As the dust settles from the cruel announcement of the penalty of excommunication for the SSPX bishops, priests and many laity attached to the Society, some excellent resources are being made available to help combat the error that these very unjust excommunications are in fact valid.
- SSPX – Official response
- The Catholic Esquire – Short, concise video
- Kennedy Hall – Longer, complete video
- Fr. Gerald Murray – Critique of the decree (doesn’t support the consecration decision)
- Fr Gerald Murray – Dissertation on the first excommunications from 1995
- Infovaticana – Details of Canon Law
- Rorate Caeli – Another canonical analysis
- Roberto de Mattei – Opposing view, historical information
- Bishop Schneider – interview on potential excommunication
- The Perdie Channel – Short video of Consecration ceremony
- Examples of selective application of penalties
Official response from the SSPX regarding the excommunications
From the FSSPX.NEWS website, you can find the Letter to the Holy Father regarding the Decree of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
From the Letter:
“We are certain that one day You yourself, or one of Your successors, will wish to adopt the program of Saint Pius X: “To restore all things in Christ,” Instaurare omnia in Christo.
On that day, the Holy Father will discover in the Society of Saint Pius X not a nest of serpents and scorpions, but a small army of loyal sons, ready to do anything to sustain Him in the restoration of all things in Our Lord, and to vindicate before all mankind the imprescriptible rights of Christ the King over all souls and over all nations.”
Short, concise video
This video from Catholic Esquire gets right to the point. This is perfect for those who are short on time and who want to convince the average Catholic that the excommunication penalty simply does not apply to the Society’s episcopal consecrations of July 1st.
Longer, complete video
Kennedy Hall has made a very long (2 hour) video examining every angle of the issue. In his usual charitable way, he breaks down the injustices and invalidity of the excommunication penalty.
This resource os helpful for those who have plenty of time and who want a very thorough understanding of the situations and objections to the validity of the excommunications.
Critique of the decree on excommunications by a non-supporter of the consecrations
This video from Raymond Arroyo, Fr. Gerald Murray, and Robert Royal looks at the Vatican’s decree, and the canonical confusion surrounding the Society of Saint Pius X. Fr.
Murray is a canonist who did not support the consecrations yet sees inconsistencies in the decree. He refers to the documents announcing the excommunications, as ‘a mess.’ There is some discussion of Traditiones Custodes and the Latin Mass generally.
Refutation of the SSPX excommunications from 1995
This article looks at the 1995 thesis by the same canonist as above, Fr. Gerald Murray. Fr. Murray, a Novus Ordo priest in fact made the SSPX excommunications the topic of his doctoral thesis.
Details of Canon Law
This article from Infovaticana is quite indepth. It looks closely at the various canons involved in the decree and its notes, examining also the internal inconsistencies in Cardinal Fernandez’ approach. This is helpful when dealing with those who have more than a passing interest in the excommunications.
From the article:
“The two documents published on 2 July by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith—a Decree and an Explanatory Note (Prot. N. 99/2009), both signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and the secretaries Armando Matteo and John J. Kennedy—present defects of canonical technique that drastically limit their actual scope.
Analysed in accordance with Book VI of the Code of Canon Law, their juridical effect is reduced to the declaration of six excommunications. With respect to the more than seven hundred priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X and their faithful, the formula employed lacks penal efficacy.”
Another canonical analysis
This critique comes from the Canon of Shaftesbury, a judicial vicar in a major archdiocese, and argues that the documents issued by the DDF were so flawed that they did not accomplish what they were intended to do. It concludes:
“The Decree of July 2, 2026 accomplished one thing: it named six bishops as having incurred latae sententiae excommunication, consistent with the Church’s practice since 1988. It did not declare the excommunication of any priest, and the note that purports to extend that condemnation is not a legally operative instrument. Three pontificates have consistently treated Society priests as canonically irregular but not excommunicated; a non-binding Explanatory Note does not change that situation.
“The faithful who attend SSPX Masses and seek the Society’s sacraments have not been excommunicated. The censure against the named bishops, even if valid, has not been declared against the priests; an undeclared censure does not impede the faithful from seeking sacraments for just cause under can. 1335 §2; and the confessional and matrimonial faculties previously granted by papal act remain in effect. Nothing in the July 2 documents changes the practical canonical situation for the faithful.”
Opposing view – historical and philosophical approach
Professor Roberto de Mattei has written two articles, one prior to and another after the Consecrations. Although not an avid supporter of the Society or of its decision to go ahead with the consecrations, he presents a balanced approach for anyone unfamiliar with backstory to the Consecrations.
Professor de Mattei also correctly identifies the source of the conflict between the Society and Rome, the ‘underlying doctrinal dilemma’.
