Bishop Fellay & talks with Vatican
February 19, 2011, 11:47 am
Posted by Joseph A. Komonchak
You can find here an interview with Bishop Fellay, head of the Lefebvrite Priestly Society of St. Pius X, on the conversations going on between his group and the Vatican, on Assisi, and several other topics. Keep in mind in reading it, that Fellay apparently belongs to the more moderate group of Lefebvrites. Some of them oppose the very idea of conversing with the Vatican.
The same old “traditionalist” drivel.
Time for Rome to move forward!
Rome sure spends a lot of time and effort with this bunch, while brushing away many whose lives and theology are much more in turn with Rome. It’s easy to spend time on something that most likely will not go anywhere than to spend a lot of time dealing with more uncomfortable but more possible issues. Then, too, Rome can alwyas say: “well, we tried.” But with the others the trying doesn’t even happen.
“. Why is it so difficult for them to admit a contradiction between Vatican II and the previous Magisterium?
The answer is rather simple. The moment you recognize the principle that the Church cannot change, if you want to have Vatican II accepted, you are obliged to say that Vatican II did not change anything either. That is why they do not admit that they find any contradiction between Vatican II and the previous Magisterium, but they are nevertheless at a loss to explain the nature of the change which quite evidently has taken place.”
I think Bp. Fellay has made an important point. There are changes in some of Vat 2 documents, and Rome won’t admit that they are changes. The question is: CAN the Church change, and if so, when?
Ann: I’m not sure whom you mean when you write: “Rome won’t admit that they are changes.” The present Pope spent the greater part of his famous 2005 address on the interpretation of Vatican II to showing why it was necessary for the Church to rethink its attitude toward the world and how it was that it’s teaching on religious freedom changed and corrected earlier positions. He did not hesitate to speak of it as exhibiting discontinuity.
Ann: One of the Lefebvrite arguments is that Vatican II was self-consciously not a dogmatic but a pastoral Council, this taken by them to mean that its teachings do not have the force of the dogmatic pronouncements of earlier councils. They overlook that pastoral teaching can be very rich in doctrine, and even in dogma. By a pastoral exercise of the teaching office the popes and bishops meant that they were going to take into account the audience to whom they were addressing themselves. Those who wanted to follow the former model of conciliar teaching argued that it was the function of an ecumenical council to teach for the ages; it would be up to bishops and priests to express it pastorally when they went home.
Very interesting interview. Like Ann, I found #7 to be most interesting. Fellay confirms the progressive position that challenges Benedict’s hermeneutic of continuity, regardless of what he said in 2005 about changes at VII. He stresses whenever he can continuity, with the sense that nothing changed. Maybe he sends this mixed signal deliberately to hold competing viewpoints in the Church in tension. Then again maybe he’s just old and has forgotten what he said in 2005. Which of us could fault him for that?
Allan –
Exactly — no disruption, only continuity. But, as JAK points out, Benedict *also* admits certain changes. He (and his cohorts) cannot rationally have it both ways. But that’s another trick of Vaticanese — say one thing in one place and something inconsistent in another, and so when somebody says, “See, you’ve changed a teaching”, you can always reply, “No, look what I said in another document. I’m still teaching the same thing”. You politely call it “sending mixed signals”. I call it blatant inconsistency, and they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Thanks, JAK. So that’s how the LeFebrists get out of their dilemma. They’re just as bad as Benedict == denying the obvious.
Ann: I invoke the Pope’s most formal statement in which he describes his “hermeneutic of reform” as a combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels, which seems pretty accurate to me. Who would maintain that Vatican II was all discontinuity or that it was all continuity? I know of no place in which he says that nothing changed. It is the case that he wants now to stress continuities, and this in reply to people who stress the discontinuities. I don’t see any blatant inconsistencies on Pope Benedict’s part.
JAK –
Is Benedict’s 2005 speech on continuity/discontinuity translated and on the net?
The Pope introduced the hermeneutics of discontinuity and of reform in his 2005 address to the Roman curia:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2005/december/documents/hf_ben_xvi_spe_20051222_roman-curia_en.html
He also alludes to the idea in SC 3 & attached footnote 6:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20070222_sacramentum-caritatis_en.html
Ann – thought this article published in America Magazine by Father Komonchak does a very good job of providing clarity in terms of what Benedict XVI said; the interpretation of his remarks; etc.
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=11375
Tidbit:
“One might have expected Pope Benedict to call the position he favors the “hermeneutics of continuity,” and careless commentators have used that term to describe his view. Instead, he calls it the “hermeneutics of reform.” He devotes the greater part of his talk (85 percent by word-count) to explaining what he means by the phrase. And the greater part of this explanation sets out why at the time of the council there was need for a certain measure of discontinuity. After all, if there is no discontinuity, one can hardly speak of reform.”
“A hermeneutics of discontinuity need not see rupture everywhere; and a hermeneutics of reform, it turns out, acknowledges some important discontinuities.”
“I think it is more plausible that the pope sought to persuade a different group of people, traditionalists whose rejection of the council derives in no small part from their belief that its teachings on church and state and on religious freedom represent a revolutionary discontinuity in official church doctrine.”
Gentlemen ==
Thanks for the links. Very interesting article of JAK. But I still think that the Vat II documents include some reversals of doctrines (what was taught as an official teaching).
It seems to me that the words and phrases “magisterium”, “dogma”, “doctrine” and “infallible statement” are highly ambiguous in Catholic tradition, and the ambiguity leads to all sorts sof fundamental problems, some of which are apparent in the LeFebvrist case. Bishop Fellay seems to think that they’re pretty much synonymous and officially so.
I haven’t read all 54 questions and responses, but based on the first couple of pages, it seems clear that SSPX feels it has to instruct the Catholic Church on the severe problems (invalidity?) of Vatican II. If that is its approach, and this from the ‘moderate’ wing of the society, I expect that reunification is still far, far off.
Bishop Fellay thinks the discussions get nowhere.
Interestingly, he complains about the beatification of JPII.
Of course, BXVI seems too liberal for him.
But we reach out to these folks who know better ….
What if someone–I name no names–thinks in his heart that Fellay has a point? Would this not seem to justify what appparently looks to others like a waste of time?
Mr. Gannon – there is a certain logic to your statement but am reminded of the “Flat Earth Society”; those who chase aliens; those who practice alchemy; etc.
Vatican II said this in it’s Constitution Dei Verbum:
“Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.”
Vatican II showed that traditions should be kept with loyalty. Cool right?