Cardinal Ratzinger on Archbishop Lefebvre, Vatican II, and Tradition

[ProVobis]

Marcel Lefebvre was a bishop not because of the society, but because he was a titular bishop already. He had no right to a successor. Only an ordinary has a successor, and that successor comes due to the office, not due to the ordination required for the office.

Aramis, I think I see what you’re saying but what about Orthodox bishops and Old Catholic bishops? Don’t they have a right by the virtue of Apostolic Succession to consecrate other bishops too, though this is not necessarily approved by Rome? The four bishops consecrated by Lefebvre and Mayers are valid bishops who themselves have a right to succession and this has never been denied by Rome. But perhaps you were trying to make another point?

 

[Aramis]

Aramis, I think I see what you’re saying but what about Orthodox bishops and Old Catholic bishops? Don’t they have a right by the virtue of Apostolic Succession to consecrate other bishops too, though this is not necessarily approved by Rome? The four bishops consecrated by Lefebvre and Mayers are valid bishops who themselves have a right to succession and this has never been denied by Rome. But perhaps you were trying to make another point?

No.
Consecrating bishops and installing them as Ordinaries is the axiomatic expression of schism.

No one has a right to a successor, nor to ordain nor to be ordained. It in canon law, and has been since 1917…

An Ordinary’s see has a right to an ordinary. But that ordinary might not be a bishop, for example. But in establishing the Ordinaries’ Sees, the Old Catholics established themselves as a schismatic church. (And further heresies have since followed for most of the Old Catholic movement…)

The Orthodox are a special case: they had valid bishops, but those bishops have NO right to successors. They also had valid established sees; the priests, deacons, minor clerics, and faithful of those sees have a right to an Ordinary; the Ordinary normally must have apostolic succession, and thus must be ordained a bishop by a bishop who has apostolic succession.

The permission to ordain is not (neither in Orthodoxy nor Catholicism) a bishop’s right; it is the Ordinary’s right.

ONLY an ordinary has the right to permit ordinations. Only a synod or a patriarch may permit episcopal ordination.

For Catholic Bishops outside the patriarchal churches, it requires Rome’s permission. In Patriarchal churches, it requires the Patriarch and the Synod’s joint permission. In Orthodoxy, it is schism to ordain a bishop without mandate, as well… and that mandate comes from the Synod via the primate, be he Metropolitan or Patriarch.

 

[Like]

No.
Consecrating bishops and installing them as Ordinaries is the axiomatic expression of schism.

No one has a right to a successor, nor to ordain nor to be ordained. It in canon law, and has been since 1917…

An Ordinary’s see has a right to an ordinary. But that ordinary might not be a bishop, for example. But in establishing the Ordinaries’ Sees, the Old Catholics established themselves as a schismatic church. (And further heresies have since followed for most of the Old Catholic movement…)

The Orthodox are a special case: they had valid bishops, but those bishops have NO right to successors. They also had valid established sees; the priests, deacons, minor clerics, and faithful of those sees have a right to an Ordinary; the Ordinary normally must have apostolic succession, and thus must be ordained a bishop by a bishop who has apostolic succession.

The permission to ordain is not (neither in Orthodoxy nor Catholicism) a bishop’s right; it is the Ordinary’s right.

ONLY an ordinary has the right to permit ordinations. Only a synod or a patriarch may permit episcopal ordination.

For Catholic Bishops outside the patriarchal churches, it requires Rome’s permission. In Patriarchal churches, it requires the Patriarch and the Synod’s joint permission. In Orthodoxy, it is schism to ordain a bishop without mandate, as well… and that mandate comes from the Synod via the primate, be he Metropolitan or Patriarch.

OK, now I’m really confused!
Are these 4 men (bishops) of the SSPX REAL bishops or not?

And if not, then why does the Vatican refer to them as such?

 

[Aramis]

OK, now I’m really confused!
Are these 4 men (bishops) of the SSPX REAL bishops or not?

And if not, then why does the Vatican refer to them as such?

They are in fact real bishops.

They are not Ordinaries, however. Therefore, much of what they have done is illicit (wrong), but not invalid. The priests they have ordained are valid priests. The problem is that they have done much that is proper to a Bishop who is also an Ordinary, without being ordinaries.

Any bishop has the power to ordain; being a bishop does not give him the authority to do so, however.

Most Ordinaries are bishops. An Ordinary is the head of a “Particular Church”, the most common being a Diocese. Not all ordinaries are bishops, but only an Ordinary may give permission to hear confessions, to perform weddings, to ordain men, to establish parishes, to determine nullity of a marriage.

