As a result of all of the media attention being paid to the freeing of the traditional Mass, there has consequently been much attention paid to the traditional Catholic priestly Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). Journalists, bloggers and writers desiring to cover the topic have been forced to become quickly informed on a subject which many had previously known little or nothing about.The author then offers a "Lefebvricon" of approved terms. For example:
Due to their inherent lack of true knowledge, we've witnessed a wide range of unusual terms being used by these journalist to describe SSPX clergy and the congregants who attend their Masses. We've read about "Lefebvrites", "Lefebvrists" and even "Lefebvrians" - whatever those are.
Lefebvriatrics - The field of traditional Catholic medicine.
Lefebvrionics - Traditional Catholic robot building.
Lefebvrafia - Traditional organized crime.
But you have to go down to the bottom of the post for the best bit - the products and services, including...
17 comments:
I was reading this in the seminary library this morning and laughed so hard the librarian shushed me! Thanks, I needed a good laugh.
i must admit that post is hilarious!
I can't resist a comment on this post.
I'll never be able to use Febreze again without giggling uncontrollably.
To return to my more pedantic mode, does anyone know when the term "Lefebvrist" was first used.
The word is obviously not as old as the Society of St Pius X itself, founded in, I think, 1969.
I don't think the word was used even after Archbishop Lefebvre was suspended "a divinis" in 1976.
About then, he began to be referred to as the "rebel" prelate.
Therefore, I am guessing the word must have begun to be used after the Archbishop was excommunicated "latae sententiae" for consecrating bishops without the pontifical mandate in 1988.
I think this is when the word "renegade" was first used.
Or was the word "Lefevbrist" not used until after the death of Archbishop Lefebvre in 1991 to describe the traditionalist movement he had founded ?
I think Catholic newspapers, etc., began to describe the SSPX as a "breakaway group" about this time.
The word "Lefebvrist" seems to be used in a pejorative sense not only of bishops and priests of the SSPX, but also of regular followers of the SSPX who attend its churches and Mass centres.
There are no citations in the dictionarires, yet, of course, as there are for the use of words such as "jesuitical" or "papist".
I wondered if it was first used to distinguish between the new
Society of St. Peter (FSSP), established under the "Ecclesia Dei" Commission, and the continuing Society of St. Pius X, (SSPX).
Can anyone supply a learned footnote, please ?
(If the word itself annoys you dreadfully, try to think of its use by the media more as a sort of passing social phenomenon.)
Lefebvre for canonisation!!!
Hilarious. It's increasingly "en vogue" to be writing about the Archbishop and SSPX - especially as if they were a sect. A couple of years ago these opinion-sprouters would have said "Levebvre ... who?". To those of us who met the Archbishop, received the sacraments from SSPX priests and know SSPX parishes (which consistently produce many vocations), none of the names are applicable. They're just Catholics. Calling such people "Levebvrists" etc., looks like a derogatory word, i.e., could imply that they are excommunicated, but those well-informed know that they are no such thing. Making complicated words with "-isms, -ists, -ians" at the end is a weak attempt at erudition.
Ha ha! A great laugh before delivering my Canon Law lecture this morning!
Catholic Lawyer states that they are not seperate from the Church, that they are catholic, but there is a sspx church in a nearby city to me and our local Bishop (who is in communion with Rome) tells us not to go there as they have broken away from the true faith. What is the official position of the sspx with regard to the other churches that call themselves Catholic?
Fr Tim, can you give a simple explanation please?
Well, yes. No-one has ever been able to identify a doctrine of "Lefebvrism" that isn't a doctrine of the Catholic Church. Such nicknames tend to follow an interesting pattern: coined as pejorative, they often evolve into badges of honour.
The SSPX could not be said to have "broken away from the true faith". Archbishop Lefebvre was excommunicated for ordaining bishops without the permission of the Holy See. The SSPX see serious problems with some of the teaching of Vatican II and particularly with the way that it has been implemented.
At Rome, there is a strong desire for a solution to the whole question. I think it is fair to say that the SSPX also desire an equitable solution. Rome carefully avoids using the term "schismatic" of the SSPX and its members.
The SSPX do not regard the sacraments celebrated by others in the Catholic Church as invalid. but I think they would discourage people from attending the Novus Ordo Mass and sacraments.
I think a Bishops is within his rights to discourage people from attending SSPX Masses - provided, of course, that he has made generous provision for the old Mass. If he said that they have "broken away from the true faith", he is undermining Rome's work of reconciliation.
It is unwise for Bishops to be insulting the SSPX right now - they could well find a number of Mass centres fully legitimised in the not too distant future.
If we followed the logic of all the reconciliatory gestures that the Church makes to various groups, we should be praying each Sunday in the Bidding Prayers for the SSPX, inviting them to dialogue locally and trying in every way to facilitate good relations with them.
Thank you, thank you Father Tim! I shall bookmark this combox and produce the link the next time a "conservative" Catholic heaps contempt and vitriol on the SSPX and its founder. It baffles me, the extent to which such people (by no means rare) can make a parade of their own orthodoxy and "loyalty" while actively subverting a reconciliation explicitly desired by the Holy Father. "Obedience" it seems, is principally something to be required of others - in that respect they're no better than the "liberals"; it is, apparently, a matter of externals merely, rather than an attitude of the heart.
