Posted on 06/25/2006 5:48:00 AM PDT by NYer
The Rev. Yves le Roux, rector of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, is clear about the role of the Society of St. Pius X, of which he is a member.
“We are Roman Catholic,” he said. “We are recognized by Pope Benedict XVI. He is our father, but we are obliged to tell you we do not accept the teachings of Vatican II because it’s not an echo of the traditional church. The Church does not have the ability to teach something new.”
St. Thomas Aquinas is one of six seminaries around the world run by the Society of St. Pius X, a fraternity of priests in disagreement with the Vatican.
On Friday, four of its seminarians were ordained as priests and another made a deacon at an outdoor ceremony on the seminary grounds. About 2,000 people from across the country attended the Mass, celebrated by Bishop Bernard Fellay. Fellay, who lives in Switzerland and is one of the society’s four bishops, was ex-communicated by the Roman Catholic Church in 1988.
Founded in 1969 by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the society grew out of his disapproval of the Second Vatican Council, the church’s 1962 modernization of its rituals. Their relationship with the Vatican has been marked by disagreement.
When Lefebvre made Fellay and three others bishops without Vatican approval, Pope John Paul II ex-communicated Lefebvre and all the bishops. The same year, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — said the society had closed itself off in a “fanaticism of the elect,” as reported by Catholic New Service.
There have been attempts at reconciliation between the two sides as late as this year.
As le Roux and the Rev. Joseph Dreher, 41, vice rector at the seminary, explained, much of the disagreement stems from the liturgy. The society uses the pre-Vatican II Mass, celebrated in Latin.
“The liturgy is an expression of our faith,” Dreher said. “By restoring the old Mass, the true Mass, the Tridentine Mass, it expresses the teachings of the Catholic Church. By restoring that we want to restore the beliefs, which over time, with Vatican II especially, they’ve been put out, watered down, taken out of people’s minds.”
Le Roux, 41, from France, said people believe as they pray. The new Mass, he said, puts man before God, while the Latin Mass gives honor to God.
He also disagrees with Vatican II’s teachings on religious liberty and understanding of non-Catholic religions.
“It’s very surprising for us to hear that other religions can have some truth,” le Roux said.
The two listed repercussions of what they see as a drifting Church: Catholics talk less about hell and sin; it’s difficult to find priests to say penance; and priests marry couples who are living together.
“In the modern Church, the priest is just the president of the assembly,” Dreher said.
Paul Robinson, 30, is one of the priests ordained Friday. Like Dreher, he grew up with the Latin Mass. He said if you grow up in that culture, the society is the “biggest thing going.”
“There would be no reason for me to be a priest if I didn’t believe there was right and wrong,” he said. “We’re always looked at as the mean guys because we believe in things.”
As of 2005, the society had 470 priests serving in 60 nations. St. Thomas Aquinas, on Stockton hill just outside Winona, is its only U.S. seminary.
Wearing a black cassock, le Roux joked about being a dinosaur. He said religion is not just about being nice, it’s also about being holy.
“We are not here to save the Church because the Church is divine and does not need to be saved,” he said. “We are sure, one day or another, the Church will come back.”
What it means is that if you are going to condemn the "disobedient" Catholics who disregard Ecclesia Dei's call for "ceasing their support in any way for that movement.";
you also must condemn those hundreds of bishops who do not provide "a wide and generous application of the directives already issued some time ago by the Apostolic See, for the use of the Roman Missal ... of 1962."
Ecclesia Dei calls for both of these things. You can't take the cafeteria approach. Either accept all parts of the encyclical or not.
Is your bishop one of the hundreds who do not provide "a wide and generous application of the directives already issued some time ago by the Apostolic See"? If so, do you support him in his disobedience to papal authority?
My point is that there are worse problems out there than the irregularity of the SSPX folks. Too many of our own bishops have done to our liturgy the same thing that they have allowed pervert padres to do to our children.
It is true I general support for SSPX pastoral activity but I am sure it's not for not all the reasons they would like support.
I suspect that at least one VIP in Rome has a similar attitude.
While it's true they do not have thousands of seminarians, proportionally, they are much more fruitful in vocations than the NO Church, but apparently very similar to FSSP (rough numbers from a Trad website). Yet another reason for Rome to pay attention.
You are to Catholicism what Bill Keller is to liberty.
I do not have authority to condemn anyone. Whomever the pope condemns, he condemns; whoever he does not condemn, he does not. He has authority to condemn.
One may disobey the pope and use faulty logic to justify it. But it is still disobedience. To maintain that one is obeying while one disobeys is simply crazy.
