BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Pope's bid to win over FSSPX
seems to have reached a dead end
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor


PARIS. Sept. 30 (Reuters)- Pope Benedict's bid to draw rebel Catholic traditionalists back to the Roman fold, a major effort that has divided Catholics and sometimes embarrassed him, seems to have hit a dead end with little apparent hope of a solution. [Since one can be positive that the overwhelmingly majority of the planet's 1.2 billion Catholics are not exactly holding their breath on this issue - or even aware of it, to begin with - how can Heneghan claim this has 'divided Catholics' or even 'sometimes embarassed' the Pope? Nothing can embarrass a good person and an exemplary Christian when he is trying to do good, with certainly not the slightest of bad intentions in this effort!]

Two leaders of the Fraternal Society of St Pius X (FSSPX), which broke away over reforms of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council, have recently rejected his conditions for their rehabilitation after a series of contacts following his 2005 election as Pope.

SSPX head Bishop Bernard Fellay, who Church officials expect will send a formal reply to Rome soon, has not yet indicated the group's final position but it is not expected to be positive.

A formal or de facto SSPX rejection would be a setback for Benedict, whose decision to lift excommunications on its four bishops in 2009 backfired when it emerged one was a notorious Holocaust denier and the Vatican did not even know it.

"The SSPX has set conditions that are simply unacceptable to the Pope," Nicolas Seneze, a French expert on the Society, told Reuters. "Their discussions are now back at square one." [Aye, and there's the tragic rub! The FSSPX have been moving their goalpost arbitrarily, going far beyond what their own founder, Mons. Lefebvre, had agreed to in writing, after negotiations with Cardinal Ratzinger in 1988. Even if they prefer to forget that Lefebvre signed all the 16 Vatican documents freely, as a Council Father!]

The Swiss-based SSPX broke away from Rome in 1988 in protest against the 1960s reforms that replaced Latin with local languages at Mass, forged reconciliation with Jews and admitted other religions may also offer a path to salvation.

Benedict, who at the time was the Vatican's top doctrinal official, failed to convince SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre not to ordain four bishops. Appointing them meant the SSPX could continue its work outside of Vatican control. [That's a deliberately reductive misrepresentation of the 1988 effort. Lefebvre agreed, in the agreement he signed but reneged, to ordain one bishop with John Paul's approval, among one of its concrete specifics. [The doctrinal agreement he signed was more significant, as a model of due obedience to the Church that his present-day community is far from having.) He then decided that he preferred to continue outside the Roman fold and proceeded to ordain four bishops instead of one, ostensibly to assure he would have successors to carry on.]

Since becoming Pope, Benedict has met Fellay, promoted the old Latin Mass the SSPX champions and lifted excommunications imposed on Lefebvre and the four bishops when they defied Pope John Paul and went ahead with the unauthorised ordinations. [Memo to Heneghan: Benedict XVI did not 'promote' the Latin Mass, as in elevating something that had been demoted. What he did was to retrieve and revalidate a Mass that had been in use for five centuries as one that is fully equal and not any less than the post-Conciliar form of the Mass, but a Mass nonetheless that was unceremoniously 'discarded' after the 1970 liturgical reform even if nothing in the Conciliar document on the liturgy had abrogated its use!]

Benedict's 2007 decision to allow wider use of the old Latin Mass met with a mixed reaction among Catholics. A minority welcomed it but many thought that reviving the 16th century ritual was turning back the clock to before the 1960s Council. [The 'many' being the media-savvy and militant progressivists who have thrown out the faith of Tradition to leave only the dregs of their misguided interpretation of Vatican II!]

Two years later, he set off a firestorm of criticism from Catholics, Jews and German politicians when his decision to lift the bishops' excommunications brought Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson back into the Church. [Denying the Holocaust may be a historical and even moral outrage but it is not a basis for excommunication. The lifting of Williamson's excommunication does not in any way have to do with his personal opinions, as horribly wrong as he may be. Unfortunately, his negationism was conveniently seized as a pretext to manufacture an artificial but mediatically hyper-exploited outcry against Benedict XVI and the Church by those who are always waiting to pounce on any twiglet they can seize to wield like a battering ram against the Church, and by all the media who promote Church-bashing.]

