SSPX communique to Rome

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Ad-orientem is one of a range of changes to the Mass that, added together, have had an interesting effect on Sunday mass in suburban Catholic parishes. You have to look at the cumulative effect of all the changes, little and big, over time.

The most interesting is desensitization. There’s no outrage at discordant practices. We were sleepwalking towards girls in skimpy clothes dancing in the temple.

The regularisation of the SSPX will, hopefully, send a message beyond their numbers: that rigour is back.

I guess it’s down to whether you think Mass is primarily the Lord’s Banquet or The Sacrifice on Calvary. That seems to be the divide.
 
RogerDeCourcy said:
I guess it’s down to whether you think Mass is primarily the Lord’s Banquet or The Sacrifice on Calvary. That seems to be the divide.
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And this is, for me the hardest thing to understand-
why does it have to be either/or?
Why can’t it be both, with no one side “more than”?🤷
 
Oneofthewomen said:
And this is, for me the hardest thing to understand-
why does it have to be either/or?
Why can’t it be both, with no one side “more than”?🤷
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Personally I have understood it thus:

Mass is a meal inasmuch as we receive (or not) the Victim. The sacrifice itself was instituted within the context of a meal, but the Mass itself is not a meal. So while Mass has a meal as one of its characteristics, it is intrinsically a sacrifice re-presented with sacrificial pomp. It is clear to me that the meal is subservient to the sacrifice itself.

I think of it as the thing itself versus characteristics of the thing. For example, I am not skin. Skin is part of me.
 
CesarAugustus said:
Why some people are “scandalized” by these type of declarations?

I don’t have any problem with “Extra Ecclesia nulla salus”.

🙂
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I would like to point out that what they said is not the same as this. They said that there is no salvation outside of the Roman Catholic Church. This is something that our Eastern Catholic and Orthodox brethern might take issue with and rightly so.
 
justme said:
I would like to point out that what they said is not the same as this. They said that there is no salvation outside of the Roman Catholic Church. This is something that our Eastern Catholic and Orthodox brethern might take issue with and rightly so.
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More offensive certainly to the Orthodox, but also indicative of a “triumphalism” that many outside the Catholic Church at times find offensive. Rome itself for some time formally and intentionally refers to itself as the Catholic Church. When Catholics intentionally use the “Roman” qualifier in making rather formal statements, it first connotes to many (including Eastern Catholics) the sense of superiority of the Roman Church above all others, which in and of itself is contrary to Catholic teaching.

As such, it is used interestingly in this context and statement, by a group that exalts yet denies a subset of the teachings of the Catholic Church.
 
JReducation said:
The pope has already given bishops and every religious superior our marching orders on that point. We are to put distance between this position and ourselves and Catholicism. Besides, we have one canonized saint to prove there were gas chambers. That blows the statement, “No one died in gas chambers.”

The missing 6 million Jews and 4 million Gentiles went somewhere. Spaceships did not beam them away. There are people holding birth certificates, marriage certificates, passports and even baptism certificates, for people who were arrested by the Nazis and were never seen again.

How can anyone with logic explain that one. Either they were killed or they went into hiding and never surfaced again. They just didn’t banish.

The exact number is always going to be off even by thousands, but not by a million or more. There are too many families out here who have paperwork, but no loved ones. My grandparents had five birth certificates to five sons who were arrested by Nazis, whom no one ever saw again. My uncles didn’t just beam up into a mother ship. They were kids between 8 and 17.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV 🙂
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Brother, I’m not agreeing with Bishop Williamson position regarding the number of dead and the gas chambers. I was just explaining the polemic, because I have read in many places (and the media), inaccurate descriptions about what he said.

Blessings!

🙂
 
Some things that I have read on Fisheaters and other sites make me laugh. They talk as if they were speaking about the US Congress where the governed dictate to the legislators. Good luck with that attitude and the Holy See.
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I would encourage you to go to those places and try to reason and talk sense into them, but I know that most of them are beyond rational and reasonable discussion, and I know how they would treat you.
 
Lormar said:
I would encourage you to go to those places and try to reason and talk sense into them, but I know that most of them are beyond rational and reasonable discussion, and I know how they would treat you.
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I think it’s a good idea to try to talk sense into them. Of course anyone trying to do this will meet with extreme opposition by some, but there’s one good thing about the FE forum, as compared to some of the other SSPX-friendly forums. At least on FE, you can oppose a person’s viewpoint (I’m thinking of the extremist’s viewpoint) without being worried about being banned, as long as there aren’t any verbal personal attacks. For instance, a few years ago, the FE forum was the only SSPX-friendly forum that allowed me to post my concerns about Revisionism. AQ kept locking all the threads where I raised concerns about Revisionsim. Ignis Ardens of course is the most extreme, and you have to be very thick-skinned to dare to venture into there and post anything.

