Another traditional group dissolved - February 2020
Mar 1, 2020 14:33:59 GMT
Post by Admin on Mar 1, 2020 14:33:59 GMT
The history of the Vatican (under multiple Conciliar Pontificates) working earnestly to suppress or swallow up traditional Catholic groups is nothing new - just look at the efforts of then-Cardinal Ratzinger to 'regularize' the Society of St. Pius X under Archbishop Lefebvre in the 1980's. Archbishop noted that if the SSPX would just consent to one New Mass a week in St. Nicholas du Chardonnet, all would be well between the SSPX and Rome.
Many will recall that the Conciliar Church under Pope John Paul II, saw the founding of the Ecclesia Dei Commission as an umbrella for so-called traditional groups that accepted Vatican II and the New Mass but 'preferred' the old Tridentine Mass. Perhaps the most notable groups founded under this Commission were the Fraternity of St. Peter and Institute of the Good Shepard. As most of us know, the Fraternity of St. Peter was initially promised that they would never have to accept the New Mass but after a few short years, that rug was pulled out from under their feet and they were ordered to accept the New Mass for those priests who wanted to say it:
[Rome] said that the general law in the Church is the New Mass, so every priest in the Catholic Church has the strict right to celebrate it. If this is true, of course, absolutely no superior of any society or congregation in the Catholic Church can prohibit its subordinates from saying that Mass. This solution was declared in Protocol 1411, which prohibited the superiors in the Fraternity of St. Peter from prohibiting the celebration of the New Mass. (Bishop Fellay, Conference December 19, 2002)
Many traditional groups not initially begun under the auspices of the Ecclesia Dei Commission were later joined to it, once they became 'regularized,' essentially by their submission to Vatican II and the New Mass. Most memorable examples for many of us are the Priestly Union of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney (the traditional priests of Campos, Brazil, previously under Bp. Castro de Mayer) in 2002 and the Institute of Christ the King in 2008.
It appears that it doesn't matter in what manner these traditional groups are destroyed (for once you agree to accept Vatican II which appears to be the only necessary requirement - the fate of these groups is doomed): the more sly and subtle manner of Popes John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI utilizing the seemingly maternal cloak of the Ecclesia Dei or the smashing manner of Pope Francis (who has crushed several smaller traditional groups and dissolved the Ecclesia Dei), the result is the same: Vatican II must reign supreme - with all it's revolutions, whether the New Mass, the New Sacraments, Ecumenism and Religious Liberty, Collegiality, the New Catechism, the New Code of Canon Law, etc.
As the old-SSPX noted, "Since the introduction of the new sacramental rites, Rome had allowed no religious society or congregation exclusive use of the older rites." A good reminder that this is an old story: that since the 1970's complete subjection to Vatican II was all that was allowed or you were smashed; think of the 1976 suspension a divinis of Archbishop Lefebvre! 'There is nothing new under the sun...'
It appears one more traditional group has been smashed in the last few days under the Pontificate of Pope Francis, the Italian Familia Christi. While they were founded only recently (in 2014 - under the local bishop) they have been eyed for destruction since at least 2017 or 2018 (see here and here). Well, it appears their time has finally come. The following is one such report from yesterday (February 29, 2020) reporting that the Familia Christi is finished and it's priests' futures uncertain.
Vatican Kills Italian Order of Traditionalist Priests
ChurchMilitant.com [adapted] • February 29, 2020
The archdiocese of Ferrara-Comacchio announced in a press release Friday that the Society of Apostolic Life Familia Christi (Family of Christ) has been suppressed by the Holy See following the conclusion of a canonical procedure that lasted for two years.
The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) said it found the organization "unfit to live and form a Priestly Fraternity of consecrated life for serious religious, educational and administrative reasons."
A Familia Christi Latin Mass for the feast of Ascension
[Not sure how 'traditional they are when the women's heads are uncovered and some women are in pants. - The Catacombs]
Distraught Catholics from the region told Church Militant they found the language "highly ambiguous and even disingenuous" since the statement did not clarify or elaborate what precisely made the society "unfit" for religious life.