These articles are helpful for those wanting to understand a reasonable argument from the other side of the debate.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider interview
In his text published on the website of Diane Montagna prior to the consecrations, Bishop Schneider addressed the The Core Question Regarding the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X.
From the text:
“The resolution of the SSPX question is hindered not only by a reluctance to confront, with intellectual honesty, the underlying doctrinal issues and to acknowledge the existence of doctrinal ambiguities requiring correction but also by an unhealthy mentality that has developed within the Church over the past several centuries: namely, the primacy of legalism or juridical positivism, together with an excessive papal-centrism that approaches a quasi-divinization of both the office and the person of the Pope.”
“Since the Council, with some of the mentioned ambiguous teachings, a process has been underway to establish, with the authority of the Roman Pontiff, a so-called “Church of Vatican II” or the “Conciliar Church.” This tendency, in our day under the new name of the “Synodal Church,” basically aims to be a relativist religion adapted to the world. Attempts to disguise this new trend toward an ambiguous, relativistic, and worldly form of the Catholic Church through a hermeneutic of continuity are dishonest and unconvincing.”
Short video of Consecration ceremony
This 5 minutes video from The Perdie Channel covers the entire Mass from beginning to the rainstorm. It may be useful to share this with those who have no idea how the Society operates.
From the footage, it is clear that even of one does not agree with the Society’s attitude toward Tradition, these are Catholics who act as though they truly believe – in the True Faith, Real Presence, and in the promises of our Lord and His Mother.
Examples of selective application
Apart from the obvious flaws in the Vatican’s documents, the disconnect between Rome’s treatment of the SSPX and its toleration of other abuses which are rampant in the Church is highly disturbing.
For a start, there are the obvious examples of two Popes scandalising the faithful by engaging in the worship of a false deity (see Francis here and Leo XIV here). There is also the matter of the Pope approving, after the fact, the illicit consecrations of bishops by the Chinese Communist Party.
Then there are some events which have taken place in the past few weeks that remove any doubt that we are are indeed living in a time of crisis.
This is critical since the validity or invalidity of the penalty of excommunication for illicitly consecrating bishops rests on whether or not the context for those consecrations is, in fact, in a state of necessity. The following examples make it clear that that state does exist, and it is even more obvious now than it was in 1988.
One particularly egregious event was the appearance of the former papal household preacher at a Mass held in honour of a homosexual couple’s 50th anniversary of their relationship. The sacrilege was rendered even more profane by one member of the couple distributing the Precious Blood at Communion. To date there has been no censure of any clergy who officiated at this event, nor any official condemnation at all.
Another striking example of selective punishment comes in the form of an illicit ‘episcopal consecration’ which is also invalid. In this case, Bishop Joseph V. Brennan of California took part in the ‘consecration’ of an American Episcopalian ‘bishop’. That is, a Catholic Bishop was involved in the simulated consecration of a non-Catholic bishop.
This happened in April and there has so far been no mention of any censure coming from the Vatican. As the author of a report on this event points out,
“The Episcopal Church rejects the extraordinary and universal ordinary magisterium (and the ordinary magisterium of Vatican II), but no penalties will be applied to Brennan, whereas the SSPX only provisionally rejects some limited decrees of post-Vatican II magisterium until they can be reconciled with the Extraordinary and Universal Ordinary Magisterium.”
Then there is the ongoing case of Fr Marko Rupnik, who has been credibly accused of performing sexualised rituals with several nuns and also absolved an accomplice who participated in those rituals.
The latter crime incurred automatic excommunication, but the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF, now known as the DDF) lifted the decree only weeks later. Although Rupnik is technically under some restrictions, in practice he is free to move around and continue his work as an artist.
Still another blatant example of inconsistency comes from the Pope himself. His address to the people of the United States on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the USA included this snippet:
“Among the most cherished of these principles is religious freedom – the right of every person to worship according to conscience and to practice their faith openly…” 1
The American people’s freedom of worship he claims to admire stands in stark contrast to the restrictions he has placed on the Society of Saint Pius X. From failing to meet personally with the Society’s leaders, to refusing to allow the consecration of new bishops, to attempting to withdraw the faculties of its priests, Pope Leo has shown that the ‘right of every person to worship according to conscience’ does not extend to the Society of Saint Pius X.
In the face of so many errors and inconsistencies, we will conclude with some salient words from Archbishop Lefebvre:
“Excommunication is indifferent to us. It is not we who have changed. We would be condemned by those who would themselves have been excommunicated by previous popes.”
- ‘Religious liberty’ is a proposition condemned by pre-conciliar Popes including Gregory XVI and Pius IX. St. Augustine said it was ‘liberty of perdition’ to promote the idea that “… liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right…” St. Augustine, epistle 105 (166). ‘Freedom of religion’ is more accurately the freedom to practise the true Faith, that is, Catholicism. ↩︎
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