It is the real thing

Last week, whilst with Catholic friends our discussion touched on the SSPX. 

I was surprised to find our friends making a statement that, up until then, I had only believed in myself in a very private way.

They stated that it was only really when attending an SSPX Mass that they felt that all was right - all was perfect and complete.

I perfectly understand this view and find it refreshing that others believe it also.

That is not to show any disrespect whatsoever to our great priests who struggle in their parishes, offering both the old and the new in an effort to hold all together, to abide by the orders of their Bishop and to the guidance of the Holy Father.

But an SSPX priest, when he celebrates Mass, does so in an environment that is wholly Catholic, wholly at one with Christ.

And he is completely dedicated to the Mass of all Time as is the church where he celebrates Mass.

The air is not defiled by echoes of guitars and tambourines, there has never been any inane pre Mass chatter in the church, no one has ever walked across the path of the tabernacle and bowed instead of genuflecting.

No lay person has ever laid hands on the Blessed Sacrament, the ambience evokes totally the hermeneutic of continuity; when you attend Mass there you are back in the time of Christ. The basic elements of the liturgy that materialised over the first three or four hundred years of Christianity are palpable - Christ lives, God is present!

That is one reason why we so badly need the SSPX back within the fold. They provide the gold standard against which, others may set their benchmark.

When the continuity of tradition has been fractured, and to a large degree lost, it is invaluable to be able to take that missing gem and restore it to its rightful place in the crown that is Christ's.

A Mass untainted by modernism

What, precisely, is a personal prelature?

It would appear (although, as far as I am aware, no official statement has yet been verified) that a personal prelature has been offered by Cardinal Levada to Bishop Fellay of the Society of St Pius X.

What does that actually mean?

 Opus Dei operates under a personal prelature and it appears to be a quasi autonomous arrangement whereby an order or group, with the approval of the Holy Father operates independently of a Diocese and reports direct to Rome. Obviously, within certain parameters set by the CDF.

This is how Wikipedia defines it:


Personal prelature is an institutional structure of the Roman Catholic Church which comprises a prelate, clergy and laity who undertake specific pastoral activities. Personal prelatures, similar to dioceses and military ordinariates, are under the governance of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops. These three types of ecclesiastical structures are composed of lay people served by their own secular clergy and prelate. Unlike dioceses which cover territories, personal prelatures —like military ordinariates— take charge of persons as regards some objectives regardless of where they live.

Still not a crystal clear definition but at least a blueprint for how the SSPX might be brought back to full communion with Holy Mother Church.

The issue now is, will Bishop Fellay go for it?  Undoubtedly there will be some clauses that will cause him to reflect.

And the intransigent three, Bishops de Mallerais, Williamson and de Galarreta, what influence will they have on Bishop Fellay?

I believe that they will not unduly sway the good Superior General who will do what he believes is right, not what others may wish him to do.

Above all (literally) we have the Holy Spirit into whose power we entrust a positive outcome.

If we can move the gateposts for the Anglicans....

........then surely we can accommodate the SSPX!

Don't get me wrong (especially any members of the Ordinariate flock who may have strayed to this blog inadvertently) - I believe that the moves made by the Holy Father have been both welcome and wise and it is a matter of some considerable joy that we are now "one".

But, for heaven's sake, if we can accommodate vicars and laity from the Anglican faith, we must surely be able to reach an agreement with our own?

After all, is the Society's stance so very different from the one that many thousands of Catholics made in the wake of Vatican II?

To "leave" the modern Mass and only attend the "Mass of all Time?"

Is the Society totally divorced from the martyrs of England and Wales who gave their lives for the sake of the Latin Mass (in essence?)

It is not the SSPX that has drifted so much as the modern Church.

Just who is out of step in this picture. The officer
or the troops behind?

It is the Church that is out of step and the Holy Father is working hard to bring it into line, hampered, as always, by the Vaticanistas who have a somewhat different agenda.

While there is continuing opposition to the Latin Mass by the Bishops they appear to have no difficulty in sliding the Syro-Malabar rite under our noses, or providing Mass in Tagalog or Mandarin......so one must wonder whether their motives are for good or for evil.

I have no doubt that it's the latter.

Prayers are needed to bring this negotiation process to a clean and successful conclusion.