“Shutting Off Dialogue”
Andrew responds to my post on the lifting of Richard Williamson’s excommunication:
… I wasn’t arguing that the man’s poisonous views demand excommunication. In canon law, that makes little sense. I argued that rescinding excommunication when the man still holds this kind of dark Vatican I view of the world and the church is a provocation – to the Jewish people, civilized people everywhere and to Catholics who thought we had left this kind of poison behind in the 1960s. It is another signal of how much contempt Benedict holds for the Second Council.
So Richardson’s views on the Holocaust don’t warrant his continued excommunication, but the potential for bad publicity does? Look: either Williamson and the other Society bishops have made sufficient reparations for the circumstances of their ordination, or they have not. If the former, then there’s no legitimate reason not to rescind the excommunications, however “provocative” such an action may seem to some. And if the analysis that I quoted Damian Thompson as giving is correct, as it certainly seems to be, then refusing to lift the latae sententiae on Williamson would have meant making the same refusal for the other bishops – which is exactly the sort of thing that a loon like Williamson seems to be after when he makes outrageous statements of the sort in question. I agree that a stronger condemnation of Williamson’s rhetoric would have been helpful, but then again it may be that the Pope preferred not to give him any more attention than he deserved.
Andrew continues:
By returning the church to its darker past, Benedict is shutting off dialogue in favor of a smaller, more orthodox and more insular form of faith.
How this charge is supposed to have any force is simply beyond me. The attempt to affect a reconciliation between Rome and the Society of St. Pius X is meant to be a step toward dialogue, and indeed has involved quite a lot of that already. If the Church has room, as I for one certainly think it should, for someone with views as untraditional as Andrew’s, then why can’t there be space in it for anti-Modern traditionalists as well?
UPDATE: More from Andrew. To say that Benedict has "embraced" Bishop Williamson is absurd, of course, and Sullivan should know better than to go in for this sort of misrepresentation. As to this:
… the Pope who decided that celibate, faithful gay men cannot be allowed into seminaries has now opened the doors of reconciliation with this filth.
I agree, actually, with many of the criticisms of the refusal to allow homosexuals into the priesthood. But there are two separate issues here, and at the risk of repeating myself may I ask where Christ stood in opposition to reconciliation, whether with "filth" or otherwise?
Filed under: religion
I guess the idea is that you’re only supposed to dialogue with nice people.
John, I want to make one small observation about the second half of your post. In a rather narrow sense, yes, the engagement with SSPX is dialogue. I do not think Sullivan denies that. His point, as I understand it, is that in this case such a conversation probably means that other instances of dialogue — with Jews and all others who hold the views of SSPX to be somewhat distasteful — will be significantly harmed. So beyond the legal and technical aspects of the situation (whether the Pope had the authority to do this — which as far as I can tell Sullivan readily concedes) is what message it sends; not because of a perverse concern for a superficial “publicity,” but because in this case affirming the standing of certain people may have consequences for the way the Roman Catholic Church is seen by others — by Jews, by Protestants, by all those want to be allies with, or even converts to, the Church.
One way of viewing this situation, then, is that dialogue with a small band of eccentric reactionaries has taken precedence over dialogue with a number of other constituencies. And, for Sullivan, this is indicative of the posture and priorities of this Pope. So beyond the aspects of this that relate to canon law, there is a concern for what this indicates to others about what matters to this Pope. Its not ridiculous to worry about this.
Matt: Those are fair points, I think. But then again the sort of situation you describe is going to arise in any case of dialogue: I imagine that many of the SSPXers, for example, are less than thrilled when the Vatican enters into dialogue with Jews, many American neoconservative types get upset when they dialogue with Muslims, etc. etc. And so the real lesson is just that this sort of thing needs to be handled with a lot of care, and as I’ve said several times I agree that it’s unfortunate that that wasn’t done in this instance.
As to the claim of “taking precedence”, I’d need to see more evidence of this. But it seems undeniable that the estrangement of traditionalist Catholics from the Church is clearly an unfortunate thing, and simply chalking it up to their “dark Vatican I views” is no more helpful than dismissing someone like Andrew as hopelessly liberal. Why do Andrew’s views deserve to be taken seriously in dialogue, consequences be damned, while those of others do not?
You have to acknowledge that the double standard the Church shows – rescinding the excommunication of a potential anti-Semite, while agressively pursuing an anti-homosexual theological agenda in the age of priest sex abuse scandals – is reason for Anrdrew Sullivan to dissent.
