This is an over five years of document. Meanwhile the SSPX bishops asked to lift the excommunication, but either the bishops and priest refused to ask to lift the suspension. Like the father of the prodigal son, Rome is waiting for this later petition.
Well, the article can’t be five years old; it references events from 2009. Also, it’s dated 2010:
I think this is just the SSPX and friends trying (as usual) to make the Vatican look like a bunch of hypocrites and deceivers: lunatics, if you will, running their own asylum. The SSPX go about justifying their existence and their “supplied jurisdiction” to do whatever they like by making the oficial Church appear to be irreparably “broken” and “ungovernable”. So here, Bishop Fellay insists that the institutional Church is at odds with itself over the matter: that the “Vatican” is against the SSPX, while the Pope is for them. What nonsense.
I found noteworthy its extremely positive portrayal of the Pope. In this article, the Pope is portrayed as trying to do the right thing but being prevented by forces beyond his control. It takes the view that the Pope is good and the SSPX are his loyal followers who need to be patient while he deals with internal problems. While there are legitimate criticisms that might be made of the article, it shows a remarkable loyalty to the Pope and its attitude seems far from schismatic.
I agree with you. Also, if you visit enough websites, you will find indeed there are many traditionalists who think Bishop Fellay sold them out. I cancelled my subscription to the Remnant a long time ago, but it’s an interesting take. Thanks for posting.
Yes, I was too fest. The article starts with the date 2005, but that is jusr the inscript for a photo.
Unless there has already been a de facto private prelature which we may not know about until the next Pope makes it publicly known.
St Thomas Aquinas broke a heavy oak table, when someone concluded from the possibility to existence.Unless there has already been a de facto private prelature which we may not know about until the next Pope makes it publicly known.
That’s much too hasty, in my view. Bp Fellay is making public statements that he asserts are factual. The following paragraph from his talk is a statement that is 100% corroborated in the public forum.
(This is not the case with one or two isolated priests being granted an exceptional derogation from this norm, but rather the consistent practice of allowing all these priests to exercise their priestly functions.)
The following comment from his address is particularly interesting:
To put it very mildly, Bp Fellay is putting himself out on a hugely extended limb if he is lying about these things (as a previous poster clearly wondered). Bp Fellay has been very careful not to give un-necessary ammunition to his opponents. If the Vatican could prove that these things are false, it would blow the credibility of the SSPX to smithereens. Therefore I see no reasonable grounds for rejecting them out of hand. The issue of confession is definitely one of the more difficult issues for laypeople (not to mention religious) who are trying to evaluate the SSPX. This latest news will be very welcome in many places.
I don’t think that can be right. Otherwise ***I ***(a layman) could submit a case of somebody who had confessed one of the worst mortal sins to me. Would the Vatican then empower me to give absolution, or would they check my competence to give absolution in the first place?
Granted that the SSPX are a most unusual case, Bp Fellay has pointed out that a recognised and immemorial precept of law is that, if a major penalty is remitted, the minor penalties subsidiary to the first are automatically lifted. They do not need to be individually cited for this to be legal. For example, if I had parked my car every Tuesday in a space reserved for disabled drivers, and I was accused of falsifying my original application as a disabled driver, that would incur a major penalty. If this were lifted, subsequent parking fines for the individual parking episodes would be nullified without the need for a specific notification. That is certainly how European law operates.
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That is what Bp Fellay is pointing out. The SSPX priest is shown, by this judgment, to have general jurisdiction.
Correct. The Vatican did not say “I hereby grant you general jurisdiction for this particular case, and special jurisdiction to absolve this reserved case”. The reason they did not do so is that the SSPX priest already does have general jurisdiction. Otherwise the special jurisdiction would be impossible.
Correct, because it already exists, as proven by the way the authorisation was given for the Reserved Case. Note that the SSPX, as loyal and faithful sons of the Church, meticulously follow the correct procedures. How easy it would be for the priest to simply pronounce the words of absolution! I wonder what the sedevac priests do, or any of the others that are actually in schism?
Correct. Each of us must act within our appointed place. But look more closely. That means that, for example, my bishop has his own place in the hierarchy. If he abuses his authority, I am not allowed to usurp his position and reverse his judgment, but I am still not only permitted but obliged to disregard his abuse of authority. S. Thomas Aquinas explains that to go along with an abuse of authority is to connive in the injustice. So if I, as a priest, am forbidden by my bishop to offer a Traditional Mass, whereas this is granted to me “in perpetuam” (“until the end of the World”) by the Bull Quo Primum (1570 and never abrogated), then I cannot usurp his authority and issue a competing Episcopal Letter to the other priests in the diocese, but I most certainly may continue in my office of priest and continue to use the 1962 Missal (which is the 1570 Missal, revised by legitimate authority). Mgr Lefebvre correctly applied the Emergency clauses of the New Code of Canon Law (canons 1323, 1324 +1321). He did not usurp the jurisdiction of the pope and try to depose any bishops or appoint rival bishops to another diocese. No, he and Bp de Castro Mayer consecrated four bishops sine locus, pro tem (without a diocese, for the duration {of the emergency}). All this is foreseen in the law of the Church. And I as a layman am not entitled to issue papal encyclicals, but I most certainly am able to exercise my role as the primary educator of my children and take them to “a Catholic Mass” as provided for in the New code of Canon Law. If my bishop is unhappy about this, he is still not authorised to usurp my role as primary educator. Neither can he order me to send my children to a so-called Catholic School if it is manifestly not teaching the Catholic Faith. At present, attempts are being made to apply Church laws and principles irrationally and destructively. We are all faced with dilemmas: how far can we be obedient to our visible superior’s mandates, must we obey our immediate superior when he is seen to be disobeying his own superior? And at what point must we say “I obey God before man”? That is the fix we are all in.
True, but they can still (in extreme cases) ignore an instruction and continue within their own appointed role.
This talk by Bp Fellay is being widely discussed this week in other forums also. I have seen a comment that the Remnant report has been a little selective, and that the CFN report is more balanced. The link to CFN is
1 Cor 6:12 All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient.
If I had been in either Bp Grosseteste’s or S. Athanasius’ shoes, I only hope I would have had the courage and wisdom to act as they did. The present situation on the Church is almost completely unprecedented. Athanasius did not have the benefit of centuries of hindsight. We too are working near the limits, and in almost uncharted territory. I am grateful to the moderators of CAF for allowing discussion of the whole Trad/SSPX issue, which is more than some other Catholic Forums will do. Before the internet came along, it was next to impossible to get anything published anywhere, that would do more than preach to the converted.