SSPX Update - Redux

[Melchior_1]

What if Rome offered the priests their own personal prelature without the Bishops involvement. Rome creates or expands something like the FSSP specifically for individual priests that adheres to the document Fellay should sign?

I think at this point any idea of a prelature is off the table. The idea was for them to come back as an organization. Remove the organization element, you can have the priests join the FFSP, ICK, or some other ED place.

 

[pnewton]

I think the documents of the council will fade into history. They’re not as important as they are made out to be. Other councils were called to address very serious issues.

Fifty years and counting has shown this to be untrue.

This one wasn’t.

I do not think the Catholic Church is as dismissal as you are of the importance of Vatican II. Our last Popes have considered it quite essential in our understanding of the Faith. This idea that everything that has happenes is just going to fade away is unfounded speculation. Cardinal Ratzinger said it best when he said there can be no question of going back.

 

[jwinch2]

The current Pope has resigned. There seems to be an indication that the SSPX must sign a document before the next one is elected or … what? They’ll be excommunicated again?

Hard to say. However, Pope Benedict has been as patient with the SSPX and as motivated to get them to return as any Pope is likely to ever be.

Rome/The Pope/The Vatican/The CDF have said “You must accept Vatican 2”.
They have asked “What is there in Vatican 2 that requires the assent due to dogma? Also, we have these concerns …”.
Rome/The Pope/The Vatican/The CDF replies “You must accept Vatican 2”.

Like Vat2 is a dogma in itself, like the Immaculate Conception. But no specifics.

This is a fair point and always has been. The documents of Vatican 2 have declared no dogma which requires assent. Pope Benedict himself has spoken on this.

I think the documents of the council will fade into history. They’re not as important as they are made out to be. Other councils were called to address very serious issues. This one wasn’t.

Perhaps, but I doubt it. I think they will eventually fade to their proper place where they are interpreted side by side with the rest of Sacred Tradition, rather than in lieu of it, as seems to have happened many times. Bishop Morlino of Madison, WI was speaking about this on EWTN the other night when he expressed his thoughts that the Conclave would likely elect another pope who will continue the “reform of the reform” as Pope Benedict has been doing rather than one who will continue the rupture of unity as happened in the years following the council.

PS: It’s been suggested that the SSPX issue pained the Pope because of the barracking he got , even from German bishops, about his moves to reconcile with them. Not from anything the SSPX did.

There has been a great deal of conjecture in recent days about the Holy Father and his actions. Little, if any of them, have likely been based in fact. As such, it is hard to evaluate this particular one.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

I think at this point any idea of a prelature is off the table. The idea was for them to come back as an organization. Remove the organization element, you can have the priests join the FFSP, ICK, or some other ED place.

That seems to me to be the healthiest way to do things at this point. Each priest has his own formation and development - even if they all went to the same seminary; they are not robots and personal experiences will effect their training and how they have grown as priests.

If they each reconcile individually and join whichever organization is best suited for them, they will not continue in any exclusionary thinking that has developed. They will be mixed in with other priests who went to other seminaries and have experiences of traditional Catholicism outside the SSPX world. It is naive to assume that every single SSPX priest is well-formed and perfectly pastoral. By reconcilling individually, they will also have the opportunity for individual education and development in those specific areas that each man may (individually) be lacking in.

In the same way, their good influences toward reverance and pious practices will be spread farther. They will likely end up working more closely with diocesean priests and programs than they might have as a prelature. They will be sent not just to places that the SSPX is already, but to wherever the ED has parishes or programs.

I like that plan! Will one of your baptised men go over to the “when I’m the Pope” thread and lay it out please.

 

[Julia_Mae]

The level of testiness and finger-wagging towards the SSPX is comical.

The current Pope has resigned.

No, he hasn’t. He announced his intent to resign in two weeks.

There seems to be an indication that the SSPX must sign a document before the next one is elected or …

I didn’t read anything at all about telling the SSPX they had to sign anything before the new Pope is elected.

what? They’ll be excommunicated again?

The SSPX hasn’t been excommunicated.

Rome/The Pope/The Vatican/The CDF have said “You must accept Vatican 2”.
They have asked “What is there in Vatican 2 that requires the assent due to dogma? Also, we have these concerns …”.

Who is “they” and do you have some link to wherever they asked whatever you think they did?

Re: Vatican 2 by the SSPX:

With such ideals, it is little wonder to find Catholic teaching presented:

• weakly (no definitions or condemnations),
• confusedly (no technical, scholastic terminology),
• and one-sidedly (so as to attract non-Catholics).

