SSPX and the Novus Ordo: A New Spirit of Cooperation

Submitted by LocutusOP on Wed, 03/28/2018 - 23:59
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MadMC , AvatarGHG,  GeeHardy,AvatarWayne Nichols , Mary,Avatardaisy ,AvatarMKDAWUSS , Antrodemus,  Barbara , AvatarMark Amesse ,AvatarTom McKenna , AvatarOldavid ,AvatarHelen Westover , jacobum        

       

Date: 
Wednesday, March 28, 2018 - 23:45
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SSPX and the Novus Ordo: A New Spirit of Cooperation

 

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MadMC • 3 days ago

So, if these new SSPX marriages don't go too well, will Fr Vachon and his ilk be helping the couples to get their very own FrancisChurch(R) quick-and-easy-anullment? Or will he leave them to do it on their own, only to give them communion when they've found someone new?

 

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    GHG • 3 days ago

    now the serious research begins on the EasternChurch or EasternOrthodoxy as a last resort...

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      GeeHardy GHG • 3 days ago

      'Orthodoxy' is NOT an option for Catholics. They are schismatics as well as heretics. They reject the filioque and papal infallibility. The Eastern Catholic rites which use the liturgy of St John Chrysostom are, of course, an entirely different matter.

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    Wayne Nichols • 3 days ago

    We need to first find out whether the action of Fr. Vachon is, in fact, the action authorized by the SSPX. The last explanation I heard of the "permission" given by Pope Francis is that the situation has not changed, and that the NO priest can come as a witness, but the Society priest would in fact be performing all the ceremony. It was not anticipated that this would occur regularly (no pun), since most dioceses do not have the priests to send to witness SSPX marriages.

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      Mary Wayne Nichols • 3 days ago

      The bride or the groom may have requested the witness of the NO priest either to satisfy themselves or family members who may have doubts concerning the validity of SSPX marriages.

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daisy • 3 days ago

I'm unimpressed. The couple presumably paid their money and got married in the diocesan parish just like any other couple. That's progress? Fr. Vachon apparently was just a guest.

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    MKDAWUSS • 3 days ago

    I'd say it's not much of anything. It's a wedding and seeing as the SSPX isn't schismatic, I don't see any cause for concern or celebration (as it applies to SSPX-Vatican relations - the couple is cause for celebration!).

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Antrodemus • 3 days ago

Neither concern nor celebration is warranted, just caution.

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Barbara • 3 days ago

Unfortunately the comment "it doesn't matter which priest officiated" is telling. I would suggest it matters very much. Yeah, I know the couple marries each other…blah, blah, but what's the point of belonging to a traditional parish and not having your vows witnessed and blessed by your own priest?

Yeah, faculties…but the SSPX must hold some sort of line. I've never been one of those who sees the SSPX capitulating on so-called important dogmatic issues, but is this the slippery slope?

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Mark Amesse • 3 days ago

Recently, I was sitting in a pew in an SSPX chapel and I heard the priest utter the words “New Church” from the pulpit and my head snapped up. For a moment, it was like I was transported back in time. Those of us who are concerned have been repeatedly reminded that rumours of Bishop Fellay’s surrender have been flying about for well over a decade now, yet His Lordship to date has refused to sign a disastrous agreement. While this is true, it is becoming clear that the SSPX is changing course without the signature of the Superior General. One need not be a ‘nutter’ to worry that the tonal change and outright silence, along with examples such as the one cited above, are attempts to boil us slowly and make the signature a non-event. I am not a sedevantist or a member of the Resistance, and this story in isolation would not concern me. It is precisely when it is placed in context that it becomes concerning. Save the ink and spare the trees. The Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies doesn’t seem to need it.

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Tom McKenna • 3 days ago

Oh boy, open the floodgates for the nutty brigades. This is a very positive development, and I applaud the leadership of the SSPX for not refusing to engage with the "establishment" church. Someday, they have to come in from the cold. Maintaining a presence in the life of the "ordinary" Church is important. Events like this one make it increasingly hard for the Left to claim that SSPX is simply schismatic, and increasingly hard for the other fringe to claim that any association with the canonically regular, duly appointed bishop of a place is somehow a modernistic surrender. Kudos to the good priests (and their superiors) who allowed this to happen.

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    Oldavid • 3 days ago

    I think this is a political trick pulled by the NO machine to falsely prey on the consciences of Catholics who are being bluffed into thinking that valid, licit Sacramental marriage must have canonical approval. Cannon Law is very vague (I would say duplicitous, even ultimately self-contradictory) on what it says about valid and licit (Catholic) marriages.
    Before I (again) undertake the onerous business of finding the relevant names, dates and relevant documents I will give a brief overview of the situation.
    The Church has never (officially) required married converts (even pagans) to undergo a "proper (or Canonical) marriage" as a marriage is the commitment by a man and a woman to a lifetime unity. We needn't get bogged in the nuances of that for the purposes of this argument.
    However, sometime back in the Middle Ages a pope issued a directive that individual bishops of individual Catholic dioceses could declare "secret marriages" to be invalid if/when/ because they inherently and intentionally violated the necessary matter of a valid marriage; namely that the participants are free to be married (no impediments like vows of celibacy, or freely entering the contract, or an already existing marriage). In my opinion, it was to counteract localised abuses by clerics and politically expedient child brides (and grooms) who could claim "too late! let no man put asunder!"
    But then some intellectually lazy Cannon Lawyers put that directive into Canon Law as though it applied to the whole Church (which it does, of course, as far as impediments to marriage goes) but it does not mean that any bishop has an arbitrary control of who is married and who is not.
    Perhaps the SSPX has been bamboozled and intimidated but it doesn't necessarily mean capitulation.

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      Helen Westover Oldavid • 3 days ago

      It's EVOLUTION, my friend! Start compromising in small things (THIS IS SMALL _ NOT) and evolve into heresy, Remember the years between 1966 and today? I fled to the SSPX from the wreckage of the NO, it's stripping of the Sacraments, and felt banners. I will NOT stay with the SSPX if it compromising on ONE MORE THING! Their churches and chapels will be bare. Their seminaries will be empty, just like the Novus Ordo - lie down with dogs,.....

 

 

 

 

Own comment: 

I abhore the Novus Ordo regime as much as anyone else, if not more than any.

However, I cannot jump onto the bandwagon of those who say that the SSPX witnessing marriages between Catholics which are carried out through the latest 'provision' by the Vatican is proof that the SSPX is selling out.

The SSPX is more than just the resistance and if individual pastors or the entire organisation feel the need to receive the insults of NOChurch's hierarchy to make the lives of their congregants easier, then I for one will not hold it against them. I am quite sure that there are quite a few Novus Ordo bishops who would like to see the SSPX brought fully into the fold, and it cannot but help their case if the SSPX shows some co-operation now and then.

I do find it ridiculous and shameful that the SSPX is put in this position, in which their sacraments, i.e., the authentic sacraments of Holy Mother Church, are looked down upon. They don't deserve this, and they don't deserve to have their priests bad-mouthed. However, humility is a virtuous thing, and in accepting an unjust humiliation, perhaps the SSPX is showing us all that as  important as it is to assert what is right, it is sometimes permissible, and even laudable, to acquiesce, so long as the act is not in and of itself immoral.

I am quite sure that the SSPX priest would rather have officiated the wedding, but he stood aside so that there would be no issue with the diocese. The least we can hope is that the diocesan priest conducted the marriage in an authentic Catholic rite, and not in the hippies-rite that is the Novus Ordo.