The SSPX situation and the Orthodox

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ConstantineTG

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I’m wondering how the SSPX situation will reflect towards the East. Obviously the SSPX doesn’t want to accept Vatican II as is and the Vatican is making concessions. The question here is how will this affect the steps towards unity with the Orthodox. Will the Vatican make more concessions that will be more acceptable to the Orthodox? Will the Vatican accept doctrinal corrections from the Orthodox as it seems they are open to get from the SSPX?
 
I would venture to say the orthodox probably wouldn’t be concerned and would view it as an internal matter in the western church.
 
gmcbroom said:
I would venture to say the orthodox probably wouldn’t be concerned and would view it as an internal matter in the western church.
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What I’m saying is, if the Vatican is willing to make concessions on Vatican II with the SSPX, how much are they willing to make concessions for the Orthodox? I think this can set a precedence on going back on Western Councils and accepting some corrections. I think it would depend how much the SSPX are getting would be how much the Orthodox can expect.
 
Good question!

The Vatican has yet to make any concessions to the Orthodox (removal of the Filioque etc.) save for the concession on agreeing with Orthodoxy on the historic Unia of Brest and in trying to keep the UGCC in check, and also by denying it recognition of its patriarchate. Pope Benedict XVI recently went on record as telling an Orthodox representative that “we have inherited” the EC situation and the like. As close to an apology for the Unia as can be.

This truly is an internal matter of the RC Church - the traditional wing of the Latin Church, of which Pope Benedict is a member, is simply trying to gather up its allies to join in a common struggle. This is why traditionalist Anglicans and even Lutherans now have the Ordinariate model of church unity by which to reintegrate with Rome.

How Rome will get around the SSPX issues with Vatican II will be most interesting.

If it can, then perhaps this could be sent to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints as a real miracle? 😉

Alexander the Great is venerated as a prophet in Islam. Perhaps his cult in this regard can be extended to the Catholic Church and he could then become patron of Vatican ecumenism.

After all, “Big Al” did cut the Gordion Knot! 🙂

Alex
 
Alexander_Roman said:
Good question!

The Vatican has yet to make any concessions to the Orthodox (removal of the Filioque etc.) save for the concession on agreeing with Orthodoxy on the historic Unia of Brest and in trying to keep the UGCC in check, and also by denying it recognition of its patriarchate. Pope Benedict XVI recently went on record as telling an Orthodox representative that “we have inherited” the EC situation and the like. As close to an apology for the Unia as can be.

This truly is an internal matter of the RC Church - the traditional wing of the Latin Church, of which Pope Benedict is a member, is simply trying to gather up its allies to join in a common struggle. This is why traditionalist Anglicans and even Lutherans now have the Ordinariate model of church unity by which to reintegrate with Rome.

How Rome will get around the SSPX issues with Vatican II will be most interesting.

If it can, then perhaps this could be sent to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints as a real miracle? 😉

Alexander the Great is venerated as a prophet in Islam. Perhaps his cult in this regard can be extended to the Catholic Church and he could then become patron of Vatican ecumenism.

After all, “Big Al” did cut the Gordion Knot! 🙂

Alex
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If the Vatican can turn back the clock to 1962, would it be unreasonable to ask to turn back the clock to 1053? 😉
 
At_Trent said:
Which is precisely what it is.
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Its not so much so the details that the Orthodox will be interested in, but how much is the Vatican willing to discuss on matters the SSPX has protested against. Its not the “what” but the “how”.
 
Alexander_Roman said:
This truly is an internal matter of the RC Church - the traditional wing of the Latin Church, of which Pope Benedict is a member, is simply trying to gather up its allies to join in a common struggle.
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I don’t understand why Pope Benedict always gets pegged as a traditionalist when he was one of the people pushing the radical changes at Vatican II.
 
I haven’t seen anything that even remotely suggests that the Vatican is open to some kind of “negotiation on Vatican II” with the SSPX. What I have seen is that the SSPX stated that it couldn’t accept all of the outgrowth of Vatican II, and the Vatican (in some yet-to-be-announced way) stated that not all of the outgrowth of Vatican II is binding on the Church, and therefore the SSPX would have a legitimate stance against those developments within the Church.

This might simply pertain to things like folk music being common at the Mass, large numbers of EMHCs, and Communion in the hand, and at most would include he rejection of the more “liberal” interpretation of Vatican II documents, most often characterized as the “spirit of Vatican II”. Nothing close to rejecting actual teachings of Vatican II, and certainly nothing close to rejecting the past millenium of councils.

Peace and God bless!
 
