Posted on 07/18/2002 3:10:53 PM PDT by narses
Letter of Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos to Mgr. Fellay (English translation by Mr. Ken Jones, Una Voce St. Louis)
The Vatican, April 5, 2002
Dear Brother in the Lord:
Since the beginning of our fraternal contacts to find a way toward full communion, I believe that we have experienced the solicitude of our merciful Lord: truly he has not spared us His aide and His support, to gather together all the good things that unite us and overcome what still divides us.
I read at the time attentively, in prayer and not without suffering, your letter of last June 22. I have also studied certain documents concerning our conversations, written by members of the Fraternity of St. Pius X, published on the Internet and disseminated by other means of communication. I have also reread the letters of the bishops of the Society of St. Pius X, the interviews granted by Your Excellency and the letters that you have sent me.
Until today, for my part, I have never agreed to grant interviews on the subject, in order to maintain the privacy of the details of our dialogue: for me they have always had a provisional and discreet character, because of the great responsibility that I feel in conscience for this matter. It now seems to me opportune, for the love of truth, to clarify here several aspects of the development of this reconciliation, with the intention of imparting a new impetus, to be frank, to move beyond possible suspicions and misunderstandings that compromise the outcome that, I have no doubt, Your Excellency also desires.
The subject that we are considering will have, in fact, particularly important historical consequences, because it touches the unity, the truth and the holiness of the Church, and it is necessary therefore to treat it with charity but also with objectivity and truth. Our sole judge is Christ the Lord.
Permit me now to give a brief historical overview of our journey:
First of all, I must reiterate a historical truth, at the root of everything. My first initiative was not the result of a Pontifical mandate and was not the fruit of an agreement or project of some other person from the Apostolic See, contrary to what has been written and rumored, as if it was a matter of a definite strategy. As I have already had the occasion to say several times, the dialogue was completely my own personal initiative.
In the second week of August 2000, on returning from Colombia, I learned through the media that was available on the airplane, and only through it, that the Society of St. Pius X was participating in the Jubilee. On my own initiative, and without speaking to anyone about it, I decided to invite the four bishops of the Fraternity to a private dinner with me. The meeting with brother bishops would be a gesture of fraternal love, the occasion of a reciprocal exchange. I therefore had the joy of meeting Your Excellency, as well as Their Excellencies Tissier and Williamson. As you will recall, we did not discuss any subject thoroughly, even if, naturally, we did speak about the liturgical rites, and I was able to become familiar with several aspects of the current life of your Fraternity. I manifested publicly the good impression that the aforementioned Prelates made on me.
I subsequently gave an account of this meeting to the Holy Father, and I received from him words of encouragement. I expressed a desire to maintain contacts to explore the possibilities of this much hoped for unity. The Sovereign Pontiff asked me to continue, and he manifested his clear will to accommodate the Society of St. Pius X, by promoting the conditions necessary for this accommodation. Some time later I read, with a private satisfaction, the interview granted by Your Excellency to the magazine 30 Days. The journalist put these words on your lips: "If the Holy Father calls me I come, or rather I run." I had occasion to speak with the Holy Father about this interview, in which Your Excellency expressed freely and spontaneously his thought: the Holy Father indicated to me, one more time, his generous will to accommodate your Fraternity.
As a result, I contacted Cardinals Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State for His Holiness, Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Jorge Medina Estevez, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, as well as with His Excellency Mgr. Julian Herranz, President of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts. All manifested their satisfaction with a view to an eventual solution of the difficulties. I also consulted Cardinals Paul Augustin Mayer and Alfons Marie Stickler, who were of the same opinion. It is thus that we studied the fundamental theological problems, already present in 1988 when an accord with His Excellency Mgr. Lefebvre was prepared. It did not seem to us that there have been any new problems. Then we began studying several juridical forms that would make a reintegration possible; this appeared very much desirable. Throughout history, the desire for unity has always been a constant for the See of Peter.
To all it seemed appropriate, if Your Excellency agreed, that the undersigned could proceed to a new dialogue of a provisional character. It was not a matter of discussing theological problems in depth, but preparing the way for reconciliation.
I therefore invited Your Excellency by letter; you amiably accepted the invitation and the meeting took place on Dec. 29, 2000.
As Your Excellency knows well, we then studied the possibility of reconciliation and of the return to full communion, as a very concrete and special fruit of the Jubilee. We concluded with a dinner at my residence, attended also by the Rev. Michel Simoulin, in a very cordial and fraternal climate.
