Thank you dreamtomorrow! Looking forward to that post!
This weekend I attended a random conference B. Fellay was having at the new seminary in Dillwyn VA.
After conference there were tours around the seminary. It is very large, expensive looking, and during the tour the seminarian who was leading the tour explained there would be a vineyard, brewery, book restoration room, three stories to the building, recreation areas, pool table/fooseball [...],cattle, platform built for the ordinations tent, camping area for when people visit for ordinations with a shower and restroom building. I do NOT see where they are getting the money. The Society has families with large numbers of children and only a small percent are wealthy ... how are they getting so much money for all of these plans? Maybe it would be better to offer young men who want to be priests a free ride for their studies and increase vocations that way with limited amenities and suffering without a fancy brewery in their kitchen.
I am a little torn on this issue. Problems with the direction of the SSPX aside, when it comes to the size and grandeur of the new seminary I try to remind myself of the Middle Ages when they built magnificent cathedrals yet many lived in poverty themselves. The Protestants like to point the finger at how "selfish and inhumanitarian" that is yet the Catholic perspective is to give glory to God first and the rest will follow. Like Abel we offer Him our best first and we worry not for ourselves. Is God so limited that now because there's a large seminary, He cannot provide for the rest of us? There's a bit of a Communist or perhaps simply envious streak in us that wants that wealth to be more "evenly" distributed. Think of what they could do if they just put that money towards the poor people! etc... I want to fight that tendency and won't give in to criticizing the new building for that reason.
My trouble is that I hope that Catholic perspective is what the leaders of the SSPX have in mind in building this seminary and that it isn't tinged by a search for earthly praise and glory. The opulence of the seminary doesn't matter to me so much as the motivation behind it. Of course this is something I cannot truly know from where I am so it doesn't behoove me to worry. I still do a little bit.
They shouldn't be building monuments in a time of crisis like this, when so many Trad Catholics don't even have a place to attend Mass. That money could be used to pay for more SSPX priest plane tickets, and the building of hundreds of smaller, more basic chapels. Here is the main difference: We're in a crisis. [....] It's easier to remember we're in a Crisis when you're hearing Mass in a hotel room or garage/workshop. Or at least in a humble building of some sort--not a $5M [$5,000,000] building that looks exactly like a pre-Vatican2 church.
Calling the laity of that chapel a "congregation" just looks too Protestant or secular to my cradle-Catholic eyes, but I suppose it's possible that I'm overly scrupulous about religious terminology.
Fr. Bisig - disagreed with ABL on method of preserving Tradition by keeping distance from Rome and through the consecration of bishops.
Fr. Pfluger - disagrees with ABL on the method of preserving Tradition by keeping distance from Rome, facilitating the dismissal of the one bishop defending ABL's position, and seeking to be regularized with Rome.
The then Cardinal Ratzinger - provided the means for FSSP to locate a new seminary in Germany.
Our Lady of Victory, pray for us!
In the end My Immaculate Heart will Triumph!
Patrick Coon
Georgetown, Tx
Sources:
http://www.fssp.org/en/presentation.htm
http://veneremurcernui.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/congratulations-to-the-fssp/
http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/priestly-fraternity-of-st.-peter-turns-25
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe_Seminary
Immaculate Conception mission in Virginia Beach has been meeting in a hotelfor over q15 years now, even after they gave the SSPX 4acres of land with the promise that someday they would have a chapel. At the time of purchase the land was valued at approximately $275K. This value has increased significantly since then, but still no Chapel. The Mission has since lost many families to the new and beautiful St. Benedict's operated by the Fraternity of St. Peter.
These poor folks deserve a Chapel of their own, or at least a full refund of their money.
I lived for a while in Northern Virginia, so being provided with a specific place-name by the original poster, I couldn't resist looking up the locale (thus learning that my original impressions were mistaken).
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{wordy glossy about FSSP}
Why doesn't the SSPX write new traditional-sounding hymns?
Quote from: AlligatorDicax
I lived for a while in Northern Virginia, so being provided with a specific place-name by the original poster, I couldn't resist looking up the locale (thus learning that my original impressions were mistaken).
.
At one point, people were claiming the new seminary would be adjacent to the DC "corridors of power". It's out in the middle of nowhere, really.
And I believe he succeeded with many of us. Remember the saying "nemo dat quod non habet" (no one gives what he doesn't have)? So I'm not surprised that +W was able to help teach us how to be men. He's a man himself.
Hi Elizabeth, I was speaking of Immaculate Conception Mission in Virginia Beach. Not Our Lady of Fatima in Richmond, VA.
