Eleison Comments

Viganò Letter

Viganò Letter on September 15, 2018

A reader wrote in with a few questions on the 11-page letter of the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Viganò, which declared with a wealth of details, and quoting names, that there is immense moral corruption rotting the Catholic clergy in the USA, and that the responsibility for the crimes involved reaches to the very top of the Church. At the time of writing these “Comments,” the scandal caused by the letter is immense, and it is having widespread repercussions. Nobody can tell right now what the ultimate fallout will be. Here are the reader’s four questions with brief answers –

1 What is to be thought of the Viganò letter? Is it as serious as it looks?

Yes, because Archbishop Viganò gives all indications of being an honest man. In 2011 he was exiled from Rome and sent to the USA because he was making a successful attempt to clean up Vatican finances. At the time of writing he is in hiding because he is in fear for his life. He has serious enemies.

2 Will the letter be a bombshell in the Church, or a mere fire-cracker, with no lasting consequences?

Time must tell. Certainly the corruption high in the Church is matched by the corruption high among the powers-that-be in the world, politicians, bankers, media and so on. Satan rules, because satanists are linked with one another in all domains, and they are not going to allow one mere Archbishop to upset their apple-cart, if they can help it. In fact it is God who holds the whip-hand. Are people turning back to Him, or not? If not, He will allow the servants of Satan to continue whipping Church and world into the New World Order. If they are turning back to Him, we will have before long the Consecration of Russia.

3 Will the scandal make Menzingen think again about seeking recognition from the Pope and Rome?

It certainly should do so, but I fear it may not. For many years now, Society headquarters in Menzingen have been in the clouds, and liberals do not change their doctrine. For liberals, it is reality that is in the wrong. At all costs official recognition for the Society must be obtained from Rome, and so Pope Francis must still be treated as a friend. Maybe Menzingen can admit that they have been wrong for 20 years, but it will not be easy for them to change course. Archbishop Lefebvre on the contrary decided 30 years ago to let the Conciliar Popes go their way. He would not have been at all surprised by the Viganò letter.

4 What made the Archbishop so clear-sighted?

Doctrine. Scratch many a materialistic Westerner of today and you find an heir of Protestantism who tends to strain out a gnat and swallow a camel (Mt. XXIII, 24), meaning that he is more severe on sins of the flesh than on sins of the spirit, such as doctrinal error, or heresy. Now sins of the flesh are serious enough to contribute to the eternal damnation of a huge number of the souls that fall into Hell – so said Our Lady to the children of Fatima. But it is heresy which opens the way to these sins. See Romans I, 21 to 31. Breaking the First Commandment leads to impurity in general (21–24), to homosexuality in particular (26–27), and to all kinds of other sins in general (28–32). In other words it is the First Commandment which is the first, and not the Sixth.

Thus the real scandal being denounced by Archbishop Viganò is implicit rather than explicit. It is less the perverse sins of the flesh running riot in high-up churchmen than the official idolatry committed by Vatican II in its documents, which did more than anything else to take off the Catholic brakes on immorality. If no State should coerce doctrinally false religions in public ( Dignitatis Humanae), why should I have to observe Catholic morals which put special limits on my liberty? If Hell is a mere “doctrine” of the Church, why should it stop me from sinning how I like? Vatican II ( Nostra Aetate, Unitatis Redintegratio) declared that several religions beside Catholicism have their points. Was this not the Catholic Church itself teaching me that I do not really need to be Catholic?

Kyrie eleison.

Whither, “Resistance” ? – II

Whither, “Resistance” ? – II on September 8, 2018

When John-Paul II became Pope in 1978, a number of Catholics were genuinely hopeful that the situation in the Church would get better than it had been under Paul VI, but I can remember Archbishop Lefebvre saying that if John-Paul II did not clean house in Rome within the first six months of his pontificate, he would not be able to break with the policies established in Rome by Paul VI. Similarly, if Fr. Pagliarani does not clean house soon at the top of the Society, the followers around him of Bishop Fellay are liable to hinder him from making any significant change in the disastrous policies of his predecessor. The rot that started with GREC in the 1990’s has had time to put down some deep roots.