That is what fascinates me: SSPX supporters disobey the very authority they claim they most ardently support.
I wonder how one lives in that psychosis.
Liberty is over rated compared to faith and culture and the long term stability of a society, and its become a very abused word.
" I do not have authority to condemn anyone."
Agreed. But you are selectively using the Popes words to single out the SSPX folks, while ignoring the Pope's words IN THE SAME DOCUMENT to give a pass to the plethora of disobedient bishops.
I submit that there are scores of disobedient American bishops who constitute a much greater threat to the faith than the four SSPX bishops ever could.
One cannot claim to obey infallible teaching authority while disobeying it.
Yeah, I can see why so many Catholics would confuse these guys with Protestants.
" One cannot claim to obey infallible teaching authority while disobeying it."
Although there are limits to infallibility,if you consider Ecclesia Dei infallible; we have scores of bishops in this country in the above category.
Hi-HO!!
There is NO EMERGENCY whatever it may please the excommunicated schismatic SSPX moonbats to pretend in support of their nasty little collective attack on Roman Catholicism.
Yes. authority is very, very important in the Roman Catholic Church since Jesus Christ (our Founder) saw fit to establish it in the papacy as one of His gifts to the Church and, through the Church, to the world and all within it.
Dario Cardinal Castrillon de Hoyos has no authority whatsoever to lift the decree of schism issued by John Paul the Great or the excommunications imposed by John Paul the Great. Neither do I. Neither do you. Neither do such miscreant excommunicants as Fellay. Time was when I hoped for Castrillon de Hoyos to be pope. Just goes (redundantly and unnecessarily) to show that God's plan is one heck of a lot better than mine.
I can fathom your persuasion (since I once shared it before coming back to my senses). The controversy is not all about SSPX. It is not all about me. It is not all about you. It is not all about Williamson. It is not all about Fellay or about the late unlamented (by Catholics at least) Marcel the Malcontent. It is about Jesus Christ and His Church which He guaranteed to be with until the end of time. Anyone who thinks Jesus Christ lied to us or that he provided malignant Marcel as His instrument of preservation of Catholicism is free to join other religions whether SSPXism or Methodism or Ultramontanism or whatever but puhleeeeeeze refrain from confusing Marcelism with Catholicism.
Actually, in addition to the blessed diocese of Lincoln and its bishop who should be pope if occasion arises, those who were excommunicated by Pope John Paul II were and are, ummmmm, excommunicated until Benedict XVI or some other legitimate pope rules otherwise.
If you really believe there is an emergency and you happen to be in a diocese such as that of McPhony or Tod Brown, we live in a free country which will not restrain you from moving here to the diocese of Rockford, Illinois (Bishop Thomas Doran) or even the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska. Both offer ample opportunities to attend fully approved Tridentine Masses. What is the expense of relocation compared to a devil's dichotomy of living in a diocese like that of McPhony or Brown on the one hand or consorting (and teaching one's children to consort) with a near occasion of sin like the SSPXers and their hatred of the Church and of JP II and of all Vatican authority unless that authority knuckles under to their rebellious SSPX ids?
Sorry. A substantial part of the ugliness afflicting Holy Mother the Church nowadays may be viewed through your right eye if you remove the eye patch protecting you from seeing SSPX as it is. I cannot imagine your soul or the souls of any children you may have being endangered by righteous anger directed at "heresy in the pulpit" or subMethodist liturgies. As to the latter, does that mean that, since Methodist liturgies are inherently incapable of transubstantiating mere bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that you view the Novus Ordo as always and everywhere (even in Lincoln, Nebraska) invalid and, well, even LESS valid than Methodist "liturgies?" And yet you wonder why Catholics seethe at the pretensions of SSPX. Remember, always remember, SSPX="near occasion of sin."
If all Lefebvrists and all Reformers were in agreement that the sun appears to rise in the East or that raisins contain sugar or that papal authority is to be despised, they might well differ on other issues. That Lefebvrists who, after all, pretend to be Catholics and perhaps the only Catholics, believe in seven sacraments should come as no surprise. That they claim to be "Traditional" Catholics while despising papal authority is where the contradiction in terms lies. In that respect they are no more Catholic than Luther, Hus, Wycliffe, Zwingli, Calvin or millions of others who writhe like banshees doused in Holy Water at the notion of submitting to papal authority.
You may like it or not but the adherents of SSPX and its bishops were EXCOMMUNICATED by JP II in Ecclesia Dei. This is the Roman Catholic Church. When papal authority is exercised, the debate is over. Roma Locuta, Causa Finita. You either trust Jesus Christ's guarantees or you do not.