The point I was trying to make was that with all of the countless dollars being spent on the Taj Ma Hal of Traditional Seminaries, some of that money may have been better used to build a Chapel for the families who sacrificed so much over the years to preserve the Mass and support the Society. These were normal hard working people, no high dollar donations from lucrative families.
Quote from: holysoulsacademy{wordy glossy about FSSP}
Something that has become apparent about FSSP is that while their newest apostolates look just like SSPX and Independent (as least SSPX from a few years ago), their oldest chapels/apostolates are beginning to show the weaknesses in their "position". Immodesty was creeping in, mantillas were becoming more the exception than norm, and most of their kids are being lost to the faith.
I suppose it's like anything else. They receive a moral or spiritual inheritance (as laity from SSPX), and then once that is spent, what follows are solely fruits of their chaplain's labors.
So maybe the acid test is one generation for the fruits to be really manifest, because within the first generation, the influence of parents is predominately visible.
The SSPX was originally in Chesapeake at St. Benedict's Chapel. This was part of Fr. [Richard] Williamson's Mass circuit at one time. After JPII allowed the indult,
some members voted to turn the Chapel over to the Bishop Sullivan of the Richmond Dioceses. St. Benedict's was eventually given to the Fraternity.
They tore down the dated old Chapel and built a very nice church.
Those faithful who were still dedicated to the mission of ABL relocated to Virginia Beach and renamed themselves Immaculate Conception Mission.
They held fund raisers, worked and saved to buy land for construction of a church of their own. Due to a lack of trust by the Society because of the past betrayal,
the folks in Va Beach were told that they had to give the land to the SSPX to be sure of their dedication to the SSPX. After they turned over the land in full ($275K in 1998) thinking the SSPX would then help them build a church, they were then told they had to now raise 50% of the cost of a Chapel and only then would the SSPX help. Fifteen to twenty years later, the SSPX still owns their land, dangles carrots, but provides no help in building a chapel.
St. Benedict's new church, built from the ground up, is one of the first churches in the world to be designed and used exclusively for the extraordinary form (Latin) of the Holy Mass since the 1960's and was dedicated on March 5, 2011 by the Most Rev. Francis X. DiLorenzo.
Less than a year later the Chapel was canonically erected as a parish. St. Benedict’s Parishl continues under the provisions of the motu proprio, Summorum Pontificuм, with the permission of His Excellency, The Most Reverend Francis X. DiLorenzo, Bishop of the Diocese of Richmond. St. Benedict’s Chapel [....] is staffed with priests from the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter.
To me this unnecessary new Seminary is the "Good Riddance to Bp Williamson Seminary"....that's what the sign there should say..In Latin, Greek and Hebrew..
It is the "Society" of St. Pius X and "Fraternity" of St. Peter.
The SSPX was originally in Chesapeake at St. Benedict's Chapel. This was part of Fr. Williamsons Mass circuit at one time. After JPII allowed the indult [in 1984], some members voted to turn the Chapel over to Bishop Sullivan, of the Richmond Diocese. St. Benedict's was eventually given to the Fraternity of St. Peter, however. The FSSP tore down the dated old Chapel and built a very nice church, without the help of the SSPX.
Those faithful who were still dedicated to the mission of ABL relocated to Virginia Beach and renamed themselves Immaculate Conception Mission. They held fund raisers, worked and saved to buy land for construction of a church of their own. Due to a lack of trust by the Society because of the past betrayal in Chesapeake, the folks in Va Beach were told that they had to give the land to the SSPX to be sure of their dedication to the SSPX.
After they turned over the land in full ($275K in 1998) thinking the SSPX would then help them build a church, they were then told they had to now raise 50% of the cost of a Chapel and only then would the SSPX help. Fifteen to twenty years later, the SSPX still owns their land, dangles carrots, but provides no help in building a chapel.
:dancing-banana:
Have any of the "dangerous location" commentators actually BEEN to the new seminary? Whatever its shortcomings, proximity to the evil Masonic U.S. capitol is not one of them. It's in "the boonies!". The nearest town is Dillwyn, about eight miles away. By car, Washington D.C. is a four hour drive. (Okay, at sspx-priest speed, 3 hours!) Public transport is nonexistent. Furthermore, it is at the base of a mountainous area known for its treacherous winter driving conditions.
A drive-through last summer revealed a distinct lack of cultural ambience. Think, "Dollar General stores, Country and Western music, red-neck bars!" Or maybe I drove in from the wrong direction!