|  Author | Topic: SSPX Schism in a nutshell (Read 13,563 times) |
hibernicus
Administrator
member is offline
![[avatar]](http://svpclare.com/graphical/images/FredericOzanam.jpg "[avatar]")
![[aim]](http://images.proboards.com/aim.gif "[aim]")
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male 
Posts: 4,635
|  | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #255 on May 24, 2012, 7:02am » | |
A Rorate Caeli statement by a SSPX leader gives their definition of obedience:
EXTRACT
In this connection, I remember the excellent remarks of our District Superior in 2004: “I write rebellion because I do not see any other word to characterize the attitude of a priest who refuses to bow before the authority of his superior, who publicly challenges him and exhorts the faithful to imitate his example….You do not have a correct view of the government of an ecclesiastical society like the Society of St. Pius X. This government is in no wise democratic, and the decisions and acts of Bishop Fellay, its head, neither can nor ought to be called in question by a different way of thinking of one of his subordinates. Nay more, publicly expressed disagreement by a priest about an important matter concerning the government of the Society of St. Pius X constitutes a serious fault on the part of that priest. Should one consider oneself duty-bound to make one’s remarks or objections known, one should also know how to yield to the Superior’s decisions subsequently, even if the Superior does not consider himself obliged to take these remarks into account. This is one of the aspects of Christian humility that leads us to understand that no one normally has the necessary graces to fulfill a charge except the legitimate holder of that charge. Common sense alone would indicate that others do not know all the elements that enter into the Superior’s decision and that one ought to grant a priori that he has experience, knowledge, and other faculties that we do not possess at the same level, at least in his sphere of activity.”
END
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/05....-more.html#more
Now, even though those who are experiencing the sharp end of this version of "obedience" are the Williamsonites (who richly deserve it) and its enforcement will assist those forces within the SSPX which favour reconciliation with Rome (as we all hope will happen) I must say this seems to me to be a most extraordinary definition of obedience.
To begin with, I was under the impression that the SSPX was a society of priests rather than a religious order taking the three vows, and that such bodies are by their nature less tightly bound than a religious order. This sort of obedience might well be defensible in the context of monks living in a monastery where they all have to live together and avoid disputes. (Even here it will be noted that the Rule of St Benedict, while emphasising that the final decision lies with the abbot, emphasises that he should consult the brethren):
EXTRACT
CHAPTER III
Of Calling the Brethren for Counsel
Whenever weighty matters are to be transacted in the monastery, let the Abbot call together the whole community, and make known the matter which is to be considered. Having heard the brethren's views, let him weigh the matter with himself and do what he thinketh best. It is for this reason, however, we said that all should be called for counsel, because the Lord often revealeth to the younger what is best. Let the brethren, however, give their advice with humble submission, and let them not presume stubbornly to defend what seemeth right to them, for it must depend rather on the Abbot's will, so that all obey him in what he considereth best. But as it becometh disciples to obey their master, so also it becometh the master to dispose all things with prudence and justice. Therefore, let all follow the Rule as their guide in everything, and let no one rashly depart from it.
Let no one in the monastery follow the bent of his own heart, and let no one dare to dispute insolently with his Abbot, either inside or outside the monastery. If any one dare to do so, let him be placed under the correction of the Rule. Let the Abbot himself, however, do everything in the fear of the Lord and out of reverence for the Rule, knowing that, beyond a doubt, he will have to give an account to God, the most just Judge, for all his rulings. If, however, matters of less importance, having to do with the welfare of the monastery, are to be treated of, let him use the counsel of the Seniors only, as it is written: "Do all things with counsel, and thou shalt not repent when thou hast done" (Sir 32:24).
END
But how can this sort of uniformity be imposed on members of a priestly society operating worldwide?
Secondly, if this is the SSPX definition of obedience, then the SSPX cannot possibly justify their own existence, for they certainly did not display this sort of obedience to the Pope or to the bishops of the dioceses wherein they operate.
