When mention is made of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), what comes to the mind of most is their insistence upon celebrating the Tridentine Mass. However, their divide with the Vatican is far more serious and complicated. If the problem were simply an attachment to the older ritual, there would be no excommunications and schism. The proof of this is the regularized status of the Fraternity of St. Peter. They offer the pre-Vatican II Mass exclusively and without hindrance. The crisis with the SSPX is over the direction and teachings of Vatican II.
A growing number of living Catholics were not around or were small children prior to Vatican II (1962-1965). At the request of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the Society of St. Pius X was established and canonically erected as a “pious union” on an experimental basis for six years by Bishop François Charrière of the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg in Switzerland on November 1, 1970. His successor, Bishop Pierre Mamie, petitioned Rome and formally suppressed the SSPX’s canonical status on May 6, 1975. Archbishop Lefebvre refused to shut down the operation for the formation of seminarians and restructured the SSPX as a clerical or priestly organization. While Archbishop Lefebvre signed 14 of the 16 conciliar documents from Vatican II, he later renounced the Council and accused the post-Vatican II Church of modernism, liberalism, and adopting the “spirit of the modern world.”
The point of contention continues to be an interpretation of centuries old tradition and the extent of ongoing development. There are five areas of friction:
(1) HUMAN DIGNITY – As the root premise from which flow as corollaries the other areas of objection from the SSPX, we must begin with the most foundational principle of Catholic social doctrine. At the core of our belief in what Pope John Paul II called the Gospel of Life, is the conviction that every person is created in the image of God and as such, possesses an inherent, inalienable and incommensurate value that defeats every effort at quantification. Everyone has worth, even prior to the indwelling of divine grace. Even in the womb, human life is precious and irreplaceable. This valuation stems from humanity’s place as the steward of creation. This dignity is damaged by the primordial fall and sin but not destroyed. Human worth is not a measure that society can assign or reward to those it most favors. It is given immediately by God at the moment of conception. Most recently, this teaching emerges in Dignitas Infinita (2024) wherein Pope Francis speaks of “infinite dignity” grounded in the created order as a facet of our very being. He lists the violations against this dignity as including poverty, war, human trafficking, abortion, euthanasia, and gender theory. Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes (1965) makes human dignity a central component to Catholic teaching and outreach. This conviction places us at odds with any discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, color, social status, or religion. Such bigotry contradicts the will of God. Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae (1965) connected this dignity to freedom of conscience and religious freedom. Evangelium Vitae (1995) written by Pope St. John Paul II, focused on the value and inviolability of every human life, objecting to abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty. Pacem in Terris (1963) written by Pope St. John XXIII associated dignity and human rights with the pursuit of peace while respecting truth, justice, charity, and liberty.
The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) contends that human nature alone does not inherently possess any dignity that grants inalienable rights. Let that sink in, especially the consequences. They argue that true dignity belongs to the Christian, achieved exclusively through divine grace, rather than merely by being a human created in the image of God. It is no wonder that traditionalists constitute hawks in terms of military intervention around the world and are often rabid defenders of the death penalty. They refuse to acknowledge any doctrinal development about capital punishment. Indeed, some will even advocate for the Church’s past passivity for slavery, echoing ancient arguments— punishment for conquered peoples, a means to pay back debts, a manner to civilize savages with the faith and Western civilization. Indigenous culture is devalued. The traditionalist fraternity finds itself in conflict, not just with liberalism but with the Catholic mainstream.
