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Today we continue with analysis of the Bishop Fellay conference and specifically, the proposed “solution” to the SSPX “recognition” issue. Consider this a continuation of a post we published on the 1st of August titled Desperately Seeking Reconciliation. (see here)
But first, CONTEXT.
In our earlier post titled Desperately Seeking Reconciliation, we presented new guidelines coming from neo-Modernist Rome for the formation of new communities, removal of bishops and guidelines for female contemplative orders.
Here is the chronology:
May 20, 2016 publication date (Decision on 4th of April) (CNS News)
Diocesan bishops must consult with the Vatican before establishing a diocesan religious order, Pope Francis ruled. (see here)
June 4, 2016, (Life Site News)
In a moto proprio, or letter issued of the pope’s own initiative and signed by him, titled Come una madre amorevole (“As a loving mother”), Pope Francis established a new procedure for handling cases of diocesan bishops who are negligent in their “exercise of office,” particularly in relation to the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults. (see here)
June 30, 2016 ( NC Register)
The Vatican today published Pope Francis’ new apostolic constitution on women’s contemplative life, Vultum Dei quaerere (Seeking the Face of God).
…
The Holy Father ends the document by establishing a new set of rules for contemplative women, many of which emphasize the importance of God being at the center of monastic life. (see here)
The new rules have been extensively commented over at the Remnant. Here is Hilary White’s comment: (see here)
The pope has issued “new guidelines” for contemplative nuns, and it has set off every one of my alarms, long, loud and terrifying as an air raid siren. It is possibly one of the most sinister things I’ve seen coming from Bergoglio thus far, but I think few people will understand how serious it is or could be.
So this is the background to the recent actions of Francis, the bishop of Rome.
As to the actions of Archbishop Pozzo, of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the following is the position:
Pozzo confirmed that the creation of a so-called Personal Prelatire had been promised after the model of Opus Dei. The Superior General Bernard Fellay has accepted this proposal, “even if in the coming months details need to be clarified.”
Which brings us back to the Bishop Fellay conference and the video titled 6/6.
In this above video, Bp. Fellay explains what has been proposed/written in a draft document pertaining to the specifics of the Personal Prelature. Here is the relevant transcribed passage: (with emphasis and added emphasis)
And I am going to end with another point, which is also of interest and that is what Rome does offer us. You know that one of our determining point is that we are not going to put ourselves under the bishops. We see what is happening with St. Peter’s (FSSP) and the others. They are totally locked. Because they are totally in the hands of the bishops. And we say no. We are not going that way.
And in fact, Rome is offering us a new body. At the head, a bishop. This bishop, chosen by the pope, with (from) three names, which a presented by the Society and taken in the Society. This bishop will have authority above (over) the priests. Above the religious who want to be members. And above the Faithful. All Sacraments, (to) the Faithful (who) will belong to this body, will have the strict right to receive all the Sacraments from priests of the Society. All Sacraments, Marriage included. The bishop will have the right to have schools, seminaries, ordinations. Even to make new religious congregations. And accept inside, other who would like to join. It is something like a super diocese. Autonomous from the local bishops. In other words, for you, no change to what you have now. The only thing, it will be with the recognition that you are Catholics.
You can imagine that… that will create a lot of conflicts, with the local bishops. You can easily imagine that. So we have to remain prudent there. But in itself, you cannot imagine anything better, then what is offered there. And such a thing that you cannot think, that’s a trap. It’s not a trap. And if somebody is offering something like that, it can be only because he wants good to us. He wants the good of Tradition, he wants Tradition to say, spread in the Church. It is impossible to think that such a thing could be invented by enemies. The enemies have many other ways to crush us down. Not that.
You may say, well if that’s the thing, why don’t you accept? Because I want to be sure that this is true. I don’t, I do not have the right to live in a dream. And so I have to check every step.
So now that Bishop Fellay has kindly filled in some details, let us put these details into our checklist, using the observations we made at the end of the Desperately Seeking Reconciliation post. Here is how the situation looks now: (New info in red)
- the SSPX will not budge.
