|
Post by maolsheachlann on Aug 17, 2015 21:57:35 GMT
I tend not to chime in on discussions about Traditionalism, since it's an alien world to me, but I'm fascinated by this term 'pixies'! Is it distinctively Irish? It reminds of 'the stickies' and "the chuckies". How long has it been knocking around? Do they use it themselves, self-mockingly? I can't find any hits for it outside Irish sites...
|
|
|
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 18, 2015 9:31:14 GMT
Edermine is a private chapel in a "big house" in Co Wexford, just outside Enniscorthy.
Bishop Comiskey gave permission to the LMSI for Mass there in 2001, and in replying to the letter of thanks, he suggested an open permission. This correspondence was never followed up on, but permission was presumed from that one letter.
Unfortunately, the LMSI did not follow up on this properly. At a later time, the LMSI officer in charge attempted to divest the permission to local people. This was problematic as insofar as there was any permission, it was to the LMSI and the officer was so advised, especially when the Diocesan Secretary, Fr John Carroll, pointed this out. There was a bit of embarrassment at the time, but the real problem seems to have been lack of wisdom as to locals that were delegated, as most of them were what are called pixies. So, very soon afterwards, Edermine was exclusively used by the SSPX (the EF Mass was established in Barntown on the 2nd and 3rd Sundays around this time; the SSPX were going to Edermine on the 1st Sunday - that timing was not coincidental).
Now the situation in Wexford is that the Edermine Mass is Resistance. Draw your own conclusions.
Lest Fr Carroll appear in negative light about the above, he is the curate (only serving priest) in Barntown and he has greatly facilitated things there. Assuming ill will on the part of church authorities isn't always good policy.
On the substantive issue on the proportion of radicals to moderates within the traditionalists community in Ireland and England, there are a few pertinent factors:
1. There is a much longer history of overt traditionalism in England, which has historically been much more articulate and better organised than here. The Irish response was late and scatter-gun and overly dependent on clergy (this is a key to lack of success). Numerically, there are still far more radical traditionalists in England and many radical traditionalists have been accommodated within the structures that are there. There is a wing within the LMSEW which is very sympathetic to the SSPX (this is also true of the LMSI of late though);
2. A lot of radical English traditionalists, and some from the US and even Australia, have settled here, many of the first in response to Dickie Williamson's back to the land campaign. These will drift towards the resistance;
3. Traditionalism in Ireland has been very centrifugal. There are several traditional movements in Ireland, the problem being lack of co-operation. Right now most energy is being displayed by the Catholic Heritage Association. The factionalism among moderates feeds the radicals; and
4. I'm still at a loss at what purpose Jamie Bogle's visit served. He's connected with the Remnant Newspaper in the US and John Rao's Dietrich von Hildebrand Institute, both of which are very much on the radical edge. I know Professor Rao has been connected with people close to Dickie Williamson in the past, as have the Remnant. I would say tread carefully.
And Maolshleachlann, the word pixie was coined within the LMS of England and Wales - the PX in SSPX made pixie a convenient short hand for supporters.
|
|
|
Post by hythlodaye on Aug 19, 2015 20:25:19 GMT
Edermine is a private chapel in a "big house" in Co Wexford, just outside Enniscorthy. Bishop Comiskey gave permission to the LMSI for Mass there in 2001, and in replying to the letter of thanks, he suggested an open permission. This correspondence was never followed up on, but permission was presumed from that one letter. Unfortunately, the LMSI did not follow up on this properly. At a later time, the LMSI officer in charge attempted to divest the permission to local people. This was problematic as insofar as there was any permission, it was to the LMSI and the officer was so advised, especially when the Diocesan Secretary, Fr John Carroll, pointed this out. There was a bit of embarrassment at the time, but the real problem seems to have been lack of wisdom as to locals that were delegated, as most of them were what are called pixies. So, very soon afterwards, Edermine was exclusively used by the SSPX (the EF Mass was established in Barntown on the 2nd and 3rd Sundays around this time; the SSPX were going to Edermine on the 1st Sunday - that timing was not coincidental). Now the situation in Wexford is that the Edermine Mass is Resistance. Draw your own conclusions. Lest Fr Carroll appear in negative light about the above, he is the curate (only serving priest) in Barntown and he has greatly facilitated things there. Assuming ill will on the part of church authorities isn't always good policy. On the substantive issue on the proportion of radicals to moderates within the traditionalists community in Ireland and England, there are a few pertinent factors: 1. There is a much longer history of overt traditionalism in England, which has historically been much more articulate and better organised than here. The Irish response was late and scatter-gun and overly dependent on clergy (this is a key to lack of success). Numerically, there are still far more radical traditionalists in England and many radical traditionalists have been accommodated within the structures that are there. There is a wing within the LMSEW which is very sympathetic to the SSPX (this is also true of the LMSI of late though); 2. A lot of radical