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Post by hibernicus on Oct 22, 2008 22:48:52 GMT
I am not a sedevacantist; I'm an indult traditionalist (or perhaps biritualist might be a more appropriate description since I attend NO masses at my parish church and go to St. Kevin's in Harrington Street when I'm in Dublin). I used to have a good deal of respect for the SSPX before they went into schism and when I only knew them from Michael Davies' description. This respect was quickly dispelled when I actually saw some of their literature (beginning with the ANGELUS and the CATHOLIC). In fact I have more respect for the sedevacantists than I do for the SSPX. If the SSPX's theological analysis were correct, sedevacantism would be the way to go. They uphold a very high view of papal infallibility in theory while heaping ridicule and contempt on the actual Pope in practice; the numerous SSPXers who have resolved the tension by deciding the actual Pope is not the real pope are only being logical. Saying that without the SSPX there would be no indult traditionalists is like saying that without the Albigenses there would be no Dominicans, or without Luther and Calvin there would be no Catholic Reformation - there is a great deal to be said for these views but that doesn't mean we should celebrate the original transgression. One more thing. After reflecting on the SSPX and the sedevacantists, I am absolutely certain that if a future Pope were to reverse the motu proprio and issue a watertight suppression of the Tridentine Rite I would submit. The Church can survive without the Tridentine Rite as she has without the Sarum Rite; she can't survive without the Papacy.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Oct 23, 2008 13:20:52 GMT
Wow, you are very hostile and bitter to the Society of St. Pius X. Ann Ball makes the point in volume two of Modern Saints-Their Lives and Faces that a year before his solemn profession in 1891 Dom Columba Marmion had begun preaching. Though his French was not the best the local pastor gave him this assignment.Three days later the pastor exclaimed, "I never had such a preacher in my parish, no one who so much moved the people". It lacks charity to say the priest has broken English and rants. I am sure these priests have great zeal for saving souls and propagating the truth. Sometimes a priest may have poor English but sure even Padre Pio had the gift of understanding confession through English. The SSPX are not the enemy. Their priests are among the many priests in Ireland bringing Christ to people and saving souls. I find your story about Abbot Marmion amazing as his mother was French and he grew up speaking French as well as English. The man was also an acknowledged spiritual master and no way comparable to the SSPX priests. Is it charitable for me to say that some of the SSPX priests whose sermons I have heard were in fluent English when they weren't? Or that they went on for any less than the time it does take them to deliver sermons? I am also aware of an incident when an Irish diocesan priest who had made a present of a portrait and relic of St Pius X to the community in Mounttown called to the house at Father Angles' invitation to find the priests there insisted on speaking to him in French rather than English. The only zeal I can attribute to the SSPX is that zeal that Our Lord ascribes to those Pharisees who would cross land and sea to win a single convert and then make him worse than themselves. God help us, Richard Williamson isn't even recognisably Christian - I recant my earlier description of him being a Protestant in drag. He doesn't even meet the loosest Protestant standards.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Oct 23, 2008 13:34:09 GMT
I have to say I am with Hibernicus. Ireland had the Gallican Rite until around the Norman invasion; the Sarum Rite until the Counter-Reformation; the Tridentine Mass until the 1970s. The Novus Ordo, bald as it is, is not the worst of our problems.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 23, 2008 21:35:20 GMT
Alisdair6 - I yield to no-one in opposing Richard Williamson, but why do you say he's not even Christian? He is an anti-semite and a misogynist, a petty dictator who routinely utters grave slanders and falsehoods and sins against charity, but these alas are not incompatible with sincerely held Christian belief. He has denounced St Teresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Siena on the grounds that women ought not to teach men; he has referred to the survivors of Nazi death camps as fraudsters who fabricated their experiences of being beaten and starved ad seeing their loved ones murdered; but while these are abominable crimes for which he ought to repent in sackcloth and ashes they do not mean that he is not a Christian believer - merely that he has not understood that which he professes. Has he made specific statements incompatible with Christian belief?
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Oct 24, 2008 13:08:13 GMT
Alisdair6 - I yield to no-one in opposing Richard Williamson, but why do you say he's not even Christian? He is an anti-semite and a misogynist, a petty dictator who routinely utters grave slanders and falsehoods and sins against charity, but these alas are not incompatible with sincerely held Christian belief. He has denounced St Teresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Siena on the grounds that women ought not to teach men; he has referred to the survivors of Nazi death camps as fraudsters who fabricated their experiences of being beaten and starved ad seeing their loved ones murdered; but while these are abominable crimes for which he ought to repent in sackcloth and ashes they do not mean that he is not a Christian believer - merely that he has not understood that which he professes. Has he made specific statements incompatible with Christian belief? I go too far, I admit. I am talking about the general tone of Williamson's ranting (some contributors hear think he's actually proclaiming the Gospel). It seems to lack either conviction or even interest in Christianity. The man claims to be a bishop - he was consecrated to the episcopacy and excommunicated for this. If you are suggesting (as you do very plausibly) that a bishop whose vocation is to teach, has not understood the faith he professes - where does that leave the SSPX adherents who rely upon him to elucidate Scripture and Tradition? Incidentally, I am not singling out Richard Williamson as an easy target. I read an interview given by Bernard Tissier de Mallerais in the Angelus in the past few months and I found it similarly worrying. It seems the SSPX are suffering from the breach of two decades with Rome.