- Still the case.
- Francis desperately needs a reconciliation.
- Still the case.
- The reason Francis desperately needs reconciliation is in order to gain some sort of control over the SSPX and ring-fence the NORMALIZATION PROCESS™ inside the Ecclesia Dei Commission. Hence Diocesan bishops must consult with the Vatican before establishing a diocesan religious order, Pope Francis ruled.
- This has changed. It would appear now that the SSPX will be the only congregation inside the Catholic Chruch that will be able to establish new religious orders without earlier Vatican permission.
- Francis needs to gain control over the SSPX so as to block off any escape route for the Catholics stuck in NUChurch. Hence clampdown on contemplative orders.
- This has changed. It would appear now that Francis is proposing a “fast-track” escape route for the contemplative orders and all other orders presently experiencing a “Lefebvrist drift”, to come directly under the SSPX. It is as if he is giving them a massive incentive to take advantage of this option. An example would be the Franciscans of the Immaculate (now that the mainline Franciscans understand that the FFI had no property in their name- see here). If the above is true, they can elect to move their congregation under the SSPX Personal Prelature. Or at least, there would be no obstructions for this to happen.
- Francis is planning a repression of the larger Western Church and understands that it will not go as easily as with the suppression of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. Hence Come una madre amorevole in case of rebellion.
- This has not changed. It would appear that the SSPX will be the only “safe” congregation since even if Francis removes an SSPX bishop, he gets the name of three new candidates from the SSPX from which to chose. NB: By this move, Francis is returning to an earlier age where popes and kings had formal agreements for the appointment of bishops. This is the case with the Portuguese bishop that was elevated at the 2015 consistory. But the diocesan ordinary cannot move his diocese under the SSPX, so he is still subject to the ‘Come una madre amorevole’.
- This has not changed. It would appear that the SSPX will be the only “safe” congregation since even if Francis removes an SSPX bishop, he gets the name of three new candidates from the SSPX from which to chose. NB: By this move, Francis is returning to an earlier age where popes and kings had formal agreements for the appointment of bishops. This is the case with the Portuguese bishop that was elevated at the 2015 consistory. But the diocesan ordinary cannot move his diocese under the SSPX, so he is still subject to the ‘Come una madre amorevole’.
- But most importantly, Francis needs to do something IMMEDIATELY since the Restoration is spreading in the Catholic Church, especially in the wealthy Western countries.
- This has changed. It would appear that Francis is allowing for the spread of Tradition, but in a “controlled environment”. It appears, as a cynic would no doubt say, as if he is trying to create a parallel church, which he can, in the future separate in one fell swoop.
- The neo-modernist’s who support Francis are freaking out since they see that with their demise, so will end their Novus Ordo NUChurch.
- This has not changed. This above might be a plan that will placate the neo-Modernists presently, since it kicks the proverbial “can down the road” and could be sold as a way to “contain” the spread of Catholicism inside the Catholic Church. What it will also do is limit the number of bishops friendly to Tradition outside the SSPX and will in theory open more slots for the neo-Modernists. Think about it. If for example, the Dominicans decide they want to be part of the SSPX Personal Prelature, they will not then have any new bishops consecrated or appointed to diocesan positions since they will be under the SSPX bishop.
- This will end their IDEOLOGICAL life’s work and consign them to not only the trash-heap of history, but will earn them the hatred of future generations of the Faithful.
- This has not changed. Regardless of what Francis does, the outcome will be the same. Our Lord did promise us that the gates of hell will not prevail.
Concluding, what we are observing is the the SSPX has been given an “offer that they cannot refuse”. This offer was given to them by Archbishop Pozzo, the Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei and a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Archbishop Pozzo has given the SSPX undertakings that clearly contradict the neo-Modernist’s “spirit of Vatican II” by admitting that the VII as a “super dogma” is a fallacious understanding of the intent of the fathers of the Second Vatican Council.
