SSPX told Vatican to ‘acknowledge its own errors’ in refusal of 2018 agreement

Archbishop Guido Pozzo, the former head of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, said in a recent interview that the main obstacle to the Vatican’s canonical recognition of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) is its lack of “acceptance of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and of the subsequent Magisterium.”

In an interview with La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, Pozzo expressed his disappointment with the SSPX’s decision to consecrate new bishops without papal approval this month, recalling that the Society had refused to accept the Vatican’s terms for regularization in 2018 discussions. 

He explained that these terms involved the acceptance of a Doctrinal Declaration proposed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“In the autumn of 2018, Cardinal Ladaria and I met with the new Superior of the SSPX, Father Davide Pagliarani, elected in July at the Chapter meeting, who informed us that he would not sign the Declaration, deeming it insufficient and inadequate to address the difficulties and objections raised by the SSPX — and that it was Rome that should acknowledge its own errors,” Pozzo recounted.

It was at this point that Pope Francis suppressed the Ecclesia Dei Commission, which was founded by Pope John Paul II to facilitate the reconciliation of traditionalists formerly associated with SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Since 2009, the commission had been dialoguing with the SSPX’s Superior to attempt a reconciliation with the SSPX itself. Francis “transferred competence for any future relations with the SSPX to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF),” Pozzo recalled.

The main “knots” to be “untied” in the way of the SSPX’s reconciliation, Pozzo said, “are the acceptance of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and of the subsequent Magisterium.”

He went on to list the main points of the Doctrinal Declaration proposed by the CDF for acceptance by the SSPX that Pozzo himself was satisfied with:

(a) The SSPX was asked to accept the Catholic truth that Christ the Lord has entrusted to the Magisterium “the deposit of faith — that is, Sacred Scripture and divine Tradition — to be kept safe, defended, and interpreted” and that “the Magisterium is not above the Word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on.” The Magisterium of the Church, in turn, has the authority to explicate or make explicit even prior magisterial documents, including those of the Second Vatican Council, in conformity with the truths of the Catholic faith and in the light of the perennial Tradition that progresses in the Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit — not as a contrary novelty, but as a deeper understanding of the depositum fidei …

(b) The SSPX was asked to recognize that the Second Vatican Council must be understood in the light of the whole of Tradition and on the basis of the constant Magisterium of the Church, while the possibility of legitimate discussion and theological clarification regarding the formulation of particular points of the conciliar documents — or regarding the subsequent reforms of the liturgy and of canon law — remains always open.

(c) The SSPX was asked to recognize the validity of the Rite of Holy Mass and of the Sacraments legitimately celebrated according to the liturgical books in their editio typica, promulgated by Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II.

While the SSPX has not publicly shared precisely which clauses of the Doctrinal Declaration it has refused, it affirmed in 2018 that an “irreducible doctrinal divergence” prevented its agreement with the Vatican. The Society has publicly shared that it takes issue with certain portions of Vatican II documents that it says cannot be reconciled with previous Church magisterial teaching.

For example, the SSPX has highlighted problems with Dignitatis Humanae, which states that “This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom,” in apparent contradiction to Pope Pius IX’s Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of Errors, which condemns the idea that “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”

Another document highlighted as problematic by the SSPX is Unitatis Redintegratio, which states that “during ecumenical gatherings, it is allowable, indeed desirable that Catholics should join in prayer with their separated brethren.” This seems to contradict the repeated teaching of the Church, as expressed by, for example, Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, in which he condemned interreligious gatherings and stated, “ … this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics.”

In fact, Pozzo clarified in 2016 that some texts of the Second Vatican Council that are not doctrinal and are thus not binding on the Catholic conscience. Pozzo specifically named texts with which the SSPX takes issue, including Nostra Aetate on interreligious dialogue; the decree Unitatis Redintegratio on ecumenism; and the Declaration Dignitatis Humanae on religious liberty, and explained:

They are not about doctrines or definitive statements, but, rather, about instructions and orienting guides for pastoral practice. On can (thus legitimately) continue to discuss these pastoral aspects after the (proposed) canonical approval (of the SSPX) in order to lead us to further (and acceptable) clarifications.