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It's late in the day and I've been at it a long time, so I'll be brief. SSPX is simply what the Church has always been. If it's wrong now, then the Church was always wrong.

The Church always followed the Pope, the SSPX does not. Therefore, the SSPX is not simply what the Church has always been. Uniquely, the SSPX has retained the bells and whistles of the Church, without retaining its symbol of unity.

If it's not wrong, why are these good men being persecuted?

How are they persecuted? Has one been boiled in oil recently?

You would say it's because they follow a man who disobeyed the Pope. But that would not be schism by definition, though it is popularly believed. To be a schismatic implies a denial of papal authority.

This is false. I gave you the Canon law definition of schism on our last discussion, but here you are yet again giving the same false definition of schism you gave last time.

Again, from Canon law, we see the real definition:

To: ultima ratio

Schism is defined as a morally evil act requiring an intention to deny the primacy of the papacy itself.
No, it isn’t. Denying the primacy of the papacy is heresy, per Vatican I’s definition.
Canon law defines schism as “the withdrawal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or from communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” When the Pope excommunicates you, you are not in communion. Furthermore, most the SSPX will not act in communion with the members of the Church subject to the Pope. They won’t obey bishops, they won’t attend the Novus Ordo, etc. They won’t even attend an indult. They are not in communion.
But Lefebvre never denied the Pope's role as Supreme Pontiff.
That only means he is not a heretic.
Most Vatican theologians dismiss the schism charge.
Reading minds again? Please prove this.
In fact, it would be ridiculous on the face of it to think that people who are so thoroughly in line with Catholicism on every front were schismatic. Disobedient, yes. But that is another matter.
Yes, after all when the Pope issues a decree of excommunication, and calls it a schism, it is ridiculous to think he is right, and that he has the authority to do these things. How dare he excommunicate our hero!
You deny a papal judgment, in contravention of Vatican I’s strictest statements, and you say I’m being ridiculous on the face of it? You have chutzpah, but your theology is wrong. I’ll stick with the Pope on this, not you.

True, they dropped when the word first got out that the old Mass would be superceded. They dropped from around 80% to 74%. Then when the Novus Ordo hit the parishes, the bottom fell out. It's been downhill ever since. It's now around 17%.
LOL, nice save attempt. The Mass attendance rates began dropping before the Novus Ordo. You can’t deny it. Nor can you prove it’s the Novus Ordo’s fault, and not some other aspect of society, or of our Church, such as bad priests and bishops, factors you by your very bent believe are out there.
patent +AMDG

319 posted on 7/26/02 12:58 PM Central by patent
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In any case the excommunication of Lefebvre and his bishops followed. But even here, the situation is obscure. Because excommunication can be falsely incurred. Canon Law (1321, 1323) provides for something called a State of Necessity. If an individual thought there was an emergency situation and disobeyed as a result, then the excommunication is invalid. It doesn't matter whether the individual is right or wrong objectively about this. So long as he believes he acted from a state of necessity, the excommunication is not incurred.
There are those who say the Pope trumps Canon Law. He decides who is a schismatic. No he doesn't.

This is just plain dishonest of you. In our last discussion you agreed the Pope did trump Canon law. Now you deny it again. Is it any wonder we don’t trust your quotes, when you can’t provide any sources for them, and you can’t stick to the same story on things like this? From the previous discussion, you started by bringing up the exact same Canons and the state of necessity:

To: patent

You miss the point of the State of Necessity. It is not what the Pope thinks. Canon laws 1321 and 1323 explcitly state that if the individual, right or wrong, believes in all honesty there is a state of necessity, no excommunication applies.
Lefebvre believed the traditional Church was deliberately being destroyed. He saw this as an unparalleled crisis in the life of the Church. By the way, he died in all serenity--even joking with the nurse that since he could take no nourishment, he shouldn't be paying the same rate as someone who had a good appetite. The man was serene in what he did. He has been demonized by his opposition in the Church (we conservatives know how that works) but he was really a great man. He worked in the African missions all his life among the poorest of the poor.

