Rorate Caeli

Signs of the Times


Gustate et videte, quoniam suavis est Dominus: beatus vir, qui sperat in eo. (Communion for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost: "Taste and see that the Lord is sweet: blessed is the man that hopeth in Him".)

1. From the editorial of the District Superior for France of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX), for the July edition of the Lettre à nos frères prêtres:

By solemnly recognizing that the Missal said of Saint Pius V has never been abrogated..., Benedict XVI renders justice to this Missal. Rendering justice to those who have defended it, at the price of ecclesiastical sanctions, remains.

It is in this sense that we beg of the Holy Father for the lifting of the decree of excommunication concerning Abp. Lefebvre and the bishops consecrated by him.
[...]
...with full heart, it [the Fraternity of Saint Pius X] hopes to add its part in the doctrinal discussions which it will entail with Rome when [Rome] lifts the decree of excommunication regarding its founder, that is, shortly, I am convinced of it.
2. This very interesting analysis of events (French) by Father Paul Aulagnier, former secretary of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and one of the founding members of the Institute of the Good Shepherd (IBP), as well as rector of its seminary, has even been excerpted by the webpage of the same French District of the FSSPX.

3. And we remind readers of our own first editorial: A RORATE CÆLI Editorial: Holy See - SSPX, published on Quinquagesima Sunday, 2006.

Benedict is delivering, as we always knew he would: the now, the optimum time, is his Pontificate (may it be long!). The emotional ones may move according to the winds of each month (Pope Leo XIII had already identified "the passion for discussing and pouring contempt upon any possible subject" as a symptom of Americanist impulses in Testem Benevolentiae)... We stay put: this is the time.