Why don't you tell the rest of the story on Bishop Ferrario's overturned excommunications? Ferrario was a lavender queen with a former altar boy stashed in a San Francisco apartment/passion pit for the bishop's weekend and vacation, ummmm, entertainment. The Honolulu folks who were "excommunicated" by Ferrario on the fraudulent ground that they were attending SSPX Masses were public critics of his, ummmm, social life and he was retaliating against them for resisting his massacre of his own vow of chastity and his exercises in perversion. Additionally, any action by the Holy Office which might have purported to whitewash the SSPX did not and could not override Ecclesia Dei, a papal document far more directly on point. Finally, in any event, NO ONE CLAIMS that mere attendance at SSPX Masses is an excommunicating offense. OTOH, I promise in the sacrament of penance to avoid the near occasion of sin. Don't you?
God did indeed give you a brain. He also gave you free will with which you are to govern that brain. You may choose apostasy or you may choose obedient submission to the Vicar of Christ on Earth. You will earn the consequences in either event. Worshiping your intellect is no substitute for worshiping God.
Translating your last paragraph and adding criticism of same: God gave you the ability to choose your preferences over His. SSPX gives you the opportunity to favor your preferences over God's and the thin rationalizations to make glib arguments for your tastes over God's Church. Let your last six words not be prophecy if the "it" in damnit is a reference to your brain.
Don't tell me about the "vile mess" after Vatican II. I served the Tridentine Mass in the time of Pius XII. I lived through the vile mess. My tastes were offended too. I returned to the practice, however imperfect, of Catholicism and there I will remain accepting the promises of Christ. I will not follow or even tender the slightest respect to the SSPX practitioners of grand theft ecclesiastical and who, suspecting the bitter eternal wages of their pride, being excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, being declared in schism, continually prove that misery loves company.
Dead Marcel chose Williamson. God's plan was also a lot better than dead Marcel's. To say the very least.
Leave it to the sectaries to conside a "celebration" a Mass celebrated by a schissmatic priest who, upon his ordination, was automatically suspended and can only offer illicit Sacraaments.
Tell me that is not additional evidence the schism causes insanity
"If you truly obey the Pope you would abandon SSPX"
I attend a Novus Ordo parish on the Oregon coast.
"I keep talking about the Pope."
I also talk about the Pope.
I, however, see a bigger threat to the faith from our own bishops disobedience to the Pope than from the disobedience of the SSPX bishops.
No kidding. Yet more "conservatives" on this forum go apoplectic regarding this small quasi-schismatic sect than they do over the "Bishops In Communion With Rome" who costantly thumb their noses at the Pope. Strain at that gnat if you want to...
"Yet more "conservatives" on this forum go apoplectic..."
Apparently a lot of political conservatives are ecclesiastical liberals.
I cannot understand folks who rail at the SSPX and let their own bishops systematically uproot and destroy Catholic tradition with not so much as a whimper.
That is the sine qua non "reasoning" of a liberal. And soi disant traditionalists are as liberal ecclessiastically as Teddy Kennedy is liberal politically. They always blame others for their perfidious acts.
Rightly denounced for supporting a schism, they wrongly defend themsleves by saying Yeah, but Bishop X is also disobedient. So?
The issue is NOT whether your legitimate Bishop is or isn't obedient or disobedient, the issue is ARE YOU OBEDIENT AND IN UNION WITH YOUR BISHOP AND THE POPE ?. THAT is what it means to be Catholic.
That reality, howeveer, is too stark. It focuses attention where attention ought be focused.
And so, when attention is focused on individual responsibility, (The adult Christian idea), the response, invariably, is one of the child, Yeah, well, so? Bishop X is disobedient and he has altar girls and bad songs and sermons and doesn't allow the Indult so there
We can't control what fellay, or williamson or our local Bishop does. We can, and must, control ourselves. And we cannot identify the disobedience of others as an excuse for schism.
Disobedience and Schism are never justififable.
But being sspx means never having to grow-up and accept responsibility.
Still clueless. If my local ordinary is in schism or promoting imoral behavior by his subordinates to the harm of me and my family, I can seek the valid Sacraments from SSPX clerics without being 'in schism' and while being in 'union' with Rome and the legitimate Teaching Magesterium of the Church. Your constant attempts to label those who take the Sacraments at SSPX chapels as members of the SSPX is dishonest and you know it. It is frankly abusive in that it becomes a PERSONAL ATTACK rather than a civil discussion. Take note please as I intend to hit the 'abuse' button every time I see such attcks from you in the future.
