Posted on 05/13/2005 1:15:36 PM PDT by NYer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - For all its disagreements with the Roman Catholic Church - and the list is long - the Society of St. Pius X has always maintained its loyalty to the papacy.
Now, with the election of Pope Benedict XVI, the ultra-traditionalist priestly society - considered a breakaway group by the Vatican - sees "a gleam of hope" that the changes wrought by the Second Vatican Council will be undone.
One Catholic scholar doubts that will happen, though - especially given that the last time the society dealt with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was trying to persuade its founder to accept those changes.
"To try to reconcile the traditionalists with the church would be an implicit rejection of Vatican II, and that's not going to happen," said William Dinges, associate professor of theology and religious studies at the Catholic University of America.
The Society of St. Pius X, founded in Switzerland in 1969 and first recognized by the Vatican in 1970, maintains its American headquarters in Kansas City. The movement, named for the pope who wrote against modernism in a 1907 encyclical, claims between 1 million and 2 million lay adherents worldwide, 20,000 to 30,000 in the United States.
The society's Superior General, Bishop Bernard Fellay, welcomed Ratzinger's election in a statement issued April 19 from the society's international headquarters in Menzingen, Switzerland.
The statement, which appears on the society's American and international Web sites, said Fellay "sees there a gleam of hope that we may find a way out of the profound crisis which is shaking the Catholic Church, of which some aspects have been spoken of by the former Head for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."
A subsequent statement reiterates the order's loyalty to Benedict.
A lay secretary in Kansas City, who asked that his name not be used because of the society's rules, said the society would have no comment beyond anything published on the society's Web sites and in its newsletters.
"He knows who we are, and we know who he is," the secretary said of Benedict.
The Society of St. Pius X's profession of loyalty to the pope sets it apart from most other traditionalist movements, who either consider the position vacant or have elected "popes" of their own.
A former society seminarian, David Allan Bawden, has claimed to be "Pope Michael I" since 1990 and maintains his "Vatican in Exile" in Delia, Kan., about 90 minutes west of Kansas City.
Still, even a cursory review of the Society of Saint Pius X's positions shows how deep the divide runs between it and the post-Vatican II church.
The order's late founder, French-born Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, publicly rejected the church's new Mass, which replaced the 16th-century Tridentine Mass in 1971.
The new Mass may be celebrated in any language, while the Tridentine rite is celebrated only in Latin.
There are other differences: In the Tridentine Mass, the priest faces the altar - away from worshippers - and communion is given only in the mouth, never in the hand. There are no lay readers or communion servers.
The Society of St. Pius also opposes the Vatican's efforts to reach out to Orthodox and Protestant Christians and other religions. One statement on its Web site defends the Inquisition, while another expresses support for capital punishment.
The Vatican banned the Tridentine rite from 1971 to 1984, although Lefebre's followers and other traditionalist groups continued to use it. In 1984, Pope John Paul II said the Tridentine rite could be used in special circumstances.
The Society of St. Pius X dismissed the Vatican's move as a ploy to undermine traditionalists. Still, more than three dozen of the society's priests and seminarians did leave in 1988 to reconcile with the Vatican and form the Fraternity of St. Peter, which emphasizes the Tridentine Mass.
Lefebvre was suspended by Pope Paul VI in 1976, along with his newly ordained priests, and excommunicated in 1988 after consecrating four bishops - also excommunicated, along with a Catholic bishop who supported Lefebvre - against Pope John Paul II's orders.
Several months earlier, the archbishop and Ratzinger signed a protocol that made reconciliation with the Vatican seem imminent, but Lefebvre rejected the accord over a clause that gave Vatican representatives the majority on a commission to settle differences in interpretation of Vatican II documents.
He and his followers' excommunication is considered the church's first major schism since the "Old Catholics" broke from the Vatican after its proclamation of the doctrine of papal infallibility in 1870. The society denies a schism exists, however, saying Lefebvre's disobedience was necessary to deal with a crisis in the church and did not constitute an outright rejection of the pope's authority.
The Society of St. Pius X also contends that as a cardinal, Benedict agreed in principle in 1988 that the order had the right to ordain priests and bishops for service to the larger church.
However, in a 1986 letter, Ratzinger insisted that Lefebvre accept the reforms of Vatican II, "the texts of which are magisterial and enjoy the highest doctrinal authority."
And there, Dinges said, lies the stumbling block for traditionalists.
"The society is intransigent on the liturgy issue and the (Vatican) council issue," he said. "Those are two - in my mind - insurmountable issues to any long-term reconciliation."
ON THE NET
U.S. site: http://www.sspx.org
International site: http://www.fsspx.org
Society's international news site: http://www.dici.org
Bad history. Luther's Protestant Revolution was touched off by his own heresies, nothing to do with indulgences:
Please note my post #8. It might have some relevance to the size of the Church and where we are in time.
Re: "Both are cafeteria catholics."
That's a hoot. Are you always this funny? I have hear of the pot calling the kettle black but never the pot calling snow black.
Thanks for the compliment!
Tell me this, if the Holy Father opened the doors to reconciliation with the SSPX on condition that they acknowledge and accept the Novus Ordo liturgy, what do you suppose the SSPX 'leaders' would do?
