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Vatican II

 

I have been wading through a pile of material a Russian friend gave me on the Lefèbvrist movement round the Society of Pius X.

I do not share the conviction of the Pius X movement that Vatican II or the new rite of the Roman mass are the sole source of all ills in the Roman Catholic church in Europe today. I certainly do not like the very authoritarian world which Lefèbvre hankered after, which seems to deprive me of much of my fundamental liberty as an adult (I hope!) child of God. And I fear that that the heavy emphasis of the Pius X group on discipline and dogmatics, and its fear of conscience and personal experience, continue the rift between mind and heart which weakened Catholic spiritual life for three centuries.  

That being said, it is clear from a lot of things that I am hearing that there is a considerable sympathy in the Russian Orthodox church with the Pius X movement, and in particular the more traditional liturgical style.

Let me throw up four ideas and see where they land:

1) That if Rome could come to some sort of understanding with the greater part of the Pius X movement, this would enormously smooth the path for closer relations between the MP and Rome (if not inter-communion, at least an 'alliance' of the type that Metr. Hilarion is angling for). In other words, a Rome-Pius X and a Rome-Moscow reconciliation may be inter-linked.

 2) If I read things correctly, the real hate of the Lefèbvrist group is the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), which has also drawn serious criticism from the Orthodox world. Is it just sheer nonsense to suggest that it is time for a revised document, ideally on a joint RC-Orthodox basis? If I understand things correctly, the Vatican II documents are seen in the RC Church as authoritative, but not infallible.

3) That the idea of a Pan-Orthodox council is really totally out of date. What is really needed now is a pan-Christian (i.e. R.C. + Orthodox) council, with clear support from Rome, Constantinople, Moscow and Bucharest.

4) That the Moscow Patriarchate should perhaps publicly state (if it has not already), that the pre-Vatican II mass is liturgically valid (if I understand correctly, it already existed, in something very close to its Council of Trent form, in around the 6th century).

 
As I said, these are just ideas I am throwing up. So don’t prepare yet to burn me at the stake, or whatever other nasty equivalent was used for heretics in Russia….

Date: 2010-09-06 05:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] yakov-krotov.livejournal.com
Hello,

in 1930-s a community of Roman Catholic in Western Europe was recieved into ROC with the mass - Western rite Russian Orthodox... I don't remember at a moment names and detailes, they are easy to find, I think, but the fact means that there is no LITURGICAL arguments against western rite.

Yakov

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