Ultra Traditionalist Catholic SSPX Group Begins Criticising New Pope
Soon after his election, the SSPX head for South America, Rev Christian Bouchacourt, denounced Francis’s simple style as humiliating and undignified for the Church.
“NOT A CATHOLIC”
While Benedict criticised some reforms of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council, Francis praised it on Tuesday as “a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit” that remained to be fully implemented although some wanted to turn back the clock.
Benedict’s wooing of the SSPX, part of a his wider plan to bring back many Catholic traditions sidelined after Vatican II, triggered several controversies during his eight-year papacy.
His 2007 decision to allow wider use of the old Latin Mass met with a mixed reaction among Catholics and Jewish groups said it revived an old Latin prayer they considered anti-Semitic.
Two years later, Benedict set off a firestorm of criticism from Catholics, Jews and German politicians when he lifted the excommunications on the four SSPX bishops, including the notorious Holocaust-denier Bishop Richard Williamson.
Lifting the excommunications meant the four bishops were once again full members of the 1.2-billion member Church, but they and the SSPX had no official position or role within it.