370 posted on 7/26/02 2:14 PM Central by ultima ratio
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I responded, indicating that Canon law can’t trump the Pope, and asking you to explain how it could:

To: ultima ratio

You miss the point of the State of Necessity. It is not what the Pope thinks. Canon laws 1321 and 1323 explcitly state that if the individual, right or wrong, believes in all honesty there is a state of necessity, no excommunication applies.
The Pope issued the excommunication under his own authority. Please explain how Canon law trumps the Pope’s authority.
You can’t, because it doesn’t. As silly as the necessity argument is, it isn’t even relevant.
patent +AMDG

377 posted on 7/26/02 2:24 PM Central by patent
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You responded to that by stating “I happen to agree with you:”

To: patent

I happen to agree with you. I merely bring up the canons to illustrate the unfairness of Rome's treatment of Lefebvre. The fix was in. The same thing happened in China recently and Rome shrugged and said it was disappointed. Rome tolerated all kinds of heretical nonsense from corrupt bishops and seminaries for three and a half decades, but at the slightest whisper of criticism from the indult priests of the FSSP and the Vatican fired their general and replaced two orthodox priest-professors in their seminary. The order had been growing by leaps and bounds with more vocations than they could handle. Rome sought to break its spirit--and did. Meanwhile the other seminaries teach gay rights and deny the Real Presence and the divinity of Christ . You tell me what's going on. It sure ain't the Catholic faith.

397 posted on 7/26/02 2:45 PM Central by ultima ratio
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(emphasis added) You stated that you agreed that Canon Law cannot trump the Pope. Now, you once again bring up the same Canons and the same state of necessity, and then explicitly claim “If an individual thought there was an emergency situation and disobeyed as a result, then the excommunication is invalid.” This is an explicit claim that the Canon law trumps the Pope. You go on, this time, to state: “There are those who say the Pope trumps Canon Law. He decides who is a schismatic. No he doesn't.”

Do you really think people here are that foolish, that we can’t see through these games you play? This is dishonest. You get challenged on the point in a previous discussion, and you can’t prove it, so you admit the argument is false.

But a couple days later, you are back again advancing the very same argument you just admitted was false.

What is interesting is the Vatican response to all this, especially in recent years. Cardinal Ratzinger not too long ago overturned the decision by the Ordinary of Honolulu who excommunicates some Catholics for attended an SSPX Mass. His argument was that they were not schismatic as the bishop had supposed.

This argument was also rebutted in the last discussion, and is false.

And so it is. St. Athanasius suffered a similar persecution when most of the bishops in his day were Arian while he almost alone defended the faith, even opposing the pope. But he became a saint and the pope who excommunicated him was the first in ancient times not to be canonized.

Please prove he was excommunicated. He wasn’t.

patent +AMDG

The argument from the State of Necessity is not "silly" as you state. It goes to the heart of the matter. It is difficult to argue with you since you bring up fifty matters at once and expect an answer to each point. However, I'll try.

1. You write, "the Church has always followed the pope." I could ask you to cite your sources for this remark, but I won't. Suffice it to say that Vatican I cited 40 popes they deemed heretical. Matters were murkier throughout history than you might think. There have been riots against popes, people breaking down the doors of councils, three "popes" at once each demanding recognition, saints who refused to follow the dictates of one pope or another, etc. Check all this out yourself. It's all there in the history books. It is not all as clear as you would like to think.

2. You write, "Uniquely, the SSPX has retained the bells and whistles of the Church, without retaining its symbol of unity." First, they retained above all the ancient Mass, not bells and whistles. And second, they never rejected the Church's symbol of unity.
(See below.)

3. Withdrawing submission from the pope IS the refusal to recognize his authority. It is NOT mere disobedience in an isolated act, it is a habit of mind. In fact there are canons making this distinction which you can look up. If disobedience alone were schism, many cardinals and bishops would be in open schism around the globe. That has not yet happened. Since they recognize his authority, they are not schismatic.

4. The Pope was obviously wrong when he stated Lefebvre was in schism. The great Church doctors have affirmed the right of anyone to refuse a superior's order--even if it were an order from the pope himself--if the individual believed that such an order would harm the Church. The Pope, in this instance, was not infallible. I would go further and say that time has proven the Archbishop right and the Pope wrong. Just read the newspapers. Nor did Lefebvre lose sleep over his decision. Christ and the Faith come before obedience to any pope.

5. The statistics on Mass attendance dropping after the institution of the Novus Ordo is factual. Gallup did the study.(www.traditio.com/tradlib/polls.txt.) However, I will concede there is no clear cause-and-effect here. There were multiple factors. Humanae Vitae was a big one. Paul VI was a clumsy pontiff.

6. Nothing you have said disproves the main thrust of my argument, which is that SSPX is not schismatic. It is indeed persecuted--by fellow Catholics who routinely accept its demonization by Novus Ordo bishops. One example of how these bishops operate was given above. Traditional Catholics were refused permission to pray at a well- known shrine in Colorado. Yet the Vatican itself threw open the doors of the holiest basilicas when these Catholics made a pilgrimage to Rome a year ago. Clearly the Colorado bishop did not follow the example of his Pope. Had the traditionalists been Lutherans or Jews, he would have gone out of his way to pander to their wishes.