The SSPX will not accept Vatican Council II irrational and liberal and the Vatican and the SSPX will …

The SSPX will not accept Vatican Council II irrational and liberal and the Vatican and the SSPX will not accept Vatican Council II, rational and traditional

From the catholic herald
MARCH 10, 2026 10:22 AM
Breaking the deadlock between Rome and the SSPX

By Dom Alcuin Reid
(Abridged)
It seems that, a little over a month after the Society of St Pius X announced its decision to proceed with the consecration of the new bishops that it judges it needs to sustain its apostolate, and but weeks after a hastily convened meeting between its Superior General and the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, together with the subsequent communiqués and the response of the SSPX, we have reached an impasse.(Lionel: The SSPX will not accept Vatican Council II irrational and liberal and the Vatican and the SSPX will not accept Vatican Council II, rational and traditional.) The SSPX will not postpone the consecrations announced for 1 July and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith will not engage in ‘dialogue’ (whatever that in fact means – generally, or specifically in this case) unless they do. (Lionel: If Vatican Council II is interpreted rationally Cardinal Fernandez would not want to engage in dialogue. It would mean he would have to affirm the Athanasius Creed and the rest of Tradition, which have no explicit exceptions mentioned in Vatican Council II. The Council would no more be liberal.)
…So where do we go from here? Are the ultramontanists and the Vatican II fundamentalists and the sedevacantists to be left to celebrate a putative schism on 1 July, each according to their warped perspectives? Or can we somehow overcome this stalemate with some crisp, clear thinking and a great deal of charity on all sides before it is too late?( Lionel : The issue is Vatican Council II. It has to be first recognized that there is a rational and irrational interpretation of Vatican Council II. There is a rational and irrational interpretation of the baptism of desire. There is a rational and irrational interpretation of Lumen Gentium 16. So there are two versions of the Creeds today. We can choose.)

Let us start with an assertion that will certainly require charity from some: that the SSPX is acting in good faith.(Lionel: Good faith in all camps means, accepting that Vatican Council II can only be interpreted rationally and the conclusion is traditional.)
…The roar is often about the SSPX’s lack of acceptance of the Second Vatican Council. Indeed, the ‘dialogue’ proposed by the Holy See was to include clarifications on ‘the distinction between an act of faith and the “religious submission of mind and will”, as well as the differing degrees of adherence required by various texts of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and their interpretation’, so as to establish ‘the minimum requirements for full communion with the Catholic Church’.(Lionel: How can there be a submission of mind and will to Vatican Council II interpreted irrationally, non traditionally, heretically and schismatically?. There can be a submission of mind and will to the Council and Catechism interpreted only rationally and so traditionally)
…With all due respect to the Prefect and other officials of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Rite of Reception into Full Communion with the Catholic Church makes the minimum requirements clear: the ability to profess the Nicene Creed and to add, ‘I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches and proclaims to be revealed by God’ (emphasis added). (Lionel: There are now two interpretation of the Nicene Creed. The SSPX and the Vatican interpret the Nicene Creed with the Irrational Premise. )

In respect of the teachings of the last Council, as was recently pointed out, St Paul VI himself insisted: ‘Given the pastoral character of the Council, it avoided pronouncing in an extraordinary way dogmas endowed with the hallmark of infallibility; but it nevertheless endowed its teachings with the authority of the supreme ordinary magisterium’ (General Audience, 12 January 1966). (Lionel: Pope Paul VI interpreted the Council irrationally and so rejected the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. There were also alleged explicit exceptions for the Athanasius Creed and other de fide teachings of the Catholic Church) The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the latter: ‘The ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Pope and the bishops in communion with him teach the faithful the truth to believe, the charity to practise, the beatitude to hope for’ (n. 2034). The exercise of the ordinary Magisterium is, therefore, subject to the Deposit of Faith. (Lionel: When Vatican Council II and the Creeds, Councils and Catechisms are interpreted irrationally and not rationally it is not the Ordinary Magisterium. It is schism.)

This should be sufficient to unblock matters, but the Dicastery’s officials would no doubt point out that for clergy of the SSPX (and others) seeking regularisation the practice has long since been to require an oath promising fidelity to the Church and to the Pope and accepting the teaching of n. 25 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium on the Magisterium of the Church and on the adherence due to it. (Lionel: When Magisterial Documents are interpreted irrationally it is modernism. So the Oath is meaningless ) This is where the issue of ‘the religious submission of mind and will’ arises, though one could observe, firstly, that if this can be a matter of ‘dialogue’, then its meaning must be somewhat elastic, and secondly, if the ordinary Magisterium is exercised as the Catechism envisages, there should be no problem with the religious submission of mind and will to what is taught.(Lionel: There are two interpretations of CCC 847-848, one is rational and the other is irrational.)
The oath goes on to require acceptance of the validity of the Mass and the sacraments celebrated with the intention of doing what the Church does, and according to the rites found in the Latin typical editions of the reformed rites, as well as the promise to adhere to the common discipline of the Church and its laws. Fair enough, even if there is much to say about both. (Lionel: The lex orandi over the centuries was Feeneyite. Today it is Cushingite)
But it also requires that the cleric undertake the obligation to follow a positive line in interpreting doctrine under the guidance of the Magisterium in respect of certain doctrines taught by the Second Vatican Council, or regarding later reforms of either the liturgy or canon law, which some may find difficult to reconcile with previous declarations of the Magisterium. (Lionel: The SSPX and the Vatican are interpreting Vatican Council II with Cushingism and not Feeneyism). This could be read as a ‘gagging order’, stifling critical comment, debate or even scholarship – a promise that no authority has the right to exact – in order to protect ‘the’ Council, and all its works, from criticism. Presumably many of the clergy who have signed this oath over the years have simply smiled whilst doing so.
For it must be said again, particularly to Roman curial officials: the Second Vatican Council and its opinions, orientations and teachings do not constitute a ‘super-dogma’ to which we must ascribe in order to be Catholic. (Lionel: the Council interpreted rationally is ecclesiocentric, apostolic and magisterial)
Dom Alcuin Reid is the Prior of the Monastère Saint-Benoît in Brignoles, France, and a liturgical scholar of international renown. His principal work, The Organic Development of the Liturgy (Ignatius, 2005), carries a preface by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.
Breaking the deadlock between Rome and the SSPX

- Lionel Andrades