Late last week, the news came down that the Vatican had approved a new French group, at this point composed of priests who had left the SSPX, the main breakaway Traditionalist group (and they will argue to the death with you whether or not they should be described as "schismatic" – although most analyses I’ve read conclude that while certain figures in SSPX might be called in schism, the membership in general is not. The discussion on the SSPX article at WikiPedia gives a sense of that conversation. If you want more, albeit from a particular perspective, this website argue strenously for the position that it is in schism.)
Here’s the Catholic News Agency story:
A group of six French priests and several seminarians who were formerly members of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X have reestablished full communion with the Catholic Church and begun the “Institute of the Good Shepherd,” with the blessing of Pope Benedict XVI.
Members of the new pontifically-approved Society of Apostolic Life, established in Rome on September 8th, the Feast of the Birth of Mary, can celebrate the Tridentine Mass in Latin. The statutes of the Institute allow its members to “exclusively use the Gregorian liturgy,” the rite found in the liturgical books used prior to the liturgical reform in 1962, the Roman Missal, the Roman Breviary, the Roman Pontifical, and the Roman Ritual.
The Archbishop of Bordeaux and President of the Episcopal Conference of France, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, noted in a communication that the clergy who belong to the Institute, desire “to practice their priesthood in the doctrinal and liturgical traditions of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.”
The French prelate explained that the Holy Father, “adopted the decision to build this new institute.” In this way, he continued, “they give their will to propose an experience of reconciliation and communion which will be deepened and made more solid with the facts.” The statutes of the Institute of the Good Shepherd have received experimental approval for a period of five years.
The archbishop also explained that the presence of the newly approved Society of Apostolic Life in the Archdiocese of Bordeaux will be regulated by an agreement signed by both parties.
He added that a greater spirit of "pacification, reconciliation and communion" was still needed because relations between the archdiocese and some members of the institute had been marked by violence even recently. Cardinal Ricard did not specify the nature of the violence.
One Vatican official, who asked not to be identified, told Catholic News Service that the willingness shown by the cardinal, who is also president of the French bishops’ conference, to establish the new society might send a signal to the rest of France’s bishops to be more welcoming to Archbishop Lefebvre’s former followers.
Meanwhile, Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the Society of St. Pius X, said the erection of the new institute was "not a surprise" since the Vatican supported the establishment of other similar religious communities in the past.
In a Sept. 8 statement on the society’s Web site, Bishop Fellay said the society would never endorse such communities since it keeps the Tridentine Mass "confined in a particular statute."
Rather than being "a privilege reserved for few people," the older Mass
Violence???
Anyway, discussion about this has been raging over the past few days. What neither article mentions is that some of the priests involved in this were expelled from SSPX a couple of years ago, in a battle about which I know absolutely nothing, except that it was a pretty big deal. A quick search brought me to this old post by Peter Vere at Envoy Encore on the issue, a post which, typically for this issue, engendered over 80 comments over there. So there is a whole other dynamic to this that goes unmentioned, for whatever reason, in the news accounts.
The Wikipedia article on the Institue gives more detail.
A word on Wikipedia: I use and link to it cautiously. I find it mostly useful for the links it provides, and actually the "discussions" on the articles (click on the tab at the top of the article) can be just as illuminating as the articles themselves, as various folks, professional and amateur experts alike, hash out details. This particular article offered the basics and it seemed to me, fairly.
The question has been…what’s up with this? There are a few other Vatican-approved Traditionalist groups – FSSP and the ICK being the most familiar. They got no respect from the SSPX, et all, because they, it is said, are basically sell-outs, both in terms of what they purportedly offer to the faithful (Tridentine Mass, but I think not always the full spectrum of liturgical and catechetical life) , the relation of FSSP priests to the Novus Ordo liturgy, and they are ultimately subject to bishops who may or may not permit them to operate.
Plus, as the quote from Bishop Fellay indicates, these institutes imply that the Tridentine Liturgy is something "special" for which permission must be sought, and their position is that it should be freely available for any priest to celebrate, any time.
FInally, the question of criticizing various aspects of the Church has been at issue – most people think of Traditionalists as being only concerned about the Mass, but this is not the case at all. "Modernism" in general is their issue, and in particular the Vatican II documents Dignitatis Humanae, or the Declaration on Religious Freedom and Nostra Aetate or the Declaration of the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.
Apparently this concerned worked its way into the agreement on the new Institute:
The Holy See granted the members of the new institute exclusive use, as the institute’s own rite, of the earlier form of the Roman liturgy. For their part, each of the founding members personally undertook to respect the authentic Magisterium of the See of Rome with "complete fidelty to the infallible Magistrium of the Church".[6] The members of the institute may engage in a criticism of the Second Vatican Council that is serious and constructive and in accord with Pope Benedict’s address of 22 December 2005 to the Roman Curia, while recognizing that it is for the Apostolic See to give the authentic interpretation of the Council
(Feel free to correct me on anything I say, readers. These are complicated waters)
So what people are wondering is if this is a sign that the Vatican has essentially given up on any kind of agreement with the SSPX, or even if this is some kind of end-run around SSPX, giving those who would not be interested in the other institutes a place to go or if this is simply an institute related to the specific needs of the French church, with no greater implications.
The other news that has come out of this news is the hint, offered by Fr. Philippe Laguérie, one of the founders, that something big is coming from the Vatican re/the Tridentine Liturgy, probably in Novemember. We’d assume that if this were so, it would be in connection with the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation to be issued as a summation of last fall’s Synod on the Eucharist. Who knows. We went through this in the spring, as I recall..
It is my hope that the discussion on this stays on-topic, even though the topic is broad. The issue is the present politics, for lack of a better term, and not so much the SSPX claims. One impacts the other, but if we can try to stick with the former as much as possible, that would be great.
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