Posted on 05/07/2007 6:47:14 AM PDT by alkaloid2
I have a vanity question for anyone who is schooled in Roman Catholic theology and well-versed in USCCB decisions.
My brother is getting married in a Society of St. Pius X church next month. He and his wife are practicing Roman Catholics, but the bride's family is Society of St. Pius X. They got a dispensation of form (for venue change), but since SSPX is not really in harmony with Rome, are any of us Catholics allowed to receive communion in the SSPX church during the mass?
Since I as a Catholic know that this communion is either illicit or invalid, it becomes such for me unless I am told otherwise by someone who knows these types of things. Any info anyone has would be appreciated!
Yes, you can.
This may be better placed in the Religion Forum.
Latin Mass? Wish I had one near where I love. I miss that beautiful tradition. I read somewhere recently that the Vatican is going to allow the return to the Latin Mass for those who prefer it.
The Vatican already allows Latin (Tridentine) Masses in the US with approval of the local Bishop. I occasionally attend such a Mass in the Fr. Serra Chapel in Mission San Juan Capistrano (Calif.). They have one Mass in Latin every Sunday. (Source: http://uvoc.org/Mass_Schedule.html)
Father Hardon said you could, if you didn’t have another choice.
Yes, you can. In addition to what was linked above at EWTN, letters from the Vatican which have been posted on FR acknowledge you can. Not only that, you may make a reasonable financial contribution, this same letter from the Vatican says. Such attendance and contributions are acceptable provided your intent is to assist at mass and not to flout the Holy Father and the rest of the Church.
1. Nobody elected Castrillon de Hoyos or Monsignor Perle as pope. Neither has or has had the authority to overrule the explicit ruling of Pope John Paul II in Ecclesia Dei in 1988 ruling that SSPX AND its "adherents" are schismatic and that its leaders are excommunicated.
2. No one claims that the Masses said by SSPX priests are invalid. Confessions heard by excommunicated priests are valid if an emergency presents itself. Baptisms by non-Catholics purporting to be Catholic baptisms ARE baptisms so long as conditions are met. This business of setting up the strawman of SSPX Masses being supposedly invalid so as to strike down that contention is an SSPX inspired red herring.
3. It is precisely BECAUSE the ecclesiastial criminal Archbishop Lefebvre had Apostolic Succession, could validly though illicitly ordain priests who then could say actual Masses, that SSPX and its leaders had to be removed from the Church.
4. What is usually posted here are PARTS (the parts that the schismatics agree with) of Monsignor Perle's letter saying that Catholics may attend SSPX Masses to fulfill obligations and contribute only to the actual expense of such Masses and not to the general purposes of the schismatics of SSPX. A reading of the entire text of those letters will leave the reader with an entirely different view of these matters than SSPX would wish.
5. There are Catholics who have been convinced that the regular use of "natural Family Planning" within marriage without more is morally acceptable. That is the result of people saying that and no more and making no reference to the necessity that it is permissible only in grave circumstances (which do not include pre-emptive banking of adequate college tuitions, a new car every year or a castle in Spain).
6. In a similar vein, there are all too many who are all too eager to reconcile the poisonously defiant and disobedient SSPX as though they were Catholics in good standing. Some of them promise almost every day amnesty for SSPX in the long rumored document on the Mass which may well turn out to be simply a papal indult for each and every priest to say the Tridentine Mass without further permission and without a nod to .
7. If (a BIG IF) SSPX is ever allowed to return to the Church, it will be because Benedict XVI or some other pope so rules and NOT because the antipapal revolutionary excommunicated schismatics had their tastes offended and decided to set themselves up as antipopes.
8. If bornacatholic is not available, I would ask anyone else (more computer savvy than I which does not take much) of integrity to post links to Ecclesia Dei and to the FULL TEXT (not the truncated SSPX version from the Angelus) of the Australian letter to Monsignor Perle and Monsignor Perle's response so that readers may judge for themselves without the intervention of the editorials of partisans here.
9. I say the foregoing as one who has in the last year attended Tridentine Masses almost exclusively, thanks to my diocesan bishop who makes ample opportunity for actual Catholics to attend them and because of a superb Catholic pastor (in communion with our bishop and with the Holy See) who says each Mass.
APOSTOLIC LETTER "ECCLESIA DEI" - OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF JOHN PAUL II GIVEN MOTU PROPRIO
The EWTN answer posted by NYer states that Rome doesn’t consider the priests and faithful of SSPX chapels to be heretics or schismatics. That is a faithful distillation of what has been in the news from many reliable sources. Ecclesia Dei has its vague points. What is a “formal adherent”? Certainly not alkaloid. The only obvious formal adherents are the 4 bishops themselves though there are likely others.
If we can attend Orthodox services and meet the Sunday obligation per the Catechism, likewise then for SSPX. The question posted is a no-brainer, really.
