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Author Topic: Universal Traditional Catholic Principles, the FSSP, and Sedevacantism  (Read 2469 times)

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Offline Matthew

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Traditional Catholics, from the very beginning, have held 3 essential principles:

1. Leave the Conciliar Church and Novus Ordo behind completely, regardless of having a Trad option lined up for Mass. Stay home on Sunday if no Tridentine Mass available.
2. Seek out SURE sacraments in "lifeboats": valid priests to offer both the Tridentine Mass and traditional Sacraments, and support them wherever they are, even at independently set up "Traditional chapels" which Rome considers "illicit" or "un-canonical". Treat them for all practical purposes like one's local parish.
3. Believe "I don't need permission from the Pope, or Modernist Rome, to stay Catholic". That is, believe in supplied jurisdiction for Mass and ALL sacraments, and have NO scruples about attaching oneself to, and fully supporting, such Trad chapels and building them up.

Those elements are common to 100% of Traditional Catholics, past or present, from the very beginning in 1970. Anyone who scruples about going to Confession to a Trad priest because he doesn't have official jurisdiction or faculties from the local Bishop, for example, is not a Trad. He might be conservative, but if he doesn't understand that Catholics have a right to keep their Faith, and a need for the Sacraments, they have a lot to learn and therefore are not yet "Traditional Catholic".

Enter the FSSP:
Since part of their essence is "approval/permission from Rome" they are technically not Trad, since such approval was not part of the Trad package from the beginning. But more importantly, it actually contradicts principle #3, above. From the beginning of the movement in the 1970's, getting permission from Rome was certainly NOT one of the elements of the Traditional movement. So the FSSP is a new kind of conservative Catholic at best ("Indult Catholic"? "Latin Mass Catholic"?).

While Sedevacantists ALSO added another element to the Traditional manifesto, "4. The putative pope is not pope at all.", this is different in two main ways:
1. A good number of Trads believed this from the beginning. It was there, just not universal. So they are a specific sub-type of Trad, rather than SOMETHING OTHER THAN Trad.
2. Their additional belief doesn't contradict Trad principles 1-3.
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Offline Nishant Xavier

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  • I disagree respectfully with this and I think, Matthew, that this is the core area of disagreement between the Society and the Resistance. So let's have a brief discussion on it, though the sedevacantist issue is irrelevant to the SSPX-Resistance dispute.

    1. The First Principle is the Sanctification and Salvation of Souls. This is why the Church Herself exists. I love the Firefighter Analogy given by His Excellency Bishop Fellay to explain what should be the principle of the traditional apostolate vis-a-vis relations to Rome:

    "How do we understand this gesture? Allow me to make use of an image. When a fire is raging, everyone understands that those who have the means to do so must endeavor to put it out, especially if there is a shortage of firefighters ... As a result of the Pope’s act, during the Holy Year, we will have ordinary jurisdiction. In the image I mentioned, this has the effect of giving us the official insignia of firefighters, whereas such a status was [unjustly] denied us for decades." https://damselofthefaith.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/ordinary-jurisdiction-for-the-year-of-mercy-bishop-fellay-says/

    Who can reasonably dispute the applicability of this analogy to the situation of the crisis in the Church? Suppose somebody was in a burning building, Matthew. Would even we not do all that was possible to save him? Suppose a professional firefighter had been unjustly fired and his uniform had been wrongly confiscated. If he saw a fire and souls in danger of perishing, absolutely he has the right and the duty to do all that is necessary for them to be delivered from the fire, and it is commendable and praiseworthy for him to do it. But if at a later time, if the nation or state recognize it was wrong to persecute such firefighters, why should they then refuse the insignia, as Bishop Fellay says?

    That is the equivalent to what is being disputed here; one could add the "firefighters" here have a right to be part of the visible hierarchy of the only Church.

