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| SSPX: Pope Benedict waves come in and let's chat. Pope Francis says sorry you feel that way, see ya' bye. |
On the 40th anniversary of their 'founding' SSPX threw Pope Benedict's overtures back in his face and called it quits with the Vatican version of Roman Catholicism. Seems SSPX doesn't buy EPBenedict's notion of 'reforming the reform' or 'hermeneutic of continuity'. The SSPX communication basically implies Vatican II turned all of Roman Catholicism, except themselves, into just another Protestant sect devoid of any salvific grace, and this is quite separate from their opinion of the lack of validity for the Novus Ordo. Here is an extensive excerpt from an article posted in the National Catholic Register.
The document — titled “Declaration on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the episcopal consecrations (30th June 1988 – 27th June 2013)” — is signed by Bishops Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais and Alfonso de Galarreta....
....In their statement Thursday, the group contradicted now-retired Pope Benedict XVI’s stance on Vatican II. The letter made explicit reference to the “hermeneutic of continuity,” rejecting the interpretive lens by which Benedict XVI saw the conciliar documents in light of the Church’s Tradition.
The bishops say that the documents themselves have grave errors and that they cannot be interpreted without clashing with Tradition.
The “cause of the grave errors which are in the process of demolishing the Church does not reside in a bad interpretation of the conciliar texts — a ‘hermeneutic of rupture’ which would be opposed to a ‘hermeneutic of reform in continuity,’” they wrote, “but truly in the texts themselves, by virtue of the unheard-of choice made by Vatican II.” (It is karmic I guess that Pope Benedict wasted so much of his papacy trying to bring SSPX around. It was never ever going to happen. They were never going to buy his spin of the Vatican II documents with which they utterly disagreed.)
The group also claims that the Second Vatican Council “inaugurated a new type of magisterium, hitherto unheard of in the Church, without roots in Tradition; a magisterium resolved to reconcile Catholic doctrine with liberal ideas; a magisterium imbued with the modernist ideas of subjectivism, of immanentism and of perpetual evolution.” (Translation: Not nearly enough ontological distinctions, Catholic gnosticism, Vatican triumphalism, or exclusive salvation for true believers.)
The document argues that “the reign of Christ is no longer the preoccupation of the ecclesiastical authorities” and that the liberal spirit in the Church is manifested “in religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality and the new Mass.”
Because of religious liberty, they claim, the Church is being “shamefully guided by human prudence and with such self-doubt that she asks nothing other from the state than that which the Masonic lodges wish to concede to her: the common law in the midst of, and on the same level as, other religions which she no longer dares call false.” (Oh my God!!! Not Masonic lodges. No wonder AB Chaput just called most first world Christians pagans.)
Because of interreligious dialogue, “the truth about the one true Church is silenced,” they also say, while the spirit of collegiality “represents the destruction of authority and in consequence the ruin of Christian institutions: families, seminaries, religious institutes.” (Whooaaa. Nice to know all this ruin really isn't the fault of 'da gayz'. EPBenedict must have had that wrong too.)
The Lefebvrist bishops save their harshest criticism for the Novus Ordo Mass, promulgated in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. “This Mass is penetrated with an ecumenical and Protestant spirit, democratic and humanist, which empties out the sacrifice of the cross.” (Not too mention all that protestant spirit isn't in Latin, which makes it even more democratic and humanist and heretical.)
The traditionalist bishops announce that, in practice, the dialogue with the Vatican is over and that, from now on, they will wait “either when Rome returns to Tradition and to the faith of all time — which would re-establish order in the Church” or “when she explicitly acknowledges our right to profess integrally the faith and to reject the errors which oppose it, with the right and the duty for us to oppose publicly the errors and the proponents of these errors, whoever they may be — which would allow the beginning of a re-establishing of order.” (There you are Pope Francis. You need to utterly capitulate and let SSPX run the Church and all your problems with corruption and stuff will be over. Deo Gratias.)
......That, which was prefigured in the ancient Temple, is realized in the Church, by the power of the Holy Spirit: the Church is the “house of God”, the place of His presence, where we can find and meet the Lord, the Church is the temple in which dwells the Holy Spirit, who animates, guides and sustains her. If we ask ourselves, “Where we can meet God? Where can we enter into communion with Him through Christ? Where can we find the light of the Holy Spirit to enlighten our lives?” the answer is, “in the People of God, among us, for we are Church – among us, within the People of God, in the Church – there we shall meet Jesus, we shall meet the Holy Spirit, we shall meet the Father. (What!!? In the People of God?!!, Where's the Latin Mass in all this people of God business?)
