FRANCIS' JESUIT CHUM CALLS CHRIST "CALLOUS"

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Ven Pius XII would seem to say Bergoglio is attacking Christ

In a world become so insane it believes a man can be a woman - or perhaps a dog or cat if he likes - why be surprised that a close advisor of the supposed pope, editor of the once-revered Jesuit magazine La Civilta Cattolica, describes Our Lord as "irritated" and "callous", "mocking and disrespectful"?   

It's the Jesuits in general and Jorge Mario Bergoglio in particular who will be called to account by Christ for the world's insanity, by their failure to teach the Gospel and Tradition. 

As Venerable Pius XII stated, their deluded accusations of "rigidity" and "backwardness" against His faithful remnant, and their pogrom against the Mass of Ages, are an attack on the adorable Person of Christ Himself.

That "rigid" stuff which they now so righteously deplore was the force of the Catholic Church which converted the Roman Empire from paganism and saved billions of souls from hell. Thank God, the Church herself is belatedly coming to her senses and finding her voice of faith, reason and courage in prelates and lay people all over the world. 

 

One of Pope Francis’ closest advisers, Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, has been accused of “heretical blasphemy” after portraying the Lord as a flawed human being in need of conversion from “nationalism” and “rigidity.”

Writing in Il Fatto Quotidiano Aug. 20, a highly secular left-wing Italian daily, Father Spadaro reflected on the Gospel story of the faith of a Canaanite woman and concluded that Jesus was healed and freed “from the rigidity of the theological, political and cultural elements dominant in his time.”

The story, from the Gospel of Matthew (15:21-28), concerns that of a woman from the pagan region of Canaan who begs Jesus to heal her daughter possessed by a demon.

Jesus initially refuses to help her, saying that he was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel. However, the woman persists, begging Jesus and even comparing herself to dogs, who are allowed to eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table. Jesus is eventually moved by her faith and heals her daughter.

The Church Fathers and Church tradition have always interpreted the story as a powerful reminder of the importance of faith. The woman did not give up on Jesus, even when he seemed to be rejecting her. She continued to believe that he could help her daughter, and in the end, her faith was rewarded.

But for Father Spadaro, along with other modernist and heterodox preachers before him, Jesus initially has a prejudiced and exclusionist view in the Gospel story, but is converted by the Canaanite woman, making it a story of what today is called “radical inclusion.”

However, the Italian Jesuit goes further, ascribing to Jesus many human failings, including “rigidity,” “nationalism,” irritation and callousness". These are then transformed into acceptance and liberation from “the dominant theological, political, and cultural elements of his time.” Such a transformation of the Lord, Father Spadaro says, is “the seed of a revolution.”

Father Spadaro’s reflection is significant given the audacity with which he ascribes to Jesus such deficiencies, thereby undermining Church teaching on Christ’s divinity, but also because of the Italian Jesuit’s closeness to the Pope, and that he is editor of the historically prestigious Jesuit periodical La Civilta Cattolica.

 

Bergoglio and Spadaro - thick as thieves (of Christ's reputation as Son of God)

 

Here below is my translation of his text (emphases mine) which was first brought to wider public attention by the Italian website MessainLatino:

To help the dyslexic more emphases are added, in red, indicating also a couple of ambiguous words that the Jesuit may consider may excuse him of blasphemy. 

Seeds of Revolution. Jesus Praises the Great Faith of a Pagan Woman

Jesus is in Gennèsaret, on the right bank of Lake Tiberias. The locals had recognized him, and word of his presence had spread throughout the region, by word of mouth. Many brought him the sick, who were healed. It was a land where people had to welcome and understand him. His actions were effective. But the Master does not stop. Matthew (15:21-28) — who writes for the Jews — tells us that he goes towards the northwest, the area of Tire and Sidòne, that is, to the Phoenician and therefore pagan area.

But behold, cries are heard. They are from a woman. She is Canaanite, that is, from a region inhabited by an idolatrous people that Israel looked upon with contempt and enmity. The story therefore claims that Jesus and the woman were enemies. The woman cries out: “Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David! My daughter is very tormented by a demon.” The body of this woman, her voice, erupts as if at the scene of a tragedy. Impossible for Jesus not to react to the chaos that abruptly interrupted the journey.

Not just heretical theology but bad writing as well ... 

Instead, no. “But he did not speak to her, even a word,” Matthew writes laconically.

Jesus remains indifferent. His disciples approach him and plead with him in amazement. The woman was stirring those who also misjudged her! Her cries had broken the barrier of hatred. But Jesus does not care.

“Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us!” His own plead with him, trying to discreetly use the excuse of her insistence and the annoyance that her presence would have caused to the hearth [sic!] of the Lord .

The silence is followed by Jesus’ irritated and callous reply: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. The Lord’s hardness is unshakeable. Now even Jesus plays the theologian: the mission received from God is limited to the children of Israel. So, there’s nothing to be done. Mercy is not for her. She is excluded. There is no discussion.