MC: Not sure what you mean, or how you think you’ve just described a double standard.
Somebody help me here: is the SSPX anti-Semitic? Do they as a policy deny the holocaust? I just checked out some comments they’ve made re: the capture of Vatican II by the liberal-progressives and it made for some rather interesting reading.
RC: I’m sure that they don’t have an official policy of Holocaust-denial. Some, however, would call them anti-Semitic, and not without reason: but I think a better term is just “anti-Modern”, both in substance and – especially – style.
The SSPX, from what I’ve seen of it, is anti-Judaism but not Anti-Semitic. Some would say that’s semantics, but I’m going to have to agree with them that it’s not.
I think SSPX is sincere that the Nazis, and killing Jews for their race, is anathema to them. However I think they are also sincere that the Inquisition and the Ghettoes, segregating Judaism adherents or killing Jewish apostates, is just and proper.
Unlike others here I’m willing to say I pretty much just dislike Sullivan, at least Sullivan the blogger. Yet sadly I think he has some point here. There are groups that split from Catholicism because they were more liberal than us. Is he making the same effort there? Well looking it up I guess he might be in a few cases. There are apparently negotiations with the “Polish National Catholic Church”, which seems roughly the same as us except for views on the Pope and birth control. Still the appearance is he’s not. (And the PNCC would not be viewed as “liberal” in American terms as it opposes homosexuality, abortion, and women priests)
Admittedly a problem with many liberal splinter groups is they believe in things that are basically heretical. So negotiating with a group that rejects the idea of original sin is different than with the SSPX, which is basically orthodox albeit enamored with fringe elements.
Be that as it may I do think the Church has at times used prudence. I’m pretty sure they’ve essentially said at times that certain actions were not done, like some things against Nazis or Mussolini, because it could increase persecution of the Church. I worry being seen as supportive of Anti-Judaic reactionaries could also encourage hostility to the Church. Considering a Papal diplomat here recently said that Gaza was “like a concentration camp” it seems, at the very least, bad timing.
And yeah I’m aware the Church doesn’t need to care about any of that.
That said I don’t think all of the SSPX’s complaints about the Post-Vatican II world are incorrect. There are some things where I think they are right on and where the Church may need to better explain the continuity between 20th c. reforms and Church tradition. Still they’re way too open to a conspiratorial/fringe view of things.
TR: Thanks, and I agree entirely about the “conspiratorial/fringe” remark. But can you provide some backing for your claim about the Society’s support for segregation and killing of Jews?
I also think you have a point here:
But aren’t the dialogues with the various Protestant factions instances of this? And also: entering into dialogue with the SSPXers doesn’t mean admitting that they might be right about the supposed invalidity of the post-V2 mass, or whatever. (You’re also right that in general their disagreements with Rome have much more to do with style than doctrine – you won’t, I think, find many examples of dialogues of this sort with outright sedevacantists.) Rather, in this as in every other case entering into dialogue means bringing the other side to concede to the Church’s teachings – and again, it’s worth noting that lifting the excommunications is only a very initial step toward full communion.
P.S. Thanks to you and everyone else for keeping this discussion so mutually respectful; I’ve really appreciated it.
TR: thanks, most helpful, I’ve read they’re critical of the word “collegiality” inserted in certain Vat. II documents.
JS: Why “would some call them anti-Semitic?”
And, do you guys consider the changes from pre to post Vat. II rather radical?
Well, partly because there are some who no doubt are, and partly because certain ways of speaking about Jews (or insisting on praying, e.g., for their conversion) are understandably perceived as anti-Semitic even if they in fact fall short of that.
To be honest, I’m not well-informed enough to have a lot to say here. Surely there are changes in liturgical and rhetorical style that are pretty significant, and I think that some of that is good, some less so. But in terms of substance I’m committed to believing in the usual picture of the development of doctrine, so …
“But can you provide some backing for your claim about the Society’s support for segregation and killing of Jews?” JS
TR: I didn’t mean they accepted killing Jews as such, but that killing apostates is acceptable including Jews who converted to Catholicism. Still I may have exaggerated as they seem to believe you can talk to apostates without killing them.
http://www.sspx.org/Catholic_FAQs/catholic_faqs__canonical.htm#contact_apostates
Although they, the American site anyway, is also clear the Jews are cursed to be “a people in entire opposition with the Catholic Church and its supernatural plan for the salvation of souls.”
http://www.sspx.org/Catholic_FAQs/jews_guilty_of_deicide.htm
It’s not clear if this means Jews have to be segregated off, but at least some of them have stated a support for ghettoizing Jews. An article by Michael Crowdy & Kenneth Novak in a SSPX paper supports the idea and is reprinted by the “Stormfront White Nationalist” group. (I’m not willing to link to Stormfront at this point in time, but it’s also mentioned by the somewhat untrustworthy “Southern Poverty Law Center”)
“And, do you guys consider the changes from pre to post Vat. II rather radical?” RC
TR: I wasn’t alive before Vatican II. Some radical changes occurred that were not really sanctioned by Vatican II.
