Epikeia Can’t Undo Schism
[The article I was responding to was previously published here:
For reasons unknown, which may be entirely coincidental, the article was removed from 1P5 the day after this rebuttal was published.
I was able to secure a cached copy, and have reproduced it at the bottom of the page.]
This article, making the rounds again related to the latest expression of schism on the part of the SSPX, is kind of a canonical example of textbook pseudo-trad misunderstandings and errors.
It contrasts violations of canon law committed by Cd. Karol Wojtyła and Cd. Josef Slipyj with the (graver) violations committed by former Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, suggesting some equivocation that should cause us to conclude that if one of these things is acceptable, or laudable, so should be the other.
This analysis ignores the critical differences between the cases cited and that of the Society of St. Pius Xth (SSPX), but, more importantly, ignores the single most pertinent fact regarding juridical punishment and schism: The supreme pontiff has “full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church.”
The second great class of errors underlying the paper is the collective notion that the Church can fail, (is in the process of failing - “her survival is at stake”), that it is “under attack” (by the papacy itself), that the Church Herself, the very guardian and arbiter of Tradition “cares nothing” for it, and that the 1969 Roman Missal is “severely defective, unfitting and inauthentic in liturgical terms.” Each of these positions is de-facto heretical, and/or specifically anathematized, as we will see below.
Finally, the treatise goes on to laud ecclesiastical disobedience as, if the personal judgement of the committer warrants it, something good and holy.
[The case of Pope St. John Paul II, as Cd. Wojtyła, performing priestly ordinations is actually barely related, since priestly ordinations and episcopal consecrations are not at all analogous. Cd. Wojtyła ordained priests, which requires episcopal authority, but does not inherently create new hierarchical structures. This, of course, is the difference between the priesthood and the episcopate. Under the 1917 Code of Canon Law, illicit priestly ordinations were violations but did not carry automatic excommunication or schism. They could result in suspensions or other penalties, but these were not enforced in this case due to the circumstances - again, this is entirely the purview of the Supreme Pontiff.]
The Nature of Papal Primacy
A bit of background is necessary to establish a context in which to examine the arguments put forth in the article.
For the moment we will bypass that other ecumenical council that certain elements have come to deride or despise - Vatican Council I - and travel all the way back to the Council of Florence (1439):
“We define that the holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff holds the primacy over the whole world, and that the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, and true vicar of Christ, head of the whole Church, father and teacher of all Christians…” (Denzinger (DS) 1307)
This is, in fact, the primary dogmatic definition. This Primacy of Peter is not an ecclesiastical custom, nor something delegated by the Church, but, divine law, because the institution comes from Christ Himself.
This is made more explicit by the citations from Pastor Aeternus (a Dogmatic Constitution) below, but, it’s good to realize that - as must be the case - there is nothing here novel in the slightest.
[The divine nature of papal authority was expressed also by Pope Leo XIII in Satis Cognitum (1896) : “The primacy of Peter and his successors was established by Christ Himself, and therefore rests on divine right.”]
Moving on to Pastor Aeternus:
“If anyone thus speaks, that the Roman Pontiff has only the office of inspection or direction, but not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church… let him be anathema.” - Vatican Council I, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, July 18, 1870 (Denzinger 3064).
“This power of the Supreme Pontiff is truly episcopal, ordinary, and immediate… over all churches and over all pastors and faithful.” (Denzinger 3060)
The Supreme Pontiff is the highest earthly authority that exists. His juridical authority over the Universal Church is complete, immediate, and intrinsic to the divinely-established office.
Finally, Lumen Gentium, Vatican Council II, reiterates the dogma:
“The Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, has full, supreme and universal power over the Church, which he is always free to exercise.”
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Next, a quick look at the definitive, crystal-clear doctrine that the supreme pontiffs (alone) also possess full power over sacramental forms, something else contradicted in the implicit thesis of the piece in question:
The Council of Trent
"The Power of the Church touching the Dispensation of the Sacrament of the Eucharist
"It furthermore declares, that this power has ever been in the Church, that, in the dispensation of the sacraments, their substance remaining untouched, it might ordain, or change, what things soever it might judge most expedient for the profit of those who receive, or for the veneration of the said sacraments, according to the variety of circumstances, times, and places.” (Denzinger 1728)
Mediator Dei (Pius XII)
"58. It follows from this that the Sovereign Pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and establish any practice touching the worship of God, to introduce and approve new rites, as also to modify those he judges to require modification.”
The Nature of the Church
The assertions (evidentially to be taken prima facie) made in the article to justify the disobedience and schism of the SSPX are directly contrary to some of the most core Catholic dogmas.
“When the Church is under attack and her survival is at stake, or when her common good is gravely threatened, flagrant “disobedience” to papal commands or laws can be justified—indeed, not only justified, but right, meritorious, the stuff of sanctity.”
