2. That is not entirely correct: Supplied jurisdiction is also invoked whenever an SSPX priest without delegation receives the consents of the couple to be married (as was the case in the 40 years prior to the 2017 guidelines of Cardinal Muller), as in the present instance.


3.  I don't perceive any fault on the part of priest A at all.  It is interesting that you do.

 
Of course, all this is neither here nor there, and misses the target: The fact that a wedding was performed without conciliar deelegation, and that because of that the SSPX felt compelled to initiate a sanation of the marriage (which heavily implies that the SSPX today doubts the validity of its pre-2017 marriages, since they would all suffer the same aleged defect, for the same reason).

Father-

It has already been explained to you (by the 7 deans in the OP, in addition to 40 years of praxis by your own Society) that:

“…the state of necessity which legitimates our way of doing things is not canonical, but dogmatic, and that the impossibility of having recourse to the current authorities is not a physical, but a moral one.”

If you reject this rationale, then the unavoidable logic of your position dictates that you consider all SSPX marriages from 1976-2017 null and void (like your diocesan colleagues):

To be right today, you had to be wrong for 41 years.  Is that the argument you want to make?

If you would reply that receiving the delegation dissipated the state of necessity which formerly existed, tge deans have pre-empted that argument as well, with the quote already provided, which was prefaced with:

“To those who object that such a practice would henceforward be invalid since the Ecclesiastical authorities are offering a possible delegation of the Ordinary, we reply that the state of necessity which legitimates our way of doing things is not canonical, but dogmatic, and that the impossibility of having recourse to the current authorities is not a physical, but a moral one.”

So we arrive back at the starting point: The Society has been persuaded that it’s marriages were invalid after all (as you suggest here), and this is why they initiated a sanation for one of their faithful married without a delegation.

If you reject this rationale, then the unavoidable logic of your position dictates that you consider all SSPX marriages from 1976-2017 null and void (like your diocesan colleagues):

To be right today, you had to be wrong for 41 years.  Is that the argument you want to make?

The validity of SSPX Marriages
From now on, just as we no longer have to invoke an extraordinary jurisdiction to hear confessions validly, we no longer have to invoke the state of necessity to validly marry couples, unless the bishop opposes the new provisions and refuses the delegation requested by the pope.
This does not mean that the state of grave necessity has come to an end, but only that the authorities of the Church no longer refuse to grant Tradition some means of development. The pre-conciliar Mass was recognized in 2007 as never having been abrogated. The unjust excommunications of the bishops of the Society were lifted in 2009. The non-recognition of the valid ministry of SSPX priests in the sacrament of penance came to an end in 2015. The alleged irregularity of the Society priest, the authorized witness to the sacrament of marriage, has now been lifted, for the good of the spouses. 
However, just as the sacrament of penance was not invalidly conferred by the priests of the Society of St. Pius X before 2015, neither were the marriages celebrated without the official delegation of the local bishop or parish pastor.
Indeed, Church law states that in order to be valid, a marriage must be celebrated before the parish priest or his delegate, and in the presence of at least two witnesses (1917 Code, canon 1094; 1983 Code, canon 1108). But the priests of the Society of St. Pius X are not parish priests. That is why some try to pretend that, without a delegation, a priest of this society cannot receive marriage vows. Such a marriage would be invalid because of its lack of canonical form.
But the same Church law also provides for the following extraordinary situation (1917 Code, canon 1098; 1983 Code, canon 1116): “If a person competent to assist according to the norm of law cannot be present or approached without grave inconvenience.” If this situation is likely to last at least one month, then the Church declares valid a marriage celebrated before only the witnesses. If a non-delegated priest can be present, he must be called upon to receive the vows. This legislation is a simple application of the fundamental principles of Canon law: The supreme law is the salvation of souls, and The sacraments are for men who are well-disposed.

Hi Sean,

First of all, I'm not a priest, so please do not call me Father. Just a long-time SSPX chapel mass-goer and observing things in Traddieland.

Second, the state of necessity does not follow that one goes about rejecting the "ordinary" way of doing things, when canonical delegation is given as requested, but only when it is not given without good reason.

This doesn't logically follow, because you completely ignore the fact that SSPX marriages from 1976-2017 are done usually in these steps:

1. Couple or together with the SSPX priest makes a request to the local diocese for marrying. During those years, the ordinary delegation is rarely given, except in the rare case of a diocesan bishop friendly to Tradition.
2. If the delegation is not given within a reasonable period of time or rejected without good reason, the SSPX still proceeds with the marriage invoking supplied jurisdiction. The marriage details are sent to the local diocese or parish of the couple. Whether or not the diocese accepts or enters the marriage details into their records is a separate matter.

Finally, neither the Society nor Rome has ever declared that marriages done before 2017 without the proper delegation were invalid. The claim that all its prior marriages were invalid is preposterous. See https://sspx.org/en/content/29002

Hello Trento-

I think your rendition of the process (1976-2017) is erroneous:

1) It is true that sacramental records were sent -ex post facto- to the diocesan authorities, but requests for delegation?

No.

In my case, because my wife's father was upset about the lack of jurisdiction for SSPX priests to witness the marriage, Fr. Beck asked us if we would like him to request Fr. Echert (i.e., local diocesan biritual indult priest) to come to witness the marriage.

We declined, and that was the end of that.

No delegation or priest with faculties to witness marriages was ever requested, even though he would consented.

Moreover, see the attached SSPX Marriage Form M-2(a), which pre-empted the need to request a delegation (i.e., because of the moral impossibility of requesting delegation from a modernist priest).

In other words, implicit in this process (and the attached form) is the belief that grave inconvenience and necessity persist whether or not the delegation is requested and/or given.


2) Your claim that Rome does not recognize SSPX marriages prior to 2017 as invalid is preposterous: Annulments are given automatically for all such marriages for defect of canonical form, and this was the (disingenuously) stated reason for accepting to be bound by Muller's 2017 guidelines. 

1) The form that you attached mentions in the very first paragraphs that the couple declares to have the "serious difficulty" of going through the ordinary means of getting married with delegation to a Novus Ordo parish priest, that is why supplied jurisdiction is invoked. It's a different scenario from the French story you posted.

2) I read Cardinal Muller's 2017 letter and there is no mention of such automatic annulments for all SSPX marriages prior to 2017. I stand to be corrected if you would kindly point me to the right references.

Do read https://fsspx.news/en/content/30476 for the several scenarios that Cardinal Muller's letter envisaged. Note well "The future spouses do not have a “right” to have their consent received by a priest who happens to be their friend, whereas they do have a definitive right to be married in the traditional liturgy and with fully Catholic theological and moral instruction."