Transcription
First of all, what's just your opinion of SSPX?
>> I've not Big question.
>> Yeah, it is a big question. And I don't have much personal experience. I'm always quite uneasy about speaking out about stuff that I don't have much personal experience of. Um, but I've tended to uh, I mean, I've I've chosen not to um, go to any SSPX chapels or anything like that. Um, I, it to me, it goes really sort of fundamentally counter to what I understand it is to be Catholic and under the authority of the church.
Hm.
>> Generally,
>> yeah, I um, don't know.
>> But I, because I don't know, I kind of think it's the church's fault.
>> Yeah.
>> Here's what I mean. I was in Austria and even the Franciscans, right, because it was with the uh University of uh Franciscan
>> Stenville.
>> Yeah.
>> In Austria, and even they, who you wouldn't accuse of being tares by any means, would say, "Don't go to the parish church. It's an invalid Eucharist."
Wow.
>> I shouldn't be laughing. It's it's it was horrendous. I mean, the bad priest just making up the words of institution.
>> Wow.
>> So, anyway, we're in Vienna and I'm like, Latin mass. And so my wife and I go to this Latin mass and turns out it was an SSPX chapel and we didn't know that until the homily because
>> the homily of course was all in German and then Lev's name kept getting mentioned but it was completely beautiful and yeah.
>> I went to confession to an SSPX priest and it was really wise and merciful and good and
>> so my experience there was good and I just thought to myself, maybe is what do you think about this? Like, it's easy to kind of berate people for going when you live in America or England where you have a decent liturgy,
>> but there's some places in Germany and Austria where you kind of don't. Um,
>> and maybe you think that's an exaggeration, but
>> I'm more sympathetic. And then I think to myself, well, there's so much confusion about whether or not I'm allowed to. I mean, people disagree on this. Maybe you disagree and you can educate me.
>> Yeah. There seems to be enough confusion about this that I feel like I don't know if I'm morally responsible if it's wrong to go there because the because I know that the Orthodox are in schism, that's been made clear.
>> But it's not been made clear at all that the SSPX are in schism. I don't think they are.
>> And so isn't it the church's responsibility to be really clear about that for my sake? And if they're not, can I just give them the benefit of the doubt, especially when in a country where the the Eucharist might be invalid? What do you think?
Yeah. And I don't know. I don't know what what where conscience would lead me if I was in that sort of situation. I honestly don't know. And I know of very good people who during COVID um attended SSPX chapels because the mass was there unrestricted, uh, and it wasn't available. And I respect that decision. I mean, for me, it's it's really about the kind of the fundamental theology at play in terms of what you understand Catholicism to be. I understand Catholicism to be universal. Now, most of us think understandably universal means geographically universal around the world, the world faith, the highest of the world religions, etc. But it's also universal with regard to time, temporality, which means it must always be in step to some extent with the present. If at any point you draw a line and say this has ceased to be Catholic, that's where you cease to be Catholic because to be Catholic means to be universal over time. God is the lord of history. I really believe that.
>> Well, then what do you say to those who would draw that line around the SSPX and say this isn't Catholic?
>> Well, those who would say the SSPX aren't Catholic.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, they're right because I think the SSPX have done that. They they've said we can abrogate everything that's happened since the council.
>> And therefore doctrinal development stopped and the church is uh has gone fundamentally wrong. And to think that you can abrogate decades of history and say that the that the Catholic Church has gone completely and utterly wrong. To draw that line in in the sand is is to say that the church is no longer has its universality over time. And people have always wanted to. This is part of the scandal. This is the scandal of the incarnation. The scandal of Catholicism is that the eternal is present to us in time, which is extremely difficult for people to understand and stomach and live with. And we flip from one to the other and we find it very difficult. But this is exactly what happened with Jesus and the fundamental heresies of the church. People saying the eternal cannot be present in time. And that's what we're asked to do with the church itself as the body of Christ. Which means there might be elements of Vatican 2 which in their implementation which were imprudent and all kinds of issues which have come up since then that we have to work through.
>> Yeah. But to think that you can just turn around and draw a line and say this is no longer fully uh temporal is to get to the very heart of what it is to be Catholic.
>> No longer fully temporal. What does that mean?
>> Well, it means it's no longer developing organically through history.
Okay.
>> It's preserved in aspic.
>> In?
>> Aspic, which means so it's sort of like preserved, um, it's sort of set in stone at a particular point.
