The Practical Parson

 In recent weeks, there has been a growing obsession with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (SSPX), due to the announcement that they will be pursuing the consecration of new bishops for their society in July.   Ever the fraternal, loving, ecumenical, "God wants us all to be together in love" crowd; the mainstream Roman Catholic Hierarchy have taken to staunch denouncements of the society, proclaiming them schismatics, heretics, and worse.  For daring to presume that they have the right to have their own bishops; a number of otherwise intelligent and decent Christian people are quite legitimately threatening the SSPX with the fires of eternal damnation.  The crux of the matter is the breakdown in communications between the society and the prefect for the congregation of the doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Fernandez.  Specifically, it is known that Cardinal Fernandez himself has prevented the SSPX from being able to meet with the Roman Pontiff themselves...

 This past Saturday, the Diocese of which I am part held its ordinations to the priesthood.  This year we had 3 goodly candidates for orders, all sincere men who have expressed clearly over their years of formation a desire to serve and build up the church of God.  The service was obliged to be held at St. Timothy's Episcopal church in Winston-Salem; due to the fact that none of our own chapels at present would be able to hold the number of people who attended the service. I and the entire diocese are eternally grateful to the rector and people of St. Timothy's for allowing us to use their smaller chapel (to the side of the main church).  Words cannot possibly express our gratitude for their friendship and mutual work over the years.   The smaller chapel at St. Timothy's is not as small as it may sound, it's actually a quite decently sized church, and was the original church that their congregation started in many decades ago.  As I myself stood in the...