SSPX rejects Vatican's latest offer

Cath News ^ | June 28, 2012

[NYer]

The SSPX traditionalist Catholic group on Monday slammed as "clearly unacceptable" a Vatican doctrinal document that was supposed to lay the foundation for the group's reconciliation with Rome, reports NCR Online.

The move comes after three years of complex negotiations between the Vatican and the Society of St Pius X and was revealed just as Pope Benedict XVI appointed a high-profile American archbishop to a key post to oversee relations with traditionalists.

A letter by Fr Christian Thouvenot, secretary general of the SSPX, to SSPX bishops and regional leaders was leaked on the Internet on Tuesday. Thouvenot later confirmed its authenticity.

The letter says the SSPX superior general, Bishop Bernard Fellay, told the head of the Vatican doctrinal office, American Cardinal William Levada, that "he couldn't sign" the Vatican's doctrinal offer during a meeting on June 13.

Benedict has actively sought reconciliation with the group since his election to the papacy in 2005. In 2009, he lifted the excommunication of the four SSPX bishops and started doctrinal talks in the hope of healing a decades-old rift within the Catholic church.

The negotiations led to a Vatican proposal that was delivered to Fellay in September. The "Doctrinal Preamble" was aimed at overcoming the doctrinal differences between the Vatican and the group, which rejects the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), including church acceptance of ecumenism and religious freedom, and its rejection of anti-Semitism.

In his letter, Thouvenot writes that Fellay proposed his own version of the Preamble last April which, "according to several agreeing sources," seemed to "satisfy the Supreme Pontiff." But he added that cardinals in Levada's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "amended" the text and it "now reintroduces, substantially, the propositions of September 2011."

During his June 13 meeting with Levada, Fellay "immediately informed him that he could not sign this new document," which he deemed "clearly unacceptable." The SSPX will hold its general assembly in early July to discuss the issue.

FULL STORY SSPX calls Vatican offer 'clearly unacceptable' (NCR)

[NYer]

SSPX update, ping!

[NYer]

From Catholic News Agency ...

SSPX letter indicates refusal of Vatican reconciliation effort

[Cicero]

Too bad. But it’s not clear from the article what the grounds were for this failure of agreement—whether the two sides are irreconcilable, or whether it’s something that can still be fixed.

Also, I don’t entirely trust the National Catholic Reporter to give us the straight facts. I think they’d like to see this fail, and therefore would tend to magnify the problems.

[Houghton M.]

Yeah, the National Catholic Fishwrap had to get a dig in at the SSPX (and at all Catholics too) by (1) implying that Catholics only opposed anti-semitism as a result of Vatican II and (2) that the SSPX is at odds with Vatican II in part because Vatican II, for the first time, rejected anti-semitism.

So, the SSPX favors antisemitism. (The Fishwrap gets away with this by pointing to Williamson’s ravings. The SSPX ought to toss Williamson out on his ear. He does them no good whatsoever. Except that, I suppose if they did that, it would split the group even more.)

[JCBreckenridge]

“Also, I don’t entirely trust the National Catholic Reporter to give us the straight facts. I think they’d like to see this fail, and therefore would tend to magnify the problems.”

Why on earth would they misrepresent the facts here? Fellay hasn’t shown anything to suggest that he’s been negotiating in good faith.

What concession has Fellay made in any of this?

[annalex]

Well, now it is time to really rethink if the Vatican II was such a good thing in its essence, as we can add the permanent schism in the Church to its other unwholesome fruits.

[mockingbyrd]

Of course they did. They were never seriously interested in coming back, because they don’t want to submit to lawful authority.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Is the Church of Jesus fallible? SSPX says so. So that would make it a bunch of hooey, whether they change “back” to the SSPX “plan” or stay in supposed “error”. That’s some monumental pride in camels hair the SSPX is holding, it seems to me. The pope seems downright begging the kid to come back in for dinner before he catches cold (or hot). (We all know how that can happen to men).

[polkajello]

Strange gamesmanship.

[cothrige]

Is the Church of Jesus fallible? SSPX says so.

It seems to me that the other side of this discussion also says this. Vatican II either upheld the eternal Catholic faith, or it changed it. If it didn't change anything then there seems no way a traditionalist could be in error for believing as he does. On the other hand, if one holding the pre-Vatican II faith is in fact in error then there can be no denying that that council did change the faith. And you can't change the faith unless you first insist that what has been believed up to that time has in fact been wrong. Wrong cannot be other than an admission of fallibility.

