You may have heard that the SSPX has joined the Jubilee pilgrims in the Eternal City in the past few days. I remember reading somewhere that when Pope St. John Paul II saw the same pilgrimage process through the streets in 2000, he told Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger that the SSPX dialogue needed to be resolved!
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I hope this procession makes a good impression on Pope Leo. I’m sure it’s made an impression on literally everyone who saw Roman Catholic priests acting with the proper gravitas and celebrating the ancient Roman rite in Roman basilicas:
The SSPX English website notes this:
The SSPX has participated in the Jubilee Year in an official capacity for the last 50 years, being led by Archbishop Lefebvre himself in 1975.
Wait, what? That was in the midst of the SSPX’s canonical suppression and Lefebvre’s suspension a divinis. This was when Pope Paul VI sent a canonical visitation to the Society and these “canonical visitators” made passing comments like questioning the bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ. That’s what made the Archbishop make his famous declaration of 1974, whose ambiguous words, he admitted, were overzealous.[1] (Certainly he could have worded it better, but if you know the context you can interpret his words for the best.) But this hasty declaration gave the Archbishop’s enemies all the ammo they needed to condemn him and his canonical Society in toto. What was the response of this so-called Arch-schismatic?
Unlimited Memory: How …
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Archbishop Lefebvre replied in three ways: at Pentecost of that holy year, the archbishop and his seminarians joined in the magnificent pilgrimage of the Credo Association to show with the faithful their attachment to the Rome of all time; then, from Albano on May 31, he wrote a letter of submission to the successor of Peter containing a request for review of his trial; finally, on June 5, he lodged an the appeal with the court of the Apostolic Signatura against Bishop Mamie’s decision [to canonically suppress the SSPX]. It was not the Bishop of Fribourg, he wrote, but the Holy See that had the power to suppress the Society (this first point is debatable); next, he has been judged on the doctrine and only the sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is competent in this matter; finally, if his declaration [of 1974] deserves to be condemned, the condemnation should concern him and not his work.[2]
Well, I don’t know about you, but those are all pretty schismatic things to do, wouldn’t you say?
And so, keeping their schismatic attitude, the good priests of the SSPX have again come to Rome to show “their attachment to the Rome of all time.” Back in February of this year, the announcement was made to the SSPX faithful with these words:
For the third time in its history, the SSPX will have the distinguished grace of experiencing the 25-year Roman Jubilee. In 1975, in the presence of its founder, Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre, and then in 2000, the St. Pius X Fraternity pilgrimaged to Rome to participate in this great spiritual event. Between August 19 and 21, 2025, the District of France of the SSPX will carry out its jubilee pilgrimage to Rome and hopes, on this occasion, to bring together as many faithful as possible.
We will go to Rome to walk those streets laden with the history of the Church, to pray in the basilicas following in the footsteps of so many saints and holy men and women, in the footsteps of so many Christians who came to visit the tombs of the Apostles.
We will go to Rome, Catholic Rome, Apostolic Rome, the Rome of the martyrs, to proclaim our faith, to sing our love for Our Lord Jesus Christ, to reap the abundant fruits of His Redemption.
We are going to Rome to purify ourselves of our sins, to obtain indulgences for our sins and to sanctify our souls in this city of grace. Let us make a pilgrimage of faith, of prayer, of penance, to obtain those indulgences that the Church draws with particular generosity from her spiritual treasury during this Holy Year and distributes them widely for the salvation of our souls.
Enough Already: Time t…
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We will go to Rome to proclaim and manifest our unwavering attachment to the Apostolic See, to the Pope successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ, to the bishops successors of the Apostles, to the priests their collaborators, and to the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church.
We will go to Rome, simply because we are Catholics, children of the Church, and because we want to remain Catholics no matter what happens.
And it is precisely because we are and want to be Catholics that, during this Jubilee pilgrimage, with a special intensity (although, of course, we already do it every day), we will pray for the Pope, for the bishops, for the priests, for the whole Church, so that, in the terrible crisis she is going through, to which we are all sorrowful witnesses and victims, she may regain her splendor, with a faith fully rooted in her bimillennial Tradition and intrepidly proclaimed for the salvation of the world.
We will therefore go to Rome “for the glory of the Most Holy Trinity, for the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, for the love of the Church, for the love of the Pope, for the love of the bishops, priests, and all the faithful, for the salvation of the world, for the salvation of souls,” and first and foremost for the salvation of our own souls (emphasis mine).
Can you believe these schismatics? Spending their time, money, energy and lots of sacrifices… and for what? To “manifest our unwavering attachment to the Apostolic See, to the Pope successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ.”
