The Fatal Problem with the SSPX “State of Necessity” Argument [Unabridged]

An ecclesiological analysis

Photo by National Historical Museum of Sweden (NHM) on Unsplash

Introduction

The rift between the Society of St. Pius X and Rome has led to a renewed flurry of argumentation over the SSPX and their legitimacy or lack thereof. Opponents of the Society’s episcopal consecrations point to the canonical and theological tradition forbidding the consecration of bishops against the will of the pope. The Society and its supporters, on the other hand, invoking epikeia, argue that these prohibitions don’t apply in the current situation given the gravity of the crisis in the Church.

Indeed, the Society’s appeal to the state of necessity–i.e., that the Church’s condition today is so bad that the salvation of souls and maintenance of Catholic doctrine necessitates the ongoing ministry of the SSPX–seems to be the crux of the issue. Fr. Gleize, SSPX, recently made precisely this point:

“This ‘fundamental argument’ rests on the reality of the state of necessity, a reality significantly worsened since the summer of 1988, which once again demands the consecration of new, fully Catholic bishops for the salvation of souls. . .it is this state of necessity alone that justifies the initiative for consecrations. And it justifies it because the supreme law in the Church is indeed the salvation of souls, against which no provision of Church law can prevail.”

Essentially, the argument goes, matters of ecclesiastical law, however grave, can never prohibit acts that are necessary for the salvation of souls. Given the crisis in the Church, the acts of the SSPX are precisely acts of this nature. Therefore, no ecclesiastical law can be invoked against the SSPX ministry or the SSPX’s need to continue that ministry through consecrating new bishops. The argument is logical enough if one accepts the premises.

However, there are good reasons to seriously question this “state of necessity” argument, both in its premises and conclusion.

The essential problem with the argument is this: it implies the Catholic Church has become so corrupt that it has failed in its ordinary mission and only an extraordinary mission of the SSPX can save the Church. But this is contrary to Catholic dogma (not merely canon law) for it denies the indefectibility of the Church–much as the Protestants and Old Catholics did, as we will see.

The Heart of Ecclesiology and Apostolicity: What is Mission?

In order to understand what follows, some preliminary points and definitions are in order.

First, by functioning as ministers of Christ, the SSPX makes a claim to some sort of authorization or mission to teach, govern, and sanctify in Christ’s name. If the SSPX presents its bishops and priests as individuals to whom the faithful should go for Catholic teaching, governance, and sacraments, then it is, de facto, laying claim to the mission Christ entrusted to His Church in the persons of the Apostles: “As the Father hath sent me, I also send you” (John 20:21); “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matt. 28:19-21).

Now, this mission to minister in Christ’s name has to come from somewhere. There are only two possible sources. Either one receives the mission from someone else who has it– i.e., the successors of the Apostles–or one receives it directly from Christ. Those two forms are called “ordinary” and “extraordinary,” respectively.

The Church’s ordinary mission originates in Christ but is handed on through lawful appointment within the Church’s juridical structure. “Ordinary” or “canonical” mission means precisely to be “sent” (missio) or appointed to teach, govern, and sanctify a portion of the flock by one in the Church who already has the authority over the flock–namely, the pope. One receives ordinary jurisdiction by means of this “sending” (canonical mission).

An extraordinary mission, on the other hand, would be a sending directly from Christ Himself, without the intermediary of existing ecclesiastical authority. Specifically, to present oneself as a minister of Christ knowing one has not been sent by ecclesiastical authority is to lay claim to a sending directly from Christ Himself.

The SSPX explicitly admits that it does not possess an ordinary mission.¹ Indeed, it would be absurd to claim this ordinary mission since, as a matter of public record, they have never been appointed to an office in the Church by lawful ecclesial authority.² Therefore, the mission the SSPX claims must be an extraordinary one.

In fact, the Society holds that, in our day, certain priests and bishops must take upon themselves Catholic ministry (up to and including episcopal consecration) without having received a share in the ordinary mission of the Church because the ministers who do possess the Church’s ordinary mission are unfit to carry it out.

But this is an impossible position to hold.

Why? Because the Church teaches that her ordinary mission cannot fail. This is not a matter of semantics or canon law technicalities; it touches on the very essence of what the Church is and what indefectibility means. A Handbook of Fundamental Theology Volume III by Rev. John Brunsmann (1931) states, “The Church of Christ will continue to the end of time, unchanged in all her essential elements, one of which is the ordinary and legitimate Apostolic succession of her teachers and rulers. For the same reason she will never at any time lack the missio ordinaria and apostolica [ordinary and apostolic mission].”

