Monday, May 01, 2006

Catholic World News : SSPX bishop rips Pope Benedict

This story (Catholic World News : SSPX bishop rips Pope Benedict) was of course the one we've been discussing in some comment boxes.

A quick comment. Like Lefebvre before them, unfortunately the bishops associated with the SSPX seem to be, yet again, shooting themselves and the classical rite movement in the foot.

In 1988, just at the moment that the classical rite could have made leaps and bounds, Archbishop Lefebvre reneged, thus setting back the classical liturgical movement to this very day.

Now, just as the Pope Benedict is pushing to try and help make a reconciliation possible, and just as the same ideas of an Apostolic Administration are yet again arising onto the table, and right in the midst of the possibility of a universal permission for the celebration of the classical liturgical books, what does another SSPX bishop do, but this offensiveness?

All that being said, I don't think it will stop Pope Benedict as regards the rumoured universal freedom for the classical liturgical books for a variety of reasons -- but it sure will hurt public relations in that regard. Not the least of which, being the possibility of a faction with the SSPX leaving and re-embracing full communion with Rome; not to mention his empathy for the legitimate groups attached to these books, and its potential for the reform of the reform.

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