The conciliar popes see human dignity as inherently rooted in creation itself, in nature (see CCC 1700). Human rights are first based upon natural dignity. By contrast, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre stated, “There is not a dignity of man; there is only the dignity of the Christian.” The SSPX argument is that Original Sin damages or corrupts human nature. The mainstream would also agree that it has been wounded, but not that it has become devalued. The SSPX repudiates the notion that unbaptized human beings (unregenerated and still in sin) possess any inherent incommensurate natural dignity. Where does the truth stand? There is no rift with tradition. But this is the great conflict that makes the regularization of the SSPX impossible. Our tradition is that human dignity is damaged but not destroyed. The “supernatural” or divine grace builds upon the “natural.” Baptism and saving faith transform creatures of God into adopted sons and daughters of the Father. Made in the “image of God,” divine grace makes possible our rebirth into the “likeness of Christ.” The implications of this even speak to the Church’s new interest in ecology. Why? It is because any abuse or neglect of our environment works to impoverish human persons. Our Christian anthropology looks to a creation where man stands at the center. The consequences of this understanding impact upon our understanding of the incarnation. Jesus comes into the world to save us and yet he also comes to resolve a metaphysical conflict. Christ as the Word is also the saving plan and the center of creation. You cannot have two centers. Thus, the Word becomes man. The consequence for fallen man is decisive; grace builds upon nature. While we would not reject the wonder that is man, a notion that comes down to us from the Enlightenment, it is that good seed from the natural order that grows by God’s intervention into something even more marvelous. Potency is actualized. Wired for God, that immeasurable dignity is used by God as a building block for his incarnation and the new man in baptism. That which is beyond evaluation is granted something of the infinite goodness that belongs to God.
(2) RELIGIOUS LIBERTY – The Council established religious freedom as a basic human right (see Dignitatis Humanae). No one should be compelled to violate his or her conscience about faith. But the response of the SSPX is an explicit objection. In its estimation, all must be subject to the Kingship of Christ and error has no rights. These traditionalists would reject religious liberty as an American imposition upon the universal Church.
Prior to the revolutionary War, Maryland as a colony had issued the Edict of Toleration (1649). This decree grated religious freedom for Trinitarian Christians. Maryland Catholics invited the Puritans persecuted in Virginia to join us in our colony. However, in 1654, Puritan rebels seized control of Maryland and revoked the colony’s groundbreaking Act of Religious Toleration. They quickly enacted sweeping penal laws that banned Catholic worship, prohibited Catholics from voting or holding public office, and severely restricted the religious freedoms of Jews, Quakers, and other dissenters.
As citizens, we know that freedom of religion is protected under the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It also established the separation of church and state. While we had to suffer the bigotries of the political Know Nothings and the prejudice of various early hate groups. The enactment of religious liberty would give us an even playing field wherein the Church in the United States could flourished.
American enthusiasts for the liturgies and spirituality of the SSPX might be less than pleased with this mentality toward our non-believing and Protestant neighbors. Our forefathers, Catholic and Protestant alike, came to this country to escape the oppression of state religions where institutionalized favoritism to one church came at the cost of persecuting all others. More than once the tables turned in Europe, and the Catholic Church suffered much in what were regarded as states favorable to Rome. But princes rose and fell and along with this movement also went the fortunes of the Church. One can certainly argue as a philosophical notion that the ideal state is one where there is harmony with the Church and concurrence with the truth. This is an ancient tradition. However, in practice, the subjective assessments of men lead to division. This particularly became the case after the reformation. The old mind about such matters allowed a king to steal the Church away in England where he made himself the head over the Pope. Even agreements of the Church to preserve peace in Europe often tolerated believers following the local prince, either into Catholicism or into the Protestant sects. The American notion of religious liberty severed this ability of the state to violate conscience and to compel a certain form of worship. Vatican II gives an emphasis to the nation of the new Israel or Christ’s reign over earthly kingdoms. Catholicism unlike the churches of the East is no national church. There is no American Catholicism or French Catholicism but rather as Roman it is, like the empire of old, international in scope. One can speak of the Catholic Church in America but never of an American Catholic Church. This distinction is often lost. Again, while in principle it would make sense that the Catholic political heads should have the moral duty to favor Catholicism and restrict error; the capriciousness of men and the changing state of the world made such imposition difficult or impossible to maintain. What was given by one monarch could just as easily be stripped away by the next. Did we really want to continue in a society where Catholics and Protestants conspired against one another and where both suspected the Jews of dark machinations? Certain Catholic traditionalists have argued, not only for the suppression of Jews to ghettos, but that Protestants should be restricted to home churches and forfeit their worship sites and schools. This is the mindset of the SSPX. But the world has moved on from such anachronism, or has it? It is precisely the mindset of militant Islam that forbids conversion to Christianity and in places like Saudi Arabia has outlawed the Church, altogether. The trouble with the shoe on the other foot is when it comes down to being kicked around. The Church’s teachings upon such matters must reflect the realities of the modern world. It makes no sense to speak of the divine rights of kings when such despots have disappeared. Toleration of false religions is not to posit faith or confidence in those creeds; no, it is rather a common respect for persons and a desire to live together in peace as brothers and sisters of a common homeland. This liberty allows us to persuade and to seek conversion through charity and dialogue, not through intimidation as through edict or decree.
