Society of Saint Pius X

Foundation of the Society

In May 1970, shortly after his retirement as Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Lefebvre was approached by eleven members of the Pontifical French Seminary in Rome who had been criticized for their adherence to the traditional doctrines of the Catholic Church. They sought Lefebvre's advice on a conservative seminary where they could complete their studies.^[9] He directed them to the still conservative University of Fribourg, in Switzerland. However, soon the University had become as liberal as anywhere else.

In late 1970, at age 65, urged by the abbot of Hauterive Abbey and the Dominican theologian Father Marie-Dominique Philippe to teach the seminarians personally, Lefebvre, feeling too old to undertake such a large project, told them he would visit François Charrière, Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg, with a request to set up a religious society. He told them, if he said to go through with it, he would see in it a sign of divine providence. Charrière granted Lefebvre's request and, with a document predated by six days to 1 November 1970, he established the Society of St. Pius X as a pia unio (Latin, for "pious, or holy, union") on a provisional (ad experimentum) basis for six years. Pia unio status was the first stage through which a Catholic organisation passed prior to gaining official recognition as a religious institute or society of apostolic life. (Since 1983, the term "association of the faithful" has replaced "pia unio".) The Society of Saint Pius X was formally founded, adhering to all canonical norms, and receiving the episcopal blessing and encouragement of the local ordinary. Some Swiss laymen offered the International Seminary of Saint Pius X at Écône to the newly-formed group, and in 1971 the first 24 candidates entered, followed by a further 32 in October 1972.^[10]

Normally, after a suitable period of experience and consultation with the Holy See, a bishop would raise a pia unio to official status at diocesan level. Lefebvre attempted to bypass this stage, and contacted three different Vatican departments in order to secure early recognition for his society. He succeeded in obtaining a letter of encouragement from Cardinal John Wright, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, but there was no approval from the Vatican congregation responsible for raising an association to the level desired by Lefebvre. Cardinal Wright's letter, dated 18 February 1971, said with regard to the field of competence of Cardinal Wright's own Congregation, that the association "will be able to contribute much to accomplishing the plan drawn up by this Congregation for worldwide sharing of clergy". Cardinal Wright was still recommending prospective seminarians to apply to Écône as late as 1973.^[11]

The establishment of the SSPX was unwelcome to a number of churchmen, most notably to the French bishops, whose theological outlook was quite different from that of Lefebvre and who had important connections with the Vatican Cardinal Secretary of State, Jean-Marie Villot. Much of the tension between Lefebvre and his critics must be seen in the context of long-term theological, cultural and political divisions between opposing elements of French society. According to Michael Davies, a defender of Lefebvre, at the meeting of the French episcopal conference at Lourdes in 1972, the seminary at Écône acquired the nickname "le séminaire sauvage" – the "wildcat seminary",^[11] and by November 1974 the French episcopate had indicated that they would not incardinate any of Lefebvre's priests in their dioceses. They also publicly criticised Catholics who remained attached to the Tridentine Mass.^[12] By this time, the SSPX had opened additional seminaries in Armada, Michigan, (1973) and in Rome (1974).

The Society's first seminary, the International Seminary of Saint Pius X, in Écône, Switzerland

Canonical Visitation of Seminary

The first sign of intervention by curial authorities was a meeting held in the Vatican on 26 March 1974. By June 1974, a commission of cardinals had been formed to inquire into the SSPX. The cardinals decided that a canonical visitation of the seminary should be undertaken and, from 11–13 November 1974, two Belgian priests carried out a visitation. Franz Schmidberger, later superior general of the Society in 1990, said that their report was favourable.^[13] However, the seminarians and staff at Écône judged some theological opinions that the two priests expressed there to be excessively liberal and greatly shocking. In what he later described as a mood of "doubtlessly excessive indignation", Lefebvre wrote a "Declaration" in which he strongly attacked what he considered to be liberal trends apparent in the contemporary Church, which (he said) were "clearly evident" in the Council and in the reforms that had followed.^[14] This document was leaked and published in January 1975, in the French Traditionalist Catholic journal Itinéraires.

