Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Father Z on the SSPX

As most who keep track of these things will know the Pope lifted the excommunications of the four schismatic bishops of the Society of St. Pius X on Saturday. This has caused quite a stir for some of the reasons I mentioned in an earlier post. Now Fr. Z has a really good piece up on the subject which he dissects with his customary sharp insights. It addresses in detail some points I have alluded to before about the connection between Catholic Traditionalists and radical right politics. I strongly recommend it.

8 comments:

Jeremy Priest said...

How do you understand the SSPX's view on the state's role vis-a-vis the Church? Is it much more of a classical wedding of church and state?

Anonymous said...

The Novus Ordo neocons strike back.

Anonymous said...

Jeremy Priest,

you can answer that question by looking up the pre-Vatican II documents Immortale Dei, Quanta Cura, and the Syllabus of Errors.

Anonymous said...

Those encyclicals certainly seem consistent with the tradition of the church, which in light of the universal ordinary magisterium it has never made sense to me why they aren't actually infallible. It seems the only reason is everybody basically decided to ignore them.

It seems to me what has emerged is a new tradition, taking the Papal maximalism of the 19th century, but jettisoning the rest, and that this maximalism has been used to push through the reforms of the pauline mass (basically unilaterally) and cudgel the traditionalists. The traditionalists who now make their stand as opposing Papal power. A strange world.

John (Ad Orientem) said...

Jeremy Priest,
The SSPX preach the social reign of Christ which would be accomplished by the marriage of church and state. They lament the abandonment of the concept of the Catholic State which identifies itself with the church and uses its secular powers to uphold the state religion. They are adamantly opposed to the concept of religious liberty or even tolerance for non-Catholic religions.

Yours in ICXC
John

Steve Hayes said...

And unfortunately man Anglican high-church traditionalists are wedded to right-wing political causes as well.

When I departed from the Anglican Communion some 24 years ago I was visited by Louis Traycik, a continuing Anglican journalist, who tried to persuade me to join them.

The problem was that they were split into so many squabbling factions that it was difficult to know what they stood for. While they were Anglicans they knew what they were against, but once out, each pursued a different vision. But most of them did have one thing in common - a predilection for right-wing politics.

Anonymous said...

The SSPX preach the social reign of Christ which would be accomplished by the marriage of church and state.

Unless mistaken, I believe that's essentially the Byzantine view as well.

Anonymous said...

That was me, AMM, the comment submitted own its very own!