are not obligated to follow it.

Assuming the husband and wife are both validly baptized and that there are no impediments to the marriage, the Church presumes Protestant marriages to be both valid and sacramental.

Would I be correct in assuming that a prior divorce would count as an impediment to the marriage in this case?

From a Catholic viewpoint, yes; if the prior marriage was valid and sacramental and did not have grounds for annulment, then a civil divorce just dissolves the secular legal union but not the church marriage.

We're getting into the weeds here, but let's take a shot at it (to mix all the metaphors)

You can totally do this. You're golfing: you've got the ball in the weeds, now you're standing over it to make your shot :)

I could sort of guess at a logic for penance, although I have zero confidence that I could predict Rome’s reasoning. But the rules for the validity of sacramental marriage have never made much sense to me. Rome recognizes the marriage of two baptized Protestants as sacramental, right? So why do the extra rules for Catholics affect the validity of the marriage instead of just its lawfulness?

The reasoning is that the function of penance, in addition to being a sacrament of God's forgiveness, is also about re-uniting someone who's 'excommunicated' from the Church, which mortal sin brings about, into communion. Committing a sin (except one of the really bad ones) isn't an "excommunication" in the legal sense, but it does mean that taking communion without absolution would be another mortal sin. The point is that a priest who's schismatic or cannot licitly confect the Eucharist (which is a statement of unity with the Church as well as with God) cannot admit people to the table that he can't legally prepare. The legal term is "faculty," which is something that the Pope delegates through the hierarchy. The view is that giving absolution to people is an act of "binding and loosing" delegated by Christ to Peter first and then to the other apostles, along with the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and therefore that the Pope as the successor of Peter is the ultimate arbiter of sins being forgiven.

Of course, I should be clear that while penance is the main way in which Catholicism promises to re-unite sinners with God, it's not necessarily the only way (just the only way in which it can be done formally in order to admit people to communion). If you confess your sins accurately to a priest and do your penance, God promises forgiveness, even if you're not sure how bad you feel about your sins or if your only reason is that you're afraid of the possibility of Hell or you just don't want to be seen by Betty from the parish council asking for a blessing from Father instead of taking communion. God meets people at whatever motive gets them into the confessional.

However, my understanding is that canon law says that even a schismatic priest can provide absolution if someone is dying, because the principle of giving people an avenue for sacramental forgiveness before God is more important in that case than Church law. But someone in danger of death, if there's no priest available, can also make an "act of perfect contrition", which is essentially a personal prayer of repentence for your sins based on love for God in his goodness, and not any self-interested reason, which is obviously a high bar.

I think you could say a lot of the Protestant sinner's prayers are essentially a means of aiming to state perfect contrition -- "Lord, I admit I am a sinner. I need and want Your forgiveness. Your mercy and grace is a gift You offer to me because of Your great love, not based on anything I have done," which is a segment of a sinner's prayer I found in 5 minutes on Google, is not too shabby as a statement of perfect contrition, especially because it talks about the love of God as the ultimate source of divine grace. Ultimately Catholicism doesn't make judgments about who's contrition is perfect and whose is self-interested, because parish priest #3462 can't read minds, so the confessional procedure is the way in which it promises people can both receive God's forgiveness and be re-admitted to the table.

In terms of marriage, the point is that going to a Catholic priest who's not in communion to validate your marriage as a Catholic is an explicit step of having a marriage outside the Catholic Church. Catholics who have Protestant or "we got married in Vegas" weddings also fall under that. Protestants and non-Christians aren't held to the same standard, because they aren't Catholic. Catholics are required to marry under the requirements of canon law, like how a state can declare an unlicensed marriage void because they set the law. Protestants aren't bound because they were never subject to the canon law in the first place; California can't declare your marriage invalid because you got married in Vegas.

Good explanation. I think you touched on, though didn't explicitly mention, one of the teachings about the sacraments: they are emphasized because they work (which in turn we know because God promised that they would), but they are not necessarily the only path to salvation. God is not limited by the sacraments, and if he chooses to work in someone's life outside of them, great! But it can be hard to discern God's will, so the safe approach is to stick to the sacraments.

I think that they would quibble with the word “schism” for subtle canonical reasons that I am too evangelical to understand

My understanding is that "schism" in the Catholic usage means 'breaking away from the church'. It's not division, you don't get two churches. You just get the Church and Not!The!Church.

SSPX, who consider themselves to be defending the true Tradition against unlegitimate encroachment, would never see themselves as a breakaway sect.

My understanding is that "schism" in the Catholic usage means 'breaking away from the church'. It's not division, you don't get two churches. You just get the Church and Not!The!Church.

The Schism of 1054 begs to differ.

Well, the old school way in which both sides of the east-west schism saw each other was very much, "we are the Church, those schismatics are Not!The!Church."

Things have gotten more relaxed, especially on the Catholic side, but the formal view of Catholicism is "Catholicism is the True Church and the Orthodox should be in communion with us" and the formal view of Orthodoxy, which is much more muddled, is fairly close in most circles to "The Pope is a heretic and a schismatic who altered the creed that Must Not Be Altered and we are the True Church which holds to the true doctrine of the ecumenical councils."

Fair point. And notably the Eastern church is the only one that the Catholics (at least now) consider a real, proper church on a near-peer level. But I don't think it's representative and certainly SSPX isn't on that level.

The mainstream estimate for the SSPX’s numbers is between a half a million and a million(arguments that this is an overestimate are far more plausible than underestimate arguments). This is bigger than several of the eastern churches considered near-peer by Rome, notably the Church of the East.

Really? Mea culpa, I thought it was maybe 10,000 at the absolute max.

