Mere Tradition with Kennedy Hall

Preamble
To begin, it must be put into the public record that this is NOT an attack against Tim Flanders as a person. Tim and I have been friends for a long while, and I owe a debt of gratitude to Tim for helping me get started as a writer and podcaster. He helped me to publish my first two books, and we have recorded a number of shows together. Tim and I have shared zillions of text messages and voice notes over the years, and we have supported each other, as friends do, through personal life traumas and obstacles. I have nothing but respect for Tim as a friend and as a man.
Nevertheless, Tim is a writer, and so am I. We agree on a lot of things, and we disagree on some things. His views are public, and my views are public — which makes our work fair game. So, given that the SSPX is, clearly, very important to me, and the fact that Tim has begun publishing and broadcasting opinions that I believe are incorrect about the SSPX, I have decided to address some of them here. Let it be known that I spoke to Tim and told him I was going to do this before publishing.
In any event, with the preamble out of the way, the majority of this essay will concern what Tim published in his article The SSPX and the Lay Nobility, and a couple of comments will be made about some of Tim’s opinions expressed in recent podcasts.
Also, because Tim and I are so familiar with one another, I have decided to refer to him as simply “Tim” throughout the piece, because calling him Mr. Flanders, or using some other formality, seemed cold to me as I was writing, given our personal relationship. So, I hope the reader understands that by referring to him by his first name, it is, in this case, a sign of respect and fraternal affection.
Where We Agree
Tim says the SSPX confesses dogmas that a great many bishops will not confess. He says the Society defended the right of every Catholic to the Ancient Rite when almost nobody else would. He says that all of us owe a debt to Archbishop Lefebvre for his defence of the Kingship of Christ. He says the Society’s guardianship of the Deposit of Faith and the liturgy is its strength, and that the whole Church should be grateful for it. He says the excommunications of 1988 were disproportionate and did harm.
I agree. I would strengthen the claim about the 1988 affair and add that the excommunications were unjust and invalid when considered in light of Canon Law as it should be understood with the canonical tradition. Also, I tend to agree with a lot of what he says about the topic of the Lay Nobility, as far as it goes, and he makes a number of interesting points about how Catholics used to act in the past. I believe Tim’s greatest strength is his command of Catholic history, and he demonstrates his deep knowledge of Catholic history in the article.
The piece is offered as thirty-seven theses. It accuses the Society of an error against the Church’s teaching on sacramental grace, of a position that “seems schismatic,” of spiritual abuse, and other things.
The charges are serious, so we will assess the charges seriously, and to do so we must put our feelings aside and be objective, even if the response seems severe.
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There is no thesis in the Theses
Tim presents the article as a Thesis, hence the numbering of the assertions.
A Thesis is a form of argumentation wherein the thing itself is offered for disputation. For that to be possible, it must make sense as a whole, and each assertion must be defensible on its own, while also building on the statement that came before. It is a perennial method, and figures like Thomas Aquinas give us the best examples.
Now, when examined, we find that Tim’s Thesis is not really a Thesis, but is instead a collection of assertions that argue different points, some of which build on the previous points, and some of which can be completely stricken from the piece and change nothing about the argument as a whole.
The comment in number twelve about Pico della Mirandola at Lateran V can be deleted, and it has no bearing on his comments on the SSPX. Number twenty-one can be deleted — where he speaks about dioceses reporting criminal priests — and changes nothing. Fifteen can be deleted — wherein he speaks of Rome becoming the seat of the Antichrist — and we have the same result.
The numbering of the assertions is helpful as far as it goes, but the order of most of the assertions is arbitrary, even if there is a loose chronological timeline followed. Perhaps Tim sees this all making sense in his own mind, and perhaps he should write a lengthy treatise on how the issue of the Lay Nobility applies to the SSPX controversy, but whatever that argument could be, it is not evident that the two topics have much, if anything, to do with one another.
Now, the numbering is consistent with the method of the scholastic form, but the presentation is not consistent with that method. At one point in the piece, Tim asserts that the SSPX demonstrates an imperfect imitation of true Scholasticism, but that is precisely what his piece does.
Also, the piece is essentially two essays stapled together. Theses eleven through twenty-two argue that the exclusion of the lay nobility from Church governance is the root of the modern crisis. This is not proven or even argued throughout, but merely asserted. I will have to disagree with him and go with Pope Saint Pius X, who, after receiving a magnificent corpus of work from his predecessors, distilled for us the true root of the Crisis, which is Modernism.
Again, perhaps there are causal links in Tim’s mind, but they are not demonstrated. As I said earlier, I believe Tim’s greatest strength is as a historian, but a historian does not a theologian or philosopher make.
Theses twenty-three through thirty-four argue that the SSPX errs about sacramental grace, among other accusations. Neither half needs the other.
The first half could be removed, and nothing would change in the second, and vice versa. No premise in the one does any work in the other.
The Humility Provisos Don’t Match the Content
Tim opens by quoting St. John Climacus: “the man whose desire in conversation is to establish his own opinion — even though what he says is true — is sick with the devil’s disease.”
This is a great quote, but it is not a teaching of the Church. What I mean is that, in the opinion of this particular saint, and in the context it is uttered, I am sure it is a very useful maxim to live by. Certainly, in our personal lives, it is a good thing to keep our mouths shut, even if we know the other person is wrong. Nevertheless, the Bible tells us, “But sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts, being ready always to satisfy every one that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you,” (1 Peter 3:15).
Of course, it would be absurd to argue that following Saint Peter’s instruction would make us sick with the Devil’s disease. Imagine a scenario wherein an atheist challenges you on your beliefs, and you respond to what he has said with the truth. You would not be sick with the Devil’s disease for establishing your opinion — the true opinion — in that conversation.
And Tim gives us this maxim immediately before trying to establish his opinion over dozens of short paragraphs. I do not believe Tim is sick with the Devil’s disease — I just believe he is using a useful quote for personal spiritual growth in the wrong context. If that quote were a maxim applicable in a general sense, then the entire paradigm of Catholic apologetics and preaching would have to cease, which would be absurd.
Tim begins with that disclaimer, and ends the piece with another disclaimer about how his opinion is worthless, and in between the two we find: an accusation of doctrinal error against a religious society, a charge of schism, a charge of spiritual abuse, a call for public recantation, a verdict that a beatified pope broke with Tradition, a verdict that a canonized pope broke with it twice, the claim that the papacy has been corrupted by Freemasonry since 1773, the claim that Rome became the seat of Antichrist in 1870, and two flat declarations about why God punished Christendom.
Again, I do not doubt Tim’s sincerity or question his motives; nevertheless, I do believe the humility disclaimers function as a sort of defence mechanism: if Tim is challenged, the response can be, “my opinions are worthless anyway,” and if Tim’s words are not challenged, then they stand as severe assertions and accusations on their own. If Tim truly believed his opinions were worthless, then he would not have spent so much time trying to argue them.
There is a related problem with his second assertion, which is consequential for the rest of the piece. The lay nobility, he says, may not adjudicate quaestiones disputatae; it may only recognize dogmas.
Very well. Nonetheless, Tim then proceeds to adjudicate a number of disputed questions.
