Once upon a time there was a pope... Pope John XXIII... aka Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, born 25 November 1881... aka "Joe."
He is also now known as Blessed John XXIII since his beatification. Joe was elected as the 261st Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City on 28 October 1958. He called the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) but did not live to see it to completion, dying on 3 June 1963, two months after the completion of his final encyclical, Pacem in Terris, aka Peace on Earth.
It is to be noted that the Second Vatican Council was a very big thing... Pope Joe was rather fond of saying that that it was time to open the windows of the Church to let in some fresh air. He even invited other Christian Churches to send observers to the Council. Acceptances came from both Protestant and Orthodox Churches.
A number of supposedly controversial things were accomplished during this council, such as consideration of the decree on religious freedom, as well as a document called Nostra Aetate which stated that the Jews of the time of Christ, taken indiscriminately, and all Jews today are no more responsible for the death of Christ than Christians.
To be sure, a sizable number of Roman Catholics were very unhappy with the Second Vatican Council. Among their beefs were that the Council and its documents moved the Church away from important principles of the historic Catholic faith. These principles include the following:
* the belief that the Catholic Church is the one and only true Christian church founded by Jesus Christ;
* the belief that the modern idea of religious liberty is to be condemned;
* an appropriate emphasis on the "Four Last Things" (Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell);
* the belief that the books of the Bible are historically inerrant;
* a devotion to scholastic theology and
* an organically grown apostolic Roman liturgy, as they define the Tridentine Mass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
In response to these particular beefs, a new group was formed, the Society of Pius X:
The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) is an international Traditionalist Catholic organization, founded in 1970 by the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
The Society's official Latin name is Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Sancti Pii X, meaning "Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X". It is composed of 486 priests, together with "religious members who are brothers, sisters, and oblates, and by affiliation, Third Order members".
.... The excommunication that by a decree of 1 July 1988 the Holy See had declared incurred by the Society's four bishops through their unauthorized episcopal consecration on the previous day was remitted by a decree of 21 January 2009, which declared the earlier decree deprived of juridical effect from that date on. The 2009 decree expressed the hope that all the members of the Society would speedily follow up this step by returning to full communion with the Church and thus demonstrating true fidelity and true acknowledgment of the Pope's Magisterium and authority.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
In other words, a bunch of cross, conservative old coots decided they didn't in the least like Blessed John XXIII and his damned Second Vatican Council.
A word or two about Pius X, who also happened to be another Joe, "born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, ... 257th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914.... Pius X codified Catholic doctrines to inspire conformity in the church and rejected modern values."
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The main dude before Pius X was Leo XIII who, in the eyes of Pius X, made the grave mistake of suggesting a colloquium among "the Catholic Church and secular culture; faith and science; and divine revelation and reason."
Pius X wasn't having none of that and rose to defend the Catholic faith against popular 19th century views such as indifferentism and relativism, modernism, the idea that the Roman Catholic faith should accommodate itself to current values. Besides being rather a stubborn fellow, Pius X was a tad stiff although he did embrace a few noble ideas, such as the concept of papal poverty, "I was born poor, I have lived poor, and I wish to die poor." He is also known as Blessed Pius X.
But of course, a name most appropriate to incorporate in a society of wretched, cross old coots who hate modern ways.
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI, reaching out to the far-right of the Roman Catholic Church, revoked the excommunications of four schismatic bishops on Saturday, including one whose comments denying the Holocaust have provoked outrage.
.... Among the men reinstated Saturday was Richard Williamson, a British-born cleric who in an interview last week said he did not believe that six million Jews died in the Nazi gas chambers. He has also given interviews saying that the United States government staged the Sept. 11 attacks as a pretext to invade Afghanistan.
The four reinstated men are members of the Society of St. Pius X, which was founded by a French archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre, in 1970 as a protest against the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council, also called Vatican II. Archbishop Lefebvre made the men bishops in unsanctioned consecrations in Switzerland in 1988, prompting the immediate excommunication of all five by Pope John Paul II.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
And now a spate of words about the good and bad, mostly bad of the aforesaid Marcel Lefebvre:
Bad: the dude was a monarchist, he rejected ecumenism, embraced pragmatic religious tolerance rather than the principal of religious liberty, he condemned the 1789 French Revolution as Masonic and anti-Catholic, he supported the "Catholic order" of the authoritarian French Vichy régime (1940-1944), which collaborated with Nazi Germany and whose leader, Philippe Pétain, was later sentenced to death as a traitor. Lefebvre also supported the fascist regimes of Chile, Argentina and Spain under Franco, he denied the reality of the Holocaust, he opposed the migration of Muslims to Europe and supported French far-right leader Jean-Marie le Pen, "on the grounds that he was the only leading French politician who was clearly opposed to abortion."
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Sorry, I'm so disgusted I can't think of anything good to say about Lefebre but, at least, he didn't get a pardon from Benedict XVI -- yet.