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Catholic Tradition

CATHOLIC TRADITION:
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Q&A: SSPX & OBEDIENCE

Questions:

  1. Are we considered as being disobedient for attending a TLM (Traditional Latin Mass) or any event organized by the Society [of St. Pius X]?
  2. Can we receive Holy Communion in both SSPX and the current “Catholic Church”?
  3. My priest/bishop has told me NOT to attend SSPX Masses. What should I do? I feel like I am betraying the Church.
  4. How do I convince my family and friends to attend the Tridentine Mass? They are absorbed and very used to/comfortable with the New Mass. They do not want to try or experience something else.

General explanation related to the questions: the notion of obedience

Many people have a wrong understanding of what obedience is, and therefore get confused about it. The key of the proper understanding is in two correlations: the correlation between obedience-authority, and the correlation between authority-mission or duty to accomplish.

  1. Obedience is correlative to authority and the limits of the authority determine the limits of the obedience due to that authority. In other words, I have a duty of obedience to somebody having an authority over me, and the limits of his authority determine the limits of my obedience. Example: I am an employee in an office, somebody has been established responsible for the department in which I work. This somebody has therefore an authority over me for what concerns my office work and I have a duty to obey him in what pertains to my office work. But this same superior has no authority to tell me in which school I must register my children, and so if he tells me to register my children in the school A and I say “no, I will register them in the school B”, I am not disobedient.
  2. Authority is correlative to a duty or mission to fulfil and the limits of this mission determine the limits of the authority. In other words, because I am given a mission to realize, then I am given authority over the things and the people involved in the realization of that mission. Example: the husband in a family has the duty or mission to guide his family members towards goodness. Because of this mission, he has an authority to make decision for his family as a whole, he has an authority over his wife and children.
    The limits of the duty or mission to realize determine the limits of the authority. The mission of a husband in a family is to lead His own family to eternal life: he has no such mission over the family of his neighbour and therefore he has no authority over his neighbour’s family.
  3. Misuse of authority: if somebody pretends to use his authority for something which is not his mission or duty, or even worse for something which is contrary to his mission, he misuses his authority. Example: a father telling his child to go and steal money: he is misusing his authority because instead of guiding his boy to what is good, that is to say the respect of God’s commandments, he pushes him to act against God’s authority.
  4. If there is a misuse of authority, there is no duty of obedience. Obedience is correlative to authority, as we said. If it is proved that my superiors misuses his authority, then I don’t have to obey. In the previous example, the child must tell his father: “No, I shall not obey you to go and steal because above your authority, there is the authority of God who said `You shall not steal”.

Application of these principles to the present situation of the Church.

  1. Our Lord Jesus Christ has given the Apostles the mission to continue His work on earth (to teach the Faith and to communicate grace through the Sacraments and blessings) and gave them authority for that.
  2. Consequently, all people on earth have to receive from the Apostles Faith and Sacraments in order to be saved. In other words, to obey them for all what pertains to eternal salvation: Faith and good morals and Sacraments.
  3. It is proved objectively that the Popes since Vatican II have changed the constant teaching of the Church on some points (Religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality), have introduced consequently practices which are against the Commandments of God (inter-religious prayer ceremonies), approves or let be done many liturgical abuses in matter of Sacraments. When the Popes and bishops promote these new doctrines and allow the development of these abuses in the Church, there is objectively an abuse of the authority which our Lord Jesus Christ has given them.
  4. Consequently, the faithful are not bound to obey the Pope and the bishops in these cases of abuses of authority. To refuse to comply with what we are told is not a disobedience at all, but a true and authentic obedience to Christ.

Answer to the questions in particular:

  1. Are we considered as being disobedient for attending a TLM (Traditional Latin Mass) or any event organized by the Society [of St. Pius X]?

No, because the condemnation of SSPX was historically because of its opposition to the errors of Modernism spread through some texts of Vatican II. The refusal of SSPX to comply with the new and erroneous teaching was legitimate and the condemnation borne against it was an abuse of authority.
Moreover in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI published the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum to remind the world that the TLM has never been abrogated and that all priests may celebrate it, and that bishops should provide their faithful requesting it.

  1. Can we receive Holy Communion in both SSPX and the current “Catholic Church”?

The SSPX is a Roman Catholic Congregation founded in 1970 in Switzerland. There is no distinction to be done between SSPX and the Catholic Church. The real question is: can we receive both Holy Communion in both the traditional and the new rite of the Mass. From the time we understand how the new Mass is a protestantization of the Catholic Mass, it becomes clear that we should not attend and receive Communion in the new rite of the Mass.

  1. My priest/bishop has told me NOT to attend SSPX Masses. What should I do? I feel like I am betraying the Church.

The question is: in this current crisis of the Church, who betrays who? The Pope and many bishops betray Christ in the sense that they are unfaithful to the mission entrusted to them to transmit the teaching given by Christ to all people. Instead of preserving, explaining and passing it on to the next generation, they modify it. Read again the words of St Paul to the Galatians: “Though we or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you . let him be anathema. As I said before, so now I say again: if anyone preach to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema” (Gal 1;8-9).

  1. How do I convince my family and friends to attend the Tridentine Mass?

They are absorbed and very used to/comfortable with the New Mass. They do not want to try or experience something else. By explaining little by little what is wrong in the new rite of the Mass, how this rite is a protestantization of the Catholic Faith, you may bring them slowly to the understanding of the problem of the new Mass. If after all, they still want to practice the new rite of the Mass and of the Sacraments, it is necessary to apply to ourselves the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: “Let the dead bury their dead, but go you preach the kingdom of God… follow me” (Luke 9: 59-60)n

For further reading:

True Obedience: The Mark of A Faithful Catholic
(according to the Catechism of the Council of Trent, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Ignatius of Loyola)
https://sspx.ca/en/news-events/news/true-obedience-the-mark-of-a-faithful-catholic

ajayjavalkar

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