The move by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was announced by SSPX superior-general Bishop Bernard Fellay during a homily.

The Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, Archbishop Guido Pozzo, said the appointment did not signal that "existing problems" between the SSPX and Rome had been resolved.

"But it is a sign of benevolence and magnanimity. I see no contradiction here, but rather, a step toward reconciliation," Archbishop Pozzo said.

This is not the first time the SSPX has made recourse to Rome regarding "delicta graviora" by priests and dispensations from priestly obligations.

The CDF is in charge of dealing with a number of "delicta graviora", and the one that occurs most frequently involves the sexual abuse of minors.

But what is new is that the CDF has decided to entrust a case, in the first instance trial, to the SSPX superior-general.

Bishop Fellay presented his appointment as an example of the "contradictions" in the Holy See's approach to the SSPX.

"We are labeled now as being irregular, at best. Irregular means you cannot do anything," he said.

"So I was appointed by Rome, by the Congregation of the Faith, to make judgements, canonical Church judgements on some of our priests who belong to a non-existent society for [Rome]."

Bishop Fellay contrasted his appointment with Rome's treatment of a pilgrimage involving 1500 faithful, from which came a request for a celebration of the old rite in St Peter's Basilica.

This request was rejected by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.

It was felt that the celebration of a Mass by a Lefebvrian priest before existing problems around canonical regularisation and full communion were resolved would have sent out the wrong signal.

Pope Francis gave his approval to a proposal for the requested Mass to be celebrated by an Ecclesia Dei priest in St Peter's Basilica.

But SSPX leaders rejected this offer.

Sources

• Vatican Insider
• Image: DICI

The meeting between Cardinal Gerhard Müller and Bishop Bernard Fellay, SSPX, on September 21, has been labelled as "informal".

If it goes ahead, it will be Cardinal Müller's first meeting with Bishop Fellay since the former's appointment as prefect.

As head of the CDF, the German cardinal is also president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which is charged with helping to bring about reconciliation with the SSPX.

In a speech last year, Bishop Fellay called Pope Francis a "genuine modernist" who is making "a real disaster" for the Church "10,000 times worse".

Speaking at the time, Cardinal George Pell said Bishop Fellay's comments were "absolute rubbish" and a "gigantic misreading" of the Pope.

Cardinal Müller was reportedly opposed to the SSPX when he was bishop in Regensburg, Tradinews reports.

Talks between the Vatican and the SSPX were halted when the latter was unable accept the contents of a "doctrinal preamble" that outlined principles and criteria necessary to guarantee fidelity to the Church and its teaching.

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Bishop Bernard Fellay also said: "The situation of the Church is a real disaster, and the present Pope is making it 10,000 times worse."

Bishop Fellay was speaking to SSPX supporters in a lecture and a sermon during a conference in Kansas City.

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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

In a letter to SSPX members, Bishop Bernard Fellay said negotiations with the Holy See in 2012 put the society in "a delicate position".

He said the conditions being imposed on the SSPX entailed "total acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and of the Mass of Paul VI", so "we are still at the point where we started out in the 1970s".

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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

SSPX Superior General, Bishop Bernard Fellay said doctrinal difficulties with the teaching of the Vatican II and the subsequent liturgical reform were the sticking points to reconciliation.

Earlier, a meeting between Fellay and Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with their assistants, saw the Vatican present its evaluation of the situation, including the opinion of Pope Benedict.

It was the Vatican's hope that an opportunity for reflection would lead SSPX to full communion with Rome.

The Vatican, through its spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ said "the ball is in the Society's court".

Sources

• Washington Post
• Vatican Radio
• CNS
• Image: The Catholic Sun

Having carefully studied the content of the doctrinal preamble with the added modifications requested by the Superior of the Society of St. Pius X, Benedict XVI took his final decision and communicated it to the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Levada and the Secretary of the dicastery, Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, during an Audience with them last Saturday.

Cardinal Levada delivered the text of the doctrinal declaration to Mgr. Fellay this afternoon, in the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in Rome.

The Lefevrian Superior has arrived at the Society of St. Pius X's house in Albano Laziale, near Rome.

The content of the preamble is still top secret but as has been promised from the beginning, it will be published if a formal agreement is reached between the Holy See and the Society founded by Mgr. Lefebvre.

The final decision is therefore now in the hands of Mgr. Fellay: if he decides to accept the returned text, the agreement will be officially announced and the Society of St. Pius X will be given personal prelature status and will answer directly to the Holy See. Continue reading

Accepting the Council's teaching is no longer "a prerequisite for the canonical solution" according to Superior General of SSPX's Bishop Bernard Fellay.

Fellay made his remarks in an interview published on the Society's website.

He also disclosed that it was the Vatican approach the Society to begin talks, not vice-versa.

"So the attitude of the official Church is what changed; we did not," he said. "We were not the ones who asked for an agreement; the Pope is the one who wants to recognise us."

"We are still not in agreement doctrinally, and yet the pope wants to recognize us. Why? The answer is right in front of us: there are terribly important problems in the church today."

