The canonical situation of the Society of St. Pius X has been the subject of much controversy since the 1988 Ecône consecrations.
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On 5 May 1988, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) signed an agreement intended to open the way for the consecration of a bishop to be a successor to Lefebvre.[1] In the first, doctrinal, part of the document, Lefebvre, in his own name and on behalf of the SSPX:
The second (legal) part of the document envisaged, apart from the canonical reconciliation of the persons concerned, that:
This document was to be submitted to the Pope for his approval. However, Lefebvre quickly developed misgivings. The very next day, he declared he was obliged in conscience to proceed, with or without papal approval, to consecrate a bishop to succeed him.[2]
A further meeting took place in Rome on 24 May. It is said that Lefebvre was promised that the Pope would appoint a bishop from among the members of the SSPX, chosen according to the normal procedures, and that episcopal ordination would take place on 15 August. In return, Lefebvre would have to request reconciliation with the Church on the basis of the protocol of 5 May. Lefebvre, for his part, presented three written requests:
Following the 1988 episcopal consecrations, the Holy See declared that the six bishops who had been involved in the consecration ceremony had incurred automatic excommunication under the Code of Canon Law, and that their action constituted a schismatic act.[3] With regard to others, it said that "formal adherence to the schism is a grave offence against God and carries the penalty of excommunication".[4]
At the same time, the Pope set up the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia dei to help SSPX members and adherents who wished "to remain united to the Successor of Peter in the Catholic Church while preserving their spiritual and liturgical traditions" to enter "full ecclesial communion".[5] This Commission has issued many formal written clarifications about the canonical situation of people involved with the Society of St. Pius X.
On 24 August 1996, the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts responded to an enquiry from the Bishop of Sion (Switzerland), which had been referred to the Council by the Congregation for Bishops, by expressing its judgment[6] that "in the case of the Lefebvrian deacons and priests there seems no doubt that their ministerial activity in the ambit of the schismatic movement is a more than evident sign of the fact that the two requirements" (internal and external) for formal adherence to the schism "have been met".[7] It added: "On the other hand, in the case of the rest of the faithful it is obvious that an occasional participation in liturgical acts or the activity of the Lefebvrian movement, done without making one's own the attitude of doctrinal and disciplinary disunion of such a movement, does not suffice for one to be able to speak of formal adherence to the movement."[8] It stated that its judgment was about the existence of the sin of schism, since for the existence of the canonical crime of schism, which entails excommunication, the conditions listed in canons 1323-1324 of the Code of Canon Law must also be met.[9] While its reply concerned only one diocese, the Pontifical Council said that, if there were serious general pastoral confusion about the situation of the members of the Society of St. Pius X, the Holy See could consider issuing a general decree on the matter. The Holy See has not yet done so.
In 1999, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei stated that it was likely, but not certain, that the SSPX priests were adhering to the schism, which would mean that they were excommunicated, but that people who, "because of their attraction to the traditional Latin Mass and not because they refuse submission to the Roman Pontiff or reject communion with the members of the Church subject to him", attended Mass celebrated by those priests, were not excommunicated, although, the longer they frequented SSPX chapels, the greater the likelihood of imbibing a schismatic mentality that would seem to involve adherence to the schism and so excommunication.[10] It judged that documentation sent to it in 1998 clearly indicated the extent to which "many in authority in the Society of St. Pius X" were in conformity with the formal definition of schism.[11]
In 1995, it declared it "morally illicit for the faithful to participate in these (the SSPX) Masses unless they are physically or morally impeded from participating in a Mass celebrated by a Catholic priest in good standing", and added that "the fact of not being able to assist at the celebration of the so-called 'Tridentine' Mass is not considered a sufficient motive for attending such Masses."[12] The Commission recognized the validity of the ordination of the SSPX priests, but added that they were prohibited from exercising their priestly functions because of not being properly incardinated in a diocese or religious institute in full communion with the Holy See. It also said that the Masses they celebrated were valid but illicit, but the lack of proper faculties on the part of the SSPX priests meant that celebrations of Penance and Matrimony under their auspices were invalid. The Pontifical Commission reaffirmed various of these statements in 2003.[13]
