The Recusant: SSPX Moves Closer to Accepting the New Mass

[Stone]

Taken from The Recusant #60 - Easter 2023:



Some people won’t believe it until the day arrives where they go to their SSPX chapel and find the hybrid Mass being celebrated there. For those of us who are paying attention, however, the warning signs are already starting to manifest…

The SSPX Moves Closer to Accepting the New Mass

Exaggeration? Sensational, click-baity headline? Sadly not. Take a look for yourself. And if you having read what follows and given it due consideration, you still have any doubt at all, then write to your local SSPX priest and ask him to justify even part of what follows.


PART 1 - Denying Quo Primum’s authority; defending Paul VI’s  right to make a New Mass

Here is what Fr. Paul Robinson, acting as an official mouthpiece for the SSPX, has to say about the authority of Quo Primum. It is so shocking that we will quote him at some length:

Fr. Paul Robinson: “Pius V [sic] wanted to canonise the Mass, to set it in stone and say: this is what it is. And he uses very strong language in Quo Primum, saying that, you know, this shall be in force for perpetuity, the wrath of Ss. Peter and Paul will fall on those who dare change this missal, and so on. And what happens with the Traditionalist movement is sometimes Traditionalists interpret that document as meaning that the Mass can never be changed, that somehow St. Pius V was wanting to bind all of his successors in the papacy. And so they use Quo Primum to say that the Traditional Mass effectively is the only Mass that ever could be or will be till the end, and that any other legislative acts of the Popes to try to introduce a new Mass or try to modify the old Mass are illegitimate for that reason.

Andrew: Let me jump in real quick Father, and ask if you could clarify two points for me. One is: when you say that this is a “disciplinary” bull, it’s not that he’s trying to discipline someone, it’s that it’s more about legislation, it’s not about dogma. Is that correct?

Fr. Paul Robinson: That’s correct, it more concerns the practices of the Church rather than the doctrine of the Church.

Andrew: OK, and so then when you said: “It’s not [that] no one can ever change it” - successors of Pius V [sic], of Pope Pius V [sic], could, when he was saying that no one could change it, when he was using that very strong language, who was he talking about, if not the next Popes coming down the line?

Fr. Paul Robinson: Well he was referring to those who were not in a position to do such things. For one thing, he was referring to the printers. He specifically mentions the printers, you know, they were to print exactly what he put, they weren’t to, you know, do their own editing on the missal. But he was also referring to people lower in the hierarchy: he wasn’t wanting people like a bishop of a diocese, or a certain cardinal, or priests in their parish taking the missal and modifying the missal. Certainly the Pope, St. Pius V, was not anticipating legislating to all his successors, as though he had a power that all the other Popes had, like he could take power away from the other Popes, he certainly wasn’t wanting to set limits on the power of future Popes to either change that missal or bring in a different Mass. And that’s precisely what the questioner is sort of highlighting, because people are going to the questioner and saying, well, if you believe that Quo Primum binds the future Popes, how can it be that other Popes have changed the missal? Such as St. Pius X, or, um, other Popes who have added Saints to the missal, or the missal that we use, the 1962 missal was changed by John XXIII, he added the name of St. Joseph to the canon, for instance. So how is it that these Popes have changed what St Pius V  established, if your argument is correct, that no Popes can lawfully change the missal after St. Pius V? And what I’m saying is that this is just a wrong interpretation of Quo Primum, St. Pius V was not wanting to bind all his successors that you can’t change the missal.

Andrew: I see. So, in a sense, Quo Primum was effective and perfect for its time, and what it does is it says: this is the Mass, there’s nothing wrong with this Mass, use this one, Popes down the line can change it. So I guess we’re left with two conclusions. One, that is, to use an argument of: Quo Primum is there so that’s why we have to use this Mass, - it’s kind of an ineffective argument because that’s not really what Quo Primum does, like you said, it doesn’t lock the Mass down.

Fr. Paul Robinson: It’s not an ineffective argument, it’s the wrong argument to make with Quo Primum.

Andrew: Oh, I see.”

(See: https://youtu.be/y1bdLPsWEI0?t=953 [15:53 - 20:25] )

Oh my, oh my, oh my… where does one even begin?

The first point to note is that this “SSPX podcast” is not recent, and has been out there for a good four years or so (April 2019, since you ask). We just never noticed it; neither did any ofyou, it seems, or if you did you kept awfully quiet about it. I know, I know, listening to him speak is almost a form of Chinese torture, you are forgiven on that score at least. Still, be glad that somebody did, or the hideous implications of what was said might have passed us all by.

