As a former SSPX adherent, I understand the frustration and confusion many Catholics feel right now regarding the situation of the SSPX. I hope the following analysis will shed light on why the Vatican acted as it did, even though—as Pope Leo himself stated—the SSPX possesses many admirable qualities.
The Society’s appeal to the state of necessity—i.e., that the Church’s condition today is so bad that the salvation of souls and maintenance of Catholic doctrine necessitates the ongoing ministry of the SSPX—lies at the heart of the current controversy. Fr. Gleize recently made precisely this point, arguing the state of the Church “demands the consecration of new, fully Catholic bishops for the salvation of souls…it is this state of necessity alone that justifies the initiative for consecrations.”
There are good reasons to reject this “state of necessity” argument, however.
The essential problem with the argument is this: it implies the Catholic Church has become so corrupt that it has failed in its ordinary mission and only an extraordinary mission of the SSPX can save the Church. But this is contrary to Catholic dogma because it denies the indefectibility of the Church, as I will show.
First, a few preliminary points:
By functioning as ministers of Christ, the SSPX makes a claim to an authorization or mission to teach, govern, and sanctify in Christ’s name. The mission to minister in Christ’s name has to come from somewhere. There are only two possible sources:
- The Church’s ordinary mission originates in Christ but is handed on through lawful appointment within the Church’s juridical structure. One receives it by being “sent” by someone who already has it (i.e., the pope).
- An extraordinary mission, on the other hand, would be a sending directly from Christ Himself, without the intermediary of existing ecclesiastical authority.
The SSPX explicitly admits that it does not possess an ordinary mission. As a matter of public record, they have never been appointed to an office in the Church by lawful authority. Therefore, the mission the SSPX claims must be an extraordinary one.
In fact, the Society holds that certain priests and bishops must take upon themselves Catholic ministry without having received a share in the ordinary mission of the Church because the ministers who do possess the Church’s ordinary mission are unfit to carry it out.
But this is an impossible position to hold because the Church teaches that her ordinary mission cannot fail. This is not merely semantics or canonical technicalities; rather it’s the heart of ecclesiology.
A Handbook of Fundamental Theology Volume III by Rev. John Brunsmann (1931) states, “The Church of Christ will continue to the end of time, unchanged in all her essential elements, one of which is the ordinary and legitimate Apostolic succession…she will never at any time lack the [ordinary and apostolic mission].”
An integral part of this ordinary mission is ordinary jurisdiction, which is bestowed by canonical appointment to an office in the Church. In Christ’s Church, Msgr. Van Noort writes:
What is required for genuine apostolic succession is that a man enjoy the complete powers (i.e., ordinary powers, not extraordinary) of an apostle. He must, then, in addition to the power of orders, possess also the power of jurisdiction. Jurisdiction means the power to teach and govern. – This power is conferred only by a legitimate authorization […] On no one but the apostolic college, under the headship of Peter, did Christ confer the power of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling the faithful […] This triple power, therefore, necessarily belongs, and can only belong, to those who form one moral person with the apostles: their legitimate successors.
Because the Church is indefectible, her bishops will always possess the threefold ordinary power of the Apostles, and they will not fail in exercising it. This is a dogma of faith. Van Noort adds that “Any society can fail in either of two ways: it can simply cease to be, or it can become unfit for the carrying out of its avowed aim through a substantial corruption. The Church cannot fail in either way.”
Since the Church will always preserve the ordinary mission through lawful succession and fulfill it efficaciously, no state of necessity can ever exist that would require Catholics to act outside of, or contrary to, the ordinary mission and jurisdiction of the Church. The Church’s ordinary mission and the preservation of the Faith are inseparable.
Many authorities confirm this. For instance, Brunsmann notes that, because the Church will always preserve her ordinary mission, “there is no room for an extraordinary mission.” He continues:
The 16th century Reformers deemed it possible that the Church of Christ could err so profoundly in matters of faith and morals that no suitable rulers could be set up by ordinary human means, and those still in office could no longer be employed with advantage for the salvation of souls. In that case, they held, God would send men with an extraordinary mission to reform His Church.
This is the same logic as the “state of necessity” argument. Brunsmann rejects it:
We hold that such an extraordinary mission is incompatible with the nature and organization of the Church. She can never be without the Apostolic succession, which is based upon the ordinary and Apostolic mission and invariably accompanied by the gift of infallibility and the efficacious assistance of Christ, and therefore the teaching of the Church cannot possibly be distorted to such an extent that its purification would necessitate an extraordinary mission.
