I’ve been praying Mother Teresa’s Flying Memorares for the Society of St. Pius X. For months, the SSPX threatened to ordain four of their own bishops in direct disobedience to the Pope. I prayed for the miracle that at least one candidate would pull back at the last minute. They’re so entrenched in their own righteousness it would have taken a miracle. If they asked the Lord if they were doing right, they would have needed to want the answer. 

Now, they’ve excommunicated themselves. They’re schismatics diving off the Barque of Peter. 

This a generational tragedy of the first order. Easy-going schisms to the left, but schisms to the right linger. The Polish Old Catholics, who broke with Rome after Vatican I, still hold 50,000 souls. The SSPX, with a thousand clergy, plausibly claims a half-million. It’s less than a tenth of one per cent of the world’s Catholics, but God loves and mourns each soul infinitely.

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Did SSPX have justifiable criticisms of Vatican II? The declaration of religious freedom in Dignitatus Humanae was debatable, and Lumen Gentium seemed to flirt with universal salvation. But these were ambiguities. The Church needed almost three generations to work through the Council of Nicaea in 325, finally settling its ambiguities at Constantinople in 381. Impatience?

Could the SSPX have stayed in the Church and fought out Vatican II’s ambiguities? Over 40 years, they were repeatedly offered concessions, but they first had to accept the post-Vatican II Church as it is and affirm the validity of the New Mass. They refused, demanding the Magisterium repudiate an ecumenical council and the repeated decrees of Peter in favour of their private judgment. No pope could do this without repudiating the Magisterium itself. Their victory would have betrayed the Church they pretended to defend.

We can have sympathy for the alleged victim of paternal abuse, but if the alleged victim seeks to murder the alleged abuser, it’s time to call a halt. In the end — lex orendi, lex credendi — it came down to the liturgy. 

Full disclosure: Our family attended a Traditional Latin Mass for over a decade and loved it. However, my favourite Mass in the historical record was celebrated by Saigon’s imprisoned Archbishop Nguyen Van Thuan, in Marxist solitary confinement, with a smuggled breadcrumb between his fingertips and a drop of wine in his palm. So how can we understand this issue?

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We’re all aware of the distinction between priests who pray the Mass and those who perform it. Generally, it’s a spectrum, with few at the extreme. Many priests in the middle would sincerely prefer to pray the Mass ad orientem, freed from any pressure to perform. Nevertheless, prayer is not something we do, but what we allow the Holy Spirit, “with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26), to do in us. In contrast, a performative Mass is one where the priest is trying to “do it himself.”

We’ve all seen many valid but performative Novus Ordo Masses. The priest, “doing it himself,” tries to communicate casually with the congregation instead of allowing the congregation to commune with the Blessed Sacrament. Nevertheless, any valid Mass offers infinite graces and, as my wife says, “If Jesus is showing up, so should we.”

Consider this: Aristotle explains that every moderate virtue is flanked by, not one, but two vices, a deficiency and an excess as courage is a golden mean between deficient cowardice and excessive rashness. Likewise, there’s another sort of performative Mass, not where a priest is faux-casual, but where he’s trying to “do it himself” with excessive precision.

Consider the Domine, non sum dignus — “Lord, I am not worthy” — before Communion. The 1962 Missal, prior to the Novus Ordo, was a Dialogue Mass, where the congregation responded along with the altar servers. Now, however, most Latin Masses are entirely silent. After his Communion, the priest turns to the people and intones for them their Domine, non sum dignus, while they remain inert. They’re not worthy to say they’re not worthy. 

Aristotle also says that every art can be pursued to a limitless degree of precision that would be damaging to the art itself. The unchecked pursuit of elaboration by some Latin Mass priests suggests they’re treating it as an art, not a prayer, where the sanctity of the sacrament is determined by the precision of their performance. 

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Has the SSPX made an idol of the old liturgy? For a fan of Archbishop Thuan, that conclusion seems unavoidable. Now where will they turn for their Magisterium? After slagging Pope Francis for his synodality program, they’ll have no choice but to embrace their own synod of bishops.

(Joseph Woodard is a research fellow at the Gregory the Great Institute.)