If I implied in my response that his excommunication was for his belief, I certainly misspoke. Rarely would that be the case in the Church. It is invariably because of an unwillingness on the part of the actor to obey the request of a superior to cease and desist in their error. Nevertheless, the excommunication was lifted toward the end of his life, so if you know more about the specifics as to what he said and didn’t say at that hour, as well as why the Church did what they did, my hat’s off to you.
But you avoided addressing the more significant issue: you accused both the SSPX and Catholic Family News of Feeneyism. Do you have even one cogent example to support that statement? From my perspective, you have made what I believe to be an incredibly reckless comment that deserves to be either supported with specific facts, or retracted.
But perhaps, like many Catholics today, you probably do not recognize that ecumenism as it is pushed by the Church today is a heresy. As a result, you and many others have come to believe that those who condemn ecumenism for what it is, scream “Feeneyism”. However, accusing those organizations that insist that there is only one true Church, the Catholic Church, that all other religions are absolutely false, and that all should join the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ is not Feeneyism––that’s Catholic! Anti-ecumenism is not Feeneyism.
I recall a series of Feeneyite articles in CFN a number of years ago.
Feeney was excommunicated for refusing his superiors order to move to Fairfield University.
I am not aware of any statement around the time of his death. He was, as far as I know, not capable of making a statement.
The fundamental problem with Feeneyism is that it denies the very proposition the Pope affirmed recently: That every man is obliged to obey his “conscience”—i.e., judgment—whether his judgment is correct or erroneous. Feeneyism denied that anyone could be inculpably outside the Catholic Church.
The SSPX does not hold the belief of Feeneyism.