For marriages and confessions, they are only valid if done with the Ordinary’s permission; that is, those sacraments are not real unless the person doing them has permission from the Ordinary. Parishes are only real parishes if established by the Ordinary. Decrees on Nullity are just words on a page if not issued by an ordinary.

Other sacraments and sacramentals, however, can be done validly but illicitly; that is, it’s real, but it’s also a violation of Canon Law and the will of the Magisterium. Ordinations are that way.

 

[pnewton]

When has the Church experienced a decline like we’ve endured these past forty years?

First, decline is an opinion as the actual number of Catholics worldwide has increased.

But to answer your question, the Protestant Reformation and the East-West Schism come to mind. Now those were significant drops.

 

[Ockham]

What you don’t seem to get: The SSPX have no right to any bishops.

I’ll say it again: Ordination is NOT a right.

Unfortunately for your argument, the Vatican agreed to a new bishop for the SSPX. The problem is that would have only prolonged the core issue. For the SSPX to continue it needs more than one bishop. Imagine if we had only one Cardinal.

The issue was caused by Abp Lefebvre not obeying the rules. HH JP II was sympathetic to his cause, but moving cautiously. Abp Lefebvre, in acting how he did, showed HH JP II to have been justified in that caution.

IMHO, the issue was caused by the Vatican’s action to ignore the applications. They didn’t say yes or no, they said nothing and Archbishop Lefebvre kept on aging.

Are you willing to admit to at least the possibility an ulterior motive kept the paper work from being signed? Is it not possible someone in the Vatican sat on the applications hoping Archbishop Lefebvre would die first and the SSPX would go away?

 

[Ockham]

First, decline is an opinion as the actual number of Catholics worldwide has increased.

But to answer your question, the Protestant Reformation and the East-West Schism come to mind. Now those were significant drops.

The world’s population has increased too along with African and South American converts to Protestant movements (assuming that’s what you are referring to as growth in the Catholic Church). If we stay within the Church and not count schisms there has never been such a decline in the faithful as we’ve endured these past forty years.

 

[pnewton]

If we stay within the Church and not count schisms there has never been such a decline in the faithful as we’ve endured these past forty years.

We haven’t? I have never seen such statistics that have been so selective on what counts and what doesn’t count.

 

[Ockham]

We haven’t? I have never seen such statistics that have been so selective on what counts and what doesn’t count.

You’ve never seen statistics like these:

seattlecatholic.com/article_20040119.html

 

[SouthpawLink]

Look on the SSPX in the United States of America website sspx.org/sspxfaqs.htm.

Read the answers they give to the FAQs and it is obvious where they diverge from magisterial Catholic teaching; and as Popes have taught are therefore in schism.

The rest of your questions are off topic. Please start a new thread.

A lot of what they have to say makes sense to me. The Second Vatican Council and many of the magisterial documents following it seemed - to me - to have done a poor job at clearly and precisely presenting the Catholic Faith. This is in stark contrast to the papal encyclicals, Scholastic theology manuals and national catechisms that preceded the Council. If the Church didn’t change any of her teachings nor define any new dogmas at Vatican II, then’s what wrong with the SSPX presenting Catholic doctrine in the traditional manner?

“The world has heard enough of the so-called ‘rights of man.’ Let it hear something of the rights of God” (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, n. 13; 1 November 1900).

 

[Aramis]

A lot of what they have to say makes sense to me. The Second Vatican Council and many of the magisterial documents following it seemed - to me - to have done a poor job at clearly and precisely presenting the Catholic Faith. This is in stark contrast to the papal encyclicals, Scholastic theology manuals and national catechisms that preceded the Council. If the Church didn’t change any of her teachings nor define any new dogmas at Vatican II, then’s what wrong with the SSPX presenting Catholic doctrine in the traditional manner?

Because many of the so-called “Traditional Materials” were wrong and/or overly narrowly constructed. The Baltimore Catechism, for example, presents as the whole of the church a very narrow expression within the Roman praxis; one so narrow, that many educated with it think the Eastern Catholics to be heretics!

While it is correct that the church has not changed the universal teachings (except the Assumption being dogmatized by Pp. JP II, and papal infalibility being dogmatized at V I1), lots of local speculations crept up (Limbo, Mary being assumed alive, amongst many others) and were presented locally as universal truths.

 

[wisdomseeker]

youtube.com/user/RealCatholicTV?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/s-2Qp5igGDI

great video. are some of the bishops waking up?

 

[Aramis]

Unfortunately for your argument, the Vatican agreed to a new bishop for the SSPX. The problem is that would have only prolonged the core issue. For the SSPX to continue it needs more than one bishop. Imagine if we had only one Cardinal.