The Nature of the Ordinary Mission

An integral part of this ordinary mission is ordinary jurisdiction, which is bestowed by canonical appointment to an office in the Church (such as the office of bishop over a specific diocese). In his 1957 work Christ’s Church, Msgr. Van Noort writes,

“What is required for genuine apostolic succession is that a man enjoy the complete powers (i.e., ordinary powers,³ not extraordinary) of an apostle. He must, then, in addition to the power of orders, possess also the power of jurisdiction. Jurisdiction means the power to teach and govern. – This power is conferred only by a legitimate authorization.⁴ How could a man belong to the college of the successors of the apostles unless he were united to the head of the college and acknowledged by him as belonging to it? . . .On no one but the apostolic college, under the headship of Peter, did Christ confer the power of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling the faithful until the end of the world. . .This triple power, therefore, necessarily belongs, and can only belong, to those who form one moral person with the apostles: their legitimate successors.”

The ordinary mission, then, is inherited from the apostles by the college of bishops in full communion with the pope, and that ordinary mission will not fail or expire, because of Christ’s guarantee.

The perpetual endurance of the threefold mission of teaching, governing, and sanctifying–the ordinary powers of an Apostle–lies at the heart of the doctrine of indefectibility. Because the Church is indefectible, her legitimate bishops will always possess this threefold power, and they will not fail in exercising it. Rev. Ludwig Ott writes in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, “The perpetuation of the hierarchical powers follows necessarily on the indefectibility of the Church desired by Christ. . .The promise of His aid given to the Apostles ‘even to the consummation of the world’ (Mt. 28, 20) presupposes that the apostolic office is perpetuated in the successors of the Apostles. The Apostles, following the will of Christ, handed over their powers to others.”

Van Noort says similarly, “It was Christ’s will that the apostolic college should continue forever, in such a way that there would always be in the Church a body of men invested with the threefold power which the apostles enjoyed. This thesis is a dogma of faith.”

The college of bishops united to the pope will always retain this office of teaching, governing, and sanctifying, and will exercise it efficaciously. Van Noort explains that “Any society can fail in either of two ways: it can simply cease to be, or it can become unfit for the carrying out of its avowed aim through a substantial corruption. The Church cannot fail in either way. . .the visible Church will endure until the end of the world, and . . .keep Christ’s religion incorrupt.”

This promise of indefectibility includes the certainty that the college of bishops will not fail in their collective teaching office (a power that is contained in ordinary jurisdiction, as we’ve seen) by corrupting doctrine. “The indefectibility of the Teaching Body is at the same time a condition and a consequence of the Indefectibility of the Church,” explain Joseph Wilhelm and Thomas Scanell in A Manual of Catholic Theology, Volume 1.

To recap, we have established: (1) the Church will always preserve the original apostolic mission of teaching, governing, and sanctifying given her by Christ and perpetuated by the lawful transfer of power within the Church (the “ordinary mission”); (2) that ordinary mission necessarily includes the presence of ordinary jurisdiction (the power teach and govern, granted by ecclesial authority); (3) ordinary jurisdiction is transmitted to bishops in a visible manner by the pope and only the pope; (4) the Church, consisting of the college of bishops with this ordinary mission and jurisdiction, under the pope, cannot fail through “ceasing to be” or through “a substantial corruption.” These are all well-established points in Catholic ecclesiology.

Extraordinary Missions Are Never “Necessary”

With those principles in mind, we can begin to understand why no state of necessity can ever exist that would require Catholics to act outside of, or contrary to, the ordinary mission and jurisdiction of the Church, on the basis of an alleged “extraordinary mission.” The Church’s ordinary mission and the preservation of the faith are not separable; they are inextricably linked and both guaranteed by indefectibility.