By now, Lefebvre was in serious difficulties.^[10] In January 1975, Monsignor Pierre Mamie, the Bishop of Fribourg, wrote to Rome stating his intention to withdraw the pia unio status that his predecessor had granted. In the same month, Lefebvre was asked by the cardinals to come to the Vatican. He met with them twice, on 13 February and 3 March. To Lefebvre's declared surprise, the meetings were hostile in tone: at one point a French cardinal, Gabriel-Marie Garrone, reportedly called him a "fool".^[10]

Growing Tensions

On 6 May 1975, with the approval of the cardinals, Bishop Mamie withdrew the SSPX's pia unio status. Lefebvre instructed his lawyer to lodge appeals and he ultimately petitioned the Apostolic Signatura, the highest court of the Catholic Church, which turned down the complaint. From this point onwards, the SSPX was no longer recognised as a canonical organization.

An SSPX priest and altar server. Pictured are a red-veiled tabernacle and the priest's black biretta,^[15] features of pre-1965 pious devotional practice for hundreds of years: since the 16th/17th century for the altar tabernacle,^[16] since the 15th century for the biretta, which at Low Mass the priest hands to the server on arrival at the altar and resumes only on departure, while at Solemn Mass he wears it only in procession or while seated.^[17][18]

Lefebvre and the leadership of the society have always maintained that he was treated unfairly by the Roman Curia, that the suppression of the SSPX was unjust and also that the procedures followed in its suppression violated the provisions of the 1917 Code of Canon Law.

The SSPX continued to operate in spite of its dissolution. In the consistory of 24 May 1976, Pope Paul VI rebuked Archbishop Lefebvre by name – reportedly the first time in 200 years that a pope had publicly reprimanded a Catholic bishop – and appealed to him and his followers to change their minds.^[19]

Lefebvre announced that he intended to confer ordination on some of his students at the end of June 1976. On 12 June 1976, the Nuncio in Switzerland was given instructions to inform Lefebvre that, by special order of Pope Paul VI, he was forbidden to do so.^[20][21] On 25 June 1976, Archbishop Giovanni Benelli, the deputy Secretary of State, wrote directly to Lefebvre, confirming, by special mandate of the Pope, the prohibition to administer the holy orders, and warning him of the canonical penalties for Lefebvre himself and those whom he would ordain.^[20][22] Lefebvre ignored the warnings, and went ahead with the ordinations on 29 June 1976.

In the sermon that he delivered on that occasion, Lefebvre explicitly recognized the possibility that he himself would be struck with suspension and the new priests with an irregularity that should theoretically prevent them from saying Mass.^[23] On the next day, 1 July 1976, the Press Office of the Holy See declared that in accordance with canon 2373 of the then Code of Canon Law, Lefebvre was automatically suspended for one year from conferring ordination, and that those whom he had ordained were automatically suspended from the exercise of the order received. It was also announced that the Holy See was examining Lefebvre's disobedience to the orders of the Pope that were communicated by the above-mentioned letters of the Secretariat of State dated 12 and 15 June 1976.^[20][24]

On 11 July 1976, Lefebvre signed a certificate of receipt of a letter from Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, intimating to him a canonical warning that further penalties would be inflicted on him in accordance with canon 2331 §1 of the then Code of Canon Law concerning obstinate disobedience to legitimate precepts or prohibitions of the Roman Pontiff, unless within ten days of receipt of the letter he took steps "to repair the scandal caused". In a letter of 17 July to Pope Paul VI, Lefebvre declared that he judged his action of 29 June to be legitimate. The Pope considered this response inadequate and on his instructions the Congregation for Bishops, on 22 July 1976, suspended Lefebvre for an indefinite time from all exercise of holy orders- he could not confer any of the Sacraments, save Reconciliation or Baptism in a dire emergency (suspension "a divinis").^[25]

1988 Écône consecrations

A central controversy surrounding the SSPX concerns the consecration by Archbishop Lefebvre and Brazilian bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer of four SSPX priests as bishops in 1988 in violation of the orders of Pope John Paul II.