Therefore if anyone is concerned about the future of the “Resistance,” on the grounds that the Society is coming back on track with the new Superior General so that the “Resistance” will no longer be necessary, the first part of the answer is that it is not yet certain that the Society is coming back on track. We must wait and see. Fr Pagliarani is a good man, he surely means well, and we pray for him, but if he chooses first and foremost to unite liberals and anti-liberals within the Society by means of human and political compromises, he will never save the Society from its present downward slide. Our faith is our victory over the world, says St John (I Jn. V, 4), and not our politics. Therefore the “Resistance,” that small and scattered group of bishops, priests and laity doing what they can to resist disastrous politics of Rome and Menzingen, cannot yet give up resisting, however disorganised they are, however ineffective they may seem. Somebody in the Church must fight for what Archbishop Lefebvre fought for.

For indeed, secondly, imagine a convert being led by the grace of God, even today, to the Catholic Faith. By its very principles it must be incarnate somewhere. He may well not find it in the antics of the Novus Ordo. He turns away from the Conciliar Church towards Tradition. He finds the Society of St Pius X, but then discovers that it is going Conciliar. Where does he turn to next? If there is no “Resistance,” he risks giving up on the Incarnate Christ. Somebody in the Church must be living by the logic of the true Faith of 20 centuries, otherwise there risk being souls that conclude that that Faith is obsolete in today’s world.

Likewise souls letting go of the Society’s high trapeze need a Catholic safety-net to fall into, with or without the name of the “Resistance.”

And thirdly, there is any number of ways of mixing whisky with water, but they all depend on somebody producing pure whisky. Similarly, there is an even greater variety of ways of mixing Our Lord with the world, but they all depend upon some people upholding in their lives, and not only in their words, an example for all to see of true Catholic living. This function always used to be served by the Church’s religious Orders and Congregations. Hence their importance. After the Council which ruined them, that function was served especially by the Archbishop and his Society. Today from all over the world the reports come in of the fellayised Society giving a weaker and weaker example of Catholic life and morals. Somebody in the Church must give witness by at least striving to live up to the high standards of doctrine and morals demanded of souls by Our Lord Himself (Mt. V, 48).

And a fourth reason for the “Resistance” not to resign or go out of business or give up the wearisome fight for the Truth, is that it cannot do so, because if it did, then as Our Lord says (Lk XIX, 40), the stones of the street would have to cry out. In other words, the Truth may be smothered by all mankind, but it is not men, it is God who is in charge of the world, and God will never allow the Truth to be completely silenced, because that would frustrate His purpose in creating the world, which is to populate Heaven.

Therefore the “Resistance” may tomorrow, or the day after, change form – and in this respect its present formlessness will actually help! – but in some form or other God will make it continue (cf. Is. VI, 9–11).

We carry on.

Kyrie eleison.

Whither, “Resistance”? – I

Whither, “Resistance”? – I on September 1, 2018

If anybody still wonders what the Catholic “Resistance” movement is meant to be doing, recent events in the United States make it more obvious than ever – it must keep the Faith! With the official publication last month by the State of Pennsylvania, USA, of an 800-page document proving beyond doubt the guilt of high-ranking Catholic churchmen in abominable crimes against the law of the land and the law of God, millions of Catholics will be tempted, and not only in the USA, to doubt the Faith and to quit the Church.

One reader of these “Comments” names three disturbing Internet links, and he writes:

“My heart is hurting. Jesus didn’t teach this. I am bitterly weeping. I am a hard-headed man and don’t cry often at all. I can’t take this. I’m sorry, but if this continues I will have to become Eastern Orthodox or I will absolutely lose my mind. I just can’t take this monstrosity any more. I am in physical pain because this is making my chest hurt. I’m going to lose my mind. All the prayers and Masses are in vain if this is still being done by those who partake in prayers and Masses. Our Lord is being turned upside down by these heretics! I can’t take it!”

