In an interview with a television channel serving Italian-speaking Switzerland, aired Nov 14, Archbishop Arthur Roche said that "the normal form of the celebration of the Roman Rite is found in those documents that have been published since the Second Vatican Council."

Pope John Paul II's Ecclesia Dei and Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum "were established in order to encourage the Lefebvrists, above all, to return to unity with the Church," Roche continued.

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The friars, 39 and 40 years old, owned up to their acts and were freed under judicial control. They could face trial for arson and criminal association, which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and fines of €150.000.

The case has proved embarrassing for the Capuchin community, which is linked to the ultra-traditionalist Society of St Pius X (SSPX), said a member of the monastery at Villié-Morgon in the Beaujolais region north of Lyon.

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Pagliarani succeeds Bishop Bernard Fellay.

Jean-Marie Guénois, religion correspondent at French newspaper Le Figaro, said Bishop Fellay had been "ousted" in favour of a candidate who opposes further rapprochement with the Vatican.

"After accepting his office ... [Pagliarani] pronounced the profession of faith and took the anti-modernist oath at the seminary church," the statement said.

The swearing of the oath by all "clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries" was a requirement in the Catholic Church from 1910 to 1967.

Those who take the oath promise to uphold church doctrine and declare their opposition to "the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition."

The Vatican and SSPX leaders have for decades been seeking a way to fully reintegrate members of the society into the life of the Catholic Church.

SSPX was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 after he publicly contested key teachings of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

In 1988, Pope John Paul II excommunicated Lefebvre for defying Vatican instructions after Lefebvre ordained four "bishops" without permission from the Holy See, as required by canon law.

This created the first formal schism in the Catholic Church since 1870. Lefebvre died in 1991.

Pope Benedict XVI said SSPX has no canonical status in the Catholic Church and the ministries undertaken by its ministers are not legitimate.

However, during the 2015-16 Year of Mercy, Pope Francis made special provisions to recognise the absolution SSPX priests offer through confession as valid.

Francis extended these provisions after the Year of Mercy in case "anyone ever be deprived of the sacramental sign of reconciliation through the church's pardon."

Last year Francis continued working on initiatives aimed at a reconciliation with the SSPX.

These allowed SSPX bishops to ensure the validity of marriages celebrated in the traditionalist communities.

Vatican talks with the society began under St John Paul II and continued throughout the papacy of now-retired Pope Benedict XVI.

The talks have focused on the Second Vatican Council's teachings, especially the Council's documents on religious liberty, ecumenism, liturgy and relations with other religions.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• The Tablet
• La Croix
• Catholic Philly
• Image: Return to Fatima

Pope Francis published Amoris Laetitia last year after two synods on the Family.

Sixty-two clergy, theologians, academics and a bishop from the Society of St.Pius X - a Catholic break-away cult - have written to him correcting aspects of the post-synodal document.

The letter, called a "filial correction", accuses Francis of breeding seven heretical positions about marriage, moral life and the sacraments in Amoris Laetitia and subsequent "acts, words and omissions."

Organisers say the last time a filial correction was made was in 1333.

Francis received the 25-page letter, entitled "Correctio filialis de haeresibus propagatis" (A Filial Correction Concerning the Propagation of Heresies), at the beginning of August.

The signatories stress they are not accusing Francis of formal heresy (when a person departs from the faith by doubting or denying some revealed truth with a full choice of the will).

They also say they are not making a "judgment about Pope Francis's culpability in propagating the seven heresies" as it is "not their task to judge whether the sin of heresy has been committed ... [and] ... speak for a large number of clergy and lay faithful who lack freedom of speech."

The filial correction follows the dubia (questions/doubts) put to Francis last year by cardinals Carlo Caffarra, Raymond Burke, Walter Brandmüller and Joachim Meisner. The four so-called "dubia cardinals" sent Francis five dubia last year, asking him for clarification.

Francis has not answered their questions. Nor has he commented about the filial correction or answered its signatories.

In the year since the dubia were sent to Francis, both Caffara and Meisner have died.

Source

• National Catholic Register
• Catholic Herald
• America
• Chicargo Tribune
• Crux
• Image: correctiofilialis.org

Deciding then to catch the schools out by visiting again when they were least expected, they found the children equally as good.

The Education Review Office has always given the schools good reviews, Principal Andrew Cranshaw said in the Wanganui Chronicle.

Cranshaw is also the superior of The Society of St Pius X in New Zealand.

Whanganui's St Anthony's Parish is made up of families from the Society of St Pius X.

It has two schools on its Alma Rd site. St Anthony Catholic Primary is for children in Years 1-6. St Dominic College is for girls in Years 7-13 and St Augustine College is for boys the same age. The two senior schools are together for convenience as St Dominic College.

There are 130 pupils in total.

Seventy of them are in the senior schools, including 10 girls from out of town who board with the traditionalist Dominican Sisters of Wanganui on the site.

The precise status of the SSPX is not clear. It isn't officially schismatic.

But on the other hand SSPX priests do not have faculties to exercise priestly ministry.

The Society of St. Pius X was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to form priests, as a response to what he described as errors that had crept into the Church following the Second Vatican Council.

In 1988 when Lefebvre consecrated four new bishops without papal mandate the four men and Lefebvre himself were excommunicated by John Paul II.

This excommunication applied only to these individual men, and not to the SSPX as a whole.

Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications of the four bishops.

But this did not bring with it a reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the whole institute of the SSPX, which remains a separate issue.

A distinction has to be made between the Pope's concern for the spiritual wellbeing of the four men who had been under excommunication, and who had respectfully petitioned the Pope to return to full communion with the Church; and the canonical status of the entire SSPX, which still has never been recognised by Rome.

Pope Benedict said "As long as the Society [of Saint Pius X] does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church…."

The Vatican and the SSPX have continued to talked to each other with a view to resolving dogmatic differences.

But the Vatican (most notably the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Gerhard Mueller) has obliquely indicated that a reconciliation is not likely to come soon.

This stance has been echoed by some in the SSPX as well, who do not appear to be in a hurry to regularise their status in the Church.

In his letter for the beginning of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis established that those who approach the priests of the SSPX for the Sacrament of Reconciliation "shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins" during the Holy Year.

Source

• Wanganui Chronicle
• canonlawmadeeasy.com
• radiovaticana.va
• Image: 3.bp.blogspot.com

Bishop Marcello Semeraro of Albano diocese said SSPX bishops and priests are suspended from priestly ministry.

When the faithful receive the sacraments from them, "they break communion with the Catholic Church".

The faithful who incur excommunication may be received back into the Church only after a penitential process, the bishop said.

Bishop Semeraro said he is only reiterating the policy of his predecessor in Albano.

While Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of SSPX bishops, the suspension from priestly ministry remains in force, Bishop Semeraro said.

His diocese, just outside Rome, encompasses the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo.

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The secretary of the Ecclesia Dei commission, Archbishop Guido Pozzo, told a French media outlet that the Vatican continues to work for reconciliation with the society.

Formal talks between the SSPX and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith broke down in 2012.

But conversations resumed in September this year.

Archbishop Pozzo said that in order to be regularised, the SSPX must accept the doctrinal teachings of the Church, including those of Vatican II.

However, he said, "there is room for further reflection on the reservations the fraternity has expressed regarding certain aspects and the wording of the Second Vatican Council documents as well as some reforms that followed, but which do not refer to subjects which are dogmatically or doctrinally indisputable".

Archbishop Pozzo said a few documents of Vatican II involve doctrinal statements, but others are "authoritative and binding to a different and lesser degree".

The conciliar statements on ecumenism and on religious freedom, which have been most heavily criticised by the SSPX, are in the latter category, he said.

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According to an SSPX New Zealand newsletter, Bishop Fellay will also administer the sacrament of Confirmation in the SSPX's parish in Whanganui during his visit.

Bishop Fellay, whose excommunication was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, sparked controversy late last year after calling Jews "enemies of the Church". He made the comments during a nearly two-hour talk at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Academy in New Hamburg, Ontario, Canada on 28 December.

At the time the US branch of the society attempted to clarify Bishop Fellay's remark in a statement on its website.

It said: "The word ‘enemies' used here by Bishop Fellay is of course a religious concept and refers to any group or religious sect which opposes the mission of the Catholic Church and her efforts to fulfil it: the salvation of souls".

Source

• NZ Catholic
• Catholic Herald
• Image: dici.org

Guido Pozzo, a curial official who was made an archbishop in the interim period, is once again the secretary for the pontifical commission "Ecclesia Dei."

Archbishop Pozzo has already served as secretary of the Pontifical Commission, from July 8, 2009 to Nov. 3, 2012.

He had been removed from the commission to become head of the Office of Papal Charities, where he has served until his re-appointment as Ecclesia Dei secretary Aug. 3.

Ecclesia Dei was founded in 1988, months after the head of the Society of St. Pius X illicitly consecrated four bishops, a "schismatic act" according to the document of Blessed John Paul II establishing the Pontifical Commission.

The office is meant to facilitate "full ecclesial communion" of those associated with the Society "who may wish to remain united to the Successor of Peter in the Catholic Church."

Since the 2007 motu proprio of Benedict XVI providing for a more liberal use of the liturgy as it was said prior to the reforms of Vatican II, the Ecclesia Dei has also served those who have a special dedication to this traditional form of the Roman liturgy.

On July 2, 2009, Benedict XVI linked the Pontifical Commission to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, noting that the problems in dialogue with the Society of St. Pius X were "doctrinal in nature."

A traditionalist organization of priests, the society is known for sharply criticizing the council, a 1962-65 meeting of the world's bishops that led to wide reforms in the Catholic church.

During his first stint at the pontifical commission, the archbishop participated in a number of discussions with members of the Society of St. Pius X on their possible formal reunification with the church.

Sources

Catholic News Agency

NCR Online

The Tablet

Image: Cattolici Tradizionalisti Marche

Bishop Bernard Fellay, one of the leaders of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), who Church officials expect will send a formal reply to the Vatican's call, remains silent.

SSPX leaders have recently rejected the pope's conditions for their rehabilitation.

"The SSPX has set conditions that are simply unacceptable to the pope," said Nicolas Seneze, a French expert on the Society.

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.

Pope 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, the Reuters report said.

A Vatican spokesman contacted by Reuters declined to comment on relations with the SSPX.

The US Catholic magazine said that with the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's opening coming up, the pope won't have reunion with the SSPX to celebrate, despite the generous overtures he has made toward them.

Sources

• Reuters
• US Catholic
• Catholic Culture
• Image: CNS/Catholic Herald

Three conditions for SSPX reconciliation with Rome have been revealed in a letter from its secretary-general, Father Christian Thouvenot, to regional superiors.

Part of the first condition is "The freedom to accuse and even to correct the promoters of the errors or the innovations of modernism, liberalism, and Vatican II and its aftermath".

Before the SSPX letter was made public, the newly installed prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, had declared: "The assertion that the authentic teachings of Vatican II formally contradict the tradition of the Church is false."

Archbishop Mueller is also president of the pontifical commission "Ecclesia Dei", the Vatican body responsible for dialogue with the Society of St Pius X.

The archbishop said he is optimistic about SSPX reconciliation, but the teachings of the Church — including the dogmatic content of the Second Vatican Council — will never be up for re-negotiation.

"An ecumenical council, according to the Catholic faith, is always the supreme teaching authority of the Church," he said.

Archbishop Mueller explained that different texts of Vatican II hold different levels of teaching authority, and distinctions should be made between pastoral pronouncements and authoritative doctrinal statements. "Whatever is dogmatic can never be negotiated," he said.

Two other conditions in Father Thouvenot's letter — which is not the SSPX's official reply to the Holy See — are the right to use the traditional liturgy exclusively and the right to have at least one bishop — neither of which is seen as a stumbling block to reconciliation.

The letter also expressed the desire for a separate ecclesiastical court of the first instance; the exemption of SSPX houses from diocesan bishops; and a pontifical commission "for the tradition", with the majority of the members and the president in favour of tradition.

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

Vatican Insider

Image: Monks and Mermaids

The SSPX issued a statement drafted by 40 of its most senior members who met in a general chapter in Switzerland to discuss a Vatican proposal for healing the traditionalist group's 24-year break with Rome.

The Vatican had offered the SSPX the status of a personal prelature in return for its agreement on certain doctrinal matters including, apparently, the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

The SSPX statement — which was communicated in advance to the Vatican — said the general chapter "determined and approved the necessary conditions for an eventual canonical normalisation", but it did not spell out those conditions.