(3) ECUMENISM – The Vatican Council urged dialogue over anathema. Pope John XXIII saw ecumenism as a manner to draw fallen away children back to the fold of Mother Church, not with scolding and threat of punishment but with affirmation of shared beliefs and the compelling power of the truth (see Unitatis Redintegratio, 1964). While we could never engage in non-Christian prayer, we might sometimes pray side-by-side and work together to improve the society in which we must live as neighbors. The SSPX wrongly condemns such efforts as the sin of indifferentism. But there is no pollution of true faith. Further, no one questions the ancient teaching from the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215: “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” The dogma of “Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus” is straightforward, since there is no salvation apart from Christ, and given that the Church is his mystical body, then the Church is the necessary vessel or great sacrament of salvation in Christ. It is for this reason that we seek to attract all to the safe harbor of salvation— the Catholic Church. However, teaching must be applied in a way that respects changing circumstances around us. While the great schism between the East and West had occurred in 1054 AD, the reformation rebellion did not occur until 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. This signified a great fracturing of the Church in the West. The reformers absconded with many Catholic beliefs and most importantly, with the sacrament of baptism. Unfortunately, they forfeited the crown treasures of Priesthood, Eucharist and Penance. Many through no fault of their own have been born into the Protestant confessions. They are baptized, read the Bible, love Jesus and know him as the Second Person of the Trinity and the Word incarnate, and seek to keep the commandments. The SSPX would contend that these saving elements are for nought. But our hearts will not let us believe that a good God would spurn their cry. The post-Vatican II Church would argue that these elements cry out for Catholic unity. Our Lord will not abandon those who love him and place their faith in his saving Cross. While our unity is not what it should be, it is not utterly severed. The Catholic Church reaches out to them and intercedes for them to almighty God. We need to trust that the Church’s collective trust in Jesus and cry to heaven will grant hope and might be efficacious. The mystery of the keys may be impenetrable, but it is real and the authority is given to Peter. Unfortunately, the SSPX gives lip service to Rome but nothing of true respect and subservience.
The SSPX is frequently tagged for being antisemitic. Whether they are or not, it is a question I would leave to others. However, they are on the record for questioning whether the Jews today are one and the same with the Jews of old. They would insist that their covenant ended with the coming of Christ and that those Jews who failed to convert to Christianity are no longer the People of God. This is not the view of the living Magisterium (see Nostra Aetate, 1965 on relations with non-Christian religions). Yes, it is true that the Catholic Church does not subscribe to Zionism, as the prophesied new Israel or new Jerusalem is not the political state of Israel but is rather the Church, herself. We believe that Jesus Christ is the consummation of the old covenant, but that God keeps his promises, and the Jews remain God’s own and our elder brothers and sisters in faith. There are not two separate covenants but one. The old becomes something new in Jesus Christ. The natural religion of the Jews with its belief in one true God is given a further revelation in the new dispensation of God as a Trinity. This belief of one God in three divine Persons raises Christian faith to a supernatural religion. No matter whether all Jews know it or not, Jesus is the Messiah and our Savior. We believe that Jesus is the ultimate term of salvation. None are saved apart from him. But we also appreciate that God’s grace cannot be utterly contained. God will save whomever he wills. We leave judgment to God. The SSPX would outrightly condemn much of the planet to perdition. By contrast we do not teach universalism (that all will be saved). Indeed, even Catholics with a soured faith and in mortal sin might forfeit heaven. However, if we walk with the Lord, people of faith live in the sure and certain hope of their salvation in Christ. We pray and intercede for others. Again, we do not usurp a prerogative that belongs to the Almighty— we leave judgment to almighty God.
