Washington D.C., Aug 16, 2018 / 03:16 am (CNA).- Fr. Thomas Berg is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, a former Legionary of Christ, and professor of moral theology, vice rector, and director of admissions at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie, NY. He is author of Hurting in the Church: A Way Forward for Wounded Catholics. He spoke recently with CNA’s Courtney Grogan about the challenges Catholics face amid the Church’s sexual abuse and misconduct scandals. The interview is below, edited for clarity and length.
With everything that has been coming out in the news recently about sexual abuse in the Church, how do you think that your book, “Hurting in the Church: A Way Forward for Wounded Catholics,” could be helpful?
In the wake of the McCarrick scandal and ongoing revelations of priest sexual abuse, a very common reaction is one of betrayal.
That’s what I have heard a lot of from persons who have reached out to me, especially persons who for years have collaborated with bishops, worked in chanceries, worked for bishops, collaborated in apostolates, have headed-up bishop’s capital campaigns, have been donors and so on. Part of the very common experience is this raw emotional wound of betrayal.
Much of my book speaks directly to that experience. That’s where I really hope that persons who are going through that betrayal, profound discouragement, disappointment, the bewilderment of the moral failures of bishops, who either failed to report what they should have reported or did not act on what was reported to them.
That is scandalous and that opens up a wound of betrayal really in the whole mystical body.
I very much believe that the book can, hopefully, point to where is the good news in this — Where is the hope in this? Where is Jesus in the midst of this crisis?
Where is Jesus in the midst of this crisis?
Jesus is the healer of wounds, and Jesus does not leave the members of his mystical body without healing when we seek it.
We are in the midst of a massive crisis, notwithstanding some resistance to that idea by some of our prelates.
And those wounds are opened up. This is where not only can Jesus bring healing, but he can also use that experience of woundedness, whether that is personally or institutionally or spiritually as the body of Christ. He uses those wounds to bring greater good, to bring grace and healing to His Church.
Part of what I do in the book is just to reflect, often with these individuals [victims of abuse] and sometimes in their own words, on this mystery that the Jesus who comes into this experience is Jesus who appeared with his glorious wounds. The wounds were still there. The wounds are mystically important and we can unite our wounds to Jesus and allow him to unite those in a mystical way, in a redemptive way to His redemptive work.
So, where is Jesus in all of this? Jesus is continuing in the midst of our brokenness, in the midst of the utter moral failures of our pastors, in the midst of our own sinfulness and brokenness. The risen Good Shepherd comes with his glorious wounds by which he intends to bring about healing in his Church and to bring about a much greater good and a much more glorious future precisely in and through the tragedies that we are experiencing.
We will also experience this in a much more glorious and beautiful day for the Church in the future, and certainly for the Church when all time has been consummated and we are all, by God’s grace, caught up in the glory of the heavenly kingdom.
You discuss in the book how uprooting a betrayal of trust can be and how we really need to be grounded in Christ’s love. What are some concrete ways that Catholics can really root themselves in Christ’s love and find that grounding in a time when they might feel destabilized in the Church?
First, very practical immediate answer: Eucharistic adoration. No doubt about it.
That was essentially my homily when we were talking two weeks ago about the McCarrick thing from the pulpit. It means, as always in crisis, we need to be earnestly and deeply seeking the Lord by frequenting Eucharistic adoration and intensifying one’s life of prayer.
In my own story, I had to go on retreat. I had to just go take some time to just be by myself to get that down to the solid foundation of what did I stand on. What was the foundation that everything that I believed stood on?
What one can come to in those experiences is that experience of Jesus — the experience that our risen and glorious Lord still stands present in the midst of our lives. He is there.
When we are hurting, we need to do whatever it takes: adoration, retreat, increased prayer, asceticism, solid spiritual reading, all of the things that we can avail ourselves of God’s grace to re-experience ourselves as rooted and grounded in His love.
God has a very big safety net for us and it is that reality of being truly rooted and grounded in Him and in His love that encompasses us.
It is just that when we are hurting, when we are scandalized, when we are angry, when we are experiencing all of this emotional turbulence, it is just — it takes time and prayer and I think a lot of coming to silence and coming to quiet to get through that and to realize that our Lord is still there. Our Lord is still holding his hands out to us. Our Lord is still there to embrace us and pick us up and guide us and help us to move forward.
What would you say to the priest who just doesn’t know how to address this from the pulpit, who is dealing with his own feelings of hurt and confusion, and maybe is on the fence about whether he should address it in a homily?
