Episcopal action on the SSPX: A basic strategy for unity

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Nov 04, 2014

In the past few days, two bishops have been reported as announcing the excommunication of Catholics who attend Masses offered by priests of the Society of St. Pius X. First we heard from Bishop Marcello Semeraro of Albano, Italy, who reaffirmed the policy of his predecessor. Today there are reports that the same discipline has been imposed by Bishop Óscar Domingo Sarlinga of Zárate-Compana, Argentina.

These are not the only bishops who have ever moved canonically against the SSPX, but their actions seem significant for two reasons. First, they come close on the heels of the reopening of negotiations between Rome and the SSPX in what most believe is a final effort to achieve a reconciliation. Second, Bishop Semeraro is the Secretary to the Council of Cardinals which Pope Francis is using to advise him on the reform of the Curia, and Bishop Sarlinga is an Argentinian, and so these two bishops are more easily linked in the public mind to the Pope.

Either way, it is important to understand why some bishops are adopting this policy. It has nothing to do with the question of whether the SSPX bishops are excommunicated (which is no longer the case), or whether the SSPX is formally in schism (about which the popes have been noticeably coy while seeking to restore full communion). Nor are those who avail themselves of sacraments administered by SSPX priests either in schism or universally excommunicated by that fact. Arguing (as the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales has) that Bishops Semeraro and Sarlinga are on shaky ground because such universal judgments are not in force would seem to miss the point. Rather, at this time such excommunications are imposed diocese by diocese, according to the judgment of the local ordinary. This is because the SSPX constitutes a direct attack on ordinary episcopal jurisdiction in the Catholic Church.

It does not really matter what the SSPX sees itself as doing. The simple fact is that no bishop (let alone an illicitly ordained bishop) can send priests into another bishop’s diocese to administer the sacraments without those priests receiving faculties from the local ordinary. To do so is an assault on the proper authority of the local ordinary, who receives his jurisdiction from the successor of Peter. It is hardly surprising that Catholic bishops should be sensitive on this point. In fact, they are correct to be more sensitive to this issue than to almost any other. After all, for a Catholic to utilize the ministry of SSPX priests is, however muddled the intention, an escape from the jurisdiction of his real bishop and, by extension, of the Catholic Church itself.

Everything done by the SSPX is illicit, and at least some of the sacraments they administer are invalid. Because no SSPX bishop or priest has any canonical assignment within the Church, every one of them lacks jurisdictional faculties for those sacraments which require a judgment of the Church. This is true, for example, of both Penance and Matrimony. The absolution of an SSPX priest in the Sacrament of Penance is invalid in and of itself (though the Church may supply what is lacking in an otherwise innocent confession). Marriages witnessed by SSPX priests are also invalid. These are serious consequences, against which any bishop ought to at least warn the members of his flock, whether or not that warning carries the threat of excommunication.

Disciplinary Context

Although any fair-minded person ought to see why a direct challenge to a bishop’s jurisdiction is likely to occasion a response sharper even than that produced by questions of orthodoxy, it is also true that the history of the Church in the West over the past fifty years has given rise to an important question: Is there a tendency of bishops to punish lapses on the “conservative” or “traditional” side far more vigorously than such lapses on the “liberal” or “modernist” side? Beyond any shadow of doubt, the answer is Yes. Setting aside the immediate jurisdictional issue, why should this be so?

The answer is clearly found in the dominant culture, which selectively honors some sins while disdaining the virtues necessary to overcome them. Because our dominant culture thrives on a strange combination of relativism and political correctness, faithful adherence to contrary truths is discouraged, while challenges to Christian orthodoxy are admired. Since most bishops have been formed—almost inescapably—at least partly by the dominant culture, this makes it appreciably more difficult for them to punish fashionable deviations from Catholic teaching, or sometimes even to recognize their danger.

Now clearly the worst excesses of the sixties generation in the Church have faded. The episcopate and the diocesan priesthood have improved rapidly over the past twenty years or so. Liturgical abuses and heterodox catechetical programs are on the wane; schools under parish or diocesan control are becoming spiritually more reliable. But the process is not complete. For example, Catholic universities and many religious communities remain in serious disarray. Catholic politicians continue to advocate intrinsic moral evils with only rare episcopal intervention. Plus the influence of secular schools, secular media and secular government on Catholic formation requires resistance at every turn. So there is no question that every bishop still has much to do in correcting sins against the Church from the secularist or modernist side.

Even if there are more bishops active in this battle than there were a generation ago, there are still too many who are seriously culture-bound, though perhaps less so than the majority of their flock. What we might call the culture of Catholic renewal remains seriously deficient. Yet even a minimal tactical prudence demands that bishops who wish to guard their people against dangers on the “right” (as all of them should) ought also to be recognized as opponents of dangers on the “left”.

I am not knowledgeable enough to assess whether Bishops Semeraro and Sarlinga have been zealous in rooting out Modernism in their clergy and educational institutions, or in rescuing the faithful from—to take an important example—the faulty understanding of human sexuality and marriage which so dominates Western culture. But I do know that their insistence on proper episcopal authority in the Church will be more credible if that authority is exercised vigorously across the board. Culture blindness is very damaging to episcopal authority. A cowardly refusal to attack fashionable vices is even worse.

It is certainly necessary to correct the unfortunate tendencies which lead people to participate in the work of the Society of St. Pius X. But one of the best ways to restore and enhance Catholic unity is for a bishop to demonstrate palpably to those tempted that he also values their virtues and is unafraid to combat the vices they have correctly identified on the other side. Cowardly and culture-bound bishops never do this. Their failure is no excuse, but the result is always the same. Episcopal convenience is to disunity as dark clouds are to rain.

Note: I am happy to add that, as of April of 2017, Pope Francis is taking rapid steps to regularize the canonical status of the SSPX. During the Jubilee of Mercy last year, the Pope gave canonical faculties to all SSPX priests for hearing confessions, and on April 4, 2017 the Pope gave SSPX priests faculties to witness marriages in the name of the Church, and directed all bishops to make provision for the same. Finally, Pope Francis’ plan (not yet complete) is to reincorporate the SSPX into the normal life of the Church by establishing the Society as a personal prelature.