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at The Tablet - SSPX offered personal prelature ...
The Vatican yesterday offered the ultra-traditionalist Society of St Pius X (SSPX) the opportunity to come into communion with the Holy See as a personal prelature, potentially resolving three years of difficult talks. US Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Luis Ladaria, secretary of the congregation, and Mgr Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" yesterday afternoon spent two and a half hours with the superior general of the SSPX, Bishop Bernard Fellay and an assistant ...
The pope is reconciling with the backward-looking (Pope Benedict XVI celebrates the Tridentine Mass privately, says head of SSPX ), Vatican II hating (SSPX head says group does not have to accept all Vatican II teachings), anti-Semitic (Lefebvre movement: long, troubled history with Judaism) SSPX. Why? In a post from 2009 at On Faith, Thomas Reese SJ wrote ...
Why is the Vatican putting so much effort into reconciliation with the Society of St. Pius X? The real reason is because these men are bishops. If they were simple priests, the Vatican would not give them the time of day. The Vatican is caught by it own theology that sees these men as validly if not licitly ordained. As a result, these bishops can ordain more bishops and the schism can go on forever.
If the bishops ordain more bishops, they will again suffer excommunication. If the bishops refrain from ordaining new bishops, the schism ends when these four bishops die even if they are not reconciled with the pope. If lifting the excommunication is the price for keeping the bishops from ordaining more bishops, then in the view of the Vatican it is a cheap price to pay.
So it's not really about ideology, it's all about power? I think it's both. With the absorption of the SSPX, Benedict actually gets a twofer: the ideology and the power co-opting that he desires. The more I learn about the Vatican, the more repelled I become.
The Vatican yesterday offered the ultra-traditionalist Society of St Pius X (SSPX) the opportunity to come into communion with the Holy See as a personal prelature, potentially resolving three years of difficult talks. US Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Luis Ladaria, secretary of the congregation, and Mgr Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" yesterday afternoon spent two and a half hours with the superior general of the SSPX, Bishop Bernard Fellay and an assistant ...
The pope is reconciling with the backward-looking (Pope Benedict XVI celebrates the Tridentine Mass privately, says head of SSPX ), Vatican II hating (SSPX head says group does not have to accept all Vatican II teachings), anti-Semitic (Lefebvre movement: long, troubled history with Judaism) SSPX. Why? In a post from 2009 at On Faith, Thomas Reese SJ wrote ...
Why is the Vatican putting so much effort into reconciliation with the Society of St. Pius X? The real reason is because these men are bishops. If they were simple priests, the Vatican would not give them the time of day. The Vatican is caught by it own theology that sees these men as validly if not licitly ordained. As a result, these bishops can ordain more bishops and the schism can go on forever.
If the bishops ordain more bishops, they will again suffer excommunication. If the bishops refrain from ordaining new bishops, the schism ends when these four bishops die even if they are not reconciled with the pope. If lifting the excommunication is the price for keeping the bishops from ordaining more bishops, then in the view of the Vatican it is a cheap price to pay.
So it's not really about ideology, it's all about power? I think it's both. With the absorption of the SSPX, Benedict actually gets a twofer: the ideology and the power co-opting that he desires. The more I learn about the Vatican, the more repelled I become.
posted by crystal | 1:56 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks for explaining about the bishops. Now I understand all this a bit more.
Well, that's his take on it. I guess the SSPX have quite a following here and in Europe so maybe the Vatican would rather take them over than let them keep growing as an alternative choice? It's almost like some corporate takeover of a smaller competing company - ick. But maybe I'm wrong.
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