The second point is simply to point out that Fr. Robinson is absolutely wrong on this question; as wrong as he is about the earth being billions of years old; as wrong as he was about covid lockdowns being a good thing for which we should all be thankful and concerning which we mustn’t spread “conspiracy theories” (yes, remember that one?!) To show how wrong he is, all that we really should have to do is to take a look at the text of
Quo Primum itself:

“Furthermore, by these presents and by virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We give and grant in perpetuity that for the singing or reading of Mass in any church whatsoever this Missal may be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment or censure, and may be freely and lawfully used. … We likewise order and declare that no one whosoever shall be forced or coerced into altering this Missal; and this present Constitution can never be revoked or modified, but shall forever remain valid and have the force of law. […] Therefore, no one whosoever is permitted to alter this notice of Our permission …Should anyone, however, presume to commit such an act, he should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.”

Those words surely speak for themselves. They are the first and most important piece of evidence in defence of Quo Primum. The second is common sense. As regular readers may recall, the question of whether or not Quo Primum is still in force was dealt with in these very pages as recently as late 2021 (Recusant 56, p.45). A number of points were made, which can be summarised as follows:

• St Pius V clearly thought that he could bind his successors, his own words at the end of Quo Primum itself leave no doubt and no room for interpretation. Why would he say something so misleading in such clear language, and why did no one even attempt to correct him?

• When it came time to beatify and canonise him, why did nobody point out that this Saintly Pope had got things so wrong and misled everyone about so serious a matter?

• Every one of his successors, up to and including John XXIII, clearly considered themselves bound by Quo Primum and behaved accordingly. Quo Primum, including those very words just quoted, appeared in the front of every altar missal up to including the 1962 edition.

• It is misleading and untrue to say that Quo Primum is purely “disciplinary,” since its object, the thing with which it is concerned, is not a mere matter of discipline. The object of Quo Primum, is in fact the Mass, something which is intimately connected with the Faith itself as the Council of Trent and every Protestant reformer understood very well. Likewise, the past fifty-plus years since 1970 have amply demonstrated that whether a priest says the Novus Ordo Mass or the Traditional Mass is not a mere matter of discipline: the Faith itself is at stake. Finally, we must remember that the Traditional Roman Rite is the work of the Holy Ghost and goes right back to the very earliest times of the Church: is it really to be treated as being of no greater importance than the question of, say, whether or not a priest can grow a beard?

• Quo Primum is the work of the Council of Trent, as the text of the document itself makes clear. It is therefore not merely of one particular Pope, even if we are talking about the only Pope to have been canonised for about six-hundred years. Every altar missal up to and including the 1962 edition carried the title “Missale Romanum: Ex Decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini” [by decree of the Sacred Council of Trent] followed by the name of St. Pius V, making it clear that whilst it was a work carried out by that Pope, it was done at the command of the Council of Trent. Again, the very text of Quo Primum itself also makes this clear.

• Further evidence that what is at issue is the authority of the Council of Trent, not the mere authority of any one given Pope, is the very fact that for the past several hundred years, the Traditional Roman Rite of Mass has been widely known as the “Tridentine” Mass, i.e. the Mass “of the Council of Trent.”

The right question to ask, therefore, would be not just whether a Pope can bind his successors, but rather whether a Council can bind future Popes. Can a Council bind future Popes concerning a matter of Tradition which goes right back to the very earliest days of the Church? And it is not even merely a Council, the right question to ask is: are future Popes bound by the Tradition of the Church? The question almost answers itself.


A Pope Writing to the Printers!

To whom did St. Pius V address his words in Quo Primum? Fr Robinson informs us that, “Well he was referring to those who were not in a position to do such things.” So he was telling people who didn’t have the authority to change things that they didn’t have the authority to change things? Apart from being circular reasoning, this would make St Pius V’s words fatuous, trivial and a waste of effort: utterly pointless, in other words.

According to Fr Paul Robinson, Pope St Pius V told people “who weren’t in a position” to do such things not to do those things that they weren’t in a position to do anyway. Got it? St Pius V wants you to know that people who obviously don’t get to change the Mass, don’t get to change the Mass. Why would the Saintly Pope make himself and the Church look so ridiculous? And why did nobody else ever comment on it in the four centuries following?

“For one thing, he was referring to the printers. He specifically mentions the printers, you know, they were to print exactly what he put, they weren’t to, you know, do their own editing on the missal.”

Anything - anything! - which is sent to the printers, has to be printed accurately. That goes without saying. If this very newsletter were sent to the printers and came back with a lot of rainbow flag logos over it and the text of the editorial substituted for a plea for tolerance, diversity and “human rights,” the editor might very well ask for his money back. Are we really to believe that St. Pius V went to the effort of promulgating a papal bull in order to make sure that the printers did their job properly, the job that they’re being paid for and which they already know they have to do properly? Is that what we’re being asked to believe? Does that sound at all plausible?

“But he was also referring to people lower in the hierarchy: he wasn’t wanting people like a bishop of a diocese, or a certain cardinal, or priests in their parish taking the missal and modifying the missal. Certainly the Pope, St. Pius V, was not anticipating legislating to all his successors …”

Likewise, are we being asked seriously to believe that St Pius V considered the threat of a lowly parish priest changing the Roman Rite of Mass as being so serious that he addressed it in a papal bull? A papal bull which itself claims the authority of the Council of Trent?

Rather unsurprisingly, Fr Robinson offers no evidence whatever for these ridiculous claims. Nor does he quote from the text of Quo Primum. Whilst parish priests and printers are mentioned earlier on in the text, it is clear that St. Pius V is no longer talking about them later on
in the text when talks ab out permission to use his missal and says that it can be used without scruple of conscience and without “fear of incurring any penalty, judgement or censure.”

Were 16th Century printers in the habit of excommunicating priests for using the wrong missal? Is it likely that a parish priest might attempt to excommunicate one of his juniors for using the Roman missal? What rubbish. Here is what Quo Primum actually says about using the Traditional Roman (“Tridentine”) Missal:

“Furthermore, by these presents and by virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We give and grant in perpetuity that for the singing or reading of Mass in any church whatsoever this Missal may be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment or censure, and may be freely and lawfully used. … We likewise order and declare that no one whosoever shall be forced or coerced into altering this Missal; …”

Clearly these words are aimed at someone in authority. Who is likely to be the one doing the excommunicating? Who would be the one doing the coercing? To a lesser extent this might conceivably mean the bishop of a diocese, but surely the primary person to whom this would apply above all others would be a Pope? Quo Primum also says:

“[…] And this present Constitution can never be revoked or modified, but shall forever remain valid and have the force of law.”

Again, who would do the “revoking” - or who would most likely try to revoke it? Is that not the sort of thing a future Pope would most likely be the one to do?


The Mass has always been changing!

Worse still is Fr Robinson’s argument, essentially a reheated version of an old and fallacious argument long used by Novus Ordo liberals (“The Mass has always been changing!”), that:

“…[people are] saying, well, if you believe that Quo Primum binds the future Popes, how can it be that other Popes have changed the missal? Such as St. Pius X, or, um, other Popes who have added Saints to the missal, or the missal that we use, the 1962 missal was changed by John XXIII, he added the name of St. Joseph to the canon, for instance. So how is it that these Popes have changed what St Pius V established, if your argument is correct, that no Popes can lawfully change the missal after St. Pius V?”

What is the problem with this argument? Well, first of all, his attempt to use St Pius X to prove his point is unfortunate. St Pius X changed the ranking of certain feasts in order to restore the status of Sundays to what they had been in the time of St Pius V. This was not a change to the actual rite itself, more of a smaller change to the calendar and even then, it was more in the way of putting things back to how they had been when there weren’t as many Saints in the calendar. The fact that St Pius X himself was careful to show that he wasn’t really altering the Roman Rite of Mass and falling foul of Quo Primum surely shows, if anything, that he felt that Quo Primum was binding on him.

Secondly - it sounds obvious but let’s point it out anyway - there are changes and there are changes. The changes made to the Mass after Vatican II, replacing the “Tridentine” Mass with the New Mass, are radical and essential: this is a change from one thing to something totally different. By comparison, the so-called “changes” cited by Fr Robinson are almost of no account. Yes, adding St Joseph’s name into the canon is in its own way controversial.

Equally controversial was St Gregory the Great adding six words (“diesque nostras in tua pace disponas”) into the canon of the Mass. But, once accomplished, even those changes did not leave the Traditional Roman Rite looking unrecognisable as though it had been replaced -view mirror, but if I steal your car from your driveway and leave a roller-skate in its place, I can’t then tell you: “Why are you so upset? There’s always been changes happening to your car!”; likewise, if I were to burn your house to the ground and present you with a cardboard box to live in instead, I cannot justify my actions by pointing out that you recently repainted your garden fence and one time even replaced the tiles on the roof, so you’ve no right to object to one further change! Is that such an absurd comparison? Remember, Fr Robinson talks about “other Popes who have added Saints to the missal” as an example of “changing the missal.” Is adding a Saint to the missal the same as replacing the Traditional Mass with Paul VI’s New Mass? Are we to make no distinction between essential changes and non-essential changes? Surely neither Fr Robinson nor Andrew can really be quite so obtuse?