At thesis twenty-six he writes: “It is beyond the competence of the lay nobility to dispute about a responsum from the Holy Office.” However, while there is truth to this statement, it does not apply to the context wherein we find the statement. The effect is that the reader is dismayed from disagreeing with Tim’s adjudication, but his use of the Holy Office responses — which are not cited or presented — is incorrect, as will be seen below.
In essence, the rule binds the reader but not the author. This is not acceptable practice for a Thesis.
Thesis twenty-six is structurally vital for his accusations about the SSPX. Theses thirty-three and thirty-four depend on it explicitly. Here is twenty-six:
“They [SSPX] erroneously assert that a doubtful faith in a priest creates a doubtful intention for the validity of the Sacrament. This opinion has been explicitly excluded in responsa by the holy Office before Vatican II.”
Nothing is cited or presented, only asserted. He says “responsa,” in the plural, so we should have a number of responses. The footnote goes to an article about the 1988 consecrations. On the single claim that the entire prescriptive half of his essay rests upon, the reader is asked to accept an unverifiable appeal to an unnamed document — by an author who has just informed him that he lacks the competence to dispute it.
He also cites no SSPX text. He attributes a position, and then he refutes the attribution.
There are a number of statements from Lefebvre and the SSPX which would caution Tim against making his assertion.
What the Archbishop actually said
In his sermon at the consecrations on 30 June 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre asked from whom his seminarians would receive the sacrament of Holy Orders — from conciliar bishops, who, because of their doubtful intentions, confer doubtful sacraments.
Now, Archbishop Lefebvre expressed his doubt in the validity of sacramental functions in the post-conciliar period, and he stated that a doubtful intention could lead to doubtful sacraments. Of course, this is manifestly true, as will be seen below. In any event, Lefebvre did not say that because the post-conciliar bishops lacked faith that their actions would be invalid. He spoke of intention, which is one of the three pillars of sacramental validity.
On this topic, the Archbishop said in 1986: “I cannot say, myself, that for all sacraments in the Conciliar Church, these three conditions [of validity] are never met. I don’t think we can say that.” And he said: “But I think with new priests, with priests who no longer have Catholic intentions, they don’t know what the proper intention is, the intention of the Church, so that perhaps the validity of their sacraments is at least doubtful.”
Perhaps. At least doubtful.
Lefebvre expressing qualified doubts about the validity of sacraments in the New Springtime is not the context of the unnamed responses from the Holy Office.
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Doubts About Fact and Laws
A dubium iuris is a doubt of law. It is a doctrinal thesis: that the rite as such, or its ministers as such, are defective. The Society does not argue this.
A dubium facti is a doubt of fact. It is a judgment that in particular cases what actually occurred cannot be verified. The Society does argue this.
These are different maxims; they belong to different categories, and they are governed by different principles.
The principle governing a doubt of fact in sacramental matters is the perennial rule of the moral theologians: in sacramentis tutior pars est eligenda. In the sacraments, the safer course is to be chosen.
This is reflected in the current code of Canon Law. Canon 869 §1 directs that those about whose baptism there is doubt are to be baptized conditionally if, after serious investigation, doubt about the fact or the validity remains.
That there could be defective sacraments — because of form, matter, or intention — is not an invention of the SSPX.
So a responsum settling the speculative question — that a minister’s personal unbelief does not of itself invalidate — tells us nothing whatever about what a bishop ought to do during an immense crisis wherein the whole sacramental order has been tampered with, often in an ad hoc manner.
Tim answers a question of fact with an answer about law and believes he has addressed it.
He refutes a position that the SSPX doesn’t hold. Namely, that a minister’s sin, unbelief, or heresy invalidates. That would be consistent with Donatism, and the SSPX is not Donatist, because it is not a heretical organization.
That a minister’s positively contrary intention invalidates is not Donatism at all.
Council of Trent, Session VII (3 March 1547), Decree on the Sacraments, canons on the sacraments in general, canon 11 states:
Si quis dixerit, in ministris, dum sacramenta conficiunt et conferunt, non requiri intentionem saltem faciendi quod facit Ecclesia: anathema sit.
If anyone says that in ministers, when they effect and confer the sacraments, there is not required at least the intention of doing what the Church does: let him be anathema.
Canon 12, immediately following it states:
Si quis dixerit, ministrum in peccato mortali exsistentem, modo omnia essentialia, quae ad sacramentum conficiendum aut conferendum pertinent, servaverit, non conficere aut conferre sacramentum: anathema sit.
If anyone says that a minister who is in mortal sin, though he observes all the essentials which pertain to effecting or conferring the sacrament, does not effect or confer the sacrament: let him be anathema.
Two details in the Latin of canon 12 are worth consideration.
Modo … servaverit: “Provided he has observed.” It is a conditional clause with the subjunctive. The canon protects the minister in mortal sin on the condition that the essentials were kept. Validity is not guaranteed without qualification; it is an exemption granted within a boundary, and the boundary is omnia essentialia.
Omnia essentialia, quae ad sacramentum conficiendum aut conferendum pertinent: Everything essential pertaining to effecting or conferring. This phrase covers matter, form, and the intention required by the canon immediately preceding. So canon 12 does not sit apart from canon 11, as the preceding canon is presupposed.
Trent gives us an example of the Scholastic method, as the canons are like theses that build off of the preceding one.
After Trent, we have more information from the Holy See that can help us to understand the intention question as it pertains to validity.
In 1690, Alexander VIII had the Holy Office condemn a proposition from Louvain: that baptism is valid when conferred by a minister who performs the whole external rite and form, while resolving interiorly in his own heart, I do not intend what the Church does. The theologian who defended it, Farvacques, appealed to Saint Augustine. Augustine had argued against the Donatists that if the minister’s hidden holiness were required for validity, God would have to signal it somehow; Farvacques extended the same reasoning from hidden holiness to hidden intention. Rome rejected the extension: the minister’s sanctity stands outside the sacrament; his intention does not; and Trent had already numbered it among the essentials. So the Church has formally repudiated the notion that correct external performance is by itself a guarantee of a valid sacrament.
Now, this does not mean that we are in a position to arbitrarily judge internal intentions. Pope Leo XIII added to the debate about how intention could invalidate a sacrament, or even the sacramentality of a given group of priests in the Anglican context.
In Apostolicae Curae, examining Anglican orders in 1896, Leo said that the Church does not judge the mind as interior, but as it is externally manifested. In the case of the Anglicans, the rite itself is the manifestation. Where a rite has been deliberately reshaped so as to exclude what the Church means to do, the required intention is wanting, and no appeal to the private sincerity of the men using it can supply for the defect.
Given what we have read, any appeal to a Donatist-esque reasoning on behalf of the SSPX is incorrect. Nobody in the Society is proposing that we audit the interior life of individual priests, which would be both impossible and forbidden. The argument has always run along Leo’s line: that a rite constructed on a defective account of what the Mass is, administered by men formed on that same account, can manifest something other than what the Church intends — and that where it does, the presumption in its favour weakens.
After Vatican II, we have a completely reformed liturgical system, which engendered widespread, documented abuses that did lead to invalidity in some cases, and the whole affair, especially in the 70s and 80s, was, in a word, a gong show. Lefebvre and his priests responded to said gong show with Catholic principles, which rightly allow us to doubt — not declare as such — the validity of sacraments conferred in the new rites in certain cases.
No error is present in the thinking of the SSPX on this when rightly considered, despite Tim’s claim.