I think that the best thing that priest can do is to talk about that in his homily. It is emotionally exhausting for most of us. It is heartbreaking. When I preached a couple of weekends ago, I got emotional. I think it is very healing and good if priests allow themselves to feel and show that emotion. Feel and show how personally upsetting it is. If a priest is angry, tell your people, ‘Yeah, I’m angry too, and you should be angry.’ It should start there.
It is absolutely essential that this is addressed. No priest should be waiting for some directive from his bishop. I would hope that across the country most priests have already addressed this from the pulpit. If not, it absolutely has to happen.
People are very angry right now, and I do not think that they are identifying that anger as a hurt. Many people are channeling their anger into what needs to change in the Church. Some channel it at specific people in the Church.
You address healthy anger in the book, and I want to hear your thoughts on it in this context. What would you say to people who are very angry?
There is certainly such a thing as just anger. I would hope that most of the anger that what most committed Catholics are experiencing right now is precisely that — “just anger.” I have experienced a good deal of bit of it in the past few weeks.
Hopefully that anger does get channelled into good positive, action steps that I think Catholics are taking. But people should also be very honest with themselves: This hurts.
I think that our brothers and sisters who are going through this right now, and they are many, need to own up to that.
That is a very healthy starting point to getting to a better place. In this context, it is an important part of rightly channeling our energies and our reactions prayerfully and in docility to the Holy Spirit. We have to allow the Holy Spirit to come fully into that experience of hurt in this ecclesial context.
The immediate victims of McCarrick, those who have suffered sexual exploitation, they are hurt in a very unique way, but in some sense this has inflicted a hurt on all of us. And those who failed, those who enabled him, those who pulled him up the ecclesiastical ladder, if they did so with knowledge of his sexual predation, that inflicts a real emotional hurt on all of us, and we should just admit that.
Many Catholics first faced these initial feelings of betrayal, shock, bewilderment in 2002. After positive steps forward like the Dallas Charter, these Catholics found some consolation in the fact that the Church had made positive changes. Now there are layers of hurt there, particularly the hurt of thinking that things were better and then discovering that they are not.
The Church might not change in our lifetimes. Reform in the Church takes so long. The Church is very good at reforming herself, but it can take centuries sometimes. I’m worried for people who are looking for a quick fix.
I think that you are hitting at the heart of the problem. One thing that we are being faced with in this crisis is the reality that effective change within the Church takes a very, very long time. Even within organizations, people talk about changing the internal culture of a business, even that in itself can take a long time.
First of all, there is no reason why we cannot continue to take genuine pride in the programs that have been set in place with the sacrifice and dedication by the way of hundreds of lay Catholic men and women who have jumped into this breach and who have instituted requirements for background checks, safe environment training, safe environment programs, who serve the Church as sexual abuse assistance coordinators in dioceses (these are people who deal one on one especially with victims of clergy sexual abuse.) So we have every reason frankly to be confident that we are in a much better place then we were 15 years ago to protect our children. There is no reason to doubt that.
What people are still reeling from, and this has been the real revelation, is that there has been, especially within the episcopacy, there has been an internal culture which allowed — and I am not faulting all bishops here, but McCarrick is the child of an old boys school mentality, a culture where bishops too often understood themselves as members of this kind of privileged caste who used power and authority to manipulate and frankly to bring about all kind of harms and hurts in people’s lives. Bishops have sadly often been the perpetrators of much of the hurt that has been experienced on many levels and in many forms in the Church. And that is a sickly culture and it has to change.
The Church desperately needs a healing in its episcopacy. This is very much a crisis of the episcopacy. The current ethos is in so many ways it is failing us. It is failing the Church. What we have is, in far too many cases, a kind of managerial approach. Bishops simply seek to manage, to contain, to bureaucratize our apostolates, and that is not a culture where the Church is going to thrive.
Is that going to change anytime soon? No, but I think that we have an opportunity. This crisis is putting a spotlight on that problematic culture within the episcopate. I think that we can be hopeful for some kind of change, maybe even sea change.
There are good and holy bishops out there who are as incensed about this as you or I or any of us are. It is my prayer and hope that they will begin to exercise some very kind of unprecedented leadership within the body of bishops and certainly within their own dioceses.
So what do Catholics do meanwhile? Well, we are challenged to exercise the supernatural virtue of hope. We are challenged to believe that that kind of change, if it is meant to be, will take time, but we have to support every bishop who shows signs that they are getting it.
We have to support every bishop who shows signs that they understand and that they are taking unprecedented steps towards transparency, toward addressing even the faults of their own brother bishops.
