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| Does God hear the Prayers of Sinners? by St. Alphonsus Liguori |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-11-2021, 12:27 PM - Forum: Doctors of the Church
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Excerpts from “A short treatise on Prayer”, pp. 440-447, in the book by St. Alphonsus de Liguori, The Way of Salvation and Perfection.
Does God Hear the Prayers of Sinners?
In St. John's Gospel, the man born blind said, “Now we know that God doth not hear sinners: but if a man be a server of God, and doth his will, him he heareth.” So is it true that the Bible teaches that God does not hear sinners? No, this is not true, according to St. Alphonsus Liguori:
But a person might say, I am a sinner, and God does not hear sinners, as we read in St. John's Gospel: God does not hear sinners [Jn, 9:31]. I answer, that these words were not spoken by our Lord, but by the man who had been born blind. And the proposition, if taken absolutely, is false; there is only one case in which it is true, as St. Thomas says, and that is when sinners pray as sinners, that is, ask something that they require to assist them in their sin. As, for instance, if a man asked God to help him to take vengeance on his enemy; in such cases God certainly will not hear.
But when a man prays and asks for those things that are requisite for his salvation, what matters it whether he is a sinner or not? Suppose he were the greatest criminal in the world, let him only pray, he will surely obtain all that he asks. The promise is general for all men, everyone that seeks, obtains: Everyone that asketh receiveth [Luke:11;10]. “It is not necessary,” says St. Thomas, “that the man who prays should merit the grace for which he asks. By prayer we obtain even those things which we do not deserve.”
In order to receive, it is enough to pray. The reason is (in the words of the same holy Doctor), “merit is grounded on justice, but the power of prayer is grounded on grace.” The power of prayer to obtain what we ask does not depend on the merit of the person who prays, but on the mercy and faithfulness of God, who has gratuitously, and of his own mere goodness, promised to hear the man who prays to him. When we pray it is not necessary that we should be friends of God in order to obtain grace; indeed, the act of prayer, as St. Thomas says, makes us friends” “Prayer itself makes us of the family of God.”
And Jesus Christ, to give us more encouragement to pray, and to assure us of obtaining grace when we pray, has made us that great and special promise: Amen, amen I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you [John 16:23]. As though he had said, come sinners you have no merits of your own for which My Father should listen to you. But this is what you must do, when you want grace, ask for it in My name, and through My merits, and I promise you (“Amen, amen I say to you,” amounts to a kind of oath) you may depend on it, that whatever you ask you shall obtain from My Father: Whatever you ask He will give it to you.
Oh what a sweet consolation for a poor sinner, to know that his sins are no hindrance to his obtaining every grace he asks for, since Jesus Christ has promised that whatever we ask of God, through his merits, he will grant it all!
Ask for temporal goods profitable to our souls.
It is, however, necessary to understand that Our Lord's promise to hear our prayers does not apply to our petitions for temporal goods, but only to those for spiritual graces necessary, or at any rate, useful, for the salvation of the soul; so that we can only expect to obtain the [profitable] graces which we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, as we said just now. “But,” as St. Augustine says, “if we ask anything prejudicial to our salvation, it cannot be said to be asked in the name of the Savior.” That which is injurious to salvation cannot be expected from the Savior; God does not and cannot grant it. And why? Because he loves us.
Many people ask for health or riches, but God does not give them, because he sees they would be an occasion of sin, or at least of growing lukewarm in his service. So when we ask these temporal gifts, we ought always to add this condition, if they are profitable to our souls. And when we see that God does not give them, let us rest assured that he refuses them because he loves us, and because he sees that the things which we ask would only damage our spiritual well-being.
So, I repeat, all temporal gifts which are not necessary for salvation ought to be asked conditionally; and if we see that God does not give them, we must feel sure that he refuses them for our greater good. But with regard to spiritual graces, we must be certain that God gives them to us when we ask him. St. Teresa says that God loves us more than we love ourselves. And St. Augustine has declared that God has a greater desire to give us his grace, than we have to receive it. And after him, St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi said that God feels a kind of obligation to the soul that prays, and, as it were, says to it, “Soul, I thank thee that thou askest me for grace.” For then the soul gives him an opportunity of doing good to it, and of thus satisfying his desire of giving his grace to all.
Perseverance in Prayer.
Let us pray then, and let us always be asking for grace, if we wish to be saved. Let prayer be our most delightful occupation; let prayer be the exercise of our whole life. And when we are asking for particular graces, let us always pray for the grace to continue to pray in the future, because if we leave off praying we shall be lost. Let us pray, then, and let us always shelter ourselves behind the intercession of Mary: “Let us seek for grace, and let us seek it through Mary, “ says St. Bernard. And when we recommend ourselves to Mary, we can be sure she hears us and obtains for us whatever we want. Let us then in our prayers always invoke Jesus and Mary, let us never neglect to pray. If you pray you will be certainly saved.
Eternal Father, I humbly adore thee, and thank thee for having created me, and for having redeemed me through Jesus Christ. If Thou does not constantly guard and succor me with thy aid, I, a miserable creature, shall return to sin, and shall certainly lose thy grace. I beseech Thee, for the love of Jesus Christ, to grant me holy perseverance until death. Through the merits, then, of Jesus Christ, I beg for myself and for all the just, the grace never again to be separated from Thy love, but to love thee forever, in time and eternity. Mary, Mother of God, pray to Jesus for me.
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| Union of Our Will with God during Tribulations - St. Francis de Sales |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 03-11-2021, 12:20 PM - Forum: Doctors of the Church
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Union of Our Will with God during Tribulations – St. Francis De Sales
Treatise on the Love of God ~ St. Francis De Sale ~ Page 275-277
THAT THE UNION OF OUR WILL WITH THE GOOD-PLEASURE OF GOD TAKES PLACE PRINCIPALLY IN TRIBULATIONS.
PAINFUL things cannot indeed be loved when considered in themselves, but viewed in their source, that is, in the Divine Will and Providence which ordains them, they are supremely delightful. Look at the rod of Moses upon the ground, and it is a hideous serpent; look upon it in Moses’s hand, and it is a wand of miracles. Look at tribulations in themselves, and they are dreadful; behold them in the will of God, and they are love and delights. How often have we turned in disgust from remedies and medicines when the doctor or apothecary offered them, which, being offered by some well-beloved hand (love surmounting our loathing), we receive with delight. In truth, love either takes away the hardship of labour, or makes it dear to us while we feel it.
It is said that there is a river in Bœotia wherein the fish appear golden, but taken out of those their native waters, they have the natural colour of other fishes: afflictions are so; if we look at them outside God’s will, they have their natural bitterness, but he who considers them in that eternal good-pleasure, finds them all golden, unspeakably lovely and precious. If Abraham had seen outside God’s will the necessity of slaying his son, think, Theotimus, what pangs and convulsions of heart he would have felt, but seeing it in God’s good-pleasure, it appears all golden, and he tenderly embraces it.
If the martyrs had looked upon their torments outside this good-pleasure, how could they have sung, in chains and flames? The truly loving heart loves God’s good-pleasure not in consolations only but in afflictions also; yea, it loves it better upon the cross in pains and difficulties, because the principal effect of love is to make the lover suffer for the thing beloved.
The Stoics, especially good Epictetus, placed all their philosophy in abstaining and sustaining, bearing and forbearing; in abstaining from and forbearing earthly delights, pleasures and honours; in sustaining and bearing wrongs, labours and trials: but Christian doctrine, which is the only true philosophy, has three principles upon which it grounds all its exercises,—abnegation of self, which is far more than to abstain from pleasures, carrying the cross, which is far more than tolerating or sustaining it, following Our Lord, not only in renouncing our self and bearing our cross, but also in the practice of all sorts of good works. But at the same time there is not so much love shown in abnegation or in action, as in suffering.
The Holy Ghost in Holy Scripture certainly signifies the death and passion which our Saviour suffered for us, to be the highest point of his love towards us.
1. To love God’s will in consolations is a good love when it is indeed God’s will that is loved, and not the consolation which is the form it takes: however, this is a love without contradiction, repugnance and effort: for who would not love so worthy a will in so agreeable a form?
2. To love the will of God in his commandments, counsels and inspirations is a second degree of love, and much more perfect, for it leads us to the renouncing and quitting of our own will, and makes us abstain from and forbear some pleasures, though not all.
3. To love sufferings and afflictions for the love of God is the supreme point of most holy charity, for there is nothing therein to receive our affection save the will of God only; there is great contradiction on the part of nature; and we not only forsake pleasures, but embrace torments and labours.
Our mortal enemy knew well what was love’s furthest and finest act, when having heard from the mouth of God that Job was just, righteous, fearing God, hating sin, and firm in innocence, he made no account of this, in comparison with bearing afflictions, by which he made the last and surest trial of the love of this great servant of God.
To make these afflictions extreme, he formed them out of the loss of all his goods and of all his children, abandonment by all his friends, an arrogant contradiction by his most intimate associates and his wife, a contradiction full of contempt, mockery and reproach; to which be added the collection of almost all human diseases, and particularly a universal, cruel, offensive, horrible ulcer over all his body.
And yet behold the great Job, king as it were of all the miserable creatures of the world, seated upon a dunghill, as upon the throne of misery, adorned with sores, ulcers, and corruption, as with royal robes suitable to the quality of his kingship, with so great an abjection and annihilation, that if he had not spoken, one could not have discerned whether Job was a man reduced to a dunghill, or the dunghill a corruption in form of a man.
Now, I say, hear the great Job crying out: If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, why shall we not receive also evil? O God! How this word is great with love! He ponders, Theotimus, that it was from the hand of God that he had received the good, testifying that he had not so much loved goods because they were good, as because they came from the hand of the Lord; whence he concludes that he is lovingly to support adversities, since they proceed from the hand of the same Lord, which is equally to be loved when it distributes afflictions and when it bestows consolations.
Every one easily receives good things, but to receive evil is a work of perfect love, which loves them so much the more, inasmuch as they are only lovable in respect of the hand that gives them. The traveller who is in fear whether he has the right way, walks in doubt, viewing the country over, and stands in a muse at the end of almost every field to think whether he goes not astray, but he who is sure of his way walks on gaily, boldly, and swiftly: even so the love that desires to walk to God’s will through consolations, walks ever in fear of taking the wrong path, and of loving (in lieu of God’s good-pleasure) the pleasure which is in the consolation; but the love that strikes straight through afflictions towards the will of God walks in assurance, for affliction being in no wise lovable in itself, it is an easy thing only to love it for the sake of him that sends it.
The hounds in spring-time are at fault at every step, finding hardly any scent at all, because the herbs and flowers then smell so freshly that their odour puts down that of the hart or hare: in the spring-time of consolations love scarcely recognizes God’s good-pleasure, because the sensible pleasure of consolation so allures the heart, that it troubles the attention which the heart should pay to the will of God.
S. Catharine of Siena, having from our Saviour her choice of a crown of gold or a crown of thorns, chose this latter, as better suiting with love: a desire of suffering, says the Blessed (S.) Angela of Foligno, is an infallible mark of love: and the great Apostle cries out that he glories only in the cross, in infirmity, in persecution.
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| Arnaud de Lassus: How a Priest Becomes a Mason |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-11-2021, 10:18 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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How a Priest becomes a Mason
Originally published in Action Familiale et Scholaire, No.161
In 1999 a book was published anonymously in Italy entitled Via col vento in Vaticano and which, according to the editor of the French edition, "came from a group of dignitaries of the Vatican, 'the Millennialists', who broke the law of silence."
It is a collective writing describing various disorders affecting the Holy See. The chapters are of unequal value and some call for serious reservation. Chapter 18, The Smoke of Satan in the Vatican, treats of Freemasonry and exposes, on four pages of great interest, the process implemented to get prelates to affiliate themselves with the sect.
Quote:"There exists a true novitiate by which ecclesiastics are incorporated into the Masonic Order. Amongst ecclesiastics a certain category of man can be found which Masonry sees as a possible collaborator; this type of man must possess certain gifts: intelligence, keen ambition and desire to further his career, an ability to understand but to pretend to understand nothing, generosity of service, and, if possible, a physically imposing presence and a pleasing face. Such qualities draw the attention of the recruiters. When a young ecclesiastic answers these criteria (...), it remains only to initiate the process by playing upon his self-esteem."
The author insists on the secrecy of the operation as a condition of its success:
Quote:"The absolute condition is that, in this first phase, the chosen candidate remains in total ignorance of what is being framed around him. The Masonic technique requires a progressive revelation, so that the associate discovers the ends of the Secret Society only gradually, according to what the Masonic superiors consider useful."
The first contact is carried out as naturally as possible:
Quote:"An invitation to an embassy for a national festival, the unexpected introduction to a person well known or influential, a prelate who asks him for something and shows himself grateful. Then comes the phase of compliment and flattery : 'oh, what a treasure, such kindness, such keen intelligence!... You deserve better, you are wasting your time... But why not address each other in a familiar way?
Then one enters the phase of future prospects : 'I know such a prelate, such a cardinal, such an ambassador or such a minister'... I will readily say a word concerning you; I will speak of you as of a man who deserves higher responsibilities... At this stage, the proposer realizes immediately if the interested party has taken the bait."
The process thus described will continue for several years, always discreetly.
Quote:"Gradually, the promises made take place. The pre-selected candidate notes that they were not vain promises and believes it his duty to be grateful to the friend, whom he regards as his benefactor. During this time, his career progresses without encountering difficulties. Radiant prospects are dangled in front of him for the service of the Church, within which he starts to foresee a position which would suit him very well.
It is precisely at this time when seized by a fever of ambition and vanity, the unwary prelate has knowledge of his easy rise which he doesn't yet fully grasp, and when other promotions to still higher levels appear at the horizon, that they arrive at the phase of explanations."
They explain two things to the candidate:
- if he has arrived at such lofty heights, it is thanks to the discrete support of the Masonic order and of its friends;
- he is free to continue to collaborate with the Order, which will ensure the continuation of his advance.
In this very delicate phase it is up to the prelate in crisis to decide which choice to take. The desire to continue to climb, the giddiness of knowing and being introduced to the Masonic chain, the fear of unavoidable revelations in the event of refusal to adhere or the vacuum he can already feel around him, the fraternal exhortation of some dignitary to go ahead as he himself did formerly: in a word, all that ends up convincing the prelate to follow the way that others started to trace for him, unbeknown to him at the time.
The higher one is placed, the more one is likely to be internally fragile for fear of losing the high positions reached. One seeks to justify oneself for it.
Many prelates, thus compromised, end up yielding and become members of the Masonic apparatus and find themselves obligation to obey its instructions.
Quote:"Skillfully baited, the new Freemason becomes a pawn in the sphere of activity of the secret lodge and is added to the others who have already made their nest there. His rise can continue from now on, without obstacles, towards the top with the assistance of the other ‘brothers’."
It is a remarkable process founded upon secrecy, which can easily last ten years and which can only be implemented by a disciplined, well trained and patient personnel. It is a tried and tested process undoubtedly used not just in the Church, but in the secular world.
Two general remarks can be drawn from the observations which have been made on Masonic penetration within the Church and on the process used for this purpose.
The presence of Freemasons in key positions in the Church explains to a great extent the doctrinal and disciplinary drifts of these last forty years. It is particularly clear in the case of the liturgical reform [and Religious Liberty - ed].
As regards the process that forms Masonic prelates, it is very important to understand it and to make it known, because it obviously loses its effectiveness when exposed.
In conclusion, let us remain alert to the Masonic question. It is one of the keys of the current crisis, political as well as religious. And, as Pope Leo XIII said in the encyclical Humanum genus, it is necessary "to tear away from Freemasonry the mask with which it is covered and to show it for what it is".
Let us remain alert and keep the Faith of the Church; we know that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.
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| The Recusant [2015]: Concerning the Avrillé Dominicans |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-11-2021, 10:02 AM - Forum: True vs. False Resistance
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Concerning: The Avrillé Dominicans
The following appeared in July, 2015. The exact date given on the French version of this statement (on the French website of the Avrillé Dominicans) is 29th July, 2015, although no date is given on the English website…
Quote:The Friary’s Position
The position of the Friary has not changed since the foundation of our community, that is, we continue the combat for the Faith summarized perfectly by the Doctrinal Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre of November 21, 1974.
More precisely, we hold the principle which has been the one of the Society from 1988 to 2012, and which was still clearly maintained in the General Chapter of 2006:
Quote:“The contacts that the Society continues occasionally with Roman authorities have for their only end to help these authorities to reappropriate the Tradition that the Church cannot repudiate without losing her identity, and not the search for an advantage for ourselves, or to come to an impossible and purely practical agreement. The day when Tradition will once again regain all its rights, “the problem of our reconciliation will have no further reason to exist and the Church will experience a new youth”. [Letter of Archbishop Lefebvre to John-Paul II, 2nd June, 1988]
We support therefore all the priests still in the SSPX who, not without difficulty, continue the good fight in this spirit. By the grace of God, there are a good number of them, especially in the French District of the Society. The Appeal to the faithful of January 2014 was not a declaration of rupture with the SSPX, but a “public testimony of our firm and faithful attachment to the principles that always guided Archbishop Lefebvre in the combat for the Faith”.
If there are priests outside of the Society who, clearly and without ambiguity, continue the combat of Archbishop Lefebvre, there is no reason not to support them. To support them does not mean “taking sides” for one Society against another. We have no intention to do anything “against” the Society, and do not wish its collapse: nobody wants that.
A suggestion for those who want to remain faithful to the combat of Archbishop Lefebvre: to the word “resistance”, we prefer the expression “combat for the faith”, not only because one does not define oneself by something negative; but because this expression exists since the beginning of Tradition, and includes all those who faithfully continue the combat of Archbishop Lefebvre, no matter what organization they belong to.
Sources: www.dominicansavrille.us/the-friarys-position/ (English) www.dominicainsavrille.fr/quelle-est-la-position-du-couvent/ (French)
1. “Our Position has not changed…”
Saying that one has not changed one’s principles since the days of Archbishop Lefebvre is a good thing. But as with all good things said, it must be proved, or disproved, with one’s actions (which, let us say yet again, speak louder than words!) There are, for example, some poor misguided souls who maintain that they hold to the 1974 declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre, and yet are unclear as to whether/when/why/why not one may assist at the Novus Ordo Mass (some of them have tried to defend Bishop Williamson’s words in that regard). The 1974 Declaration says that we reject all the reforms coming from the Council. Clearly all the reforms would embrace the New Mass too, which, says the declaration, “begins in heresy and leads to heresy”. Unfortunately for these people, what this means is that either one disagrees with what Bishop Williamson says about attending the New Mass, or one disagrees with Archbishop Lefebvre’s 1974 declaration. One cannot agree to both (at least, not if one wishes to leave the principle of non contradiction standing intact!)