The Catholic Church’s survival is not at stake. The promise of Christ Himself, that the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against Her, is the basis of the dogma of Indefectibility, which contradicts directly and completely this sad suggestion.
Pastor Aeternus again:
“That which our Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of shepherds and great Shepherd of the sheep, established in the blessed Apostle Peter must remain perpetually by divine institution in the Church…” (Denzinger 3056)
The papacy is also perpetual:
“If anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ the Lord himself, or by divine right, that blessed Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy over the universal Church… let him be anathema.” (Denzinger 3058)
Indefectibility is explicitly tied to the Roman See:
“This See of St. Peter always remains untainted by any error, according to the divine promise of the Lord our Savior…” (Denzinger 3070)
As with all defined dogma, the doctrine of Indefectibility was present at the very beginning, in the Deposit of Faith, even if it was not formalized for many centuries. It is implicit in essentially every teaching having to do with the nature of the Church - the presupposition that Christ’s promise that “the gates of Hell shall not prevail” over Her is constantly evident.
Fourth Lateran Council (1215): “There is indeed one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which nobody at all is saved…” (Denzinger 802)
Even the dogma of extra ecclesiam nulla salus is nonsensical if the Church’s very survival could be at stake.
I would refer the reader also to the dogma of Peter’s never-failing faith, also defined at Vatican I, but will omit citations here for the sake of brevity.
Do note that the Indefectibility of the Catholic Church is a dogma, requiring absolute assent under pain of heresy (de fide divina et catholica), formally taught by an ecumenical council, ratified by the Pope (which is necessary for the teachings of ecumenical councils to become binding).
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Next, as supposed support for the notion that lone bishops ought to be able to disobey the Supreme Pontiff at will, with no consequence, as long as it fits their own judgement, is this pronouncement regarding the 1969 Roman Missal:
“Even if the new rite of ordination is valid (as is the new rite of Mass), it is severely defective, unfitting and inauthentic in liturgical terms.”
Unfortunately, one who asserts that the 1969 Latin Missal is objectively deficient in any way finds oneself under an anathema of the Council of Trent, which declared that the Church cannot promulgate sacramental rites harmful to piety:
Council of Trent, Session XXII (17 Sept 1562), Canon 7 on the Sacrifice of the Mass:
"If any one saith, that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of masses, are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema.” (Denzinger 1752)
So, to refuse to accept that the 1969 Latin Missal is, intrinsically, which is what was stated, a valid expression of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass makes one a non-traditional Catholic. It represents an attitude towards obedience and humility that are not Traditional. Would it be wise to trust such individuals with the governance of the Church?
Epikeia and Latae Sententiae Punishments
Kwasniewski, playing the tune the SSPX has been using for decades, seeks to muddy the waters in this piece with the notion that, because sometimes penalties are imposed by the lawgiver for a violation of the law and sometimes they are not, such violations are of no real concern, or something like that (they are never specific).
“A legal positivist would say that the suspension he incurred would have had to be expressly removed later on. Yet the fact that the suspension was never lifted is an eloquent testimony to the role of epikeia in interpreting and applying law. In short: a situation existed in which the canon simply did not take effect. This ought to give us pause about the limits of legal positivism.”
A primer on Catholic legal theory is necessary here. None of the below is controversial or in any serious dispute. And Catholic legal theory is not positivist at the foundational level (this is a straw man).
Catholic teaching insists on a hierarchy of law:
Divine Law
Natural Law (participation of rational creatures in divine law)
Divine Positive Law (Revelation)
Human Positive Law (civil law, canon law)
(Human law is real law, but only derivatively so. As Aquinas puts it, “Lex iniusta non est lex simpliciter” - an unjust law is not law in the full sense.)
This is not legal positivism, which is the Hobbesian notion that law is in its essence simply the command of the lawgiver. It is morally relativistic at root.
Canon law is “positive law without being positivist.” Canon law is human law enacted by legitimate authority but its legitimacy is not self-grounding - it is constrained by divine law and the constitution of the Church. Popes have supreme, full, immediate, universal jurisdiction, but not, obviously, absolute power in the metaphysical sense.
Regarding the fact that Cd. Slipyj was not punished for a violation that was analogous to the actions of former Ap. Lefebvre, who was, such non-punishment proves only one thing: The pope chose not to punish. The pope’s non-punishment of Cd. Slipyj does not, by itself, establish the liceity of the consecrations. It only shows that the Holy See chose not to enforce the restriction, for prudential or pastoral reasons that are glaring and obvious when the two cases are compared.
The Pope, as Supreme Legislator (and Judge), has the authority to decide whether to impose, remit, or forgo a penalty in any particular case. Catholics are indeed obliged to accept the pope’s juridical judgment in a concrete case, the penalty as imposed (or not imposed), and the binding legal effect of that judgment.
