A Report on the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X

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A Report on the

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

Ecumenism in the Asian Context

Submitted to: Fr. Fernando Guillen, Sch.P.

Submitted by: Eldie Barrientos Kurt Zion Pala

March 9, 2011

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Outline Introduction/Rationale A. Diocese of Cubao - Immaculate Conception Cathedral Parish History and Facts B.The Priestly Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) 1.Lefebvre and Vatican II 2.Creation of Society 3.Its Theological Stand and the Latin Mass 4.The Society Structure and Organization 5.SSPX in Asia – Philippines Our Lady of Victories Mass Center - Cubao, Quezon City C.SSPX and Vatican 1.Historical Development 2.Canonical Status of the Society

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Introduction/Rationale: The Our Lady of Victories Chapel looks no different to the chapels we have but often we get a different sense of curiosity and hesitation to enter it. We know that the Society of Saint Pius X runs it and the mass they celebrate is the Latin Rite. The other few basic facts that we know about them besides the Latin Rite are that they are “excommunicated, traditional, and conservative.” The subject of this report is the Our Lady of Victories Church which is run by the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). This particular church is located within the area of jurisdiction of the Immaculate Conception Cathedral Parish which is under the Diocese of Cubao. Before tackling the subject of the report, it is found wanting to discuss a few things about the parish and the diocese as an introduction to the report. The discussion will be brief dealing with the history and other important facts and figures. Diocese of Cubao History and Facts1 The diocese was created on June 28, 2003 and erected on August 28, 2003. Its current bishop is the Most Rev. Honesto F. O ngtioco, DD, STL appointed as its first bishop on June 28, 2003 and installed as its first bishop on August 28, 2003. His private secretary is Mr. Julius D. Furagganan. The entire land area of the diocese covers a total of 76.14 sq.kms. with a total population of 1,399,559 (as of 2009) and with about 1,194,567 Catholics or about 85 percent of the total population. It is served by one bishop, 45 priests (diocesan and religious) in 42 parishes grouped into 6 vicariates. 1 Diocese of Cubao Website. http://www.dioceseofcubao.org. Date accessed: February 3, 2011.

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Immaculate Conception Cathedral Parish

History2 The parish is located at 40 Lantana St., Cubao, Quezon City. Its present location used to be rice paddies 60 years ago. It is the seat of the Diocese of Cubao. Since 1935 – SVD priests of the Christ the King Mission Seminary celebrated Mass in a small chapel near the present rotunda, headed by Fr. Henry Desmond. On December 8, 1949 – the patron saint San Isidro Labrador was changed to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. On July 15, 1950 – the Immaculate Conception Parish was canonically erected with Fr. Juan Simon, SVD, as its first parish priest. On the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1950, the cornerstone of what is now the Immaculate Conception Cathedral was laid and blessed by the Most Rev. Vicente Reyes. On April 30, 1990 – Msgr. Reynaldo Y. Celso was installed as the first diocesan clergy by His Eminence, Jaime Cardinal Sin. He served for 10 years until he was assigned to another parish. On August 28, 2003, the parish was liturgically proclaimed a Cathedral, thus it is now called the Immaculate Conception Cathedral and His Excellency, the Most Rev. Honesto F. Ongtioco was installed as the new Bishop of Cubao. The Parish has been promoting, building and forming Basic Ecclesiastical Communities (BECs) in different areas, Aside from BEC, evangelization, sacramental preparations or catechism, ministries expansion and social services and stewardship are the Parish’s pastoral priorities.

2 Ecclesiastical Atlas of the Diocese of Cubao

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The Priestly Society of St. Pius X

Some Preliminaries

Marcel-François Lefebvre (November 29, 1905 – March 25, 1991) was a French Roman Catholic archbishop. Following a career as an Apostolic Delegate for West Africa and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, he took the lead in opposing the changes within the Church associated with the Second Vatican Council.

