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To: gbcdoj

This is starting to sound like sophistry on your part. I've already discussed the context of Lefebvre's comments on the August 15 date. How you can dismiss its tone of sarcasm-- regarding the purported date, the clear indication he no more believed in it than he believed in all the other phony projections he had received, all evidently presented in bad faith and designed to delay and prevent--is beyond me.

If you can't show the actual offer by Ratzinger, but can only offer a passing sarcastic comment of disbelief by the Archbishop, then I rest my case. I do so because there is not a shadow of a doubt that Lefebvre believed the proposed date was bogus and meant to string him along. He had the Vatican's number after twenty years of persecution. He knew they were out to kill the old Mass--that was the bottom line, regardless of any latter day negotiations.

As for the so-called "form" letter, it was one long grovel designed to publicly humiliate the Archbishop and dishearten his followers. It offered not a scintilla of anything definite--which was what confirmed the Archbishop in his suspicions. It offered the kind of loopholes Rome is good at--placing the survival of Catholic Tradition itself in a conditional mode, utterly dependent on the goodwill of those who wished to destroy it.

Finally, regarding the FSSP, my point was that the motu proprio was not understood by traditionalists in the same way as it was interpreted later by Rome to undermine the Fraternity's mission. It is like the "form" letter Archbishop Lefebvre was asked to sign--capable of being interpreted later on any way Rome wanted. The motu proprio promised that the two missals could not be mixed, that the FSSP would have "exclusive" use of the '62 missal. That exclusivity was taken to mean one thing by the traditionalists, another by Rome. And, in fact, the missals are already being mixed, now that the Novus Ordo bishops have gotten into the act.


207 posted on 07/09/2004 5:39:17 AM PDT by ultima ratio
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To: ultima ratio
the clear indication he no more believed in it than he believed in all the other phony projections he had received

We know that Msgr. Lefebvre did not believe it - but there is no good reason to suppose Cardinal Ratzinger was lying about the date. You talk about "other phony projections": perhaps you can list some of the dates for the episcopal ordination that Cardinal Ratzigner agreed to and then reneged upon later? But of course such accusations have no proof behind them, just suspicions and claims that the Pope was "out to kill the old Mass", something quite untrue.

If you can't show the actual offer by Ratzinger

That was an offer! Ratzinger said that the consecration would be August 15th, and asked for candidates. Msgr Lefebvre was the one who refused to work towards the ordination, insisting that all three of his rejected candidates be made bishops instead of submitting new candidates as the Cardinal requested.

The motu proprio promised that the two missals could not be mixed

You are thinking of the conditions attached to the 1984 indult.

that the FSSP would have "exclusive" use of the '62 missal

You quote "exclusive". Perhaps you can point to where "Ecclesia Dei" says "exclusive"? Actually what was granted to the FSSP was the right to continue the use of the 1962 MR, but nothing in the Missal takes away the right of the FSSP clerics to say the Mass according to the reformed rite if they so wished - and this is all Protocol 1441 said. Nothing obliges FSSP clerics to say the reformed rite - and this is quite obvious from the fact that the dire predictions made during the controversy over the Protocol have not come to pass.

209 posted on 07/09/2004 6:23:12 AM PDT by gbcdoj (No one doubts ... that the holy and most blessed Peter ... lives in his successors, and judges.)
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To: ultima ratio
This is starting to sound like sophistry on your part.

This from a man who says he "defends" SSPX but doesn't "represent" them. (See your post #191 and my reply #197)

212 posted on 07/09/2004 6:42:15 AM PDT by marshmallow
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