{"id":332,"date":"2009-03-14T14:22:19","date_gmt":"2009-03-14T14:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/sspx-leader-heart-pope-benedic.html"},"modified":"2009-03-14T14:22:19","modified_gmt":"2009-03-14T14:22:19","slug":"sspx-leader-heart-pope-benedic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/sspx-leader-heart-pope-benedic.html","title":{"rendered":"SSPX leader (heart) Pope Benedict"},"content":{"rendered":"

I may not have loved the pope’s letter<\/a><\/strong> explaining his views and action regarding the SSPX controversy (as many have noted here<\/a>) but the SSPX gave it two thumbs-up. <\/p>\n

Via Zenit.org, here is the full text of the statement<\/a> from the superior-general of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, in response to pope’s March 10 letter:<\/p>\n

\n

Pope Benedict XVI addressed a letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church, dated March 10, 2009, in which he made them aware of the intentions which guided him in this important step which is the Decree of Jan. 21, 2009.<\/p>\n

After “an avalanche of protests was unleashed” recently, we greatly thank the Holy Father for having placed the debate at the level on which it should take place, that of the faith. We fully share his utmost concern for preaching to “our age, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel.”<\/p>\n

The Church lives, in fact, through a major crisis which cannot be solved other than by an integral return to the purity of the faith. With St. Athanasius, we profess that “Whoever wants to be saved should above all cling to the Catholic faith: Whoever does not guard it whole and inviolable will doubtless perish eternally.” (Quicumque Creed)<\/p>\n

Far from wanting to stop Tradition in 1962, we wish to consider the Second Vatican Council and the post-Conciliar magisterium in the light of this Tradition which St. Vincent of L\u00e9rins defined as that “which has been believed everywhere, always, by all” (Commonitorium), without rupture and in a perfectly homogeneous development. It is thus that we will be able to contribute efficaciously to the evangelization asked for by the Savior (cf. Matthew, 28,19-20). <\/p>\n

The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X assures Benedict XVI of its will to address the doctrinal discussions considered “necessary” by the Decree of Jan. 21, with the desire of serving the revealed Truth which is the first charity to be shown towards all men, Christian or not. It assures him of its prayers so that his faith may not fail and that he may confirm all his brethren (cf. Luke 22 32).<\/p>\n

We place these doctrinal discussions under the protection of Our Lady of Trust, with the assurance that she will obtain for us the grace of faithfully delivering that which we received, “tradidi quod et accepi” (I Cor. 15,3).<\/p>\n

Menzingen, March 12, 2009<\/p>\n

+ Bernard Fellay<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I may not have loved the pope’s letter explaining his views and action regarding the SSPX controversy (as many have noted here) but the SSPX gave it two thumbs-up. Via Zenit.org, here is the full text of the statement from the superior-general of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, in response to pope’s March…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,6,7,3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bishops","category-catholic","category-church","category-history","category-politics","category-pope"],"yoast_head":"\nSSPX leader (heart) Pope Benedict - Pontifications<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/03\/sspx-leader-heart-pope-benedic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SSPX leader (heart) Pope Benedict - Pontifications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I may not have loved the pope’s letter explaining his views and action regarding the SSPX controversy (as many have noted here) but the SSPX gave it two thumbs-up. 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}