Posted on 11/19/2004 5:42:24 PM PST by Land of the Irish
His Excellency, the Most Reverend Bernard Fellay of the Priestly Fraternity of the Society of Saint Pius X, told parishioners at Saint Ignatius Retreat House in Ridgefield, Connecticut, on Sunday, November 7,2004, that no deal with Rome on the status of the Society of Saint Pius X is in sight. Bishop Fellay commented at length, both in his sermon during Holy Mass and in a two and one-half hour conference that followed a reception in his honor, that although there are some high ranking curial cardinals in Rome who are sympathetic to the cause of giving the Traditional Latin Mass a "little comer in the zoo," none want to examine the root cause of the crisis in the Church: the inroads made by Modernism in the Church's liturgy and in her teaching documents. "What we want, His Excellency said in very measured but firm tones, "is for everyone, not just for us." Bishop Fellay went on to say that an archbishop in the curia had told him, "Don't make an agreement with Rome now. The time is not right. The Pope is no longer governing the Church. We need you to stay where you are and to stand firm in defense of the Faith."
Bishop Fellay specifically pointed to the example of the Bishop Fernando Rifan of the Society of Saint John-Marie Vianney in Campos, Brazil, to indicate that the path of compromise with the Vatican as it is currently constituted leads to a loss of integrity. Bishop Fellay noted that Bishop Rifan has defended his apparent concelebration at an offering of the Novus Ordo Missae in Brazil by saying that he, Bishop Rifan, had extended his hands but did not actually mouth the words at the moment that the other bishops recited aloud the words of consecration. "Everybody gets cheated in this instance," Bishop Fellay said, noting that Bishop Rifan is giving the appearance to traditionalists of having compromised while giving the appearance of , 'unity" with the adherents of the Novus Ordo. Bishop Fellay commented quite specifically that lay women gave out Holy Communion in the hand in the presence of Bishop Rifan. "This is not the path we are going to follow," Bishop Fellay said, indicating that although he would like to think his priests would be immune to the pressures that have been exerted on priests in the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter and the Institute of Christ the King and Campos to offer the Novus Ordo, he, Bishop Fellay, knows that human nature is what it is and that some of his priests might succumb to the pressure.
Bishop Fellay also said that he knows that Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy and the President of Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, was furious with him for the Society's irrefutable treatise on the errors of ecumenism. Indeed, the novelty of ecumenism was the focus of much of Bishop Fellay's sermon and conference. Bishop Fellay, who discussed at length the elements of authentic obedience, said that the Society of Saint Pius X could never accept the novelty of ecumenism that has gutted the Catholic Faith and has reaffirmed actual heretics and schismatics in their errors.
A full report of Bishop Fellay's magnificent and humor-filled conference will be carried in the November 30th issue of The Remnant. Suffice it for present purposes to note that His Excellency stressed that charity must prevail in all our dealings with our fellow Catholics so that they will see reflected in us the patience of Our Lord, who is so patient with us in the Sacrament of Penance. He reminded his listeners that we are living in the exact moment that God has known from all eternity that we would be alive and that His ineffable grace is sufficient for us to weather the storms besetting the Barque of Peter. His talk was uplifting and edifying. It will be given in other locales (Chicago, St. Louis, Post Falls) during His Excellency's American visit.
Nonsense. The Church is not always where Peter is, as the pious saying would have it. It certainly was not in Pope Alexander's bedroom when he dallied with his mistress. Your problem is a confusion of the two. The deposit of faith is what is paramount, not the papacy which is charged with protecting it.
Isn't this the case you propose? "the pope can be wrong in his judgment". Certainly the Pope had jurisdiction, there was nothing wrong with the form of the declaration, and the motive was not manifestly inconsistent (schism), nor manifestly incorrect (Msgr. Lefebvre was widely considered to have created a schism by his actions).
