The Vatican Diaries: A Behind-The-Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church by John Thavis

Author:John Thavis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Religion, Catholic, Christianity
ISBN: 9780670026715
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2013-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

look to the East now (turn, turn, turn),

there’s a time for every Mass now, if it’s valid.

The time for banjos and dancing is gone,

dust off the censer, and toss out the bong.

No need for hugging, we all get along,

let’s keep our focus together, on Jesus.

• • •

By the fall of 2008, a year after “Summorum Pontificum,” Bishop Bernard Fellay was discovering just how little had changed for the Society of Saint Pius X. Although the papal letter had been widely seen as a concession to the SSPX, in fact, by making the Tridentine rite available—theoretically—in every local parish, the pope’s new policy had weakened the Society. The SSPX was no longer the exclusive provider of a liturgical alternative.

Meanwhile, its talks with the Vatican were going nowhere, and the world seemed to be paying less attention. While the SSPX continued to have deep concerns that went beyond the liturgy—ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, the role of laypeople and the more “modern” behavior of priests and nuns, all of which were seen as the dark legacy of the Second Vatican Council—as Fellay himself realized, even most conservative Catholics didn’t see a rollback of Vatican II as a practical possibility. However much they loved the Tridentine Mass, the younger traddies, in particular, had little appetite for a war on modernism. They might not even know what modernism was. In short, the SSPX’s list of grievances now lacked a headliner and was of interest to few people outside the Society.

Bishop Fellay calculated some other factors. He knew that his Vatican contact, Cardinal Castrillón, was approaching his eightieth birthday and mandatory retirement. No one at the Vatican would carry water for the SSPX as Cardinal Castrillón had. And Castrillón, Fellay reasoned, would like nothing more than to go out on a triumphant note: After years of failed talks, an agreement with the Lefebvrists would be the finest prize. The SSPX could exploit Castrillón’s eagerness to achieve that, but Fellay had to be careful: If he took part in serious talks with the Vatican about reintegration with no preconditions, he would be seen by militants like Bishop Williamson as selling out. The important thing was to make it look as if the SSPX was setting the agenda and forcing the Vatican’s hand. And Fellay had a plan to that end. He let Castrillón know that the SSPX had a nonnegotiable demand: Pope Benedict must lift the excommunications incurred by himself and the three other bishops illicitly ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988.

Fellay knew there would be opposition in the Vatican to such a move; it would be seen not merely as a gesture of reconciliation, but as a symbolic betrayal of Pope John Paul II. But Pope Benedict might agree to it, if he could be convinced a settlement was in sight. To sweeten the deal for the Vatican, Fellay was prepared to open a new chapter of negotiations: serious, regular talks aimed at regularizing the order. To his own people, Fellay would present these discussions not as surrender to Rome, but rather as a chance to finally put the Second Vatican Council on trial.

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