Sunday seems to be a good day to look at what's happening in and to the Roman Catholic Church. This week sees the confirmation of what Walt and so many others long suspected. According to leading Vaticanista Andrea Tornielli, the chief obstacle to the return of the Society of St. Pius X to the bosom of Holy Mother Church is the former's insistence on being free to criticise and correct the errors of Vatican II.
So says a letter from Fr. Christian Thouvenot, the SSPX Secretary General, to its District Superiors. Sr Tornielli says the letter, dated 18 July, was not intended for publication. He also says Fr. Thouvenot's views were confirmed by the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Gerhard Müller, in an interview with the Catholic News Agency.
In his letter, Fr. Thouvenot revealed that the SSPX had set certain conditions for signing the "doctrinal preamble" that would allow for the "regularization" of the Society. First among these conditions was the insistence that the SSPX would remain free to "correct the promoters of the errors or the innovations of modernism, liberalism, and Vatican II and its aftermath."
The SSPX also demands the right to use the traditional Latin liturgy of 1962 exclusively. That should be no problem for the Vatican, since Pope Benedict XVI's moto proprio Summorum Pontificum allows for the use of the traditional liturgy.
However, the determination of the SSPX to correct the teachings of Vatican II poses a major problem in continued negotiations with the Vatican. Both Fr. Thouvenot's letter and the concluding communiqué published at the end of the Society’s General Chapter refer to the errors of modernism and the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.
But in the interview with CNA, Archbishop Müller said, "The assertion that the authentic teachings of Vatican II formally contradict the tradition of the Church is false." Note the use of the weasel word "authentic". What does that mean? Out of the other side of his mouth, the archbishop allowed that there is room for discussion of how the Vatican II documents should be properly understood. "The purpose of dialogue [with the SSPX]," he said "is to overcome difficulties in the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council."
Is the Prefect saying, then, that the "Doctrinal Preamble" -- a text that was debated and closely examined by cardinals of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and then approved by Pope Benedict -- is subject to further debate and change? Stay tuned.
Bishop Fellay's Candlemas sermon in late February already said the talks had reached an impasse, the same impasse Muller posits here. If I could paraphrase, he put it like this: they ask us if we like tradition and we say yes. They ask us if we love tradition and we say yes. They say, the Council is Tradition, accept it.
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