My Background regarding the SSPX

During my second year of college I began attending the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), which was at an Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) apostolate a reasonable drive away. For those who don’t know, the FSSP was founded by former SSPX members who disagreed with SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s decision to consecrate 4 bishops without Rome’s approval in 1988. As a result the priests of the FSSP are anti-SSPX to varying degrees, mostly hardline. There was no SSPX presence near me at college nor where I grew up. I didn’t have strong feelings towards the SSPX other than I did not believe I could attend their chapels and I found their website harsh (in hindsight they had a pretty decent site layout, I don’t even think they were using https). I began to follow the SSPX closer when their negotiations with Vatican began and ultimately failed around 2009. I attended the FSSP almost exclusively until 2013 when I moved to an area with no FSSP presence.

Around 2019 I transitioned away from a stressful job with long-hours [finally] had [some] free time on my hands. I became a big consoomer of traditional Catholic media, listening to good number of the usual podcasts (Marshall, Remnant, Flanders, Fatima Center, etc) whilst commuting and touching/mowing grass. I read a ton of the standard trad books (Gruner, Ferrara, Davies, +Lefebvre, etc), and overall kept up with the goings on in the Church - at least within my segment of the hoi poloi.

I became sympathetic to the position of +Lefebvre and believed that he acted in good faith. I gained perspective towards him and understood that he was a practical man, a missionary for most of his clerical career, and was used to having to diy in the bush of Africa. Whether he was right or wrong to consecrate said bishops in 1988 and incur what normally would be automatic excommunication, I realized in his own eyes he was making a prudential judgment in a situation that went beyond the letter of the law - I daresay even an inconceivable situation (queue guy from Princess Bride) - believing his obligation before God was to follow not the letter, but the spirit of the law. I concluded that even if he were wrong his decision, he was in good faith and as a result was protected from excommunication in both the 1917 and 1983 codes of canon law, which have a few exceptions for state of emergency, necessity, etc. Far more learned men have come to the same conclusion. ¹

Furthermore in reviewing Rome’s correspondence with and regarding the SSPX since the early 1990s, I came to believe Catholics could attend SSPX chapels provided they do not take on a schismatic attitudes (I’m omitting details here). If you drew a line in the sand and asked me if +Lefebvre was right or wrong side of the line, I would say right. I began attending the local SSPX chapel as I viewed it as the best option in my area for my family. If there was an FSSP, ICRSS, or consistent diocesan church around, I would have probably attended those instead.

TL;DR:

I say all this as background to explain that:

1. I have been on both sides of the SSPX issue.
2. I have considered all sides to some [hopefully adequate] degree
3. I still am not hardline one way or the other.
4. I acknowledge that I could be wrong.

The Crux of the SSPX: Crisis and Necessity

The correctness or even liceity of the SSPX hinges on the fact that:

1. The Church is in a crisis.
2. There is a necessity for bishops to continue the mission of the Church (could also mean a state of emergency).

That’s it, really. To be squeaky clean, you really need both of these to be true.

Talking Heads

Since around 2022 I have mostly removed myself from consoom Catholic media. For the most part it is a distraction for me. I make exception for Avoiding Babylon for the lulz and meme content. There is nothing about the faith I can’t learn from books I have, and there is nothing truly important that I won’t find out from the pulpit or some meme chats. I am not saying you need to tune these out or falling into the classic “you’re not a real Catholic unless you ___” fallacy, but especially with Lent upon us I would advise at least considering it. Plenty of the talking heads laudably take time off during Lent.

Regarding the recent SSPX announcement, I have deliberately not cared much what others have said about it. I will now contradict what I just said and say that from a cursory glance of the headlines it seems the response has been fairly measured and optimistic, especially considering there is time. This is a good thing.

Thought Experiment - the actually schismatic SSPX2

It is the year 2026. The fictional SSPX2 has existed as a formal parallel church since 1970 and has set up its own dioceses since then. The conditions in the Church are otherwise exactly as they are now. We treat the SSPX2 as heretics and formal schismatics.

With that being said:

1. Is there a crisis in the Church?
2. Is there a need for Catholic Bishops?

If you ask any faithful Catholic who attends anything to the right of a garden variety American Novus Ordo, he will almost certainly say yes to both of those questions.

So if Bp. Someguy decided out of necessity he was going to consecrate bishops so that the sacraments of confirmation and holy orders could be continued (and more things), would he be justified under the current circumstances?

If not, I don’t necessarily fault you for saying so; you are saying so out of filial obedience to the Church. But my question to you would be:

1. What would be the point at which we are in a crisis and/or it becomes necessary?
2. If there is never a point where consecrating bishops (or breaking some other disciplinary law) is justified, then why does canon law even give qualifications for doing such things? Why would it leave those kinds of outs?

My Take

Looking at everything from a 30k ft view (that’s about 10km, long live the Empire) over the last 100 years or so, I don’t know how much worse it has to get before we can officially call it a crisis. It seems to quack quack a lot louder than a single duck. I would say even if 25% of the churches were in as bad shape as the average one is today (or was in 1970), we’d be in a crisis (though we might have enough bishops in that case).