Now sin happens, and sin will go on happening until world’s end, even among priests and bishops because God does not take away their free-will, and no wise lawmaker in Church or State trusts in mere legislation to abolish sin. The grace alone of Our Lord Jesus Christ can cleanse souls of sin (Rom. VII, 24, 25). That is why the State is basically powerless to heal the deepest human problems of priests, or families, or nations. It is obliged to do its best to protect its citizens, but all intelligent and honest statesmen recognise that the Catholic Church alone is fully possessed of the means to reach with healing into the depths of human souls. That is why they will favour the Church as best they can for the good of the State, and protect as best they can the reputation of bishops and priests, and leave the Church to deal with her own criminals, if they will. But if the Church refuses to deal with its criminals, then the State has to intervene.

What is so scandalous in the present plague of abuse by churchmen of adolescents and children is the extent of the abuse, the systematic cover-up of the abuse by high-ranking churchmen, and the height of the rank of some of them, reaching up to the very top of the Church. In fact the scandal has been known about in the USA for tens of years, and it is wholly impossible that it was not common knowledge in Rome also. For tens of years, however, a network of homosexuals has had immense power within the structure and hierarchy of the Church, to the point that they exert far-reaching control in Rome over the appointment of bishops, and in the dioceses over the choice of seminarians. It can be more and more difficult to become either bishop or priest without belonging in person to that network.

But what can possibly explain such a disaster among so many churchmen? The only proportionate explanation is the loss of faith let loose by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), following on which the great protector of the priest’s perseverance, his Breviary, and the purpose of his existence, the Mass, were both maimed and crippled ( Sacrosanctum Concilium, Chapters II and IV). Take away from any man the purpose of his existence, and he is bound to look elsewhere for satisfaction. At least one American commentator blames Satanism for the disaster, a sin directly attacking God and, as such, much graver than sins of the flesh. But men only turn to Satan when they have turned away, or been turned away, from God. Vatican II opened the door for seemingly the entire Church to turn away from God.

Kyrie eleison.

“Rigged Video-Game” – II

“Rigged Video-Game” – II on August 25, 2018

The story is told of the great Catholic monarch of Spain, Queen Isabella (1451–1504), that when asked once what she wanted to see in a painting, she replied “a priest saying Mass, a woman giving birth and a criminal being hanged.” In other words, everybody has a part to play in life, and they should play that part and not another. We can only imagine what she would have said about a world in which priests celebrate eucharistic picnics, women freely contraceive and abort, and criminals are sentenced to shorter and shorter sentences in prisons resembling luxury hotels. Today “Nothing is but what is not” (Macbeth, I, 3).

Today many people sense that modern life is false, but few can see why “nothing is but what is not,” or why “Nothing is real, And nothing to get hung about, Strawberry Fields for ever” (Beatles). They observe police oppressing, journalists lying, pharmacy poisoning, lawyers cheating, politicians betraying, women self-sterilising, youth suiciding, teachers corrupting, doctors killing, and so on and so on, and worst of all, priests apostatising. It is not difficult to see around us a disordered world which is the exact opposite of the right order that Queen Isabella had in mind for Spain. But the disorder is so disguised as to resemble in the present the right order of the past, so that few people can work out where the disorder comes from, and many give up the attempt to track it down, settling down instead among the material comforts that it has to offer. For instance many a Rock musician makes good money by screaming at the bad fruits of materialism, but few if any go after its roots, so that most end up as quite comfortable materialists, part and parcel of the falsity that they recognised correctly in their money-making days.

In the words of the old song, “Why, why, why, Delilah?” Because people have so gotten rid of the presence of God in their lives that they have no inkling that His absence is the problem. And if ever they do have an inkling, then for the same reason that they got rid of Him in the first place, they will now look anywhere rather than in His direction for the solution. Yet it was Christ who created, towards world’s end, that Christendom which lifted civilisation to unprecedented heights in the Middle Ages, and of which “Western civilisation” is the Christ-less successor. But, as readers of these “Comments” know, Christ-endom without Christ is “-endom,” better spelt as “end-doom.”