(4) LITURGICAL REFORM & THE NOVUS ORDO MISSAE –
Vatican II called for a renewal of the liturgy. After much consultation and work, the reformed Mass of Paul VI was promulgated in 1969. While Latin was to have a preferred place, the vernacular quickly displaced it. Many lamented the loss of the many chants and our legacy of hymnody. While Society of Saint Pius X has objected to the changes, it has become abundantly clear that they would resist even the most modest alterations. They contend that the Novus Ordo obscures the sacramental aspect of the liturgy and waters down Catholic elements to appease Protestants. They will go so far as to castigate the reformed Mass as dangerous. It is my argument that they trespass in their critique into the moral area of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. If they believed that holy orders were truly conferred to priests of the living Church, why do they insist upon re-ordination when received into the SSPX? If they really believe the Novus Ordo Mass is valid then how can they urge against attendance, especially since the fruits prevail over any subjective aesthetic? No, they speak out of both sides of their mouths. Their arrogance destroys the humility necessary for a theologian and the posture of a Catholic who is one with Peter.
The changes in the liturgy were the result of a liturgical reform that in theory and small steps went back many decades prior to Vatican II— dialogue Masses, experiments with the orientation of the priest, the use of the vernacular, expansion of the Scriptures, the introduction of microphones, the permission for missal translations for the people, the reduction of duplication (as with the double Confiteor), etc. What surprised many people was the wholesale rewrite of the offertory and the addition of Eucharistic prayers. The latter is why some have suggested that the new liturgy signified a new rite and the loss of the Roman rite. However, the Roman Canon is still retained, and the liturgical pattern of the Roman rite remains the guide for our worship. What is this pattern?
THE STRUCTURE & ELEMENTS OF THE NOVUS ORDO (ROMAN RITE)
First, there are the Introductory Rites: 1. Introit (Antiphon /Hymn) & Kissing Altar, 2. Sign of the Cross & Greeting, 3. Confiteor & Kyrie Eleison & Absolution, 4. Gloria (Glory to God), and 5. Collect (Opening Prayer).
Second, is the Liturgy of the Word: 1. Reading(s), 2. Responsorial Psalm, 3. Alleluia or Gospel Verse, 4. Gospel, 5. Homily, 6. Creed (Profession of Faith), and 7. Prayer of the Faithful.
Third is the Preparation of the Gifts (Offertory): 1. Bringing Up the Offertory Gifts, 2. Blessing of the Bread, 3. Mixing Water into the Wine, 4. Blessing of the Chalice, 5. The Lavabo (The Washing), 6. The Orate Fratres (Pray Brethren), and 7. Prayer over the Gifts.
Fourth is the Liturgy of the Eucharist: 1. Introductory Dialogue & Preface, 2. Sanctus & Benedictus, 3. Eucharistic Prayer (Canon), and 4. Closing Doxology & Amen.
Elements of the Eucharistic Prayer or Anaphora: 1. Appeal to the Father or Plea for Acceptance, 2. Epiclesis (Invocation of the Holy Spirit), 3. Consecration (Words of Institution), 4. Memorial Acclamation, 5. Anamnesis (Memorial Prayer), and 6. Oblation to the Father.
Intercessions in Variable Order: 1. Intercession of the Saints, 2. Intercession for the Church, 3. Intercession & Memento for the Living, and 4. Intercession & Memento for the Dead.
