The Society of St Pius X says it will continue with plans to ordain bishops without papal approval, rejecting a proposal for dialogue with the Holy See. Source: The Tablet.
In a letter to the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) dated February 18, the society’s superior general, Fr Davide Pagliarani, said he “cannot accept the perspective and objectives in the name of which the dicastery offers to resume dialogue in the present situation, nor indeed the postponement of the date of July 1” when it plans to conduct the ordinations.
Fr Pagliarani met the DDF prefect Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández on February 12, 10 days after the ultra-traditionalist SSPX announced the plans.
The dicastery subsequently published a statement saying Cardinal Fernández had offered to open a “specifically theological dialogue” to establish “the minimum required for full communion with the Church and consequently to demarcate a canonical status” for the SSPX.
In a separate statement, Fr Pagliarani said he would present the proposal to the SSPX council but also reported that Cardinal Fernández had told him the documents of the Second Vatican Council “could not be corrected”.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the SSPX in 1970, rejecting many of the reforms of the council and celebrating the liturgy in the old rite.
In 1988, he ordained four bishops for it without papal approval, incurring excommunication latae sententiae for the clergy involved and leaving the society’s canonical status in dispute.
“We both know in advance that we cannot agree doctrinally, particularly regarding the fundamental orientations adopted since the Second Vatican Council,” Fr Pagliarani said in his letter to Cardinal Fernández, which the SSPX published on Thursday.
“I therefore do not see how a joint process of dialogue could end in determining together what would constitute ‘the minimum requirements for full communion with the Catholic Church’, since – as you yourself have recalled with frankness – the texts of the council cannot be corrected, nor can the legitimacy of the liturgical reform be challenged.”
He also complained that the SSPX had previously requested a dialogue in 2019, “but it is only when episcopal consecrations are mentioned that an offer to resume dialogue is made, which thus seems dilatory and conditional”.
The DDF’s public offer of dialogue, he said, which also stated that the ordinations would constitute a schism, creates “pressure that is hardly compatible with a genuine desire for fraternal exchanges and constructive dialogue”.
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SSPX rejects Vatican dialogue offer (By Patrick Hudson, The Tablet)