As far as the Avrillé Dominicans are concerned, some people were worried to see, in the youtube video of Bishop Williamson’s answer in New York, a Dominican priest of Avrillé sat in the background, and showing apparently no distress whatever at what he was hearing (he does speak very good English, since you ask). However, only God knows interiors, and perhaps this priest was just very good at hiding his extreme distress at what he was hearing. Furthermore, Avrillé did put out some sort of a statement (printed in last month’s Recusant, Issue 29) which made it clear that they did not agree with the Bishop on that question. It would have been nice if they could have produced something in their own words, not just a cut-and-paste from Fr.Gaudron’s Catechism of the Crisis in the Church; and it would have been even nicer if they could have published something dealing with the specific problem at hand (i.e. the fact that it was Bishop Williamson saying those things!) - after all, when we witness a robbery we are supposed to shout “Stop! Thief!” and not just stand there condemning the idea of stealing in general… but still, something is better than nothing, so let us not spend too long complaining if it wasn’t perfect!
2. The General Chapter Statement of 2006
In some ways this statement, although nowhere near as openly modernist as that of 2012, was nonetheless the first proverbial chink in the armour. It already talks about helping the Roman authorities to “re-appropriate” Tradition, an idea subsequently popularized by Bishop Fellay and Fr. Pfluger all over the world. It is as though the “Roman authorities” have accidentally lost or mislaid their Tradition: they left it on the bus under the seat and are now desperately trying to find it! Whereas, of course, in reality they are busy attacking and trying to destroy it. What is therefore required is not a “re-appropriation” but a conversion. The 2006 chapter, therefore, sins by omission, downplaying the seriousness of the situation. That is not something which we think can be held against Avrillé, however, and it may well be that they too can see that for themselves. Doubtless when they quote this section of the 2006 chapter declaration as forming part of their own position, what they are thinking of is the bit about not searching for any advantage for ourselves, “nor to come to an impossible and purely practical agreement.”
So: the first three paragraphs, including the quote from the 2006 Chapter, are fine as far as they go. It is only when one comes to the second half that the real problems begin…
3. Priests still in the SSPX
There are two types of “priest still in the SSPX.” The first are those who, although undoubtedly resisting openly, have not yet officially been expelled. This might be due to administrative blundering or perhaps embarrassment on the part of Menzingen at having to admit which and how many priests have been lost. Bishop Faure is one such example: while still a priest he continued to be listed in Cor Unum long after he had begun to openly support the creation of Resistance chapels in South America. Fr. Hewko is another such example, having been sent warning letters (‘monitions’) some three years ago, but still no letter or decree of actual expulsion. Those are just two examples: there are several others, though not a great many.
The second type “priest still in the SSPX” is a different kettle of fish altogether. We all know him. He is at heart a timorous soul, who privately hates what is happening, and who in 2012 probably confided as much to some trusted friends amongst the laity. He would far rather that the latter-day liberalizing of the SSPX had never taken place: if nothing else, he would feel much better about himself and about things in general. Given a free choice between standing for the truth and standing for the new, novel, liberal-friendly line of Menzingen, he would far rather stand for the truth. But he does not have such a free choice. Choosing to stand for the truth would mean all sorts of hardship, suffering and unforeseen circumstances, so on balance he stays where he is. Like Richard Rich’s reply to Thomas More near the start of the film A Man for All Seasons, (when the latter gives him a mild rebuke and warning about accepting the patronage of the sinister Thomas Cromwell): “If only you knew how much, much rather I’d have yours!” Our “priest still in the SSPX –type 2” would much, much rather not have to be part of Bishop Fellay’s new SSPX. But like Richard Rich, what he would prefer in an ideal world, and what he actually decides on in the real world are two very different things. The pressure to stay in the enemy camp and the material and psychological discomfort of leaving it somehow prove too much for him. He may sometimes give sermons against Vatican II and the New Mass (in some parts of the SSPX this is still, it seems, permitted). He may even, occasionally, give sermons in which strange comments are made ominous yet ambiguous, whose relevance and meaning is not immediately apparent and which might refer to this, or to that (or might not!) and from which some of his friends in the congregation think they can decipher a message relevant to the current situation of the SSPX. Of course, he would never dare say anything openly critical of the current goings-on from the pulpit, and he thinks twice about saying it even in private. After all, just think what might happen to him if the District Superior were to hear of it!
One final thing needs to be said about this priest. As far back as the start of 2013, the ‘prophets of doom’ predicted that he would slide, that the tension of secretly thinking one thing and outwardly saying another would eventually take its toll. In many such cases this has been proved entirely correct. One such priest in Great Britain now advises souls to assist at the indult Mass when they cannot get to a SSPX mass, to give one such example. The other danger with presenting two faces, the anti-modernist, anti-Menzingen private face, and the loyal-to-Menzingen public face, is that the souls who are privileged to see the private face have no way of knowing which is real and which is for show. In 2012 the private face may have been the real one. What if, by 2015, the public face has become real and the private one has become an act, put on only for their benefit, to keep them inside the SSPX and away from the Resistance? The top-level Russian spy (“Source Merlin”) in Le Carré’s ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy’ comes to mind, as does the ranting madman forced to sit in C.S. Lewis’s ‘Silver Chair’..! How can anyone know which is the real him? Is Dr. Jeckyl really an aberration of Mr. Hyde after all? That is not the only, nor even the main problem, with this kind of priest. Many of the problems of such a priest can be found in Fr. Chazal’s excellent “Letter to an Unknown Soldier of the Internal Resistance” (found at: www.therecusant.com/chazal-unknown-soldier or in Issue 17, June 2014). The main problem has been pointed out in these pages often enough before. It is that the private thoughts of a priest count for nothing compared to the official position of the organisation which he represents. To give just one example, I remember being told (if I recall correctly) that there is a former SSPX District Superior now living as an Anglican vicar. I am told that he still uses the Traditional Roman Missal for his daily Mass and that he still believes the Catholic Faith. It may be that his joining the so-called ‘Church of England’ had more to do with the fact that they were able to offer him a quiet life, a generous stipend and a nice house to live in, who knows… But the point is this: can one attend his Mass? Absolutely not! Even if he himself believes and teaches no heresy, nevertheless he is still outwardly a member of a heretical sect. To give another, more commonplace example, there have always been priests who said the Traditional Mass with “permission” from the conciliar church, priests of Fraternity of St. Peter and others, who were almost more ‘hard line’ than the average SSPX priest, but that matters not one bit: if you don’t support the Indult/Ecclesia Dei movement then you do not go to their Mass. Doctrine is paramount, the Faith comes first, and the main problem with Vatican II is precisely that it gives us a new doctrine and not “that which we have received” (St. Paul). If the only response which we can give is categorical refusal, as Archbishop Lefebvre’s 1974 declaration tells us, then that means we must also refuse priestly societies who accept Vatican II. That category has always included the Ecclesia Dei priests. Since their capitulation in 2012, it now also, alas, includes the SSPX.
The Avrillé Dominicans, on the other hand, say that they support (in what way remains unclear, but even moral support is problematic enough): “...all the priests still in the SSPX who, not without difficulty, continue the good fight...” From the context and bearing in mind everything above, it should be clear that they are referring to the second kind of priest and not the first. In what way are these priests “continuing the good fight”? If they were really to continue the good fight, they would no longer be “still in the SSPX.” Preaching against Vatican II is not enough. Their clear duty is warn the faithful against danger, and today that means preaching against the introduction of Vatican II into the SSPX, something which they dare not do.
Hence we find we must disagree strongly with the Avrillé Dominicans on that point if no other. What we should be doing is encouraging such priests to stand strong, to put the Faith first, to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness… in short, to oppose Vatican II and all things conciliar, including the conciliar SSPX. We should encourage them to leave the SSPX, to get their faithful to leave with them, as Fr. Altamira (to name one admirable example) did nearly two years ago. By congratulating them for “continuing the good fight” are we not merely encouraging them to remain in their untenable position?
This is surely in nobody’s best interests, theirs least of all… That the declaration also talks about there being, “by the Grace of God … a good number of them, especially in the French District of the Society” is unfortunate. Not only does it tend to confirm the regrettable national stereotype according to which French Catholics know little and care less about what goes on outside of France; it surely also remains to be seen whether the situation of these priests is the way it is “by the Grace of God” or for some other reason! Of course, time will tell whether or not we are right. But for many it will by then be too late.
4. No rupture with the SSPX…
The declaration’s next sentence is ambiguous but suggestive of a desire to please all sides. It refers to the “Letter of Appeal to the Faithful” of January 2014, signed by several French priests including all those of Avrillé. This Letter of Appeal, we are told, “was not a declaration of rupture with the SSPX”. Indeed? Nobody need take my word for it: the assiduous reader who looks up the text of the “Letter of Appeal to the Faithful” (it is in Issue 14, Feb. 2014, for those who have kept their back issues of The Recusant...) will find the following illuminating passage:
Quote:“Since the year 2000 and in particular from 2012 the authorities of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X have taken the opposite direction of aligning themselves with modernist Rome.
The Doctrinal Declaration of the 15th April 2012, followed by the exclusion of a bishop and numerous priests and confirmed by the condemnation of the book, ‘Monseigneur Lefebvre, Our Relations with Rome’, all that shows the pertinacity in this direction which leads to death.”
So in summary: the SSPX has “taken the opposite direction” to the one we hold to and is now heading in a “direction which leads to death”. Now why might anyone have interpreted that as a parting of ways between the SSPX and signatories of the letter…? Of course, there is always a rhetorical point which can be made, something along the lines of: ‘We are the real continuation of the SSPX, we are the real continuation of the work of Archbishop Lefebvre, the current leadership of the SSPX are the ones causing a rupture by departing in a direction of their own choosing!’ That is quite true. But it is far from clear that this is what the Dominicans mean by denying before all the world any rupture between themselves and the SSPX. The signatories of the 1988 Open Letter to Cardinal Gantin (see p.6) were keen to point out the rupture between themselves and the conciliar church to which they did not wish to belong. We should therefore have no qualms about owning up to the rupture between ourselves and the modern, conciliar, branded neo-SSPX. There is a rupture, not one of our making, but it is there nonetheless. That Avrillé should now appear to be seeking to convince the world that there is no rupture between themselves and the present-day SSPX is troubling in the extreme. As mentioned above, the whole reference is in itself ambiguous. Perhaps it can be explained in a satisfactory way. But on the face of it it raises more questions than it answers.
(While we are on the topic of the January 2014 “Letter of Appeal to the Faithful”, here is an interesting little aside. My own immediate response upon reading this letter was to take the letter at its word. It literally is an appeal, one directed towards the Faithful. Furthermore, it draws towards a conclusion with the following words:
Quote:“We put our priesthood at the disposal of all those who want to remain faithful in the combat for the Faith. This is why from now on, we are committed to respond to the demands which will be made on us, ... everywhere we are required to do so.”
It did occur to me to wonder cynically whether, in accordance with the French national stereotype, the “faithful” appealed to by this letter were in reality only “French faithful.” But I decided to give them a fair chance. I wrote in French to the email address provided (addresse.fidele@gmail.com), saying that I was one such faithful and that there were many more in my country, both where I lived and further north, who had decided in good conscience that they could no longer assist at the SSPX. I pointed out that they were relatively starved of Masses, particularly in Scotland, and would very much appreciate a visit from one of the priests whose signatures were appended, which I would be happy to coordinate and which we would pay for ourselves. I never received any reply, not even the common courtesy of an acknowledgement… Make of that what you will. I’m still not quite sure what to make of it myself.)
5. Priests outside the Society…
“If there are priests outside of the Society who, clearly and without ambiguity, continue the combat of Archbishop Lefebvre, there is no reason not to support them.” There is something very, very wrong with this statement, though it is not immediately apparent and is difficult to put into words. With your patience I will attempt it! No Catholic has the right to ask permission to continue to keep the Faith, just as no married layman has the right to ask if he can continue to be married. The reason that it is wrong to ask such a thing is that these are things which are a given. They are not in question, and cannot be called into question. To ask for permission for something not in question means in practice that you have called it into question. How does this apply to the Dominicans’ statement? The SSPX is now conciliar, but the Resistance such as it is has mercifully escaped its clutches. Those priests who “continue the combat of Archbishop Lefebvre outside the Society” are obviously worthy of support!
For the rest of us, laity and priests of the Resistance, it was never in question and hence it should not really be stated as though it were. Paradoxically, had they passed over the question of “priests outside the Society” (i.e. Resistance priests) in silence and without comment, it would have been much better, whereas by affirming that there is no reason not to support them, they make it look as tough they have, or at some stage had, doubts on the question. Even more dismaying, however, is what immediately follows in the same paragraph:
6. Not taking sides…
Quote:“To support them [i.e. Resistance priests] does not mean “taking sides” for one Society against another. We have no intention to do anything “against” the Society, and do not wish its collapse : nobody wants that.”
So, in January 2014 the SSPX was headed away from Archbishop Lefebvre and on course for certain death. Now on the other hand, the most important thing is that we do not want to take sides. It looked like Avrillé had joined the fight. It now looks like they have left it. They want to sit this one out and watch. Is there any other way of interpreting this, could it be that it means something completely different? I cannot see how… Of course, anyone is welcome to join the Resistance or leave it. Almighty God gave them free will so that they can choose to fight for Him or not. But we ourselves, those of us who are in the fight and who are staying in the fight come what may, we must be clear about who is fighting along side us and who is not. Henceforward, let nobody friend or foe try to claim Avrillé for the Resistance…
7. What’s in a name?
The debate about why the Resistance is called the Resistance is one which seems to have been cropping up lately with a regularity which I am beginning to find a trifle tedious. A name does not matter so long as it signifies: that is its purpose. Everybody seems to know what we mean when we talk about the Resistance. It means those priests and faithful who are resisting the novelties and modernism introduced into the SSPX by Bishop Fellay &Co. and who are trying to continue the legacy of Archbishop Lefebvre. But “Resistance” takes less time to say! I did not coin the term and nor did you, nor for that matter did any priest that I know of, including the Avrillé Dominicans. The name, like the thing, just sort of appeared a few years back, as these things so often do. And as with all such names, the fact that popped-up spontaneous and instantly and is widely understood (in several different languages too!) will surely mean that any attempt to reform it or replace it with a name of anyone’s personal device will prove fruitless. That is why I find such attempts, or the idea of such attempts, so tedious. I know in advance that it won’t work. ‘You are not the first to try and you will not be the last. It won’t work. Don’t bother. It isn’t really necessary anyway.’ These are the sentiments which the following sentence cannot help but to inspire:
Quote:“A suggestion for those who want to remain faithful to the combat of Archbishop Lefebvre: to the word ‘resistance’, we prefer the expression ‘combat for the faith’.”
In passing, it occurs to me that one point worth mentioning here is that what matters is not those “who want to remain faithful” to the legacy of Archbishop Lefebvre, but those who do remain faithful and are remaining faithful. Richard Rich, you will remember, wanted to be on the side of Thomas More. At least that is what he said; but is that what he went and did? If wishes were horses then beggars would ride. More to the point, the road to hell is paved, so they say, with the very best such desires and the very finest of intentions. But let us not dwell on that: perhaps it is no more than an unfortunate slip of the pen. What is of far greater importance is this idea of a name and what that name signifies.
Of course, I say that a name doesn’t matter as long as we mean the same thing by it. But that rather begs the question: what do the Avrillé Dominicans mean by it? From the preceding paragraphs of their text, as discussed above, it would seem that they have in mind not only those who are actually resisting outside the SSPX, but those priests who are remaining silently inside the SSPX too! That being the case, the name “combat for the Faith” becomes almost meaningless inasmuch as it does not signify. It does not signify because it refuses to define but lumps two very different types of priest together and calls them the same thing. It is, for example, analogous to the reason why we as Catholics cannot go about calling ourselves ‘Christian’. Of course, we are Christian. But there are plenty of other sects also calling themselves ‘Christian’ who teach all manner of error and heresy, not to mention abhorrent moral practices (is there even one protestant ‘church’ or sect or denomination which officially condemns abortion or which does not officially allow divorce? I rather think not, though I could be wrong…) A name must signify, in order to signify it must define. There is a difference between us and the Plymouth Brethren: this difference needs to be signified in the name we choose.
Therefore, in recent centuries we have been known as Catholics. Similarly, there is a difference between us and the contracepting, pick-and choose, non-believing, modernist ‘Catholics’ who can be found in Novus Ordo parish churches in such alarming numbers. For this reason it is just as well that we are now known as Traditional Catholics and not merely as Catholics. Distinctions are necessary. Papering over distinctions causes confusion. That is why it is futile to say, as the very end of this statement does, that the expression “combat for the faith’:
Quote:“...this expression exists since the beginning of Tradition and includes all those who faithfully continue the combat of Archbishop Lefebvre, no matter what organization they belong to.”
...for if that is so, and if the organisations in question include the SSPX, how does one distinguish a very important reality? The answer, it seems to me, is that the expression is designed specifically to avoid making such a distinction. That is why nobody should adhere to it, “...and not only because one does not define oneself by something negative” - which is not true in any case: Archbishop Lefebvre was a great anti-liberal known throughout the world for being the bishop who opposed the Council and was against the New Mass; St. Pius X is known to history as the anti-Modernist Pope. Whether it be positively or negatively, the most important thing about a name or label is that it does define!
In summary then: the Avrillé Dominicans have a different conception of the fight, of how it is being fought and of who is fighting it. And they have a different name for it too. They see themselves as not taking sides, not opposing the neo-SSPX, and they make no distinction between those priests who (largely for reasons of comfort) have stayed silently in the SSPX and those who have sacrificed all in order to leave and carry on the fight. They call this ‘the combat for the Faith’. We are committed to a struggle to preserve Tradition in the footsteps of Archbishop Lefebvre by rescuing Tradition out from within a Society of St. Pius X which secretly despises it, which is slowly watering it down and poisoning it to death and which wishes to pander to its enemies. We call this the Resistance. Two different names for two different things. As long as we all know which one we support, we can be thankful for that: one of the worst evils is confusion in the ranks. At least we have been spared the confusion of considering as comrades-in-arms those who in reality are no such thing and who see things differently to us. We know what the Resistance is, we support it and we are part of it. Let us hope and pray that one day the Avrillé Dominicans will see the futility of their current posture and will one day abandon the “combat” of their own making and join the Resistance.
St. Dominic, Pray for us.