Oh, I've never denied the legalities, only the moral validity of the Pope's judgment in the Ecclesia Dei letter. It was erroneous in its evaluation of motives and unjust toward innocent men--and therefore a nullity. But the legal sentence has been widely accepted by the rank and file and has led to a real persecution of innocent men--the priests of SSPX. Fortunately, these good priests soldier on and preach the Gospel notwithstanding.
Instead of decreeing the status of SSPX by your own opinion, perhaps you should pay attention to what is coming out of Rome. Someone is in schism, but it isn't SSPX.
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/1105698/posts?page=15
Cardinal Hoyos:
His Eminence the Cardinal President of the ED Commission in the Congregation for the Clergy. ……The Cardinal received us quite friendly and gave us a whole hour of his time. He made an emphasis that he loves the Ancient Rite which he had celebrated himself between his ordination in 1952 and 1965.
The Cardinal repeated that they dropped any idea to give us a proper jurisdiction. He mentioned that such a proper jurisdiction had only been granted to the Fraternity of St John Vianney at Campos, as the founder of that Fraternity, Bishop de Castro Mayer, had gone much farther than Archbishop Lefebvre. The Cardinal underlined that Archbishop Lefebvre had never founded a proper structure of his fraternity that could be considered as a concrete act of schism. 3-13-04
Cardinal Cassidy: "The situation of the members of this Society is an internal matter of the Catholic Church. The Society is not another Church or Ecclesial Community in the meaning used in the Directory" (letter dated May 3, 1994).
Count Neri Capponi: "This act [of episcopal consecration on June 30, 1988] was not, per se, schismatic" (Latin Mass Magazine, May/June 1993).
Bishop Fellay went on to say that an archbishop in the curia had told him, "Don't make an agreement with Rome now. The time is not right. The Pope is no longer governing the Church. We need you to stay where you are and to stand firm in defense of the Faith."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1284342/posts
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Novus Ordo schism
And Mahony knows just what he is doing," continued the ecclesiastic. "Exactly. Right now Mahony is the leader of the American schism.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1280800/posts
Since you mentioned St. Athanasius as a model for traditionalists, let's see what he has to say.
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Letter of St. Athanasius to his flock
(St. Athanasius lived in the fourth century and was the Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt for 46 years. Banned from his diocese at least five times, he spent a total of 17 years in exile. The famous convert to the Church, John Henry Cardinal Newman, described him as a “principal instrument after the Apostles by which the sacred truths of Christianity have been conveyed and secured to the world.” Often referred to as the Champion of Orthodoxy, St Athanasius was undoubtedly one of the most courageous defenders of the faith in the entire history of the Church. If anyone can be singled out as a saint for our times, surely it is St. Athanasius. The following letter of his could, almost word for word, have been written yesterday.)
May God console you!…What saddens you…is the fact that others have occupied the churches by violence, while during this time you are on the outside. It is a fact that they have the premises—but you have the apostolic Faith. They can occupy our churches, but they are outside the true Faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the Faith dwells within you. Let us consider: what is more important, the place or the faith? The true Faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in this struggle—the one who keeps the premises or the one who keeps the Faith?
True, the premises are good when the apostolic Faith is preached there; they are holy if everything takes place there in a holy way…
You are the ones who are happy: you who remain within the church by your faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to you from apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis.
No one, ever, will prevail against your faith, beloved brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day.
Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim that they represent the Church; but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from It and going astray.
Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ.
On November 7 at an SSPX retreat in Ridgefield, Connecticut, Bishop Fellay, Chief Bishop of the SSPX, was quoted as saying that "some of his priests might succumb to the pressure" of accepting the Novus Ordo. Can Fellay and the SSPX be trusted to stay away from Newvatican?
OK, what's up this time? Is this in reference to the rats in France or is there more trouble brewing?
It all comes from the idiocy of holding that the true Church can promulgate false teaching, a 'bad mass', etc.
THIS IS HERESY!!!.