Still I’ll admit the pre-Vatican II church, judging by encyclicals, was more like the SSPX in placing more emphasis on the idea that
Other religions are inferior
The Catholic Church should be the established church of a nation when possible.
Catholics must avoid certain books and films
I agree that to be a Catholic you should consider other religions inferior. I don’t think that means they’re false though, more like half-truths. However I have doubts on the idea that Catholicism must be the established faith whenever possible. In the nations where Catholicism is established the faith doesn’t seem to be doing any better. On books and films I see the point of restriction, but I’m not sure I’d adjust with the full strictness of the Index. Still possibly a reconciling for the changes was needed.
“I’m not willing to link to Stormfront at this point in time”
Err that was sort-of intended humorously, but it didn’t read that way. Basically I’d be very uncomfortable with ever linking to a White-Nationalist website.
Holding to the Catholic faith means recognizing the authority of the Church throughout time. It means believing in eternal truths. To speak of Vatican I as a “dark view” and “poison” is to hold the Catholic faith in contempt. When liberal Catholics (who are the worst enemies of the Church, as Pius IX said) claim that the authority of modern clerics can negate the authority of teachings to which the Catholic Church has always adhered, they are mocking the very concept of ecclesiastical authority, Catholic Truth, and show an irreconcilable hatred for the Catholic Faith. It was no “Second Pentecost” (as John XXIII called it) if some members of the Catholic hierarchy at Vatican II decided they would hide Catholic Truth for “fear of the Jews.”
TR,
There are ongoing discussions with the PNCC, as well as with the Assyrian Church of the East, the Orthodox Churches, the Oriental Orthedox Churches (anti-Chalcedonian, I believe). To some extent, these have all been stuck about where they got to in the early 90s, although there have been symbolic moves with some (not the PNCC). I think the difference with SSPX is that they are a much more recent quasi-schism and a much stronger position in western Europe, where the Church isn’t strong and Benedict’s attention has been focused. Regarding Benedict, I was hoping for a conservative in 2005 but not him, and I have been very pleasantly surprised in general. In his writings and his homilies, I find him a masterful theologian who expresses the truths of the faith in a very approachable and sympathetic manner. I think he gets bad press, and he has a bit of a tin ear for how his decisions/statements will be perceived by the ad extra world, which isn’t helped by the fact that the Vatican doesn’t seem to have its act together at all in communicating its with the modern world.
JS,
I haven’t seen any public steps by Fellay or the other SSPX bishops (who seem to be more intransigent than him but less intransigent, and crazy, than Williamson) that seem to warrent lifting the excommunication. They’re asking Rome to come to them, not going to Rome themselves. The lifting of the excommunication was thus gratuitous-undeserved. For that reason, I think it probably shouldn’t have been done in the Williamson context. If he were repudiated by the other bishops, and if they were willing to submit to Rome, then it could have been done and Williamson could have received a formal instruction to silence himself (it’s happened for theologians approaching heresy and for that African archbishop who got married by the Moonies, so it seems like that would have been possible).
Also, “filth” was Joseph Ratzinger’s own term in describing the molestation of children in his Lenten meditations in 2004 or 2005. I think Andrew is alluding to that here, since the limit on celibate homosexuals in seminaries seems to endorse an often-made argument by the Catholic right that the sex abuse scandal was largely a case of homosexual priests engaging in relations with boys in their late teens.
Zak: Thanks for the helpful comments; I think that what you say is pretty fair. But note that the lifting of the excommunication is not the same as welcoming the SSPX and its members back into full communion with Rome – and as it stands, the conditions that are supposed to make that possible are still unmet.
But look: the big question here is that of what needs to be done to repair this fracture in the Church. Obviously it’s going to take considerable concessions on the part of SSPX, but if lifting these excommunications – and note that, at least as I understand it, the SSPX faithful did meet the Vatican’s request to pray a rosary asking for this to happen – is going to be a significant help in moving that process along, then it seems to me that there’s a good deal to be said for it.
