• “The more one analyzes the documents of Vatican II, and the more one analyzes their interpretation by the authorities of the Church, the more one realizes that what is at stake is not merely superficial errors, a few mistakes, Ecumenism, Religious Liberty, Collegiality, a certain Liberalism, but rather a wholesale perversion of the mind, a whole new philosophy based on modern philosophy, on subjectivism… A wholly different version of Revelation, of Faith, of philosophy! Very grave! A total perversion! How we are going to get out of all this, I have no idea, but in any case it is a fact, and as this German theologian shows (who has, I believe, another two parts of his book to write on the Holy Father's thought), it is truly frightening. So, they are no small errors. We are not dealing in trifles. We are into a line of philosophical thinking that goes back to Kant, Descartes, the whole line of modern philosophers who paved the way for the Revolution.” (Two Years After the Consecrations, September 6, 1990)
  

• “…it is nonetheless certain that the Council was deflected from its purposes by a group of conspirators and that it is impossible for us to take any part in this conspiracy, despite the fact that there may be many satisfactory declarations in Vatican II. The good texts have served as cover to get those texts which are snares, equivocal, and denuded of meaning, accepted and passed.” (from I Accuse the Council)
  

• “We believe we can affirm, purely by internal and external criticism of Vatican II, i.e. by analyzing the texts and studying the Council’s ins and outs, that by turning its back on Tradition and breaking with the Church of the past, it is a schismatic council.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)
  

• “It is stupefying to read in the Documentation Catholique that the Lutheran-Catholic Commission of the Secretariat for Christian Unity, and thus an official Roman commission, said in effect that numerous points in the Council were drawn from the teachings of Luther…” (Conference in Germany, October 29, 1984)
  

• “We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it. ... This reform, since it has issued from Liberalism and from Modernism, is entirely corrupt. It comes from heresy and results in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is thus impossible for any faithful Catholic who is aware of these things to adopt this reform, or to submit to it in any way at all. To ensure our salvation, the only attitude of fidelity to the Church and to Catholic doctrine, is a categorical refusal to accept the reform. ... That is why we hold fast to all that has been believed and practiced in the faith, morals, liturgy, teaching of the catechism, formation of the priest and institution of the Church, by the Church of all time; to all these things as codified in those books which saw day before the Modernist influence of the Council.” (Declaration of Faith, November 21, 1974)
  

• “We can think that there is Rome and Rome: [on one hand,] there is the Rome which is eternal in Her Faith, Her Dogmas, Her concept of the Sacrifice of the Mass; [on the other hand,] there is the temporal Rome which is influenced by the ideas of the modern world, an influence which the Council itself did not escape.” (October 13, 1974)
  

• “The Church, in the course of the 1960's, thus during the Council, acquired values that have come from outside the Church, from the liberal culture - due secoli - from two centuries of liberal culture. It is clear: these are the "rights" of man, it is religious freedom, it is ecumenism. It is Satanic.” (Conference, December 13, 1984)
  

• "Without rejecting this Council wholesale, I think that it is the greatest disaster of this century and of all the past centuries, since the founding of the Church." The Angelus A Matter of Principle
  

• “I never…I don’t accept the Council! Because you are destroying the Catholic State in the name of the Council! It is sure! It is evident!…This Council gives the same rights to error as to Truth! That is impossible…This new faith, it is a new religion. It is a protestant religion. That is a fact! How is it possible that the Pope gives the authorization to this change? How it is possible that the pope can sign this constitution (on liturgical change)? It is a deep mystery…If I take the position of the Council, I am betraying my Mother Church.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, conference, 1976)
  

Quote:“The Church’s deep commitment to reconciliation with the Jewish People is personified today by Benedict XVI. The Ecumenical Council wrought a fundamental change. Then John Paul II, above all others, brought home Paul’s message that Judaism and Jews have a unique place in salvation history. Nobody can deny that Karol Wojtyla’s Pontificate marked a major shift in the theological understanding of Judaism within the Catholic Church.”

Quote:“Vatican II repudiated anti-Semitism and presented a positive picture of Judaism. John Paul II took us further in recognizing the significance of the Jewish People for Christianity itself. This is a new concept which we know the Traditionalists will not be able to accept immediately. Convincing them will take time, and in this respect we will have to be patient.”

Quote:“The Most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, heretics, and schismatics can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the eternal fire ‘which was prepared for the devil and his angels,’ (Mt. 25:41) unless before death they are joined with her; and that so important is the unity of this Ecclesiastical Body, that only those remaining within this unity can profit from the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and that they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, almsdeeds, and other works of Christian piety and duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved unless they abide within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”

Quote:Paragraph III, 7.

Doctrinal Declaration: “We declare that we recognise the validity of the sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments celebrated with the intention to do what the Church does according to the rites indicated in the typical editions of the Roman Missal and the Sacramentary Rituals legitimately promulgated by Popes Paul VI and John-Paul II.”

The Recusant: With this paragraph Bishop Fellay declares that the SSPX accepts the legitimacy of the New Mass and other New Sacraments. Some, notably Fr. Daniel Themann, have tried to claim that it means only that the Pope has authority to promulgate, that the authority promulgating the New Mass is what is legitimate, and not the new Mass itself. But the text clearly says that the New Mass was “legitimately promulgated.” If I say that I am “legitimately married” it means that my marriage is legitimate and not merely that I have the authority or power to get married should I so choose.