Likewise when there are literally single-digit number of bishops who we call /ourguy/ - and the lead of them is an Auxiliary Bishop from Kazakhstan - I’m not sure how we can say there isn’t a need for bishops. Fortunately a number of them still have some time left - provided they don’t get Cdl. Pell’d (RIP) - in 10 or 20 years how many will be left? Are any of the good diocesan or religious priests getting elevated? Who is determining who becomes bishop (aka “king makers”), and who has been elevated over the last 15-ish years? Is there any end in sight to this? Can we even see an inflection point where things begin to slow down?

Perspective is Key

I ask that anyone who feels strongly one way or the other, please have charity and steel-man your opponent.

If you are strongly against the SSPX, please read the works of +Lefebrve, especially Open Letter to Confused Catholics. Read his biography, watch his documentary. Do everything you can to gain his perspective.

Afterwards if you don’t think he was justified, that’s alright, just have an answer as to when he (or someone) would be justified in doing so.

Put yourself in the shoes of a faithful bishop in 2026. What would you do? What would you feel comfortable bringing to your judgment? I don’t envy any of these men, it is a hard decision all around, and I think it would take a tremendous amount of fortitude to faithfully choose one side or the other. It is not a clean win-lose situation, but a bad-worse situation.

Above all I pray God’s will be done. AMDG.

Purple.

Septuagesima

From the Catholic encyclopedia:

(Latin septuagesima, the seventieth).

Septuagesima is the ninth Sunday before Easter, the third before Lent known among the Greeks as “Sunday of the Prodigal” from the Gospel, Luke 15, which they read on this day, called also Dominica Circumdederunt by the Latins, from the first word of the Introit of the Mass. In liturgical literature the name “Septuagesima” occurs for the first time in the Gelasian Sacramentary. Why the day (or the week, or the period) has the name Septuagesima, and the next Sunday Sexagesima, etc., is a matter of dispute among writers. It is certainly not the seventieth day before Easter, still less is the next Sunday the sixtieth, fiftieth, etc. Amularius, “De eccl. Off.”, I, I, would make the Septuagesima mystically represent the Babylonian Captivity of seventy years, would have it begin with this Sunday on which the Sacramentaries and Antiphonaries give the Introit “Circumdederunt me undique” and end with the Saturday after Easter, when the Church sings “Eduxit Dominus populum suum.” Perhaps the word is only one of a numerical series: Quadragesima, Quinquagesima, etc. Again, it may simply denote the earliest day on which some Christians began the forty days of Lent, excluding Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday from the observance of the fast.¹

The Church in her wisdom gives us a time prior to Lent so that we may better be prepared for the Lenten season. It is supposed to be a time of fasting and penance, and nobody who seriously takes up that practice - or any bodily practice - jumps in cold turkey with a day’s notice. The idea is that the entire 40-day period (it’s not quite 40 days, just like Septuagesima/Sexagesima/Quinquagesima aren’t actually 70/60/50 days respectively. Math is hard.) is a time of fasting and prayer in preparation for Easter. Lent isn’t meant to be a 40-day journey where we gradually ween ourselves and hopefully by Easter we’re able to fast for a day or two.

Ideally we are so aware of the liturgical year that at all times we know how many days remain until Lent and so we can be prepared on our own without any reminders. Rephrased: ideally we should not have concupiscence and other effects of Original Sin. Unfortunately that is not how people are, so the Church gives us these visible reminders that Lent is coming. The colour is purple which we only see in Lent and Avent; the Gloria is ommitted; the Epistle and Gospel readings have a more penitential or reflective tone so that we are encouraged to reflect on the Mercy of God and where we need to be in 3 weeks (and at the end of our lives).

This is not a practice isolated to the Latin Church, and it has its parallels in the Greek Church with Meatfare and Cheesefare, plus with similar trends in the readings. This is a universal (i.e. catholic) practice meant to strengthen our weak human nature, which is yet again something the authors of the Novus Ordo - who at least claimed to appeal to ‘modern man’ and the East - got completely wrong.

When I attended the NO - which has been over a decade ago at this point - it very frequently happened that I would show up to Mass on Sunday with Fr. in green vestments, not knowing what Sunday it is in Ordinary Time, and there might be a comment in the homily that Ash Wednesday is this week. I haven’t changed, so I was just as forgetful or side-tracked as I am now. That gave me 3 days to quickly move away from feasting and consooming product to the opposite. Then whatever things I wanted to do for Lent generally didn’t happen at the start, which means they pretty much didn’t happen. Failing in our resolutions is inevitable to at least some degree, but it sure helps if we at least have a fighting chance and make headway from the get go. That initial momentum helps us make it to the end.

So, if you’re like me and completely forgot about Septuagesima Sunday, that is completely ok. The Calendar is designed with us in mind. It’s part of the plan - trvst the plan.

I wish you all a blessed [preparation for] Lent.