Bishop Bruskewitz to the Society of St. Pius X: "You can't have it both ways!"

St. Joseph Foundation ^ | August 22, 1996 | Charles M. Wilson

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

SSPX is a clear and present danger to the Roman Catholic Church and should be treated as such where necessary.

How? If it wasn't for them we wouldn't have the Indult.

I just don't see the need to demonize them like so many people do here. There are much bigger threats to deal with, like the exodus of Catholics to non-Catholic churches and religions.

SSPX is a minor issue that will be resolved once both sides drop the name-calling and prideful behavior. It's like two estranged siblings arguing over who Mom likes best.

[ninenot]

Sorry, your take is erroneous.

SSPX is schismatic and its followers are flirting with schism.

To repeat: there was NO excuse for people in Lincoln to "flee" to the SSPX Masses--except that they wanted to leave the Church. ALL the Old Rite Masses anyone could ask for were available in Lincoln Diocese.

Wrong is wrong and you can't un-make it so.

I do have a number of friends and acquaintances who are SSPX adherents, and I am sorry that they have chosen to leave the Church--but they did, and that's that.

BB's job is to KEEP the flock--not chase it. On the other hand, he cannot keep those who would rather flee.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Sorry, your take is erroneous.

Uh, no.

SSPX is schismatic and its followers are flirting with schism.

Do you consider the evangelicals schismatic? How about the Eastern systems? Because I assure you they attract far more Catholics than SSPX. They are the major threat to Catholicism today, not estranged spiritual siblings.

This article is seven years old first of all, and posting it was designed to stir the pot and inflame tensions here. A lot has changed in the past seven years. Narses cited a letter above which expressly states that attending an SSPX Mass is allowed in the event one does not have access to an appropriate Mass. While this may not be the case in Bishop B's diocese it is the case in most other dioceses. Regardless, that wasn't even my point and it's not my place to stand in judgement of them.

ROME has stated it is acceptable to attend SSPX Masses in certain circumstances and even contribute to the collection. My point was and still is that it is laughable to call SSPX a major threat to the Church. It is a MINOR issue. If people are leaving union with Rome for whereever, SSPX, fundamentalism, New Age, WHATEVER, it behooves Rome to take a long look in the mirror, discover why and fix the problems rather than attacking the people who leave.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

And again, if it wasn't for the SSPX the Traditional Mass would not exist today. There would be no FSSP. There would be no Indult.

I refuse to cast stones at them.

[TradicalRC]

I of course disagree. It's not that I don't believe that there are enemies to the right; it's simply that I have difficulty becoming upset over Roman Catholics that I probably could not distinguish from MY Catholic ancestors. What is it exactly that they believe Liturgically, that my grandfather didn't believe? Why does the Church bend over backwards for Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Bhuddists and give these guys the shaft? It simply seems uncharitable.

[ultima ratio]

This long screed is intellectually muddled. It charges the SSPX is trying to have it both ways by claiming to be traditionally Catholic while supporting disobedience to the Pope.

This is an easily discredited claim. After all, the Pope only represents the Church when he is in harmony with its tradition. If he departs from Catholicism, he no longer can claim to be owed obedience and it would be quite proper to disobey him, especially if he is doing demonstrable harm to the Church and its deposit of faith. This can be proven in a hundred different ways.

I suspect much of the confusion about SSPX derives from the latae sententiae excommunication pronouncement coming out of the Vatican. The word was gleefully spread about by the enemies of Catholic Tradition. But such an excommunication would have been valid automatically only if the subject charged with schism actually intended to perpetrate a schismatic act.

It is well known that such a break was never intended by Archbishop Lefebvre who never wished in any way to set up a parallel religion with a new body of doctrine, but merely wished to retain the beliefs and practices Catholics had believed and practiced for twenty centuries. Nor did his newly consecrated bishops usurp any other bishop's jurisdiction--such as the Chinese do routinely. The charge was therefore false.

It is true Archb. Lefebvre and his newly ordained bishops were disobedient--but disobedience is not schism any more than a disobedient child thereby denies his family. The charge on the surface is ridiculous.

It is true that in a letter JnPII affirmed an automatic excommunication had been incurred and declared Lefebvre guilty of schism--but that does not make the declaration correct. The problem is the letter contradicts the Pope's own Canon Law which expressly permitted a subject to disobey a superior's command in a time of emergency.