In 1970, Lefebvre founded the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), which is still the world's largest Traditionalist Catholic priestly society. In 1988,

against the orders of Pope John Paul II, he consecrated four bishops to continue his work with the SSPX. The Holy See immediately declared that he and the other bishops who had participated in the ceremony had incurred automatic excommunication under Catholic canon law. Lefebvre's supporters disputed the excommunication. In 2009, the Holy See lifted it for the four surviving bishops.

Early Life3

Marcel Lefebvre was born in Tourcoing, Nord, the second son and third child of factory-owner René Lefebvre, who died in 1944 in the German concentration camp at Sonnenburg (in East Brandenburg, Germany), where he had been imprisoned by the Gestapo because of his work for the French Resistance and British Intelligence. Marcel's mother and René Sr.'s wife was Gabrielle Wattin, who died in 1938.

His parents were devout Catholics who brought their children to daily Mass. His father was an outspoken monarchist who ran a spy-ring for British Intelligence when Tourcoing was occupied by the Germans during World War I.

In 1923 Lefebvre began studies for the priesthood; at the insistence of his father he went to the French Seminary in Rome. He would later credit his conservative views to the rector, a Breton priest named Father Henri Le Floch. His studies were interrupted in 1926 and 1927 when he

3 Ramón Anglés, “A Biography of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre” available from http://www.fsspx.org/en/presentation/our-founder/archbishop-marcel-lefebvre/; Internet; accessed 06 March 2011.

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did his military service. On 25 May 1929 he was ordained deacon by Cardinal Basilio Pompili in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. On 21 September 1929 he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop (soon to be Cardinal) Achille Liénart in Lille, the diocese in which he was incardinated. After ordination, he continued his studies in Rome, completing a doctorate in theology in July 1930.

In August 1930 Cardinal Liénart assigned Lefebvre to be assistant curate in a parish in Lomme, a suburb of Lille. Even before this, Lefebvre had already asked to be released for missionary duties as a member of the Holy Ghost Fathers. But the cardinal insisted that he consider this for a year while he engaged in parish work in the diocese of Lille. In July 1931 Liénart released Lefebvre from the diocese. In September Lefebvre entered the novitiate of the Holy Ghost Fathers at Orly. A year later on 8 September 1932 he took simple vows for a period of three years.

Lefebvre's first assignment as a Holy Ghost Father was as a professor at St. John's Seminary in Libreville, Gabon. In 1934 he was made rector of the seminary. On 28 September 1935 he made his perpetual vows. He served as superior of a number of missions of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Gabon. In October 1945 Lefebvre was ordered by the superior general to return to France and take up new duties as rector of the Holy Ghost Fathers seminary in Mortain.

Bishop in Africa4

Lefebvre's return to France was not to last long. On 12 June 1947, Pope Pius XII appointed him Vicar Apostolic of Dakar in Senegal; he received the titular episcopal see of Anthedon (El Blakiyeh near Gaza in Palestine). On 18 September 1947 he was consecrated a bishop in his family's parish church in Tourcoing by Achille Liénart (who had previously ordained him a priest); as co-consecrators acted the Bishop Jean-Baptiste Fauret, C.S.Sp. and Bishop Alfred-Jean-Félix Ancel. Cardinal Lienart has been identified as a 30 degree Freemason, according to Issue No. 51 of

Chiesa Viva, March 1976.

In his new position Lefebvre was responsible for an area with a population of three and a half million people, of whom only 50,000 were Catholics.

On 22 September 1948, Lefebvre, while continuing as Vicar Apostolic of Dakar, received additional responsibilities: Pope Pius XII appointed him Apostolic Delegate to French Africa. In this capacity he was the papal representative to the Church authorities in 46 dioceses "in continental and insular Africa subject to the French Government, with the addition of the Diocese of Reunion, the whole of the island of Madagascar and the other neighboring islands under French rule, but excluding the dioceses of North Africa, namely those of Carthage, Constantine, Algiers and Oran." With this new responsibility he was appointed Archbishop of the titular see of Arcadiopolis in Europa.

4 "Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre," in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia; (Wikimedia Foundation Inc., updated 15 February 2011, 22:26 UTC) [encyclopedia on-line]; available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Lefebvre; Internet; retrieved 06 March 2011.