In turn, the immediate superior of Archbishop Pozzo holds a diametrically opposing opinion. Card. Muller holds that VII is a “super dogma” and has to be completely accepted by the SSPX before the “regularization” process can be completed.
Therefore, it would appear that Archbishop Pozzo is acting on instructions, but due to the nature of the undertakings which have been defined (in draft form) to date, it must be assumed that the mandate that Archbishop Pozzo is working under has come from a higher authority than the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, i.e. his immediate superior.
As to the negotiated undertakings themselves, it would appear that the SSPX would be allowed to function in the Catholic Church under a Personal Prelature from Francis, bishop of Rome or a “super diocese” as Bishop Fellay described it. The key points to this “super dioceses” would be that the SSPX would:
- Have their own bishop, autonomous of any other diocesan bishop,
- have the right to exclusively function under the pre VII liturgical regime, i.e. 1962 Missale Romanum,
- have exclusivity over the priests, religious and Faithful under their care,
- have the right to a bishop exclusively from their community,
- and have the right to establish new communities and accept existing commuities who want to come into their structure.
Summa summarum, it appears as what neo-Modernist Rome is proposing is a parallel Church, call it an Indefectible Church which would be created and “subsist” inside the neo-Modernist Roman Church.
So these are the Known Knows as of today.
UPDATE: 09:50 7 September 2016
Over at Hilary White’s What’s up with FrancisChurch? blog, in the comment box of the post titled Yes, yes it is. (see here), the following comment appeared from John Lamont. (I think it might be the one whose work your humble blogger continuously references). Here is what Mr. Lamont wrote: (emphasis added)
The argument for accepting this offer is the following:
– All the previous traps offered to the Society have required some kind of concession; acceptance of all of Vatican II, acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the Novus Ordo, etc. No concession is demanded here.
– This fatally weakens the power of the Roman authorities to make unacceptable demands down the road. The basis of the original illegal suppression of the Society by Paul VI was the claim that its positions on Vatican II and the Novus Ordo were unacceptable. The mere fact of legitimising the Society without conditions destroys this basis permanently. There can no longer be any arguments presented as arguments of principle for requiring the Society to abandon its positions after such a regularisation.
– This weakening makes accepting such an offer a serious option even though it no doubt is intended as a trap of some kind.
– The ripple effect of such an action in the Church will make it much harder to spring the trap, because the legitimising of the position of the Society will destroy the whole neoconservative position and spread this position far beyond its borders. It will produce a spreading insurrection where the Roman authorities will have too many defeats and distractions to operate the subjection of the SSPX.
The crucial underlying factor is that the main enemy of tradition is not crass modernists of Francis’s stamp. but the neoconservatives. The latter believed in themselves as the true Catholics and were able to put this self-presentation as Catholics across effectively. Francis, Madariaga et hoc genus omne cannot do this convinclngly.
I am providing the above since if gives CONTEXT to the present situation as opposed to that which existed between the 1970’s and the end of the Benedict papacy.
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Magdalene said:
The FFI is NOT suppressed. However, their unique and holy charism is being attacked and changed so in that sense, it is partly suppression of the charism approved and championed by St. John Paul II. And there are a number of friars waiting to be officially released that will join the many who already have left. The friars and sisters only want to live out their holy charism but holiness is not something particularly embraced in the modernist thought.
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S. Armaticus said:
I consider them suppressed by VII standards.
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Andrew said:
Maybe I missed it in this or previous posts, but what does a personal prelature do with respect to the establishment of parishes – can a PP parish be established without the consent of the local ordinary? If no, then would its current geographical composition be locked in to where they currently operate (except in those very few instances of Bishops who are supportive of Tradition/Restoration)?
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Richard Malcolm said:
…can a PP parish be established without the consent of the local ordinary?
Under present canon law, no. There has to be some permission given by the local ordinary. This is the arrangement Opus Dei (the only Personal Prelature in operation today) works under.
Of course, canon law is whatever the Supreme Lawmaker says it is, and that is the Pope. He could modify it in connection with what is given to the SSPX.