But “end-doom” has to compete with the Middle Ages, otherwise men will want to go back to Christ. Hence the appearances of Christian law, hospitals, parliaments, etc., must be maintained even while the substance is emptied out. Hence over the last 500 years a series of “conservatives” who conserve nothing but the last conquest by the liberals. Hence a long procession of hypocritical politicians outwardly right-wingers but in fact left-wingers, because that is what the peoples want – leaders who will appear to be rendering homage to the remnants of God and of Christ, but who in reality are serving the Devil by making way for ever more freedom from God and from Christ.

Hence the Church’s Second Vatican Council, maintaining the outward appearance of Catholicism even while replacing it with the reality of modernism. Hence the Society of St Pius X’s Chapter of six years ago, pretending to maintain Catholic Tradition even while preparing to subordinate it to Vatican II. Hence the Society’s Chapter of 2018, dethroning the architect of the 2012 Chapter only to reinstate him right next to the throne. Hence a Chapter representing not the reality of the situation of Church or Society, but that which risks turning into another video-game, rigged to tranquillise those resisting the Society’s march towards Conciliar Rome even while protecting that march. Please God, we are wrong.

And so, is there a solution if the whole world is rigging video-games? It is impossible that Heaven could have left us without one. Ever since the Middle Ages Our Lady has given to all of us the Rosary. More recently, She has given us the devotion of the First Saturdays. We neglect Her remedies at our peril.

Kyrie eleison.

Rigged Video Game – I

Rigged Video Game – I on August 18, 2018

Charity certainly prays for the new Superior General of the Society of St Pius X that God may give him the insight and the strength to bring the Society back onto the course set for it – and for the good of the Universal Church – by Archbishop Lefebvre, but realistically Fr Pagliarani may not even have the desire to do any such thing. Realistically, on the human level, the indications are that he is on the same wavelength as Bishop Fellay, and that his election as Superior General was Rome’s and Bishop Fellay’s joint back-up plan for the Chapter if Bishop Fellay himself failed to be re-elected, as seems to have been the case. Thus if Fr Pagliarani would look after Bishop Fellay’s interests, Bishop Fellay would in case of need promote his candidacy for Superior General. Here are a few indications that the two of them are conspiring to bring the Traditional Society under Conciliar Rome –

* At the interim (non-elective) General Chapter of 2012, it is reported that it was Fr Pagliarani who saved Bishop Fellay from devastating arguments presented to the Chapter for Bishop Fellay’s dismissal and replacement as Superior General. Fr Pagliarani told the Chapter that it should not give the Superior a slap in the face – and the weak-kneed Chapter went straight on to other business.

* Soon after that Chapter Fr Pagliarani was promoted – rewarded? – by Bishop Fellay with the elevated post of Seminary Rector at the Society’s seminary for Latin America in La Reja, Argentina. There Fr Pagliarani has been heard to criticise whoever does not understand the need for an agreement between the Society and Rome – Bishop Fellay’s own policy.

* We may hope one day to know for sure exactly how it happened that the two “Counsellors” were added to the Society’s General Council, thus putting Bishop Fellay close back to the seat of power in the Society from which he had just been dethroned a few days before. But is it likely that the all too docile and respectful Capitulants would have voted for such a move if it had not seemed to be agreeable to the new Superior General himself? In fact, if it had not been proposed by Fr Pagliarani himself?

Such questions remain speculations until the facts are made known, but they are not idle speculations, because upon the course of the Society over the next few years depends a great deal in the Universal Church. Will the Society become again the central bulwark of resistance to Conciliar apostasy wreaking havoc within the Church, or is it going to join that movement of apostasy? Within the mainstream Church the Society was always numerically insignificant when compared with all the other institutions together making up the Universal Church, but the Society’s unique faithfulness to the Catholic doctrine and sacraments of all time, being abandoned or perverted by the Church’s highest officials, made the Society a force to be reckoned with. The Archbishop’s stand on Truth made him redoubtable. The Conciliar Popes could neither swallow him down nor spit him out. They have long since swallowed down and eaten up Bishop Fellay.

