Posted on 10/16/2006 8:27:21 AM PDT by NYer
Pope Benedict XVI celebrates the canonization ceremony of Italian nun Rosa Venerini, Mexican bishop Rafael Guizar, Italian priest Filippo Smaldone and Indiana nun Theodore Guerin in St. Peter's square at the Vatican, October 15, 2006. REUTERS/Giampiero Sposito
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
PARIS (Reuters) - After almost two decades of schism, Catholic traditionalists hope the Vatican will soon take them back into the fold by granting two key concessions and leaving unresolved the main issue that drove them away.
Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), says the expected revival of the old Latin mass that was replaced in the 1960s by modern liturgy in local languages would be a "grand gesture" meeting one of his demands.
The Swiss bishop, successor to the late SSPX founder French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, also expects the Vatican to lift the 1988 excommunications of Lefebvre and four bishops -- including Fellay -- whom he consecrated without Rome's approval.
"Things are going in the right direction. I think we'll get an agreement," Fellay told journalists in Paris at the weekend. "Things could speed up and come faster than expected."
Getting an agreement now would mean the Swiss-based SSPX and its 470 priests could return to the Roman fold without resolving a dispute over its opposition to the modernising reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).
Claiming a million followers, the SSPX is the vanguard of traditionalists among 1.1 billion Catholics worldwide. Its return would have no direct effect on most parishes but high symbolic value for arch-conservatives in the Church.
The excommunications by the late Pope John Paul created the first schism in the Church in modern times. Since his election last year, Pope Benedict has been trying to hold out an olive branch to the SSPX.
Fellay envisages the SSPX would be an independent group within the Church, free of control by local bishops, while it continued to advocate rolling back other Vatican II reforms.
"We would be a bit like the Chinese Patriotic Church, in the Church without really being there," he explained. "There could be a relationship between Rome and us, but it would not yet be a juridical relationship."
"INTERMEDIATE STATE"
Speculation about an SSPX return arose last week when Vatican sources said Pope Benedict would soon allow wider use of the old Tridentine Mass in Latin that went out of favour when the Church switched to praying in local languages in the 1960s.
Priests can say the old mass if they get permission but few bishops grant it and demand for Latin rites is minimal. Most Catholics under 50 years old have never heard Latin spoken.
The SSPX thinks the post-Council liturgy, which stresses participation by worshippers in open praying and singing, has lost the sacred character and beauty of the traditional mass.
The Tridentine rite it prefers is solemn, with the priest and altar boys quietly reciting the prayers in Latin with their backs to the silent congregation.
The traditionalists also reject the Council decision that the Church, which long saw itself as the only path to salvation, should respect and work together with other faiths.
Echoing this, a senior SSPX official sparked controversy last year by urging the Pope to tell Jews and followers of other religions to convert from their "false systems" to Catholicism.
Fellay said the SSPX sought an "intermediate state" in the Church so it could continue to oppose what Lefebvre called "neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies ... in the Second Vatican Council and in all the reforms which issued from it."
"We don't want a practical solution before these doctrinal questions are resolved," he said. "The focus should be on these discussions."
Benedict, who sparked protest across the Muslim world last month with a speech hinting that Islam had been spread by the sword, has frequently stressed his support for Vatican II reforms including cooperation with other faiths.
We all know how much you hate the SSPX, but it's time you just keep it to yourself. Your act is past old.
Good night.
Since you are slinging accusations of heresy, identify the heresy of my bishop, Bishop Thomas Doran, or of Fr. Geary, pastor of St. Patrick's in Rockford, or of Fr. Bovee of St. Mary's Oratory (Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest) or of that institute.
If the excommunicated schismatics want to be regarded as Catholics, they will just have to be Catholics which they are not. The lies of the SSPX cult are not the truth of Roman Catholicism. The reputation of the Roman Catholic Church is worth defending from false claims of "Catholicism" from the excommunicated schismatics. False advertising by the cult is no virtue.
I don't remember you wanting mercy for Cardinal Law or Archbishop Hunthausen. Neither did I want them to have mercy. Nor do I want unearned mercy for SSPX. Why do you favor one group of enemies of the Church (excommunicated and schismatic) over mere sinners. You are not the Holy Father and neither are Fellay or de Mallerais or Williamson and they never will be. I will await the Holy Father's actual decisions and refuse to drink the koolaid.
