Grave Necessity: I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

Darrick Taylor’s article “Waiting for a State of Emergency” is a rousing defense of the SSPX’s proposed July episcopal consecrations. He focuses on whether the alarming conditions of the Church can fairly be described as an emergency and persuasively marshals a parade of anecdotes to support that conclusion. The weakness of his argument is not his ability to recognize a crisis but his misunderstanding of what “grave necessity” means in Church law, a misunderstanding so fundamental it ultimately destroys his defense.

Taylor notes the Society of St. Pius X has appealed to a “state of emergency” as justification for proceeding with the upcoming consecrations without papal permission. Strictly speaking, the claim is not “emergency” but grave necessity. Admitting his own ignorance of its use in Canon Law, Taylor cites enough disturbing examples of moral confusion, vocational decline, and bureaucratic corruption that to deny the emergent conclusion “seems deranged to the point of madness.”

With no less gravity, the Superior General of the SSPX is more precise with his description of the crisis. In a February interview, Fr. Davide Pagliarani stated:

It is sad to acknowledge, but it is a fact that, in an ordinary parish, the faithful no longer find the means necessary to ensure their eternal salvation. Missing, in particular, are both the integral preaching of Catholic truth and morality, and the worthy administration of the sacraments as the Church has always done. This deprivation is what constitutes the state of necessity.

Both men’s diagnoses of the problem, if accurate, are compelling. However, regardless of whether they are correct in their bleak observations, Taylor and Fr. Pagliarani commit the same category error when they invoke a state of emergency (or grave necessity) to justify disobedience.

Canon law does not recognize a Church-wide “state of emergency” understood as a generalized crisis that suspends ordinary juridical order. Necessity is no ecclesial equivalent to declaring martial law, nor is it a threshold of corruption that, once crossed, sanctions unlawfulness.

“Necessity” is instead a narrowly defined concept within penal law. It is invoked after an otherwise unlawful act to assess imputability and the applicability of penalties. It does not authorize unlawful action in advance, nor does it provide a blanket immunity that may be claimed preemptively. The law does not say, “Because you judge the Church to be in crisis, you may now disobey.” It says, rather, that if someone violates the law under necessity or grave fear, he may not incur certain penalties, depending on sincerity and culpability.

This distinction is crucial because, in his essay, Taylor treats necessity as though it is an ecclesial permission slip—something that, once obvious to any morally awake Catholic, renders normal juridical structures obsolete. Canon law rejects this logic. Necessity does not suspend the law; it only mitigates punishment after the fact. Taylor’s misunderstanding also reveals a wider problem among SSPX apologists.

A bishop may sincerely believe that necessity compels him to act. He may even be mistaken in that belief. If he acts under such a conviction, the law may protect him from automatic penalties. That protection exists precisely because the law evaluates sincerity and culpability after the act, not because the actor declared his own exemption beforehand.

This is where preemptive defenses of the SSPX become precarious. The more elaborately defenders strategize about their disobedience, the more they demonstrate awareness of the law they intend to violate, ample opportunity to seek alternatives, and the intent to proceed anyway.

Such conduct does not resemble someone cornered by necessity. It suggests someone who knows he is crossing a legal boundary and has prepared his justification in advance. Canon law allows for excusable error, even grave error, when sincerity is present. But extensive pre-justification can weaken claims of good faith and opens the door to a judgment—well within the Holy See’s competence—that necessity was invoked as a pretext rather than as a compelled judgment arising from circumstances. If that determination is made, the law’s protective provisions fall away and penalties resume their force.

None of this forbids articulating reasons for future actions, nor does it imply that making a self-defense is somehow an admission of guilt. It does mean, however, that Catholics should not expect the Holy See to pronounce on necessity prior to the consecrations. Canon law does not operate by advance declarations of excuse, and the absence of a declaration of emergency does not mean the Church has lost her prophetic voice.

Taylor’s essay also oscillates between demanding decisive authority and rejecting it. He criticizes Rome for bureaucratic paralysis and selective enforcement, yet he constructs a straw man by conflating Church authority with political dictatorship and dismisses it as “threadbare legalism.”

Many Catholics agree that the Church should not remain silent in the face of episcopal abuse or negligence. Yet Taylor himself admits that the SSPX refuses to submit to Roman authority because it would mean serving at the “pleasure” of the diocesan bishop. So, which is it? Authority cannot be simultaneously essential and illegitimate.

If Rome is truly the center of unity, then its judgments—even flawed ones—retain juridical weight. Canon law anticipates error by competent authority and provides remedies. What it does not permit is the conclusion that mistaken judgments dispense with authority altogether. Taylor appears to expect the papacy to act with the reforming vigor of the Tridentine era while denying it the very authority that made such reform possible.

It is here that Taylor mischaracterizes saints and reformers disliked in their own time, suggesting that today’s defenders of the SSPX stand in continuity with figures like St. Teresa of Ávila and St. Charles Borromeo. The resemblance is superficial at best. Those saints reformed the Church precisely by radical obedience to Rome, even when Rome was slow and frustrating.

Teresa halted reforms at her superior’s request and sought approval with almost excessive care. Charles Borromeo enforced the decrees of Trent not as an itinerant mystic but as a papal legate, submitting repeatedly to Roman authority. Their sanctity was inseparable from obedience. The SSPX, by contrast, proposes to perpetuate episcopal succession against Church law and to justify that act in advance. That is not the method of authentic reform. 

None of this denies the seriousness of the Church’s present problems. Taylor is right to point to demographic collapse, doctrinal confusion, and inconsistent discipline as real and alarming. He is right that denial is foolish and that appeals to isolated oases of fidelity can function as a kind of pious escapism. But it does not follow that the Barque of Peter failed to anticipate such crises or that canon law cleverly winks at disobedience by providing some “state of emergency” escape hatch.

Canon law accommodates many disorders and injustices without dissolving into a theology of exception. It protects conscience against automatic punishment while preserving the Church’s authority to judge and govern. This balance is not evidence of institutional “psychosis” but of wisdom that comes from hard experience.

The Church has survived crises worse than ours not by discarding obedience but by preserving it even when it is costly. Authority is not the enemy of reform; it is the barrier that prevents reform from overflowing into schism.

Here, finally, there is room for hope. Taylor acknowledges his unfamiliarity with canon law, a limitation shared by many faithful Catholics. Currently, we are blessed to have a man sitting on the Chair of Peter who was formed professionally in this very discipline, holding a licentiate in canon law from the Angelicum. That fact should reassure Catholics of good will that whatever judgment Rome ultimately renders—whether lenient or severe—it will be grounded in the Church’s own legal and moral tradition.

Canon law exists so that crises may be judged soberly rather than theatrically and obedience preserved without denying reality. That quiet confidence in the Church, rather than a declared “state of emergency,” is what has carried her through countless trials—and, God willing, it will carry her through this one as well.