Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Vatican kills Italian order of traditionalist priests

ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - The ill-timed publication of a Vatican decree abolishing a religious fraternity of traditionalist priests has shocked Catholics who are already distressed by the closure of churches in parts of Italy plagued by the coronavirus.     
The archdiocese of Ferrara-Comacchio announced in a press release Friday that the Society of Apostolic Life Familia Christi (Family of Christ) has been suppressed by the Holy See following the conclusion of a canonical procedure that lasted for two years.
The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) said it found the organization "unfit to live and form a Priestly Fraternity of consecrated life for serious religious, educational and administrative reasons." 
Image
A Familia Christi Latin Mass for the feast of Ascension 
Distraught Catholics from the region told Church Militant they found the language "highly ambiguous and even disingenuous" since the statement did not clarify or elaborate what precisely made the society "unfit" for religious life. 
The Vatican decree applies Canon 701 of the Code of Canon Law, which releases religious from their vows and prohibits a priest from exercising Holy Orders — that is, celebrating Mass or solemnizing weddings, hearing confessions and so on, "unless they have found a bishop who, after a probationary period in his diocese following Canon 693, welcomes him or at least allows him to exercise Holy Orders."
"A possible future welcome or incardination of the above-mentioned priests can only take place through the consent of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which is to be formally asked for and obtained in written form by a Diocese or by an Institute of consecrated life," the CDF decree stipulates. 

Continued

https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/leftist-italian-bishop-stamps-out-traditionalist-priestly-fraternity

No comments: