Excommunication of the SSPX Bishops to be lifted!?!

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palmas85 said:
Why so? It certainly would not be the first time that an excommunication has been declared null and void. And to put it bluntly, would you feel the same way if this lifting of an excommunication was on someone else other than who it is?
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*If *this happens, it would a cause for rejoicing for any Catholic who understands what excommunication is. I can not imagine anyone wanting to see someone’s immortal soul put in mortal danger.
 
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pnewton:
It is truly how I felt, even more than how I thought. I do not understand in the least why you consider it debasing. However, it is posts like that which resulted in a ban on the topic of SSPX twice so far, and will do so again. This is after all a Catholic website.
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like I said, you had a better way to address the statement.
 
pnewton said:
*If *this happens, it would a cause for rejoicing for any Catholic who understands what excommunication is. I can not imagine anyone wanting to see someone’s immortal soul put in mortal danger.
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Yet the poster I was responding to acted as if this action would shake him to his core. I fail to see why. the Church has reversed Herself on excommunications before and will undoubtedly do so again. I was just wondering if the poster would feel such anguish over future liftings or feels the same about those already having been lifted.

Or if it is as I suspect the anguish and moral outrage are only because it involves the SSPX.
 
I just want to say that not all things in our life, nor in the life of
the Roman Catholic Church (both a Divine & a human institution)
are necessarily clear-cut black & white: there are other colors &
tones. None of us is an expert in Canon Law & none of us has
the graces of Office that Pope Benedict XVI has received. These
questions are to be resolved at the proper time & at the proper
level of ecclesiastical authority. Blessed Pope John XXIII always
said: Speak the Truth with Charity & practice Charity with
Truth…
Also, at the time of Church History when we had a Pope in
Avignon & a Pope in Rome, things were certainly not very
clear to many. But we do have canonized Saints who did
take sides & supported one or the other.
The Church, like Jesus, Her Founder must practice mercy
& compassion; that is why we call Her: Holy Mother Church.
When the Society of St. John Vianney of Campos, Brazil,
returned to Rome in 2002 or 2003, they were accepted back
by Pope John Paul II. Their present status is that of an
Apostolic Administration with Bishop Fernando Rifan at their
head. He is resposible directly to the Holy See (first, JPII &
now BXVI)
We need not worry too much, the Holy Father has the light
& special wisdom from the Holy Spirit to resolve this kind of
question in the correct, proper, & Christ-like way.
 
maurin said:
you haven’t been listening to what you’ve been saying? if so, then maybe you might consider stop talking. no, you said that it will never happen and that we should [gasp] trust you, haven’t you been paying attention to yourself? oh good. I’m sure His Holiness will be relieved. so you haven’t been listening to yourself. nor have you been listening to His Holiness, the Pope, Benedict XVI.

double speak should be reserved for books in the orwellian tradition, rogerterder.
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I didnt double speak you just cant answer my question. Where did I disobey the Pope? I gave my opinion that the excommunications won’t be lifted. If they were I would accept. Of course I can’t tell the future. The current Pope hasnt lifted any exccommunications, and I am quite confident he won’t. Until they are lifted they stand. Sorry to burst your bubble but good old Lefebvre was a disobedient old man, and should have ben excommunicated, and he was. The problem for you is that the Pope (John Paul II) agrees with me (or i agree with him if you will) and disagrees with you, and until this Pope lifts or declares the excommunication null and void then they (the exccommunications) stand.
 
I hope and pray that these rumors are true.

Christ on the cross won eternal reconciliation for us.

May his most precious blood and the prayers of the most holy Mother of God bring about the true unity of the Church.

May we all be one in Christ with the help of Mary and with Peter.

Let’s pray for the pope, the Vicar of Christ on earth, that he will not be delivered into the hands of his enemies.
 
eelpis said:
I hope and pray that these rumors are true.

Christ on the cross won eternal reconciliation for us.

May his most precious blood and the prayers of the most holy Mother of God bring about the true unity of the Church.

May we all be one in Christ with the help of Mary and with Peter.
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ditto 👍
 
maurin said:
I guess, then, that you never considered the possibility that the knife could cut both ways.

