Christian spirituality: The Holy See and the SSPX
The Society of St Pius X does not accept many of the deliberations of Vatican II
The acronym SSPX stands for the Society of St Pius X, the association founded by archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1969. For most people, this is the society that continues to insist on using the Tridentine Mass (the pre-Vatican II Mass in Latin). This is so, but not only.
Like their founder, the followers of Lefebvre do not accept many of the deliberations of Vatican II. They particularly rejected sections of the constitution on the Liturgy, the documents on inter-religious dialogue, religious freedom, and the teaching of Lumen Gentium on the structure of the Church.
As far as I know, while there could be a few who prefer Mass in Latin, in Malta there are no adherents to this society; but given that we are members of the universal Church, we should be concerned about this situation. Not accepting the teaching of Vatican II means taking distance from the Church because an ecumenical council is binding on all Catholics.
When in 1988, archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without the pope’s permission he and the consecrated bishops incurred automatic excommunication. Pope Benedict XVI rehabilitated the institution under certain conditions.
The SSPX recently informed the Holy See that it needed to consecrate new bishops and that it was going to do so on July 1, even without the pope’s authorisation. The Holy See invited the society to enter into a specifically theological dialogue but it refused because, it said, it cannot renounce its beliefs.
Our knowledge of God needs to grow… in the light of new contexts, and even in the light of other knowledge that need not always be religious knowledge
The Church, through all the popes since the Council, beginning with Pope Paul VI and ending with Pope Leo XIV, has gone through great lengths to bring this community back to the fold and even made some concessions to it, like allowing them to say the Tridentine Mass, which is a valid mass but which the Council had substituted with the new mass which is a better expression of the new way of conceiving the Church.
Cardinals Robert Sarah and Gerhard Müller, both considered to be conservative prelates, exhorted the society to submit to the papal authority but it continues to be adamant, insisting that Vatican II departed from Church tradition.
This is far from the case. If anything, the SSPX are the ones not following Church tradition because the office of the pope is Church tradition, and distancing themselves from the pope is ignoring tradition.
Besides, tradition does not mean sticking to the formulation of past times. Theology is defined as “Faith seeking understanding”. This implies that it is an ongoing process. God is mystery and we can never grasp God fully. We know God because God revealed himself to us, but our knowledge of God needs to grow, and this happens gradually, in the light of prayer, in the light of new contexts, and even in the light of other knowledge that need not always be religious knowledge.
Maybe some are asking, “How does this concern us?”. It does, because these are part of our body and we are responsible. The Holy See made this very clear in an official statement by asking “the entire Church to accompany this journey, especially in the coming times, with prayer to the Holy Spirit, who is the principal architect of the true ecclesial communion desired by Christ.”
