A common error among many SSPX Catholics:

You attend your local SSPX chapel, and have attended for many years, just like your parents attended their local parish, St. ______ for decades.

So it's a common mistake to mix the two up -- how would your parents react to someone leaving their parish? "They left the Church".

But if someones leaves the SSPX they haven't left the Church. The two are not the same, even if "de facto" the SSPX is filling in for the Church in many ways, for many people, and for some time now.

But as I've said before, it's a matter of Catholic dogma and truth that the SSPX holds no jurisdiction (authority from above) over any Catholic. Only the Conciliar Church has this today.

The only person/chapel that has any CLAIM FROM ABOVE on you is your local Novus Ordo parish. They have the authority, or the ordinary Jurisdiction. Their authority comes from God, through the Pope, who appointed the bishop of the diocese you live in, and that bishop oversees and appoints your local pastor who is in charge of the Catholic church nearest to your house.

Once you leave that local Novus Ordo parish and enter the "wild world of Tradition", it is completely up to you where you decide to go for Mass. You are at liberty to choose your own lifeboat to preserve the Faith. It's all a question of personal prudence.

Whether you go to a poorly trained priest saying Mass in a hotel room once a month for 10 people, or to the honest-to-goodness CHURCH built in Colorado (St. Isidore's) run by the SSPX with hundreds of parishioners, where Mass is said by a well-trained priest -- those two Mass centers are on exactly the same footing. That is to say, they both rely on supplied jurisdiction, which comes FROM BELOW from the needs and requests of the Faithful.

Sure, one of them has better equipment, facilities, a bigger bank account, more parishioners, etc. but those things are ACCIDENTAL rather than FUNDAMENTAL to the issue. Fundamentally, they are both in the same boat.

So even though it SEEMS like leaving a pseudo-parish like St. Isidore's is like leaving the Church in the 1970's (most Catholic churches were large like St. Isidores, rather than small chapel like buildings), and you could only leave if you had a MAJOR REASON like the Novus Ordo Mass, you have to keep your thinking straight.

Just because St. Isidores managed to upgrade to the point that it looks just like a 50's parish doesn't mean that is IS a Catholic parish with ordinary jurisdiction! Reality is the important part -- not the appearance of reality.

St. Isidores (for example) doesn't have ANY MORE JURISDICTION or claim on individual Catholic faithful than a small mission out in the boonies, where a priest says Mass in a garage four times a year.

I've actually encountered, personally, several individuals who weren't aware of this. One older lady said that leaving an SSPX chapel is akin to leaving the Church. Another older lady criticized a young man because he left his SSPX chapel for weekly Mass at another (independent) chapel, because (to paraphrase): "I left my parish back in the 1970's, yes, but I was leaving the Novus Ordo. You have no such grave reason to disobey."

I kid you not.

She doesn't understand jurisdiction, obviously. Is there really this much IGNORANCE in the world of Tradition? I thought that's what we criticized the Novus Ordo so harshly for -- lack of proper catechesis and widespread ignorance of the Faith.

She doesn't understand that I could leave my Traditional (supplied jurisdiction) chapel for any and all reasons -- because I can't understand the priest's accent, I don't like some of the people who go there, because the priest isn't very good with kids, or because he has bad breath.

As long as I have another Tridentine Mass within driving distance that I'm willing to drive to instead, it's up to me which lifeboat I choose to hop in.

Now leaving a Trad chapel for stupid reasons and staying Home Alone -- that's a completely different story. We are obligated by the Church to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, unless prevented by grave inconvenience.

The priest saying Mass 1/2 hour from my house being "a Mexican" is not sufficient reason to dispense from my obligation.

I think "jurisdiction" is a very vague concept.  

If anyone can point me in the direction of any docuмents or pre-Vatican II manuals that would help me understand it better, I would greatly appreciate that.

Matthew's post is definitely a well-thought out post and intriguing.  My own view of jurisdiction can be summed up by "Who sent you?"  

The SSPX Bishops and priests were all validly ordained.  Archbishop LeFebrvre did mention that he wasn't passing on jusidiction but what does that really mean?  

As for SSPXers advising other SSPXers against leaving the SSPX, I see no real harm in that as long as it's not dogmatic.

If it turns out that the "Conciliar Church" is a false Church, not part of the Church founded by Christ, etc. then it wouldn't follow that the SSPX (for example) inherited the True Church's jurisdiction, with every other group being under them.

No, even if it turned out that the collection of ALL Traditional chapels in the world is synonymous with the Catholic Church (as in, there are 500 Traditional chapels worldwide, and the Catholic Church is no bigger than that group: 500 chapels) then the jurisdiction would pass to ALL of them. Each and every one of them.

The merits/virtues/relative size of each group is beside the point. If they are Catholic, and holding to the Catholic Faith (which is traditional), then they are all in the same boat.

The same goes for consecrating bishops without a papal mandate. Sure, the SSPX had the most famous and impressive ceremony back in 1988. Maybe they even had the most qualified candidates? We'll pass over that (transeo). But if we grant that +ABL did a good thing in 1988, we can't really criticize +Ngo Dinh Thuc or Bishop Slupski for doing essentially the same thing 20 years later.