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| Fr. Hewko Sermon/Transcript [2018]: No, the New Mass is Not Legitimately Promulgated |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-11-2021, 09:41 AM - Forum: Rev. Father David Hewko
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Taken from the archived Catacombs.
Many thanks to the Catacombs member, Deus Vult, for the transcription!
No, the New Mass was not legitimately promulgated!
If it was we would be obligated to attend it and Archbp. Lefebvre would have been obligated to say it.
Fr. Hewko @12:07- The Novus Ordo rite of the New Mass is an insult to God. It is not pleasing to Him and it shuts off the fountain of grace. He doesn't [shut off grace], rather the men of the Church have by changing the Mass.
This is why our fight is so serious right now because the new-SSPX has accepted the New Mass as legitimately promulgated. This is a very serious statement which Archbp. Lefebvre would never have succumbed to. He fought that statement - legitimately promulgated. Legitimately promulgated means it's good for souls, it sanctifies souls, it gives grace. Archbishop Lefebvre said, no way! That New Mass does not give grace. He said, I'd rather form priests. I can form them on tradition of the traditional Mass, but I cannot form them on the New Mass.
Rome once said to Archbp. Lefebvre, 'Look, just say one time the New Mass, just once and all this friction between Rome and Econe will cease. We'll have peace.' Did the Archbishop put peace above truth? Not at all. He told the Holy Father, Paul VI at the time, "I cannot form priests on the New Mass. I will not say it and I will not participate in it." And he was right.
This is why the new SSPX has to condemn the Doctrinal Declaration that accepts Vatican II in the light of tradition, that accepts the New Code of Canon Law, that accepts the New Mass and the New Sacraments as valid and legitimately promulgated! This is serious war.
This is a serious attack on the work of Archbp. Lefebvre [and] on Catholic tradition. That's why we don't go with the new-SSPX. We stay faithful to the SSPX Archbishop Lefebvre founded.
So what did Daniel the prophet say? Daniel the prophet said, In those days (speaking of the future) they will establish the abomination of desolation and remove the Sacrifice from the holy place. The holy place, as the prophet Micaiah said, would be everywhere all over the earth. Everywhere there will be offered a clean oblation to My Name. A clean oblation, that means no sprinkling of blood. It reflects the clean oblation of Melchisedech, that Abraham knelt to and received his blessing. And Melchisedech, what did he offer as a sacrifice pleasing to God? Bread and wine which prefigured the union of the sacrifice of the lamb of Abel and the union of the sacrifice of Melchisedech, perfectly united in the sacrifice of the Mass.
In the sacrifice of the Mass it says in St. John, St. Matthew, St. Luke: When supper was ended, then He took the chalice, to introduce not a supper but a sacrifice and He consecrated the bread, "This is My Body. He consecrated the chalice - HIC EST ENIM CALIX SANGUINIS MEI, NOVI ET AETERNI TESTAMENTI - This is My Blood. As the Priest intones the Psalms (the propers of the Mass) at the Introit, in the Gradual and the Communion he intones the Psalms. Christ on the Cross intoned the Mass -the Introit: Blood of the New and Eternal Testament..."
That Lamb would be sacrificed on the Cross, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest who on the Cross intoned Psalm 21. Deus meus, Deus meus quare me dereliguisti - My God my God why has Thou abandoned me? This is the first verse of Psalm 21. Normally at a Mass, especially on Palm Sunday, the choir, the schola will sing the full Psalm. Christ intoned it on the Cross. And what does this Psalm speak of? Fat bulls have surrounded Me, dogs have surrounded Me. They have divided My garments among them and cast dice over them. They have pierced My hands and My feet, they have numbered all My bones. That was the prophetic Psalm of Christ's Mass.
He fulfilled that Mass and He commanded the Apostles, Hoc facite - Do this same Mass, do this same Sacrifice till the end of the world.
That's why the Abomination of Desolation has been set up and the Sacrifice has been removed from our Catholic Churches all over the world. Replacing the real Sacrifice with a ceremonial "fruit of the vine and work of human hands" which does not give grace and it does not please God. Nor does the Latin Tridentine Mass please God when it's sandwiched between new Masses in the local dioceses who approve of this new Mass. They use the new Mass to the most disgraceful bait to lure traditional Catholics, who have a love for tradition, lure to a Latin Mass and then destroy their faith by the ambiance environment of the new Mass and the new Conciliar Church. So they end up eroding and losing their faith anyway. They use the Tridentine Mass as bait to do this.
Bishops have said this out of their own mouths, "The only reason why we permit the Tridentine Mass, the indult Mass, motu propio Mass is to lure them in to the Conciliar Church." This out of the mouth of Pope Benedict XVI himself. He himself said, we will get these traditional communities to gradually, slowly abandoned their rigid positions and accept the New Mass and Vatican Council II.
So there's our war. We have nothing to do, as Archbp. Lefebvre said, "We have nothing to do with this new schismatic Mass which breaks with tradition and this new schismatic church which they themselves call the Conciliar Church, the Church of the new Pentecost, the church of the new Advent." We don't want to belong to that church. We want to stay with the Roman Catholic Church of all time. The one that Christ established. The one that shines with unity and faith, the true Mass, the true Sacraments and the same profession of Faith as our ancestors.
[Emphasis mine.]
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| SSPX Propaganda War |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-11-2021, 08:42 AM - Forum: The New-Conciliar SSPX
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Taken from The Recusant
SSPX Propaganda War - Part I
Latest from SSPX.org [January 3, 2014]: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"
In the last issue, we attempted to make our readers aware of the importance of the laity in the propaganda war. Since then, the US District website has helpfully given us a prime example of this in the form of the most recent “Pastor's Corner” article on sspx.org, entitled: “The 'Need to Know' vs. Peace of Soul”
That's right; read that title again. Says it all really, doesn't it? The very fact that “need to know” is in inverted commas appears to imply that really there isn't any need to know anything. Not by you, the reader, at any rate. The article might equally have been entitled “Ignorance is Bliss”. Before even reading the article, we are already aware of what it will attempt to say. “We're right – they're wrong. We're the ones in authority! Who are they? Don't listen to them. Only listen to us.” This is an old, well-worn theme which will be familiar to many of our older readers who remember Vatican II and the introduction of the Novus Ordo some forty or more years ago.
In many ways, we ought all to be flattered at such a backhanded compliment. It tells us that (in the eyes of the US District website at least), the opposition to the SSPX sell-out is alive and well, and that our influence is very much feared. This latest, lamentable attempt of the SSPX pro-sellout camp to silence their critics and bolster the morale of those faitful who have stayed loyal to them, is but the latest attempt in a succession of several such.
Who remembers a series of video interviews entitled “Against the Rumours”? With would-be clever camera work and music which was uncannily similar to that with which the CNS Fellay interview began, this was a home made copy-cat version of that more professionally made (if no less cringe-worthy) offering from CNS. Although billed in advance as something we would not want to miss, every question will be answered, no issue avoided, no stone left unturned – it turned out to be half an hour of listening to Fr. Rostand being thrown softball questions by his own employee, and yet still managing to produce a great deal of waffle and hot air even at that!
Who remembers a certain article by Fr. Juan Carlos Iscara? Faced with churchmen who profess and preach heresy, we should be silent in order to reunite with the heretics in as inoffensive a way possible. That (allegedly) is what St. Basil tells us! Well, not many people were fooled and the article did no good to its author and publishers nor to the cause which it was supposed to be aiding, other than to provoke a stern, public rebuttal from Bp. Tissier de Mallerais. Within a few weeks, the article was gone.
Who remembers an interview given by Fr. Rostand to the Remnant? Lots of interesting, well-prepared questions from Michael Matt, and from Fr. Rostand nothing but an endless succession of “I cannot comment”, “Let's wait and see”, “We musn't speculate about that” etc. Had one of the contributors of The Recusant been given the task of composing a parody interview, we could hardly have done his reputation more damage than he did himself with that embarrassing non-interview.
Each of these attempts were so utterly ineffectual that one may be forgiven for wondering whether they ever really constituted a serious attempt to convince anyone at all, or whether their whole purpose from the beginning was never anything more than a public show of continuing, uncritical loyalty towards Menzingen on the part of Fr. Rostand. But “let's not speculate” - after all, this is undoubtedly one of those things which we “don't need to know”! Whatever the case may be, each of these failures was quietly removed from the website within a short time and never referred to again. Not surprisingly, many of us have even begun to forget about them. This is, in its own way, unfortunate, since we ought not to let their authors off the hook quite so easily. Realistically, however, we have every expectation that, like all those previous attempts, this latest article will soon be equally gone and forgotten. However, while it remains on public display we will make good use of this opportunity to point out some things of importance, and since it is often just as well to point out the obvious, here are a few obvious things needing to be pointed out.
Firstly, the very phrase “need to know” has interesting connotations. Apart from anything else, it implies (correctly, in this case), that there is indeed something to be known which we do not already know. Of course, the inverted commas imply that Bp. Fellay, Fr. Rostand and his allies believe we do not really need to know any more than they choose to tell us. Many of us beg to differ from this view. There is a reason why we all chose at one time or another to support the SSPX. We wish to save our souls and the souls of our families, and we do so by clinging to the whole, 100% pure, unadulterated Catholic Faith and Tradition.
Anything which might affect or alter that Faith and Tradition, or weaken it, or dilute it in any way whatsoever is of vital importance to us because our foremost interest is concerned: the salvation of our soul. We therefore have a right and a serious duty before God to know anything which might reasonably be expected to have a bearing or impact on it. To do otherwise, much worse to seek to keep ourselves in ignorance of potential dangers to the Faith or to Tradition, would be a serious failing and negligence for which we would answer to Almighty God. It would be morally wrong for us not to wish to know, for example, what Bishop Fellay's intentions are, what Rome's intentions are, or what the outcome of the next months and years will bring for the SSPX and how that will affect us.
If the SSPX effectively neuters itself and ceases to be what it was (whether it be in the wake of a deal with modern Rome, as would certainly be the case, or beforehand, in anticipation/preparation for such a deal, which is also a distinct possibility and has already begun to happen at least in part), then it seems clear that an SSPX-going layman has not only a right but a positive duty to take an interest in it, to inform himself and his fellow Catholics around him as far as is possible. It would be wrong to do otherwise. After all, we are not talking about the private life of some idiotic “celebrity” being “invaded” by the tabloid media. We are talking about the public discourses of churchmen who hold visible ecclesiastical office, and who have the future of millions of souls and whole societies in their hands. A Bishop has no right to ask people not to pry into what he believes about Vatican II, especially when the purpose of his becoming a bishop in the first place was precisely to continue opposition to that Council's uncatholic effects, and even more so when he has recently given, voluntarily and on his own initiative, an interview to a pro-Vatican II website, in which interview he appears to let that infamous Council off the hook!
Secondly, the article as a whole is one gigantic non sequitur. It spends a lot of time talking about “scapegoating complexes”, about how many people feel they have a “right to know everything”, and contains a gratuitous reference to Martin Luther whose relevance is unclear. “The mindset that I have a right to all knowledge regardless of duty of state or position in life,” we are helpfully informed, “originates in the liberal perspective” - which may well be true, but this hardly applies to the crisis in the SSPX. Those who oppose a deal with modern Rome do not seek to know “everything”, merely the things which affect us and of which we need to be assured (with real assurances, as opposed to platitudes – actions speak louder than words). In this case, that means principally those things regarding the position of the SSPX and the apparent desire on the part of certain clerics to subjugate us in an agreement with the modernist foe.
The author tells us that: “Non-SSPX members do not have a strict right to be kept informed about the internal affairs of the SSPX, which is a religious congregation”. So there we have it. Of course, there is a sense in which this can be true: it entirely depends on what information is being sought and what one regards as merely “internal affairs”. If a layman were demanding to know the age and date of birth of every entrant into an SSPX seminary, for example, or the colour of the curtains in every SSPX priory, or how often and by what means each priest gets his hair cut, he would surely have no right to know, since it is hard to see in what way those things concern him.
But if a layman wishes to know the contents of the infamous Doctrinal Preamble (didn't Bp. Fellay promise us all over a year ago that he would not keep it secret for long and would reveal what it contained?) or what Bishop Fellay's true intentions are regarding Rome (a fair question at this stage, since he has not been altogether consistent of late!) or what he can reasonably expect from the SSPX in future, then that is surely a different matter altogether, since these are things which he can reasonably expect to affect him, his soul, and the souls of any family or dependants which he might have.
Sadly, however, this is a distinction which the “Pastor” from his corner does not bother to make. He merely leaves us with the definite impression that if we wish to know anything about the SSPX which might conceivably be termed “internal”, anything of any real interest or import in other words, then we ought not to expect anything but a stern telling off. You are a layman. The SSPX is a religious order and you do not belong to it. Now be quiet and go away. Never mind that the SSPX has spent the last 40 years keeping the Faith alive while the rest of the Church slipped, by degrees, into apostasy. If Bp. Fellay and Fr. Pfluger now wish to make us unwilling bed-fellows of those same apostates, that is none of your business, dear reader. Mind your own business, you nosey parker! Stop worrying about things that don't concern you.
The priest at your local chapel may at any time be replaced with someone far less offensive to the modern world, your children in SSPX school or attending SSPX camps may be taught the luminous mysteries of the Rosary or may unaccountably develop a respect and affection for Benedict XVI (or if they do not, might be refused a place as undesirables!), the name of the local bishop may become increasingly familiar among parishioners at your SSPX mass-centre, sermons against religious liberty and ecumenism may become a thing of the past, with nobody any longer inclined to think, much less say, anything negative about the separation of Church and State, and any mention of Freemasonry the latest sign of being an extremist fanatic and the fastest route to harsh social treatment at the hands of your fellow parishioners... but what concern of yours is that? You need to realise is that those things, and many more horrors besides, do not concern you!
The rest of the article is sufficiently unoriginal as to require little comment from anyone: much of it really speaks for itself. Take this little gem for example:
Quote:“In the end, through the person’s ever-growing bitterness (which Archbishop Lefebvre specifically warned traditionalists about), the person develops an obsessive mind thereby losing his balance of temperance in the social life – but in the use of his time, devices and even creatures.”
Note the completely superfluous reference to Archbishop Lefebvre. Spare a thought for the poor man who wrote the article, whoever he may be. He had to try to get in a mention somewhere, but couldn't say a great deal about him or quote from him at length. Any quote from Archbishop Lefebvre would certainly contradict his whole article! Apparently we are all bitter. How can one argue with that?
Then there is this:
Quote:“Those who adhere to such an attitude reveal a lack of fortitude and constancy – obsessed by security, they see danger everywhere every time.”
Worried that the SSPX might sell out? You're an obsessive who lacks fortitude and constancy! It occurs to us that this type of rhetoric bears more than a passing resemblance to John XXIII's famous speech at the opening of Vatican II:
Quote:“In the daily exercise of Our pastoral office, it sometimes happens that We hear certain opinions which disturb Us—opinions expressed by people who, though fired with a commendable zeal for religion, are lacking in sufficient prudence and judgment in their evaluation of events. They can see nothing but calamity and disaster in the present state of the world. They say over and over that this modern age of ours, in comparison with past ages, is definitely deteriorating. One would think from their attitude that history, that great teacher of life, had taught them nothing. They seem to imagine that in the days of the earlier councils everything was as it should be so far as doctrine and morality and the Church's rightful liberty were concerned. We feel that We must disagree with these prophets of doom, who are always forecasting worse disasters, as though the end of the world were at hand.” [emphasis ours]
As we know, history records who was truly the more “prudent” and who best served the interests of Christ's Church.
Need any more be said? We do not recommend that readers look up the article in question or waste time in reading it – there is no danger of your being taken in by it, but it might possibly raise your blood pressure to see just how much your intelligence is being insulted by being offering anything of quite such poor quality. We have read it so that you don't have to, and our verdict is that one really would have to be something of a simpleton to fall for an article like this latest “Pastor's Corner”. The fact that the US District offers its readers such a poor diet of transparently specious nonsense may, however, be an unfortunate indication of how they view many of their faithful. If this is so, we sincerely hope that they are mistaken.
Finally, a little word about peace of soul. As I am sure you will have noticed, the “Pastor in the Corner” has an interesting idea of what constitutes “peace of soul” and of how it may be acquired, too. I speak only for myself, but collaborating in the greatest betrayal of recent times would contribute very little to my peace of soul. It is an interesting paradox that exterior turmoil and conflict (in the right cause, of course - and what cause is more worthy than this?) can work in inverse proportion to peace of soul.
The Saints fought the hardest for Almighty God, and were often embroiled in all kinds of controversies in their day. Intellectual indolence and moral cowardice is not the way to happiness. Was Archbishop Lefebvre a man who spent his life avoiding conflicts or keeping quiet regarding controversies? In truth, like those Catholics of the early Church who rejoiced in their good fortune at being given an opportunity to become martyrs, we ought really to be extremely grateful to Almighty God for having presented us with so clear-cut an opportunity to show what we are really capable of doing in His service.
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| GREC: 'Towards a Necessary Reconciliation' - A Book Review |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-11-2021, 08:28 AM - Forum: The New-Conciliar SSPX
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Taken from The Recusant.com
Book Review of "Towards a Necessary Reconciliation"
Reviewed by 'Gentiloup'
I just finished reading the book by Fr. Michel Lelong, entitled: Towards the Necessary Reconciliation - Pour la nécessaire réconciliation.
It is a small work of 159 pages, not exciting but quickly read. It is a history of GREC, “Groupe de Réflexion Entre Catholiques”.
This booklet summarizes the work accomplished by GREC. It is a glowing report by the author who helped to found GREC. The goal was to open up SSPX to reconcile with Conciliar Rome. This little book unintentionally clarifies the downward slide of the SSPX and why the attempted ralliement with Conciliar Rome was able to corrupt the very spirit at the heart of SSPX.
The GREC “think tank” was founded in 1997 with the goal to integrate SSPX with Modernist Rome and to convince it to accept the Second Vatican Council.
The founders were Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Pérol and Fr. Michel Lelong, author of the book and fervent defender of inter-religious dialogue and the Council. Mr Pérol had been the Ambassador of France to Rome.
GREC’s goal is not ambiguous. It is clearly defined throughout the book by different protagonists as being “Interpreting Vatican II in the light of Tradition,” according to the formula John-Paul II gave to Archbishop Lefebvre in 1978.
Fr. Michel Lelong is convinced of the benefits of the Council, especially of Nostra Aetate, and is a specialist in dialogue with Muslims.
The Ambassador’s idea was to enter into dialogue with the traditional Catholics of SSPX in the same way that he had dialogued with other religions and from which, to his regret, the SSPX had been excluded.
