Dear TIA,

I have been thinking about going to a SSPX Mass but I am not sure about confession. The Vatican has said in a correspondence with Brian Mershon that one may attend Mass at a SSPX but the confessions were invalid because of the lack of jurisdiction.

SSPX makes strong arguments in their favor from Canon Law but it still seems kind of a risk to me. I go to a FSSP priest now who I know has jurisdiction. It seems silly to go from a situation that is certain to one that is doubtful.

But at the same time I drive 150 miles round trip to the FSSP Mass while the SSPX Mass is 50 miles closer.

Is it lawful to attend a Mass that is illicit when I have access to a Mass that is further but licit?

     Thanks and God bless.

     J.S.



TIA responds:

Dear J.S.,

There is a dispensation from the Sunday obligation of hearing Mass for those whom it would cause "grave injury" to attend it. This dispensation was established when people would go to Mass on foot or on horseback. If a person lived at a distance greater than a certain amount of miles, he would be dispensed from the Sunday obligation because getting to the Church would cause him a'grave injury.' He could go as an act of piety, but he would not be obliged to do so under penalty of sin.

The late Bishop Castro Mayer in Brazil, who was quite secure in this matter, translated that old rule to modern terms and considered that anyone who would need to drive more than 45 minutes in traffic to reach a traditional Mass would fall under that dispensation.

If you want to take this criterion into consideration, as you may, you would be dispensed from going to Sunday Mass since the closest traditional Mass you have is 50 miles away from your house.

If you want to go, it is up to you to decide which Mass you want to attend. In a case of a conflict of orientations coming from two different legitimate authorities or a conflict between the authority and the Faith, each one must decide according to his conscience what to do, and answer for his actions before God.

We have no doubt that both the SSPX and FSSP have valid Sacraments, including the Sacrament of Confession.

Your argument that SSPX does not have jurisdiction is true. This argument could also be raised against the independent priests. However, for a priest to have proper jurisdiction today, the Bishop requires him to accept Vatican II and the New Mass. Therefore, the priest is dispensed from jurisdiction because to keep the Faith in its integrity is more important than to be obedient to the recognized authority. Those priests - both the SSPX or independent priests - have the right and the duty to resist their local Bishop and accept neither Vatican II nor the Novus Ordo Mass.

When you assist at Mass at the SSPX or independent chapels, you have the peace of conscience of following the precepts of your Faith even though you are disobeying the local Bishop. When you go to FSSP you have the peace of conscience of being obedient, but you know that those Pastors have polluted their Faith in order to fit into the Conciliar Church. Therefore, you run the risk of collaborating with that defection unless you take a position of resistance in face of the compromises.

Again, in such a confused and difficult situation that we face today, it is up to you to decide where to go.

     Cordially,

     TIA correspondence desk

Dear TIA,

In many respects I think that Liberalism and Modernism is a distinction without a difference. Liberals believe that nothing is stable, that everything evolves, and they are tied to the affective feeling domain instead of the objective, abstract and unchanging doctrines - as do modernists and personalists/progressivists.

From what I understand Newman even believed in Macro Evolution which is clearly false. Scott Hahn of today comes to mind and the whole personalist approach - which I think Newman was into an early form of.

If Modernism is not Liberalism, than it is a close cousin as is Progressivism.

Orthodoxy is completely different from the 'isms because it doesn't obscure the truth or change it. It is too cut and dry, which is why the Modern Church can't abide it.

     K.R.

Hello TIA,

Here is a news report of Pope Benedict XVI praising the modernist ecumenical experiences of the Edinburgh Conference.

It is one reason more for conservative Catholics to set aside their illusions about him and for us traditionalists to resist his progressivist orientation.

     Keep the great work you do for the Church.

     E.J.



29 January 2010 : The Pope has praised the pioneers of Christian unity whose centenary will be marked in Edinburgh this summer.

A five-day international inter-church summit will take place in the Capital in June to celebrate the World Missionary Conference, held in Edinburgh in 1910. The 1910 event is seen as the start of the modern ecumenical movement.

Speaking in Rome at a service marking the end of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Benedict XVI said "a century later, the intuition of those brave pioneers is still relevant, in a world marked by religious indifference, and even by a growing aversion to the Christian faith".

He said differences between the Christian churches remain, but added that "hopefully they can be overcome". For more click here.

Hi TIA,

To Jesus through Mary,

You have a friend in Christ that wants to tell you that you may be interested in watching the Passion of the Catholic Church video on youtube here.

     God bless you, and God love you.

     A.P.

Dear TIA,

Rabbi Ricardo Di Segni re-published the blasphemous text of Orthodox Judaism's Toledoth Yeshu. It was republished under the misleading title Il vangelo del ghetto (The Gospel of the Ghetto), subtitled 'The History of Jesus,' and described as legends and documents of the medieval Jewish tradition.

What is that Jewish tradition?

The Toledoth Yeschu embellishes the Torah's blasphemous mockery that Jesus was a mamzer [bastard] conceived adulterously in niddah [menstrual filth] by a Roman soldier named Pandera [Kallah 51a] of a whore [Sanhedrin 106a] and that He is now in Hell boiling in feces, and, in some editions because Jesus is accused of sexual perversion, boiling in semen [Gittin 57a].

Schafer documents much more, including the Talmud claim that the Sanhedrin justly executed Jesus because he was an idolater [Sanhedrin 43a] who worshipped a brick [Sanhedrin 67a], even boasting that the Sanhedrin overcame Roman opposition to the execution of Jesus [Sanhedrin 43a].

Such is the man that Ratzinger embraces WITHOUT ANY FRATERNAL WORD OF CORRECTION OR CONVERSION.

     E.S.

TIA,

Here's how seriously they're taking global warming in Washington DC these days. The family of Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla) built this igloo near the Capitol building during the record snowfall that blanketed the capitol. They labeled it "Al Gore's New Home."

The East is seeing the snowiest winter since records first kept in the 1990s, and more blizzards are expected. A fitting message from Heaven, in my opinion, to put another hole in the Global Warming scare.

Now, we just need a snowstorm in Rome, to wake up Benedict XVI, who is still pushing the Copenhagen green agenda.

     Cordially,

     M.G.

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