I picked this up at Rorate.
Card. Koch, Cardinal Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity gave an interview. He made this remark, inter alia. He makes a reference to Taurina cacata… Traditionis Custodes. My emphases (except the question).
Q: Yesterday we saw that the SSPX strikingly staged the aesthetic glow of the old rites. At the same time, we can see, especially in the USA and also in France, a growing interest among the younger generation in these traditionalist forms of Christianity. A perhaps somewhat delicate question: isn’t this also an impetus for the Catholic Church, as it currently stands, to review its books—perhaps to appreciate the particular truth contained within traditionalism and use it as an occasion for self-critical reflection?
KOCH: Yes, I think it could lean toward self-righteousness if we simply condemn the Society and say they are on the wrong track, without asking whether there are fundamental deficits in the Church today that are being recalled by the Society.
First, I think of the unresolved question of the relationship between the two forms of the one Roman Rite, as Pope Benedict called it. Pope Benedict showed a path there; [i.e., lifting the excommunications and issuing Summorum Pontificum] Pope Francis curbed it somewhat radically. I think we need to rethink this, [i.e., overturn Traditionis Custodes] especially for those faithful who feel drawn to this form of liturgy without sharing the entire ideological superstructure of the Society. For these faithful, I think we must look for new ways.
A second problem is the ecclesiological pluralism we have today in ecumenism, where basically all churches and ecclesial communities are treated as equivalent, so that it is essentially a matter of indifference which church you belong to; there, the uniqueness of the Catholic Church, as pointed out clearly by the Second Vatican Council, is forgotten. [He is pointing out that the SSPX has NOT forgotten that.]
And thirdly, religious pluralism—the idea that all religions are equally ways to God. These theses are widely held today, and it would be good to use the confrontation with the Society as an opportunity for self-examination, to consider what needs to be changed here. [Surely he means in “practice” but he could be saying also that what V2 said has to be reexamined.] Because only in this way can we credibly represent to the Society that these evils they name are not contained in the Council, but are tendencies that appeared after the Council.
I would very much like to see a moderated but forthright dialogue like that take place.
monstrance on ASK FATHER: Lay people, SSPX and excommunication: “Thank you JamesM”
