Interview with SSPX Superior General
Bp. Bernard Fellay:
‘Rome has given me Permission to ordain Priests freely’
The United States District of the Lefebvrian Society of Saint Pius X has just released a 30-minute video interview with the Society’s Superior General, Bishop Bernard Fellay. Recorded on April 21, 2017, the interview predates the recent turmoil in the Society’s French District over the removal of seven deans protesting the Vatican’s “concession” on SSPX marriages.
The full interview, conducted in English, can be watched here:
A transcript of the interview has been posted by the SSPX U.S. District and is accessible here.
Not surprisingly, Bp. Fellay defends the rapprochement with Modernist Rome as a good thing and assures his adherents that Francis’ recent overtures are “not a trap, not a bad, hidden trick, or catch”. Fellay clearly believes it is a positive sign that a man who is on record saying that lifelong fornication with the same person equals a valid marriage, has now helped to confirm and “guarantee” the validity of SSPX marriages. Fellay also believes it is a positive sign that a man who does not have an ounce of Catholicism in his body, recognizes the Lefebvrist order as “Catholic”. On this point, we recall another interview with the SSPX Superior General from a year ago:
The irony of this apparently escaped Bp. Fellay, as did the absurdity of CDF head “Cardinal” Gerhard Ludwig Muller’s claim that he wanted the SSPX back in full communion with the Vatican so that they could “help us fight the Modernists”. To give credence to such a patently ridiculous protestation is not stupidity — it is willful blindness.
The most explosive comment from the Bp. Fellay interview is perhaps this one:
Last year, I received a letter from Rome telling me: “You can freely ordain your priests without the permission of the local ordinary.” So if I can freely ordain, that means that the ordination is recognized by the Church, not just as valid but in order. If I can freely do it, it’s clear that this is just already recognized and accepted.
The Vatican giving blanket permission — not just toleration but permission — to Bp. Fellay to ordain freely, without requiring the authorization of the local Novus Ordo bishop in whose diocese the ordination takes place, indicates that the SSPX is already operating as a de facto personal prelature. This will make the big day of reconciliation all the easier, since the Vatican will then only have to formalize legally and officially what has already been done in practice.
Commenting on the SSPX’s restrained and lackluster condemnation of Amoris Laetitia, Bp. Fellay explained:
At the time, I wrote to Pope Francis, and we prepared a text to wake up the cardinals, a letter from our three bishops. But, I will not say “unfortunately” — that would not be the right word — but four cardinals took the initiative just before we were about to send the letter. That’s why there was not much noise about it because it was already done. So our letter just remains in a drawer.
Considering that Francis has entirely ignored the public challenge of the four “cardinals”, it would be the perfect time now for the Lefebvrian Superior General to open that drawer and give some more momentum to the whole controversy, but it sounds like that drawer will remain closed.
Precisely why the SSPX couldn’t raise hell over such an anti-Catholic document as Amoris Laetitia — which undermines the very foundation of Catholic morality by changing the notion of sin as a transgression against the Divine Law into an imperfect participation in holiness — regardless of what some “cardinals” are doing, was not explained by Bp. Fellay. But it is clear that it would not speed up the reconciliation process between the Vatican II Sect and Abp. Lefebvre’s Society.
So, another interview, another step closer to “full communion” with the Modernist Sect “official Church”, as Bp. Fellay calls it. That final “stamp of approval” can’t be far off.
We already know that “Pope” Francis considers the SSPX Catholic, as he has said so several times in the past. The question Bp. Fellay and his followers should really be concerned about, however, is whether Pope Pius IX would consider them Catholic.
You can find the answer here.
I understand Fellay the sellout. What I can’t fathom is why the SSPX faithful will not do something about it! I refuse to go to an SSPX chapel . I wish I had a sede chapel ior church here is Saint Louis. We have a Pius V priest but he reads you the riot act when you go about the “Thuc” controversies and not to go to communion if you support St. Gertrude’s blah blah blah. .
So it’s home-alone Catholicism for you then.
🙁
Go to the SSPV church for sacraments.
SSPV has its own issues, not the least of which are questionable orders from the Lafebvrist line. You can also watch a real mass online as linked on this site (Novusordowatch.org). http://saintjudeshrine.yourstreamlive.com/ (10am Sundays Central Time)
Home alone is better than comunicatio in sacris. I’m an ocean away, watch the feed on Sundays and plan trips for Easter. Hard times, but it beats the tar out of going to questionable “priests” and dealing with heretics/schismatics & fence sitters who can’t stand for God over convenience.
I go to a chapel connected to the SSPX and will only stop going there when this agreement is signed and the priest responsible for it is put in favor. Then I will be without sacraments, but I will not be on the side of heretics.
Why not see how it turns out afterwards if it indeed goes ahead? The Resistance jumped ship when nothing happened and caused unnecessary division by hitting the big red panic button.
You are already going to a “priest” in line with heresy. Stop going now if you want to save your faith.
