Intolerance of minorities (2)

Fr. John Hunwicke, has an excellent article on his blog. .

Here is Fr. Hunwicke's article.
Intolerance of minorities (2)

Intolerance of minorities (2)

The Priestly Fraternity of S Peter, FSSP, was erected with lightning speed after the uncanonical episcopal consecrations performed by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988. The promise was that the participants would be given, within the canonical unity and structures of the Church, the 'deal' which had been agreed with Archbishop Lefebvre; the 'deal' which he had signed, but had thought better of overnight, and had repudiated the next morning.

Broadly, this is what the FSSP was given ... although the most significant item in that package, the provision for them to have a bishop, never materialised, and, to this day, never has.

Little more than a decade later, things, apparently, were not well. In the middle of 2000, the Fraternity priests learned that their canonical election of a new superior had been suspended, a new superior was to be parachuted in, and the Rectors of the Fraternity's seminaries were replaced. A letter referred to "a certain spirit of rebellion against the present-day Church" among the seminarians. And one (otherwise generally sympathetic) Cardinal later explained to journalists that the "Fraternity's members must be helped in their endeavour to strike a balance between their original charism ... and the outcome of their insertion within the ecclesial reality of today". Markthat phrase!

It is not easy to see how the ecclesial reality of today can mean anything other than the prevalent ethos of Novus Ordo Catholicism. "Striking a balance" looks to me horribly like the old "Latinisation" as it used to be applied in a "uniate" context: the intolerance of the majority towards a culturally different minority, of which, for some reason, they feel dreadfully fearful. Or is the problem that Traditionalists are not humble enough? That they continue to address reasoned questions to the ecclesial reality of today?

Ecumenism is fashionable in some Catholic circles. I have long suspected that 'liberal' Catholics, who profess a sympathy for Ecumenism, favour it because their real desire is to change their own Church so that it conforms to the paradigms of Liberal Protestantism. Be that as it may, there is something strange about Catholics who have aprofessed warm ecumenical enthusiasm for ecclesial bodies which have been separated from them for half a millennium ... but who yet have a visible and vocal visceral intolerance towards fellow Catholics living loyally in canonical structures confirmed by the Church.
To be continued.