But the woman is stubborn. Her hope is desperate, and she breaks down not only any supposed tribal enmity, but also opportunity, her own dignity. She throws herself in front of him and begs him: “Lord, help me!” She calls him “Lord,” that is, she recognizes his authority and his mission. What else can Jesus expect to do? Yet he replies in a mocking and disrespectful way towards that poor woman: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs,” that is, to domestic dogs. A lapse in attitude, manner, humanity. Jesus appears as if he were blinded by nationalism and theological rigour.

Anyone else would have given up. But not the woman. She is determined: she wants her daughter healed. And she immediately grasps the only fissure left open by Jesus’ words,

... More bad writing ... 

where he had referred to domestic dogs (and therefore not stray ones). They share their masters’ house, in fact. And so with a move that desperation makes cunning, she says: “It is true, Lord, and yet the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Few words, but well posed and such as to upset the rigidity of Jesus, to conform him, to “convert” him to himself. Indeed, without hesitation, Jesus replies: “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And from that instant his daughter was healed. And Jesus also appears healed, and in the end shows that he is free, from the rigidity of the dominant theological, political, and cultural elements of his time.

So what happened? Outside the land of Israel, Jesus healed the daughter of a pagan woman, despised for being Canaanite. Not only that: he agrees with her and praises her great faith. Here is the seed of a revolution.

***

The Canaanite Woman (Jean-Germain Drouais)

 

MessaInLatino summed up Father Spadaro’s descriptions of the Lord Jesus Christ as follows:

– indifferent to suffering;
– irritable and insensitive;
– inscrutably harsh;
– unmerciful theologian;
– mocking and disrespectful towards the poor mother;
– showing a lapse in attitude, manner and humanity;
– blinded by nationalism and theological rigorism;
– rigid, confused and in need of conversion;
– sick and imprisoned by rigidity and the dominant theological, political and cultural elements of his time;
– glorifier of the pagan faith.

Here is St John Chrysostom’s homily on Jesus and the Faith of the Canaanite Woman.

See also this helpful article by Nicholas LaBlanca in which he unpacks similar modernist and heterodox interpretations of this Gospel story.

***

The Faith of a Canaanite Woman

Matthew 15: 21-28:

²¹ Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. ²² A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

²³ Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

²⁴ He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

²⁵ The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

²⁶ He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

²⁷ “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

²⁸ Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.https://edwardpentin.co.uk/papal-adviser-father-antonio-spadaro-accused-of-heretical-blasphemy/

 

The Penance of St John Chrysostom (Albrecht Dürer)

St John Chrysostom, please pray for the Church. Especially for Jesuits 

 

 

 

LABOUR'S LITANY OF LETHAL LEADERSHIP

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Ardern with the Godfather, Phnom Penh November '22

The worst of this "incomplete list of Labour's appalling record" is that the worst isn't even mentioned - the worst being Jacinda Ardern's Abortion Law Act, 2020, the year 13,000 babies were killed in their mothers' womb. You can bet that number has increased but they're not telling us by how much. 

No wonder 5000 demoralised nurses have decamped to Oz. Or that 16,000 nurses have left the profession in the last 5 years of this Labour Government. Or that GP waiting times have increased to 5th from bottom in the OECD.

And no wonder that Ardern decamped, too - to Harvard, where they got her to specialise in technology governance. She knew Labour was in for a hiding and that wouldn't look good on her CV. We poor suckers that she left behind who have to live with her leavings might think she did a terrible job of tech governance here, but it looks like the Godfather of the Global Elite, Klaus Schwab, was highly satisfied with her performance.

 

An incomplete list of Labour’s appalling record

• Since 2017, when Labour took power, gang membership in Auckland has gone up 51%.

• The number of Kiwis living in cars has more than quadrupled since 2017.

• Gross government debt is now $722.62 billion, up 47% from 5 years ago.

• Under Labour, the tax-take has gone from $86 billion per year when they took power to $118 billion – up 38%.

• Retail crime has doubled since Labour came to power in 2017, and 70% of the crimes are not even being reported.

• Labour has taken away all healthcare targets. Every single healthcare metric has gone backwards in the last five years.

• Average weekly rent in 2017: $400, in 2023 up 50% to $600.

• 37,000 more kids are in benefit-dependent homes than when Labour’s government took power 5 years ago.

• Labour’s fast track immigration processing: Only 20% processed with the 10 day timeframe promised by the minister. Set-up to process 3500, only got through 169 with only 1 approved within the 4 weeks it has been open.

• Labour government has increased consultant spending from $900 million the previous year to $1.24 billion this year – a massive 33% increase, even after Labour increased public service employees by 50,000 since Labour took office.