There are actually good devout Catholics on who love the Holy Father on FE, but they are a bit timid to speak up. It’s a good test of character to post in those places, which is why I don’t post there all that often!
 
Lormar said:
I would encourage you to go to those places and try to reason and talk sense into them, but I know that most of them are beyond rational and reasonable discussion, and I know how they would treat you.
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I can’t go there for two reasons.
  1. The Rule of St. Francis says that the brothers will not preach to or teach anyone who is not interested. They should leave those folks in peace. Their souls then become the obligation of their bishop. Most of those people probably don’t want to hear that they are speaking about the Holy See as if it were a democracy.
  2. The superior general of the FFV issued an order, that we are not to engage in arguments with either liberals or traditionalists. We must remain focused on the voiceless, maintain interior silence and solitude, and not allow feelings and opinions to disrupt our disciplined life. Everything is in the hands of Providence. God has a plan. Like St. Francis and St. Dominic, we are called to discern it and execute it. We cannot do that if our personal feelings and thoughts get in the way.
Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV 🙂
 
  1. The superior general of the FFV issued an order, that we are not to engage in arguments with either liberals or traditionalists. We must remain focused on the voiceless, maintain interior silence and solitude, and not allow feelings and opinions to disrupt our disciplined life. Everything is in the hands of Providence. God has a plan. Like St. Francis and St. Dominic, we are called to discern it and execute it. We cannot do that if our personal feelings and thoughts get in the way.
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Good advice, for me especially.
 
Hey Everyone.

Some more bad news. Seems something got leaked from the Chapter meeting, and now the SSPX are making their own demands for canonical recognition and things, they desire

Here’s the summary of their conditions in French: riposte-catholique.fr/summorum-pontificum-blog/informations/les-conditions-de-la-fraternite-saint-pie-x

The full letter can be found in French here: tradinews.blogspot.fr/2012/07/abbe-thouvenot-fsspx-lettre-circulaire.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Tradinews+(TradiNews

Any thoughts? Clarifications (this is true/this is an outright lie?)
 
If this letter is genuine, which it sounds so, what it is is a letter from the chapter to the superior general. I mentioned this before. I said that this general chapter may not have been one of Bishop Fellay’s best ideas. Now, he’s bound to obey the chapter. Before, there was no legislation on the table. He, as superior general, could make a unilateral decision and they would be morally obliged to follow him or face the eternal consequences at their last judgment. Now the tables are turned. Superiors general must obey the general chapter. There are very few situations under which they can overrule a chapter. The Church is not like the US Govt where the President can veto Congress.

My French is not bad. I think I’ve understood the letter. I’ve tried to translate without polishing too much, so as not to lose the meaning. At the same time, just enough so that it does not sound clunky. The actual letter was easier to work with than the top link which is a summary. The summary takes the points out of context. There are some things in their demands that were already going to happen, so I won’t even mention them. However, there are some things that are going to be problematic, if not impossible.

Referring to the discussion among the delegates to the chapter:

The discussion stalled on the particular recognition of the legality of the new rite, that is to say about the goodness of this liturgical law and therefore the legitimacy of celebrating according to the rite of Paul VI.

It doesn’t mention their conclusion. However, the fact that they are even bringing up the question of the legitimacy of the OF is problematic. Pope Benedict has made it very clear that this is not up for discussion. In UE he goes as far as saying that only those who are not part of this type of thinking have the right to request the EF. That’s how strongly he feels against this camp.

Again, as I said before, but no one here listens to me. It was not Cardinal Levada who made changes. It was the proper authorities, the council of cardinals. They in turn submit to Cardinal Levada who then presents to the pope for his signature. The pope let it pass, meaning that he is in agreement with the following change that was made. Notice, that they are not crying fowl play. They’re just stating what happened.
**
Finally the review by an assembly of cardinals of the text presented by Bishop Fellay led to substantial change. It requires (in addition to the liturgical issue) “recognition of Vatican II and the subsequent Magisterium to understand the continuity with the previous Magisterium ",**

They are having problems with accepting Vatican II and the teachings of the post conciliar popes as part of the hermatneutic of continuity.

The author then backtracks to speak about the beginning of the chapter. This is very important for reconciliation.
**
The Chapter began with the call, reading the rules of the chapter and review of summons and the case of Bishop Williamson who has been suspended from his office on the grounds of the grounds of conspiring 2331 § 1 and 2 (nc . 1373). **

They’re quoting from their statutes. They have a problem here. They don’t have canonical authority in the Church. Therefore, they cannot suspend a bishop from his office. In fact, the only person who can suspend a bishop from his office is the pope. The four bishops of the SSPX are already suspended from office. They’ve created an obstacle here. Not sure how they can get around that one.

