www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News SSPX and the Eastern Catholic Churches

I know I am not Alex, and please excuse me for interjecting, but I believe the SSPV have elected their own pope...Pius XIII. I also think that he works at a gas station.

In Jesu et Maria,
Justin

+JMJ+

Dear Justin:

My heart grieves for you. I am so sorry that you have to endure the NO when your heart is Tridentine. I shall pray that you are able to start a Tridentine Chapel soon. Have you started an Una Voce Chapter?

Are you a member of ctngreg as well?

I understand your reservations about attending an SSPX chapel. I have the same reservations and will not attend one until the concilliar church lapses into heresy (say if the concilliar church were to begin ordaining women or deny the real presence) or whben the SSPX come back into communion with Rome.

We must pray for the Tridentine Mass. St. Francis De Sales said our greatest weapon was the Rosary.

Joe Zollars

Dear Gregorian:

Actually that is a group that splintered from the SSPV. They call themselves the "true Catholic Church" (www.truecatholic.org [truecatholic.org]). They have elected their own pope (he was a fransiscan priest).

How he became pope is quite interesting:

he was "elected" to the papacy by the laity in assosciation with this group (couldn't be more than a hundred people).

He ordained an australian guy to the priesthood and made him a cardinal.

Then this australian guy consecrated the guy who thinks he's a pope to the episcopacy.

Now the Australian "cardinal" has split with Pius XIII and is planning his own conclave in Australia.

As for me, I will stick with good old JPII who gave us the indult.

Joe Zollars

Dear Joe,

Thank you very much for your prayers. Our bishop says that he has not recievd enough queries for the TLM and he does not want to burden the diocesan clergy by adding that Mass to their already busy schedules. I tried to ask the chancery why they do not invite the FSSP or the ICR, but they did not reply.

No, there is no Una Voce chapter here. I also doubt that I could start one because I plan on going off to college next year.

Yes, I am also a member of ctngreg, which I think is an excellent list.

I hope that the SSPX is "regularized" soon. It would be good for all trads, especially with one or more apostolic administrations.

In Jesu et Maria,
Justin

Dear Justin:

I shall pray your Bishops office is flooded with requests for the TLM.

In the meantime I suggest buying a video of the traditional Mass so that you can practice for that one fine day when you will have the traditional Latin Mass.

I suggest trying to find someone who can start an Una Voce chapter.

Joe Zollars

Justin,

So you have never worshiped according to the TLM?

Axios

Joe,

I have the video that the FSSP put out.

Thanks again for your prayers.

In Jesu et Maria,
Justin

Axios,

Correct. I plan on going down to the traditional Roman parish in the Atlanta archdiocese-St. Francis de Sales- this summer though.

This is why the SSPX is very tempting and I haven't made up my mind as to whether or not to visit their chapel.

In Jesu et Maria,
Justin

Glory to Jesus Christ! (it's past Vespers for Ascension here, now)

Dear Friends, I taught at the SSPX school here in Kansas some years ago, met my wife (who managed the SSPX bookstore) and was married there. I belonged to their parish for six years back in the eighties. One of my closest confreres and confidants in the faculty was one Father Arnaud Devillers who left the SSPX and is now the Superior General for the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, and who was prophetic in his prediction that the SSPX would remain stubborn in its schismatic tendancies. I have continued to support the FSSP over the years and keep in contact with several of their priests and faithful, who on occasion will attend our Ukrainian Catholic parishes.

From my experience I can say that as a group of "Catholics" the SSPX represents one of the most spiritually prideful, scrupulous, and clericalist bunches that you will ever run across. They have been offered the opportunity by Rome to keep the Tridentine Mass and even have an independent prelature, similar to the Jesuits, which they have refused. And all on an ambiguous pretext of "being loyal to the true Rome, not the modernist one". Apparently the current Holy Father doesn't fit their definition of True Rome.

And with reference to the splinter of the SSPV from the SSPX (whom they dismissed as too liberal)...as Hillaire Belloc once remarked, "schism breeds schism". Also many people don't remember that Archbishop Lefevbre promised repeatedly that a bishop would never be Superior General of the SSPX (Father Franz Schmidberger was Superior General when Msgr. Lefebvre was alive) while he was alive so as to not give the impression that they were creating a separate canonical hierarchy. Msgr. Lefebvre is dead, and Bishop Fellay was elected Superior General. The previous promise seems to have been long forgotten. They also now are deciding their own marriage cases in the U.S. Parallel church? Sure looks like it.

