Lviv, Dec. 1, 2006 (CWNews.com) – An archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church has denounced the ordination of 2 priests and 7 deacons for the schismatic Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), and the participation of a Ukrainian priest in the Warsaw ceremony.
Bishop Richard Williamson, one of the four bishops illicitly ordained by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebre in 1988, presided at the ordinations, with Father Vasyl Kovpak, the head of the SSPX in Ukraine, taking part. Most of the people attending the ordinations were Ukrainian traditionalists.
Archbishop Ihor Vozniak of Lviv said that the ordination of priests to serve in Ukraine was a "criminal" act, since Bishop Williamson ignored the authority of the Roman and Byzantine Catholic bishops of the region. Archbishop Vozniak, who heads the Byzantine Church in Lviv, stressed that none of the priests ordained by Williamson would have permission to serve Ukrainian Catholic parishes.
The Lviv archdiocese complained bitterly about the presence of Lefebvrite priests in the city, saying that the traditionalist clerics were causing confusion and division among the faithful. The archdiocese was particularly critical of Father Kovpak, saying that "he deceives the church by declaring that he is a Greek [Byzantine] Catholic priest," while supporting a group that uses the old Latin liturgy exclusively, eschewing the Byzantine tradition, and does not maintain allegiance to the Holy See. Officials of the Lviv archdiocese said that Father Kovpak could face excommunication from the Byzantine Catholic Church.
6 comments
Why cant Poland have priests that offer the great mass of our Catholic Church’s heritage?
Who else will do it?
Why is the SSPX can’t see that it has established itself as a parallel church? It has set up a hierarchical structure, complete with an episcopate, presbyteriate, seminaries, retreat houses, etc., that operates in complete independence from the local ordinary OR Rome.
no doubt the tradisional group sspx is growing around the world. more ppl in america like the tridentine latin mass. i love Papa benedict. papa ben must do something clever. sspx must come back to Peter and communioun with vatican. vatican & sspx must work hand in hand. i’m not a sspx but i wish one day with the power of God, the virgin mary & st joseph. the tridentine latin mass will restore. and the Roman Catholic will rise again in all the world so that we’ll pray Pater Noster in one voice.
my lord, please pray for us. i have a strong feeling we, catholic will pray together with sspx.
hopefully Motu Proprio will bring us good news.
pray for the Pope benedict16……
It always amazes me how worried the Catholic and Byz Bishops etc-all get when a Traditional church opens up near them. One could open a mosque or a Protestant church and no problem, but a church that offers the TRUE sacraments (not the watered down altered ICEL bumbled translations that are being offered today) and the Mass of all time creates fear and havoc, because the Traditionalists are CATHOLIC and it scares the heck out of these modernized compromised groups that they lay will actually see what has taken place. I am only in my 40’s and knew nothing about the changes, but once I became aware and started reading it did not take long for my family and friends to realize something was seriously rotten in Denmark as the saying goes
Vatican II and the “Catholic Reformation” of 1962 to today has been a monumental failure and as these traditional groups, who are less than 20 years old for the most part gain more money, ordain more priests and expand, over the next 100 years they will in my opinion be the “One True Church”. With pedophila payouts and Popes praying to Mecca, one has to question what is going on today in the “Church”
Just my opinion
>>It always amazes me how worried the Catholic and Byz Bishops etc-all get when a Traditional church opens up near them.
Won’t comment on the Western stuff, but the SSPX’s Eastern wing is anything but Traditional. They use severely latinised and bastardised services, heavily abbreviated. What they’re rebelling against is the restoration of traditional Byzantine worship. Highly amusing since they call themselves traditional. They can insist on using Church Slavonic all they want, but they’re Latin wolves in Byzantine clothing, and the sooner Patriarch Lubomyr takes away their antimensia and excommunicates them en masse, the better. They can then stop pretending to love the Byzantine rite and become Latins and be someone else’s headache.
Mr Vasyl Kovpak has already been excommunicated.
The situation is complicated as some people see the latinisations as ‘proof’ that they are not Orthodox (=Russian, =bad guys). These people will insist that what they are doing is being loyal Rome, then turn around and ignore all pleas and instructions to return to Byzantine tradition. It is of no use explaining to them that the Union of Brest basically swapped the Patriarch of Constantinople for the Patriarch of Rome. No where does it call for the watering down of services and the mimicking of Latin theology. In fact, it says the opposite! But these people (and others like them who are Catholics in good standing) take it upon themselves to decide which directives from Rome to follow. Sorry folks – it’s either all or none.