Apart from these formal statements, the Commission's President, Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, who has long favored better relations between the society and the Holy See, commented in press and television interviews about the situation of the members of the Society. In one such interview, he said that the 1988 consecrations gave rise to a situation of separation, even if not a formal schism.[14] While the members of the Society were not, in the full strict sense, in schism, they lacked full communion, and the consecrations indicated a schismatic attitude.[15] While, in consecrating the bishops, Lefebvre committed a schismatic act, the members and adherents of the Society could not be called schismatics, but they were in great danger of falling into schism; the Society's bishops were suspended and excommunicated, but other members and adherents were not excommunicated.[16]
In his letter of 10 March 2009 concerning his remission of the excommunication of the four bishops of the Society of St Pius X, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed: "Until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers - even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty - do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church."[17]
On 1 May 1991 Bishop Joseph Ferrario of Honolulu declared six followers of the Society excommunicated on grounds of schism for having procured the services of SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson to administer confirmation. They appealed to Rome and the Holy See declared the decree invalid because their action, though blameworthy, did not constitute schism.[18]
On 19 March 1996, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz imposed excommunication on Catholics in the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska who after 15 May 1996 remained or became members of any of 12 associations, including the Society of St. Pius X, as well as the Freemasons and Planned Parenthood.[19] One of the associations, Call to Action, appealed the bishop's decree, but the Holy See rejected the appeal.[20]
The SSPX considers itself faithful to the Catholic Church and to the Popes, up to and including Benedict XVI. The SSPX bishops do not claim "ordinary" jurisdiction over the Society's adherents, which would make the latter subject to them, not to the local diocesan bishops,[21] and would amount to an obvious challenge to the Holy See's authority act of schism. Instead they claim to possess an "extraordinary" jurisdiction. This is of specific importance in Catholic canon law in relation to the sacraments of confession and marriage.
To absolve sins validly, a priest must be given the faculty to do so,[22] a faculty that, normally, only the local bishop can give.[23] Similarly, in normal circumstances a marriage can be contracted validly only in the presence of the local bishop or the parish priest or of a priest or deacon delegated by one of these.[24] To overcome this difficulty, the Society claims[25] that absolution and marriage under its auspices are valid, on the grounds of its interpretation of canon 144 §1 of the Code of Canon Law, which states: "In common error, whether of fact or of law, and in positive and probable doubt, whether of law or of fact, the Church supplies executive power of governance for both the external and the internal forum", and canon 844 §2, which declares that, "whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, Christ's faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister, may lawfully receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid." The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei has stated that, in accordance with canon 144 someone who confesses to an SSPX priest while genuinely not knowing that the priest does not have the required faculty will be validly absolved, but that, with this exception, the sacraments of Penance and Matrimony in which SSPX priests are involved are invalid.[26][27]
The Society also claims to have authority to dispense from marriage impediments and to grant marriage annulments. This has led some priests to leave the Society on the grounds that such actions usurp the ordinary jurisdiction of the diocesan bishops and are therefore schismatic acts.[28][29]
By the power expressly conferred on him by Pope Benedict XVI, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops issued a decree on 21 January 2009 remitting, at their request, the excommunication of Bishops Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta.[30] L'Osservatore Romano of 25 January 2009, spoke of "the excommunication that they (the four bishops) had incurred twenty years ago",[31] said that they "had incurred latae sententiae excommunication"[32] and declared that, by means of the decree, the Pope "remits the excommunication that lay upon the Prelates in question".[33] In view of inferences drawn from that action, Pope Benedict declared that, for doctrinal reasons, the Society had no canonical status in the Church and that the ministries exercised by its ministers were not legitimate in the Church.[17]
By the January 2009 decree, the 1 July 1988 decree declaring the excommunication became "devoid of juridical effect". The other limitations, such as the suspension a divinis of the SSPX clergy, including three of the four bishops, remained in force.[34] Bernard Tissier de Mallerais was never suspended a divinis, because he was ordained priest on June 29, 1975. The punishment of the Holy See hits priests ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre since July, 1976 and an automatic a divinis can never be retroactive.