Vatican-SSPX talks to start “in next few days” - Schönborn

Reuters ^ | September 14, 2009 | Tom Heneghan

[NYer]

Doctrinal negotiations between the Vatican and the ultra-traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) are due to start “in the next few days,” according to Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, and Rome will not “let the Lefebvrists off easy for everything.”

In particular, he told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper in Bavaria over the weekend, “the SSPX will be told very clearly what is not negotiable for the Holy See. This includes such fundamental conclusions of the Second Vatican Council as its positions on Judaism, other non-Christian religions, other Christian churches and on religious freedom as a basic human right.” Here is our news story.

(Photo: Cardinal Schönborn, 16 March 2008/Herwig Prammer)

This is going to be interesting. The SSPX has been insisting for decades that it represents the true Roman Catholic faith while the Vatican and the vast majority of the Church took a wrong turn at Vatican II. By allowing wider use of the traditional Latin Mass and revoking the excommunication of the four SSPX bishops, Pope Benedict has taken two of the group’s main rallying points off the table. Now it comes down to the core issue of accepting the fundamental reforms of the 1962-1965 Council concerning Catholicism’s relations with other religions.

So will the SSPX accept the Vatican ultimatum, if indeed it turns out to be as clear as Schönborn portrays it?

Certainly not right away. Possibly not at all. Maybe only in part (if past practice is anything to go by).

In their public statements, SSPX bishops were triumphant after the decree lifting the excommunications was published and determined to stand firm in its meetings with the Vatican.

[NYer]

It’s interesting to note that they describe these upcoming sessions as “meetings” or “doctrinal discussions” (entretiens doctrinaux), while Schönborn calls them “negotiations”.Since the full reintegration of the SSPX is at stake, the word “negotiations” seems more suited to these sessions.

[NYer]

Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, one of the four readmitted, said the bishops had no intention of changing their views in these sessions.” No, absolutely not,” he said. “We do not change our positions, but we have the intention of converting Rome, that is, to lead Rome towards our positions.”

Bishop Tissier de Mallerais

[mockingbyrd]

No, absolutely not,” he said. “We do not change our positions, but we have the intention of converting Rome, that is, to lead Rome towards our positions.”

Yeah, good luck with that! /s

If anything, this Pope has helped the SSPX (with apoliogies to St. Pius) show their true colors. They are more concerned with being "right" than they are with returning to full communion with Christ's church.

[nickcarraway]

Last time I checked, Pope Benedict is still the pope , and Cardinal Schönborn is still just the cardinal who spent most the summer attacking the Pope.

[marshmallow]

Both Schonborn and Tissier de Mallerais need to zip it. Let the meetings progress in peace and good will, free from speculation and public posturing in the secular press. Both seem to want to put a turd in the punchbowl, if you’ll pardon the crude vernacular.

[B Knotts]

This includes such fundamental conclusions of the Second Vatican Council as its positions on Judaism, other non-Christian religions, other Christian churches and on religious freedom as a basic human right,

Which merely begs the question: what are those conclusions? What conclusions on these questions are allowable, or even possible?

For instance, can there be a "basic human right" to believe falsehood? We can say that for prudential reasons, a political right to do so ought to exist, but a "human right" is something different.

[Notwithstanding]

SSPX - Don’t they consider all V2 documents and post-V2 documents as non-binding and non-magisterial? How is it that SSPX thinks that view would ever prevail upon the Church?

[NYer]

How is it that SSPX thinks that view would ever prevail upon the Church?

As you can see from the comment made by the SSPX bishop above - “We do not change our positions, but we have the intention of converting Rome, that is, to lead Rome towards our positions.” - they are not entering these meetings for purpose of reunification. God bless the Holy Father who continues to bend over backwards in his appeals to whatever sense of reason still remains in the SSPX. Otherwise, they impress me as much too arrogant and selfish.

[sitetest]

Dear B Knotts,

There may not be a “basic human right” to believe falsehood, but one might construe that there is a basic human right to remain unmolested by the state with regard to one’s beliefs.

sitetest

[B Knotts]

That’s what I mean by political right.

[ELS]

From Rorate Caeli:

As we had mentioned earlier today, the Holy See Press Office has confirmed that the doctrinal talks between the Holy See and the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX) will begin in mid-October.

"The first meeting, which will mark the beginning of the dialogue with the Lefebvrists, will take place in the second half of October," Father Federico Lombardi, spokesman of Pope Benedict XVI, said [today].(La Croix)

[TASMANIANRED]

I don’t entirely disagree with them.

[jjm2111]

Bleh. I so don’t like the SSPX. Mostly for their position on Jews and secondly for their lack of humility and obedience to Mother Church.