The Sat Report: The SSPX take the nuclear option, again

SSPX announced today that they intend to consecrate new Bishops without Papal Mandate

In a move that has been years in the making, and is neither surprising but nonetheless disappointing, the SSPX announced in a communiqué this morning that they intend to consecrate new Bishops on July 1^st, without the approval of Rome.

Last August the SSPX asked for a meeting with the Holy Father, which never materialized, and then a second letter where the SSPX leadership petitioned the Holy Father for permission to Consecrate new bishops. One assumes that the question they posed to the Pope was one that could have been answered with a yes/no answer. The answer the SSPX received, in the last few days according to aforementioned communiqué, “does not in any way respond to our requests.” I would really love to read the response, probably pages long, all to say no.

The Sacred Episcopal Consecration of Bernard Fellay at the hands of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre at Écône in 1988 (Credit: FSSPX)

So, the SSPX have decided to take things into their own hands, citing an emergency crisis, like Lefebvre did in 1988.

This is will undoubtedly cause splits in the SSPX like it did post-1988, some will leave, joining the FSSP most probably. It hurts the unity of Holy Mother Church. I feel mostly for the lay faithful, especially those who are ministered by the SSPX, the faithful sympathetic to their cause, and those like myself who always maintained, like Pope Francis did, they are Catholics and not in schism. I wonder how many lay will stay with the SSPX given that the at present time their situation in the Church is much regular, though not perfect, than it was in 1988.

The bishops who take part in the Consecrations will be excommunicated, either immediately or within days. The SSPX had enough respect for Pope Francis not to do this during in his Pontificate, after all he was the Pope that they gave their priests the faculties to hear confessions and witness marriages. The irony here is that had Francis been alive, he probably would have lifted the excommunications almost as quickly as they would have been imposed. Francis had a track-record with Rupnik.

We have the ridiculous situation where the Chinese Communist Party is selecting Bishops, some without Papal approval, the same thing the SSPX intends to do, and the Vatican still persists with honouring a deal which the CCP has broken many times.

Then there is the outgoing President of the German Bishops’ Conference is giving thinly veiled ultimatums to the Pope and the Vatican about the Synodal Assembly, saying yesterday, Synodal Assembly “will not proceed without the green light from Rome; it would be a provocation to be avoided. However, I have no reason to doubt that timely approval will be forthcoming.”

From the ground this looks like hypocrisy, though in much the same way as we have no idea of the contents of this letter from the Vatican to the SSPX, we still have no idea of the contents of the secret Sino-Vatican provisional agreement. This however, won’t stop us pointing it out.

The SSPX with this announcement have clearly tried to pressure the Vatican and quite frankly try to bully Pope Leo XIV to heed to their demands. This is not only unfair on the Pope, but I suspect will not end well for the SSPX. As far as negotiating tactics go, this is Greenland. Except the SSPX are Denmark.

With respect to the SSPX, over recent decades the Vatican has done so much work to heal the wounds that followed the Council, Benedict lifting the excommunications, Francis with the granting of faculties. They are not in schism at the moment, but they will be if these consecrations go ahead. Pray they change track. Pray for the Pope. Pray for the lay faithful that are directly affected by the decisions of those who are charged to feed and defend the sheep of the Lord.