Nice spring weather, so ... utilising the Period of Daily Exercise currently still allowed to us by the Bojarch ... I strolled down after Mass to the Isis. I can assure worried presbyters of the diocese of Westminster that the trim little craft called Vinny Boy is still safely tethered to the bank just North of Sandford Lock, only a few feet from Nirvana.
Then back home to read my emails ... where there was a piece from the admirable Lifesitenews about important Roman Conferences between Catholics and Moslems regarding "Mary".
Personally, the Mary I have most interest in is the one called Theotokos. Will she feature?
Next ... an item there which I don't really understand about the Australian Ordinariate and money and the future. Money is a mystery to me (I leave such matters to Pam), but one possibly helpful suggestion occurs to me. Has the Southern Cross considered a coabitazione with the Oz province of the SSPX?
My own acquaintance with that Society has been universally favourable. Its clergy seem friendly and sensible, the sort of devout yet down-to-earth brother priests with whom it would be a pleasure to do business. And, of course, the faith-history of the SSPX ... and that of ex-Anglicans in the Ordinariates ... are in many ways rather similar. Heresy, after all, when everything is said and done, is Heresy. (Is there, somewhere on the Internet, a video of a full solemn Divine Worship Mass ... Judica me Deus down to the Last Gospel ... which SSPXers could peep at to assure themselves of our respectability?)
Given the dislike of Tradition demonstrated recently in a questionnaire by the French Bishops, it seems rather providential that the SSPX has sturdily kept its independance. Who knows what need the Universal Church may have of the Society in the sunlit years to come. From the constraints of canonical structures, Good Lord, deliver them!
And (I can't remember what my train of thought was here) has anybody heard recently anything about the Franciscans of the Immaculate? Have those masterful chappies in the Congregation for Despoiling Religious sorted them out yet? What a long time it's taking to rectify what was wrong ... those FIs must have been most terribly wicked!!
Or is it that their Trustees are still refusing to hand over the money and the property? Even wickeder!!! Definitely not in the Spirit of the Council!!!!
Having just re-read 'The Dictator Pope', I have been wondering what the state of play is with the FFIs... It is utterly shameful... I know that Fr Serafino and his confrères are doing great things in Gosport, tho' I think they no longer belong to the FFI
ReplyDeleteThank you, Father. There is an Ordinariate parish in Caulfield in Melbourne and in other locations around Australia. I attend the SSPX masses. I have never once heard any critical remarks about the Pope or any scandals in the Church by the prior or the other priests.
ReplyDeleteI used to think that the SSPX had deserted me and left me to take all the arrows, by retreating to what I thought was their mountain fastness. I wanted them to be with me in the trenches, getting into the faces of the tradition-hating bishops and making them change their minds.
ReplyDeleteNow, older, and maybe a little wiser, I understand that if they were under the tradition-hating bishops, they would not be in their episcopal faces; they would be suspended. And then, when the bishops closed up shop in the face of the coronavirus, or made the Sacraments available only on condition that the faithful jump through all sorts of humiliating and dehumanizing hoops to get them, there would have been no SSPX in which to take refuge. Not only did the Society not lock up their churches (unless forced by the civil authorities to do so); they actually increased the number of Masses offered and increased the availability of confession. And these are priests that already have to travel hundreds of miles every week to serve their flocks. The faithful will remember who among the clergy packed the gear during a time of crisis, and who did not.
Yes, I think now that it is indeed providential that the SSPX has sturdily maintained its independence.
A friendly collaboration between the glorious ordinariates and the admirable Society of St. Pius X would not only be a happy occasion of ecclesial unity but natural---as both entities are orthodox, liturgical "high" (remnant of my Anglican days long ago), and mostly comprised of reputable, earnest clerics. However, I see some lurking problems in this ideal proposal: some traddies (as you, Father, somewhat mystifyingly refer to us: a pinch of disapproving sarcasm?) of the rigorous variety objecting to the Prayer of Humble Access in the divine worship of the ordinariates as some kind of Cranmerian virus or horror at the use of even noble vernacular; or, on the ordinariate side, a contagion of neo-modernist intransigence regarding "all and any" criticism of the hollowed Council---in their myth, the council to end all councils---as has indeed happened in the case of a North American, very worthy priest (now "excommunicated" for pointing out in a sermon the rather self-evident truth of the destruction that followed the "Council to End All Councils" under the oversight of sainted, supposedly impeccable popes). Not a good sign for the ordinariates that some of its leaders would be falling for one of the most destructive forms of clericalism---unquestioning papolatry---noxious to Holy Church and to souls, ostensibly to reassure the Modernists, who hardly merit such reassurance, of their papal fealty. I think it was the great Leo XIII (or perhaps Blessed Pius IX, I welcome clarification) who reminded overly zealous lovers of the papacy that the pope has no need of our lies or adulation: the papacy is the great institution from Christ Himself, its occasional unworthy occupants notwithstanding. But I hope that despite our collective and individual myopia, the collaboration between the ordinariates and the SSPX could result in a natural friendship beneficial for souls and the institutional Church.
ReplyDeleteHere downunder in Adelaide I have had no recent contact with the SPX, but Idid noticenthat the Traditional Latin Mass order the Fraternity of St Peter as soon as it was legal for churches to open again but with limits on congregation size simply increased the number of masses soo that over a day there was accommodation for all
ReplyDeleteMcGod
There's some consternation among 'some' Traditionalist SSPX/Latin-ers that married priests and deacons aren't "really" priests.
ReplyDeleteDoes that also apply, in their estimation, to the married priests of the Eastern Catholic rites?
DeleteThat consternation is a product of theological error.
ReplyDeleteAvB
Here is a link to a Divine Worship Solemn Mass of Thanksgiving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi5YgbiNB1U
ReplyDeleteShould the link not work, enter Divine Worship Mass on youtube.
I recently had need of the SSPX to baptise my daughter. My parish insists that the diocese has forbidden baptisms (they won't do any until Easter) but the SSPX priest was wonderful and very happy to perform the baptism.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it feels hard to know where the Holy Spirit wants you to be but other times the signs seem very clear.