The [implicit] argument is that Wojtyła or Slipyj not being punished for what Lefebvre was punished for is unfair, inconsistent, etc. But, actually, the Pope, as Supreme Legislator, is entirely within his purview to choose to punish in one case but not in another, and Catholics have to accept his judgement either way.
Justice in penalties is not mechanical equality; supreme authority may weigh context, intention, ecclesial impact, scandal, and obedience; similar external acts can differ radically in culpability and consequences. Canon law has always allowed for this. The pro-SSPX arguments are simply pecial pleading that, once again, cast aside the intrinsic nature of canon law and the papacy also.
What “Ipso Jure/By Virtue of the Law Itself” Actually Means
(Note: I consulted a subject matter expert on this subtopic. I will not offer references, as this is basic. None of it should be in serious dispute.)
In the 1917 Code, ipso iure refers to how the penalty is incurred, not who has ultimate control over its effects. So when a canon says a subject is “ipso iure” suspensus it means:
No declaration is required
No trial is required
No sentence is required
The penalty is incurred at the moment of the act - automatically, as a consequence of the “law itself”
It does not mean:
The penalty is immune from papal control
The Pope must acknowledge or publish it
The Pope cannot neutralize it silently
The Pope becomes bound by the law he promulgated
The article makes this implicit claim: “If a penalty is incurred automatically, then it must continue unless formally lifted.” That’s false in Catholic law, because:
The Pope is the supreme legislator
The Pope is the supreme judge
The Pope is the supreme dispenser (of punishment)
Even for latae sententiae penalties, the Pope can:
Dispense before a penalty applies
Dispense as it applies
Dispense after it applies
Dispense without formal process
Dispense without public record
All without contradicting the words ipso iure.
These cases that SSPX supporters find so vexing are entirely congruent with the actual model of the papacy and canon law: The Pope judged that a law applied but chose not to enforce or publicize it.
Slipyj consecrates without mandate
Canon 2370 attaches suspension ipso iure
The Apostolic See is aware of the facts
The Pope, exercising supreme authority, does not insist on the juridical effects of the suspension
That can happen by tacit dispensation, toleration, sanation (healing, curing), authoritative non-enforcement, etc. None of these require a public decree.
This isn’t positivism because we’re not saying “The law only exists if enforced,” but, rather, “The law exists, but the supreme legislator can suspend its effects.”
“The actions of Wojtyła and Slipyj place Écône in a new light.”
Perhaps they do for some. But unless we ignore the will of the Pope, the Supreme Legislator and Judge, along with the chasm lying between the case of the faithful prelates who were not punished because they were, actually, acting in service to the Church, rather than scorning and deriding Her as did the other, there is nothing to vex us.
Disobedience as a Virtue
“As the years pass and I watch the Catholic Church descend ever further into doctrinal, moral, and liturgical chaos, I can no longer accept the opinion that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was guilty of ‘wrongful disobedience.’”
Should we rely on this man’s judgement to determine what actions Peter should take regarding disobedience so severe that it caused episcopal consecrations not just without Papal approval, but in direct contradiction of a Papal command, repeated with the threat of excommunication? From where does such authority arise?
Kwasniewski finds disobedience “the stuff of sanctity,” as we saw earlier. But is teaching is more the stuff of satan. And so I will offer a small collection of favorite quotes regarding the virtue of obedience.
All emphases are mine.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
"Among the virtues obedience holds an exalted place but not the highest. The distinction belongs to the virtues of faith, hope and charity which unite us immediately with Almighty God. Amongst the moral virtues obedience enjoys a primacy of honour. The reason is that the greater or lesser excellence of a moral virtue is determined by the greater or lesser value of the object which it qualifies one to put aside in order to give oneself to God. Now amongst our various possessions, whether goods of the body or goods of the soul, it is clear that the human will is the most intimately personal and most cherished of all. So it happens that ***obedience, which makes a man yield up the most dearly prized stronghold of the individual soul in order to do the good pleasure of his Creator, is accounted the greatest of the moral virtues***.
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3104.htm
The quotes below are taken from The 12 Steps To Holiness And Salvation by St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church (TAN Books, 1986).
Not only is St. Liguori a Doctor himself, but he references other saints and doctors extensively in this chapter on obedience (and the rest of his work). This is a small sample of representative quotes.