DICI editor Fr. Alain Lorans, one of the four founders of GREC, was the spokesman for the SSPX District of France. He immediately obtained permission from Bishop Fellay to participate in the dialogue “for a necessary reconciliation.” He was very attentive in keeping Bishop Fellay up-to-date with the progress of the dialogue.
The 'Charter' of the group was defined by Mr. Pérol shortly before his death: it is “to interpret Vatican II in light of Tradition,” which Benedict XVI himself calls the Hermeneutic of Continuity, in opposition to the Hermeneutic of Rupture as Archbishop Lefebvre ruefully observed at the end of his long quest to reach a tentative agreement with the Conciliar Church. In the end, Archbishop Lefebvre could see that an agreement was impossible, hence the consecrations of the four bishops in 1988.
GREC commenced its activities with small committees formed around Mrs. Pérol and Fr. Michel Lelong, with Fr. Emmanuel le Chalard of SSPX “who did not cease to provide discreet support and pay special attention to GREC.”
Page 24:
Quote:Two other priests contributed decisively to the creation and life of our Catholic think tank. One of them who has since returned to God was the Dominican, Fr. Olivier de La Brosse, the other, Fr. Lorans of the SSPX. I got to know them in 1997 during a dinner to which we had been invited by Mrs. Pérol. On that day GREC was born.
Details: This meeting took place in Rome at Madame Pérol’s home.
• Fr. Olivier de La Brosse, who died in 2009, was the spokesman for the Bishops' Conference of France.
• Fr. Lorans was the spokesman for the SSPX District of France.He had obtained permission from Bishop Fellay to dialogue for a "necessary reconciliation" with the group.
Thus we have the four founders of GREC:
• Mrs. Pérol
• Fr. Michel Lelong
• Fr. Lorans
• Fr. de la Brosse
In the months that followed, the protagonists remained quietly within their respective communities.
Soon after, conferences would be organized, but without fanfare, for it was necessary that this should remain confidential.
Page 27:
Quote:“When we meet in friendship, I often think of Gilbert Pérol who, while actively participating in Christian-Muslim dialogue, had the idea of this dialogue between Catholics.”
The apostolic nuncios supported this group, along with various other personalities of the Conciliar Church who regularly informed the Pope of the progress of the dialogue.
The FSSP Superior of France, Fr. Ribeton, joined the group and, a little later, so did the head of The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest.
To shorten this review, you should know that the initiative for the "lifting of the excommunications" of the four bishops of the SSPX can be traced back to GREC who had already requested it during the 2000 Jubilee year! Fr. Lelong reveals this explicitly in the book and provides many quotations from exchanges of letters amongst the group, the Roman authorities, and the Superior General of SSPX.
When we are told that the lifting of the excommunications was one of the points of the Society’s road map, that is not the whole truth as the road map actually initiated with GREC. The term returning to “full communion” is ceaselessly used.
Page 42:
Quote:As far as I'm concerned, having been a priest for fifty years and having devoted my ministry to the relationship between the Church and the Muslims, I am deeply attached to the teachings of Vatican II and I am trying to raise awareness and understanding of those among our fellow Catholics who follow Archbishop Lefebvre and his successors.
Thus, the message is clear - Bishop Fellay did not go to play as a naïve schoolboy, suddenly discovering in 2012 through a letter from the Pope the expectation of SSPX to recognize Vatican II. That had been clear from the beginning of the collaboration with GREC.
On January 6, 2004, Fr. de la Brosse sent a letter to Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos of Ecclesia Dei to give an account of the “Tradition and Modernity” colloquium organized by GREC on November 22nd, 2003, in Paris:
Pages 45-46:
Quote:At our request, Bishop Philippe Breton was appointed by Bishop Ricard, President of CEF [French Bishops Conference], as the “affiliated bishop” of the group, to attend the meetings and provide the opening prayer, with Fr. Lorans of the SSPX presiding over the final prayer. . . .
Thus the very purpose of the colloquium was established: French Catholics of various and even opposite sensitivities freely agreed to engage in a dialogue that did not prejudice total reconciliation in any way—a field reserved to competent superiors—but this opens the possibility, when the times comes, that the dialogue caucus will find before them partners capable of understanding and mutual respect. . . .
The number of participants was 40 people, all of whom were invited individually by group members. . . .
Very great discretion was observed at the express request of Bishop Ricard, which corresponded to our intentions. No professional journalists were present in the room. No information or comments were leaked during the days that followed, neither in the Catholic nor the secular press.
Pages 45-46:
Quote:Thus, thanks to support from the Apostolic Nuncio and also to the efforts of Frs. La Brosse and Barthe, Cardinal Ratzinger, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, was kept informed of our activities. The election of Benedict XVI was welcomed . . . with great hope. . . . We know, indeed, how during the first months of his pontificate the new Pope met with Bishop Fellay and made statements and decisions that clearly manifested his desire to re-establish unity in the Church through a Hermeneutic of Continuity and not of rupture with regards to the teachings of Vatican II.
After the Motu Proprio of 2007, the organizers of GREC sent a new letter to the Pope, asking him again to lift the excommunications.
From page 55 follows a history of GREC’s activities and of the key figures of different sides who were to be involved in this process.
Following the Pope’s meeting with Bishop Fellay in 2005, GREC expanded the SSPX side to include among others: a very active Fr. Célier, and laymen Jacques-Régis du Cray and Marie-Alix Doutrebente.
It was then that the colloquia revealed the “doctrinal and spiritual convergence” between the two parties.
Page 69:
Quote:On June 10, 2010, following “a particularly unfair media campaign,” a GREC meeting was held around “Fr. Matthew Rouge, Rector of St. Clotilde Basilica in Paris . . . and Fr. Lorans, in charge of SSPX communications.” with the purpose of declaring its support of the Pope.
That evening, thanks to the two speaker's presentation and the discussion that followed, we sensed how much a reconciliation between Catholics around Pope Benedict XVI was expected and hoped for.
GREC devoted its meetings to Vatican II, Archbishop Lefebvre, and the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, with the participation of historians and theologians providing different points of view, so as to make its contribution during the 2010-2011 academic year.
Page 85:
Quote:At the time of this writing, one can hope that these meetings will lead to an agreement without delay. But the SSPX must understand that if it has much to offer to Rome, it also has much to receive from it. It must therefore stop rejecting Vatican II outright and accept the guiding principles in interpreting them as proposed by the Holy Father today.
The stories of different GREC actors follow, including those for SSPX of Fr. Lorans, Marie-Alix Doutrebente and Jacques-Régis du Cray.
A very important place is given to Fr. Paul Aulagnier, who began when he was District Superior of France, before the foundation of GREC, to open a dialogue in 1992 with Conciliarists, notably with Dom de Lesquen, Abbot of Notre Dame de Randol. He continued this role later after becoming a member of the IBP - Institute de Bon Pasteur / Good Shepherd Institute. Still very active in support of ralliement, he has already rejoined and has obtained a parish in the Conciliar structure.
Fr. Aulagnier Page 104:
Quote:Beginning in 1992, as District Superior of SSPX in France, I was happy to initiate new contacts with recognized ecclesiastical authorities.
One day, when passing by Randol . . . Abbot Dom de Lesquen was talking to a young man in the forecourt of the monastery. Knowing the role he had played with Dom Gérard during his rapprochement with Rome on July 10, 1988, I approached him and spoke with him . . . about the rapprochement with Rome, of a normalization of the SSPX with Rome . .
To understand the process of ralliement, it suffices to know the secretive work of the group whose members admit to it.
A reminder: this book was published in December 2011.
It is very important to be familiar with this book so as to know what is of importance in the future not to do: no doctrinal discussions at any level so long as Rome has not converted.
That was the point made by Archbishop Lefebvre and which always prevailed until the narrowly missed ralliement of June 2012:
“No practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement.”
Inferiors do not form the superiors, and yet, after a practical agreement, the SSPX would find itself under the authority of a Modernist Pope and Conciliar Congregations.
The truth does not support the least compromise with error, and yet the process initiated by GREC is nothing other than a search for compromise.
In conclusion, here is what Fr. David Hewko has to say:
Fr. Hewko in his Open Letter to His Excellency Bishop Fellay, Society Priests, Religious and Faithful, dated November 8, 2012:
Quote:Fr. Ludovic Barrielle (so highly revered by the Archbishop) commented in 1982:
"I am writing this to serve as a lesson for everyone. The day that the SSPX abandons the spirit and rules of its Founder, it will be lost. Furthermore, all our brothers who, in the future, allow themselves to judge and condemn the Founder and his principles, will show no hesitation in eventually taking away from the Society the traditional teaching of the Church and the Mass instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ".
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| Primary Sources for Studying the Crisis in the SSPX |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-11-2021, 07:55 AM - Forum: The New-Conciliar SSPX
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In 2013 the Editor of The Recusant compiled an well-organized document, entitled Primary Sources for Studying the Crisis in the SSPX, showing the new direction of the SSPX, directly from the words of the SSPX bishops and priests themselves.
It is important to note that these 'sources' are not opinions that some hold that there is a new direction, rather, these are SSPX publications, declarations, and interviews. These are directly from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
The Document may be viewed online or downloaded from here: Primary Sources for Studying the Crisis in the SSPX
Contents:
1. SSPX General Chapter Declaration, July 2006
2. “Letter to Members of the SSPX” (Bp. Fellay) from ‘Cor Unum’ of March 2012
3. Letter of Three Bishops to the General Council, 7th April 2012
4. Reply of the General Council to the Three Bishops, 14th April, 2012
5. Doctrinal Declaration, 15th April 2012
6. CNS interview with Bishop Fellay, and CNS’s accompanying article about the interview, May 2012
7. DICI Interview with Bishop Fellay, 8th June 2012
8. Letter of Bishop Fellay to Benedict XVI, 17th June 2012
9. Letter from Fr. Thouvenot (SSPX Secretary General) to priests of the SSPX, 25th June 2012
10. Letter to Fr. Thouvenot by Fr. Matthew Clifton, 27th June 2012
11. SSPX General Chapter: Declaration & “Six Conditions”, July 2012
12. Fr. Pfluger interview with ‘Kirchliche Umschau’, 16th October 2012
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| Dr who mocked anti-vaxers dies days after getting jab |
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Posted by: Deus Vult - 03-10-2021, 11:12 PM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Doctor Mocks Anti-Vaxxers While Getting
Experimental COVID Jab – Dies Days Later
(Natural News) Just days after getting injected with a Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine, Dr. Witold Rogiewicz, a Polish physician who openly mocked vaccine skeptics, died from the jab.
The official story is that Dr. Rogiewicz died of “heart failure,” but it is painfully obvious that he suffered the most serious adverse event of all associated with the vaccine: death.
While he was getting injected, a masked Dr. Rogiewicz arrogantly told the camera:
“Vaccinate yourself to protect yourself, your loved ones, friends and also patients.”
He went on to make fun of “anti-vaxxers” and “anti-coviders” who take issue with the fact that Chinese virus vaccines have never been long-term safety tested, nor are their manufacturers liable in the event of injury or death.
“And to mention quickly, I have info for anti-vaxxers and anti-coviders,” he stated in Polish. “If you want to contact Bill Gates, you can do this through me. I can also provide for you from my organism the 5G network. I am sorry I hadn’t spoke for a bit but I was just getting autism.”
Dr. Rogiewicz thought he was being funny with these cringeworthy comments, but little did he know that the joke would be ultimately on him. Within just a few short days, Bill Gates’ experimental gene therapy injection ended Dr. Rogiewicz’s life.
“At night, our Friend and Collaborator, Dr. Witold Rogiewicz, suddenly passed away,” reads a post from the VIP Clinic where this pro-vaxxer worked.
“We are devastated by this news. We send our deepest sympathy to the family he loved very much. We cannot believe … Witek, we will miss you very much.”
The clinic’s post went on to explain that all of Dr. Rogiewicz’s patients will be contacted immediately so as to “not leave them without help.”
And who said God doesn’t have a sense of humor?
Much like how every death in 2020 was blamed on Covid-19, Dr. Rogiewicz’s death will be blamed on anything other than the vaccine. The same is true of all other deaths caused by Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines, which the mainstream media and the establishment will probably blame on anti-maskers.
As it turns out, far more people are being killed by the vaccine than from the “virus” itself, and yet such details are receiving zero media coverage because they break apart the entire phony plandemic narrative.
Hopefully Dr. Rogiewicz’s loved ones will connect the dots concerning his fate and skip the jab themselves, assuming they have not already received it. Perhaps his former patients will do the same so as to avoid potentially also dying from the injection.
All across social media, people from around the world are reporting similar patterns of post-vaccination death among their family members, most of whom probably did not mock others like Dr. Rogiewicz did, but who still bought into the plandemic lies due to fear and hysteria.
Whether coincidence or divine providence, Dr. Rogiewicz’s jesting serves as yet another lesson in that old biblical adage about pride coming before a fall. God is allowing those who are watching to see what this is all really about through incidents like this so they can make better choices than the one Dr. Rogiewicz made.
“Why do I oppose the vaccine so much? Because my uncle died at a young age when he was injected,” one person on Twitter wrote about why she opposes the Chinese virus vaccine. “His body could not take the vaccine’s side effects and passed away by cardiac arrest.”
“If it was so safe, my grandpa (who was healthy) wouldn’t have died immediately after getting the vaccine,” wrote another about how the WuFlu jab killed her grandfather.
More of the latest news about Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine deaths can be found at Pandemic.news.
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| A Catechism of the Crisis in the SSPX |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-10-2021, 08:43 PM - Forum: The New-Conciliar SSPX
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A Catechism of the Crisis in the SSPX
By a French priest of the SSPX [2013]
1. Has there ever really been a crisis?
Yes. Bp. Fellay speaks of “a very great trial in the SSPX” (Econe, 07/09/2012); “A sorrowful trial” with “serious problems” (Cor Unum, Nov. 2012) “The greatest that we’ve ever had” (01/11/2012)
2. Why speak of these problems in public?
For the simple reason that we must “never say these theological discussions are a matter for specialists and do not concern us. It must be emphasised to show that exactly the opposite is the case: because they touch on faith, these issues concern us all, clergy and laity. We must therefore take pains to understand and make understood the issues. "(Fr. de Cacqueray, Suresnes, 31/12/2008)
3. Why deal with these problem in the form of a catechism?
Because, as Mgr. Fellay said, “Aware of the vital need on behalf of souls to preach time and time again the truths of Faith, the Catholic Church has always sought to make available to her children the teaching of eternal truths ... May the pages of the Catechism enlighten souls of good will ... "(Preface to the catechism of Christian doctrine)
4. Of what exactly has the crisis in the SSPX consisted?
“There has been a challenge to authority, a radical challenge, since it accused the authorities of no longer directing the Society towards its end” (Bp. Fellay, Cor Unum, Nov.2012)
5. But wasn’t this crisis overcome at the General Chapter in July 2012?
No. “There is a distrust of authority.” (Bp. Fellay, Econe, 07/09/2012
6. Why has the sickness not been treated?
Because, as Bp. Fellay himself recognised, “I am well aware that this does not happen in a day and it is useless to say ''Trust us!''. It is after the facts, in actions, that little by little it will come back. It is following the facts, and through acts, that little by little it will return.
7. Have there not been any significant actions by Menzingen since then?
Of course! The expulsion of Bp. Williamson!
8. But is that enough to conclude that the crisis is still going on? You’d have to show that, apart from some disciplinary matters, Menzingen continues its doctrinal slide.
This is exactly what we are going to do: explain how and why Menzingen is continuing down the wrong road.
9. Why would Menzingen be going down the wrong road?
Because the authorities of the SSPX refuse to get rid of the ambiguity which they have created.
10. What is this ambiguity?
It is twofold and concerns the two acts performed by Benedict XVI which are favourable to Tradition in a material way and which Bp. Fellay presents as formally favouring Tradition.
11. What do these strange words mean?
When you have cement, sand and gravel, you have a house materially speaking, but not formally. There is a huge difference.
12. What is the first act of Benedict XVI which is a problem?
This is the Motu Proprio of Pope Benedict XVI on the use of the Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970. Bishop Fellay claims that "By the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI has restored to its rightful place the Tridentine Mass, stating clearly that the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V has never been abrogated."
(Menzingen, 07/07-2007)
13. Where is the ambiguity?
In reality, the Motu Proprio says that the Traditional Mass has never been abrogated as the extraordinary form but that it was repealed as the ordinary form. By this act, Benedict XVI made the Roman rite of Mass lose, de jure, its status as the only ordinary and official form, and relegated it to the status of “extraordinary form”, after having humiliated it by comparing its sanctity to that of the “bastard rite.” Despite these facts, no official document from Menzingen exists condemning this liturgical cohabitation.
14. But that’s just the way you see things.
No, it’s also the view of Fr. de Cacqueray in his Letter to Friends and Benefactors of 2009. The Motu Proprio, he said, “does not correspond, and is not a response, to the first requirement of the SSPX except materially speaking.” (Suresnes, 31/12/2008)
What’s more, Archbishop Lefebvre, after realising that it had been a mistake to sign an agreement with Rome in May 1988, put us on our guard after the Consecrations: “You can see clearly that they wanted to bring us back into the Conciliar Church... they want to impose these novelties on us in order to have done with Tradition. They don’t allow anything through esteem for the traditional liturgy but simply in order to trick those who they give it to and to diminish our resistance, to drive a wedge into the Traditionalist camp, in order to destroy it. That’s their policy, their tactics...” (Econe, 09/09/1988)
15. So how should Bp. Fellay have responded?
The same way the Society once upon a time responded to a similar action by Rome (the Indult of 1984). The Superior General of the SSPX said that this indult was “ruinous for the metaphysics of law”. It could only be an “argumentum ad hominem,” because “its conditions are unacceptable.” A Catholic, “who thinks with the Church, can only consider the indult as being the foundation of a request.” (Cor Unum, June 1985)
16. So, strictly speaking, the first requirement of the SSPX wasn't attained?
In effect, the General Chapter of 2006 spoke of “the necessity of having two requirements” in the “discussions with Rome.” A note recalled the first one: “Complete liberty without any conditions for the Tridentine Mass.” However, the liberating of the Mass, in addition to the deception already noted, was not unconditional. Article 2 of the Motu Proprio gives this freedom to say Mass without need for “authorisation from the Apostolic See or the Ordinary” only to “Masses which are celebrated without the people.”