Informed of this new reunion, and despite the amount of work he had in the last days of the great Jubilee, the Holy Father received you with the Abbe Simoulin on Dec. 30, 2000 in his private chapel. After a few minutes of silent prayer, the Holy Father said the Our Father, followed by those present, then he wished them a Holy Christmas. He blessed them by offering several rosaries and encouraged them to continue the dialogue undertaken.
In the same Apostolic Palace and in the presence of the personal secretaries of the Holy Father, I read to Your Excellency a Protocol regarding the dialogue of the preceding day, which would be sent to the Sovereign Pontiff. You have expressed your agreement by specifying two points: 1) the prayer for the Pope in the Canon of the Mass was not your decision but was a prior provision of Mgr. Lefebvre; 2) reservation about Vatican II especially regarding religious liberty, since the rights of God over the public order could not be limited. The secretary took notes in order to make a report to the Holy Father.
For further clarity, permit me to transcribe here the aforesaid protocol:
More (27 pages more) at the link.
That appears to be the propaganda that you have chosen to swallow. There were many faithful Cathoics who did not like having the Novus Ordo forced upon them. They went along out of obedience. The Modernists who forced the Novus Ordo on everyone now use the argument that one doesn't want to force the Tridentine Mass on everyone. How convenient!
I think narses' point was just to make the Tridentine Mass available without indult and let come what may. Pope John Paul II has agreed that the Tridentine Mass was never abrogated.
"Just allowing it (which is the last hurdle to reconcilliation) could drive the liberals to schism."
This may turn out to be an auspicious time to allow it.
The liberals would like to leverage the current crisis to their advantage, but recognize that they are far more vulnerable as a result of all that has transpired than are any other group. They're gettiing a little traction with calls to give more "power" to the laity, but frankly, are losing lots more ground at every other point. Many ordinary Catholics are waking from their decades-long sleep and realizing that their are consequences to heterodoxy. They are scarcely going to embrace the heterodox among us as the solution to everything.
This is a bad moment for the liberals to effect a formal schism; few would follow at this point in time. Thus, if our Holy Father were to give permission without restriction for any priest to say the Tridentine Mass, it is likely that the liberals would swallow hard, gnash their teeth, and realize that this isn't the battle that they should pick to fight at this time.
That being said, I don't think that our Holy Father will give such permission, not without some practical restrictions.
The right to say the Tridentine Mass would have to be subordinated to the right of the pastor and the bishop to enforce liturgical disipline in the parish and diocese. It could be a bit disconcerting to show up at Mass one Sunday and discover that the celebrant had decided Saturday evening to reconfigure the interior of the church, and was about to launch into a Mass for which the typical Catholic has no preparation or experience. If the pastor of a parish were to decide that the parish would have one rite or the other, would the other priests at that church, or who occasionally celebrate Mass at that church be governed by that decision? Could pastors institute the old Mass against the wishes of their congregations (my own answer here would be: well, of course - which leads to various other cans of worms)?
I can see that our Holy Father would grant the right to each priest to privately celebrate the Tridentine Mass. I can see a more liberal method for allowing public celebration of it. But to avoid disorder and chaos, it would still need to be regulated. I'm not familiar enough with the SSPX folks to know whether that would be acceptable.
Any thoughts?
sitetest
The modernists do precisely that. Are you old enough to remember when they used to snarl and spit out the epithet "pre-conciliar" against anything remotely traditional? I remember telling one of my professors that the Bible was "pre-conciliar"; she about had a fit of apoplexy over that one. :)
I don't believe it’s the Mass they hate although they may say so to get a rise out of their audience. There are defense mechanisms involved here and I'm not sure which ones (displacement & rationalization?). It's not the Mass; it's what the Mass represents to these people. It represents an authority that is not their own (Rome), chain of command, Canon law, etc. Plus it represents a threat to the pervasive "pastoral flexibility" which dominates Amchurch.
The same principle applies to the One Dimensional Christians who ridicule the Mother of God and the Eucharist. Mary and the Body of Christ represent (to them), the Catholic Church and the challenge/threat it presents to their own autonomous authority and freedom to do whatever they wish without any higher earthly authority telling them different. The heresy of 'individual interpretation' permits it, you see.
Knowing that there is a large group of apostolic Christians who will prove to you that you are WRONG using the bible itself to do so, is a threat to the ego. Defense mechanisms are the means of coping.
Cute, but can be seen as disrespectful.
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