Eleison Comments

Rome Prepares?

Rome Prepares? on June 16, 2018

In the context of the crisis engulfing the Catholic Church for the last half-century since Vatican II (1962–1965), two recent moves of the Church authorities in Rome can seem surprising, because both moves seem to favour that Catholic Tradition which Pope Francis gives so many indications of wishing to uproot once and for all. Is the Big Bad Wolf really wanting to be nice to the Little Red Riding Hood of the Society of St Pius X, or are these another two wily moves to trap her in his Conciliar lair? Is Rome also preparing for the Society’s General Chapter in mid-July?

The first of the two moves was in mid-February of this year when the Ecclesia Dei Commission, launched in Rome in 1988 to slow down Catholic Tradition because it was threatening to speed up, granted to the semi-Traditional Fraternity of St Peter the use of the highly Traditional liturgical rites of Holy Week. These are the rites that were used for centuries and centuries prior to that reform of the liturgy by Cardinal Bugnini in the 1950’s which paved the way for the New Mass in the 1960’s. As rites for Holy Week the old rites are becoming more and more popular with Catholics who repudiate the New Mass, because the new rites contain so many features of that modernist liturgy which Paul VI would impose by deceitful trickery on the Universal Church in 1969. Is Rome at last backing away from the New Mass?

Hardly. As the famous line of Virgil runs, “Whatever it may be, I do not trust the Greeks, even when they bear gifts.” This gift to Tradition can easily have been designed by Rome to persuade all kinds of Little Red Riding Hoods, especially participants in the General Chapter of July, that the Big Bad Wolf is not so bad after all. The Chapter is important to Rome – that bastion of the Faith erected by the Archbishop must be dismantled, because by Archbishop Lefebvre’s true fight for the Faith it was a real road-block for the onward march of the New World Order, out of all proportion to the Society’s size. The fight has been severely weakened since his death, but Rome must fear the Chapter reviving it. Rome wants either another liberal as Superior General, or a compromise candidate will do, but not a fighter for the Faith!

The other surprising move of Rome was on May 16, when a well-known Vatican journalist, Andrea Tornielli, highlighted an extract from a recently appeared book written by a Roman official on Pope Paul VI (1963–1978). The extract is a detailed account of the September 1976 conversation held between the Pope and Archbishop Lefebvre, within two months of the Mass celebrated by the Archbishop in front of a huge crowd in Lisle, France. That Mass marked the beginning of the Traditional movement, so the Pope wanted to rein in the Archbishop. The conversation lasting a little over half an hour was noted down by the Romans at that time, and it was described somewhat differently by the Archbishop afterwards, but the Romans kept the contents to themselves for the last 42 years. Why publish them now?

The answer must lie in the “somewhat differently.” The admirable Internet site from Latin America, Non possumus, has published the details now released by the Romans and the Archbishop’s own account of the conversation alongside one another. Readers of Non possumus can check for themselves how the Romans have whitewashed the blindness of Paul VI and their own villainy. Outstanding example: Paul VI accused the Archbishop of making his seminarians swear an oath against the Pope, which was absolutely untrue. The Archbishop declared his readiness to swear on a crucifix that the Pope had accused him of such an oath. A Roman spokesman then officially denied that there had been any mention of any such oath.

In like manner Rome’s version glosses over the gulf between the modernism of Paul VI and the Faith of the Archbishop, as though the Capitulants need not worry that there is any huge gap between Conciliar Rome and the Society – let them elect another liberal for their Superior, but a compromise candidate will do!

Kyrie eleison.

Liberals Prepare

Liberals Prepare on June 9, 2018

Not everybody is asleep. Somebody in France is watching out for how the liberals are preparing to take over the imminent General Chapter of the Society of St Pius X, where the Society has its last chance, probably its last chance ever, to stand up for the Catholic Faith against Vatican II, as did Archbishop Lefebvre. Whoever it was wrote an excellent article on Fidélité catholique francophone denouncing some sinister words of the Society’s General Secretary, Fr Christian Thouvenot, spoken in an interview with the Society’s German District magazine early this year. What follows owes much to that article.