A number of authorities confirm this. Brunsmann notes that because the Church will always preserve her ordinary mission “there is no room for an extraordinary mission.” He continues:

“The 16th century Reformers deemed it possible that the Church of Christ could err so profoundly in matters of faith and morals that no suitable rulers could be set up by ordinary human means, and those still in office could no longer be employed with advantage for the salvation of souls. In that case, they held, God would send men with an extraordinary mission to reform His Church.”⁵

This logic sounds worryingly similar to the “state of necessity” argument put forward by the SSPX. Brunsmann rejects it:

“We hold that such an extraordinary mission is incompatible with the nature and organization of the Church. She can never be without the Apostolic succession, which is based upon the ordinary and Apostolic mission and invariably accompanied by the gift of infallibility and the efficacious assistance of Christ, and therefore the teaching of the Church cannot possibly be distorted to such an extent that its purification would necessitate an extraordinary mission.”

Cardinal Camillo Mazzella (prefect of the Congregations of the Index, of Studies, and of Rites under Pope Leo XIII) similarly discounts the idea that an extraordinary mission could ever be necessary to supply for the failure of the ordinary mission. In De Religio et Ecclesia, he writes,

“The most characteristic error in this matter is extraordinary mission, which they have crafted in order to cover up the lack of apostolicity of mission and of origin in their sects. For when, they say, the state of the Church is such that either nobody can be appointed by an ordinary vocation to carry out the ecclesiastical functions; or that those who are appointed, are so corrupt in faith and morals that their amendment cannot be hoped for; when an ordinary vocation of better men from elsewhere is impossible; then, they say, nothing forbids those who have no ordinary vocation to take up apostolic functions by an extraordinary vocation. . .[But] the hypothesis of an extraordinary mission must be rejected. . .the ordinary and mediate apostolic mission shall endure until the mystical body of Christ is fully built; thus there can never be pastors and doctors who, by an extraordinary mission, would make up for the failure of those who came first.”⁶

Van Noort echoes Brunsmann and Mazzella, explaining that Christ’s promises preclude the need for an unauthorized extraordinary mission:

“[Protestants] maintained that God could at some time raise up a group of men by an extraordinary vocation and confer on them apostolic functions if current apostolic pastors should become viciously corrupt. . .however. . . Christ’s own promises completely rule out the possibility of any such extraordinary mission. . .Christ conferred sacred powers on His apostles and their successors until the end of the world. Further, He promised them His perpetual and unfailing assistance (Matt. 28:17-20). Consequently Christ would be contradicting Himself were He ever to deprive the legitimate successors of the apostles of their authority. Granted that fact, it would be a further contradiction for God to confer the same power or a similar power on other men who were not in union with the ordinary successors.”⁷

Finally, the Council of Trent goes so far as to place an anathema on the proposition that a bishop who has not received ordinary mission could be a legitimate Catholic minister (Canon 7 of 23rd Session).

To take up ministry without having been called to it by legitimate authority is to act without a share in the ordinary mission of the Church. It amounts to setting up a new mission, a new ministry, a new instantiation of Christ’s salvific work, apart from the one handed on within the Church’s line of lawful succession. The men who engage in such activity make an audacious claim: Christ’s salvific work has been transferred from the Apostolic hierarchy, where it resided for centuries, to a new place: namely, our ministry. This is precisely what is at stake in an unauthorized episcopal consecration, which is why it’s not just a negligible infraction of canonical minutia. It cuts to the very heart of ecclesiology.

A brief look at the Anglican schism helps make this clearer. In his 1917 work A Systematic Study of The Catholic Religion, Rev. Charles Coppens explains that when the Archbishop of Canterbury “ceased to derive his jurisdiction from Rome” his “mission was broken.” Thus, “Whatever mission he has now, he derives from the secular power, and this is the only mission, if any, which he can transmit to others.” Because the Anglican “mission” was not bestowed by Rome, it is a new or extraordinary mission, not the original mission of the Apostles.

Fr. Sylvester Berry in his classic book Christ’s Church, says much the same: “[the Anglican church’s] whole line is derived from an intruder, who obtained his position contrary to the canons of the Church and, therefore, did not receive the jurisdiction or authority belonging to the office. A usurper may found a new dynasty; he cannot continue the old.”⁸

Because of the Church’s single mission, unity, and indefectibility, it can never be necessary to found a “new dynasty” or “new mission” such as the Anglicans attempted to erect. Any attempt to do so breaks the continuity of mission going back to Christ, undercuts Apostolicity, and challenges the very identity of the Church, which is why unauthorized episcopal consecrations are such a grave matter.

