This is not a case of the Bishop simply following the law. It is a case of him trying to apply a stricter standard for a poor traditional priest's funeral than exists for Protestants and others. Since the Catholic authorities allowed Lourdes, I don't think the Bishop has a leg to stand on. His bias shows through based on the facts. I think he's using his rationale as an excuse.
Stevus, I sincerely appreciate your sentiment, and it
may be justified, depending. The main point I was trying to make, in my imperfect way, was that I don't think we can conclude what Cardinal Napier's intentions were from the cited news account. Not being familiar with his archdiocese, his personal viewpoints about traditionalist communities and the SSPX, nor understanding what the prior relationship had been between the archdiocese and the SSPX community, to draw conclusions about his motives would be speculative, and I still sincerely believe that His Eminence is entitled to the benefit of the doubt, without further nuance about the situation being available.
On top of all this, charity dictates you let the man have a funeral in your Church. He's a Catholic priest and your Pope just lifted excommunications ands is about to regularize the Society he worked with. And you are going to forbid him a Mass in your church? I wonder what the Pope would think about this. You can't tell me that wasn't a bush league petty move.
The local archdiocesan parish, as reported in the cited article, was willing to provide the funeral rites for Father Leslie - celebrated by archdiocesan priests (whether those rites would have been in the ordinary or the extraordinary form we have no way of knowing from the article). It is really untrue to say that the archdiocese refused to allow him to have a funeral in one of their parish churches, which was the report Cardinal Napier was responding to. That is the same kind of reporting that says Bishop Williamson "denies the holocaust", when he in fact simply quibbles over the details. Fair and honest journalism should apply to everybody.
And, I must say, after reading "
... in your Church. He's a Catholic priest and your Pope...", that it has been my impression that Pope Benedict XVI was your Pope also, and that we were both Roman Catholics.
... So the Archbishop could have given them faculties for this one time. Instead he uses the false pretense that they don't recognize his authority.
Also faculties are irrelevant since, as I pointed out, Catholic Bishops have allowed Protestant ordinations in their Cathedrals. Furthermore Bishop Fellay had no faculties and said Mass in a Catholic church in Lourdes ...
I'm not a canon lawyer, nor a Successor to the Apostles (i.e., a Bishop), just a simple lay person (and a dairy farmer at that), so I really don't have any standing to comment on, nor expertise to interpret, the relevancy, or not, of faculties in this situation. The examples I gave in my previous post (weddings and funerals), and in your example (ordinations), are about non Catholic functions being held in a Catholic church building - faculties are indeed irrelevant in those situations - those would simple involve whether the Church's guidelines and canons were appropriately followed when the dispensations to use the buildings were granted. When we are talking about a Roman or Eastern Catholic liturgical or sacramental function being held in a diocesan parish church, I'm thinking that the granting of faculties and the approval of the local ordinary may indeed have some relevance.
Also, as is often pointed out here at Fisheaters, there is a wide degree of how individual Bishops interpret and apply the Church's norms. They are individuals, they function in differing cultural and geo-political environments, and they are called on to appropriately apply the Church's directives in particular pastoral situations. We do hope that they also have the "mind of Christ and the Church" as they do this. IMHO it is perhaps a bit simplistic to argue that because a Bishop on one continent allowed something, a Bishop on another continent should allow something, especially when, without a lot more information, I can't decipher how similar these situations actually are.
So, with all that, indeed Cardinal Napier may have been insensitive, been a jerk, may have applied punitive, non Christ like decisions against the SSPX, or was just not as pastoral and charitable as he could have been,
or not. There is simple just not enough nuance and information in the article to decide.
