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More sad SSPX news
I sadly read a piece posted by our friends at Rorate that the head of the SSPX, Bishop Bernard Fellay, excommunicated in 1998 for accepting episcopal consecration without pontifical mandate, has dissed His Holiness Benedict XVI during a sermon last Sunday in Paris at the SSPX "parish" St. Nicholas-du-Chardonnet.
Here is what Rorate posted:
And now, we have a perfectly liberal Pope, my very dear brothers. As he goes to this country [the United States], which is founded upon Masonic principles, that is, of a revolution, of a rebellion against God. And, well, he expressed his admiration, his fascination before this country which has decided to grant liberty to all religions. He goes so far as to condemn the confessional State. And he is called traditional! And this is true, this is true: he is perfectly liberal, perfectly contradictory. He has some good sides, the sides which we hail, for which we rejoice, such as what he has done for the Traditional liturgy.
What a mystery, my very dear brothers, what a mystery!
The original French is posted on the website La Porte Latine of the SSPX.
How gracious of him to admit that Pope Benedict has good side to him.
I cannot believe that a person who desires unity with the Roman Pontiff would stand up in a pulpit and say this sort of thing about the reigning Pope.
Thinking it is one thing, but saying it in a sermon is another.
The real obstacle is the Church’s teaching about religious liberty.
“The real obstacle is the Church’s teaching about religious liberty.”
Father, I don’t understand. Could you explain why this is a problem?
Comment by kradcliffe — 4 June 2008 @ 1:20 pmIs Bishop Fellay pretending to be a “teacher of the Pope”? I think he may want to heed the words of Cardinal Castrillon—given in interview after the recent ordination seremony for the FSSP in Lincoln.
“We hope that they [SSPX Bishops] will come to full communion with the Church…but some people are going too fast…to the schism…and to the heresy…because, if they begin to be ‘teachers of the Pope’, this is not schism…this is heresy. And, if it is confirmed…people going with that kind of movement will be excommunicated too…because of the heresy…”
Comment by schoolman — 4 June 2008 @ 1:29 pmI love my neighbor I love my neighbor I love my neighbor I love my…
Dis’ my Pope will ya? Why I oughta…....Grrrrrrrr!!
I love my neighbor I love my neighbor I love my neighbor I love my …
Comment by Other Paul — 4 June 2008 @ 1:29 pmSchoolman,
Comment by Connie — 4 June 2008 @ 1:34 pmCan you post a link to that interview? I’d like to read it.
Kradcliffe,
I am no expert but what I have read on other web sites and blogs and I do not mean to offend anyone. I am as interested in learning more about SSPX’s position as anyone.
SSPX and its members really disagree with the change and expansion of ecumenical activities instituted after the Second Vatican Council. They firmly believe that salvation is found only through membership and adherence to the Catholic Church. It is my impression that they believe all non-Catholics are condemned to Hell.
They firmly believe that the Catholic Church should go back to ignoring the Protestants and deal with non-Christians as if what they believe is of no value.
I understand their point of view but I don’t agree with it. It would have the Catholic Church deny her role as the mother church of all Christians.
I was talking to my 10 year old son this weekend and he asked “the Protestants don’t have a Pope?” and I told him, yes they do, they have our Pope. Pope Benedict is everyone’s Pope – St. Peter’s successor.
Comment by Matt of South Kent — 4 June 2008 @ 1:39 pmConnie, I transcribed that from the following audio of the interview:
http://media.journalstar.com/podcast/?mid=M4840b17287666
The Cardinal would not say that an “exact” schism exists—insofar as the SSPX Bishops refrain from attempting to exercise true episcopal authority.
At the same time, however, he warns about the danger of real schism…and even heresy…insofar as they pretend to be the Pope’s “teacher”.
Comment by schoolman — 4 June 2008 @ 1:43 pmI would note that later in this same sermon Bp Fellay goes on to state that the principles of Catholic doctrine, as announced immediately prior to the Council, very likely lead to almost the same situation as America actually has, namely great tolerance for religion, within limits of public order and common good (for example, polygamy is illegal, even if on religious grounds). Thus, he actually admits that in practice the teachings before the Council largely have the same application as those announced at the Council. So, in that sense, he actually is making a specific appeal for continuity.
However, it is indeed ‘a mystery’ as to why he uses these terms. Admittedly, the term ‘liberal’ has a somewhat different connotation in Europe, mostly referring to the political concept of liberty, as accounced during the early statges of the French Revolution and largely adopted by the USA. In that sense, our Holy Father himself has indeed said that these non-radical and religiously neutral politcal concepts are in fact acceptable, and a contribution by the West to humanity. This philosophy, of course, is radically opposed by SSPX on the basis of the Syllabus of Errors, the teaching of St. Pius X, etc., on the relations between Church and State. Clearly there is a polemic to this homily, though, even if the terminology is not the same as we think of in America. I think what he is actually saying is that Benedict XVI seems to adhere to a condemned proposition that the State has no duty whatsoever towards true religion-of course, Dignitatis Humanae itself states that the Council was not overturning the traditional doctrine about the duties of ‘men and nations’ towards the true religion. Which begs the question, and one which must be answered by the Church, what IS that traditional doctrine upheld by Vatican II?
Comment by Jrbrown — 4 June 2008 @ 1:44 pmWell, think about it this way. Dignitatis Humanae makes it sound as though every person has a pre-institutional right to follow any religion of his choice. That is, everyone is born, regardless of time or place, with a right to worship any god of his choice in whatever way he deems fitting (presumably with certain limitations when this threatens public safety etc.)
