After a Saturday report in the Spanish media that the FSSPX was scheduled to announce at Sunday Mass yesterday July 15, that it was definitively turning down any further efforts to reconcile with Rome, the FSSPX did release the following statement which does not reveal its hand:
FSSPX to make public its decision
after it sends its reply to Rome
July 15, 2012
The General Chapter of the Society of Saint Pius X ended this Saturday, July 14, 2012, in Econe (Switzerland). Gathered near Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s tomb, the capitularies have given thanks to God for the profound unity that prevailed among them during all these workdays.
The General Chapter will soon make a common statement to Rome, which will then be made public.
The General Superior, Bishop Fellay, thanks deeply all the priests and faithfuls for their fervent prayers during this chapter.
So, from all indications, it may be that the effort to bring back the FSSPX to the fold, painstakingly restarted seven summers ago in Castel Gandolfo, when Benedict XVI met with Mons. Fellay in a surprise move, has all come to naught. This will be the most explosive news of this summer, barring disclosure of any new potential or real scandal in the Church.
Assuming this is so, the disappointment felt by those like me who had been looking forward to an FSSPX reconciliation with Rome cannot be as profound as it must be for the Holy Father, who must have had to weigh the cost-benefit ratio of agreeing to the FSSPX formulation of their position regarding Vatican-II, and the most relevant fact that the Church is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Vatican-II opening this year, and must reiterate the Council's importance in the Magisterium of the Church.
In any case, we do not yet know the facts, and we will have all summer to devote to this issue, once they are known. This is one of those causes, such as peace in the Middle East, when one feels so desperately that prayer is apparently unavailing in the face of the inscrutability of God's will.
Meanwhile, Andrea Tornielli, one of the Vatican observers who was almost 100% sure last July that the FSSPX was on the verge of saying Yes to the Vatican doctrinal preamble that would have signalled a reconciliation, now writes of this goal as failed:
The unwanted outcome of Benedict XVI's helping hand:
The FSSPX appears to be one step away
from a definitive break with the Church
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from the Italian service of
July 16, 2012
"The documents of [the Second Vatican' Council contain an enormous richness for the formation of new Christian generations", so said Benedict XVI in Frascati yesterday.
Less than three months before the 50th anniversary of the Council Opening, he thus reiterated the importance and value of the event that most affected the life of the Church in the 20th century, on the very day when the FSSPX was ending its annual Chapter General meeting.
The Vatican is even now awaiting the final response of FSSPX Superior-General Bernard Fellay to the Vatican's formula for a re-admission to the Church of Rome of the traditionalist group founded by the late Archbishop Mons. Lefebvre, which claims that all the evils in the Church today, along with secularization and a widespread crisis in the Catholic faith, are all attributable to Vatican II.
After years of contact and the hand held out openly by Benedict XVI to the FSSPX, the prospects of reconciliation now seem far from rosy, and it is expected that the Lefebvrians will say NO to the Doctrinal Preamble to reconciliation that the Vatican wants them to sign.
Benedict XVI, who considers it a priority of his Pontificate to repair some historical ruptures and seek to heal wounds and schisms, has conceded all that he can to the traditionalists: He revalidated the traditional Mass, he lifted the excommunication incurred by the FSSPX bishops when they were illegally ordained by Mons. Lefebvre, he agreed for the FSSPX to hold 'doctrinal discussions' with Vatican theologians regarding their specific objections to Vatican II teaching.
Fellay, the most authoritative and the most reasonable of the four FSSPX bishops, also did his part by removing negationist Bishop Richard Williamson from any position of authority
[and lately, it was learned, by even excluding him from the Chapter General meeting. Williamson co-signed a letter with the two other FSSPX bishops, bluntly opposing any reconciliation with Rome. One of the two bishops, Alfonso de Galarreta, lead the FSSPX panel that took part in the doctrinal discussions with the Vatican. It must be added that Fellay categorically rejected the three bishops' objections last July, just before submitting his most recent response to the Vatican formulation of the Doctrinal Preamble.].
But the Lefebvrians cannot ask the Pope to be exempted from accepting the Magisterium of Vatican II regarding those aspects which they claim to be opposed to the tradition of the Church.
Joseph Ratzinger experienced Vatican II as a theological consultant. He has never considered the teachings of Vatican-II to be a superdogma, nor that they represent the beginning of 'a new Church'
[as progressivists do].
But he could never accept that documents voted unanimously
[NOT ALL UNANIMOUSLY, but by convincing majorities, yes - one of those who signed all 16 documents having been Mons. Lefebvre himself] by bishops from around the world and sealed by Pope Paul VI could be declassified into an incidental event in the life of the Church and pointed to as the ultimate cause for the contemporary crisis of faith.
Before receiving Fellay's definitive answer, Benedict XVI yesterday in Frascati, extemporized on his prepared text to ask the faithful to read the texts of Vatican II as well as the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
[Since the Council documents do not exactly make easy reading, and not every 'simple faithful' will necessarily have the time nor the initiative to go online and download the documents to read, why does the CDF not prepare a simple primer on each of the 16 documents and start disseminating those primers now?]
The reference to the Catechism, whose preparation was supervised directly by Cardinal Ratzinger, is not casual, because it presents the documents of Vatican II in the context of all the Magisterium of the Church preceding the Council and after the Council.
It can only be hoped that the Lefebvrians will not turn down the irrepetible opportunity that has been offered to them.
VATICAN INSIDER has also prepared a brief Q&A about the whole FSSPX question that I will translate later.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/07/2012 17:21]