Time will tell how Fr Pagliarani will handle his tremendous responsibilities. Meanwhile we pray for him, but we are not humanly hopeful. The risk is all too great of the Society’s leaders following the rest of the world’s leaders, and turning the Society into a “rigged video-game,” as somebody well described today’s world. To punish mankind abandoning God everywhere, He is giving power to His enemies to root out the last remains of Christ and of Christian civilisation. However, at least for a while yet, appearances of Christ and His Church must be maintained until they no longer arouse even nostalgia in men being de-christianised. Hence the video-game with no reality beneath the appearances emptied out. Hence the rigging of elections and of Chapters to bring about the Brave New World, without Christ or God.

Alas, for these poor enemies. God exists, and Our Lord is going to strike!

Kyrie eleison.

General Chapter – III

General Chapter – III on August 11, 2018

When Catholic Truth and Catholic Authority move apart, as at Vatican II, it cannot be the Truth that is moving, because Catholic doctrine does not change. It can only be the Authority that has moved, and therefore the Church authorities can alone be to blame for the separation. All the more reason to treasure those authorities that did not betray the Truth, such as Archbishop Lefebvre and his Society of St Pius X. All the more reason to take at least one more look at what happened to it at its recent General Chapter – did the Society in fact get back on the Archbishop’s track which it left in 2012, or did the French proverb apply, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”?

At the beginning of the Chapter three new men were elected to form the triumvirate (body of three men) ruling the Society, and many a good priest in the Society breathed a great sigh of relief and enjoyed a few days of real hope for the future. But then at the end of the Chapter there were voted onto the Society’s General Council, where major decisions are taken, the previous Superior General together with his own predecessor as Superior General. This was by the creation of a novelty in the Society, a new post of “Counsellor.” And many a good priest’s heart must have sunk in his breast. What hope could there be now for a change of the Society’s disastrous course from faithful Truth to faithless authorities when that course’s two main architects were reinstated on the Society’s General Council?

At least one participant in the Chapter was reassured that the two “Counsellors” will not be living in Society headquarters in Menzingen, Switzerland; that they will only be advising on questions of setting up or closing Society houses and admitting or expelling Society members; that creating the “Counsellors” was a clever move of the Chapter because it will help to heal divisions in the Society. Does anyone feel re-assured? Menzingen must win back the trust which its ambiguous politics for 20 years have lost. Here is one commentator among many who does not trust such recent soothing words of the Society’s rulers:—

In reality the choice – fixed beforehand – of Fr Pagliarani for the new Superior General disguises the policy likewise fixed beforehand of confirming the status quo, as to the future direction of the Society. Shamelessly there were placed at the side of the New Superior two more Assistants, hardly outstanding for their resistance to modernist Rome. Moreover the Chapter had the nerve to invent the function of two “Counsellors,” unheard of in the Society’s Statutes, and to “choose” for the job the two characters most in favour of an agreement with Rome that the Society has ever had: Fr. Schmidberger, known for his friendship with Cardinal Ratzinger, and Bishop Fellay, known for his “new friends” in Rome and for his dedication to liquidating the Society, to be handed over bound hand and foot to the Roman apostates.

The picture that emerges is not necessarily one of unconditional surrender, but we catch a glimpse of a new way of getting closer to Rome, with a little more caution and a little more diplomacy towards the priests and laity of the Society. However, given that God both sees and foresees, and that while man proposes, it is God who disposes, then another possibility is that Our Lord intervenes and infuses in the relatively young Fr Pagliarani the Gifts of Counsel, Fortitude and Fear of God which he will need to straighten out the course of the Society lifeboat, and bring it safely to port. May that be God’s will!

In fairness, the Chapter did succeed in changing the Superior General, which was the most important thing that it had to do. Bishop Fellay and Fr Schmidberger as “Counsellors” may well go on scheming with the Romans on how to bring what remains of the Archbishop’s Society under the heel of Conciliar Rome, but supreme power in the Society now belongs to Fr Pagliarani. Will he make good use of it? God only knows. “Charity believes all things, hopes all things” (I Cor. XIII, 7). We must pray for him.

Kyrie eleison.