IMPORTANT expert canonical exam of the DDF SSPX Decree: It does NOT excommunicate SSPX priests or faithful who attend Masses, or change the practical canonical position of faithful seeking SSPX sacraments.

Posted on 4 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Again at Rorate today, there is a careful examination of the SSPX Decree and Explanatory note by an anonymous canonist who clearly knows what he is talking about. Here is a dense summary.   Let’s call this…

What Does The Decree Really NOT Say?

With my emphases and comments:

  • The July 2, 2026 DDF Decree does not amount to a mass excommunication of SSPX bishops, priests, and faithful. On its face, it directly names only six bishops.
  • The four newly consecrated bishops and Bishop de Galarreta are treated under canon 1387, concerning episcopal consecration without pontifical mandate. Bishop Fellay is treated under canon 1364 §1, the general canon on schism.
  • Grave disobedience and schism are distinct canonical offenses. Schism requires withdrawal of submission to the Roman Pontiff, not merely an illicit act, however serious.
  • The SSPX’s continued profession of recognition of papal authority makes the DDF’s move from illicit consecration to formal schism juridically uncertain. [When there is uncertainty, latitude must be given.]
  • A major distinction must be made between incurring a latae sententiae penalty and having that penalty declared. A declaration requires canonical process, including notice, defense, and reasons in law and fact.  [A canonical process… for how many people?]
  • Therefore, the Decree cannot be read as declaring all SSPX priests excommunicated. No priests are individually named, accused, or given opportunity for defense.
  • Canon 1335 §2 is important because, when a latae sententiae censure has not been declared, the faithful may request sacraments or sacramental acts for any just reason, and the minister is not barred from providing them. [People can frequent the SSPX chapels for Mass and… confessions.]
  • The DDF’s Explanatory Note is legally weak if treated as more than commentary. It is not itself a law, penal precept, decree, or judicial sentence, and therefore cannot expand the Decree’s juridical effect.
  • Since penal and right-restricting texts must be strictly interpreted, the narrower reading of the Decree must prevail over the broader claims of the Note.
  • An executive dicastery cannot create a generally binding penal norm for a whole community without clear papal legislative authorization, and no such authorization is cited.  [more below]
  • There is tension between the Decree and the Note. The Decree warns that priests and faithful would incur excommunication by adhering to schism [seemingly “in the future” or “from here on out”], while the Note seems to treat them as already schismatic. The Decree is therefore best read as conditional and future-oriented.
  • A collective excommunication of SSPX priests or faithful by this document would be canonically defective. Imputability, necessity, fear, ignorance, and other excusing or mitigating factors [NB] must be assessed individually.
  • On the sacraments, [NB] the Decree does not revoke SSPX faculties for confession or marriage. Pope Francis’s grant for confessions and the 2017 arrangement for marriages are not expressly withdrawn. [Under can. 21, repeal of a prior law is never presumed. A Dicastery can’t do that unless there is some added note about a Pope signing on.  Even then, to remove doubt, it should have to come from a Pope.  But it is now highly unlikely that any bishop will delegate to an SSPX to witness a marriage.]
  • Final conclusion: the Decree clearly names six bishops as excommunicated. It does not excommunicate SSPX priests as a body, excommunicate faithful who attend SSPX Masses, or change the practical canonical position of faithful seeking SSPX sacraments.

The piece at Rorate has more details, citations.  This is the accurate skeleton.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, 1983 CIC can. 915, SSPX, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices |
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WDTPRS – 14th Ordinary Sunday (Novus Ordo): from dust to freedom

Posted on 4 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

On the weekend in the wake of our 250th celebration of Independence Day, our Collect for the 14th Ordinary Sunday offers the image of material creation as an enervated body, weakened by sin, lying in the dust whence it came.

In the Original Sin all creation was wounded.  This is evident daily. There ought be harmony between us and the rest of material creation, but our role as nature’s steward has been damaged.  Material creation (including us) is in a way captive to an enemy who has beaten us down.

But Christ came as liberator.

Here’s some good “liberation theology“.

Christ rouses us, grasps us, pulls us upward out of sin and death.  If we cooperate and get back to our feet, Our Lord aims us again toward the joys possible in this world, first, and in the next, definitively.

Deus, qui Filii tui humilitate iacentem mundum erexisti,
fidelibus tuis sanctam concede laetitiam,
ut, quos eripuisti a servitute peccati,
gaudiis facias perfrui sempiternis.