Preconditions that the fraternity requires and demands of the Roman authorities before considering a canonical recognition:

Demands is a very strong word. A subordinate has not right to demand anything from his superior except that right, which is granted to him by law. Bad choice of words.

**
freedom to protect, correct, challenge, even publicly, the makers of any errors or innovations of modernism, liberalism , Vatican II and its consequences;**

The problem here is that it does not put boundaries on whom they can correct and how. Therefore, it gives them as much authority over the rest of us as the pope has. The second problem is that they included Vatican II. They cannot correct Vatican II, because Pope Benedict has already said that Vatican II did not teach error. They would have done better to put Vatican II in a separate sentence and say clarify, not correct and challenge.

Guarantee of at least one bishop.

I’m not sure why this is in there. They will be given a prelate. The prelate is usually a bishop, unless they mean that the prelate must be one of their own. That’s not the case with Opus Dei, but there is no law that says it can’t be one of their own. I have no idea how to take this.

Own ecclesiastical courts of first instance;

They want their own tribunal. The only jurisdictions that have their own tribunal are dioceses and ordinariates. The only existing prelature does not have a tribunal and the law does not make room for that possibility. The pope would have to accommodate. However, even their own tribunal has to answer to the Signatura. This would require some thinking.

Exemption of the houses of the Society of St. Pius X in relation to diocesan bishops;

Bishop Fellay himself said that they had already been told that the prelature would have autonomy. The only restriction is that the prelate and the local bishop have to negotiate, before the prelature opens a house in a diocese. Once the house is open, the local bishop is not involved. My guess is that they want the freedom to open houses randomly without asking. This is not going to fly with the bishops or with the superiors general of the different orders, especially of the big five. This has a potential for creating conflicts, if there is no coordination and no written agreements beforehand.
**
Pontifical Commission for Tradition in Rome dependant on the Pope, with a majority of members and the chair for the Traditionalists.**

This is going to be challenged. What they’re asking is to go back to how things were when Ecclesia Dei was independent. They don’t want the commission under one of the prefectures and they want the controlling number of votes.

Now comes their greatest obstacle to reconciliation.
**
May this circular letter reserved for superiors and to share with members of the Brotherhood SaintPie X remain internal to our company, and not be disclosed in the public and especially the Internet, in forums and blogs.**

I’ll sum up the problem in one word, OBEDIENCE.

They have a major problem with obedience. They have more leaks than and old house. The only reason that they have leaks is because they have people who are not obedient. They don’t follow directions or orders. This is problematic.

You don’t see private memos sent by the general superior of the Jesuits floating around on the internet. As liberal as people say that they are, even they know that when the generalate says “This is for your eyes only” there is a strong sense of fidelity to the authority of the superior general and the general council. This is true for all of the orders and most of the dioceses.

I don’t understand this problem, but it’s a very serious one. This creates a lack of trust on the part of those of us who will have to deal with them. You can’t give them anything delicate or confidential, because it ends up on the internet. It was like the letter that the LCWR received from the Franciscans. They were not told to show it to the press. That lack of discretion led to a lot of confusion among people who did not understand what was not said in the letter.

This is the case with this letter and every letter that the SSPX leaks. People become confused, because they don’t understand what has not been said in the letter. Everything has a context. The receiver knows the context. As you can see from my comments, those of us who were not at the chapter are getting this information out of context. It raises all kinds of questions, some very serious ones.

They have a very real internal problem. They are not as united as people make them out to be. Again,if you want to test that, try to find a confidential document from the Dominican, Franciscan, Jesuit, Carmelite, or Salesian generalates online. You won’t find anything that was not meant to be seen by the outside. It’s called obedience to authority without questions.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV 🙂
 
Brother, if you read this article: riposte-catholique.fr/summorum-pontificum-blog/informations/les-conditions-de-la-fraternite-saint-pie-x then you will see that they are not unilaterally demanding all of the conditions.

“Conditions sine qua non que la Fraternité s’impose et qu’elle réclame des autorités romaines avant d’envisager une reconnaissance canonique,” that is, demands:

Translation as per Google translate:
  1. Freedom to maintain, transmit and teach sound doctrine of the Magisterium of the Church constant and unchanging Truth of Tradition divine freedom to protect, correct, resume, even publicly, the makers of any errors or innovations of modernism, liberalism , Vatican II and its consequences;
  2. Exclusively use the liturgy of 1962. Keep the sacraments that we currently have (including: orders, confirmation, marriage);
  3. Guarantee of at least one bishop.
“Conditions souhaitables,” that is, desirable conditions:

Translation as per Google translate:
  1. Own ecclesiastical courts of first instance;
  2. Exemption of the houses of the Society of St. Pius X in relation to diocesan bishops;
  3. Pontifical Commission for Tradition in Rome in dependence of the Pope, with majority of members and chair for the Tradition.
 
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