Thursday, July 5, 2012

Ironies: The SSPX Now Faces the Same Force as Father Feeney in 1945

Edit:  It's unclear what took place in the curia that now presents such a hostile and irrational position to the Society of St. Pius X.  It recalls Father Malachi Martin's chilling description of a superforce ruling in the Vatican.

Indeed, few of those Catholics who now hold the Pope explicitly responsible [e.g., Mundabor, CFN etc...] for the volt face that has returned us to the "point of departure" as Bishop Fellay describes it, would deny that there have been forces in the Vatican, predating the Council, who have often worked behind the scenes to the confusion of the faithful.

We go now from the encouraging words of Msgr Nicola Bux and others, to this cold, uncompromising and anti-rational insistence that 2 + 2 = 5 and that a document which almost no one in the clergy or the episcopacy obeys is somehow binding on the SSPX.

 After reading that the new head of the CDF is like a goat to a gardener, by his own admission.  I further noticed that he also likes a version of the "big tent" analogy often employed by American pro-abort politicians like Nancy Pelosi or any of their dissident confreres with collars and Sr. next to their name who refuse to leave the Church for greener, or at least more lunar, pastures spiritually speaking.

It is now an irony that the Society of St. Pius X, which was friendly to the Saint Benedict Center in better days, now finds itself at that same juncture which Father Feeney and the Saint Benedict Center found themselves in 1945, ranged against a mostly insensitive and unintelligent but effective opposition against the dogma that "there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church", so flatly denied by Cardinal Cushing and the Jesuits who attempted to silence Father Feeney.

Cardinal Cushing was perhaps one of the earliest exponents of the Seamless Garment issue and continuing on in the Americanist tradition of his Irish forebears ++Gibbon and ++Ireland. He was interested primarily in satisfying the concerns of his Jewish friends, upset that Father Feeney and his band took the Apostolic Mandate to go forth and convert all nations seriously, were angry that their children were being brought under the Catholic fold.  Certainly, the famous interaction of Bobby Kennedy, who was not friendly to the Center, was a significant concern to cause the "Court Chaplain of the Kennedies" to act decisively.


[True Compass A Memoir by Ted Kennedy] discussed it with our father one weekend at the Cape house. I well remember the conversation.
Dad could not believe that Bobby had heard Father Feeney correctly. “But,” he said, “if you feel strongly that you did, I’m going to go into the other room and call Richard. Maybe he’ll want you to go up to Boston and see him.”
“Richard” was Richard Cardinal Cushing. Dad and the cardinal enjoyed a long and profound friendship. . . .
Bobby said he felt strongly indeed. Bang! Dad called up “Richard” and arranged for Bobby to visit him. The cardinal, as nonplussed as Dad, sent some of his people over to hear Father Feeney’s Thursday evening lecture. When he found that my brother was right, Cushing banned Feeney from speaking there; Feeney refused to obey the order, and in September 1949 the archdiocese formally condemned the priest’s teaching. . . . In February 1952, Father Feeney was excommunicated.

It was one of many crude misrepresentations of the Catholic Church to come.

In 1945, Father Feeney was only taking Christ at His word and hadn't yet formulated his famous opposition to the theorizing of scholastics in the form of Baptism of Desire, Blood and Invincible Ignorance.  Yet this was enough to get the SBC banned or fired from Boston College and Father banished from the Jesuits who had called him in 1942 to another position.

The words of Cardinal Di Noia and Archbishop Muller should be familiar to many in this controversy, for they are essentially the same words as employed by Cardinal Cushing and many detractors of both the St. Benedict Center AND the SSPX.

He says, incredibly:

The Council did say there are elements of grace in other religions, and I don’t think that should be retracted. I’ve seen them, I know them — I’ve met Lutherans and Anglicans who are saints.

5 comments:

  1. Thank you for an excellent post.

    It has been some time now, since I recognized in (especially) Br. Andre Marie and the St. Benedict Center a far ore reliable voice for Tradition, than that found in ++ Lefebvre and the SSPX.

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  2. Taking of course that last gem of a comment to its ultimate conclusion one must ask the question "Why bother being Catholic at all?" I wish his excellency would be most kind as to answer.

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  3. Friday, July 6, 2012
    IS THE HOLY SPIRIT SAYING LIKE ARCHBISHOP AUGUSTINE DI NOIA THAT LG 8, LG 16 ARE EXPLICITLY KNOWN AND ARE EXCEPTIONS TO THE DOGMA?

    There are two interpretations of Vatican Council II and they depend upon LG 8 and LG 16 being explicit or implicit.

    SSPX should ask DI Noia to affirm Vatican Council II and avoid a schism.

    The Left could be asking the pope to excommunicate the Society of St.Pius X and the SSPX could prevent this by acknowledging that there can be an interpretation of Vatican Council II with Lumen Gentium 8 and Lumen Gentium 16 implicit.

    The Holy Spirit cannot make an error. The Holy Spirit cannot teach irrationality, like an explicitly known to us LG 8, LG 16 which contradicts AG 7 and the dogma on exclusive salvation.

    Di Noia, according to the leftist La Stampa wants the SSPX to accept the demands of the Jewish Left.There are two in particular.

    1) Jews do not have to convert in the present times.

    2) Vatican Council II contradicts the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus and they want this interpretation accepted.

    The SSPX can respond :

    1) The SSPX accepts implicit LG 8 and LG 16 which is in accord with Tradition and so Vatican Council II does not contradict the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

    In this way the SSPX affirms Vatican Council II and also the Biblical teaching that Jews need to convert (AG 7).

    Bishop Bernard Fellay has signed the Doctrinal Preamble accepting Vatican Council II as a continuity with the past. This interpretation does not have the hermeneutuc of rupture.Vatican Council II according to Di Noia, Ladaria and Koch is a break with Tradition.

    So as a follow up to the document signed it needs to be affirmed that LG 8 and LG 16 are always implicit. So there is nothing in Vatican Council II which contradicts the literal interpretation of the text of Cantata Domino, Council of Florence 1441.

    As a Catholic I affirm Vatican Council II in accord with the dogma the SSPX could do the same. Ad Gentes 7 supports the dogma and LG 8 and LG 16 are not exceptions.

    This interpretation is in agreement with the Holy Spirit’s teaching the Church throughout the centuries that there is exclusive salvation in only the Catholic Church.-Lionel Andrades

    Archbishop Augustine Di Noia says the Holy Spirit preserves the Church from error including the interpretation of Vatican Council II- we now know there are two interpretations of Vatican Council II, which one is guided by the Holy Spirit ?
    http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2012/07/archbishop-augustine-di-noia-says-that.html#links

    WHAT WAS THE THEOLOGICAL LIST GIVEN TO THE SSPX AT THE LAST CDF MEETING ?
    http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2012/07/what-was-theological-list-given-to-sspx.html#links

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  4. Rick, You are so right! Fr. Feeney said it best when he said, " Oh, and by the way, when it comes to praying, dogmas come first not liturgies." Certainly we love the True Mass and thank God for it, but the foundational dogma that the Catholic Faith is NECESSARY for the salvation and sanctification of EVERY HUMAN CREATURE must be defended, however unpopular. Br. Andre and the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Richmond, N.H. courageously and intelligently supply the true Catholic teaching on this matter. Archbishop Lefebvre should have simply thrown his support behind Fr. Feeney and his doctrinal defense which cannot be contradicted. Fr. Feeney, pray for us! catholicism.org

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  5. http://catholicism.org/about-sspx.html About the SSPX by Br. Francis M.I.C.M.

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