SSPX Bp. Fellay on Pope Francis: "He has read the biography of Abp. Lefebvre twice - and he liked it."

SSPX Bp. Fellay on Pope Francis: "He has read the biography of Abp. Lefebvre twice - and he liked it."

And some other important revelations

In a visit to the French city of Fabregues on May 11 (that is, the day following Rorate's revelation of his meeting with Pope Francis), the Superior-General of the Society of Saint Pius X, Bp. Bernard Fellay, spoke at length about various matters of relevance to his congregation. The most important part was that related to the personality of Pope Francis:

With the current pope, as he is a practical man, he looks at people. What a person thinks, what he believes, is at the end a matter of indifference to him. What matters is that this person be sympathetic in his view, that he seems correct to him, one may say it like this.

And therefore he read twice Bp. Tissier de Mallerais' book on Abp. Lefebvre, and this book pleased him; he is against all that we represent, but, as a life, it pleased him. When, as a Cardinal, he was in South America, the District Superior [Fr. Christian Bouchacourt] came to ask him for an administrative favor with no relation to the Church; a visa problem, of permanent residency. The Argentine government, which is very leftwing, makes use of the concordat that was established to protect the Church to bother us quite seriously, and tells us, "you say you are Catholic, it is thus necessary for you to have the signature of the bishop in order to reside in the country." The District Superior therefore went to him to present the problem: there was an easy solution, and that would be to declare ourselves an independent church [before Civil Law], but we did not want to do it because we are Catholic. And the Cardinal told us, "no, no, you are Catholic, that is evident; I will help you;" he wrote a letter in our favor to the government, that is so leftwing that they managed to find a opposing letter by the nuncio. Therefore, a 0-0 tie. Now he is the pope, and our lawyer had the opportunity of having a meeting with the Pope. He told him that the problem was still going on with the Society, and asked him to please designate a bishop in Argentina with whom we could sort out this problem. The Pope told him, "Yes, and this bishop is myself, I promised to help, and I will do it."

I am still waiting for it, but anyway he said it, just as he said that, "those people there, they think I will excommunicate them, but they are mistaken;" he said something else that was very interesting: "I will not condemn them, and I will not stop anyone from visiting them [lit. 'd'aller chez eux'.]" Once again, I will wait to see.

[Source: French District of the SSPX]

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Permalink Reply by Dawn Marie on June 2, 2014 at 6:41pm

Francis is a practical man? Yeah I'm thinking, not....

Pope Francis kneels as the crowd prays over him by singing and speaking in tongues during an encounter with more than 50,000 Catholic charismatics at the Olympic Stadium in Rome June 1. During the event the pope acknowledged he had once been uncomfortable with the charismatic movement.

Meeting more than 50,000 Catholic charismatics in Rome's Olympic Stadium, Pope Francis admitted he was not always comfortable with the way they prayed, but he knelt onstage as they prayed for him and over him by singing and speaking in tongues.

"In the early years of the charismatic renewal in Buenos Aires, I did not have much love for charismatics," the pope said June 1. "I said of them: They seem like a samba school."

Little by little, though, he came to see how much good the movement was doing for Catholics and for the church, he told a gathering organized by the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services and the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities and Fellowships.

Pope Francis invited the crowd, which included charismatics from 55 countries, to come to St. Peter's Square for Pentecost in 2017 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the movement. The Catholic charismatic movement traces its origins to a retreat held in 1967 with students and staff from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

"I expected all of you, charismatics from around the world, to celebrate your great jubilee with the pope at Pentecost 2017 in St. Peter's Square," the pope said.