VATICAN CITY (EWTN News/CNA) — The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, has dismissed the recent ordination of 20 priests by the Society of St. Pius X as illegitimate.
“As long as the society does not have a canonical status in the Church, Benedict XVI underlines, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church,” said
Father Lombardi in response to a question from EWTN News at a July 5 media conference.
Father Lombardi said that the society’s canonical status will not be resolved “until the doctrinal questions are clarified.”
The Society of St. Pius X is a traditionalist group founded in 1970 by the Frenchman Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Their relationship with the Vatican soured in 1988 when Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops against the orders of Pope John Paul II.
It was an act deemed to be schismatic by the Vatican.
While the excommunication of the four bishops was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, the society still has not fully resolved doctrinal disagreements with the Catholic Church, which are mainly tied to the Second Vatican Council.
Over the past two weeks, the society has ordained priests in ceremonies in Switzerland, Germany and the United States. The latter ordinations took place on June 17 at the group’s seminary in Winona, Minn., and were conducted by St. Pius X’s superior general, Bishop Bernard Fellay. He used his homily to accuse the Vatican of lacking unity and consistency in negotiations with the society.
“When I speak of contradiction, my dear brethren, I mean that certain people in Rome consider us as being outside the Church, excommunicated, and even as having lost the faith and being heretics. But there are others who very clearly accept us as Catholics,” he told the congregation gathered for the ordination of five priests.
“When Bishop de Galarreta (a Pius X bishop) and our priests go to Rome for the doctrinal discussions, they say Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. How can you have both attitudes at the same time? Do you see how strong this contradiction is?”
Pope Benedict has been eager to heal the rift between the Pius X Society and the Church. In 2007 he made it easier to celebrate Mass according to the older Tridentine rite, saying he hoped it would lead to “an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church.”
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This article seems a little one-sided: there is a statement by the Vatican, a response by SSPX, but no response to it by the Vatican.
Bishop Fellay asks, “When Bishop de Galarreta (a Pius X bishop) and our priests go to Rome for the doctrinal discussions, they say Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. How can you have both attitudes at the same time?” Yet this article quotes Fr. Lombardi saying, “[SSPX] ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church.” I presume that includes saying the Mass. Fellay’s question begs an answer. How are outcast ministers allowed to minister in St. Peter’s, of all places? This is a question I expect a major news source to investigate and report.
At least the Vatican made a statement about the SSPX ordinations, unlike Bishop O’Brien in Baltimore (See of the U.S.) who has made no statement about the “ordination” of priestesses in Catonsville, MD on June 7. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-06-05/news/bs-md-co-women-priesthood-20110605_1_roman-catholic-womenpriests-ordination-priesthood
Blogs are full of “passionate intensity” on both sides of this issue of the SSPX. The quote from the Pope’s letter in the second paragraph is the result of one overall problem with the SSPX: they are exclusive, they shun and preach against a unity of with other Catholics, not only of the so-called “Novus Ordo Church” (that phrase is really getting old and inappropriate), but against fellow TLM orders such as Fraternity of St. Peter. In this refusal to recognize other Catholics in the mainstream Western Church as equals in Faith and the deeds of Faith, the SSPX are more like stubborn children (about the age of adolescence) refusing to grow up. They are like sophomores with their first philosophy and Church law behind, and are thus empowered to behave like… well, sophomores. Forget Canon Law and all debate in their case: they are simply quite immature and in their deal breaking and constant complaining and blaming Rome, have acquired the tone and posture of adolescents: whiners. After 40 years of they are the way of the Church back to “sound doctrine”, “proper liturgy”, and so on, it has become a question more of arrested development than canon law.
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