The true Church cannot teach error, promulgate invalid, ineffective, or whatever excuse word the SSPX now uses, sacraments.
The fact that false teaching is being proclaimed, a heretical invalid mass promulgated, and similarly other invalid sacraments means that therfore WHAT IS PROMULGATING THEM IS NOT THE TRUE CHURCH!
Yeah, then they wonder why almost half of their priests have left since their founding - and 95% run back to the maws of satan of the novus ordo.
I think Bishop Fellay was recognizing human nature. Some of us are stronger than others, priests included. I think he wants an ironclad situation to protect them from pressures to which Campos and FSSP have succumbed.
My understanding of the situation in France was it concerned seminary life at Econe. Nothing to do with the N.O. or Rome. I don't know where the French priests are but I strongly doubt they returned to the N.O.
You are preaching to the choir here. I agree wholeheartedly with St. Athanasius.
I have been on FR long enough that my position on tradition should be known well enough. You don't have to convince me.
St. Athanasius didn't start his own movement, he persevered from within, and put his faith in the Lord. "You are the ones who are happy: you who remain within the church by your faith"
It's never a good idea to leave the Church, even during a rough patch. Let them leave.
You missed his point. St. Athanasius was speaking to the flock who fled the heresy of the diocesan churches and bishops. He was teaching that the "church" is those who adhere to the Traditional Faith, regardless of location of worship.
I think it's about more than that. The excommunications are what precipitated this and are the principal legal problem but the SSPX issue is now wide-ranging. The issue of which rite of Mass should be celebrated is just one of a whole range of issues which divide SSPX and Rome. Criticism has spread to include almost every area of the Pope's work and teaching and includes Vatican II, ecumenism, saints of the Church created during JPII's pontificate, the role of the Novus Ordo, the authority of the Pope etc. All of this would need to be addressed by any "deal".
To get back to your original post, this is precisely why there is no "communion" between Rome and SSPX. Division is wide-spread and general.
2. But the pope cannot make someone guilty who is, in fact, innocent. In other words, the pope can be wrong in his judgment--and in such a case the innocent party would rightfully consider any excommunication a nullity. The legal framework, however, would remain and need to be worked out. In other words, a "deal" would have to be arranged satsifactory to both the conscience of the innocent party and the Holy See.
Er....what innnocent party? The excommunications are a fact. Irrespective of how they are viewed by SSPX. Do I detect the time-honored liberal thinking "if I consider myself to be a victim, then I am a victim"?
3. This would be as if an innocent man were convicted by the Supreme Court for a crime from which there was no appeal outside the Court itself. The Court might be wrong to have convicted him, but the legal ramifications would remain regardless of his innocence. The moral ramifications, however, would favor the innocent party just the same. (cf. Dred Scott Decision.)
Again, you've presumed innocence. Or should I say declared innocence. That is your opinion.
4. In the case of Archbishop Lefebvre in particular, the Pope was wrong to ever accuse him of denying lawful papal authority by consecrating bishops without a mandate. The motive for the Archbishop's doing this was not the denial of authority, but the salvation of souls and the desire to protect the ancient Mass from destruction. It is as if a father who is drunk should ask his son for the car keys. The son's refusal would not be a denial of paternal authority, but a wish to avoid a catastrophe.
Firstly only God and the Archbishop know what his motives truly were. You and I and the Pope must take his word. Secondly, it becomes difficult to sustain the argument that he was trying to protect the Mass from destruction when 1) the Holy Father and the Prefect of the Congregation (Ratzinger) have assured him that destruction of the Tridentine Rite will not occur and have pleaded with him not to go forward with the consecration. 2)The Indult has been proposed to ensure that this does not occur.
Lefebvre's claim that he was acting to prevent destruction of the Mass and/or the Faith implies that he believes the Pope and Ratzinger to be deceiving him and that he does not accept their assurances nor the Indult. This is a most serious situation. I'm constantly hearing that Lefebvre acted in good faith, but for this to be so it means that JPII and Ratzinger must have been acting in bad faith. Therein lies my big problem with this.
