If Rome wants the dialogue with the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X to be something more than a staging, there is a concrete, delimited, and fully enforceable point that must be put publicly on the table. It is not so much the recognition of the ecclesial crisis, which today is de facto assumed even by Roman instances. Nor is it the endless discussion about the hermeneutics of the Second Vatican Council, whose pastoral character and problematic reception no longer constitute an institutional taboo. The point that Rome must indeed demand from the FSSPX with total legitimacy is the correction of a grave pastoral error that they have been committing: in fact preventing the faithful from fulfilling the Sunday precept by attending a valid Mass promulgated by the Church, and doing so moreover in the name of defending tradition.
In the ordinary praxis of the FSSPX, a clear idea is transmitted in its consequences, although sometimes formulated implicitly: when the faithful has access to the traditional Mass, attendance at the Novus Ordo does not fulfill the Sunday precept, and when he does not have access, he is exempt from going to Mass. This is not a matter here of a liturgical preference or an ascetic exhortation. It is a matter of a moral qualification that places the faithful in an objective situation of grave sin for obeying the authority of the Church.
That is the core of the problem. The Sunday precept obliges under mortal sin. To say, explicitly or implicitly, that a valid Mass, celebrated according to a rite promulgated by the Roman Pontiff, is not sufficient to fulfill that mandate, is equivalent to breaking the moral certainty of the faithful. From that moment on, obeying the Church ceases to be a sufficient guarantee to remain in grace. The faithful is obliged to subject the ecclesiastical law to a prior judgment external to the hierarchy, and the pastoral authority loses its objective capacity to bind.
But the damage does not stop there. This position ends up weakening the Catholic doctrine on the objective efficacy of sacramental grace. The tradition of the Church has always been clear: the Mass acts ex opere operato. Its efficacy does not depend on the environment, nor on the spiritual climate, nor on the subjective correctness of those who attend. Grace is not fragile. What is fragile is man, and that is why he needs the sacraments. To introduce the idea that the context can neutralize grace to that extent is equivalent to inverting the traditional logic: the sacrament ceases to be a remedy and becomes a danger.
This approach has a historically understandable origin. In the seventies and eighties, when the liturgical landscape was objectively devastating and the traditional Mass seemed cornered, an instinctive pastoral of withdrawal could develop, marked by a reasonable fear of absolute disappearance. But that context is no longer the current one. Today there is an ecclesial fact impossible to deny: real biritualism. Hundreds of thousands of faithful have discovered the traditional Mass from the Novus Ordo. Not against it, but from it. They have arrived at tradition not from rupture, and they live normally in both rites.
This data is decisive and the Fraternity cannot continue to ignore it. The traditional Mass has an intrinsic force, which today no longer needs to be protected through moral prohibitions or through the disqualification of the ordinary rite. Where both rites coexist, the good imposes itself by itself. Experience demonstrates that tradition does not weaken; on the contrary, it expands, consolidates, and is transmitted with greater naturalness. Contact does not corrupt it.
Therefore, the gravest error is not doctrinal in the abstract, but pastoral in the concrete: explicitly preventing the faithful from attending a valid Mass to fulfill a grave commandment of the Church. That is the point that Rome must demand be corrected. It is not an ideological concession, but a minimum demand of theological coherence. As long as the idea is maintained that obeying the Church may not be sufficient to avoid mortal sin, the problem will not be disciplinary or canonical. It will be directly theological.
In this framework, the meeting between Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and Superior General Davide Pagliarini has a clear landing point. Rome can and must ask the Fraternity to suppress that specific pastoral position. Once that commitment is obtained, the rest enters a different terrain. The acceptance of bishops would not then be a doctrinal concession, but a prudential measure of sacramental continuity, especially in an objective context of emergency generated by Traditionis Custodes. That framework of exceptionalism exists and denying it would be naive.
But none of that can be justified while a pastoral approach is maintained that blocks the faithful’s access to grace in the name of its protection. Tradition does not need that fear. It probably never needed it. But today, less than ever.