Fr. Peter R. Scott

What do the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X do?

In his sermon for the consecration of the four bishops, on June 30, 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre explained very clearly the state of necessity in which Tradition existed then–and still exists now. It was as a consequence of the state of necessity that he stated:

I think it is my duty to provide the means of doing that which I shall call "Operation Survival"....If I had made this deal with Rome, by continuing with the agreements we had signed, and by putting them into practice, I would have performed "Operation Suicide." There was no choice, we must live!

Unable to confer upon them the power of jurisdiction, Archbishop Lefebvre was nevertheless able to confer the fullness of the power of Holy Orders so that they could fulfill an Episcopal ministry, "to give Confirmation to your children, and to be able to confer ordinations in our various seminaries." These are the two sacraments that the four bishops have constantly administered ever since, thus guaranteeing the continuing of the work of Tradition, of the Society of Saint Pius X, and insuring that it would never be watered down, absorbed by or taken over by the modernist infiltration in the Church. As the Archbishop himself stated on June 30:

When God calls me–this will certainly not be long–from whom would these seminarians receive the Sacrament of Orders? From conciliar bishops who, due to their doubtful intentions, confer doubtful sacraments? This is not possible.

However, the function of the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X is not limited to the simple administration of the two sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Orders. There are many pontifical blessings and consecrations in the Church's liturgy that are reserved to bishops, and that they regularly perform, such as the consecration of the holy oils used for the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders, and Extreme Unction; the consecration of chalices, altar stones, and churches; and the consecration of holy virgins.

Moreover, through reception of the fullness of the power of Holy Orders they receive a radical power to teach and to govern the flock of Christ, even before a special portion is entrusted to them by ordinary jurisdiction, which can only be done by the Sovereign Pontiff. However, although the Society's bishops have not received this jurisdiction, they still retain their responsibility for the Catholic Church of which they are bishops. As Pope Pius XII stated in the encyclical Fidei Donum of 1957, a Catholic bishop is "as successor of the Apostles, jointly responsible for the common good of the Church." This is what Archbishop Lefebvre explained on June 30, 1988: "I am simply a bishop of the Catholic Church, who is continuing to transmit Catholic doctrine." It is precisely because of his teaching and Catholic principles, reiterating what the Church has always done, that traditional Catholics listened to him and followed his leadership and direction. In so doing, he exercised a supplied jurisdiction to teach and to govern, the jurisdiction being supplied to him by the need of the faithful.

Bishop de Castro Mayer explained likewise, at the Episcopal consecrations of 1988, that his presence was the exercise of his power to teach, an obligation for him as a Catholic bishop:

My presence here at this ceremony is caused by a duty of conscience: that of making a profession of Catholic Faith in front of the whole Church...because the conservation of the priesthood and the Holy Mass is at stake, and in spite of the requests and pressures of many, I am here in order to accomplish my duty: to make a public profession of Faith.

The four bishops they consecrated have exactly the same power and functions as bishops of the Catholic Church. Thus it is that the Regulations of the Society of Saint Pius X state that "the bishops of the Society, devoid of all territorial jurisdiction, have, nevertheless, the necessary supplied jurisdiction to exercise the powers that are attached to the Episcopal office and certain acts belonging to the ordinary Episcopal jurisdiction."

Two such Episcopal functions were created already in 1991 and have functioned ever since, to the great benefit of the traditional movement, namely, the Canonical Commission, headed up by H.E. Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, and the bishop responsible for religious, who is presently H.E. Bishop de Galarreta. It was Archbishop Lefebvre himself who requested these, in a letter dated January 15, 1991:

As long as the present Roman authorities are steeped in Ecumenism and Modernism and seeing that all their decisions and the 1983 Code of Canon Law are influenced by these false principles, it will be necessary to form authorities of Supplied Jurisdiction that will faithfully preserve the Catholic principles of Catholic Tradition and Catholic Canon Law. It is the only way of remaining faithful to Our Lord Jesus Christ, to the Apostles, to the deposit of Faith that was handed down to their legitimate successors who remained faithful until Vatican II.

The bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X are consequently bishops in every sense of the word, although they lack ordinary jurisdiction. They fulfill the function of sanctifying through the sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Orders, the function of teaching wherever they preach the entire Catholic Faith as bishops of the Catholic Church, and the function of governing inasmuch as they are called on by necessity to resolve difficult questions.

Does the disobedience of the 1988 Episcopal consecrations constitute a schismatic act?

The consecration of the bishops was not an act of disobedience at all, but to the contrary an act of the most painful and exact obedience, which virtue sometimes requires obedience "to God rather than men" (Acts 5:29) who contradict Him, as the Apostles answered the high priest, and which virtue sometimes requires that one resist the highest abuse of authority, as St. Paul did to St. Peter, the first Pope: "But when Cephas was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed" (Gal. 2:13).

The Apostolic Mandate, read as a part of the ceremony of the consecration of bishops, confirms that it was not at all an act of disobedience, but to the contrary an act of obedience to the Church:

We have this mandate from the Roman Church, always faithful to the Holy Tradition which She has received from the Holy Apostles. This Holy Tradition is the deposit of Faith which the Church orders us to faithfully transmit to all men for the salvation of their souls. Since the Second Vatican Council until this day, the authorities of the Roman Church are animated by the spirit of modernism. They have acted contrary to Holy Tradition....

However, even if the consecration of bishops were an act of disobedience, it would not follow that it is schismatic. The question of whether or not it was a schismatic act is an entirely different one. Schism is defined in the Code of Canon Law as the refusal to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, or the refusal of Communion with the members of the Church who are subject to him (Canon 1325, §2 of the 1917 Code and Canon 751 of the 1983 Code). Disobedience, real or apparent, is consequently not the same thing as schism. In the same way as a child who refuses to obey his father when he orders him to steal candy from the store practices a true virtue of obedience (to God rather than men), nor does he in any way deny that his father is truly his father, so likewise do the Episcopal consecrations not at all imply the rejection of the authority of the Holy Father, nor a refusal to submit to it. There is one clear proof of schism, and it exists when a bishop claims for himself jurisdiction over a portion of the Church. It is because all authority in the Church flows from the Pope that this is a direct refusal of the Pope's universal authority to govern the Church. This the bishops of the Society have never done, never claiming anything but a supplied jurisdiction, coming from the need of the faithful.

Consequently, Pope John Paul II was quite simply in error when he claimed, on July 2, 1988, that the Episcopal consecrations were an act of disobedience such as to imply in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy and to constitute a schismatic act. Much to the contrary, it was because of Archbishop Lefebvre's unshakable belief in Roman primacy that he held to the constant, repeated, infallible teachings of the Popes who condemned for two centuries the errors later adopted by Vatican II. This is true obedience and true communion with the Church.

However, there is a reason for every assertion, and there was a clear reason why it was that Pope John Paul II accused this act of being schismatic. It was because he had an entirely different notion of Tradition. For the Catholic, Apostolic Tradition is one of the two sources of Divine Revelation. It has as its objective content the deposit of the Faith, unchanged since the death of the last of the Apostles, that it transmits down to us.

Not so for modernists, for whom tradition is a subjective, evolving, changing experience of how the faith is lived in every moment of the Church's history. This is what St. Pius X had to say in 1907 in the encyclical Pascendi: "Tradition, as understood by the Modernists, is a communication with others of an original experience...stimulating the religious sense...renewing the experience once acquired" (§15). It cannot, therefore, be the simple passing down of a fixed truth, but rather the living of a communicated personal experience, as a consequence of which St. Pius X says: "Thus we are once more led to infer that all existing religions are equally true, for otherwise they would not survive" (ibid.).

Ecumenism is the immediate consequence of this new notion of tradition that approves every religious experience. Thus it is that Pope John Paul II in Ecclesia Dei Adflicta states that "the root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition." He considers that Archbishop Lefebvre's notion of Tradition is incomplete because it is not "living," meaning that it is not an experience, allowing for the possibility of evolution, change, and adaptation to the times. It is simply a transmission. He considers that it is "contradictory" because it goes against collegiality that is the present teaching of Rome and the bishops, which is an essential part of the modern-day experience that they call tradition. It was consequently precisely because he adhered to what the Church has always taught that Archbishop Lefebvre was condemned as being schismatic.