"Perfection consists in the conformity of our will to the will of God. Now what is the surest means of knowing God's will, and of regulating our lives according to it? It is obedience towards our lawful superiors. 'Never is the will of God more perfectly fulfilled,' says St. Vincent de Paul, 'than when we obey our superiors.' [Obedience is] the greatest sacrifice that a soul can make to God… for as, in the opinion of St. Thomas, 'nothing is dearer to us than the liberty of our will,' we can offer to God no more acceptable gift than this very liberty....God prefers obedience to all other sacrifices…. He who offers God his will, by subjecting it to obedience, gives Him all he has, and can truly say, 'My Lord, after I have given Thee my will, I have nothing more to give.' As St. Gregory says: 'By the other virtues we give to God what belongs to us; by obedience we give Him ourselves.' " (107)
"According to the Venerable Sertorius Caputo, the reward of obedience is similar to that of martyrdom. In martyrdom we offer to God the head of our body; by obedience we offer Him our will, which is the head of the soul... St. Augustine says that while Adam through disobedience brought destruction upon himself and all his posterity, the Son of God became man to redeem us and to teach us true wisdom by His life of obedience. For this reason He began as a child to practice obedience when He was subject to Mary and Joseph… When Jesus appeared to St. Paul and converted him on the road to Damascus, the future Apostle said: 'Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?' The Lord could easily have instructed him then and there, but He merely said: “Arise and go into the city and there it shall be told thee what thou must do…” Accordingly, St. Giles maintains that we gain more merit by obeying man for the love of God than by obeying God Himself....
It is a delusion, therefore, to imagine that we can do anything better than that which is prescribed by obedience…” (108-109)
Yes, even blind obedience is exalted, because that is when the virtue is most perfectly expressed - one’s will is surrendered most completely in such a case.
"The great St. Bernard said: 'If, instead of obeying blindly, we wish to know why the superior has ordered this or that, we show that our obedience is very imperfect.' It was in this way that the devil tempted Eve and brought about her fall. 'Why,' said he, 'has God forbidden you to eat of all the trees in the garden?' Eve would not have fallen into sin had she answered: 'It is not for us to inquire into the reason of this prohibition; we have only to obey.' But unfortunately, she began to wonder why it was that such a command had been given, and replied, 'Lest perhaps we should die.' From that one word 'perhaps' the devil perceived that she had begun to waver, and at once he said: 'Do not fear; you will not die.' And Eve fell, and misfortune came upon the whole human race." (120)
St. Padre Pio has long been dear to me. I once spoke with the priest who tended his wounds daily late in life. I’ve visited his home and his tomb. And he gave a perfect example of the virtue of obedience when he was ordered to cease all public ministry: He obeyed. (And he *knew* that his ministry was providing great good to the faithful.)
Sts. Pio, Liguori, and their countless like examples throughout the (often messy) history of the Church are the true “stuff of sanctity.”
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“The actions of Wojtyła and Slipyj place Écône in a new light.”
Apparently they did, for some. But that is not relevant to the question of the schism of the SSPX, the gravity of the grave sin of schism (always considered among the worst possible sins - see the extensive CE article on the topic), nor the fact that the illicit episcopal consecrations performed by former Archbishop Lefebvre resulted in the punishment of excommunication by the will of the Pope.
Conclusion
Cd. Slipyj was an eminent figure who had suffered decades of severe Soviet persecution (18 years in the gulag). His actions took place in the context of an Eastern Catholic Church under duress, where localized hierarchical continuity (not the survival of the Church) seemed at risk.
Eastern canon law and ecclesiastical tradition historically gave Eastern Churches greater autonomy in episcopal matters though of course they are entirely in communion with the Pope. The Holy See treated Slipyj’s situation pastorally rather than juridically, choosing not to publicly enforce penalties for the sake of Church unity and respect for the highly unusual (geographic, political) circumstances.
On the other hand, Pope John Paul II publicly declared former Ap. Lefebvre’s consecrations to be illicit and schismatic, stating that by proceeding against the explicit will of the Pope, Lefebvre and those bishops had effectively rejected papal primacy. The Vatican declared that, by virtue of Canon 1382 (and related norms), Lefebvre and the four newly consecrated bishops incurred automatic excommunication reserved to the Holy See.
Neither of these actions is difficult to understand. Neither is contradictory to the other in any way.
The article’s real basis is, as with all things pseudo-trad, the notion that the so-called “new Mass” is unacceptable and that (due mostly to that) the Church Herself needs “saving,” contrary to Christ’s promise, from individuals. That basis is not Catholic.
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Below is a cached text version of the article:
Clandestine Ordinations Against Church Law: Lessons from Cardinal
Wojtyła and Cardinal Slipyj
onepeterfive.com/clandestine-ordinations-against-church-law-lessons-from-cardinal-wojtyla-and-cardinal-slipyj
Peter Kwasniewski, PhDOctober 13, 2021
One of the most remarkable episodes in the life of Karol Wojtyła—and one from which we can learn a great deal today—took place during his time as
Cardinal of Kraków. It is astonishing to me that, with all the attention lavished on John Paul II, this incident has failed to attract notice, much less
commentary. The same is true of a momentous event in the life of the great Cardinal Josef Slipyj.
