Rorate Caeli

SSPX - The true scoop was missed: no consecrations of new bishops, but an opening for the first time to a pragmatic agreement with Rome

Enzo Bianchi, the ultra-progressive founder of the "ecumenical monastery" of Bose, tried to create a scoop in the Italian media days ago by saying that the Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX) intended to consecrate new bishops. He said he had information from "good sources". Enzo Bianchi, with "good sources" inside the SSPX? ... Rorate can affirm with certainty both that there will be no consecrations in the SSPX in any foreseeable future, and that Enzo Bianchi has certainly no "good sources" inside the Fraternity.

In an article published today, the French conservative news website Nouvelles de France also ridicules this idea made up by Enzo Bianchi, and recalls that the real scoop is to be found in the declaration made by the SSPX bishops on June 27. That declaration was perceived as a having a somewhat harsh tone (we agree with this assessment), but it included an "or" that is a startling opening for a pragmatic resolution of the canonical irregularity of the Society:

Let us read this interesting - and real, not imaginary... - 11th paragraph of the June 27, 2013, declaration: "We mean to do the same: either when Rome returns to Tradition and to the Faith of all time – which would re-establish order in the Church; or when she explicitly acknowledges our right to profess integrally the Faith and to reject the errors which oppose it, with the right and the duty for us to oppose publicly the errors and the proponents of these errors, whoever they may be – which would allow the beginning of a re-establishing of order." In other words, a kind of open door is left to the consideration of the Roman authorities. A door that does not require a calling into question of Vatican II, but rather a pragmatic solution. This passage contains a true revolution. But it was curiously ignored. A pity! It was perhaps the true scoop that, unfortunately, eludes newsrooms that are more skilled in spreading gossip than in the study of ecclesiology ...

The "right," the "right and duty," are already acknowledged in the Code of Canon Law ...