Rome, 1 July (LaPresse) – “Some might think we are faced with a dilemma: we choose the integral faith but separate ourselves from the Church. Are we choosing between the faith and the Church? Is it perhaps true that, in order to preserve the faith, we are breaking with the Church? This is a false dilemma. We belong to the Church first and foremost through faith.” So said Father Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of St Pius X, in his homily during the celebration at Ecône in Switzerland, at which four bishops are to be consecrated, marking the schism between the Lefebvrians and the Catholic Church. “We must not fall into this dilemma because we cannot choose between the faith and the Church. We want the faith of the Church in order to remain in the Church. And we want the Church through faith and in faith,” he added. “We are accused of not loving the Pope, of not respecting him. But it is precisely because we love the Pope as the Vicar of Christ and as the head of the Church that we no longer wish to see the Pope humiliated and placed on the same level as false shepherds, representatives of false religions,” he emphasised, explaining that “it is precisely because we love the Vicar of Christ that we no longer wish to see this humiliation, which also falls upon the whole Church, which is placed on the same level as false religions”.
Church, Lefebvrian Leader: “Accused of Disrespecting the Pope, Yet He Is the One Who Is Humiliated”
Rome, 1 July (LaPresse) – “Some might think we are faced with a dilemma: we choose the integral faith but separate ourselves from the Church. Are we choosing between the faith and the Church? Is it perhaps true that, in order to preserve the faith, we are breaking with the Church? This is a false dilemma. We belong to the Church first and foremost through faith.” So said Father Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of St Pius X, in his homily during the celebration at Ecône in Switzerland, at which four bishops are to be consecrated, marking the schism between the Lefebvrians and the Catholic Church. “We must not fall into this dilemma because we cannot choose between the faith and the Church. We want the faith of the Church in order to remain in the Church. And we want the Church through faith and in faith,” he added. “We are accused of not loving the Pope, of not respecting him. But it is precisely because we love the Pope as the Vicar of Christ and as the head of the Church that we no longer wish to see the Pope humiliated and placed on the same level as false shepherds, representatives of false religions,” he emphasised, explaining that “it is precisely because we love the Vicar of Christ that we no longer wish to see this humiliation, which also falls upon the whole Church, which is placed on the same level as false religions”.
