SSPX Responds (?) to Traditionis Custodes

[Stone]

One can only find two articles on SSPX websites (and only one of those with actual commentary) on the motu proprio of Pope Francis' Traditionis Custodes of July 16, 2021, reversing Pope Benedict XVI's "permission" for the Tridentine Mass.  

The first article is on the SSPX's Australian and New Zealand website (there is nothing so far on the website of the 'General House' nor the 'District of the USA') which is merely a reprinting of an article from Rorate Caeli, entitled, "Legal Considerations on the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes" - Restrictions demand strict interpretation by Fr. Pierre Laliberté, J.C.L.*.

The only SSPX website with a (brief) commentary on the Pope's new motu proprio is on the French SSPX site, La Porte Latine. Here is the (google-translated) English version of the commentary, which is then simply followed by the actual motu proprio and accompany Letter from Francis.

Pope Francis restricts the use of the traditional mass

Posted on July 17, 2021


No longer speak of "mass according to the extraordinary form of the Roman rite".

By his Motu proprio entitledTraditionis Custodes of July 16, 2021 to which is attached a covering letter to the bishops, Pope Francis has just decided that this distinction invented by Benedict XVI was null and void: only the new mass of Paul VI is entitled of city in the conciliar Church, the traditional mass is only tolerated.


Unity behind the New Mass

What is the status of the Tridentine Mass now? The answer is not given in these documents but what does it matter since the clearly stated objective is its disappearance. It is now permitted under drastic conditions for "those who need time to return to the Roman rite promulgated by Saints [sic] Paul VI and John Paul II  ", that is to say say the new mass.

The means employed to succeed in stifling the Mass of all times are clearly indicated in the  Motu proprio: severe limitation of the times and places of the celebration of the traditional Mass; firm control by the bishops of diocesan priests wishing to celebrate according to the old rite; removal of all protective supervision for Institutes under the former Ecclesia  Dei Commission.


Unity behind Vatican Council II

The Pope thus intends to eradicate any pocket of resistance to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. It was, he admits bluntly, the goal of the motu proprio of 1988 and 2007; their 
implementation having on the contrary consolidated the positions leading to "doubting the Council", Pope Francis puts an end to the experiment. The groups which will still be authorized to celebrate according to the old rite will have to certify that they “do not exclude the validity and the legitimacy of the liturgical reform, of the precepts of the Second Vatican Council and of the Magisterium of the Sovereign Pontiffs ”, Thus adhering to the Council and the post-conciliar magisterium.

The point is brutal for those who believed they could put their trust in authorities still imbued with liberal values, when the Society of Saint Pius X can faithfully rely on the wisdom of its founder warning about the indult of 1984 granting the traditional mass a conditional freedom:  "We cannot place ourselves under an authority whose ideas are liberal and which would condemn us little by little, by force of circumstances, to accept these ideas and their consequences, first of all. the new mass ”.

That's it. A big nothing-burger, as they say. A very short, crisp quote from Archbishop Lefebvre. A summary of the facts of the motu proprio. No defense of the true Mass, no rebuttal, no answer, no plan for how the SSPX will move forward. And all this only if one is able to read French (or at least know how to computer translate) ...