Firstly, the sinister words: “It is likely that the question of the present status of the Personal Prelature will be raised at the General Chapter (in July). But it is the Superior General alone who is at the head of the Society and who is responsible for relations between Catholic Tradition and the Holy See. In 1988 Archbishop Lefebvre made this point very clear.” These words are sinister because they are wide open to the interpretation that Menzingen, Society Headquarters where Fr Thouvenot works, is preparing members and followers of the Society for the General Chapter to be the time and place where Bishop Fellay will, apparently lawfully, take upon himself to accept Rome’s offer of a Personal Prelature, and by so doing will cripple once and for all the Society’s ability to defend the Faith by resisting the Novus Ordo Mass and the Second Vatican Council. And these words are sinister because they are ambiguous or false.

Firstly, it is not the Superior General who is alone at the head of the Society. By the Statutes of the Society established by Archbishop Lefebvre, it is true that once the Superior General is elected, he has remarkable powers at his disposal and for no less than a 12-year term, because the Archbishop wanted the Superior General to have time and power to achieve something, without being hindered as he himself had been in the Holy Ghost Fathers. But the General Chapter meeting every six or twelve years is above the Superior General, and he must follow the policies decided by it. Now in theory the General Chapter of 2012 decided that any “canonical normalisation” of the Society would require a majority vote of the full General Chapter, but in practice Bishop Fellay has already proceeded to “normalise” with Rome the Society’s confessions, ordinations and marriages. And now his General Secretary is talking as though the General Chapter has nothing further to say, as though Bishop Fellay alone can “normalise” the rest. Are all the forty future Capitulants of July aware of how Menzingen is talking? Do they agree?

Secondly, Fr Thouvenot claims that Bishop Fellay is – alone? – responsible for relations between Catholic Tradition and the Holy See. That is no doubt how both Rome and Bishop Fellay himself would like to see the situation, so that Rome can scoop up all of “Tradition” at one fell swoop and Bishop Fellay can extend his empire. But “Tradition” is a varying and heterogeneous collection of religious societies and communities which certainly do not all want to be scooped up by Conciliar Rome, or headed up by Bishop Fellay. For this reason Archbishop Lefebvre repeatedly refused to be called the head of Catholic Tradition. But both Bishop Fellay and his Secretary are playing the game of Conciliar Rome.

And thirdly, if the Archbishop insisted at the time of the Consecrations in 1988, that he alone was still in control of the Society’s relations with Rome, that was because he knew that the young collaborators around him were no match for the wily Romans, as we have seen to our cost since his death in 1991. It was not because he trusted in the structure of the Society to endow its Superior General with a special grace to match the Conciliar Romans. When men want to go wrong, it is not necessarily a structure that will save them. But what could the Archbishop do? He had to die some time!

Readers, if you know a July Capitulant, ask him if he knows what the General Secretary is saying!

Kyrie eleison.

Mozart Questioned

Mozart Questioned on June 2, 2018

After issue # 550 of these “Comments” highly praised Mozart (Jan 27, 2018), a reader wrote privately to say that he had a problem with the famous composer: Mozart was an enthusiastic Freemason, he completed in the second half of his life no major work for the Catholic Church, and his operas treat of man-woman relations and of morality in a very casual manner. Now music is so important in people’s souls that this reader’s objections deserve to be answered in public, so that people who do not yet know Mozart may be encouraged – obviously not forced – to make of him the music of their leisure moments. So let us highlight some principles for each of the reader’s three objections.

That Mozart was a Freemason raises a most important principle: the artist and his art are not separate, but they are distinct. What makes the moral goodness of the artist as a person is not the same as what makes the artistic goodness of the artefacts that he produces (Summa Theologiae, 1a 2ae, Q57, Art. 3). Thus Picasso was a personal scoundrel, but his art, purely as art, is brilliant, whereas countless Victorian painters may have been personally very moral, but their paintings are as dull as ditch-water. Thus Masonry certainly entered into some of Mozart’s later music, notably the “Magic Flute,” but the music stands on its own feet, and it certainly owes its beauty not to Masonry’s war on God, but to Mozart’s Catholic parents and his early upbringing in the highly Catholic Austria of the Empress Maria-Theresa.