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As Apostolic Delegate, Lefebvre's chief duty was the building up of the ecclesiastical structure in French Africa. Pope Pius XII wanted to move quickly towards a proper hierarchy (with bishops instead of vicariates and apostolic prefectures). Lefebvre was responsible for selecting these new bishops, increasing the number of priests and religious sisters, as well as the number of churches in the various dioceses.

On 14 September 1955, the Apostolic Vicariate of Dakar became an archdiocese, and Lefebvre thus became the first Metropolitan Archbishop of Dakar. Archbishop Lefebvre was the first and foremost advisor to Pius XII during the writing of the encyclical Fidei Donum (1957), which instructed the clergy and laity on the missions in the Third World countries and called for more missionaries.

In 1958 Pope Pius XII died and was succeeded by Pope John XXIII, who, in 1959, after giving Lefebvre the choice between remaining either as Apostolic Delegate or as Archbishop of Dakar, appointed another to the post of Apostolic Delegate for French Africa. Lefebvre continued as Archbishop of Dakar until 23 January 1962, when he was transferred to the diocese of Tulle in France, retaining his personal title of archbishop. In 1960, Pope John XXIII appointed Lefebvre to the Central Preparatory Commission for the Second Vatican Council.

Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers5

On 26 July 1962 the Chapter General of the Holy Ghost Fathers elected Lefebvre Superior General. Lefebvre was widely respected for his experience in the mission field. On the other hand, certain progressive members of his congregation, particularly in France, considered his administrative style authoritarian and desired radical reforms. On 7 August 1962 Lefebvre was given the titular archiepiscopal see of Synnada in Phrygia.

Lefebvre was increasingly criticized by influential members of his large religious congregation who considered him to be out-of-step with modern Church leaders and the demand of the bishops' conferences, particularly in France, for modernization and reforms. A general chapter of the Holy Ghost Fathers was convened in Rome in September 1968 to debate the direction of the congregation after the changes of the Second Vatican Council. The first action of the chapter was to name several moderators to lead the chapter's sessions instead of Lefebvre. Lefebvre then handed in his resignation as Superior General to Pope Paul VI. He would later say that it had become impossible for him to remain Superior of an Order which no longer wanted or listened to him.

5 Ramón Anglés, “A Biography of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre” available from http://www.fsspx.org/en/presentation/our-founder/archbishop-marcel-lefebvre/; Internet; accessed 06 March 2011.

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Vatican II6

Appointed by Pope John XXIII a member of the Central Preparatory Commission for the Second Vatican Council, Lefebvre took part in the discussions about the draft documents to be submitted to the bishops for consideration at the Council. During the first session of the Council (October to December 1962), he became concerned about the direction the Council's deliberations were taking. Lefebvre took a leading part in a study group of bishops at the Council which became known as the Coetus Internationalis Patrum (International Group of Fathers).

A major area of concern at the Council was the debate about the principle of religious liberty. During the Council's third session (September to November 1964) Archbishop Pericle Felici announced that Lefebvre, with two other like-minded bishops, was appointed to a special four-member commission charged with rewriting the draft document on the topic, but it was soon discovered that this measure did not have papal approval, and major responsibility for preparing the draft document was given to the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Instead of the draft entitled "On Religious Liberty", Lefebvre and Cardinal Alfredo Ottavianihad supported instead a text dealing with "Relations between the Church and State, and religious tolerance." The Coetus Internationalis Patrum did, however, manage to get the preliminary vote (with suggestions for modifications) on the document put off until the fourth session of the Council, but were unable to prevent the adoption, on 7 December 1965, of the final text of the declaration Dignitatis Humanae by the overwhelming majority of the Council. The expressed view of some that this overwhelming majority was only due to intense lobbying by the reformist wing of Council Fathers among those prelates who initially had reservations or even objections, however, is not accepted by all observers. Lefebvre was one of those who voted against the declaration, but he was one of those who added their signature to the document, after that of the Pope, though not all present did sign. Lefebvre later declared that the sheet of paper that he signed and that was "passed from hand to hand among the Fathers of the Council and upon which everyone placed his signature, had no meaning of a vote for or against, but signified simply our presence at the meeting to vote for four documents." However, the paper on which his signature appears, and which was not "the relatively unimportant attendance sheet which Lefebvre recalled in his interview", bears "the title Declaratio de Libertate Religiosa (along with the titles of three other documents) at the top," and "(t)he fathers were informed that if they wished to sign one or more documents, but not all of them, they could make a marginal annotation beside their name, specifying which documents they did or did not wish to sign. No such annotation is found beside the names of either Lefebvre or de Castro Mayer, which