17. Should we therefore not have pursued discussions with the Roman authorities any further?
If we had respected what the General Chapter of 2006 had decided: that’s right, yes. And yet, Bishop Fellay did the opposite, because after recalling “the Hegelian approach of Benedict XVI, according to which the change, which was necessary, nonetheless cannot be a rupture with the past”, he wrote: “Regarding Rome, not knowing how and when the situation can change, we prefer to prepare the ground for discussions by an ad hoc group and not let ourselves be taken by surprise, if there are any surprises.” (Cor Unum, 16/07/2007)
18. What is the second act of Benedict XVI which poses a problem?
It is the decree lifting the latae sententiae excommunications of the Society Bishops (21/01/2009), which didn’t correspond either with the second requirement of the 2006 Chapter, which is to say: “The repeal of the Decree of Excommunication of the four Society Bishops.”
For, just as in 1988, “For Rome, the goal of these discussions is reconciliation, as Cardinal Gagnon says, the return of the lost sheep into the sheepfold. When we think of the history of relations between Rome and Traditionalists from 1965 to our own time, we are obliged to state that it is one cruel, relentless persecution to oblige us to submit to the Council. The conciliar, modernist Rome of today could never tolerate the existence of a healthy, vigorous branch of the Church which condemns them by its vitality.” (Abp. Lefebvre, Econe, 19/06/1988)
19. But it doesn’t matter a great deal whether the excommunications are “repealed” or “lifted”, does it?
“The Society refuses to ask for a ‘lifting of the sanctions.’ It is seeking ‘the repeal of the decree of excommunication’ and anyone can see that the terms which we employed to make our request are that way by design. We want to make manifest our conviction that the sanctions are invalid.” (Fr. de Cacqueray, Suresnes, 31/12/2008)
20. But the result is there, and in spite of everything, it is positive!
“If what we’re talking about is really the repeal of a decree - and not the lifting of excommunications – then that will be the beginning of repairing the unprecedented injustice that we know of, and we will be able to rejoice. However, if there were to be a “lifting of excommunications,” then things would be quite different. That would not correspond to our second requirement, and it would not cleanse our Bishops of the unjust proceedings that have been practised against them. If we allow it to be thought that the penalties pronounced were not invalid, and perhaps were deserved, would that not result, in a certain sense at least, in a new and more profound evil? In that case, Rome, with an appearance of compassion, would have removed penalties which have been found by the same act to have been validly or legitimately made.” (Fr. de Caqcueray, Suresnes, 31/12/2008)
21. How did Bp. Fellay react in public to the lifting of the excommunications?
He expressed his “filial gratitude to the Holy Father for this act which, going beyond the SSPX, will benefit the whole Church ... Besides our recognition to the Holy Father, and to all those who helped him make this courageous act, we are happy that the decree of 21st January sees “discussions” with the Holy See as necessary... In this new climate, we have a firm hope of arriving soon at a recognition of the rights of Catholic Tradition.” (Menzingen, 24/01/2009)
22. Did anyone take issue with this communiqué at that time?
Yes. On the occasion of a meeting of priors, one of them commented that the communiqué told a lie, was deceiving our faithful, and that things needed clarification. He used this image: “When I order a pear cake, and I get delivered an apple cake, I can’t say I’ve obtained what I asked for.”
23. Did Bp. Fellay publicly correct the position he had taken?
No. The following year, the prior was silenced and appointed as a junior priest in a new post. In the meantime, Bp. Fellay wrote in the internal bulletin of the Society: “At the same time as I handed over to the Cardinal the bouquet for Pope Benedict XVI, I received from his hands the decree signed by Cardinal Re, dated 21st January. How can one not see the hand of Our Lady in that? I swear to you, I am still today amazed by it. This goes beyond human expectations, even if the decree speaks of remitting [pardoning] the excommunications and not of cancelling the decree of 1988, and even if the text arranges things in such a way that the Holy See doesn’t lose face. The essential thing is still that the excommunications - which we have always contested – no longer exist, and the path recommended by us of discussions of the root problems (doctrine, faith, etc.) is recognised as necessary. In the present circumstances, it seems to me to be unrealistic to expect more from the current authorities." (Cor Unum, 08/02/2009)
24. Surely what matters is the effect?
No, since “The essential thing is that the excommunications no longer exist” is another way of saying that we’re content with having a thing materially whereas we wanted to have it formally.
25. So in spite of these “even if”s, Bishop Fellay considered the second requirement fulfilled?
Yes. Not only would he engage in discussions with Rome, but he had already begun to talk to members of a “canonical situation, when it will be possible” where “we would necessarily have to have a system of protection, as Archbishop Lefebvre so wisely foresaw, with a committee for the defence of Tradition in Rome at its head.” (Cor Unum, 08/02/2009)
26. So we began the discussions with Rome on a false foundation?
Completely, since “we don’t see reconciliation in the same way. Cardinal Ratzinger sees it in the sense of reducing us, of bringing us back to Vatican II. We see it as the return of Rome to Tradition. We don’t agree with one another. It’s a dialogue of the deaf.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Fideliter, Sept-Oct 1988)
27. But we’re no longer in the era of John-Paul II.
“But, is the thinking of Benedict XVI better in this respect than that of John Paul II? It is enough to read the study made by one of us three, The Faith in Peril from Reason, to realize that the thought of the current Pope is also impregnated of subjectivism. It is all the subjective imagination of the man in the place of the objective reality of God. It is all the Catholic religion subjected to the modern world.” (Bishops Williamson, Tissier, de Galarreta 07/04/2012)
28. All the same, even if both the requirements were not strictly speaking met, in terms of the media and also psychologically speaking they showed that Benedict XVI was really benevolent towards the Society and its doctrinal position.
“As a subjectivist this can easily be the case, because liberal subjectivists can tolerate even the truth, but not if one refuses to tolerate error. He would accept us within the framework of relativistic and dialectical pluralism, with the proviso that we would remain in “full communion,” in relation to the authority and to other “ecclesiastical entities.” For this reason the Roman authorities can tolerate that the Society continue to teach Catholic doctrine, but they will absolutely not permit that it condemn Conciliar teachings. That is why an even purely practical agreement would necessarily silence little by little the Society, a full critique of the Council or the New Mass. By ceasing to attack the most important of all the victories of the Revolution, the poor Society would necessarily cease being opposed to the universal apostasy of our sad times and would get bogged down.”
(Bishops Williamson, Tissier, de Galarreta 07/04/2012)
29. But when Rome calls on us to take part in discussions, we have to come running, don’t we?
No! We mustn’t rush in: “I will lay down my conditions for eventually resuming talks with Rome” (Abp. Lefebvre, Fideliter Sept-Oct 1988) Note well that these conditions are for entering back into contact, and not for signing an agreement!
30. What were the conditions, so wisely foreseen by Archbishop Lefebvre, for eventually resuming talks with Rome?
“At that point, I will be the one to lay down conditions. I shall not accept being in the position where I was put during the dialogue. No more. I will place the discussion at the doctrinal level: ‘Do you agree with the great encyclicals of all the popes who preceded you? Do you agree with Quanta Cura of Pius IX, Immortale Dei and Libertas of Leo XIII, Pascendi Gregis of Pius X, Quas Primas of Pius XI, Humani Generis of Pius XII? Are you in full communion with these Popes and their teachings? Do you still accept the entire Anti-Modernist Oath? Are you in favor of the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ? If you do not accept the doctrine of your predecessors, it is useless to talk! As long as you do not accept the correction of the Council, in consideration of the doctrine of these Popes, your predecessors, no dialogue is possible. It is useless.’ The positions will then be made more clear.” (Abp. Lefebvre, Fideliter Sept-Oct 1988)
31. Did the work of our theologians lack clarity?
Absolutely not. “On our side, our experts have shown the opposition between the Church of all time and the teaching of Vatican II, and what came from it.” (Bp. Fellay, Cor Unum, March 2012)
32. What were the results of these discussions?
“The discussions have shown a profound disagreement on virtually all the points touched upon.” (Bp. Fellay, Cor Unum, March 2012)
33. So why this “proposition from the Roman congregation to recognise the Society through the juridical status of a Personal Prelature on condition that we sign an ambiguous text?” (Bp. Fellay, Cor Unum, March 2012)
The discussions with Rome showed “that they are not ready to renounce the Second Vatican Council” and they want “to bring us to it.” However the return of the Society could “be useful” to the Conciliar Church “in order to endorse the renewal of the reform with continuity.” (Bp. De Galarreta, Albano, 07/10/2011)
34. But is Bp. Fellay aware of that?
Yes. “So we received a proposal which was an attempt to make us enter into the system of the hermeneutic of continuity.” (Bp. Fellay, Cor Unum, March 2012) And in the same document, he claims to be surprised by this proposal from Rome.
35. Surprised or not, what does he decide to do?
First of all, to call a meeting of all the Society superiors (except Bishop Williamson) at Albano to seek advice. (Oct. 2011)
36. What was said to him at this meeting?
That the offer from Rome was “confused, equivocal, false and evil concerning essentials.” “Their doctrinal preamble” is “worse than the protocol of 1988, particularly regarding the Council and the post-conciliar Magisterium.” “Given the circumstances, it is certain that in the end, after a long palaver, we would end up with absolutely nothing.” To continue the contacts would “necessarily mean some harming of the common good that we possess, for the Society and for the family of Tradition.” (Bp. De Galarreta, Albano, 07/10/2011)
37. Did he follow the advice?
No.
38. So Bishop Fellay showed a serious lack of prudence?
Yes, but that wasn’t his only fault, because doing that meant going against the will of the General Chapter of 2006. Therefore, there has been not only a very rash imprudence, but also a serious disobedience.
39. Which means?
In March 2012, the Superior General wrote the following to all the members of the Society: “The few acts of Benedict XVI ad intra affecting the liturgy, discipline and morals are important even though their implementation still leaves much to be desired. Some young bishops clearly show us their sympathies ... It may be that these things are more obvious in Rome! We now have friendly contacts in the most important dicasteries, and equally among those closest to the Pope!”
Bishop Fellay thinks he is witnessing “the restoration of the Church. While one should not exclude the return of a Julian the Apostate, I do not think this movement could be stopped. If this is true, and that's for sure, it demands of us a new position in relation to the official Church. This is the appropriate context in which to consider the question of the Society’s recognition by the official Church. It’s a question of having a supernatural view of the Church, and the fact that She is still in the hands of Our Lord Jesus Christ, although disfigured by Her enemies. Our new friends in Rome confirm that the impact of such a recognition would be extremely powerful, throughout the whole Church, like a confirmation of the importance of Tradition for the Church. All the same, such a concrete realisation requires two absolutely necessary points in order to ensure our survival: the first is that the Society not be asked for concessions on anything touching the Faith, or flowing from it (liturgy, sacraments, morals, discipline). The second is that a real liberty and autonomy of action be granted to the Society, and that it be permitted to live and develop concretely. These are the concrete circumstances which will demonstrate when the time has arrived to make steps back towards the official Church. Today, and in spite of the Roman approach of 14th September, and because of the attached conditions, that still seems to be impossible. When God wishes it, the time will arrive. We can no longer exclude the possibility, because the Pope is putting his full weight behind this matter, that it reaches a sudden end.” (Cor Unum)
40. How could he justify such a change of direction?
By scorning all friendly warnings and cancelling the decisions of the 2006 Chapter which bound him.
41. Which “friendly warnings” are you thinking of?
This one in particular: “To proceed in the direction of a practical agreement will mean breaking our word and our engagements in front of our priests, our faithful, Rome and the whole world. Such an approach would demonstrate a serious diplomatic weakness on the part of the Society, and to tell the truth, more than just a diplomatic weakness. It would be a lack of coherence, of uprightness and of firmness, the effect of which would be the loss of the credibility and moral authority which we enjoy at present. The simple fact alone of setting out down this road will bring us distrust and division. Lots of superiors and priests will have a problem of conscience and will oppose it. Authority, and even the principle of authority, will be called into question and undermined. Therefore, this is not the time to change the decision of the 2006 Chapter. (Bp. De Galarreta, Albano, 07/10/2011)
42. What did this decision of the 2006 Chapter say?
“The contacts made from time to time with the authorities in Rome have no other purpose than to help them embrace once again that Tradition which the Church cannot repudiate without losing her identity. The purpose is not just to benefit the Society, nor to arrive at some merely practical impossible agreement. When Tradition comes back into its own, "reconciliation will no longer be a problem, and the Church will spring back to life.”
43. What did Bp. Fellay think of the conditions of the 2006 Chapter?
“The 2006 Chapter gave a line which was, one might say clear, but which I would venture to suggest was too abstract. It’s a clear line, it says: the discussions are in order to help Rome return to Tradition and we don’t want to discuss a practical agreement; when Rome returns there will no longer be a problem. How does one judge that? How far does it go? Is it total or partial? On what points?"
44. What did he do with these clear decisions?
He officially threw them in the dustbin in March 2012, in Cor Unum.
45. How?
Through a sophism.
46. Which one?
This one: the so-called “new situation” which requires a new “direction”; the decision of the 2006 chapter is not a “principle” but a “guideline which must inform our concrete action”.
“We're here in front of reasoning in which the major premise is the affirmation of the principle of the primacy of faith in order to remain Catholic. The minor premise is a historical observation on the current situation of the Church and the practical conclusion is based on the virtue of prudence governing human action, not to seek an agreement to the detriment of the faith. In 2006, the heresies continued to emerge, the authorities were even propagating the modern and modernist spirit of Vatican II and were imposing on everyone like a steamroller (that’s the minor premise). Reaching a workable agreement: impossible without the authorities being converted, otherwise we would be crushed, shredded, destroyed or subjected to such strong pressure that we could not resist (that’s the conclusion). If the minor premise were to have changed, that is to say, if there were to be a change in the situation of the Church in relation to the Tradition, this could lead to a corresponding change in the conclusion, without our principles having changed in the slightest! As Divine Providence is expressed through the reality of the facts, to know His Will we must attentively follow the reality of the Church, observe it, scrutinise what’s going on. However, there is no doubt that since 2006, we are witnessing a development in the Church, an important and very interesting development, though barely visible." (Bishop Fellay, Cor Unum, March 2012)
47. Where is the error in this reasoning?
It is in a blindness which refuses to see reality for what it is: the authorities are still, in 2012, propagating the modern and modernist spirit of Vatican II! For Cardinal Ratzinger, “there is no Tradition. There is not deposit to transmit. The Tradition of the Church is whatever the current Pope happens to be saying today. You have to submit to what the Pope and the bishops are saying today. That’s what Tradition means to them, the famous “living tradition,” sole motive of our condemnation... It’s is the tyranny of authority.”
(Archbishop Lefebvre, quoted by Bishop de Galarreta, Albano, 07/10/2011)
48. In view of this blindness, were there reactions, was there opposition?
Yes, and of very good quality too. As Bp. De Galarreta predicted, “lots of superiors and priests” had a “problem of conscience” and “opposed” it. But they were not all that numerous in quantity, for: “Do we not already see within the Society the symptoms of a lessening of its confession of the Faith?” (Bps. Williamson, Tissier and de Galarreta)
49. Was not Bp. Fellay misled by “the contradiction reigning in Rome” (Bp. Fellay, DICI 264)
Rome has always used the same wrong but clear and precise language. By contrast, the Superior General during recent years has made use of ambiguity and imprecision in his official communiqués and press statements.
50. Couldn’t it be that we’re mistaken about the Pope’s intentions?
No!
51. Why not?
Because on Weds. 20th April 2005, on the day after his election, Benedict XVI in front of 11 Cardinals addressed his first message to the world. In it, he praised Pope John-Paul II, “his teaching and his example”:
“Pope John Paul II rightly pointed out the [Second Vatican] Council as a ‘compass’ by which to take our bearings in the vast ocean of the third millennium. Thus, as I prepare myself for the service that is proper to the Successor of Peter, I also wish to confirm my determination to continue to put the Second Vatican Council into practice, following in the footsteps of my Predecessors and in faithful continuity with the 2,000-year tradition of the Church... the Conciliar Documents have lost none of their timeliness; indeed, their teachings are proving particularly relevant to the new situation of the Church and the current globalized society.” (L'Osservatore Romano, 21/04/2005)
52. What did Bp. Fellay think of Benedict XVI when he was first elected?
“Very briefly, let me summarise the thought by using an image: if we took the allegory of a freefall to describe the Pontificate of John Paul II, we can predict that Benedict XVI will try to open a parachute, but one whose size we don’t yet know. The effect of the parachute will be to slow down the fall to some extent, but the descent will continue. This situation could deceive more than one or two people, making them believe that the restoration of the Church is at hand. Short of a miracle, that is not the case. The standard is still going to be Vatican II, as well as the broad guidelines of collegiality, ecumenism and religious liberty, with an emphasis being placed on “ecumenism” with “our nearest neighbours”, whether the Orthodox, the Anglicans or the Jews. Regarding the question of the liturgy, we can expect a reinforcing of Ecclesia Dei as well as some sort of attempt at “reform of the reform”." (Cor Unum, June 2005)
53. And what about in 2012, when they were all busy celebrating 50 years of Vatican II with indulgences being offered to the faithful who assisted at conferences on Vatican II?
“One may observe a change of attitude in the Church, helped by the gestures and acts of Benedict XVI towards Tradition. ... The hierarchy in favour of Vatican II is losing speed. ... I have been able to observe in Rome that even if the glories of Vatican II are still in the mouths of many, and are pushed down our throats, it is nevertheless not in all the heads.”
(Letter, 14/04/2012)
54. Be honest: there is some truth in that statement.
Some truth which hides a lot of falsehood. Archbishop Lefebvre, in his judgement, did not omit the most essential thing: principles. In an interview with the magazine Jesus, Cardinal Ratzinger declared that the “values” of “two centuries of liberal culture” which “were born outside the Church” have “found a place in the Church’s view of the world.” But that since the climate was no longer one of 1960s optimism, we have to “continue to look for a new balance.” Archbishop Lefebvre had this to say on the subject:
“It’s clear: religious liberty, ecumenism, it’s the ‘rights of man.’ It’s satanic. And the Cardinal says: ‘That’s one accomplishment, now we have to find a new balance.’ He doesn’t say that we should get rid of principles and values which come from liberal culture, but that we have to find a new balance. This ‘new balance,’ it’s the balance which Opus Dei have: a traditional looking exterior, an exterior piety, an exterior of religious discipline, but with liberal ideas. There’s not concept of fighting against the ‘rights of man,’ against religious liberty and against ecumenism. So, for this balance they’ll have to put down liberation theology a little, put down the French bishops a little due to their catechism, it’ll mean they’ll have to give a little bit of satisfaction to those who have a real nostalgia for the old Mass: and voila! Ultimately, they’ll give the impression of wanting to return to Tradition, but they don’t really want to do so. So we have to warn our faithful, in such a way that they won’t end up being fooled, so that they don’t let themselves be taken in by an exterior traditional reform which would fatally lead them into adopting liberalism and liberal ideas.” (St. Nicolas du Chardonnet, 13/12/1984)
55. Bp. Fellay said he was wrong about the Pope because Rome deceived him.
He can say that, but without proving it. The Pope publicly warned Bishop Fellay and the SSPX:
“This will make it clear that the problems now to be addressed are essentially doctrinal in nature and concern primarily the acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar Magisterium of the Popes ... The Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962 – this must be quite clear to the Society. But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life.” (Benedict XVI, Letter to Bishops, 10/03/2009)
56. Perhaps Benedict XVI is praising Vatican II for political reasons, but deep down he doesn’t really believe in it, as Bishop Fellay claimed when he came to the meeting of SSPX priors in Flavigny to talk about the Beatification of John-Paul II?