That, secondly, the mature Mozart never completed another major work for the Church is true insofar as the C Minor Mass and the Requiem are unfinished, but how often those two works are played, and with what religious effect! Also, is there any piece of music so often played or sung in Catholic churches and chapels as Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus”? And if we distinguish music implicitly from explicitly Catholic, can anyone deny that Mozart, like Shakespeare, is a tremendous carrier of Catholic values, in Mozart’s case the values of harmony, order, beauty and joy for countless listeners? And are not these great artists, implicitly and by heritage Catholic, a mercy of God to enable post-Catholics to enjoy Catholic values without realising it? If post-Catholics did realise it, would they not repudiate those values like the arrant liberals presently “de-constructing” Shakespeare in the so-called “universities” and no doubt Mozart in the “music conservatories”? In fact, can today’s liberal actors and musicians get anywhere near the heart of Shakespeare or Mozart? What does that say about that heart? Not liberal!

And thirdly, that some of Mozart’s operas are in part so light-hearted as to have incurred the scorn of Beethoven – “Never could I write such frivolous operas,” he said – leaves out of view the serious part of the same operas. Alongside Zerlina’s flirting are the flames of Don Giovanni’s damnation, alongside the Count’s philandering is his sincere apology to his suffering Countess; alongside the Seraglio is the highlighting of forgiveness. Real life in a fallen world is both comic and serious. See how at the beginning of “Don Giovanni,” Mozart combines musically a duellist’s duel and death with the burbling panic of Don Giovanni’s rabbit-servant, Leporello. Surely Mozart, like Shakespeare, “saw life steadily and saw it whole,” as Matthew Arnold said of Sophocles.

However, one side of Mozart does remain that of a naughty boy (cf. the film “Amadeus”), and he is an integral part of a Christendom already decadent at the end of the 18th century. But, when compared with the downfall of music ever since, is his music not almost angelic, without its being so far removed from our own times that it can seem inaccessible? Any man harms his soul by getting used to listening to music which is trash, with little or no intrinsic value of melody, harmony or rhythm. He will not usually harm his soul by getting used to Mozart, on the contrary.

Kyrie eleison.

Totalitarian Abortion

Totalitarian Abortion on May 26, 2018

It is possible to give too much importance to the fight against abortion insofar as it is only natural life that is being defended, and not supernatural life. All things being equal, the same time and effort would be better spent on defending by whatever means the life of grace than on defending the unborn life of nature, but in today’s society all things are not equal. Above all, there is so little faith left in our godless world, that to talk of the supernatural with most people today is like talking to them Greek – “God, Heaven, Hell, eternity – what on earth are you talking about?” But if people today have a shred of decency left in them, they can still conceive what a crime it is to turn the sanctuary of life, a mother’s womb, into a prison of death. Therefore God bless Catholics who do what they can to hinder abortion.

But they are up against the totalitarian State of England today. An anti-abortion campaigner of many years’ standing writes that a new technique of “pavement counselling,” which engages more directly with women coming for an abortion, has provoked a draconian reaction from the System in place, no doubt because it has been effective, at least in the short term. In the first PSPO (Public Space Protection Order) of its kind in the country, the local Council has voted to confine the anti-abortionists to a grass area 100 metres from the abortuary, where they are not to number more than four, they are not allowed to display posters larger than A3 size, they are not to mention abortion, baby, mum, foetus, soul, kill, hell or murder, they are not to display any images, play amplified music or voices, shout messages relating to abortion, or even pray aloud. These restrictions came into force on April 23 and could be applied both more widely by this local Council, and also by others. Fines for defying the restrictions could run up to £1,000.

What can one say? England is committing suicide. Possibly the local Council chose to enforce the restrictions on April 23 because that is St George’s Day, when England celebrates its patron Saint, as though to protect abortion is an act of patriotism, or love of country! But what is more anti-natural for a woman than to destroy the fruit of her own womb, or more anti-social for a man than to encourage her to do so? How far must a woman have gone down the road of self-destruction to consent to the literal murder of her motherhood, the main purpose of her existence next after the saving of her own soul. “Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty,” says Scripture (I Tim. II, 15), which is the Word not of a supposed misogynist, but of God.