The doubt is not hysteria
In 2020, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared that baptism conferred with the formula “We baptize you” is invalid, and that those so baptized must be baptized again.
Deacon Mark Springer used that formula at St. Anastasia in Troy, Michigan, from 1986 until 1999. Thirteen years with no correction from any oversight.
Fr. Matthew Hood was baptized by him in 1990. His baptism being invalid, so was his confirmation, and so was his ordination. His ordination being invalid, so was every Mass he offered, every confirmation he attempted, every absolution he pronounced, etc. Fr. Zachary Boazman of Oklahoma City discovered the same thing that September.
Baptism is the sacrament any layman, even a pagan, can confer validly in an emergency. A deacon got it wrong for thirteen years as a cleric! If you think these are the only two examples, then you are in outer space. These are merely two examples that we know of. Lefebvre, in his book Open Letter to Confused Catholics, relays what was being told to him by faithful from all over the world. We can say with confidence that there have been innumerable invalid sacraments in the New Springtime. Sometimes it is because of form, sometimes because of matter, and sometimes because of intention.
Lefebvre’s and the SSPX’s ultimate point is: Erroneous formation reliably produces occasions for invalidity through one channel or another, and the man who has it cannot detect it in himself.
And, the background to this debate about improper intention is related to the original instructions from Rome on the New Mass.
The 1969 Institutio Generalis defined the Mass, in article 7, as the cena dominica — a sacred assembly of the People of God gathered under a priest to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.
This definition was contested by men like Lefebvre and Ottaviani, and it was replaced by a definition that included the perennial understanding of the Mass as a sacrifice. Nevertheless, the fact that any document meant to explain the meaning of the New Mass included such a blunder is not arbitrary. The men who formulated that definition must have, as all men must, written what they believed about the Mass. So, we can confidently say that the understanding of the Mass in the New Springtime can at least be called into question, and to do so is not to appeal to mind-reading because it was written down and published, even if quickly retracted. Questioning the intention behind New Rite sacraments is a reasonable position, and having a doubt about those intentions is not an error.
The unnamed responsa from the Holy Office that Tim appeals to address the fact that Catholics ought to presume the validity of sacraments following the logic of Trent, etc. However, they do not address what has happened in the New Springtime, and a response from the Holy Office from long ago cannot be extended into the future to respond to a controversy that did not yet exist.
The Paschal Mystery, and a method that would have condemned Nicaea
Thesis ten runs like this. The SSPX says “Paschal Mystery” is only a minor patristic concept. But paschale sacramentum appears in the pre-55 Holy Saturday. Therefore, the SSPX lacks depth in the Tradition.
The inference is the whole problem. It assumes that a term’s presence in the tradition settles whether a given use of it is orthodox. The Church has never reasoned that way.
The synod of Antioch rejected the word homoousios in 268, because Paul of Samosata had been using it in a way that did not properly express the nature of the consubstantial relation between Father and Son. Fifty-seven years later, Nicaea made the same word the test of orthodoxy, chosen because the Arians could not bring themselves to sign it. A very important theological term was used wrongly in one instance, and rightly in another. Athanasius had to explain as much, at length, to bishops who remembered Antioch and were concerned.
Now apply Tim’s method. On his reasoning, the Fathers at Nicaea were superficial, since homoousios had a bad history and they should not have used it. And the Fathers at Antioch were superficial, since it was a perfectly good Greek word with respectable pedigree and they should not have rejected it. Of course this makes no sense.
What the Society actually argued was never that the phrase is absent from the tradition. It is that the reformers imported a particular theology — among other things, the death-and-resurrection unity taken as the organizing principle of the whole liturgy — and let it absorb the character of the Mass as the propitiatory re-presentation of Calvary. The argument is that the modern usage of the term has used a term found in Tradition in a way that is not consistent with Tradition. This sort of thing has happened with many other terms, like the term Charismatic, in our day, but to question the contemporary usage or inflation of the term is not to question its meaning in Tradition.
Tradition Never Defined
A fundamental accusation in the essay is that the SSPX’s treatment of Tradition is superficial. The essay never once defines Tradition.
Tradition has multiple senses, and it has been categorized accordingly.
To quote Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, who summarizes the issue:
“One of the best twentieth-century textbooks, the Manuale Theologiae Dogmaticae of Jean-Marie Hervé, distinguishes four kinds: dominical, divino-apostolic, humano-apostolic, and ecclesiastical. ‘Dominical tradition’ is that which was established by Christ Himself, such as the indissolubility of marriage and the need for fasting. ‘Divino-apostolic tradition’ comprises that which the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostles to introduce as part of the Church’s constitution, such as the ordination of deacons and the initial determinations of liturgy that would develop, over time, into the families of Eastern and Western rites; ‘humano-apostolic’ refers, in contrast, to that which they themselves deemed fitting to institute as Christ’s representatives, such as determinate periods when Christians should practice fasting and abstinence. Lastly, ‘ecclesiastical tradition’ refers to everything that the Church has instituted or adopted after the time of the Apostles (e.g., the exact duration of the seasons of Advent and Lent, the octaves of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, the Rogation Days, and the vestments to be worn by the clergy at the altar).” (The Once and Future Roman Rite, pg. 8)
These distinctions are extremely important.
In Tim’s essay, for Pius IX, Tradition means inviting lay noblemen to a council. For St. Pius X, Tradition means the Habsburg ius exclusivae — the imperial veto over a papal conclave, which was never a right in law, was a tolerated custom, was last exercised against Cardinal Rampolla in 1903, and stands against a millennium of papal legislation forbidding lay interference in elections, from In Nomine Domini in 1059 through Lateran III. Tim asserts that its abolition was a rupture with Tradition.
Tim calls Pius X’s decrees on frequent Communion a liturgical revolution and a break with centuries of Tradition. Those decrees were aimed at Jansenist rigorism. They were framed as a restoration of primitive practice and appeal to Trent’s own stated desire that the faithful communicate at every Mass. In the same document in which he warns the Society against neo-Jansenism, he labels Pius X’s anti-Jansenist reforms as a break with Tradition!
In some of Tim’s public words in podcast form, he has spoken about a “False Spirit of Trent,” although I don’t know what that means. In any event, it would seem that Pius X’s reforms were in keeping with the true spirit of Trent, yet somehow keeping with the true spirit of Trent is… a break with Tradition.
Also, a quick word on this notion that Jansenism has somehow been resurrected in Traditionalism. There is this widespread belief, as far as I can tell from the popular commentary, that the constitutive substance of Jansenism is related to rigorism or legalism. However, this is putting the cart before the horse. The heretical element about Jansenism stems from a debate about the State of Nature of man, and whether the spiritual gifts were owed to him, or freely given. Jansenism grows out of the Baian error about the State of Nature — the claim that the gifts of original integrity were owed to man rather than freely given. The consequence being that the Fall no longer strips a gratuitous elevation but corrupts nature in itself, and from that corrupted anthropology follow the propositions Innocent X condemned in 1653: that grace is irresistible, that freedom is merely freedom from coercion, and that Christ did not die for all.
At any rate, when you look into the debates, they are quite high-brow, and the theological disputes personified by intellects like Pascal’s were very “ivory tower” in spirit. This is not to excuse Jansenism, but only to say that it originated as an elitist movement, and was not a popular movement like Traditionalism after Vatican II.