    2. And therefore the Second Principle could be: If the Pope wants to grant the Bishops and Priests of the Society Ordinary Jurisdiction and Habitual Authority over the Faithful who are their Subjects, then this is the correction of an injustice; something good and not evil.

    As Fr. Laisney argued on the behalf of the Society, that with a wrong understanding, "One no longer sees that those who hold office in the Church have received the authority that Our Lord Jesus Christ has given to His Church, and thus have received a good thing—indeed what Our Lord Jesus Christ has established is evidently excellent—the abuses of that authority do not take away from the goodness of that authority in itself, of that hierarchical order; and thus if the pope wants to regularize the place of the Society of St. Pius X within that order, he wants something good (order is good) ... https://sspx.org/en/various-churches-fr-laisney-rebuttal

    3. The Traditional Sacramental rites, imho, give much Greater Glory to God, obtain far Greater Graces for the Church and the world and have perfect "integrity". As we know, theology distinguishes integrity and essence of the rite. A study of the new rites of episcopal consecration and priestly ordination in particular makes clear that, after infiltration by Freemasons and through the machinations of Bugnini et al, integrity has been very badly wounded in the new rites generally, from Baptism to Holy Mass. The rite remains valid, but validity is not enough; with wide use of the new inferior rites, there is a massive loss of graces in the world.

    Since we each individually have the obligation to give the greatest possible glory to God in our short lives on this earth, and since we will need the necessary graces of the sacraments in the highest possible measure, we have the right and duty to preserve Tradition. But we should do it in the way that one would preserve a Priceless Treasure when an indefectible Ark was being partly flooded; namely, first, we should preserve the Treasure itself, so that first it is not drowned in the flood, by God's Grace. Second, we should see to it that that Treasure is more widely restored in the Ark, so that all those it may be kept afloat and saved in the end.

    No doubt supplied Jurisdiction supplies for confessions and marriages, Rome itself has admitted this. Supplied Jurisdiction, as authors on the subject describe for us, is a delegatio a iure, a delegation operative by the law itself, that comes from the Church. Ordinary Jurisdiction, as we know, is habitual authority, a relation in which subjects are permanently under their superiors.

    For an imperfect analogy: Suppose a parent willed to adopt a child, and the government wrongly prevented this at first; then, the parent should continue to love the child and desire to adopt it, but would not actually stand in permanent authority over the child until adoption was complete. In a roughly similar way, the Apostolate will go on, but full normalization need not be rejected, imo.

    So, if the Pope is ready to grant Ordinary Jurisdiction to our SSPX Bishops, which they most certainly have a right to, is it not a good thing? Auxiliary Bishops have less power and rights than Bishops who are Ordinaries strictly so called. Is it not right that our Bishops should have Habitual Authority over us and full power to command us? Even Natural Authority is Good. Divinely established Authority is Excellent, Unique and Necessary. Therefore, Traditional Catholic Bishops have a right to that Divine habitual Authority.

    And yet, by divine law, and the Pope's Universal Primacy of Jurisdiction defined at Vatican I, only he can grant Ordinary Jurisdiction. This, imho, is the basis on which the Society justifies its periodic relations with the Roman Authorities, which seems to have caused much misunderstanding among some sections of the Faithful. If I may ask, Matthew, where do you disagree with any of the above?

    God bless.
    "We wish also to make amends for the insults to which Your Vicar on earth and Your Priests are everywhere subjected [above all by schismatic sedevacantists - Nishant Xavier], for the profanation, by conscious neglect or Terrible Acts of Sacrilege, of the very Sacrament of Your Divine Love; and lastly for the Public Crimes of Nations who resist the Rights and The Teaching Authority of the Church which You have founded." - Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Lord Jesus.


    Offline Last Tradhican

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  • I disagree respectfully with this and I think, Matthew, that this is the core area of disagreement between the Society and the Resistance.