True to form, Shakespeare has seized on the essence of woman’s self-destruction in a few lines which he puts in the mouth of Lady Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 5) as she steels herself to push her husband to murder Duncan, his king, cousin and friend, even while Duncan will also be a guest under Macbeth’s roof. In terrifying words she calls on devils to rip out of her all feminine tenderness and compassion:—

“. . . . Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts! Unsex me here

And fill me from the crown to the toe top full

Of direst cruelty, make thick my blood,

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers . . .”

She proceeds to overwhelm Macbeth’s scruples, and he murders Duncan, the first of many more victims.

Readers, please pray for England, once the Dowry of Mary and still the object of Her motherly care.

Kyrie eleison.

“Pious” Dreams – II

“Pious” Dreams – II on May 19, 2018

If there is one thing certain about Catholic Tradition and the Second Vatican Council, it is that they are irreconcilable. It is tempting to think that they can be reconciled, because of course the letter of the 16 documents of the Council does include a number of Catholic truths. But the spirit of the Council is driving towards a new religion centred on man, and as the spirit inspired the letter of the documents, so even the Catholic truths which they include are harnessed to the Conciliar “renewal” and are made part of it. Indeed, Catholic Truths (and Hierarchy) have been used by the Modernists as carriers for their liberal poison, as a Trojan horse for their heresies. Therefore even Catholic truths are poisoned in the Conciliar documents. Thus in 1990 Archbishop Lefebvre saw and said that Vatican II is 100% infected by subjectivism, whereas in 2001 Bishop Fellay said that the documents of Vatican II are 95% acceptable.

It is indeed tempting to pretend that Catholic Tradition and Vatican II are reconcilable. In this way I need no longer be torn apart by trying to follow both Catholic Authority and Catholic Truth at the same time, because ever since that Council, as the Archbishop said, Catholics have been forced either to obey the Conciliar Popes and depart from Catholic Tradition, or to cleave to Tradition and “disobey” these Popes. Hence the temptation to pretend by one means or another that Tradition and the Council are reconcilable. But the fact that they are irreconcilable is the most important reality now governing the life of the Church, and so it will continue to be until Church Authority comes back to the Catholic Truth of all time.

In the meantime however, the present Superior General of the Archbishop’s Society, Bishop Fellay, is adamant that Catholic Tradition and the Conciliar Romans can be reconciled with one another, and ever since he approved of GREC in the 1990’s, he has been striving to bring them together. His problem is that he does not understand how modernism maintains Catholic appearances for them to act like a Trojan horse to deceive Catholic souls, while there is no true Catholic horse beneath what appears to be one. But Bishop Fellay believes that the false horse has all the makings of a true horse so that, with the tender loving care of the Society, it will become once again a Catholic horse. All too many Traditionalists have allowed themselves to believe in this mistaken policy and to follow his lead towards the Conciliar Romans, but the Romans for their part have not been deceived. They have played along with his policy by making apparent concessions to the Society and to Tradition (e.g. authorizations to confess, ordain, and marry), and by repeatedly pretending to him that he is on the brink of obtaining canonical recognition for the Society, so that for instance “only the final stamp is missing from the agreement.” But unlike him they have it clear in their minds that Catholic Tradition is irreconcilable with their Council, and so every time they have led him to the brink, they have insisted on the Society submitting to their Council.

However, with each “concession” that Bishop Fellay has accepted for the Society, the Romans have lured him further into their trap, and it has become harder for him to turn back. With each “concession” the agreement with Rome has become more and more of a practical reality, with or without the “final stamp.” By holding it back the Romans, by Bishop Fellay’s own fault, can play him like a fisherman plays a fish – how can he now unravel the “concessions” granted, and admit that his policy of 20 years has been a mistake? Yet his policy was wrong from the start. Lacking the Archbishop’s faith, he misconceived the Church’s problem and the Society’s “problem,” and trusted in human politics to solve them both. But of course the Romans with 2,000 years’ experience have been the more skilful politicians – “Your Excellency, enough of these games. For years we have made all the concessions, you have made none” (a big lie, since to accept Conciliar “concessions” is itself a concession to Rome). “Before July you accept the Council, or we excommunicate you, and show you up to the world as a failure. Choose!”