I assure you that jurisdiction has nothing to do with the "trappings" of a chapel OR a Consecration, as in # of parishioners at the consecration ceremony, the bank accounts of the organization(s) involved, or the number of trumpets playing during the recessional.

The Church looks at more fundamental questions than that, and as a matter of fact She *always* ignores accidentals and other fluff.

When making a judgment on a marriage annulment, does the Church ask questions like "What color was the groom's hair?" or "Do you both like the same kind of music?" Of course not.

Quote from: Centroamerica

Quote from: Matthew

But as I've said before, it's a matter of Catholic dogma and truth that the SSPX holds no jurisdiction (authority from above) over any Catholic. Only the Conciliar Church has this [jurisdiction] today.

Quote from: Bishop Tissier

...the Conciliar church, which is no church but a poison poisoning the Church...

I understood that he referenced the Conciliar church as a point of comparison and whether or not it is indeed the True Church doesn't have much bearing on the topic of the post.

I've never heard anyone argue that the N.O. being a false church automatically passes normal jurisdiction on to some Traditional group. They don't have normal jurisdiction but countless Trads act as if they do. That, I believe, was his point.

The point is that it is heresy to say that only the conciliar church has jurisdiction today.

The point is that it is heresy to say that only the conciliar church has jurisdiction today.

Only the conciliar church has ordinary jurisdiction today.

Traditional priests, bishops, chapels, etc. only have emergency SUPPLIED jurisdiction.

I'm not saying that we don't have a right to go to Trad chapels, or that Trad chapels don't have a right to operate/exist. Of course not. But the jurisdiction they have is
A) temporary
B) emergency, supplied
and
C) coming from BELOW, from the requests of the Faithful

Traditionally, the bishop or priest has his power FROM ABOVE which allows him to do things like break up fights between priests.

I don't think you fully understand what Jurisdiction means. It is similar to authority.

Who has authority in the Catholic Church today? Who are the bishops that have to be followed or obeyed under pain of sin?

Please do not continue to say things like this, which suggest misunderstanding and/or ignorance.

“The conciliar church is a schismatic church!”
In 1971, 5 years before the “conciliar church” of Bishop Benelli, the same Fr. Calmel O.P.denounced in the French review Itineraires, the “new church that Vatican II has tried to show,the new post-vaticanesque church” and explained:

“The false church which is showing itself amongst us since the curious Vatican II is diverging tangibly year after year, from the Church founded by Jesus Christ. The false post-conciliar church is splitting away more and more from the holy Church which has saved souls for twenty centuries (not to mention the support and enlightenment lent to civil society). The pseudo-church in construction splits away more and more from the true Church, the only Church of Jesus Christ, by the most strange innovations in the hierarchical constitution as well as in its teachings and morals 21.”
The expressions “false church”, “pseudo church” are very strong. And the verb “split away” indicates a formal mutation of a part of the Church, which detaches itself from the Catholic sphere to stray formally outside it. Father Calmel was truly a prophet. It was only five years later, after having received the famous letter of Bishop Benelli and having been struck by Paul VI with a a divinis suspension, that Archbishop Lefebvre affirmed even more forcefully the existence of this “counter church”, qualifying it as “schismatic”:

“How could it be more clear?! From now on it is the conciliar church one must obey and be faithful to , and not to the Catholic Church. This is precisely our problem. We are suspended a divinis by the conciliar church, of which we do not want to be a part. This conciliar church is a schismatic church, because it breaks with the Catholic Church of all time. It has it’s new dogmas 22, it’s new priesthood 23, it’s new institutions24, it’s new liturgy25, already condemned by the Church in many official and definitive docuмents. This is why the founders of the conciliar church insist on obedience to the church of today, making abstraction of the Church of yesterday, as if it didn’t exist anymore. […] The church which affirms such errors is at one and the same time heretical and schismatic. This conciliar church is therefore not Catholic. In the measure in which the Pope, the bishops, priests or faithful adhere to this new church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church. The church of today is the true Church only in the measure in which it continues and is one with the Church of yesterday and of always. The norm for the Catholic faith is Tradition26. “

http://www.dominicansavrille.us/is-there-a-conciliar-church/

If it wasn't for the SSPX and the Consecrations in 1988, there wouldn't be any Latin Mass in the conciliar church parishes.  In 2000, Mater Ecclesia in Berlin, NJ.  The Latin Mass has grown nationwide.  

How can these "gαy" parishes  within have jurisdiction and not the SSPX?

Most of these novous ordo bishops are liberal and don't want the true Mass or moral teachings of the Catholic faith.  For years and to this day, they tell the parishioners that SSPX is no good, unholy schismatic renegades and yet do nothing against their peers who were and are sodomists.  

In regards to jurisdiction, most conciliar historical parishes closed down existed long before jurisdictions were established.  For example the Camden Diocese, NJ was established in 1937.