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Post by guillaume on Oct 25, 2008 7:42:45 GMT
Alisdair6 - I yield to no-one in opposing Richard Williamson, but why do you say he's not even Christian? He is an anti-semite and a misogynist, a petty dictator who routinely utters grave slanders and falsehoods and sins against charity, but these alas are not incompatible with sincerely held Christian belief. He has denounced St Teresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Siena on the grounds that women ought not to teach men; he has referred to the survivors of Nazi death camps as fraudsters who fabricated their experiences of being beaten and starved ad seeing their loved ones murdered; but while these are abominable crimes for which he ought to repent in sackcloth and ashes they do not mean that he is not a Christian believer - merely that he has not understood that which he professes. Has he made specific statements incompatible with Christian belief? I go too far, I admit. I am talking about the general tone of Williamson's ranting (some contributors hear think he's actually proclaiming the Gospel). It seems to lack either conviction or even interest in Christianity. The man claims to be a bishop - he was consecrated to the episcopacy and excommunicated for this. If you are suggesting (as you do very plausibly) that a bishop whose vocation is to teach, has not understood the faith he professes - where does that leave the SSPX adherents who rely upon him to elucidate Scripture and Tradition? Incidentally, I am not singling out Richard Williamson as an easy target. I read an interview given by Bernard Tissier de Mallerais in the Angelus in the past few months and I found it similarly worrying. It seems the SSPX are suffering from the breach of two decades with Rome. I just remind you that Bishop Williamson, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais and BishopDe Gallareta are... bishops. Their role within the SPPX is to work as bishop : confirmation, ordination of priests, etc... However, the decisions regarding the "management" of the Society and its direction, is made by Bishop Fellay and his two assistants and NOT the three bishops I mentioned above. So when those bishops speak or write some stuff, they speak usually in their name, and not officially and necessary in the name of the Society. But surely the Bishops of the CC are more Catholics, saints and devoted to preach the Truth and to take the right decisions in order to maintain the Church in respect for its sacraments and traditions. ;D ;D ;D As for example (one of many !), a french bishop telling recently that " the pope is not the Head of the Church".... Yes surely bishops of the CC are great example of sanctity and showed trough the entire world a great interest for the MP and the TLM in general or even a great orthodoxy in the celebration of the NOM....
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 27, 2008 13:28:28 GMT
Guillaume: I did not say that all NO bishops are saints; there have been many bad bishops in communion with Rome down through the centuries - Judas was a bishop. My objection is that the SSPX claimed to be so obviously right, and the Pope so obviously wrong, as to disregard the authority of the Pope which they themselves admit to be lawful under normal circumstances and to consecrate bishops without a mandate from the Pope. When we find at least one of these bishops giving grievous scandal by uttering such harmful slanders and falsehoods as those which I listed above, and turning Catholicism in general and traditionalism in particular into a laughing-stock, it must raise serious questions about the SSPX's claim to be so obviously right that it is entitled to disobey the authority of the Pope (which authority it itself admits to exist under normal circumstances) and set up Econe as a second magisterium sitting in judgement on Rome. Furthermore by conferring episcopal orders on these men the SSPX gave them the authority to perpetuate schism even if (which God send) the main body of the SSPX were reconciled with Rome. Hence the SSPX can hardly avoid responsibility for their vagaries.
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Post by sceilg on Oct 27, 2008 23:55:09 GMT
Faithful, don't waste your breath. The SSPX haven't been crowned with success in Ireland. And they have nobody to blame but themselves. And what, for example, has the Latin Mass Society of Ireland achieved? Where do Trads turn?
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 28, 2008 12:30:33 GMT
We have a chaplaincy in Harrington Street and are spreading our work in the provinces; we've had a presence in Dublin since 1984. The SSPX in Ireland is actually shrinking; it's becoming an introversionist cult which is more interested in boundary maintenance (by rigorist views and making impossible demands of the Vatican) than attracting new recruits. We have to trust the Church will not fail; things were worse in the Great Schism or the time of the Borgias. Better light one small candle than curse the darkness - or try to put out the LMSI candle as the SSPX have done in the past.