Thomas R.:
Regarding your point about leftward outreach, I am not entirely sure that there exist coherent groups on the left that in a comparable position (both in terms of canon law and in terms of adherence to dogma) to that of the SSPX.
In general, left-wing dissenters have had the ability to operate largely unhindered within the Church; it’s not as if there were a para-ecclesial organization headed by (e.g.) Thomas Gumbleton which was (i) not materially heretical and (ii) interested in reunion with Rome. If the Church had gone through some comparable purge, or exile, or whatever you want to call it on the left wing, then perhaps I’d take your point.
Incidentally, part of the perception problem seems to arise from the horrible left/right terminology; it barely works in secular politics, and is a total disaster when applied to the Church. In part, because the issues defy bipolar sorts of categorization, and tend to come in odd combinations. But also because the poles don’t get fixed correctly. We tend to think – in light of our own politics – that someone like Benedict XVI is a member of the far right. But the “continuity” school which is advocated by the Pope is actually more like a centrist position, or perhaps slightly right-center, in the Church; so someone like Bernard Fellay is right-of-center to about the same degree that someone like Roger Mahoney is left-of-center. The point being, the comparable people on the left are still inside the Church – there is no need to rescind excommunications.
Petellius: Those are very good points, I think, though this example certainly fits the bill of marginalized “liberal” dissent. Then again discussions are going on there, too.
Andrew misspoke in talking of a dark Vatican I view of the world; but he would have been correct if he spoke of a dark Pius IX view (see the Syllabus of Errors or the Pius IX signed statement of 1866 on the compatibility of slavery with human and divine law, etc. etc.)
If the Vatican made even the slightest steps to dialogue with modern European and American liberal Catholics (crassly dismissed as heretics by some here) it would spell a return to the spirit of Vatican II. Instead they choose to give all their dialogal attention to the freaky Lefebvrites, a clear mark of right-wing sympathies and priorities. I heard a highly place Vatican churchman speak of the Holocaust in similar tones to Bp Williamson 20 years ago, a glimplse into that “dark” side of right wing Catholicism…
But what do you mean by this? Surely the Church is “aligned” with such groups, if by that you meant that the groups in question haven’t been excommunicated. If “alignment” requires giving up on traditional Church teachings, then doing such a thing would neither be in the “spirit of Vatican II” nor would it be comparable to what has happened with the Lefebvrites, where a precondition on full reconciliation has required that the schismatics come to Rome, and not the other way around.
“The point being, the comparable people on the left are still inside the Church – there is no need to rescind excommunications.” Petellius
TR: I’m not really opposed to excommunicating people on the “Left.” As you say this terminology is a bit odd. Some group in New York called “Spiritus Christi” was cut off for ordaining women priests and having gay marriage. I support cutting them off until they rescind. I might go further and agree some of these bishops who seem to support universal salvation should maybe be suspended.
However as someone mentioned these bishops, from what I can tell, still consider the current Church to be in grip of a modernist heresy. If this is so then even if they did a billion rosaries I think reconcilinig would be difficult.
Okay Lefebvre apparently did list Jews as declared enemies of the Church.
http://ncronline3.org/drupal/?q=node/3180
Although the article indicates many traditionalists aren’t like that and that’s true.
The Syllabus of Errors is an accurate view of the world. There is a war against the Catholic Church by the Synagogue of Satan. That is not just the view of Pius IX, but has been the teaching of the Church since the very beginning. As for the issue of slavery, that is completely extraneous and has nothing to do with this issue of lifting the excommunications.
Pope Pius IX:
“Venerable Brothers, it is surprising that in our time such a great war is being waged against the Catholic Church. But anyone who knows the nature, desires and intentions of the sects, whether they be called masonic or bear another name, and compares them with the nature the systems and the vastness of the obstacles by which the Church has been assailed almost everywhere, cannot doubt that the present misfortune must mainly be imputed to the frauds and machinations of these sects. It is from them that the synagogue of Satan, which gathers its troops against the Church of Christ, takes its strength. In the past Our predecessors, vigilant even from the beginning in Israel, had already denounced them to the kings and the nations, and had condemned them time and time again, and even We have not failed in this duty.”
Andrew did not just mispeak. He can certainly read the Encyclicals of the Popes before Vatican II. In speaking contemptuously of the position of the SSPX he is speaking contemptuously of all of those Popes, as having a “dark view.” If the Church before Vatican II is held in contempt, then what is the source of the authority of the Church now? God or man? If it is man, you might have Andrew’s position. If it is God, his position is impossible.