Double standard for liberals and Lefebvrites

Monday I blogged about an online petition calling for the SSPX to fully accept the teachings of the Second Vatican Council before being readmitted to the full communion of the Catholic Church. Today, it seems, that petition has gotten three German Catholic theologians in trouble with their bishop. Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Mueller of Regensburg, Germany, ordered three professors on the faculty at the local diocesan Catholic university to retract their signatures from the petition and apologize to the pope or face sanctions, according to Deutsche Welle.

On the other side of the controversy, SSPX Bishop Bernard Fellay expressed pleasure that the pope seemed to share the SSPX's view of the liturgy (!!), though the pope evidently still "is deeply attached to the new things of Vatican II," reports the Associated Press. Not exactly what I call conciliatory.

So just who is calling the shots here? The pope is not only diminishing his own authority but jeopardizing that of Vatican II by pandering to Fellay and the SSPX, while at the same time theologians are being scolded for legitimately criticizing the pope's action toward them, which was basically political and in no way infallible. What gives?