The ancient temple was built by the hands of men: they wanted to “give a home” to God, to have a visible sign of His presence among the people. With the Incarnation of the Son of God, the prophecy of Nathan to King David is fulfilled (cf. 2 Sam 7.1 to 29): it is not the king, it is not we, who are to “give a home to God,” but God Himself who “builds his house” to come and dwell among us, as St. John writes in the Prologue of his Gospel (cf. 1:14). Christ is the living Temple of the Father, and Christ himself builds His “spiritual home”, the Church, made not of stone materials, but of “living stones” – of us, our very selves. The Apostle Paul says to the Christians of Ephesus: you are “Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone: in whom all the building, being framed together, groweth up into an holy temple in the Lord.(Eph 2:20-22)” How beautiful this is! We are the living stones of God, profoundly united to Christ, who is the rock of support, and among ourselves. What then, does this mean? It means that we are the Temple – the Church, but, us, living – we are Church, we are [the] living temple, and within us, when we are together, there is the Holy Spirit, who helps us grow as Church. We are not isolated, we are People of God – and this is the Church: People of God. (Next thing you know he will be saying aethists can be saved! Oh wait, he already did that.)
It is, moreover, the Holy Spirit with His gifts, who designs the variety – and this is important – what does the Holy Spirit do in our midst? He designs the variety – the variety, which is the richness of the Church and unites everything and everyone, so as to constitute a spiritual temple, in which we offer not material sacrifices, but us ourselves, our life (cf. 1 Pt 2:4-5). (What about sacrificing Jesus over and over, you know re enacting Calvary and all that? Who cares about sacrificing ourselves and our lives. Jesus did it for us.)
The Church is not a weave of things and interests, it is rather the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the Temple in which God works, the Temple in which each of us with the gift of Baptism is living stone. This tells us that no one is useless in the Church – no one is useless in the Church! – and should anyone chance to say, some one of you, “Get home with you, you’re useless!” that is not true. No one is useless in the Church. We are all needed in order to build this temple. No one is secondary: “Ah, I am the most important one in the Church!” No! We are all equal in the eyes of God. But, one of you might say, “Mr. Pope, sir, you are not equal to us.” But I am just like each of you. We are all equal. We are all brothers and sisters. No one is anonymous: all form and build the Church. Nevertheless, it also invites us to reflect on the fact that the Temple wants the brick of our Christian life, that something is wanting in the beauty of the Church. (What is with all this democratic humanistic Vatican II-(probably Masonic)- thinking in all the 'people of God' language. What kind of Pope says 'we're all equal' in reference to himself? Obviously one who doesn't get the transcendence of his office.)
So I would like for us to ask ourselves: how do we live our being Church? We are living stones? Are we rather, so to speak, tired stones, bored, indifferent? Have any of you ever noticed how ugly a tired, bored, indifferent Christian is? It’s an ugly sight. A Christian has to be lively, joyous, he has to live this beautiful thing that is the People of God, the Church. Do we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, so as to be an active part of our communities, or do we close in on ourselves, saying, “I have so many things to do, that’s not my job.”? (I guess from now on SSPX will live their being Church outside of it.)
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And so closes the SSPX chapter that took up so much of Pope Benedict's time and caused him so much embarrassment. It was always a lost cause. SSPX didn't want a few changes, they wanted a complete recapitulation of Vatican II. Complete never means partial. All Pope Benedict accomplished with his partial roll back was to infuriate a whole lot more Catholics than SSPX ever represented. In his bid for the one sheep Benedict managed to chase off about 50. He didn't lose them, he chased them off. This is a sad legacy all around for Pope Benedict.
SSPX leadership probably knew with in Pope Francis' first week there was no hope Francis would capitulate and so we now have their 'see ya bye' statement. It's probably the best thing for all concerned. I wish them well and hope if they ever figure out how to be living stones by espousing a 14th century Catholicism in a dead language they come back and let us know how they accomplished it. In the meantime, Francis has one less problem to deal with.