The Jansenists were not heretics because they preached austerity as such; they were heretics because they preached heresies, some of which find a home in the New Springtime. Even some traditional authors have fallen into the trap of labelling elements of the so-called Traditional Movement “Neo-Jansenist,” which is regrettable, because it doesn’t follow at all. Jansenist authors were vehemently opposed to, among other things, frequent reception of Holy Communion, and they were proponents of liturgical antiquarianism; also, they sought to “purify” the devotional life from things like the Sacred Heart devotion, among others. If the term Neo-Jansenist is used as an accusation, because some writers believe that Traditionalists can fall into a sort of scrupulosity or rigorism, then they are correct about some Trads being rigorist, but are not using the term Jansenism properly.
All Catholics can fall into those spiritual and intellectual traps. Whatever a Neo-Jansenist is — which is not a doctrinal term — it does not pertain to the SSPX as a group; a group that preaches frequent reception of Communion, devotion to the Sacred Heart, and the right for Catholics to reconcile their troubled consciences with the spirit of the law when the letter is used to bring death to souls.
Catholic historian Darrick Taylor gives a good, layman overview of the Jansenist controversy, and my only disagreement with him is that he believes that the accusation that Traditionalists are Jansenist is a fringe accusation that is used by uber-liberals. Unfortunately, Taylor was wrong on that point, as the long-time editor of the traditional Catholic journal OnePeterFive is throwing around the accusation.
We have established that rigorism is NOT the main problem with Jansenism in that it is not unique to Jansenism. That being said, Jansenist rigorism shows up not only in questions of morality, but of law. Without going too deeply into it here, I would recommend the reader consult the Catholic Encyclopedia on the topic of Probabilism. Simply put, it is the perennial wisdom of the approved authors and theologians that when there are disputes about laws — both moral and legal — liberty is owed to the man who makes a decision in good conscience, even if the right answer is not obvious. In essence, we are not supposed to extend the letter of the law beyond a reasonable limit.
As we will see below, Tim charges the SSPX with schism based on a hypothetical about its reluctance to celebrate the Novus Ordo and the fact that the Pope says the Novus Ordo. Tim’s thought experiment, which results in the SSPX being schismatic, is extremely rigorist, in that the concept of schism, which is a moral and legal penalty, is stretched to the point wherein a man, or entire group of priests and faithful, should be considered schismatic based on Tim’s personal interpretation of how schism could manifest in the hypothetical and psychological disposition. This mentality is seriously “rigid” and does not represent the teaching of the Church. Ironically, it is an interpretation of morals and law that would be more consistent with the rigorism of Jansenists, and is not representative of the SSPX in the slightest.
Finally, on the Jansenist theme, while I am not accusing Tim of Neo-Jansenism, there are few public voices who have done more to encourage rigorous fasting protocols more than Tim Flanders, even though the Church does not require them. Tim asks Catholics to be more rigorous in their spiritual disciplines than a century of Popes have.
Respectfully, I think we should cool it with the Neo-Jansenist trope.
Who, exactly, is the Schismatic?
Thesis twenty-six tells us that the layman lacks the competence to dispute a responsum of the Holy Office.
Thesis fifteen asserts, as accomplished historical fact, that in 1870 the city of Rome lost the faith and became the seat of Antichrist — presenting as fulfilled a private revelation whose text the Holy Office condemned in 1923 and whose discussion it had prohibited in 1915. The Holy Office decree of 21 December 1915 prohibited publications concerning the so-called Secret of La Salette. The decree of 9 May 1923 condemned the reprint of Mélanie’s 1879 text outright. Publications concerning the Secret went on the Index.
He invokes the authority of the Holy Office to silence his opponent eleven theses after disregarding it himself.
If the SSPX is schismatic, then what is the following?
That the papacy has been corrupted by Freemasonry since 1773. That Rome became the seat of Antichrist in 1870. That Blessed Pius IX broke with centuries of Tradition. That St. Pius X broke with it twice, once on a matter he calls more significant and spiritually graver than the Novus Ordo. That God destroyed His own liturgy before the Council ever opened.
Every one of those is more radical than anything in the Society’s official positions. The SSPX has never said that Rome is the seat of Antichrist, or that God destroyed the liturgy.
Tim has adopted positions considerably harder than his target’s, and convicted his target of schism, based on accusations that they are in error when they aren’t, while at the same time declaring as established facts things that cannot be concretized as fact, especially by a layman.
Papal Communion Hypothetical
Thesis 27 states: “They officially advocate that a Catholic should never attend even a ‘Reverent Novus Ordo,’ which means they would refuse even the Pope’s own Mass. Therefore they have no real Sacramental communion with the Holy Father.”
A number of things are wrong with this.
First, the SSPX advocates that the faithful do not participate, but attendance for a good reason is another matter. Attendance for things like weddings, funerals, etc. is not condemned, but the faithful are warned to not participate in the New Mass for reasons pertaining to spiritual danger. Now, Tim obviously disagrees that the New Mass can be a danger as such, but the SSPX is not alone in advocating non-participation in the New Mass. Also, it should be known that the words “attend” and “participate” are used equivocally by basically everyone online, but when tested, the SSPX makes the distinction.
In any event, Dr. Kwasniewski devotes considerable ink to why a Catholic can refuse to attend the New Mass, even for Sunday obligation, in good conscience. And, he appeals to numerous works from before Vatican II that were considered standard fare in common theological manuals. I hope Tim does not think Dr. K is also a schismatic.
Second, the notion of a “Reverent Novus Ordo” is a muddled statement, even contradictory, and it does not apply to the positions of the SSPX. The SSPX does question the legitimacy (not validity) of the Novus Ordo not because of liturgical abuses, but because of the theology inherent therein, and the effect that it has on souls and priests who say it. To say that the Novus Ordo can be done reverently in some cases and irreverently in others is imprecise, because it suggests that better music and better vestments, with maybe some Latin thrown in, change what the New Mass imbibes substantially, but this is untrue. The New Mass is the New Mass whether it is done with a reverent aesthetic or posture, and the critique that the SSPX levels at the reform — as do numerous other Traditionalists, even those who don’t support the SSPX — is not about the abuses but about the missal itself. It is undeniable that the backstory of the New Mass is riddled with appeals to Protestants, among other things — and Tim knows this because he was featured in the Mass of the Ages, which demonstrated the history of the liturgical rupture adequately.
Tim may disagree with the stance, but that disagreement does not mean the SSPX is schismatic because, in Tim’s mind, he has imagined a scenario wherein the SSPX would not receive Communion from the Pope during a Novus Ordo. Furthermore, the more likely scenario, if one could ever manifest, is that the bishops or priests of the SSPX would be invited to concelebrate and they would refuse. They would refuse just like FSSP priests who refuse to concelebrate with their local bishops on Holy Thursday.
By Tim’s logic, those FSSP priests are in schism from their local bishop, or at least harbour some sort of crypto-schism, and at least half of the editorial board of OnePeterFive (which includes me) is schismatic in some way.
So, Tim can make declarations about multiple popes being in contradiction to Tradition, and about Rome being the Seat of the Antichrist, and not be in schism, because he would receive Communion at a Novus Ordo celebrated by Pope Leo.
