Holy Cross Seminary

Most Asked Questions About the Society of Saint Pius X

INTRODUCTION

     Many Catholics realize more or less acutely that the Church is passing through a period of confusion, and they wonder whether there are any simple guidelines for seeing them through it. This booklet tries to present principles, hopefully of solution but at least of sanity (even if not perhaps the complete answers), to be these simple guidelines. Our Lord God, moreover, does not ask us to solve what He has not given eminent theologians to solve. He asks that we save our souls, which we do, with His grace, by living as well as we can as Catholics, as true sons of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

     The origins of this period of confusion, lie in the whole "face­lift" of the Church since the Second Vatican Council. The Church has a "new look":

• new catechisms,
  
• new liturgy-in new churches, around a table, with communion in the hand, from lay ministers aided by altar-girls, etc.,
  
• new Bibles and Canon Law,
  
• involvement with non-Catholics,
  
• new orientations-world "justice," "peace," etc.,
  
• laymen doing what priests did, etc.
  

And what happened to:

• The traditional Latin Mass?
  
• Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament?
  
• regular individual confessions?
  
• Processions?
  
• The Way of the Cross, Fast and Abstinence, Prayers for the Holy Souls, etc?
  
• Religious and priests in their habits, etc?

     What has not changed in Catholic life? The question is: Is this truly just a "face-lift," or is it really an "about-face"?

     The latter, answers the Society of Saint Pius X. It is a turning away from God and a turning to the world, to man. The world is not converting to the Church; the "Church" has converted to the world. Are modern Catholics very different from non-Catholics these days? Clearly not.

     To judge rightly these goings-on in the Church, let us look first at some general principles that all Catholics accept (Part 1), and then we can evaluate better the Society of Saint Pius X's reaction to this crisis (Part II).

     True to our aim at simplicity, answers will be brief and even in note form. For fuller answers, further reading and study will be necessary (Appendix II). May this little work give to those who have no time or means for a longer look some answers to the questions they are asking.

N.B.: The General Principles will be referred to throughout this booklet by their number given in Part I (so the second, for example, will be called Principle 2); in like manner, the Questions in Part II will be referred to as QUESTION #.

The abbreviation Dz refers to Denzinger's The Sources of Catholic Dogma (translated by Roy J. Deferrari from the Thirtieth Edition of Henry Denzinger's Enchiridion Symbolorum).

 

home | contents | top of page