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proves that they were prepared to share in the official promulgation of that Declaration on Religious Liberty which they later publicly rejected."

Political Positions7

Lefebvre belonged to an identifiable strand of right-wing political and religious opinion in French society that originated among the defeated royalists after the 1789 French Revolution. Lefebvre's political and theological outlook mirrored that of a significant number of conservative members of French society under the French Third Republic (1870–1940). The Third Republic was riven by conflicts between the secular Left and the Catholic Right, with many individuals on both sides espousing distinctly radical positions (see, for example, the article on the famous Dreyfus affair). Thus it has been said that "Lefebvre was... a man formed by the bitter hatreds that defined the battle lines in French society and culture from the French Revolution to the Vichy regime".

Lefebvre's first biographer, the English traditionalist writer Michael Davies, wrote in the first volume of his Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre:

In France political feeling tends to be more polarized, more extreme, and far more deeply felt than in England. It can only be understood in the light of the French Revolution and subsequent history.... At the risk of a serious over-simplification, it is reasonable to state that up to the Second World War Catholicism in France tended to be identified with right-wing politics and anti-Catholicism with the left.... [Lefebvre's] own alleged right-wing political philosophy is nothing more than straight-forward Catholic social teaching as expounded by the Popes for a century or more....

In similar vein, the pro-SSPX English priest Fr. Michael Crowdy wrote, in his preface to his translation of Lefebvre's Open Letter to Confused Catholics:

We must remember that [Lefebvre] is writing against the background of France, where ideas are generally more clear-cut than they are in Great Britain.... Take the word "socialism," for example; that means to some of us, first and foremost, a social ideal of brotherhood and justice. We have had our Christian socialists. On the Continent, however, Socialism is uncompromisingly anti-religious, or almost a substitute for religion, and Communism is seen as the natural development from it. This is the Socialism the Archbishop is writing about. And when he rejects Liberalism, he is not thinking of the [British] Liberal Party... but of that religious liberalism that exalts human liberty above the claims of God or of His Church....


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Theological Positions8

Lefebvre was associated with the following positions:

• The rejection of ecumenism; • The espousal of pragmatic religious tolerance instead of the principle of

religious liberty; • The rejection of collegiality within the Church; • Opposition to the replacement of the Tridentine Mass with the Mass of Paul

VI.

Why is Ecumenism Wrong?9

During the closing ceremony for the Week of Christian Unity on January 25, 1986, John Paul II announced "a special prayer meeting for peace in the town of Assisi," "with representatives not only from the various Christian churches and communions but also from the other religions across the world".

When it was announced, Archbishop Lefebvre reminded the seminarians of

Econe of the famous "motley congress" of religions held in Chicago in 1895 which Leo XIII had condemned. The same thing was going to be seen again but this time organized by the Pope. Archbishop Lefebvre said:

It is demonic. It is an insult to our Lord Jesus Christ. Who will they pray to? What god will they pray to for peace? What peace can they ask for if they are not praying to the only true God? They will not be praying to our Lord Jesus Christ. The Jews do not want him, the Muslims and Buddhists do not want Him neither. Lots of Protestants do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. What god will they pray to? God was made flesh and came and lived amongst us to save us. We have no right to pray to anyone else. If we put Jesus Christ aside, we are not praying to the true God. It is an indescribably impious act against our Lord Jesus Christ. (Spiritual Conferences, 117B, Jan. 28)

On August 27, 1986, Archbishop Lefebvre wrote to eight cardinals in view of the Assisi meeting. He asked of them to protest against the actions of John Paul II, in particular "the planned procession of religions in the street of the town of St. Francis":

He who now sits upon the Throne of Peter mocks publicly the first article of the Creed and the first Commandment of the Decalogue. The scandal given to Catholic souls cannot be measured. The Church is shaken to its very foundations.

