BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Nothing could be more welcome for the Year of Faith and the 50th anniversary of Vatican-II than for the Lefebvrians to soften their adamantine rejection of Vatican II - at least, some aspects of its teaching - and agree to return to the Roman fold while keeping open their reservations about the points the dispute, as other traditionalist groups (offshoots of the FSSPX) have done. Perhaps it is the best gift one could wish for Benedict XVI on his forthcoming double jubilee... Let us pray...

Lefebvrians to give their final
answer to the Vatican shortly:
What it means for Benedict XVI's Papacy
By Alessandro Speciale


VATICAN CITY, April 11 (RNS)- When Pope Benedict XVI chose in 2009 to lift the excommunications of four bishops from a conservative schismatic group, few would have thought the news would generate headlines worldwide.

But Benedict's gesture received outsized attention when one of the four bishops, Richard Williamson, did a television interview and denied that millions of Jews had died in gas chambers at Nazi death camps. Not only were Jews outraged, but so were more than a few Catholics. [It must be noted that the TV interview was recorded in November 2008 by a Swedish TV channel which did not use it until, having received advance notice that the Pope was to lift the FSSPX excommunications, the channel chose to air it as as 'special' on the eve of the announcement from the Vatican. The behind-the-scenes account of this collusion involved some well-connected professional anti-Catholic propagandists in France.]

As the Vatican worked to reassure Jews that Williamson's views were not its own, steps were underway to achieve the real goal of Benedict's move: full reconciliation with the traditionalist group, known as the Fraternal Society of St. Pius X (FSSPX), and an end to the most significant schism within the Roman Catholic Church in a half century. [It has never been formally called a schism, just 'schismatic', because the Lefebvrians have not established a separate Church.]

Now, after more than two years of secret negotiations, the FSSPX is due in mid-April to give its response to the Vatican's final offer for reconciliation, which was delivered last September.

Regardless of whether the group accepts the Pope's olive branch -- and his insistence that FSSPX give some sort of recognition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) -- the outcome is bound to have a profound impact on Benedict's papacy and on the larger Catholic Church.

While the group remains small, with around 500 priests and a few thousand followers more like tens of thousands; some estimates even have them at close to a million] around the world, the issues at play are at the core of the Catholic Church's identity in the modern world. And success or failure could impact Benedict's legacy.

The FSSPX rejects most of the reforms of Vatican II, which revolutionized Catholic doctrine on everything[/COLORE} from relations with other Christian churches to interfaith dialogue to the role of rank-and-file lay Catholics. [That's a mis-statement. No doctrine was revolutionized or changed. What Vatican II did was to add a few modernizing pastoral concepts to better make the Church relate to the modern world: an active pursuit of 1) ecumenism (to reunify all the Christian churches and communities), 2) inter-religious dialog especially with the other major world religions, 3) religious freedom (the Catholic Church continues her mission to evangelize men to Christ, but recognizes it cannot and should not impose the faith which must be freely and reasonably accepted), and 4) more collegiality among bishops without sacrificing the principle of being in communion with the Pope.

These are the four points that the Lefebvrians dispute the most - it is what they emphasized when the doctrinal talks with the Vatican started in October 2009 but which they then gradually changed to a rejection of all of Vatican II, although their founder, Mons. Marcel Lefebvre, who took part in the Council as a bishop and signed all its documents freely, did not break with the Vatican till 1988 over his insistence on ordaining his own bishops against the instructions of John Paul II.]

The Lefebvrists (as the group is known after its founder, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre) charge that the Catholic Church turned its back on centuries of traditions and precepts, and is now too accommodating toward the modern world.

But for Benedict, reconciliation with the SSPX is not just a matter of doctrine.

"Pope Benedict has staked a lot on his attempt to heal this breach; it will be one of the things that will mark his pontificate," said Antoine-Marie Izoard, a French Vatican analyst with the I.Media news agency.

Nevertheless, warns the Rev. Nicola Bux, a consultant at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the pope's gamble should not be read in "political" terms of left vs. right.

"He has worked with patience and meekness, as a Christian would, believing that this division can be overcome," Bux said.

In fact, Benedict has dealt with the Lefebvrist issue for decades. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict tried to avoid the group's formal split with Rome in 1988. In 2007 Benedict reinstated the ancient Latin Mass that is still cherished by the Lefebvrists, saying it could exist together with the modern Vatican II Mass.

Benedict's conciliatory moves toward the FSSPX have been received with suspicion -- and sometimes bitter resentment -- by many in the Catholic Church who fear that some of the Vatican II reforms could be put in doubt if an agreement is reached with the traditionalists.

