Rorate reported a few days ago that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has handed on its recommendations regarding the SSPX to the Holy Father. It’s expected a determination may be made by the end of the month. So, to borrow a turn of phrase common in the postconciliar age, let’s have a dialogue. What’s going to happen? Some thoughts of my own below the break.
First, it’s worth remembering that Rome moves at a glacial pace compared to what we’re used to. Even if the Holy Father definitively declares that the SSPX is to be reconciled, expect a year or two before the kinks are worked out. And even if he declares them to be in schism, expect dialogue to continue ecumenically rather than internally, with the possibility of future reconciliation left open.
That said, I’m fairly confident reconciliation will happen here-and-now. The Holy Father wants this as his legacy, and has earnestly desired it for some years; I’ve read that he heard the news of Abp. Lefebvre’s illicit consecrations with great suffering.
The big question is how the doctrinal issues between the SSPX and Rome will be resolved. Given that these issues reduce to a giant misunderstanding precipitated by Rome’s insistence on not speaking clearly about anything, expect some forceful clarification, perhaps in the form of a doctrinal commission to investigate the SSPX’s concerns and set about the task of outlining that hermeneutic of continuity the Pope keeps talking about.
Expect the SSPX to be reorganized as a personal prelature or something very close to it, an arrangement that both grants the SSPX a reasonable degree of freedom, keeps them where the Pope can see them, and forces them to play nice with the diocesan bishops, who must still grant them faculties to licitly celebrate the Mass and perform valid absolutions, at least for a little while.
Also expect the SSPX that returns to the Church to be much smaller than the one we have today. An entire generation of trads have grown up in the SSPX never knowing unity with Rome and have no great desire for it now. I would not be surprised if Fellay alone among its four bishops returns, and certainly not surprised if the majority of the laity elect to schism (probably led by Williamson, who’ll go sedeprivationist or worse without cooler heads to restrain him).
At best I suppose we can hope that the FSSPX do what the modernists did – take power from within the Church. Changing demographics would facilitate this as the old liberals are on the decline. Obviously a changing of the guard here in America is desperately needed. The Irish who dominate the hierarchy here need to go. A good dose of that continental European type of traditionalism that so characterizes the FSSP and FSSPX would be a major boon to reactionaries here, perhaps finally we could get beyond the obsession with “religious liberty.”
I think the obsession with religious liberty (if you mean on the part of traditionalists) is quite apt. IMO, the most likely eventual resolution of the problem of VII is for Rome either quietly or loudly to say “Never mind!” That is, for Rome to say (along with John XXIII and Paul VI) that VII was about describing the same faith in different language. And saying (as those Popes did not) that this change caused a lot of confusion and that we are henceforth going back to the old way of talking. The current Holy Father has hinted in this direction, IMO.
Religious liberty is a problem for this resolution, however. First, because the apparent differences between pre-VII and Conciliar teachings are so stark. Second, because the differences in the Church’s behavior are so stark. Paul VI spent the late 60s and early 70s pressuring Franco to disassemble Spain’s confessional state, as did most of Spain’s hierarchy. As another example, how are we going to explain the USCCB’s unanimous appeal to religious liberty as its reason for opposing the birth control mandate? All in all, this looks so much like the Church changed its (apparently de fide) teachings on religious liberty that some real work needs to be done to explain why what is apparent is not actual.
We could say, I suppose, that Paul VI and roughly all bishops for the last 50 years misunderstood—but then we have the Pope who signed Dignitatis Humanea and the bishops who wrote it and approved it misunderstanding it. On the other hand, we could say (as the Conservatives do) that the 19th C Church did not understand its own (again, apparently de fide) teachings on religious liberty. Either way, it seems, we are going to have Popes, prelates, and theologians persistently and completely misunderstanding documents which they, themselves developed.
Religious liberty is the “cleanest” and most extreme case of doctrinal problems caused by VII. It is not the only one. The focus on it comes, I think, from how very bad it looks.
Religious liberty is not a problem of theology, but of government and politics. Church proved experimentally that it is not infallible in politics – quite the contrary – it is extraordinarily fallible.
If we were to take the opinions of Church on politics seriously, there would be no hope for the West, and the best thing would be to adopt Sharia as quickly as possible. See: Slavery, Democracy, Human Rights etc.
From the outside, you need to consider that those who broke away now have a generation of disciples who are not going to go gently away. Given the high level of shite that the modernists threw at the Roman Church (and immediately acknowledging that the Presbyterians also have enough ordure filling the Augean Stables to clean up) the insertion of such young firebrands would be a good thing.
Ratzinger is, above all, a very subtle theologian. He is conservative in his doctrine — sticking fairly closely to scripture — which is why he has so many Reformed cheering him on. And he has seen what modernism has wrought.
The bigger issue is cementing this in.
(Again, excuse the cynicism. I have seen multiple clear proclamations on the issuesof the day — from abortion to homosexuality — come out of assemblies of the Presbyterian Church. And as soon as the conservatives turn their backs, the secularists and liberals are at it again, raising the same issues, again and again. I have no doubt that this happens in Catholic synods and councils.)
And when the SSPX lads meet some of the more corrupt and effete men left in the RCC — well I think it would be better to be watching in a bunker a couple of miles away. Calvin and Serventius ain’t got nothing on that fight.
“Ratzinger is, above all, a very subtle theologian. He is conservative in his doctrine — sticking fairly closely to scripture — which is why he has so many Reformed cheering him on.”
Ha I’d say the SSPX would find that fact to be a cause for concern!
I don’t recall two religious groups ever reconciling and uniting. So if past returns do guarantee future performance, I envision an insignificant difference of interpretations to be hyped ex-post facto to enormous proportions, such that reconciliation becomes impossible: Filoque? I pray that I am wrong and, should reconciliation really happen, let us slaughter that fattened calf.
Some of the Eastern Catholic churches re-united with Rome, or the Orthodox — though the splits were admittedly due to geography rather more than theology.
The Nestorians ended up re-uniting with orthodoxy after about 600 years of schism, if I remember correctly. The Copts may be on their way back to communion with Rome.
I predict we will see no such thing for decades, at least. I sincerely hope we do not see any such thing for decades at least. Who would you put on such a commission? Cardinal Ranjith would look mighty funny sitting at a big table all by himself. If you put “conservatives” like Schoenborn on it, disaster will ensue. The Modernists need to be dead. Probably, the succeeding generation of clerics also needs to be dead, but maybe not.
These two predictions go together. If Bishop Fellay has negotiated a structure (whatever it is called) which permits diocesan bishops to obstruct the SSPX, then the SSPX will split with the majority of priests and adherents staying outside the regular structure. Such an outcome will be seen as proof positive that Fellay has betrayed the SSPX. You can imagine Fellay convincing people to trust this Pope. You can’t imagine Fellay convincing people to trust the diocesan bishops generally.
I don’t agree with these predictions either, though. Fellay must have negotiated a structure which protects the SSPX from the bishops.
Much of the reason the SSPX is building a new US seminary is because local bishops refuse to sell anything to them, even though they have plenty of empty buildings that they are happy to sell to Pentecostals or Moslems or whomever. In fact, many of their properties had to be bought through 3rd parties, such as St. Vincent de Paul’s in Kansas City, where they made a deal with a Baptist minister. Bishop Fellay would have to be a fool to let himself be tied to that sort of irrational spite.