English traditionalists, and some from the US and even Australia, have settled here, many of the first in response to Dickie Williamson's back to the land campaign. These will drift towards the resistance; 3. Traditionalism in Ireland has been very centrifugal. There are several traditional movements in Ireland, the problem being lack of co-operation. Right now most energy is being displayed by the Catholic Heritage Association. The factionalism among moderates feeds the radicals; and 4. I'm still at a loss at what purpose Jamie Bogle's visit served. He's connected with the Remnant Newspaper in the US and John Rao's Dietrich von Hildebrand Institute, both of which are very much on the radical edge. I know Professor Rao has been connected with people close to Dickie Williamson in the past, as have the Remnant. I would say tread carefully. And Maolshleachlann, the word pixie was coined within the LMS of England and Wales - the PX in SSPX made pixie a convenient short hand for supporters.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Aug 19, 2015 20:39:48 GMT
I was at Jamie Bogle's talk and it seemed quite harmless - a rundown on the current state of play with INdult EF Masses around the world, a list of centres where it is celebrated etc. At times it was a bit too much of a catalogue and could have done with a bit more context but it was a decent basic introduction. He seems to believe things are looking up for the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. A pro-SSPX questioner towards the end was fielded quite deftly, and I don't remember anything even vaguely tending towards schism.
|
|
|
Post by hythlodaye on Aug 19, 2015 20:48:20 GMT
It is a pity that Alaisdir Ua Seaghdha has decided to pick at some old scabs from the unhappy recent past of the LMSI—injuries that could have healed completely if left alone for a while longer. I have absolutely no desire to rub salt into anyone's wounds, but I must point out that Alaisdir himself bears most of the responsibility. He knows my meaning quite well, and it will be much be better for all concerned—and for the traditional cause in Ireland— if I refrain from spelling it out in detail. Suffice it to say that on this score at least, Alaisdir is in no position to dispense advice. Alaisdir is not fully informed about events surrounding the Mass at Edermine, Co. Wexford. The LMSI officer most concerned can put him fully in the picture if he wishes. I am at a loss—to borrow Alaisdir's words—to understand why he can't see the value of James Bogle's visit to Ireland. It can be counted a great success at each venue—Cork, Galway and Dublin—with appreciative audiences who came away with their morale considerably enhanced. Jamie Bogle is President of Una Voce International, the umbrella group of organisations committed to the survival and growth of the Church's ancient liturgy, including the LMSI, so what could be more appropriate than inviting him to address our members and other Trad supporters? As for the rather snide innuendo that Mr Bogle is in some way tainted by association with people who have in the past been involved with other people who might have have had some connection with Bishop Williamson...well, I think Alaisdir should, to borrow his own words again, “tread carefully”. Jamie is a fairly distinguished barrister, a deputy head of chambers in London, and Chairman of the Catholic Union of Great Britain. In passing, I'd like to note that the Dietrich von Hildebrand Institute is no more “on the radical edge” than it has always been since the days of William Marra. The LMSI does not have a collective position on the SSPX. Most Board members would, I think, share my own view that the Econe consecrations were a tragedy, but that we should at least be grateful to the memory of Archbishop Lefebvre, without whom the Church's ancient liturgy could hardly have prospered. Such too was the view of the late Michael Davies. Of course there is an overabundance of extreme right-wingers among the SSPX, but that's no reason to regard the Society as totally beyond the pale. The Ecclesia Dei Commission and the Pontifical Council of Legislative Texts do not regard them as schismatic, so I really think it is high time you changed the title of this thread. It is no longer accurate―if it ever was. Even under the present pontificate, although the SSPX is still certainly irregular, it is recognised as Catholic. One may fulfil one's Sunday obligation by attending SSPX Masses, provided one does so without any schismatic intention. It is quite true that the LMSI has been less visibly active of late, but there are some modest successes. For instance, one supporter in Ossory diocese told us a few days ago that there is now a regular First Saturday Mass at Glenmore Church, near New Ross, at 11:00am. And behind the scenes, we have repaired our links with certain clergy, so badly damaged before the change of Board. Without our priests we can do nothing, which is why it is foolish to denigrate the role of the clergy. The “energy” of the Catholic Heritage Association is indeed commendable, but it won't help beleaguered Trads in certain dioceses to obtain regular Sunday Masses. Travelling around the country with an elderly priest, arranging one-off Masses is counterproductive if one gets up the collective noses of the diocesan clergy. Even worse is to “out” parish priests who refuse to be accommodating. Obtaining regular Sunday Masses has to be left to local initiative, and requires great patience, perseverance and tact.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Aug 19, 2015 20:49:00 GMT
