Excerpt from Elliot Milco's contribution:
In light of the recent (and increasing) rumors of Pope Francis's inclination to grant canonical recognition to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X, I've been reading up on that group. Currently I'm working through the first volume of Michael Davies's trilogy Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, which is a collection of documents relating to the FSSPX, paired with contemporary news items and interspersed commentary. The books favor a certain side of the FSSPX question, but they offer an unparalleled level of detail regarding the formation, investigation, and suppression of the religious order, as well as Marcel Lefebvre's relationship with Pope Paul VI and the Vatican.... and there's much, much more. Read more >>
What strikes me so far in reading the book (and I should note that this is not my first foray into the history of the post-Conciliar fallout) is how right Lefebvre was in the early 1970s about most of the things going on in the Church. (I recommend his 1983 Open Letter to Confused Catholics to anyone who has been dismayed by dissolution of Catholicism in Catholic institutions.) Today if one wants to know about the fruits of disciplinary relaxation and innovation in seminaries in the 1960s and 70s, one need only read the USCCB's report on the origins of the clerical abuse crisis. Very sad that the FSSPX was treated with such hostility by the curia under Paul VI, and unfortunate that Lefebvre disregarded the authority of John Paul II. Wouldn't it have been better to allow him to continue with his “experiment of tradition”? And now, over the past ten years, aren't we all inching our way toward the realization that that “experiment” is the one that needs to be undertaken?
9 comments:
Very sad that the FSSPX was treated with such hostility by the curia under Paul VI...
The hostility was mutual and Lefevbre did have the liberty to conduct his experiment in what he called Tradition but he reneged on his deal as regards Econe; he gave his word to the Bishop with Jurisdiction that he agreed it was to be opened on an experimental basis and then when the Bishop told him the experiment was over, Lefebvre went back on his word.
Going back on his word was a tried and true method for Lefevbre and one can see that in his first signing all the documents of Vatican Two then lying he did not sign them all and then repudiating the ones he found troublesome. (Like John Kerry, he was for the documents before he was against them.) He reneged on this word never to ordain Bishops; he went back on his word after having signed the protocol with Ratzinger, etc etc
O, and he created his own petit ecclesia and he was as hypocritical as a U.S. Senator the it came to obedience for he took just as much damn liberty as he desired in disobeying the legitimate authorities in Rome but he excommunicated anyone who disobeyed him in his schism.
He is treated as a model for Trads which is about par for the course these antinomian days
ABS, it was The Church that went back on its word at Vatican II... All else is secondary, and your exclamations against ML just underscore that. People are told the Church never changes its teaching, and then it does... And you take them to task for cognitive dissonance and a survival instinct? That's the Catholic blind obedience instinct that enabled the present crisis. To suggests ML was the one who lacked integrity is laughable. I might have signed the damned documents initially myself, under the pressured assumption it was the Pope and the Church, etc etc. Changing your mind under the constraint of conscience... Especially when it is in defense of Tradition... Hardly a bad course of action.
Clearly you speak without experience of Continental Europe and the nest-of-vipers which constituted the bishops' conferences. Consider the present de facto schismatic nature of the same. On the evidence available Msgr. Lefebvre has been proven to be correct in his decisions [perhaps except +Williamson, but that was essentially an American thing].
Dear JM The man signed his name to agreements and then reneged. If you are Jake with that, fine.
But that is not the mark of an honest man nor the mark of an authentic Catholic Trad. No matter what one's opponent does, one can not justify not living up to one's promises.
Dear Sixupman. What? He repeatedly gave his word - signed his name- to documents/agreements/protocols he later failed to honor. Continental Bishop Conferences be damned; it was HE who freely chose to give his word and then took his word back. In what masculine world is that acceptable?
If this is the best Tradition has to offer, that's pitiable.
Amateur Brain Surgeon:
What a name! Anyway, if the fine print on a contract can be read two ways, and you read it one way and the other person reads it another, don't you think that's equally unjust to the signer of the contract?
Dear George. Are you talking about V2 documents, his agreement to open Econe on an experimental basis, the protocol with Ratzinger?
No matter what any document said, Lefevbre never had one iota of justifiable reason to create a schism. Saint Augustine said a schism can never be justified.
And Lefevbfre went FAR past just a schism. He created his own church:
http://thetraditionalcatholicfaith.blogspot.com/2010/12/canonical-tribunals-of-sspx.html
The Lefevbre Schism was predicted long before its advent
Fr. Richard Ginder, a former columnist for The Wanderer. In his short book, 1968, Thou Art the Rock, when referring to the separation of the "wheat and the tares" that took place between Luther igniting the revolt and the Treaty of Westphalia (1517-1648), Fr. Ginder noted the following:
It is the old story of the tares among the wheat. It took 131 years to make a separation once before but with the advance in communications media, we shall not have to wait so long this time. But we shall see it. It will come - very likely in the shape of a heretical sect attributing primacy of honour but refusing jurisdiction to the Holy Father, at the same time proclaiming themselves the only True Believers.
Fr. Ginder nailed it !!!!!
The man realized he allowed his clericalism to get the better of his judgement, and screwed up the courage to say the Vatican II documents were wrong even if he initially been willing to be a sheeple and rubber stamp them in cowed submission to a church that cannot err. I think most of us can sympathize with him. A promise to uphold error is not binding, since Truth is not a matter of contracts.
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