One of the key factors in the entire debate surrounding the episcopal consecrations performed by the Society of Saint Pius X is the state of necessity which the Society invokes. It has been the cause of great controversy, as theologians, canonists and clerics both for and against the Society argue over whether a state of necessity exists, what it might be and who can determine that one exists.
This is no small matter. It underlies the entire rationale for the consecrations which took place on July 1 against the request of the Holy See.
Announcing the consecrations in February, SSPX Superior General Fr Davide Pagliarani stated that he judged “that the objective state of grave necessity in which souls find themselves requires such a decision”.
Expanding on this, Pagliarani made the striking argument that “it is a fact that, in an ordinary parish, the faithful no longer find the means necessary to ensure their eternal salvation”.
“Missing, in particular,” he said, “are both the integral preaching of Catholic truth and morality, and the worthy administration of the sacraments as the Church has always done. This deprivation is what constitutes the state of necessity.”
This statement by Pagliarani heaped more wood upon the fire that was already burning. Many Catholics sympathetic to tradition hit back at the claim that the ordinary parish church did not offer the means “necessary to ensure their eternal salvation”. Bishop Bernard Fellay soon echoed Pagliarani, attesting that “they [the wider Church] are not able to fulfil what they are for – that is saving souls”.
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