By all outward appearances, the July 1 consecrations of the Society of St. Pius X will take place without Vatican approval.
Earlier today, Ad Vaticanum reporter Niwa Limbu broke the news that Tucho “Kissy” Fernandez issued a statement essentially threatening the Society with excommunication if they proceed as planned.
The Dispatch
The development marks the latest in what has been an intensifying feud since Fernandez met with Pagliarani in Rome earlier this year.
One of Pagliarani’s strongest statements came in April when he rightly noted that, “the rupture does not come from the Society of Saint Pius X, but from the flagrant divergence of official teachings from Tradition and the constant Magisterium.”
Other public statements by the SSPX indicate that it is quite willing to undergo another “excommunication.”
In an essay published on La Porte Latine last month, long-time Écône seminary professor Fr. Jean-Michel Gleize pushed back against an FSSP priest who expressed opposition to the consecrations.
“The legalism of the Fraternity of Saint Peter … flees from the wolf and abandons the sheep,” he maintained.
In a separate article, Gleize singled out Cardinal Robert Sarah, who has sided against the SSPX with German Cardinal Gerhard Müller and American Cardinal Raymond Burke.
“The pathetic appeal of the Guinean prelate is not one that commands unanimous support,” he wrote.
Pagliarani himself accused Sarah and Müller of living “in a kind of permanent dichotomy” and of succumbing to a “deeper and typically modern malaise.”
Public relations campaign
True to form, the Society has been promoting its long-time ally Bishop Athanasius Schneider.
On social media and on its various news websites lately, the SSPX has repeatedly amplified Schneider’s claim that if the Vatican takes decisive action against them they needn’t lose any sleep over it.
“I think that if the excommunication were applied, it would be invalid in a certain way, because there is no intention on the part of the Society of Saint Pius X to commit a schismatic act,” Schneider told Vatican reporter Michal Haynes.
One indication that Leo is likely preparing a decree against the Society is that Secretary of State Pietro Parolin wrote a letter in March urging the French hierarchy to be “generous” in granting permission for more Latin Masses.
The letter is significant because France is the beating heart of the Society. Looking back now, it was obvious that it was a proactive measure designed to ensure laity will seek refuge in Vatican-approved parishes following a July 1 excommunication.
What will actually happen?
If a deal between the Rome and the SSPX isn’t worked out over the next month and a half and they end up being “excommunicated” again, what might we see? Some have speculated that Society priests and clergy will depart for the Ecclesia Dei groups. Others have suggested there might be a mass drop off in public support from Traditional influencers who had previously been “friendly” towards them. I highly doubt either of those will happen.
At this point, what I am most interested in is the sermon that will be delivered at the consecrations Presumably, that will come from Bishop Fellay. Will he echo Archbishop Lefebvre and refer to the post-conciliar popes as “antichrists”? Will he repeat the good archbishop’s comment that, “to re-enter this Conciliar Church in order, supposedly, to make it Catholic. That is a complete illusion”?
After the 1988 excommunications, the leaders of the SSPX published a statement declaring that it was a “mark of honor” to be excommunicated from the Conciliar Church. They also said that the laity have “a strict right to know that the priests who serve them are not in communion with a counterfeit church, promoting evolution, pentecostalism and syncretism.”
I sincerely hope the new bishops and priests who occupy prominent positions in the SSPX will issue a statement similar to that one this time around.
Archbishop Viganò has weighed in on the consecrations as well, though his praise for the Society has oddly not been promoted by its marketing team.
In a social media post released in February, His Excellency noted that the Society is “already in communion with the Catholic Church of all time” and that it is “the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, with its Prefect Tucho Fernández, that must be questioned and judged for … embracing conciliar and synodal errors.”
His Excellency reiterated his views in an email interview with me earlier this year.
“True ecclesial communion is not measured by canonical recognition by a hierarchy that has lost the Faith, but by integral fidelity to Divine Revelation, to the two-thousand-year-old Magisterium, and to the Holy Sacraments transmitted without adulteration,” he explained.
The Society and its supporters should not be worried if a forthcoming decree of excommunication is handed down by the Vatican. Why? Because, as Archbishop Lefebvre once said, “we should have no hesitation or fear, hesitation such as, ‘Why should we be going on our own? After all, why not join Rome, why not join the pope?‘ Yes, if Rome and the pope were in line with Tradition, if they were carrying on the work of all the popes of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, of course. But they themselves admit that they have set out on a new path. They themselves admit that a new era began with Vatican II.”
As such, being “excommunicated” by men who do not outwardly profess the Catholic faith is indeed a mark of honor.
