Archbishop Viganò behaved like a true hero from the moment he understood or began to understand the moral and doctrinal decomposition of the conciliar Church. Unfortunately, he seems to lean towards the sedevacantist position. Time will reveal better what his true position is.
First, Viganò is not sedevacantist, he's Benevacantist (i.e. he holds all popes up to and including Benedict XVI. as true-but-misled popes) and rejects Francis because he sees Benedicts resignation as canonically invalid and Leos election having too many cardinals than previously defined (135 cardinals vs 126 allowed by JPII). So he's not "judging the pope on heresy" like sedevacantists do, he's just asking whether these elections are canonically valid. And, it's just his personal opinion, he doesn't impose it on anybody. I have heard that about half of his seminarians in Viterbo name the pope, the other half does not and they seem to get along. I have also heard some priests just naming Leo "sub conditione" and leaving it up to God whether the pope is pope or not, which is, in my opinion, the most intelligent option.
Now, regarding the points of the SAJM:
In this Declaration of November 21, 1974 [...] asked candidates for the diaconate to commit to three things: to pray publicly for the reigning pope, to mention him in the Canon of the Mass (una cuм papa nostro…), and finally, to accept the 1962 liturgy
Now, that's a complete falsehood:
https://dubia.cc/en/docs/lefebvre/declaration-1974 - this is the original declaraction, which doesn't mention at all whether the pope should be named or what the liturgy should be or whatever. It just says that "we cannot follow these neo-modernist changes". If someone else has a different version of the 1974 declaration or this "declaration of fidelity" is referring to something else (I don't think so), please link me the correct version (sspxasia version is identical, but not mobile-friendly).
Lefebvre only imposed the '62 missal later on (in 1979), when trying to win neo-Rome back to the true faith with a minor concession. So, Fr. Brocard is trying to dogmatize a decision made by late-70s Lefebvre, who had no real canonical authority to make such a decision (sedes are right on that point). Some priests say the 62, but most say the pre-55 now, at least in Europe. Some say both, depending on what missal is physically available at the chapel they're at. The difference is minor (such as the removal of the Confiteor before lay communion, the garbled Holy Week, etc.), but the justification is that, true pope or not, we shouldn't follow changes that are "destructive to the faith".
Whether a true pope or a false pope signs off on Bugninis '62 missal, the question is whether using it habitually is diminishing the Faith or building the Faith. It is never Gods will to diminish the Faith and missal reforms were traditionally done to clean up problems (such as St. Pius X reforms, which were done in "good faith"), not to change or even weaken the faith. So, there are priests like Fr. Pivert who (as far as I know) says the pre-55 but also names the pope, because these are independent issues. The SSPX kept the Confiteor, but used the '62, basically doing pick-and-choose themselves. This whole "what would Lefebvre do?" shtick is annoying, because Lefebvre didn't just have "one" unchanging position, he was trying to work with many different kinds of people.
Lefebvres position on the pope was (in 1979, Oyster Bay) "Je ne dis pas que le pape n'est pas le pape, mais je ne dis pas non plus qu'on ne puisse pas dire que le pape n'est pas le pape." - "I do not say that the pope is not the pope, but I do not say either that one cannot say that the pope is not the pope." The problem he had and we have is only with completely autistic-dogmatic sedevacantists a la "outside of my position there's no salvation because it's obvious™ that the pope is not pope". But now the anti-sedevacantist ("name the pope or else") are doing the same, which is equally annoying. Whatever happened to the pope metaphysically is an academic exercise that will be resolved later.
In 1980, Lefebvre came to a temporary compromise with his American priests: he told them he would not expel them from the SSPX for holding sedevacantist views, nor would he force them to publicly defend the Pope, provided they kept their sedevacantism private and did not cause a public scandal [
1,
2].
So, two verifiable falsehoods already, great start for the new SAJM seminary rector.
Now, towards the bigger point about "indepencence" vs "structure" - the claim that "Abp. Lefebvre never ordained seminarians that weren't in the SSPX" - yes and no, there were independent priests he supported without them being in the SSPX - such as Fr. Gregory Hesse in Austria and Fr. Frederick Schell in the US. Both were never "in" the SSPX but that wasn't a problem of them working with Abp. Lefebvre (Fr. Hesse came to the SSPX chapels and said Mass there). The bigger issue is that Fr. Brocard is using a claim about Lefebvre's ordination practice to smuggle in a much broader claim: that today's Resistance priests must be integrated into a "structure" (ideally of course the SAJM).