Prepare to be disappointed. You and the other SSPX haters are not in union with the Pope on this matter. BXVI has already called Archbishop LeFebvre "Venerable." That's the first step in the canonization process in case you've forgotten. A child was healed of a cleft palate after touching his coffin. The Holy Ghost has rendered His verdict on the status of the Archbishop.
You'd best fall in line with Rome.
If I remember correctly, I have been around Catholicism a lot longer than you have. I have never in my life witnessed vituperation directed against a pope, much less a pope as magnificent as John Paul the Great, as was directed by these excommunicated cultists posing as Catholics. I am quite contented with pope and Vatican. I am not contented with the SSPX enemies of the Church. You don't agree. Fine. Should I care? Should your errors change my mind?
What you are basically saying, after several years of cozying up to the faux "traditionalists", is that we should adopt a stance of Kumbaya and hand-holding them. I know I won't. If you don't like that, too bad. How do you accept and cuddle SSPX's campaign of hatred against John Paul the Great?????
You are probably a decent young man but your response to SSPX does not make you an exemplar or particularly insightful. If you don't care for that opinion, I see no reason to care for yours. Your willingness to be an apologist for the excommunicated enemies of the Church does not become you. BAC and I have nothing whatsoever to be ashamed of in our pinning the tail on the SSPX donkey.
Let's see you exercise yourself in defense of John Paul the Great against the malignant schism.
I'm referring to people like Canticle_of_Deborah and murphE, who aren't excommunicated, genius.
If I remember correctly, I have been around Catholicism a lot longer than you have.
Oh, so that must automatically mean you are wiser than I. Must I bow down in your "brilliance?"
Should your errors change my mind?
I disagree with you, therefore I'm wrong? Who died and made you boss?
Your willingness to be an apologist for the excommunicated enemies of the Church does not become you.
I point out YOUR behavior, and that makes me a SSPX apologist? In what parallel universe do you live in?
Let's see you exercise yourself in defense of John Paul the Great against the malignant schism.
I don't need to defend someone who came from same stock as my grandmother.
Why am I skeptical that there has been any formal declaration that Marcel the miscreant is "Venerable?" Maybe because no one wh died excommunicated in schism has been so designated. I will give you the benefit of the doubt for now but, since the acts of the Holy See are published, perhaps you will provide an authoritative link (not from the schism, of course, but) from the Vatican itself in an official publication of the papacy. I've got to believe that being the "devil's advocate" on such a cause for sainthood would be a slam dunk.
When did the Holy Ghost designate the schism as His spokesfolks? I missed that one too. This sounds a little bit like: This is the House that Jack Built!
Do you deny that SSPX is a schism? (Ecclesia Dei)
That SSPX adherents are excommunicated? (Ecclesia Dei)
That excommunicated schismatics are NOT "fellow Catholics"?
That John Paul the Great never lifted the excommunications or declaration of before his death?
That Benedict XVI has not lifted the excommunications or the declaration of schism during his papacy to date?
That you are rising to the defense of SSPX?
That Catholics ought not defend John Paul the Great from the tons of vituperation heaped upon him by those whom he justly declared schismatic and excommunicated?
As to your middle paragraphs, when you are wrong, you are wrong and you are wrong regardless of my response. The tree falling in the woods makes noise (sound waves) whether anyone hears them or not.
If I read your last sentence correctly, you seem to suggest that since your grandmother was Polish, you have no obligation to defend John Paul the Great's reputation and person and office from his excommunicated schismatic enemies. In that event, being not at all Polish but Irish, English, Scottish, Scots-Irish and German, it seems to be inferred that it is my job to defend JP the Great. No problem. If I am wrong in my perception of your last sentence, explain.
BTW, you don't have to agree with anything. God gave you free will to use or abuse. The Church drafts no one. You were whining about my and BAC's "behavior" against SSPX, thereby, ummmm, rising to its defense. Yes, that makes you an apologist. Note that I did not say adherent.
Have the courage of your convictions. Stand up for your beliefs. Stop trying to split the difference. You named two individuals as not excommunicated. I don't know how you would know but I'll leave it to you and to them to make whatever case you may choose to make.
An advantage of being around longer is that one has more in the memory banks. I am reminded by Fellay of the immortal words of the elder Mayor Richard Daley, who, having done a fine job of sending his police after the street reds, was assailed on all fronts during the Demonratic convention riots of 1968, then solemnly informed the press and media: "I have been vilified. I have been crucified. I have even been CRITICIZED!" Of course, Daley, unlike the schismatics, had done the right thing.
