The Vatican’s former visitor to the Society of St Pius X has pushed back on the idea that the Society is solely interested in the traditional Mass, pointing to what he posited as the Holy See’s concerning push to treat the Second Vatican Council as “entirely dogmatic”.
With the episcopal consecrations of the Society of St Pius X now just weeks away, Bishop Athanasius Schneider is making renewed efforts to convince the Holy See to engage in meaningful dialogue with the SSPX. The auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Astana has long championed the cause of discussion between the two parties and has been a lone prelate in recent months in seeking the middle line. He brings his personal experience to bear, having been the Vatican’s official visitor to the SSPX and its seminaries under Pope Francis.
Issuing a new statement in recent days, Schneider noted that debate by others surrounding the Society “largely bypasses the central issue” raised by the SSPX themselves. This results from “a fundamental methodological error”, he said, combined with “a lack of fact-based justification concerning the objective doctrinal and liturgical ambiguities that lie at the heart of the controversy”.
For Schneider, given his personal experience with the Society, their concerns regarding the Church and the underlying rationale behind the consecrations are not simply about liturgy but “revolve around the question of truth”.
One key element in the SSPX’s concerns, which comes as no surprise to those who have followed the case, is linked to the Second Vatican Council and the manner in which it is received by the Church. Schneider lamented the “error” of treating the Second Vatican Council “as though it were entirely dogmatic, and presuming that all its statements are to be regarded as definitively proposed and binding upon all Catholics”, when it was in reality a “pastoral council” as outlined by popes even at the time. Thus, in his address at the solemn opening of the Council, Pope John XXIII said: “The main purpose of this Council is not, therefore, the discussion of one or another theme of the fundamental doctrine of the Church.” He added that the character of the Council’s magisterium would be “predominantly pastoral” (October 11, 1962).
Schneider noted that the Church’s history includes numerous pastoral and disciplinary “statements and documents that are no longer applicable today”, along with “non-definitive doctrinal statements that were later corrected by the Magisterium of the Church”.
Given this, he questioned why today it is mandated that “to be in full communion with the Holy See, one must accept those affirmations and teachings of Vatican II that are pastoral and certainly non-definitive in terms of their magisterial nature”.
“Why,” he asked, “is the unconditional acceptance of the texts of Vatican II presented as a conditio sine qua non for full communion with the Holy See, while no comparable requirement exists with respect to the pastoral, disciplinary, or non-definitive teachings of the preceding twenty Ecumenical Councils?”
Schneider is no stranger to the doctrinal questions dominating the Church today nor the debate regarding the Second Vatican Council, its spirit and the doctrinal confusion that has so evidently spread. In recent years, he also engaged in a public essay debate regarding how the Church should address this very issue.
Outlining certain areas of concern in Vatican II, Schneider wrote that the non-definitive passages of the Council contain “several” areas “whose formulations are ambiguous and difficult to reconcile with doctrines taught consistently by the Magisterium from the era of the Church Fathers through the period immediately preceding the Council”.
Such an element was raised by SSPX Superior General Fr Davide Pagliarani. Interviewed by the in-house news service recently, Pagliarani lamented how critics refused to engage with the concerns the SSPX has regarding Vatican II:
“Paradoxically, they attack the Society of St Pius X by citing and defending the ecclesiological errors of the Second Vatican Council… Instead of highlighting these errors constructively – as they could in theory – they use them to stone the Society of St Pius X. Still, these are rubber stones.”
Ambiguous elements of the Second Vatican Council and the “weakening of doctrinal clarity” demand that the Pope should imitate “the example of many of his heroic predecessors, to clarify and, where necessary, amend these teachings”, argued Schneider. In his assessment, the Holy See should most urgently engage with the doctrinal concerns by granting the SSPX a mandate for the episcopal consecrations and then entering into fruitful theological debate over such a “serious ecclesial problem”.
For Schneider, there exists among many SSPX critics “a reluctance to confront, with intellectual honesty, the underlying doctrinal issues and to acknowledge the existence of doctrinal ambiguities requiring correction”. To this he added another element: arguing that recent centuries have seen an “unhealthy mentality” develop in the Church regarding the papacy – “the primacy of legalism or juridical positivism, together with an excessive papal-centrism that approaches a quasi-divinisation of both the office and the person of the Pope”.
This has been practised on the part of Holy See officials tasked with liaising with the Society as they demand the SSPX accept “the de facto climate of doctrinal and liturgical ambiguity and relativism, which has reached its peak with the current, extremely confusing, synodal process throughout the entire Church”, in order to be granted full communion.
“The problem facing the SSPX is not difficult to understand,” explained Schneider. He added:
“The Holy See requires that the SSPX accept, without substantial objection, certain objectively ambiguous and non-definitive teachings of Vatican II, ambiguous statements of the post-conciliar papal magisterium, and objective doctrinal and ritual flaws in the Novus Ordo. Yet God has never demanded the acceptance of doctrines that are unclear or ambiguously formulated, and throughout her history the Church has always acted accordingly.”
He contrasted the Holy See’s firm response to the Society with the notably permissive style practised with the German bishops, with no penalties threatened despite their “de facto heresies and even blasphemous positions”. “Why should this approach not also be applied to the SSPX, which denies no dogma, recognises the primacy of the Pope, prays for him, and professes filial devotion to him, while preserving only what the Church believed and celebrated universally until the Council?” he questioned.
The auxiliary bishop has consistently urged Pope Leo XIV not to excommunicate the SSPX bishops, and this appeal he renewed once again. Such a penalty, he attested, “would go down in Church history as an error of excessive pastoral severity. Future generations and future Popes would come to regret it.”