Not as promised? What does that mean? What was the promise? I have attended an Indult and found it to be identical to the Mass celebrated pre-Vatican II (which I still remember).
The Host from NO rites are used with the Latin Mass etc.
The forumula for confecting the host consists of wheat and water. What's different?
Even the Marionite and Byzantine rites are under pressure, or so I hear.
What sort of pressure? I attend the Maronite Divine Liturgy. If anything, VCII mandated that they are to restore their liturgy to its authentic origins, which they are in the process of doing.
They are very proud and a bit exasperating I grant you but I know what I feel when I am in our little Chapel and what I did not feel in the NO Churches, it was an astonishing difference.
The RC diocese in which I reside is 'shepherded' by one of the most liberal bishops in the US. Exasperated by the liturgical abuses at my parish, I set off in search of a more reverent liturgy, a holy priest and a welcoming community. I compiled a list of other Catholic parishes within a certain radius of home, and included any Eastern Catholic Churches within that range. At NO time did it ever occur to me to include SSPX Chapels on that list!
This is what I do not understand. Why would someone who seeks a more reverant liturgy turn towards a schismatic group? It simply doesn't make any sense.
After visiting different parishes each week, it was the Maronite Catholic liturgy that grabbed my heart and soul and would not relinquish them. That is where I attend Mass each week. The Maronites have welcomed me with open arms and, in utter gratitude to the Lord who directed me to them, I have spent the past year assisting them in all aspects of their community.
The Eastern Churches are the Treasures of the Catholic Church" - Pope John XXIII
By separating themselves from the Magisterium, the SSPX, like other denominations that have traveled this route, are sepated from Church teachings.
"The Pope is the Supreme legislator in the Church." Communion with him is a fundamental, non-negotiable hallmark of Catholicism which is not determined by those who set themselves up to judge him, but by the Pope himself (cf. Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium #22-25).
It may still be difficult to characterize the entire Society of St. Pius X, but SSPX documentation witnesses to a consistent condemnation of the new Mass, the Pope and anyone who disagrees with the authorities of the Society in the smallest degree. Such behaviour is not consistent with the practice of the Catholic faith.
What doctrine do they reject? You make claims "the Vatican" does not even make. "The Vatican" doesn't even call Protestants Protestant, they're separated brethren, don't you know. Who died and made you pope? Calumny is a sin you know.
Hence to purchase the books produced by SSPX and Angelus (however Catholic by content) is to subsidize schism because it keeps their presses going and their employees at work where they are also publishing and distributing schismatic work that undermines Holy Mother the Church. I would not have purchased perfectly accurate Bibles from Communist publishing houses nor Missals that might be printed by NAMBLA for similar reasons of moral obligation not to cooperate with other evils.
The behavior of Lefebvre and his co-conspirators has put him, them and their organizations beyond the pale until they first take care of the basic business of surrendering to papal authority, retracting their nearly two decades of character assassination of John Paul II, retracting their anti-Catholic cafeteria views, apologizing to those whom they have duped and to whom they have lied, publicly and unconditionally pleading for forgiveness and mercy by the Holy See, and publicly performing appropriate and hopefully drastic penance.
But, hey, that is just me, speaking from the experience of the actual tradition of my upbringing in 1950s Catholicism. If B-16 is more charitable towards the schism, then who am I to disagree? Until B-16 says otherwise, my preference is for the full measure of richly deserved punishment of SSPX, its excommunicated leaders and its schismatic adherents as a condition of the restoration of those still alive to Catholicism in good standing.
No one died and made anyone here pope BUT conclaves, through the work of the Holy Ghost, made Karol Wojtlywa into Pope John Paul II and Josef Cardinal Ratzinger into Pope Benedict XVI. Catholics obeyed JP II and obey Benedict XVI accordingly. Non-Catholics do not. Non-Catholic Christians are either Orthodox or Protestant. No one that I know of accuses SSPX of being part of Eastern Orthodoxy (that would indeed be calmny against our Orthodox brethren in Christ). That leaves Protestant as the category applicable to SSPX (with appropriate apologies to our separated brethren of good intent and our prayers for them in having to share the category with SSPX) and the excommunicated leaders of SSPX bear a very strong stylistic resemblance to Luther, at al., in their attacks on the institution of the Church and on the papacy. Protestants have a moral advantage over SSPX in that they do not claim dishonestly to be Catholic while refusing Catholic authority. If the shoe fits (and it certainly does), you must wear it. You are not entitled to invent your own facts.
If my mailman were so benighted as to succumb to whatever seductions the SSPX schism may have to offer in lieu of Roman Catholicism, I will try to remember to include him/her at Mass. Actually, I am well acquainted with the actually Protestant postmaster in my town and we get our mail at the post office. I know of no one in my georgraphical vicinity who is such a howling moonbat as to be defending dead Marcel and SSPX on the internet.
gbcdoj,
Would you ask NYer to provide examples of how she has come to her conclusion that the SSPX are Protestants?
I think this fulfills your criteria for quizzing someone to find out what they have read or not read in order to come to their conclusions.
I don't value your pontifications, given your track record of making accusations and subsequently being found to be in error. But have a swell night.
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