The 1988 protocol given to Archbishop Lefebvre to sign shortly before the consecrations, contains a paragraph which says exactly the same, word for word, no more or less, with one difference: the word “legitimately” is missing. Why bother to add that one word, and given that it was deliberately added, how can anyone claim afterwards that that one word does not really signify? It is an exercise in obfuscation. At Lille in 1976, Archbishop Lefebvre condemned the New Mass as a “rite bâtard” (“bastard rite” or “illegitimate rite”). If on the other hand the new Mass was legitimately promulgated then its promulgation was legitimate, making it a legitimate rite of the Church. This would mean that we cannot refuse to attend it on principle.


Paragraph III, 8.

The Doctrinal Declaration: “In following the guidelines laid out above (III,5), as well as Canon 21 of the Code of Canon Law, we promise to respect the common discipline of the Church and the ecclesiastical laws, especially those which are contained in the Code of Canon Law promulgated by John-Paul II (1983) and in the Code of Canon Law of the Oriental Churches promulgated by the same pontiff (1990), without prejudice to the discipline of the Society of Saint Pius X, by a special law.”

The Recusant: Not only do we accept the New Code of Canon Law, we promise to respect it, which in context must mean to abide by it. This would include, presumably, respecting the law which allows the giving of the sacraments to non-Catholics, and the law which reverses the ends of marriage. And even if we make sure that we in the SSPX are “special”, at the very least this would still mean that we are happy to watch the rest of the Church live by this new conciliar Code of Canon law, since we have our little side altar in the cathedral of pluralism. This will, of course, all be done “following the guidelines laid out” in paragraph III,5 - in other words, it will be done according to the idea that there can by definition be no contradiction between old and new, Catholic and modernist, and that wherever a contradiction presents itself, we side with the new, with the modernist, and tell ourselves that it is not modernist but Catholic after all.


Summary

Bishop Fellay, in the name of the SSPX, formally and officially, first in secret and then in public, accepts the documents of Vatican II, Collegiality, Ecumenism, Religious Liberty, the legitimacy of the New Mass and the New Code of Canon Law. He accepts that those things can be reconciled to Tradition, and that where they do not appear to be reconcilable, the solution is “discussions and study” to show that they are after all reconcilable.


Conclusion

The title of this document tells us a lot. “Doctrinal Declaration”. Its purpose is to declare doctrine. This is the doctrine which it declares. Bishop Fellay himself, through his actions (which speak louder than words!) has shown that he knew from the start that this would be unacceptable to a great many priests and faithful in 2012. That is why he kept it a secret for as long as possible (does it make any sense to have a “secret doctrine”? Has anyone but the Secret Societies ever taught a doctrine in secret?)

God blessed the SSPX only due to its fidelity to Tradition and its refusal to compromise with Vatican II. If we see now a loss of unity, of purpose, of holiness and of fruitfulness in the apostolates of the SSPX, this must surely be because that fidelity to Tradition is gone, and therefore God’s blessing is gone too. If God is Truth, then a denial of Catholic truth means separating ourselves from Almighty God. This is why the Holy Ghost is no longer making use of the Society which denied Him by denying His truth. Bishop Freppel’s words have come home to roost in the SSPX – it survived incompetence, immorality, bad priests, bad examples and bad decisions. It cannot and will not recover from its abandonment and diminution of the truth.


Practical Consequences

Catholics wishing to support Tradition need to realise that Tradition and the Council are simply incompatible. Vatican II is toxic: everything it touches, within a short time, withers and dies on the vine. It reduced the church of the 1950s and 1960s to her present state in little more than a generation. If we support Vatican II or give our approval to it in any way, then we cannot claim to be supporting Tradition, since the two are incompatible. If we are to totally and not just partially or symbolically support Tradition, then we must totally and not just partially or symbolically reject Vatican II.

This, far above any considerations of “validity”, “novus ordo hosts in the tabernacle” or “dubious sermons” is the real reason why Traditional Catholics knew that they ought to avoid the “approved” Masses of such groups as the Society of St. Peter, which accept Vatican II and which offer a “pre-conciliar taste” within a conciliar framework. For that very same reason, we ought to avoid the Society of St. Pius X. We want nothing to do with the council, therefore we will have nothing to do with the Society of St. Pius X which has accepted it. The sacrament of confession is something more personal, but the Mass is a public act of worship on behalf of the Church, and we cannot assist at the public act of worship offered by priests who officially accept the Council.

A public departure from, diminution of or undermining of the Faith requires a public response. Every priest of the Society of St. Pius X has a duty to make public where he stands in relation to this grave insult to Our Lord. It was written and handed over in his name: it is up to him to tell the world that this is not the case, to confess Our Lord “before men”. We are well aware that there are many priests remaining in the SSPX who privately disagree with the Doctrinal Declaration, but our confession of the Faith has to be public, not private, especially (as Cardinal Pie says) when the truth is attacked.

Archbishop Lefebvre gave the faithful Catholic Tradition, and the faithful were justified in more or less assuming that the priests united with him taught the same. Bishop Fellay’s Doctrinal Declaration is another doctrine than that which we received from him. To those who say that we err, that we go too far, we reply that we prefer to err on the side of being too zealous on behalf of Tradition, of opposing Vatican II and its novel doctrine too strongly, than the alternative. Our Lord warns us against being lukewarm, and experience teaches us to beware above all a slow, subtle danger to our faith.

In the meantime, whilst we await the ministrations of the far smaller number of priests who have declared themselves against this new doctrine, Almighty God will surely reward our sacrifices which are made out of love for Him and fidelity to Catholic Tradition.

St. Pius X, pray for us!
[Emphasis mine.]