We’ll pray for you if your worst fear comes true.
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Actually, my worst fear is being buried alive, like Agent Walker on “24”. The SSPX excommunications being lifted are wayyyyy down on my list of fears. But thanks anyway. :rolleyes:
 
Rogerteder said:
I didnt double speak you just cant answer my question. Where did I disobey the Pope? I gave my opinion that the excommunications won’t be lifted. If they were I would accept. Of course I can’t tell the future. The current Pope hasnt lifted any exccommunications, and I am quite confident he won’t. Until they are lifted they stand. Sorry to burst your bubble but good old Lefebvre was a disobedient old man, and should have ben excommunicated, and he was. The problem for you is that the Pope (John Paul II) agrees with me (or i agree with him if you will) and disagrees with you, and until this Pope lifts or declares the excommunication null and void then they (the exccommunications) stand.
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This is all fine and good. Pope Innocent III is quoted as saying, “'it sometimes happens that the Church looses one whom God has bound, and binds by the judgement of the Church one who in God’s sight is free”. Legalism and Canon Law aside, the good Archbishop Lefebvre upheld and defended the Faith, which is no slave to obedience. I don’t mean to say that he did everything right and I often wonder if there wasn’t a better way than the illicit consecrations of 1988. But the first duty of a Bishop is not obedience to the Pope of Rome, but to faithfully hand down what he has received. Though not perfect, Archbishop Lefebvre did this to the best of his ability which is more than can be said for many, many of the bishops in “union” with the Church. And that’s just my :twocents: worth! And PRAISE GOD if the rumors are true!!God bless!
 
Associated Press - January 22, 2009 7:53 AM ET

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Two newspapers say Pope Benedict XVI has decided to lift the excommunications of 4 bishops consecrated 20 years ago by the late French ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

Lefebvre rebelled against the Vatican’s modernizing reforms of the 1960s, including replacing Latin with local languages at Mass.

Benedict has already reached out to the rebels in the hopes of bringing them back into the Church by making it the old Mass more readily available.

The Italian newspapers Il Giornale and Il Riformista said Thursday that Benedict has now decided to meet their demand that the excommunications be lifted. The newspapers said, without citing sources, that Benedict has already signed the decrees and that they will be made public soon.

The Vatican declined comment on the reports.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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**VATICAN CITY (Reuters) **- Pope Benedict will soon lift the excommunication on four traditionalist bishops, in his latest attempt to heal a 20-year-old schism in the Roman Catholic Church, an Italian paper said on Thursday.

Il Giornale said a papal decree lifting the excommunications against the leaders of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), would most likely be announced this weekend.

It would be a major gesture by Benedict to resolve a crisis in the Church that surfaced in 1998, when the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre illegally consecrated four bishops without the requisite permission of the late Pope John Paul.

The result was their self-imposed excommunication, or a total cut-off from the Church, which was later made formal by a Vatican decree.

The group, which has about a million followers compared to 1.1 billion for the official Church, keeps the old Latin Mass and rejects the validity of other religions.

It also rejects some of the reforms of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council, which, among other things, introduced the Mass in the local language and encouraged dialogue with other religions.

The decree lifting the excommunication of the four bishops, something they have been demanding for years in order to accelerate dialogue with the Vatican, is the latest of several gestures by the pope to the schismatic group.

Benedict has already granted another concession – allowing the unconditional return of the old-style Latin Mass. But that move angered Jews because the Mass includes a Good Friday prayer for their conversion.

Several years ago, Father Franz Schmidberger, a top SSPX official who was Lefebvre’s right-hand man, said Benedict should tell Jews and members of other religions to convert because they are part of “false systems”.

Since his election in 2005, Benedict has made several statements which his critics have seen as proclaiming the supremacy of Roman Catholicism over all other religions.

One of the best-known traditionalist Catholics is American actor Mel Gibson but it is not clear if he supports the SSPX, which is based at the rebel seminary Lefebvre ran in Switzerland.

The group has said they want to remain part of the Church but want their own legal status within it so they can carry on with their traditional services.

There has been speculation they could be given a “personal prelature” similar to that given by the late Pope John Paul to the conservative group Opus Dei. This would allow them to answer to their own leader rather than to a local bishop.
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rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2009/01/surprise-for-tomorrow.html

UPDATE 3 (Jan. 22, 1700 GMT) Interesting excerpts of the article posted today by the ultra-“Progressive” French religious website Golias, with confirmation of informations already known and some new data.

On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the convocation of Vatican II (January 25, 1969)

THE POPE LIFTS THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE LEFEBVRIST BISHOPS!

…
According to our information, the decree regarding this decision has already been signed. …

According to our sources, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos and Mgr. Perl [Vice-Presidentof the commission], Luxembourger prelate who will very soon replace him at the top of the “Ecclesia Dei” Commission, were the ones who wrote, together with an Italian prelate, Mgr Mario Marini [Secretary of the Commission], a text of reconciliation in the sense of a removal of the excommunications of the four Lefebvrist Bishops.

