Posted on 10/24/2002 7:58:13 PM PDT by BlackVeil
Mayor hands church over to Lefebvrists
Church leaders in Bordeaux have sued to regain one of the southern city's oldest Catholic churches after the mayor handed it to followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
Bordeaux Mayor Alain Juppe, a former French prime minister, awarded the 12th-century St Elois Church to the traditionalist Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X. France's Liberation daily said lawsuits had been filed by the archdiocese and socialist city council members after the first Tridentine Mass was celebrated in the church last month.
Named after Pope Pius X, who campaigned against modernism in the Catholic Church, the Priestly Fraternity of St Pius X has 600 priests and seminarians worldwide, as well as 93 schools and colleges. Archbishop Lefebvre, who rejected the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and advocated retaining the Latin Mass, was excommunicated in 1988 after ordaining four bishops, including French Bishop Bernard Fellay, the movement's current leader. Archbishop Lefebvre died in 1991.
Catholic churches predating a 1905 separation law are state-owned in France, although government officials are required to consult Catholic bishops over their use. Explaining the court action, which coincides with French celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II, a Socialist politician, Gilles Savary, accused Juppe of 'trying to give a political signal to the extreme right' through the church's handover.
'He claims he's trying to avoid the church's threatened occupation and that the Lefebvrites have the means to renovate it. But this effectively means rewarding illegal activity,' Savary said.
Fr Michel Jarceau, spokesman for the Bordeaux Archdiocese, said the archdiocese would wait for a final court ruling on the property, due at the end of this year.
The socialists are siding WITH the ARCHDIOCESE.
The pinkos were probably just returning a favor, if the Bordeaux archdiocese is anything like the archdioceses around here.
They mean "renovate" in the good sense. Remember, it's only recently that the word has come to mean "wreckovation," as Michael Rose calls it.
Conservatives accuse traditionalists of using a "hermeneutics of suspicion." But isn't it only natural to have a knee-jerk reaction after so many instances when a bishop announces a "renovation" that means that another spiritual treasure is going to be destroyed? In addition to all their other crimes, they've perverted the language as well.
Situations such as this make it pretty clear who's who, don't they? Socialists and diocese on one side, SSPX on the other side.
Cincinnati recently had a similar situation. The diocese hosted a pro-homosexual conference a month ago. The Cincinnati Enquirer noted that virtually all those Catholics picketing outside the conference were from various traditionalists churches.
Ministry to gays draws protests
So you had a clear picture: diocese and aggressive clerical homosexuals on one side; traditionalists on the other side. Make your choice.
I have not yet conceded infallibility to the SSPX, so I am not required to deem their side of an issue as the correct one. This little blurb does not provide enough history, political and religious, or enough analysis to make any kind of informed decision on who is right. But since knee jerk pronouncements set the precedent on this thread I offered my own, and will do so again. I would tend to side with the archdiocese, who's bishop is in communion with the Roman Catholic Church rather than a schismatic cult.
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