We read in the United States Catholic Magazine December 1844 issue on Apostolicity, “But there is another condition [besides ordination] absolutely required in order to be linked with the ministry of the apostles, viz: a lawful mission, or authoritative faculty given by one to whom this right belongs, of preaching, administering the sacraments, and performing the other sacred functions conducive to the sanctification and salvation of souls.”

The article goes on to address the fallacious appeal to “necessity” to justify a new or extraordinary mission:

“Necessity of setting up a new ministry! But where is it written in the authentic records of divine revelation, that necessity can found a divine mission? We read in the Scripture: ‘Neither doth any man take the honor to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was.’ (Hebr. v.) Where do we read ‘neither doth any man take the honor to himself, but he that is called to it by necessity?’ We learn also from St. Paul that no one can preach, unless he be sent.’ (Rom. x.) But where is it said, ‘except in the case of necessity?’ . . .God alone has the right to appoint his ministers, his ambassadors, the preachers of his word, the dispensers of his mysteries. If any necessity arose for deviating from his laws, he alone could provide for the emergency. If the ministry originally instituted had fallen and become invalid at the time of the reformation, no one but Christ in person could have restored it, or set up a new one in its place. . .there never was and never will be, we do not say any necessity, but even the slightest pretence whatever. . .to raise a new ministry against [the Church’s existing one].”

The Popes Refute the “State of Necessity” Argument

These principles help us understand why Pius XII addressed and rejected the state of necessity argument when he condemned episcopal consecrations that had occurred in China without papal approval. Those who had engaged in the illicit episcopal consecrations appealed to necessity, much like the SSPX, saying that the dioceses in question needed bishops for the sake of the good of souls living there. But Pius was not convinced. In his encyclical Ad Apostolorum Principis he wrote, “What then is to be the opinion concerning the excuse added by members of the association. . .that they had to act as they alleged because of the need to tend to the souls in those dioceses which were then without a bishop? It is obvious that no thought is being taken of the spiritual good of the faithful if the Church’s laws are being violated and further, there is no question of vacant sees, as they wish to argue.” (My emphasis.)

According to Pius XII, then, the “need” to provide bishops to “tend to souls” is not a legitimate excuse for consecrating against the will of the pope, especially when papally-appointed bishops are available. For him, violation of Church law on such an important point cannot possibly conduce to the salvation of souls.

Why is this? One reason is that the hierarchical laws of the Church–by which bishops receive jurisdiction and take office through the pope–are essential to her nature, and therefore can never become a danger to the faith itself. Christ constituted His Church in a perfect manner, such that the jurisdictional primacy of Peter will never become an obstacle to the Church’s survival and the fulfillment of her mission. Yet this is what the SSPX’s position implies when it asserts that it must prescind from Peter’s primacy in order to save the Church, out of an alleged “state of necessity.” Such a position destroys the inner logic of the Church’s divine constitution, where Peter’s primacy–despite the shortcomings of the men who hold it–is precisely the guarantor of the Church’s survival and indefectibility through the ages⁹–not, as the Society would have it, a threat to it.

Bl. Pope Pius IX considered it a blasphemous thought and a denial of the indefectibility of the Church to hold that a bishop might need to be consecrated against the pope’s will because the Church had become irretrievably corrupt. In Etsi Multa, he vehemently rejected the Old Catholics’ claim that they needed to “restore” the episcopacy through their own illicitly appointed bishop on the grounds that the rest of the Church was in error. He wrote,

“These [Old Catholic] writings attack and pervert the true power of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff and the bishops, who are the successors of blessed Peter and the apostles; they transfer it instead to the people, or, as they say, to the community. They obstinately reject and oppose the infallible magisterium both of the Roman Pontiff and of the whole Church in teaching matters. Incredibly, they boldly affirm that the Roman Pontiff and all the bishops, the priests and the people conjoined with him in the unity of faith and communion fell into heresy when they approved and professed the definitions of the Ecumenical Vatican Council. Therefore they deny also the indefectibility of the Church and blasphemously declare that it has perished throughout the world and that its visible Head and the bishops have erred. They assert the necessity of restoring a legitimate episcopacy in the person of their pseudo-bishop, who has entered not by the gate but from elsewhere like a thief or robber and calls the damnation of Christ upon his head.”¹⁰

So Pius XII rejects the idea that the good of souls could necessitate illicit episcopal consecrations, and Pius IX rejects the notion that the Church could fall into such universal error that a bishop would need to be illicitly appointed in order to save true doctrine (twin pillars of the SSPX “necessity” argument). This is because both popes understood that the Church, founded with divine foresight, contains in her hierarchical constitution and original mission everything she could ever need, even in times of crisis.

