Holy Cross Seminary

Frequently Asked Questions About Catholicism
Answered by Fr. Peter Scott

Question: Why is it that the priests of the Society do not send faithful who have grounds of annulment to the local diocesan tribunal?

Answer: Not infrequently the priests of the Society are contacted by faithful who have been previously married, but whose marriage failed. They will sometimes present convincing evidence of the nullity of their previous marriage, such as the refusal of children on the part of one or both parties. They are there placed in a difficult predicament:
• On the one hand the Society does not have jurisdiction to establish tribunals that could give a certain judgment in such a case;
• On the other hand, the diocesan tribunals do not grant certitude either, for even when there are solid potential grounds to truly question the validity of the marriage, they will always resort to the easy grounds of “lack of due discretion”, provided for in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1095, §2.

Consequently, if a traditional priest were to send his faithful to a diocesan tribunal, he would effectively condemn them to uncertainty, to never knowing for sure their marriage status. However, the whole purpose of an annulment tribunal is to establish moral certitude, on the basis of which a person can act. A tribunal that refuses to do this, does not perform its duty and is worthless. The modernist tribunals almost always consider exclusively psychological reasons, such as lack of maturity that make the marriage imprudent. They call this “lack of due discretion”. However, this is no way proves that the marriage did not happen, and that the vows were without any object, as when one of the couple refuses true consent. Consequently, the decision of the modernist tribunals gives no certitude at all, and certainly do not give the person the ability to act as if he or she were not married and to enter into another marriage. This is why the Society of Saint Pius X refuses to marry people who have decrees of nullity from modernist tribunals.

The faithful who have an upright intention, who are seeking true certitude, and who would never dream of entering sacrilegiously into a subsequent doubtful marriage, consequently come to the Society asking us to resolve their doubt. Our priests know full well that it is not because there seems to be some good grounds that the marriage can be considered as null and void. It takes a tribunal to make such a declaration, after due consideration, following all the norms of canon law. The salvation of souls requires that the Society have such tribunals, and consequently the Church supplies jurisdiction for such judgments, as it does for marriages themselves.

Sometimes it is objected that the Society should study the case first, and then send it to a diocesan tribunal. The problem is that simply studying the case will not obtain the required moral certitude. It is only a canonical judgment, following the norms of marriage tribunals that can do this. We can only study it by erecting tribunals to treat these cases. Any other way of studying them would be misleading, unjust and would perpetrate the uncertainty.

Another reason why Society priests refuse to refer their faithful to the Novus Ordo tribunals is to avoid confusion and scandal for the weak. How can the faithful be expected to accept our firm rulings, protecting the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage, if we were to send our faithful to tribunals who do not at all, in practice, accept them? Human nature is such that they will listen only to the answer they want to hear. It is only years later, after entering into a second, and possibly invalid second marriage, that they will have to grapple with their compromised conscience. It would be a total contradiction of all that we are doing to restore all things in Christ, and to save souls, if we were to do this. The continued worsening of the crisis in the Church has made it more necessary than ever before for us to be very firm on this point.

Question: Is the Novus Ordo Mass invalid, or sacrilegious, and should I assist at it when I have no alternative?

Answer: The validity of the reformed rite of Mass, as issued in Latin by Paul VI in 1969, must be judged according to the same criteria as the validity of the other sacraments; namely matter, form and intention. The defective theology and meaning of the rites, eliminating as they do every reference to the principal propitiatory end of sacrifice, do not necessarily invalidate the Mass. The intention of doing what the Church does, even if the priest understands it imperfectly, is sufficient for validity. With respect to the matter, pure wheaten bread and true wine from grapes are what is required for validity. The changes in the words of the form in the Latin original, although certainly illicit and unprecedented in the history of the Church, do not alter the substance of its meaning, and consequently do not invalidate the Mass.