Nor is it necessary, according to Canon Law, for the subject to have been right about such a State of Necessity, as it is called. He need only have believed in good conscience that such a state existed in the Church. Archbishop Lefebvre availed himself of this canon, sincerely believing the Church to be in state of crisis, and so disobeyed in good conscience. That he was, in fact, right about this has been proven over the years. It was the Pope who had been wrong--as he has been about much else in his conducting of Church affairs.

[Robert Drobot]

Bump for later.

[Robert Drobot]

Bravo for your Post # 26!!! Thank you!!!

[ninenot]

Let's try an analogy and see if that helps.

Hussein was a threat to the USA. Evangelicals are a threat to the Church (mutatis mutandis..)

But USA citizens KNOW that Hussein was a threat--he was a 'foreign power,' external to the country.

Now when the CPUSA had its people in the Federal Government during the presidency of FDR, the threat to the USA was more significant than the threat posed by Joe Stalin? Why? Because we took for granted (erroneously) that US citizens were all 'on our side.'

Similarly, Catholics recognize the Evangelicals as threats--they are 'outsiders.' But the FAR more significant threat is from 'insiders,' validly (but illicitly) ordained priests and Bishops who we "think" are on our side.

This applies, by the way, to dissident Bishops such as Weakland, Mahony, Bernardin, and their ilk EQUALLY, to the right-thinking Catholic.

Hope that helps.

Re-stating: in the SPECIFIC case of Lincoln, SSPX was more a threat than the Evangelicals. They were the wolves in sheep's clothing. BB is right.

[ninenot]

I agree with you that various Bishops and Cardinals are jerks. Doesn't make SSPX correct. I attended the Old Rite 'unauthorized,' and my father's Funeral Mass was an 'unauthorized' Requiem. At the time, there were no alternatives, and Weakland was in power here.

I am convinced that I was justified in my previous actions, although I will learn the real answer within the next 30 or 40 years from St. Pete.

I'll try to send you the results. Be paying attention.

[ninenot]

Yup.

YOPIOTradition.

We'll have to add the category. YOPIOS, YOPIOT.

[BlackElk]

Someone who makes the mistake of leaving the only Church founded by Jesus Christ Himself (that would be the Roman Catholic Church) to become a Presbyterian or a Missouri Synod Lutheran or an independent Evangelical or Pentecostal or simply to hang out at home develping his or her own preferred ideas as to the meaning of Scripture through five or six prisms of translations not guaranteed by the Vicar of Christ on Earth directly or indirectly at least may be honored for the personal integrity of NOT claiming to be Roman Catholics.

Not so our schismatics. They want the right to rant and rave against legitimate Church authority, to undermine the authority of the papacy, to make a career of drawing upon the papacy and the Church the worst forms of vile hatred witnessed in centuries and justify it all as does UR on the basis that some monsignor in the Vatican issued a document conceding the validity (never in question) of SSPX Masses and even the acceptability of contributing to the expenses of same MODESTLY (all essentially a 16 centuries old rejection of the Donatist heresy of the 4th Century that held the Masses of unworthy and sinful priests as invalid) and that such misbehavior as encouraging the schismatics ius justified among schismatics so long as they can delude themselves that there is some sort of emergency (in their minds the convenient availability only of the normative Mass of the Church). They have such a right civilly. They can be atheists, Zoroastrians or devotees of Astarte if they wish, as far as the law is concerned.

What the schismatics do not have a right to do is to dishonestly scandalize others by claiming to be Catholic while engaging in rank disobedience and defiance of legitimate authority. SSPX people are not attacked for leaving. They are attacked for leaving while fraudulently claiming to have stayed. As the living saint of Lincoln, Nebraska says: They cannot have it both ways.

The SSPX bishops have been excommunicated as was their self-important founder and schismatic-in-chief Marcel Lefebvre, who, now dead, has likely learned the truth the hard way.

SSPX is not major by way of number of adherents. There are only so many gullible cranks and eccentrics available to it. Rather, as their now dead schismatic-in-chief Marcel well understood, the creation of another illicit line of eccommunicated bishops and the sort of priests they will ordain is the worst attack that can be levelled at the Church. Like their Masses, the consecrations of their bishops and the ordination of their priests are valid but UNLAWFUL and perpetuate a spirit of rebellion first seen when Lucifer informed God "non serviam".

In the spirit of Lucifer, they should adopt "non serviam" as part of the SSPX coat of arms, be honest enough to admit that it is their inspiration, and stop sullying the good name of Catholic by their ridiculous charade of claiming that defient disobedience of the Successor of Peter is somehow "traditional" Catholicism. As we well know, it is not.

