Posted on 07/15/2003 7:59:29 AM PDT by Pyro7480
SSPX
Question from Anne on 07-10-2003:
Dear Fr. Levis,
Thanks so much for the work you do on this forum. I love reading Catholic Q&A, and you are my favorite expert.
I’ve read quite a few postings on the SSPX lately, some of them regarding the possibility of their joining full communion with the Church. Some people have seemed interested in joining because they're fed up with abuses some priests and bishops do in the Novus Ordo. I belonged to an independent church, then the SSPX for 19 years, and through the grace of God am back in communion with Rome. The SSPX does not believe the Novus Ordo mass is valid. My brother still belongs to the SSPX and was ordered by his priest to decline the invitation to be a groomsman in our wedding because of the “invalidity” of the mass. They are a cult, with the Archbishop Fellay holding the same power as the Pope in the eyes of their followers, though they will adamantly deny both of these facts. In many ways the SSPX holds a “Cafeteria Catholic” view, in that they pick and choose which teachings of the Pope fit their agenda. They claim they are only keeping tradition alive, and will merge back with the Church once the Pope “comes to his senses”, nullifies the Novus Ordo and reinstitutes the Latin Mass. This is simply not true even if this were ever to happen, because the bishops do not want to lose the power they hold over their flock, and although they claim they are only keeping the Latin Mass alive, they have made many new laws of their own. An example: My brother was not allowed to propose to his fiancé until he had his engagement blessed because his priest told him to break off an engagement is a mortal sin. Many priests in the SSPX also teach that Natural Family Planning is sinful because they claim it leads to contraception. They keep a tight grasp on their people, and as is typical of many cults, attempt to control almost every aspect of their lives. So many people suffer from scruples due to the over-pious fanaticism taught. The SSPX can be very appealing to those who love the Tridentine Mass, but they are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Many dioceses offer Indult Masses (which the SSPX claim is “a step down” because the priest saying the mass “compromises”). So if you love the Tridentine Mass, find an indult mass, but stay FAR FAR away from the SSPX!
Thanks and God Bless
Anne
Answer by Fr. Robert J. Levis on 07-11-2003:
Dear Anne, A wonderful story of your journey to a healthy Catholic life in a hectic time! Yes, what you say of the SSPX is true. Unfortunately as it grows older, more and more heresies will find their way in and the poor people will be led astray. Yes, keep them all in your good prayers. God bless you. Fr Bob Levis
The Still River people generally are much more sensible and Orthodox than Br. Francis and his various sattelite groups. I very much like the Benedictine group at Still River, who I think most closely follow where Fr. Feeney and Sister Catherine ultimately ended up. Needless to say, I used to go to Mass there when I lived in Acton and Lowell when I didn't feel like going down to Holy Trinity (which was officially my parish).
The major doctrinal distinction when dealing with the Still River folks is that they place various modern theories of Baptism of Desire in question, most especially the notions of implicit Baptism of Desire and implicit Faith - fine with me, I don't accept "implicit faith" either, as there is nothing in the Fathers of the Church or its Magisterium to support these extreme theories of Karl Rahner and the rest of the Modernists. Much of the crowd around Br. Francis, however, openly questions Baptism of Blood and and either revile or lie about St. Thomas Aquinas and other medieval doctors for holding both it and Baptism of the Holy Spirit (Baptism of Desire in the strict and explicit sense, as defined at Trent). Worse, they misrepresent the teaching of the Church and twist it away from its proper meaning to support their heresy. That is against the Church, and these are the people who rightly or wrongly are properly tagged Feeneyites.
Its worth pointing out in this regard, the definitions of Trent and the works of the medieval Doctors used the word "votum" to describe the relation of the unbaptized man who could be saved towards Baptism, not "desiderium". "... sine lavacro regenerationis aut eius voto ..." - "except through the laver of regeneration, or a desire for it" (Trent, Session 5, Chapter 4, Dz. 796). "Votum" means literally "a solemn vow to God", i.e. the resolution a Catechumen has to receive Baptism once he becomes convinced of the faith, and identical to the resolution of any Baptised person to have recourse to the sacrament of Penance when it is unavailable because of some dire circumstance ("reconciliationem ipsi contritioni sine sacramenti voto, quod in illa includitur, non esse adscribendam" - "this reconciliation nevertheless must not be ascribed to the contrition itself without the desire of the sacrament which is included in it"). "Desiderium" means "desire", "longing", or "yearning". That is the word whose sense gets appended nowadays to "votum", although it clearly should not be.
I've always found the most remarkable thing about Fr. Feeney is that God used him as his trumpet throughout the earth. When I was in darkest India, the controversy over "No salvation outside the Church" and Fr. Feeney was alive and well and paining the Hindus.
Yes they do, because it was promulgated by that "notorious heretic and anti-Pope Freemason disciple of the Evil One", Blessed Pope John XXIII.
