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.”
"Fellay ... is clearly insane..."No he is not. I've met him and worked with him, he is sane. Your calumnies simply degrade your arguments.
"One can only for so long maintain the double-mindedness in, supposedly, acknowledging the Pope's Universal Jurisdiction while constantly repudiating it in practice"
This is true of Catholics, including their bishops and priests all across the country and probably the world. Canon Law and directives of the councils and popes on the liturgy and administration of the Sacraments are largely ignored. I have personally seen this in almost every diocese I have visited.
Just because Fellay is insane (psychopathologically delusional) does not mean you would be able to indentify the insanity. (Have you ever worked with an individual with a fixed delusion?) Many individuals who are quite mad fool a lot of people.
The sspx and its supporters throw around "calumny" to try and silence opponents of schism. They never identify as calumniators those, like lefevbre, who said Pope John Paul was an AntiChrist, intent on destroying tradition etc etc.
Fellay has described as evil the Msss apporoved by the Catholic Church. Trent anathematised anyone who engages in such action. Trent also condemned Bishops who invade and minsiter in the Jurisdiction of legitimate Bishops. Does that stop the 'trad" Fellay? Nope. Presumably, Fellay was learnt these things a long time ago. I think "insanity" the only logical defense for him. It is either that or he is anathema. Which position is more charitable?
Fellay teaches an Ecumenical Council is heretical. That is rank heresy. Is it more charitable to call him a heretic or to think him insane and incapable of making sound judgements?
Fellay teaches all Jews are condemned. Is it more charitable to think he is mentally competent when he teaches such an abominable and hateful antisemitic heresy or is it more charitable to think him insane and not culpable?
I think you have reasoned your way into a dilemma by adopting the sole defensive tactic of the schism supporter, which is to accuse the opponent of the schism of being a big blue meanine who is committing a mortal sin.
Isn't it funny how the defenders of the schism can hold their tongues for 30 years while their leaders enage in all manner of heresies, hatreds, calumnies, campaigns, distortions, inanities, and lies directly targeted at the Holy Father, the Second Vatican Council, and the Normative Mass and the SOLE target of the label "calumny" is used against a Faithful Catholic who effectively counters their lies and heresies.
Save it, brother. It ain't a tactic which will work on me. I KNOW the schism. I KNOW its heresies. I KNOW its defensive tactics. I KNOW its lies. I KNOW its antisemitic hatred. I KNOW schism is evil. I KNOW the schism has a double standard. I KNOW the schism engages in actions it condemns others for.
Take care of your own, soul, brother. The Baltimore Catechism warns (#367) you must take care of your own life and not endanger it. You are endangering it in the schism.
#374 and 375 of the Baltimore Catechism refers to the sspx's theft of what rightfully belongs to the church. You support this theft. That makes YOU guilty.
Please read #379. Y'all, obviously, do not evcn know the definition of calumny. That aside, your silence about the sins of the schism makes YOU guilty of the sin of co-operation in their evil.
NOTHING I have said about fellay is a calumny. It is just the OPPOSITE. I have posted what he teaches you folks. I have come-up with an idea which ABSOLVES him (potentially) of the evil he promotes.
If y'all knew what you were talking about you'd praise me
CALUMNY
(Latin: calvor, to use artifice, deception)
Any deception of another, especially in judicial matters, commonly used to mean unjust damaging of another's character by imputing to him something of which he is not guilty. It is an act which varies in sinfulness according to the gravity of the fault or crime imputed and the damage done. It calls for retraction and for reparation of the damage done, provided this had been foreseen. In canon law, the oath taken to attest that the litigation on both sides is in good faith is called juramentum calumnire (oath disclaiming calumny).
* ONCE MORE SO THAT MAYBE Y'ALL WILL LEARN IT I am profferring an idea which ABSOLVES Fellay. I am NOT accusing him of being GUILTY as one is NOT responsible for one's DELUSIONS
If ya'll can't get something this easy correct, maybe y'all think twice before judging the Pope, the Council, and the Mass as heretical and, by your support of the schism, co-operating in that evil.
*I didn't treat fellay that way. For over a score of years fellay/sspx has treated the Pope that way. Yall never called him/them on it
- of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor;
*
THat is not me in relation to fellay. That IS fellay/sspx in realtion to the Pope. Y'all never called him/them on it.
