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I would be interested in Fr Z analysis of the SSPX video from Pints with Aquinas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd0OhVy1JtM
B: I don’t have time – how does anyone? – to watch that stuff, stuff which I have already heard hashed over ad nauseum by people who should find something better to do. I worked for the PCED back in the day. I know the issues and what has been said. There’s nothing new or interesting coming out from what I can tell. Except… in the past few years priests of the SSPX have received faculties from the Holy See. The SSPX’s situation is evolving. It seems to me that people who aren’t really invested in what happens with them should attend to their own business and wait to see what comes to pass in the future. That’s the charitable approach.
Excellent and true, clearly spoken, but . . . where is this all heading? I’m already reading in the blogosphere calls for this Bishop’s head on a platter for daring to call PF’s reign a rupture – which it surely is; even his most ardent supporters can’t deny that PF is waging war on tradition.
Is this the first glimmer of our deliverance from this chastisement, like the first rays of a glorious dawn?
I LOVE this Bishop!!!! The “Living Magesterium” put us all on life support in a Coma. Vatican II produced too many mini Theologians both Traditional and Novus Ordo. Way to many discussions without sound Theolgians to correct error. Everything we needed was right there in Church teaching. As the good Bishop said, we were met with sarcasm and smugness.
I think one of the greatest tragedies is the Novus Ordo Preisthood. Priest openly expounding heresies. Examples I have heard myself…God may be a woman, Nothing wrong with abortion, Not required to fast, Reincarnation could be possible. The Holy family were illegal aliens, Mary may have had other children.
God, Please please give us a good traditional Holy Father.
After 30 plus years of on and off research and debate with myself regarding the status of the SSPX, (are they schismatic, heretics, sedevacantists?), I finally decided in Dec 2020, by the grace of God, to attend an SSPX chapel. And what did I find? None other than Catholicism as I remembered it from when I was a child (First Communion 1964), and as I knew it should be as an adult.
Thank you Father Z for posting these videos.
The SSPX has been a punching bag ever since it existed.
Yet, they seem to be doing just fine.
Yes, thank you for posting them.
I would have some minor quibbles with some of his theological positions, but far too minor to mention specifically.
He is dead right about one thing though — The Vetus Ordo is indeed not “Tridentine” as such ; for it is the Rite as it was practiced at Rome for Centuries previous, albeit that it is the version of it that was given by the Monastics rather than in the Diocesan Parishes.
That is what Bishop Huonder refers to as a “Purified” Rite ; in that the Roman Rite as it was practiced during the decades leading up to Trent in Parishes throughout Western and Northern Europe had become alterated by innumerable local innovations, sometimes under an influence of Protestantism.
Whereas the Monastic version of the Roman Rite, whilst it did have a more contemplative feel to it from the Vocations of those who gave it, had retained far greater coherence with the traditional Roman Rite than the Dioceses and Parishes had.
There were two versions of the Rite in “competition” at Trent and during its immediate aftermath — the other being the Rite as it was given in the Diocesan Parishes of Rome herself. That the Monastic version of the Roman Rite was adopted was one of the few genuine victories of the Monastic faction at Trent. (I believe that it was the Rite as given in the Roman Monasteries rather than the Cluniac version — but could be wrong about this.)
Their proposals for a Church defined according to Monastic Disciplines (in opposition to the excesses and innovations of Protestantism), including for the Laity and in the Diocesan Parishes, were defeated.
I was dismayed and did not attend the “talk” that Fr. Bisig of the FSSP gave recently in my diocese. It was arranged by the diocese and, while Fr. Bisig requested no one record the talk I did speak with someone who attended and faithfully, I believe, relayed his overall message. It was pretty much just an anti-SSPX talk. The local SSPX chapel here has grown a lot, first thanks to COVID and than now thanks to TC. Folks are now seeking the SSPX out for marriages and baptisms because they are forbidden in the traditional rite by our bishop. He also has apparently stopped giving permission to the SSPX priests to offer the sacrament of matrimony which he previously did prior to TC. The talk included what comes across to me as uncharitable accusations against Archbishop Lefebvre, too.
I guess that little chapel was getting too big for comfort, and the diocese just wants to make sure everyone here remembers to hate the SSPX. Sadly I know many “traditionalists” who are all too happy to comply. I’m disappointed that Fr. Bisig is seemingly happily acting as the hit man in this case. I wish there was some understanding that now is the time to circle wagons and work together and not continue to sabotage each other.
Perhaps I’m misreading the talk – again, I didn’t attend. But certainly the local Diocesan TLM group here has been invigorated by the talk to ramp up the “SSPX are the worst” chatter ever since.
It makes me sad.
And I should say I’ve never been to an SSPX chapel and have no ties with the SSPX. I just can’t believe that, even in the face of TC and the Rescript and parishes being closed and sacraments being forbidden we traditionalists (at least on the “established” Church side of things) still want to throw other traditionalists under the bus instead of working together to raise holy families and strong communities despite the Vatican’s best efforts.
Fr. Z – thanks for your comment. I think John Salza had an interesting comment about that there were issues with Archbishop Lefebvre years before the consecrations took place. I can see both sides of the arguments about the SSPX and to me it is still hard to find which side I stand on. I wish the Archbishop had not done the consecrations and taken what Cardinal Ratzinger had offered but that cannot be undone in history. I sincerely hope all these things are resolved within the Church (not just the SSPX but also the Extraordinary Form and the persecution thereof) in the near future so that all such things are rightly ordered within the life of the Church again.
B – For what it’s worth I’ve moved from the “I wish Archbishop Lefebvre hadn’t done the consecrations” camp to the “He was more than justified” camp over the past several years. Really, when you consider how hostile the Vatican was to Lefebvre and the SSPX, how many games they were playing, and how easily they would have taken advantage of the just one bishop which he was promised (or flat out gotten rid of in short order – Opus Dei, anyone?), and also considering that the FSSP consists of the priests who agreed to honor the agreement BUT WERE STILL NEVER GIVEN A BISHOP as was stated in the agreement . . . I completely understand now why four bishops was a minimum requirement for Lefebvre. The Vatican, in its current state, cannot be trusted, and Lefebvre planned for the future with that reality in mind.
It’s also easy to forget the context of what was going on at the time. We’re cynical and jaded now because there seems to be no tomfoolery that hasn’t been done to besmirch the honor of the Church and the papacy, but at the time Assisi was just happening, statues of buddha were put on tabernacles, animist prayers were encouraged, and all by order or consent of the Vatican, not some renegade cabal. It’s important to remember the chaos that was still quite fresh at that time.