More gravely, the Council was hijacked by the liberal elements within the Church, who from the very beginning schemed to have rejected the pre-conciliar preparatory schemas and replaced by progressive ones prepared by their own “experts.” The liberals were also able to get their members onto the Council Commissions. The new schemas, passed as the Council’s decrees, constitutions, and declarations, contain, more or less explicitly, some of the same doctrinal errors for which liberals in the past had been condemned.

The Council itself both encouraged liberal trends (and its encouragement became post-conciliar Vatican policy) and departed from traditional Catholic teaching, but it has no authority for either (principle 5).

Our position must be:

…we refuse …to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which became clearly manifest during the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it. (1974 Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre)

sspx.org/SSPX_FAQs/q6_vatican_ii.htm

I am not an expert, but I do think the Holy See is demanding the SSPX to stop declaring (with no authority at all) that the Vatican 2 Council taught error.

… in matters of faith and morals is not the prerogative
of the theologians of Tübingen, the editorialists of
La Repubblica or Avennire, or of the “historians” of the
Bolognese School, but of the Sovereign Roman Pontiff,
who is the Vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ on earth,
and who alone possesses the power, the authority, the
means, the duty, and the assistance of the Holy Ghost,
to destroy infallibly heresy and error, and like a beacon
to enlighten the people of God, the new Israel, the holy
Catholic Church. The fact that after 40 years the debate
over the proper interpretation of Vatican II is still going
on is proof that, for these 40 years, there has only been
an appearance of magisterial activity. Indeed, if it is
true that there are two hermeneutics in opposition,
and if we admit, as we seem compelled to do, that at
least one of the two is completely erroneous, there can
be no authentic act of the Magisterium unless this is
accompanied by or implies the condemnation of the
error that must be refuted. But since the Council, these
errors—beginning, symbolically, with the Council’s
scandalous failure to denounce Communist tyranny—
have been granted official standing beside Rome’s
teaching. This fact alone suffices to belie this teaching
and to reveal its interlocutory, non-authentic character,

pg 22 sspx.org/miscellaneous/two_interpretations_of_vatican_ii_myth_or_reality.pdf

 

[QuestingKnight]

Fifty years and counting has shown this to be untrue.

50? Try 500.

Cardinal Ratzinger said it best when he said there can be no question of going back.

Well, going back to what?

Personally, I’d be glad to go back to a time where priests said the Gregorian Mass by following the missal faithfully and nuns taught Catholic doctrine straight from the Penny Cathecism. Or at least didn’t try to spin doctrine based on what was implied to them, by trendy lecturers, as The New Thinking, in college.

If you mean going back to hierachialism, clericalism, fundamentalism, rigour and solemnity, I say, yes please!

The modern Church is symbolised to me by laity, in the rail-less ‘sanctuary’, in their day clothes; a total loss of the concept of the sacred.

The SSPX, with their rigour, are living rebuke to this mentality. It’s probably why they annoy people so much, out of proportion to their numbers.

 

[Moore11]

We are all jumping to the conclusion that the SSPX will not restart dialogue or agree to anything. But we should hope and pray that they just might. It certainly is possible and if I told you last week this Pope would resign everyone would have said I was crazy. But here we are and there the SSPX are with an offer of a personal prelature and a deadline. We should be hopeful not cynical. We should also realize that the CDF’s offer and deadline means that this Pope dearly wants reconciliation. There is not one other group, or person who has been given this type of olive branch before the end of this pontificate. This only shows that BXVI has this as one of his highest priorities. I believe our Blessed Pope can and will get this done. Only we may not hear about for a while. It is certainly possible that this is done in private and released later. Even during a new pontificate.

In all the crazy talk in the past couple of days the prophesy of the popes is talked about all the time. But I have never seen an “olive branch” like this.
The Pope’s Ash Wednesday’s message could have been written specifically to the SSPX. IF anyone heard it it was about returning to Christ and his Church.

 

[pnewton]

50? Try 500.

No, fifty years since Vatican II. I think you are off by 450 years. The last ecumenical council was only fifty years ago. If we want to go back further, why stop at 500 and not two thousand? We can take the path of the Neocatechumical Way and have Mass around a table.

The SSPX, with their rigour, are living rebuke to this mentality. It’s probably why they annoy people so much, out of proportion to their numbers.

They are not a rebuke to anyone. What an odd thought. They are what, a tenth of a percent or so? Do you consider LifeTeen to be a rebuke to the SSPX? They are a bigger movement and actually have a minstry in the Catholic Church. Currently they have* no* ministry in the Catholic Church. That the existence of the SSPX serves as a rebuke to the Church is illogical. The Barque of Peter is sailing on. The SSPX is not steering in any manner.

That is why we want this reconcilliation.

 

[jwinch2]

50? Try 500.

Well, going back to what?