By 1987, Archbishop Lefebvre was 81. At that point, if Lefebvre had died, the SSPX would have become dependent upon non-SSPX bishops to ordain future priests – and Lefebvre did not regard them as properly reliable and orthodox. In June 1987, Lefebvre announced his intention to consecrate a successor to the episcopacy. He implied that he intended to do this with or without the approval of the Holy See.^[26] Under canons 1013 and 1382 of the Catholic Code of Canon Law, the consecration of a bishop requires papal approval. Consecration of bishops without papal approval had been condemned by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Ad Apostolorum principis, which described the sacramental activity of bishops who had been consecrated without such approval as "gravely illicit, that is, criminal and sacrilegious".^[27] The Roman authorities were unhappy with Lefebvre's plan, but they began discussions with him and the SSPX which led to the signing on 5 May 1988, of a skeleton agreement between Lefebvre and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the future Pope Benedict XVI.

On Pope John Paul II's instructions, Cardinal Ratzinger replied to Lefebvre on 30 May, insisting on observance of the agreement of 5 May and adding that, if Lefebvre carried out unauthorized consecrations on 30 June, the promised authorization for the ordination to the episcopacy would not be granted.

On 3 June, Lefebvre wrote from International Seminary of Saint Pius X, stating that he intended to proceed. On 9 June, the Pope replied with a personal letter, appealing to him not to proceed with a design that "would be seen as nothing other than a schismatic act, the theological and canonical consequences of which are known to you". Lefebvre did not reply and the letter was made public on 16 June. For the first time the Holy See stated publicly that Lefebvre was in danger of being excommunicated.

On 30 June 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre proceeded to ordain to the episcopate four priests of the SSPX. Monsignor Antônio de Castro Mayer, the retired Bishop of Campos dos Goytacazes, Brazil, assisted in the ceremony. Those consecrated as Bishops were: Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Alfonso de Galarreta, and Richard Williamson.

The following day, the Congregation for Bishops issued a decree declaring that Archbishop Lefebvre and the four newly ordained bishops had incurred the automatic canonical penalty of excommunication reserved to the Holy See.^[28] On the following day, 2 July, Pope John Paul II issued an apostolic letter known as Ecclesia Dei in which he condemned the Archbishop's action.^[29] The Pope stated that, since schism is defined in the Code of Canon Law as "withdrawal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or from communion with the members of the Church subject to him" (canon 751),^[30] the consecration "constitute[d] a schismatic act", and that, by virtue of canon 1382 of the Code,^[31] it entailed ipso facto excommunication for all the bishops involved.

Lefebvre argued that his actions had been necessary because the traditional form of the Catholic faith and sacraments would become extinct without Traditionalist clergy to pass them on to the next generation. He called the ordinations "opération survie" ("Operation Survival"), citing in his defense canons 1323 and 1324 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the first of which says that "a person who acted coerced by grave fear, even if only relatively grave, or due to necessity or grave inconvenience unless the act is intrinsically evil or tends to the harm of souls" is not subject to penalty for violating a law or precept, while the other says "the perpetrator of a violation is not exempt from a penalty, but the penalty established by law or precept must be tempered or a penance employed in its place if the delict was committed ... by a person who thought in culpable error that one of the circumstances mentioned in can. 1323, nn. 4 or 5 was present".^[32]

Some members of the SSPX disassociated themselves from the Society as a result of Lefebvre's actions and, with the approval of the Holy See, formed a separate society called the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter.

Discussions with the Holy See

Discussions between the Holy See and the Society of Saint Pius X towards an eventual reconciliation have been ongoing. For years after the 1988 consecrations, there was little if any dialogue between the SSPX and the Holy See. This state of affairs ended when the Society led a large pilgrimage to Rome for the "Great Jubilee" of 2000.

Nine years later, on January 21, 2009 the Holy See remitted the excommunications of the Society's bishops that it had declared at the time of the 1988 consecrations and expressed the hope that all members of the society would follow this up by speedily returning to full communion with the Church.