8 "Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre," in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia; (Wikimedia Foundation Inc., updated 15 February 2011, 22:26 UTC) [encyclopedia on-line]; available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Lefebvre; Internet; retrieved 06 March 2011. 9 An extract of Lefebvre’s comments on Ecumenism and Bishop Fellay's October 2010 conference in Kansas City, MO; available from http://www.sspx.org/news/assisi_iii/assisi_iii.htm#bp_fellay_video; Internet; accessed 06 March 2011.

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On October 28, 1986 Assisi meeting took place and on December 2, Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop de Castro Mayer publicly protested:

Public sin against the unicity of God, the Word Incarnate, and His Church makes one shudder with horror: John Paul has encouraged false religions to pray to their false gods: it is an unprecedented and immeasurable scandal, ...an inconceivably impious and intolerable humiliation to those who remain Catholic, loyally professing the same Faith for twenty centuries. (Fideliter, #55; declaration signed in Buenos Aires)

Priestly Society of St. Pius X (SSPX)10

After retiring from the post of Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, Lefebvre was approached by traditionalists from the French Seminary in Rome who had been refused tonsure, the rite by which, until 1973, a seminarian became a cleric. They asked for a conservative seminary to complete their studies. After directing them to the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, Lefebvre was urged to teach these seminarians personally. In 1969, he received permission from the local bishop to establish a seminary in Fribourg which opened with nine students, moving to Ecône, Switzerland in 1971.

Lefebvre proposed to his seminarians the establishment of a society of priests without vows. In November 1970, Bishop François Charrière of Fribourg established, on a provisional (ad experimentum) basis for six years, the International Priestly Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) as a "pious union".

The French bishops, whose theological outlook was quite different from Lefebvre's, treated the Ecône seminary with suspicion and referred to it as "the Wildcat Seminary". They indicated that they would incardinate none of the seminarians.

In November 1974, two Belgian priests carried out a rigorous inspection on the instructions of a commission of cardinals, producing, it was said, a favorable report. However, while at Ecône, they expressed a number of theological opinions, such as that ordination of married men will soon be a normal thing, that truth changed with the times, and the traditional conception of the Resurrection of Our Lord were open to discussion, to which the seminarians and staff objected to as scandalous. In what he later described as a mood of "doubtlessly excessive indignation", the Archbishop wrote a "Declaration" in which he strongly attacked the modernist and liberal trends that he saw as apparent in the reforms being undertaken within the Church at that time.

10 “The SSPX from 1970 to 2004,” available from http://www.fsspx.org/en/presentation/history/the-sspx-from-1970-to-2004-automaticaly-imported/; Internet; accessed 06 March 2011.

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Episcopal Succession11

Episcopal Lineage

Consecrated by: Achille Cardinal Liénart

Date of consecration: 18 September 1947

Consecrator of

Bishop Date of consecration

Georges-Henri Guibert 19 February 1950

Prosper Dodds 26 October 1952

François Ndong 2 July 1961

Bernard Tissier de Mallerais 30 June 1988

Richard Williamson 30 June 1988

Alfonso de Galarreta 30 June 1988

Bernard Fellay 30 June 1988

Organizational Structure12

General Superior – His Excellency Bishop Bernard Fellay

The General Council

• The General Council has a deliberative power and meets regularly. It is made up of the Superior General, the Vicar General (or First Assistant), the Second Assistant, the Secretary General and the General Bursar.

• The General Council receives visits from the bishops of the Society, and the major superiors such as district superiors, seminary rectors, and superiors of autonomous houses.

