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| Prayers are needed for a positive outcome to talks |
1. The preoccupation of some SSPX priests regarding women's dress. The sermon at St Josephs and St Padarns in London on a Sunday is frequently taken up with a 30 minute diatribe against women wearing trousers. Have they never been to Pakistan? I asked them once why they had this preoccupation, where was the theological sense in all this (provided that women dressed modestly, what is the problem?). I was told that women were required to dress as they dressed at the time of Christ. What about men then, I asked: they also wore long robes so why should they be excluded...no answer.
2. The lack of pastoral care offered by the Society. Their priests are always working at full stretch, taking the Mass around Great Britain and, as a result, the all important element of pastoral care just does not exist.
3. Bishop Williamson....long regarded by the media and the populace at large as a nutter.
I hope and pray that the talks have a successful outcome, Bishop Fellay is a very learned and saintly man but there are obstacles in both camps. Despite attending SSPX Masses (as is licit to do so) I have always felt that a prolonged separation from Rome would alter the nature of the Society until, at some stage, reconciliation would become impossible and the Society then become Protestant. Prayers are needed!
I think the main and most dangerous problem is them being not in union with the Church and being desobedient to the Pope(s). One can not agree with many things in the way some do things in the Church but one can never turn his back to the Church and desobey the Pope as they did.
ReplyDeleteAs I have read, Cardinal Siri who was a traditional, begged Msgr. Lefebvre to not leave the Church, for no avail. The Cardinal stayed, even if he didn't like some things.
The others did like the protestants: if you don't agree, leave the Church.
To the commentator above:
ReplyDeleteThey never left the church. The fact of the matter is that they were always part of the church and their excommunication in 1988, is questionable at best, because it hardly takes into account the dispositions in canon law before someone can be cut off from the church. When one reads of the events leading up to the consecrations, anyone with a shred of honesty will admit that hierarchy in Rome, at that time, was less than honest with its dealings with the Society. Coupled with the scandalous actions of the late pontiff (however good a man he was) is it any wonder that traditional Catholics were driven to the extreme?
In any case, the excommunications (now lifted by the incumbent Holy Father) has taken that stick away from the neo-cons, who liked to beat the SSPX with it.
Richard: agreed with you on your points on the SSPX