The reconciliation talks, he said, are a sign that the Catholic Church has begun to recognize it needs to recover traditions and traditional teaching eclipsed by the Second Vatican Council.

Speaking to members of the SSPX who are wary of reconciliation, Fellay said "one of the great dangers is to end up inventing an idea of the church that appears ideal, but is in fact not found in the real history of the church."

"Some claim that in order to work 'safely' in the church, she must first be cleansed of all error. This is what they say when they declare that Rome must convert before any agreement, or that its errors must first be suppressed so that we can work," he said.

But the reality of the church's history shows that "often, and almost always, we see that there are widespread errors" and that God calls holy men and women to work within the church to correct the errors, Fellay said.

"We are being asked to come and work just as all the reforming saints of all times did," he said.

Sources

• CNS
• Image: Dici.org

Recent talks were held after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith examined the latest response from the Society, to the "doctrinal preamble" presented to them last September.

"Some observations were formulated which will be kept in mind in further discussions," said Fr Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, following a meeting of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Bishop Fellay, Superior General of the SSPX, has been generally positive about the possibility of reconciliation with Rome but the society's three other bishops have expressed serious reservations about the process.

"In consideration of the positions taken by the three other bishops of the Society of St Pius, their situation will have to be treated separately and individually," Fr Lombardi said in a statement.

Even if the SSPX as a whole is reconciled with Rome, he said, "the individual bishops each must make a commitment" to full communion with Rome. "It's not as if there will be one solution that automatically extends to all."

In addition to their reservations, Fr Lombardi said, Bishop Richard Williamson's public denials of the Holocaust and anti-Semitic statements would also require separate discussions.

"It is not that this is a process that necessarily will reach a solution that embraces all the positions" found among all the SSPX members, Fr Lombardi said.

"Obviously, the decision is in the Pope's hands" and he can act when and how he wants, "but despite how it may have seemed - that we were talking about a brief amount of time - it is a process that continues," Fr Lombardi said.

"It would be premature to guess when the process will end," he added.

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Rumours around hint towards a positive outcome of the prolonged negotiations.

According to Vatican Insider, Bishop Fellay, explained that, for the time being, nothing of a definitive nature has yet taken place, neither in the direction of a canonical recognition, not in the direction of a rupture, and it is therefore time to wait and see.

"We are waiting, an agreement will happen if concessions which touch upon the faith are not asked from us and if we are assured true freedom," Fellay wrote.

Source

• Vatican Insider
• Profimedia

On Friday, Head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Levada, met with Bishop Bernard Fellay, SSPX leader. The meeting was held at the Vatican and lasted for two hours.

The Vatican told SSPX they must accept non-negotiable doctrinal principles within a month or risk a painful break with Rome that would have 'incalculable' consequence.

Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi S.J., told reporters "the question isn't considered closed" but the SSPX statement, delivered to the Vatican in January "is not sufficient to overcome the doctrinal problems that are at the foundation of the fracture between the Holy See and the Society."

Bishop Fellay has been invited to "clarify his position with the aim of closing the existing fracture, as hoped for by Pope Benedict XVI," a Vatican statement said.

Lombardi would not give examples of the points on which the Society of St. Pius X and the Vatican still differ since the original preamble was never published, however among the known differences include SSPX opposition to the Vatican's outreach to Jews, Muslims and its ecumenical efforts, recognition of the authority of the Pope, and what it sees as the liberal reforms introduced at Vatican II.

The group has been given a month to respond.

Despite Benedict's openness to the traditionalists being controversial and meeting with resistance inside the Church, the Pontiff has nevertheless wanted to avoid a permanent schism and pursued reconciliation between SSPX and the Vatican as a cherished goal.

Sources:

• Society of St Pius X
• Reuters
• Associated Press
• NCR
• Image: Crusaders of the Immaculate Heart

He said that the Rosary crusade which the Society is conducting will continue for several more months so that the Society may obtain "the graces of light and strength that we need more than ever."

Bishop Fellay's comments followed a two-hour meeting at which he was presented with a statement of principles, or "doctrinal preamble," by the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal William Levada. The document outlined points of doctrine that the Vatican needs clarified before finally healing the decades-long rift between the two sides.

If the Society agrees they may be offered the status of a personal prelature within the Church - a jurisdiction without geographical boundaries designed to carry out particular pastoral initiatives.

"The meeting was conducted with great courtesy and with equally great candor, because for the sake of honesty the Society of St. Pius X refuses to evade the problems that remain," said Bishop Fellay in an interview posted on the Society's website.

Yesterday's talks seem to leave open the possibility of the Society repairing its relationship with the Church, while still being allowed to express concerns over the legacy of the Second Vatican Council.

Bishop Fellay says this view confirms a 2005 conversation he had with Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, then President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, who told him that the Society's various objections to aspects of the Second Vatican Council "does not mean that you are outside the Church."

While not giving a time scale for the Society's response, Bishop Fellay said he will reply to the Vatican as soon as he has "taken the time necessary to study" the document and "to consult with those who are chiefly responsible for the Society of St. Pius X."

Full Article: CNA

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