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Just when you thought there would be a reunion, then this happens... Sect's ordinations defy Vatican
A breakaway group of Roman Catholic traditionalists has ordained three men as priests, defying the Vatican.
The Society of St Pius X (SSPX), which split from the Vatican in 1970, argues that ordinations are necessary as the Church is facing a decline in clergy.
In January this year, Pope Benedict XVI revoked the 21-year excommunication of four bishops in the Swiss-based group.
But the Vatican said the society still had no status in the Church and any ordinations would be illegitimate.
Despite the warning from Rome, the SSPX went ahead on Saturday with the ordination of three men from Poland, Switzerland and Sweden at a ceremony held in Latin in Zaitzkofen in Germany.
The SSPX is also planning to ordain priests and deacons in Switzerland and the US.
Controversial bishop
The Pope's decision to lift the excommunications was an attempt to prevent a wider rift with the traditionalists of the SSPX, says BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott.
But it provoked an angry reaction as one of the bishops, British-born Richard Williamson, had cast doubt on the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust.
The Diocese of Regensburg in Germany, where Saturday's ordinations took place, also said the Pope's actions did not constitute permission to create new clergy.
But the SSPX said it had not been told to stop ordinations. The sect's spokesman in Germany, Father Andreas Steiner, said ordinations were justified given the "terrible emergency" faced by the Roman Catholic Church as its clergy and congregations declined.
"The Church is bleeding to death," he said.
SSPX was founded by a French archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre, in 1970 as a protest against the Second Vatican Council's reforms on religious freedom and pluralism.
It says it has almost 500 priests as members and is active in more than 60 countries.
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I don't think the SSPX people lose much sleep over what the Vatican does or doesn't like. They pretty much have their own agenda.
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Article from: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Berlin, Germany
June 28, 2009 04:33am
A BREAKAWAY Roman Catholic sect has thumbed its nose at Pope Benedict XVI by ordaining three priests in his home region of southern Germany in defiance of the Vatican.
A further eight priests and 10 deacons are to be inducted on Monday by the Society of St Pius X at its base in Econe, Switzerland in a ceremony already declared "illegitimate" by the Church.
The ordinations come five months after the Pope lifted the excommunication of four of the society's bishops, including Holocaust denier Richard Williamson, infuriating Jews and many Catholics.
The gesture was meant as the first step in a process of reconciliation with the fundamentalist group which has so far failed to bear fruit.
About 1200 people attended Saturday's ceremony at Zaitzkofen near the Bavarian city of Regensburg which saw a Swede, a Pole and a Swiss ordained priests.
Another priest in the sect, Stefan Frey, said the society finds itself in a "grey area" with regard to religious law, and deplored the fuss surrounding the ordinations.
The Vatican said last week it will maintain its position "as long as issues concerning doctrine are not clarified", adding that the Pius X group has "no canonical status in the Church".
The Pope said in March that while the bishops excommunicated by his predecessor John Paul II have been "invited" back into the fold, they "do not (yet) legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church".
Pope Benedict said that the four must recognise "the authority of the Pope and the Second Vatican Council" in order to "complete the last steps necessary to achieve full communion with the Church".
Traditionalist archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated the bishops of his separatist group in 1988.
He had broken away from the Church in 1970 in protest against the reforms passed by the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,25702430-5005361,00.html
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Illegitimate is the word, but I am sure that they will still be popular considering that illegitimacy doesn't mean that its invalid. Right?
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Illicity, in the case of being ordained, also incurs excommunication latae sentencae. The excommunicated are forbidden to receive the sacraments.
They become invalid matter for the sacrament the moment they knowingly agree to the illicit ordination... if they know.
And if they know the ordination to be illicit, then they become invalid manner, and thus the ordination is invalid.
But the presumption in this case is always of ignorance and thus validity....
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I wonder who the bishop was?
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Be realistic. The SSPX has been ordaining priests since 1975 -- in defiance of the Vatican, yes, but everyone knows that.
No one seriously thought that, when the SSPX bishops had their excommunications lifted, the SSPX would suddenly stop all its activities such as celebrating Mass and training and ordaining candidates to the priesthood.
If you've noticed, only the German bishops are making a noise over this. The Swiss and American bishops in whose territories SSPX ordinations took place, have said nothing at all.
There will be no reconciliation between the SSPX and the Holy See until the upcoming doctrinal dialogues have established enough doctrinal clarity for the SSPX to feel safe about re-establishing regular relations with Rome. Both the SSPX and the Vatican Secretariat of State have said as much, and SSPX bishop Msgr. Tissier de Mallerais has spoken of a "30-year" dialogue. In this situation, no one could reasonably expect the SSPX to embark on a policy of self-elimination.
Look at it from their perspective If they are not to ordain priests, then the Holy See won't have to negotiate with the SSPX anymore -- the Holy See will have to merely fold its arms and wait for the death of the last SSPX bishop.
Last edited by asianpilgrim; 06/28/09 05:32 AM.
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"If they are not to ordain priests, then the Holy See won't have to negotiate with the SSPX anymore -- the Holy See will have to merely fold its arms and wait for the death of the last SSPX bishop."
Works for me.
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Germany isn't exactly a bastion of traditional Catholicism, so it's pretty hypocritical for the bishops to attack the SSPX while ignoring far greater problems in there dioceses.
