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Redefining the boundaries of the church

Pope Francis has helped the church be more inclusive, non-ideological and open in today’s world
Redefining the boundaries of the church

Pope Francis celebrates Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on May 15.

Published: May 27, 2016 05:53 AM GMT
Updated: May 27, 2016 05:54 AM GMT

Pope Francis has been busy redefining the boundaries of the church in many different ways.

He's visited countries and places that are symbolically on the margins. He’s tirelessly emphasized God’s mercy. And he’s met with groups that, until three years ago, were not even on the Vatican’s contact list (such as the network of "popular movements" from Latin America).

All this has helped redefine the church as being more inclusive, non-ideological and open to different ways of being Catholic in today’s world.        

But there is one group that few would expect to see drawing closer to Rome during the pontificate of a Jesuit pope who is not afraid to challenge the status quo and advocate social justice issues.

It is the Priestly Society of St Pius X (SSPX), commonly known as the Lefebvrists.

Founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970, it is the most famous group to denounce the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and the first to leave full communion with Rome in the post-conciliar period.

Archbishop Lefebvre (d. 1991) famously declared his rejection of the Council (particularly the liturgical reform, episcopal collegiality, religious freedom and ecumenism) and when he consecrated four bishops without Vatican approval in 1988 he incurred automatic excommunication (excommunicatio latae sententiae). 

Lefebvre was a leader of the conservative minority during Vatican II’s four sessions and was an extremely vocal opponent of its most important reforms. He interpreted the "pastoral" character of Vatican II as the council’s way of self-justifying its inability to deal with dogmas and its intention to introduce liberal ideas into the Catholic Church. He saw it as "changing our religion."

Here is the paradox: Pope Francis, who is unquestionably a pro-Vatican II pope, is moving towards reconciliation with a group whose only reason for existence is the rejection of the Council and the denunciation of its teaching as heresy.

The SSPX’s current superior general, Bishop Bernard Fellay, acknowledged in a recent interview with the National Catholic Register that steps are being taken in the dialogue between Rome and his small but vocal group of ultra-traditionalists.

Fellay said "[the situation] is really paradoxical, because we haven’t changed anything, and we continue to denounce what is happening […] Nevertheless, you see this movement in our favor, inside Rome." He said it seems the longer the talks continue, "the more lenient Rome becomes."

Regarding Francis, the SSPX leader said, "Certainly, he doesn’t agree with us on these points on the Council which we are attacking […] Definitely he doesn’t. But for him, as the doctrine is not so important — it is man, the people who are important — there we have given enough proof that we are Catholics." 

All this is Fellay’s impression — through the sympathetic reporting of the Register’s Edward Pentin — of the dialogue between a Vatican II pope and an anti-Vatican II traditionalist group.

But Pope Francis sounded a more cautious note in his recent interview with La Croix

When questioned about granting the SSPX the status of a personal prelature, the pope said, "That would be a possible solution, but beforehand it will be necessary to establish a fundamental agreement with them. The Second Vatican Council has its value. We will advance slowly and patiently."

How this develops must be watched carefully. It is not the first time that the Lefebvrists and Rome have tried to come to an agreement. There were already attempts under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, but they always failed in the end.

Francis has gone a step further. He announced at the beginning with the current Jubilee, that the society’s confessions would now be considered both valid and licit. Up until now, Rome had considered confession heard by SSPX priests as invalid because of the lack of necessary jurisdiction.

But the way in which Francis differs from his predecessors in dealing with this schismatic group offers an interesting picture of his pontificate.

The first difference is that Francis is not "negotiating" with the SSPX over things that Roman Catholicism can change in order to satisfy the group’s demands (as was the case with Benedict XVI’s motu proprio in 2007, Summorum Pontificum, which liberalized use of the pre-Vatican II liturgy).

In liturgical matters, for example, there is no question that a visible difference remains between Francis and the traditionalists. And Francis’ ecumenical agenda (such as traveling to Sweden next October for the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation) is much more than the SSPX can tolerate.

