Catholics?

from CWNews:

"There could be a relationship between Rome and us, but it would not yet be a juridical relationship," Bishop Fellay told reporters.

A Catholic bishop, if that is what you are, should know that to be a Catholic, Rome DOES have a juridicial relationship with the Church. Memo to Fellay: The excommunication wasn't about the Tridentine Mass, it was about Lefebvre's disobedience. The sooner you deal with it, instead of dissembling, the better. Motu proprio aside, there's a bigger elephant in the room that most traddies deny is there.

Tell me, if Rome backs down on the SSPX excommunication issue, how do you think the Poncho Ladies (aka Roman Catholic Womenpriests) are not going to take that as a big, green light to continue their rebellion? This will be a precedence that will, as all precedents do, get stretched to validate the unthinkable.

Boston Massacre

Well, while I was dormant for Lent, there was a lot of stuff going on:


Minus priests, parishioners lead services at 3 occupied churches

What's up with people who cannot let go of their church buildings? It reminds me of, in Jesus' time, how attached Jews were to the Temple itself, but they didn't understand the one who dwelt there. Don't these Bostonians realise that Jesus is in every other parish tabernacle as well? I know that you may have to go farther for mass, or that your favourite priest is not in your new parish, but the Mass is about Christ, not where you go to find Him. These people show that Mass is purely about themselves:

It was an Easter Sunday service at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini church in Scituate, and it was led almost entirely by women.
Standing in front of the altar, Bonnie Mayo and Patti Litz, longtime members of the seaside church, handed out wafers and wine.
{snip}
Members orchestrated a service that replicated some aspects of a traditional Mass while removing others that are performed by a priest. A priest sympathetic to parishioners' fight at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini had blessed the wafer and wine beforehand, rather than during the Easter service. Nawn-Fahey introduced her telling of the resurrection as a ''reading" instead of a Gospel. And MacIsaac delivered a ''reflection" instead of a homily. Her remarks focused on Mary Magdalene and other women who came to Jesus's aid.
''Perhaps this is the future of the church," said MacIsaac, 51, marveling at the way church members had guided the congregation through prayers and song.

Now they get to play 'priestess', enabled by a sympathetic priest giving them the Eucharist to play with. The Irony gets thicker:

''Cardinal Sean, shame on you," scolded Linda Walsh, 56. ''Do the Christian thing. Let the people have a priest. Let my people go."

Linda, my dear, the good bishop has given you priests. But, your participation in this sacrelidge shows that you would rather have a priestess in your own church than go to the priests, and churches, the bishop has provided.

It's amazing the Protestant attitudes that so many catholics have, and how quickly they come to the surface when they find out that the Church doesn't bend to their will. Here's your 'More Horizontal Church', a position commonly known as 'supine'.

Don't hold your breath..

Fellay says 'fat chance' (via CWnews):

The traditionalist leader said that the SSPX would unflinchingly support the same arguments that drove Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to break with Rome in 1988. He insisted that the Vatican moved away from Catholic traditions after the Second Vatican Council. "Rome seems to have lost its way," he said, and no accord would be possible unless the Vatican changed its policies.

There you have it, gang. "We're right, you're wrong, so don't ask us to change." Like his predecessor, Lefebvre, Fellay doesn't believe that the Holy Spirit guides, or is capable of guiding, the Roman Catholic Church. Despite the statements to the contrary on the SSPX website, the SSPX does consider itself the true Catholic Church, subconsciously, if not overtly.

I found an interesting article of a former SSPXer, "My Journey Out of the Lefebvre Schism", that offers argument to SSPX assertions that they are not excommunicated, and that there is no schism.

From the SSPX article "The Post-Conciliar Church...A New Religion?":

Our duty is not to condemn and excommunicate, but to help Catholics of good faith in the modern Church to make the necessary discernment, in order to totally abandon the new religion, embrace Tradition, and remain Catholic.

Sounds like schism to me, gang, but what do I know?

As always, keep praying that pride will not continue to interfere with participation in the Body of Christ.