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Catholic World News News Feature

SSPX bishop rips Pope Benedict May 01, 2006

A bishop of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has harshly criticized Pope Benedict XVI and the teachings of Vatican II, raising new questions about the prospects for reconciliation between the Vatican and the schismatic traditionalist group.

Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais said that the Pontiff "has professed heresies in the past." While stopping short of calling the Pope a heretic, he added that "he has never retracted the errors."

The blistering charges by the SSPX bishop are likely to cool expectations of any immediate move to retore ties between the traditionalist group and the Holy See. Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the SSPX, has voiced his disagreements with the Vatican in distinctly more diplomatic terms-- although Bishop Fellay, too, has indicated that he does not expect any quick reconciliation.

In an interview with the traditionalist publication The Remnant, the SSPX prelate charged that Introduction to Christianity, a book published by the future Pope in 1968 is "full of heresies." He said that the errors in the book included "the negation of the dogma of the Redemption."

Bishop Tissier de Mallerais said that he was disappointed with the leadership of Pope Benedict. "It has been year now, and he has done nothing!" he told The Remnant.

The bishop indicated his impatience with efforts to persuade traditionalist Catholics that the teachings of the Second Vatican Council should be interpreted in the light of Church tradition. "You cannot read Vatican II as a Catholic work," he insisted.

He also dismissed criticism that the SSPX is guilty of breaking communion within the Church hierarchy. "'Communion' is nothing; it is an invention of the Second Vatican Council," the bishop said. "'Communion' does not mean anything to me-- it is a slogan of the new Church."

Bishop Tissier de Mallerais is one of four bishops ordained by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1988, in the illicit ceremony that prompted the Vatican to declare the excommunication of the traditionalist prelates. He now resides at the SSPX seminary in Econe, Switzerland.