It was a great disappointment to read Fr. Regis de Cacqueray's Monday statement made with the approbation of Bishop Fellay; at a time when we needed give no opportunity to the devil.
The content of the statement is not the particular issue here; the SSPX has been able to discuss this matter with the Holy See since the beginning of the year.
What is wrong is this:
Barely two days before the Holy See presents its considered judgment to the Society, Bishop Fellay, jumping in first, approves an SSPX judgment against the person of the Holy Father; without even waiting for the Holy Father to speak through His representative.
A very serious issue, Assisi, has been abused here, and used as a smoke-screen as if to distract from a fundamental fact.
The fundamental fact is, that whoever the true Pope may be, it is necessary for Catholic bishops and priests who accept him, to have hierarchical submission to that Pope of the here and now, irrespective of the other grave theological or moral issues of the time.
Fr. de Cacqueray's statement and Bishop Fellay's approval of it reads as an unworthy tactic. Why didn't the bishop say it himself: si si, no, no?
The issue of the day is fronting up to submission to Peter.
The successive resolution of all other serious Church matters until the end of time, follows after, and only after, submission to Peter, Benedict XVI, the Vicar of Christ.
Fr. Michael Mary, F.SS.R.
The content of the statement is not the particular issue here; the SSPX has been able to discuss this matter with the Holy See since the beginning of the year.
What is wrong is this:
Barely two days before the Holy See presents its considered judgment to the Society, Bishop Fellay, jumping in first, approves an SSPX judgment against the person of the Holy Father; without even waiting for the Holy Father to speak through His representative.
A very serious issue, Assisi, has been abused here, and used as a smoke-screen as if to distract from a fundamental fact.
The fundamental fact is, that whoever the true Pope may be, it is necessary for Catholic bishops and priests who accept him, to have hierarchical submission to that Pope of the here and now, irrespective of the other grave theological or moral issues of the time.
Fr. de Cacqueray's statement and Bishop Fellay's approval of it reads as an unworthy tactic. Why didn't the bishop say it himself: si si, no, no?
The issue of the day is fronting up to submission to Peter.
The successive resolution of all other serious Church matters until the end of time, follows after, and only after, submission to Peter, Benedict XVI, the Vicar of Christ.
Fr. Michael Mary, F.SS.R.