The Ninth Article of the Creed
Q: What does the Ninth article: The Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, teach us?
A: The Ninth Article of the Creed teaches us that Jesus Christ founded a visible society on earth called the Catholic Church, and that all those who belong to this Church are in communion with one another.
8 Q: What is the Catholic Church?
A: The Catholic Church is the Union or Congregation of all the baptized who, still living on earth, profess the same Faith and the same Law of Jesus Christ, participate in the same Sacraments, and obey their lawful Pastors, particularly the Roman Pontiff.
9 Q: State distinctly what is necessary to be a member of the Church?
A: To be a member of the Church it is necessary to be baptized, to believe and profess the teaching of Jesus Christ, to participate in the same Sacraments, and to acknowledge the Pope and the other lawful pastors of the Church.
10 Q: Who are the lawful pastors of the Church?
A: The lawful pastors of the Church are the Roman Pontiff, that is, the Pope, who is Supreme Pastor, and the Bishops. Other priests, also, and especially Parish Priests, have a share in the pastoral office, subject to the Bishop and the Pope.
11 Q: Why do you say that the Roman Pontiff is supreme Pastor of the Church?
A: Because Jesus Christ said to St. Peter, the first Pope: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thee shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in Heaven, and whatsoever the shallot loose on earth shall be loosed also in Heaven." And again: "Feed My lambs, feed My sheep."
12 Q: The many societies of persons who are baptized but who do not acknowledge the Roman Pontiff as their Head do not, then, belong to the Church of Jesus Christ?
A: No, those who do not acknowledge the Roman Pontiff as their Head do not belong to the Church of Jesus Christ.
14 Q: Why is the Church called One?
A: The true Church is called One, because her children of all ages and places are united together in the same faith, in the same worship, in the same law; and in participation of the same Sacraments, under the same visible Head, the Roman Pontiff.
23 Q: In what does the Body of the Church consist?
A: The Body of the Church consists in her external and visible aspect, that is, in the association of her members, in her worship, in her teaching-power and in her external rule and government.
32 Q: Are we also obliged to do all that the Church commands?
A: Yes, we are obliged to do all that the Church commands, for Jesus Christ has said to the Pastors of the Church: "He who hears you, hears Me, and he who despises you, despises Me." 37 Q: Has a Catholic any other duties towards the Church?
A: Every Catholic ought to have a boundless love for the Church, ought to consider himself infinitely honored and happy in belonging to her, and ought to labor for her glory and advancement by every means in his power.
43 Q: Of whom is the Teaching Church composed?
A: The Teaching Church is composed of all the Bishops, with the Roman Pontiff at their head, be they dispersed throughout the world or assembled together in Council.
47 Q: Besides her teaching power has the Church any other power?
A: Yes, besides her teaching power the Church has in particular the power of administering sacred things, of making laws and of exacting the observance of them.
462 Q: How should every Catholic act towards the Pope?
A: Every Catholic must acknowledge the Pope as Father, Pastor, and Universal Teacher, and be united with him in mind and heart.
63 Q: After the Pope, who are they who by Divine appointment are to be most venerated in the Church?
A: After the Pope, those who by Divine appointment are to be most venerated in the Church are the Bishops.
64 Q: Who are the Bishops?
A: The Bishops are the pastors of the faithful; placed by the Holy Ghost to rule the Church of God in the Sees entrusted to them, in dependence on the Roman Pontiff
65 Q: What is a Bishop in his own diocese?
A: A Bishop in his own diocese is the lawful Pastor, the Father, the Teacher, the Superior of all the faithful, ecclesiastic and lay belonging to his diocese.
66 Q: Why is the Bishop called the lawful Pastor?
A: The Bishop is called the lawful Pastor because the jurisdiction, or the power which he has to govern the faithful of his diocese, is conferred upon him according to the laws and regulations of the Church.
67 Q: To whom do the Pope and the Bishops succeed?
A: The Pope is the successor of St. Peter. the Prince of the Apostles; and the Bishops are the Successors of the Apostles, in all that regards the ordinary government of the Church.
68 Q: Must the faithful be in union with their Bishop? A: Yes, all the faithful, ecclesiastic and lay, should be united heart and soul with their Bishop, who is in favor and communion with the Apostolic See.
69 Q: How should the faithful act towards their own Bishop?
A: Each one of the faithful, both ecclesiastic and lay, should revere, love, and honor his own Bishop and render him obedience in all that regards the care of souls and the spiritual government of the diocese.*
There it is in black and white. EVERYTHING the sspx does is in direct opposition to the catechism of the Saint in whose name they dishonor and oppose Jesus
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