Okay. I see.
>> Rather than developing with time.
Okay. So the challenge of the faith is to believe that the eternal is made present to us in terms proper to the time in which we live in the present. That's the development of doctrine and that's the development of the church, which stays the same whilst moving with time. And I generally with various wings of traditionalism, there seems to be a refusal to accept change at a particular point and say this is where we draw the line, which coincidentally is exactly what Martin Luther did with the New Testament. You know, again, Benedict the 16th got this right. He said there are two fundamental errors which end up becoming the same thing. There's radical progressivism, which is saying everything has to change. Yeah. Move with the times, women's ordination, same-sex blessings, the works.
>> And then there's what he called radical archaeology, which is being an archaeologist and thinking you can find the perfect immaculate level before it went wrong and saying, "This is it." And then drawing the line there. And they're both examples of the same root error, which is to draw back from the present, to draw back from the reality of the church as it's there before you, just as Jesus was before the disciples, and say this can't be eternal and temporal at the same time.
So my understanding is that they are planning on ordaining bishops without papal approval, not just without papal approval, but in direct opposition.
>> Uh, is that, and then that's going to happen in July.
>> If that goes forward, what do you think will happen? And uh, how should we view the SSPX at that point?
>> Well, I think we have to hold firm with what, what Rome are saying on it. You know, I trust the judgment of Rome on this. I'm no canonist. I don't know the exact ins and outs of what would qualify as schism and so on and that sort of thing. Um, but it's very clear that this is uh, a step too far. It's very clear that it's in open contravention of Rome and the Holy Father and it's an inflammatory thing to say that will not go down very well, but to me, it's just, it's just Protestantism.
>> Yeah, that won't go down well because you don't mean Protestantism in the sense that they've abandoned major aspects of the faith, right? Like the Holy Eucharist and
>> well, I think abandoning an ecumenical council is quite serious.
>> Yeah.
>> And what renders the Eucharist valid is the existing structures of canon law. They're involved in sacramental validity. So to simply turn around and say that you can go in contravention of canon law and maintain certain bits as valid, to me sounds like a very slippery slope at best.
>> Yeah. All right. Which is not to say I am not, you know, as I, as I've always said on this, I am profoundly sympathetic and and I do understand, I really do understand the problems with the church, but this is never the answer.
I have a friend who was with the FSSP.
They were they were not whatever enough. So he went to the SSPX and then he decided the SSPX were too liberal. And then he went to some other thing. Now, they have a priest who comes to their home to celebrate mass for their family. Um, I I call this like purity spiraling.
>> Yeah.
>> Where, and I just, I'm interested in the psychological underpinnings of that where, because I get it. That's the thing. Like maybe that's why this bothers me so much because I'm I'm not
>> you're not going to win me over to the Father James Martin ideas of the world. There's nothing about that that attracts me. It's like the celery and chocolate or something like that. And I'm like, I don't need to resist the celery or something.
>> Yeah.
>> But it's like, I get, I get the desire. Uh, and I'm not accusing everyone in the SSPX of doing that, but certainly it seems like this fella in his house with a priest who's
>> more trad than the SSPX. It's like, what is that? That le What do you think that is?
>> I don't know. I mean, I've seen it a lot online. What you're describing is different. It's sort of real. It's embodied. It's really happening. I've seen online and I've experienced it with people I know and to a certain extent myself where you think something which seemed once slightly untouchable relic from the past and you actually think about it and you think, actually, that's okay.
>> That's okay.
>> That's okay. This idea for, you know, something I'm trying to think of an example that I can share publicly.
>> So an example of something that's been completely rehabilitated now that was seen as very outdated 20 years ago would be what's called typology, so understanding the Old Testament to be entirely and utterly properly interpreted through the lens of the New.
>> All leading up to Jesus, the whole thing.
>> Cuz we were taught then we have to go back into the mindset of the time before Christ and read it like a second temple Jew would have read it.
Mhm.
>> And people no longer do that. Praise God. It's wonderful. But when people first started saying, why can't we just read it like the fathers did? It was really kind of edgy and spicy and like, but isn't that really disrespectful and aren't we losing our sense of history and not bearing in mind that this is a Hebrew Bible? And then it was like, well, no, because this is the church tradition and this is how it's been received and now that's become completely mainstream again. Oh, okay.
>> So then people think, well, maybe if that spicy edgy thing is completely vindicated, or maybe this other spicy edgy thing is completely vindicated and they find something that, you know, Pius the Ninth said about the marital debt or something like that and say, well, actually, you know, this is okay.