However, we all know that such a New Mass celebrated in Latin is an oddity, doomed to extinction by the very fact of the reform. The validity of the New Mass that are actually celebrated in today’s parishes more than 30 years later is a quite different question. Additives to the host sometimes invalidate the matter. The change in the translation from the words of Our Lord, “for many” to the ecumenically acceptable “for all” throws at least some doubt on the validity of the form. Most importantly, however, is the fact that the intention of the Church of offering up a true sacrifice in propitiation for the sins of the living and the dead has been obliterated for 30 years. In fact, most liturgies present the contrary intention of a celebration by the community of the praise of God. IN such circumstances it is very easy for a priest to no longer have the intention of doing what the Church does, and for the New Mass to become invalid for this reason. The problem is that this is hidden and nobody knows. Whereas the traditional Mass expresses the true intention of the Church in a clear and unambiguous manner, so that everyone can be certain of the priest’s intention, the New Mass does not such thing. Consequently, the doubt of invalidity for lack of intention, especially in the case of manifestly modernist priests, cannot be easily lifted or removed.

Clearly, an invalid Mass is not a Mass at all, and does not satisfy the Sunday obligation. Furthermore, when it comes to the sacraments, Catholics are obliged to follow the “pars tutior”, the safer path. It is not permissible to knowingly receive doubtful sacraments. Consequently nobody has the obligation to satisfy his Sunday obligation by attending the New Mass, even if there is no other alternative.

However, even if we could be certain of the validity of the Novus Ordo Masses celebrated in today’s conciliar churches, it does not follow that they are pleasing to God. Much to the contrary, they are objectively sacrilegious, even if those who assist at them are not aware of it. By such a statement, I do not mean that all those who celebrate or assist at the New Mass are necessarily in mortal sin, having done something directly insulting to Almighty God and to our Divine Savior.

Sacrilege is a sin against the virtue of religion, and is defined as “the unbecoming treatment of a sacred person, place or thing as far as these are consecrated to God” (Jone, Moral Theology, p. 108). The moral theologians explain that sacrilege is in itself and generally a mortal sin (ex genere suo), but that it is not always a mortal sin, because it can concern a relatively small or unimportant thing. Here we are speaking of a real sacrilege, the dishonoring of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, by the elimination of the prayers and ceremonies that protect its holiness, by the absence of respect, piety and adoration, and by the failure to express the Catholic doctrine of the Mass as a true propitiatory sacrifice for our sins. Here there are varying degrees. Just as it is a grave sacrilege and objective mortal sin for a lay person to touch the sacred host with reason, so it is, for example, a venial sin to do the same thing to the chalice or the blessed linens, such as the purificator or pall.

Likewise with the New Mass. It can be an objectively mortal sin of sacrilege if Holy Communion is distributed in the hand or by lay ministers, if there is no respect, if there is talking or dancing in church, or if it includes some kind of ecumenical celebration etc. It can also be an objectively venial sin of sacrilege if it is celebrated with unusual respect and devotion, so that it appears becoming and reverential to Almighty God. This in virtue of the omissions in the rites and ceremonies, which constitute a true disrespect to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and to the Blessed Trinity, and of the failure to express the true nature of what the Mass really is. In each case, the subjective culpability is an altogether other question that God only can judge.

However, regardless of the gravity of the sacrilege, the New Mass still remains a sacrilege, and it is still in itself sinful. Furthermore, it is never permitted to knowing and willingly participate in an evil or sinful thing, even if it is only venially sinful. For the end does not justify the means. Consequently, although it is a good thing to want to assist at Mass and satisfy one’s Sunday obligation, it is never permitted to use a sinful means to do this. To assist at the New Mass, for a person who is aware of the objective sacrilege involved, is consequently at least a venial sin. It is opportunism. Consequently, it is not permissible for a traditional Catholic, who understands that the New Mass is insulting to Our Divine Savior, to assist at the New Mass, and this even if there is no danger scandal to others or of the perversion of one’s own Faith (as in an older person, for example), and even if it is the only Mass available.

Question: Can a traditional Catholic go to Confession to a Novus Ordo priest?

Answer: It would certainly be valid to go to confession to a priest who still celebrates the Novus Ordo Mass, provided that the penitent were assured of the doctrinal orthodoxy of the priest, his intention of doing what the Church does, and his use of the correct formula of absolution. It would furthermore be permissible in a state of necessity, such as when a person is dying and no traditional priest can be found.