Discussions since then have been complex, stemming from the Society's insistence that the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on ecumenism, religious liberty, and collegiality are inconsistent with Catholic teaching and doctrine, a claim that the Holy See views as unacceptable, but recent discussions have indicated the possibility of an understanding. In an interview on 4 March 2017 with DICI, the official news organ of the Society, Bishop Bernard Fellay stated "Whether it is a question of religious liberty, collegiality, ecumenism, the new Mass, or even the new rites of the sacraments…. all of a sudden, on these points that have been stumbling blocks, the emissaries from Rome tell us that they are open questions."^[33] In the same month of March 2017, Archbishop Guido Pozzo, the prelate in charge of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, the Roman Curia's organ for traditionalist societies, stated that the Holy See and the Society were close to an agreement regularizing the Society's status.^[34] In a letter of the same month it was announced that Pope Francis authorized diocesan bishops to grant to SSPX priests faculties to officiate at a marriage valid in the Catholic Church in cases where no priest in good standing could do so.^[35]

In July 2017 Bishop Fellay signed a document along with a number of other clergy and academics labeled as a "Fraternal Correction" of Pope Francis. The twenty-five page document, which was made public in September after receiving no reply from the Holy See, criticized the Pope for allegedly promoting heresy through various words, actions and omissions during his pontificate.^[36][37]

Marriage

On 27 March 2017, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith communicated that Pope Francis had decided to grant local ordinaries the right to give to a priest in good standing the faculty to preside at the marriage of followers of the Society, immediately after which they will participate in a Mass celebrated by an SSPX priest, or, if no priest in good standing can receive the consent of the couple, to give the faculty instead to an SSPX priest. Previously, in 2008, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei had stated "The priests of the Society of St. Pius X are... prohibited from exercising their priestly functions," going on to conclude that, in the case of matrimony, "these sacraments are invalid," since a suspended priest lacks the proper delegation from the bishop.^[39]

Confession

On 20 November, 2016, Pope Francis personally extended an allowance he created during the Holy Year of 2015, whereby penitents confessing to priests affiliated with the SSPX "shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins."^[40]

Ordination and Holy Orders

During an interview with TV Libertes on 29 January, 2017, Bishop Fellay announced that theological discussions with the Vatican had led to permission for the Society to licitly ordain priests: "This summer it was confirmed that the Superior General can freely ordain the priests of the Society without having to ask permission from the local bishop."^[41]

Mass

In 2011, Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy and dean of theology at the Regina Apostolorum university in Rome, said that, for Catholics, assistance at Mass celebrated by priests of the Society is not necessarily a sin: "It would only become so if a person attended this Mass with the deliberate intention of separating himself from communion with the Pope and those in communion with him." However, he concluded: "Only if there is objectively no alternative should one attend the Mass celebrated by a priest from the Society of St. Pius X. If one has to do so, then I would say that one may go in good conscience."^[39]

Jurisdiction

When told by a journalist of InfoVaticana, a provider of religious information founded in Madrid in October 2013,^[42] that what Pope Francis had decided in March 2017 was instead that, "from now on, the weddings celebrated by the priests from the FSSPX are going to be recognized", Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, who had not seen the actual document, remarked: "That is a very significant action of the Holy Father, and it also indicates that in some way there must be a reconciliation of the FSSPX because basically what the Pope is saying is that the priests in this society, when they witness marriages, are exercising jurisdiction in the Roman Catholic Church."^[43] In reality, it is local ordinaries, not the Society, that in the document are authorized, if they wish, to delegate jurisdiction to SSPX priests to assist canonically at some marriages.

The Society's view is that, before Pope Francis's authorizations, their priests held "supplied" jurisdiction (power of governance) for confessions and marriages. They received this supplied jurisdiction by law and not "by delegation or by mandate of the Sovereign Pontiff or the diocesan bishops or of regularly appointed parish priests".^[44][45][46]

Since the grants by Pope Francis, the Society says, its priests have or can have ordinary jurisdiction for the sacraments of confession and marriage. It adds that, in cases where a diocesan bishop refuses to grant delegation for a marriage, SSPX priests can still use extraordinary jurisdiction.^[47]

Allies and Supporters

The SSPX has received explicit support from the following diocesan bishops:

