Fr. Vincent Robin FSSPX, who teaches at the school of St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle at Camblain, came to offer Mass of the 4th Sunday after Epiphany for the traditional Roman Catholic community of Amiens amid the frosty (28°F) winds that blew through the street in front of the church of St. Germain. The recent opening of the door to the SSPX bishops by Pope Benedict XVI does not seem to have moved Bishop Bouilleret, the local ordinary, to open any doors to the marginalized Catholics of his diocese.
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For 20 years we were vilified as being "outside the Church", charged with being "disobedient" vis-à-vis the Pope, and referred to as "excommunicants and fundamentalists". Now, at the point when the Pope formally reintegrates us, the same people are saying the same things. Conciliar charity is decidedly unattractive, and is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the empty churches.
It is always easier to preach obedience than to practice it. Now that the dignitaries of the Church must abide by the Pope on a difficult matter we will see what sort of example they set.
“To each his own” is a well known axiom. I do not know how the bishops interpret the sentence in the pope's speech to the bishops at Lourdes: "No one is too many in the Church. Everyone, without exception, must be able to feel at home, and must never feel rejected.” Perhaps it makes them think of Protestants, Orthodox, Anglicans ... According to the statements that we have read so far, it seems they did not believe the Pope was speaking of traditionalists.[...]
