As I am planning a return to blogging in other formats and mediums, it seems appropriate at this time to post one brief update to this weblog to catch it up on events and circumstances germane to what we used to write on here before returning The Lidless Eye to its prior suspended status. So without further ado:

--The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) as a result of events from 2009{1} eventually and in a most welcome move expelled Bishop Richard Williamson in 2012.

-- In an ecclesiastical trial involving an SSPX priest back in 2015, the Holy See made SSPX Superior General Bishop Bernard Fellay a judge in the case and possibly other cases pertaining to SSPX priests.

--Pope Francis had during the 2015-2016 Jubilee Year granted faculties to the SSPX for their priests to validly and licitly offer absolution in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

--At the end of the Jubilee Year, Pope Francis extended this faculty indefinitely as of this writing.{2} For that reason, much as with a couple of other subjects like the lawfulness of the 1962 Missal{3}, the status of the four bishops of the SSPX as excommunicate{4}: these were all situations where the circumstances have changed from when they were covered on this weblog up to July of 2007 when I suspended this weblog indefinitely.{5} Therefore, what is written here on those matters remains as an archival reference source on those subjects but due to changing circumstances and occurrences are no longer valid as they were when originally written.{6}

As for the kind of approach taken on this weblog in years past, I explain why I view it as having had its day in this guest editorial to Kevin Tierney's weblog in August of 2013 and as per my stance taken there, return this weblog to the status of indefinite suspension with with I announced it on July 21, 2007{7} for reasons I had specified prior to that time{8}and do so again at this time in perpetuity.

All things to the contrary notwithstanding.


Notes:

{1} On the Recent Controversy of the Reinstatement of the SSPX's Bishops in General and of Bishop Richard Williamson in Particular (circa February 18, 2009)

{2} "For the Jubilee Year I had also granted that those faithful who, for various reasons, attend churches officiated by the priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, can validly and licitly receive the sacramental absolution of their sins. For the pastoral benefit of these faithful, and trusting in the good will of their priests to strive with God’s help for the recovery of full communion in the Catholic Church, I have personally decided to extend this faculty beyond the Jubilee Year, until further provisions are made, lest anyone ever be deprived of the sacramental sign of reconciliation through the Church’s pardon. [Pope Francis: Apostolic Letter Misericordia et Misera (circa November 20, 2016)]

{3} On Juridical Abrogation of the 1962 Missal (circa July 6, 2007)

{4} See footnote one.

{5} The Suspension of The Lidless Eye Inquisition In Perpetuity (circa July 21, 2007)

{6} There is now talk about Rome establishing a procedure for the marriages celebrated by attendees of the SSPX churches as well as of literally today. Marriages celebrated in SSPX churches for decades have been both illicit as well as invalid -a subject covered on this weblog and elsewhere in years past. However, the current news means that the situation concerning many marriages in the SSPX being valid from a certain point forward is an inevitability as well. (And presumably something will be done on this front to facilitate regularizing prior invalid marriages as well.)

{7} See footnote one.

{8} The Initial Announcement of the Impending Suspension of The Lidless Eye Inquisition In Perpetuity (circa July 6, 2007)