And obviously it is hard for any of us to imagine Bishop Fellay or any of his district superiors simply acceding to a structure where liberal or even conservative bishops can veto any new SSPX chapel or parish or mission church in their dioceses. I am sure the question has been discussed with Msgr. Pozzo; but exactly how they have addressed this remains unclear. Perhaps there would be conditions attached to restrict any local ordinary’s “veto” of new apostolates. Or the SSPX is given some accelerated right of appeal to Rome when it happens. Hard to say. But I am sure the concern would be addressed concretely in any final canonical erection – hopefully, in such a way that adequately protects the rights of the Society.
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WPH said:
You might want to do a little research into the Personal Ordinariates now functioning, particularly in the U.S., as this will necessitate a broadening of this answer.
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Richard Malcolm said:
Hello WPH,
Being a member of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter – well, nominally – I can speak a little to this.
I had thought to mention the Ordinariate option, but then decided against it, because virtually no one really speaks of this alternative. The real problem here is that all the Ordinariates in question – military ordinariates, missionary jurisdiction ordinariates, Eastern Catholic ordinariates, and the ones for the Anglican converts – are all geographically limited. And the SSPX could not accept a geographical limitation of their group, nor accept its division into multiple ordinariates. Likewise, ordinariates typically depends to some extent on the resources and support functions of the diocese where its congregations are located. This would certainly not be the case with the SSPX, either.
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Richard Malcolm said:
Fellay: They are totally locked. Because they are totally in the hands of the bishops. And we say no. We are not going that way.
That’s a little excessive, though I know this has been the SSPX line and perception for a long time now. Certainly they labor under a frequent need to lower the radar profile on their critical stances on the Pauline Missal and much of the post-conciliar project; they have taken risks with regularization, and suffered difficulties because of it; who can deny it? Certainly it does not seem to inhibit their pastoral and homiletic activity, however.
It would appear that Francis is allowing for the spread of Tradition, but in a “controlled environment”. It appears, as a cynic would no doubt say, as if he is trying to create a parallel church, which he can, in the future separate in one fell swoop.
This is an interesting observation. In effect, “allowing for the spread of Tradition, but in a controlled environment” is what Rome has been doing for decades now, is it not? And is this not what has happened with liberal bishops when they bring in an Ecclesia Dei society to take over a community, i.e., provide a nice ghetto where the traditionalists can be hermetically sealed up (which is exactly what Walter Sullivan was up to when he brought the FSSP into Richmond)? So perhaps whatever Francis is up to is a new version of the Ecclesia Dei strategy, creating a bigger and more robust ghetto for the SSPX and its orders – but still a ghetto of sorts. (Of course, what Econe has now is something more in the way of a remote pirate community.)
As for what might be done in the future, that would be the work of a future pope, not Francis, since the overwhelming odds are that he is not going to live long enough to be around for such an eventuality.
If the deal is as described, and the doctrinal demands have really been dropped, I think the Society should take the deal, and take the risk. They will be able to reach many tradition-friendly Catholics that have been off limits to them heretofore. But I certainly do understand the reticence to do so of many in the Society – especially with this Pope. Fellay will do nothing that will risk losing many of his clergy and lay followers.
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S. Armaticus said:
HI:
As to the strategy, I wouldn’t call it a “son of Ecclesia Dei”. EC was designed to snuff out Tradition by limiting the criticism. It was the vinigor solution. I think it was to isolate and then to crush. Now what we are seeing is a catching the flies with honey part. It appears that Francis is giving all crypto-Lefebvrists a huge incentive to come under the SSPX. That incentive is “you can say whatever you like”. What he isn’t saying is that at some point in the future “everything that they said will be used against them”. In other words, this is not about keep up the appearance of unity, but to highlight the great divide.
As to the diocesan bishops, they have different motivation. The hard-core neo-Modernist suppressed. The “luke-warm” bishop, his motivation was ghetto-ization,no doubt, but the other side was getting access to the wallets.