Lifting the excommunications meant the four bishops were once again full members of the 1.2-billion member Church, but they and the SSPX - which claims to have 500 priests and a million followers - had no official position or role within it. [How can the religion editor of one of the world's leading three agencies so mis-state the situation! The FSSPX are still outside the Church, for as long as they refuse to make the requisite profession of faith. Lifting the bishops' excommunication only means that they are no longer under the canonical sanction they incurred by taking part in an illegal ordination.]

In 2010, the Vatican launched closed-door theological discussions with the rebels aimed at an agreement that would make the SSPX a "personal prelature" or autonomous institution in the Church similar to the conservative group Opus Dei.

Benedict insisted they must declare the Vatican Council and Church doctrine since then as valid Catholic teaching. Denying this has been a core principle of SSPX beliefs from the start. [Again, Heneghan simply ignores the public positions taken by Mons. Lefebvre which were much less intransigent than his successors claim toay.]

The Vatican issued an ultimatum in March to the SSPX, saying it must accept this condition within a month or face grave consequences, but the exchanges dragged on until Benedict wrote a final letter to Fellay on June 30.

Rev. Franz Schmidberger, head of the SSPX German branch, mentioned the letter in a video recently posted on a Society website and said that the Council included "inconsistencies" that could not be denied.

"We cannot recognise this hermeneutic of continuity," he said, using a theological term for Benedict's view that the Council's reforms were consistent with Catholic tradition.

The Society insisted on its right to continue to denounce some Council reforms as grave errors and always have at least one bishop chosen from its own ranks, he said.

Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, one of the four SSPX prelates, told a traditionalist meeting in mid-September about the letter and called its conditions a "breaking point."

"I would never sign anything like that," he said, according to notes published on a traditionalist website.

Asked by Reuters about the letter, a Vatican spokesman declined to confirm it or comment on relations with the SSPX.

Seneze, author of the book "The Integrist Crisis" about the SSPX, said the group might not officially cut off contacts with the Vatican because it believes its mission is to lead Rome back to traditional Catholicism. [Yeah right! The tiny tail wagging a gigantic dog!]

For his part, the Pope values the FSSPX's commitment to Church traditions and wants to avoid a permanent schism claiming to be Catholic but outside Vatican control.

"Nobody wants to be the first to slam the door and be responsible for a failure of the talks," Seneze said. "Some kind of contacts could continue, but without coming to a conclusion."

The author said allowing the SSPX to reject the Council would be a concession too far for Benedict, who has long defended some reforms - especially the recognition of Judaism - even while reversing some liberal changes the Council made. [Name one, Heneghan! That statement is so typically dishonest of the way the secular media choose to report on Church affairs - twisted to their biases, rather than simply stating facts. Restoring full citizenship to the traditional Mass certainly was not a 'reversal', because the Council never abrogated it. Besides, Heneghan's use of the generic phrase 'some liberal changes the Council made' deliberately implies - as many progressivist priests' associations have been doing - that Vatican II ordered 'liberal reforms' dear to them such as married clergy, women priests and all other relaxations they would apply to the discipline of the faith!]

"Benedict could not give up on the Council, especially now, just weeks before he celebrates its 50th anniversary," he said. The historic Council opened in Rome on October 11, 1962.


As optimistic as I was until a few months back, I must admit I no longer see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Memo to the FSSPX: Pride goeth before the fall. And I am sure the Bible must be replete with citations that apply to your overweening arrogance.

Did you really expect Benedict XVI to repudiate - or allow Catholics to publicly repudiate - the Magisterium of an ecumenical council, which has all the binding authority of the Magisterial power of its two presiding Popes and all the bishops of the world who took part in it? Even flawed as that Magisterium may be in certain instances (which are by no means irretrievable)?

Where does it say in Church tradition that a sliver of dissenters may impose its beliefs on the Magisterium of an Ecumenical Council? And you claim to be standing up for Tradition!

May all your Rosary campaigns not delude you into thinking you were chosen by God to 'save' his Church when you are in fact subverting it so actively. In exactly the same self-righteous way that the dissenters on the left are. Please, wake up, smell the coffee and eat humble pie!

As for you, Mr. Heneghan, who may be privately gloating over this 'setback' for Benedict XVI, just you watch! When it looks as if God has closed one window, he opens others. The intransigence of the FSSPX will not subtract from the Year of Faith in any way. Nor dampen Benedict XVI's Petrine zeal!