5. In addition, it should be remembered the Archbishop properly evoked the Pope's own Canon Law--canons 1323-24--which allowed for apparent disobedience in a state of necessity. The Archbishop considered, in good conscience, that the Church was in the throes of crisis and that he was obliged to act to save it from those in the process of destroying it. Whether the Archbishop was correct or not was beside the point, moreover. Canon Law only asks that the subject be in good faith while acting--in which case no excommunication could be incurred.
Again, the key words "good faith".
As for the Canons I'm not even sure that they apply in this situation. A state of necessity is hard to invoke when an Indult has been proposed to ensure that the Mass be available. Most schismatics and heretics down through the centuries have claimed "good faith". Didn't Luther believe that he was putting the Church back on track?
6. Finally, it should likewise be remembered that while the Pope is the supreme authority in the Church, this means only that he may not be checked from below--by subordinates. But he is most definitely delimited from above--by Divine Law itself which commands that the innocent not be punished.
The Pope cannot allow unauthorized episcopal consecrations. Period. Even with the "good faith" argument. You can see where this could lead, right? Any bishop could claim this right. That's why it incurs an automatic penalty.
I don't think he said that at all, and he certainly didn't practice that. That is the protestant frame of mind. (the church is within you, and is wherever you are) For Catholics, the Church is where the Pope is.
St. Athanasius was reminding people to hold onto their faith even though the Church was not. We can all do that. I know that's what I do. I assist at the indult Mass, and receive Communion that has been confected by a legal Priest. The Priests politics, state of his soul, and theology is his problem, not mine.
1. You mis-characterize the conflict with Rome. It is not about criticizing the Pope, it is about defending Tradition. The dispute is between modernists and tradition, between former popes and councils and their teachings, and the novelties imposed by this pontiff and his predecessor Paul VI following Vatican II.
2. The latae sententiae excommunications are not really facts, they are suppositions, predicated upon the MOTIVES of the individuals involved. Everything depends on the dispositions of the consciences of Archbishop Lefebvre and his followers. If the consecrations were intended to deny papal authority, then they were indeed schismatic. But if they were intended--as canon law itself provides--to save souls in a time of necessity, then no penalty was ever incurred. JPII could not have known that the consecrations were schismatic. He had no insight into the souls of the men involved. He was merely surmising excommunications took place for the reason he gave--and he made this public. But he was patently wrong--since the Archbishop and his followers had been claiming for years it feared the Church was in the throes of crisis and that there was a great danger its Tradition would be lost without such traditional consecrations. This fear was legitimate and should have been respected by the Pope. It was instead summarily and foolishly dismissed. Yet the preponderance of evidence is that the SSPX has been right all along and the Pope has been dead wrong.
Still, if the Pope had wanted to prove an excommunication had actually taken place, he had recourse to a public tribunal--the usual means by which high churchmen had been judged in the past. JPII didn't do this--and he didn't do it for a reason. Had he called a tribunal to pass judgment, the Archbishop would have had the right to defend himself publicly, something the Vatican couldn't risk. The last thing it wanted was for the truth to be confronted squarely. So the Pope went another route--a far less definite one. He simply asserted that the latae sententiae decree--which was automatic and which depended on the internal moral disposition of the individuals involved--was an actual fact. But he couldn't know it was a fact--since he had no access to the workings of Lefebvre's conscience--or the consciences of other traditionalists involved. He simply made the assumption, ignoring his own canons in the process, those which stated explicitly that guilt or innocence depended on the internal dispositions of the subjects.