11 "Marcel François Marie Joseph Lefebvre," in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia; (Wikimedia Foundation Inc., updated 15 February 2011, 22:26 UTC) [encyclopedia on-line]; available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Lefebvre; Internet; retrieved 06 March 2011. 12 “Organization of St. Pius X Society,” available from http://www.fsspx.org/en/organization/organisation/; Internet; accessed 06 March 2011.

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Seminaries

• Ecône (Switzerland) • Zaitzkofen (Germany) • La Reja (Argentina) • Winona (USA) • Goulburn (Australia) • Flavigny (France)

Districts • Africa • Canada • Mexico • Asia • France • South America • Australia • Germany • Switzerland • Austria • Great-Britain • The United States of America • Belgium - The Netherlands • Italy Autonomous Houses • Estonia • Russia • Spain • Lithuania • Ukraine • Poland • Ireland

Priestly Society of St. Pius X in Asia and the Philippines 13

The Society’s presence was already existing since 1986 in India but it was only officially founded in 1996 with its present head quarters in Singapore. The Superior is Father Daniel Couture. Since then the Society spread to 24 other countries in Asia including the Philippines.

The Society in the Philippines has three major institutions, which include: a) St. Bernard Novitiate, Our Lady of Victories Church and the House of Bethany.

The Our Lady of Victories Church is located within the area of the parish of the Immaculate Conception Cathedral along Lantana street in Cubao. The Prior of the Church is Fr. Thomas Onoda assisted by four other resident priests. The Latin Rite mass is said everyday. Attached to the Church is the Our Lady of Victories Catholic School, which adheres to the classical Catholic system. In this system, Catholic Doctrine has the first and most importa nt place. Latin is provided for children in the 5th and 6th grades.

The St. Bernard Novitiate is located in Iloilo City with Fr. Coenraad Daniels as its prior. The novitiate accepts Filipino candidates into the Society. 13 Society of St. Pius X Asia. http://www.sspxasia.com. Date Accessed: January 21, 2011.

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Priestly Society of St. Pius X and Vatican

Let us now examine the relation between the Society and Vatican (Official Church). The discussion will divided into two: (1) historical development from 1998 to the present and (2) the canonical status of the Society.

Below is a table of the historical development of the Society. It will be used to guide the flow of the development of the group.

Historical Development of the Society

Consecration of bishops

On June 30, 1988, Alfonso de Galarreta, Richard Williamson, Bernard Fellay, and Bernard Tissier de Mallerais were ordained by Mons. Lefebvre despite the warnings sent by Vatican.

In response to the action of Mons. Lefebvre, Vatican issued an Apostolic letter (Ecclesia Dei) a few days after (July 2, 1988). The content of the letter describes the act as one of disobience to

the Pope in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby apostolic succession is

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sacramentally perpetuated. All of them incurred the grave penalty of excommunication.14

The Apostolic letter also establishes the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” with included the following functions:

a) "task of collaborating with the bishops, with the Departments of the Roman Curia and with the circles concerned, for the purpose of facilitating full ecclesial communion of priests, seminarians, religious communities or individuals until now linked in various ways to the Fraternity founded by Archbishop Lefebvre, who may wish to remain united to the Successor Peter in the Catholic Church”;

b) exercises the authority of the Holy See over various institutes and religious communities which it has erected which have as their "proper Rite" the "extraordinary form" of the Roman Rite and observe the previous traditions of the religious life; and

c) looks after and promotes the pastoral care of the faithful attached to the antecedent Latin liturgical tradition, present in various parts of the world, who find in it a point of reference for their necessities.

Around September 29, 1995, the Pontifical Commission received a letter inquiring about attending mass at the Pius X chapels. The letter was inquiring if it was schismatic to attend mass in their (Pius X) chapels. The Pontifical Commission in their response said that: a) the ordination of the priests of the Society is no doubt valid but they are however suspended a divinis which means that they are prohibited from exercising their orders because of their illicit ordination. The Mass they celebrate is also valid but it is considered morally illicit for the faithful to participate in these masses unless they are physically and morally impeded from participating a mass celebrated by a Catholic priest in good standing.15

