The Pope revokes the sentence of excommunication upon the Lefebvrists

[fpb]

I am horrified. Of all the unwelcome, untimely, ill-conceived, unnecessary, insulting and disastrous measures Pope Benedict could have taken, this is the worst. On the very week that the most anti-Catholic and pro-abortion President has taken office in Washington DC, the Pope seems to indicate that open flirtations with Le Pen and Pinochet, notorious sympathies for Petain, open Jew-bashing of the vilest sort, are no obstacle to reconciliation with Rome. Thos of us who try to fight on a principled opposition to abortion and murder in all its forms have now had a ton of banana oil poured under our feet; any opponent of Catholic teaching will be able to raise the ugly spectre of Marcel "Marechal a nous!" Lefebvre, and the horrible living presence of Richard Williamson, whose moral and intellectual sins go even beyond his obscene denial of the Holocaust and belief in the Protocols. And what about Catholic leadership among Christians? For the last few decades, the mere force of events had driven many Christian bodies closer together, to discover that they shared so much of morality and belief, and against that dictatorship of relativism against which the Pope himself spoke such memorable words. And now, for the sake of a few hundred thousand obstinate, wilful and often bizarre schismatics, who never did anything on their own to earn or even encourage reunion, and who positively insulted the last two Popes, all this common ground, all this real and verifiable growth together, is endangered; because most Christians will see the Lefebvrists for what they are. Just because Richard Williamson is such an ugly caricature of the worst sort of traditionalists, real conservatives, let alone middle and liberals, will want nothing to do with him. How many Protestants and Anglicans in search of a decent Christian centre away from the various heresies and schisms of their own confessions will have seen this as confirmation that everything they had been told about Rome was in fact true? I am willing to bet that the conversion of adults will slow down considerably. And what about the Church itself? This act has been taken as much on the Pope's own decision as the famous Motu Proprio that sought to reinstate the Latin Mass. If the one can be described as reactionary, ill-advised, insensitive to Jew-bashing and admiration for tyrants, then so can the other. Far from strengthening the conservative side of the Church, the Pope has just delivered them a vial of poison. And at the same time, he has done nothing to please liberals, many of whom will read this to mean that one hard-right soul is more important to the Pope than one left-wing one, and either leave or reinforce even further their "inner schismatic" position. I will not leave the Church - I know how many like Williamson there are already; but many others may. There is absolutely no upside to this decision; every aspect of it is completely mistaken.

God help the Church. Mother of Victory, pray for us.

Comments

[filialucis]

Wow. Fabio, for someone who generally comes across as a more nuanced thinker than most people, you've certainly gone all-out to tar the entirety of the SSPX with the same brush, haven't you?

"A few hundred thousand... schismatics"? Officials in high places in the Vatican have repeatedly and explicitly stated that even the SSPX priests are not in schism, never mind the lay people who only attend their Masses. Apparently you've decided you know better than the Vatican on this issue -- just as the SSPX claims to know better than the Vatican on the last Council -- and you have divined also that they are all, without exception, raving racists, as against, perhaps, only wanting to be able to attend a reverently celebrated Mass? Come on. This isn't worthy of you.

Yes, Williamson is a lunatic. And the media are going to have a field day with his effusions. But sheesh, do we who support the Church have to pre-emptively bay with the hounds too? They're going to lose interest just as fast, and after they've gone in search of fresher prey, the Church will still be there.

As for the danger of scaring away potential Anglican converts: Depends. Some might be put off as you say. Others out there, who are hanging back because of the awful ways in which the new Mass is celebrated in too many places, might be encouraged by the demonstration of the fact that the old Mass in particular and reverence-in-worship in general are welcome in the Church, and be encouraged to join. (Such people exist, as a look around the blogosphere will show.)

