Resistance, Organize?
The debate continues as to whether and how today’s “Resistance” should be organized (let us here define “Resistance” as former members or followers of the Society of St Pius X so upset with its recently manifest change of direction as to take action of some kind to resist that change). Broadly speaking, the (relative) youngsters want an organisation to co-ordinate action and make it more effective, while the oldsters tend to think that any structured organisation is no longer possible or even desirable in today’s chaotic circumstances.
To begin with, one must take the measure of the chaos. It comes essentially from the shepherd being struck and the sheep scattered (Zech. XIII, 7; Mt. XXVI, 31). Whether it believes it or not, whether it likes it or not, for the whole world that shepherd is the Catholic Pope. As we observe today, if he goes crazy then nobody in the whole wide world can restore order. This is because the Incarnate God made his Church the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Mt. V, 13–14), and he designed that Church as a monarchy, a design which not even Vatican II could undo. Therefore nobody can take the Pope’s place, and if he says things like, “Who am I to condemn a God-seeking homosexual?,” as the present occupant of the See of Peter said recently, then “chaos is come again,” and there is very little that one can do about it, besides praying for God to intervene.
Notwithstanding, Archbishop Lefebvre did all he could, and by the mercy of God he created an island of sanity and order, the SSPX. But, naturally, under pressure from one Conciliar Pope after another, his successors have given way. They ask, “How can we be Catholic and disobey the Pope?” – more confusion and chaos. However the Archbishop was so successful in organizing resistance to the Council that a number of those who understand what he was doing wish to organize the resistance to those betraying him. But can it be organized? That is the question.
A wise colleague, old enough to have campaigned hard and effectively at the Archbishop’s side in the worldwide expansion of the SSPX in the 1970’s and 1980’s, remembers from those early days a number of priests resisting the Council successfully all over the world, which they did independently of one another and of the Archbishop. They listened to him because he talked good Catholic sense, which is why many of them recognized his moral authority, but none of them obeyed him in the strict sense, and he demanded of none of them that obedience. Without the Pope, structured Catholic obedience was, and remains, impossible. My colleague goes on to point out that even the Archbishop’s Society resisted liberal Church and world for only 30, maybe 40, years, and the situation is rather worse now than it was in his day. When the homeland is occupied by an enemy army, my colleague concludes, it is impossible to organize an army of defence, all that remains is guerrilla warfare.
In my opinion he accurately portrays the increase of the chaos when he writes: “The hour of God and of the immaculate Heart will come (as she has said) only when everything seems lost, which must include the little SSPX. Bishop Fellay’s chief illusion was to have thought that the great SSPX would save the Church, to which the Devil added, “from within, like a Trojan horse.” All that we in fact needed to do was construct Noah’s Ark for the faithful remnant in accordance with the Founder’s plan, and to go on constructing it until the Flood. A deluded leader opened the Ark’s door ahead of time, and the Ark was flooded. God have mercy upon us all. The leader was not Noah, but the Captain of the Titanic.”
Kyrie eleison.
