Knoxville bishop: Attending SSPX Masses a ‘proximate occasion of schism’

Bishop Mark Beckman recently issued a memo to the faithful of the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee, warning them against attending Masses offered by the SSPX and becoming involved in the “unauthorized ministry” of Father David Mary Engo, a priest of the diocese who joined the SSPX this year despite the Vatican’s declared excommunication of its bishops in July.

Beckman falsely claimed in his memo that the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) has “declared that the sacred ministers belonging to the SSPX are in schism and are subject to the excommunication prescribed by canon 1364 § 1.

Even canon lawyer Father Gerald Murray, who does not support the SSPX consecrations, has pointed out that, according to the explanatory note issued by the DDF in July, the priests “have not been declared excommunicated in the decree. Therefore, they are not held by the Vatican to be excommunicated.”

Beckman also rashly suggested that those who have become “involved” with the SSPX have been excommunicated. “If you or someone you know has become involved with this group, the Church remains open to receiving all back into full communion,” the bishop wrote.

Murray has also observed that laypeople who attend SSPX Masses “haven’t been excommunicated.”

Beckman later admitted in his memo that attending SSPX Masses is not enough to render one schismatic. He did maintain, however, that “participation” in these Masses “can place a person in danger of formally adhering to schism.”

“While attendance alone does not establish that a person has incurred excommunication, by attending this chapel one is placed in a near occasion of schism and is considered to be gravely imprudent,” Beckman wrote.

“Formal adherence involves a free and conscious choice to place allegiance to the schismatic movement above obedience to the pope, together with an outward manifestation of that choice,” he continued. “Each person’s intentions, actions, knowledge, and circumstances must be assessed individually under the Church’s law.”

The contention of Beckman and the current DDF, led by the heterodox Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, is that the bishops involved in this year’s consecrations have incurred a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication because they were involved in episcopal consecrations unauthorized by the pope. 

The SSPX argues that obedience to the Pope is not required when his order contradicts divine law or endangers the Catholic faith and maintains that it acted out of a state of necessity constituted by mass doctrinal error and confusion. 

Canon 1323 states that “A person is not liable to any canonical penalty if they violated a law or precept because they acted under grave fear (even if only relative), or out of necessity or grave inconvenience, unless the act is intrinsically evil or tends to be harmful to souls.”

The consecrations were necessary for the salvation of souls, the SSPX argues, primarily because they guarantee that priests will teach the fullness of the Catholic faith by clearly rejecting the errors of the Second Vatican Council documents. The consecrations also guarantee that priests will be ordained who offer the Traditional Latin Mass as a matter of principle and cannot be wrongly pressured into saying the Novus Ordo instead.

Beckman, for his part, has almost snuffed out the Traditional Latin Mass in his diocese. Last year, Beckman limited the celebration of the TLM to one chapel at a retreat center once a month after previously announcing the suppression of all parish TLMs in the diocese. 

He also recently banned the recitation of the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel at the end of Masses.