- of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another's faults and failings to persons who did not know them;279
*That is not me in relation to fellay. That is fellay/sspx in relation to the pope. Ya'll never called him/them on it. - of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.
*That is not me in relation to fellay, That is fellay in relation to the Pope/Church. Y'all never called him/them on it
2478 To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor's thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way:
* I offer an absolving explanation for fellay. He/thee NEVER try and absolve the Pope.
Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favorable interpretation to another's statement than to condemn it. But if he cannot do so, let him ask how the other understands it. And if the latter understands it badly, let the former correct him with love. If that does not suffice, let the Christian try all suitable ways to bring the other to a correct interpretation so that he may be saved.280
*That is exactly what I have been doing in re. fellay and lefevbre. Fellay and the sspx NEVER do that in re the Pope, the Council, the Mass. Ya''never even see this reality.
2479 Detraction and calumny destroy the reputation and honor of one's neighbor. Honor is the social witness given to human dignity, and everyone enjoys a natural right to the honor of his name and reputation and to respect. Thus, detraction and calumny offend against the virtues of justice and charity.
* Considering lefevbre/fellay/schism suporters as delusional is the sole way I can put a, marginally, positive spin on their actions.
2480 Every word or attitude is forbidden which by flattery, adulation, or complaisance encourages and confirms another in malicious acts and perverse conduct. Adulation is a grave fault if it makes one an accomplice in another's vices or grave sins. Neither the desire to be of service nor friendship justifies duplicitous speech. Adulation is a venial sin when it only seeks to be agreeable, to avoid evil, to meet a need, or to obtain legitimate advantages.
* Brothers and sisters, see to your own serious sins and faults supporting the heresies, lies, hatreds, and abominatios produced by the schism you succor and praise.
Since when does the Church Militatnt think it virturous to desert and join the enemy? Since when has it been considered "tradition" to flee the Cross?
You took a Confirmation Oath to fight for the Faith. It ain't much different than a vow of marriage. You can't abandon your marriage vows and take up with some hottie in a mini-skirt just cause the ol' lady she gets fat, ugly and cranky and you can't abandon the Oath to fight for the Faith in the Body of Christ and take up with some protestants in Fiddlebacks just cause Holy Mother Church in America is fat, ugly, and insipid
I have not attended an SSPX Mass since the mid 1980s, when I was stationed at Luke AFB in the diocese of the notorious Bishop O'Brien.
Having seen much liturgical abuse and sacriledge, then and since then, I question who are the real scismatics; groups such as the SSPX or the official "in communion with" dioceses who flaunt church teaching and make a joke out of the Mass and the Sacraments.
As far as your comment: "take up with some protestants in Fiddlebacks" is concerned, Rome has sent mixed messages on the issue of scismatic status. I guess I just don't see these folks as "protestants in Fiddlebacks" and I don't believe Rome does either.
Who are the real fighters for the faith? My gut feeling says for darn sure that it is not some cardinal who says "Mass" on a stage surrounded by dancing girls.
Last time I checked, John Paul the Great excommunicated Fellay and his fellow travelers in schism and declared their movement a schism. NOTHING has changed since andf Ecclesia Dei is in full force.
We Catholics (the ones in communion with our diocesan bishops and with the Holy See) have a traditional remedy for sin which we received on the Highest Authority. It is called repentance through legitimate authority and the humble receipt of forhgiveness. This process is available in some form to Fellay and to his fellow excommunicated schismatics. They should avail themselves of the mercy of God by confessing their crimes, undoing the scandal of their despising of papacy and popes, and begging forgiveness. If not, not.
There are plenty of "objectively valid reasons" such as Fellay's willingness to be consecrated an outlaw bishop by outlaw Archbishop Marcel and Fellay's continuation of the despicably cancerous SSPX enterprise after Marcel's apparently unrepentant demise and the ongoing scandal to actual Catholics that results from the false and pretentious claims of the excommunicated schismatics of SSPX to be Catholic at all much less in a position of some imagined "Catholic" religious superiority over those actually Catholic (in communion with diocesan bishops and with the Holy See).
Of course, Missouri Synod Lutherans (far more respectable people than SSPX) are also still in disagreement with The Vatican and have some thriving seminaries but they also have the integrity not to make believe that they are Catholic nonetheless.