That is no doubt a crude version of how the cunning Romans can put pressure upon the Superior General, but it is he that should never have gone begging to Truthless Authority. In the case of the Catholic Church, Truthless Authority is in fact toothless Authority.

Kyrie eleison.

“Pious” Dreams – I

“Pious” Dreams – I on May 12, 2018

In June of last year a colleague in France put together a good article on whether the Society of St Pius X should or should not obtain from the Church authorities in Rome a canonical status that would protect the Society’s interests. Obviously Society Headquarters in Menzingen, Switzerland believe in obtaining such a status, and if the present Superior General is re-elected for a third term in July, that is the goal which the Society will continue to pursue. However, it is rather less obvious that such a goal should be pursued. An argument of eight full pages from Ocampo # 127 of June 2017, is compressed below into one single page.

The article’s position is that the Society can in no way put itself under all-powerful Church authorities imbued with the principles of the French Revolution as embodied inVatican II, because it is the Superiors who mould the subjects, and not the other way round. Archbishop Lefebvre founded the Society to resist the betrayal of the Catholic Faith by Vatican II. By submitting to the Conciliarists, the Society would be joining the traitors to the Faith.

Church authorities are the diocesan bishops and the Pope. As for the bishops, those downright hostile to the Society might be less dangerous than those who may be friendly but have not understood the absolute demands of Catholic Tradition, which are not just the demands of the Society of St Pius X. As for the Pope, if his words and deeds show him to be working against that Catholic Tradition which it is his duty to uphold, then Catholics have the right and duty to protect themselves both against the way in which he is misusing his authority, and against their own in-born need to follow and obey Catholic authority. Now in theory a Conciliar Pope can promise a special protection for the Society’s Tradition, but in practice he must by his own convictions be striving for the Society to recognise the Council and abandon Tradition. Given then his great authority as Pope to impose his will, the Society must stay out of his way.

Experience shows that Traditionalists who rejoin Conciliar Rome may begin by being merely silent as to the Council’s errors, but they usually finish by accepting those errors. Their initial agreement to keep quiet is in the end deadly for their professing of the Faith. And by the natural downhill slide from one compromise to another, they can even finish by losing the Faith. It is the Faith that made Archbishop Lefebvre say that unless the Conciliar Romans return to the doctrine of the great anti-liberal Papal Encyclicals – which they have not done since his time and are not about to do – further dialogue between the Romans and Traditionalists is useless, and – he could have added – positively dangerous for the Faith.

The article also lists eight objections to this position, given here in italics with the briefest of answers:

1 With the Personal Prelature Rome offers the Society a special protection. Protection from the diocesan bishops, maybe, but not from the Pope’s own supreme authority in the Church. 2 Rome’s demands for the agreement have been diminishing. Only because concessions towards practical co-operation are more effective to obtain Catholics’ submission, as Communists well know. 3 The Society is insisting on being accepted by Rome “as we are,” i.e. Traditional. For the Romans that means “As you will be, once practical co-operation has made you see how nice we are.” 4 So the Society will continue to attack the Council’s errors. Nothing will change. Rome can take its time to insist on ever greater changes. 5 But Pope Francis likes the Society! As the Big Bad Wolf liked Little Red Riding Hood! 6 The Society is too virtuous to be fooled by Rome. Foolish illusion! The Archbishop himself was at first fooled by the Protocol of May 5, 1988. 7 Several Traditional communities have rejoined Rome without losing the true Mass. But several of them have gone over to defending major errors of the Council. 8 Pope Francis as a person is in error, but his function is sacred. To recognise the sacredness of his function cannot oblige me to follow his personal errors, i.e. the misuse of his function. The true Faith is above the Pope.

Kyrie eleison.