This is why I find this whole situation both interesting and troubling. If Vatican II is seen as a part of the entire life of the Church then it should be interpreted as such, which means seeing its provisions as lying within the faith which existed then, and not as an introduction of a new faith. I am hopeful that whatever happens with the SSPX that we can begin seeing VII interpreted as a Catholic council rather than as a new religion being built on the ruins of that one, which is effectively how it has been viewed by most up to this time.

[narses]

This regards a leaked, internal letter - not a formal rejection, if I understand correctly.

[Robert Drobot]

Reverence for and standing for Sacred Dogma is now viewed as a ‘game’? Tell that to the Lord, when you stand before Him.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Vatican II either upheld the eternal Catholic faith, or it changed it. If it didn't change anything then there seems no way a traditionalist could be in error for believing as he does.

Unless the "traditionalist" believes that Vatican II changed the eternal Catholic faith - which Vatican II didn't proclaim itself to do and no Pope since then has taken it as doing.

I am hopeful that whatever happens with the SSPX that we can begin seeing VII interpreted as a Catholic council rather than as a new religion being built on the ruins of that one, which is effectively how it has been viewed by most up to this time.

That's what John Paul II said and Benedict XVI is saying with their "hermeneutic of continuity." The issue with Vatican II is that its wording leaves open the interpretation of a change to the faith - as well as the opposite interpretation.

[nickcarraway]

This is based on a leaked document, which may be true, but it was probably a mortal sin to leak it. I’d prefer to wait to hear from Pope Benedict. The same document also implied that the Pope approved the revision by Fellay, then Cardinal Levada added back some of things that had been changed. All rumors, but I guess that’s what counts these days.

[nickcarraway]

If it comes down to a contest between Pope Benedict and Cardinal Levada, I’ll be siding with the Pope.

[livius]

This has sure been a day for bad news.

[cothrige]

Unless the "traditionalist" believes that Vatican II changed the eternal Catholic faith - which Vatican II didn't proclaim itself to do and no Pope since then has taken it as doing.

I don't see how that could be the case. If no change has occurred, then what can they be denying? No, Vatican II has effectively been interpreted by the mainstream as the foundation of a new faith and the SSPX is being attacked for not accepting those changes. Who cares if they deny a council if that council changed nothing? How many Catholics give any heed to any other council than Vatican II? The priests I have known have never shown any indication they thought any council ever existed outside of Vatican II, and further they actively deny numerous aspects of the faith which all those councils upheld. Are they ever in any trouble? Why is that?

Unfortunately we live in a post-Catholic church. Popes have no influence regarding orthodoxy any more. Our last pope made some suggestions about an optional private prayer, i.e. the Rosary, and all the Catholics leapt on it as a direct revelation from heaven which forbade any use of a traditional Rosary throughout the world. However, contrast this to the reaction of the "faithful," including bishops and priests, to the Holy Father's teachings and instructions on the liturgy? Crickets, if not open denial and insurrection. That popes, or councils, have not claimed to change the faith does not mean that the faith hasn't changed and that the hierarchy and curia are not enforcing those changes on others. The faith my children are taught in churches today is not the faith of our patron saints. It just isn't. We can say it is, but it isn't and we all actually know it. And when the SSPX refuse to play ball and continue as they did for centuries before we all somehow find ways to insist that they are the ones changing the faith, and not all of us. Too bad.

[annalex]

Vatican II either upheld the eternal Catholic faith, or it changed it.

Thank you for these posts.

Note also that the burden on proof is on the Curia and not on the SSPX in this, because it is the Curia that promulgated and now defends Vatican II. It is therefore incorrect to view the dispute as such where the SSPX must make some concessions and the Curia must make other concessions. The fact is that despite the formal authority, the true authority is with the Sacred Tradition, against which any innovation has to be justified. It was wonderful that this Pope made the steps toward reconciliation, but clearly another step or steps are needed.

Perhaps firing Levada for apparently not negotiating in good faith would be a good step to restart the reconciliation. I'd like to see the Holy Father engage in it without intermediaries; it is the central task of his pontificate.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Unless the "traditionalist" believes that Vatican II changed the eternal Catholic faith - which Vatican II didn't proclaim itself to do and no Pope since then has taken it as doing.

I don't see how that could be the case. If no change has occurred, then what can they be denying?

The changes that they and "Catholic" liberals falsely believe to have been decreed.