This seems a rather illogical position. Even an outside observer would note that there is just a small number who think there is an “emergency” making it a pretty darn subjective opinion, not that they are th first that can not understand the difference between fact an their own opinion.
:tiphat:
I post more extracts from this letter, as for me, the origins are of immense interest in that nothing seems to have changed in the attitude of the SSPX at all in the last 27 years - as seen by the recent
last minute back-tracking by Bishop Fellay, which has happened countless times over these years.
How disappointing for the Holy Father & all involved, thousands of hours, immense efforts, 2 years of talks etc etc. and Bishop Fellay does not even have the courtesy to send an official reply. Surely that speaks volumes in itself
Not that those who suffer the abuses that do take place here and there in the Church don’t have my immense sympathy, they do, and our family has had their share - to the point we really are fed up. Last week we had to endure the youth group crooning the old Beatles song “Let it be” during communion of all times! Maybe not an abuse as such, but certainly inappropriate.
"When We received you in audience on last September 11 at Castelgandolfo, We let you freely express your position and your desires, even though the various aspects of your case were already well known to Us personally.
The memory that We still have of your zeal for the faith and the apostolate, as well as of the good you have accomplished in the past at the service of the church, made Us and still makes Us hope that you will once
again become an edifying subject in full ecclesial communion.
After the particularly serious actions that you have performed, We have once more asked you to reflect before God concerning your duty.
We have waited a month. The attitude to which your words and acts publicly testify does not seem to have changed.
It is true that We have before Us your letter of September 16, in which you affirm:
**
“A common point unites us; the ardent desire to see the cessation of all the abuses that disfigure the church. How I wish to collaborate in this salutary work, with Your Holiness and under Your authority, so that the church may recover her true countenance.” **
“How must these few words to which your response is limited - and which in themselves are positive - be interpreted? You speak as if you have forgotten your scandalous words and gestures against ecclesial communion - words and gestures that you have never retracted.”
“You do not manifest repentance, even for the cause of your
suspension a divines. You do not explicitly express your acceptance if the authority of the Second Vatican Council and of the Holy See - and this constitutes the basis of the problem - and you continue in those personal works of yours which the legitimate authority has expressly ordered you to suspend.”
"
But in your interpretations of the facts and in the particular role that you assign yourself, as well as in the way in which you accomplish this role, there is something that misleads the people of God and deceives souls of good will who are justly desirous of fidelity and of spiritual and apostolic progress. "
(This letter was sent to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre one month after he visited the Pope on September 11, 1976. The archbishop had rejected parts of the Vatican II decrees and some of the subsequent post-conciliar enactments of the Holy See and had been the object of widespread publicity as he celebrated Tridentine Masses in various parts of Europe. In June, 1976, the archbishop had defied a direct order from the Pope not to ordain seminarians at the seminary he founded in Econe, Switzerland. In this letter, the Pope told the archbishop that while pluralism in the church is legitimate, it must be a licit pluralism rooted in obedience.
The Pope said the archbishop, rather than practicing obedience, had propagated and organized a rebellion. This, he added, “is the essential issue” in the archbishop’s regard.
In this letter, the Pope outlined his conditions for rectifying matters, including a call for a declaration from the archbishop affirming adherence to Vatican II, a declaration that, among other things, retracts accusations or insinuations leveled against the Pope.
The text of the Pope’s letter has been taken from
Origins, NC Documentary Service, December 16, 1976)
jloughnan.tripod.com/pvi2lefebvre.htm