And if the listener had any doubt at all that what Fr Robinson is offering is nothing more than a well-worn conciliar argument, one employed for decades by Novus Ordo Catholics to try to defend the legitimacy of the New Mass, the fact that Andrew picks up on and amplifies his sentiment should leave no one in any doubt at all. How does this sound in the mouth of a supposed Traditionalist:

“I see. So, in a sense, Quo Primum was effective and perfect for its time, and what it does is it says: this is the Mass, there’s nothing wrong with this Mass, use this one, Popes down the line can change it.”

Notice how Quo Primum was good in its time. Rather like Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors was supposedly good for the 1800s but Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae with its teaching on Religious Liberty was good for our own era, as the late Cardinal Ratzinger (in)famously taught. Is this not classic modernism, using a spurious method of historical context to empty the truth of any objective meaning?

Andrew even claims that Quo Primum, “says: this is the Mass, there’s nothing wrong with this Mass, use this one, Popes down the line can change it” - no, no, NO Andrew, you great ninny, it pointedly doesn’t say that! And I challenge anyone to find any words which even hint at such a thing. Ah! I want to put my head in my hands and weep! This fellow Andrew presumably knows how to read, so he really has no excuse: just read what it says, it isn’t hard! How does anyone manage to take crystal clear statements such as:

• “This present Constitution can never be revoked or modified, but shall forever remain valid and have the force of law,” and,

• “Therefore, no one whosoever is permitted to alter this,” and,

• “Should anyone, however, presume to commit such an act, he should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.”

- and read them as saying: “Popes down the line can change it”..?! It defies common sense. The only possible answer, incredible though it may sound, is that he didn’t bother to read the text of Quo Primum prior to the podcast. And yet if you or I were about to do a podcast discussing Quo Primum, surely that is the first thing you would do in order to prepare? It isn’t a particularly wordy or difficult to read text, and it is quite short too. There really is no excuse. Fr Robinson does not correct him either, meaning he shares Andrew’s, er, creative interpretation of what Quo Primum says; being a priest he has even less of an excuse.


Fr Hesse on Quo Primum

We have quoted the late, great Fr Hesse here before. Out of gratitude, do please say a quick prayer for the repose of his soul. Here, once again, is what he had to say on the question.

“The Fathers of Trent therefore said that the Pope could not change the rites. Is that my interpretation or is it papal teaching? It is implicit papal teaching because - have you ever held a Roman [altar] Missal in your hands? Well if you get a chance, look up the first decrees at the beginning of the book. At the beginning of the Roman Missal, you will find the decree Quo Primum by Pius V. And as the only exception in Church history, you will not only find Pius V’s decree, but you will find three other decrees. All through Church history, no Pope published a book without cancelling his predecessor’s document if there was one. The typical way, for example, of publishing the Code of Canon law, or the Corpus Iuris Canonici which was its predecessor before 1917, would be to authorise a new edition and put in one’s own document. Like Pope Urban IX, who put in his name and threw out his predecessor’s decree.

The Roman Missal since 1570 is the only exception in Church history. Why? Because Pius V did nothing else but respect the Council of Trent when he codified what was there. When Pius V, Saint Pius V, in 1570 published the Roman Missal, he did not change anything. He changed a few little rubrics that were not clear, they were kind of confusing, so he changed them. But the book as such was the missal that had been used for centuries by the Roman Curia. And he canonised it with the decree Quo Primum, in which he says: not only the book must not ever be changed in the future, this Mass must be said by all priests in the future, but the decree as such is irreformable. Some people now argue that a Pope cannot bind a Pope. They argue in what you call legalistic nonsense. They quote Roman law, and they misquote Roman law, because they quote Roman law well but they quote Roman law on a wrong level, by quoting the old line: par in parem potestatem non habet - “An equal has no power over an equal.”

The Pope, at first sight, may seem another Pope’s equal. But then, how about the dogma of the Immaculate Conception? Can a future Pope take that back? No, you know very well he can’t. So that means that the Pope’s have to respect their predecessors. […] So Tradition binds the Pope. Especially in liturgy. Why? The oldest liturgical principle, written down the first time in the year 250, exactly 750 years ago, is: Lex orandi statuat legem credendi. The law of what has to be prayed will determine the law of what has to be believed. Do not confused the law of what has to be believed with the Deposit of Faith.

