Eleison Comments

Slide Commented

Slide Commented on November 16, 2019

Two readers of the last two issues of these “Comments” (642 and 643, Nov. 2 and 9) have themselves made useful observations on the state of the Society of St Pius X. The first item of news was that the Newsociety seems to be wanting to bring all Traditionalists, inside or outside the Society, under its single authority, and the second item was that Rome-SSPX “doctrinal discussions” are to be re-opened in Rome with Bishop Fellay leading the SSPX representatives. The first observer comments on the constant tactics of the Revolution, the second on the fate which threatens Don Pagliarani. Here is the first observer:—

These two items of news are very bad. Even if I personally no longer miss the SSPX, it pains me to see it in a state of complete surrender to apostate Rome. Whenever the Revolution in the Church is taking an important step forward which is liable to cause resistance on the part of Catholics, it always has ready for them beforehand – always – an alternative position, a dead end to render ineffective those who were resisting. I am afraid that the SSPX is being set up by Rome to host all Catholics resisting the apostate Bergoglio, in order to steer them in Rome’s direction. It is fairly easy to foresee that that is what they are up to. As always, the one weapon we have in hand is the Rosary, to obtain the Consecration of Russia. God, have mercy upon us!

Such comments are not “conspiracy theory” or “fake news.” The misleaders of the modern Church and world, to whom God is for the moment granting great power to punish it for its apostasy, are not honest people who can afford to operate out in the open. They are all too often true enemies of God, dishonest Revolutionaries who have to conspire and deceive in order to disguise what they are doing. Therefore whenever Catholics who are not only as innocent as doves but also as wise as serpents (cf. Mt. X, 16) denounce the Revolutionaries’ trickery, the latter will accuse them of being, for instance, “conspiracy theorists,” which is yet more trickery, because the accusation is often true.

For example, in this case when in 1988 Archbishop Lefebvre was about to strike a great blow against the liberals by consecrating four faithful (then) bishops to ensure that the Society would survive to defend the true Faith, liberal Rome had prepared the Fraternity of St Peter to receive and neutralise all SSPX priests who would object to those episcopal Consecrations. Similarly when this observer above suggests that in 2019 Rome is turning the Society into a refuge for all Catholics opposing Pope Francis, in order to bring all their opposition under Rome’s control, it is very likely far from “fake news.” It is typical of God’s enemies to be committing exactly the same trickery of which they accuse those who denounce them.

As for the second observer, he suggests that Don Pagliarani may be less guilty than Bishop Fellay of misjudging the intentions of Rome, but if he continues to act as did his predecessor at the head of the Society, it is he, Don Pagliarani, who will take the responsibility for crippling the Society’s defence of the Faith. Nor can one indefinitely make allowances for him, because he must be less and less innocent if and insofar as he continues to act like Bishop Fellay. Here are the second observer’s comments:—

The news that the renewal of Rome-SSPX doctrinal discussions is being headed up in Rome for the SSPX by Bishop Fellay casts a dark shadow on his successor who chose him for that, Don Pagliarani. Even granted that the latter is not so in favour of an agreement as was Bishop Fellay, it does seem that he is stuck in the same way of thinking as his predecessor. Therefore either he breaks free of that conditioning, or he is destined to go on record as the grave-digger of the Society. God forbid! I will pray for him and the Society, and I will turn to the Mother of God to open his eyes and enlighten his two Assistants.

Notice how both observers see in prayer the only solution. Humanly speaking, the Society is essentially, albeit not completely, disabled. Choosing to rejoin the Conciliar Church, it will share its fate.

Kyrie eleison.

Sliding Still – II

Sliding Still – II on November 9, 2019

In case readers think that the August conversation reported here last week between Dom Placide of Bellaigue in France and Society of St Pius X authorities in Switzerland is insufficient to prove that the Society is still sliding away from the defence of the true Faith, here is another report leading to the same conclusion: at about the same time as the Society’s Superior General (SG) gave his re-assuring interview of September 12, he presided over the appointment of a Commission of three to go down to Rome and pick up again the theological discussions with the Conciliar Romans which ran from 2009 to 2011 with no result. And what three representatives of the Society were chosen for the discussions? None other than Bishop Fellay and Fathers Pfluger and Nély, the Society’s ruling triumvirate from 2006 to 2018, when all three were voted out of office at the elective General Chapter of July, 2018! A little background is again necessary.

