[ebb tide]

This brings me to the final issue, namely the potential impact on Traditional communities. As always under the present pontificate, confusion and ambiguity are the order of the day. In 2022, Pope Francis signed a decree confirming the continued existence of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP). Yesterday, the Institute of Christ the King (ICKSP) announced that they had been received in private audience with Pope Francis, who apparently “insisted that [the ICKSP] continue to serve the Church according to [their] own, proper charism, in the spirit of unity and communion …”

Yet on Sunday, the Superior of The Society of Missionaries of Divine Mercy, a French community of priests devoted to the Roman Rite, from the diocese of Fréjus-Toulon and in good standing with their bishop, announced that the ordinations of five seminarians have been blocked “due to the possibility for future priests to celebrate in the old rite.” All other ordinations, which the Vatican exceptionally suspended in 2022, just prior to ordering an apostolic visitation of Bishop Dominique Rey, have now resumed.

[ebb tide]

Ping

[scouter]

Galatians 1:8-9 tells us “8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema. 9 As we have said before, so say I now again, If any man preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye received, let him be anathema.”

To say that the pope is infallible, without qualifying the conditions under which he is infallible, is not true. There are circumstances under which he is infallible, but it is not an unqaulified infallibility. The council that defined papal infallibility clearly defined its limits. It is not schism, nor even a sin, to point out those limits. It is not a sin to contemplate and discuss whether or not a certain action of the pope falls within those limits. It is not a sin even to illustrate how a current pope might be exceeding those limits, and how in exceeding those limits he has himself broken with the faith. And it’s not a sin to disobey a pope in those matter where he has exceeded those limits. In fact, it may very well be a moral obligation to disobey him in those circumstances.

To illustrate these points, consider the following thought experiment. Let’s suppose there is a pope who composes a new creed, orthodox in every way, and to promote use of the new creed among the faithful, he issues a papal bull excommunicating anyone in the Latin Church (but not in the Eastern Catholic Churches) who dares to say the old Apostle’s Creed, even privately. I would hold that, because the papal bull applied only to members of the Latin Church, it is abundantly clear to anyone with an ounce of sense that that pope would be acting outside the limits of infallibility, and would be exceeding his authority. Thus, he can be disobeyed with a clear conscience, and any excommunication would be null and void, of no consequence.

Now let’s suppose that the new creed contained a relatively minor, but clearly heretical error. (Is there really such a thing as a relatively minor heresy? But let’s pretend for a moment.) How much more so would we be allowed, if not even obliged, to disobey him?

In the thought experiment, substitute the phrase “Traditional Latin Mass” for “Apostle’s Creed,” and the results are the same.