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Fifteenth Sunday of the Year
14 July 2007
Dear Friends in Christ,
Canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law says that: “schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” Canon 1364 decrees that those in schism incur automatic excommunication. Canons 1041, 1044, and 1047 provide that men in schism cannot lawfully be ordained or, even if they have been ordained validly, cannot lawfully exercise a ministry in the Church. And canons 1184 and 1185 require that persons in schism cannot even be granted a funeral Mass. Why are these penalties for schism so severe? To understand why the Church safeguards her unity with sanctions of this sort, we must first grasp what sort of unity Christ wills for His Church.
The Lord Jesus in the High Priestly Prayer offered in the night before His Passion said of His Apostles, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe you have sent me.” (John 17.20-21) This means that the unity of all believers is both a reflection of the unity of the Triune God and a motive for others to come to saving faith in Christ the Lord, and for this reason, the Church has the most sacred and solemn duty to preserve the unity of all Christians. Schism is the willful rupture of that unity, and that is why canon law responds to schism with such vigor.
All of this is background for explaining my response to the visit we had last week from several adherents of the Society of St. Pius X, who passed out pamphlets after two of our Masses. Their literature claims that the SSPX is not in schism and attempts to refute the statements I made in my bulletin column of 24 June 2007 about the duty of Catholics not to participate in schismatic acts of worship. I regret to say, however, that the assertions made in their literature are a tissue of half-truths and misrepresentations, and I repeat my warning to you that participation in schismatic acts of worship is gravely sinful. Since schism is the refusal of submission to the Bishop of Rome, then it is the Bishop of Rome alone who is competent to decide who is and who is not in schism. On 2 July 1988 Pope John Paul II promulgated an Apostolic Letter (which is still in force) entitled Ecclesia Dei declaring the SSPX to be in schism and its bishops to be excommunicated, and the pope included this appeal, “I wish especially to make an appeal both solemn and heartfelt, paternal and fraternal, to all those who until now have been linked in various ways to the movement of Archbishop Lefebvre, that they may fulfill the grave duty of remaining united to the vicar of Christ in the unity of the Catholic Church and of ceasing their support in any way for that movement. Everyone should be aware that formal adherence to the schism is a grave offense against God and carries the penalty of excommunication decreed by the Church’s law.” (ED 5,c). Let us pray for the return to full communion with the Catholic Church of the Society of St. Pius X.
Father Newman