Wiki lists 600,000, and that seems to be a reasonable middle of the road estimate. It’s possible that this is a large overcount, but not by a factor of 60- thé arguments that they’re far smaller than that tend to cluster around 100-200 thousand, not 10k. They have individual Sunday congregations getting quite close to that number.

Well, thanks. It's interesting to learn.

More comments

And notably the Eastern church is the only one that the Catholics (at least now) consider a real, proper church on a near-peer level. But I don't think it's representative and certainly SSPX isn't on that level.

On a near-peer level, that's true, because they're both Chalcedonian. But there are more than one eastern churches.

The "real, proper church" thing (I assume you're referring to the "Church" vs "ecclesial community" split) has to do with the sacramental priesthood and episcopacy rather than doctrine specifically, and generally most of the Eastern churches are considered to be on the same side of that line. Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Church of the East, despite their Christological differences, all have a general sense that priests are performing a liturgical sacrifice of the Eucharist to God, which is the requirement Catholicism sets for being a "Church-Church."

Anglicanism is in an interesting category because there are priests and bishops, and the Eastern Churches are relatively warm to them on that basis, but the longstanding view of Catholicism is that Anglican orders are null and void because the Church of England, especially in the 15-1800s, relativized its understanding of what the priesthood was to more of a ministry in the Protestant sense than a sacrificial office, while the Eucharistic sacrifice was described as a "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving" (added to the first BCP communion rite by Cranmer). Both of these I know are described by modern Anglicans (except Anglo-Catholics, who've always jumped through hoops to try and make Anglican theology more Catholic than it ever was) as explicit steps of separation from Catholic theology and alignment with the continental reformation.

There's an alternate universe perhaps where Edward's minority didn't give Cranmer an in to push his agenda, or Elizabeth had a desire to impose more of her own liturgical conservatism and insisted on maintaining sacrificial priesthood as a pillar of the English establishment, and in that universe the Church of England would probably be called a "Church" by Catholic doctrine. Henry VIII was extremely Catholic in theology, and if his six articles had survived the test of time, the world may well be quite different.

Historians who study the history of Anglican sacramental theology agree fairly strongly that the CoE genuinely developed a different understanding of these elements, and so I think Apostolicae curae was a solid interpretation, even if the subsequent "we're not going to call protestant churches "churches" thing just annoyed people.

The main reason SSPX isn't on the same level is they don't want to be -- they want the "we are doing things without the Pope because the Pope is doing heretical things" without the "we are the True Church" baggage, which is obviously rather unstable. Technically speaking, the SSPX also doesn't have "lay members" or even "parishes" -- they have chapels and "people who come to mass here."

If they were to start appointing metropolitan bishops and naming a patriarch, both their self-understanding and the way in which mainstream Catholic doctrine sees them would change dramatically. The Old Catholic Churches are considered to be "Churches," though the woman-bishop thing is a problem. I should also note that the Polish National Catholic Church in the US, formed because of some ethnic tensions between Polish Catholics who felt excluded by other Catholic ethnicities -- the cardinals' desire to elect the Polish Wojtyła as Pope to connect with Polish Catholics didn't come from nowhere -- is considered a Church as well, and they also have a problem with the Old Catholics' woman thing.

Anglicanism is in an interesting category because there are priests and bishops, and the Eastern Churches are relatively warm to them on that basis, but the longstanding view of Catholicism is that Anglican orders are null and void because the Church of England, especially in the 15-1800s, relativized its understanding of what the priesthood was to more of a ministry in the Protestant sense than a sacrificial office, while the Eucharistic sacrifice was described as a "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving" (added to the first BCP communion rite by Cranmer).

It’s worth noting the counterarguments offered by the archbishops of Canterbury and York in response, alleging that this view was inconsistent.

There's an alternate universe perhaps where Edward's minority didn't give Cranmer an in to push his agenda, or Elizabeth had a desire to impose more of her own liturgical conservatism and insisted on maintaining sacrificial priesthood as a pillar of the English establishment, and in that universe the Church of England would probably be called a "Church" by Catholic doctrine.

Perhaps. But I think that there would have been the same incentives for the pope to create a Roman Catholic shadow hierarchy to mirror the Anglican one, and given such competing hierarchies there would have been the same incentive to deny the validity of Anglican orders.

the SSPX also doesn't have "lay members"

They have a third order, whose members are lay members of the SSPX. Not what's usually meant, but what the term technically refers to.

There's an alternate universe perhaps where Cranmer had a higher eucharistic theology and insisted on maintaining sacrificial priesthood as a pillar of the English establishment,

That's the one without the wife in a box, yes?

I'm kind of sorry for Cranmer, and kind of not, so I can't resist laughing at him. I think he was honest in his beliefs, but man was he ever a doormat for Henry. Granted, it was 'bow or have your head chopped off' but the speed at which he went 'whatever the king says' is amazing. See his letter about Anne Boleyn where he's 'I'm astonished to hear this story but if the king says it, then okay, it must be so!' and he trots off to the Tower to dissolve the marriage that a just few years back he had worked so hard to legitimate, never mind that he owed his rise to the influence of the Boleyns:

Cranmer had the desire to put his reformist ideas in to practice, but realised he could not act on them until he acquired a more influential position. Cranmer’s relationship with Anne Boleyn and her family is seen as the starting point for his political motivations. As the Boleyn family’s chaplain, Cranmer suggested to them that if Papal authority was ended, Anne could marry Henry and become Queen of England, replacing Catherine of Aragon. Henry claimed that he could marry Anne as his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the wife of Henry’s deceased brother, was illegitimate. Thomas Cranmer was subsequently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in March 1533. This caused a great deal of surprise, particularly as there were better qualified candidates. As Cranmer was in Austria at the time and unable to stake his claim for the position, some powerful influence must have been working on his behalf at Court.

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