On the status of the Society, the Pontifical Commission in response to a letter in October 27, 2008 affirmed the earlier statement that Mons. Lefebvre together with the priests he ordained, as bishops against the protest of Vatican remained excommunicated while the priests although validly ordained were suspended a divinis. The Church has not officially declared what constitutes “formal adherence to a schism” began by Mons. Lefebvre. It is still difficult to characterize the entire Society but it recognized the many instances and evidences that the Society showed behavior contrary with the practice of the Catholic faith.16

In the year 2000, almost 5,000 members and followers of the Society went on a pilgrimage to the Vatican. It became the start of on-going talks then between the Society and the Church. Then in 2002 a Pontifical Commission letter was published that admits the masses of the Society of St. Pius X fulfill Sunday obligation. The letter further states that if the intention is to simply participate in a Mass according to the 1962 Missal for the sake of devotion, this would not be considered a sin.

14 Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” Profile. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/ ced_documents/rc_con_cfaith_20090930_ecclesia-dei_en.html. Date Accessed: January 28, 2011. 15 Status of Society of St. Pius X Masses. http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CEDSSPX.HTM. Date Accessed: January 24, 2011. 16 Status of SSPX. http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cedsspx2.htm. Date Accessed: January 28, 2011.

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Finally in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued a motu propio “Summorum Pontificum,” specifying the rules for the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, for the celebration of the Mass according to the Missal promulgated by John XXIII in 1962 (Tridentine Mass). It replaced the motu propio “Ecclesia Dei” of 1988. The new motu propio allows for greater freedom to use the Latin Rite liturgy in its 1962 form. In a letter of 15 December 2008 addressed to Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei", Mons. Bernard Fellay writing also in the name of the other three Bishops consecrated on 30 June 1988 requested once again the removal of the excommunication latae sententiae formally declared by a Decree of the Prefect of this Congregation for Bishops on 1 July 1988.17

In his letter, Mons. Fellay stated, among other things, that "we continue firmly resolute in our desire to remain Catholics and to put all our strength at the service of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the Roman Catholic Church. We accept her teachings in a filial spirit. We firmly believe in the primacy of Peterand in his prerogatives, and for this reason the current situation causes us much suffering".

Vatican and the Pontifical Commission received the letter of Bishop Fellay positively. In response to the letter in an act in the form of a decree remitting the excommunication of the SSPX bishops was issued on January 21, 2009 to signify the desire to strengthen reciprocal relations of trust and deepen and stabilize the relationship between the Society and the Apostolic See.

The issuance of the decree was not received well by many quarters of the Church so that the Benedict XVI on March 12, 2009 published a letter explaining perhaps why he lifted the excommunication and others matters concerning the Society of St. Pius X.

A follow-up motu propio was issued the Apostolic Letter “Motu Propio” Ecclesia Unitatem which modifies the structure of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” (PCED) organized in 1988 to deal with the questions involving the Society of St. Pius X. PCED now operates within the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) and the Prefect of CDF is also the President of the PCED.

Canonical Status of the Society

Pope Benedict XVI confirmed this stance in his motu proprio Ecclesiae Unitatem of 2 July 2009, in which he declared that by lifting the excommunication of the four bishops he "intended to remove an impediment that might have jeopardized the opening of a door to dialogue and thereby to invite the Bishops and the 'Society of St Pius X' to rediscover the path to full communion with the Church. ... the remission of the excommunication was a measure taken in the context of ecclesiastical discipline to free the individuals from the burden of conscience constituted by the most serious of ecclesiastical penalties. However, the doctrinal questions obviously remain and until they are clarified the Society has no canonical status in the Church and its ministers cannot legitimately exercise any ministry."18

17 Decree Remitting the Excommunication “latae sententiae” of the Bishops of the Society of St. Pius X. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cbishops/documents/rc_con_cbishops_doc_20090121_remissione-scomunica_en.html. Date Accessed: January 24, 2011. 18 Kris Dmytrenko, “Reconstructing Ecclesia Dei: Imminent.” http://www.zenit.org/article-26402?l=english. Date Accessed: January 28, 2011.

A Report on the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X

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