Dear TradicalRC,
"Damn sitetest, you too?"
I'm exempt 'cuz I'm a Knight of Columbus.
;-)
sitetest
"Fellay envisages the SSPX would be an independent group within the Church, free of control by local bishops, while it continued to advocate rolling back other Vatican II reforms.
"We would be a bit like the Chinese Patriotic Church, in the Church without really being there," he explained. "There could be a relationship between Rome and us, but it would not yet be a juridical relationship.""
In other words...there really isn't going to be any reconciliation at all any time soon.
This is non-news.
SSPXers (with apologies to St. Pius) maintain that the Church teaches heresies, the Catechism of the Catholic Church contains heresies, the GIRM is rife with heresies, Vatican II is full of heresies.
I have even been told that it is a heresy to call John Paul "the Great."
He ought to be defended in a just and charitable matter. You act just like the people you criticize.
You were whining about my and BAC's "behavior" against SSPX, thereby, ummmm, rising to its defense. Yes, that makes you an apologist. Note that I did not say adherent.
Oh, give me a break.
Have the courage of your convictions. Stand up for your beliefs. Stop trying to split the difference. You named two individuals as not excommunicated. I don't know how you would know but I'll leave it to you and to them to make whatever case you may choose to make.
My conviction is that your approach, as consistent it may be with Ecclesia Dei, is not charitable. The Vatican's own documents and negotiations with the SSPX since 1988 show that they are taking the charitable route, unlike you and bornacatholic.
It's you and your counterparts on the SSPX side that will be relics of the past. As you shout past each other, the Pope and his successors will continue to reconcile these people to the Church (the founding of the Good Shepherd Institute and the probable universal indult being two good examples) in a forgiving and charitable matter. The orthodox Catholic cause will be strengthened, and they will defeat the modernist cancer in the Church.
A prayer for unity.
Thanks for saying this, Pyro7480. Salient and on-target.
"BXVI has already called Archbishop LeFebvre "Venerable." "
Do you have context for this commet? Because it certainly was not in any formal sense, and I could find no such quote anywhere. Except on some blog, but he didn't have context or the full quote.
Just wonderding.....
I'm all for admonishing the sinner but vitriol does not leave much room for reconciliation. Let's try to remember that we are all anxious to worship God as best as we can.
I'd love to see the SSPX come back into the bosom of the Church. While some of the leaders may indeed have delusions of granduer, the membership in this group largely belongs because they love the Mass, the Eucharist and all that they were catechised to believe in. I suspect you would agree that love of the Mass, Eucharist, saints etc has not always been evident since VII.
Let's at least try to treat them as Christ treated Zaccheus. Especially now that they seem to be taking a half step back towards Rome. I suspect that a large percentage of the SSPX laity will be anxious to come back when the Mass is restored.
I for one will be ready to welcome them back.
"They" do no such thing, but like St Athanasius, (which is back to the original point made by Narses) they do point out when churchmen teach heresies.
I have even been told that it is a heresy to call John Paul "the Great."
Really by whom? It certainly isn't a heresy to hold that opinion, but when John Paul II's papacy is compared to the papacy of the other popes given that title it does appear to be an uniformed opinion to say the least.
I agree with nearly everything you said. But I think we should be showing the SSPXers (and other schismatics) a more Christlike attitutde. Afterall isn't that the most attractive feature of Christianity? We must be willing to forgive seventy times seven times. We must continue to engage them, with love, again and again.
Of course it is the natural human reaction to become angry etc but Christ asks us to move beyond our mere humanity to become someting better. Of course what they say about the Church is hurtful but we must try to educate them and also listen to the valid criticisms that they have (note I said their VALID criticisms).
One point I like to make to those traditionalists who have left the Church is that they should be fighting for the Church within the Church rather than abandoning it to those who they see as harming the Church.
Maybe I am soft hearted for believing that people can cahnge. So be it. I will contiue to pray for the SSPXers as I pray for Moslems and others who are not within the Church.
BTW, I was not saying Black Elks post was vitriolic but rather the original post that I had responded to.
Actually, the SSPXers (with apologies to St. Pius) who attend the local chapel, Our Lady of Fatima, insist that the Church teaches heresies. As do my family members in St. Mary Kansas and Post Falls, Idaho. They insist that the Catechism is filled with heresies as well as the GIRM, for starters. I have no idea how this reconciles with Christ's promise that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church. But they say it, over and over and over again.
"Really by whom?"
His name is Daivd....
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