"We have decided that, in that case, an extraordinary chapter with deliberative vote will be convened beforehand," the declaration added.

But the statement took a provocative swipe at "the novelties of the Second Vatican Council which remain tainted with errors", and said the SSPX waited for "the day when an open and serious debate will be possible which may allow the return to Tradition of the ecclesiastical authorities".

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the Holy See did not consider the statement to be "a formal response" by the Society of St Pius X to the last document it asked Bishop Bernard Fellay, the society's superior general, to sign.

Rather than make a formal response, he said the Holy See had "taken note" of the statement but awaited an official communication from the SSPX as its dialogue with the pontifical commission Ecclesia Dei continued.

Previously, when it appeared Bishop Fellay was close to signing an agreement with the Vatican, internal tensions arose within the SSPX. The latest statement said the group had recovered its "profound unity".

Sources:

Catholic News Agency

Catholic News Service

Society of St Pius X statement

Vatican Information Service

Image: Catholic Herald

On June 26, the Vatican announced the appointment of Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia to a specially created post as "a sign of the Holy Father's pastoral solicitude for traditionalist Catholics in communion with the Holy See and his strong desire for the reconciliation of those traditionalist communities not in union with the See of Peter."

That same day, a letter was leaked showing that the leader of those communities, Bishop Bernard Fellay, had already rejected the latest overtures from Pope Benedict 13 days before the Vatican announcement of the Di Noia appointment.

Obsessively pressing one's attentions on a person who does not want them is called stalking. In many places and cases, it is a criminal offense.

Archbishop Di Nioa's appointment even after the latest rejection of the pope's repeatedly rejected and repeatedly renewed approaches to the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) certainly looks like stalking of the SSPX by the Vatican.

By now it should be clear that despite concessions on the liturgy, offers to play down aspects of Vatican II and repeated attempts at wooing in spite of being spurned, the SSPX and the ultra-traditionalists they represent are just not interested in a relationship with the Vatican and will not be until Rome comes to them in abject and total surrender.

What is the power behind the SSPX's ability to bring Rome to its knees, begging to be seen worthy to have the sect return to the fold? Whatever that power, there must be glee in the SSPX ranks in knowing they have it.

In the meantime, Rome has given little glee to non-traditionalist Catholics who have remained faithful members of the Church through the past decades. Though Pope Benedict's personal inclinations are clearly traditionalist, he must know that the majority of Catholics are not traditionalists in his sense and never will be. But they remain in communion with him.

In one sense, those who have remained faithful during a half-century of ups and downs are certainly traditionalist in maintaining their loyalty to the Church in spite of being disappointed, embarrassed and even vilified for their loyalty. It would be easy for them to just leave, a move that more rabid traditionalists actually and vehemently encourage, but they have not. And though increasing numbers are departing, the majority seems likely to continue their allegiance.

That majority has endured the pain of seeing bishops inflict abusive priests upon their communities, the embarrassment of the corruption and confusion at the Vatican disclosed by Vatileaks and the frustration of having liturgical translations imposed upon them that they neither want nor accept. They have watched as Rome "bent over backwards" to appease schismatic rebels while ignoring the opinions and hopes of the faithful.

So, where is the pope's "pastoral solicitude" for them? Perhaps it is time to provide a bit more solicitude to the faithful Catholics who are the majority of the Church.

There is an old saying that "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." That is, favors or provisions made for one party or group should be available to all.

What might "solicitous sauce" entail?

Well, for starters, it would involve giving non-traditionalist Catholics the same right to use previous forms of the liturgy that has been given to traditionalists. This would probably constitute a referendum on the translations that have recently been imposed throughout the world, often to the consternation of clergy and laity alike.

There is more. The Vatican should really listen to the voices of those whose concerns and ways of living their faith arise out of their encounters with the modern world, especially those outside of a European ambit.

Rome must admit that the old ways so beloved by many traditionalists failed in the face of a changing world and our leaders must be humble enough to learn from places where the Church is growing in Africa, Asia and the Americas.

And finally, would it hurt the pope or anyone else to simply express some gratitude and admiration to all those Christians who in spite of scandals, confusion and a sense of being ignored and abused continue to engage in the journey of faith as part of the Catholic Church?

First published in UCA News. Used with permission.

Sources

• Image: CathNews USA