3. There were no assurances given to the Archbishop concerning the survival of the Tridentine Mass as you state. There was simply a promise that the Pontiff would consider the matter of whether or not to allow the consecration of a traditional bishop. That was it--a vague promise to think about it. This was a pretty slender thread on which to hang the entire fate of the traditional faith. And, in fact, in all the preceding years of his pontificate--and even up until today--not a single traditionalist has ever been appointed bishop--with the bishop of Campos the single exception. Words are cheap. This Pope's actions speak much louder. He has appointed countless perverts and apostates, but not a single traditionalist in twenty-five years, except for the Campos bishop--which was the result of much negotiation and arm-twisting. This speaks volumes about this Pontiff's real intentions. There is very little reason to trust a pope who for two-and-a-half decades has been consciously pursuing policies designed to deconstruct the Traditional Catholic Church.
Yes, he did. Read his letter.
For Catholics, the Church is where the Pope is.
Under normal circumstances this may be true. But when even Popes embrace a heresy the faithful must not follow. The Faith always comes before the Pope, not vice versa.
"For Catholics, the Church is where the Pope is" is false. This is merely a pious saying, not a dogma of faith. The Church is where the true faith is--nowhere else.
The Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and APOSTOLIC.
Do you know who your comment sounds like?
Nobody said it wasn't apostolic. Do you understand the difference between a pious saying and dogmatic truth? Here's a favorite saying of my own: "If a pope does not teach Church doctrine, do not follow him."--Pius IX.
So there is a conflict, right? You just said so.
Remember your original post? You stated that it was absurd to say that there was no communion between SSPX and Rome because SSPX acknowledges JPII as Pope and prays for him. My point was that there is wide-ranging disagreement between the two of you and for this reason, there can be no communion.
Characterize the conflict any way you want. I don't care. However, there is a conflict. Not "communion."
The latae sententiae excommunications are not really facts, they are suppositions, predicated upon the MOTIVES of the individuals involved. Everything depends on the dispositions of the consciences of Archbishop Lefebvre and his followers. If the consecrations were intended to deny papal authority, then they were indeed schismatic. But if they were intended--as canon law itself provides--to save souls in a time of necessity, then no penalty was ever incurred.
Firstly, Canon Law does indeed provide for exceptions to the rule of no episcopal consecrations without approval from the Holy See. The Canon to which you are referring would be this one:#1323 It states the circumstances where a penalty is not imposed:
a person who acted coerced by grave fear, even if only relatively grave, or due to necessity or grave inconvenience unless the act is intrinsically evil or tends to the harm of souls;
Now one can imagine scenarios where this would apply. In times of war or persecution, for instance, where the Pontiff has been killed, exiled or rendered incommunicado. In situations of isolation, such as Communmist China, for example. All would fit nicely under this canon. But to interpret this canon the way you wish to interpret it, is a grave abuse of the legal process. It would mean that any bishop-Mahony, Gumbleton or anyone-who considered it "necessary" could consecrate a bishop-and there would be nothing the Pope could do about it. Why? Because as you state, the bishop was really sincere in his motives and thought it to be necessary.
Going over the head of the Pope is a denial of papal authority and it voids the "grave fear and necessity" argument.
JPII could not have known that the consecrations were schismatic. He had no insight into the souls of the men involved. He was merely surmising excommunications took place for the reason he gave--and he made this public. But he was patently wrong--since the Archbishop and his followers had been claiming for years it feared the Church was in the throes of crisis and that there was a great danger its Tradition would be lost without such traditional consecrations. This fear was legitimate and should have been respected by the Pope. It was instead summarily and foolishly dismissed. Yet the preponderance of evidence is that the SSPX has been right all along and the Pope has been dead wrong.
OK. So if I claim something repeatedly, and then despite warnings from higher authority, I carry through on a threat, then I'm exempt from censure? Absolutely not. If reading of souls is required before an excommunication is enforced, then nobody can be excommunicated.