However, it is not easy to have the assurance of a valid absolution, given the fact that the post-conciliar church consistently downgrades the reality and gravity of mortal sin, the benefits of confessing venial sins, the graces to be obtained from frequent confession, and the necessity of doing penance. Very often souls who have felt the urgent need to go to a Novus Ordo priest have come to me afterwards in confession, doubting the validity of their confession to this priest, on account of his trivializing of their sins.

Furthermore, I do not hesitate to strongly recommend against going to Confession to such a priest, even when there is an assurance of a valid absolution. A penitent does not go to Confession simply to receive the absolution of his sins. He has the desire to receive all the effects of the sacrament, including the direction, and if need be reprimand of the confessor, growth in the love of God and in sanctifying grace, a firmer purpose of amendment and the satisfaction of the temporal punishment due to his sins. All this is only possible if he sees in the confessor a judge, a teacher and a physician. It is to guarantee these full effects of the sacrament of Penance that the Church supplies jurisdiction so that the faithful can ask any priest to hear their confessions, for any just reason (Canon 2261, §2, 1917 Code and Canon 1335 of the 1983 code).

Manifestly it is not possible to have confidence in the guidance of a priest who compromises with modernism by celebrating the New Mass, even if he otherwise appears orthodox. Neither his judgment as to the reality of our contrition, nor his instruction as to the gravity of our sins, nor his remedies for the ills of our sins can be depended upon. The supernatural vision of Faith will necessarily have been undermined by the humanism and naturalism of the New Mass and the spirit of Vatican II. Our souls are much too precious to place in the hands of those who lack conviction.

Consequently, outside case of danger of death, it is preferable to make an act of perfect contrition, and to wait until one can open one’s soul to a traditional priest that can be trusted.

Question: Is the upcoming October canonization of Mgr. Jose Maria Escriva de Balaguer to be considered infallible or not?

Answer: The huge number of the present Pontiff’s canonizations have certainly been a great concern to us. For the traditional rules contained in Canon Law, to prevent any possibility of error or of canonization of a person whose Faith and life were not perfectly exemplary, have been done away with, and replaced with much less demanding rules. However, hitherto they have been all pre-Vatican II Saints, and very holy Catholics. But the projected canonization of the founder of the Opus Dei is different. For he it was who anticipated and developed thirty years before Vatican II a revolutionary, new, secular theology of the laity, and accepted the principle of pluralism, accepting into the Opus Dei men of every faith and religion. (Cf. Opus Dei, A Strange Pastoral Phenomenon, Angelus Press.)This indifferentism cannot be considered, according to any traditional guidelines, as an example of sanctity.

It is indeed accepted by the theologians as theologically certain that the Church is infallible in the solemn canonization of the Saints, as distinct from the beatification of the Blessed. (Cf. Zubizarreta, Vol I, § 487-489) The reason for this is that a canonization is not just a permission for the honor of a saint, as is a beatification. It is a definition, and a command, made by the Sovereign Pontiff with the use of his full authority, and consequently binding on Catholics. Consequently it is similar to a profession of Faith, having as its object the glory of the Saint in heaven.

However, not all canonized saints are solemnly declared by the Church as such. In the first ten centuries of the Church’s history, the Popes simply gave their approval to the veneration of saints and martyrs by the faithful. These are known today as saints. However, since there was no solemn canonization process, the full authority and infallibility of the Church are not engaged for such saints. Consequently, it is not the fact that a person is called a “saint” that makes it infallible, but the solemn declaration and definition by the Sovereign Pontiff, as binding on all Catholics. It is upon this that the answer to the question concerning the infallibility of the canonization of Escriva depends. If the decree defines formally and obliges the acceptation of his sanctity, then it will be infallible, regardless of the defects in the processes for the canonization of saints that exist since Vatican II. However, if the decree of canonization were not to be solemn, and not to contain such expressions as “we define” and “we command” the veneration of this saint, then it would not be infallible, just as the approval of canonized saints in the early centuries of the Church. The same applied to Vatican II, for by not wanting to define doctrines clearly, it refused to use the infallible authority of the Extraordinary Magisterium that it could have used to condemn heresy.