>> Yeah.
>> And that seems unconscionable at first, but let's think about it. Maybe it's okay.
>> Yeah.
>> And then you do it and it's often quite playful online as well.
>> You know, it's often like messing around and like, what about this one and that one? And then before you know it, you know, everyone's lost it.
>> Yeah. And it's like the most extreme version wins. Like if you can hold the most extreme version on whatever that is,
>> the marital debt or no salvation outside the church or liturgy or what have you,
>> you get to be the coolest guy.
>> That's the purity spiraling that I've seen. It's kind of who's the biggest edge lord.
>> Yeah. And that's right. Edgelording. Yeah. And again, I'm not accusing those who are
>> TLM. That's not what I'm saying. But but certainly within those ranks, you see it. You see
>> Yeah. You even, what's funny is you see people thinking of, as I did, uh, and I guess do in some way, see the East as a safe harbor. You know, it's like, okay.
>> I don't like the trad parish because maybe people are, I don't know, maybe I don't like them and maybe that's my fault, but I don't like them. And maybe I don't like Maronite parish. And so it's like, the East is like a safe haven. But then what you do is you see purity spiraling there as well. So it's like, you join the Ruthenians, and then they're not hardcore enough. So you find a Melkite church, and then you actually leave and become Orthodox. You're only Greek Orthodox. And if you want to be really cool, you want to be Russian Orthodox. And
>> yeah. Yeah. And I don't, yeah. I don't want to say anything that's condemning to our separated brethren. But for people that go down that road into it, looking for this thing, they can't quite get this sort of itch, they can't quite scratch. Um, I just, I just see the Protestant Reformation. Luther, or actually no, Calvin.
>> Yeah.
>> Oh no. And then complete non-denominational, Mennonites, Quakers. You know, once you start that splintering, once you once you walk away from Rome, it all starts to fragment.
That's what happens because you're looking for something which is different to what's right in front of you.
I want to read this quotation from the superior general of the Society of Pope Pius the Tenth.
>> Yeah. He says in an or, this is a verbatim quote, in an ordinary parish, the faithful no longer find the necessary means to ensure their eternal salvation. This is what constitutes the state of necessity. So is it true, Dr. Phillips, that in an ordinary parish, the faithful will no longer find the necessary means to ensure their eternal salvation?
>> No. And if it's not true, that sounds like an unconscionable thing to throw out there.
>> Yeah. I mean, I've seen it defended by some saying that he's saying that you, you can't guarantee.
>> Well, that's different, but even then,
>> it's still an incendiary thing to say and deeply damaging. And I think we need to be really, really careful here. The structures of canon law that we have which dictate to us sacramental validity and so on and so forth, they are all completely solid. They are in place. The personal sanctity of the minister has no effect on the validity of the sacramental celebration. If you go to, uh, if you go to a local Catholic parish church, I mean, you named an extreme situation where somebody's actually changing the words and changing the literature. That's different.
>> Um,
>> but that's not happening.
>> But I'm not talking, you know, it might, I might not want to have to stomach acoustic guitars and a load of peace and justice during the bidding prayers.
>> I do not.
>> But Christ is there and maybe God wants me to sit there and stomach that sometimes where it doesn't actually vindicate me and make me feel that my understanding of the liturgy is wonderful. You know, maybe God wants me. That's what I try and do when I find myself in a situation I don't really like liturgically. I think God's put me here. God wants me here.
There's a reason why I'm here. And God is a lot bigger than my liturgical preferences. Um, and I, and I, as I say, there are many saints, people who who've lived to the novice order. It's the ordinary accessible available means of salvation for the vast majority of the church. And to turn around and say that it is, it Christ is is absent in some way or Christ's victory over sin and death is not strong enough to be victor over the current weaknesses of the church. Is your faith in Jesus really that weak? The guy that can conquer the devil has been beaten by a few boomer priests.
You know, Jesus is bigger than all of this. Okay. Christ's love is capacious and we understand that. We understand that when his arms are stretched out on the cross, they could reach around the whole world and then envelope it in.
But the church's capacity for truth is capacious as well. And the church can surmount the problems of history. It always has done. And there have been worse crises than this. There's another thing I don't understand of some of these people. I do not believe the challenges of the church in the post-conciliar era are massively exceptional and are the worst crisis the church has ever been through.
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