If Benedict XVI believes what he himself speaks, then he’s a modernist. If he doesn’t, then he’s a hypocrite. In either case, the will of such a person isn’t worth anything. In either case, it is misplaced to say: “For the common good of the Society, we would far prefer the present solution of the intermediary status quo but it is clear that Rome will put up with it no longer.”
57. You only see what divides us, and never what unites us. Benedict XVI, at least, has condemned the “hermeneutic of rupture.”
You talk like a newcomer who knows nothing about modernist doctrine. Everything is ‘living’ for them, everything is history. Everything is a historical continuity, because, for a modernist, truth evolves with the life of the subjective Church.
58. Perhaps Bp. Fellay was badly advised?
In Menzingen yes, but not in the SSPX at large. District Superiors, Bishops, priest friends, and Superiors of religious orders all warned him. Even voices from within Rome warned him not to take the road he was starting out down. Among the latter was Fr. Ferre, the secretary of Cardinal Canizares, as well as others. (Source: Bp. De Galarreta, Albano, 07/10/12)
59. But Bp. Fellay hasn’t made any concession to, or compromise with, modern Rome.
Maybe, maybe not. We still haven’t yet seen all the documents. In any case, there is this strange confidence of Bp. Fellay: “The 13th June interview with Cardinal Levada well and truly confirmed that the Vatican” has proposed for us “a canonical arrangement” based on “my letter of 14/04/12” whereby “we would have to say at the same time that we were in agreement and not in agreement.” “This extremely delicate letter seems to have been approved by the Cardinals and the Pope.” (Cor Unum, Summer 2012)
60. Do I have to remind you that Bp. Fellay didn’t sign anything on 13th June 2012?
“But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.” One can very well commit spiritual adultery in thought or desire, without one’s plans ever coming to fruition.
61. But you’re judging intentions.
Not so! I’m simply reading! Bp. Fellay reproached the other three Bishops for having a vision of the Church which is “too human and even fatalistic.”
- “These gestures over the last few years in our favour are under the government of Benedict XVI.” (Which isn’t true, as we’ve already seen.)
- “Now, these gestures indicate a line - not always a straight line - but a line clearly in favour of Tradition.” (This affirmation is superficial, because it is material and subjectivist, and thus objectively and formally false.)
- “We are in the process of making the Council's errors into super-heresies, as though it is becoming absolute evil, worse than anything... This is serious because such a caricature no longer corresponds to reality.” (One wonders if Bp. Fellay really understood the combat of Abp. Lefebvre, who said: “The Roman replies to our objections tended to show that there was no change, but a continuity of Tradition. These are statements which are worse than the conciliar declaration on religious liberty. This is the real official lie. There is no way we can understand one another, it’s all in continuous evolution. It becomes impossible to speak.” (Abp. Lefebvre, quoted by Bp. De Galarreta, Albano, 07/10/12)
- “Logically it will in the future finish up in a true schism.” (Yet another dishonest sophism, which plays on sentimentality and not cold reflection. In a letter which Abp. Lefebvre wrote to Bp. De Galarreta in 1989, we read: “It seems to me opportune to analyse the action of the devil to weaken our work or reduce it to naught. The first temptation consists of maintaining good relations with the Pope or current bishops. Obviously it is normal to be in harmony with the authorities, as opposed to being in conflict with them. The Society will therefore be accused of exaggerating the errors of Vatican II, of abusively criticising the writings and actions of the Pope and bishops, of being attached to the traditional rites with an excessive rigidity and ultimately of displaying a sectarian tendency which will one day lead to schism. Once the word ‘schism’ starts being mentioned, it will be used as a scarecrow to make seminarians and their families afraid, leading them to abandon the Society more easily than if priests, bishops and Rome itself pretend to offer them guarantees in favour of some sort of ‘Tradition’.”)
- “And it may well be that this fact is one of the arguments pushing me to delay no longer in responding to the pressure from Rome. ... As for the most crucial question of all, that of whether we can survive in the case of the Society being recognised by Rome, we do not arrive at the same conclusion as you do.” (What could be clearer than that?)
62. But this private letter was never intended for public consumption.
So? Is it OK to blaspheme in private as long as you don’t do it in public? Isn’t a perverse but private intention still a perverse intention?
63. Menzingen said that the person responsible for this indiscretion had “sinned gravely”.
On the contrary, we think he did nothing more than his duty. When a leader loses his reason, it’s as well if the rest of the group realises it. And if there was any fault involved: o felix culpa, which revealed the thoughts of the heart.
64. These are serious matters. Unimpeachable proof is needed.
We have quite sufficient words of Bp. Fellay which reveal his innermost thoughts.
65. Which words?
Regarding the “text which they presented” to him “in June,” there were some modifications personally desired by the Pope (the three conditions: Magisterium, Vatican II, New Mass). “When they gave me back this document, I thought to myself ‘No, I can’t sign it. The Society can’t sign it.’ ” (Bp. Fellay, 01/11/2013, DICI 264)
66. How do these words condemn Bishop Fellay?
If the modifications are what made Bishop Fellay decide that he couldn’t sign, that means that on that day there was something which he could sign. “No, I can’t sign it” means that there had been another possibility: “Yes, I’ll sign it.” That being the case, in other words without the Papal modifications, what is it that he could have signed on behalf of the SSPX if not a practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement? And that, contrary to the will of the 2006 Chapter and the more recent extraordinary meeting of Superiors.
67. So without the doctrinal explanations added by the Pope, there would have been a compromise [‘ralliement’]?
Everything points that way. And several indiscretions by the Assistants, Frs. Pfluger and Nely, confirm it.
68. But all the same, Bp. Fellay isn’t a modernist.
Obviously. Nobody has ever thought that. But Cardinal Billot taught that the liberal: “is incoherent, he says yes, he says no, he doesn’t know exactly, who never affirms his position in a completely clear way, who always talks in an ambiguous way, and all due to his concern for pleasing the world.” A liberal inclination is therefore susceptible to the temptation of compromise with an unconverted Rome. That is where the danger lies: in a desire to be accommodating, and not in any direct recognition of the theory of Vatican II. The danger is this liberal illusion which in practice seeks to live in peace with the conciliar system.
69. Why have Bishop Fellay and his General Council been maintaining all the ambiguities? Why were they so imprudent, even to the point of disobedience? Why have they been attempting so dangerous and suicidal a policy?
Because Bishop Fellay and those around him, when all’s said and done, have more in common with the ecclesiology of Benedict XVI than that of Archbishop Lefebvre.
70. What is the ecclesiology of Benedict XVI?
It is that of Cardinal Ratzinger who already in 1988 “insisted on there being only one Church: the Church of Vatican II.” (Abp. Lefebvre, 19/06/1988)
71. Didn’t Archbishop Lefebvre warn us about this false ecclesiology?
Of course! “Cardinal Ratzinger always told me, ‘But Monsignor, there is only one Church, you mustn’t make a parallel church.’ Which is this Church for him? The Conciliar Church, this is clear! And if we mention Tradition to him, Cardinal Ratzinger replies: ‘But the Council, that’s what Tradition is today! You have to return to the Tradition of the Church of today and not of the past! Rejoin the Church of today!’” And Abp. Lefebvre comments: “I could sense very well that that was what was in his mind: it might take a few years perhaps, but he had to bring us back to the spirit of the Council.” (Econe, 09/06/1988)
72. Doesn’t Bishop Fellay also think that there’s only one Church, the concrete Church?
Yes, and he preaches it! “The fact of going to Rome doesn’t mean that we agree with them. But it’s the Church! And it’s the true Church! In rejecting the bad bits, we mustn’t reject everything. It remains the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.” (Flavigny, 02/09/2012)
73. Does that really contradict the thinking of Archbishop Lefebvre?
Obviously. “The visible church is recognized by the features that have always given to visibility: one, holy, catholic and apostolic. I ask: Where are the true marks of the Church? Are they more in the official Church (this is not the visible Church, but the official church) or in us, in what we represent, what we are? Clearly we are who preserve the Unity of the faith, which disappeared from the official Church. ... It is not us, but the modernists who are leaving the Church. As for talk of ‘leaving the visible Church,’ it is a mistake to the visible Church one and the same as the official Church. We belong to the visible Church, to the faithful under the authority of the Pope, since we aren’t denying Papal authority, just what he is doing. ... How about ‘Leaving the official Church’, then? In a certain sense, obviously, yes.” (Econe, 09/09/1988)
74. But Archbishop Lefebvre used to go to Rome too.
Yes, but with a very precise and non-negotiable goal: “I can hear them say: ‘You exaggerate! There are more and more good bishops who pray, who have the faith and are edifying!’ - Can they be saints when they admit false Religious Liberty and therefore the secular state? When they accept false ecumenism and therefore the admission that there are many paths leading to salvation? When they accept the liturgical reform and therefore the practical denial of the Sacrifice of the Mass? And the new Catechism with all its heresies and errors? Are they not rather officially cooperating with the revolution within the Church and its destruction? ... One thing alone is necessary for the continuation of the Catholic Church: bishops who are fully Catholic, without any compromise with error, who found Catholic seminaries. ” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Spiritual Journey)
75. Where does this phrase “Conciliar Church” come from?
It comes from a letter from Abp. Lefebvre to Mgr. Benelli (25/06/1976), and since the time of Paul VI (Consistory of 24/05/1976) who viewed as “outside the Church” anyone who “refuses the teachings of the Council”, and on into the era of John-Paul II (Sacræ Disciplinæ Leges 25/01/1983) who saw “in the Code a great effort to translate into the language of canon law the very doctrine of conciliar ecclesiology ... which constitutes the essential novelty of the Second Vatican Council, in continuity with the legislative tradition of the Church,” leading us all the way up to Benedict XVI, there is a perfect (if unique) continuity.
76. How long has Bp. Fellay thought like this?
For several years. “To identify the official Church with the modernist Church is an error, because we’re talking about a concrete reality.” (Bp. Fellay, Flavigny, 16/02/2009)
77. Have people pointed out his error to him?
Of course. At a priests meeting, a theologian and former seminary professor asked him to get rid of this ambiguity regarding the Church: Catholic or Conciliar? He was heard to reply: “I am tired of all this quarrelling over words.”
78. Well that’s a surprising reply!
It is more than just surprising. It is distressing. Forty years of theological combat over the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of words just to end up hearing that from a successor of Abp. Lefebvre! Who himself, in an interview one year after the Consecrations, said the following:
“The talk of ‘visible Church’ by Dom Gerard and M. Madiran is childish! It’s incredible that anyone could talk of the ‘visible Church’ to mean the Conciliar Church in opposition to the Catholic Church which we are trying to represent and to continue. I’m not saying that we are the Catholic Church. I have never said so. But we represent the Catholic Church as it used to be since we are continuing what it has always done... Obviously we are against the conciliar Church which in practical terms is schismatic, even if they don’t accept it. In practice it is a Church which is virtually excommunicated, since it is a Modernist Church.”
79. That’s why Menzingen and its press organs (DICI...) always avoid using terms such as “Conciliar Church”, “Church of Vatican II”, etc...
Undoubtedly. And more worrying still, most recently the General Chapter of 2012 didn’t want to take up and make their own again either the words of the 1974 Declaration: “We refuse and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Protestand and neo-Modernist tendencies, which is manifested clearly in Vatican II and after the Council in all the reforms which came from it” or the words of the Open Letter to Cardinal Gantin: “We never wanted to belong to this system which calls itself the Conciliar Church, and which defines itself by the Novus Ordo Missae, indifferentist Ecumenism and the secularisation of all society. Yes, we have nothing whatever to do, nullam partem habemus, with the Assisi Pantheon of religions. We can ask for no better than to be declared ex communione...”
80. But isn’t talking of a new Church dangerous for one’s faith?
It’s not dangerous, it’s necessary. It’s reality!
“It is a new Church which has arisen. ...They are obsessed with fidelity to Vatican II which for them is the new Church, it’s the conciliar Church with its own sacraments, its own faith, its own liturgy, catechisms, all in all it’s terrifying, terrifying. We can’t submit to that, it’s impossible! ...So what would I be asking? Ask the seminarians to swear an oath of submission to the conciliar Church? That’s not possible. No, no, it’s clear now that we’re dealing with a new Church, a Church which is twelve years old.” (Cospec 33B, 1976)
81. Today the conciliar Church is fifty years old. Has nothing changed, deep down?
Yes, one thing has changed. Today Bp. Fellay, the superior of the Society founded by Abp. Lefebvre intends to make the Catholic faithful believe that this fifty-year-old conciliar Church is the same reality as the Catholic Church, whereas the former is the corruption of the latter.
82. Is it unacceptable for you?
Not for me. In itself. Just as it was unacceptable for everyone who assisted at the Consecrations in 1988 and who applauded the anathema which Abp. Lefebvre hurled upon the conciliar spirit:
“What is this truth for them if not the truth of Vatican II, the truth of the Conciliar Church? Consequently, it is clear that the only truth that exists today for the Vatican is the conciliar truth, the spirit of the Council, the spirit of Assisi. That is the truth of today. But we want nothing to do with this for anything in the world! For anything in the world!” (Long and thunderous applause follows.) (Abp. Lefebvre, 30/06/1988)
83. For you, neither Rome nor Benedict XVI should be spared?
Not for me! For Abp. Lefebvre, with whom I agree. For Abp. Lefebvre, “we abandon, practically speaking, the fight for the faith,” when we cease, “attacking Rome.” (Fideliter, quoted by Bp. de Galarreta, Albano, 07/10/2011)
84. OK, so even if the head of the SSPX is no longer in its right mind, at least Rome won’t try anything again, after the failure and refusal of an agreement by the SSPX?
Rome may have lost one battle, but not the war. “If they break with us, a pause in the constant tension which these contacts bring the Society would be welcome, and, in my eyes, providential. In any case, knowing them, they won’t waste any time in getting back into contact with us.” (Bp. de Galarreta, Albano, 07/10/11)
85. Is that so?
As it happened, it didn’t take long. In December 2012 Abp. Di Noia addressed a letter to all the members of the Society regarding “an agreement”. For that, we have to “rise above the seemingly insurmountable disagreements on the authority and interpretation of the Council” in order to “truly desire unity.” He invited us not to lose “the zeal of [our] founder.” For that, we have to “stop publicly correcting others in the Church” and not “usurp the mission of the Sovereign Pontiff.” That way, “the authentic charism of the Society” which “consists of forming priests” will be of use to the Church. We have to abandon our “desire for autonomy” and “seek reconciliation.” “The only future for the SSPX,” he claimed, “is to be found on the road to full communion with the Holy See.”
86. What ought we to think of that?
“Vatican II is the uncrowning of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the denial of His rights over societies. Vatican II is an immeasurably harmful and scandalous ‘kindness’ towards souls in relation to these societies, factories of error and vice and purveyors of Hell, which are quite improperly called ‘other religions.’ Vatican II is the triumph of democratism inside the Church which renders all authority illusory, and any command nigh on impossible, and which permits the proliferation of heresy and schism. Vatican II is, in reality, the greatest ever disaster in the Church... To recover, we must get rid of it. In no way whatsoever, therefore, could the SSPX cease from its immense fight to confess the faith, which must include the denouncing of error. The SSPX must remain humble and respectful, but intrepid, fearless, to continue to say what needs to be said, to confess what must be confessed, to denounce everything that needs to be denounced.” (Fr. de Cacqueray, Suresnes, 31/12/2008)
87. But since Bp. Fellay has declared, three times, that he doesn’t want to sign, why do Rome say that they’re still waiting for a response, and giving the Society more time?
Because Bp. Fellay, due to his false ecclesiology, and the perpetual temptation of compromise [‘ralliement’] refuses to denounce Benedict XVI publicly as an instigator of error. He remains fixed on the documents of Abp. Lefebvre in 1987 saying “We accept being recognised as we are by the Pope and to bring our assistance to a renewal of the Church, we never wished to break with the successor of Peter...” (Letter to Cardinal Gagnon, 21/11/1987)
He refuses to see the evolution and conclusion of Abp. Lefebvre after 1988 who said himself that he had gone too far in his dealings with Rome.
88. So, is this condition which Bp. Fellay has made his own, that we be “recognised as we are” therefore ambiguous?
Yes, because it can be made to fit with the “hermeneutic of continuity” and because this formula is a form of ecumenism, mixing truth and error together in the same ecclesiastical structure.
89. When will this crisis in the Society come to an end?
The crisis will come to an end when Menzingen:
- gets rid of the ambiguities;
- calls things by their name: a modernist is a modernist, even if he’s the Pope; a virtually schismatic conciliar Church is a virtually schismatic conciliar Church, even if it shows favour towards the cassock and the so-called “extraordinary form”;
- and decides to publicly demand the conditions laid down by Abp. Lefebvre.
90. To finish: “What’s going to happen with Rome? Excommunication? Things staying as tey are? Or the situation becoming unblocked?” (Bp. Fellay, Econe, 07/09/2012)
Bp. Fellay answered the question himself: “I’ll tell you: expect a bit of everything.”