• Salvador Lazo Lazo, Bishop of San Fernando de La Unión, Philippines (deceased)
• John Bosco Manat Chuabsamai, Bishop of Ratchaburi, Thailand (born (1935-10-31) 31 October 1935 resigned on 24 July 2003)
• Antônio de Castro Mayer, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Campos, Brazil (deceased)

Bishop Mayer resigned canonically on 20 August 1981; he later participated in the 1988 Écône consecrations, declaring "my presence here at this ceremony is a matter of conscience: It is the duty of a profession of the Catholic Faith before the entire Church."^[55] After his retirement, Bishop Mayer founded the Priestly Union of St Jean-Marie Vianney,^[56] which remained closely associated with the SSPX until 2001, when it reconciled with the Holy See.

The Society now has close links with the Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat, led by Father Basil Kovpak, a priest formerly of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, who was definitively excommunicated from the Catholic Church in November 2007^[57] after having Bishop Richard Williamson, then of the SSPX but expelled from the Society five years later,^[58] illicitly ordain two priests and seven deacons for his society in violation of canons 1015 §1 and 1017 of the Code of Canon Law.

Several religious institutes, mostly based in France, are associated with the Society. A specific article, SSPX-affiliated religious orders, is devoted to them.

Notable groups that have split from the SSPX

There have been two major kinds of splits from the SSPX. Two notable splits of the first kind involved priests who viewed the SSPX as too liberal and who use the form that the Mass had before Pope John XXIII. The other kind involved groups who have reconciled with the Holy See and who, like the SSPX, use the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal.

Groups which broke with the SSPX and are not recognized by the Holy See include:

• Society of Saint Pius V — In 1983, nine U.S. SSPX priests broke with or were forced to leave the SSPX's Northeast USA District partly because they were opposed to Lefebvre's instructions that Mass be celebrated according to the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal issued by Pope John XXIII. Those in SSPX circles refer to these priests as "the nine". They began their organization by refusing to complete a transaction of a church that the SSPX was attempting to purchase, using one of the nine priests as the buyer. The founding priests took the money intended for the purchase of the church and kept the church for themselves. A number of the SSPV's priests and the lay people who go to their Masses are openly Sedevacantist, a thesis rejected by the SSPX. Other issues occasioning the split were: Lefebvre's order that Society priests must accept the decrees of nullity handed down by diocesan marriage tribunals; the insistence that all Society Masses be celebrated according to the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal; the acceptance of new members into the group who had been ordained to the priesthood according to the revised sacramental rites of Pope Paul VI.^[59]
• Istituto Mater Boni Consilii — (English: "Institute of the Mother of Good Counsel") is a traditionalist congregation of priests that follows the Sedeprivationist school of thought. The founders of the institute seceded in 1985 from the Society of St. Pius X under the leadership of Fr. Francesco Ricossa, onetime faculty member of the seminary at Écône. In contrast to the North American-based SSPV, this Institute is based in Europe.
• SSPX Resistance — Concern that the discussions with the Holy See that began in 2009 were leading the Society towards acceptance of the Second Vatican Council as the price of obtaining recognition led to the defection not only of Bishop Williamson but also of several priest members, in both North America and France. These referred to themselves variously as "the Resistance", the Society of St. Pius X Marian Corps (SSPX-MC), or l'Union Sacerdotale Marcel Lefebvre (USML, French).

Groups which broke with the SSPX and reconciled with Rome include:

• Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter – It was established in 1988 after the Écône consecrations. Responding to the Holy See's declaration that these constituted a schismatic act and that those involved were thereby automatically excommunicated, twelve priests left the Society and established the Fraternity, in full communion with the Holy See.
• Institute of the Good Shepherd – (Institut du Bon-Pasteur, IBP) was established as a papally-recognised society of apostolic life on 8 September 2006 for a group of SSPX members who maintained it was time for the Society to accept reconciliation with Pope Benedict XVI.

Political

Wikinews has related news: Holocaust denial bishop apologizes

For its part, the Society does unequivocally condemn Nazism, confirming the principles in Pope Pius XI's 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge which explicitly denounces the Nazis.