They also have problems with the Missal and Breviary of 1958 because of Pope Pius XII's changes to Holy Weeks, and the supression of numerous feasts, vigils, and octaves. At least there, I have some common ground with them. The method that the liturgy has been "updated" since 1950 and the Proclimation of the Assumption, together with its revised Office, has been quite iconoclastic and vandalistic, as Klaus Gamber has pointed out. Unsurprisingly, we find the same clique working these changes under Pope Pius XII as we find making the changes under Pope Paul VI.
I said: "The method that the liturgy has been "updated" since 1950 and the Proclimation of the Assumption, together with its revised Office, has been quite iconoclastic and vandalistic ..." - or more simply: "The method that the liturgy has been "updated" since 1950 ... has been quite iconoclastic and vandalistic ..."
Is that clearer?
The "revision" of Holy Week was simply a vandalistic destruction of tradition. The Mass of the Palms on Sunday, with its Epistle and Gospel and Sanctus prior to the poper Mass was eliminated. The 12 Lessons on Holy Saturday were reduced to 4, leaving out much of th ebeauty of the Old Testament. The pedantic "Renewal of Baptismal vows" was added. The Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday, perhaps the oldest untouched formulary in the Roman Rite was thorughly changed. And of course Holy Thursday was revised as well.
All this based on the "excuse" of moving the time of celebration to the afternoon and evening. If that was really the case, all one needed to do was change the rubrics dictating the time of saying the Divine Office. I.e. Good Friday rubrics read "postquam dicem Nonam" - "After the recitation of None", or the ninth hour (3 pm), the Good Friday Mass was said. Since None was anticpated earlier in the day so that the Mass could occur well before 3pm, all one had to do was eliminate the anticipation of the hour.
A similar vandalistic attack was made on various feasts and octaves and vigils, with the Masses affected being supressed (such as St. Peter in Chains, or the Vigil of the Immaculate Conception). This also had the effect of reducing the fasting requirements, since there were fewer vigils. The Proclimation of the Assumption was the starting point of this, when the existing Office of the Assumption was thoroughly revised to no good purpose, thus tossing aside 1500 years of tradition for nothing.
From there it all began.
"It is absurd and a detestable shame, that we should suffer those traditions to be changed, which we have received from the fathers of old." St Thomas Aquinas, Summa I-II, Q 97, Art 2
I read they were not "regular" on a website run by the Mission Church (Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help) in Roxbury -- I think it is run by Redemptorists. I thought the Mission Church was wrong in its characterization of the Still River people. I'll drop them a polite line and ask for them to remove the codicil they have attached.
I don't know much about Fr. Feeney but I remember my dad telling me (my family met & knew Fr. Feeney slightly) that the situation was so volatile that Cardinal (maybe bishop at the time) Cushing went off to Rome to have the pope intervene. I guess that would have been Pius XII? And Fr. Feeney was therefore chastened.
I also occasionally attend the Tridentine at Trinity. Are you still a "bay stater?"
Fr. Feeney has been called America's most gifted theologian prior to the controversy, and he was widely acknowledged as a gifted poet whose works were read in many Catholic schools. When he got to studying modern errors after WWII, he came to realize the doctrine "No salvation outside the Church" was being supressed. (Pius XII would write in 1950: "Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation." Encyclical Humani Generis)
Cardinal Cushing had Fr. Feeney condemned for preaching the doctrine contained in the Summa Theologica - Explicit Faith, Submission to the Roman Pontiff required, No Salvation outside the Church, and Baptism of Blood and Desire only for Catechumens and similar, and ridiculing the liberals at Boston College and elsehwere. When he would not desist, and insisted instead that Cardinal Cushing was a heretic (which he probably was) and sent a libellus to Rome on that account, Rome ordered him to come to stand trial at the Vatican. When he failed to show, he was excommunicated for disobedience.
You can read the history of the controversy from Fr. Feeney and Sister Catherine's perspective here in "The Loyolas and the Cabots".
One thing to definitely steer clear of in examining the Feeneyite controversy is his critics like Fr. William Most who could not grasp some of the most elementary principals of theology, or worse, purposely misrepresented Fr. Feeney's thoughts and the basics of theology, to make Fr. Feeney out in the worst possible light. I think Fr. Francois Laisney's (SSPX) booklet "Baptism of Desire" is a much better answer than anything Fr. Most ever did.
Regarding the view of the Ratzinger's CDF on this doctrine, see here.
Fr. Feeney's main thoughts are here.
I also occasionally attend the Tridentine at Trinity.
Do you know Rob and Christine Quagan?
Are you still a "bay stater?"
Not any more. I escaped back home!
Hang in there, be at peace.
I'm not judging the SSPX and consider attendees to be fellow Catholics. Right now, I feel called to work for restoration "from within".
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