91. What does that mean?
It means that we’re not out of the doctrinal area of turbulence. The proof is in these words of Bp. Fellay at a time when they’re trying to beatify Paul VI:
“But look and that’s very interesting. Who, during that time, was the most opposed that the Church would recognize the Society? The enemies of the Church. ... I may say that’s the kind of argument we’re going to use with Rome. Trying to make them reflect, trying to make them reflect. ... I have absolutely no idea when there will be an agreement, and the term “agreement” is not the right word, but “recognition”, “normalisation.” ... [in spite] of everything that is not well, there is some hope. I am optimistic in this situation. ... I say, if you look at the situation in the Church, it’s still winter. But we start to see the little signs that start to say that spring is coming.” (New Hamburg, 28/12/2012)
92. What are we to do?
Follow the advice of a confrere: when you go through a patch of turbulence, you’re told “put your seatbelt on” but “don’t buckle it.” (‘Le Chardonnet’ newsletter, July-August 2012)
93. You’re a pessimist.
No, I’m a realist. Our Superior sees the devil at work everywhere in the SSPX, everywhere that is except in Menzingen. He is incapable of questioning himself. As a confrere said, in reference to the unjust persecutions by the General Headquarters (intimidations, monitions, transfers, delaying ordinations, and the expulsion of priests and one of our bishops):
“In the final analysis, they’ve established a veritable dictatorship in the Society. They have knowingly ignored the warnings of prudent people who counselled them not to go after a practical agreement with modernist Rome. They have undermined the unity and the common good of the Society, exposing it to the danger of a compromise with the enemies of the Church. And finally, they contradict themselves by affirming the opposite of what they themselves were saying only a few years ago. They have thus betrayed the legacy of Abp. Lefebvre, the responsibility of their duties, the trust of thousands of people, and even of those who, fooled by them, continue to trust them. They have manifested a determined will to lead the Society, cost what it may, into a compromise with our enemies. It hardly matters if the agreement with the conciliar Church isn’t yet concluded today, or if it doesn’t happen in the immediate future, or ever... a grave danger for the Society remains, since they haven’t retracted the false principles which have been guiding their destructive actions...”
(Fr. Ortiz, December 2012)
94. Is that your last word?
No. To every lord, every honour. I will allow our Superior General to have the final word, despite all the harm that he has done.
“We should expect Rome to try to bring us into a universalist amalgam, where we would end up being offered a place “among others”, a little bit like they are already declaring the Orthodox to be “sister churches”. We can think that the temptation to re-enter “officialdom” could be very great, in proportion to the offers which ecumenist Rome could offer us; refusing therefore to enter into this confusion, we would be made to look like wicked villains. At the moment, this is just a hypothesis...” (Bp. Fellay, Cor Unum, March 1995)
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| Whistleblower reveals pregnancy complications after COVID-19 vaccine |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-10-2021, 04:14 PM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Whistleblower reveals pregnancy complications after COVID-19 vaccine
'I guess most of the doctors don’t understand the science. I can’t believe more aren’t fighting this.
It’s against the Nuremberg code and a horrible crime against humanity.'
Albuquerque, NEW MEXCIO, March 9, 2021 (Abortion Free New Mexico) — Last month, Abortion Free New Mexico released a report on a woman from Michigan, who at 28 weeks of pregnancy, received the first dose of Pfizer’s BioNTech vaccine. She later delivered a nonviable 29-week old baby. Her baby had no heartbeat within three days of the vaccine and she reported the stillbirth directly to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) website attributing the vaccine to her baby’s death.
Abortion Free New Mexico continues to receive information from a whistleblower, who sits on a COVID-19 task force, who is concerned not only about these adverse reactions in pregnant women but also about how the media is not alerting the public to these reactions that are resulting in stillbirths at an alarming rate.
According to our whistleblower:
Quote:We’re up to 35 adverse pregnancy outcomes (preterm birth, miscarriage, spontaneous abortion) related to the ‘vaccine’ and 25 ‘birth defects’. There have been 925 deaths reported overall with about 300 of them within 2 days of getting the shot. These are just short term effects!
There are also reports of ‘permanent disability’. There will be more later and by then it will be difficult to link them to the vaccine.
This is VERY VERY bad and so many people have already been vaccinated. Many will develop severe autoimmune diseases like MS, infertility, & prion diseases, thrombocytopenia, alzheimers, nonspecific brain damage, lung immunopathology, multiple organ failure.
I guess most of the doctors don’t understand the science. I can’t believe more aren’t fighting this. It’s against the Nuremberg code and a horrible crime against humanity. Since the embryo/fetus is so quickly developing they’re a good indicator of toxicity.
The other scientists on my team seem ‘afraid’ to say anything and everything we put out is filtered through the politicians before THEY decide what gets told to the public.
None of the COVID-19 vaccines have been approved for pregnant women and are being distributed without full approval from the FDA on an emergency approval basis. In addition, all four of the vaccines currently being distributed are produced and/or tested with cell lines that originated from an aborted child.
According to the National Vaccine Information Center, as of February 18, 2021, there have been an additional 46 complications reported of pregnant women who have received a COVID 19 vaccine. These complications range from stillbirth, premature delivery due to spontaneous rupture of amniotic fluid, abnormal fetal heart rate and more. Complications are occurring both early and late in the pregnancies.
Tara Shaver, spokeswoman for Abortion Free New Mexico issued the following statement:
Quote:Pregnant women are being mislead to believe that the Pfizer and Moderna COVID 19 vaccines are safe during pregnancy. However, our whistleblower who is currently working on a COVID 19 task-force is very concerned about the large amount of adverse short term effects already being reported, especially in pregnant women. In addition, it is disturbing that OBGYN doctors are advising pregnant women to take the vaccines. In one instance two doctors, in Virginia, made this recommendation and within two days a woman miscarried her baby. This vaccine is leaving a trail of devastated mothers and who knows what the long term fertility issues may be for these women. The COVID 19 vaccines being administered to pregnant women must be halted immediately. These vaccines should not be promoted by the medical community as safe because the evidence is mounting that they, in fact, are not.
VAERS report of woman who miscarried her nearly 9-week old unborn baby after receiving the Moderna COVID19 vaccine.
MedAlerts offers an alternative to the official VAERS search engine, CDC Wonder. Both are built from the government’s raw data, but MedAlerts has a better user interface, more powerful search capabilities, and more extensive reporting, making it the best VAERS search facility.
Addendum from Operation Rescue
Excerpts from a report published by The Epoch Times discuss additional medical concerns regarding the use of COVID-19 vaccinations on pregnant and lactating women, and the use of alternatives. We are presenting this for informational purposes only. Consult your doctor before taking supplements or drugs.
Quote:Dr. Shelley Cole, MD, an OB-GYN and a member of America’s Frontline Doctors, says it’s concerning that a vaccine still in an experimental phase is being recommended to pregnant and lactating women and that science is no longer protecting them.
“As an obstetrician-gynecologist, it is a concern,” Cole told The Epoch Times. “We’re [now] throwing science and the scientific medicine method out the window and jeopardizing pregnancies and future pregnancies.”
“It concerns me that the CDC says that there are no studies, but it’s okay to get it and you don’t even need to discuss it with your doctor,” Cole added. “I mean this is the opposite of everything that the scientific models and methods, and standard of care has been for a century.”
***
Cole—while certified in OB-GYN, now focusing only on gynecology—has treated over 550 patients with COVID-19, and says she understands the fear pregnant women may have of contracting a severe illness from COVID-19.
But she disagrees with the CDC, saying people have the option of being treated early with hydroxychloroquine instead of waiting until the disease progresses requiring hospitalization. She also recommends taking 1000 milligrams of vitamin C twice a day and “2000 to 5000, international units a day” of vitamin D to help strengthen the immune system.
Individuals should discuss with their physician before taking the supplements.
“So it is scary, it is scary, but the vast majority of women that are pregnant are under the age of 40, the death rate is extremely low,” Cole said. “And people do not have to go to the hospital if they’re treated early, or if they use early prevention.”
“Now hydroxychloroquine is safe to use in pregnant women, it’s safe to use in any age group, it’s safe to use in breastfeeding women,” she added.
— The Epoch Times, “3 Dozen Cases of Spontaneous Miscarriages, Stillbirths Occurring After COVID-19 Vaccination” published March 1, 2021.
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| PCR Test inventor Kary Mullis on A. Fauci |
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Posted by: SAguide - 03-10-2021, 04:06 PM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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The Nobel Prize-winning inventor of the PCR Test Kary Mullis on Anthony Fauci
Kary Mullis, American biochemist and inventor of the PCR test, talks about Anthony Fauci. Interesting
too how he died in August 2019, just before they started using his PCR test! -comment posted below the video
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| Little Catechism of the Second Vatican Council |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-10-2021, 02:12 PM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Little Catechism of the Second Vatican Council
Part I
Preface
Vatican II is not a council like the others. This council, which was held in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican in four sessions from 1962 until 1965 under the pontificates of Popes John XIII (1958-1963) and Paul VI (1963-1978), was the occasion, if not the principal cause, of the gravest crisis the Church has known in its history.
The studies concerning this council are numerous, but often voluminous and very technical. We have thought that it would be useful to provide for Catholics of good will a relatively short text, explaining what Vatican II declared and what is unacceptable for Catholics who want to remain faithful to the traditional infallible teaching of the Church.
After a brief introduction on the authority of the council, we will briefly analyze each of the 16 documents, presenting them in a thematic order.
Introduction - The Authority of the Second Vatican Council
What is an ecumenical council?
An ecumenical council is an assembly of bishops of the entire world convoked by the pope, who conducts its meetings (called “sessions”), whether directly or via legates, and who approves the texts, so that they have a binding value for the whole Church. There have been in the history of the Church twenty ecumenical councils since the Council of Nicaea in 325 until the First Vatican Council in 1870.
Is Vatican II a council like the others?
Vatican II is an atypical council because the popes who convoked and conducted it, John XXIII and Paul VI, declared that it was not a dogmatic council, like all the preceding councils, but a pastoral council. In other words, its aim was not to define doctrine against errors, but to perform an updating (aggiornamento) of this doctrine to adapt it to the thinking of our contemporaries.
Does Vatican II contain infallible teachings?
Here again, differently than all the preceding ecumenical councils, the Second Vatican Council does not contain any infallible teaching. For a council to be infallible, it must pronounce solemn judgments, which this council refused to do.
Even if it is not infallible, can it not be admitted that Vatican II was assisted by the Holy Ghost?
Our Lord Jesus Christ promised the assistance of the Holy Ghost for the transmission of Revelation: “the Paraclete the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and suggest unto you all things whatsoever I shall say to you.” (Jn 14:26) [Rheims version].
But, without renouncing the transmission of Revelation, the Council proposed the aggiornamento of the Church, i.e., its adaptation to the modern world, notably by introducing into the Church “the best expressed values of two centuries of ‘liberal’ culture”1, and by working to “smooth the way toward unity of mankind.”2.
Why cannot the Holy Ghost aid the Church in acquiring the values of liberal culture, once purified and corrected3?
Liberalism is an error condemned by two centuries of teaching from the Magisterium of the Church. Such a condemnation is infallible in virtue of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium of the Church. As the Holy Ghost cannot contradict Himself, He cannot assist the council fathers in making these values of liberalism enter into the Church.
Why cannot the Holy Ghost aid the Church in working toward the unity of mankind?
The Church was founded to save souls and unite them to Our Lord Jesus Christ. In so doing, the Church works indirectly for peace, propagating charity in souls: “Seek therefore first the Kingdom of God, and the justice of him [the union to Our Lord Jesus Christ by grace]: and all these things [including peace] shall be given you besides.” (Mt. 6:33) [Rheims version].
But today Freemasonry seeks to reshape the unity of mankind (“globalism”) by human means and by positively excluding Our Lord Jesus Christ in virtue of “secularism”.
As was especially seen after the Council (with the secularization of the States and inter-religious meetings), the men of the Church collaborate in this work by means of religious liberty, ecumenism, and inter-religious dialogue. The Holy Ghost cannot assist the Church in working toward an end that is not Her own.
1. Cardinal Ratzinger, interview with the monthly Jesus, November 1984, p. 72: “The problem with the 1960s was to acquire the best expressed values of two centuries of ‘liberal’ culture. There are values that, even if they are born outside of the Church, can find their place—purified and corrected—in its vision of the world. This is what was done.” The cardinal only specifies what the Council itself said: “This council, first of all, wishes to assess in this light [of the faith] those values which are most highly prized today and to relate them to their divine source. Insofar as they stem from endowments conferred by God on man, these values are exceedingly good. Yet they are often wrenched from their rightful function by the taint in man’s heart, and hence stand in need of purification.” (GS 11,2) [www.vatican.va translation].
2. John XXIII, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, 11 October 1962, DC 1383 (4 November 1962): “While it [the Council] focuses the Church’s chief energies and earnestly strives to have people accept more favorably the message of salvation, it is, as it were, preparing and consolidating the path that can bring about that unity of the human race” [Komonchak translation §20].
3. Cardinal Ratzinger, interview with the monthly Jesus, November 1984, p. 72.
Insofar as popes and bishops spoke at the Council, should not one then obey and accept Vatican II?
The council Fathers decided to adopt “forms of inquiry and literary formulation of modern thought”1, i.e., the “new theology”2 founded on modern philosophy. Now, this philosophy is subjective: truth does not come from outside; it comes, at least in part, from the knowing subject. But if truth does not come from outside, the hierarchy cannot impose it: so, the Council inaugurated a new type of magisterium, a living and dialoging magisterium that has lost its binding aspect.
Why did the council Fathers adopt this new theology?
Since they wanted to adapt the teaching of the Church to the modern world, they had to find a way to modify this teaching. The solution was to adopt modern subjectivist philosophy, according to which, as we have said, truth comes, at least in part, from the knowing subject. And consequently it evolves with it. What was true yesterday (e.g., that the Church cannot adopt religious liberty) is not true today3. So, thanks to this new theology, one could perform an updating of the Church and reconcile it with the modern world.
Are there calculated ambiguities in the Council?
Father Schillebeeckx himself affirms this in the Dutch review De Bazuin (23 January 1965)4:
Quote:A theologian of the doctrinal commission—to whom, already during the second session, I had expressed my disappointment in the face of the minimalism on papal collegiality—responded to me, to calm me down: “We will explain it in a diplomatic way, but after the Council we will draw the implicit conclusions.”
Were there external influences on the Council?
The power of the media exerted a very strong influence. It was the fear of this influence which made Pius XI and Pius XII abandon their projects to reconvene a council to pursue the work interrupted by the First Vatican Council.
There was also a more discreet but nonetheless real influence due to the more or less secret agreements with the Orthodox, Protestants, Jews, Communists, and Freemasons5.
—With the Orthodox and the Communists: For inviting Orthodox observers to the Council, John XXIII committed to not condemn communism6.
—With the Jews: Jewish leaders secretly received, at the Community Center of Peace at Strasbourg during the winter of 1962-1963, Father Congar O.P., sent by Cardinal Bea in the name of John XXIII, on the brink of the Council, to ask what the Jews expected from the Catholic Church7; Cardinal Bea himself secretly visited the Jewish American Committee at New York, 31 March 1963, with the same aim8.
—With the Protestants and Freemasons: In September 1961 Cardinal Bea secretly met in Milan the pastor Willem A. Visser’t Hooft, secretary general of the Ecumenical Council of Churches (very masonic organization of Protestant origin). Later, 22 July 1965, the same Ecumenical Council of Churches published the list of its seven requirements regarding religious liberty: all of them were satisfied by the Council in the document Dignitatis humanæ9.
(Catechism to be continued)
1. John XXIII, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, 11 October 1962 (from the Italian text [Komonchak translation]). The same text in: John XXIII – Paul VI, Discours au Concile, Paris, le Centurion, 1966, p. 64.
2. This expression signifies the neo-Modernist theology of the 1940s. See Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., “La nouvelle Théologie où va-t-elle?“, Angelicum 23 (1946), p. 126-145, translated in Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, “Where Is the New Theology Leading Us?,” trans. by Suzanne M. Rini, Catholic Family News Reprint Series #309.
3. Cardinal Ratzinger, “Magistère et théologie”, ORLF, 10 July 1990, p. 9: “In the details related to the contents, [the anti-Modernist decisions of the Church] were outmoded, after having fulfilled their pastoral need at a certain time.”
4. Ralph M. Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, Charlotte, North Carolina, TAN Books, 2014, p. 288-9, reports it in a slightly different manner.
5. Regarding these secret agreements, see Abbé Matthias Gaudron, Catéchisme catholique de la crise dans l’Église, 5e éd., Le Sel, Avrillé, 2012, question 26.
6. “Cardinal Tisserant received formal orders to negotiate the agreement and supervise its exact execution during the Council. Each time that a bishop would raise the question of communism, the cardinal, from his table where he presided, would intervene” (Msgr. Roche, Itinéraires 285, p. 157). There was in 1962 an agreement between the Vatican and Moscow according to which, in exchange for the presence at the Council of schismatic Russian observers, it would refrain from speaking of communism. See on this subject Le Sel de la terre 53 (summer 2005), p. 68-70; Le Sel de la terre 62 (autumn 2007), p. 189-194; Jean Madiran, «L’accord Rome-Moscou», Itinéraires n° 280, February 1984 and n° 285 of July-August 1984, p. 151-160; Sì sì no no, 15 September 1984.
7. “The Jews, held after almost twenty centuries in the margin of Christian society, often treated as subordinate, enemies, and decides—demanded their complete rehabilitation. Issuing directly from the Abrahamic stock, from where Christianity came, they asked to be considered like brothers, partners of equal dignity, of the Christian Church.” Lazare Landau in n° 1001 of Tribune Juive (of 25-31 December 1987).
8. See Sel de la terre 34, p. 196: «Comment les juifs ont changé la pensée catholique» (Joseph Roddy, Look, 25 January 1966).
9. “During the last council session, the bishop of Monaco, Msgr. Rupp, in a very short discourse, asked that the Council be content with taking up these seven requests and of confirming them with its own authority […]. In reality, the Council did not do it. Not only did it make these seven requests its own, in equivalent terms, but it solidly justified them […].” Msgr. Willebrands, in Vatican II – La liberté religieuse, collection Unam Sanctam, Paris, Cerf, 1967, p. 241-242.
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: On Sedevacantism [1979] |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-10-2021, 01:08 PM - Forum: Sedevacantism
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The New Mass and the Pope
In the following statement Archbishop Lefebvre clarified his position and that of the Society of St. Pius X on the subject of the New Mass and the Pope.
8 November 1979
The New Mass and the Pope
How often during these last ten years have I not had occasion to respond to questions concerning the weighty problems of the New Mass and the Pope. In answering them I have ever been careful to breathe with the spirit of the Church, conforming myself to her Faith as expressed in her theological principles, and to her pastoral prudence as expressed in moral theology and in the long experiences of her history.
I think I can say that my own views have not changed over the years and that they are, happily, those of the great majority of priests and faithful attached to the indefectible Tradition of the Church.
It should be clear that the few lines which follow are not an exhaustive study of these problems, The purpose, rather is to clarify our conclusions to such an extent that no one may be mistaken regarding the official position of the Society of St, Pius X.
It must be understood immediately that we do not hold to the absurd idea that if the New Mass is valid, we are then free to assist at it. The Church has always forbidden the faithful to assist at the Masses of heretics and schismatics, even when they are valid. It is clear that no one can assist at sacrilegious Masses or at Masses which endanger our faith.