[BlackElk]

You are buying the schismatic mantra that somehow there would be no Tridentine Mases or Indult without the schismatic behavior of Marcel, which is based on their infernal resistance to John Paul II's rightful and praiseworthy excommunication of Marcel.

There have been hundreds of causes of conservative dissatisfaction within the Roman Catholic Church, most particularly Benedict XV (who cancelled Pope St. Pius X's admirable purge of the Modernist heretics) and John XXIII (where to begin, where to end?) but all of the schismatic fire is saved for the one and only pope to excommunicate the rebellious Marcel who massacred his own vow of obedience.

Chesterton write that some people wrongfully assume that those who reject the truth will believe nothing when actually they will believe anything. SSPX is a good example. Don't cast stones at them. Join them. Or become a Gaia worshipper. But, if you are not going to be in obedience to the pope, don't call yourself Catholic and confuse others as you have been confused. Scandal is also grave matter.

John Paul II is pope. You are not. I am not. Ultima Ratio is not. Learn to live with it.

[ninenot]

In addition, CantDeb--you give very short shrift to Una Voce, a group of European and American intellectuals, who largely have remained within the Catholic Church.

While I grant you that SSPX certainly (albeit insolently) pushed the ball, the heavy lifting was done by UV.

[BlackElk]

"Why does the Church... give these guys the shaft?"

It might be their attitude or their inability to keep a civil tongue in their heads or their incessant carping and complaining against the pope or their invention of non-existent "crises" to justify their defiance or disobedience or impudence. Maybe it's the willingness to put words in the pope's mouth as to foreign policy matters or to accept the AP's alleged paraphrase whose accuracy the Vatican denies. Maybe, just maybe, they are not getting the shaft or even one tenth of the punishment they deserve. Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists make no claim to be Catholic. The pope has no obligation to accommodate the enemy within.

Here is how to distinguish your ancestors from SSPX. Your ancestors were probably not in the habit of vilifying (not just disagreeing with/not just criticizing) the pope. Your ancestors probably did not take pride in disobeying the pope. In the event that they did any of these things, the fact that they were your ancestors does not insulate them from the consequences and they knew that.

Finally, God is love. Therefore, God is charity (another word for love). Yet God is just and he sends some whom He loves to hell because they have insisted on such justice by their behavior. It is not uncharitable to refuse to indulge the fiction that SSPXers claim when they claim to be Catholics while rejecting the authority of the Church itself. It is charitable to insist that they accept the unvarnished truth or the truth with the bark on.

[ultima ratio]

The "heavy lifting" was done by Una Voce? That is the silliest statement I've heard you make yet. It played a part, but the soul of the traditional movement was Archbishop Lefebvre and those who followed him.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

In addition, CantDeb--you give very short shrift to Una Voce, a group of European and American intellectuals, who largely have remained within the Catholic Church.

Do I? That's interesting, because I am a member. I don't remember mentioning Una Voce on this thread at all. Last time I checked their website it gave updates and prayers on the state of SSPX/Rome reconciliation, not hateful screeches towards estranged siblings.

[TradicalRC]

Let's see if I understand this: we are not to judge the Church based on a few individuals that reject the Real Presence or engage in pederasty or practice birth control or ignore the Magisterium, but we can do it in redards to the SSPX. You have failed to distinguish the SSPX from the Roman Catholic Church in your criticism. I specifically asked how the SSPX differed LITURGICALLY from my ancestors as that appears to be the essential beef that they have with the Church (that THEIR ancestors came from). So if you could refrain from an ad hominem approach, I would appreciate if you could tell me how the Mass that my forbears considered the holiest thing this side of Heaven becomes forbidden in some diocese within a few decades. Surely, one can concede that it is reasonable to be looking askance at the heirarchy and reasonable as well to be entertaining serious doubts.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

You are buying the schismatic mantra that somehow there would be no Tridentine Mases or Indult without the schismatic behavior of Marcel,

Except for isolated cases, no one else was celebrating it on a consistent basis until 1988. The FSSP, one of the largest promoters of the Traditional Mass, was founded by SSPX priests who reconciled with Rome in 1988. Who else other than the SSPX was guarding the Traditional Mass before 1988?

SSPX is a good example. Don't cast stones at them. Join them.

Thanks, but I wouldn't fit in there.

But, if you are not going to be in obedience to the pope, don't call yourself Catholic

Where did I disobey the Pope? Refusing to hurl insults and cast judgement on others is disobedience?

[TradicalRC]

Please. Tradition is real. Why not have a category called YOPDOT(Your Own Personal Denial Of Tradition)?