Someone sent to us a blurb put out by Una Voce in which a Father Pierre Blet was quoted as saying the SSPX negotitions with Rome had merely slowed down, not ceased, and that with a mere sweep of the pen the SSPX could be reconciled without---it was implied--- having to change doctrinally at all. Here's the remarkable assessment of Fr. Blet according to Una Voce regarding the SSPX's rejection of Vatican II and the reformed Missal of 1970:
"this was not an impediment given that the Council had not promulgated any binding dogmatic definition. Everyone therefore has the right to examine what he feels able to accept..."
Surely this would be remarkably good news to liberals and the gay activists, not to mention every other kind of dissident in the Church, who would love that! Cafeteria type Catholicism wins?
Hardly. Surely the good priest has been misquoted---in which case Una Voce should seek clarifications to save the good man's reputation--- or he was speaking to a group sympathetic to the SSPX (Una Voce, France?) and got swept up into rhetorical nonsense which contradicts everything the Holy Father, Cardinal Ratzinger and his CDF and the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about this kind of indifferentism / relativism. The SSPX is well known to reject the Council's teachings on, among other things, ecumenism and religious liberty. Can they can simply dispose of those teachings, teachings which JPII said belong to the very essence of the Church, especially in the modern world? Hardly.
Of course, these rumors about the SSPX negotiations are always coming and going, mostly stirred on by partisan laypeople, which is the reason Catholics must rely on more sure authority for an assessment of the real news, like the very man who has sought so hard to reach out to the SSPX, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos of the Ecclesia Dei commission. As recently as April of this year, Cardinal Hoyos issued the Vatican's own assessment of the breakdown in talks to SSPX Bishop Fellay (considered the more moderate of their four bishops), even though, we must add, the Church never gives up when it comes to those who have strayed:
Cardinal Hoyos: "Permit me, therefore, to quote some of your (SSPX Bishop Fellay) statements, enumerating several of these contradictory attitudes and assertions in which your Fraternity seems to be risking itself, which create perplexity and are in contradiction to the Tradition of the Church. Besides, how could I not confront these painful points, if they contained questions that invite at least some explanation?
I must therefore enumerate several of the points of which we have knowledge:
• "It cannot be denied that the dysfunction of the Catholic hierarchy, ... omissions, silences, deceptions, tolerance of errors, and even of positively destructive acts, reaches even into the Curia, and unfortunately even in the Vicar of Christ. These are public facts that can be seen by ordinary men." (Letter from Mgr. Bernard Fellay to Card. Castrillon, Menzingen, June 21, 2001).
"This frontal attack on the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, including the Pope, and the reproach of having abandoned Tradition, constitutes in practice a dangerous pretention of judging the supreme authority. In line with the teaching of the First Vatican Council, Pastor Aeternus, we believe no one can arrogate to himself the right to judge the Holy See: "... than which there is no higher authority [and which] is not subject to revision by anyone, nor may anyone lawfully pass judgment thereupon." Nicholas I said it already in the 9th Century, in the letter to Proposueramus: "The judge will be judged neither by the emperor, nor by the assembly of the clergy, nor by the princes, nor by the people. ... The principal See will not be judged by anyone."
"Nor can one forget, in line with true Catholic Tradition, these other declarations of the First Vatican Council on the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church, in fact, "...received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the savior and redeemer of the human race, and that to this day and for ever he lives and presides and exercises judgment in his successors the bishops of the Holy Roman See, which he founded and consecrated with his blood." It is thus that "...by unity with the Roman Pontiff in communion and in profession of the same faith, the Church of Christ becomes one flock under one Supreme Shepherd. This is the teaching of the Catholic truth, and no one can depart from it without endangering his faith and salvation." Also in Pastor Aeternus, one reads concerning the Apostolic See: "For in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been preserved unblemished, and sacred doctrine been held in honor. Since it is our earnest desire to be in no way separated from this faith and doctrine, we hope that we may deserve to remain in that one communion which the Apostolic See preaches, for in it is the whole and true strength of the Christian religion."
• "The Society of St. Pius X makes an accusation, saying that Truth has been abandoned by the Church that it calls, in a pejorative fashion, "conciliar": "The Conciliar Church is like a termite that bores away from the inside. For 30 years and more, the same principles have been applied with an imperturbable coherence, despite their catastrophic fruits. ... So, we prefer to keep our freedom to act for the whole Church rather than let ourselves be isolated in a zoo of Tradition. It is necessary to shake up the Catholic world, which slumbers in a post-Conciliar lethargy." (Interview with Mgr. Fellay in the journal "Pacte" Summer 2001).
• "In addition, in a letter you sent me, Your Excellency wrote: "It seems to me possible to affirm, from our point of view, that, following Popes Pius XII and Paul VI, the Church is presently in a literally apocalyptic situation." (Letter from Mgr. Bernard Fellay to Card. Castrillon, Menzingen, June 21, 2001). I did not manage to find the exact words of Pius XII Your Excellency is referring to. I have no difficulty in recognizing, with Pope Paul VI, that the "smoke of Satan" has entered the Church, even if the context of the assertion was limited. In reality it seems that in all eras of the history of the Church, sometimes more sometimes less, one can speak of a situation of Apocalypse. But one should not be surprised by sin, since it is rather grace that is astonishing. Despite the decadence of the practice of the Faith that extends up and down the old European continent, despite the presence here and there of certain abuses in discipline and liturgy, it is disproportionate, false and unacceptable to claim that the Church and the Pope have left the Faith.
