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Posted on 04/13/2012 2:51:49 PM PDT by NYer
April 15th is an unpleasant day in the United States and we await its arrival with dread. But in Rome and in Écône, Switzerland and around the world thousands upon thousands look upon the 15th with fear and hope all mixed together. April 15th is the deadline. And if you are smart, you should be paying attention too.
By April 15th the Society of Saint Pius X will give their response to a “Doctrinal Preamble” outlining “certain doctrinal principles and criteria for the interpretation of Catholic doctrine … (while also) leaving open to legitimate discussion the examination and theological explanation of individual expressions and formulations contained in the documents of Vatican Council II and later Magisterium.”
** snip **
If they refuse to sign, it may well lead to a permanent schism which would be a disaster for all the souls involved, the Pope, and the Church as a whole.
If they do sign, it opens the door to regularization of the Society and an end to ...
Actually, if they do sign, it is not an end to anything. It's a beginning of, well hold on to your hats. It's gonna a be a bumpy ride.
If they do sign and the Pope offers them a Personal Prelature or some such thing, all hell is gonna break loose. Progressive forces within the Church will freak and then they will freak some more. To them, this is will be a clear sign that the Pope is repudiating Vatican II, dusting off the torture devices in the Vatican basement, and lacing up his Nikes preparing to chase down some Jews with a baseball bat. There will be no limit to the hyperbolic nonsense they will be spewing.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
Thanks for posting the article.
When I was MUCH younger, I went to a SSPX chapel, but I don’t remember Williamson much ... this was in the 80s.
LOL. The remarks to the article are funny ... too many people did NOT like it when the author called Williamson an idiot.. :-)
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
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Let us hope, and pray, that they do.The right things are often hard, but also very worthwhile. This is one of them, in my meager opinion.
I remain cautiously optimistic but then since my first days here I have been so, even when the late and un-lamented faux deacon sinkspur would attack and calumniate me and other “trads”. Until it is done, it is not done, but I hope (and pray!) this article is correct!
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/04/urgentfor-record-le-figaro-rome-and.html
Urgent/For the record: Le Figaro - “Rome and Écône on the verge of reaching an agreement”
Apparently Above a Bishop’s Pay Grade?
For the record: La Croix [Updated]
Quasi modo geniti infantes, rationabile, sine dolo lac concupiscite
+ ALLELUIA + ALLELUIA + ALLELUIA + + TEMPUS PASCHALE + + + TEMPUS PASCHATIS + + ALLELUIA + ALLELUIA + ALLELUIA +
Urgent/For the record:
Le Figaro - “Rome and Écône on the verge of reaching an agreement”
From major French daily Le Figaro, in an article signed by its main religion correspondent, Jean-Marie Guénois:
Rome and Écône on the verge of reaching an agreement
by Jean-Marie Guénois
Updated on April 13, 2012 20:37 (1837 GMT)| published April 13, 2012 19:45 (1745 GMT)
The signing of a document establishing the relations between the Holy See and the disciples of Abp. Lefebvre is a matter of days.
Officially, the Vatican awaits the response of Bp. Bernard Fellay, the chief of the Lefebvrists. As soon as it is received in Rome - “it is a matter of days, and no longer of weeks”, - it will be immediately examined. If it conforms to expectations, the Holy See will very quickly announce a historic agreement with this group of faithful, known under the name of “integrists”.
But unofficially, and with the greatest discretion, emissaries have worked, from both sides, to “reach an agreement”. In the past few weeks, the final adjustments have been concluded between Rome and Écône in order to better respond to the demands of “clarifications” asked for by the Vatican last March 16.
A very delicate negotiation
It is thus that the final response of Bp. Fellay, very well pondered and well prepared, should settle - this time, for good - a very delicate negotiation which was relaunched by Benedict XVI following his election, in 2005.
The “Ecclesia Dei” commission, sheltered within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the most important ministry in the Vatican, is in charge of this dossier. But it is also, at this point, personally followed by Benedict XVI. And he wants an agreement.
Which allows for the consideration, by well informed persons, that a positive outcome will truly come into being. Even at the cost of the permanence of profound disagreements regarding the Second Vatican Council.