Hus, Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Marcel, Fellay....
LOL, you are making a claim of mental illness. Either you are qualified to do so and have His Excellency as a patient and therefore ought not comment, or you have no reason to claim mental illness other than as a detraction. To play word games as you do detracts even further from botth your arguments and the comity between Catholics that we all ought to seek. You hold yourself out as the voice of Rome and then go beyond anything Rome ever has by name-calling. Sad, very very sad.
No rumor, even a rumor on FR, and no bureacrat, even a Vatican bureaucrat, is of higher authority than a pope or than John Paul the Great's Ecclesia Dei. If Benedict XVI or any of his successors ever decide to lift John Paul the Great's formal excommunications and the declaration of schism, he may do so since each has or would have the same authority as JP II and the same keys. After all, SSPX might substantively submit to legitimate authority, reject its own history and anti-Catholic practices, its leaders and adherents might publicly repent their individual sins against the Church, against Christ's Vicar on Earth and (by an application analogous to the legal doctrine of respondeat superior) therefore against Jesus Chirst Himself.
In holding his excommunicated schismatic self forward as a Roman Catholic when he is a specifically excommunicated priest who, quite obviously by his pretense to being a licit bishop of the RCC, Fellay heretically rejects the papal authority of the keys that was exercised against illicitly consecrated Fellay and against illicit consecrator Marcel and against the rest of the illicitly consecrated Econe bishops and their illicitly consecrated successors. Theirs is an SSPX conspiracy in grand theft ecclesiastical.
Mindless "charity": "Charles Manson, it is true that some would uncharitably accuse you or Jeffrey Dahlmer or Hitler or Stalin of being what is called "evil." Of course the accusers just misunderstand you or may actually be rejecting the virtue of charity." Of course, even Manson did not purport to illicitly consecrate bishops or to be Catholic.
PTP: Of course, if more orthodox Caholics found some way to adhere to SSPX, those Catholics would also cease to BE Catholic and would be volunteering for the schism itself.
Being raped or being kidnapped?
Badly said low rent novus ordo Masses or excommunication for adherence to schism (you can attend their Masses which are truly Masses but you cannot give them adherence as they are excommunicated schismatics)?
As to the second dichotomy: A restored norm of Tridentine Masses (at least SOME said in manageable time of 30 minutes or so and the full 2 hour extravaganza with all bells and whistles at other Masses) and some novus ordo Masses (with rubrics strictly controlled and revised as necessary for orthodoxy) for those who have been taught to fear all things Tridentine.
You think him sane which means he IS culpable for his excommuncation, his heresies, his antisemitism, his attacks against the Pope, the Mass, and the Council. which means, according to Tradtion, he is well on the way to Perdition. I think that harsh but that is the consequence of your ideas about fellay.
I am not playing word games. Just because I know the definition of Calumny and you and MurphE don't is no reason for you to accuse me of word games. You should have taken the opportunity to apologise for accusing me of something I didn't do. That you did it out of ignorance would have been an acceptable excuse. But, of course, y'all can't do that, can you? So, after I was kind enough to educate you, you don't even have the decency to admit your error and apologise. No, for an apology, you substitute an accusation, presumptively afflatic based.
I don't hold myself out as the voice of Rome. But, why should the lack of evidence I do hold myself out as the voice of Rome even be a speed-bump on your road to making that accusation? The Pope is the voice. Not that y'all hear and obey him.
. IF they were/are sane,lefevbre and fellay (with all of the schism supporters being complicit, by consent, in their sins of calumny against the Pope) are in FAR WORSE peril than I imagine them to be :)
But sspx supporters never recognise their own mortal sins and egregious ignorance. They are too busy accusing others of destroying tradition, of judaising, of intentionally destroying the Faith, etc etc. In that they reveal themsslves as the true private-judgement liberals they are.
And can the "comity" claptrap. The schism has done nothing but attack, defame, deride, accuse, slander, hate etc etc etc.
fellay's little rant at the illicit ordination which was posted here by one of the sectaries in the cult of lefevbre was a typical example of how the cult educates the impressionable that the Divinely-Constituted authority is unworthy of trust.
Toothless, white-lightning-running, Arkansan snake-handlers have similar ideas about the Pope and the Living Magisterium.