Cardinal Camillo Mazzella similarly discounts the idea. In De Religio et Ecclesia, he writes, “The hypothesis of an extraordinary mission must be rejected…the ordinary and mediate apostolic mission shall endure until the mystical body of Christ is fully built; thus there can never be pastors and doctors who, by an extraordinary mission, would make up for the failure of those who came first.” Indeed, the Council of Trent places an anathema on the proposition that a bishop without ordinary mission could be a legitimate Catholic minister (Canon 7 of 23rd Session).
Taking up ministry without having been called to it by legitimate authority amounts to setting up a new mission of Christ, apart from the one handed on within the Church’s line of lawful succession. This is precisely what is at stake in an unauthorized episcopal consecration, which is why it’s so serious.
Because of the Church’s single mission, unity, and indefectibility, it can never be necessary to found a new mission. Any attempt to do so breaks the continuity of mission going back to Christ and challenges the apostolic identity of the Church.
We read in the 1844 United States Catholic Magazine, “There is another condition [besides ordination] absolutely required in order to be linked with the ministry of the apostles, viz: a lawful mission.” The article goes on to address the fallacious appeal to “necessity”:
[W]here is it written in the authentic records of divine revelation, that necessity can found a divine mission? We read in the Scripture: “Neither doth any man take the honor to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was.” […] Where do we read “neither doth any man take the honor to himself, but he that is called to it by necessity?” We learn also from St. Paul that no one can preach, “unless he be sent.” […] But where is it said, “except in the case of necessity?” […] If the ministry originally instituted had fallen and become invalid at the time of the reformation, no one but Christ in person could have restored it, or set up a new one in its place.
These principles help us understand why Pius XII rejected the “state of necessity” argument when he condemned episcopal consecrations that had occurred in China without papal approval. Those who had engaged in the illicit consecrations appealed to necessity, much like the SSPX, saying that the dioceses in question needed bishops for the good of souls living there. But Pius responded to this argument by saying, “It is obvious that no thought is being taken of the spiritual good of the faithful if the Church’s laws are being violated and further, there is no question of vacant sees, as they wish to argue.”
In fact, violation of Church law on such an important point cannot possibly conduce to the salvation of souls because the hierarchical laws of the Church are essential to her nature, and therefore can never become a danger to the Faith itself. Christ constituted His Church in a perfect manner, such that the jurisdictional primacy of Peter will never become a fatal obstacle to the Church’s survival and mission. Yet this is what the SSPX’s position implies when it asserts that it must prescind from Peter’s primacy in order to save the Church, out of an alleged “state of necessity.” Such a position destroys the inner logic of the Church’s divine constitution, where Peter’s primacy—despite the shortcomings of the men who hold it—is precisely the guarantor of the Church’s survival and indefectibility through the ages—not, as the Society would have it, a threat to it.
Bl. Pope Pius IX considered it a denial of the indefectibility of the Church to hold that a bishop might need to be consecrated against the pope’s will because the Church had become irretrievably corrupt. He wrote:
[The Old Catholics] boldly affirm that the Roman Pontiff and all the bishops, the priests and the people conjoined with him in the unity of faith and communion fell into heresy when they approved and professed the definitions of the Ecumenical Vatican Council. Therefore they deny also the indefectibility of the Church and blasphemously declare that it has perished throughout the world and that its visible Head and the bishops have erred. They assert the necessity of restoring a legitimate episcopacy in the person of their pseudo-bishop, who has entered not by the gate…and calls the damnation of Christ upon his head.
Both popes understood that the Church, founded with divine foresight, contains in her hierarchical constitution and original mission everything she could ever need, even in times of crisis.
The state of necessity argument betrays an implicit rejection of the Church’s indefectibility and a misunderstanding of the indispensability of ordinary mission and papal primacy. It also mirrors Protestant and Old Catholics’ arguments for why they exercised ministry without Rome’s authorization. It may require the eyes of faith to see it, but the solution to any crisis will always be found within that body of pastors who have received ordinary jurisdiction and mission from the pope. We have Christ’s word for it.
Author’s Note: Read the unabridged version of this essay on my Substack.
Photo by National Historical Museum of Sweden (NHM) on Unsplash