Thirdly, I can only think of one parallel, and that is the "vow of charity" which the Legionaries of Christ used to take (and which has now been abolished on direct Papal instructions) which forbade the Legionary to criticise a colleague except in private to his superior or the superior's superior (both of whom would have a strong inducement to brush it under the carpet). That derived from an exaggeration of the Ignatian view of obedience, and this seems to me to come from the same source and to pose the same problems which the recent history of the Legion so markedly reveals. One criticism which has often been made of religious life prior to the Council is that many/most religious orders tended to read their own rules in light of the Ignatian form of blind obedience (and a particularly rigorist reading thereof), leading to considerable petty tyranny and resentment and producing an explosion when the presure was released after Vatican II.
If it is always illegitimate to criticise a superior in public, what happens if a superior becomes corrupt or pursues a seriously damaging policy? Are his subordinates required to submit unconditionally, no matter how much harm he does? Is there no scope for legitimate criticism, however outrageous his conduct?The assumption seems to be that the superior will always be right, and can never have anything to learn from his subordinates; similarly, the subordinates are assumed to be incapable of learning anything except from the superior. This sort of obedience can easily create a situation in which everyone except the superior knows the ship is heading straight for the rocks but nobody dares to say so, and everyone doubts their own (correct) judgement because no-one is allowed to voice it.
Finally, this view (that criticism is always illegitimate) seems to run contrary to the concept of electing a superior, for if differences of opinion cannot be made known, how can candidates be differentiated? It is probably not coincidental that Archbishop Lefebvre, after his own painful experience as General of the Spiritans, imposed a constitution on the SSPX which makes it almost impossible for a superior to be displaced unless he steps down of his own free will, and which seems to assume the superior is a monarch rather than a brother.
|
Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day |
|
hibernicus
Administrator
member is offline
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,635
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #256 on Jun 2, 2012, 7:49am » | |
The wackoes at Tradition in Action (the TFP splinter group run by Marian Horvat and Attila Sinke Guimaraes) are doing their best to whip up opposition to Bishop Fellay and encourage SSPX members to oppose reconciliation with "progressive Rome".
On their website they translate a letter of resignation from a SSPX priest in Brazil. What is really striking is that this priest does not just think Rome cannot be trusted to deal fairly with trads - he quotes the Apocalypse to claim that Pope Benedict is the False Prophet described therein -the chief minister of Antichrist - and that God is about to destroy the Vatican and all who are reconciled to it.
It says a great deal about the SSPX that someone who holds these views - which frankly make sedevacantists look like Caspar Milquetoast - and who says he has held them since seminary, was ever allowed to function within it in the first place.
http://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/f063ht_Resignation.htm
Link for information only - I repudiate both Fr Grosso and TIA as I would antichrist
|
Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day |
|
Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha
Everyone
member is offline
![[avatar]](http://russianfaith.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/schmorell1.jpg "[avatar]")
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 1,580
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #257 on Jun 5, 2012, 8:39pm » | |
This is the sort of thing we've come to expect from TIA - they have the ability to make their separated brethern in the TFP look like voices of sweet reason.
Though one that is pessimistic regarding a successful outcome to the Rome-SSPX dialogue, I would say that TIA are not a stakeholder in this and one hopes their views don't count for anything.
| |
|
hibernicus
Administrator
member is offline
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,635
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #258 on Jun 5, 2012, 10:10pm » | |
Alasdair - my main point was not about TIA but about the fact that the statement they reproduced shows it has been possible for at least one SSPX priest in Brazil to get through seminary and thereafter function in the SSPX while holding the view that the post-conciliar Church is an instrument of Antichrist and Pope Benedict is the False Prophet. This is not a promising sign as regards the mentality which has developed within the SSPX.
Admittedly, Brazilian SSPX may be particularly hardline because the moderates will have been reconciled along with the Society of St Jean Vianney in Campos, and those who remain with the SSPX will have been particularly determined to distinguish themselves from the SSJV. I think I saw an item on Rorate Caeli recently which stated that the Brazilian SSPX have made it clear they will not reconcile with Rome even if the rest of the Society does so.
TIA are indeed particularly wacko - I came across the item I mentioned when I was looking to see if they had produced a detailed account of why they don't like Bl. Frederick Ozanam. Not that I take their views on Bl. Frederic - or anything else for that matter - seriously, but it would be useful to see how far they were drawing on nineteenth-century legitimism and how much they had come up with "spin" of their own.
