The Church is Awake Thanks to the SSPX. So What's Next?

"The current situation regarding the episcopal consecrations in the Priestly Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has suddenly awakened the entire Church."  [Source]                                                         Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Being awake is a good thing as St. Peter reminds us:  

"Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour." [1 Peter 5:8]

In the Old Testament God told Gideon to dismiss any soldiers who knelt and drank directly from the stream. Those who stayed alert, awake so to speak to any advancing enemy by using their hands to bring water to their mouths, became the conquering army. [Judges 7] 

Revelation has a particularly apt point:

"Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God." [Revelation 3:2]

Without Archbishop Lefebvre and his consecrations, the Traditional Latin Mass and all the traditional sacraments and rites would likely be on the ash heap of history. Even now, the modernists continue to try to euthanize Sacred Tradition to the "point of death." But God has chosen not to allow it. And so the Mass of the Ages continues and the fruits of the SSPX speak for themselves. The Society attracts many young men to the priesthood and young families to the Sacraments. Many Novus Ordo churches are populated by the old. What families attend often have few children. Go to an SSPX chapel and you find many large families. The baby noises are like the twitter of birds on a tropical island.

Bishop Schneider's advice to Pope Leo to "build a bridge" echoes Rome's pastoral language used for everybody except the SSPX. Material heretics and pagans are coddled to the point of letting them pray to demons at ecumenical meetings like Assisi and put the Pachamama demon on the altar at St. Peter's. But those who embrace Sacred Tradition are treated like schismatics and outcasts, a truly deplorable situation. 

Bishop Schneider doesn't mince words in identifying the problem:

In this debate, new quasi-dogmas are being established that do not exist in the Depositum fidei. These quasi-dogmas maintain that the Pope’s consent to a bishop’s consecration is of divine right, and that a consecration carried out without this consent, or even against a papal prohibition, constitutes in itself a schismatic act. However, the Church’s practice and understanding during the time of the Church Fathers, and for a long period thereafter, argue against this view. Furthermore, there is no unanimous opinion on this matter among the recognized theologians of the Church’s two-thousand-year tradition. Centuries of ecclesial practice, as well as traditional canon law, also stand in opposition to such absolutizing assertions. According to the 1917 Code of Canon Law, an episcopal consecration carried out against the will of the Pope was punished not with excommunication, but only with suspension. By this, the Church clearly manifested that she did not consider such an act to be schismatic.... 

...a reductive view that equates disobedience to a papal command with schism—even in the case of a bishop’s consecration performed against his will—was foreign to the Church Fathers and to traditional canon law...In the first millennium of the Church’s life, episcopal consecrations were generally performed without formal papal permission, and candidates were not required to be approved by the Pope. 

The bishop also points out an incredible irony from the recent ecumenical service during the week of Prayer for Christian Unity when Pope Leo told Protestant communions that "We are already one." How can he then tell the SSPX they are out of the fold? The situation is already tragic, but if the Vatican continues on the current track it will be worse:

It would be a tragedy if the SSPX were completely cut off, and the responsibility for such a division would rest primarily with the Holy See. The Holy See should bring the SSPX in, offering at least a minimum degree of Church integration, and then continue the doctrinal dialogue. The Holy See has shown remarkable generosity toward the Communist Party of China, allowing them to select candidates for bishops—yet her own children, the thousands upon thousands of faithful of the SSPX, are treated as second-class citizens.

Bishop Schneider ends his letter with a direct plea to Pope Leo. Let us pray the Vatican pays attention and responds favorably: 

Most Holy Father, grant the Apostolic Mandate for the episcopal consecrations of the SSPX. You are also the father of your numerous sons and daughters—two generations of the faithful who have, for now, been cared for by the SSPX, who love the Pope, and who wish to be true sons and daughters of the Roman Church. Therefore, stand aside from the partisanship of others and, with a great paternal and truly Augustinian spirit, demonstrate that you are building bridges, as you promised to do before the whole world when you gave your first blessing after your election. 

May God send prophetic dreams to Pope Leo like he did to Pope Innocent III who saw St. Francis in a dream wearing the simple clothes of a beggar coming to request approval of his religious order. And may we all pray for the Vatican to recognize that the Society is an important ally in renewing the Church which has fallen into such disrepair like the Church of San Damiano. The crisis in the Church needs the soldiers in the SSPX who are wide awake and eager to fight for the faith. May Pope Leo have the wisdom and charity to hear Bishop Schneider's plea. Let us pray for that truly godly outcome.