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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.
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 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.
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.
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