Disagreements completely accepted, besides, by the Pope. He has placed his pontificate under this line of reinterpretation of the Vatican II Council. Following two axes: emptying the spirit of “rupture” of ‘68 and avoiding opposition between the highest tradition of the Church and modernity.
Fifty years of opposition
On Monday, Benedict XVI will reach 85. He is tired. His entourage do not hide this. He has had to rest this week in Castel Gandolfo from his exhausting voyage to Mexico and Cuba, then from the long services of Holy Week. He should be back in the Vatican on Friday evening. As a priority on his bureau: this decision on the Lefebvrist affair. It will be one of the weightiest of the pontificate.
For fifty years, the Lefebrvists have stood in opposition to the Holy See regarding Vatican II. And in formal juridical rupture since June 1988, when Abp. Marcel Lefebvre ordained four bishops despite the Pope’s interdict.
Joseph Ratzinger was placed at the time by John Paul II in charge of the negotiations with the rebellious bishop. He has never accepted that failure. Nor, once having become the Pope, the prospect of an enduring schism in the Church.
Benedict XVI compels the Church to reconcile with herself
One after the other, Benedict XVI has demolished, with all his papal authority, the obstacles that prevented a full reconciliation with the disciples of Abp. Marcel Lefebvre.
And, if a final agreement is announced in the upcoming days, the essential part of the work was already put in place by this pope:
- The reestablishment in 2007 - as an “extraordinary” rite of the Catholic Church - of the Mass celebrated in Latin, that is, according to the Missal of John XXIII in force before the Council.
-The removal, in 2009, of the excommunications which fell on the four bishops ordained by Abp. Lefebvre.
-The launch of the doctrinal discussions between the Holy See and the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, in that same year, regarding the Second Vatican Council
The apparent failure of the latter, one year ago, had given the impression of a complete failure of the negotiation.
The doctrinal disagreement between the Lefebvrists and Rome regarding the Second Vatican Council was effectively abyssal. But it had been forgotten that the object of those conversations was not finding an agreement, but establishing the list of divergences and of their reasons.
It is therefore knowingly and, thus, without any ambiguity, that Rome intends to seal this unity found once again with Écône, stronghold of the Lefebvrists in Switzerland.
IIt will probably be done with the creation of a special statute - a “personal prelature” - already experienced by Opus Dei. This structure grants a true autonomy of action at the same time as the Catholic faith is shared. Its superior answers directly to the pope, and not to the bishops.
But the true “revolution” that Benedict XVI intends to leave before the eyes of the history of the Catholic Church is elsewhere. It is not related to peripheral aspects of the Catholic Church. These have already enraged the groups opposed to this reconciliation. The so-called “Progressives” of the Conciliar Church who see the “gains” of Vatican II questioned. The “ultras” within the Lefebvrist ranks who see in this a betrayal and a compromise with Modernist Rome.
This revolution aims for an enlarged vision of the Catholic Church. Benedict XVI, the theologian, has never accepted that in 1962 the bimillennial Catholic Church would have cut herself from the culture and strength of her past. More than a reconciliation with the Lefebvrists, he aims, with this gesture, for a reconciliation of the Catholic Church with herself.
We had an SSPX church near our house when we lived in Ridgefield, CT, before they moved west.
The priests wore standard black suits and clerical collars all the time.
I was tempted, because I much prefer the traditional Mass. But I really feel that it is necessary to stick with the One, true, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, even if they occasionally make a mistake. Vatican 2 was, in my opinion, a pretty useless venture. God preserved it from actual error or heresy, but some Councils are more important than others, and IMHO that one was a mistake.
But that doesn’t justify schism, or talk of Sede Vacante, or the various errors of SSPX. Even though they have preserved the old Latin Mass in all its glory, they are in schism with the Church.
It would be great if that schism can be fixed. As for the liberal dissenters and trouble makers who fear it—tough!
The contribution of SSPX toward greater orthodoxy has so far been invaluable; let’s hope that no matter what happens on April 15, they will continue to pull the Church where it belongs, to the right.
I too hope they sign. Yeah, there will be issues if they sign. It will be a bumpy road as they establish a prelature or some other juridical structure. There will be other issues to work out over time - (whether the FSSP and other Ecclesia Dei groups decide to come under the umbrella, whether Bishop Williamson will be given faculties, etc.) but these are better resolved inside the Church than outside.
