Why the Franciscan Friars must not sign
(by Maurizio Grosso) It is by now known to all that by the disposition of 8th December 2013, the Commissioner of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, the Capuchin Fr. Fidenzio Volpi, has ordered the immediate closure of the theological Seminary of the Friars of the Immaculate and has requested the following:
- that all seminarians, who are evidently believed to be misguided and who are apparently even suspected of heresy, must “personally subscribe to a formal acceptance of the Novus Ordo as an authentic expression of the liturgical tradition of the Church and therefore of Franciscan tradition … and of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, in accordance with the authority accorded them by the Magisterium.” To this is added the usual threat that, “Whoever does not accept such dispositions will be immediately dismissed from the Institute.”
All the other friars must “clearly and formally express in writing their willingness to continue their journey in the Institute of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, according to the Marian-Franciscan charism, in the spirit of St. Maximilian M. Kolbe, according to the directives concerning religious life contained in documents of the Second Vatican Council.”
Therefore the Seminary is closed, the teaching thrown to the wind, the cultural apostolate via the publications of the Casa Mariana Publishing House is suspended, all because the friars have allegedly denied the magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council, together with the Mass of Paul VI. It would be interesting to ask the Commissioner where this has occurred and if he is able, at least at times, to indicate precisely the place. The accusation is vague and therefore false.
In fact, by this disposition, the oath taken by the professors of the Theological Seminary of the Friars of the Immaculate has been abolished and substituted by a new oath, or rather a simple self-certification, in which one is to subscribe to a formal acceptance of wanting to remain Catholic, of wanting to remain in the Church and in the Institute, accepting the Council and the Holy Mass reformed by Paul VI.
It is necessary, however, to remember that in the profession of faith in assuming an office to be exercised in the name of the church, such as the office of a teacher in a seminary, following an oath of fidelity (which takes up again the anti-modernistic oath of Pius X, updated by the Congregation for the Faith in 1988), the candidate says:
“With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgement or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed. I also firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals. Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act.”
This oath was taken by the professors of the Seminary of Sassoferrato as well. It can be observed, however, that now the Commissioner asks the oath, not from the professors but from the pupils; from the friars who are being educated. The professors, just as for anyone who assumes an office in the Church, publicly professed that faith of the Church in order to then teach it correctly to the students. They professed the faith of the Church to remain faithful before God, and only in this way to remain faithful to it in front of every listener. There was nothing else to add to that faith, nor to take away from it.
The message which comes from the action of Father Volpi, though, is very clear: this profession of ecclesial faith having been rendered vain and in some way abolished by the closure of the Seminary, the students now have to recognize the SecondVatican Council and the Mass of Paul VI. It is as if to say: the profession of faith which animated the Seminary has been put on ice and so now one has to accept a new one instead; there will be a new formula to express a new obedience. This new obedience is by definition against the formula of the faith and concerns just two aspects of the Magisterium, taken out of context.
Will the Commissioner offer the students a new formula of “formal acceptance” of what he is asking for? It would be interesting to know this and by what ecclesiastical authority it has been approved.
If there is not a “formula,” but instead just a spontaneous subscription to the directives of the Commissioner on Vatican II and the Holy Mass, this proves that we are dealing here with an act which is illicit and above all ideological. Not only is it not the faith of the Church which is being professed, but also the seminarians are being deceitfully urged to demonstrate their own submission to the Volpi-Bruno line of reset and re-education. The implication is that those who do not obey Volpi do not obey the Pope, which is completely wrong.
It is as if Volpi and his collaborators permanently enjoy that infallibility which the Pope enjoys only under certain conditions, and which for the last few years he has preferred not to invoke to sustain his teaching.
The most serious problem, however, is this: the “new oath” is in itself extremely ambiguous and it seriously undermines the entire doctrine of the Church. It is a clear example of a break with the preceding doctrine, with the simple Catechism. This injunction of the Commissioner implies acceptance of the hermeneutics of discontinuity and of rupture, because by isolating the Second Vatican Council from the whole tradition of the Church, the Council becomes, by implication, the only true Council and one which dissolves all preceding doctrine. By contrast, Paul VI insisted that the Council was not a synthesis of all the faith of the Church. Consequently, the new liturgy is not either. Benedict XVI has said clearly – and it is the strongest and most painful note of the entire Summorum Pontificum, which some liturgists still pretend not to understand – that the new Missal has not abolished the preceding one. It could not do so and no one has the authority to do so, not even the Pope. The Pope is the guardian of tradition, not its inventor. Even the new Mass cannot be abolished but but without the preceding Missal, it has neither context nor roots.
However, Fr Volpi’s letter of 8 December implies precisely that the Council has abolished the earlier doctrine, or rather the very doctrine of the faith, just as the new Mass has abolished the old.
It is difficult to understand, however, from where the new Mass takes its form, if the old one has suddenly disappeared or must disappear. By this even the new Mass is compromised and the poor seminarians will soon lose their faith.
In reality, it is precisely this mentality of subjection to the new oath or “formal acceptance,” which has caused a severe winter in the Church for these past fifty years, an atmosphere of the conciliar super-dogma which Fr. Volpi has so deeply inhaled and which he is now so generously spreading around on the basis that he is a “representative” of the Church.
In the light of all this, the students and friars of the Immaculate, as well as all the other friars, should not subscribe to this injunction. It is the moment to say: in all conscience, we cannot sign. By doing this, conscience will, this time, be correctly asserted before mere authority. Such a refusal would not be based on a rejection of the Council and the post-conciliar innovations – the Friars came into being after the Council and thanks to Perfectae caritatis, authentically interpreted by Pope VI – but instead on the fact that the mens which animates such a request is not Catholic.
Not to sign means to return to its rightful central place not power but reason and, together with reason, faith itself. Not to sign means to demand clarity in doctrinal principles; to demand that the mens of the Superior be made explicit, and that precisely in this situation which is so grave, the mind should not remain in the vagueness of presumed “crypto-heresies” or “traditionalist drifts” which do not even exist; and that the Council and the New Mass are not the unicum of the faith but instead a part of it, the latest but not definitive development, and which is capable of improvement and of further development.
Under these conditions it will not be possible to expel friars who do not sign, or at least they will not be refused denied the possibility of defending themselves, something which is provided for in the Code of Canon Law, or of having a peaceful discussion, on the basis of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Why not involve the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in all these events? Is there anyone in a higher position who could put in a good word? (by Maurizio Grosso)
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