Posted on 06/26/2008 2:51:31 PM PDT by annalex
PARIS (Reuters) - The leader of a breakaway traditionalist Catholic group has rejected a Vatican offer to rejoin Rome, accusing Pope Benedict of trying to silence dissenting voices.
Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) that broke with Rome 20 years ago, said conditions set by the Vatican amounted to muzzling the traditionalists who claim to be the only true Catholics since Church reforms in the 1960s.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
So, finally the SSPX admits that the excommunications were not imaginary after all.
I wonder if the extreme ultramontanists of SSPX see the irony of their rejection of the pope
Thanks. My notes of what he said are below. Please do not take it as transcript. I condensed the parts not directly related to the issue with SSPX and Rome. The parts about the relationship with Rome take up about 1/3 of the Sermon. Nothing here is verbatim.
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Ordination forms the special indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the deacon.
That enables him to give witness to the point of martyrdom for the faith.
The faith is the fundament of our salvation. There is but one faith the Catholic faith. Protecting, defending and spreading the faith is the main concern of the Church.
The devil will falsify the good news by all means. The devil will force you to compromise. Proclamation of the faith therefore is always a fight about life and death and involves suffering.
What happened at the council? The light of the truth was shadowed. The mission work of the Church is almost extinct. The missionaries no longer preach. The sendign of the Sword of God into the world — the contradictory preaching — is gone.
The Congregation for the doctrine of the faith is no longer the Holy Office. It is a political institution.
The world is now happy with the Church. The other religions are happy with the Church. This is not what God wants. God said, “the world hates you because it hated me first”. No way we’ll have peace with the devil and the world. If you pretend you are in peace with the devil, you’re done. The Holy Ghost obliges you to fight. Do not fear. If you want peaceful life, don’t be ordained.
Update about lifting the excommunication — is it coming or not? I don’t know. We can still wait for a while, even a good while. Why? Because the approach we have is not the same as the Vatican’s. The Archbishop said Rome reconciliation but that means we go back with the new. It is not what we want. We don’t want to integrate with the new. In 75, 76 it was already the same problem. Bakck them they asked “say one Mass with me and everythign be fine”. Now they don’t say “one Mass”, they say shut up. They gave me an ultimatum. We are not going to shut down or shut up. We are precisely in the same fight. Appearances may differ, still the same fight. What about the Motu Proprio? It is something very good, we are very very happy with it. Still the Mass is the visible part of this fight, like a tip of the Iceberg of Tradition, and the New Mass is the tip of the iceberg of the new Vatican II spirit. There is somethign good with them. But in every evil you have some good. In the worst evil you have the most good. Those who refuse only one truth they may keep all the rest, the denial of only one truth means they have lost the faith. That belief is not going to save, like a plane without the pilot is not going to fly, no matter how good the parts are. They refuse the pope. Their plain is not going to fly.
The Motu Proprio is as if the tip of the iceberg is taken and planted on the tip of the new iceberg, but not what is below. Under the water, we have only the new thing, but they call it tradition.
20 years ago Archbshp Lefebvre explained “for Card. Ratzinger the Vatican II is tradition”. This is the reality now. The iceberg has two tips, not one. The maker of the Mass, Bugnini took everythign out of the Mass that could hurt the Protestant, so now we are Protestants with the new Mass. How is it the same [faith]?
We are at crossroads vis a vis Rome. We are nto going this way. We are continuing to keep the faith alive not for ourselves but for the Holy Church, happens what happens. It is in God’s hands. If God wants the trial to continue, God will give us grace to persevere.
At Lourdes and at Fatima Our Lady warned us that something very hard is coming to the Church. Rome shall lose the faith. It will become the see of AntiChrist. There will be an eclipse of the Church. So it is now, and it can turn worse. Our Lady said it. Her call to prayer, to stick with the Old, is urgent. The call to penance — the call of John the Baptist, Our Lady, St. Peter — has not been heeded by Rome, and the grace is withdrawn from it.
The gate to Heaven is narrow, few will find it.
I paraphrased an important sermon on the subject of the thread in the post above. The sermon contained references to the Protestants, and I reproduced them. I ask for your indulgence to keep the thread caucus despite that, and I ask the participants not to turn in into anythign other than a discussion of a matter internal to Catholicism.
If that won’t work, make it Ecumenical but in essence it is an internal Catholic matter.
Somewhere in here there is a problem. I don't think Vatican II refused anything; it may very well have veered in the directions that alarm us, -- they alarm me -- but in order to anathemize a belief there has to be a rejection of the truth made.
My other comment is that the sermon could have been given at any time of SSPX existence. The terms of the offer are not discussed at all, merely the ecclesiological disagreement is repeated. This convinces me that SSPX as a group will not reconcile (individual members, probably, will in great numbers), unless Vatican II is rescinded in full. They don' tsee a single "iceberg" in need of a better shape; they see two icebergs and wait for the wrong one to melt away.
I can only comment from the sermon under discussion. It describes a view on the Church that makes reconciliation fundamentally impossible,— I am referring to the two iceberg theory,— so long as Vatican II remains a valid council in the eye of the Church.
Sad, if true. They are marking themselves as goats instead of sheep. Obedience was important to Christ. Rebellion belongs to the other guys.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it: 26 That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life: 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any; such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish.(Eph 5)
he that is not against you, is for you
Mark 9:39, several similar)
With Fellay, the legitimate fear that the Church loses its evangelizing zeal gives way to accusatory rhetoric of a schismatic. He is also not right factually. Where is everyone happy with the Catholic Church? We go through calumny upon calumny lately.
Does anyone deny that there were and are people within the Church hierarchy who wanted and still want to do away with Latin entirely, and to water down traditional prayers to dilute their power to move men’s hearts?
Of course, that is beyond doubt. The thing is, the Church is and has been continually cleansed by Christ and tempted by the devil. Those who left her, despite the noblest of intentions, were lost and the Church persevered.
I don't think there is anyone here on this thread that does not have something good to say about SSPX's struggle. That is beside the point.
Setting aside for the moment the current stance of the leaders of the SSPX, is it not possible that the enemies of the Church would have succeeded in those goals absent the efforts of the SSPX?
It is not only possible but certain that without SSPX we would have a full blown catastrophe of faith on our hands.
And are not the people who wish to destroy the SSPX still trying to do that?
They are; but neither the Pope, Cardinal Hoyos, or I want to destroy SSPX. We want them to succeed. If they cannot abide by simple rule of reverence and decorum as they pursue their goal, they will not succeed beyond the point that has already been reached.
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