Can one be schismatic for refusing the modernist notion of tradition condemned by St. Pius X? Clearly not. Can one be schismatic for believing in the unchanging, objective nature of the Catholic Faith, as always taught? Clearly not. Can one be schismatic for refusing to obey the destruction of the Faith and the Church? Clearly not. Can one be schismatic for standing up to a Pope who has become the instrument of the liberalism and modernism so often condemned by more than two centuries of Popes? Clearly not.

Could the traditional movement have existed without the four bishops consecrated in 1988?

Let me answer with another question: How many entirely traditional bishops are there in the service of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, to provide for the needs of the "traditionally" minded communities that have made a deal with modernist Rome? There is just Bishop Rifan, who is limited in action to the work of the Priestly Association of the Curé of Ars in the diocese of Campos and who has concelebrated the New Mass. Nor is there any question of there being any other, since the modernist bishops who flip flop from the "ordinary" to the "extraordinary" form are considered sufficient. There is no question of a bishop entirely dedicated to defending Tradition, nor standing up against Vatican II and its modernist errors, nor even of one celebrating uniquely in the traditional rite.

It is manifestly obvious that the fact of having bishops is what has made the Society of Saint Pius X independent from the modernist hierarchy. Knowing that it has the fullness of the power of holy orders, and in the present crisis the perfect right to use it, the Society has resisted every effort to make it give way to a compromise. Without bishops and without future priests, this would not have been possible. After all, the Society grew from 194 priests in September 1987 to 471 in February 2007 and now has more than 500.

It is also perfectly true that the fact of the Society's having bishops has really made Rome stand up and pay attention; for no threats, no pressure, no manipulation or politics has any power over us precisely because we have bishops and do not depend upon the modern, post-conciliar Church. It is the only reason why the Ecclesia Dei communities exist, all being established as the result of certain attractive promises made to split and divide the work of Tradition. The best known examples are the Fraternity of St. Peter, founded by 16 former Society priests; the Institute of the Good Shepherd, likewise founded by former Society priests; and the regularization of the priests of Campos.

Moreover, without the existence of the Society's bishops, and hence its priests, the declaration that the traditional Mass had never been abrogated would never have been obtained. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI himself explained in his letter presenting the Motu Proprio that the faithful followed the movement led by Archbishop Lefebvre, in which "fidelity to the old Missal became an external mark of identity." The reason he gives is the deformations and infidelities to the new Missal. The problem, as he sees it, is not the new Missal, its errors and deficiencies in the Faith (for he does not admit them at all), but the abuse of the new Missal. But at the present time, he can see no other way of shaking off the mark of identity between the traditional Mass and Archbishop Lefebvre than to declare the truth, namely that the traditional Mass has never been abrogated, and allow all priests to celebrate it. If it had not been for the Society and its bishops, he would simply have implemented the "reform of the reform" that he has been talking about for years, nor would he have had any reason to approve modern priests' celebrating the traditional Mass. What a statement of the importance of the Archbishop's consecrations!

Some people accused Archbishop Lefebvre of failing to trust in Divine Providence when he consecrated the bishops, hoping that God would provide some other means for the continuation of the Society and Tradition. History, however, has proven that the Archbishop was entirely correct in considering it presumption to refuse to use the ordinary means for continuing the Church's work of teaching and sanctifying, and rather expecting God to work a miracle. It would have been a refusal to do his duty:

So, I cannot, in good conscience, leave these seminarians orphaned. Neither can I leave you orphans by dying without providing for the future. That is not possible. It would be contrary to my duty….Thus I believe that, with the grace of God, we, Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself, by these consecrations, will have given to Tradition the means to continue, given the means to Catholics who desire to remain within the Church of their parents, their grandparents, their ancestors. (Consecration Sermon, June 30, 1988) 

Fr. Peter Scott was ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988. After assignments as seminary professor and the U.S. District Superior, he is currently the rector of Holy Cross Seminary in Goulburn, Australia. Those wishing answers may please send their questions to Q & A in care of Angelus Press, 2915 Forest Ave., Kansas City, MO 64109.