• NZTA (aka Waka Kotahi) has increased staff by 60% in last 4 years (1000 extra bureaucrats).

• More than 100,000 students were chronically absent from school. In certain areas up to 50% of students not attending school at all.

 

 

• Government refuses COVID-19 inquiry, despite cross-party support.

• 70% of NZ businesses have no confidence in this government to steer them through the economic down turn.

• Stats NZ data showed a deficit of $10.5 billion between export earnings and import costs for the year ended June, the highest annual deficit since current records began in 1960.

• Ram-raids on retailers have soared under Labour, with a more than 500 per cent increase within the first six months of 2022 compared to the same period in 2018.

• Emergency Department wait times are now the worst in at least a decade, with more than one in five people waiting at least six hours for treatment.

• Domestic inflation is 7.3% and has a higher weighting than trade based inflation.

• In a multi-nation survey involving 12,000 people, NZ is now ranked 51st out of 52 countries for best place to live; no. 52 was Kuwait.

• This was a Government elected to make housing affordable, help those less well off, reduce child poverty, and give us a kinder, more united society. On every front, it could not have failed more profoundly.

• 316 foreign entertainers, including 64 DJs, were fast-tracked through Managed Isolation and Quarantine in 2021. Taxpayers have spent $1.2 billion on MIQ – $660 for every household in the country.

• Patients waiting for specialists for over a year has gone up 17-fold since 2019.

• 25% drop in prisoners, just ‘let them out’ to do community sentences, while there has been an increase in offending against prisoner officers. Violent crime has increased 21%, gang membership increased 56%, record low number of offences resulting in prison sentences in last year representing an overall decrease of 44% under Labour.

• Savings report from Finders that looks at savings data across all the OECD says NZ will record the second to lowest savings in the world at -0.2% (only Poland is lower) compared to the average of +7%, showing how bad the cost of living crisis is.

• For more than three decades, the Swiss Institute for Management and Development (IMD) has compiled annual rankings of competitiveness for 63 of the world’s most important countries. Back in 2017 when Labour took power, New Zealand ranked #16 – ahead of Australia at #21. Five years on, New Zealand has fallen to #31, while Australia is now ranked #19. Over the past few years, we have plunged in economic performance, falling from 22nd to 47th place. Government efficiency has also deteriorated markedly from 7th to 17th place. Consumer confidence in New Zealand now stands at the lowest level since Westpac’s Consumer Confidence survey began in 1988. And, perhaps most damningly, for the first time, a majority has a negative 5-year outlook on the economy.

• Jamie Ngatata Love – 3rd strike law removed by Labour resulting in his sentence for armed robbery reduced from 10 years to 18 months, with 138 previous convictions!

 

Labour has divided New Zealand

 

• Sixty-four percent of Kiwis, across all ages, believe New Zealanders are more divided than ever.

 

It just so happened that her resignation pushed aside news of the highest rate of food price inflation in over 30 years

• The day Jacinda resigned, news pushed aside of food price inflation data released showing the highest rate of increase in more than 30 years.

• Doctor GP waiting times are now 5th to bottom of OECD countries (38 countries). Access to GPs is the first thing to go in a failing health system.

• The government collected $78 million more tax than forecast for the five months ended November 2022 while its expenses were up $742m on forecast.

• After near 6 years of a Labour government, emissions have increased and the importing and burning of coal has more than doubled — all after Jacinda declared climate change was her ‘Nuclear free moment’.

 

climate change was her 'nuclear free moment'

 • Farm conversions into forestry in 2013 = 1, under Labour in 2022 = 31 due to ‘carbon credits’ incentives, 2017 = 695 Hectares, under Labour in 2022 = 18,000 Hectares. At the same time Labour calling foul on amount of slash washing away bridges etc. & killing a child in East Cape.

• The Government car fleet grown 16% for past 3 years and 1000 of them are petrol or diesel, their stated ambition of being EV by 2025 is a joke.

• New Zealand is now bottom of the OECD for access to modern medicines.

• Retail crime increased 40% in 2022, with most police districts reporting twice as much as 4 years ago. There were 292 incidents a day last year, compared to 140 a day in 2018.

• Ramping hours (Ambulances sitting outside ER waiting to get patients in) went from 3,000 hours in 2019 per quarter to 9,756 hours per quarter in 2023. Targets of 90% of patients should receive MRIs within 42 days – currently it is 36%, 95% for CT scans within 42 days – currently it is 57%.

 

 

• Crime: 46% increase in victimisations, 140% increase in serious assaults, 551% increase in ram raids, number of people in prison for that has dropped 45%.

• Public sector managers have been growing at nearly twice the rate of frontline workers since the current Government came to power.

• Nearly 5000 New Zealand nurses have registered to work in Australia since August 2022, and as of March 4th 2022, only 1 nurse has arrived from overseas to NZ.!!

• Burglaries crime stats: 49% under 18 years old, 51% of those did not face court action. 112 up to 17 arrested received a family group conference — that’s it. Most was just a formal or informal warning. 94 didn’t receive any consequence whatsoever.

• Much of the bad luck is the result of Government’s own actions. The Reserve Bank only agreed to the inflationary $100 billion money printing programme after the Labour Government gave a taxpayer guarantee. Labour is recklessly running a deficit at a time of over-full employment. Borrow and spend always results in bust. The bank has no doubt that Labour’s borrowing to spend is inflationary.

• IMFs 2023 outlook forecasts New Zealand will have one of the lowest GDP growth rates and one of the highest inflation rates in the Asia Pacific region in the coming years. In their projections for GDP, NZ’s current account balance is reported as -8.6 percent of GDP, that’s worse than Greece’s at -8.0 percent, in 2023. NZ was one of the best GDP performing countries in the world after the GFC in 2088 (a Rock Star economy we were) under National and John Key, now we are at the bottom half of advanced countries in the world with the worst current account deficit of all of them. National always fixes Labours huge spending sprees until they get elected once again and another cycle of spend, spend, spend starts all over again. They always give the voters FREE things and buy the votes so watch out for this in September.

• Frontline police told to ‘consider necessity’ of bail arrests as NZ’s largest prison nears capacity.

• 2023: 19,000 nurses have left the profession in the last 5 years under this Labour government. In 2017 it was under 3000 leaving compared to 5000 leaving in last year – a 60% increase in nurses leaving.https://waikanaewatch.org/2023/05/21/a-litany-of-labour-government-failure-to-2023/?fbclid=IwAR167QgVRiWTJ_0fEl2w6tVH24GDvviC_1z8GAHStcudRHhwZ50Wmdpu0mU

 

The Glorification of St Felix and St Adauctus (Carlo Innocenzo Carlone)

Ss Felix and Adauctus, on your feast day please pray for New Zealand

RE THE SSPX: STICK A SOCK IN IT

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"Either shut up or say something better than silence would be.”

It's AMAZING. There are still Catholics out there - and one is Cardinal Burke - who believe the Society of St Pius X is in schism. Oh well. There were Catholics who believed Cardinal Pell was guilty as charged, too.

You know, when He said, "By their fruits you shall know them" (Mt 7:16), Jesus was right. So why don't we believe Him? If the SSPX - founded as recently as 1970 , were completely regularized, even back in 2016 they'd have been counted as the 4th LARGEST society of apostolic life in the Church!

And why? Because they say the Traditional Latin Mass and preach the Gospel! It's as simple as that! The Society is full of life and that's why Satan hates the SSPX and stirs up good people to oppose them. And bad people too, as was evident in animosity in the highest echelons of the Church towards Archbishop Lefebvre right from the start, during Vat II.  

I was informed (Father Z was writing on April 16 2020 - ed) that some prominent internet wonks were/are having a spat about the SSPX.

I looked around and found all manner of strange, useless and confusion-riddled comments about the status of the SSPX, their objectives and holiness, and blah blah.  Various sections of the addled peanut gallery got involved in the online feud.   As inevitably happens.   Thus, we are again presented with a concrete demonstration that in many of these dust ups a heck of a lot of people don’t know what they don’t know.

Let’s aim for some clarity and charity about the SSPX.

I write this now, why?

Firstly, because of the aforementioned online and thoroughly unedifying dust up.  Also, because someone wrote to complain that in some of my daily 5 minute podcasts I read paragraphs from a spiritual book by a priest of the SSPX, Fr. Patrick Troadec’s work Toward Easter.  [US HERE]   Imagine such a thing!  Third, because of the whole COVID lockdown thing, many emails have come in asking a) if it is sinful to go to Masses at still open chapels of the SSPX and b) is it sinful – I am not making this up – to watch their live-streamed services on the internet.  No, and no.

I’ll dig into some issues about the SSPX in a moment.   From the onset, however, I warmly urge people who don’t know what they are talking about not to leap in with unhelpful notions about law, theology, etc., and stick to discussing something more fruitful, such as the evils of the designated hitter or of changing the rules about intentional walks.  O… the humanity.

Ad ramos!

I preface this with my observation, from personal experience, of some of the priests of the SSPX.  They are mostly terrific guys, dedicated, zealous for souls, hard workers and determined priests.   Better formed in history, philosophy, liturgy and theology than a great many of garden variety priests I know.  (Not that we think clergy should be well educated.  Sheesh.) I would be, will be I hope, honored to have them working alongside me in this diocese or wherever God takes me.

Here are a few facts.

