Benedict XVI to Reinstate Schismatic Bishops.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

Saw this in the theology forum. Worth a cross-post. I find it to be the latest step in a disturbing trend to ignore or reverse Vatican II.

[47of74]

1. Like I said

I don't have a good feeling about this. Especially since one of the Bishops - Richard Williamson - is a noted holocaust denier who opened his yapper right before Benedict did this thing. I sometimes think the Bishops and the Pope are destroying the church and I hate to say it, but it looks to be more and more the case here.

[tjwmason]

2. I reckon that Williamson was trying to prevent this.

As you say, he's well known as an anti-semite and holocause denier but he's not actually stupid - he knows that making comments like he did in Germany was bound to cause trouble.

The S.S.P.X is splitting into two factions - one half that wants to reconcile with Rome, and one half which would only consider it if the whole of the Sacred College crawled publicly over broken-glass begging the S.S.P.X to forgive them.

[Zuni]

3. I agree

there are many in SSPX who feel that they are so much better than the actual Catholic Church.

Perhaps Bishop Williamson did this just to humiliate the Pope.

[DemBones DemBones]

4. Williamson gave the interview in November but it

wasn't publicized until last week, just in time to embarrass the pope. A Vatican source said Pope Benedict didn't know about the interview at the time he signed off on lifting the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops. This decision had been in the works for a long time.

Bishop Fellay, the Superior of the SSPX, sent out a letter making it clear that Williamson's opinions were strictly his own and not the position of the SSPX. I saw it online yesterday or the day before, then today's NY Times runs an "analysis" today that claims the SSPX has not commented on the interview. :eyes: Any time they can attack the Church, they will.

[shrike]

5. Unfortunately, you're right

There's a meme out there; any time we can make the church look bad, we'll do it.

Remember a few years back, when the media were all over some report that the Vatican was critizing Roman motorists on their driving habits? Everyone had a field day over that, especially here at DU.

I met someone who actually read this "report." The mention of Roman driving habits was a small, small portion. The statement was actually a criticism of the incredible meanness in today's world, everyone being out for themselves. The document discussed unfair housing practices, racism, predatory lending and business practices, and so on. But the only thing the international media picked up on was the bit about driving practices: the Vatican's point was that our me-first attitudes spill into every part of our lives.

I have to say, though, the Vatican has got to hire better publicists.

[DemBones DemBones]

7. The media has played the entire SSPX story, not

just the Williamson issue, in such a way as to make the Church look bad, and to show that they understand very little about the SSPX issue. I'm not sure better PR people at the Vatican would do any good, given media attitudes.

[hedgehog]

6. Bishop WIlliamson's activities and opinions were well known back at least as far as 2006

http://fringewatcher.blogspot.com/2006/01/politics-of-bishop-richard-williamson.html

[DemBones DemBones]

8. But they only came up NOW because a Swedish tv crew

went to interview him in November when he was in Austria to ordain a Swedish seminarian and the interviewer asked his opinion. Then the interview was released just before, maybe after, the pope signed the document regarding the four bishops. It was a scheme to make the Vatican and the SSPX look bad at a time of reconciliation.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. Vatican II did not say the Traditional Latin Mass was no longer to be said.

In practice, however, most bishops and priests went whole hog into changing everything about the Mass, making it more like a Protestant service. A lot of Catholics left the Church at that point. Some have been able to continue attending the Traditional Latin Mass because of the SSPX and other traditional groups of priests. Pope Benedict XVI has realized that there are many Catholics who want the "old" Latin Mass and is trying to make it more available via Summorum Pontificum and the rapprochement with the SSPX. Surveys have shown that most Catholics today don't believe in the Real Presence, which shows that Catholic teaching is not being transmitted correctly and that's one of the bad "fruits" of Vatican II. I don't think the pope is trying to reverse Vatican II, he was, after all, a peritus at the Council. I think what he is concerned with is providing the pre-Vatican II Mass for those who want it and clarifying Catholic teaching for all Catholics.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

10. Clarifying teaching by reconciling unrepentant heretics?

Yes, I'll break out the h word to describe the SSPX - it's not the use of Tridentine Mass that makes them objectionable but their wholesale rejection of Vatican II. Benedict's XVI taking them in unconditionally does not reflect well on his interpretation or implementation of Vatican II. While my old mentor/confessor would say that the mansion has many rooms, readmitting unrepentant SSPX clergy is like adding a poorly-planned addition onto the mansion - it's aesthetically unpleasing and compromises the whole structure.

And furthermore, how is bringing in SSPXers clarifying any doctrine? The problem with the western laity not understanding core doctrine is a systemic problem. To rectify that problem, the Church in the West has to undergo some fundamental changes in religious education and preaching. Bringing in a few heretical traditionalists isn't going to clarify anything regarding Real Presence, or the like.

[DemBones DemBones]

11. Vatican II was a pastoral council that defined no dogma

so rejecting it does not make someone a heretic. Heresy is rejection of officially defined Catholic dogma. The SSPX rejects no officially defined Catholic dogma.

If adding the SSPX, who uphold Catholic doctrine, "compromises the whole structure," what does it do to the structure to have priests who don't preach Catholic doctrine, delivering bland feel-good homilies instead, and priests who explicitly say they disagree with some doctrines? What does it do to the structure to have Catholics who think "We don't have to believe ______ since Vatican II" when in fact the Church has not changed its teachings?

What does it do to the structure when bishops ignore instructions from the pope? One example: years before his death, Pope John Paul II instructed the American bishops that 1) Eucharistic ministers should only be used at Mass if the logistics of distributing Holy Communion to a large crowd actually require their use, and 2) women should not serve as Eucharistic ministers in any circumstance. The bishops ignored that directive from His Holiness; U.S. bishops seem to think Vatican II gave them the right to ignore the pope.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

12. Vatican II was an ecumenical council with binding definitions of dogma

and it is not the only ecumenical council that does not use the "sit anathema" formulation (unless you don't consider Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, or Gaudium et Spes to be proclamations or affirmations of doctrine).

And I certainly don't disagree with you on our other points - there are other major problems in the American church, but bringing in the SSPX unrepentant is not going to fix anything. We need seminary and education reform first and foremost. And once that's achieved we need honest examination of doctrine and practice under the lights of faith, reason, tradition, and relevant culture. The Church was not meant to be stagnant; it is a the living, dynamic mystical body of Christ.

[47of74]

13. I remember reading what a hard time John XXIII had geting the council going

A number of the conservatives in the curia were none too happy about what John had in mind and tried to get the council from going forward after it was announced, hoping they could slow it down and fill it with condemnations of the modern world.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

14. One bit of interesting trivia -

Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World was John's XXIII pet project, even though by the time it came before the council he was extremely ill and had to watch the proceedings from his deathbed on a CCTV.

Gaudium et Spes at the time (and today) was criticized as overly optimistic, which is somewhat expected given the document's title. One relatively young theological consultant thought much of the document was Pelagian, particularly in its treatment of free will. That theologian? Joseph Ratzinger.

[hedgehog]

15. So if the Pope never makes a mistake, then the Holy Spirit changed

the truth between then and now?


My take-away from Vatican II 40 years on is that the deposit of faith isn't confined to the men of the hierarchy.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

16. Newman definitely agreed with that. He pointed out that the true

Trinitarian doctrine was preserved among the faithful laity in a time when most of the bishops were Arians or semi-Arians. The good ol' consensus fidelium. May it keep the candle of faith burning in these dark times.

[hedgehog]

17. A late posting, but you might be suprised at what's posted on the

SSPX web site:

http://www.sspx.org/against_the_sound_bites/mystery_of_the_jews.htm