A recent letter leaked online suggests that leaders of the Society of St. Pius X, a breakaway traditionalist group, have rejected a proposed Vatican document to aid in reconciliation efforts.
The June 25 letter, written by the society’s general secretary, Father Christian Thouvenot, informs leaders within the society that the groups’ superior general, Bishop Bernard Fellay, found the Vatican’s offer “clearly unacceptable” at a meeting earlier this month.
After years of negotiations, the society, which broke with Rome in 1988, had been considering a Vatican offer that would have brought it back into the Church as a personal prelature, which functions as a jurisdiction without geographical boundaries.
The society was being asked to agree to certain doctrinal teachings specified by the Vatican, including full acceptance of the Second Vatican Council.
Pope Benedict XVI’s efforts to reach out to the Society of St. Pius X have been ongoing.
On June 26, the Pope appointed Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia, titular archbishop of Oregon City, as vice president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which has been responsible for leading conciliatory talks with the group.
Three years of negotiations had yielded a “Doctrinal Preamble” from the Vatican last fall, intended to pave a way to overcome disagreements over doctrine between Rome and the society.
Father Thouvenot’s letter said that Bishop Fellay had replied with a different version of the preamble in April that had “seemed to satisfy the Supreme Pontiff,” according to “several” sources.
According to the letter, however, Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, presented the bishop’s proposal on June 13 but “amended” in such a way that the bishop “immediately informed him that he could not sign this new document.”
The Society of St. Pius X will discuss the matter at its next general meeting, said Father Thouvenot.
He added that Bishop Richard Williamson, a controversial society prelate who caused an uproar several years ago when he denied the atrocities of the Holocaust, is being prohibited from attending that meeting “due to his stand calling to rebellion and for continually repeated disobedience."
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If I were the Pope, I’d convoke a synod of brother bishops (inviting certain Patriarchs) to set a date, and then as one, I would give all the gossipy, whispery, disobedient, devious and even egregrious post-Vatican-II-Church-shuckers a deadline: Either find some way to get on board then, or get off the Catholic dock once and for all! One can hardly imagine St. Peter himself putting up with such farce and ill will in Christ’s own church—in Christ’s own name!—for decades.
Too much CDF resources are being tied up in one weird group for too long. The CDF should be working rather on how predominant Catholic countries are often such in name only with 6 in the list of top murder rate countries, three as the top cocaine trafficing nations, two as numbers 2 and 4 in child sex trafficing…Brazil and Phillipines, and about 4 as having street children problems. In short the CDF should be working on the Catholic macrocosm faith problems instead of the Catholic microcosm faith problems. But the bigger problems like Latin America take the CDF away from the world of debating and Catholics like doctrine debating the way Lebron James likes hoops. We’ve been debating for 2000 years and God might not like that luxury we afford ourselves.
@carol:
If your body is diseased, do you cut off your healthy right arm for being - what did you say - ‘devious’?
@bill
You are mistaken sir. Without a return to the teachings to which the Society of Pius X adheres, those issues you outline will become the least of your worries. You are looking backwards through the binoculars.
If an amended Preamble was initially worked out, which was agreeable to Bishop Fellay and acceptable by the Holy Father. Then why did Bishop Lavada then amended that Preamble to include things that were not agreed upon in September of 2011. If it is the Holy Fathers, desire to regularize the SSPX, then why did Bishop Levada do a run end around the Pope and reinsert objectionable elements into the last Preamble? Perhaps this is why the Pope is bringing in Archbishop Di Noia to attempt overcome the impasse?
I’ve done my homework—been reading Trad issues for nearly 10 years, weighed against papal documents, and ultimately am astounded that such traitors are still coddled by Rome! Those dissenters, almost every bit as ungodly as the too liberal who also invent the church considering they’ve spoken, worked and even plotted against popes, publicly go against what every Indulgence asks, and although they mouth “our Lady” very piously they ignore Her actual wishes. If one of my arms acted so against its body, I’d wrap it in black plastic and duct tape and leave it to its own doings, because that arm would be doing nothing for or with me—not a definition of even small c Catholic, that.
Bill Bannon, I had never considered the matter from that angle. Indeed, it is time to stop wasting any resource.
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