Canon Law states in 1917 CIC Can. 111: "Every cleric must be enrolled either in some diocese or in some religious institute, so that wandering clerics are by no means admitted." However, the SSPX and also the SAJM and any Resistance priests are
not operating on canonical jurisdiction. They are
not a "religious institute" nor are they a "diocese" according to Can. 111. They are operating on the same supplied jurisdiction as the SSPX or Fr. Gregory Hesse or Bp. Williamson. The SSPX had the minor "benefit" that Econe was at first canonically started (and then asked to shut down), but the SAJM can make no such claim. They are exactly as "vagus" as Fr. Pivert on his farm in Villeneuve (he trained seminarians that come to him, Bp. Williamson then ordained some). We are all just a "loose association of priests resisting the modernist changes of Vatican II", and that's it. The SAJM's internal "statutes" are only internal association rules; they do not magically grant ordinary canonical jurisdiction over the faithful.
The
extraordinary jurisdiction they have is, strictly speaking,
only for providing sacraments until the "Church" comes back to its senses (priesthood is a sacrament, so new bishops transmitting the faith without compromise are necessary). Fr. Brocard now claims that it is wrong of faithful and there must have some "sense of hierarchy" on top.
NO. Extraordinary jurisdiction exists "ad actum", it exists only
in the moment where the crisis is, that is, where and when faithful request valid sacraments and true doctrine, in order to save their souls.
Lefebvre tried to explicitly avoid any notion of a "parallel Church hierarchy":
"I am creating bishops in order that my priestly order can continue. They do not take the place of other bishops. I am not creating a parallel church." [1]
The text is most clear. On account of the state of necessity in which he had come to find himself, Archbishop Lefebvre knew he had to "transmit his episcopal grace" without further delay to other priests, satisfying the legitimate expectations of seminarians and faithful, for the salvation of their souls. To the bishops consecrated by him he gave the power of order, not the power of jurisdiction, so that they "might be best called "auxiliaries" of the Society of Saint Pius X. [2]
Regarding the "sense of hierarchy" of Lefebvre, the SSPX was governed by a
general council, and it was explicitly against the wishes of Lefebvre to have a bishop as the superior general [
3], so as to not seem as a "separate independent Church". It was a "association of priests working together", which is what the Resistance is now, more or less. It was not a religious order nor a diocese according to Canon 111. But now the SAJM apparently take it upon themselves to metaphysically develop into some pretend-canonical authority? There simply cannot be any real "canonical" jurisdiction / authority while the entire Church is in Crisis and the top "authorities" are lunatics.
Creating a second "hierarchy" would be (ironically for the SAJM who go on about how they are loyally praying for the pope) more schismatic than the "anarchists" who strictly keep to "sacraments and sermons" and also not even remotely the position of Lefebvre. We can try to follow the 1917 Canon Law as much as possible, okay, but nobody can be bound beyond what is physically possible (we can't just form our own dioceses or orders or whatnot).
The authority that does exist is just natural (bishops have more weight than priests). The only thing Resistance bishops can do to impose their authority is to stop giving other priests / monasteries Holy Oils or ordinations, that's all the "authority" they really have under emergency jurisdiction. As long as the pope isn't properly Catholic, it's going to be a mess and we need to work together, which, as I see it, ironically produces more unity among priests than any "only SAJM / USML / XYZ priests are true disciples of Lefebvre".
Then about "submission of the faithful to the priest in all things not just sacraments": Arianism is precisely why Arian bishops and their followers went to hell and this is precisely why we cannot "depend totally on the priest" - because most priests nowadays are worse than Arians. So Fr. Brocard refutes his own argument that he first laboriously builds up, that we don't have to just care about validity of sacraments - correct. But faithful have to then discern whether priests are good or not, so we cannot blindly "submit ourselves", those two things are mutually exclusive.
We can see where this "submission" led the SSPX to: it was fine while it had Abp. Lefebvre, but if the leaders grow weak or die, the next generation is untrained to be on guard. Bp. Williamson specifically wanted people to "think for themselves", obviously in charity with the priest. But even in structuring the Resistance as "pockets", he intentionally didn't want to create a "sense of hierarchy", precisely because he knew that the priests and bishops could fall in the future.
There is a known "silent split" between de Aquino / Zendejas / Faure on the one side and Stobnicki / Ballini / Morgan / Viganò on the other, it's fairly obvious: the latter group is more indifferent towards non-dogmatic sedevacantism, the former being strictly 62-you-must-name-the-pope-or-else. The older bishops really like to pounce on hierarchy, obedience, pope-naming and the 62 missal, pray-for-the-pope, which neither Lefebvre nor Williamson did. The question is whether we can still work together without condemning the other side as "spirit of Protestantism" or such.
I know it's maybe not meant in a bad way by Fr. Brocard, but if a new seminary rector can't make the difference between canonical and extraordinary jurisdiction, religious institute vs. loose association of priests, then starts accusing Resistance faithful of a "spirit of Protestantism" if they don't share de Mallerais' "need for their souls to depend totally on the priestly ministry in all its breadth", so they may finally accept his SAJM hierarchy and "authority" to spread verifiable falsehoods about Lefebvres positions: I'll just say, it's not a good look for the upcoming seminary. Just saying.
Topic: SAJM leaves the resistance??? (Apostles of Jesus and Mary) (Read 3753 times)