A little hope

This interview which Bernard Fellay recently gave to 30 Days seems to suggest a very warm atttitude toward Rome, much different from that put forward by some of the other bishops in the SSPX, Williamson, for instance. May it bear great fruit!

...Did you have occasion to repeat your conditions for shortening the time for a full rapprochement?

FELLAY: We don’t want to set the Holy Father previous conditions. It is not our intention to impose any diktat. That is not our position. We only say that if we want to build a bridge, we should necessarily think first of the piers that must support it...

...Are you satisfied with how the audience went?
FELLAY: It went well. Certainly it left a little bitterness in one’s mouth because there wasn’t time to say everything. But on the other hand that was impossible in a thirty-minute audience. One couldn’t expect more than what happened. It’s important that the Pope received us and it’s a good sign that he gave us all that time with benevolence. The atmosphere was tranquil, even though the existing problems did not remain unspoken...

... Monsignor Fellay, your critical stances on the ecumenicalism encouraged by the Holy See after Vatican Council II are known. But do you have contacts with other Churches or ecclesial communities?

FELLAY: There are contacts with Orthodox priests and bishops. It sometimes happens that they turn to us with sympathy because they consider us anti-Roman schismatics. We don’t like that at all. We are not schismatics and we care very greatly for the bond with Rome. And then there have been Orthodox bishops who have asked to belong to the Catholic Church through belonging to our Fraternity. To those I have always answered that they must address themselves to the Bishop of Rome, to the Pope. We are not and don’t want to be a parallel Church, and I am not an antipope!

The rest of the article is worth reading, too.

The most important thing he said: We don’t want to set the Holy Father previous conditions. It is not our intention to impose any diktat. That is not our position. This suggests a healthier understanding of the authority of the Bishop of Rome than one might hear from a lot of traditionalists. Hopefully this flexibility will translate into an end to the schism.