In light of this, we can understand why the Pontifical Commission for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts said of the 1988 episcopal consecrations, “There is never a necessity to ordain Bishops contrary to the will of the Roman Pontiff, Head of the College of Bishops. This would, in fact, imply the possibility of ‘serving’ the church by means of an attempt against its unity.”

Conclusion

In conclusion, the state of necessity argument betrays an implicit rejection of the Church’s indefectibility and a misunderstanding of the indispensability of ordinary mission, jurisdiction, and papal primacy. It also sounds worryingly similar to the justifications used by Protestant and Old Catholic “reformers” when they sought to appoint pastors and exercise ministry without Rome’s authorization.¹¹

It may require the eyes of faith to see it, but the solution to any crisis will always be found within that body of pastors who have received ordinary jurisdiction and mission from the pope. We have Christ’s word for it.

None of this erases the problems of the Church today, of course. But in confronting them, we need, first and foremost, supernatural faith in Christ’s promise to the Church that her ordinary mission will not fail. Our confidence is not in the qualities of the particular set of men who have received that ordinary mission, but rather in the assurances of divine providence.

I cannot but agree with what Archbishop Lefebvre wrote in his Open Letter to Confused Catholics in 1985:

“It has also been said that after me, my work will disappear because there will be no bishop to replace me. I am certain of the contrary; I have no worries on that account. I may die tomorrow, but the good Lord answers all problems. Enough bishops will be found in the world to ordain our seminarians. . .If my work is of God, He will guard it and use it for the good of the Church. Our Lord has promised us, the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her.”

It is, in my view, tragic that Lefebvre abandoned this position just three years later.

To be clear, I write all this as someone sympathetic to the SSPX and their concerns and profoundly grieved at the break between them and Rome. The Society has many valid critiques of the state of the Church, and it counts many well-meaning and even heroic individuals among its adherents. The Society has many valuable gifts to offer Holy Mother Church to help in her renewal. But that renewal can only occur from within the Church. There can be no mission as a Catholic bishop or priest independent of the single, ordinary mission entrusted to the hierarchy and guaranteed by Christ.

I earnestly pray for healing and reconciliation between the SSPX and Rome, which would greatly benefit both parties.

1. Bishop Fellay, SSPX: “We have always maintained that we did not receive any ordinary mission, any canonical mission from the Church”; Fr. Loop, SSPX: the SSPX does not have “a normal canonical mission.”

2. Pope Benedict XVI: “As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church.” The recent excommunications make this even more abundantly clear.

3. “It is called ordinary inasmuch as it is opposed to both extraordinary and delegated power. Ordinary power, according as it is opposed to the extraordinary, is the power which, not only by exception in certain cases or circumstances, but continually in all cases and circumstances can always be exercised. According as it is opposed to delegated power, ordinary power is that which either by institution or by law is annexed to an office established to last perpetually, and therefore it belongs to some person by reason of the office; while on the contrary delegated power is that which has been communicated to a person is exercised by the right or in the name of someone else . . . It is defined further that Bishops are successors of the Apostles by divine institution in their ordinary power of jurisdiction. . .For, the hierarchy, instituted in the Apostles, by the will of Christ or by divine right is perennial. Therefore they always existed who, by divine right, fully succeeded the Apostles in their ordinary office.” (Joachim Salaverri, Sacrae Theologiae Summa IB (On the Church of Christ), translated by Kenneth Baker S.J. (Keep the Faith, 2015), 175-176, 132-33.)

4. Supplied jurisdiction is not sufficient to give someone the complete ordinary powers of an Apostle. Extraordinary or supplied jurisdiction does not give one a share in the Apostles’ ordinary powers of governing precisely because that jurisdiction is, by definition, not habitual/ordinary. See footnote #3. Also: “First of all, the suppletory principle does not render an incompetent agent habitually competent. Thus, for instance, an invalidly elected bishop will never be the true bishop unless and until he is elected in the proper manner or has the matter sanated by the Holy See. . .he does not possess the jurisdiction one moment before nor a single moment after the performance of the action.” (Francis Miaskiewicz, “Supplied Jurisdiction according to Canon 209: An Historical Synopsis and Commentary,” Canon Law Studies 122, 1940). Currently, then, the SSPX bishops do not enjoy the fulness of this threefold apostolic mission since they do not habitually possess all the ordinary powers of a successor of the apostles (including those contained in ordinary jurisdiction), even if we assume they possess supplied jurisdiction (a disputed question in itself).