Fifth is the Rite of Holy Communion: 1. Our Father, Deliver Us Prayer & Doxology, 2. Sign of Peace, 3. Fraction & Commingling, 4. Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), 5. Secret Prayer for Priestly Worthiness, 6. Ecce Agnus Dei (Behold the Lamb of God), 7. Communion & Antiphon (Hymn), and 8. Prayer after Communion.
Sixth, there are the cursory Concluding Rites: 1. Final Blessing and 2. Dismissal.
Finally, there is a truth that many seem to have historical amnesia about. Ultimately what makes the Roman rite, the Roman rite? There are many other liturgies that go back into antiquity. What gives singular value to this one ritual? The answer is simple and straightforward. The priests of the West wanted to do as the Romans do. In other words, they desired to imitate Peter or the Pope in Rome. The Holy Father is the living embodiment of the Roman rite!
The Holy Father is obligated to maintain the Church’s inheritance, but he can also rescue eclipsed traditions from the Church’s past treasure and build upon new insights that will add to the richness of faith for future generations. The Novus Ordo (the Vatican II Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite) restored several ancient liturgical elements that had been lost, obscured, or marginalized over time. These included expanded readings from Scripture (especially the Old Testament), the Prayer of the Faithful Bidding Prayers, multiple Eucharistic prayers, and concelebration. While many complain about the editing, the short Second Eucharistic Prayer borrowed from the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus. Communion in the hand was restored as an option that was normative for the first eight hundred years of the Church’s history.
Repeatedly, the hardliner traditionalists struggle with transition or development. One often feels more comfortable and secure with a staid tradition and dead popes than with a living tradition and breathing popes! Pope Francis was the symbol for everything a lover of tradition fears— novelty and uncertainty. I suppose that is why so many are hoping and praying that when the new cat, Pope Leo XIV, makes his final leap from the altar, that he will land on his feet and put all things right again— please, pretty, please!
(5) COLLEGIALITY & CHURCH AUTHORITY – Ultimately the fight between the SSPX and the Vatican is over ecclesiology or authority. The SSPX abhor Lumen Gentium (The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church) promulgated by Pope Paul VI on November 21, 1964. The document fundamentally reshapes the Church’s self-understanding in the modern world. Who speaks for the Church? Is it one dead archbishop and a few illicitly manufactured bishops against the thousands of bishops at Vatican II who remain in full union with Rome? Did our Lord promise Peter and his Church the gift of indefectibility or not? The SSPX has gotten so used to having its own way that it no longer knows how to concede to the papacy. It is an organization born from rebellion and its identity is tied up with its position as the opposition to reforms of any sort. It sees itself as the bastion of orthodoxy against a larger and universal Church which it has condemned as in the grips of the heresy of modernism. If it would not concede to Pope Benedict XVI, then it was highly unlikely that it would acquiesce either to Francis or now to Leo XIV. I suspect that is why the current Pope has said that it is time to let them go their way. We might get a few stragglers to return but like the Anglicans, they are set on their own path. Sadly, they will do so without Peter, which means that they have left the boat established by Christ on the sea of salvation history. Their stance over the last half century is becoming increasingly untenable. Do not be surprised when the day comes that one of their prelates will arise and be declared the great antipope of their confession.