"St. Catherine of Siena wrote to Barnabas, Viscount Lord of Milan: "He is insane who rises or acts contrary to this Vicar who holds the keys of the blood of Christ crucified. Even if he was a demon incarnate, I should not raise my head against him, but always grovel and ask for the blood out of mercy. And don’t pay attention to what the demon proposes to you and you propose under the color of virtue, that is to say to want to do justice against evil pastors regarding their fault. Don’t trust the demon: don’t try to do justice about what does not concern you. God wants neither you nor anyone else to set themselves up as a righter of the wrongs of His ministers. He reserves judgment to Himself, and He reserves it to His Vicar; and if the Vicar does not do justice, we should wait for the punishment and correction on the part of the sovereign judge, God Eternal." (Letters, Vol. I. Letter No. 28).
"To return to this situation, I should tell you my sorrow in noting that your publications, despite the praiseworthy desire to guard against certain faults and sins, lack this sensibility that is required in order to appreciate the positive elements that are also amid the faults.
• "For it is in this regard that can be found the novelties of the new theology, that were condemned by the Church under Pius XII, and that were introduced into Vatican II. ... They would have us believe today that these novelties are but a development in conformity with the past. They were already condemned, at least in their principles." (Letter from Mgr. Bernard Fellay to Card. Castrillon, Menzingen, June 21, 2001).
"According to the opinion of the Society of St. Pius X, the Catholic Church has strayed from the deposit of Faith. "We are only a sign of the terrible tragedy that runs through the Church, maybe the most terrible of all until now, where not only dogma but everything is attacked." (Letter from Mgr. Bernard Fellay to Card. Castrillon, Menzingen, June 21, 2001).
• "A Magisterium that contradicts the teaching of the past (for example, today's ecumenism versus Mortalium Animos), a Magisterium that contradicts itself (see the Joint Declaration on Justification and the preceding note from Cardinal Cassidy, where one finds a condemnation of and also praise for the term "sister churches") - here lies a haunting problem. Thousands and millions of faithful Catholics who [leave] the Faith are damned because of the failures of Rome, here is our concern." (Letter from Mgr. Bernard Fellay to Card. Castrillon, Menzingen, June 21, 2001).
• "This crisis in the Magisterium constitutes a problem that it is almost impossible to resolve practically. Moreover, the nightmare concerns also the Curia and the residential bishops." (Letter from Mgr. Bernard Fellay to Card. Castrillon, Menzingen, June 21, 2001).
"Your Excellency professes to believe in the indefectibility of the Church, and one recognizes gladly your merits in the vigorous struggle against several sedevacantist heresies. However, as far as your citation of Vatican I - on the character, the object and the purpose of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff - is concerned [Bishop Fellay had quoted the following passage from Pastor Aeternus in his letter to Card. Hoyos:
"The Holy Ghost was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard sacredly the revelation transmitted through the apostles and the deposit of Faith, and might faithfully set it forth"], it seems necessary to me to cite in full what is contained in this paragraph and the next:
"Indeed, their apostolic teaching was embraced by all the venerable fathers and reverenced and followed by all the holy orthodox doctors, for they knew very well that this See of St. Peter always remains unblemished by any error, in accordance with the divine promise of our Lord and Savior to the prince of his disciples: ‘I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.’" The divine assurance that this text expresses, according to which the seat of the Apostle Peter will always be exempt from all kind of error, does not permit one to accuse the current Pontiff in the name of an earlier Council, as if there were no continuity between Councils and as if the promise of the Lord has been worthless since the Second Vatican Council. The indefectible charism of Truth and Faith ("This gift of truth and never-failing faith was therefore divinely conferred on Peter and his successors in this See" - Pastor Aeternus) has not been granted in any less degree to the person of John Paul II, whose faith is that of the Church of all time.
"If Your Excellency seriously considers this declaration about the "never-ending faith" in the Roman Pontiff, it seems to me that it would be necessary to show a greater theological consistency in reflecting on the organic development of the magisterium of the Church in recent years."
There we have in part the Church's own recent account of why the talks broke down. Do read the whole offical Hoyos account and pay little attention to the rumors. It would be ironic in the extreme if the SSPX, which says it deplores theological indifferentism and relativism, were to begin advocating for its own pick-and-choose brand Catholicism!
But, again, this should not mean that the Church has given up. It has not given up on the Greek schism which is a thousand years old! It is of the essence of distinctly Catholic ecumenism never to give up, but to Hope, entreat, dialogue, implore....
<> Narses, you need to stop your flirtation with the schism. These guys are history. The Indult soon will be...<> See previous Letters and Musings at TCR _________________ TCRNews.com Catholic Reflections & Reports (c) www.tcrnews.com