Yep, he sure does. Bp. Kelly must be really doubling down. I wonder sometines if he realizes the Thuc line is a whole lot bigger than SGG, MHT, and the CRMI. There’s independents all over.
Individual SSPX parishes and priests have spoken out, in sermons or in “adult catechism classes,” against Amoris Lætitia. Bp. Fellay doesn’t appear to represent the SSPX accurately.
I belive this to be true from my experiences as well. Most are button lipped, though.
I know some too. They are the salt of the earth. The picture of Bergoglio is hard to stomach, however I will not deprive myself or my family of the immense graces of the sacraments from validly ordained priests, just because of Jorge.
Would you go to a schismatic “orthodox” “church” for sacraments if there were no SSPX “churches” around? They have valid orders too. Why, or why not, because I don’t see a difference.
No, they are in schism, and they are heretics.
How are the SSPX different? They are in schism with a fake pope but the theology is still schismatic. Also, they have united themselves spiritually with an open public heretic/apostate, this makes them united to this public sin. The “orthodox” schismatic heretics are more Catholic than the SSPX and its very scary considering there is no salvation in schismatic “churches”. Run for the hills you are receiving illicit and possibly invalid sacraments from these notorious fence sitters!
I’m not going to any hills. As laity, we take as minimum a retreat to safety as we need to, and not beyond that.
It is not our job to delve into all the mysteries of the crisis and solve them. It’s not our job to talk ourselves out of the Sacraments. Sedevacantism is true, and mostly sane people hold this opinion, but it also attracts a fair share of nutters, who think they are capable of solving all the mysteries of the crisis, going beyond their ability and duty.
I act as if Vatican II and the novus never happened, and I can do that at the local chapel where, thanks be to God, I am fortunate to receive valid sacraments and go to Mass.
I’ve been around the traps for probably as long as you, and this is what I have decided after much prayer and study. No one has all the cards, and no one has the absolute certainty that every single one of their opinions about the crisis are correct.
You shouldn’t go around telling people to refuse sacraments, and to refuse Social Charity with Catholics.
Brother… you are using a double standard here and it is a dangerous one. There is no mystery. Vatican II was heresy or it was not. Francis is either a valid orthodox pope or he is not. Mystery solved. “Let them be anathema.”
Social contact is not the same thing as receiving sacraments in union with a monstrous and notorious heretic. Here’s the real problem… its insanely inconvenient to refuse SSPX because they are everywhere. But… this is not a lawful factor to consider when receiving sacraments.
What cards? Opinions are useless if they are not true. You shouldn’t go around telling people its OK to receive sacraments from those in union with a notorious PUBLIC heretic and apostate. Dangerous! Unlawful and I highly advise you to cease and desist immediately for the sake of your soul and the souls you give bad advice to.
Before I realised what the crisis was about, I was still a Catholic. I had the Faith. People are a work in progress.
But how about I sit at home with the children on Sunday and lose them to the world? That’s what happens to stay at homers. Sacraments are’nt that important, right?
Do you stay at home?
Peace in Christ,
I’m nearly 4000 miles away from the only truly Catholic mass I know of, and an ocean is between us. Yes, I stay at home, because communicate in sacris is a mortal sin. We plan a very long and very expensive yearly trip on Easter to receive safe sacraments from a priest ordained prior to the 1968 changes.
Its not about you personally being Catholic and of good will and other potential Catholics in good will being in error.
Objectively, the Novus Ordo and the SSPX are in union with apostasy and heresy. It’s entirely possible that there are Protestants and Orthodox in good faith, however it is absolutely forbidden and sinful to attend Protestant services or to receive Orthodox sacraments.
We pray the Rosary every day, we watch the mass at St. Judes online (linked on this site) on Sundays and read spiritual books together as a family for a few min a day among other pious practices that nearly every Catholic use to do.
Being home alone is not a death sentence to your faith. I also keep in contact with other Catholic families and have prayer groups, discussions about spiritual books we’re reading etc.
All through out history there have been horrible persecutions separating the faithful from the mass and priests. This is a bit different seeing as we are not being hacked to pieces and fed to the lions, but the effect is the same, being isolated and without sacraments for long periods of time. We must hold to our faith and cut away the enemies to our faith, up to and including heretics, the world, schismatics, Hollywood, the music industry, drunkenness, fornication, anti-popes and those in union with them etc.
JMJ
The SSPX is a VII Sectarian offshoot. They will only become Catholic when they teach correctly on the Primacy of Peter & other things. One might as well attend a schismatic Russian Orthodox church for valid sacraments. Neither the SSPX nor the Russian Orthodox et al are Catholic.
Im not sure why Fellay is worried or elated about “permission” now. It never seemed to bother them before. With or without permission, they have been acting as practical sedevacantists since the 70s.
I suppose he’s suggesting that this shows that Rome is coming around…
I know sone indult types that are quiet Sedevacantist, and at least one open SSPX sede, John Lane.
” For he that shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous
and sinful generation: the Son of man also will be ashamed of him, when
he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38)