    "How do we understand this gesture? Allow me to make use of an image. When a fire is raging, everyone understands that those who have the means to do so must endeavor to put it out, especially if there is a shortage of firefighters ... As a result of the Pope’s act, during the Holy Year, we will have ordinary jurisdiction. In the image I mentioned, this has the effect of giving us the official insignia of firefighters, whereas such a status was [unjustly] denied us for decades."

    The writer disagrees because he is not a traditionalist, he is a conservative as Matthew described.

    In the analogy by Bp. Fellay, he rightly sees a fire, the fire that is the Vatican II church, the Conciliar church, however, to the pope there is no fire in the Vatican II church, there is a fire in the SSPX and the traditionalist movement. The fire is that it is opposed to the "spirit of Vatican II" which spirit he "believes" is the Holy Ghost. That spirit is what has given him the power to be placed as the "supreme pontiff", and notice that I do not capitalize that spirit.
    The Vatican II church - Assisting Souls to Hell Since 1962

    For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. Mat 24:24

    Offline Nishant Xavier

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  • Please explain which of the 3 principles were wrong then. Canon Law says, Suprema Lex Salus Animarum, the Supreme Law of the Church Herself is the Salvation, and therefore Sanctification also which precedes it, of our souls, of all souls, as far as possible. That would sum up in a word the basis of the society's apostolate, and even more, it should be the constant concern of every Christian, especially fathers of families. The salvation of their families and those entrusted to their charge first and foremost, and others next.

    Pope St. Pius X commanded everyone, including His Successors, to swear the Oath against Modernism, which is dogmatic, and which also includes a Profession of the Indefectibility of the Visible Hierarchy of the Catholic Church, "I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles." http://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius10/p10moath.htm

    If you believe this, Last Tradhican, you will not believe the Catholic Church died, defected and disappeared, either in 1962, 1965, 1969 or even in 2013. We are in the worst crisis in the history of Christendom. But the Catholic Church has always triumphed and She will triumph over this crisis. Restoration has to come also from the Hierarchy of the Pope and the Bishops. Without that, we can do little.

    +ABL in 1966: "the Successor of Peter and he alone can save the Church. Let the Holy Father surround himself with strong defenders of the Faith: let him nominate them in the important dioceses. Let him by docuмents of outstanding importance proclaim the truth, search out error without fear of contradictions, without fear of schisms, without fear of calling in question the pastoral dispositions of the Council.Let the Holy Father deign to encourage the individual bishops of their respective dioceses to correct faith and morals. It behooves every good pastor to uphold the courageous bishops, to urge them to reform their seminaries and to restore them to the study of St. Thomas; to encourage Superiors General to maintain in novitiates and communities the fundamental principles of all Christian asceticism, and above all, obedience; to encourage the development of Catholic schools, a press informed by sound doctrine, associations of Christian families; and finally, to rebuke the instigators of errors and reduce them to silence. May the Holy Ghost, to Whom our Congregation is dedicated, deign to come to the assistance of the Pastor of the Universal Church." Therefore, right from 1966, His Grace Archbishop Lefebvre acknowledged the Pope's Authority, and didn't say it's wrong to be a regularized society. From: https://fsspx.news/en/news/exchange-letters-between-cardinal-ottaviani-and-archbishop-lefebvre-1966-38507