IMHO, the issue was caused by the Vatican’s action to ignore the applications. They didn’t say yes or no, they said nothing and Archbishop Lefebvre kept on aging.

Are you willing to admit to at least the possibility an ulterior motive kept the paper work from being signed? Is it not possible someone in the Vatican sat on the applications hoping Archbishop Lefebvre would die first and the SSPX would go away?

No. The only ulterior motive at work is yours. You seek to legitimize misbehavior.

The promise of ONE permission still did not make it a right.

If promise to give you a pencil of my choosing “soon”, that does not mean you get to pick one of mine yourself, and if you take one, you still would be a thief.

Abp Lefebvre acted entirely against canon law, tradition, and the church, when he ordained 4 men bishops without mandate from Rome.

 

[pnewton]

You’ve never seen statistics like these:

seattlecatholic.com/article_20040119.html

The Catholic Church says there were were over 100,000 as opposed to the lower figure of less than 10,000. I believe the Catholic Church to no the number of seminarians better than some article that is jumping through statistical hoops to make it look worse.

I have to ask myself, “If there is such a crisis, shouldn’t it be obvious without having to resort to such things”

catholicnewsagency.com/news/universal_church_sees_increase_in_seminarians_reports_pontifical_yearbook/

Universal Church sees increase in seminarians, reports Pontifical Yearbook

 

[Pregustator]

They are not Ordinaries, however. Therefore, much of what they have done is illicit (wrong), but not invalid. The priests they have ordained are valid priests. The problem is that they have done much that is proper to a Bishop who is also an Ordinary, without being ordinaries.

I recall well the SSPX’s oft-repeated and emphatically-stated insistence in the early days after the consecrations that they did not, under any circumstances, claim any sort of jurisdiction for their bishops. The bishops were there, so the rationale went, merely to provide “traditional” Holy Orders for “traditionally-formed” priests and the “traditional” Sacrament of Confirmation. The SSPX compared themselves to auxiliary bishops.

And in the very beginning, they behaved like auxiliary bishops. They hid their pectoral crosses when appearing in public out of respect for the local ordinary. When they pontificated, they did so from the faldstool and carried their croziers crook-inward in the manner of a bishop without territorial jurisdiction. According to the pre-Vatican II rubrics, only bishops with jurisdiction within their jurisdiction wore the mozzetta; otherwise the mantelletta was worn instead. In observance of that, the SSPX bishops wore the mantelletta, not the mozetta. They observed all of these practices very scrupulously, in fact…for about ten minutes.

It was not long at all, however, before the SSPX bishops utterly abandoned their care to project themselves as non-territorial bishops. The scruple about displaying the pectoral cross in public quickly vanished, the mantellettas were put in mothballs and replaced by the mozzetta, the crook of the crozier was turned forward. By the time I entered St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in the Fall of 1989 (only one year after the consecrations), Bishop Williamson (the rector) had already abandoned the auxiliary bishop’s faldstool and was pontificating from the throne in the manner of a bishop with jurisdiction (much to the consternation of a handful of concerned MCs and sacristans, apparently).

In time, all of the SSPX bishops began to celebrate pontifical Mass and Vespers from the pontifical throne. With greater abandon, still, they began to erect canopies over their pontifical thrones, and to display their episcopal coats of arms behind their thrones. What’s striking about this practice is that they pontificate in this manner wherever they happen to be in the world, the way that only cardinals may! Even ordinary bishops do not pontificate from the throne outside of their dioceses! But SSPX bishops–in the manner of the Princes of the Church–pontificate from the throne anywhere they happen to find themselves, anywhere in the world.

I have never heard or read an explanation for the SSPX’s change of heart with respect to scrupulously projecting their bishops as non-jurisdictional “auxiliaries”. I have never read or heard a proper justification of the adoption of the liturgical and sartorial attributes of diocesan ordinaries by the SSPX bishops. Ignorance of the rubrics can hardly be cited in the case of the SSPX, particularly when the bishops did, in the very beginning, follow the rubrical prescriptions given for non-jurisdictional bishops when pontificating.

When I was at the seminary, I did enquire of one of those few concerned MCs what Bishop Williamson’s justification was for presiding from the pontifical throne as opposed to the faldstool. The MC I spoke to responded, “some nonsense about not wanting to confuse the faithful, who aren’t familiar with the rubrics of pontifical Mass at the faldstool.” As if the faithful in 1989 were familiar with the rubrics of pontifical Mass at the throne!

The fact that SSPX bishops pontificate from the throne may be the Church’s least concern with respect to a group of previously-excommunicated renegade prelates suspended by Rome with no faculties or jurisdiction; prelates who pretend to shepherd and even govern the faithful adherents of an international organization that denies the Holocaust, that has given refuge to Nazi-sympathizers, and which allies itself with the extreme-right political fringe, with the monarchist-restoration movement of France, with the notorious TFP, and with any number of reactionary movements.