While there is legitimate confusion about what constitutes the current synodal way, especially with the inclusion of select laity, the SSPX were not entirely happy with the college of bishops helping the Pope to govern the global Church, either. But the Church has grown too big for the small structures of the past to suffice. He needs people of varying expertise and learning. Mistakes will be made but the Church will be richer for the talents and wisdom of its saints, and yes even sinners who might become saints. While the SSPX might object that collegiality diminishes the supreme and monarchical authority of the Pontiff; it makes an exception for itself and has become querulous or whiny about being rebuffed by Rome. The SSPX tends to view sacred tradition as immutable and as a product from heaven against the dictates of shifting cultural opinions. However, just like Sacred Scripture, that is both the work of men and that of divine inspiration; tradition is a mixture of providence within the framework of human history. There is always both an immutable and a mutable component. The Church tolerated slavery but the egalitarian component of baptism and an extended reflection upon the dignity of the human person made such a concession or passivity to evil into something that could no longer be sustained or tolerated. The Church granted the state the right to execute the most dangerous criminals but here too, with the development of a more corrective penal system, the necessity of such an extreme measure was increasingly questioned. Pope John Paul II, who had known men to lose their lives under both the Nazis and later under Communist rule, distrusted the judgment of those who held the reins of power to make just decisions. Indeed, given the rise of abortion where innocent children were sentenced to death, he felt that a Western world in the grips of a culture of death had sacrificed the authority to condemn the guilty. Instead of concurrence with the world, we have witnessed the Church’s continuing moral ascendance as a sign of contradiction that challenges contemporary secular culture. The Church finds herself targeted as the enemy by the left and right. She is daily combating challenges to religious liberty, freedom of conscience, and crimes against human dignity. She is a Church in conflict, not only with the modern world, but with the world of old and the hardened traditions paraded by the SSPX. Today we are seeing this same clash or friction regarding warfare. The Church looks at weapons of mass destruction and the thousands of non-combatants in harm’s way and pleads for peace. This earns praise from the weak and recrimination from the strong. The weak look to the Pope and the Church as the voice for the oppressed and the marginalized. The strong tell Catholic leaders to stay out of politics and to mind their own business, or else.
The values of the Church are what they have always been. Homosexuality is still a disorientation, but we tell these people that we love them and desire to walk with them in the hopes that together we might “together” travel the path to conversion and holiness. We recognize a messiness and brokenness that touches many marriages and families these days. Instead of condemnation, we seek to bring healing and a path to regularization. We reach out to those who live for the flesh and remind them that there is a life in the spirit where one can find true happiness and something lasting. We plead that human beings should not be reduced to commodities— not in abortion, not in sweat shops, not in human trafficking— but persons who must be valued and loved. We are condemned for taking the cause of the immigrant. We are ridiculed for seeking to advance the poor. The same voices that might praise us for speaking up for the unborn child demand our silence about the prisoners on death row. The SSPX defenders add their voices to this worldwide ridicule. Notice how incensed they became when the Vatican library offered a small room for a few Moslems to pray privately in peace. It was no temple or public worship space, but still Vatican authorities were chastised for making a concession to the “Church of Satan”!
A man who would become a special prophet for Vatican II should be mentioned. Beloved by Traditionalists because of his orthodox television programs and a classic photo book on the Mass, Archbishop Fulton Sheen became a strong supporter for the Second Vatican Council. He praised the document Gaudium et Spes as “brilliant” in his book, Treasure in Clay. He advanced with zeal the Council’s directives. He delivered a strong and supportive speech to the Council fathers in November 1964 on our missionary outreach. He adopted the reforms of the council, including the Novus Ordo. At the beginning of the Council he remarked that Pope John XXIII was calling the Church to stop hiding behind closed doors and go out into the world because it was “waiting for salvation.” As Bishop of Rochester, Sheen fully implemented the ecumenical and pastoral directives of Vatican II. In September 1968, he became one of the first U.S. prelates to invite a Protestant leader to speak from his cathedral pulpit, aiming to make his diocese a catalyst for post-conciliar renewal and ecumenism. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen preached at televangelist Rev. Robert Schuller’s Arboretum in 1972. Traditionalists were infuriated; how dare he speak for a Dutch Reformed minister and treat his congregation as real Christians! Archbishop Sheen also frequently used the story of Lutheran Pastor Richard Wurmbrand—who endured 14 years of brutal torture and solitary confinement in Romanian Communist prisons for his Christian faith—to illustrate the reality of modern Christian martyrdom and the redemptive power of suffering. Making the case for religious liberty and ecumenism in the same breath earned contempt from the likes of the SSPX.
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