Incidentally, when explaining why they don't approve of the beatification of Cardinal Newman, they reproduce a 1950s interview with Fr Feeney which refers at length to Newman's alleged Jewish ancestry as a black mark against him (the reference is quite clearly to Jewish heredity alone, which Feeney seems to have regarded as automatically evil) and which gives a highly distorted account of Newman's post-conversion views on Anglicanism and on converting Anglicans to Catholicism. The rationale for this seems to be that Feeney (as one might expect) disapproved of the concept that anything good could be found outside the Church, so that anyone who wished to engage in intellectual exchange with non-Catholics or thought anything could be learned from them must be evil by definition. It says volumes about TIA that they reproduce this stuff.
|
Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day |
|
Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha
Everyone
member is offline
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 1,580
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #259 on Jun 5, 2012, 11:35pm » | |
Point take. The Institute of the Good Shepherd is also very active in Brazil.
The TIA, like many fringe trad groups, seem to advance certain schools of 19th century Catholicism as the solely authentic variety of Catholicism, as if this was the one unchanging faith from Pentecost in the upper room.
| |
|
hibernicus
Administrator
member is offline
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,635
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #260 on Jun 6, 2012, 5:51am » | |
You're right about the IBP - the recent Vatican visitation called for closer scrutiny of the Brazilian recruits to their seminary (it didn't say on what grounds) which shows they are attracting Brazilian recruits, just as for much of the C19 French Orders consciously cultivated Irish recruits.
In relation to TIA - given their endorsement of Fr Feeney's outrageous views on Cardinal Newman's alleged Jewish ancestry, I wonder if their hostility to Bl. Frederic Ozanam is in any way related to the fact that Bl. Frederic believed his family to be descended from Jews converted in the Middle Ages?
|
Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day |
|
hibernicus
Administrator
member is offline
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,635
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #261 on Jun 9, 2012, 8:39am » | |
FR Zuhlsdorf has some comments on an interesting interview in which Bishop Fellay warns SSPX opponents of reconciling with Rome of the danger of producing an imaginary ideal of what the Church ought to be and refusing to do anything until the Church corresponds to that ideal in every way:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/06/sspx-bp-f....deal/#c omments
This comment posted by a reader is particularly cogent:
EXTRACT
Sixupman says:
7 June 2012 at 4:32 pm
Third Para: “[I Like this]” ……………. .
Such is already the position with certain elements with SSPX. They have created a construct based upon their interpretation of pre-Vatican II Catholicism, without possession of any experience of the same, which in turn gives rise to the impression of the creation of a self-elevated elect.
My experience of pre-Vatican II Catholicism was of full churches with congregations drawn from all classes including reprobates. Both the Diocesan Church and SSPX have not attracted that broad spectrum of Catholics included the ‘great unwashed’, which parish priests of old would cajole thm into not denying their Faith however inadequately practised.
END
|
Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day |
|
hibernicus
Administrator
member is offline
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,635
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #262 on Jun 15, 2012, 9:04am » | |
While Bishop Fellay negotiates in Rome, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais denounces the Pope as a Modernist and states that for the SSPX to reconcile with Rome would be equivalent to losing the faith:
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/06/bishop-tissier-de-mallerais.html#more
|
Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day |
|
hibernicus
Administrator
member is offline
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,635
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #263 on Jun 20, 2012, 8:34am » | |
An interesting sidelight from the Eucharistic Congress. I noticed Cardinal Alencherry of the Syro-Malabar Church was among the principal celebrants on the Monday afternoon Mass, and other Eastern-Rite bishops concelebrated at subsequent Masses. I was slightly puzzled by this given the extent to which the Eastern Rite churches resist Latinisation, and also given the way in which many SSPX and other trads complain that "biritualism" is unacceptable and priests who celebrate the EF Mass should never be asked or agree to celebrate the OF, even in such circumstances as the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday (when all the priests of a diocese concelebrate with their bishop).
I asked a friend who knows something about this, and he told me that all priests are entitled to concelebrate in any recognised rite, though if they wish to say Mass by themselves in a rite other than their own they must receive the appropriate faculties.
