Catholic Replies
Q. In the second reading on Good Friday (Heb. 5:8-9), there is a phrase toward the end of the epistle that says: “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” I am puzzled by the words “when he was made perfect.” I have always believed that Jesus was God eternal and was so from the moment of His conception. Why did He need to be made perfect? — R.H.T., via e-mail.
A. Yes, Jesus was God eternal from the moment of His conception, but He was also truly human, and it was His humanity that was made perfect. In His human nature, Jesus experienced trials and ordeals, and even fear of death in the Garden of Gethsemane, and thus was able to sympathize with sinners. He knew from His human experiences how difficult it is to obey God, as He three times pleaded with the Father to take the cup of suffering away from Him, but then said, “not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39).
“In suffering and death,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church (n. 609), “his humanity became the free and perfect instrument of his divine love which desires the salvation of men” (cf. Heb. 2:10, 17-18; 4:15; 5:7-9).
Q. I spoke to a priest from the Society of St. Pius X about Sunday’s Mass. He said that going to an SSPX Mass would fulfill my Sunday obligation. Is this correct? Are we able to go to Confession to SSPX priests as well and be confirmed, too? — S.R., via e-mail.
A. While Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 lifted the penalty of excommunication on the four priests who were illegitimately consecrated bishops by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1988, the Society of St. Pius X remains in schism from Rome over doctrinal issues. “As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church,” said a statement from the Vatican Press Office in May 2011, “its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church….Until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers…do not legitimately exercise any ministries in the Church.”
This means that while the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Anointing of the Sick, and Holy Orders are valid in the SSPX, since their priests have valid orders, these sacraments are illicit. The Sacraments of Penance and Matrimony are not valid because they require canonical jurisdiction, which SSPX priests do not have.
The priest you spoke to was correct in saying that going to an SSPX Mass would fulfill your Sunday obligation since, according to canon law (n. 1248), “The precept of participating in the Mass is satisfied by assistance at a Mass which is celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the holy day or on the evening of the preceding day.” He was also correct in quoting from the Vatican’s Ecclesia Dei Commission as saying that if one’s intention “is simply to participate in Mass according to the 1962 Missal for the sake of devotion, this would not be a sin.”
What he did not mention in his letter to you, however, was the commission’s concern that one who attends SSPX Masses might over time slowly imbibe “a schismatic mentality which separates itself from the teaching of the Supreme Pontiff and the entire Catholic Church classically exemplified in A Rome and Econe Handbook which states in response to question 14 that the SSPX defends the traditional catechisms and therefore the Old Mass — and so attacks the Novus Ordo, the Second Vatican Council, and the New Catechism — all of which more or less undermine our unchangeable Catholic faith.”
Thus, a 1998 letter signed by Msgr. Camille Perl, secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, said that “it is precisely because of this schismatic mentality that this Pontifical Commission has consistently discouraged the faithful from attending Masses celebrated under the aegis of the Society of St. Pius X.”
Q. As a pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic, I can remember how it was growing up in the ’40s, ’50s, and early ’60s. In grade school and Catholic high school, we were taught that we had to be strong in our faith because we never knew when our faith would be challenged. I can remember watching those Hollywood motion pictures, like The Robe, Quo Vadis, etc., which showed the early Christians forced to stand up for their beliefs at the cost of their lives because the government forced them to.
Of course, as Americans, we never thought that we would have a government which hated us as Catholics. Now we have arrived at a point in our history where the United States, which was once at least a Christian nation, has morphed into an “evil empire,” led by unbelievers who seem out to destroy us as Catholic Christians. Since we have one political party which has turned to cowardice, and another which is pure evil, when do you think that the final “persecutions” will begin to occur? — A.L., Pennsylvania.
A. While many thousands of our Catholic brothers and sisters are being physically tortured and killed in other lands because they are believers in Jesus, that has not happened yet in the United States. What is going on here is more of a “soft” persecution. This means that some purported believers are turning their backs on Jesus and His Church because of threats of losing one’s job, or being kept out of certain social circles, or risking the scorn and ridicule of family and friends.
They need to recall the warning of Jesus, that if anyone is ashamed of Him and His teachings, He will be ashamed of them when He comes in His glory (cf. Luke 9:26).
As to when a “hard” persecution might come to America, that is anyone’s guess. It will come sooner unless Catholics and fellow Christians stand up for their beliefs against the secular tide. It will come later, or perhaps not at all, if believers, who represent the vast majority in this country, will unite in demanding respect for their beliefs.
We can’t leave this up to political parties since they are primarily interested in staying in power and will usually go along with those who make the most noise in the media.
We need to rally around the Church, but we need a Church that is led by courageous bishops, priests, and laity who believe, as St. Peter did when he was told by the Sanhedrin to stop talking about Jesus, that “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
Francis Cardinal George, OMI, the retired archbishop of Chicago, is not optimistic about the immediate future of the Church in this country, but he expects the Church to rebound as she always has over two millennia. He famously said, hypothetically, a few years ago that “I expect to die in my bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.”
Q. My wife and I received our primary Catholic education in the late 1940s and early 1950s. At that time, we were taught that in life there were three fundamental vocations: the married state, the religious state, and the single state. That seemed reasonable because, for example, we both knew aunts, uncles, and some public school teachers who never married. And to fill out the three states, we of course also knew priests, nuns, and parents.
Recently, our pastor gave an excellent series of presentations on marriage. During one presentation, he mentioned two vocations in life, the religious state and the married state. He noted the single state was only acceptable for those not called to the religious state and who, for just reasons, were incapable of the married life.
Following the presentation, we privately told our pastor about being taught of three vocations in life. He indicated that he was unaware of that teaching. Was our early teaching incorrect or has the Church teaching changed in this regard? — D.M., Virginia
A. No, the Church has not changed her teaching regarding the vocation of single persons. In Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, it praised the good example given by priests, religious, and married persons, but then said that “a like example, but one given in a different way, is that offered by widows and single people, who are able to make great contributions toward holiness and apostolic endeavor in the Church” (n. 41). But whatever one’s state in life, the document said (n. 42):
“All of Christ’s followers, therefore, are invited and bound to pursue holiness and the perfect fulfillment of their proper state. Hence, let them all see that they guide their affections rightly. Otherwise, they will be thwarted in the search for perfect charity by the way they use earthly possessions and by a fondness for riches which goes against the gospel spirit of poverty.”