The second difference is that Francis’ openings are not just towards the "right wing" (so to speak) of post-conciliar Catholicism, but also to the other side — basically to everybody. John Paul II and Benedict XVI opened their arms to the traditionalists, but they gave the impression of using a double standard in dealing with them as opposed to others (such as liberation theologians or women theologians).

The third difference is that the Jesuit pope’s openings are part of an ecumenical ecclesiology that is not only ad extra (towards Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans, etc.) but also ad intra (within Catholicism, with parts of the Church that represent different interpretations of Catholicism).

This is an important point. If his meetings with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow were able to isolate the anti-ecumenical fringes of the Orthodox Churches, then in a similar way his dealing with Fellay might be able to isolate the other ultra-traditionalist fringes, such as the "sedevacantists" (those who believe that at some point after Pius XII the See of Peter became vacant because the popes that occupied it were heretics) or other members of the SSPX (such as the anti-Semitic Bishop Richard Williamson).

The fourth difference is that Francis’s overtures toward the Lefebvrists is like “Nixon going to China”. The former US president’s staunch anti-communism made him a credible negotiator with Chairman Mao.

Similarly, the idea of "Francis going to Ecône" (the SSPX seminary and headquarters in Switzerland) is credible because his record — as a Jesuit, as a bishop and as pope — makes it impossible to accuse him of selling out Catholicism to anti-Vatican II ultra-traditionalism.

Besides these differences, however, there are also risks. 

A first issue is that Francis has never addressed the Second Vatican Council in terms of abstract hermeneutical models, which is something Benedict XVI did in his now famous Christmas talk to the Roman Curia in 2005. That talk became an obstacle in the negotiations with Bishop Fellay between September 2011 and June 2012.

But Francis’ non-ideological approach to Vatican II could be risky. The traditionalist Catholic blog Rorate Caeli put it this way almost two years ago: 

"Precisely from the fact of the absence of interest of the Pope [Francis] for the hermeneutical questions regarding Vatican II, it seems that the famous doctrinal 'conditions' presented to Bishop Fellay were placed in the file boxes. It is anyway what emerges from the information that persons in charge of relations with the traditionalists let out: they gather that submitting to the signature of Bishop Fellay doctrinal declarations that were too strict was a mistake."

No doubt there is a problem that some of those who oppose Francis also oppose his view of Vatican II; the two levels are interconnected.

But so far he has been very effective in moving the Council beyond the age of the hermeneutical controversies. However, a full canonical reconciliation with the SSPX could re-ignite them.

The Lefebvrists are happy with what Pope Francis might mean for them now (and in his interview with the National Catholic Register Fellay clearly "gets" Francis — probably better than many Catholics who oppose the pope). But, at the end of the day, priests and followers of the SSPX still abhor Vatican II.

There are no signs that they have changed their completely negative view of the Council, especially its documents that are key for the future of the Church (and the world) — on ecumenism, religious liberty and inter-religious dialogue.

This is not something that should concern only Vatican II theologians. Just look at the statement the American branch of the SSPX published in 2012 against the US Bishops’ Conference campaign to protect religious freedom — a freedom they see as heresy.

A second risk is that a full canonical reconciliation with the ultra-traditionalists would probably be received differently in Europe and South America compared to North America and the English-speaking world where traditionalist Catholicism, though never formally breaking communion with Rome, is closer than anywhere else to the Lefebvrist culture.

In his interview with Bishop Fellay (who has said, on the record, several times in these last three years that Pope Francis is "a modernist"), Edward Pentin reported that a Vatican source told him the Lefebvrists have already “toned down some of their literature, interviews and publications.”

This may be true for the SSPX, but is has clearly not happened yet with some Catholic voices that keep accusing the pope of deviating from the tradition of the church.

Follow me on Twitter @MassimoFaggioli

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