Personally, I’d be glad to go back to a time where priests said the Gregorian Mass by following the missal faithfully and nuns taught Catholic doctrine straight from the Penny Cathecism. Or at least didn’t try to spin doctrine based on what was implied to them, by trendy lecturers, as The New Thinking, in college.

This is where the argument falls down. The idea that everything was fine and dandy one minute and a complete disaster the next, doesn’t hold water. By and large, the same bishops were in place before and after the council concluded, the same priests, religious, etc. The only explanation for what took place is that there were already many problems, but they might have been hidden under the surface.

I’m all for a restoration of the sacred. In fact, it is something with bothers me greatly, and on a consistent basis.

 

[Filioque]

… The documents of Vatican 2 have declared no dogma which requires assent. Pope Benedict himself has spoken on this.

While it is true that no new Dogmas were pronounced by Vatican II, the documents produced were when interpreted in a Catholic sense still binding on us.

Having been on the inside when I was in Ridgefield, and Econe, the SSPX was, and from my clerical friends still inside the Society split into three major groups. Those who felt the Vatican and those within the Society who supported it were both formal and material heretics, (Crypto-Sede Vacantests) Those who felt that only the SSPX understood the crisis of the Church and were equipt to deal with it, feeling that Rome was at the very least in material heresy, and those of us who eventually parted with the Society and either joined the FSSP or other groups or a diocese. The first two split hairs to justify their rejection of Vatican II. The third came to understand the Documents in the sense that Pope Benedict accepts and promulgates them, the Catholic sense.

I could easily find work-arounds to just about any Catholic principle you could throw at me, but even if it appeared to be licit, and justified, it just would not pass the test of being Catholic, It is a dangerous position to try and out Catholic the Pope.

We also have to realize that there was not clear path after any of the Councils. Even after Trent some Diocese around Europe took over 100 years to implement the (non-dogmatic) directorals of the council including the establishment of Seminaries, and reform of religious houses among other things. Our Lord promised to remain with us until the consumation of the Earth, and has as far as I’ve seen not asked for the keys back from St. Peter or his successors.

 

[jwinch2]

While it is true that no new Dogmas were pronounced by Vatican II, the documents produced were when interpreted in a Catholic sense still binding on us.

So please tell me what I am bound to believe as Catholic per Vatican II that I was not bound to believe as a Catholic prior to Vatican II.

 

[Lormar]

While it is true that no new Dogmas were pronounced by Vatican II, the documents produced were when interpreted in a Catholic sense still binding on us.

Having been on the inside when I was in Ridgefield, and Econe, the SSPX was, and from my clerical friends still inside the Society split into three major groups. Those who felt the Vatican and those within the Society who supported it were both formal and material heretics, (Crypto-Sede Vacantests) Those who felt that only the SSPX understood the crisis of the Church and were equipt to deal with it, feeling that Rome was at the very least in material heresy, and those of us who eventually parted with the Society and either joined the FSSP or other groups or a diocese. The first two split hairs to justify their rejection of Vatican II. The third came to understand the Documents in the sense that Pope Benedict accepts and promulgates them, the Catholic sense.

I could easily find work-arounds to just about any Catholic principle you could throw at me, but even if it appeared to be licit, and justified, it just would not pass the test of being Catholic, It is a dangerous position to try and out Catholic the Pope.

We also have to realize that there was not clear path after any of the Councils. Even after Trent some Diocese around Europe took over 100 years to implement the (non-dogmatic) directorals of the council including the establishment of Seminaries, and reform of religious houses among other things. Our Lord promised to remain with us until the consumation of the Earth, and has as far as I’ve seen not asked for the keys back from St. Peter or his successors.

Wow! Ridgefield. You’re an old timer for sure.

What you wrote is tops!

 

[jwinch2]

We also have to realize that there was not clear path after any of the Councils. Even after Trent some Diocese around Europe took over 100 years to implement the (non-dogmatic) directorals of the council including the establishment of Seminaries, and reform of religious houses among other things.

We are agreed on this completely. I do not believe we have actually seen the council implemented properly at this time, nor do I think we have seen the Mass of Paul VI implemented properly, at least not in the majority of the cases. Thanks to Pope Benedict, seems have started to move that direction. However, I do believe it will take a couple more pontificates with Popes who have a similar emphasis before it is realized.

In Pope Benedict we had a great theolgian and scripture schoar/teacher. Maybe what we could use next is a scholar and teacher of patristics. Just a thought.

 

[pnewton]

So please tell me what I am bound to believe as Catholic per Vatican II that I was not bound to believe as a Catholic prior to Vatican II.

I would say that the Holy See has made it clear that the* re-formulations* of the previous doctrines must be accepted. Even if no new dogma was introduced, it is still an ecumenical council that produced the documents.

