10 May, 2008...8:53 am
More Transalpine Redemptorist chatter #2
I have discussed some of these rumors before. Yet an article, Traditionalist order is ready to return to Rome, deserves some comments. Let me start by simply stating that return maybe is a big word - in reality it is an entry. (As usual, comments in red, emphases in blue.)
The order recalled three Brothers who were in training at an SSPX seminary after the rector of the seminary took the seminarians aside and suggested they form a break-away community in order to stop an agreement with Rome. [Is this another example of the open and honest attitude of SSPX towards Rome?]
According to the Papa Stronsay blog, the superior, Fr Michael Mary, received an email from the Society which said that Transalpines would no longer be welcome in SSPX seminaries [Alleluia!] if the order reached an agreement with the Ecclesia Dei commission. [NB: IF. This is all conjecture on a possible distant future. But just a small point: if the Repemprtorists reach an agreement there is no need for them to send seminaries to the SSPX seminary - yes?!?!] “We have no desire to sling mud at people or give a bad name to people but sometimes in order to defend yourself [Against WHOM?] you have to state exactly what happened two or three weeks ago,” [Or what exactly happened in 1988??] said Fr Anthony Mary.
3 Comments
11 May, 2008 at 3:57 am
Somewhat off-topic:
I had one of those middle-of-the-night epiphanies last night. (Yes, the baby kept me up!).
I got to thinking about +Lefebvre. Having been one who played with “TRADITION!” (cue ominous music) for a bit, I occasionally wonder about his dilemma. I know it is easy to say “He should have obeyed”. But I also hear those people who point out that we might not have the traditional mass anymore, at all. (And though I can’t assist the TLM anymore, it helps me get through the bad music and the environmental gospel just to know that, somewhere out there, someone is worshipping God and not himself).
I wonder now, though, what would have happened if +Lefebvre (how many times in a row can I spell his name correctly? Let’s see!) had gone to Paul VI’s aid. Few would deny that the late Pope was troubled by some of the liturgical issues he was seeing at the end of his papacy. What if, instead of being confrontational, +Lefebvre had gone to Paul VI and asked to start an order dedicated to the mass - the NO mass! What if he had offered to help His Holiness correct what was going on by starting an order that would reverently celebrate the mass - ad orientem, in Latin, let’s say. Don’t you think that Paul VI would have been relieved to hear the offer? And don’t you think, pleased by this show of friendship, His Holiness would have been happy to permit +Lefebvre to also teach priests the TLM, so that they could understand the NO even better?
If this had been the case, we might not have had the chaos we suffered in the end, and we might still have the TLM and an NO not plagued by clown-masses, etc.
I guess that was really an eye-opener on traditionalists for me. I think we really could have had the best of both worlds, if not for +Lefebvre’s intransigency.
OK, nap-time!
11 May, 2008 at 9:09 am
Rob,
An interesting scenario. Yet, you assume the argument is over liturgy. Note what John Paul said in Ecclesia Dei: The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. The position taken by +Lefebvre on Tradition (esp. living Tradition), he could do nothing but what he did.
The argument is one of theological method, me thinks. (But then I see rabbits everywhere!) The liturgy argument is only a side-issue that embodies the real issue. Otherwise Ecclesia Dei and FSSP would solve SSPX’s problems with Rome.
But an interesting thought nonetheless.
2 July, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I am not spamming - just as excited as could be…
Transalpine Redemptorists Now In Good Standing With The Holy See
OK, so now we have the TAR home, the Mar Bawai Assyrians (see: Assyrians Electing To Enter Communion With Rome: Declaration Of Intent ) came in en masse at Pentecost… Dare we hope against hope that the rumors are true when it comes to the possibility of a major announcement re: TAC-Related Announcement Post-Lambeth?
I am praying.
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