In the preceding elective General Chapter of 2006, the Society’s 40 leading priests remained faithful, less faithful than in 1994 (as Bishop Fellay once admitted) but nevertheless faithful, to Archbishop Lefebvre’s principle of Catholic common sense, that in the clash between the Society and Rome such important questions of the Faith were at stake that no merely practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement could possibly resolve the clash. Now by 2006 Bishop Fellay had himself long since ceased to take doctrine seriously. For him, like for Pope Benedict XVI, for all modernists and for the mass of the world’s inhabitants today, God’s Truth is less important than men’s unity, but he knew that inside the Society many members still followed the Archbishop in their respect for God’s Truth, and so he continued to ask Pope Benedict for doctrinal discussions to take place so that the Society and Rome could be united.

The request was intrinsically foolish from the very start, because the doctrines of Catholic Tradition and of Vatican II can no more be united than the doctrines of 2+2=4 and 2+2=5. But both the Pope and the SG apparently hoped that the two sides could settle for 2+2= four and a half, because for both of them unity was more precious than truth. And so “doctrinal discussions” took place between four representatives on each side, from 2009 t0 2011. However, back in 2009 Bishop Fellay had still had to appoint four Society representatives who took Catholic Truth seriously, while the Romans were adamant in their attachment to the anti-truths of Vatican II, so that the discussions went nowhere. Unity failed then to prevail over Truth.

But at the Society’s interim (non-elective) General Chapter of 2012, opinion had shifted among the Society’s 40 leading priests, so that the Archbishop’s principle of doctrine first was abandoned, and the Society officially accepted that unity should come first. However, a hard-core resistance movement of Society priests immediately arose, threatening Society unity. And so when at the elective Chapter of 2018 the 40 priests still loved the Truth enough to vote Bishop Fellay and his two Assistants out of office, the new SG picked up afterwards on the idea of doctrinal discussions with the Conciliar Romans, an idea still intrinsically foolish but always as appealing as it is to have one’s cake and eat it. Down he went to Rome, and both the Romans and the SG must still have been dreaming of four-and-a-half, so it appears that “doctrinal discussions” are back on the table.

But whereas in 2009 Bishop Fellay had had to choose lovers of the Truth to represent the Society, the new SG seems to have chosen the very three officials of the Society who presided over the Chapter of 2012 which put unity before Truth! So who is fooling who? If the new SG is fooling himself that a non-doctrinal unity is possible, woe unto the Society, now and for the foreseeable future. If he is not fooling himself, is he acting under pressure from Rome or fellayised Menzingen, or both? It is the same thing, because Bishop Fellay did all he could to put Menzingen and the Society under Rome’s power. It is Rome that is therefore calling the shots, and rubbing the Society’s nose in the Society’s own dirt. Honourable Fr. Pagliarani, if you do not like taking responsibility for such dirt, the honourable thing to do is to resign!

Kyrie eleison.

Sliding Still – I

Sliding Still – I on November 2, 2019

There have been signs to give one hope that the official Society of St Pius X is no longer sliding under the power and control of the Conciliar churchmen in Rome, but such signs are overwhelmed by the evidence to the contrary. For instance, on September 12 the new Superior General (SG) who was voted to take over from Bishop Fellay in July of last year, Fr Davide Pagliarani, made public an interview in which he said many good things, enough to make at least one reader of these “Comments” rejoice that the Society’s slide was being thrown into reverse. Alas, a recent report from Society HQ in Switzerland gives us to fear that Fr Pagliarani is being directed to say such conservative things in order to fool all Traditionalists who are not watching his actions. Here is the background and the report –

Catholic Tradition has houses in France of three outstanding Orders of monks and friars from the Church’s past: the Benedictines in Bellaigue, the Dominicans in Avrillé, the Franciscans in Morgon. All three were encouraged and helped to start in their day by Archbishop Lefebvre, but never did he claim authority over any of them, in fact he positively refused to do so, because he did not see the Society as having any mission to monopolise Tradition or to control all Traditional initiatives. Since their founding, all three independent houses have, relatively speaking, flourished, and in 2019, as is normal for monks and friars, all three exert a special influence over Traditionalists, all over the world one might say.