There were no assurances given to the Archbishop concerning the survival of the Tridentine Mass as you state. There was simply a promise that the Pontiff would consider the matter of whether or not to allow the consecration of a traditional bishop. That was it--a vague promise to think about it. This was a pretty slender thread on which to hang the entire fate of the traditional faith. And, in fact, in all the preceding years of his pontificate--and even up until today--not a single traditionalist has ever been appointed bishop--with the bishop of Campos the single exception. Words are cheap. This Pope's actions speak much louder. He has appointed countless perverts and apostates, but not a single traditionalist in twenty-five years, except for the Campos bishop--which was the result of much negotiation and arm-twisting. This speaks volumes about this Pontiff's real intentions. There is very little reason to trust a pope who for two-and-a-half decades has been consciously pursuing policies designed to deconstruct the Traditional Catholic Church.
So the Pope couldn't know Lefebvre's intentions when he carried out the consecrations, but you and Lefebvre know the Pope's intentions? That seems a little strange. A little one-sided, wouldn't you say?
The Pope is under no obligation to consecrate bishops at the behest of his underlings. All he can do is do what he did; say that he would consider it. Further, he promised the Indult. Given this, it becomes very hard to sustain the "grave fear and necessity" argument.
The bottom line is this. For "the grave fear and necessity" argument to hold, it requires Lefebvre to a) not accept the repeated appeals and assurances from the Pope and the prefect of the congregation, b)ignore the Indult and c)believe that the Pope was acting in bad faith. Since you have assured us that there is no way the Pope could know Lefebvre's motives, I'm a little surprised that you seem to hold to the idea that Lefebvre could know the Pope's motives.
Did Pius IX also say to start your own Church? That's all I'm getting at.
Leaving the Church (and you have) and encouraging others to do the same is not what Bl. Pius IX or St. Athanasius had in mind. You can dissent right in the Church.
If you can't bring yourself to go to an Authorised Mass at least once a year and receive Communion, then you have indeed left the Church. Is the indult Mass so odius to you. I know it is to the devil.
Since when has theological conflict ever meant a loss of communion? You need to think about this more.
Regarding your reading of "state of necessity", the fear spoken of is that of the subject, not the pope or anybody else. If Archbishop Lefebvre feared for the Church, given its present state of crisis, not you nor the Pope nor the entire college of cardinals matter under canon law. Only what the individuals involved thought is what matters. Even if the Archbishop and his followers were WRONG, it would not make a difference as long as they were sincere in the belief that an emergency existed. In fact, they were right--as anybody with half a brain would know. But regardless, they need only have been sincerely fearful.
You are speaking nonsense. I have not left the Church. It is true I criticize a bad pope and attend SSPX Masses--which are fully Catholic, devoutly celebrated by devout priests. But this does not place me outside the Church in any way whatsoever. The real question is whether a pope who prays with animists--among other radical novelties which contradict the teachings of his preconciliar predecessors--is being truly Catholic. It is his status which is so questionable, not that of traditionalists like myself. The SSPX, after all, merely follows Church teachings as they had always been understood for twenty centuries--until the last forty years.
I have nothing against the Indult Masses, by the way--except that they are like feeding crumbs to the starving. There are a whole array of sacraments and devotions and teachings that are yet prohibited by the New Church--in favor of modernist makeovers which gut the faith and make a mockery of tradition. The Indult priesthood such as the FSSP, moreover, has been muzzled effectively by Rome. It dares not speak the truth about the widespread corruption and devastation that's really going on. Only SSPX, by dint of its anomalous situation, has sufficient courage to say the emperor has no clothes.
One other point: the real CONFLICT is not between SSPX and Rome. It is between modernist Rome and the Rome of the preconciliar Church. It is this Pope and his hierarchy who are in open rebellion against the Church of the past, and who wish to revolutionize Church teachings, not the SSPX. This is unprecedented. Never before had the Church been in conflict with its own past. This is why Catholics are placed between a rock and a hard place. Which have precedence--the popes and councils of two thousand years of Catholic Tradition--or the revolutionaries now running the politically correct ecumenical show in Rome?
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