Furthermore, shared Communion as demonstrated by participation in a liturgy is a mode of demonstrating a communion already had, but it does not make communion happen. It is also wrong to say that the SSPX has “no real Sacramental communion with the Holy Father,” because every baptized Catholic belongs to the Church by the same sacrament, and every time Mass is offered, and the Pope is named, that is literally a sacramental function wherein subjection to the Pope is demonstrated publicly during Mass.
In addition, the way Tim phrases the accusation is that because they wouldn’t participate in a New Mass with the Pope, they have no communion. This is illogical, and it would make anyone who has never communed with Pope Leo a schismatic, at least in potential, because they have never had the “real” communion Tim speaks of.
Spiritual Abuse Accusation
Tim accuses the SSPX of spiritual abuse in assertion twenty-eight by referring to an edition of the SSPX prayer book Christian Warfare, which, among other things, lists attending a New Mass in a section devoted to examining one’s conscience.
This accusation confused me, because I have told Tim the history of this book, as he asked me about it years ago. This particular book began as a Christian manual for members of the Third Order of the SSPX, which I belong to, and we all make promises to fulfill our Sunday Obligation at the Traditional Mass. Therefore, failing to do so, by attending a New Mass, would be the breaking of a promise or an oath.
Now, the book has become wildly popular for general readers in recent years, so the later editions no longer have this particular element, precisely because of how people can use it as a weapon against the SSPX, which Tim has done, even though he knows the history.
Furthermore, an examination of conscience is just that, an examination, and there are plenty of things listed in any examination that could be a sin in one context and not in another. For example, virtually every good examination will ask if the penitent has read “bad books,” but obviously certain people must read bad books, or even expose themselves to certain bad situations for good reasons. A police officer may have to chat with prostitutes or enter a bar of ill repute to make an arrest, but he has not sinned like the man who goes there to engage in sinful behaviour.
If we are being honest, and not emotional, the average New Mass is certainly an occasion for sin, which Tim admits, at least implicitly, when he speaks of “wicked clerics” mishandling the Eucharist and doing all sorts of evil things during Mass. All of this happens during the New Mass, and Tim readily admits that it is done by bishops, who he calls “evil wolves in clerical clothing [who] destroy the faith of the little ones by desecrating the Blessed Sacrament.”
There is nothing spiritually abusive about asking Catholics if they attend a liturgy where such things are commonplace, or at least have been commonplace for decades. It would be spiritually abusive not to have penitents look into the matter further.
The SSPX Fails a Test Tim Created
Tim faults the SSPX for not treating Lateran V, the “false spirit of Vatican I,” the Two Swords dogma, the ius exclusivae, lay investiture, and the appointment of bishops.
Silence does not constitute a position. To convert an omission into an error, you must show either (a) that the subject falls within the Society’s stated competence and it has misrepresented it, or (b) that its actual positions logically entail an error concerning it. Tim does neither. He simply notes an absence and calls it a deficiency.
And, the subjects he faults them for omitting are, by his own thesis 2, quaestiones disputatae — precisely the class he says the laity may not adjudicate. A seminary founded for the formation of priests and the preservation of the Roman Rite is not thereby obligated to publish on the Habsburg veto. Every institution is silent on nearly everything. Silence is only a failure where a duty to speak has first been established, and he never establishes one.
The Reconciliation Claim
Assertion 25 states: “nearly EVERY other Latin Mass priestly society has reconciled with Rome, except the SSPX.”
This is historically false. They did not “reconcile.” The FSSP (1988), the ICKSP (1990), and the IBP (2006) were erected as canonically regular institutes, most of them constituted in the wake of 1988 and several of them out of SSPX clergy. The condition of their erection was acceptance of the New Mass’s legitimacy — this has been demonstrated, most recently by Cardinal Fernandez.
Regarding dialogue, Tim states in thesis 23: “the SSPX is wrong to refuse dialogue.” Thesis 24 cites Archbishop Pozzo, whose role and statements exist because of the dialogue. The evidence in 24 falsifies the premise in 23. And the premise is false on the record anyway as the SSPX has dialogued with Roman officials a zillion times, and, recently, after being ignored numerous times, merely refused a single invitation to dialogue with the man who is known for writing theological erotica.
I would also not want to dialogue with Fernandez, and I would also not want Fernandez or Pope Leo to catechize my children, for obvious reasons, which, would likely make me a schismatic in Tim’s estimation, at least according to the essay. However, I guess I could, hypothetically, express my desire to dialogue in the future, and to have Leo catechize my kids and say Mass for us using the Novus Ordo, while I accuse numerous Popes of breaking with Tradition; I could call the bishops of the Church evil and accuse them of sacrilege; I could mislabel a group of priests as spiritually abusive; I could accuse God(!) of destroying his own liturgy, but I would at least not be a schismatic…
I am sorry if I sound snarky, but this is where the logic leads.
Frankly, Tim’s arguments are not really arguments, and they are incoherent at best. Furthermore, the type of schism he has created for the SSPX is in the psychological register, and the majority of the evidence he cites are his own articles, so it is self-referential.
Tim’s logic has placed the majority of Traditionalists at risk of schism, and the essay is untenable and should be retracted.
Kyrie Eleison


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Author’s note: Since the release of the documents regarding the July 1 SSPX consecrations, it has become public knowledge that Catholics, who are under no penalty, are being treated as criminals, even publicly so, and often in chapels and parishes run by Catholic priestly societies committed to the Traditional Mass. This is not the only place it is happening, but the fact that it is happening in those places is most disheartening. These events have inspired the following essay, which concerns the legal problem we are facing in general, but with some specific emphasis on the situation as it pertains to parishes committed to the Traditional Mass.
Now, this article is not intended as an apologetic for the SSPX. I have made that case elsewhere, and men far more qualified than I am have made it in a million other places.
Instead, I am taking the various documents released since 1 July and assessing the responses to them in light of canon law and the practice of the Church. My claim is narrow: the framework by which the lay faithful attached to the Society have been declared excommunicated cannot be applied consistently to anyone. The logic of the documents used as the foundation for the treatment of the lay faithful undercuts the very application of those documents.
We do not need to absolve the Society of any wrongdoing here. We need only show that the instrument meant to condemn the priests and the faithful does not exist.
It is unfortunate that so much of this conversation has become litigious, centred on canon law. Nevertheless, this is the ground on which the opponents of the Society have planted their flag. There are many other ways to argue for the innocence of the Society and of the faithful it serves, and I believe they are much stronger in the end, because the laws of the Church exist to serve her supernatural mission, which is the salvation of souls — and that mission is not accomplished by a code of human law.
I hope readers will keep that in mind. At the same time, for those who want pedantic canonical proof, I hope this article will be useful.
Before we continue, I ask the critic to keep this in mind before constructing an emotional argument in the comment section about topics that are not discussed here.
Links mentioned in the Audio Recording:
Mexico Pilgrimage: https://kennedyhall.ca/mexico
https://realestateforlife.org/
https://www.icatholicmobile.com/
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I. What Was Actually Issued
Three documents are in play, and almost every commentator has treated them as though they were one. They are not. They differ in kind, in the intention of their authors, and — decisively — in juridical force.
