Overthinking the SSPX situation

Restoring the Faith Catholic Media had a pretty hyped debate yesterday about the SSPX, between Jeff Cassman and David Gordon.  If you've got 2 hours of free time, go ahead and give it a listen.  I don't really want to comment per se about the debate, but about what I think is a problem regarding these discussions.  We are overthinking the problem.  The status of the SSPX really boils down to a few key questions:

1.)  Who was originally excommunicated?  

This seems pedantic, but its important.  Contrary to popular belief, the priests of the Society of St. Pius X were never excommunicated.  

In itself, this act was one of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience - which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy - constitutes a schismatic act. In performing such an act, notwithstanding the formal canonical warning sent to them by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops on 17 June last, Mons. Lefebvre and the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta, have incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law.

 (John Paul II, Ecclesia Dei Afflictica, 07/2/88)

The penalty applied to Archbishop Lefebrve, as well as the four priests he consecrated bishop against the pope's wishes.  Now at this point there is usually the digression into the history surrounding canon law, consecration of bishops, states of emergency, etc.  Let's ignore all that. Note that John Paul II did not state that the consecrations created a "schism".  Rather, the consecrations constituted a "schismatic act."  That's not splitting hairs, that's important.  An act can be a schismatic act but not create a schism, much less a schism that perpetuates itself for 30 years.  Rome has been coy over whether or not such an act formalized  a schism, because, honestly, the answer isn't easy.  Certain acts are schismatic without necessarily causing a schism.  This matters for reasons we will get to, but for now, pocket it.

2.)  What was the status of SSPX Priests?    

So we know that the priests themselves were never excommunicated, much less in schism.  What was their status?  In removing the excommunications of the four bishops (kind of important!), Pope Benedict XVI said the following:

The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers – even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty – do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.

A priest who is operating illegitimately is open to canonical penalties, mainly suspension.  Those priests (especially those ordained by Society Bishops) are indeed suspended, which means the Church has placed limits on how they can exercise their priestly ministry.  That is an important distinction because....

3.)  Things have changed since 1988!

Almost every debate about the status of the Society is stuck in a time when John Paul II was still pope. Things have changed.  Pope Benedict's removal of the excommunication on the four bishops was not just a formality.  To the extent they were in schism before then (a debatable proposition) they were almost certainly not as of March 10, 2009.  The status of the Society was simply they did not exercise any ministry in the Church.  It was not "they are outside the Church."

Any doubts about this were removed with the ascension of Pope Francis, who accelerated reconcillation with the SSPX substantially. He gave Bishop Fellay the authority to preside over juridical matters involving sexual abuse by priests in the Society. He granted them faculties to hear confessions (before that they were almost certainly invalid) during the Year of Mercy, and then extended them indefinitely.  He allowed their priests to witness marriages, removing any doubts about their validity.  He suppressed the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, at the request of the SSPX, making clear this is not the Church reaching out to an outside group.  Instead, all negotiations are handled with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as they are instead doctrinal discussions.

Put bluntly, none of these things can be true if the SSPX is schismatic.  The Pope cannot grant faculties to a schismatic.  If they are schismatic, of what business is it who judges an SSPX priest, who is very clearly not under Rome's jurisdiction? The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith does not have jurisdiction over schismatics, but over Catholics.

4.)  The Pope is Sovereign

People may think what Francis did was a bad idea, or one that adds to confusion.  That argument may have merit.  Yet that argument is irrelevant to an overall point:  The Pope, on matters of communion, is sovereign.  Or, as Pius IX proclaims in Quartus Supra

All these traditions dictate that whoever the Roman Pontiff judges to be a schismatic for not expressly admitting and reverencing his power must stop calling himself Catholic.

The simple fact is that by granting faculties to the SSPX Bishops and priests, the Roman Pontiff has judged them to not be schismatic.  Whatever one thinks of the overall merits of Francis' pontificate, he unambiguously has this authority, and (depending on the publicity and intensity of that opposition) to compel people to believe otherwise is a rare case where you actually are resisting the Pope on an area of legitimacy.

5.)  So what are they?

So they aren't schismatic, they aren't excommunicated.  They can hear confessions and officiate at marriages.  So what exactly is the Society?  Truthfully, its a gray area.  Re-integrating Catholics into full communion is a tricky business, and there often isn't a hard yes/no, as desirable as that would be.  Its clear that due to the concessions of Pope Francis, the statement the Society has no legitimate ministry in the Church is no longer valid.  Which is fine, because, again, the pope is sovereign.  Yet that ministry is still restricted.  While you can fulfill a Sunday obligation at their masses, its still an open question about receiving communion.  Obviously confirmation is still a question up in the air. While unusual and irregular, this is entirely within the discretionary authority of the Holy See.  While the SSPX continue to offer their ministry in spite of some of these restrictions, the duty to punish is relegated to the Holy See alone on this question.  The Holy See has clearly decided that their concessions remain valid and a good idea, even if the SSPX is not reciprocating.  Until that changes, that is the end of this discussion.

Anyone who wants to argue the Society is schismatic has to get around these five issues.  One doesn't need advanced discussions into states of emergency, supplied jurisdiction, or the intent of the Archbishop at the time.  Those discussions may or may not be interesting, but they are not relevant to the current status of the SSPX.