www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Excommunication of SSPX Bishops are lifted

Thank you, both of you of you, for your responses ! :-)

-- John

As an Orthodox Christian I have no problem with the SSPX or SSJK. More power to them.

-St. Matthew 13:33

-St. Luke 13:20-21

Perhaps The holy Father is hoping that since the liberalization of the 1962 liturgy on 07/07/07 that the "traditionalists" will help to "counter-reform" the Cafeteria Catholics.

It is odd that these self proclaimed "traditionalists" are continually reffered by admirers of the descenters as "traditionalists" (to me they are no different to the earlier descenters called Old Catholics and Protestants today). What does that make of most of us who stayed loyal to the church. Reminds me of the Comunists who always referred to themselves as "progressive" which of course means all else were backward.

Although I wanted to remain silent on this...I do welcome their assistance regarding the liturgy and devotions that have been deformed or discarded over these many years, as for Church politics...no comment

Pavel,

I don't think these people can be likened to Protestants, whose ecclesial communities hold heretical opinions on a frighteningly wide array of basic Christian doctrines.

Perhaps they can be compared to the Orthodox? Even that wouldn't work, however, since the SSPX professes filial devotion to the Pope and holds to Catholic dogma - neither of which the Orthodox do.

Perhaps it's best not to compare them to any other group at all.

Alexis

The Protestants and Old Catholics all started out the same way. Believing themselves to be the last bastion of Christ's church. Who knows where this lot will end up. I dont think they will all opt to come back into communion with a church and it's bishops who they can't stand.

The SSPX is a priestly society and doesn't include members of the laity. People who go to SSPX chapels are not "SSPX members;" just Catholics (one assumes) who go to chapels served by the Society.

I guess if one is being technical then the brothers and sisters and the Third Order of the SSPX would include lay members, but you get my drift.

Alexis

Interesting...

Also interesting ...

I love Eastern Orthodoxy dearly, I value civil liberties, and I have Jewish relatives whom I also love dearly. I do not find myself offended by the lifting of the excommunication on the Lefebvrist bishops.

As I pointed out earlier, some Eastern Orthodox have expressed admiration for the Lefebvrists. The Lefebvrist opposition to freedom of religion is lunacy, but they are not going to prevail on the matter - and if they regard their view as a religious teaching, then freedom of religion applies to them. Since the Lefebvrists did not exist until well after Vatican II, they could not have been involved with the Holocaust. That said, World War II and the massacres of horrendous numbers of people (not all of whom were Jews - not by a long chalk) is generally and properly regarded as one of the most important events of the twentieth century. Those who dissent from the received understanding of what took place should be confronted by evidence, not by excommunications!

Fr. Serge

Father, bless !

What I find disturbing is the outline emerging of the present pope's view toward his own church and others.

He dropped the title of Patriarch of the West. He made that statement reasserting that the Church subsists in the Catholic Church. Now he removed the excommunications on the SSPX, who regard the Orthodox Church as heretical.

All this tells me that perhaps this pope does not care much for ecumenism . . .

John,


Part of the reason is this pope's view of Vatican II. Throughout his career, he has been very concerned at how it has been interpreted and implemented throughout the Church. His key watchword has been "continuity." Pope Benedict believes that Vatican II must be understood in the context of the 2,000 year tradition of the Church. Both "liberals" and "traditionalists" have one thing in common when it comes to Vatican II: they both believe that it is a break from tradition. Pope Benedict (and Pope John Paul II) strongly disagrees with this.

Thus, Pope Benedict sees a restoration of pre-Vatican II traditions as key to understanding Vatican II itself properly. This was a primary reason for the liberalization of the Traditional Latin Mass: by allowing the TLM to be celebrated more fully, the Pope hopes that its solemnity, grandeur and beauty will "infect" the practice of the Norvus Ordo Mass. Note that there is no question about the validity or even benefit of the Norvus Ordo Mass - the question is with how it is practiced and understood today.

Thus, the restoration of SSPX is not about "numbers," but about reminding the universal Church that Vatican II was not a break in continuity within the Church, and thus there is no reason why those who practice the Faith as it was practiced before Vatican II should be simply excluded from the Church. Yes, they may have to realize that the Church's understanding of some things (such as ecumenism and religious liberty) have developed through Vatican II, but that is not the same as simply rejecting all that came before that Council.

Re "The Lefebvrist opposition to freedom of religion is lunacy"
I think the SSPX position on this is based on Pius IX's teaching in [url=http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9quanta.htm]Quanta Cura[/url] of 1864 - here is section 3
[quote]But, although we have not omitted often to proscribe and reprobate the chief errors of this kind, yet the cause of the Catholic Church, and the salvation of souls entrusted to us by God, and the welfare of human society itself, altogether demand that we again stir up your pastoral solicitude to exterminate other evil opinions, which spring forth from the said errors as from a fountain. Which false and perverse opinions are on that ground the more to be detested, because they chiefly tend to this, that that salutary influence be impeded and (even) removed, which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her Divine Author, should freely exercise even to the end of the world -- not only over private individuals, but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes; and (tend also) to take away that mutual fellowship and concord of counsels between Church and State which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary, both for religious and civil interests.[/quote]
I have added bold below
[quote]
For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and [b]absurd [/b]principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "[b]insanity[/b]," viz., [b]that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; [/b]and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."[/quote]
But later Popes seem to have given contradictory teaching on some of this even before World War II. I have not seen an explanation for this apparent contradiction. I would rather see an explanation than dismiss Pius IX's teaching as "lunacy", especially since he refers his teaching back to Gregory XVI, St. Augustine and St. Leo.

Is it somehow wrong for him to state the Church's clear Teaching? Is he supposed to allow Catholics to be confused on a doctrine of the faith for sheer false ecumenism?

That's seriously unfair. Surely you can't blame him for that!

Alexis