As for what you said in one of your comments, that "These people have not done anything to deserve to be in the Church" -- Fabio, the next time you're at Mass and you hear the words Domine, non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum (in whatever language), I implore you, listen to what the words mean. We have none of us done anything to deserve it. Let us not grudge to others the grace that we ought to be grateful for having been given ourselves.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And you are evidently bent on finding some good in the SSPX at all costs. Richard Williamson is there for a reason - said reason being that the founder of the schism was a racist, a Petainist, an impenitent supporter of tyrants and murderers, and ultimately a result of Action Francaise, a movement that had anticipated Fascism and that had been condemned by two Popes. To say that because we all are sinners therefore I should not condemn the likes of Lefebvre and Fellay is like saying that because we all feel lust I should not condemn Gene Robinson. After all, he is a bishop too. Who are we to condemn him? Just because their schism and their heresy smells nicer than his, is no reason to defend it. It is schism; it is heresy; and worst of all, it is thoroughly impenitent, and the Pope's misguided mercy will only have made it more so. What the Devil do we want unchanged, unshriven, unconverted schismatic heretics in the Church for? Because they celebrate nice Latin masses? Let me tell you this: their readmission, unless there are some pretty serious signs of contrition on their part, will lead not to more but to less Latin masses in the greater Church. Because a lot of people like me, who know what kind of Jew-bashing, Fascist-loving, racist, vicious devil lurks in SSPX congregations - and I am not, repeat not, exaggerating - will be less rather than more willing to trust any parish where Latin and incense are in evidence. There are quite enough lunatic reactionaries in the Church; I have one for a parish priest, and I have every reason not to want more. Conservatism is one thing, and Fascism is quite another.

[filialucis]

I see that you have completely ignored the main point I was making, namely that the SSPX is not a monolithic block. Yes, some of their members have been shown to be the kind of despicable racists and revisionists that you justly condemn. But no, it does not follow from this that every single soul in that organisation, every single lay person attending one of their Masses, shares that inexcusable mindset. Unless you can provide hard figures about all their 400-some priests and however many thousands or tens of thousands of Mass-goers to prove that this is the case, you have no right to declare them all guilty by association. Really, I expected better of you.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The association is theirs, not mine. They are the ones who have chosen to follow a movement whose foundation speech - the Lille sermon you insist on not reading - included a paean to the then recently enthroned "president" Augusto Pinochet of Chile. As for the current membership: Fellay is an incredibly arrogant man who still even today talks as if it were up to him to dictate terms to the Pope; Tisserand has written a biography of Lefebvre from which, I am told, Petainism drips from every page; and Williamson is what he is. The fourth I know nothing about. Three bishops out of four, including the leader, who should never have been made bishops at all, that's a lot, mademoiselle.

And that is not all. I can say that I never, before you, encountered any Catholic who had dealt with the SSPX without getting a profoundly negative impression. A close friend of mine told me how he had left the Eglish branch of the Society after a brief flirtation - motivated by the usual stuff, bad liturgy, bad politics, etc - when he started being handled tons of incendiary Jew-bashing material, all of it translated from the French. American branches seem more concerned with a ferocious and dictatorial self-enclosure that treats the rest of the world as an enemy and the local parish priest as some omnipotent cult leader; to some of these, Williamson's outburst against The Sound of Music would sound moderate and indeed almost compromising. What study have you made of the SSPX, before you decided that they were nice people?

[filialucis]

If you'll link me to that Lille speech, I'll read it. But if you call me mademoiselle (or equivalent in any known language) ever again, my lad, then I hope you're as good at being on the receiving end of condescension as you are at dishing it out.

Thank you, in any event, for providing at least a smidgeon more detail about the information on which you base your wholesale condemnation of every single person associated with the SSPX. Though, if the sum total of your data is the experiences of one of your friends plus reports of what apparently goes on in American branches, that's still a meagre basis from which to contend, as you apparently continue to do, that they're all filthy racists down to the last obscure Mass-goer in their chapels. It is this generalisation that I'm objecting to; nothing more.

I also need to nip another generalisation in the bud: I have not concluded that "they" are nice people. As in the case of Opus Dei, about whom I've heard so many contradictory eyewitness accounts that you'd think they were referring to completely different organisations, I have no idea who "they" are supposed to be; all I know is what I've been saying from the beginning: they are not a monolithic block. True, some of "them" are the Williamsons and Tissiers of this world, and those who hand out incendiary pamphlets to people like your friend. But for my own part, I've had dealings with a few of their people who, judging from everything I know of them, fail so completely to fit that picture, and whom it would be so grossly off the wall to dismiss as racist maniacs, that I find it wiser to take them individually as I find them and not condemn them all wholesale for the beliefs of their founders and leaders.

That is all I'm saying. Let's be a little more nuanced about this, and not be led by our (entirely correct and justified) hatred of fascism to hang the innocent along with the guilty.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

There is a difference here. I am strictly neutral about Opus Dei; the worst I can say about them is that I never could manage to get into St. Josemaria Escriva's writings, and they do not inspire me. I am strictly not neutral about the Church of St.Petain and St.Pinochet, because by their fruit ye shall know them. Their racism, their Jew-bashing, their conspiracy theories, their anti-democracy, their support for bloodstained tyrants, have been public acts, and I suggest you look them up. A few half-hours with messrs. Google and co. ought to be enough.