However, with the Society’s major change of direction which became public in 2012, relations of these houses with the Society have become problematic, because its leaders have naturally wanted these influential religious to change direction also. Several years ago the SSPX broke off relations with the Dominicans of Avrillé who were considered to be too independent, while the Franciscans have needed over the same period of time to adopt a policy carefully balanced between co-operation and independence. And as for the Benedictines, their young Superior from Brazil, Dom Placide, came last August under particular pressure from the Society.

Summoned to Menzingen by Fr Pagliarani, he was rebuked for his lack of co-operation with the Society, and a piece of paper was put before him by which he was to sign over to the Society all control over the Benedictine Monastery! When – to put it politely – he declined the offer, he was threatened that the whole world would be told that the SSPX was cutting off all relations with the Monastery. Dom Placide replied that it was up to the SG to do what he thought best, whereupon the threat changed. Now the threat was that all priories of the Society would be ordered to send no more vocations to Bellaigue. And this threat has been carried out. Dom Placide declined the offer to stay for lunch in Menzingen.

We are entitled to speculate upon such a conversation. If we wish to keep up our hopes for Fr Pagliarani personally, we might speculate that he himself was directed to use such bully tactics upon the relatively young head of the Benedictines. But he cannot avoid the responsibility for at least consenting to act the part of the bully. More seriously, the bully tactics suggest that Rome and Menzingen are plotting jointly to sweep together under the Society all presently independent Traditional groupings, and then to restructure the Society and replace it by a Personal Prelature under Conciliar Rome’s complete control. This would have two advantages for Rome’s war on Tradition: firstly the independence and last traces of Archbishop Lefebvre in the structure of the Society which he designed would disappear, and secondly Rome could then gently strangle, together with the Society, all Traditional groupings and initiatives in one fell swoop. Nor would the Society’s present leaders disapprove of the fell swoop, on the contrary, because as they gently dropped dead of the strangling they would at least have the official recognition for which they have striven for so long.

So much for the misleaders of the Society. But what about its followers, priests and laity?

Kyrie eleison.

Father Bruewiler

Father Bruewiler on October 26, 2019

The following analysis of the present situation of the Newsociety of St Pius X appeared in the St Gallen parish bulletin #3 of Fr Aloïs Bruewihler for autumn of this year. Fr Bruewihler is a former Society priest who left the Society in 2015 because he could not reconcile himself with the false direction being taken by the Newsociety which is still pursuing recognition by the Newchurch authorities in Rome, although these are always insisting on acceptance by the Newsociety of the profoundly anti-Catholic documents of Vatican II as the indispensable condition of that recognition. Fr Bruewihler’s article is adapted here to the A4 length of each of these “Comments.”

In a time of severe crisis when life’s very foundations are being attacked, shaken and even overthrown, a Catholic must in all humility, with trust in the protection of Almighty God, concentrate on “the one thing necessary” (Lk. X, 42), without calling God in question, but instead humbly accepting the trial that His Eternal Wisdom has allowed (or even set up?) as a grace-laden means of punishing or purifying or sanctifying or saving us, body and soul.

Since Mother Church, humiliated and in chains since Vatican II, is as occupied and swamped as ever by sinister Freemasonic powers established within the “Conciliar church,” God’s all-wise Providence gave to Catholics a faithful successor of the Apostles, Archbishop Lefebvre, in order to guarantee for us in our extreme and continuing need an emergency source of the unadulterated doctrine of Christ. The more the Newvatican speaks and acts under the influence of the “smoke of Satan,” the more attention Catholics should pay to the doctrinal heritage left to us by the Founder of the Society of St Pius X if they wish to save their souls. For just as St Paul warned the Corinthians to keep to the Gospel as he had preached it to them, and as he had received it from Christ (I Cor. XV, 1–3, etc.), so today to abandon the Archbishop’s teaching on the New Mass and the Council is in effect to abandon the teaching of Christ.