Whited sepulchres...
"I am not the head of a movement, even less the head of a particular church. I am not, as they never stop writing, “the leader of the traditionalists.” They have come to describe certain persons as “Lefebvrists,” as though it were a case of a party or a school. This is an abuse of language.
I have no personal doctrine in the matter of religion. All my life I have held to what I was taught at the French Seminary in Rome, namely Catholic doctrine according to the interpretation given it by the teaching authority of the Church from century to century, since the death of the last Apostle which marked the end of Revelation."
- Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Open Letter to Confused Catholics
Great stiff Father so may I beallowed to put in my own bit of humour noting you are often away from the parish for various functions...here is a Limerick
There was a young priest of Blackfen,
who for travel has quite a geat yen, To Scotland and to Rome he goes
Wherever next it may be who knows
I expect it will be to Phon Pen.
That's an interesting comment by Catholic Lawyer
Does -ist or -ism on the end of a word make it insulting or derogatory, I wonder.
(Not that I want to be either of those things for a moment.)
I am thinking, for example, of the term "traditional Catholic" compared with "traditionalist Catholic".
There is also a clear distinction between "Islamic" and "Islamist", although I agree it is not an exact analogy.
The word "conciliarist" seems positively polemical, where the word "conciliar" is in itself harmless enough, and "conciliatory" is pefectly all right.
"Pacifist" and "pacifism" don't seem to be used as terms of approbation, though "pacify" and "pacific" aren't used in a derogatory sense.
Dear me, I think this is a bit of a minefield.
I suppose we all from time to time are called things we don't like.
And I daresay we all have pet hates.
And words change in meaning in the most extraordinary way :
A long time ago (they tell me), "naive" used to be used as a complementary term, as in "charmingly naive" to mean unspoilt, unaffected.
Nowadays, it seems to be used to mean foolish or silly.
My pet hate is the misuse of the word "medieval" to mean old-fashioned, backward, uninformed, when it correctly means "of the Middle Ages", the society which gave us Aquinas, Chartres Cathedral, Notre Dame, Paris and many other good things.
I agree with Moretben.
Many a word, intended to be used pejoratively, instead becomes a badge of honour.
The word "Christian" and "Christianity" are both revered and reviled (as they've been for 2,000 years and no doubt will continue to be).
But, yes, perhaps there are too many "isms".
Many thanks to Anon for that quote from "A Letter to Confused Catholics" written by Archbishop Lefebvre in which he dismisses the use of the word "Lefebvrists"
So, the term was aleady in use before he wrote this, but in what year did he write it ?
I've not been able, so far, to find out.
I am seeking (perhaps fruitlessly) a terminus a quo.
Open Letter to Confused Catholics was written sometime after 1984, as it makes reference to the first ever papal indult on the traditional mass released by John Paul II - Quattor Abhinc Annos
The English edition was translated by Fr. Michael Crowdy (RIP+), a former Oratorian priest from London Oratory, who was very sympathetic to Archbishop Lefebvre and said mass for their mass centres during the 80s and 90s.
Thanks, Ottaviani.
That's a very helpful comment.
I've looked up the date of the late Fr. Michael Crowdy's translation, and it was completed in 1986.
Therefore, in the English speaking world, "Lefebvrist" dates back at least this far.
Presumably, the archbishop's book in its original French, would have been written c. 1984 - 86.
Now, long before that date, the archbishop would have been better known in his native France, where extreme positions had already been taken.
Therefore, the French would already have been calling him (and the SSPX) rude names for some years.
This tag could not possibly have been applied to the aging priests in England (most famously Fr. Oswald Baker) who continued to celebrate the "old" Mass independently, long before the Society of St. Pius X established a presence in this country in, I think, 1976.
I don't think anyone called the new priests arriving in England from Econe "Lefebvrists".
Therefore, 1976 gives a terminus a quo and 1984 (?) gives a terminus ad quem.
Hm. It's a bit vague, isn't it.
Needs more research (in French, probably) by someone with a younger mind than mine.
Fr Crowdy's translation is dated 1986. I THINK that the book was written in 1985.
His opinions on consecrating bishops at this period are interesting to consider:
"It has also been said that after me, my work will disappear because there will be no bishop to replace me. I am certain of the contrary; I have no worries on that account. I may die tomorrow, but the good Lord answers all problems. Enough bishops will be found in the world to ordain our seminarians: this I know.
Even if at the moment he is keeping quiet, one or another of these bishops will receive from the Holy Ghost the courage needed to arise in his turn. If my work is of God, He will guard it and use it for the good of the Church. Our Lord has promised us, the gates of Hell shall not prevail against her.
This is why I persist, and if you wish to know the real reason for my persistence, it is this: At the hour of my death, when Our Lord asks me, “What have you done with your episcopate, what have you done with your episcopal and priestly grace?” I do not want to hear from His lips the terrible words, “You have helped to destroy the Church along with the rest of them.”"
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