But what does this usurpation of the liturgical prerogatives of diocesan ordinary bishops–and even of cardinals–say about how the SSPX bishops actually view themselves?

Here are some links offering images or videos of the SSPX bishops officiating from the pontifical throne in the manner of jurisdictional prelates:

Richard Williamson (images):

sspx.org/RCRpdfs/2009_rcrs/march_2009_rcr.pdf

Bernard Tissier de Mallerais (images):

google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.laportelatine.org/district/chartres/lourdes2009/report/tissier001.jpg&imgrefurl=http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2009/10/we-present-here-first-photos-of.html&usg=__I2QBDPDPX5HQwofsX7iVzRWzt7U=&h=488&w=650&sz=98&hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=K9qFCZPNntaiyM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsociety%2Bof%2Bst.%2Bpius%2Bx%2Bbishops%2Bpontifical%2Bmass%2Bthrone%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1

Bernard Fellay (images):

sspx.org/RCRpdfs/2009_rcrs/july_2009_rcr.pdf

Bernard Fellay (video):

laportelatine.org/communication/videotheque/MgrFellay100110/10janvier2010.php

Alfonso de Galarreta (image):

google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/09BY5fN92bc6o/610x.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.daylife.com/photo/09BY5fN92bc6o&usg=__lfw_azIm3eIYUg_e3uLgXI-ugpI=&h=406&w=610&sz=80&hl=en&start=9&zoom=0&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=oVL7Gij28uuBRM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbishop%2Bde%2Bgalarreta%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26tbs%3Disch:1

 

[Ockham]

No. The only ulterior motive at work is yours. You seek to legitimize misbehavior.

So no ulterior motive with the SSPX. Alrightie, that’s your opinion, mine is different. Would you agree that the Vatican has been wrong before?

The promise of ONE permission still did not make it a right.

You stated the SSPX had no right to any bishops. The Vatican was prepared to make a new bishop therefore your statement is false.

Abp Lefebvre acted entirely against canon law, tradition, and the church, when he ordained 4 men bishops without mandate from Rome.

The SSPX has a different perspective on this issue, one based on Canon Law. I’ll spare you my interpretation and suggest you look it up for yourself.

 

[Aramis]

You stated the SSPX had no right to any bishops. The Vatican was prepared to make a new bishop therefore your statement is false.

That the Vatican was prepared to give them one doesn’t make having one a right.

 

[Ockham]

That the Vatican was prepared to give them one doesn’t make having one a right.

I never said they had a right to ordain bishops, that’s an assertion you’ve thrust upon me.

 

[ProVobis]

OK, now I’m really confused!
Are these 4 men (bishops) of the SSPX REAL bishops or not?

And if not, then why does the Vatican refer to them as such?

They are definitely bishops.

Maybe this is an oversimplification, but Apostolic Succession trumps ecclesiastical politics, formal schisms, excommunications, and schismatic acts. Not good if the Pope excommunicates all the bishops in the world but they are still bishops.

 

[malphono]

I recall well the SSPX’s oft-repeated and emphatically-stated insistence in the early days after the consecrations that they did not, under any circumstances, claim any sort of jurisdiction for their bishops. …

And in the very beginning, they behaved like auxiliary bishops. … They observed all of these practices very scrupulously, in fact…for about ten minutes. …

I have never heard or read an explanation for the SSPX’s change of heart with respect to scrupulously projecting their bishops as non-jurisdictional “auxiliaries”. I have never read or heard a proper justification of the adoption of the liturgical and sartorial attributes of diocesan ordinaries by the SSPX bishops. …

But what does this usurpation of the liturgical prerogatives of diocesan ordinary bishops–and even of cardinals–say about how the SSPX bishops actually view themselves?

Fascinating. And not in the least surprising.

I’m not on the “inside” of any of this, but I have this sneaking suspicion that not one of the four bishops would have dared pull any of their shenanigans if Mgr Lefebvre had been around.

This leads me to wonder what was really Mgr Lefebvre’s m.o. in upping his request from one bishop to four. One bishop? Yes, I can see that, particularly insofar as Mgr Lefebvre was superior general and would likely have wanted his successor to also be a bishop. But what possible need would a relatively small “priestly fraternity” (or even call it a “congregation”) need with four bishops? Could it perhaps be the case that the request was upped from one to four not by Mgr Lefebvre’s own will? Could it have been that he was pressured (or “taken advantage of”) in his old age by others with their own agenda? I don’t pretend to know the answer, but it’s food for thought.