The Decree of 2 July is a declaratory decree. It declares that six named men have incurred latae sententiae excommunication: two consecrators and four consecrated, under canons 1387 and 1364 §1. Six men are named. Technically, Bishop Fellay was not penalized in the same way as the others, and only the charge of schism was reserved to him.
In any event, against no other person does the Decree declare, impose, or inflict any penalty whatsoever. No priests and no laymen are named.
The Explanatory Note accompanies the Decree. It is a nota esplicativa. It is not a law: canon 7 provides that a law comes into existence when it is promulgated, and canon 8 specifies the manner. It is not a general decree with legislative force under canon 29. It is not a general executory decree under canon 31. It is not even an instruction under canon 34 — and canon 34 §2 is worth reading slowly, because it provides that instructions do not derogate from laws, and that any provision in them irreconcilable with law lacks all force.
And, a document outlining how SSPX faithful and priests can be “reconciled” has been released as well.
We should break this down for the average — normal! — reader who does not spend endless hours reading about canon law.
It helps to think of it the way a lawyer thinks about the difference between a statute and a press release. The Church does not treat every document that comes out of Rome as binding. She is quite precise about which ones are, and the Code sets out the categories.
A law is the strongest instrument, as it binds the faithful; canons 7 and 8 provide that it comes into being only when it is formally promulgated, published in the proper manner and in the proper place.
A general decree under canon 29 is a law by another name, issued by someone with legislative power for a whole community.
A general executory decree under canon 31 is one rung down: it does not make new law, but sets out how an existing law is to be applied.
An instruction under canon 34 is lower still: it clarifies a law’s provisions and directs those charged with carrying it out.
And canon 34 §2 is vital, because it tells you what happens when one of these lesser documents strays. Instructions do not derogate — that is, detract — from laws. Whatever cannot be squared with the law has no force at all.
These are the principles of the Church, and they reflect a long and coherent canonical tradition. A document explaining a law can never override the law it explains.
This raises a significant difficulty. An explanatory note is not found anywhere in the list above. It is not a law, not a general decree, not an executory decree, not even an instruction. It is an annex — a statement of how the officials of a dicastery understand a situation. That is not nothing; it tells you a good deal about the mind of the men who wrote it. But if a mere instruction lacks all force where it conflicts with law, we are entitled to ask what force belongs to a document that ranks beneath an instruction, and how it came to be treated as sufficient to declare a man cut off from the sacraments.
That the Note has been used as a legal apparatus is alarming. We cannot know intentions, but we can plainly see canonical incompetence and incoherence, if not outright malice. Again, we cannot impute malice infallibly — but the harmful misuse of law is doing real damage to souls, and the men who have done this are culpable one way or another.
The Prassi, the procedures document meant to help SSPX Catholics “come back into the Church,” is guidance directed to nuncios and Ordinaries for handling those who present themselves. Again, it is founded on a Note that has no legal force and, as we will see, is internally incoherent when the source material is considered.
The Note exhorts the faithful to abstain from participating in the celebrations and activities of the Society.
Exhorts.
An exhortation is not a precept. It is an encouragement. And it is worth keeping in mind that this particular encouragement comes from a cardinal who has encouraged the blessing of unions that cry out to Heaven, and who has discouraged, in no uncertain terms, the use of theological titles for Our Lady that are deeply embedded in the devotional and theological tradition of the Church.
If any traditionalists would like to hammer the SSPX with the contents of the Note, I would exhort them to follow Cardinal Fernández’s other exhortations as well — that is, if they wish to be truly obedient sons of the Church. I would exhort them to welcome any Fiducia Supplicans events that take place “spontaneously” in their parishes. And I would exhort them to make sure they tell their congregants that it is always inappropriate to use the title “Co-redemptrix” to define Our Lady’s cooperation. So: no more traditional Marian lectures, please, without the proviso that Catholics should not use outdated terms because Tucho said so.
At any rate, canon 49 defines a singular precept as a decree by which an obligation is directly and legitimately imposed upon a determined person to do or omit something. A precept has a form, an author with executive power, and a determinate addressee. An exhortation in an annex has none of these. And where there is no obligation there can be no violation; where there is no violation there is no delict; where there is no delict there is no penalty.
Rome possesses instruments for binding the faithful. They were not used.
Consider, too, that it is highly unlikely Cardinal Fernández does anything without first consulting the Holy Father. You are free to draw your own conclusions.
So the position after 2 July, strictly speaking, with no recourse to any Society apologetic, is this: six men have been penalized. No priest of the Society has been penalized by any juridical act. No layman has been penalized by any juridical act. Everything that has followed — the pulpit announcements, the diocesan instructions, the refusals to commune with SSPX attendees, as at some FSSP locations — has been done to people against whom nothing has been declared.
II. The Remission That Remits Nothing
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Here is where the framework becomes an indictment of itself.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that a layman really has incurred an undeclared latae sententiae excommunication for schism under canon 1364 §1. What does the law itself prescribe?
Canon 1357 §1. In the internal sacramental forum, any confessor may remit an undeclared latae sententiae censure of excommunication or interdict, where it is difficult for the penitent to remain in a state of grave sin for the time necessary for the competent superior to provide. The excommunication of canon 1364 §1 is not among those reserved to the Apostolic See. It is remissible in the confessional. Any confessional. Anywhere on earth.
What this shows is that there is no need for any process of reintegration for any SSPX layman — assuming they need to be reintegrated at all, which I do not believe, but which I will grant for the sake of the strict analysis we are now conducting.
What does the Prassi require instead? A signed and dated Profession of Faith. A Formula of Adherence affirming Lumen Gentium and the post-conciliar magisterium. Submission through the nunciature or the local Ordinary. A documented undertaking not to participate in the Society’s sacramental life in the future.
The remedy does not match the charge
Remission of a censure has a defined condition, and only one. Canon 1358 §1 provides that remission cannot be granted unless the offender has withdrawn from contumacy, and canon 1347 §2 defines what that means: he has withdrawn who has truly repented of the delict and made suitable reparation for damage and scandal, or at least seriously promised to do so. That is the whole requirement. Repent of the delict; repair the damage.
So ask what delict was alleged. Schism, under canon 1364 §1, defined at canon 751 as the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.
Note what canon 751 does not say. It defines heresy separately, in the same canon, as the obstinate denial or doubt of some truth to be believed with divine and Catholic faith. Schism and heresy are distinct delicts with distinct objects. A schismatic is not by definition a man who denies a doctrine; he is a man who refuses submission and communion.
The Prassi treats schism and heresy as though they were the same thing. It treats the faithful of the SSPX as though they were heretics who must demonstrate their fidelity to the Church by professing belief in disputed, non-infallible texts of the Second Vatican Council. Technically speaking it would be impossible to call someone a heretic for denying aspects of Vatican II, because the assent of divine and Catholic faith is reserved for definitive dogma.
It asks for a signed Profession of Faith and a Formula of Adherence affirming Lumen Gentium and the post-conciliar magisterium. This concerns doctrinal assent, which is the apt remedy for heresy, not for schism.
So the procedure convicts of one delict and supposedly cures another. Whatever else it is, it is not the remission of a censure for schism, because it does not ask for the thing whose absence constitutes that delict. And if what is actually sought is doctrinal assent to the conciliar texts, then that is an entirely separate issue — unless, in the New Springtime, one is in schism for questioning Vatican II. How many Catholics are in schism, then?
