Fr. Z's Blog

I have had emails asking about my thoughts and predictions for the SSPX and Holy See debacle.

Firstly, I am deeply saddened.  I worked in the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” from its early years.  I saw the birth and growth of “Ecclesia Dei” communities, the issuance of many celebret faculties, nasty fights with bishops and moving resolutions.  The Commission was despised by the rest of the Curia.  We were the “wailing wall” for traditional Catholics who had no shepherds who loved them enough, or were at least willing to obey what John Paul II wrote in Ecclesia Dei adflicta (1988).

John Paul, as I came to learn during my time, didn’t really understand why people wanted the old stuff.  Of course he came from Poland which was stable and strong in faith because of their persecution.  Even so, he commanded the world’s bishops by his Apostolic authority:  to be generous to people who had legitimate aspirations.

In my little opinion, it was wrong for Pope Leo to relegate a meeting with the SSPX’s Superior Fr. Pagliarani to Fernandez, his office notwithstanding.   But, then… relegate to whom else, Card. Roche?  Of course the main points for the SSPX are doctrinal more than liturgical, which is why the Commission was folded into the CDF back in the day.

I hope and pray that Pope Leo will find in his heart a little room for the legitimate aspirations described by John Paul, and open his heart to these sons of the Church. 

Leo’s arms bear the Augustinian Order’s “logo” of the heart aflame, pierced through with an arrow, resting on a book.  Augustine’s conversion came through a kind of piercing of his heart by the Word.  I note that in the Augustinian Order’s logo the book in modern times is usually – not uniformly –  open rather than closed.  I hope that the difference is not portentous.

There is still time for a meeting.

On the other side of things, I have gotten to know SSPX priests and learn about what they have done for regular diocesans priests in need.  I have talked with them, exchanged messages.  I’ve tried to understand what they are all about.   I have even had the pleasure of a long social evening with their Superior in a group of both SSPX and diocesan priests.  Since I speak Italian, we had lively conversation before and during our repast.

I understand things about the SSPX as a whole now that I did not understand lo those many years ago when I was with the Commission.    Moreover, I saw the unlikely agent of Francis help them in Argentina and then give them faculties for confessions and a way to witness marriages, which seemed to confirm that they are not suspended.  And as mentioned, I’ve seen what they have done for regular priests in need or mistreated by their bishops.

I was a bit dismayed by the Declaration that Fr. Pagliarani sent out.   It right away struck me as being obvious… smack you in the face obvious… that such a text was not going to be understood by the relevant parties in the Holy See, in the DDF.  The DDF types now may need a Rosetta Stone to decipher all those ideas, oddly familiar from some old book of yore.

However, one thing in the Declaration left me downhearted, the statement that baptism is the one means of being saved:

Consequently, every man must be a member of the Catholic Church in order to save his soul, and there is but one baptism as the means of being incorporated into her. This necessity concerns the whole of humanity without exception and embraces without distinction Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans, and atheists.

This is something that the people in the DDF will simply freak out over.  Also, it is not entirely accurate because, as St. Augustine correctly described, we cannot place limits on whom God chooses to save.  When writing about the necessity of baptism Augustine affirmed the necessity of baptism while admitted that God can save whomever it pleases Him to save even though he, Augustine, didn’t know how.   Hence, I would have preferred to see a line in there like: “Without placing limits on God, who willed the Sacrament of Baptism as the means by which He desires… etc.”

Politically, Pope Leo would lose nothing by being generous and fatherly toward the SSPX, with some personal TLC.  I think the members of the SSPX would be willing to go to the wall for him and for the Church.   It’s amazing what a little water on a blazing hot sunny day will do for my pot of basil on my little Roman patio.

On the other hand, Leo would not lose anything politically by being harsh to the SSPX, because the 99% liberal bishops will fall in line like lemmings to the sea.  And the angels will weep.

That’s politics.  It would a tragedy of epic scope were this to be handled by the Holy See as a matter of politics, factions, points.

It’s a matter of the heart, now, not arguing.   Does Leo have that pastoral heart?   Do the priests of the SSPX have hearts of sons?

I mentioned, above, when I was in the Commission, fights with bishops and moving outcomes.

Will you allow a personal anecdote?  It’s about one of the most important things that ever happened to me in Rome and it has to do with the traditional Mass and with rigid positions.