This prayer is similar to one in the 1962 Missale Romanum for the 2nd Sunday after Easter.  The ancient Gelasian Sacramentary has an even earlier version.

Perfruor (“to enjoy fully”) is one of a handful of deponent verbs usually having its “object” (which is actually more of an instrument) in the ablative: e.g., fruor, “I get fruit/benefit from…”).  Gaudium and laetitia both can be translated with “joy”.  The Lewis & Short Dictionary says gaudium refers mostly to interior joy whereas laetitia suggests outward expression.  That said, gaudium in the plural (as it is in our prayer) can also be “outward expressions of joy”.  Souter’s Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D. (a supplement to L&S) says gaudium is “everlasting blessedness”, while laetitia is simply “prosperity”.  This recalls the spiritual/material distinction.  We shouldn’t overtax these nuances. The dictates of ancient rhetoric (and this prayer is pretty old) required a richness of vocabulary, so as to avoid boring repetition.

Erigo is “to raise up, set up, erect” and also “to arouse, excite” while iaceo (in L&S under jaceo) is “to lie” as in “lie sick or dead, fallen” or “to be cast down, fixed on the ground”.  In his dictionary of liturgical Latin, A. Blaise says that humilitas, “lowness”, can have a more theological meaning, namely, the “abasement” of the God Incarnate who took the form of a “slave” (cf Philippians 2:7).  Blaise cites this Collect under his headword “humilitas”.  And remember that humilitas comes from humus, “dirt, earth, ground”.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:

O God, who by the abasement of Your Son raised up the fallen world, grant holy joy to Your faithful, so that You may cause those whom You snatched from the servitude of sin to enjoy delights unending.

The last phrase reminds me of other well-known Latin prayers.  For instance, after the Salve Regina we conclude: “…may we be delivered from present sorrow and enjoy everlasting happiness (aeterna perfrui laetitia).” Note the shift from sorrow to joy.  Furthermore, when a priest vests for Mass he traditionally says special prayers as he put on each vestment.  For the alb he prays: “Make me white, O Lord, and cleanse my heart, so that having been made white in the Blood of the Lamb, I may enjoy everlasting joys (gaudiis perfruar sempiternis).”

Sacrifice first.  Then joy.

We have seen before in our prayers a pattern of descent and ascent, of exit and return.   Before the Resurrection, comes the Passion.  Before exaltation, there is humiliation.  Descent, Passion and humiliation bring the rising, return and joy which will embrace both the interior and the outward, the whole human person.

As mentioned above, today’s Collect is similar to one in the 1962MR.  However, the post-Conciliar version says “whom You snatched from the servitude of sin”, and the 1962MR says “whom you have snatched from the perils of everlasting death”.

To be honest, for the spiritually aware “servitude of sin” is terrifying.  The wages of sin is death (cf Rom 6:23).  Right?  And that doesn’t mean just this earthly life, but eternal life… exclusion from the life of heaven.  But in practical terms how many people will be afraid of the more nebulous “sin”, which hasn’t been well catechized about for a long time, compared to the cold effect of “perils of everlasting death”.  That phrase gets your attention in a way that they other does not.

A polemical but intriguing booklet by Anthony Cekada, The Problems with the Prayers of the Modern Mass (TAN 1991), compares pre-Conciliar versions of prayers with the post-Conciliar, Novus Ordo versions.  Cekada opines that the architects of the Novus Ordo intentionally eliminated – from the Latin mind you – concepts like sin, guilt and damnation in favor of the “less threatening idea of deliverance from the ‘slavery of sin’” (p. 14).  Cekada is right.   I have shown that here on this blog for years. Systematic and comparative reading of the texts shows this pretty quickly.  It’s alarming.

This is one thing that certain bishops and others do not get… or do not want to get.  They think that people who’ve been crushed by their bishop, who eliminated their TLM, will be just as happy with the Novus Ordo celebrated in Latin.  For them, it’s about the Latin. Otherwise, if it is about the theology – which I sincerely doubt they know – then their treatment of people is worse.  It’s not about lace, or style of vestment, or birettas, or bells and incense.   It’s about the very content of the prayers of the Roman Rite.  Why?  Because we are our rites!  What we pray shapes our belief and, therefore, how we choose to live.

I digress.

