Comments for Taking the Long View at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 6 out of 6 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:14:09 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/taking-the-long-view.html#comment-8838 Dear Prof. Smith. There was legitimate debate as to whether or not Mons Lefevbre was the leader of a schism and the formal lifting of the excommunication sort of settled the matter; so, why bring it up as though The SSPX is/was a schism and not an "internal matter" of the Church as even Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger described it years ago? I know the questions involved have been endlessly hashed and rehashed but because it is now clear that The SSPX is not a schism now - if it ever was - what is the point of imputing malign motives to Mons Lefevbre who, it seems to me, was exercising a legitimate Canon Law option? If The SSPX has ever offered false worship or if the SSPX has ever taught heresy then that would be news but the fact is it never has. Schism can not be charged against a Priestly Society when that Society merely wants to worship as their Fathers and Grand Fathers etc etc worshipped and that wants to teach what has always been taught. And with that, I will drop the matter and I wish everyone else would and stop imputing malign motives to a Cleric/Prelate whose record of Ecclesiastical Orthopraxis was spotless until Vatican Two and during which Council more than 80 Bishops voted to reject more than one of the putatively binding documents. - I am not Spartacus Fri, 11 Nov 2011 06:58:02 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/taking-the-long-view.html#comment-8834 The author replies: Attempts to figure out what the future will look like or what future people will say about the events of today are pure folly. We do not know what the future holds. What we do know is what we have been told by Christ that we must do, and that is to hold fast to the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church, which means a spiritual devotion to those successors of the apostles, the bishops. I say again (for those who missed it the first time): Has schism to achieve the goal of a more “perfect” Church ever been a good idea in the long run? Not once. St. Ignatius of Antioch knew what would come if people gave in to the temptation to separate themselves from the Body of Christ in that way. "O, that way madness lies." The phrase is Lear's, but it applies. - Randall Smith Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:42:50 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/taking-the-long-view.html#comment-8831 Thank you for your column, Mr. Smith. I, too, have decided to take the Long View, but looking forward instead. The Second Vatican Council will have gone the way of the Council of Pistoia, the Extraordinary Mass, or something very similar to it, will be the one Mass of the Church, all the current actors, both good and bad, will have passed to their reward or punishment, the Jesuits will have been disbanded and replaced by the SSPX and their former offshoot, the FSSP. There will be a tremendous resurgence of piety in the world due to the financial collapse of world markets which did not revive for fifteen years. People will be reminded of their complete dependency on God. - Manfred Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:40:59 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/taking-the-long-view.html#comment-8828 Mons. Lefevbre's "excommunication" was lifted which ended the legitimate dispute over whether or not he was excommunicated and the Pope, and the head of Ecclesia Dei Commission have said, repeatedly, that he SSPX is not in Schism. Church historians may one day look back at this time of highly-questionable Ecclesiastical Praxis and conclude that most of what Mons. Lefevbre was admirable and heroic. - I am not Spartacus Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:22:46 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/taking-the-long-view.html#comment-8825 Thank you Mr. Smith! - John Wed, 09 Nov 2011 03:30:23 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/taking-the-long-view.html#comment-8824 As Mgr Ronald Knox put it, "The fideles, be they many or few, be their doctrine apparently traditional or apparently innovatory, be their champions honest or unscrupulous, are simply those who are in visible communion with the see of Rome. No doubt, in the long run this means the people who are so orthodox that Rome has seen no reason to excommunicate them, so that unity and orthodoxy still react upon one another. But the fact remains that the Roman theory does give a test for defining the fideles without the question-begging preliminary of ascertaining who the fideles are, from an examination of their tenets. And in fact there can be little doubt that, in the West, our labelling of this party as orthodox and that as heterodox in early Church history comes down to us from authors who were applying this test of orthodoxy and no other." - Michael Paterson-Seymour Wed, 09 Nov 2011 02:57:53 +0100