Now, it is easy to show that the New Mass, as it was formulated by the officially authorized Conciliar Liturgical Commission considered together with the accompanying explanation of Mgr. Bugnini, manifests an inexplicable rapprochement with the theology and liturgy of the Protestants. The following fundamental dogmas of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass are not clearly represented and are even contradicted:
- that the priest is the essential minister of the Rite;
- that in the Mass there is a true sacrifice, a sacrificial action;
- that the Victim or Host is Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, present under the species of bread and wine, with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity;
- that this Sacrifice is a propitiatory one;
- that the Sacrifice and the Sacrament are effected by the words of the Consecration alone, and not also by those which either precede or follow them.
It is sufficient to enumerate a few of the novelties in the New Mass to be convinced of the rapprochement with the Protestants;
- the altar replaced by a table without an altar stone;
- Mass celebrated facing the people, concelebrated, in a loud voice, and in the vernacular;
- the Mass divided into two distinct parts: Liturgy of the Word, and Liturgy of the Eucharist;
- the cheapening of the sacred vessels, the use of leavened bread, distribution of Holy Communion in the hand, and by the laity, and even by women;
- the Blessed Sacrament hidden in corners;
- the Epistle read by women;
- Holy Communion brought to the sick by laity.
All these innovations are authorized. One can fairly say without exaggeration that most of these Masses are sacrilegious acts which pervert the Faith by diminishing it. The de-sacralization is such that these Masses risk the loss of their supernatural character, their mysterium fidei; they would then be no more than acts of natural religion. These New Masses are not only incapable of fulfilling our Sunday obligation, but are such that we must apply to them the canonical rules which the Church customarily applies to communicatio in sacris with Orthodox Churches and Protestant sects.
Must one conclude further that all these Masses are invalid? As long as the essential conditions for validity are present (matter, form, intention, and a validly ordained priest), I do not see how one can affirm this.
The prayers at the Offertory, the Canon, and the Priest’s Communion which surround the words of Consecration are necessary, not to the validity of the Sacrifice and the Sacrament, but rather to their integrity. When the imprisoned Cardinal Mindszenty, desiring to nourish himself with the Body and Blood of Our Lord, and to escape the gaze of his captors, pronounced solely the words of Consecration over a little bread and wine, he most certainly accomplished the Sacrifice and the Sacrament.
It is clear, however, that fewer and fewer Masses are valid these days, as the faith of priests is destroyed and they possess no longer the intention to do what the Church does – an intention which the Church cannot change. The current formation of those who are called seminarians today does not prepare them to celebrate Mass validly. The propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass is no longer considered the essential work of the priest. Nothing is sadder or more disappointing than to read the sermons or teachings of the Conciliar bishops on the subject of vocations, or on the occasion of a priestly ordination. They no longer know what a priest is.
Nevertheless, in order to judge the subjective fault of those who celebrate the New Mass as of those who attend it, we must apply the roles of the discernment of spirits given us in moral and pastoral theology. We (the priests of the Society) must always act as doctors of the soul and not as judge and hangmen. Those who are tempted by this latter course are animated by a bitter spirit and not true zeal for souls. I hope that our young priests will be inspired by the words of St. Pius X in his first encyclical, and by the numerous texts on this subject to be found in such works as The Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Chautard, Christian Perfection and Contemplation by Garrigou-Lagrange, and Christ the Ideal of the Monk by Dom Marmion.
Let us now pass to a second but no less important subject: does the Church have a true Pope or an impostor on the Throne of St. Peter? Happy are those who have lived and died without having to pose such a question! One must indeed recognize that the pontificate of Paul VI posed, and continues to pose, a serious problem of conscience for the faithful. Without reference to his culpability for the terrible demolition of the Church which took place under his pontificate, one cannot but realize that he hastened the causes of that decline in every domain. One can fairly ask oneself how it was possible that a successor of Peter can, in so little time, have caused more damage to the Church than the French Revolution.
Some precise facts, such as the signatures which he gave to Article VII in the Instruction concerning the New Mass, and to the Declaration on Religious Liberty, are indeed scandalous and have led certain traditionalists to affirm that Paul VI was heretical and thus no longer Pope. They argue further that, chosen by a heretical Pope, the great majority of the cardinals are not cardinals at all and thus lacked the authority to elect another Pope. Pope John Paul I and Pope John Paul II were thus, they say, illegitimately elected. They continue that it is inadmissible to pray for a pope who is not Pope or to have any "conversations" (like mine of November 1978) with one who has no right to the Chair of Peter.
As with the question of the invalidity of the Novus Ordo, those who affirm that there is no Pope over-simplify the problem. The reality is more complex. If one begins to study the question of whether or not a Pope can be heretical, one quickly discovers that the problem is not as simple as one might have thought. The very objective study of Xaverio de Silverira on this subject demonstrates that a good number of theologians teach that the Pope can be heretical as a private doctor or theologian but not as a teacher of the Universal Church. One must then examine in what measure Pope Paul VI willed to engage in infallibility in the diverse cases where he signed texts close to heresy if not formally heretical.
But we can say that in the two cases cited above, as in many another, Paul VI acted much more the Liberal than as a man attached to heresy. For when one informed him of the danger that he ran in approving certain conciliar texts, he would proceed to render the text contradictory by adding a formula contrary in meaning to affirmations already in the text, or by drafting an equivocal formula. Now, equivocation is the very mark of the Liberal, who is inconsistent by nature.
The Liberalism of Paul VI, recognized by his friend, Cardinal Daniélou, is thus sufficient to explain the disasters of his pontificate. Pope Pius IX, in particular, spoke often of the Liberal Catholic, whom he considered a destroyer of the Church. The Liberal Catholic is a two-sided being, living in a world of continual self-contradiction. While he would like to remain Catholic, he is possessed by a thirst to appease the world. He affirms his faith weakly, fearing to appear too dogmatic, and as a result, his actions are similar to those of the enemies of the Catholic Faith.
Can a Pope be Liberal and remain Pope? The Church has always severely reprimanded Liberal Catholics, but she has not always excommunicated them. Here, too, we must continue in the spirit of the Church. We must refuse Liberalism from whatever source it comes because the Church has always condemned it. She has done so because it is contrary, in the social realm especially, to the Kingship of Our Lord.
Does not the exclusion of the cardinals of over eighty years of ages, and the secret meetings which preceded and prepared the last two Conclaves, render them invalid? Invalid: no, that is saying too much. Doubtful at the time: perhaps. But in any case, the subsequent unanimous acceptance of the election by the Cardinals and the Roman clergy suffices to validate it. That is the teaching of the theologians.
The visibility of the Church is too necessary to its existence for it to be possible that God would allow that visibility to disappear for decades. The reasoning of those who deny that we have a Pope puts the Church in an inextricable situation. Who will tell us who the future Pope is to be? How, as there are no Cardinals, is he to be chosen? This spirit is a schismatical one for at least the majority of those who attach themselves to certainly schismatical sects like Palmar de Troya, the Eglise Latine de Toulouse, and others.
Our Fraternity absolutely refuses to enter into such reasonings.
We wish to remain attached to Rome and to the Successor of Peter, while refusing his Liberalism through fidelity to his predecessors. We are not afraid to speak to him, respectfully but firmly, as did St. Paul with St. Peter.
And so, far from refusing to pray for the Pope, we redouble our prayers and supplications that the Holy Ghost will grant him light and strength in his affirmations and defense of the Faith.
Thus, I have never refused to go to Rome at his request or that of his representatives. The Truth must be affirmed at Rome above all other places. It is of God, and He will assure its ultimate triumph.
Consequently, the Society of St. Pius X, its priests, brothers, sisters, and oblates, cannot tolerate among its members those who refuse to pray for the Pope or affirm that the Novus Ordo Missae is per se invalid. Certainly, we suffer from this continual incoherence which consists in praising all the Liberal orientations of Vatican II and at the same time straining to mitigate its effects. But all of this must incite us to prayer and to the firm maintenance of Tradition rather than to the affirmation that the Pope is not the Pope.
In conclusion, we must have that missionary spirit which is the true spirit of the Church. We must do everything to bring about the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the words of our Holy Patron, St. Pius X: Instaurare omnia in Christo. We must restore all things in Christ, and we must submit to all, as did Our Lord in His Passion for the salvation of souls and the triumph of Truth. "In hoc natus sum," said Our Lord to Pilate, "ut testimonium perhibeam veritati." “I was born to give witness to the Truth."
Notes:
1. See Pope Paul’s New Mass, p. 240.
2. Ibid., pp. 65-66.
3. Inaestimabile Donum forbids girls to serve on the altar, but this instruction is widely defied in the U.S.A. The Apostolic Delegate has been made aware of this but no action has been taken to curtail the abuse (see The Angelus, December 1982).
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| Archbishop Lefebvre: The New Mass and the Pope |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-10-2021, 12:58 PM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
- No Replies
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The New Mass and the Pope
In the following statement Archbishop Lefebvre clarified his position and that of the Society of St. Pius X on the subject of the New Mass and the Pope.
8 November 1979
The New Mass and the Pope
How often during these last ten years have I not had occasion to respond to questions concerning the weighty problems of the New Mass and the Pope. In answering them I have ever been careful to breathe with the spirit of the Church, conforming myself to her Faith as expressed in her theological principles, and to her pastoral prudence as expressed in moral theology and in the long experiences of her history.
I think I can say that my own views have not changed over the years and that they are, happily, those of the great majority of priests and faithful attached to the indefectible Tradition of the Church.
It should be clear that the few lines which follow are not an exhaustive study of these problems, The purpose, rather is to clarify our conclusions to such an extent that no one may be mistaken regarding the official position of the Society of St, Pius X.
It must be understood immediately that we do not hold to the absurd idea that if the New Mass is valid, we are then free to assist at it. The Church has always forbidden the faithful to assist at the Masses of heretics and schismatics, even when they are valid. It is clear that no one can assist at sacrilegious Masses or at Masses which endanger our faith.
Now, it is easy to show that the New Mass, as it was formulated by the officially authorized Conciliar Liturgical Commission considered together with the accompanying explanation of Mgr. Bugnini, manifests an inexplicable rapprochement with the theology and liturgy of the Protestants. The following fundamental dogmas of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass are not clearly represented and are even contradicted:
- that the priest is the essential minister of the Rite;
- that in the Mass there is a true sacrifice, a sacrificial action;
- that the Victim or Host is Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, present under the species of bread and wine, with His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity;
- that this Sacrifice is a propitiatory one;
- that the Sacrifice and the Sacrament are effected by the words of the Consecration alone, and not also by those which either precede or follow them.
It is sufficient to enumerate a few of the novelties in the New Mass to be convinced of the rapprochement with the Protestants;
- the altar replaced by a table without an altar stone;
- Mass celebrated facing the people, concelebrated, in a loud voice, and in the vernacular;
- the Mass divided into two distinct parts: Liturgy of the Word, and Liturgy of the Eucharist;
- the cheapening of the sacred vessels, the use of leavened bread, distribution of Holy Communion in the hand, and by the laity, and even by women;
- the Blessed Sacrament hidden in corners;
- the Epistle read by women;
- Holy Communion brought to the sick by laity.
All these innovations are authorized. One can fairly say without exaggeration that most of these Masses are sacrilegious acts which pervert the Faith by diminishing it. The de-sacralization is such that these Masses risk the loss of their supernatural character, their mysterium fidei; they would then be no more than acts of natural religion. These New Masses are not only incapable of fulfilling our Sunday obligation, but are such that we must apply to them the canonical rules which the Church customarily applies to communicatio in sacris with Orthodox Churches and Protestant sects.
Must one conclude further that all these Masses are invalid? As long as the essential conditions for validity are present (matter, form, intention, and a validly ordained priest), I do not see how one can affirm this.
The prayers at the Offertory, the Canon, and the Priest’s Communion which surround the words of Consecration are necessary, not to the validity of the Sacrifice and the Sacrament, but rather to their integrity. When the imprisoned Cardinal Mindszenty, desiring to nourish himself with the Body and Blood of Our Lord, and to escape the gaze of his captors, pronounced solely the words of Consecration over a little bread and wine, he most certainly accomplished the Sacrifice and the Sacrament.
It is clear, however, that fewer and fewer Masses are valid these days, as the faith of priests is destroyed and they possess no longer the intention to do what the Church does – an intention which the Church cannot change. The current formation of those who are called seminarians today does not prepare them to celebrate Mass validly. The propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass is no longer considered the essential work of the priest. Nothing is sadder or more disappointing than to read the sermons or teachings of the Conciliar bishops on the subject of vocations, or on the occasion of a priestly ordination. They no longer know what a priest is.
Nevertheless, in order to judge the subjective fault of those who celebrate the New Mass as of those who attend it, we must apply the roles of the discernment of spirits given us in moral and pastoral theology. We (the priests of the Society) must always act as doctors of the soul and not as judge and hangmen. Those who are tempted by this latter course are animated by a bitter spirit and not true zeal for souls. I hope that our young priests will be inspired by the words of St. Pius X in his first encyclical, and by the numerous texts on this subject to be found in such works as The Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Chautard, Christian Perfection and Contemplation by Garrigou-Lagrange, and Christ the Ideal of the Monk by Dom Marmion.
Let us now pass to a second but no less important subject: does the Church have a true Pope or an impostor on the Throne of St. Peter? Happy are those who have lived and died without having to pose such a question! One must indeed recognize that the pontificate of Paul VI posed, and continues to pose, a serious problem of conscience for the faithful. Without reference to his culpability for the terrible demolition of the Church which took place under his pontificate, one cannot but realize that he hastened the causes of that decline in every domain. One can fairly ask oneself how it was possible that a successor of Peter can, in so little time, have caused more damage to the Church than the French Revolution.
Some precise facts, such as the signatures which he gave to Article VII in the Instruction concerning the New Mass, and to the Declaration on Religious Liberty, are indeed scandalous and have led certain traditionalists to affirm that Paul VI was heretical and thus no longer Pope. They argue further that, chosen by a heretical Pope, the great majority of the cardinals are not cardinals at all and thus lacked the authority to elect another Pope. Pope John Paul I and Pope John Paul II were thus, they say, illegitimately elected. They continue that it is inadmissible to pray for a pope who is not Pope or to have any "conversations" (like mine of November 1978) with one who has no right to the Chair of Peter.
As with the question of the invalidity of the Novus Ordo, those who affirm that there is no Pope over-simplify the problem. The reality is more complex. If one begins to study the question of whether or not a Pope can be heretical, one quickly discovers that the problem is not as simple as one might have thought. The very objective study of Xaverio de Silverira on this subject demonstrates that a good number of theologians teach that the Pope can be heretical as a private doctor or theologian but not as a teacher of the Universal Church. One must then examine in what measure Pope Paul VI willed to engage in infallibility in the diverse cases where he signed texts close to heresy if not formally heretical.
But we can say that in the two cases cited above, as in many another, Paul VI acted much more the Liberal than as a man attached to heresy. For when one informed him of the danger that he ran in approving certain conciliar texts, he would proceed to render the text contradictory by adding a formula contrary in meaning to affirmations already in the text, or by drafting an equivocal formula. Now, equivocation is the very mark of the Liberal, who is inconsistent by nature.
The Liberalism of Paul VI, recognized by his friend, Cardinal Daniélou, is thus sufficient to explain the disasters of his pontificate. Pope Pius IX, in particular, spoke often of the Liberal Catholic, whom he considered a destroyer of the Church. The Liberal Catholic is a two-sided being, living in a world of continual self-contradiction. While he would like to remain Catholic, he is possessed by a thirst to appease the world. He affirms his faith weakly, fearing to appear too dogmatic, and as a result, his actions are similar to those of the enemies of the Catholic Faith.
Can a Pope be Liberal and remain Pope? The Church has always severely reprimanded Liberal Catholics, but she has not always excommunicated them. Here, too, we must continue in the spirit of the Church. We must refuse Liberalism from whatever source it comes because the Church has always condemned it. She has done so because it is contrary, in the social realm especially, to the Kingship of Our Lord.
Does not the exclusion of the cardinals of over eighty years of ages, and the secret meetings which preceded and prepared the last two Conclaves, render them invalid? Invalid: no, that is saying too much. Doubtful at the time: perhaps. But in any case, the subsequent unanimous acceptance of the election by the Cardinals and the Roman clergy suffices to validate it. That is the teaching of the theologians.
The visibility of the Church is too necessary to its existence for it to be possible that God would allow that visibility to disappear for decades. The reasoning of those who deny that we have a Pope puts the Church in an inextricable situation. Who will tell us who the future Pope is to be? How, as there are no Cardinals, is he to be chosen? This spirit is a schismatical one for at least the majority of those who attach themselves to certainly schismatical sects like Palmar de Troya, the Eglise Latine de Toulouse, and others.
Our Fraternity absolutely refuses to enter into such reasonings.
We wish to remain attached to Rome and to the Successor of Peter, while refusing his Liberalism through fidelity to his predecessors. We are not afraid to speak to him, respectfully but firmly, as did St. Paul with St. Peter.
And so, far from refusing to pray for the Pope, we redouble our prayers and supplications that the Holy Ghost will grant him light and strength in his affirmations and defense of the Faith.
Thus, I have never refused to go to Rome at his request or that of his representatives. The Truth must be affirmed at Rome above all other places. It is of God, and He will assure its ultimate triumph.
Consequently, the Society of St. Pius X, its priests, brothers, sisters, and oblates, cannot tolerate among its members those who refuse to pray for the Pope or affirm that the Novus Ordo Missae is per se invalid. Certainly, we suffer from this continual incoherence which consists in praising all the Liberal orientations of Vatican II and at the same time straining to mitigate its effects. But all of this must incite us to prayer and to the firm maintenance of Tradition rather than to the affirmation that the Pope is not the Pope.
In conclusion, we must have that missionary spirit which is the true spirit of the Church. We must do everything to bring about the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the words of our Holy Patron, St. Pius X: Instaurare omnia in Christo. We must restore all things in Christ, and we must submit to all, as did Our Lord in His Passion for the salvation of souls and the triumph of Truth. "In hoc natus sum," said Our Lord to Pilate, "ut testimonium perhibeam veritati." “I was born to give witness to the Truth."
Notes:
1. See Pope Paul’s New Mass, p. 240.
2. Ibid., pp. 65-66.
3. Inaestimabile Donum forbids girls to serve on the altar, but this instruction is widely defied in the U.S.A. The Apostolic Delegate has been made aware of this but no action has been taken to curtail the abuse (see The Angelus, December 1982).
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