And it will be nice to have more Tridentine Masses being offered in full communion with Rome. The spiritual graces will be wonderful.
I may even take in the occasional Tridentine Mass myself. (My family is Eastern Catholic).
The situation is irregular, but since Pope Benedict doesn’t consider them to be in schism, I don’t know why you should say that.
The situation is irregular, but since Pope Benedict doesn’t consider them to be in schism, I don’t know why you should say that.
I think the Vatican’s preference would be for Williamson to sign on and then be sent to the SSPX home for retired priests, or an SSPX-affiliated monastery somewhere.
The problem with not having him on board is that he is a bishop, meaning he can consecrate more bishops among those who might follow him.
On the other hand, having him on board and giving him faculties brings its own problems.
Alas, as the late Dom Gerard Calvet, OSB warned Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988 when Fr. Williamson’s name was added to the list at the last minute: “I support you in consecrating the original three candidates, but not Williamson. That man has never been a Catholic. If you consecrate him, he will destroy the SSPX from within and lead it into schism within 10 years of death.”
Dom Calvet, protector and restorer of Benedictine traditionalism, Ora pro nobis!
Of course, it is best not to assume the worst. We have been told repeatedly since well before B-XVI's papacy that the surrender of the Vatican to these miscreants (how else to describe it?) is imminent and all such prophecies have come to naught so far.
Have Fellay and his fellow schismatics REPENTED their sins against the Church? Have they accepted the doctrinal preface or whatever it is called that was an essential part of any agreement up to now?
I have never attacked you EVER unlike Sinkspur. He used to attack me too. In fact you have appealed on occasion for my help and advice. Any prospective reconciliation with an unrepentant and unhumiliated SSPX is no cause for Catholic joy. This is NOT about the Traditional Mass which is now far more available than at any time since Vatican II and its infamous "spirit." The tiny platoon of miscreants making up SSPX will not expand that availability in any meaningful way. This IS about papal authority and about the fact that LeFebvre and his sycophants have been pissing on the papacy with relative impunity for decades and see no reason whatever to repent their evil.
Without the Rock that is Peter and his authority remaining intact, the Roman Catholic Church becomes a random anarchy like so many other Christian religions. SSPX refuses obedience to popes and consecrates bishops as it pleases while thumbing its collective nose at Vatican authority. Does the pope still have the authority to excommunicate and declare schismatic liberation "theologians" who hallucinate a modern Christ wielding an AK-47 in Marxist revolution? When women are "ordained," must the pope accept that as he may have accepted the crimes of SSPX? Open homosexuals and predators? Lesbian bishops? Maybe the lavender Episcopalian bishop Vicki Gene Robinson should start calling himself the "Catholic" bishop of New Hampshire if the papacy agrees to lose control over punishing pretenders like Fellay and LeFebvre before him? How shall we distinguish policy from the pews. Are there special rules for special people? Are decades of toxic defiance and disobedience OK just because of the flimsy excuse advanced by that stiff-necked Gaul LeFebvre that he acted somehow "out of necessity", apparently because he thought Jesus Christ's guarantees to HIS Church were either not credible or not sufficient to protect His Mystical Body and its doctrines and its disciplines?
If this is the best that B-XVI can achieve due to advanced age and weariness, then the responsible thing for him to consider is resignation and retirement before genuine damage is inflicted on the Church. Papal resignation is honorable and has precedents. Gather a Conclave and I will bet good money that, unrepentant and still defiant, the SSPX schismatics as a group will NEVER be reunited with the papacy. Nor should they be. I read liberal Catholic rags like National "Catholic" Register regularly. I lived through the Vatican II tragedy and its still more tragic aftermath. I came verrrrrry close to leaving for the Russian Orthodox or even Greek Orthodox Church particularly over violence done to the rubrics of the Mass and over the poisonous toleration of a truly widespread level of evil that has not receded entirely yet.
That was spring training. THIS is the World Series of Church vs. dissenters and anarchy perpetrated by its enemies.