If this is the position with the Eastern Rites (which are much more clearly distinct from the Roman Rite) how can certain trads (in the SSPX and elsewhere) maintain that it is possible to be in communion with Rome while refusing on principle ever to say the OF Mass? Such a view would seem to suggest very strongly that those who hold it really believe the OF is invalid, which is just not compatible with belief in the Church's divine mission.
(Note: I am talking about absolute refusal of EF/trad priests to say/concelebrate the OF on a point of principle. Fear that bishops may pressurise EF priests to say the OF as a stepping-stone towards making them give it up altogether is a matter of expediency, not principle.)
|
Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day |
|
shane
Senior Member
member is offline
![[avatar]](http://lxoa.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/fc.jpeg "[avatar]")
Joined: Feb 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 321
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #264 on Jun 20, 2012, 1:59pm » | |
Why would it? I'm sure there's no shortage of diocesan clergy who'd refuse to say the Old Mass out of principle. Does that imply that they deny its validity? No, not necessarily.
I'm certain many traditionalist priests deny the legitimacy of the New Mass, even while accepting its validity. There are any number of reasons for that. Even if the Old Mass and the Novus Ordo belong to the same rite, in a legal sense, it's quite clear that they differ in many important aspects. While I'm strongly opposed to the 'reform of the reform' movement this fact seems fairly well accepted even among them.
They might also strongly resent the fact of a revised liturgy itself, wish it had never been promulgated and believe that it is objectively inferior to the Tridentine liturgy (I also fall into this category) so it's understandable that they would have no wish to perpetuate it. (Although both satisfy the thirst, why have Tesco Value Cola when you can have Coke?)
|
|
|
hibernicus
Administrator
member is offline
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,635
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #265 on Jun 21, 2012, 6:26am » | |
To start with some minor points before proceeding to the major one:
First of all, there is the specific issue of the Chrism Mass in which concelebration is a symbol of the priests' communion with their bishop. I don't see how a diocesan priest can legitimately refuse to concelebrate with his bishop on such an occasion, and there have certainly been instances of indult trad priests refusing to concelebrate in an OF Chrism Mass. (The same issue would presumably arise if a diocesan bishop were to celebrate an EF Chrism Mass and some priests were to refuse to celebrate, but realistically this is unlikely to be a common occurrence any time soon.)
Secondly, it is fairly common knowledge that there are trads who deny the validity of the OF Mass, and given these circumstances I think it is preferable that scandal should be avoided.
Thirdly, I am not just talking about trads who refuse to celebrate the OF themselves but about those who maintain that any trad priest who celebrates the OF under any circumstances ceases to be kosher, so to speak. (Bishop Rifan has been frequently attacked on this basis.) This is not parallel to the example you give of liberals who refuse to celebrate the EF themselves - it is akin to those liberals who object to any priest saying the EF, such as those bigots who may be found spluttering about cappa magnas on the ACPI site.
(The liberal objection to the EF is much harder to pin down than the trad objection to the OF, by the way. It ranges from the view that the OF is superior and that to perpetuate the EF calls the necessity of the reform into question, which is IMHO a legitimate even if mistaken view and a matter of expediency rather than doctrine, to people who want a complete break in continuity between old and new church - cf Hans Kung's claim that once the new rite was promulgated the old ceased to be valid and the SSPX bishops are therefore not bishops at all - and/or who dissent from Catholic eucharistic doctrine and prefer the OF because they think it is more easily transformed into a Protestant communion service. Neither of the two latter positions is IMHO compatible with membership of the Church any more than denial of the validity of the OF.)
Finally, in regard to the OF, you are mixing up legitimacy and expediency. It is quite reasonable to say it was a mistake to bring in the OF, but the fact remains that it does exist and that it was ratified and imposed by papal authority and that it is the standard and most widely-practised form of the Roman Rite. Under these circumstances, to refuse on principle to "perpetuate" it is quite simply the Protestant principle of private judgement, and he is no more entitled to do this than he is to declare himself Pope.
