As we go to press...

Rome’s “June Offer” to the Society of St. Pius X

By John Vennari

Archbishop Lefebvre

            This is a last-minute addition to this issue. The news broke as we go to press.
            It has just been released in the media that on June 4, 2008, the Vatican’s Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos issued what has been called an “ultimatum” to the Society of St. Pius X regarding regularization.
            The Cardinal’s letter listed five points that the Vatican expects the SSPX to accept, which are quoted below verbatim:
            1. The commitment to a response proportionate to the generosity of the Pope.
            2. The commitment to avoid every public intervention which does not respect the person of the Holy Father and which may be negative to ecclesial charity.
            3. The commitment to avoid the claim to a Magisterium superior to the Holy Father and to not propose the Fraternity in contraposition to the Church.
            4. The commitment to display the will to act honestly in full ecclesial charity and in respect for the authority of the Vicar of Christ.
            5. The commitment to respect the date - fixed for the end of the month of June [2008] - to respond positively. This shall be a condition necessary and required as an immediate preparation for adhesion to accomplish full communion.
            I do not presume to speak for the Society of St. Pius X, but I would be surprised if the SSPX accepts these conditions. The conditions are remarkably vague and could be easily interpreted against the SSPX’s public resistance to the Council and the New Mass.
            As for “The commitment to avoid the claim to a Magisterium superior to the Holy Father and to not propose the Fraternity in contraposition to the Church,” the SSPX has never done this, but only adheres to what the Church has always taught, and judges today’s progressivist teachings in that light. This, in fact, is the duty of all Catholics, and it is what Saint Vincent of Lerins instructed Catholics to do when “some new contagion threatens a part of the Church or the whole Church at once”.
            The conditions sent by Cardinal Castrillón do not deal with the doctrinal issues of Vatican II, despite the fact that the Society of St. Pius X has stated repeatedly for decades that an honest discussion of the manifold problems with the Council is vital before any regularization can be seriously considered.
            This issue of CFN goes to press on June 25, so the reader [of the print edition] may already know the SSPX’s answer to Cardinal Castrillón, which was to be expected at the end of June.
            What follows is a transcript of sections of Bishop Fellay’s lecture at the ordinations at Winona on June 20, 2008 in which he alludes to this latest communication from Cardinal Castrillón.

Excerpts from Bishop Fellay’s Ordination Sermon

[           Certainly, my dear brethren, you expect from me today also a certain update of how things are going with Rome. All these excommunications, or the lifting, or the retraction of the decrees of excommunication: is it coming or not? Frankly, I don't know. My impression, right now, is that we still can wait for a while, and maybe a good while. And why so?
            Because the approach we have towards the question is not the same as the one of the Vatican. And I say this problem, always these words; they were the words of the Archbishop at the time of the bishops' consecrations twenty years ago. He said, 'Rome wants a reconciliation, but with these words, they intend, they want to say that we go back to the ‘new', which is not to go back, but go in. And that's not what we want. He said the perspective is different, they speak of reconciliation, but it is integration to the new. And we don't want that.
            In '75, '76, it was already the same problem. Before the suspension of '76, Rome sent an ambassador to the Archbishop who told him, 'Say with me one New Mass, concelebrate with me one Mass, and everything is fine'. And now, well, they don't say 'Say one Mass', they just say 'Shut up'.
            It is so far that Rome has given me an ultimatum. Seems that the last “ Letter to the Benefactors“ has been not so well received in Rome. They consider it as a proof of pride, of arrogance, and that's what they don't want. And we are not going to shut down our mouths, or to shut up….
            (Regarding the Latin Mass Motu Proprio) Let me try to give you a picture. The Mass is the visible part of this big fight. It is like the tip of an iceberg. The Old Mass is the tip of the iceberg of Tradition. The New Mass is the tip of the iceberg of Vatican II, and of these modern ideas, what they call the “spirit of the Council”, which has come in with all these reforms… this new way of looking at things… the “positive” way of looking at the world and other religions, and insist on looking at what is good in them. That’s not false; there is some good in them. But that’s not the point. In every evil, you have some good…
            … When we see the Latin Mass Motu Proprio, we get the impression that they have taken the tip [of Tradition], which means they have accepted everything below the tip of that iceberg. That is not what they did. They tried to take the tip [of Tradition] and plant it on the other iceberg, on the iceberg of the new thing.
            And so we have two tips, and they say it is only one tip…If you try to look under the water, what is below, you will see that they maintain the only thing you can have below is the new thing, but they call it “Tradition”. It may create a lot of confusion…
            …And now, we are, should we say, something like at a crossroads. And in a certain way, Rome is telling us, “OK, we are ready to lift up the excommunication, but you cannot continue this way.”
            So, we have no choice, we are not going this way, we are continuing what we have done, we have fought now for forty years to keep this Faith alive; to keep this Tradition not only for ourselves, but for the Church. And we are just going to continue, happens what happens. Everything is in God's hands. If God wants this proof, this trial to continue, it may continue. He will give us the grace we need for it. No fear, we'll wait for better times. That's what the Archbishop said twenty years ago. That's what we continue to say today.
            Of course we have to do all we can to have this Faith to be continued, to be preached everywhere, this Faith to be really — and all this Tradition to be really — back in the Church. We have to do whatever we can for this, but nothing else. It is a hard time, my dear brethren, but it is not ourselves who are going to change it. We are in these circumstances, we did not cause them. So we depend on God.

From the July 2008 edition of
Catholic Family News
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