The Recusant: SSPX Moves Closer to Accepting the New Mass

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The SSPX Moves Closer to Accepting the New Mass

PART 3 - The SSPX and Freestanding Altars


From the internet (see: thecatacombs.org) comes news of the ongoing construction of the Immaculata, the new parish church which the SSPX is building in St. Mary’s Kansas. At the start of November 2022, the following video (https:// youtu.be/GvdG8Nebj70?t=173 - c.3min onwards) appeared on the SSPX youtube channel, containing an explanation of the altar which they are installing in the new church at great expense.

“The Immaculata’s main altar is a freestanding altar, which means that it’s detached from the back wall of the sanctuary. Since the Immaculata was a design taking a lot of inspiration from Roman basilicas where freestanding altars are the tradition and fit the architecture, our sanctuary too was designed with such an altar.

We love this Roman feature of the Immaculata because it links us with architectural tradition and it allows for the performance of the liturgy in its perfection in even less essential details. The freestanding altar was the norm for Catholic churches until about the eighth century when other elements of altar design came in and we saw at that time some more vertical elements being attached to the back of the altar, which we call nowadays gradines and reredos.”

In the same video, we are proudly informed that the altar will have lapis lazuli set into it, a stone which is both rare and expensive, so this is certainly a question of taste, not of cost. A freestanding altar? Hm. Not only does that mean that there are no gradines or reredos, it also appears that the altar steps go right the way around, meaning that the altar can be approached from all sides. Including from behind. Is this a sign of latent modernism? Not necessarily. As Fr. Patrick Rutledge says in the video, freestanding altars were normal until the eighth century, and the freestanding altar fits the style of this new church’s architecture. Must Romanesque architecture, including the freestanding altar, be condemned per se by every right thinking Traditional Catholic? Of course not.

Does that mean, then, that there are no grounds for suspicion? I don’t think one can go that far, either. Why this craze for bringing back early church architecture into the SSPX, and at such great expense, too? Does this not smack of the “archaeologism” condemned by Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei and by the very sensus fidei and common sense itself?

The new Immaculata church currently under construction in St. Mary’s Kansas is not the only such example, nor even the first. In Écône, a new chapel was built the best part of a decade ago. There were those who, at the time, regarded it as a sign of latent modernism. We said nothing about it at the time because at that point, it was just one isolated example. And besides, it is the French speaking part of Switzerland, the place where all the French seminarians go to become priests: and everyone knows that the French have a gigantic blind spot when it comes to the liturgy and church architecture (bare stone walls, bare stone - everything, few statues and the ones you will see are often colourless and ugly… but we digress.)

The (then) new Écône altar was at least a little bit odd in its taste. There was no actual crucifix to be
found anywhere on the altar itself, a large crucifix being instead suspended in mid-air above the altar. The SSPX were particularly proud of the fact that each of the columns was different, though to the unbiased observer this gives the altar an annoyingly asymmetrical look, besides the fact that one can see right through it from front to back. And then there is the fact that the steps go all the way  around, which means that it could (in theory) one day be used from behind.

Very well, but that’s only two examples, isn’t it? Is that enough to condemn the SSPX? Here, then, are a few more examples. In Richfield, Ohio (USA) the SSPX has recently built a new church (see here) to replace its old chapel. The altar can clearly be seen as freestanding, and once again the steps go all the way around, allowing it to be approached from all sides.

Hanging by ugly chains...

What are those columns made of..? Brown metal?!




The eyes are open!

What’s more, the baldacchino, the steps… all of it looks frightfully brutal and modern-artsy. Either they haven’t got around to adding a bit of colour and installing images of the saints yet, or the church was designed by a French priest. One unpainted, carved wooden statue at the extremity of the sanctuary is all the statuary to be seen in the whole church. There is no crucifix on the altar, but hanging at a lopsided angle by some very ugly looking chains above the altar is a cross on which the corpus is fully clothed and with the eyes wide open. Given which fact, is it even strictly-speaking a crucifix? Doesn’t the corpus have to be represented as dead? Either way, it is ugly and disedifying and one is left wondering: “Why?”

Tragically, the old chapel which the new St. Peregrine’s church has now replaced, seems to have had a sanctuary which, though fairly basic, was noticeably more traditional. A comparison of the two tells its own tale: the old SSPX and the new. The new church doesn’t even appear to have any kind of statue or image of Our Lady.

Again, perhaps it wasn’t yet installed when the pictures were taken. Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not. The point here is not just that the architecture is ugly (although in the above case of Richfield, Ohio, it unquestionably is!) but something far more important. As every Traditionalist used to understand, there is an important link between the liturgy (how we pray) and the Faith (what we believe). Tamper with one and the other will suffer too.

That is why liturgical experimentation is inherently anti-Traditional and un-Catholic. That is perhaps also why as recently as 1947, Pope Pius XII, said the following in his encyclical Mediator Dei:

“But it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive table form; were he to want black excluded as a colour for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer's body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See.”

Pius XII has a lot to answer for when it comes to the ruination of the liturgy, but that is another topic for another day; what he says here is totally sound, Catholic common sense. An altar returned to its primitive table form? A crucifix which shows no trace of Our Lord’s sufferings? Hmm. That all sounds oddly familiar. With the 20th century progressives of the so called Liturgical Movement, the justification for such changes was invariably the same: “that’s how it used to be in the early Church,” a line of reasoning which sounds not a million miles from the SSPX telling us all that freestanding altars were “the norm for Catholic churches until about the eighth century…” as though we are still living in the year 650.

Once again, let us add that it is not a simple question of condemning one style of architecture or condemning the very idea of a freestanding altar per se. But we have just seen three examples of large, prominent churches which the SSPX has custom built from the ground up. They paid a very large amount of money to have each of those churches built, but with the advantage that they could have the sanctuary just the way they wanted it. They didn’t inherit a primitive form of altar or sanctuary, they chose it that way.

And at the same time, the record still shows a willingness to consider the so-called hybrid Mass. Even if no SSPX priest ever offers Mass facing the people (and really, is it such a stretch?), there is always the possibility of that one diplomatically embarrassing occasion where the local Novus Ordo bishop pays a visit and insists on offering Mass facing the people - could that never happen one day, too?

Remember that Bishop Fellay was once asked in a DICI interview about the future possibility Novus Ordo bishops offering Mass at SSPX chapels and even ordaining and confirming, and he um-ed and ah-ed but refused to say “no,” in much the same way as Fr. Arnaud Rostand um-ed and ah-ed and refused to say “no” when he was asked whether the SSPX would consider the so-called “hybrid” Mass. So that too remains a future possibility. We will return to that shortly.

It is not necessarily the lack of gradines or reredos which does it. That already looks a little unusual, and why would you want to go without when you could have them? But on its own, that’s not so bad. The SSPX’s newly-built seminary in Virginia, USA has a temporary chapel (the only part of the seminary which hasn’t been built yet is the church!) where the altar is just such an example. No gradines or reredos, but at least the altar is against the wall. It can only be approached from one side, and therefore, to the eyes of the average layman, it looks all the more reassuringly traditional for it. It will, however, be interesting to see what happens when the new seminary’s church is finally built, and they move out of that temporary chapel.

Going by the outside appearances, it is meant to look similar to the new church in Kansas. My money is on another freestanding altar in the architectural style of a basilica of the early Church. But perhaps that guess will be proven wrong.