VATICAN CITY (EWTN News) — The leadership of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X has confirmed that they will meet with Vatican officials next month to discuss their future relationship with the Catholic Church.
“The superior general (Bishop Bernard Fellay) and his two assistants, Father Niklaus Pfluger and Father Alain-Marc Nely have, on 14 September 2011, been asked to a special interview in Rome,” announced the superior of the Society in Germany, Father Franz Schmidberger, on their website Aug. 25.
The three men will meet with Cardinal William Levada, the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, and the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. Created in 1988, Ecclesia Dei is the Vatican body that has special responsibility for relations with the society.
Father Schmidberger said next month’s meeting would “discuss the results of nearly two years of doctrinal dialogues between the Holy See and the SSPX” and that the talks thus far had occurred in a “very good climate.”
The society has had a troubled relationship with the Vatican since its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebrve, consecrated four bishops against the orders of Pope John Paul II in 1988. Archbishop Lefebrve founded the Society of St. Pius X in 1970 as a response to what he called errors he said had crept into the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council.
In 2009, Pope Benedict remitted the excommunications of the society’s bishops and set talks in motion aimed at achieving “full communion.” To achieve this, he said, members of the society would have to show “true recognition of the magisterium and the authority of the Pope and of the Second Vatican Council.”
There is some speculation that next month’s meeting could be the culmination of that process. This past June, Bishop Fellay told members of the society that after September’s talks the Vatican would give all documents “to the higher authorities.”
If an agreement can be reached, two possibilities for a way forward include establishing the society as a “personal prelature,” granting it a status similar to that of Opus Dei, or as an “ordinariate” akin to the one recently created for Anglican converts.
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I pray that Society of St. Pius X will reconcile with Vatican to continue his society stay with Pope Benedict XV1’s offering. I respect Archbishop Marcel Lefebrve believe the old Tradation Mass because most of Catholic parishioners prefer the Old Tradation Mass that I know some people.
Our Lord and Holy Spirit will guide Pope Benedict Xv1 to accept his soiety to be relationship with Vatican that we both believe that Jesus Christ is our Founder of Catholic Church: I pray for all of them work together to success and be peace:
God Bless all of them always:
Would be so nice to bring all parties together after a long and painful journey over the past 60 years. So many confused families have been split over the issue, so much pain.
We have seen the “hurricane” after VII and we have watched it all culminate and start to repair itself after the sexual scandals. Orthodoxy of EWTN brings us all together on what IS Catholic and hopefully we once again simply all belong to the One, Holy, Catholic & Apostolic faith.
We must have hope. God says the church would not be deceived (Act of Hope). Yet to the schismatics what they are essentially saying is God’s promise is false and the church has been deceived. So many traditionalists are hard headed (me included), this might get messy. But so many hearts will heal.
The real question here lies in the obedience to the Magisterium on the part of both the SSPX leaders and it’s religious and lay members. Will they recognize Pope Benedict as their pope and adhere to his teaching authority? I would be very skeptical that they would be willing to embrace all of the teachings of the Church, including those changes brought on by Vatican II.
Cardinal Ratzinger’s Remarks Regarding the Lefebvre Schism, given in 1988, at Santiago, Chile:
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=3032&repos=1&subrepos;=&searchid=292734
I am certainly praying. I grew up in Brazil under a loving, faithful extended family torn part by this issue. May God have mercy on us, He alone can bring Peace and unity.
I pray that Rome will recognise their errors and return to the traditional Church and everything may be ok. May God’s will be done.
So many of us have recoiled in horror at the absolute lack of reverence that many Catholics have gained for the Eucharist, Holy Mass, and even the magisterial teachings of the church. The hopes of Vatican II were an opening up to the world and an easier visibility and understanding of the Church and her teachings.
Coupled with that were vast societial and social changes, which hijacked most of V II. We were left with a Church which was either unable or unwilling to educate and a people for whom sacredness was beyond them, apparantly….Christ in the Eucharist, the Word lived is the world has become tooooooo pedestrian.
What to do? Gather all of the survivors into an “armed” camp away from these ravages? Or push back against society and its moral decay, re-educate, call them back from the brink, ?
My choice? I stayed, witnessed, taught, and fought to the best of my ability and still do today. My prayer is that we come back together if for nothing else, than the sacred dignity of Jesus Christ.
In hope,
Steve
In one way I admire the Pope for not giving up on SPXII. But it is never going to happen (unless they run out of money!). Fellay just keeps stringing them along so he can stay in the limelight, not get excomm, and humiliate the Papacy.
Let them go, excomm them and then minimize their legitimacy and they’ll fade away
As a convert, I am perplexed by the negatively. Catholic should be Catholic (faithful to Rome), and that’s it. No sub-dividing, no “break off groups (which I perceive the society is).
Even if the Pius X Society is reconciled with Rome, I think there will be individuals within that will refuse. Instead of damning the whole Society, Rome should deal with individual priests (once reconciled) and judge each person accordingly…which Vatican probably should’ve done in the second place.
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