(Let's take a parallel - I hope everyone on this board would agree that the actions of Bishop John Ireland of Minnesota in refusing to recognise Eastern-rite priests operating within his diocese were outrageous and unreasonable, and that he must bear a heavy responsibility for the resulting secession of many eastern-rite Catholics to the Orthodox Church, but that does not mean that the decision of those Easterners to go into schism was or could be justified.)
|
Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day |
|
shane
Senior Member
member is offline
Joined: Feb 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 321
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #266 on Jun 27, 2012, 5:37am » | |
Hibernicus, I'm not quite sure why. Plenty of things have been ratified by popes (communion in the hand, etc.) that many orthodox Catholics take issue with, consider objectively inferior and would not wish to perpetuate. The fact is popes get it wrong sometimes. To deny that (either in theory or in practice) is just sticking one's head in the sand - which is blindness, not obedience. Peter isn't always right and papal authority over the liturgy is a very unclear subject theologically, canonically and historically. Your whole argument is based on the premise that the pope can do whatever he wants to the liturgy and we must obey him. Many liturgists would strongly object to treating liturgy as just another aspect of canon law and others would argue that tradition has an authority by itself independent of papal authority. It's also painfully clear that ultramontanism has been a major contributor to the liturgical malaise the Roman Church finds itself in. Popes in the C20th have perpetrated/ratified catastrophic damage to the Church's liturgy - that certainly needs to be recognized and taken into account. Pope Paul VI's promulgation of the Novus Ordo was not a mere 'mistake', it was a damned disgrace and trashed over a millenium of tradition. The salvation of souls is the highest law (salus animarum suprema lex) not the latest fad in Rome. With all due respect to His Holiness, it is exceedingly perilious to subject the Church's public worship wholesale to the whims of an elderly Bavarian bachelor.
I don't think many traditionalist Catholics would be scandalised by a traditionalist priest refusing to say the Novus Ordo *in principle*. Far more I think would be scandalised by priests actually celebrating it. I note in common SSPX polemics against the FSSP they almost always use cases of FSSP priests offering the New Mass ('look at those compromisers'). Some otherwise obedient SSPX priests may well be put off regularization for fear that they'd be mandated to celebrate the Novus Ordo.
The Novus Ordo may be the commonest form celebrated, but it does not have a higher juridical status than the eastern rites (which no Latin priest is required to offer). I don't think objectors to the Old Mass can be confined to the liberal category; there is no shortage of unimpeachably orthodox priests who would refuse to celebrate the Old Mass (for many reasons). A traditionalist priest refusing to say the Novus Ordo is no more schismatic than an Eastern priest who refuses to say it, or an average diocesan priest who refuses to say the TLM (and they are legion).
|
|
|
hibernicus
Administrator
member is offline
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,635
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #267 on Jun 27, 2012, 8:26am » | |
My position is not based on the idea that the Pope is entitled to do whatever he likes - it is based on the fact that Christ's promise to Peter implies that the Pope cannot fall so far into error as to approve a Mass rite which is actually invalid, and that is what opposition IN PRINCIPLE (as distinct from expediency) to trad priests saying the Novus Ordo seems to me to imply - at the very least it gives scandal - and not just to traditionalists, who are NOT the only sort of Catholics who count. If SSPX members refuse in principle to say the OF they are in my opinion schismatics and should not be allowed back in.
Paul VI IMHO acted autocratically and arrogantly in suppressing the OF in the way that he did (I do NOT think it would have been wrong if he had introduced the OF but allowed the EF to continue alongside it), and did serious harm thereby, and I also agree that it shows that in some respects papal centralisation was taken too far in the nineteenth century (though there were good reasons for doing this at the time) but there is still a basic respect due to the Pope and to his decisions, and sneers at "an elderly Bavarian bachelor" go beyond it. I might add that even if the Pope was another Alexander VI or similar reprobate he would still have a considerable measure of authority as Pope, though of course this does not mean we should obey his every command. Quite bluntly if it comes to Peter without the EF or the EF without Peter, I will always choose Peter, and anyone who does not is not a Catholic. There has to be a central authority, we are entitled to criticise it when it makes mistakes within certain limits, but in the end trads have to be Catholics and not the equivalent of Anglican ritualist episcopi vagantes.