Even with the weakening of emphasis in the Latin, the newer Collect is a sound prayer.  It is also more clearly translated … now.

OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):

Father, through the obedience of Jesus, your servant and your Son, you raised a fallen world. Free us from sin and bring us the joy that lasts forever.

CURRENT ICEL (2012):

O God, who in the abasement of your Son have raised up a fallen world, fill your faithful with holy joy, for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin you bestow eternal gladness.

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Card. Koch, Prefect for Christian Unity, makes observations about the SSPX

Posted on 4 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I picked this up at Rorate.

Card. Koch, Cardinal Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity gave an interview. He made this remark, inter alia. He makes a reference to Taurina cacata… Traditionis Custodes.  My emphases (except the question).

Q: Yesterday we saw that the SSPX strikingly staged the aesthetic glow of the old rites. At the same time, we can see, especially in the USA and also in France, a growing interest among the younger generation in these traditionalist forms of Christianity. A perhaps somewhat delicate question: isn’t this also an impetus for the Catholic Church, as it currently stands, to review its books—perhaps to appreciate the particular truth contained within traditionalism and use it as an occasion for self-critical reflection?

KOCH: Yes, I think it could lean toward self-righteousness if we simply condemn the Society and say they are on the wrong track, without asking whether there are fundamental deficits in the Church today that are being recalled by the Society.

First, I think of the unresolved question of the relationship between the two forms of the one Roman Rite, as Pope Benedict called it. Pope Benedict showed a path there; [i.e., lifting the excommunications and issuing Summorum Pontificum] Pope Francis curbed it somewhat radically. I think we need to rethink this, [i.e., overturn Traditionis Custodes] especially for those faithful who feel drawn to this form of liturgy without sharing the entire ideological superstructure of the Society. For these faithful, I think we must look for new ways.

A second problem is the ecclesiological pluralism we have today in ecumenism, where basically all churches and ecclesial communities are treated as equivalent, so that it is essentially a matter of indifference which church you belong to; there, the uniqueness of the Catholic Church, as pointed out clearly by the Second Vatican Council, is forgotten. [He is pointing out that the SSPX has NOT forgotten that.]

And thirdly, religious pluralism—the idea that all religions are equally ways to God. These theses are widely held today, and it would be good to use the confrontation with the Society as an opportunity for self-examination, to consider what needs to be changed here. [Surely he means in “practice” but he could be saying also that what V2 said has to be reexamined.] Because only in this way can we credibly represent to the Society that these evils they name are not contained in the Council, but are tendencies that appeared after the Council.

I would very much like to see a moderated but forthright dialogue like that take place.

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WDTPRS – 6th Sunday after Pentecost: Collect – FIND THE CHIASM!

Posted on 4 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Please flip open your own trusty copy of the Liber Sacramentorum Romanae Aeclesiae edited by Leo Cunibert Mohlberg, OSB (in other words the Gelasian Sacramentary and yes, it is “Aeclesiae”.).

You will find Sunday’s ancient Collect in the second group of prayers for Sundays.  This prayer survived the scissor and paste-pot wielding liturgical experts who, under the aegis of the late Fr. Annibale Bugnini, revised and shuffled the ancient prayers for the Novus Ordo.

With only slight changes, this prayer is still heard today on the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time.

COLLECT – (1962 Missale Romanum):

Deus virtutum, cuius est totum quod est optimum:
insere pectoribus nostris amorem tui nominis,
et praesta in nobis religionis augmentum;
ut, quae sunt bona, nutrias,
ac pietatis studio, quae sunt nutrita, custodias.

In the 2002 Roman Missal it appears this way (variations underscored):

Deus virtutum, cuius est totum quod est optimum, insere pectoribus nostris tui nominis amorem, et praesta, ut in nobis, religionis augmento, quae sunt bona nutrias, ac, vigilanti studio, quae nutrita custodias.

But in the ancient Gelasian it is like this:

Deus uirtutum, cuius est totum quod est optimum, insere pectoribus nostris amorem tui nominis et praesta, ut et nobis relegionis augmentum quae sunt bona nutrias ac uigilantia studium quaesomus nutrita custodias.

Yes, quaesomus. However, the apparatus criticus at the bottom of the page, where variations in different manuscripts are listed, also suggests vigilanti studio.