But soon after the Archbishop’s death in 1991, the Society’s leaders set out on a new path, by which they have striven ever since to “normalise” the Society’s canonical standing within the mainstream Church, as though it were the Archbishop’s Society and not the Conciliar Church that was abnormal. This change of direction began clearly to appear with the Society leaders’ attempt in 2001 to submit to the Conciliar Romans, and it came still more clearly into focus with the Letter to those leaders on April 7, 2012, from three of the Society’s four bishops, one of whom was soon after excluded from the Society. The Society was being split in two, and whoever approved of that exclusion then must be approving now of the Society’s new friends, such as the Swiss Newchurch Bishop, whose doctrine on Council and Mass is far from that of Archbishop Lefebvre. Thus the Newsociety is now being formed on the basis of practical unity before doctrinal truth, which is a Freemasonic principle, absolutely not Catholic. Yet, more and more blinded priests and laity seem to be hoping that a Society-Rome agreement will come about.

The problem goes back to Vatican II (1962–1965) when faithful Catholics, in their families and at work, had to learn to their cost what it meant for Church officials to depart from Catholic Truth. Catholics could no longer follow or obey those Popes, bishops and priests who had authority over them, because Catholic Authority is at the service of Faith and Justice. On the contrary, Benedict XVI’s “Motu Proprio” of 2007, and the SSPX Superior General’s ambiguous and misleading Press Statement issued at the same time, are two examples of serious disregard for truth and justice. As Bishop Tissier said in 2016, “The ‘Motu Proprio’ Mass is not the true Mass.” We could add, the Newsociety, forming steadily ever since 1991, is no longer the true Society.

Kyrie eleison.

Modern Convert

Modern Convert on October 19, 2019

If anybody is tempted today to think that Almighty God has resigned from governing His Church or the world, there are testimonials reaching the office of these “Comments” which show clearly – at least in this Commentator’s opinion – that the Holy Ghost is still at work. A fallen away Catholic tells below how he came back to the Church, how he then found Catholic Tradition and soon after that the “Resistance,” and what sense he makes of it all. Amidst the confusion and discouragement which we all know, he writes with a remarkable breadth and serenity, surely a sign that he is being led by God.

I am a married man with two girls, one nearly adolescent and the other a baby. It is to my grandmother that I owe my return to the Faith. One day five years ago I was just passing by a church when out of the blue I thought of her praying the Rosary, and I was impelled to enter the church to pray. From then on I began to pray once more and to attend Mass. Of course it was the New Mass at first, until about three years ago when I discovered the existence of Catholic Tradition.

From then my family and I have been attending the local chapel of the Society of St Pius X, where we were welcomed with great joy by the priest and congregation. But I soon discovered that there were many divisions in the chapel, and so you can imagine the difficulty I had in sorting out what was going on. Having so recently arrived in Tradition, I needed a good deal of patience, courage and perseverance in order to hang on and not just run away in the first six months! But our thirst for truth and our search for roots overcame our fear, and so we stayed, thanks be to God.

I understood that the SSPX is truly a holy part of the true Catholic Church of Christ, and that is why I am staying at least for the moment inside the Society, with my family. But I am listening all the time to what the sedevacantists and “Resistants” have to say, in order to continue making up my mind. I have an enormous admiration for Archbishop Lefebvre, a true man of God, a holy successor of the Apostles. To see his Society vacillating under the world’s infernal pressure is very difficult to bear, and it requires of us to pray even more.

Certainly the Society still has a great deal to do, because it can still do much good. So can the so-called “Resistance” which plays, and is right to play, the part of a guard-rail whenever the Society strays off course and totters under the attacks of the modern world and the temptations held out to it by the Conciliar churchmen. I am convinced that the “Resistance” has a vital part to play, and that Our Lord enables it to exist for a great good, even inside the Society although it appears to be outside. Personally I count myself as a firm resistant to anybody who does not clearly attack, head on, the Second Vatican Council which was inspired by the Devil. After all, how can one live as a true Catholic today without resisting everywhere and all the time? So is not being a Catholic here below the hardest and most beautiful thing that there is? Thank you, granny, for praying to Jesus and Mary for me!