 

[QuestingKnight]

I meant that 50 years is a short time. People who were at the Council are still alive. I don’t see what it’s contributed to our Faith. But it seems to be used as a trump card over everything else in the Faith.

Want the old Mass? Nope, Vatican 2.
Want altar rails? Nope, Vatican 2.
Want clergy who are respected as priests and not social workers? Nope. Vatican 2.

I am very aware that many people like the Church as it is now. Perhaps older Catholics still think that an accommodation can be made with the World. ‘If only we can become trendy enough. All we need is to adjust our principles to align with leftism.’ Here’s a tip: the left hates the Catholic Church. They’ll be glad you’re heterodox and then, when you’ve served your purpose, they’ll ignore you.

Neo-conservatives say the problem is with the interpretation of Vatican 2. This ultimately leads back to “Well, what does V2 actually command we do?”.

If it or whatever it’s supposed to say contradicts Tradition, then it has to be queried. Those most in favour of progression seem, as a group, to be most in decline. More of the same is madness.

 

[Filioque]

So please tell me what I am bound to believe as Catholic per Vatican II that I was not bound to believe as a Catholic prior to Vatican II.

I do not see anything which Vatican II promulgated which (taken in the light of authentic Catholic teaching) was not to be believed prior to Vatican II. It is the same Catholic Church. While some of the externals have changed the Dogmatic and Doctrinal truths remain the same.

That some have misrepresented what the Council said, and in the “Spirit of Vatican II” have been disobedient, and created a new dissent, gives nobody the right to disobey and try to re-educate the Holy See informing the Pope that the Council and it’s documents are a rejection of the Catholic Faith. I reject both those on the left who have substituted the teachings of the Church with Modernism, and those to the right who have set themselves up to judge the Holy See, because of what Modernists have done.

 

[jwinch2]

I would say that the Holy See has made it clear that the* re-formulations* of the previous doctrines must be accepted. Even if no new dogma was introduced, it is still an ecumenical council that produced the documents.

So what exactly has been “re-formulated” as you put it with regard to dogma or doctrine and how has it changed what we are supposed to believe as Catholics? Either I am free to believe Church doctrine as it has been taught throughout the history of the Church or I am not. I really fail to see how there is gray area here. Unless you are suggesting that the Church has officially changed the interpretation and meaning of certain dogmas or doctrines, which I don’t think you are.

I do not, for one moment, agree with the tactics taken by the SSPX, and I disagree with many of their points. However, this does not mean that they don’t make some good points on occasion. With regards to Vatican II, some of what they say has merit.

 

[jwinch2]

I do not see anything which Vatican II promulgated which (taken in the light of authentic Catholic teaching) was not to be believed prior to Vatican II. It is the same Catholic Church. While some of the externals have changed the Dogmatic and Doctrinal truths remain the same.

That some have misrepresented what the Council said, and in the “Spirit of Vatican II” have been disobedient, and created a new dissent, gives nobody the right to disobey and try to re-educate the Holy See informing the Pope that the Council and it’s documents are a rejection of the Catholic Faith. I reject both those on the left who have substituted the teachings of the Church with Modernism, and those to the right who have set themselves up to judge the Holy See, because of what Modernists have done.

Well put.

 

[Faithdancer]

The level of testiness and finger-wagging towards the SSPX is comical.

The current Pope has resigned. There seems to be an indication that the SSPX must sign a document before the next one is elected or … what? They’ll be excommunicated again?

Rome/The Pope/The Vatican/The CDF have said “You must accept Vatican 2”.
They have asked “What is there in Vatican 2 that requires the assent due to dogma? Also, we have these concerns …”.
Rome/The Pope/The Vatican/The CDF replies “You must accept Vatican 2”.

Like Vat2 is a dogma in itself, like the Immaculate Conception. But no specifics.

I think the documents of the council will fade into history. They’re not as important as they are made out to be. Other councils were called to address very serious issues. This one wasn’t.

PS: It’s been suggested that the SSPX issue pained the Pope because of the barracking he got , even from German bishops, about his moves to reconcile with them. Not from anything the SSPX did.

 

[Lormar]

I do not see anything which Vatican II promulgated which (taken in the light of authentic Catholic teaching) was not to be believed prior to Vatican II. It is the same Catholic Church. While some of the externals have changed the Dogmatic and Doctrinal truths remain the same.

That some have misrepresented what the Council said, and in the “Spirit of Vatican II” have been disobedient, and created a new dissent, gives nobody the right to disobey and try to re-educate the Holy See informing the Pope that the Council and it’s documents are a rejection of the Catholic Faith. I reject both those on the left who have substituted the teachings of the Church with Modernism, and those to the right who have set themselves up to judge the Holy See, because of what Modernists have done.