The invocation of the “state of necessity” by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X is often presented as an ideological gesture. However, the category does not belong to the rhetorical realm, nor even exclusively to the moral and pastoral realm, but primarily to the technical-juridical one: Canon 1323, 4º of the Code of Canon Law excludes the penalty when someone acts driven by necessity to avoid a grave evil, provided that the act is not intrinsically illicit nor harms souls.
Classical canonical doctrine requires three cumulative conditions: grave danger to a spiritual good, current or morally certain character of that danger, and absence of ordinary effective means to avert it. Therefore, the issue is not whether one likes or dislikes the traditional rite, nor whether one shares the FSSPX’s position, but whether the current Vatican legal framework objectively guarantees the sacramental continuity of the rite that underpins it.
To answer, it is necessary to examine two elements: the recent model of administrative power exercise in the Curia and the new legal status of the traditional rite since 2021.
The institutional precedent: administrative interventions without criminal process
During Pope Francis’s pontificate, a pattern of intervention in institutes and associations through singular administrative decrees was consolidated. The instrument used was not the ordinary canonical criminal process—with formal accusation, contradictory evidence, and motivated sentence—but the executive power of the relevant dicastery.
The case of the Heralds of the Gospel is a particularly relevant example. The association, founded in Brazil and canonically recognized, was subjected to an apostolic visitation and subsequently to intervention by decision of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, then presided over by Cardinal João Braz de Aviz. Pontifical commissioners were appointed, the legitimate government was displaced, and the entity was restructured.
There was no public criminal sentence declaring proven specific crimes after a contradictory process. The measure was adopted in the administrative seat. Formally valid, yes; but with a very reduced guarantee standard. The integral replacement of the government was not the consequence of a judicial conviction, but of an executive act.
A similar precedent occurred with the Franciscans of the Immaculate in 2013. There too the intervention was administrative and, moreover, included the restriction of the use of the traditional rite within the institute by decree, not by sentence.
From the perspective of canon law, the problem is not the existence of power, but its practical configuration. When decisions of enormous impact—suppression of governments, blocking of ordinations, liturgical limitation—can be adopted through administrative acts with appeals that lack automatic suspensive effect, legal stability is weakened.
That context is juridically relevant. If the vocational and sacramental continuity of a community ultimately depends on the discretion of a dicastery, the risk of interruption is not imaginary.
July 16, 2021: the normative mutation of the traditional rite
The second element is strictly normative and has a specific date: July 16, 2021. On that day, Pope Francis promulgated the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes.
Until then, under the regime of Summorum Pontificum (2007), the use of the 1962 Missal was configured as a faculty recognized in general terms. With the new norm, that logic changed radically.
Article 4 of Traditionis Custodes establishes that priests ordained after July 16, 2021, must request authorization from the bishop to celebrate according to the traditional rite, and that the bishop must consult the Apostolic See before granting it. The Responsa ad dubia of December 18, 2021, reinforced this centralization.
In practice, no priest ordained after that date can celebrate the traditional Mass without specific authorization dependent on Rome, under the competence of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, presided over by Cardinal Arthur Roche.
The juridical difference is substantial. A shift has occurred from a general faculty to a system of singular concession. There is no stable subjective right; there is a conditional authorization and, therefore, potentially revocable.
Cardinal Roche himself has stated in public interviews that the objective of the reform is for the reformed rite to be the only expression of the Roman rite in ordinary practice. That orientation is not juridically neutral when the system depends on discretionary authorizations.
The combination of factors: discretion and progressive reduction
If the recent administrative model and the new normative regime are analyzed together, a clear structure emerges.
On one hand, there is a precedent of intense administrative interventions without prior criminal process, with limited appeals and without automatic suspensive effect. On the other, the post-2021 liturgical regime conditions the celebration of the traditional rite by new priests to a singular authorization dependent on Rome.
The prospective effect is evident: if authorizations are granted restrictively or exceptionally, the number of celebrants will progressively decrease due to generational exhaustion. A formal prohibition is not necessary. It is enough not to authorize new celebrations.
From a juridical technique, this configures a structural risk for the sacramental continuity of the traditional rite.
Does the state of necessity concur?
The response requires applying the three classical criteria.
Is there grave danger? If the system allows that, in one generation, the traditional rite is left without authorized ministers in wide areas, the danger can be qualified as grave.
Is it current or morally certain? The normative datum is objective: since July 16, 2021, every new ordination is subject to specific authorization to celebrate according to the 1962 Missal. It is not a remote hypothesis; it is a current juridical structure.
Are there ordinary effective means? The system does not recognize a stable subjective right nor provide for an appeal with automatic suspensive effect that guarantees continuity while a conflict is resolved. The recent experience of administrative interventions reinforces the perception of precariousness and arbitrariness in methods of asphyxiation through the blocking of ordinations.
Without the precedent of interventions like that of the Heralds of the Gospel and without the restrictive design applied after Traditionis Custodes, the appeal to the state of necessity would be considerably weaker. With this juridical framework, the debate shifts from the ideological terrain to the technical one.
The final question is not whether one approves or not of the FSSPX’s strategy. The question is whether the current legal order objectively protects the sacramental continuity of the traditional rite or whether it has placed it in a regime of administrative dependence without guarantees of survival. If the second is proven, the invocation of the state of necessity ceases to be a slogan and becomes a juridically articulated thesis.
The objection of unity and the real dimension of the phenomenon
It is evident that any fracture of the visible unity of the Church has a disgregating effect. Unity is an essential juridical and theological good, and its alteration is never neutral. However, the analysis cannot stop at an abstract affirmation. To rigorously assess the eventual concurrence of a state of necessity, it is essential to attend to the real dimension of the affected situation and the number of faithful involved, because canon law does not operate in a vacuum, but on concrete realities.
The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X is not a marginal phenomenon nor an irrelevant aggregation of isolated individuals. It has more than 700 priests, more than 200 seminarians in formation, more than a hundred priories, and more than 700 Mass centers distributed in more than 60 countries. To this are added female religious communities, coadjutor brothers, and a significant network of schools and apostolic works. This structure sustains the regular sacramental life of hundreds of thousands of faithful worldwide.
From a juridical perspective, this magnitude is determinant. It is not a matter of evaluating the conduct of a small group without pastoral incidence, but the situation of a reality that provides sacraments in a stable manner to a considerable mass of Catholics. If the current normative framework generates an objective risk for sacramental continuity in that sphere, the problem ceases to be anecdotal and acquires structural relevance. In that context, the argument of the state of necessity cannot be dismissed as the justification of a residual group, but must be examined in light of the spiritual good effectively at stake.