    Btw, as a reductio ad absurdum, if someone wants to argue Bp. Fellay saying, oh, you should never agree to regularization, even if the Pope wants to grant the "uniform" to the "firefighters", which by divine law only he can grant, then, to be consistent, apply that also to +ABL in 1970, where the Society was established as a canonically regular pious union. Even in 1990, Archbishop Lefebvre suggested the Society under his authority would be open to regularization under appropriate conditions. The main requirement were things like (1) Let the Popes and Rome swear to uphold the Oath against Modernism (2) Bring back the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. (3) Grant Sufficient Bishops to Tradition and allow the "Traditionalist Citadel" (exact words; will give the full quotation later) to continue in the Church. (4) Recognize the right of all Bishops and Priests to offer the Traditional Mass. His Excellency Bishop Fellay has already taken care of 4, and 3 too has been done. So the Society is very confident that Archbishop Lefebvre, from heaven, and if H.G. were here today, would approve normalization. (1) and (2) should be done too, I agree. I would like doctrinal discussions with Rome to be resumed, and the Society to demand more from the Roman Authorities, including the Collegial Consecration of Russia.
    "We wish also to make amends for the insults to which Your Vicar on earth and Your Priests are everywhere subjected [above all by schismatic sedevacantists - Nishant Xavier], for the profanation, by conscious neglect or Terrible Acts of Sacrilege, of the very Sacrament of Your Divine Love; and lastly for the Public Crimes of Nations who resist the Rights and The Teaching Authority of the Church which You have founded." - Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart of Lord Jesus.

    Offline X

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  • Xavier-

    ABL said the FSSP (and like groups) were doing the work of the devil.

    Happy to see you acknowledging the neo-SSPX abandonment of the Archbishop (while simultaneously acknowledging the fidelity of the Resistance to him) on this point.

    Ps: For what it’s worth, relations with the compromised/rallied groups are not at the core of disagreement between Menzingen and the Resistance, as you allege, but the acceptance of Vatican II and the abandonment of the fight to restore Tradition (which are actually one and the same thing) by the new-SSPX.


    Offline Ladislaus

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  • 1. The First Principle is the Sanctification and Salvation of Souls. This is why the Church Herself exists. I love the Firefighter Analogy given by His Excellency Bishop Fellay to explain what should be the principle of the traditional apostolate vis-a-vis relations to Rome:

    Matthew was enumerating the principles which help defined Traditional Catholicism and set it apart.  Obviously one could go into the entire hierarchy of Catholic principles that above these, but those are all taken for granted.

    As for the the other points, you're simply listing your own personal opinion about issues that are debated among Traditional Catholics.

    Offline SoldierOfChrist

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  • My take, and this is coming from someone who was novus ordo until 2012, so take it how you will, is that traditionalism is the paradigm of judging all things as good and bad, based on what has been handed on to us.  Conservatism is the paradigm of looking to slow down the loss of traditional elements, while regularly ceding ground to liberalism, which is the belief that any element within God’s creation does not fall under His domain.

    I object to the point that a true traditionalist would stay home rather than assist at an FSSP or an SSPX mass.  Staying home is not part of what’s been passed on to us.  The majority of our fight should be fought in prayer and penance.  Some of these parishes offer the only option for some people to learn the faith and to pass it on to their children.  I don’t think it’s a good idea to discourage people from attending valid masses, as long as their is no heresy or the like being spread there.  This is akin to telling people they can’t attend mass where Father Jorge is commemorated, if they don’t believe him to be the pope.

    My thought is that we are CATHOLICS first and foremost.  The label traditionalist is useful in some cases to delineate the situation to family members, coworkers, or outsiders who don’t have any idea what is going on with the Church.  However, I don’t think that it is useful among traditional Catholics, and I think that we should just call ourselves Catholic, and that Catholic is the ONLY thing that we should aspire to be.

    Offline SoldierOfChrist

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  • Also, we attended on resistance mass in 2015 and did not return because we were bombarded with gossip as soon as we arrived, and because the sermon was only about the relationship between the SSPX and the Resistance.  How can you maintain the Faith if all you preach about is Church politics?  It felt wrong to be there.  It’s hard to explain, but I got the feeling that God did not want us to come back.  I realize that all resistance chapels are different, every community and every priest are different, but this was the experience we had.  I don’t want to mischaracterize you guys.  I’m just talking about one place and one time. 


    Offline Matthew

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  • 1. I object to the point that a true traditionalist would stay home rather than assist at an FSSP or an SSPX mass.

