Fr. Franz Schmidberger is the former superior general of the SSPX and a former SSPX seminary founder and rector. He is currently SSPX district superior of Germany. Below, he proposes to work with the pope on the conciliar church’s “new evangelization” and work with Pope Francis to train new priests. Does anyone think it is remotely plausible that Fr. Schmidberger would propose these scandalous plans without Bishop Fellay’s approval?
In his recent interview, Fr. Schmidberger promotes the idea of the SSPX helping Pope Francis with the New Evangelization:
No doubt—it seems—the Pope sees in our Fraternity a force that can be of help to, as many have claimed, the new evangelization.
Quoted from the recent interview in La Stampa. (See also the English translation.)
The New Evangelization is a program set out to promote the errors of Vatican II. Here is one description of this program, taken from the Vatican’s document preparing for the 2012 synod on The New Evangelization:
The Point of Reference ... The convocation of the next synodal assembly comes at a particularly significant moment for the Catholic Church. In fact, the time of its celebration will coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the twentieth anniversary of the publication of The Catechism of the Catholic Church and the inauguration of The Year of Faith, proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI. The Synod will therefore provide a good opportunity to focus on the subject of conversion and the necessity of holiness, emphasized by all these anniversaries. The Synod will also be the place to grasp and repropose to people the invitation to rediscover the faith. This invitation was initially made at the Second Vatican Council and restated in The Year of the Faith proclaimed by Pope Paul VI, and again addressed to us in our time by Pope Benedict XVI. All this will serve as the framework for the synod’s work of treating the topic of the new evangelization.
During the years spanning the previously mentioned occurrences, other essential documentation deserves consideration not only at this time of preparation but also during the Synod itself. Besides a direct and explicit reference to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, no discussion on evangelization can take place today, without considering what was expressed on the subject by Pope Paul VI in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi, and Pope John Paul II in both his Encyclical Letter Redemptoris missio, and Apostolic Letter Novo millennium ineunte. All these texts have been cited in a number of responses as a point of reference and comparison.
Quoted from The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith (second bold emphasis added; all other emphasis in the original).
Plainly, the new SSPX’s steady liberalizing will help it achieve the goal of helping Pope Francis with his new evangelization of the new conciliar faith.
In the interview, Fr. Schmidberger says that if the pope gives full recognition to the SSPX, the SSPX will work with Pope Francis to form new priests:
If the Pope is really thinking of a canonical structure [for the SSPX] ... we could work together, according to our vocation, to the formation of a new generation of priests ....
Quoted from the same recent interview.
Any sensible Catholic knows that Pope Francis would not form priests who are really traditional. Maybe that is why Fr. Schmidberger says they would be a “new generation of priests”. At Catholic Candle, we are old enough to remember that, in the 1960s, the priests of the “new generation” were called “new breed”.