SSPX Leader: We Do Not Have to Accept the Whole of Vatican II

The Catholic Herald (UK) ^ | 6/7/12 | Cindy Wooden

[marshmallow]

The leader of the traditionalist Society of St Pius X has said talks with the Vatican demonstrate that “Rome no longer makes total acceptance” of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council a condition for his group’s full reconciliation with the Church.

Accepting the Council’s teaching is no longer “a prerequisite for the canonical solution” of the status of the society, according to Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the SSPX.

In an interview published today on the society’s news site, www.dici.org, Bishop Fellay said it was the Vatican that approached the society, and not the society that went to the Vatican, asking to begin the talks.

“So the attitude of the official Church is what changed; we did not,” he said. “We were not the ones who asked for an agreement; the Pope is the one who wants to recognise us.”

In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications that had been incurred by Bishop Fellay and other SSPX bishops when they were ordained without papal permission 11 years earlier. Also in 2009, the Pope established a Vatican committee to hold doctrinal talks with society representatives.

In September 2011, the Vatican gave Bishop Fellay a “doctrinal preamble” outlining “some doctrinal principles and criteria for the interpretation of Catholic doctrine necessary to guarantee fidelity” to the formal teaching of the Church. Neither the Vatican nor the SSPX has made the text public, but the Vatican said it leaves room for “legitimate discussion” about “individual expressions or formulations present in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the successive magisterium” of the Church.

Bishop Fellay submitted his first response to the document in March, but the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of Pope Benedict, defined it as “insufficient”. The bishop gave the Vatican his........

[marshmallow]

Speaking to members of the SSPX who are wary of reconciliation, Bishop Fellay said “one of the great dangers is to end up inventing an idea of the Church that appears ideal, but is in fact not found in the real history of the Church”. “Some claim that in order to work ‘safely’ in the Church, she must first be cleansed of all error. This is what they say when they declare that Rome must convert before any agreement, or that its errors must first be suppressed so that we can work,” he said. But the reality of the Church’s history shows that “often, and almost always, we see that there are widespread errors” and that God calls holy men and women to work within the Church to correct the errors, Bishop Fellay said.

Bingo.

[savagesusie]

True-—we are always on the ROAD to Truth here on earth. Our journey will not always amount to “better” ideology. Inquiry and freedom of ideas is what is vital to any organization. Suppression of discussion is deadly to any ethical institution.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Of course the SSPX didn’t go to the pope, the pope went to the SSPX. Teens never reconcile with the father, the father reconciles with the prideful ignorant teen....or it never happens, because the father is likewise ignorant.

In 500 years, we’ll see an ordinatriate for them too, if there are any left.

[polkajello]

Actually the Prodigal did go to the Father to reconcile.