We need to be supportive and helpful, and I guess that is a long way of saying that we need to hang in there and trust in the Holy Spirit. Change does take a long time in the Church. We are called to continue to exercise hope and it is by sustaining hope and sustaining a healthy pressure on the bishops that can bring about some really positive change here, maybe faster than we think.
As outrageous as it is, I can imagine the temptation a leader might feel to keep something so scandalous secret, to think that they were protecting Catholics from scandal by a sort of false charity, if you will. How does a leader find the courage or strength to come forward with the truth after they have covered up?
In the context of the Church, bishops who get it have come to understand that the scandal has been the supposed effort to “avoid scandal.” The scandal has been covering this stuff up. The scandal has been keeping this stuff quiet.
This is what I always tell our seminarians. Transparency is your friend. Light and truth are our friends. Institutionally, I think that we are understanding that. In the context of seminary formation, I really believe earnestly that the vast majority of our men understand that.
And I think understanding that also makes it easier to come clean when there has been a failure of any sort. In a sense, it all boils down to the old adage, ‘Honesty is the best policy.’
Obviously, when you are talking about something as complex as sexual abuse and exploitation, that is obviously much more complex because sometimes you are dealing with victims who desire to remain anonymous.
It takes an enormous amount of courage for victims of abuse to come forward and go public. That’s been one sad part of this whole tragedy. It is so difficult. The courage there is just amazing sometimes. I think the message of what we are learning in the sexual abuse crisis is that transparency is the only way to go.
Honestly trying to protect the requirements of justice and people’s reputations is a difficult balance and it definitely requires that transparency.
What do you recommend for those who are specifically dealing with disillusionment? How do Catholics keep their eyes open to the truth without totally succumbing to cynicism?
I think that the level of cynicism and disillusionment right now is off the charts.
You know people often use that image of having a bandage ripped off a wound. I don’t think that we have yet healed from — I know we haven’t healed from 2002. This isn’t having a bandage ripped off. This is having that wound ripped open and stamped on.
I’m fully expecting that the level of disillusionment and just shear kind of numb confusion is going to be a very common experience. I think that there will be different outcomes. I hope that Catholics can believe that there is a way forward here, especially committed Catholics.
It leads you to question your faith. I have been there. I have had that experience. The more you expose yourself to this, the more faith is going to be severely challenged.
I would just hope though that Catholics can understand that Jesus can lead them through that fire. He can lead us through this fire and make it a purifying fire, so that we can emerge from this really sad and really critical chapter of crisis in the Church, that we can emerge from this as stronger disciples and more committed Catholic Christians.
What transformation the Holy Spirit brings about, I hope we could no matter how hard this is, I hope we could kind of look forward to that with a sense of hope and expectation and maybe even the sense that as bad as it is, I want to be a part of what happens now. I want to be a part of the renewal that the Holy Spirit is going to necessarily going to bring about. I want to be a part of the action here. I want to be a part of what the Holy Spirit is going to do now in the Church.
I am absolutely convinced that the Holy Spirit is working in and through this crisis in a very real way. I have experienced it myself. I have seen it and I have heard it from others.
We have to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us beyond this very profound disillusionment.
[…]
I apologize if I’m repeating this but recently I was traveling down a rural road in what’s historically been a predominately Baptist area. I saw a Catholic priest in full cassock and satin sash outside a little country store. It looked very out of place until I remembered that there was a huge SSPX seminary nearby.
I also saw an Amish family driving past in a horse and buggy. Every so often there was a state highway sign with a horse and buggy on it urging drivers to share the road.
All the area needs now is a Chabad synagogue and it will be an image of our demographic future.
🙂
Sadly I visited another area that has been Baptist also and one little town was down to slightly over 200 souls. The school had been closed long ago and turned into a restaurant. Great food and lovely people but you can see the writing on the wall.
Oh, good grief! Will these silly articles never end? A “schismatic mentality”… The Church does not deal with “mentalities,” but with facts. The only reason I do not attend the nearest SSPX chapel is that it is considerably farther from my home than our diocesan-sponsored parish TLM. But if that were to change, with the ongoing persecutions, I would not hesitate to make the longer trek, even if I could attend Mass only once per month. With the SSPX, you are assured of hearing homilies that stick to the Gospel, liturgies that are not personalized according to the whims of the priests, music that does not mock the solemnity of the Mass, fellow parishioners who neither dress nor behave like they are at a family picnic.
