CathInfo.com

Thanks, Stubborn. I wonder if +ABL ever changed the actual policy of the SSPX before he died? I don't think he did, but I could be wrong.

I'm not sure I agree that the situation is worse today. When reading the history of +ABL and the SSPX, it seems evident that things were REALLY bad in 60's and '70's. And the 3 books written by Michael Davies (whom few on this forum believes is credible, other then me) describes in detail how bad things were back then. I don't blame the SSPX, or even those in the Resistance, for not automatically re-ordaining a Novus Ordo priest. I think the SSPX still investigates every situation individually, if I'm not mistaken.

Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX bishops certainly examined the individual cases, but the validity of ordination had to be able to be proven to be morally certain. It rarely was, with the passage of time, because there was a succession of new-rite ordinations that had to be verified in any given case. And so, while re-ordaining was not automatic, it became almost routine because of doubt that could not be removed. In the early days, at least a true old-rite bishop was often ordaining, but now we have the new rite of episcopal consecration with doubtful bishops ordaining by that very fact, a doubt the new-SSPX refuses to acknowledge, which is why they buried the study by Fr Calderon.

So the neo-SSPX is certainly blameworthy in this regard, by not following tutiorism when it comes to sacramental validity, which obliges them to follow the safest opinion, not a probable one.

If we say the situation is worse today, it's because all the shenanigans of the 60s and 70s and 80s, all those improvisations and adaptations and faulty translations etc in the ordinations and consecrations, have ongoing effects and implications for the validity of future ordinations and consecrations. The problem multiplies with succeeding generations.

After more than half a century of revolution in the Church which has altered the Faith and all the sacramental rites, how can such moral certitude be achieved in any individual case, with a succession of new rite episcopal consecrations and priestly ordinations that add doubt upon doubt? This is why the presumption in the SSPX, even at the time of ABL, was that of invalidity, requiring validity to be proven with moral certitude - an almost impossible task today, even as it virtually was back in the 80s.

The SSPX, in their pusuit of an agreement with modernist Rome since at least 2012, have all but ceased conditionally confirming and ordaining.
That's why Fr Fabio Calixto joined the Resistance last year: https://nonpossumus-vcr.blogspot.com/2025/07/entrevista-al-padre-fabio-calixto.html

The 1917 Code of Canon Law:

Canon 732 §2: If a prudent doubt exists about whether really and validly these Sacraments were conferred, they are to be conferred again under condition.

Fr Peter Scott, 2007:

It would, indeed, be tragic if all traditional priests did not have moral certitude as to their ordination, and if there existed two different grades of priests, a higher grade ordained in Tradition, and a lower grade. It is for this reason that the superiors have the right to insist on conditional re-ordination for any priest turning towards Tradition, and will only accept ordinations in the conciliar Church after having investigated both priestly and episcopal ordinations and established moral certitude.

https://sspx.org/en/must-priests-who-come-tradition-be-re-ordained-30479

https://dominicansavrille.us/questionable-priestly-ordinations-in-the-conciliar-church/

Econe, 28 oct. 1988
Very dear Mr. Wilson,
thank you very much for your kind letter. I agree with your desire to reordain conditionally these priests, and I have done this reordination many times.
All sacraments from the modernists bishops or priests are doubtful now. The changes are increasing and their intentions are no more catholics.
We are in the time of great apostasy.
We need more and more bishops and priests very catholics. It is necessary everywhere in the world.
Thank you for the newspaper article from the Father Alvaro Antonio Perez Jesuit!
We must pray and work hardly to extend the kingdom of Jesus-Christ.
I pray for you and your lovely family.
Devotly in Jesus and Mary.
Marcel Lefebvre