Alveus_Lacuna said:
I don’t understand why Pope Benedict always gets pegged as a traditionalist when he was one of the people pushing the radical changes at Vatican II.
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He was always a liturgical conservative and never liked the Novus Ordo changes that were brought in. He is also a moral conservative and traditionalist.

I don’t know what kind of radical changes he was pushing for at Vatican II, but they were not about worship and church order.

Alex
 
ConstantineTG said:
That is for a different discussion. But yeah, interesting what happens with that situation.
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From what I know of the situation from priests over there, the UGCC simply shuns this group and anything connected with it.

A major problem with this SSPX-oriented group is that it is very pro-Russian (believe it or not).

It is totally against a Patriarchate for the UGCC, or the use of Ukrainian in the liturgy. They see the Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusyans as one “East Slavic” group to be brought into the Roman Catholic Church in accordance with the old Uniate model and with the use of Church Slavonic (even the UOC-MP is now publishing liturgical texts in Ukrainian and there are UOC-MP parishes that use Ukrainian liturgically).

Thus, this SSPX-oriented group is completely out of touch with the aspirations of the Ukrainian Catholics today and the only ones interested in it are the heavily Latinized Ukrainian Catholics.

The reconciliation of the SSPX is therefore, from the UGCC vantage point, NOT just an internal affair of the Roman Catholic Church.

The SSPX has been giving grief to our EC Church for some time. They should just go away and focus on Christianizing Catholics in North America or something.

Alex
 
Hesychios said:
1053 was not a good year, unfortunately.
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But from your point of view, what do you think about this issue? I mean, the SSPX are Latin Triumphalists who believe that the Latin Rite is the superior Rite and they support the unia model of unity. Would this affect Catholic-Orthodox relations?
 
ConstantineTG said:
But from your point of view, what do you think about this issue? I mean, the SSPX are Latin Triumphalists who believe that the Latin Rite is the superior Rite and they support the unia model of unity. Would this affect Catholic-Orthodox relations?
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SSPX are generally populated/supported by Latin Traditionalists, and those things are what many (not all, of course, but many) Latin Traditionalists tend to think. They want to put 'the Greek’s in their place.

They buy books from TAN, they read the Old Catholic Encyclopedia (and imbibe it’s prejudices) and pretty much have a negative opinion of eastern Christianity. I did a little bit of moving in those circles myself in days gone by, and that’s how it was for my fellows and I.

It doesn’t matter whether the SSPX comes back in some form (like a prelature or something) because the vast majority of Latin Traditionalists and people leaning in that direction do not actually affiliate themselves with the SSPX at this time, they are already in full unimpeded communion with the Pope. They already have a certain influence (although they tend to feel neglected and overlooked), they already make up part of the religious landscape.

There will very likely always be a faction of people like that, and they will probably always support the Unia concept over any realistically achievable working model of church communion. Their cause will wax and wane and wax again over time, like these things always do. We must be aware of that.
 
Constantine, it will change nothing as far as the UGCC is concerned. It is, as has been stated, a disciplinary matter between Rome and a group of Latin clergy. As Cardinal Levada has stated, the documents themselves of Vatican II are within the corpus of the Magisterium of the Church and rejecting them is not an option in any reconciliation. Criticism of the effects of Vatican II, especially as has impacted the Latin liturgy, is another matter entirely.

Any reconciliation between the SSPX and Rome doesn’t affect the status of Fr. Kovpak. His appeal to Rome after his excommunication by Archbishop +Ihor and the Synod confirmed by then-Patriarch Lubomyr was denied by Pope Benedict XVI and the action of the Synod upheld. Fr. Kovpak’s excommunication was not suspended when the excommunication of the four SSPX bishops was suspended.

If anything, this reconciliation makes things more difficult for Fr. Kovpak since his rhetoric has been centered on a “modernist ecumenical conspiracy” between the UGCC Synod and Rome. If the SSPX reconciles with “modernist Rome” he will have even more egg on his face. Things are already difficult for Fr. Kovpak, as his largest supporters and benefactor base, the Transalpine Redemptorists, reconciled with Rome several years ago and dropped Fr. Kovpak like a hot varenyk.

And in the big picture of things it won’t even affect the Latin Church that much; 99% of the Latin Church will still attend the Pauline Mass even with such a reconciliation. The mass exodus of Latins to the EF that some traditionalists predicted never happened after Summorum Pontificum. In the Latin Archdiocese I live in, nearly all of the FSSP adherents are former SSPX. Very few Latins attending Pauline Mass parishes have left their parishes to attend Mass with the FSSP, and we were one of the first Latin dioceses to have been granted the original Indult from Ecclesia Dei.
 
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