Curious. Akin said, “every time a priest commits a liturgical abuse, it creates a canonically irregular situation,”
Last Sunday, circumstance dictated I attend the NO Mass. The grave liturgical abuses at this particular parish have diminished over the decades, but the parish still bears the scars.
During Mass last week, two men, one to my left and another to my right, periodically texted on their cell phones. Two women sat in front of me, one considerably older than her partner, and when not holding hands, one affectionately rubbed the other’s shoulder, back or forearm periodically throughout Mass. All the while, they leaned one into each other. No physical distance separated them. Both wore tight-fitting jeans. One had unkempt hair, looking hastily pulled into a rubber-banded pile on top her head. The two chatted without stop, quietly, into each other’s ears. They both received Holy Eucharist (in hands) and did not return to their pew after receipt.
On Friday of this week, at the Hour of Mercy, I went to this parish’s adoration chapel. A large poster on a tripod conveyed notice and welcome to all guests of so-and-so who would celebrate their wedding at 4 PM. A huge black bow adorned the top of the notice.
Adoration in prayerful silence was nigh impossible with wedding guests laughing and gayly chatting in the vestibule outside the chapel. Thinking, “OK.” I’ll attend the wedding Mass. I found the priest in the vesting sacristy; he relayed there would be no Mass.
Gone are the days when weddings were not celebrated on Fridays, when weddings were celebrated without Mass, in Catholic churches. Announced by black decorations. This particular wedding party consisted of about 14 attendants, dressed in high-end gowns and tuxes.
These may not qualify as liturgical or clerical abuses, but surely we may see them as consequences. Definitely we saw them as irreverent faults against piety and knowledge of the goodness of the Lord. I would think the priests in this parish guilty of laxity in teaching piety, respect, awe or reverence for the God whose words he has been permitted repeat.
I am so very GRATEFUL for my Diocesan-permitted and blessed personal parish staffed by priests of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. A clerical society of apostolic life of pontifical rite, their charism is to sanctify souls through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.
“The Masses they [SSPX] celebrate are also valid, but it is considered morally illicit for the faithful to participate in these Masses unless they are physically or morally impeded from participating in a Mass celebrated by a Catholic priest in good standing,” Monsignor Camille Perl, then-secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, said in 1995
This is saying that they are valid, but you are not supposed to go to them unless a necessity. They are NOT in communion with the Pope or Bishops, making them illicit. Again, you can go to Mass since the Pope has allowed Sacraments, but only in necessity since they do NOT accept the Church as full authority – obviously, this is what Christ called man to do in the Bible when handing the keys to Peter. Just because people don’t like how the Pope is making certain decisions, does NOT mean you can just separate form the Church, as SSPX did — and the FSSP split from them since they were schismatic — and just continue going to a Mass that is illicit and not in hand with the Pope or Bishops.
This article grossly understates the evil of the SSPX. Their hallmarks are pride, disobedience and deceit. LeFevbre’s justification for his disobedience (ordaining bishops against the direct orders of JPII) was that he needed to do so to save the Church. Quite some nerve!
Take note that the priests of the SSPX were given the faculty to grant absolution in 2015 and to witness marriages in 2017. They crow about that now, but fail to mention that they were giving fake absolutions and performing fake weddings for decades. If that’s not an abuse of the faithful, what is?? They were granted the faculties, not as a sign of the SSPX priests’ own virtue, but as a mercy to their poor deluded followers.
Notice also that Payne’s first source is the SSPX website. He should know better than to adopt their own slant on their transgressions. Better to look at JPII and Cardinal Ratzinger’s explanations.
I like the idea of reconciliation and forgiveness. My prayer is that we can all find a way to get along as devout, orthodox Catholics, though in different rites and liturgies. Goodness knows we have enough division in the world without adding more of our own.
God bless the SSPX. I don’t believe they’re the enemy. I read that the SSPX seminary I passed nearby is involved with its local community, participates in blood drives, offers the only opportunity for Catholic Mass in the county, and is generally accepted by its Protestant neighbors. If Baptists are welcoming to the SSPX why wouldn’t we be?
I lived in a town in Switzerland where the ONLY Mass available was at the SSPX chapel, and in a diocese where the bishop frequently called on SSPX priests to preside at funerals because there was NOBODY else to do it. So much for “schism….”
Some of those guys are basically modern circuit riders, taking regular plane trips to the nether regions of Alaska to bring the Sacraments there. As a general rule, I think they take their obligation to provide the Sacraments pretty seriously.
As far as I can tell, their views on Vatican 2 are the same as those held by many who are in full communion with Rome. St. Joan of Arc, pray for them.
