Mons. Fellay was in Rome this weekend
for a 'clarificatory' meeting with
the CDF's Ecclesia Dei commission
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from the Italian service of
May 15, 2012
Another step closer to the resolution of the FSSPX issue desired by Benedict XVI: Mons. Bernard Fellay, Superior-General of the FSSPX, was in Rome this weekend for a clarificatory meeting with the Ecclesia Dei Commission, the agency of the CDF that is principally responsible for liaison with the FSSPX.
Soruces told the Vatican Inside that the modifications to the Doctrinal Preamble proposed by the FSSPX in its April 17 response to the Vatican were examined and discussed, and that the meeting appears to have ended positively.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, the cardinals and bishops making up the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will be holding their plenary session. Among other things, they will decide whether to approve the modified Doctrinal Preamble, and their decision will then be forwarded to Benedict XVI, who will have the last word.
[Current members of the CDF, under Prefect Cardinal William Levada (who is due to actually retire any day now) and Mons. Luis Ladaria Ferrer, secretary are: Cardinals George Alencherry, Angelo Amato, Tarcisio Bertone, Antonio Canizares Llovera, Francesco Coccopalmerio, Fernando Filoni, Zenon Grocholewski, Claudio Hummes, Walter Kasper, Kurt Koch, Marc Ouellet, Giovanni Battista Re, Leonardo Sandri, Christoph Schoenborn, Jean-Louis Tauran, and Peter Turkson; and Bishops Gerhard Mueller of Regensburg, Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux, Angelo Scola of Milan, and Donald Wuerl of Washington, DC.]
Cardinal Levada is expected to turn over to the Pope not just the results of the voting over the modified Preamble but also the opinions that may be expressed by the individual members. But his decision will be autonomous of their opinions.
From what the Insider has learned, the modifications suggested by Fellay underscore the importance of Tradition as a stable element in the Magisterium of the Church. Apparently, the starting-point for the doctrinal terms of the Preamble was the agreement signed by the late Mons. Marcel Lefebvre in 1988 in which he accepted "the doctrine contained in No. 25 of the Pastoral Constitution
Lumen gentium of the Second Vatican Council on the ecclesial Magisterium and the adherence to which it is due".
[The agreement was negotiated by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. However, Lefebvre reneged on the agreement a few weeks later and proceeded with the illegal consecration of four bishops.]
Insofar as dissent on some teachings of Vatican II, the 1988 agreement stated: "With regard to certain points taught by the Second Vatican Council or relative to post-Conciliar reforms in liturgy and canon law which seem to be difficult to reconcile with Tradition, we commit ourselves to a positive attitude and communications with the Apostolic See, avoiding every polemic".
Surprises are always possible, but what transpired in the previous plenary of the CDF regarding this issue, as well as opinions already expressed by some of the CDF members, seem to point to a positive outcome. An outcome that could be further facilitated by Fellay's weekend meetings at the Vatican.
What concerns the Vatican more these days are the contents of the dissenting letter sent by the three other FSSXP bishops to Mons. Fellay a week before the latter submitted the FSSPX's final response to the Vatican proposal for reconciliation.
The letter harshly opposed any agreement with Rome, but Fellay's response was equally tough, spelling out the reasons for his decision as a response to a personal appeal by Benedict XVI.
The publication of the letters is concerning for the Vatican because it reveals a significant opposition within the FSSPX, not from ordinary priests, but from three of the four bishops consecrated by Mons. Lefebvre, and whose excommunication Benedict XVI had lifted in January 2009.
Cardinal Koch reassures German leader
that reconcilliation with the FSSPX
will not affect relations with the Jews
by Alessandro Speciale
Adapted and translated from the Italian service of
May 15, 2012
The possibiity that the FSSPX may soon be re-integrated into the Church has raised much concern among some European leaders who are worried about its effects on dialog with the Jews, which is rooted in the Vatican-II declaration
Nostra aetate, one of the Conciliar documents disputed by the traditionalist group.
It will be recalled that Benedict XVI drew much criticism all around when he lifted the excommunication of the four FSSPX bishops because one of them, the British Richard Williamson, had made public statements amounting to Holocaust negationism.
At that time, the governments of Germany, France and Ireland sought assurances from the Vatican that the Catholic Church was not changing its position on the Jews. The Belgian Parliament went one step further and passed a Parliamentary motion denouncing the Pope's action.
This time, the first reaction was from Germany, The vice-president of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Thierse, who is a member of the Central Committee for German Catholics, which 'governs' the ecclesial affairs of the German laity, spent four days in Rome meeting with various leaders of the Roman Curia, starting with Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews.
Back in Germany, he said in various interviews with German media that he was 'reassured'. He said on Radio Cologne: "There have been concerns expressed in Germany that the Vatican 'surrendered' to he Lefebvrians, but Cardinal Koch reassured me that was not so. He explained that the FSSPX would have to recognize the authority of the Church Magisterium which includes that of Vatican II. He said that on the question of relations with the Jews and acknowledgment of religious freedom, the Vatican stands firm".
Koch is said to have pointed out that the Vatican could not pursue its worldwide advocacy of human rights including religious freedom and "accept within its ranks a group for whom religious freedom is still disputed". These are essential points, he said, in which the Vatican would never yield.
But the Jewish world itself is very concerned about a possible reconciliation between Rome and the FSSPX. Last week, the chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, said the Vatican should not enter into any agreement unless the FSSPX changes its position on
Nostra aetate and relations with the Jews.
A similar appeal was sent to the Vatican in recent months by European rabbis and the US-based Jewish Anti-Defamation League.
Perhaps it was not by chance that when Benedict XVI met last Thursday with leaders of Jewish communities in Latin America, he reaffirmed the value of
Nostra aetate, thanks to which, he said, Jews have become "trusted interlocutors and friends, good friends even, with whom we are able to face crises together and to overcome conflicts in a positive way".
Liturgist-theologian to the Lefebvrians:
'Now is the right time to return to the fold'
NAPLES, May 15 (Translated from ASCA) - "This is the propitious moment for the FSSPX to return to full communion with Rome," says theologian Don Nicola Bux in an interview given to the Neapolitan newspaper
Roma for its May 16 issue.
"The 'today' of God cannot be postponed. One must avail of the moment when the Lord knocks", Fr. Bux said. The date for the publication of the interview is not random. It coincides with the plenary session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which will consider the FSSPX response to the reconciliation formula offered by the Vatican.
Bux, who is a consultor to the CDF, and a close associate of Benedict XVI in liturgical matters, is optimistic about a positive outcome to the dialog between the FSSPX and the Vatican.
He calls on the diocesan bishops to welcome the priests and religious of the traditionalist society and not to persist in "objections to the celebration of what Benedict XVI has codified as the extraordinary form of the Roman rite", which was the Mass celebrated by the universal Church for 500 years before Vatican II, and was also the Mass of the Council itself.
Last March 19, Fr. Bux wrote an open letter to Mons. Bernard Fellay calling on the Lefebvrians to "return to Rome without any fear". He hopes that "everyone at the Vatican may be desirous of contributing to such a reconciliation".
He noted that in his March 2009 letter to all the bishops of the world, the Pope had referred to the 1,500 FSSPX priests and religious asking whether the Church could under-estimate their value, much less abandon them, which would be 'unthinkable', Bux says.
As for the FSSPX objections to Vatican II, Bux says, "What the FSSPX has most objected to are the liberal interpretations that have been made of Vatican II and the over-simplification in the media of these questions.
The specific objections they presented are not matters of basic doctrine. Within the Church, there are persons and groups who deny truths that are far more basic and important!"
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/05/2012 03:13]