Thus, the Novus Ordo redactors attempted to restore the prayer in some respects to the version pre-dating by many centuries the “Tridentine” Missale Romanum, making also changes in style.  But they changed the conceptual grounding of the Collect by removing pietas.

Your trusty copy of the Lewis & Short Dictionary informs you that insero means “to sow, plant in, ingraft, implant.”  Virtutum is genitive plural of virtus, “manliness; strength, vigor; bravery, courage; aptness, capacity; power” and so forth.  Virtutum translates the Hebrew tsaba’, “that which goes forth, an army, war, a host.”

Tsaba’ is applied to hosts of angels, of soldiers, and the sun, moon and stars.   In the Sanctus of Holy Mass and in the great hymn called the Te Deum we echo the myriads of saints and angels bowed before God’s throne in the celestial liturgy: “Holy  Holy  Holy  LORD GOD SABAOTH…. God of “heavenly hosts”, or as the lame-duck ICEL version puts it, God “of power and might”.  “O mighty God of hosts” is a fair attempt at what Deus virtutum is saying.   We find in old translations of the Latin Vulgate Psalter that this address for God is rendered as: “God of hosts.”

The Holy See’s document which laid down the norms for liturgical translation, Liturgiam authenticam 51, says,

“deficiency in translating the varying forms of addressing God, such as Domine, Deus, Omnipotens aeterne Deus, Pater, and so forth, as well as the various words expressing supplication, may render the translation monotonous and obscure the rich and beautiful way in which the relationship between the faithful and God is expressed in the Latin text.”

We must drill into these tougher phrases and not simply gloss over them.

This is one reason why the progressives and the tellers of the Big Lie attacked the translation norms when they were released.  They are still grousing about them.  In some places there is backsliding.

It’s all part of their vision for the Church: its reduction to an NGO.

OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):

Almighty God, every good thing comes from you. Fill our hearts with love for you, increase our faith, and by your constant care protect the good you have given us.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:

O mighty God of hosts, of whom is the entirety of what is perfect:
graft the love of Your Name into our hearts,
and implant in us an increase of religion;
so that You may nourish the things which are good
and, by zeal for dutifulness, guard what has been nourished.

Here are images having to do with armies and also with vine tending, military and agricultural. On the one hand we have the God of hosts who guards the good things we have.  On the other, God grafts love into us and then nourishes it into growth.

Notice that we pray to God for an increase in “religion.”

Ancient Roman religio is a complicated term.  The word derives from the root lig– , “to bind”, hence, religio means sometimes the same as obligatio.  As our obliging L&S explains, Romans understood reverence for God (or their gods), the fear of God, “connected with a careful pondering of divine things; piety, religion, both pure inward piety and that which is manifested in religious rites and ceremonies; hence the rites and ceremonies, as well as the entire system of religion and worship, the res divinae or sacrae, were frequently called religio or religiones.”

Note the reference to “piety”.  This description also resonates closely with our Catholic axiom that the “lex orandi lex credendi… law of praying is the law of believing”, if we believe certain things inwardly, we are duty bound to express them outwardly in worship.

St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) in Book X of City of God states that pietas concerns honor and service to God and that it does not much differ from religio.

The Roman sense of pietas is especially the honor we are bound to show toward our parents, especially our father, but by extension to children and the one’s fatherland, patria.  In liturgical language, when pietas is applied to us humans it is the due respect we show supremely to God the Father, but also to His children in the foreshadowing of our true heavenly patria, the Church.  When in liturgical texts we talk of the pietas of God, we are talking about His mercy.  God cannot be under obligations, as we can be, but He has made us promises.  He will be true.

So, in our prayer is a strong conceptual link between pietas and religio.  It is fair to take religio to be the virtue of religion.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines religion in the glossary toward the back of the newer English edition,

“Religion: a set of beliefs and practices followed by those committed to the service and worship of God. The first commandment requires us to believe in God, to worship and serve him, as the first duty of the virtue of religion. (Cf. also CCC 2084 and 2135)   Religion is the virtue by which men exhibit due worship and reverence to God (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh, 2-2a, 81, 1) as the creator and supreme ruler of all things, and to acknowledge dependence on God by rendering Him a due and fitting worship both interiorly (e.g. by acts of devotion, reverence, thanksgiving, etc.) and exteriorly (e.g., external reverence, liturgical acts, etc.).  The virtue of religion can be sinned against by idolatry, superstitions, sacrilege, blasphemy, etc.”