The Deposit of Faith is at the very beginning of everything. But the law of what has to be prayed will determine what has to be believed. What is the law of what has to be believed? The Creed, for example. Every time you recite the creed at Sunday Mass, you recite what you have to believe in order to remain a Catholic. Now in the liturgy, you always found the feast of the Immaculate Conception. You talk about lex ordandi, the law of what has to be prayed: in an ancient missal of the 14th century or in a handwritten missal of the eighth century, you will find the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th. That’s the law of what has to be prayed, because the priests had to celebrate that feast. However it only became the law of what has to be believed in 1854 when Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. So you can easily see in history that the law of what has to be prayed will determine the law of what has to be believed. Lex orandi statuat legem credendi. […]

You can see from this principle that the Roman Missal cannot be considered a mere disciplinary law. It is much more than that, it is way above any discipline. The Roman Missal is the number one law of what has to be prayed because Holy Mass is the number one prayer! Therefore, when Pius V said: this missal cannot be changed, and this decree confirming that is irreformable - he did in fact bind his successors. I ask you, is this my interpretation or is it that of the Popes? Well I showed you, that is the papal interpretation. Because even John XXIII did not dare to take out Quo Primum or the decree following it by Clement VIII, or the decree by Urban VIII. He did not dare to replace these documents.

That means even John XXIII visibly thought that he was bound by his predecessors decrees. That makes four hundred years of Popes being who ‘felt’ that they were bound. Of course, the Popes didn’t just have a ‘feeling’ about it. Leave the feelings in California!” (See: https://youtu.be/FABY6aIJw6A)

Well said, Fr Hesse. It chills one to the bone to reflect that this man was a priest-friend of the SSPX and that when he spoke these words, some twenty years ago or less, virtually every single one of his SSPX priestly friends would have agreed with him. And yet look at the SSPX today, with the likes of Fr Paul Robinson as its mouthpiece: a 180 degree change.

“Quo Primum is still in force, it binds all of St Pius V’s successors.” “Quo Primum isn’t in force and it had no power to bind any of St Pius V’s successors.” Which is correct, the SSPX of yesterday, or the SSPX of today?

So dramatic is the change that some SSPX priests appear not to have got the proverbial memo and are still repeating the old understanding of Quo Primum. Even our own district superior, Fr Robert Brucciani (no hide-bound conservative reactionary he!) wrote as recently as 2021 in the British District Newsletter ‘Ite Missa Est’ that:

“Pope St. Pius V, following a decree of the Council of Trent, promulgated the bull Quo Primum to fix the Rite of Mass for all time for the Latin Church. Henceforth the Rite was known as the Tridentine Rite of Mass.”

Well said, Fr Brucciani. Quo Primum fixed the Traditional Roman Rite for all time, not just during the lifetime of St. Pius V or until one of his successors felt like changing it!


Was the New Mass ‘Legitimately Promulgated’..?

Let us return briefly to this question. Remember that in its April 2012 Doctrinal Declaration, the SSPX famously described the New Mass as, “legitimately promulgated by Pope Paul VI…” Remember too that Fr Daniel Themann and others tried to spin this phrase as signifying not that the New Mass was legitimately promulgated (why on earth would anyone think that?!), but that the Pope had the legitimate authority to promulgate it. This interpretation was repeated by our unfortunate correspondent in the last issue (‘Is the Resistance Justified?’ - Recusant 59, p.42 ff), who claimed that words such as “legitimately promulgated” when used to describe the New Mass,

“...merely mean that the Society recognizes that Paul VI and John Paul II had the right to promulgate liturgical rites. Hence, it is not a judgment on the Novus Ordo itself.”

This is as laughable, but we have pointed out plenty of times already that the words mean what they say. In previous Recusant issues we have reproduced an article by Fr Paul Kramer showing that the New Mass was never in fact promulgated, and one by Fr Gregory Hesse proving that no Pope had the right to promulgate such a rite in any case.

Fr Robinson goes on later in this interview to say that, whilst Paul VI was able to change the Mass and promulgate a New Rite had he so wished, in fact he didn’t because the Novus Ordo was never actually promulgated. He is quite right on that last point. The question of whether Paul VI could have promulgated the New Mass legitimately is where he falls down.

In short: whereas we deny the legitimacy of the New Mass and uphold the legitimacy of Quo Primum, Fr Robinson & co. deny the legitimacy of Quo Primum – corollary? Sliding towards defending the legitimacy of the New Mass, isn’t that where this leads?