The Vatican decree applies Canon 701 of the [New] Code of Canon Law, which releases religious from their vows and prohibits a priest from exercising Holy Orders — that is, celebrating Mass or solemnizing weddings, hearing confessions and so on, "unless they have found a bishop who, after a probationary period in his diocese following Canon 693, welcomes him or at least allows him to exercise Holy Orders."
"A possible future welcome or incardination of the above-mentioned priests can only take place through the consent of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which is to be formally asked for and obtained in written form by a Diocese or by an Institute of consecrated life," the CDF decree stipulates.
A traditionalist Catholic academic expressed surprise that the decree addressed the five priests as the "Reverendi Signori" (Italian plural for "Mister" or "Sir") as if "they were no longer priests." The five named clerics are Riccardo Petroni, Matteo Riboli, Lorenzo Mazzetti di Pietralata, Emanuele Lonardi and Enrico D'Urso.
Signed by CDF prefect Cdl. Luis F. Ladaria, the decree was issued on Dec. 13, 2019 but only published by the archdiocese of Ferrara-Comacchio on Feb. 28, 2020, alongside other notices on "the containment and management measures of the health emergency linked to the spread of the Coronavirus."
Citing fears of contagion, Abp. Gian Carlo Perego has ordered the removal of holy water from the stoups, distribution of Holy Communion only on the hand and the suspension of the sign of peace.
[...]
"They have been and are unique priests ... close to people and exceptional evangelizers. The parish of Santa Maria in Vado without them is poor, miserable, bare and empty," a commenter wrote on the Italian Latin Mass blog, noting that an appeal signed by 800 adults to Abp. Perego had been ignored.
The priestly fraternity was assigned pastoral care of the parish of Santa Maria in Vado and the rectorate of the Basilica of the Prodigious Blood from February 2016–June 2018.
The basilica is the site of an extraordinary Eucharistic miracle which took place on March 28, 1171. When Fr. Pietro da Verona broke the host while celebrating Mass, a stream of blood gushed from it, so vigorous that it hit the vault above the altar. The traces of blood are visible to this day on the right side of the transept of the basilica.
Sources said that the suppression of Familia Christi was intended to stamp out the legacy of the previous archbishop, Luigi Negri, one of the last appointments of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
"Archbishop Negri was never loved by the city's Left and has always been targeted in ferocious attacks (many times personal ones) for being a righteous, coherent, courageous and brave defender of the Tradition of the Church," wrote Cristiano Bendin, journalist for the local Ferrara section of newspaper Il Resto del Carlino.
Negri publicly denounced Freemasonry, confronted the LGBT lobby, challenged Satanic sects in his archdiocese, painted the Arabic letter "nun" (the brand of shame sprayed by ISIS on Christian properties in Mosul) on the chancery's door, and condemned excessive solicitude for migrants when Italians in poverty were being neglected.
By nominating Perego as Negri's successor, Pope Francis "wanted to send a clear message to the diocese," Bendin remarked. Church Militant earlier reported on Perego's progressive credentials particularly underlining his pro-migration agenda.
It was Negri, who had authorized and installed the Priestly Fraternity of the Familia Christi (FSFC) in the archdiocese of Ferrara-Comacchio on Sept. 8, 2016, on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. "After a long time of careful verification and thorough preparation, not without the accompaniment of the competent ecclesiastical experts who were able to direct the steps of the nascent reality and its first members, the first canonical recognition arrived on June 4, 2014," Familia Christi's website states.
Local Catholics told Church Militant the suppression of traditionalist religious communities had peaked under Pope Francis.
In a recent case, the Vatican ordered the closure of the Little Sisters of Mary Mother of the Redeemer, a French religious order, comprising one hundred and twenty sisters. Journalist Marco Tosatti noted that the sisters were "accused of a spirituality considered too 'traditional.'"
"The Vatican's work of destruction of religious life continues relentlessly," because "they pray too much," observed Tosatti. The closure was even more tragic as it was taking place in a country where the situation of vocations is disastrous, he pointed out.
In a statement Abp. Perego commented: "Let us pray the Lord that he may never let us go without charismatic gifts for the life and mission of the Church, but also that may he give us the necessary attention to the criteria to discern them." [Emphasis mine.]