Psychopathological Protestants in Fiddlebacks are not reliable guides. But, that is totally up to you. You have Free Will to follow whoever you want. As for me and my family, we will follow Divinely-Constitued authority.
Truth in advertising!
Rome hasn't sent any mixed messages about the schismatic status of SSPX. John Paul II excommunicated Lefebvre and the four bishops in 1988, after describing their defiant act of disobedience as a "schismatic act" (Ecclesia Dei, n. 3). The excommunication remains in force. If the SSPX were not in schism, there would be no talk of reconciling this group with Rome since they would already be in communion with the Church. Although there may be one or two cardinals in Rome who have made public statements questioning whether or not the SSPX is in "formal schism" those statements are merely opinions. They are not formal authoritative statements made by the Holy See.
SSPX, excommunicated schismatics as its adherents and leaders are, have no place in the Roman Catholic Church given their schismatic pretenses. In place of legitimacy, like the old soviets, they are masters of agitprop and disinformation. Fortunately, as with the old soviets, you can easily determine when they are lying. Their lips move.
There are, undoubtedly, actual Catholics who are seduced into imagining that the SSPXers are being treated "uncharitably" when charity or love requires NOT that we tell the excommunicated schismatics what they WANT to hear but rather what they NEED to hear. Despite their sulfur and brimstone, full speed ahead!
You go much much much further than what Cdl Hoyos has said about parishoners that go to SSPX chapels. Again, I do not care for Bp. Williamson and his cult of personality that has developed within the English speaking world of the SSPX, in fact I despise it.
That said, if I was in a diocese where those in authority were quite malformed, such as Cdl. Mahoney and his neighbor, Bp. Todd Brown, I would not even give a second thought about going to a SSPX or non sede "independent" chapel. "Authority" only goes so far when those in authority are questionable. I know you blackelk, cant quite seem to fathom that, but the current state of the church is quite ugly, and I will not put my soul, much less the souls of any children I may have, in grave danger by getting angry at heresy from the pulpit and sub Methodist liturgy.
Sorry to say BlackElk, its not quite a black and white situation, and the problem with so many "conservative" Catholics is they have authority be the end all be all, I am not one for primacy of concience, and ones concience has to be formed with church teachings, the dogmas and doctrines, and if there is an emergency situation, then some measures have to be taken. You may not like it, but the laity that go to SSPX chapels are not excommunicated(except in the Lincoln diocese, and that diocese has as a default reverent novus orders and is very generous with indults), nor has Rome taken any formal measure to excommunicate the laity that attend SSPX chapels, and I need not remind you of the ex communications that were overturned by then Ratzinger himself, even though the laity in that case went as far to have a SSPX priest flown in.
Lastly, you throw Lefebvre and Felly in the same category of Protestant "reformers". Let me ask you, did any of these "reformers" accept all 7 sacraments, and accept the dogmas and doctrines of the faith? At worst, you can say the SSPX is equivlent to the Eastren Orthodox, schismatic leadership, but not in heresy. LIke I said, my problem with "conservative" Catholics comes from the fact they make authority, even when those in authority appear to be malformed, an end all be all. God gave me a brain and the ability to reason, the ability to read the dogmas and doctrines of the church, read what the teachers had to say, read history such as teh Arian heresy, read about the vile mess that took place after Vatican II(The Dutch Bishops conference though their "authority" destroyed the church there), and damnit, I will use my brain.
It gets tireing of argueing with so called "conservatives" who say "Obidience, Obidience, Obidience" and little else, doesnt it? To me, you are argueing with the same mindset of so called "conservatives" who say that Limbaugh is the end all be all of conservatism, and are like a deer in the headlites when they try to go beyond talking points.
I am not one to support Bp. Williamson and his cult of personality in the English speaking world of the SSPX, to me Williamson is a vile, rotten man who has lost much of his sanity and should be locked up in a monestary for the rest of his natural life, I do not support the fact the SSPX keeps on moving the goalposts so to speak, and get caught up on minor details that prevent regularization with Rome. That said, if a local ordinary is malformed, I will not fall back on "obdience and authority", I will be forced to go beyond the diocean structure, go go to a mass and chapel that still adheres to the dogmas and doctrines of the faith, even if its not in a regular situation with the diocese.
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