As to Francis living to see his strategy come to fruition, no he won’t. But the reason he is doing this is to stop any future “Gorbachev papacy” from occurring. What he is doing is creating cardinals from the poorest peripheries that will be easily “remote controlled” by the German Episcopate and their Kirchensteuer funded soft-power Euro politics. So he is lowering, what in the military is called the Table of Organization and Equipment ranks of the heads and secretaries of the different Curial offices and transferring the decision making center to the Germans. This is why he is so bent on breaking up the USCCB since it is the only Episcopate that can counteract the Germans. And when I say the Germans, I mean the powers behind the Episcopate like the German government and international NGO’s.
As for taking the deal, Bp. Fellay said that he would if he gets it on paper. From Francis.
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Richard Malcolm said:
Hello Sarm,
1. EC was designed to snuff out Tradition by limiting the criticism. It was the vinegar solution. I think it was to isolate and then to crush.
Well….caution is needed here. From what I have read, and heard from knowledgeable people, I am not sure that there was a uniform motivation in Rome about this in 1988. I doubt that this was John Paul II’s motivation, strictly speaking; I feel rather certain it was not that of Ratzinger. That said, there were (and still are) certainly people in Rome who very much hoped that something like this would happen, albeit not always for precisely the same reasons. That is the problem with Rome; it has always been a cauldron of factions; it’s just that since the Asteroid hit, those factions often have very different theological agendas now, too.
Whatever the intentions involved back then, tradition has not been isolated and crushed. It has suffered some blows (Cf Prot. 1411/99, the FFI receivership, etc,) and limitations; but it has also grown at a remarkable rate; and post-Summorum, it now has attracted significant and growing pockets of support in the diocesan Church. More than many folks on the Tiber expected, certainly.
2. But the reason he is doing this is to stop any future “Gorbachev papacy” from occurring. What he is doing is creating cardinals from the poorest peripheries that will be easily “remote controlled” by the German Episcopate and their Kirchensteuer funded soft-power Euro politics.
I think there’s something to that; and I think that’s part of the thinking of the Kasper Brigade that surrounds Francis now. They have been using their largesse as an ecclesiastical weapon (successfully!) for some time now – just ask the Poles about that!
But they have a weakness with this strategy, too. It is time-limited. The clock is ticking on the German Church now in a number of ways. The number of German Catholics opting out of the Kirchensteuer every year is large and growing. And we’re approaching a point where the political pressure to abrogate, or at least greatly modify, it, will be irresistible in the coming decade. At that point, the Germans will find themselves with a good deal less in the way of Euros to toss around.
Of course, if they can rearrange the chessboard enough by that point, it will make it harder to undo the damage. It buys them some time, any rate. I do wonder, however, just how malleable the African bishops will be. For one thing, the example of GAFCON Anglicans might be inspirational to them.
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S. Armaticus said:
“But they have a weakness with this strategy, too. It is time-limited. The clock is ticking on the German Church now in a number of ways. The number of German Catholics opting out of the Kirchensteuer every year is large and growing.”
Yes. The German Episcopate is living “off of the fat” of the German economy through the Euro’s cannibalization of the other EU states. But what is important is that this is a “intermediate solution” to them. What they are doing is destroying the Catholic doctrine so that they will become acceptable to obtain funding from the NGO’s and the One World crowd. They just have to hang on long enough. That is their thought process from what I see.
I reposted a Remnant article by E.Yore about how the One World crowd through Omama is corrupting the USCCB with migration funding. The Germans are way, way ahead going down this road.
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ColdStanding said:
He should push for an archbishopric plus more bishops for various regions, each of which should have auxiliary bishops.
Hey, the bag is open, might as well go for gold.
Heck, make an independent rite while we are at it headquartered in the City of Rome.
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Richard Malcolm said:
Come to that, why not bishops for the FSSP? They are not as big as the SSPX in clergy yet, but they’re pushing up to just about 300 priests next year, and that is more than most dioceses now have. With 160 seminarians, they have more men in seminary than several European countries put together. In 1988, a bishop made little sense for a group of 12 men, but today, it’s becoming hard to justify it.