No doubt, the counterfeit church that The Catholic Church has accommodated and permitted to subsist within The One Body Of Christ is not The SSPX, but the church of lukewarmness that, in essence, seeks to align themselves with the atheist materialistic over population alarmist globalists, like the U.N., who deny that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, rendering onto Caesar or themselves, what Has Always And Will Always Belong To God:
Vatican Backs UN Globalist Pact Timidly Objecting to Abortion and Gender Ideology – The Stream
“As usual, the Church declares, “in medio stat virtus” (virtue stands in the middle).”
“Aristotle describes a virtue as a “mean” or “intermediate” between two extremes: one of excess and one of deficiency. “
In this case, Aristotle was simply mistaken. We can know through both our Catholic Faith and reason, that when it comes to The Truth Of Love, there can never be an excess, only a deficiency, when we fail to Love according to The Truth Of Perfect Love Incarnate, for Perfect Love does not divide, it multiplies, as in The Miracle Of The Loaves And Fishes.
“Be Perfect as My Heavenly Father Is Perfect!” Jesus The Christ
“Penance, Penance, Penance.”
“At the heart of Liberty Is Christ.”
“4For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Hoply Ghost, 5Have moreover tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come…”,
to not believe that Christ’s Sacrifice On The Cross will lead us to Salvation, but we must desire forgiveness for our sins, and accept Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy; believe in The Power And The Glory Of Salvation Love, and rejoice in the fact that No Greater Love Is There Than This, To Desire Salvation For One’s Beloved.
“Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope.”
“Blessed are they who are Called to The Marriage Supper Of The Lamb.”
“For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”
“Behold your Mother.” – Christ On The Cross
🙏💕🌹
How can you judge the reason behind granting the SSPX jurisdiction for confession and marriage?
Maybe they just consider them Catholic after all and should be treated a such.
Rome did not give your reason as to why they decided to be fair with the SSPX. That’s your own slant on the situation.
This is mean spirited and not at all charitable. By the way,John Paul II did the exact same thing when he was an Archbishop in Poland. That is, consecration of bishop without permission from Rome.
“All religions are pathways to reach God.” – Pope Francis
A most excellent point you have there!
That is heresy
Maybe they need an article that defines “heretic” and “schism”.
What on earth is “not in full communion”? Communion doesn’t have percentage points. You’re either in the Church or you’re not.
Those who affiliate with the Society of Saint Pius X don’t find themselves “controversial” at all I am certain.
Let’s remember that their Sacraments are valid. When their priests consecrate bread and wine with the intention of calling down the Holy Spirit to transubstantiate them into the Body and Blood of Christ, they do indeed become the Body and Blood of Christ.
Sacraments in SSPX parishes are valid but not licit because of the canonical status. The Orthodox churches are still in schismatic status, but they retain 7 valid Sacraments, but like the sspx, they’re not licit because they aren’t in full communion with Rome.
This one sentence in the article above jumped out at me.
“If they were still in a state of schism, the excommunications could not have been lifted without the law immediately reimposing them. Therefore, they are no longer in schism.”
In 1965, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople lifted each other’s excommunication from the 1054 Schism, yet the Orthodox remain in schism and separate from Rome. I don’t see much difference between the Orthodox and the sspx.
It is for this that I cannot in good faith attend an SSPX Mass or an Orthodox Divine Liturgy , unless I was literally on the brink of death with no Catholic parish in full communion with Rome for hundreds of miles around. I have no animosity toward anyone on this matter, I would just rather be safe than sorry.
Orthodox Church Sacraments are valid just as SSPX Sacraments are valid. Yes, they are illicit in the case of the latter (I don’t know if Orthodox Church Sacraments are considered illicit by Rome). But if you’re traveling in a region of the world where no church in full union with Rome were available, you’d fulfill your Sunday obligation by attending an Orthodox liturgy and receiving the Sacrament. One doesn’t need to be at the point of death in order to do so. In fact, what Catholic in a state of mortal sin and facing imminent death wouldn’t confess to an SSPX priest if a priest in full communion with Rome were not available?
You would not fulfill your Sunday obligation to attend Mass at an Orthodox liturgy, because it is not a Catholic Mass/Divine Liturgy. (Canon 1248) Canon law allows for receiving Holy Communion there (which seems a bit contradictory), but not for fulfilling the Sunday obligation there.
When there is no way to fulfill that obligation, it is simply dispensed. The obligation to keep Sunday holy in some way remains in force.