In this life we never see God Himself, but we do see Him at work: a grandmother’s prayers; prayer of a soul as its first and most important step; attending Mass as a next step: the New Mass still carrying grace, however strangled the grace may be; the Catholic soul being somehow shown Tradition by God, and gravitating towards it; the refuge in a local chapel of the Society, and the welcome there, only for the next severe trial to begin! Trial overcome by the need for roots and the love and pursuit of truth, which settles down in the mind staying open amidst all the confusion, but anchored in respect for the Archbishop and in hatred of Vatican II, profiting by both the Society and the “Resistance” for what each has had to give him, without excluding either; the recognition that any Catholic must swim against the current, and finally gratitude for how God has led him. Many lessons in not too many words. May God bless the writer, and keep him and his family faithful until death. He stands a good chance.

Kyrie eleison.

Presence, Power

Presence, Power on October 12, 2019

While “Western civilisation” is crumbling around our ears, faster and faster, it is very necessary to remember that “Our help is in the name of the Lord,” and in the intercession of His Mother, and in nobody and nothing less. But few people, even Catholics, fully realise just how close to us and how powerful Almighty God is. If they did realise, they might turn rather more easily to prayer, which is in fact the only serious obstacle today to the advance of evil. By a just punishment for the apostasy of mankind, God has let fall under the control of His enemies every other means of influence and power.

But who is God? “Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.”

Firstly, Father. “Maker of Heaven and earth,” but not just a manufacturer who manufactures a product and then leaves it to make its own way in the world. The best comparison to illustrate God’s care and His love for the creatures that He makes, is with the love of a human father for his children which will extend normally to his or their death, and beyond. But a human father’s love is finite, God’s love is infinite.

Secondly, Almighty. Perhaps the simplest way to grasp the might or power of God is to accept the Church’s teaching that God is the Creator, and every other being that exists is a creature which God created, and that creation is out of nothing. Whenever we human beings “create” anything, it is always out of some pre-existing material, for instance a chair out of wood, a house out of bricks, the bricks out of sand, and so on. The more I think about it, the more difficult it becomes to imagine anything being created out of nothing, for the good reason that all changes I know around me are out of something. If I could grasp something coming out of nothing, I would begin to see the meaning of “Almighty.”

Thirdly, maker of all things. Of all things material or “visible,” to the very end of the farthest galaxy – St Ignatius of Loyola used to stand outside his room in Rome and just gaze at the stars at night to profit by the demonstration of God’s infinite power. And much more, of all things spiritual or “invisible,” like the soul that gives life and the faculties of reason and free-will to every human being alive, to say nothing of the whole non-material nine Orders of angels. You doubt that they exist, because they are immaterial? Do you still doubt that there is a far more than human intelligence ordering the evil around us today?

But while many people may be ready to admit that nothing could come into existence without a Creator, what few people grasp is that the creative action of God continues for every moment that the existing thing continues to exist, so that if God for one moment ceased to maintain in existence an existing thing, it would instantly drop back into the nothingness out of which it came. A comparison may help. To start an electric train, its driver must pull towards him what is called the “dead man’s switch,” but he must keep pulling it towards him for the train to keep moving, because the switch or lever is spring-loaded so that if he lets go, the lever will automatically spring back and the train will stop. In this way the train is protected from racing onwards uncontrolled if the driver, for instance, dies at the switch. Thus the train starts by the lever first being pulled, but the same lever must go on being pulled for the train to run.

In the same way God creates a creature in its first moment but it would drop back into nothing if He did not maintain that creative action, or “conserve” the creature for the duration of the thing’s existence. In other words just as the first pull on the lever starts the train but the same lever must go on being pulled for the train to run, so the only difference between God’s creating a creature and conserving it is the difference between the first moment of its existence and every succeeding moment. Thus every moment that I exist, God is active inside me, creating-conserving both my soul and my body. Thus He is more present to all of me than I am to myself, doing what God alone can do, namely hold me out of nothing. And I doubt that He is powerful? Or I doubt that He is close to me? Or I doubt that He cares for me?

Kyrie eleison.