In sum, we must recognize God and act accordingly both inwardly and outwardly.  When that comes easily for us and is habitual, then we have the virtue of religion.  A virtue is a habit.  If it is hard to do something virtuous (be prudent, be temperate, be just, etc.) you don’t yet have the virtue.

Notice also that this petition of the Collect directly follows from the desire that God graft love of His Holy Name into our hearts.  Our thought in this prayer moves from the title given to God by the angels and saints in heaven in their unending liturgy: “HOLY”, they say again and again.  Then we ask for love of the Holy Name of God.  Then we want all good things nourished in us by God increasing in us the virtue of religion, the proper interior and exterior action that flows from recognizing who God truly is for us.

I find interesting the choice to change the phrase with pietatis in the “Tridentine” version of the Collect to vigilianti studio.

The 1962 version says, “…by means of zeal for dutifulness/mercy, you may guard the things which have been nourished.”  The 1970 edition says, “by means of vigilant zeal.”  We should also decide if the prayer is talking about God’s zeal or about our zeal, resulting from God’s increase of our religion.  From the Latin it is not entirely clear whose zeal it is.

Certainly in all ages and everywhere the powers of hell attack the Christian and attempt to pervert his soul.

It is always necessary to attend to one’s soul dutifully, striving to acquire and to practice the virtue of religion.

I get a somewhat greater sense of urgency in “vigilance” than I do from “duty”.

Consider the image of the soldier at a sentry post.

In peacetime he carries out his duty and is vigilant.  In wartime he is intensely vigilant.

Think of 1 Peter 5: 8-9, so long the chapter for every night at Compline in the Roman Breviary:

“Be sober and vigilant (vigilate): for your adversary the devil is going around like a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour: whom you must resist, strong in the faith.  But you, O Lord, have mercy (miserere) on us.”

Finally, I want to circle back to that agricultural imagery.

We have the terms insere praesta, nutrias, custodias. Notice, in the Latin, here it is a gain…

1 Deus virtutum, cuius est totum quod est optimum:
2 insere pectoribus nostris amorem tui nominis,
3 et praesta in nobis religionis augmentum;
4 ut, quae sunt bona, nutrias,
5 ac pietatis studio, quae sunt nutrita, custodias.

Let’s play… FIND THE CHIASM!  Always fun!fwdtprs

Lines 2 & 3 begin with a verb.  Lines 4 & 5 end with a verb.

Note how these three verbs denote different stages of plant life.  Insere concerns the sowing of seed or in grafting.  There follows growth in augere.   Then once the plant is grown, we want it to bear the fruit or flowers properly and abundantly and therefore it must be protected and maintained in custodire.  With our verbs, showing a process, we have different objects,

  • amor tui nominis
  • religio
  • quae sunt bona

which, all three, seems to be nearly the same in meaning, if you think about it.

 

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, SESSIUNCULA, WDTPRS |
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My View For Awhile: Philly on the 4th

Posted on 3 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I’m on my way to Philadelphia whence a priest friend and I will go to the annual conference for priests held by the St Paul Center for Biblical Theology.

We are delayed due to a weather stop in ATL and I fear I’ll miss my flight to PHL. I got on the horn with Delta and provisionally grabbed the last seat on the red eye.

So, from the plane – returned to the gate – until later.

UPDATE

They got us to ATL in time for my flight.   But on top of the weather delay they had here, we were delayed waiting for crew.

Bright side, I was upgraded.

We are very late.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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ASK FATHER: Lay people, SSPX and excommunication

Posted on 3 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I have several of these in my mail box, similar situations.

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

I am a lay person who attends a diocesan Latin Mass with my family. On occasion, we attend SSPX Masses or devotions out of necessity or for special reasons (e.g. travelling, a baptism, Mass at our parish is cancelled.)

The recently published  procedures for reconciling lay people from the SSPX seems to take for granted that everyone is either SSPX or not; it doesn’t really account for those of us who are comfortable with going to both. Are we good to keep going the way we are? Am I correct in understanding the document that those of us who go to the SSPX on occasion are not really of any concern to the DDF?

I don’t think you have anything to worry about.

Sorry about the short response, but I am packing for a trip.

I’m also sorry for the way this situation has inflicted doubts and anxiety on so many people.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, 1983 CIC can. 915, ASK FATHER Question Box, SSPX | Tagged ,
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Daily Rome Shot 1654: facade

Posted on 3 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance, utilities, groceries, and now also my late mother’s place.  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.  