The question then arises as to whether, if the canonization is duly performed with solemnity, we are bound to venerate this particular saint as a model and patron. St. Thomas states that the veneration that we display towards the saints is “that by which we believe that they share the glory of the saints” (Quodlib. 9, a. 16 in Zubizarreta, op. cit). The object of the canonization is then the saints’ vision of God in heaven, and only indirectly the sanctity of their life and its value as a model for us. These are consequently not the object of the infallible definition, and although they would not normally be questioned in a canonized saint, in such a particular case it would seem possible to seriously doubt these, whilst still accepting that the canonized saint is in heaven. We could consequently accept that Mgr. Escriva is a saint in heaven, (hardly surprising for a priest, given his conservative mindset, genuine piety, frequent reception of the sacraments) without accepting in any way the pluralism and secularism that he taught.

Question: Could you please explain the discrepancies in the ceremonies for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday that I see in different traditional chapels?

Answer: The key to understanding the minor differences that a traditional Catholic sometimes sees is the Restoration of the ceremonies of Holy Week. This was done by Pope Pius XII in two stages, the restoration of the Easter Vigil being decreed in 1951, and of Holy Thursday and Good Friday in November 1955. The changes were not great. The most obvious is the returning of the ceremonies to the original times, that corresponded with the events that were celebrated. The reason given in the decree of November 30, 1955 Maxima redemptionis nostrae mysteria is to promote the assistance of the faithful, whose customary absence from these ceremonies was a cause of great regret, given not only the extraordinary dignity of these ceremonies, but also their special sacramental power and efficacy to nourish the Christian life.

Consequently, it was decided that the Mass of the Lord’s Supper (In Coena Domini) for Maundy Thursday would be celebrated henceforth in the evening, starting not before 5:00 p.m. nor after 8:00 p.m., this coinciding with the time of the Last Supper. To the Mass was added the optional ceremony of the washing of the feet (previous celebrated separately), symbolizing thereby the charity of Christ towards his disciples that inspired Him to give them His body and blood. The evening procession to the altar of repose is symbolic of the apostles accompanying Our Divine Lord into the garden of Gethsemane.

The time of the ceremony for Good Friday was also changed to the afternoon, after the time of Our Lord’s death on the cross, namely from 3:00 until 6:00 p.m. The ceremony has barely changed except that the last part is no longer called the “Mass of the Presanctified”, but simply a Holy Communion service.

The Holy Saturday Vigil was restored to the original time of a Vigil, such that the Mass begins around midnight. The ceremonies were somewhat simplified, notably by reducing the number of lessons from 12 to 4, in order to make the ceremony more accessible for the faithful. The above mentioned decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites explains the symbolism of this change:

“First of all it is imperative that the faithful should be instructed about the unique liturgical character of Holy Saturday. This is the day of the most intense sorrow, the day on which the Church tarries at the Lord’s tomb, meditating about His Passion and death. While the altar remains stripped, the Church abstains from the sacrifice of the Mass until, after the solemn vigil or the nocturnal wait for the Resurrection, there come the Easter joys, the abundance of which carries over to the days that follow.

The intention and purpose of the vigil is to point out and to recall in the liturgical service how our life and grace have flowed from the Lord’s death. And so, Our Lord Himself is shown under the sign of the paschal candle as ‘the light of the world’ (Jn 8:12) who has put the darkness of our sins to flight by the grace of His light.”

The experience of the Church has proven the wisdom of this restoration of the primitive custom, of these minor changes, that help us to truly share with Our Lord the sacred moments of Holy Week. These restored Holy Week ceremonies will be seen in all the churches of the Society of Saint Pius X. However, there remain some traditional priests who confuse this authentic restoration with the post-conciliar revolution of the New Mass, and who refuse to accept these well balanced and duly authorized rubrical changes. These are in general sedevacantists, who maintain that there has been no Pope since Pius XII, and that Pius XII was no longer able to govern during the last years of his Papacy. It is true that during the 50s Fr. Bugnini and the liturgical movement were gathering speed for the liturgical revolution of the new Mass. However, the examination of the text and reasons given for these changes puts the lie to the accusations that they are impregnated with modernism, and that Pope Pius XII who wrote in 1947 a magnificent encyclical, Mediator Dei, condemning the abuses of the liturgical movement, had lost control.

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