It is applied to people who have no penalty
The Note’s own two-tier structure admits this. Those who attend for liturgical or spiritual reasons, without rejecting the Magisterium or papal authority, are by the Note’s own terms not excommunicated. Yet they too are asked to undertake not to attend in future.
You cannot remit a penalty a man does not have. Whatever is being asked of that second group, it is by definition not remission.
The forum is wrong
Canon 1357 puts the ordinary remedy in the internal sacramental forum, with recourse permitted through the confessor and without the penitent’s name. The Church’s own instrument for this censure is confessional and anonymous. The Prassi requires an event that is essentially public.
Internal-forum remission produces a reconciled soul. External-forum submission produces a record.
It is more like a humiliation ritual, and the logic of the thing is entirely alien to canon law — or, quite frankly, to any pastoral sensibility.
Consider this in light of canon 1317, that penalties are to be established only insofar as they are truly necessary; in light of canon 18, that penal laws and laws restricting the free exercise of rights are subject to strict interpretation; and in light of canon 1341 as revised in 2021, which requires that penal procedure be reached for only when pastoral means have proven insufficient.
Personally, I am about the most outspoken SSPX advocate I can think of, and I have not experienced any “pastoral” engagement from my diocese, or from any cleric for that matter. I have definitely been cursed at and yelled at online a million times, but that did not feel especially pastoral.
All considered, this is unintelligible as penal law, and perfectly intelligible as something else.
III. The Dilemma at the Heart of 1996
The 2026 Note is built on the logic of the 1996 letter of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts concerning adherence to the Society. That is the locus.
And that letter cannot bear the weight now placed on it, for a reason internal to the letter itself.
Taken in the strict sense, the text exists in order to distinguish. It distinguishes those who merely attend the Society’s Masses — who do not thereby incur excommunication — from those who adhere to the schismatic principle, that is, who repudiate the primacy of the Roman Pontiff and communion with the Church subject to him. Attendance is not adherence, according to the letter. That distinction is the entire content and purpose of the document.
We should also note that schism is defined as the withdrawal of submission from the Pope, and not as disobedience. This is without question the unanimous consent of the tradition on the matter, whatever has become a substitute for actual schism in the era of Modernism.
The criterion of the letter is interior. Adherence to the supposed schismatic principle is an act of the will — a repudiation of primacy and communion. Very well. Then by that criterion’s own terms, consider the man being penalized. He names Leo XIV in the Canon of the Mass. His superior wrote to the Pope repeatedly and expressed his recognition of the papal office. His Society filed an appeal with the Dicastery on 11 July — and a body that has repudiated Roman authority does not petition the dicastery from which it has supposedly separated itself. By the criterion of 1996, no repudiation of primacy has been demonstrated in the Society’s priests, and still less in a mother of six who drives forty minutes on a Sunday because she wants her children catechized in the Faith she was raised in.
And here the 2021 revision of the penal law is vital for our purposes. Pascite Gregem Dei inserted into canon 1321 §1 the clear statement that a person is presumed innocent until the contrary is proven, displacing the old imputability provision to §2, which requires that the external violation be gravely imputable by reason of malice or culpability. An interior act of the will is precisely the thing that cannot be presumed. The Church’s own penal code now says so in unambiguous terms.
Someone will object that canon 1321 §4 provides that once an external violation has been established, imputability is presumed unless the contrary is clear. This is true, and it does not help them. That presumption operates only once the external violation has been established — and the external violation here is precisely what has not been established, because the 1996 letter itself says that attendance does not constitute adherence. You cannot presume imputability for a delict you have not first shown was committed.
How, then, can we square any of this with the Note, which declares that faithful who “formally adhere” to the Society are to be considered schismatic and excommunicated? Formal adherence, as 1996 defines it, is an interior repudiation of primacy. The heart cannot be judged, and what cannot be judged cannot be proven. Meanwhile, the letter is clear that sacramental participation with the Society is not itself to be penalized.
Do you see the problem? One cannot judge the internal forum of a man. And acts done by free will — such as going to the SSPX for Mass — do not constitute schismatic acts, according to the logic of the Note and of the letter it appeals to. So it is essentially impossible to prove that anyone has “formally adhered” to a schism that has never been established in the first place.
Quite frankly, the method for assessing who is and is not schismatic is nothing short of what I can only call gnostic. People are to be judged on the basis of what they might believe in their hearts, but do not demonstrate by their actions. It is an imaginary schism — a schism that exists in the eye of the beholder. It is insane.
And so the letter on which the Note is based turns out to be pointless.
Consider why. Everyone sitting in an SSPX chapel on Sunday performs the identical external act. They show up. They kneel, they pray, they communicate. Externally there is nothing to distinguish the mother of six who has been coming for twenty years, from the curious visitor from the diocesan parish down the road, from the man who came for a cousin’s funeral.
Now, the 1996 letter exists in order to say that these people are not all in the same canonical position. That is its entire content. Some are excommunicated and some are not, and the letter tells you which is which.
But if the external act were the criterion, that sorting would be impossible — because the external act is the same in every case. You cannot distinguish among people by a feature they all share. So the very fact that 1996 sorts them proves it is sorting by something else, and it tells you what that something is: adherence to the schismatic principle, the repudiation of primacy and communion. Which is to say that the Note and the letter alike require you to assess the goodness or badness of another man’s will. Again: this is insane.
To cite 1996 as your authority is to adopt a document whose whole reason for existing is that the external act does not settle the question. You cannot then turn around and settle the question by appealing to external acts. The document you are leaning on is the document telling you that you cannot.
The Note wants both. It cites 1996 as its locus while discarding the one thing 1996 actually settled. It treats the Society as schismatic enough to ground a penalty against the laity, and simultaneously not so schismatic that attendance at its Masses was ever prohibited communicatio in sacris — because if it were, that would have been said plainly in 1996, and it was not.
You cannot have the benefit of a distinction while denying the distinction.
Again: it is incoherent, post-conciliar, modernist, subjectivist idiocy.
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IV. The Canons Nobody Is Citing
Now let us consider the practical implications for innocent Catholics who are being humiliated at FSSP chapels and elsewhere.
A Catholic presents himself for Holy Communion at a diocesan parish. He is baptized. He is properly disposed. Against him no penalty has been imposed or declared by any competent authority. He is turned away — or he is at least implored, in an announcement read from the pulpit, not to receive Communion until he has done some paperwork.
Let us be honest: traditional Catholic circles are small, and this sort of thing is degrading and humiliating.
So how is it legal?
Canon 843 §1. Sacred ministers cannot deny the sacraments to those who opportunely ask for them, are properly disposed, and are not prohibited by law from receiving them. Note the construction. This is not a permission granted to the minister; it is a prohibition laid upon him. And the qualifying clause is prohibited by law. A nota esplicativa is not law. We have established this.
Canon 912. Any baptized person not prohibited by law can and must be admitted to Holy Communion. Can and must.
Canon 915 is the canon that would authorize refusal, and it is the one that destroys the case. It requires the exclusion of those upon whom a penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and of those obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin.
Against the lay faithful of the Society, no penalty has been imposed or declared by anyone. The very canon invoked to justify refusal, read as written, forbids it.