The Eastern Rites are in a different category from the EF and OF, because they are separate rites whereas the EF and OF are two forms of the same rite. Eastern Rites normally have their own hierarchies, in which case the question of a priest having to assist at the Chrism Mass celebrated in a different rite does not arise. I do not know whether an Eastern priest operating under a Latin Rite bishop where there is no organised eparchy of his own rite would normally be expected to concelebrate the bishop's Latin-Rite chrism Mass, but if that is the normal arrangement it would IMHO be wrong for him to refuse it on the basis of his own private will.
|
Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day |
|
hibernicus
Administrator
member is offline
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,635
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #268 on Aug 2, 2012, 10:51pm » | |
Here are the latest ravings from Bishop Williamson, who has been giving conferences to his followers in Bristol, and is predicting an atomic attack on the Olympics:
http://cathcon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/the-bishop-williamson-videotapes.html
A commenter on this post (below) notes that Williamson's views on what constitutes pornography are somewhat inconsistent:
http://marymagdalen.blogspot.ie/2012/07/bishop-mccrazy.html
EXTRACT
Jacques said...
One has to wonder about a man who thinks The Sound of Music is pornographic, but watches (and apparently expects his supporters to watch) V for Vendetta, which has a lesbian subplot and contains - as IMDb notes - "pictures hanging on the wall that show homosexual sexual acts; we see a close ups of a man's buttocks with a hand covering it, [and] close ups of what appear to be sexual acts between men."
26/7/12 4:24 PM
END
I suspect the reason is that Bishop Williamson, like many conspiracy theorists, will swallow any old dope if it fuels his sense of being in the know - there are well-attested cases of Irish ultra-Republicans praising Jew conspiracy books by British ultra-rightists, even when said books present Irish Republicanism as part of said conspiracy. I might add that the director of V FOR VENDETTA is a transsexual and the film portrays Christianity (albeit the C of E) as upholding a NAzi regime; the principal Christian character is a paedophile (Anglican) bishop.
|
Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day |
|
hibernicus
Administrator
member is offline
Joined: Oct 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 4,635
| | Re: SSPX Schism in a nutshell
« Reply #269 on Aug 9, 2012, 7:55am » | |
According to the REMNANT for 30 July, which I saw in the Central Catholic Library recently, the visitors who inspected the IBP at the end of its five-year probation period have come up with the following requirements
(1) Instead of having a policy of "exclusively" celebrating the EF, the EF is to be the "normal" form of Mass for the IBP. The reference to "exclusively" BTW suggests to me that the IBP were not content to have a general policy of EF-only celebration while leaving it to individual discretion, but positively prohibited their members from saying the OF. It seems to me that Summorum Pontificum cuts both ways, and that any Latin-rite secular priest should be entitled to say Mass in either form (though the IBP should be entitled to insist that members normally say the EF). Prohibiting the OF altogether is just as wrong as the actions of those bishops who still (formally or informally) prohibit the EF. I know the latter are less likely to be disciplined, but that's life and if you want to get anywhere you have to take the situation as you find it.
(2) The visitors say that the IBP should not teach students about Vatican II exclusively by reference to its alleged errors, but should adopt the "hermeneutic of continuity" and interpret the Council in relation to the Church's previous teachings. This again sounds as if the IBP were maintaining the characteristic SSPX ambivalence about whether Vatican II counts as a "real" council.
(3) The visitors say that the IBP should be more integrated with the diocese (of Toulouse) and work more closely with the diocesan priests. This again is the normal situation with an association of secular priests (such as Oratorians) within a diocese, and is implicit in the bishop's admitting them to his diocese in the first place. I suspect the Chrism Mass issue is also involved here.
The REMNANT takes a pro-SSPX line; it claims that the IBP was founded in the belief that it would be possible for it to operate exactly as the SSPX does and maintain all the characteristic SSPX positions as a self-sufficient enclave while retaining communion with the Vatican. It suggests that the fact that this has now been disproved will influence the SSPX against reconciliation with Rome. Quite frankly, if the IBP or the SSPX really thought they could or should return to communion with Rome while simply dismissing every church position they don't agree with, they were/are both wrong and delusional.
|
Christ is the morning star who when the night of this world is past brings to his saints the promise of the light of life and opens everlasting day |
| |
|
![[Search This Thread]](http://images.proboards.com/search2.gif "[Search This Thread]")
![[Share Topic]](http://images.proboards.com/new/buttons/share.png "[Share Topic]")
![[Print]](http://images.proboards.com/buttons/print.gif "[Print]")
Logged