The SSPX at least IMHO is not without its tactical/strategic excesses that would benefit from pruning but at a purely pastoral level they seem to function very appropriately, per the last paragraph of the EWTN link.
You wrote:
“The EWTN answer posted by NYer states that Rome doesn’t consider the priests and faithful of SSPX chapels to be heretics or schismatics.”
That may be true, but isn’t necessarily the most relevant point. Why?
1) Are the SSPX Masses licit? No. No SSPX priest, anywhere in the world that I know of, is actually functioning with the proper episcopal/diocesan approved faculties. None.
2) If there is a licit Mass in a given area, a Catholic is expected to go there. An illicit Mass should only be attended in time of great, great need - i.e. when someone is dying and can’t get to a licit Mass.
“If we can attend Orthodox services and meet the Sunday obligation per the Catechism, likewise then for SSPX. The question posted is a no-brainer, really.”
Is that what the Catechism says? No, it does not. Read it and you’ll find yourself directed to Canon 844 where we discover you can receive the sacraments from the Orthodox ONLY WHEN it is “physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister”.
If you’re on an island, and in danger of death, by all means visit the Orthodox or SSPX priest. Otherwise the valid reasons for doing so are few and far between.
I’m sure the numb can attend any Catholic Mass anywhere at any time and be quite comfortable, however, not everyone has the luxury of a diocesan-sanctioned Tridentine Mass available to them.
It would seem to me, having traveled a few times now and attended the local Mass in a diocese like Tampa, for instance, that for some people it is less sinful to attend an SSPX chapel than to attend the NO. In fact their soul may be in less jeopardy going to the SSPX.
Of course, legalisms aside, if they are saintly enough the meekness and humility required to attend an offensive liturgy that is theologically fouled may actually yield huge amounts of actual grace.
YMMV.
Unless there is some PAPAL ruling by John Paul II or by Benedict XVI of which I am unaware, the excommunications and the declaration of schism would seem to stand.
Instinctively, I want to agree with you as to the satisfaction of Mass obligations by attending Eastern Orthodox Mass (or SSPX Mass for that matter) BUT, importantly, are we allowed by the Eastern Orthodox to receive the Eucharist at their Masses which signifies a unity with the east that has not been reality in approximately a millenium? As Catholics, we do not invite Lutherans to receive the Holy Eucharist of our Church just as Lutherans (at least the serious ones of Wisconsin or Missouri synods) do not invite us to participate in what they regard as communion. Nonetheless, like the Orthodox, the SSPX have valid Masses which are simply not licit Masses. I am not aware of any Catholic authority which or who has ever denied the validity of SSPX Masses. It has been SSPX alone which has suggested otherwise for the purpose of recruiting the gullible turned off by: "I'm Father Feelgood and I (!!!) will be your presider today."
LeFebvre enjoyed Apostolic Succession. In direct defiance of John Paul II and legitimate Church authority, LeFebvre consecrated four other excommunicatos as bishops (valid but illicit consecrations). The very aged Brazilian bishop, Castro de Mayer of Campos, through his love of Tridentine liturgical tradition was apparently sucked in by LeFebvre and SSPX and volunteered in writing for excommunication which was separately levied upon him by John Paul II. That was a tragic end to a distinguished bishop and his ministry.
In turn, Lefebvre and his fellow excommunicatos then ordained (validly but illicitly) rebel priests who by accepting such ordinations would seem to have adhered to the SSPX schismatics who ordained them in their spirit of rebellion. Some of those priests returned to Catholicism through the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. Some by the new institute erected by Benedict XVI in France during the last year. Some otherwise. The rest would certainly seem to be excommunicated but they are still "priests forever" with all of the sacramental powers attendant to priestly status. Just like Fr. Martin Luther who was still a priest despite his rebellion against the papacy and his apostasy on various doctrinal matters.
EWTN does not possess the ecclesiastical authority through its reporting to overturn papal judgments. Neither does the news media. Neither do the various ostensibly (and even sometimes actually) Catholic enthusiasts for SSPXism who are ceaselessly and breathlessly gushing that this or that "inside rumor" says that the pope will be surrendering to the schism any day now in the long-rumored motu proprio. The Ecclesia Dei Commission itself has no authority whatsoever from any pontiff to lift the punishments and rulings of Ecclesia Dei. Nor does Dario Cardinal Castrillon de Hoyos nor does Monsignor Perle (although he never purported to do so).
It does not seem that the sections of the Catechism (1389 and 2180 through 2183) dealing with the obligation to attend Mass and receive the Eucharist on Sundays and holy days of obligation would justify attending SSPX or Eastern Orthodox venues for Mass. Do you have a Catechism citation that does so?
There is nothing vague in paragraphs 3 and 5c of Ecclesia Dei.
Ubi Petrus, Ibi Ecclesia. Roma Locuta, Causa Finita.
Thanks. May God bless you and yours.
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