Clandestine Priestly Ordinations
For readers who may be unfamiliar with it, Ostpolitik refers to the Vatican’s Cold War strategy of conceding certain demands of the Communists in Eastern
Europe in return for supposed tolerance of an ongoing minimal ecclesial existence. Weigel himself has been a candidly severe critic of Ostpolitik, a theme to
which he returned only two weeks ago in an article on its architect, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli.[1] Weigel’s authoritative biography Witness to Hope
presents the salient facts accurately, albeit with a bit of sugar-coating:
Cardinal Wojtyła never doubted the good intentions of Paul VI in his Ostpolitik, and he certainly knew of the Pope’s personal torment, torn
between his heart’s instinct to defend the persecuted Church and his mind’s judgment that he had to pursue the policy of salvare il salvabile [“to
save what could be salvaged”]—which, as he once put it to Archbishop Casaroli, wasn’t a “policy of glory.” The archbishop of Kraków also
believed he had an obligation to maintain solidarity with a persecuted and deeply wounded neighbor, the Church in Czechoslovakia, where the
situation had deteriorated during the years of the new Vatican Ostpolitik.
So Cardinal Wojtyła and one of his auxiliary bishops, Juliusz Groblicki, clandestinely ordained priests for service in Czechoslovakia, in
spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that the Holy See had forbidden underground bishops in that country to perform such
ordinations. The clandestine ordinations in Kraków were always conducted with the explicit permission of the candidate’s superior—his bishop
or, in the case of members of religious orders, his provincial. Security systems had to be devised. In the case of the Salesian Fathers, a torn-card
system was used. The certificate authorizing the ordination was torn in half. The candidate, who had to be smuggled across the border, brought
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one half with him to Kraków, while the other half was sent by underground courier to the Salesian superior in Kraków. The two halves were
then matched, and the ordination could proceed in the archbishop’s chapel at Franciszkańska, 3.
Cardinal Wojtyła did not inform the Holy See of these ordinations. He did not regard them as acts in defiance of Vatican policy, but as a
duty to suffering fellow believers. And he presumably did not wish to raise an issue that could not be resolved without pain on all sides. He
may also have believed that the Holy See and the Pope knew that such things were going on in Kraków, trusted his judgment and discretion, and
may have welcomed a kind of safety valve in what was becoming an increasingly desperate situation.[2]
Notice how Weigel tries to side-step the significance of the facts he has presented. In the midst of a mid-century Church held in the grip of an unquestioned
ultramontanism, Cardinal Wojtyła simply defied the papal interdict on such ordinations and proceeded nonetheless, with the involvement of an auxiliary
bishop and with the knowledge of the superiors in question. The phrase “in spite of (or perhaps because of)” is a remarkable piece of gobbledygook; how
could it make sense to say that someone went ahead with forbidden ordinations because they were forbidden? Again, if a Cardinal who knew he was acting
against the will and law of the pope did not inform the pope, can one truthfully say “he did not regard them as acts of defiance of Vatican policy,” when that
is precisely what they were?[3] Obviously he did not raise the matter with “the authorities” because he believed they were in the wrong in this case.
Moreover it is purely gratuitous to assert, in a sanitizing effort, that Wojtyła “may also have believed that the Holy See and the Pope knew that such things
were going on in Kraków.” Where is the evidence for this? It was because the Pope and his Secretary of State at the time did not trust the judgment and
discretion of such heroes and confessors of the Faith as Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński or (as we shall see below) Cardinal Josyf Slipyj that the Vatican had
forbidden ordinations, whether above ground or underground. Weigel should just stick to the truth: as he rightly says, the Cardinal knew he had an
obligation in the sight of God, and a duty to suffering fellow believers. That is all that needs to be said.[4]
According to another biographer of Karol Wojtyła:
Wojtyla had a greater connection to the Prague Spring than he could let on. Over the years, he had gradually expanded his secret ordination of
underground Czech priests. By 1965 he was also training and ordaining covert priest candidates from Communist Ukraine, Lithuania, and
Belarus, where seminaries had also been closed. Some candidates sneaked across the border to Poland, while others arranged for secular jobs
that allowed them to travel legally; for example, one was a psychologist who regularly visited a Polish health institute. Wyszynski, in Warsaw,
was aware of the nature, if not the details, of these activities. Had authorities known of them, they might well have jailed Wojtyla.[5]
Whether or not we are among those who laud “John Paul the Great,” one thing is clear: what he did in Kraków was entirely justified, and adds to, rather than
detracts from, the luster of his character.