Most of the priests and faithful of the SSPX are also firm believers in praestantia ritus latinae, or that the traditional Roman Rite has place of honor over any and all liturgical traditions. When SSPX priests and laymen I spoke with began to tell me things like there were different levels of heaven for those that attended the SSPX Mass, that SSPX masses were the only masses we could be sure of the validity of, the Eastern Rites were only temporary liturgical situations until all would accept the Tridentine Mass, etc., all of which I heard first hand. When I offered Orientale Dignitas of Leo XIII as a defense, I received dumfounded silence but never any acquiescence from praestantia ritus latinae.

The Transalpine Redemptorists are a point in case. These "Redemptorists" are associated with the SSPX and are attempting to "return" the Ukrainian Catholics to "tradition". The history of their founder and his squabbles with the Redemptorists is another story in and of itself...Their priests are trained in the SSPX seminary in Econe, originally founded by Archbishop Lefevbre. I don't think there is anyone in Econe even remotely qualified to teach Eastern spirituality, liturgical theology, patristics, etc...but I am sure they will be well versed in pre-Vatican II Thomistic systematic theology.

According to their flyer (which I will copy for anyone if they are interested) they claim to be committed to returning the Ukrainian Catholic Church from the errors of Modernism manifested in the acceptance of the Balamand Document. As I recall the Orthodox accepted Balamand, our hierarchy only commented on it...They claim they are returning to the true heritage of the church of Cardinal Slipjy and other confessors and away from the dangers of "ecumenism" and dialogue with the Orthodox...

I'm sure use of the term 'Orthodox in communion with Rome' would bring significant heartburn with these folks and win the label of an ecumenical modernist...if so I for one will plead guilty to that charge. I also don't think that with their counter-Reformational perspective and focus they would ever be truly hip to married priests and authentic Orthodox Catholic practice.

And I for one will stick with our current hierarchy who includes Patriarch Husar, Studite consecrated by Patriarch Josyp; Pavlo Vasylyk, Julian Voronovsky and other bishops and priests who suffered under the Communists, haven't abandoned their church and are committed to union with the Catholic Church. And with regards to Vatican II, it has only been since Vatican II that we as a church have been able to reclaim many of our authentic traditions and return to a more synodal approach to church government, all with the blessing of and as a result of the Council.

Dear Diak,

Diak-uyu for your post.

In some respects, the Tridentine/SSPX issue within the Latin Church reminds one of the Old Believer crisis in Russia in the seventeenth century.

The Old Believers parted company with Nicon over their understanding of traditional liturgical and devotional rubrics. They eventually hardened their positions to view the Niconian Rite as without grace, while the Russian Orthodox Church allowed the reception of Old Believers back within the "United Believers" grouping of parishes.

I think the SSPX schism was allowed by whomever to go on for too long and we are now seeing precisely this sort of hardening.

Frankly, I don't hold out too much hope for their reconciliation with Rome.

However, the Tridentine Catholics within the Church are a different story.

Alex

Dear Joe,

Basically, as I see it, the schismatic Tridentines of whatever grouping would make poor ecumenical partners with the Orthodox.

They represent the old monolithic, supremacist notions of Roman Catholicism that had no room for other Rites of any kind.

The statement we just read about the Eastern Rites being a "temporary arrangement" until these people can be made to behave properly and become Tridentines is something we Easterners have heard from RC's for the last 400 years.

The Eastern Rite was called "schismatic", even though Catholic and commemorating the Pope.

Latinization is ultimately not about adoption or imposition of Latin liturgical forms.

It was about the absorption of the Eastern Catholic Churches into the Roman Patriarchate, Lock, Stock and Barrel, their obliteration in fact.

That is not to say that Tridentine Catholics in union with Rome are like that today. You certainly arent'.

But it is a fact that education simply doesn't work with some!

Alex

Glory to Jesus Christ!

One of Alex's original questions: what do "Tridentine" Catholics think of Eastern Catholics? For a window, please have a look at an article from the SSPX website: http://www.sspx.org/Negotiations/fr_schimdbergers_talk.htm

Here's an excerpt from Fr. Schimdberger's address:

"These Greek Catholics have looked for support; these people who had suffered for the Church, for the See of Peter, who had suffered for their faithfulness. There are martyrs among them, and they looked for support from Rome, from the bishops, from the West. They were terribly deceived because, in the meantime, a new wind was blowing through the Church, the wind of ecumenism and dialogue with the Orthodox. And because of it, the Greek Catholics were more or less considered to be unwelcome children, disturbers of this dialogue, and obstacles to Rome's ecumenical union with the Orthodox. What a disappointment this was for these people! We cannot imagine the disappointment they must have felt so see these things!