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Post by faithful on Oct 28, 2008 13:09:55 GMT
The chaplaincy in Dublin was established under the directives outlined by the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.It would not be accurate to say this chaplaincy is an LMSI initiative.They are a new society founded less than ten years ago. "The Latin Mass Society of Ireland, founded in 1999," www.latinmassireland.org/"(by rigorist views and making impossible demands of the Vatican)" I have no idea what you mean by this. "boundary maintenance" It is distressing to read some other threads. I think the 'INDULT' groups are all guilty of stepping on each others toes. Another thread mention tension in Newbridge. A Traditional Mass should rely first on local support and initiative.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 28, 2008 15:39:59 GMT
The chaplaincy might not have been established if there had not been an existing group. The "impossible demands" amount to saying that they will only enter into discussion if the Vatican concedes all their demands in advance and announces its adherence to "tradition" as the SSPX defines it.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Oct 29, 2008 11:42:33 GMT
It would be wrong for the LMSI to claim credit for the Dublin chaplaincy, but it would be equally wrong to say it had no imput whatsoever. Diarmuid Martin responded to the Motu Proprio in the knowledge there was a lot of trad activity in his diocese, one source of this activity being the LMSI.
But as for Sceilg, as someone very happy with what the SSPX do, I doubt the LMSI can do anything for him (I assume 'him' to be the correct pronoun).
When I look at his (subject to correction on this point) comments 'where do trads turn?' I reminds me of my comparisons between Europeans and Americans. I prefer the former to the latter, but in several respects I think the Americans way ahead. One way is the American spirit of participative democracy. An American would never ask 'What are they (be it the government, church etc) going give us this?' but 'How are we going to get this from them?'. The LMSI is a lay initiative that has worked with some effect in Cork, Limerick and Belfast (and elsewhere). LMSI people work voluntarily in their spare time. It could use a lot more volunteers (and funds). There are a great many people who either take the SSPX because it is on their doorstep or wait for the bishop to move. It can be a bit disheartening to see lots of people who attend LMSI Masses (in particular in the cities mentioned) but who make no contribution to the LMSI other that criticism. And in spite of the work the LMSI has done with the Institute of Christ the King and the FSSP, it is the society's priority that Irish traditionalists are served be Irish priests. The SSPX could do this, but refuse to. And the SSPX have cut their number of Masses in Ireland in the past couple of years.
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Post by sceilg on Oct 30, 2008 18:19:53 GMT
We have a chaplaincy in Harrington Street and are spreading our work in the provinces; we've had a presence in Dublin since 1984. The majority of Irish bishops have shown nothing but contempt for Summorum Pontificum. Why aren't the LMSI involving themselves in a broad and focused campaign to secure at least a Mass every fortnight in each one of the country's main diocesan centres? After all, the bishops are going all out to provide Polish chaplains in every diocese. Think what you like about the Society, but the I would imagine that "boundary maintenance" can be more readily applied to the Irish bishops in their reaction to the MP. Their response to the Pope's demands for more wider access to the Latin Mass has been paltry; disloyal at worst. If the LMSI is "without boundaries", to what extent? Is it purely a focus group for fans of Latin, and after that, anyone else who wishes to join on the bandwagon? How much of the LMSI is to do with respectability rather than the Catholic principle espoused by the SSPX? Are you telling me that the Church is sounder and society stronger than it was several hundred years ago? Are you living on Mars? The LMSI is putting out its own candle; why bother if all it ever endeavoured to be was nothing more than a small light in the background.
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Post by sceilg on Oct 30, 2008 18:21:52 GMT
But as for Sceilg, as someone very happy with what the SSPX do, I doubt the LMSI can do anything for him (I assume 'him' to be the correct pronoun). Yes, 'him' is correct. I am not a frequent attendant of Society Masses myself, but I sympathise with its aims. Why are you so keen on attacking it?
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 1, 2008 23:02:34 GMT
The LMSI is a very wicked animal, when it is attacked it defends itself. When I referred to the Borgias etc I meant the Church goes through ups and downs - there have been dark times before and we shouldn't despair amidst present troubles. We may be in Babylon but we must spread the memory of Zion and one day we will return. Do you really mean to say that no-one can possibly think society and the church are in any respect better now than they were in the thirteenth century? St. Francis was told to rebuild the Church precisely because it was tottering. Read some mediaeval history - the good and the bad. You are attacking the LMSI for not transforming the situation overnight. We simply don't have the manpower; we have to work with what we have. We can only do a little but that's better than nothing. Why don't the SSPX have a Mass in every diocese, if that is the standard you are applying? Why don't they assign some of their Irish priests to an evangelisation campaign?
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