Also according to our information, it would not be a full and complete recognition of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, but a simple removal of the sanction of excommunication; a way to recognize the good faith and ecclesial sense of the “schismatics”, while full agreement on the future juridical status of the Fraternity Saint Pius X is not yet complete. Some believe that the Fraternity of Saint Pius X could be erected as a personal prelature of the Pope, similar to that of the Opus Dei. However, those responsible for the latter view with some concern this prospect, which would remove [the exclusivity of] their exceptional status, which has been theirs since 1983, following the decision by Pope John Paul II.

For the time being,as has been his practice, Pope Benedict XVI advances little by little, and the question of the future statute of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X will come on its time… The essential [aspect] for him today is to treat the Lefebvrist bishops as if they had not been excommunicated, which is a completely Roman way of at least “relativizing”, without, however, contradicting oneself completely!

It is clear, lastly, that this decision of Pope Benedict XVI, probably made official next January 24, will make a number of Catholic communities react in a critical manner, particularly in France and Switzerland.
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This is a really wonderful post!
HOLYHEARTS said:
I just want to say that not all things in our life, nor in the life of
the Roman Catholic Church (both a Divine & a human institution)
are necessarily clear-cut black & white: there are other colors &
tones. None of us is an expert in Canon Law & none of us has
the graces of Office that Pope Benedict XVI has received. These
questions are to be resolved at the proper time & at the proper
level of ecclesiastical authority. Blessed Pope John XXIII always
said: Speak the Truth with Charity & practice Charity with
Truth…
Also, at the time of Church History when we had a Pope in
Avignon & a Pope in Rome, things were certainly not very
clear to many. But we do have canonized Saints who did
take sides & supported one or the other.
The Church, like Jesus, Her Founder must practice mercy
& compassion; that is why we call Her: Holy Mother Church.
When the Society of St. John Vianney of Campos, Brazil,
returned to Rome in 2002 or 2003, they were accepted back
by Pope John Paul II. Their present status is that of an
Apostolic Administration with Bishop Fernando Rifan at their
head. He is resposible directly to the Holy See (first, JPII &
now BXVI)
We need not worry too much, the Holy Father has the light
& special wisdom from the Holy Spirit to resolve this kind of
question in the correct, proper, & Christ-like way.
Click to expand...
 
Rogerteder said:
I know I know the argument. I am not sure if that is what Canon Law intends. Obviously the Pope didn’t agree. He certainly ruled that Lefebvre was clearly wrong. The “he honestly thought” argument is very subjective. How could anyone be excommunicated for consecrating Bishops(without Papal permission)? Is a Bishop(who consecrates another Bishop without Papal permission) going to say “Hey ya I know we don’t need this, but I am going to consecrate anyway even though I dont have the Pope’s permission?” HMMMMMMMMMMM-
BOTTOM LINE :THE POPE(JOHN PAUL II) SAID LEFEBVRE WAS WRONG AND I DONT SEE ANY REASON WHY HE WAS CORRECT. I mean the only argument you can make is he said he believed it was an emergency. I cant see it. If the Church had very few Bishops left then I could see it being an emergency. The Church had many Bishops. How could it be an emergency? Now, I know you are going to say it doesnt matter as long as Lefebvre believed it was an emergency. I get all that, but how do we really know what Lefebvre really believed? We don’t!! We can’t !!! We can only go by what the Pope said, and he said Lefebvre was clearly wrong. THEN HE SAID LEFEBVRE WAS EXCOMMUNICATED!! If ,and when, our current Holy Father overturns that, then I will change my mind. I seriously doubt Pope Benedict XVI will lift the excommunications!!! DOUBT IT!!!
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How many Bishops and priests at that time were saying the Latin Mass? Not many. It looked like Latin was gone at that point. Also not just the Latin Mass but the Traditional values of our faith. That’s where the “Emergency” came in. If you look at the world now we are still in a Emergency of faith. How many people really know the Catholic faith? Our Lady said at Fatima that people were falling into hell like snow flakes. Now this was back in 1917. What is happening now…are they falling into hell like a…snow storm. hee heee hee
 
Sir_Anthony said:
Can the excommunication on Williamson stand? I mean he is one of those conspiracy theory nuts that certainly the Church does not want, then again I guess he can’t be much worst than Cardinal Mahoney.
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The Church doesn’t want certain people? Show some charity - Christ desires that all men be saved.
 
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