When I had decided against apostasizing to Orthodoxy, I felt rewarded by the election of John Paul I. Convinced as I am that he was murdered shortly after his election, I felt doubly rewarded when the 2nd 1978 conclave chose Karol Wojtlywa as John Paul II just to remind the murderers that Conclave 2 agreed with Conclave I and intended to exact vengeance against John Paul I's communist murderers. They chose a younger, vigorous veteran of anti-soviet combat within Poland. His popemaker was Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski who was never previously close with JP II but, having himself been incarcerated first by nazis and then by communists, knew exactly what the Church needed to finally fight back and saw to the election accordingly. Jasna Gora and Czestochowa were to be worldwide sources of strength.
LeFebvre chose revolution against John Paul II. LeFebvre's cult members despise no human being anywhere near as much as they despise John Paul II because he quite properly punished LeFebvre and his chosen but illegally consecrated bishops for their direct "in your face" defiance of papal orders. They then spent decades issuing crocodile tears and flapdoodle to the effect that they had not REALLY been excommunicated because the pope (himself the ultimate Canon Law giver while pope and who had recently actually codified the Canon Law) had somehow not dotted his i's and crossed his t's to his infernal "majesty LeFebvre's" satisfaction (as though Marcel's opinions were relevant in the slightest). As head of the Holy Office, then Cardinal Ratzinger signed off on the excommunications personally. He cannot very well imagine now that they were invalid acts of his predecessor since he was himself a key actor in tossing their infernal backsides out of Holy Mother the Church as they richly deserved. After all, the stake has fallen into sad disuse in our times. The results of our negligence in that respect will be obvious if these rumors prove truer than all that have already failed.
Finally, you are at least in Washington State. Are you in the Archdiocese of Seattle which FINALLY has a Catholic archbishop in Sartain? Sartain previously had to clean a number iof Augean Stables: the Little Rock Diocese whose preceding bishop had actually (on live television) given the Eucharist to Slick Willy who, at the very least, is not and never has been Catholic, the Joliet IL Diocese which had suffered under Bishop Joseph Imesch for decades and now has been given Seattle where Butterfly Net Leftist Raymond Hunthausen used to preside. Maybe Sartain should be considered papabile since he has taken on so much more than a mere mortal can bear but is able to make a majority with Jesus Christ. Now that Washington State has eagerly embraced perversion posing as "marriage," the good Archbishop Sartain has naturally called upon the pastors of his archdiocese to cooperate with securing signatures for a statewide referendum to reverse the perversion posing as "marriage" statute. Naturally, at least three pastors are having none of it, are playing to the gay grandstand and showing what "progressive" (like brain cancer) heroes they truly are in their defiance of the authority of the archdiocesan ordinary. If B-XVI caves to SSPX, thereby making the schism permanent and somehow approved because it persisted in its perfidy, what will Sartain be able to say to leftist rebels against his authority?
You and I are not likely to agree on SSPX. I would suggest that you substitute for any and all other prayer in this matter, the simple formula from the Lord's Prayer given to us by Jesus Christ Himself: Thy will be done. Whichever of us is right and whichever of us is wrong, he cannot go wrong by offering that prayer alone in regard to the matter. His plans are ALWAYS better than yours or mine.
“The so-called “Progressives” of the Conciliar Church who see the “gains” of Vatican II questioned.”
The “progressives” are quite simply theological leftists, inspired and animated by the same enemy who inspires and animates socialism and communism. Only the mask is different.
Some have said that the problem is not the documents of Vatican II but the unauthorized excesses perpetrated by these enemies of the Church, who then falsely claimed that Vatican II authorized their depredations.
Perhaps that is true. In any case, the “progressives” are enemies of the Church, of mankind, and of God. They should be strongly denounced and their works undone.
I wonder how many who rail against SSPX (of which I am not a member) have even read Pascendi Dominici Gregis.
If not for Abp. Lefebvre, the “progressives” would have worked more and greater evils than they have.
Sinkspur. Ah, yes. I remember being suspended for arguing against him too strongly. The religion moderator then, whoever that was, never failed to support him and smack his opponents around—and then insist that he did no such thing. I was very relieved when he was exposed as a fraud. Do you remember that we were forbidden to discuss sinkspur following his exposure?
Just mentioned by Andrea Tornielli for La Stampa:
Lefebvrists: the positive response has arrived
17.09.2012 (1900 GMT - 2100 Rome)
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/
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