On Saturday 18 November , Bishop Fellay of the SSPX spoke at a conference at Corpus Christi Church in Athlone, Co. Roscommon, Ireland. MOFarrell was there and took notes of the talk. The following are some of the more interesting excerpts from these notes.

To those impatient for an instantaneous solution: Did you really think the Pope would speak and everybody would make an overnight turnaround? That is not how human nature operates!

But this is certain: Provided that equality of opportunity be accorded to both forms of the Mass, the death certificate of the New Mass has now been signed.

If we leave the choice freely to normal people, we know what they will want. The New Mass cannot, and never has, inspired the Faithful to devotion. It will wither away, and the Traditional Latin Mass will replace it, by the natural development of circumstances.

AND

We have, since 1988, spoken of “The Indult Mass” – But now, by the very fact that the Pope has said the Traditional Latin Mass was “never abrogated”, it is affirmed that the Traditional Latin Mass is within the Law. You don’t need permission; you don’t need conditions, to follow the Law! There are NO CONDITIONS in the Motu Proprio itself. Never in the MP is there any mention of “prohibiting”. Therefore, priests and bishops may not prohibit the Traditional Latin Mass. On the contrary, it states that the priest “will willingly accept” the request for the Traditional Latin Mass. And is he refuses, the layman may refer the case to the Bishop who “will willingly accept” the request.

Therefore, the MP Mass is not just a continuation of the Indult. No!

Yet on the level of Reality: there is no change. Those who thought that, if the Pope were to make such a ruling, the members of the Church would immediately do an about-face, are very much out of touch with Reality.

And

But we mustn’t kid ourselves! Exactly why did the Pope issue this Motu Proprio? What is his long-term objective? Do not assume that the Pope is on our side! I’m not so sure! I fear he has another intention: based on a vision which he has explained several times in the past. His philosophy of history is Hegelian – based on that of the German Philosopher Hegel. “The Sense of History” promoted by Hegel, and accepted by the then Cdl Ratzinger, is that History evolves in the direction of Progress and never goes back. Cdl Ratzinger has several times said, “We cannot go back”. He laments the present situation; he seems to recognise that we have strayed onto the wrong road. We say that if you go down the wrong road, the only way to the destination is to head back to the right road, and then follow it. But he will not draw this conclusion.

Read the rest here.