But if the Catholic faith is the one true one, worshipping other gods or following other religions will be, at least for those who are not invincibly ignorant, a serious sin. Does it make sense to say that we have an inalienable right to sin? That we are entitled by natural justice to adhere to error?
A further reason for worrying about this is that it certainly seems like a significant departure from the views of some of the Doctors of the Church, who seemed definitely to be of the opinion that heretics could justly be punished—and should be. St. Thomas clearly states that repeat heretics (that is, those people who fall into heresy, are persuaded to renounce their error, but then fall back into the same heresy again) must be executed for the sake of avoiding scandal. Plenty of other saints and doctors (St. Augustine, St. Thomas More, and many others) have articulated or at least operated on similar principles. And you can see what they’re thinking. Heresy is both sinful, and a danger to other souls. What reason would we have for protecting it?
I’m by no means an SSPXer, but I also find this troubling, and it does seem to constitute a serious change in Catholic teaching. This is just a bare-bones sketch of the problem, but hopefully enough to give you the idea.
Comment by Clara — 4 June 2008 @ 1:45 pmIt is my impression that they believe all non-Catholics are condemned to Hell.
They firmly believe that the Catholic Church should go back to ignoring the Protestants and deal with non-Christians as if what they believe is of no value.
That is probably the best caricature of the SSPX’s position, I’ve seen. It might surprise you to know that Catholicism, even before Vatican II, believed non-Catholics could be saved by invincible ignorance. What the SSPX (and many traditionally- orientated Catholics privately) believe is some ambiguity of the documents of Vatican II obscure this, so as to lend themselves to heretical interpretations and conclusions.
Comment by Ottaviani — 4 June 2008 @ 1:45 pmSorry, I should have specified that my post was directed towards Kradcliffe’s original question. I forget how quickly comments go up on this blog.
Comment by Clara — 4 June 2008 @ 1:50 pmYou are a sensitive lot! Whoever said one can’t criticize certain actions of the Pope? Dante made it into an art. I love Benedict XVI, and I’m sure that Fellay does too, but we need not approve everything a Pope says or does. I too hope that SSPX reconciles with Rome, and soon. I don’t think what Fellay said will effect that; Our Pope is a big boy with a brilliant mind, I doubt he’ll get too ruffled by this one comment.
Comment by Malta — 4 June 2008 @ 1:52 pmI just read the whole homily of Bp Fellay.
Comment by Jacques — 4 June 2008 @ 1:54 pmI understand well that the excerpt quoted above by Fr Zuhlsdorf about Our Holy Father is somewhat shocking and not at all in the mood to calm the minds on both sides.
Yes, but fundamentally, is this sermon so wrong? Of course, the SSPX is against the religious liberty, like was our Church for centuries. But its main reproach is not as much the fact the Church is now tolerating the other religions as not to clearly say aloud that the Catholic Church alone holds the Truth, the only Truth that leads to Salvation. Instead the current creeping relativism is confirming everybody, Catholic or other religion’s believer, that the RCC is only one way to salvation among many others.
Sad indeed… I just don’t get how a man who can seem so reasonable and thoughtful can come up with such odd ideas.
And what does he mean by “He goes so far as to condemn the confessional State”??
Comment by Tom S. — 4 June 2008 @ 1:59 pmExcuse my ignorance, but I just don’t get it.
This is the beginning of the end for the SSPX. The fact that all priests can now celebrate the old Mass removes their raison d’être. Traditionalists no longer need them, and they will decline as a result of our Holy Father’s Motu Proprio. Clearly the schismatic heretic Bishop Fellay intends to salvage his sinking ship, but I doubt he’ll get very far. In the future nobody will want to join their retrograde, schismatic (canonically-unrecognized) “society”. Eventually they’ll become a mere memory in the minds of Catholics. Their pathetic rat-infested seminaries are attracting hardly any vocations. One of their Irish based priests testified that the SSPX have such a problem with vocations that eventually the ‘society’ will have no priests in Ireland, a country that was once the garden of priestly vocations. I believe they’re becoming a (small) brainwashing cult as opposed than anything resembling a true religious society. Fellay has already said he has no plans to “re-enter the church” (his words, not mine), so I don’t see why some people are so surprised at his latest anti-Catholic, anti-Papal rant. How long will it be become the Lefebvrites start denouncing Catholics as ‘Romanists’ or ‘Papists’. Some members of their ‘society’ are so vehemently anti-Catholic that they make Jack Chick look like a disgruntled little altar boy.
Comment by Sir H Grattan — 4 June 2008 @ 2:01 pmDIGNITATIS HUMANAE
“Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”
“This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”
I don’t understand the material objection of the SSPX. I find reason to object that the traditional teaching of the obligation of society toward God is neglected today as if it were falsely opposed to the freedom from coercion.
There are many places where the Council has been mis-applied, misunderstood, and even ignored by those on both sides of the issue.
Comment by Scott Smith — 4 June 2008 @ 2:01 pmBishop Fellay certainly is not timorous about expressing the effect of the Holy Father’s actions and words when viewed from a traditional perspective. I actually find it refreshing. There is too much of a facade of agreement. Bishops used to publicly fraternally correct each other all the time.
Fr. Benedict Groeschel was on EWTN just this past weekend praising “the end of the Emperor” aspect of the papacy.
Well…you can’t have it both ways. If the Popes have insisted that protocols regarding them and by them be reduced since John XXIII then they are consequently going to open themselves up to criticisms.
Malachi Martin wrote that the pre-conciliar Popes let the man they were die to the papacy and they were in “the amber of the papacy̶