A Problem with Authority

What can one say of the tragedy of the Society of St Pius X that has not been said already, and better, by other people? Most tragically of all, I suppose, they are not actually "schismatic". Bp Schneider has confirmed as much, and in any case the delicts of schism and ordaining a bishop without permission are quite different and separate in Canon Law. More to the point, for all the bluster of the DDF, the Church is not treating them as a schismatic sect: the Church has not recognised their claim to jurisdiction independent of the See of Rome in the same way that she recognises the jurisdiction of heretical Greek-Slavic schismatics - who of course exercise de facto authority to bind and lose in matters of the sacraments of matrimony and reconciliation; nor, perhaps even more obviously, has there been any ecumenical outreach towards the supposedly schismatic group.*

The SSPX then remain very much at the heart of the Church, and there of course they persist as a stumbling block for many - a constant and unrelenting source not just of misinformation and "fake news" about the Church, her head on earth, her ecclesiastical councils, her magisterium, and her very status in the world today. They continue to issue a steady stream of blasphemies not just against the Church and the Pope but also against the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass itself. By their actions they still deny papal supremacy and/or the indefectibility of the Church. They do not cease to resist the will of the Vicar of Christ. And of course they say Mass, preach and administer the sacraments illicitly. They are cut off from the life of the Church.

The question of course is Why? Why have they done this? Or, more to the point, why are they doing this? And the only and obvious answer is Power. They simply prefer to operate under their own assumed authority than that of the Roman Pontiff. For them, authority does not come from the Pope. It comes from elsewhere. Where exactly that source is authority is is of course not clear, but there's a clear sense that it comes if not from the "consent of the governed" (i.e. literally the "audience capture" that has led to the inevitable and seemingly infinite number of "splits" in Protestantism), but at least from closer to home than "Rome".

The model of authority the SSPX have, I can only assume, is Gallican. The proof of the pudding, even if it comes across as circumstantial evidence, can easily be found in modern French politics: the three claimants to the French throne are all "traditionalists" (legitimists, Orléanists, and even the Bonapartists!), and conversely the nationalists at Action Française are themselves monarchist (Orléanists, as it happens!). And finally, the overwhelming majority of the laity who support the SSPX will almost certainly vote for the National Rally at the next French elections.

Their solution to the problems in the Church then is to be found not in the Church but in the secular realm. Restore the monarchy and the King of France will be able to sort out the Church. And, failing that, we can sort out the Church - so long as people like us (i.e. not like them) are in charge!

It has to be said, for those of us who value a stronger Church and a stronger secular state, and perhaps even more importantly a correct relationship between the two institutions. this is hardly a positive outlook.

*I have also yet to see any evidence that the new Pope has rescinded the motu proprio authorisation that his predecessor gave to their priests to hear confessions. What one Pope can grant, another can take away. Has he, though?

A British Army chaplain gives the last rites to a dying German soldier during the Battle of the Somme.

The Norwegian King's Crown. Photo: Lasse Berre

[H/T: The King's Crown - The Royal House of Norway]

God's Plan

The Ultimate Ideology?

The standard explanation for "purity spirals" is a lack of limits. You can't stop because there's no obvious point at which you should stop. Once you start decapitating aristocrats or denouncing imaginary communists in the American Establishment, how will you know when you've done it enough?

Another factor though surely is the superficiality of Utopian political ideologies. You have to keep going until your dictatorship of the proletariat or Year Zero or whatever has been achieved. And if all you're doing at the moment is making things worse (apparently!) then it must be because you're not doing it properly. And thus the more simplistic the ideology the worse the purity spiral is likely to get - because if a simplistic ideology such as socialism isn't working it can only be because it isn't extreme enough.

Certainly purity spirals are an interesting psychological phenomenon though. They can be political or religious, and whereas they should always be a sign that one's fundamental assumptions are flawed, we all get into them from time to time. Keep doing the same old thing and it will come right in the end. You're just not trying hard enough. And thus indeed adherents of fringe ideologies also tend to fall victim to the sunk costs fallacy. Having invested so much in a cause politically and emotionally, they have to keep going, and to keep going they have to become ever more extreme.

Where does that leave actual politics? There's a sense in which all ideologies are simply pseudo-scientific models of human behaviour, and like all "scientific" theories they are doomed to fail just as man's understanding of the universe must always fail because it is limited. Seen from this perspective then, it is not surprising that when political parties lose elections they tend to become more "extreme" - "doubling down on stupid", as the saying goes. ("If the people didn't like privatisation, or they didn't like tax hikes, or whatever, it can only be because we didn't do it properly - in other words, we should have done it even more.")

The problem of course is that the idea that elections are always won from the moderate centre ground is something of a historical conjuring trick. In reality, British politics have been moving inexorably leftwards ever since the early 1990s. Indeed, the most right-wing Prime Minister of my adult life was and remains one Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, KG. The same magical thinking that leads to purity spirals has led us as a country to impoverish ourselves by spending too much money, and not a single political party with any chance of power at the next election has any plans to reverse gear or even change course.

In practice, unfortunately, we all often end up doing the same old thing - looking for what was lost in the same place over and over again, in the utterly irrational hope that it will just turn up - because in reality we simply have no alternative.

Real life is, it turns out, the ultimate ideology.