If you think Bp. Fellay and the accordistas have no precedent in the traditionalist movement, you are wrong: the sedevacantists in the States have made their own "Opus Fellay" for years.
The cult-like behavior, the managerial incompetence, the lack of theological depth, etc., on part of the sedevacantist clergy have made some laymen reconsider their stance and whether they have been in the Church or in some cult.
So, this past Sunday, Bp. Dolan made the following announcement in his Sunday Bulletin at SGG:
Remember our friends who left us to follow Fr. Ramolla three years ago. He has returned to Germany, having had himself made a bishop. The remnants of their group have joined Bishop Pivarunas and His Excellency happily gave them St. Therese of the Child Jesus as their patroness, leaving St. Albert the Great (a great peacemaker) again to us. His statue has been honored in the sanctuary all the way through. St. Therese protected us in an extraordinary fashion during this crisis (Merci, Sainte Thèrése!) and I know she will bless and protect them as well. They have a Sunday evening Mass now at the Holiday Inn in Sharonville, where the St. Gertrude priests used to stay years ago when we first bought the church. Small world! Bishop Pivarunas tells us that eventually their mission will move to a permanent location north of Cincinnati.
One of the blessings (and it is important to search for them) coming out of this sad and long division is that it has helped our friends at Immaculate Conception to move away from their policy of denying Holy Communion to some Catholics. More and more of our Cincinnati Catholics (Catholic, that is “traditional Catholic”) tend to float among St. Gertrude, Little Flower and Immaculate Conception anymore. While not a good thing, it is understandable. Now, it would be difficult or impossible to keep track of this migrant population, and deny the Sacraments as needed. (Talk about “porous borders.”) The Berlin Wall seems to be coming down brick by brick. This is something for which to be thankful. Still, it really is best for stability’s sake for our Catholics to have one spiritual home, which they generally attend and faithfully support. Nevertheless, we welcome our visitors who come for a variety of reasons, and it is good to know that this is becoming the de facto policy of other churches, too. “I was a stranger, and you took me in.”
Bp. Pivarunas was so quick to make secure a "moral victory" over Fr./Bp. Ramolla, and to take "vengeance" on the imagined and fantastically propagated wrongs that his Seminary supposedly took from the ex-Seminarians whom he did not even deem fit to expel himself directly.
I keep seeing a pattern now: it is the same as with Bp. Sanborn and how he readily pays retribution for anyone who dares to touch his cat-littered "Seminary."
Everyone is in it for themselves, I guess.
The thing I don't get is how long does Bp. Pivarunas think he can keep overworking himself and the Priests who regard him as "Superior"? It does not make sense how he would step into the "Ohio Traddieland Circus" at this point and not back in 2009 when people were begging him to send a Priest down there.
It's curious, because:
A. It seems he wanted to cement the revisionist and libelous version of what really happened in 2011 with the Seminarians whom he had expelled vicariously, which he "promulgated" at last year's Fatima Conference, so Fr. Gregory was sent to Fairfield.
B. The fact that Fr. Oswalt chose St. Michael's over Brooksville (a wise move that saved his vocation and overall sanity) went straight to Bp. Pivarunas's head and now he thinks he and "his" Priests are to "Traddieland" what the USA attempts to be for the rest of the world.
C. The humiliation of Bp. Ramolla and Bp. Slupski was surely a source of glee for the Senior clerics of the CMRI, and now this will help bring some sort of "peace" between the CMRI and Rialto Road; the latter having been so much discredited, that the CMRI now feels confident to approach them.
D. This is despite the fact that Bp. Sanborn, with the tacit or express consent of Bp. Dolan and Fr. Cekada, forbids his Seminarians from attending CMRI Chapels.
E. Bp. Pivarunas needs to focus on putting his own house in order, instead of playing "Cops" in "Traddieland." The Priests are getting too overworked, and too spread thin, leaving them no time or energy to use for doing their own research on controversial matters. For example, some CMRI Priests have been telling the laity that Bp. Kelly's Orders are invalid, and that they must therefore avoid the SSPV: they rehash the "research" Fr. Cekada makes, and they rely solely on third-hand reports. So, now that the CMRI is no longer the "punching bag" of "Traddieland," the SSPV have been given that role.
F. Those who remained at Scheeler's "church" (formerly known as St. Albert's) have been circulating the ridiculous articles that Fr. Cekada wrote against some Priests at Immaculate Conception, as a tool to confuse and divide their former Chapel-goers. And this with the tacit or express sanction of the CMRI.
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So, I don't get it.
How can this be the Catholic Church?
If sedevacantism makes so much "sense," why then does it produce such miserable and ridiculous theatrics?
I guess when Abbot Leonard died, hope for this sedevacantist movement died with him.
It's just a bunch of mitre-bearers (Pivarunas, Sanborn, Dolan, Ramolla) who make it up as they go along, and seek self-aggrandizement in the name of the Church.
They attack Bp. Slupski, for example, for the very thing Bp. McKenna had been doing for years and years: how come no one made any bulletin announcements when Ryan Scott was "ordained" by McKenna?
This is sick.
I hope people who are considering sedevacantist chapels as alternatives to "Opus Fellay" are aware that it's the same darn thing really. Just go there if you must, but don't get too involved in the theatrics and politics. Distance is a great thing when it comes to these matters.
And I hope the sedevacantists take a good look at themselves and at their Priests and Bishops before they start telling the SSPX-ers what to do and how to think. They are in no position to tell people how to avoid a cult like "Opus Fellay."
Topic: A wicked and adulterous generation (Read 3689 times)