In another recent thread, Magna Opera Domini asked,
"Will establishment as a personal prelature give the Society bishops ordinary jurisdiction?"I thought this could be discussed in another thread, if Matthew has no objection; hence this poll. My own answer is yes, because it's hard to see how it could not. In a recent
communique, Bishop Fellay also indicates rather matter-of-factly that the Holy Father's proposal - the details of which are not yet fully known - would give His Excellency and the other Society Bishops ordinary jurisdiction, to wit,
"As a result of the Pope’s act, during the Holy Year, we will have ordinary jurisdiction. In the image I mentioned, this has the effect of giving us the official insignia of firefighters, whereas such a status was denied us for decades. In itself, it adds nothing new for the Society, its members, or its faithful. Yet this ordinary jurisdiction will perhaps reassure people who are uneasy or others who until now did not dare to approach us." So, what do the others here think, will the Society's Bishops, come December 8th, be able in every way to function as Ordinaries? Will they have, for instance, the power to pass binding judgments, ironically, on annulments? The power to excommunicate, and the like, that comes with what Vatican I describes as "that ordinary and immediate power of episcopal jurisdiction, by which bishops, who have succeeded to the place of the apostles by appointment of the Holy Spirit, tend and govern individually the particular flocks which have been assigned to them" and which Pope Pius XII explained as follows, "each Bishop feeds the flock entrusted to him as a true shepherd and rules it in the name of Christ. Yet in exercising this office they are not altogether independent but are subordinate to the lawful authority of the Roman Pontiff, although enjoying ordinary power of jurisdiction which they receive directly from the same Supreme Pontiff."?