More on the 'Traditionalist Ordinariate'

The Dominican Rite in a Dominican community:
how would this relate to an 'ordinariate'?

Readers may remember the debate between me and Fr Louis-Marie de Blignières FSVF about the concept of a 'personal ordinariate' type structure for Traditionalists, which took place in the pages of the journal of Fr de Blignieres' journal Sedes Sapientiae. I expanded on my doubts about the wisdom of this approach on OnePeterFive.

A response in turn has been made to this by Fr de Bligniere's confrere, Fr. Antoine-Marie de Araujo, in Rorate Caeli. He suggests that my criticism is based on a misunderstanding of the proposal:

First, the proposed traditional ordinariate is not intended to replace, or even encompass, the traditional institutes (FSSP, ICKSP, etc.), parishes, or communities that celebrate the ancient rite today. There is no question of establishing a structure into which all traditional Catholics should fall.

However, I am perfectly aware that the proposal is for what he calls a 'a flexible and permeable instrument, well-adapted to the diverse situation of Catholics attached to the old Latin traditions.'

As I wrote on OnePeterFive:

Traditionalists sympathetic to the idea of an ordinariate probably don’t envisage the TLM being prohibited outside it. The danger is that an Ordinariate structure could be used to justify such a prohibition. To put it another way, if Catholics attached to the TLM come to support the idea of an Ordinariate, understanding it in a non-exclusive way, it could come to be supported, and implemented, by people in positions of authority who have a more negative conception of it. Our opponents would have a range of options about how to impose their vision. They could make exclusivity the price to be paid for the benefits of an Ordinariate; they could bury the negative implications in some small print; and they could impose them only after the Ordinariate is established.

The problem is not with the details of what Fr de Blignieres is imagining. The problem is how a proposal along these lines would actually be implemented.

It appears that Fr  de Araujo and Fr de Blignieres would agree with the principle that I expressed at the end of my article. I would encourage them to make this the basis of their thinking about this issue, and not something they take for granted would appear in the small print of their favoured scheme.

Here it is again:

The Traditional Latin Mass is the patrimony of every priest and lay person of the Latin Rite, and as such it must not be limited, in law or in practice, to members of a traditionalist Ordinariate.

A High Mass in the Birmingham Oratory

 

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