    2. My thought is that we are CATHOLICS first and foremost.

    1. WHAT point? Who made that point? Maybe someone came in to the thread and said this, but I certainly didn't.

    2. That goes without saying. I am all for maintaining as much unity with other Catholics ("those who have the Faith") as possible. But that doesn't render a discussion about the essence of Traditional Catholicism useless.
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    Offline Matthew

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  • Also, we attended on resistance mass in 2015 and did not return because we were bombarded with gossip as soon as we arrived, and because the sermon was only about the relationship between the SSPX and the Resistance.  How can you maintain the Faith if all you preach about is Church politics?  It felt wrong to be there.  It’s hard to explain, but I got the feeling that God did not want us to come back.  I realize that all resistance chapels are different, every community and every priest are different, but this was the experience we had.  I don’t want to mischaracterize you guys.  I’m just talking about one place and one time.
    Who was the priest? 
    Did his last name rhyme with "Pfeiffer"?
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    Offline Ladislaus

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  • Is one Resistance Mass really enough of a sample size?  I mean, every once in a while a priest will address the crisis in the Church from the pulpit.  That's always been true.

    NOW ... if you had attended for a longer stretch and found out that every single sermon for two months straight was about the crisis, then I might take this as a legitimate complaint.  You concluded from "on[sic] resistance mass" (presumably you meant "one") that "all [they] preach about is Church politics".  Really?

    Now if you got bad vibes from someone whose name rhymes with "diablo" ... that would be understandable.  I could see why you'd never go back.


    Offline SoldierOfChrist

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  • 1. WHAT point? Who made that point? Maybe someone came in to the thread and said this, but I certainly didn't.
    Maybe I misunderstood you.  I was talking about “Leave the Conciliar Church and Novus Ordo behind completely, regardless of having a Trad option lined up for Mass.”

    Of course I’m all about never attending the Novus Ordo, another for of satanic mass in my opinion.  But what about people who have a trad option lined up?

    Offline SoldierOfChrist

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  • Who was the priest?
    Did his last name rhyme with "Pfeiffer"?
    It more rhymed with Duke O

    Offline Matthew

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  • Maybe I misunderstood you.  I was talking about “Leave the Conciliar Church and Novus Ordo behind completely, regardless of having a Trad option lined up for Mass.”

    Of course I’m all about never attending the Novus Ordo, another for of satanic mass in my opinion.  But what about people who have a trad option lined up?

    You most certainly misunderstood me.

    If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people who put words in my mouth and/or jump to conclusions. Why not just ask me?

    If I believed that the Novus Ordo (or any other group) was invalid, believe me, I wouldn't be shy. I'd come right out and say it! I'm part Irish and as far as my personality goes, I'm even more Irish. My culture is "tell it like it is" and being down to earth. No nonsense.

    Trads leave behind the Novus Ordo because it's dangerous to the Faith. That's enough reason. We Trads collectively disagree on how we got here, how to fix it, the status of the Pope, etc. but that's all beside the point. But we all agree on this: the Novus Ordo is poison for the Faith. It must be left behind by ALL who are awake and will heed good advice!

    Better to stay at home alone for 10+ years than to participate in the Novus Ordo abomination. At least your Faith won't be under assault every Sunday if you stay home...

    Trad options for Mass are a completely different story.
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    Offline Mr G

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  • 2. And therefore the Second Principle could be: If the Pope wants to grant the Bishops and Priests of the Society Ordinary Jurisdiction and Habitual Authority over the Faithful who are their Subjects, then this is the correction of an injustice; something good and not evil.



    No it is not a "correction of injustice" unless the Pope were to admit that the SSPX always had regular jurisdiction since its founding, but was invalidly removed back in the 1970's. For example, what is need is for the Vatican Officials is to publicly admit that all previous SSPX were valid. Same with confessions and the excommunications, they authorities. Otherwise it is not a correction of injustice, but a compromise of "let's not say who was right or wrong, forget the past, let's just play nice from now on"