The Society also points out that Archbishop Lefebvre's own father, Renè Lefebvre, met his death in the concentration camp at Sonnenburg in February, 1944, three years after his arrest by the Gestapo; he died, "his rosary in hand, a victim of Nazi insanity."^[60]

After Bishop Richard Williamson, the subject of the complaint by the Anti-Defamation League, denied in an interview published in 2009 (for which he was later convicted of Holocaust denial by a German court)^[61] the use of Nazi gas chambers to massacre Jews, the superior general of the Society said that, if he repeated his denial, he would be expelled.^[62] His actual expulsion in 2012 was for refusing to show due respect and obedience to the SSPX authorities and calling on the superior general to resign.^[63]

It was in an SSPX priory that French Nazi collaborator and war criminal Paul Touvier was arrested. The superiors of the priory had granted him asylum as "an act of charity to a homeless man".^[64] They had no knowledge about the man’s background when he first appeared in the priory, and Touvier was indeed homeless at the time. On his death, in 1996, a Requiem Mass was offered for his soul, upon his request.^[65][66]

On 16 October 2013, the Society offered to perform a funeral for Nazi war-criminal Erich Priebke. However, Erich Priebke, who was baptized a Protestant, in the post-war years converted to Catholicism with his wife and had his children baptized.^[67]On the occasion of the public audience in front of the Military Tribunal of Rome held on April 3, 1996, he read a letter in the presence of the families of the victims, in which he manifested his grief, deploring the horrible act of obedience that he had had to perform in those circumstances:

From the depths of my heart I feel the need to express my condolences for the sorrow of the relatives of the victims of the Ardeatine Caves.... As a believer I have never denied this tragic fact; for me the order to participate in the action was a great personal tragedy.... I think of the dead with reverence and I feel united with the living in their sorrow."^[68]

He rejected the cult of race as a “mistake that led down a path of no return”.^[69]

Despite all of that the ceremony did not take place due to protests by some 500 people, mostly unaware of the circumstances of his personal life, outside the Society's Italian district house in Albano, near Rome. The local authorities of the Catholic Church had refused him a public funeral, citing a rule of canon law that, unless they gave some signs of repentance before death, a public funeral must be refused to manifest sinners to whom it cannot be granted without public scandal of the faithful.^[70][71]

Alleged cover-up of abuse

On April 5, 2017, Uppdrag granskning, a Swedish television program focused on investigative journalism, alleged that four members of the SSPX—three priests and a former seminarian—had molested at least a dozen young people in several countries.^[72] The program also stated that evidence of abuse was kept secret by the SSPX and that the priests were allowed to continue in ministry.^{[72] [73]} Nonetheless, three of the four had been expelled from the Society by the time that the program was aired.

Kevin Gerard Sloniker, the former seminarian and the only person accused by name in the program, was expelled from the Society's St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in 2005, and began serving a life-sentence in 2015.^[74][75] The remaining three accusations regard priests whose names have been withheld (referred to in the program as Fathers P, S, and M); their accusers have likewise remained anonymous. Nonetheless, P was the subject of a canonical trial presided over by Bishop Fellay, authorized by the Vatican in 2013; he was found guilty, and subsequently ordered to retire to a monastery. Crux reports "P refused to go and, according to officials of the SSPX, joined [Bishop] Williamson's Resistance."^[76] He along with "Father S" were expelled from the Society, and are now affiliated with Williamson's group. "Father M" is currently serving in France, though no criminal charges have been brought against him and the Society denies that they are aware of any credible accusations of abuse against the priest.

SSPX priests sentenced for abuse

On December 13, 2017, Fr. Frédéric Abbet was sentenced to 5 years by a Brussels appeal court for sexual abuse on a young boy in an SSPX boarding school. He had already faced accusations in his native Switzerland in 2005 but had been acquitted by an unofficial SSPX tribunal^[77][78].

On February 16, 2018, former school headmaster Fr. Christophe Roisnel was sentenced to 19 years by the Nanterre criminal court of appeal for multiple counts of rape and acts of torture on female school teachers ^[79][80][81].