The Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX), Bishop Bernard Fellay, ordained priests and deacons this morning in Écône, Switzerland. In his sermon, he included some comments on the current situation in Rome-SSPX relations:
And when we celebrate this Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, we cannot not think of Rome. And we cannot forget this love that our founder had for Rome, and that he wished and that he wanted to inculcate in his children. We are Roman! And this we cannot put behind us! Even if we live in difficult times, even if we have to suffer from the Rome of today, this cannot at all weaken this true, effective and affectionate love for Rome, because it was the good God the one who chose this City to be the head of the Church. This does not mean that we will love the errors, certainly not, we suffer them. But one cannot let oneself, we can say, be put off by what is happening, at the point of giving up. No, it is necessary to maintain, which is what we try to do.
Certainly, you ask of me, 'What is happening with Rome?" If up to now we have said almost nothing, it is because we do not have much to tell you. Up to now, things are at a stage, we can say, of full stop. In the sense that there have been tos and fros, there have been exchanges, effectively, dealings, proposals, but we are at the point of departure. The point of departure in which we had said we could not accept, we could not sign. We are there, that is all. We see, on one hand, this situation getting complicated, it has been two, three years I have said before, in Rome, before the contradiction. Since 2009, I have said it, and I repeat it, and well that takes place every day. It is the state of the Church, what do you want? There are those who try, who wish to move further, we can say, on Progressivism and on the consequences of Progressivism. There are others who wish corrections to take place. And we, in the middle, we have become as a ping-pong ball, that everyone hits. We know that in the end, in the end, the Church will find herself again, and to us belongs this yearning of not being satisfied with a certain, let us say, comfort. With a situation that is simply not normal. We cannot become in the end, because we are in a situation in which we do whatever we want, used to consider the state in which we find ourselves as normal. This isn't true. Simply not true. It is normal that we seek, with respect for all conditions that are necessary, evidently, to recover this title, that is ours, to which we have a right, of Catholics. This doesn't mean that we must place ourselves simply in the hands of the Modernists, this has nothing to do with it.
But it is a difficult situation, difficult, everything seems electric, we see clearly that the devil runs unchained on all sides. And therefore, this is the time for prayer. It is a difficult moment. To us, about us, all sorts of things are said. Dear God, the only thing we wish for is to make God's will, that is all. The will of God is expressed in facts. ... It is also clear that we cannot bring good to all the Church than by remaining faithful to this heritage of the Archbishop. From which come these famous, I don't know, "conditions", "assurances", that we have presented several times, that must ensure that the Society will remain what it is. If, at a certain time, a collaboration is conceivable, when, how, well the circumstances will show it. (Audio: DICI)