As regards the question of how many "trads" there are in Britain v. Ireland, I was defining trads as people interested in the EF Mass (I would call orthodox Catholics who have no great interest in the EF Mass and/or mainly attend the OF "conservatives"). What I had in mind was that because we did not have an organised indult movement before Pope John Paul II's indult and the first indult Masses at St Michael and John's in the mid-80s, the field was left open to the SSPX (except possibly for small localised groups). I suspect the SSPX drew to some extent on problematic elements which pre-existed the Council (there was still a Maria Duce remnant in Dublin into the 70s, for example, and I suspect the SSPX absorbed them). At the same time they almost certainly picked up a certain number of decent and moderate people who would have joined an Irish equivalent of the England and Wales LMS had one been available, and remember the SSPX didn't go into schism until the mid-80s. (Some of you may not think they are in schism, but certainly the consecration of bishops made a much clearer divide.) British Catholicism in general, not just trad-ism, seems to have a much stronger tradition of open debate than we have in IReland.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Aug 19, 2015 20:56:15 GMT
I should say that my last post with the remark that I use "schism" as shorthand rather than in the precise sense was written before I saw Hylothdaye's most recent post. The Vatican seems to be giving the Fellayite SSPX a degree of tacit recognition which implies they are not schismatic in the full sense, though their situation is certainly irregular. We must all hope and pray for the best. (The name of the thread was adopted before the excommunication of the SSPX bishops was lifted by Pope Benedict.) The so-called "Resistance" are definitely in schism and are no longer part of the SSPX, but they still appear on this thread because they derive from the SSPX and have not adopted a collective name (I think Williamson has said he wants a network rather than a formal hierarchical structure). PErhaps we should consider splitting the thread.
|
|
|
Post by Michael O'Donovan on Aug 19, 2015 21:12:52 GMT
This is a short history, from an insider, of the Wexford situation. Alaisdir, who has no direct knowledge of it, can be forgiven for misunderstanding bits of it. The Wexford EF congregation has existed for more than twenty-five years. It grew up around Fr John Patrick Brady, an Athlone-born member of the English Province of the Holy Ghost Fathers who spent most of his working life on the missions in Nigeria. During the 1970s he associated himself with the SSPX — in Switzerland first, then in the USA, and finally back in Ireland where he ministered in Cork and Dublin. He cut his links with the SSPX after the 1988 consecrations at Écone and retired to a house in Wexford. There, he began to celebrate the Mass in a private chapel. Some people who had attended his SSPX Masses in Dublin followed him to Wexford, and other local people (including me) joined over the years. Fr Brady retired at the age of 90, and went to live in a nursing home in Dublin where he died in February 2013 at the age of 92. After he retired, his congregation petitioned Bishop Brennan for the use of a church. Fr John Carroll's church in Barntown was made available, and Masses are celebrated there now on the second and third Sundays of each month. Masses on the second Sundays are celebrated by a priest of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter; on the third Sunday the celebrant is usually a priest of Ossory, and from time to time he is replaced by a priest from Cork and Ross or by a Columban Father based in Birmingham. The congregation is usually between 35 and 40. The Wexford EF congregation came into being, and continues, entirely independently of the LMSI. At some point, perhaps in 2001 as Alaisdir says, it appears that the LMSI approached the owner of Edermine House and asked him for permission to have Mass in the Pugin Chapel. They received Bishop Comiskey's consent. I understand that for some years there was one LMSI Mass a year said at Edermine House, a Requiem for deceased members. There has been no requiem for a few years now and I never heard of any other LMSI activity connected with Edermine House. The owner of Edermine House came to know one member of the Wexford EF congregation as his normal point of contact when the Chapel was to be used for Masses. A year or so after regular EF Masses began to take place at Barntown, that man arranged for SSPX Masses to be said at Edermine House on the first and fourth Sundays. As Alaisdir says, this was no co-incidence, but it was not an arrangement on behalf of the Wexford EF congregation. Some of them went to the SSPX Masses; others did not. In 2013 the SSPX Prior in Athlone, Fr MacDonald, decided arbitrarily to change the SSPX Mass times at Edermine House so that one of them clashed with the Mass at Barntown. Four members of the Barntown congregation attended the SSPX Masses instead; the rest stayed in Barntown. Following the recent troubles in the SSPX, the man in the Barntown congregation who had been the contact with the owner of Edermine took the side of the SSPX "Resistance" and has taken it on himself to exclude the official SSPX clergy from the chapel at Edermine. Apart from one other person who is closely related to him by family, no one else in the Wexford EF congregation has sided with the "Resistance". So when Alaisdir says that "the situation in Wexford is that the Edermine Mass is Resistance", that actually means nothing at all. We have a long-established and thriving EF congregation here in Ferns, in full communion with the diocese and with the approval of the Bishop. Visit us at www.facebook.com/groups/latinmasswexford.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Aug 20, 2015 19:27:35 GMT
Thanks for this clarification, Michael. It's good to see you back on the Forum, which you originally founded.