The SSPX (technically Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Santi Pii X) is a priestly Fraternity or Society of priests.  The SSPX does not have formal canonical status other than they are exercising a canonical right to associate with each other.  Their “association of the faithful” does not now have canonical recognition.  Hopefully one day they will be set up and recognized formally as a, say, Personal Prelature or some variant.  However, can. 299 §1 says that by private agreement among themselves, the faithful have the right to constitute associations for the purposes mentioned in can. 298 §1, which are, for example, when clerics or laity want to strive with common effort to foster a more perfect life, promote public worship, etc.   The SSPX is an association of the faithful.  No question.

Could it have higher status?  Sure.  It doesn’t have no status.

On 8 December 2015, Francis told the Catholic faithful that for the Holy Year of Mercy they could go to priests of the SSPX for the Sacrament of Penance and that they could be validly absolved.  That provision was extended beyond the “Year of Mercy” in the 2016 Apostolic Letter Misericordia et misera.  It stands today. 

This is a little odd, because it was not really a formal grant of faculties in the usual and expected way to the priests of the SSPX, as when a bishop grants faculties to a priest to receive sacramental confessions. Those faculties are demonstrable with a document saying that Fr. Soandso has the faculty, etc.  In this case there is no document that I’m aware of that explicitly grants faculties to the priests of the SSPX to hear confessions and to absolve. 

However, Popes can do what they want in this regard.  It’s better when they do things in a way that make things clear, with all the i’s dotted.  In this case, Francis said that people can be absolved by SSPX priests and that, as they say, is that.  Popes can do that sort of thing, whereas other entities such as dicasteries of the Holy See (e.g., the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” (PCED) of old and now CDF, and diocesan bishops) have to use another procedure.    So, SSPX priests can validly absolve sins even when there is no danger of death.   You can go to confession to them not just because there are no other priests around.  You can go to them because you want to.  No question.

On 27 March 2017 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (which had absorbed my old office, the PCED) informed all the bishops of the world that they could give faculties to SSPX priests to witness marriages.   As in the case of hearing confessions, marriages require that a priest have the appropriate faculty.    There had been considerable debate about the validity of SSPX witnessed marriages. 

What Francis did removed doubt.  The priests can now have the faculty themselves and they can work with a local diocesan priest.  Since then, I think most, not all, diocesan bishops have worked with local SSPX priests in this regard and simply given the SSPX priests the faculty.

Something important to note about this is that that letter of the CDF did NOT say that, “Up until now, the marriages witnessed by the SSPX priests were invalid.”  The Apostolic Letter Misericordia et misera did NOT say that, “Until now, the absolutions given by priests of the SSPX were invalid.”  That’s food for thought. 

So we can confidently expect the day when the CDF says the SSPX is valid, just as they say now that their marriages were always valid and proceed now, according to the same reasoning, as if the SSPX were valid.  

That moves the goal posts significantly.  We can’t just think of the SSPX priests and confession and marriages in the same way that we did before those grants.

Furthermore – AND PAY ATTENTION because this is really important – suspended priests cannot receive faculties.  If the SSPX priests can receive faculties, and they have, all over the place, then they are not suspended!

Another point, and one that touches close to home with many lay people who love our Catholic tradition: attendance at SSPX Masses.

The Masses celebrated by SSPX priests are celebrated in a Catholic rite.  No question.   As I have written a zillion times on this blog about fulfilling Sunday and Holy Day obligations, in can. 1248 §1 we read that a person who assists at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the feast day itself or in the evening of the preceding day satisfies the obligation of participating in the Mass.    Again, the SSPX priests use a Catholic rite, the Missale Romanum and other liturgical books of the Latin Church.    So, yes, you can choose to go to a Mass of the SSPX, not just because there is no other Mass, but because you want to.  No question.

As to the question: “Is it sinful to go to an SSPX Mass?”  Answer: It depends on why you are going there.

Frankly, yes, it would be sinful to go to their Masses out of sheer desire to hurt local parishes or priests or because you hate the local bishop, or Pope, or some aspect of the Church, blah blah blah. 

Frankly, yes, it would be sinful to attend a parish where there are liturgical abuses that you happen to know are abuses but you like those abuses and you don’t care about authority. 

It's not sinful, however, to attend a parish where there are liturgical abuses that you happen to know are abuses but you haven't any alternative. 

 Frankly, no, it is not sinful to attend an SSPX Mass if you are seeking sound liturgy and preaching and other good people who desire the same.  No question.

As a matter of fact, you can contribute money to their collections: it is a matter of justice.  If you receive services from them, you can contribute.

Sometimes I hear the claim that the SSPX is “not in communion” with the Catholic Church.  I have heard that they are “not Catholic”.  These claims are absurd on the face of it.  No reasonable and even half-informed mind can conclude that they are not “Catholic”.   They are clearly not Protestant, who are heretics.  They are clearly not Orthodox, who are schismatics.   And I am not sure that there is such as thing as “imperfect communion”.  What would that be, exactly?   You are either in communion or you aren’t. 

