Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

Vatican blasts back.

The legacy and reputation of Pope John Paul II are under heavy attack all of a sudden. And in a rare move, the Vatican is hitting back hard against the charges.

Normally, Rome doesn't respond to various reports because, frankly, someone is always accusing the Church of this or that — many of them false or half-truths or deliberately out-of-context stories. But in this case, in an unprecedented move, Rome is firing back.

This story and response is so explosive that Church Militant is also going to do something we haven't done in a Vortex before: bring in our Rome correspondent, Jules Gomes, and get the latest on all this.

Each day on our newly created Rome Dispatch show, Jules and Brad Eli bring you up to date on the latest happenings in Rome because, frankly, without daily updates, which Rome Dispatch is, it's nearly impossible for average Catholics to get their brains around all this.

Jules will be keeping us updated on all this and more each day with Brad on Rome Dispatch.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

Always evil.

When the sacraments are administered, they must be both valid and licit (meaning legal). Valid is easy — the form and matter must both be present and correct, and the minister must do what the Church intends. Validity is a really low bar. It should be, so grace can be conferred. If the priest says, "I absolve you" with his blessing and is doing what the Church intends, your absolution is valid. It's not that complicated.

However, the question of a sacrament being licit or illicit is another case. A priest or bishop can validly perform a sacrament, but doing so without permission or jurisdiction makes it illicit, which means he didn't have the authority to do so.

When a priest is ordained (receives the sacrament of Holy Orders), he is a valid priest — period. But if the bishop who administered the sacrament validly did not have the authority to do so, then the question of the sacrament being licit comes up. This is what happened in the scandalous case of the schismatic bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X going on to ordain priests for the breakaway group.

The men they have ordained are validly ordained (again, a pretty low bar). But they are forbidden from offering Mass because they do not have the authority to do so because the Church has removed that authority, which She alone grants.

Ten years after the SSPX bishops were excommunicated under John Paul, a commission he set up to address the schism and find a way to reunite them (which has still not happened) wrote a letter worth revisiting because of its massive implications. In that letter, which was an answer to a letter to them from a concerned Catholic in Australia, they said the following with regard to the ongoing priestly ordinations in the SSPX:

While the priests of the Society of St. Pius X are validly ordained, they are also suspended a divinis, that is they are forbidden by the Church from celebrating the Mass and the sacraments because of their illicit (or illegal) ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood without proper incardination (cf. canon 265).

Pay special attention to that phrase: They (SSPX priests) are forbidden by the Church from celebrating the Mass. That means every single time an SSPX priest or bishop offers Mass, he is doing so in disobedience. A priest may not assume to himself his own authority to dispense the sacraments or offer Mass. They do not belong to him. The sacraments belong to the Church, not to the priest.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.