Welcome Registrant:

DJM

And…

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NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Interested in learning?  Try THIS.

Hey Fathers!  How about a clerical Guayabera shirt?

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The Bishop of Salt Lake City reduces priests celebrating the TLM, despite conversions of Mormons

Posted on 2 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The other day, I asked “What’s going on?”

Another.

I am sure we will learn more.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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The DDF’s procedures for “reconciling” both clerics and lay people from the SSPX

Posted on 2 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) released – along with the decree and explanatory note about the SSPX – the requirements for clerics (deacons and priests, according to the 1983 Code) seeking reconciliation with the Church.  HERE  Also, the DDF details the procedure for reconciliation of clerics and or lay people, putting lay people into a couple of categories.  I have all four of these here, starting with the Formula of Adherence and Profession of Faith and then the two practical documents.

As part of that process, clerics must make the same profession of faith required of all clerics before ordination and of anyone before assuming legitimate ecclesiastical office. It is, basically, the Creed.

They must also sign a “Foruma Adhesionis”, a declaration of adherence to several points.  Those points include fidelity to the Catholic Church and the Roman Pontiff, refraining from public declarations opposed to his person or to the Magisterium.

Also, they must accept the doctrine taught in Lumen Gentium 25 concerning the Church’s Magisterium and the adherence due to it, even when it isn’t an infallible teaching, and respecting the teachings which require assent.  The cleric says he will have a positive interpretation regarding Vatican II and later liturgical and canonical reforms “quae aliquibus difficulter cum praecedentibus Magisterii declarationibus conciliari posse videntur … which can seem difficult to reconcile with previous declarations of the Magisterium.”  In other words, don’t automatically stick to a negative interpretation.

Then, the cleric accepts the validity (it does not say superiority or uniqueness, etc.) of the Mass and Sacraments celebrated with the intention of doing what the Church does, according to the rites found in the typical editions of the Roman Missal and the Rituals issued by Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II.  We can look around and see a lot of Masses which, to the objective viewer, don’t adhere to the rubrics and do not seem to intend what the Church intends.  Bottom line: don’t say the Novus Ordo is invalid.

Other steps include, of course, finding a bishop willing to take responsibility for you, at least experimentally, for a year.

They are supposed to sign that.  Here it is…

FORMULA OF ADHERENCE

Pledge my fidelity to the Catholic Church and to the Roman Pontiff, the Supreme Shepherd of the Church, Vicar of Christ, Successor of Blessed Peter in his Primacy, and Head of the College of Bishops, refraining from any public declaration that would be contrary to his person or to his Magisterium (cf. canons 1373 and 1365 of the Code of Canon Law).

I accept the doctrine set forth in No. 25 of the Dogmatic Constitution *Lumen Gentium * of the Second Vatican Council regarding the Magisterium of the Church and the obligation to adhere to it. With regard to certain doctrines taught by the Second Vatican Council, or regarding subsequent reforms—whether of the Liturgy or of Canon Law—which some find difficult to reconcile with previous declarations of the Magisterium, I undertake the obligation to follow a positive approach to interpreting doctrine under the guidance of the Magisterium, so that no one may separate it from the rest of the Church’s sacred doctrinal heritage.

I also declare that I accept validity of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments celebrated with the intention of doing what the Church does, and according to the rites found in the official editions of the Roman Missal and the Rituals published by the Supreme Pontiffs Paul VI and John Paul II.

Finally, I promise to adhere to the common discipline of the Church and its laws, first and foremost those contained in the Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John Paul II

I have signed all of the above with my own hand,

In loco

Date

 

PROFESSIO FIDEI

I , ___

in good faith, believe and profess all and every thing contained in the Symbol of Faith, namely:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and became man; He was also crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered, and was buried; and He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end; and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who, together with the Father and the Son, is worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets; and in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen. (i),/ i With firm faith I also believe all that is at is contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down, and which the Church, either by solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal Magisterium, proposes as to be believed as divinely revealed.

I also firmly embrace and uphold all and every teaching regarding the doctrine of faith or morals definitively taught by the Church. Furthermore, with religious obedience of will and intellect, I adhere to the doctrines proclaimed by either the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops when they exercise the authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim them definitively at that moment.