Some of the Greek Catholic bishops in the Ukraine said, "Since it is now the new orientation, well, let us go along with it." In order not to disturb the dialogue with the Orthodox, they suppressed the Rosary in their churches. They suppressed the Stations of the Cross. They no longer promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart or to the Eucharist. People, however, became very worried about what was going on, and said, "But these are the devotions that helped us to overcome the persecution. This was our help. These were the means by which we could keep the Faith in the underground." What did they do in the underground? They said the Rosary! They said the Stations of the Cross! The people said, "We do not like this. We want to keep these devotions. We cannot abandon these. These are identical with our Faith.""

God bless,
Christopher

Dear Christopher,

This is an excellent example of the kind of subtle propaganda used by these groups to get Eastern Catholics on side etc.

The first aspect is their lament about the evils of Rome in not respecting the Eastern Catholics and their martyrdom for the Catholic faith.

I remember them even bemoaning the lack of a Patriarchate for the Ukrainian Catholic Church under Patriarch Joseph the Hieroconfessor.

That got a lot of attention from us, but I really don't think it was sincere at all since these groups denied the reality of Particular Churches in the first instance!

In the second instance, while appearing to defend the uniqueness of the Eastern Catholic Churches, they then proceed to bemoan the removal of Latin practices from the Eastern Catholic Churches by way of ecumenical tokenism to the Orthodox and this by our own bishops.

And here is demonstrated how little these schismatic groups understand the Eastern Churches they say they want to embrace.

If you can show me the case of even ONE of our bishops who ever IMPOSED Eastern spirituality, rather than more of the same Western, I'll continue to live on as a very happy man!

Basilian and Redemptorist bishops removing the Rosary, the Stations of the Cross etc.? What, is this man out of his mind? Does he think we don't know what he's up to?

The Eastern movement in our Churches comes from the people and the priests, not the bishops. This ill-advised fellow should have a closer look at some of our parishes.

It is true that the rosary and other devotions were and are important to our people, under persecution and always.

And that our people will continue to practice them.

But these devotions can continue as private devotions, no one is forbidding them.

And we shouldn't have Latin devotions supplant Byzantine liturgical spirituality.

Our martyrs came from an era in our Church's history that was quite Latinized and they prayed in accordance with the conventions of that era.

To say that to return to a fuller appreciation of our OWN Eastern spirituality that RC's like this one have tried to wean us off for centuries is wrong is absolutely ridiculous.

Again, no one is against the private recitation of the Rosary et alia. The Orthodox also have the Rosary that is termed differently, but a Rosary by any other name . . .

Alex

Dear Agape,

No one on this, Eastern side here has any wish to throw married priests at anyone.

We can't afford to, we need them here with us.

It has been Latin Catholics who have imposed mandatory celibacy on us.

Also, we really have no wish to get involved in the inner conflicts experienced by Latin Catholics, Tridentine vs. NO or what have you.

We have our hands full just trying to be who we are.

Those Tridentines who approach us or our parishes will indeed experience religious culture shock in varying degrees.

For example, one Tridentine once told me how shocked he was to see that Byzantine Church ritual was more beautiful and involved than his own.

And still we had married priests . . .

We ourselves continue on our own journey to rediscover our Eastern roots.

Anyone is welcome to worship with us.

But they'll have to accept us as we are, married priests, censors, icons et alia.

Alex

Dear Alex,
Just to clarify . . . What I meant by "throwing" married priests at people is that I have seen Western Catholics come to visit an Eastern Church and get a litany from an over-eager parishioner or priest of the differences between the Eastern and Western Churches and why the East is better. Of course, Latin Catholics need to respect and learn to love the Eastern Traditions in their fullness, including married priests, whether or not they decide to join an Eastern parish. This respect and love, though, is sometimes going to take time and a welcoming parish to develop.
Coming to understand the Eastern Churches when you have lived your whole life without knowing about them is a difficult process. It certainly took me more than a few months of going to Liturgy and many question-and-answer sessions with my priest before I began to understand. I guess I just see a need for persons of whatever particular Church to be patient with people who are new to their particular Church (patience, of course, without changing their traditions to accomidate the newbies). So much of Eastern theology and tradition has to be experienced to be grasped, in my opinion, that demanding people to embrace the Eastern Tradition on their first few visits is unreasonable--you have to give the Liturgy a little time to work on them first.
I am not saying this in reference to some of the groups you have spoken about who openly denounce our Churches or try to change our traditions, but rather to the visitors we meet in Church on Sunday. Perhaps we are speaking about different circumstances?
--Agape