Clandestine Episcopal Ordinations
Next we should have a look at the parallel case of Cardinal Josyf Slipyj (1892–1984), whose cause for canonization has been introduced in Rome. He one-
upped Wojtyła by performing forbidden clandestine episcopal ordinations because of his inner conviction that the good of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic
Church (UGCC) in the Soviet Union required it. As Fr. Raymond J. De Souza summarizes:
In 1976, the head of the UGCC, Cardinal Josef Slipyj, living in exile in Rome after 18 years in the Soviet gulag, feared for the future of the
UGCC. Would it have bishops to lead it, given that Slipyj himself was now over 80? So he ordained three bishops clandestinely, without the
permission of the Holy Father, Blessed Paul VI. At the time, the Holy See followed a policy of non-assertiveness regarding the communist bloc;
Paul VI would not give permission for the new bishops for fear of upsetting the Soviets. The consecration of bishops without a papal mandate is
a very grave canonical crime, for which the penalty is excommunication. Blessed Paul VI—who likely knew, unofficially, what Slipyj had done
—did not administer any penalties.[6]
I was recently discussing this matter with a knowledgeable source who had read the Memoirs of Cardinal Slipyj, which are not yet available in English. He
told me that the Cardinal was lured to Rome under the pretext of “having a meeting” and was then told he could not leave Rome to return to the Soviet
Union to live among and suffer with his people, even though he was quite willing to go back to the Gulag. It was a source of great suffering to him to be
living in comfort in Rome while his flock labored under Communist and Eastern Orthodox oppression. As Jaroslav Pelikan writes in Confessor Between
East and West:
Here in exile, here in the Rome for which he and his church had sacrificed so much, the Ukrainian metropolitan felt increasingly hemmed in by
what he called, in one of the subtitles of a document submitted to the pope, the “negative attitude” he continued to encounter from “the sacred
congregations of the Roman curia.” Sometimes, in his exasperation at that attitude, he would even resort to the hyperbole of declaring that he
had never experienced such mistreatment from the atheists in the Soviet Union as he was experiencing now from fellow Catholics and fellow
clergy in Rome.[7]
According to my aforementioned source, Paul VI certainly knew of the secret episcopal ordinations but declined to punish the Cardinal because he was
widely revered as a Confessor of the Faith. One of the bishops secretly ordained was Lubomyr Husar; John Paul II later officially recognized his
consecration, appointed him Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and created him a cardinal in 2001.[8]
It also bears noting that Cardinal Slipyj’s action took place at a time when the Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law (1917) was still in force. Can. 2370 of
the 1917 Code reads: “Episcopus aliquem consecrans in Episcopum, Episcopi vel, loco Episcoporum, presbyteri assistentes, et qui consecrationem recipit
sine apostolico mandato contra praescriptum can. 953, ipso iure suspensi sunt, donec Sedes Apostolica eos dispensaverit” (A bishop who consecrates
someone as a bishop; bishops who are present [when this happens], or assisting priests who take the place of bishops; and a person who receives
consecration without apostolic mandate, contrary to what is prescribed in canon 953, are suspended by virtue of the law itself, until the Apostolic See
dispenses them). The language of the Code makes it clear that such clergy are suspended not in virtue of an announcement of the penalty but simply on
account of what they have done, namely, to consecrate without an apostolic mandate—something Paul VI never granted to Slipyj. A legal positivist would
say that the suspension he incurred would have had to be expressly removed later on. Yet the fact that the suspension was never lifted is an eloquent
testimony to the role of epikeia in interpreting and applying law. In short: a situation existed in which the canon simply did not take effect. This ought to
give us pause about the limits of legal positivism.
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John Paul II and Cardinal Slipyj
A New Lens for Viewing Écône
When the Church is under attack and her survival is at stake, or when her common good is gravely threatened, flagrant “disobedience” to papal commands
or laws can be justified—indeed, not only justified, but right, meritorious, the stuff of sanctity. No one has ever questioned that rules concerning episcopal
consecrations are the pope’s right to establish, and that Wojtyła and Slipyj unquestionably and knowingly violated ecclesiastical law, which should have
merited them a place of opprobrium alongside Archbishop Lefebvre. Instead, we celebrate them as heroes of the resistance against Communism.
The reason we do so is that we recognize a more fundamental law than that of canonical dictates: salus animarum suprema lex, the salvation of souls is the
supreme law. It is for the salvation of souls that the entire structure of ecclesiastical law exists; it has no other purpose than ultimately to protect and advance
the sharing of the life of Christ with mankind. In normal circumstances, ecclesiastical laws create a structure within which the Church’s mission may unfold
in an orderly and peaceful way. But there can be situations of anarchy or breakdown, corruption or apostasy, where the ordinary structures become
impediments to, not facilitators of, the Church’s mission. In these cases, the voice of conscience dictates that one do what needs to be done, in prudence and
charity, for the achievement of the sovereign law.