Let me add something for you. I am familiar with that claim: "Such and such are not a monolithic group... you cannot condemn everyone in it... I am not saying they are nice people, but..." I heard it before, both in the case of Communism, and in the case of Islam. It is the classic defensive strategy of someone who does not want to condemn something that really deserves to be condemned. In the case of Communism, it was actually quite false - Communism was monolithic; in the case of Islam, it is irrelevant, because the many decent and peaceful Muslims in the world are so in despite and not because of the aggressive and supremacist nature of Islamic teaching. Either way, it set off all my defensive reflexes.

And if you have any problems with being condescended to, don't call others "superficial" or insinuate that they are condemning other Christians lightly. I would not do this if I were not convinced twenty times over that I have to do it. At least take for granted that I do not dance my way to condemning others.

[filialucis]

Now you really are scraping the bottom of the barrel. But since you consistently refuse to engage my point, I'm going to stop wasting my time in this conversation.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

How, exactly, am I not "engaging your point"?

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

Apologies to fpb for jumping in like this, but this is the kind of apologetic, downplaying argument that I'm hearing after every election when once again something like 25 - 30% have voted for the extreme(ish) right, and I'm sick of it. Even if they only vote for those parties out of dissatisfaction and protest, even if they don't personally share every belief, with their vote they still support what those parties stand for. 'Because' or 'despite', in the end it doesn't make a lot of difference, and IMO 'despite' is bad enough. If those priests and Mass-goers don't want to be associated with people who are cheered on Nazi websites maybe they should have spoken up and distanced themselves from that kind of ideology. Did they?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You are welcome to jump in at any place you like, and I am honoured to find that you are lurking on my LJ. And I mean the word "honoured". However, if you had followed the thread down to exhaustion, you would have noticed that I make the same point. It was not well received.

Do you want to know what I find tragic about this? You and you, filialucis and solitary_summer, are two of the most remarkable women in my f-list. You are both ridiculously talented. filialucis is an amazing polymath who sometimes addresses me in Latin for fun, speaks four or five languages, plays the guitar and is intelligent on almost any subject under the sun. solitary_summer is a photographer of genius, and I never use the word "genius" unless I absolutely have to. She has, in the last few years, produced enough memorable images for me to find it ridiculous that she should publish them in her own little LJ rather than in great exhibitions advertised on national newspapers and visited by tens of thousands of intelligent visitors. You live in the same country, speak the same language, and are both highly civilized people. You ought to be friends. Instead of which, thanks to the curse of the party spirit - which leads one of you to insist that there must, there just must, be something about a group that has some features of Catholic traditionalism, and that they cannot be condemned en bloc - your first encounter is a baring of teeth; not only dreadfully sad in itself, but completely unsuited to the kind of persons I know you both to be. What a stupid waste.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

*blush* I actually did notice you made that point, but I still couldn't shut up. Sorry!

And, thank you. Maybe some day I'll have as much faith in myself as you have in talent....

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As for your talent, I judge as I see. As an artist of sorts, I do have a bit of an educated eye and I think I can tell quality, let alone brilliance, when it bites me on the leg.

As for your intervention, there is nothing to apologize for - especially since you were supporting my view. However, my problem was that filialucis has already reacted - and reacted badly - to a variant of that particular argument; I doubt whether this will do anything to change her mind. And I feel sad, both about her anger at me, and the fact that two such persons as you two should have met on such unworthy terms - unworthy of you both.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I think the biggest issue remains that long as the SSPX leadership are so vocally what they are, the association of those priests and Mass-goers with the the SSPX involves a high risk of giving scandal (no matter how well-intentioned -- charitably speaking -- those priests and laypeople might actually be).

OT

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I just pubished the essay on the relationship between monasticism and the condition of women in my LJ.

Re: OT

[filialucis]

Thank you. And perhaps I shall read it some time. Though I must say that the superficiality of your assessment in this post currently has me wondering whether I would find that one rewarding enough to read.

Re: OT

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And the superficiality of your response makes me wonder why I should have wasted my time - except that someone else also had asked me for an essay on the subject. If you don't want to admit that the SSPX is an essentially reactionary body with profound Fascist and jew-bashing features, that is your problem. Facts are facts.