This is not the case with the SSPX. Because they are in communion with Rome, they are Catholic and their Mass actually fulfills the Sunday obligation. It is illicit, but so are all the liturgical abuses found in other Catholic Masses. The question of which abuses are worse is one that, as the article mentioned, laity shouldn’t be obligated to figure out before fulfilling their Sunday obligation. It’s better to assist at a licit Mass. If all Masses within range are some variety of illicit, you choose the least bad in your best judgement. There are some who say that if the only Mass(es) available have seriously bad abuses, your obligation is also dispensed. That seems to mesh with common sense, but I have no idea how bad that has to be, or which side the SSPX falls on. But I expect that no one commits mortal sin by being in honest doubt.
Because the SSPX has received faculties from the Pope for Confession, it is certainly valid, and I believe also licit, to go to an SSPX priest for Confession.
I would not attend an Orthodox liturgy because it is not Catholic. But I would attend an SSPX Mass if that were my best or only option. Hopefully, that will never be the case – at least not until they are regularized.
Anna: You state that it’s alright for a Catholic to receive Holy Communion at an Orthodox liturgy when no other option is available but attendance at an Orthodox liturgy is not a Catholic Mass. Tell me, then, what a Divine Liturgy is if not the same Holy Sacrifice in which the remembrance of Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection are remembered and when bread and wine become His Body and Blood.
You’re right Deacon Edward. If one happened to be traveling in an area without a Catholic Church for hundreds of miles around, I’d probably attend an Orthodox Liturgy, but would abstain from receiving the Eucharist out of respect for the Orthodox and my own Catholic faith.
As for Orthodox Sacraments, they are 100% valid, but I’m pretty sure they’re not licit because they reject the Pope as the universal leader of the worldwide Church, and like I said above, disagree on Catholic dogma such as the Immaculate Conception.
Maybe one day, just maybe one day, we’ll all be reunited. God bless you sir.
Didn’tThinkSo: Thank you for your considered response. When I think of attending an Orthodox liturgy when no other option is available, I also think of Christ’s admonition – “Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of His blood, you will not have life within you.” As for me, I will choose life.
Sorry for the late response, Deacon Ed, hope I’m not reviving another old thread. Amanda above did point out something that is true. Attending an Orthodox Divine Liturgy will not fulfill a Sunday obligation, whether or not there is a Catholic Church nearby. The obligation would probably be dispensed because of the impossibility of finding a Catholic Church within a reasonable distance, but that’s a better question to ask your priest.
I would urge you and Amanda to abstain from attending an SSPX mass unless in dire emergencies, and as I mentioned, unless you’re on the brink of death, Orthodox Sacraments, though 100% valid, should be avoided out of respect for their theology and your own Catholic faith. A confession, absolutely, if you’re near to your death.
Yes, whoever eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood remains in Me and I in him. But lets keep it Catholic!
With more SSPX parishes today and fewer diocesan churches, which to attend or contact in emergencies may become a real issue in some areas.
I traveled through two rural counties recently that have no diocesan Catholic church but one has an SSPX Mass available. If you have limited ability to travel the long distance to the next country or you are homebound and need the Sacraments what would you do?
I know someone in that situation and I’m tempted to contact the SSPX nearby them to see if they can help.
MrsCracker: I would fitst contact your local diocese to ask if the Sacraments can be administered to your homebound friend. Maybe a well-trained lay person could bring weekly Communion, and a priest could visit every month for a confession.
I know someone who spent 20 years in an sspx church before finding out that they weren’t in full communion with Rome. She left them behind, and has been attending her local parish which has a reverent Novus Ordo Mass and zero liturgical abuse. To this day, she has not looked back at the sspx as a viable option should her local parish close.
I know many people will differ and argue about the current canonical status of the sspx, but my viewpoint is if they’re not fully in communion with Rome, then we should avoid going to their parishes. In the Nicene Creed, there are those 4 points of doctrine that define a fully Catholic Church: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Like the Orthodox, the sspx are Holy, Catholic and Apostolic (maintained the chain of apostolic succession from the Twelve, and therefore have valid Sacraments). But if they aren’t in full communion with Rome, then they aren’t One. It is for this reason that I cannot in good faith attend an sspx Mass or an Orthodox Divine Liturgy and receive the Eucharist. Everyone else is absolutely entitled to their opinion on this, I just expressed mine. God bless everyone, I’m moving on from this now.
Thank you for sharing that. I’m going to see what the local diocese offers but if they have no parish in the entire county it’s going to be more difficult.