And then the rights of the faithful, which traditional Catholics too rarely trouble to invoke:
Canon 213 — the right of the faithful to receive assistance from the sacred pastors out of the spiritual goods of the Church, above all the word of God and the sacraments.
Canon 220 — the right to one’s good reputation, engaged by every public assertion that named or identifiable persons are excommunicated when no competent authority has declared them so. In plain terms: publicly describing people as excommunicated when no penalty has been declared against them violates a right the Code expressly protects, and canon 1390 §2 attaches a penalty to unlawfully injuring another’s good reputation.
I wonder if anyone will be penalized for calling me a schismatic, publicly, on the internet… I won’t hold my breath.
Canon 221 §3 — the right of the faithful not to be punished with canonical penalties except according to the norm of law.
What we plainly see here is the law being used against its own purposes and against its own spirit. I am thinking of a word. It starts with “Ph” and more or less rhymes with “heresy.” For evidence of how Our Lord deals with those who fit the bill, see the New Testament.
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V. The Standard That Runs One Way
Now let me turn the framework around — and please understand that what follows is hypothetical, not an accusation.
A priest of the Fraternity of St. Peter, or of any diocese, who announces from the pulpit that those attending the Society’s chapels are excommunicated, and who refuses them Communion, is doing everything I have just described: denying the sacraments to persons not prohibited by law, on the authority of a document that is not law, against a presumption of innocence the Code demands, in the teeth of canon 915’s own limitation, with a further injury under canon 220.
Some will observe that schism, as canon 751 defines it and as St. Thomas treats it at ST II-II q. 39 a. 1, has two species: the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff, and the refusal of communion with the members of the Church subject to him. They will observe that the Society has never done the first, and that refusing the Blessed Sacrament to fellow Catholics looks a great deal like the second.
I am not accusing anyone of this. I am only telling you what it looks like.
Schism requires the will to sever the bond of unity. A priest who refuses Communion on a mistaken reading of a document he takes to be binding is not willing separation from the Church’s unity. At least, we cannot claim he is doing that — even if that is the effect in practice.
He is, wrongly, trying to enforce unity.
So we could say that he is doing his best in a confusing situation, on advice he had reason to trust, and that it goes too far to call him schismatic.
However — and this is anecdotal — if you attend a Fraternity chapel, or another TLM group, can you attest to what I have been told ad nauseam about priests from non-SSPX groups: that it is often the case that during homilies one hears a great deal of criticism of what comes out of Rome? I have been to a Fraternity chapel twice for Mass. One was a daily Mass with no homily. The other was a Sunday, almost a decade ago, at which the priest preached about the hierarchy more or less going to hell because of their scandals.
I have been told a thousand times that homilies of this kind are not uncommon, even if that particular one was a little hardcore. So can we really say that the priests of the FSSP are in the habit of accepting and implementing the doctrinal and theological opinions of men like Cardinal Fernández with docility?
Please be honest.
Now, it will likely be said that this humiliation of SSPX faithful is taking place because local bishops are demanding it.
Fair enough. But this is another illustration of why we need the SSPX — because the other groups of priests who are supposed to carry the banner of tradition are unable to resist overtures from modernists who exhort them to humiliate good Catholics and to spread doctrinal, legal, and theological confusion by way of incoherent applications of laughably untenable pseudo-legal documents that make a mockery of the dignity of the Church’s law.
Do these priests not realize that they are helping to spread the heretical tendencies of Modernism by legitimizing all of this? Modernism is thoroughly subjective, grounded in feeling and perception. And these priests, who call themselves traditional, are cementing in the minds of their congregants the idea that a man can be judged on the basis of baseless interpretations of Church law, of perennial doctrine, and of the unknowable disposition of another man’s heart.
Now: if good faith and the absence of schismatic intention protect that priest, then they equally protect the priest who names the Pope in the Canon and petitions the dicastery for redress. If interior disposition is decisive, it is decisive in both directions. The Note and the 1996 letter both insist that it is interior adherence to the schismatic principle that constitutes the delict. Very well. Apply it. Apply it to everyone.
I expect the reply: the diocesan priest errs about a fact while trying to obey, whereas the Society’s adherents refuse obedience as such. Intention, they will say, is being applied consistently — merely to different objects.
But the moment they say the object differs, they have abandoned interiority and returned to classifying acts objectively, which is the opposite of the logic of the 1996 letter and of the Note founded upon it. Objective classification would sweep in every Catholic who has ever heard Mass in an SSPX chapel. They cannot cite 1996 as their authority and then argue on a basis that renders 1996 pointless.
You cannot invoke the perennial categories of objective classification in order to reach a judgment that rests on a directive refusing to base classification on anything objective. That is to keep perennial Catholic principles for personal use while demanding that others follow principles the tradition of the Church would find odious.
And if we are, after all, to classify by external act, then let us compare the acts honestly.
The layman’s external act is attendance at Mass — which the 1996 letter itself declared insufficient to constitute adherence.
The priest’s external act is the positive refusal of the Body of Christ to a baptized Catholic against whom no penalty has been imposed or declared, contrary to canons 843 §1, 912, and 915, together with public assertions engaging canon 220.
If we are being objective — which Cardinal Fernández forbids us to be — then the act of the priest who refuses Communion to SSPX faithful is the graver one, because it is the one the Code actually prohibits.
So I say this, and I mean it without irony: I am content to hold that the priest who turns a Catholic family away from the altar rail acts in good faith on a mistaken reading. I ask only that the same charity be extended to a man who prays for the Pope by name in the Canon of the Mass, and who has never been penalized.
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VI. Ecclesia Dei Fulfilled
What follows is a theological judgment rather than a canonical conclusion, and the reader should weigh it as such.
For almost forty years a certain arrangement was on offer. Accept the framework, profess the necessary formula, and you may keep the Old Rite. Many good men accepted it in good conscience, and I have never thought them contemptible for doing so.
But it was always a tenancy, not a title. Ecclesia Dei afflicta 3 declared that the consecrations were of their nature a schismatic act, and adherence to that characterization was part of the price of the arrangement. In 2021, Traditionis custodes demonstrated what the lease was worth.
The Commission that administered it is gone. And now the arrangement requires something further. It requires a priest to stand in the pulpit and announce the refusal of the Body of Christ to baptized Catholics against whom no penalty has been declared, in violation of several canons of the Code he professes to obey, on the authority of an annex that is not law.
This is the logic of Ecclesia Dei fulfilled.
The traditional liturgy is not a preference in ritual style. It is the lex orandi, and it forms a mind — one that reasons from principles, distinguishes carefully, and refuses to call an exhortation a precept because a dicastery would prefer that it were. Whatever else this past month has shown, it has shown that keeping the Old Rite inside a framework that does not reason is not a stable position. Sooner or later, that framework will ask you to do something the traditional framework has trained you to recognize as wrong.
I do not write this to score a point against men I regard as brothers. I write it because a good many of them are, right now, being asked to do something they know to be unjust, and are doing it because they have been told they must follow the law — when in fact they are breaking it by doing so. There are six bishops penalized by name, an annex without juridical force, and a great many Catholics being deprived of participation in the Church they belong to.
And in any event, the decree against those six bishops is under recourse, and by canon 1353 recourse against a decree declaring a penalty has suspensive effect. So if everyone is so concerned that the SSPX should follow the law, why can everyone else not manage to follow it too?
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