SANTA MESSA TRADIZIONALE
Roma 24 maggio 2003
Basilica di S. Maria Maggiore
RASSEGNA STAMPA
Articoli e segnalazioni prima della celebrazione
21 aprile 2003 - LondonTimes
Pope woos conservatives expelled for rebellion
By Richard Owen in Rome
THE Pope is to heal a breach with rebel arch-conservatives in the Roman
Catholic Church by reinstating excommunicated followers of the late Archbishop
Marcel Lefebvre, who broke with Rome in 1988 to protest against the reforms
of the Second Vatican Council, including the abolition of the Latin Mass.
The schism had caused the Pope much anguish, Vatican sources said.
By bringing the more “moderate schismatics” back into the fold he hoped
to isolate extreme followers of Dr Lefebvre and close the matter, as one
of the last acts of reconciliation in his pontificate.
The Rome daily newspaper Il Messaggero said that this would mark a
victory for the Pope in the battle for the “soul of the Church”, which
had been going on since Vatican II in the 1960s.
Dr Lefebvre condemned the council’s reforms as “Marxist” and “neo-Protestant”.
He demanded traditional Masses in Latin, frequent confession and an emphasis
on the realities of Hell as a punishment for mortal sin.
The Vatican told Dr Lefebvre to desist and a formal canonical warning
was issued in June 1988. The final straw for the Vatican was his ordination
of four bishops “without a pontifical mandate and contrary to the will
of the Supreme Pontiff”. He was excommunicated with the four bishops.
The order, which was issued on behalf of the Pope by Cardinal Bernardin
Gantin of Benin, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops at the time,
declared that Dr Lefebvre and the bishops had “incurred ipso facto excommunication”,
the penalty envisaged by Canon Law. He said that those who supported “the
schism of Monsignor Lefebvre” would also incur “the very grave penalty
of excommunication”.
Until his death in 1991 Dr Lefebvre, who had served as a bishop in
Gabon and Dakar, before becoming Archbishop of Tulle in his native France
in 1962, continued to voice hardline opposition to church “liberalism”.
The Pope’s reconciliatory moves are being resisted by a group of arch-traditionalists
led by the British-born Bishop Richard Williamson, one of the four prelates
ordained by Dr Lefebvre.
Bishop Williamson has said that the Vatican has “sold its soul to liberalism”.
He said recently that the gulf between the traditionalists and the Pope
was unbridgeable, and that the Pope had a “weak grasp of Catholicism”.
The readmission to the Church of the three other bishops who were ordained
by Dr Lefebvre — Bernard Fellay of Switzerland, Bernard Tissier of France
and Alfonso de Gallareta of Argentina — is to be announced next month at
a Mass at the Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome, conducted by Cardinal
Dario Castrillon Hoyos of Colombia, head of the Congregation for the Clergy.
The Cardinal is seen by many as a credible Latin American candidate to
be the next Pope.
Vatican sources said that Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, 75, had begun
secret negotiations in the Vatican more than two years ago with the moderate
wing of the schismatics, led by Bishop Fellay. The talks had had the Pope’s
blessing.
The Corriere della Sera newspaper said that, in a gesture to the returning
“prodigal sons”, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos would hold the Mass in Latin,
the first time that a Latin Mass had been said in one of the main Rome
basilicas for more than 30 years.
It appears that the ordination of the bishops will be recognised in
retrospect as part of their readmission to the fold. It is not clear how
many of the 400 priests who also joined the Lefebvre movement — known as
the Society of St Pius X — will follow suit. The society, which Dr Lefebvre
founded in 1969 to fight the Vatican, has an estimated 150,000 followers,
who will have to decide whether to rejoin the mainstream.
Despite the concession of the Latin Mass, the returning bishops will
have to swear loyalty not only to the Pope but also to the conclusions
of Vatican II. Dr Lefebvre said that the council had “destroyed the Church,
ruined the priesthood and abolished the sacrifice of the Mass and the sacraments”.
There is a provision by Vatican II, reinforced by the Pope, for the
Latin — or Tridentine — Mass to be said by special dispensation. It remains
the exception rather than the rule.Dr Lefebvre’s denunciations of what
he called the neo-modernism and neo-Protestantism of Vatican II had brought
him into repeated conflict with Pope Paul VI, who in 1976 forbade him to
say Mass.
The move by the present Pope is in part a gamble aimed at showing that
many of Dr Lefebvre’s followers are willing to refuse to compromise and
stay out in the cold. A hard core holds that the seat of St Peter is vacant,
since they do not recognise the election of John Paul II.
More moderate Lefebvrists, however, increasingly find this absurd,
especially since the Pope has himself adopted sternly conservative measures
in the twilight of his pontificate. Last week he reminded Catholics of
the strict rules governing Communion — including the ban on joint Communion
with Protestants — and last year he said that the trend among Catholic
liberals towards mass absolution instead of individual confession was unacceptable.
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