So I was talking with my mother yesterday, Christmas Day, and at one point she was lamenting the fact that the SSPV chapel in the Cleveland (St. Therese) area is dying out. She says that the numbers are dwindling, and that there are very few young people there, but mostly old-timers.
I attribute this to the fact that St. Therese does not have a resident priest, but just a priest who flies in on the weekends. I mentioned the concern about what all these older people would do in the likely event that they need Last Rites. Do they send someone down to Akron to drive 88-year-old Father Leo Carley up there to anoint people who haven't even been his parishioners? SSPX is also a fly-in-fly-out group in the Cleveland area.
But what's most disturbing is that SSPV/CSPV have going on a dozen priests floating around at Round Top. To me, it's a mortal sin that these priests aren't dispatched to the various SSPV chapels out there to provide the faithful with the Sacraments on a regular basis. Evidently they initially had this psychological problem with going through the TSA "naked" scanners ... as if Our Lord hadn't been stripped to near-naked on the Cross. And, even if one were to pass over that, they couldn't pack up a couple of these priests in a car or buy them Greyhound bus tickets so they could establish themselves at St. Therese. It's very nice little chapel with ample rectory space for 2-3 priests.
And another question is why Father William Jenkins (hands down the best mind they have in SSPV) wasn't consecrated a bishop 5 minutes after +Mendez consecrated Bishop Kelly. Instead you have a couple bishops over there whom I know to have barely been able to pass Latin I class ... although I do not question their personal virtue and piety, etc.
They also have nearly 120 female religious up there. Couldn't they too be dispersed a little bit to help set up schools, etc. in different parts of the country?
I'm getting the impression more and more that they're setting up some weird End Times Doomsday cult up at Round Top.
It's well known that there was some big rift between the Cincinnati group and Round Top some years ago, but even my Mom who knows people who know things can't get a good answer about what's going on and why. Evidently there were a group of nuns from Round Top who taught for a while at their school in Cincinnati but then left abruptly due to some dispute.
We also have a similar phenomenon with SSPX ... where you have priories that have 6, 7, 8 priests, while some decent-sized chapels with many families have to put up with the fly-in-fly-out weekend priest.
To me, whether it's SSPX or SSPV, it's a grave sin to neglect these families who might otherwise be able to receive the Sacraments more regularly, receive spiritual direction, etc. Not to mention that these chapels would undoubtedly grow due to the presence of a regular priests.
I think these priests have to realize that the priesthood isn't given to them (i.e. they are't called to the priesthood) for their own sanctification or edification, etc. ... everyone is called to that in any state, and no one is worthy of the priesthood ... but entirely so that they can provide the Sacraments to the faithful. I consider it a serious sin of negligence to allow these faithful to go without the Sacraments and other spiritual care while living in large groups of 6-10 or more priests. There are a great number of these priests who'd be flipping burgers or bagging groceries if it weren't for their having been ordained priests, and some seek the priesthood so they can have respect, and feel important, as the lay faithful bow their heads to them while saying "Father". I get that Archbishop Lefebvre wanted priests not to live along, but even if they split into groups of 2, a great deal of good cold be done for the faithful. Father Leo Carley has been out there alone for going on 50 years now. In the Old West, priests often set out by themselves on horseback into the wilderness to go take care of souls.
But does anyone have any information on what gives with the SSPV and this bizarre rift between Round Top and Cincinnati?
So the SSPV spun off this new "Congregation of St. Pius V" (CSPV), and we read this on their website about "Why a Congregation?"
So, have they become Salza-ized here and decided that if a priest isn't under a Diocesan Bishop that he must live in some "society of common life" because of pre-Crisis Canon Law? So, between the fact that they've decided they must live in some (entirely fictional) Religious Institute and the fact that they've decided that it's immoral for them to go through airport scanners, all these priests are hunkered down in the Round Top compound while refusing to care for the faithful.
Are they one step away from Home-Aloneism ... in this case having all their priests live in a "Congregation" while having the faithful neglected?
If so, what absurd legalism. Of course, if one wanted to be legalistic -- this little "Congregation" of theirs does not "count". Simply living in common doesn't meet the requirements of Canon Law, as the Religious Institute can't be something that was made up by someone without any jurisdiction to establish such an Institute in the first place. If they want to get all legalistic, then their women religious are not nuns either. We should start calling "Sister Mary Joseph" by her given name of Beth (just like people do to the Dimonds).
What part of the fact that we live in an unprecedented Crisis in the Church does some of these Trad types do not understand ... between Salza and now this Congregation of St. Pius V?
Get these priests out there to take care of the faithful, whom they are abandoning to the world and to the wolves as they live comfortably within the Round Top Cult Compound, likely sipping $100 bottles of wine at Christmas.
Shame on them!
Topic: CSPV -- what gives? PriestAloneist Doomsday Cult at Round Top? (Read 5842 times)