Full Communion for the SSPX?
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Bishop Fellay's meeting yesterday with Pope Francis has very predictably set off another round of rumors. I've seen in several places the opinion that with the impending publication of the post-synodal apostolic exhortation this Friday which many expect will mollify the progressive wing of the Church, the Pope may be considering the regularization of the SSPX as a conciliatory gesture to the right-wing of the Church.

    For example, Gloria TV offered this thought:

    Tactic? Three years after his election Pope Francis received last Friday the superior general of the Society of Saint Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay for 40 minutes. It cannot be excluded that this was a tactical move trying to appease the Catholic wing in view of the upcoming document on the family that could be a heavy blow for the Catholic wing of the Church.


    Any thoughts or speculations? All I can say is IF it's true that the Pope is about to punt the question of Communion for the divorced and remarried to local bishops' conferences and, in effect, decentralize and radically re-configure the Church as we know it, then allowing traditional Catholics a way to opt-out of the balkanization of the Church and retain a traditional praxis under the auspices of the SSPX, would indeed be an act of mercy.

    If this is indeed the plan, it's as if the Pope is throwing out a life raft to traditional Catholics as he prepares to restructure the Barque of Peter and send it into uncharted seas. It will certainly be very interesting to see what happens in the next few days.
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    the Catholic wing of the Church.

    Wow.
    Maybe it is a language thing.
    Thanked by 1JulieColl
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    allowing traditional Catholics a way to opt-out of the balkanization

    But it already is balkanized.
    It allows traditional Catholics to choose a [regularised] balkan.
    Thanked by 1JulieColl
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    I can't believe we're even talking about this, eft! It all seemed so far away and impossible a few months ago when we were joking about it, but now it would appear that, unless the prognosticators are all very mistaken, we might be looking at a scenario where matters of doctrine, tradition and scripture will be decided by local bishops' conferences, and "Provincial Autonomy" will, for all intents and purposes, replace the Church's Magisterium.

    IF that is what is unveiled on Friday at the Vatican press conference in conjunction with all the simultaneous bishops' conferences, then I, for one, will be very grateful if the SSPX is simultaneously regularized and hopefully granted a personal ordinariate, similar to the Anglican Ordinariate.

    So, yes, I hope there will be an Anglican Balkan Island and a papally-approved SSPX Balkan Island available for traditional-minded Catholics to retreat if the worst-case scenario develops.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,985
    Dang! Now I will have to buy a mantilla to fit in.

    I hope that decentralization is not what is going to happen. It puzzles me that bishops' conferences can go off-track so easily. In the east, synods would not dare depart from apostolic practice and tradition. There is a different mind-set at work here, to be sure.
    Thanked by 1eft94530
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    How I imagine this conversation went.


    PF: hey guys want to come back?
    SSPX: that would be great.
    PF: Btw. Dogmas not really a thing anymore. Communion for the divorced. Mercy. Weird eyeball logos.
    SSPX: k, thx, bye


    Thanked by 7Ben CharlesW Andrew_Malton CCooze CHGiffen eft94530 StimsonInRehab
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PXP.HTM
    "I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.

    http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P29.HTM
    Paragraph 3. THE CHURCH IS ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND APOSTOLIC

    Harder and harder to get from these to what is happening now.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,985
    As dear Alice said, things are curiouser and curiouser. She also said,
    “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    "Excuse me, please, can you tell me how to get to Rome?"
    "You can't get there from here."
    Thanked by 2CharlesW Adam Wood
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,220
    Gloria TV is not a reliable source for interpreting church events.

    A few years ago, they were promoting the schismatic "Pidhirtsi fathers" (a group of fake bishops in Ukraine) who started out making videos that denounced modern errors -- which Gloria TV loved, and presented as if these were real bishops appointed by the Holy Father. And then they went on to declare all the bishops in the world excommunicated except themselves, and finally to declare Benedict XVI excommunicated. Well, surprise, surprise! It showed how poor the judgment of the Gloria TV team was. Maybe the lady from Moldova had her braids too tight.

    I recommend ignoring them totally.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Gloria TV is not a reliable source for interpreting church events.


    I'll take "Understatements" for $300, Alex.
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    *Daily*Double*
  • francis
    Posts: 10,847
    Along the lines of Alice, Jesus said,

    Eat Me

    Drink Me
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,934
    Pulling a page from this past Sunday's Gospel, I'll believe it when I see it. Wouldn't be surprised if the two just met to play Scrabble or discuss "Game of Thrones" or some such thing.

    Would it really change what we, in our own situations, need to do at this point in time?Pray. Give alms. Do penance. Help improve your parish's music program. Just keep on keeping on.
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    we might be looking at a scenario where matters of doctrine, tradition and scripture will be decided by local bishops' conferences, and "Provincial Autonomy" will, for all intents and purposes, replace the Church's Magisterium.


    Then we'll be Protestants?
    Thanked by 3StimsonInRehab CharlesW tomjaw
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,424
    ...we'll be...

    Well, the Orthodox already consider 'Romans' to be the first Protestants, eh Charles?
    In fact, I've been told by more than one that Catholicism and Protestantism are merely two sides of the same (Augustinian!) coin. I never computed this, though. I can, however, vouch that the Catholic world and the Protestant world are two fundamentally different existential realities and spiritual experiences. This cannot be fully understood by anyone who hasn't gone one way or the other across the Tiber.

    Too, one might observe about Clerget's question just above that should things go in the regrettable direction under discussion here, it is more likely that the Church will be Orthodoxised rather than Protestantised. Perhaps even worse, for there are heresies, theologies, and moralities brewing in Catholicdom that would likely make the most liberal Orthodox shudder. But Protestant? Not as long as Catholic sacramental theology and incarnational spirituality remain even sort of orthodox. This is a pill that Protestants simply cannot or will not swallow. (Many individual Protestants do, in fact, believe in the real and objective presence of Jesus in their communions, but! their institutions regard this as pure idolatry. Who was it who said to Jesus: 'Lord, this is a hard saying! Who can believe it? - and many went away and followed him no more'.)
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,985
    It seems to me what would keep Catholicism from tending toward Orthodoxy would be both the lack of a common liturgical culture and liturgy, and the absence of devotion to and regard for tradition. There is already too much of a do-your-own-thing attitude in Catholicism infecting those in charge, and those not in charge - an earmark of Protestantism.

    I can see evidence of that "Augustinian coin" at work that you mentioned. Although impossible because of time, some would say we would have been better off if Augustine had converted to Protestantism.

    I have encountered many Protestants who believe in the "real presence." It is all the rest of doctrine they don't accept.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Felicitous developments in the continuing regularization of the SSPX:

    http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/04/pope-to-extend-validity-of-confessions.html#more


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqwV9l-U8ds
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