When I was at “Ecclesia Dei“, early on, we had a really strained correspondence with an intractable American bishop, an infamous über-lib, who had a deadly feud going on with people in his diocese who wanted the traditional Mass.  The people got us involved, the bishop got angry.  It was awful.

Finally, the bishop wrote to us a letter that was seriously rude, even insulting.  I had had it.  “Basta!”  I drafted a response for the Cardinal that was going to END the issue by bringing in the weight of the office.

My dear late mentor and boss, Card. Mayer, the holiest man I’ve ever known, called me to his office, as usual, to go over various drafts of correspondence.  He had saved The Draft – my hammer on the bishop – until the end.  He said that what I had written was correct and proper (like the “Declaration” in a way).  “This is what we should write, of course.”

Then he asked about the first sentence.

“Here you wrote, X.  Do you think perhaps we could write Y instead?”

“Of course, Your Eminence!  It’s your letter”.

Changes were made in his carefully microscopic writing.

“And in this place, you wrote X.  Could Y work here?”

“Yes, Eminenza!”, I responded.

We continued that way until there was literally nothing remaining of my Draft – the hammer – but a couple of “ands” and “thes”.   We were actually laughing as my composition relentlessly disappeared under the black ink spiderweb of the Cardinal’s emendations, each one carefully and politely framed as a question, asking permission.

At last I said, “I obviously don’t have the right view of this.  Help me out.  Help me to understand how you want me to approach this.”

He paused a bit and looked at the crucifix on the wall of his office and said,

“At a certain point, we have to stop fighting and try to open up their hearts.”

With that, I went back to my desk and stared at the keys of the typewriter… yes, typewriter… and pondered.

“How do I open this bishop’s heart after all the bitter bridge burning?  One of us has to give, and clearly it has to be us.  Get off your high horse and keep it simple.”

I flashed out another draft and was back in the Cardinal’s office a few minutes later.  He looked at my new version, approved it, and out it went in the evening mail bag.

What, you might be asking, did I write in that second draft to that bishop?   It was not long.  It was not complicated.

I apologized to him for our part in making the correspondence so difficult and then said along this line,

“Your Excellency, so many good people in your diocese simply want to have access to Holy Mass according to the 1962 Missale Romanum.  Will you please, Your Excellency, not open your heart for them and give them what they want? They would be so happy.  Sending prayerful best wishes for, etc. etc.”

Some time later we received a note from one of the faithful in that bishop’s diocese who had been involved in the feud and tension.   He thanked us for what we did, and related that, not only had this über-lib, tradition-hating bishop given the required permission for the Traditional Mass, but he came to them and he said it himself.

I was stunned, but I don’t think the Cardinal was.

To this day, my heart gets chilly and I often fail in charity.  But I am, I trust, a work in progress.  But that was was an important life lesson.  I learned that, in the matter especially of the dynamics of tradition, the heart is an important lens through which to view complicated conflicts.  This is because, I am convinced, the Enemy knows that he cannot succeed if we succeed in renewing the life of the Church through a recovery of our traditional liturgical rites.

Hence, the Devil is going to fuel feuds, create strife, harden hearts.  Moreover, Old Scratch and demons are the ultimate lawyers.   If they can keep us quibbling and mired in the details, we are rendered ineffective.

Recovery of our identity is just as much a matter of the heart as it is a matter of stuff we can grind about in our heads.

I could tell story after story like the one above.  I also have many tales about the zeal of good SSPX priests whom we helped out at Ecclesia Dei, and whom I personally got to know.  What a lot of people today don’t understand is what the atmosphere of those times was like, especially in certain countries.  The hostility and vindictiveness of bishops and priests in positions of power was nothing short of diabolical.  It was far worse in Europe than it was in these USA back then.  And, these days, especially in these USA, the situation is now very much improved after Summorum.

Hence, it is really hard, especially for the young who haven’t been in the trenches, newcomers, as it were, to take in all these matters, and especially for lay people, to understand these matters from within.  Some whippersnapper pundits out there should put a sock in it for a little while.

Could you, please?

The situation of the SSPX is complicated.  It is anomalous.  It is evolving.

It is the beginning of the Pentecost Novena today.  Here’s a page with novena texts HERE

For my part, I will say daily before 1 July:

Flecte quod est rigidum,
fove quod est frigidum,
rege quod est devium.

Bend what is inflexible,
warm what is chilled,
correct what has gone astray.