In the past, sometimes we have seen statements, for example in the decree issued by the Congregation for Bishops in 2009 which lifted the excommunications of the SSPX bishops, that such a gesture aimed at “full communion” and as well as “proof of visible unity”.  It doesn’t say that there wasn’t/isn’t communion or unity.  It aims at making both more apparent, which is not the same as bringing either one about.

Moreover, the three bishop members of the SSPX – excluding the fourth, a separate case –  are NOT excommunicated.  Benedict XVI lifted that excommunication incurred in 1988 – probably with retroactive effect – in 2009.  And the priests are not excommunicated.

Also, it is claimed that the SSPX has been in schism since 1988 because the illicit consecration of bishops by Archbishop Lefevbre was a “schismatic act” (cf. Ecclesia Dei adflicta 3).  However, it takes more than “an act” to create a real schism.

It was obviously, manifestly, NOT +Lefevbre’s intention to set up a separate or rival Church, or to make himself or someone else an anti-Pope, or to create other aspects of a true schism. 

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was a saintly man, truly inspired by the Holy Ghost as he himself would say (he was a Holy Ghost missionary) to save the priesthood and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which he intuited clearly, during the Second Vatican Council, was otherwise doomed to a slow and agonising death.   

The SSPX priests quite openly have used the names of the Popes in the Roman Canon during Mass.  They have recourse to diocesan tribunals in marriage and other matters.  They follow the decrees of the Sacra Paenitentieria Apostolica in the matter of indulgences.  They accept faculties for marriages etc. from local bishops.  Recently, they communicated to their followers the dispensations and provisions given by local bishops in this time of Coronavirus lockdown.  These are not the acts of schismatics.

The SSPX has common and shared faith, sacrament and governance.  Protestants have some shared faith, a couple sacraments, and no governance.  Orthodox have shared faith and sacraments but not shared governance.  The SSPX has all three, as is clear by the fact that Francis acted in their regard about the Sacraments of Penance and Matrimony in way that would be impossible with, say, heretics or schismatics.  They are not “separated brethren”.  No question.

Some don’t like the SSPX because the SSPX say people should attend the Traditional Latin Mass and not the Novus Ordo.  How shocking that they should say that people would do better to come to their Masses rather than someone else’s, particularly when they sincerely believe that the Novus Ordo is flawed and inadequate. 

Too right it's flawed and inadequate! Try following the Novus Ordo with the 1962 Missal and you'll see just how much so.  

They do NOT believe that it is invalid!  They think it is flawed and, in some respects, possibly harmful to the faith.  It could be argued that after several decades of the Novus Ordo a large percentage of Catholics have a flawed understanding of a great deal of Catholic teaching. 

That could be argued, and it is argued, on this page. If Novus Ordo Catholics had an adequate understanding of Catholic teaching they would not have deserted as they have and still do desert the Church.   

But I digress.  The SSPX doesn’t say that Novus Ordo is invalid.

The SSPXers are often said to be against or critical of the Second Vatican Council.  However, they acknowledge that Vatican II was, in fact, the 21st Ecumenical Council.   What they say about the Council is what the Council said about itself: it was intended to be a pastoral Council (which is itself a historical departure) rather than a Council that would issue dogmatic statements.   Paul VI took the documents and he promulgated them. 

That doesn’t mean that everything in every document is beyond criticism.  Some things are crystal clear and others are as clear as mud.  Libs say that everything in the mud is dogmatic according to their own interpretations.   It is legitimate to debate about the debatable things. We can be convinced one way or another by clarifications made by legitimate authority (e.g., CDF) or by the force of the arguments.   

For example, the “Dogmatic Constitution” Lumen gentium had a point about the possibility of salvation outside the church (there’s a dogmatic teaching about that). It was not clear.  Many debated about it.  Hence, in 2000 the CDF issued Dominus Iesus.  It is possible to be confused by things in Council documents, debate them, make arguments and then have them clarified, over time, by subsequent authoritative declarations.   BTW… one might read the commentary on Gaudium et spes by young Fr. Ratzinger in the book edited by Herbert Vorgrimler (HINT: deep reservations about its drafting, structure and anthropocentrism).

So, the SSPX is in a strange state, but not really the state that some (most?) think they are in.  Their chapels are not parishes; a parish is a formal canonical structure.  They don’t have a clear ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as dioceses or a personal prelature or religious order does.  Their priests are not incardinated anywhere, which make them odd ducks in a way, but not less priests than priests who are incardinated in a diocese or in a religious group.   They can and do receive faculties from legitimate authority and, hence, they are not suspended.

Let’s bring this to the bottom line.

When it comes to critics of the SSPX, clerical and lay, it seems to me that a little more charity, thoughtfulness and prudence might be adopted.   There is a rigidity running through some conservative or tradition-leaning Catholics which reminds me a little of the attitude of the Pharisees.   Libs remind me of Pharisees all the time, by the way.

