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Author Topic: SSPX Morphing: Perpetual Engagements as Seminarians?  (Read 10623 times)

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Offline Matthew

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Re: SSPX Morphing: Perpetual Engagements as Seminarians?
« Reply #10 on: May 08, 2019, 01:24:56 PM »


 
Oh really? I certainly don’t recognize any “monopoly on the traditional sacraments”. Nor do I accept, unquestioningly, this idea of “truly valid priests.” The only leverage sspx has is that which you create in your own mind. The Society is, at most, a voluntary “pious union of priests,” and was never more than that from its very foundation.

Technically you're correct, but in practice he's right.

Once you place the SSPX in the "no go" pile, your Mass options go down by an order of magnitude.  As in, the number of priests goes from 500 to about 5.

I'd call that a major, de-facto monopoly.

The SSPX is the proverbial 800 lb gorilla in the Traditional world, and any amount of pretending or sour grapes isn't going to change that.

I'm completely against the neo-SSPX, and I don't attend SSPX Masses anymore. Nevertheless, I acknowledge the truth: losing the SSPX is a HUGE loss for the world of Tradition.

I could come up with a bunch of analogies, but to save time: just take any industry, and imagine 85% - 95% of it disappearing overnight. If every Trad group EXCEPT the SSPX disappeared instead, it would only be about 1/8 as big of a disaster for the Trad world. The SSPX is that big. (I'm not counting Indult groups in my calculation; they're already "gone" if we are talking about the SSPX being "gone"!)

In other words, if the SSPV, CMRI, Resistance, and every Independent chapel in the country were shut down and the priests put to death, the Trad world would only suffer about 1/8th the hit we're suffering today by the SSPX becoming a non-option for Mass.

Online Pax Vobis

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Re: SSPX Morphing: Perpetual Engagements as Seminarians?
« Reply #11 on: May 08, 2019, 01:27:41 PM »
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I certainly don’t recognize any “monopoly on the traditional sacraments”. 
You may not recognize it, but it is reality for most people in the US.  Without the sspx, most people wouldn’t have a Latin mass within 2-3 hrs of them.  You can call it a monopoly or top Latin mass producer or just simply, the largest priestly organization.  


Offline Matthew

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Re: SSPX Morphing: Perpetual Engagements as Seminarians?
« Reply #12 on: May 08, 2019, 01:28:35 PM »
The fall of the SSPX is such a great loss -- that's why the Trad world has been thrown back to the Stone Age, as it were. We're even worse off than the Trad world was in the 1970's. Remember there was a small but growing 100% Traditional TAN Books back then. We don't even have that now.

Re: SSPX Morphing: Perpetual Engagements as Seminarians?
« Reply #13 on: May 08, 2019, 02:01:33 PM »
… The Society is, at most, a voluntary “pious union of priests,” and was never more than that from its very foundation.

With respect to hollingsworth's comment, I am a little puzzled that no one has yet produced a copy of the actual text of perpetual engagement. Surely it ought to be seen and read before any full-blown attack or defense begins!

From the admittedly less than forthcoming description provided by the SSPX docuмents, one might draw the inference that perpetual engagement differs little, if at all, from incardination. If such is the case, the most salient objection—perhaps indeed the only relevant one—is Matthew's: that the commitment is being demanded from someone too young to know what he is doing or, put otherwise, insufficiently advanced in discernment of his vocation. Again, until the docuмent is read, any response amounts to punching in the dark.

Let's assume for the moment—I repeat, absent evidence of any sort—that what the Society chooses to call perpetual engagement is indeed the rough equivalent of incardination. In such a case, surely "perpetual" ceases to be an absolute. Everything I myself know about incardination from 73 years of living as a Catholic corresponds with what the online version of the old Catholic Encyclopedia says in the article of the same name: "It must be remembered that in canon law a person belongs to a bishop in any one or more of the four following ways: by birth, by benefice, by domicile, or by service. In accordance with this the Church has always maintained the principle that excardination cannot be forced upon a person unwilling to accept it, nor at the same time can it be withheld unless there exist a just reason" (emphasis added). Of course, the encyclopedia has no inherent doctrinal authority, but if it is incorrect in this instance, I trust that someone will step forward to explain how.

As it is a fact that long before Vatican II, priests were regularly excardinated from one diocese and incardinated in another (or were otherwise redirected or laicized), the Society's perpetual engagement would need to be something extraordinarily and unprecedentedly binding to represent the sort of dangerously unbreakable tether that some hereabouts have assumed it is. Once more, I do not discount the possibility that it is, but until docuмentary support for one view or another is forthcoming, no bridge from the possible to the probable, let alone the certain, can be said to have been established.

Online Pax Vobis

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Re: SSPX Morphing: Perpetual Engagements as Seminarians?
« Reply #14 on: May 08, 2019, 02:43:43 PM »
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the Society's perpetual engagement would need to be something extraordinarily and unprecedentedly binding to represent the sort of dangerously unbreakable tether that some hereabouts have assumed it is.
The issue is not the "unbreakableness" of the tether, but the idea that a non-priest would have to have a tether at all, even if it could be broken in some cases.  The issue is that the neo-sspx is further grasping control over its seminarians with no apparent need.  ...Unless the neo-sspx is close to a deal and they are worried that many seminarians would jump ship?  Would not a tether keep them tied to the newly-indult, modernist-drowning ship?