From my starter-post for the day in BENEDICT XVI news:
VATICAN CLARIFICATION ON
FSSPX ORDINATIONS
Here is a translation of a communique from the Vatican Press Office today:
In response to frequent questions these days regarding the priestly ordinations of the Fraternity of St. Pius X scheduled for the end of June, we refer to what the Holy Father said in his Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church last March 10:
As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church... Until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers – even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty – do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.
The ordinations are therefore still considered illegitimate.
Int he same letter, the Pope announced his intention for a new status of the Ecclesia Dei Commission which will be attached to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
There is reason to believe that the definition of this new status is imminent. This will constitute the premise for opening dialog with the responsible officials of the FSSPX towards the desired clarification of doctrinal questions - and any consequent disciplinary questions - which remain open.
[In other words, nothing has changed so far. Life will go on for the FSSPX as it has for the past 22 years, and they will continue their ordinations, knowing full well the canonical implications, as they always have. And the Vatican has not expressly prohibited them from going on, nor has it threatened a new excommunication, as the German bishops did!]
P.S. I would still refer to the Holy Father's March 10 letter to thw bishops, in which he is clear about doctrinal and canonical considerations (as in the paragraph cited in the Vatican communique today),
which continue as before the January 21 decree, as well as the spirit of charity with which he is trying to repair the virtual schism of the FSSPX, as in these words:
Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests...
The Pope did not use the word 'priests' with quotation marks or say 'so-called priests' or 'illegitimate priests' - and that is because, as with the priests of China who were ordained by bishops who were 'illegitimately' ordained, the sacraments continue to be valid even if the ordained ministers are not legitimate.
The whole purpose of the upcoming doctrinal talks is towards an eventual legitimization of the anomalous canonical status that the FSSPX now has, once there is agreement on the doctrinal issues.
I personally believe that the FSSPX Catholics, if they follow the commandments of God and practice Church liturgy appropriately, are better Catholics and Christians than Catholic liberals who do neither.
P.P.S.
The following paragraph comes from the wrap-up story on this episode by Salvatore Izzo, senior Vatican correspondent for the Italian news agency AGI. This is a translation:
But today's communique from the Vatican has another meaning: In fact, it rejects the call for new excommunications and confirms the desire of the Pope to get the theological dialog with the FSSPX under way as soon as possible with the intention of bringing back the FSSPX into full communion and allow their juridical re-integration into the Catholic Church.
Surprisngly, the AP story about this stated the canonical situation in clear and accurate terms. It would have been clearer if it had explicitly stated that the canonical situation of the FSSPX, even after the bishops' ecommunication was lifted, remains status quo ante.
Vatican: FSSPX ordinations
are valid but illicit
By ARIEL DAVID
VATICAN CITY, June 17 (AP) -- Priest ordinations planned by an ultraconservative group won't be legitimate even though Pope Benedict XVI has lifted the excommunications of the organization's leaders, the Vatican said Wednesday.
The Vatican issued a statement reiterating that the schismatic Society of St. Pius X still has no status within the Catholic church and that its clergymen do not legitimately exercise any ministry.
The Vatican in 1988 excommunicated the society's four bishops after they were consecrated without papal consent by the late traditionalist Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Lefebvre founded the society in 1969, opposed to the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council and especially its outreach to Jews and other religions.
Benedict in January lifted the bishops' excommunications in a bid to bring the dissidents back into the church. But the move sparked outrage among Jews and Catholics since one of the prelates, Bishop Richard Williamson, had denied the Holocaust.
Benedict subsequently made a rare acknowledgment of a Vatican mistake, saying in a March letter to Catholic bishops worldwide that he was unaware of Williamson's positions when he lifted the excommunications. In the letter, Benedict noted that the society had no legal status within the church and that its priests didn't legitimately exercise any ministry.
The Vatican reiterated those points Wednesday in response to the society's announcement earlier this month that it planned to ordain three priests and three deacons on June 27 at a seminary in southern Germany.
Any ordinations by the group "must be considered illegitimate," the Vatican said.
German bishops had urged the Vatican to intervene against what they called a provocation prior to difficult reconciliation talks between the two sides.
The Church considers the society's ordinations are "valid but illicit." They are valid because Lefebvre was a validly ordained bishop in the Catholic Church, and thus could validly ordain others.
But because Lefebvre was suspended in 1976, he had no authority from the Pope to consecrate bishops, meaning their consecrations were illicit, or illegal in the Church's eyes. Subsequent ordinations the group carries out are similarly considered "valid but illicit."
Wednesday's Vatican statement also said the Pope would take another step to absorb the Vatican office that has handled the Lefebvre case, the Pontifical "Ecclesia Dei" Commission, into the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The commission, charged with healing the schism with the society, has been at the center of the criticism on how the case was handled since it apparently never knew about Williamson's views, which had been published in the mainstream media.
The Congregation will now oversee planned theological talks with the society in hopes of reabsorbing it into the church.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/06/2009 14:15]