Within the very heart of how the Church applies and interprets her laws there is a beautiful and gentle principle the spirit of which we can learn from when talking about the SSPX:  odiosa restringi et favores convenit ampliari, or else odiosa sunt restringenda et favoribilia amplianda/ampliantur.  That is to say, laws that place burdens or restrictions on people must be interpreted strictly so that they don’t put onto people what the laws don’t say. On the other hand, laws which grant favors or freedoms to people should be interpreted as generously as possible so that people can enjoy favors and freedoms. Be narrow and picky with laws that restrict and wide and generous with laws that grant things.

The SSPX is an association of the faithful.  They don’t yet have canonical recognition.  But they could and, I think, will. 

For sure, they will. Deo volente.

Until then they are still a real thing in the Church.   Their sacraments are valid.  The priests can receive faculties, so they are not suspended.  Their bishop members are not excommunicated.  They have shared faith, sacraments and governance, which is borne out everyday in practice by their recourse to tribunals, reference to the decrees of the Paenitentieria, etc.  They aren’t a separate Church.  

They aren’t heretics.  They aren’t a schism. You can satisfy your Mass attendance obligations at their chapels.  You can be validly absolved by them.  They can witness your marriages.

Is their situation complicated?  Heck, yeah it is!  Especially in regard to the question of incardination of the priests.  That’s really the most difficult canonical issue.

Church politics. Human nature. Never changes. 

Also, the situation of the SSPX and of the wider Church is evolving, especially in light of the concession of faculties.  As it evolves, we have to step back, cool down and re-evaluate.

We probably have a whole bunch of living to do before the trumpet sounds.  I think our views can evolve in a constructive way.  I sure hope so.

Meanwhile, quite a few people would do well to stick a sock in it when it comes to the SSPX.  Carping at them, or parroting inaccuracies, does no one any good and it confuses people.  This is a really complicated situation that is not helpfully characterized by glib cliches or reduced to simplistic conclusions.  Having a gentler attitude, even in regard to their lawful status, as suggested by the Latin dictum I quoted above, seems to me to be the better and the more Catholic approach.  We might apply a little mercy.

Speaking of mercy, during the Year of Mercy convoked by Francis – which the SSPX observed! – the leadership, 250 priests and 5500 followers of the SSPX had their pilgrimage to St. Peter’s Basilica, where they were welcomed.  Then-Superior Bp. Fellay gave a sermon and they prayed for Francis.

I have on my wall a reproduction of a painting in London’s National Gallery by Salvatore Rosa called “The Philosopher”, possibly a self-portrait.  The stern, somberly garbed figure holds a sign with the words: AUT TACE AUT LOQUERE MELIORA SILENTIO.

“Either shut up or say something better than silence would be.”

I want to keep the knucklehead stuff out of the combox, so I will turn on moderation.https://wdtprs.com/2020/04/ask-father-whats-the-truth-about-the-sspx/

 

Holy Mass of consecration of Mary Immaculata

In the wake of my post about the SSPX yesterday, it has come up in email and comments that the SSPX is a small group.  Libs really like to fling this around.  “This is a small fringe group.  They shouldn’t be given any attention or place in the Church.”

HOWEVER…

The SSPX isn’t as small as some people think (or desire).

Take a gander at the SSPX entry on Wikipedia.  We read…

If the Society’s canonical situation were to be regularized, it would be the Church’s 4th largest society of apostolic life [!] (similar to a religious order, but without vows), according to the three criteria published annually in Annuario Pontificio [of 2016]: number of erected houses (median 31; SSPX 167), number of members in the society (median 229; SSPX 971), and number of priests in the society (median 149; SSPX 640).

If they were completely regularized, they would have in 2016 been the 4th LARGEST society of apostolic life in the Church!

Meanwhile, they have been growing and other orders and societies in the Church, without canonical conundrums, have been shrinking.

No wonder libs and some non-libs are nervous about them.

Also, they have built a huge new seminary in these USA in Virginia.  A beautiful place.

They are building an enormous church in Kansas (completed in May this year - ed).

They even had sent out a survey in consideration of creating a kind of Catholic town or community.

If people think that the SSPX is just some little group and not worthy of consideration, they are not living in reality.

Please allow me to add the point I concluded with yesterday.

The situation of the SSPX is messy.  The Society doesn’t fit easily into categories.   It’s unique.  This is complicated affair and not fairly characterized by simple black and white Olympian statements.

A great deal of what I see written about the SSPX is poorly-informed, mean-spirited, spiritually-stingy twaddle hurled down as if it were an unerring bolt from Zeus.

It behooves us to treat the priests of the Society with charity.  We have to be at least as flexible and generous as the Church herself in the way that she interprets her laws. We interpret laws that place burdens as narrowly and strictly as possible, so as not to place undue burdens on people.  We interpret laws that give advantages and favors as widely and liberally as possible, so as to expand what we enjoy.