As for the SSPX, I am surprised that the arrangement described by Fellay only provides for one bishop. Maybe there’s more to it. An independent rite, however, would make a hash of Summorum Pontificum’s legal framework. How can they be a separate rite celebrating the 1962 missal, but the FSSP, ICRSS, IBP and various diocesan priests celebrating are not?
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S. Armaticus said:
If you recall, the FSSP was promised a bishop when they broke from the SSPX. They are still waiting. Having said that, what the neo-Modernists never envisioned (in 1988) was that Tradition would actually make such a huge comeback and that now the FSSP and the rest of EC can find multi bishops and cardinals for their ordinations and consecrations.
As to the number of bishops, Bp. Fellay said they were guaranteed one, pope pick from 3 candidates. Maybe the deal is that the three (four) that the SSPX has would be replaced as they pass on or retire. A sign of good faith would be that Francis consecrates a new bishop as part of the rapprochement since Bp. Williamson is no longer with the SSPX.
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ColdStanding said:
It was at the end of my list, so, if I get everything else: separate rite, meh.
We need to get out from our status as Catholic dhimmi to the modernist existing at their pleasure. This is going to involve some sort of legal framework. If a separate rite, and this is already common, isn’t the way to go, which are the competing candidates that would be the better choice?
Would you be so kind as to supply a list? I can’t think of any alternatives.
In my neck of the woods there is a Ukrainian Catholic Bishop and a Neo-Modernist Catholic Bishop (sic). Seems to work well enough. What’s one more?
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S. Armaticus said:
I think that there is no need for a separate rite. The N.O. will die all by itself. It’s a “fabrication, a banal product of the moment.”. Why would you want to “institutionalize” it by making it a separate rite. The end goal is the abrogation of the entire 1969/1970 liturgical reform. That is what will happen at the end anyways, so the sooner the better.
See here for reference: https://sarmaticusblog.wordpress.com/anatomy-of-the-destruction-of-the-sacred-liturgy/
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Richard Malcolm said:
1. A separate rite carries its own problems. Yes, it gives more robust protection to the Society and other traditionalists who might be rooked under it – which is why some trads hoped for something like that all along. But the downside is that it essentially walls off tradition into an Eastern Rite status, “something those weird Catholics over there do, not something we bother with.” Suddenly, any diocesan or religious priest who wanted to celebrate the Roman Rite would need biritual faculties, which would be made difficult to obtain. Laity would have a harder time finding it, let alone joining it. In short, you swap some security for the opportunity for growth. Hardliner trads would make that swap. But so would the modernists, too, if it came to that.
2. You ask a good question, though: “Which are the competing candidates that would be the better choice?” Some traditionalists have long advocated for a (global) Apostolic Administration instead of a Personal Prelature. In short, what Campos was given, but without any territorial restraint. Its advantage is that it can canonically operate without any reference whatsoever to local ordinaries, whereas with a Personal Prelature, there is at least a theoretical obligation to work with them in erecting new apostolates (existing ones would be grandfathered in under the proposed offer, apparently). Apparently, the SSPX was offered this in the early 2000’s, but rejected it because too much was demanded of them doctrinally.
Let us be frank in acknowledging that what Benedict XVI did in Summorum nine years ago next week was to erect what I call a juridical fiction that the Pauline Missal and the traditional Roman Rite are just two forms of the same rite, rather than distinctly different liturgical rites, as a pretty broad array of traditionalist and even conservative scholars have concluded (Dobszay for example called the N.O. a “Neo-Roman Rite”). But at present, this legal fiction has certain advantages. It has made tradition more accessible to Latin Rite clergy and laity in a way in which a sui juris rite architecture simply would not have.
And, as Sarm says here, Lefebvre likewise saw these dangers. He wanted the traditional Roman Rite “liberated” for the whole Church, not just a thing his band of brothers could use.