As the years pass and I watch the Catholic Church descend ever further into doctrinal, moral, and liturgical chaos, I can no longer accept the opinion that
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was guilty of “wrongful disobedience.”[9] He was caught in a terrible situation, with a hostile Vatican that seemed to care
nothing for tradition (and my, how 2021 has brought us right back to that place), and a worldwide diaspora of traditional Catholics looking to him for a
semi-stable solution. The imposition of the Novus Ordo and the aggiornamento theology launched by the Council was a kind of “Ostpolitik with Modernity”
against which Lefebvre was rightly protesting, and against which he was willing to take a decisive step when the Faith appeared to be threatened like never
before.
The actions of Wojtyła and Slipyj place Écône in a new light. That is not to say all difficulties evaporate, for on anyone’s accounting, friend or foe, it is not
normal to have a society of priests operating in dioceses around the world without official jurisdiction, and one must pray for a happy resolution to an
emergency situation precipitated by those who, derelict in duty, allowed the smoke of Satan—and now, rather obviously, heaps of burning faggots—to
pervade the Church of God. When a building is burning down, one tries to put out the fire and rescue victims with any means to hand, rather than waiting
until the fire brigade arrives—especially if one knows from bitter experience that the fire chief is absent from his post, or sleeping, or intoxicated, or
convinced that fires are beneficial, and most of the firemen are bumbling idiots whose methods don’t work, or, worse, are paid by saboteurs to spray
gasoline on the fire.
This much is clear: the crisis is not to be blamed on those who, conscious of an obligation in the sight of God, and a duty to suffering fellow believers, have
responded to it as best they can, with the bright weapons of obedience to the ultimate law that governs all others: salus animarum suprema lex.
Lessons for Ourselves
If the Vatican, following on the heels of Traditionis Custodes, should dare to prohibit traditional priestly ordinations, it would be entirely justifiable for a
bishop who understands what is at stake[10] to continue to ordain priests traditionally but clandestinely, without any permission requested or obtained. Even
if the new rite of ordination is valid (as is the new rite of Mass), it is severely defective, unfitting and inauthentic in liturgical terms. The authoritative
witness, priority, and superiority of the lex orandi of the traditional rite must be maintained in the life of the Church until such time as the Tridentine
Pontificale Romanum can be universally restored.
At the same time, we see that Wojtyła and Slipyj acted clandestinely, which gives us a hint that actions like theirs do not need to be publicly announced and,
as it were, made a spectacle of. They were responding to an immediate and desperate situation, as quietly and decisively as they knew how to do. In saying
this, I am not implying the impossibility of a situation in which such actions could not rightly be done in broad daylight, but rather, pointing out that when
material disobedience is required, normally the clandestine route is preferable to the public one.
This has obvious implications for our present situation. If a priest in good conscience chooses not to comply with unjust mandates or requirements
emanating from ecclesiastical authority, he should not necessarily announce to the world that he will not be complying, but should simply not comply and
carry on his pastoral and priestly work. If and when he is penalized, he should not make a big fuss about it, but ignore it and continue on. Again, the key
word is normally: there may be times when open resistance is the best route, as in the possession of the Church of St. Nicolas du Chardonnet in Paris under
the leadership of Msgr. Ducaud-Bourget and the repossession of the boarded-up church of Saint Louis du Port Marly.[11]
Unquestionably, the temptation to have instant recourse to social media, with the pros and cons of the popular support it generates, makes good discernment
about the most prudential course of action (which might turn out to be “acting under the radar”) more difficult than ever.
Conclusion
One of the many ways in which Archbishop Lefebvre is being vindicated is this: he saw that he had to keep ordaining priests (and, for that matter, bishops)
in the traditional rite. The usus antiquior is all of a piece—a unitary, coherent, inherited lex orandi embodying the lex credendi of the Catholic Faith. Yes,
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there are priests who were validly ordained in the new rite (as was archtraditionalist Fr. Gregory Hesse) and who later came to join the FSSP, SSPX, etc. But
it is more important than most people realize to keep the old rites of ordination, at all levels, intact and alive.
If the Congregation for Divine Worship or the Congregation for Religious were to demand that the old rites of ordination be no longer used, that, too, will
have to be for us a “non possumus” moment: this we simply cannot accept. But even more, it will be a time for the greatest challenge of all in the years
ahead: will there be cardinals, archbishops, bishops, who, under such circumstances, are willing to confer Holy Orders clandestinely in the traditional rites?
Our Lord who, in His Providence, bestowed upon us the glorious patrimony of the Church of Rome will surely arrange for its preservation in the hour of
need.
This article has been updated.
Photo: John Paul II with Cardinal Slipyj, courtesy of katakombe.org, in public domain.