The Pope, who has often said Vatican II should be viewed in "continuity" with Church history, took the criticisms personally. In an unusually personal letter addressed to all Catholic bishops in March 2009, he complained of having been "treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint," for his "gesture of mercy" towards the FSSPX bishops. [That's a very unfair and rather narrow reading of that historic letter, unprecedented in the Papacy, and very reminiscent of St. Paul's epistles to the early Christian communities and their leaders. Speciale presents it as a reaction of personal pique from a Pope who does not have a vain streak in his bones.]

Having invested so much, both personally and publicly, in reconciliation with the Lefebvrists, Benedict has so far received mixed messages from the group.

In a sermon last November, their leader, Bishop Bernard Fellay, said that the SSPX felt "obliged to reject" the Vatican's offer, citing doctrinal reasons. In recent months, he's signaled that his position may have mellowed, but the group has clearly stated that it will not accept Vatican II reforms -- even as it was one of the original conditions for reconciliation set out by Benedict himself.

According to Gianni Gennari, a theologian and former priest, even the Pope himself is now disillusioned with the Lefebvrists. [With all due respect, how does Gennari know exactly what the Pope thinks? That's the kind of opinion that journalists should challenge because it means nothing; and if they can't, they ought to refrain from quoting it.]

"He held out his hand," Gennari said. "Now he wants to make it clear that it is them who do not want an agreement."

It is truly frustrating to read professional Vaticanistas like Speciale who continually and habitually mis-state the basic premises and background of the FSSPX split by oversimplifying them to the point of misrepresentation. This often leaves the reader ignorant of major points that are essential to understanding the situation being reported.

4/13/12
P.S. There was this item in the French Catholic daily La Croix yssterday...


FSSPX response due in the next few days;
Lefebvrians say they will not make any
announcement till they hear back from Rome
by CÉLINE HOYEAU
Translated from

April 12, 2012


FSSPX priests on a pilgrimage to St. Peter's in 2005.

The FSPPX expects to submit its response to the Vatican in the next few days to the formula of reconciliation proposed to them by Rome after two years of doctrinal discussions.

Last September 14, the Holy See proposed to the FSSPX, separated from Rome since 1988, a Doctrinal preamble implying acceptance "of the doctrinal principles and criteria for interpreting Catholic doctrine that are necesary to guarantee faithfulness to the Magisterium of the Church" in order to return to full communion in the Church.

The FSSPX gave a first response in January which the Holy See considered 'insufficient' at a meeting on March 16 at the Vatican between Cardinal William Levada, Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Mons. Bernard Fellay, Superior-General of the FSSPX, who was asked to 'clarify the positions' of the FSSPX.

Fr. Federico Lombardi, Vatican press director, said then that the Vatican expected to get back an answer 'in a month'.

Questioned on April 12 by La Croix, Abbe Alain Lorans, FSSPX spokesman, said, "Mons. Fellay will not say anything about this subject [the new response] until he gets a response from the Holy See". implying that Rome will make the announcement of the final decision.

[The Italian news agency TM News also reports the above statement by Lorans but adds that he also told them that the new FSSPX response "does not substantially modify the first response" and that "Things will become clear in the next few days".]

What are the possibilities? If the Lefebvrians sign an agreement, the Holy See will propose to them their own canonical status in the form of a personal prelature, as the Opus Dei have. But before establishing such a prelature, Canon 294 of the Code of Canon Law provides that the Holy See must consult "the bishops' conferences concerned". [In the case of the FSSPX, mainly those of France and Switzerland, where the fraternity has its headquarters.] [But a personal prelature is supposed to be independent of territory, and would cover all the FSSPX members wherever they are. Why do the bishops have to be consulted?]

The matter is complicated by tensions within the FSSPX, where a faction flatly opposes any agreement with Rome. If any of the four FSSPX bishops refuse to sign on, it is possible they may once again be excommunicated.

"If they say No, they must explain why, and in any case, their refusal to sign would bring doctrinal issues which no longer have to do with schism but with heresy," said Fr. Laurent Touze, vice-dean at the University of Santa Croce in Rome.

What seems to be the atmosphere at the FSSPX? Various sources claim that agreement appears to be 'on the way'. In Rome and at Econe, the FSSPX seat, the prevailing idea seems to be that "if the FSSPX does not sign on now, it will never sign on".

Well aware of the tensions within the FSSPX, Mons. Fellay chose to speak about obedience in his Maundy Thursday homily [when the Holy Father had spoken on disobedience, referring to the Austrian dissident priests]: "One takes on certain habits of independence until one is no longer aware of it and one wants to as one pleases. There are faults that have been the result of the situation in which we find ourselves and about which we must be vigilant".

In the case of the French dioceses, an agreement between the FSSPX and Rome will probably rouse a great deal of reaction and incomprehension.

"I fear triumphalism on the part of the Lefebvrians", says a young priest who comes from the traditionalist ranks.

Many priests hostile to the Lefebvrians see themselves like the older son in the parable of the prodigal son, especially as they think that the prodigal is not coming back "with head humbled in an attitude of seeking forgiveness".

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/04/2012 15:53]