The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has announced it will hold separate talks with the superior general of the breakaway traditionalist Society of St. Pius X and each of its three other bishops to try and acheive reconciliation.
“The text of the response of Bishop Bernard Fellay, received on 17 April, 2012, was examined, and some observations, which will be considered in further discussions between the Holy See and the Society of St. Pius X, were formulated,” said a communiqué issued May 16.
The statement was published after a quarterly meeting of the Ordinary Session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The 16-person committee, known as Feria Quarta, met this morning to discuss the modifications made by the Superior of the Society of St. Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, to a “doctrinal preamble” prepared last year by the Vatican. The document establishes a framework for agreement on some key issues of Church doctrine, including acceptance of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.
In contrast to Bishop Fellay, the society’s three other bishops seem hostile to the idea of reconciliation with Rome.
Today’s Vatican communiqué said the situations of the three other bishops “will have to be dealt with separately and singularly.”
Earlier this month, Bishops Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Alfonso de Galarreta and Richard Williamson sent a letter to Bishop Fellay warning that an agreement with the Vatican would see the society “cease to oppose the universal apostasy of our time.”
They also argued that the Second Vatican Council “did not just include particular errors, but represented a total perversion of the mind, a new philosophy founded on subjectivism.”
Pope Benedict XVI was dismissed by the three Pius X Society bishops as a “subjectivist.”
Prior to today’s statement, many observers thought it was possible that the committee would announce an agreement with the society that could be presented to Pope Benedict XVI for his judgment.
Feria Quarta consists of some of the Vatican’s senior curial figures, such as Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and several bishops from key dioceses, including Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna and Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux. It is chaired by the prefect of the congregation, the American Cardinal William Levada.
The Society of St. Pius X was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebrve in 1970 as a response to what he described as errors that had crept into the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council. Its relations with the Vatican became strained in 1988, when Archbishop Lefebrve consecrated four bishops against the orders of Pope John Paul II.
Edward Pentin: Pope Announces Series of New Curial Appointments
Comments
Post a Comment
The trouble is this: that the Vatican is bending over backwards without knowing how many bizarre ideas these people have off camera so to speak. We know that one of the three Bishops accusing us of perversion of mind, denied the holocaust of the Jews. How many other weird ideas are closeted amongst these people who love the furtive to begin with? Meanwhile Brazil has the highest number of uncontacted primitive tribes on earth which means missionaries have failed to reach them for 400 years despite our having to preach the gospel to all nations. If the Vatican turned all that time and energy away from Fellay and toward Brazil, those natives would be growing tomatoes and Boston lettuce by now and would be building a Church and basketball court by now and watching Allen Iverson dribbling tapes and reading 2 Kings in the Bible whose wars would seem normal to them. In short, the Vatican will never reach a real ending with people who find cascades of apostacy flowing from Vatican II. Even if there is a formal agreement after ten more years of back and forth, some of these people are nutty…plain and simple…and they’ll always be nutty. Many years ago I attended one ritsy affair of far right Catholics in Manhattan having been invited by a family. A famous senator spoke but one of the speakers cracked a clearly anti Jewish joke and I was stunned and everyone else was laughing including the family who invited me. I knew Mary and Peter and Paul and Christ weren’t laughing in Heaven but this whole group of well heeled New Yorkers were. And the Vatican is breaking their back for years now trying to reconvert these types back into the fold. How does that help the fold?
It would be nice if they settled their differences! There should be more flexibility in the Church for differing opinions! I am willing to bet many Catholics also objected to some of the changes! This is why the Church has driven away so many of the Faithful!
I agree with Bill Bannon. With all the problems we have in evangelizing the masses who have fallen away, or are being led away from Truth and Light by the pagan popular culture, why do we devote so much time to strange relics from the Middle Ages? Really, the SSPX should take a new look at Mother Church, should view new films such as ‘The Way’ and ‘There Be Dragons’, etc., and join us in the Body of Christ, instead of acting like an arthritic knee, a frustrating pain that distracts us from the Beauty and Truth of our time on earth!
Bill Bannon—
I do appreciate the concerns you have about the particular sort of nuttiness that some of these folks display. However, I think there are other perspectives important to keep in mind:
(1) The SSPX is already in the Church. The folks who attend their liturgies are 100% Catholic. The bishops and priests of the Society are in an irregular status, canonically. But the folks in the pews are every bit as Catholic as you and I.
(2) In the grand scheme of things, bringing these folks into a canonically-erected structure like a personal prelature of the Pope probably won’t add to the nuttiness of Church in any statistically significant way. There are over a billion of us, after all,and we’re talking about a Church that includes a lot of different people from different walks of life. I doubt a few more crazy folks is going to tip over the barque of Peter, especially since:
(3) The chief concern must be for the salvation of these folks’ souls, which brings us to the paramount importance of unity, availability of sacraments and obedience to ecclesiastical authority. This has to come first, before PR concerns, and before even broaching the subject of whether we all should want to be associated with these “others.” There are going to be prostitutes and tax collectors in the Church. What better place for them? How much easier should it be to handle a few rad-trads, given their inestimable worth to God?
The position of the other three bishops seems to me to be dangerously close of accusing the Pope (and others in full union with the Church) of being a formal heretic (i.e., the whole idea that the Pope is a Subjectivist). If that is the case, if Bishop Fellay and the bulk of the Society (at least I hope it would be the bulk) return to full union with the Church, I wonder if the other three bishops will make a full jump to being sedavists?