If you want the SSPX to go away, all that has to be done is to provide more traditional priests and parishes. An ultra liberal bishop will drive parishoners into the SSPX, a traditional one will bring many back.
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Illicity, in the case of being ordained, also incurs excommunication latae sentencae. The excommunicated are forbidden to receive the sacraments.
They become invalid matter for the sacrament the moment they knowingly agree to the illicit ordination... if they know.
And if they know the ordination to be illicit, then they become invalid manner, and thus the ordination is invalid.
But the presumption in this case is always of ignorance and thus validity.... Aramis, This is completely incorrect. Illicit ordination are just that illicit. Those ordained are truly ordained and the sacraments they offer are valid. Licity is about Church law being followed. Validity is about Christ's commands being followed. Invalid matter in the case of ordination could only be anb unbaptized person or a woman of any kind. Your theory really falls apart if you go back to the schism of the SSPX itself. The Archbishop and those bishops he ordained certainly knew they were acting illicitly in the eyes of Rome and would incur excommunication. If your theory were correct there would be no SSPX to reconcile as the bishops would not be bishops and the priests they ordained would not be priests. Fr. Deacon Lance
My cromulent posts embiggen this forum.
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Fr. Deacon:
If one reads the formal excommunication of the SSPX bishops, one notes that HH JP II never refers to them as bishops, only as priests.
Can. 1382 A bishop who consecrates some one a bishop without a pontifical mandate and the person who receives the consecration from him incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.
In the case of priestly and deaconal ordinations within the SSPX, it is fair to say none of them believe their impending ordinations illicit. Thus rendering the validity valid but impeded. Especially since
Can. 1017 A bishop cannot confer orders outside his own jurisdiction without the permission of the diocesan bishop.
No SSPX Bishop currently serving has a valid jurisdiction; Fr. Fellay, being excommunicated at the time of his election, lacks validy as superior general.
Can. 1331 §1. An excommunicated person is forbidden:
1/ to have any ministerial participation in celebrating the sacrifice of the Eucharist or any other ceremonies of worship whatsoever;
2/ to celebrate the sacraments or sacramentals and to receive the sacraments;
3/ to exercise any ecclesiastical offices, ministries, or functions whatsoever or to place acts of governance.
§2. If the excommunication has been imposed or declared, the offender:
1/ who wishes to act against the prescript of §1, n. 1 must be prevented from doing so, or the liturgical action must be stopped unless a grave cause precludes this;
2/ invalidly places acts of governance which are illicit according to the norm of §1, n. 3;
3/ is forbidden to benefit from privileges previously granted;
4/ cannot acquire validly a dignity, office, or other function in the Church;
5/ does not appropriate the benefits of a dignity, office, any function, or pension, which the offender has in the Church.
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Actually (in Roman Canon law), illicitly ordaining a priest/deacon only results in the recently ordained priest being automatically suspended from the office and the bishop is punished by being prohibited from ordaining for one year. . . Can. 1383: A Bishop who, contrary to the provision of Can. 1015, ordained someone else's subject without the lawful dimissorial letters, is prohibited from conferring orders for one year. The person who received the order is ipso facto suspended from the order received. This is why the SSPX priests were never excommunicated - they merely functioned illicitly. Ordaining a BISHOP without pontifical mandate results in excommunication. This is what the SSPX Bishops did (and why the five of them [Arch Bishop Lefebvre, and Bishops Mallerais, Williamson, de Galarreta, and Fellay] were excommunicated). Can. 1382: Both the Bishop who, without a pontifical mandate, consecrates a person a Bishop, and the one who receives the consecration from him, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See. In short, the ordinations that are taking place this year won't being about any new punishments or penalties, aside from the suspensions of the new priests and deacons - and that isn't really new from an organizational sense.
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"If they are not to ordain priests, then the Holy See won't have to negotiate with the SSPX anymore -- the Holy See will have to merely fold its arms and wait for the death of the last SSPX bishop."
Works for me. You just proved my point.
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Well, I really have no time for the SSPX, which is more than just a group of people nostalgic for the Tridentine Mass. That was just their most visible symbol, the banner they used to rally support. At a more profound level, they entirely reject all developments in the Church after Vatican I, and most emphatically the ecclesiology of Vatican II and all it entails, including the "ecclesiology of communion" that makes possible the existence of the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Orthodox Churches as true Churches; and the concept of ecumenism as something more than the abject surrender of the Eastern Churches to a triumphant Latin Church subsuming all within its ranks. That the SSPX supports the Transalpine Redemptorists is more than enough reason for me to wish for the total suppression of the movement, which more than occasionally crosses over the line from dissent into rank heresy.
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Stuart,
What they really reject--first and foremost--is Modernism, which is the heresy that essentially says the world (in the sense condemned in Scripture) is good, and that Christians should act just like non-believers except that they have all these nice ceremonies and pious fables (which, of course, are true for them).
The unfortunate part is that at the time of Vatican II, many interpreted its teachings as the triumph of Modernism--most of them embracing it and losing their faith as a result. The SSPX made the same mistake, except that they rejected Vatican II along with Modernism, erroneously believing them to be one and the same.
That's why I don't share your disdain for them--even though I certainly disagree with them.
Peace,
Deacon Richard
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