Archbishop Fellay: offer of a personal prelature under consideration

[ProVobis]

Wonder if Fellay (is it improper to refer to him as Archbishop?) might be concerned that Rome might be duping SSPX in order to perhaps close all their churches and facilities?

So far there isn’t any indication of that happening. Reports on allowing confessions to be valid were supposedly based on both sides negotiating “in good faith.”

 

[ProVobis]

If this happens, and they become a Personal Prelature similar to Opus Dei, can an everyday Catholic then attend their churches (and send their children to their schools), and still be in good standing with the Roman Catholic Church (Pope, Magisterium, Holy See’)?

Yup, that’s the whole idea of the Personal Prelature.

 

[commenter]

It is interesting how the “liberal” Pope Francis might wind up accomplishing what the “conservative” Pope Benedict could not.

People keep posting about a reunion as something in the future. Keep in mind Pope Benedict did help develop the process of reunion which is already in place. Individual clergy, ****when ********they ********are ****ready, do in fact come in each year. Some enter the FSSP, or other arrangement where they continue their priesthood, after meeting with their bishop-ordinary. Some laity who were attached to the SSPX each year choose to become active in a parish and their diocese - but only when their own family, itself, feels ready. It seems insulting to ignore the genuine accomplishments (not just “groundwork”) already achieved.

I think Pope Benedict foresaw that the SSPX is less unified, less defineable as time goes on. There are multiple resistance movements at odds with the leadership, who claim to be the true SSPX. It’s not like 1988, when most SSPX clergy, including seminary teachers, had worked years in a diocese, in the Church itself. Today most clergy have never worked in the Church itself, get trained by people who never worked in the Church itself. The SSPX has its ****own ****Tradition(s) now, along with multiplying dissenters against Bishop Fellay.

That’s why Pope Benedict’s personal option plan - “come in when you are ready” - is the only prudent one. The Vatican can assist that by expanding the availability of the EF, and eliminating abuses based on false interpretations of Vatican II.

 

[RPRPsych]

People keep posting about a reunion as something in the future. Keep in mind Pope Benedict did help develop the process of reunion which is already in place. Individual clergy, ****when ********they ********are ****ready, do in fact come in each year. Some enter the FSSP, or other arrangement where they continue their priesthood, after meeting with their bishop-ordinary. Some laity who were attached to the SSPX each year choose to become active in a parish and their diocese - but only when their own family, itself, feels ready. It seems insulting to ignore the genuine accomplishments (not just “groundwork”) already achieved.

I think Pope Benedict foresaw that the SSPX is less unified, less defineable as time goes on. There are multiple resistance movements at odds with the leadership, who claim to be the true SSPX. It’s not like 1988, when most SSPX clergy, including seminary teachers, had worked years in a diocese, in the Church itself. Today most clergy have never worked in the Church itself, get trained by people who never worked in the Church itself. The SSPX has its ****own ****Tradition(s) now, along with multiplying dissenters against Bishop Fellay.

That’s why Pope Benedict’s personal option plan - “come in when you are ready” - is the only prudent one. The Vatican can assist that by expanding the availability of the EF, and eliminating abuses based on false interpretations of Vatican II.

Another curious effect of the “gradual incoming”, as you allude to, is the splitting off of more and more factions within what would have once been the SSPX “big umbrella”. Forums named after Archbishop Lefebvre (RIP) now post articles by ex-SSPX priests accusing him of all sorts of “stuff and fluff” (to borrow a euphemism from Winnie the Pooh) and are Sedevacantist in all but name. The fragmentation of these splinters hasn’t quite yet reached Protestant proportions, but it’s frighteningly similar, and it should make us all realize that disunity isn’t just a problem within the regular Church.

 

[commenter]

Another curious effect of the “gradual incoming”, as you allude to, is the splitting off of more and more factions within what would have once been the SSPX “big umbrella”. Forums named after Archbishop Lefebvre (RIP) now post articles by ex-SSPX priests accusing him of all sorts of “stuff and fluff” (to borrow a euphemism from Winnie the Pooh) and are Sedevacantist in all but name. The fragmentation of these splinters hasn’t quite yet reached Protestant proportions, but it’s frighteningly similar, and it should make us all realize that disunity isn’t just a problem within the regular Church.

Other than prayer, the best way for the Church to respond to the SSPX is not by criticism, and not by negotiation, but by addressing the abuses and manipulation of the valid, Vatican II that led to creation of SSPX. At present, Catholics attached to SSPX lack the benefit of a bishop-ordinary, and are isolated from the local Catholic movements for prolife, defense of Marriage, and defense of religious liberty. The chapel in my city was set up in the 1970s when the diocese was far more liberal than it is now. But the chapel is now still as isolated as it ever was. It will ****always ****find a reason to perpetuate itself, urging people to bypass the local diocesan sponsored EF.

Some people are pushing for a world-wide, one-size-fits-all document that simply puts a sign on every chapel, “Vatican approved”, but continues the same isolation from the local diocese, the same isolation - or “protection” - from the local Catholic bishop, local Catholic priests, and local Catholic prolife movement, evangelism, etc.

Families in SSPX have different needs, and are in very different kinds of local situations. I hope the “one-size-fits-all” document never gets written. As the Church reduces the abuses, and expands the EF, more families will rejoin their diocese and parishes. When people stop coming to the chapel, SSPX priests who are on the fence, will come in.