In loco

Date

Another document gives the procedure or praxis for reconciliation of SSPX priests.  In a way, this is their way around establishing another “Ecclesia Dei” Commission.

DICASTERY FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
PROCEDURE FOR THE RECONCILIATION OF PRIESTS COMING FROM THE PRIESTLY FRATERNITY OF SAINT PIUS X

The procedure followed by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, effective July 1, 2026, stipulates that a priest who has decided to leave the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, and who is willing to accept the Second Vatican Council and the legitimacy of the novus ordo Missae, even while remaining attached to the usus antiquior, must:

1) Find an Ordinary (diocesan Bishop, Major Superior of clerical religious institutes of pontifical right, of clerical societies of apostolic life of pontifical right, etc.) willing to receive him ad experimentum.

2) Write a letter in his own hand to the Holy Father, introducing himself and requesting the remission of the censures incurred either because he received ordination from an excommunicated or irregular Bishop, or because—having been validly and legitimately ordained—he subsequently joined the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X.

3) Attach the certificate of priestly ordination.

4) Attach the *Professio fidei* and the *Formula adhaesionis*, dated and signed (cf. attachments a-c).

5) Have the three aforementioned documents sent to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith by the Ordinary, who shall indicate in the covering letter his willingness to receive the priest *ad experimentum* into his Diocese or Institute.

Upon receipt of the three documents from the Ordinary, the Dicastery shall draft the Rescript remitting the censures, which will be signed by the Prefect and the Secretary of the Doctrinal Section.

The Dicastery will send the said Rescript to the Ordinary, accompanied by a letter authorizing the acceptance of the requesting priest for a probationary period of at least one year and no more than three years, at the end of which his incardination may proceed.

It has recently been decided that, should the established probationary period prove unsuccessful, the Ordinary shall return the Rescript to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, enclosing a report detailing the reasons why incardination did not take place.

Another document outlines the reconciliation of lay people.

DICASTERY FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
PROCEDURE FOR THE RECONCILIATION OF CERTAIN LAY PERSONS COMING FROM THE PRIESTLY FRATERNITY OF SAINT PIUS X

This procedure concerns the question of imputability, or the degree of subjective responsibility, of lay faithful who have formally joined or who frequent the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X and who seek to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.

The imposition of a penalty on lay persons belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X cannot be presumed automatically but must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Since imputability requires full awareness and deliberate consent, examples of proven imputability may include:

1. Lay persons belonging to the Third Order of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X;
2. Lay persons who habitually participate in the celebrations of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X while formally sharing its doctrinal positions.

Conversely, the following are not to be considered imputable:

3. Lay persons who have frequented the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X solely for liturgical or spiritual reasons;
4. Lay persons who, despite being aware of the tensions with the Holy See, do not reject the Magisterium or the authority of the Roman Pontiff.

The procedure to be followed for lay persons belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X—upon whom a penalty has been imposed and who seek to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church—entails a formal act of full adherence to doctrine and obedience to the Catholic hierarchy, under the jurisdiction of the local Ordinary, who is the guarantor of the unity of the particular Church.

Therefore, a lay faithful person, as referred to in nos. 1-2, who has decided to leave the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X must:

• Submit the Professio fidei and the Formula adhaesionis, dated and signed, to the local Ordinary (cf. Attachments A-B [ABOVE]).

Once the documentation has been received, the local Ordinary will arrange to welcome the lay faithful in the manner and timeframe he deems most appropriate—for instance, by using the Rite of Admission to Full Communion with the Catholic Church for those already validly baptized, duly adapted.

As for the lay faithful referred to in nos. 3-4, it suffices for them to approach a priest in full communion, having resolved not to frequent the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X in the future.

As for that last bit, “approach a priest in full communion”… that pretty much means “go to church” or “go to Mass” or “go to confession”.  Nothing outward is required.  You don’t have to say anything about the SSPX or what you are doing or intend.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, 1983 CIC can. 915, SSPX |
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Daily Rome Shot 1653: Pius X’s caption call

Posted on 2 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Caption call.

Welcome registrants:

Brendan Doyle
cburkhart09
mmromani@******.com
Rujo43

SSPX bishops excommunicated.  Meanwhile…

And… Will we see more of this? Someone start making a list!

Black to move.  Mate in 4.

NB: I’ll excommunicate comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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