Vatican explains steps for SSPX priests, laity to return

Following the schismatic act of July 1, when four bishops were ordained without a papal mandate, the Dicastery published an explanatory note on July 2. The document was sent to bishops throughout the world.

It stated that a priest who has decided to leave the Priestly Fraternity of St Pius X, and who is willing to accept the Second Vatican Council and the legitimacy of the Novus Ordo Missae, while remaining attached to the ancient rite, must “find an Ordinary – a diocesan bishop, a major superior of clerical religious institutes of pontifical right or of clerical societies of apostolic life of pontifical right, etc – willing to receive him ad experimentum”.

The priest must then “write by hand a letter to the Holy Father in which he presents himself and asks for the remission of the censures incurred because of the ordination he received from an excommunicated or irregular Bishop, or because, having been validly and legitimately ordained, he subsequently became a member of the Priestly Fraternity of St Pius X”.

The priest must also attach his certificate of priestly ordination and enclose, signed and dated, “the Professio fidei and the Formula adhaesionis.”

Once the approval of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has been given, an authorisation is given to the Ordinary to receive the priest making the request “for a probationary period of at least one year and no more than three, at the end of which his incardination may proceed”.

There is also a procedure for lay faithful who have “formally adhered to, or who attend, the Priestly Fraternity of St Pius X and who ask to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church”.

The Dicastery noted that the imposition of a penalty on lay people belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of St Pius X, in fact, “cannot be presumed automatically, but must be assessed case by case”.

The document specifies that the following “are not to be considered imputable: lay people who have attended the Priestly Fraternity of St Pius X only for liturgical or spiritual reasons; lay people who, while aware of the tensions with the Holy See, do not reject the Magisterium or the authority of the Roman Pontiff”.

FULL STORY

Lefebvrite priests and lay faithful: Procedure to return to Catholic communion (Vatican News)

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