Mark
Sorry. Put them in a large auditorium as I was in, add the people who attend their services and tell anti Jewish jokes and video tape how many are not laughing. The results would not be good. When the Jewish crowd cried out, ” Let his blood be upon us and upon our children”, far right Catholics take the crowd’s statement as true. In point of fact, the crowd’s statement was forbidden by God in Ezekiel because they had a similar idea back then: Ezekiel 18:1-4
” 1Thus the word of the LORD came to me: Son of man, 2 what is the meaning of this proverb that you recite in the land of Israel: “Fathers have eaten green grapes, thus their children’s teeth are on edge”? 3 As I live, says the Lord GOD: I swear that there shall no longer be anyone among you who will repeat this proverb in Israel. 4For all lives are mine; the life of the father is like the life of the son, both are mine; only the one who sins shall die.”
God has cut them off not from Him but from seeing Him clearly in the new covenant. Vatican II made that point: ” True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ;(13) still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures.”. Nostra Aetate sect.4
Veiled scripture confirms the Church. Joseph like Christ is sold by his brothers into the hands of the Gentiles where he is falsely accused like Christ and descends into prison, rises out and is placed on the right hand of pharoah from where he feeds a starving world grain…just like Christ rose from the prison of hades to the right hand of the Father from where He feeds those starving for righteousness by feeding them grain…the Eucharist. Joseph’s brothers (the Jews) go to Egypt and plead for grain before the very brother they betrayed who has disguised his face. Joseph puts them through trials but in the end reveals himself and reconciles with them and forgives them.
Current sincere Jews seek right now righteousness from God but He is disguised to them like Joseph was disguised but unlike Joseph’s brothers, they did not hand Christ over. The prophecy is true of their seeing God right now but disguised. Ezekiel tells you that they are guiltless for the physical betraying of Christ. We are all guilty of Christ being on the cross in a deeper sense.
The far right are of inestimable worth? What are the uncontacted tribes of Brazil, Peru and the south pacific…chopped liver? Christ sent out disciples who were to shake the dust off their feet as a witness against Jewish houses that rejected them if at once their peace did not abide in that house immediately but returned to them. YET….Christ took long pains nurturing Peter’s growth. The short witness and the long witness. The wacko sector of the three bishops is past due for sure. The others…Rome must decide with more decisiveness than she showed in cracking down on Macial and the perv parade.
I must say that one against three is not right. One looking for the unity while others looking for an excuse to continue with an idea. The Superior General of the Society should go to the people that attend their churches and ask them if to unite or not. These others people who rather prefer to continue denying and insulting Pope Benedict should be left alone. Let them walk!!! If they prefer to reject what the Vatican II council established, let them. It is their choice. One wants to come back HOME fully. I can imagine others do to. The congregation and members of the society have much to do. I agree that with the bishops, it must be worked out one on one. i pray to God that this will be resolved. We are One in Christ. Stop dividing th church and turn the other cheek. Our Lord taught us that lesson. Are you embarrassed?
It is interesting how Fr. Lombardi’s / CDF’s private opinions (even if publicly manifested) are being treated as if they are the Pope’s own wish - we’ve seen this before, and such a political move has backfired with the current Holy Father (e.g., dealing with the Neocatechumenate Way’s “liturgical” practices).
I agree with Bill. The SSPX has some bizarre ideas. They will not reconcile. They don’t want to. They believe THEY are the true church, we are the fallen away ones. My next door neighbor is an SSPX. He gives me his bulletins to look at, in hopes of my conversion, I suppose. One of the bulletins was advertising a recent book published by the SSPX. It was about how horrible a Pope JPII was. It was scandalous, full of lies, and not any way to speak of a Pope. much less one who did NOTHING wrong. Good luck to them. Holy Mother Church is being fooled if they bring them back on any terms but one that expresses the one true church is not SSPX. Bill is right, they hate the Jews, I’ve heard it from their mouths.
Judging from a lot of the comments received, youe readers have very little clue as to what the Catholic Church REALLY IS. They have very little clue as to what TRUTH is. They have very little idea what Vatican II was all about and how the The True Faith was !@#$% by the Devil masquerading as Prelates and bishops. Truly, most Catholics today have no idea about what the true beliefs of the Church are.
Perhaps spme of your readers should do some bloody good reading and see the crap which the heirarchy of the Church have been spewing for the last 50 years! And the faithfull take this as Gospel Truth, they take everything that the pope says as infallible - their is so much ignorance, Catholics are absolutely unable to defend there faith so they compromise all the way!
AND…Stephen makes my point…
Spoken like a true SSPX. And Holy Mother Church want to bring them back into the fold because…?
And according to you, Stephen, what is the truth of the Catholic Church? What is means to know what the Catholic Church really is?
I must say this note and if offended anyone, please forgive me:
IF THE DEVIL SEPARATED FROM GOD’S GRACE BECAUSE HE AND A THIRD OF THE ANGELS WOULD NOT SERVE BECAUSE A MAN IS INFERIOR TO THEM BUT GOD SAID HE WILL BECOME MAN TO SAVE US. THEY MADE A WAR AND OUT THEY WENT. IN WHAT MANNER IS THIS NOT THE SAME: THE CHURCH HAS CHANGED IT’S THEOLOGY FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING. CHANGED THE LITURGY IN ALL IT’S ASPECTS. HERE COME SOME THAT ACT IN DESOBEDIENCE OF THE CHANGES ESTABLISHED. ARE YOU NOT ACTING THE SAME AS THE DEVIL?
Even so, with this Pope and Blessed John Paul II, they have received some these society’s back to Holy Mother Church without changing the liturgy and traditions they so much love.
Why not come back to the church? Is it not written that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation? And another place: Peter is the Rock.
God bless you all!
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give The National Catholic Register permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.