One point that this message suggests is that the number of Resistance Masses may not accurately indicate their size - there may just be a number of very small but fanatically committed groups. However small they may be, they can certainly cause mischief - one reason why this thread was called "SSPX Schism" was because of the antics of Bishop Williamson when he was still affiliated with the SSPX. LEt's hope and pray for the best.
|
|
|
Post by hythlodaye on Sept 1, 2015 10:58:00 GMT
Pope Francis has just announced the following, at the conclusion of a letter connected with the Extraordinary Year of Mercy:
"A final consideration concerns those faithful who for various reasons choose to attend churches officiated by priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X. This Jubilee Year of Mercy excludes no one. From various quarters, several Brother Bishops have told me of their good faith and sacramental practice, combined however with an uneasy situation from the pastoral standpoint. I trust that in the near future solutions may be found to recover full communion with the priests and superiors of the Fraternity. In the meantime, motivated by the need to respond to the good of these faithful, through my own disposition, I establish that those who during the Holy Year of Mercy approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins."
This is surely of immense significance. As Fr Zuhlsdorf suggests, just as President Nixon was the American statesman to negotiate successfully with China (I paraphrase) could it be that Pope Francis is the Pope to reconcile the Pixies?
|
|
|
Post by Askel McThurkill on Sept 1, 2015 12:14:15 GMT
Well, how often was it said that SSPX priests did not have faculties to hear confessions and no one believed it?
|
|
|
Post by Young Ireland on Sept 1, 2015 14:05:31 GMT
Well, how often was it said that SSPX priests did not have faculties to hear confessions and no one believed it? Agreed, though I do think that this is certainly an olive branch and an incentive to reconciliation. If there is a reconciliation, I do hope that some action will be taken re Athlone, though I accept that this is easier said than done.
|
|
|
Post by Michael O'Donovan on Sept 1, 2015 18:12:05 GMT
Well, how often was it said that SSPX priests did not have faculties to hear confessions and no one believed it? Agreed, though I do think that this is certainly an olive branch and an incentive to reconciliation. If there is a reconciliation, I do hope that some action will be taken re Athlone, though I accept that this is easier said than done. What's happening in Athlone? I know that a number of priests and a good many lay adherents in Ireland have broken away from the SSPX to join the "Resistance". Is this having consequences in Athlone?
|
|
|
Post by Young Ireland on Sept 1, 2015 18:45:11 GMT
Agreed, though I do think that this is certainly an olive branch and an incentive to reconciliation. If there is a reconciliation, I do hope that some action will be taken re Athlone, though I accept that this is easier said than done. What's happening in Athlone? I know that a number of priests and a good many lay adherents in Ireland have broken away from the SSPX to join the "Resistance". Is this having consequences in Athlone? I can't say percisely how many have left, but I agree that with the "Resistance" stepping up a gear lately, it wouldn't be surprising if the congregation was decimated. Nevertheless, the extreme tendency in that chapel will probably continue to linger for sometime to come if something isn't done. Of course, Mass attendance there could drop so low that the SSPX might even leave Athlone before they reconcile (I think this is the best case scenario myself).
|
|
|
Post by Ranger on Sept 4, 2015 12:17:44 GMT
Something just occurred to me... when discussions of the EF Mass come up supporters of the SSPX often claim that it was thanks to Archbishop Lefebvre alone that the EF Liturgy survived and that those who attended Indult Masses pre-Motu Proprio have them alone to thank for it.
Is there any truth to this whatsoever, even if it is an exaggeration? I know that counter-factuals like this can be difficult if not impossible to figure out but do those more invovled in the traditionalist world know if the EF would have survived without Lefebvre's intervention?
|
|