[Question:]{.underline} Why do Masses in the churches of the Society of Saint Pius X have a third Confiteor before Holy Communion?
[Answer:]{.underline} Saint Pius X in his Bull Quo Primum in 1570, codifying the Tridentine Mass, included an additional Confiteor before Holy Communion in those Masses in which Holy Communion was to be administered to the faithful. In so doing, he accepted a custom that was already immemorial. However, it is certainly true that in the ancient Roman rite there was no additional Confiteor before Communion, but simply the two Confessions at the beginning of Mass, one for the priest and the other for the ministers and faithful. The incorporation of an additional Confiteor derived from the ceremony of Holy Communion outside Mass, where such a Confession is prescribed. Custom then introduced this ceremony into Masses in which Holy Communion was administered.
We can certainly understand how providential is the prayer of the Confiteor before Communion, and why the faithful have always appreciated it. It expresses the duty of examining one’s conscience before approaching to receive Holy Communion, and is a reminder that those who are unworthy because of mortal sin must not receive Holy Communion. It is also a very salutary reminder for all Catholics that we ought to have a profound sorrow for our venial sins, deliberate or not, and that it is only through this contrition that Holy Communion can become, as defined by the Council of Trent “an antidote, whereby we may be freed from daily faults and be preserved from mortal sins” (Session xiii,2 Db 875).
One of the changes introduced by Pope John XXIII in 1960 was the omission of this additional Confiteor. The Society priests are consequently accused of mixing rites, and showing an arbitrariness in picking and choosing what pleases them, given that they use the rubrics of 1960, but maintain also the Confiteor before Holy Communion.
In fact, there is no arbitrariness at all, nor the presumption of picking and choosing amongst the rubrics. Far from it. It is a question of custom, which has force of law if it is reasonable and it has been constantly observed for the required period of time (40 years in the 1917 Code and 30 years in the 1983 Code). In fact, this practice is a custom which is centennial and immemorial, having been constantly practiced for at least five centuries.
If custom is a source of law in every area of Church discipline, it is particularly the case with the liturgy, the prescriptions of which are not contained in the Church’s Canon Law. Provided that such customs have not been explicitly reproved, it is up to the local Ordinary to judge whether they are to be retained or not (Canon 5 of 1917 & 1983 Codes). Moreover, general laws (e.g. omission of the additional Confiteor) do not abolish particular customs, nor do they abolish centennial or immemorial customs, unless they make explicit mention of it (Canon 30 of the 1917 Code and Canon 28 of the 1983 Code). Such is the case of the particular custom in the churches of the Society of Saint Pius X of retaining the additional Confiteor.
It must be remembered that this custom did not come into existence by anybody’s arbitrary decision, but by the general observance of the great majority of traditional Catholics. Just as the 1960 rubrical changes were generally accepted by traditional Catholics the world over, not bringing about any substantial change in the Tridentine Mass, so likewise was the abolition of the final Confiteor not generally accepted. This became a question of a particular custom, maintain the centennial practice approved and accepted by Saint Pius V.
All that the Society did was to acknowledge this general custom, and thus explain that it had become a particular law in its churches. This was done by Archbishop Lefebvre in Ecône, Switzerland on September 21, 1979, meeting with his council, stating that since this practice already existed in many priories in different countries, and that all ought henceforth to conform to this custom in all the Society’s houses and chapels. As Superior General, he had the ordinary authority over the priest members of the Society to permit that such a custom be recognized as law.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.