When we consider matters having to do with the SSPX, let’s be at least as gentle as the Church’s attitude in interpreting her laws.

 

St Thomas Aquinas Seminary, Dillwyn, USA

 As noted above, a certain cardinal - +Raymond Burke  - persists in presenting the SSPX in a poor light. One swallow does not a summer make, as one's mother was wont to say and certainly Archbishop Athanasius Schneider does not agree with +Burke. (For reasons best known unto themselves, Church Militant maintains a campaign against the SSPX but that's another story.) 

The following letter was sent to H.E. Raymond Cardinal Burke last year by the founders of the Charlotte (NC) (North Carolina - ed) and Columbia (SC) (South Carolina - ed) Latin Mass communities. It was sent via email to his official site as well his personal secretary via a mutual contact. To this date no reply has been received.

In a spirit of charity it is assumed that His Eminence never saw those emails. This open letter serves as an opportunity for him to address a matter of great importance, possible error, and unintended confusion. Both myself and the two authors of this letter believe that Cardinal Burke will provide a response in the same spirit in which the letter itself was written.

A Joint Letter to Raymond Cardinal Burke from Leaders of the Charlotte (NC) and Columbia (SC) Latin Mass Communities

November 19, 2022

Your Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke,

Greetings. It is with great affection that we write this letter asking for your assistance with a matter relating to the Traditional Latin Mass.

On May 10, 2021, two months prior to the issuance of the Motu Proprio, Traditionis Custodes, you appeared on a podcast interview with Matt Fradd where Mr. Fradd read a recent statement by Rev. Thomas Reese, SJ,

 

Fr Reese SJ with (surprise!) ex-pupil Fr 'Jimmy' Martin

Fr Reese SJ! Of course he would want "the unreformed liturgy to disappear". Like a rat  would want a Jack Russell to disappear.  

... demanding that Pope Francis suppress the Traditional Latin Mass stating that he wants the “unreformed liturgy to disappear”. Fr. Reese went on to outline a series of proposals which were eerily prescient of the soon to be released Motu Proprio.

Mr. Fradd asked Your Eminence if such a suppression was likely to happen and if so, what should faithful Catholics do. Your response to Mr. Fradd was that you could not imagine this suppression happening, however, you stopped short of answering the second question of what faithful Catholics should do if it were to happen. Perhaps you thought, as we all did, that such a suppression was so impossible that the hypothetical was not worthy of speculation.

Now that such a pogrom of suppression of worship has been enacted by Pope Francis, we humbly request you to please advise faithful Catholics what they should do now.

Also, during this interview your Eminence made the extemporaneous claim that the Society of Saint Pius X are “not part of the One Roman Catholic Church.”

You may not be aware of this, but this one extemporaneous comment of yours is being excitedly repeated and publicized with great effect by the loudest and most passionate elements of the Church. Their volume and passion are matched in the inverse by their lack of charity and reason.

The subtle impression they make by repeating this comment is that your extemporaneous comment carries almost the same weight as an official adjudication of the Church considering your previous role as the head of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

The implication that follows is that the 2009 lifting of the SSPX excommunications by then Pope Benedict XVI were somehow not valid. Or further that it is canonically possible for SSPX priests to simultaneously be suspended and somehow also have faculties to administer Sacraments – as they have in part been granted directly by Pope Francis. In their most grotesque portrayal of your words, they gleefully claim that the SSPX is a different religion outside of the Catholic Church - in their minds a degree of penalty exceeding even the prior excommunications.

These passionate voices have been using your extemporaneous comment as a cruel bludgeon against faithful Catholic families who are simply seeking a stable place to worship God, receive the sacraments, and pass the Catholic faith unmolested down to their children. These families are confused when they are told that the SSPX is in an “irregular state”, but somehow the parish in town … [with widespread abuse and immorality] … is “regular”.

Many families see a Church in a state of abject crisis where all options are “irregular”. In some dioceses, these families’ decision to attend chapels of the SSPX is made under a shroud of abandonment by chanceries who cancel their worship and Sacraments. They trudge sorrowfully to these chapels as orphans to the orphanage.

We do not believe that it was your intent for your comment to be abused in this way, and in charity we beg Your Eminence to please consider these points and revise and clarify your comments to bring comfort to these families.

We are grateful for your thoughtful consideration of our request, and in charity we ask for a written response.

Ad Iesus Per Mariam.

Signed by:

James Albert, Founder
Columbia Traditional Latin Mass Supporters

Chris Lauer, Founder
Charlotte Latin Mass Communityhttps://liturgyguy.com/2023/06/16/an-open-letter-to-cardinal-burke-regarding-the-sspx/

Church of the Immaculata, St Mary's, Kansas

St Mary Immaculate, please pray for the SSPX