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S. Armaticus said:
Independent Rite is a non-starter. If you read Archbishop Lefebvre, his greatest concern was not to organize a parallel church. He never considered himself separated. He even used the 1962 MR even though he did not like it. He would have went back to the pre-PiusXII Holy Week reforms. But he agreed to 1962 because he did not think that it was his position to impose upon a pope what was legitimately a popes decision. But the 1970 Pauline Missale was so not-Catholic, which is why he decided to make his stand at the 1962 Missale Romanum.
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ColdStanding said:
No problemo. Just switch the name of the Novus Ordo from its false claim to be the Roman rite to the Ecumenical Rite of the Vatican City State (that is what it was designed for, ecumenism, and where it was promulgated, the V. C. S.) which then frees up the Mass of All Ages to regain it’s patrimony as the Mass after the ancient usage of Rome. Few, even the modernists if by chance they’d be candid, would argue that the New order of Mass is anything other than a new rite.
Neo-Modernist Rome = The Vatican City State.
Rome = the City of Rome.
The Pope belongs in Rome and Rome belongs to the Pope.
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Lynne said:
One bishop? So when that bishop dies… (imagining bad things happening)
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S. Armaticus said:
Oh yes. Huge problem.
I have a hard time imagining how a global organization like the SSPX can function without 4 bishops. With just 3, the traveling is presently a massive burden.
This “one bishop” model assumes that non-SSPX bishops and cardinals would support the SSPX, but this is something that cannot be counted on.
So one must assume that there is more info that Bp. Fellay has not provided.
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Richard Malcolm said:
Well, on the one hand, the SSPX *did* function effectively with just one bishop (Lefebvre) for many years, and for a while, he was willing to take a deal where he would have one bishop as his successor. That was indeed the arrangement he had when he signed the May 1988 protocol, which broke apart shortly thereafter.
If indeed, Fellay and his district superiors are willing to accept a structure where they get one bishop, it may be because they believe Lefebvre found such an arrangement acceptable, and they are thus being loyal to and consistent with his stance.
The obvious objection is that the Society is a good deal bigger than it was in the 1980’s now, and one bishop would be heavily taxed with a worldwide prelature to oversee and minister to.
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S. Armaticus said:
Yes, the SSPX is much, much larger now.
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Richard Malcolm said:
Right.
But all we have to go on is what little Fellay has laid out here, which may not be an exhaustive treatment of what has been discussed with Rome. It’s possible that the final deal will include a provision for one or more bishops.
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S. Armaticus said:
What is important to note is the Bp. Fellay has the strong hand. He is playing it well.
What is surprising is how badly Francis needs to make the deal.
So here I am in agreement with ColdStanding. Bp. Fellay needs to ask for everything that he can get. The better deal that he can cut, the better for all of us and the Church.
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ColdStanding said:
or gets kicked out for (insert trumped up charges here) pace the new rules…
SSPX: Whoa, we had a deal.
Neo-Modernist Rome, aka the Vatican City State: We still do. You must be obedient to Our authority or go into schism.
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S. Armaticus said:
Excommunication is definitely at the end of Francis’ road. But he won’t live to see it.
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dowd2015 said:
One suggestion would be for SSPX to request a perpetual option of secession without retribution in case of necessity from the authority of the Pope while still preserving their Roman Catholicity. In other words, SSPX would retain the right of disobedience to an unjust Papal order.
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S. Armaticus said:
Why not?
Do you know of any precedent?
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dowd2015 said:
When Texas joined the Union they demanded and received the right of secession.
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S. Armaticus said:
Figured you’d say that. 🙂
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c matt said:
Texas did reserve the right to partition into four separate states. It also reserved the inherent right to the people to “throw off a form of government” and institute a different form in its place. In this sense, it has reserved the right to secede, but it has done nothing different from what every other state in the union has done. What Texas and every other state do not have is the capability of seceding. The American (misnamed) Civil War proved that.
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S. Armaticus said:
Thanks for the clarification.
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