The SSPX

The Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, the most well-known Latin Rite traditionalist movement, now appears to reiterate its position as Old Catholic. That is, its position is analogous to the status of the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands, the Dutch Roman Catholic Church of the Old Episcopal Order, in the years 1723, 1870, and 1889, as it has refused definitively to accept the ordinary magisterial authority of the modern papacy and decrees of a Vatican Council.

The SSPX seeks to consecrate for a second time its own episcopal hierarchy without papal mandate or consent. It has prioritised the ancient liturgy over the authority of the present-day Vatican. The SSPX places the Tradition of the old Latin Fathers of the ancient Church, and the consensus of the Fathers, above the teaching office of the contemporary Roman Communion. This has been exactly the historical position of orthodox Old Catholicism and Anglican Catholicism.

Fascinating.

Orthodox Anglicans and orthodox Old Catholics are, of course, sister Churches and have historically enjoyed full sacramental communion on the basis of the shared Faith of the ancient and undivided Church of the first millennium, the Faith of the One Church East and West, as expressed in the Western Rite. What could the future hold for the SSPX?