—
[1] Weigel does not appear to have read Windswept House or he would be less naïve about Cardinal Agostino Casaroli (Cardinal Cosimo Mastroianni in
Martin’s thinly-disguised fiction) or, for that matter, Paul VI.
[2] George Weigel, Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II, rev. ed. (New York: Harper Perennial, 2020), 233.
[3] Some say that the prohibition against clandestine ordinations applied only to Czechoslovakia, so that Wojtyła, by having the seminarians come to him in
Krakow, was cleverly sidestepping the issue, and not in fact acting in disobedience of any rule. This much is clear, however: the reason for the prohibition
was to placate the Communist authorities, who would surely not have been pleased to learn that seminarians were just heading over the border to get
ordained elsewhere (according to Jonathan Kwitny, Wojtyla was also ordaining secretly for the Church in the Ukraine, Lithuania, and Belarus). Hence the
Vatican’s Ostpolitik would surely have stopped what Wojtyła was doing, had they found out about it. One could say, then, that what he did was contrary to
the known or inferrable intention of the lawgiver, but not contrary to the purpose of any ecclesiastical law, namely, the salvation of souls. And that is my
main point in all the examples discussed in this article. Just as man is not made for the sabbath, but the sabbath for man, so too the Church is not made for
canon law, but canon law for the Church.
[4] The fact that Weigel learned of these ordinations only from a personal admission of John Paul II in 1996, as a footnote in his book at this place tells us,
shows that Wojtyła’s conscience remained untroubled by what he had done: he had no intention of hiding it, at least after the dust had settled. It is also worth
pointing out that if Wojtyła had received some kind of hint or indication from Rome that he should proceed (as Weigel gratuitously imagines), he would
surely have mentioned this to Weigel when relating the story. But he did not, and it is in fact much more believable that there would be no discussion
between Rome and Wojtyła on this point.
[5] Jonathan Kwitny, Man of the Century: The Life and Times of Pope John Paul II (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 220.
[6] “Ukrainian Cardinals Husar and Slipyj are heroes to Church community,” The Catholic Register, June 22, 2017. According to another source, the year
was 1977. At the time of writing, De Souza apparently recognized the beatification of Paul VI as legitimate; many traditional Catholics question both it and
his “canonization.” For a full explanation, see Peter A. Kwasniewski, ed., Are Canonizations Infallible? Revisiting a Disputed Question (Waterloo, ON:
Arouca Press, 2021), esp. 219–41.
[7] Jaroslav Pelikan, Confessor Between East and West: A Portrait of Ukrainian Cardinal Josyf Slipyj (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1990),
173. Interesting examples of Ostpolitik may be found throughout this book; see, e.g., pp. 182–86.
[8] The UGCC is a story of hope in its own right. Consider the following statistics and then apply them analogously to the state of the Latin-rite Church and
liturgical “death and resurrection” from the 1960s to the present: “In 1939, the UGCC had some 3,000 priests in Ukraine. In 1989, after 50 years of war and
persecution, the priesthood was reduced by 90 per cent, to just 300. At an average age of 70, the priesthood of the UGCC was just a generation away from
extinction. Then came divine deliverance and the resurrection of a Church of martyrs. Nearly 30 years later, the UGCC has again 3,000 priests with an
average age of 39. There are some 800 seminarians for five million Ukrainian Greek Catholics globally” (ibid.).
[9] I recommend the sympathetic but not uncritical treatment of Lefebvre found in H.J.A. Sire’s Phoenix from the Ashes: The Making, Unmaking, and
Restoration of Catholic Tradition (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2015), 410–30, et passim. I still believe, in line with this article I published here on April
3, 2019, that the SSPX chapels should be frequented in cases of emergency or moral impossibility, that is, if no other traditional parish or chapel in union
with the local ordinary is available within a reasonable radius. I say that as someone who has absolutely no animus toward SSPX-goers, some of whom are
personal friends, and certainly nothing less than the highest respect for the priests who continued to say Mass and administer the sacraments throughout the
“pandemic” when the mainstream response was scandalously inadequate.
[10] Arguably no part of the liturgy suffered graver damage than the rites of ordination, which pertain most intimately to the existence and well-being of the
Church on earth. A classic on this subject is Michael Davies’s The Order of Melchisedech, which, after a long time out of print, was recently republished by
Roman Catholic Books (the link will take you to Sophia, which is distributing it). Davies shows the Protestantizing and modernizing distortion in the new
rites of ordination and argues for the urgency of retaining and restoring the traditional ones. For a close comparison of the new and old rites with some
striking conclusions, see Daniel Graham, Lex Orandi: Comparing the Traditional and Novus Ordo Rites of the Seven Sacraments (n.p.: Preview Press,
2015), 159–85. I hope to revisit these topics in a future article.
[11] To read more about the heroism of this postconciliar generation, see https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2020/12/resistance-is-never-futile-interview.html.
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