5. For instance, the words of Calvin to the king of Poland: “Since by the Pope’s tyranny the succession has been interrupted, the church could not be re-established without a new ministry–So that the commission our Saviour gave us to assemble the churches was wholly extraordinary. And since the supporters of true piety appeared suddenly in an extraordinary manner, their vocation is not to be examined by the common rules, but they were raised immediately by God, to the end that having established the churches, they should ordain other pastors to succeed them.”
Beza justified Protestant ministers similarly by saying they depended “upon an extraordinary vocation because the ordinary mission was in reality extinguished in the Roman church, in which there was nothing but a horrible disorder and confusion.”
The 31st article of the profession of faith of the Huguenots states that no one should by his own authority take on government of the Church except in a case of necessity: “it has been necessary sometimes, and even in our days (in which the state of the church was interrupted) that God should raise persons in an extraordinary manner to re-establish the church, fallen into ruin and desolation.”

Compare these quotations with the words of Fr. Gleize in the article cited above, or with the indictment of the whole Church contained in the SSPX’s fake “mandate” read at the consecrations, or with the words of Fr. Pagliariani, Superior General of the SSPX, when he says, “In an ordinary parish, the faithful no longer find the means necessary to ensure their eternal salvation. . .This deprivation is what constitutes the state of necessity.” The similarity is undeniable.

6. Even more quotations of this kind could readily be provided. Let just one more suffice: “The doctrine of the Catholic Church is, that God will never create an extraordinary authority to clash with the ordinary tribunal he established, when he sent his Apostles to teach all nations, promising that he would be with them all days to the end of the world.” (The Works of the Right Reverend John England, First Bishop of Charleston, edited by Sebastian Messmer, 1908)

7. Even if, hypothetically, an individual or group did possess an extraordinary mission, the proof of its divine origin would be its conjunction with and submission to the ordinary mission and the ordinary pastors. St. Francis de Sales explains succinctly, “Extraordinary missions are diabolical illusions and not heavenly inspirations if they are not recognized and approved by pastors on the ordinary mission.” (Francis de Sales, Finding God’s Will For You, Sophia Press, 1998)

8. Coppen and Berry know, of course, that the Anglicans don’t even have valid orders; however, they are explaining why, hypothetically, even if they had valid orders, their line of succession would still be un-apostolic.

9. See, for instance, the opening paragraph of Pastor Aeternus.

10. In Graves ac Diuturnae, Pius IX also notes that the Old Catholics present themselves as steadfast defenders of tradition, who are also faithful to the pope. He observes how the Old Catholics “repeatedly state openly that they do not in the least reject the Catholic Church and its visible head but rather that they are zealous for the purity of Catholic doctrine declaring that they are the heirs of the ancient faith and the only true Catholics.” Yet he rejects their claim to be faithful to the ancient faith and to the papacy because “in fact they refuse to acknowledge all the divine prerogatives of the vicar of Christ on earth and do not submit to His supreme magisterium.” In the same document, he warns the faithful that “They should not have any dealings or meetings with usurping priests. . .who dare to exercise the duties of an ecclesiastical minister without possessing a legitimate mission or any jurisdiction. . .We urge you with the greatest enthusiasm to give support strongly and constantly to your legitimate shepherds who have received a legitimate mission from this Apostolic See.”

11. See footnote #5. Also: “[The Protestants’] whole contention was that. . .the ordinary Apostolic mission had lapsed; therefore by virtue of the common vocation of all Christians, every Christian was bound to do his utmost to fulfill the Apostolic office; called thereto by the extraordinary vocation rendered necessary by the extraordinary state of the Church, sent thereto with the authority of an extraordinary mission. Sent whither? To re-form God’s Church. But this [position]. . . stultifies Christ’s charge to the Apostles to go into the whole world and teach all nations: it ignores Christ’s promise of His own personal and efficient help to those Apostles all days even to the consummation of the world.” (Calnan, H.E., “Apostolic Authority at Work,” Catholic World vol. CXV, no. 687)