Eleison Comments

“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.

Bleeding Church

Bleeding Church on May 5, 2018

A colleague resisting the change of Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society of St Pius X into Menzingen’s Newsociety, just like the change of the Catholic Church of Tradition into the Newchurch of Vatican II, has written some interesting considerations, translated here below. They were private, but they are too precious not to be shared more widely. A colleague of his had written to him expressing the hope for Easter that “the Church (and the SSPX) might soon rise from the dead.” He replied:—

A 60-year old man who I take to be wise, said to me on Holy Saturday, “The Church must be crucified as was her divine Master on Good Friday . . . we are now living through Good Friday . . . . Holy Saturday is still to come, and it will last a while yet.”

To which I would like to add a few thoughts.

The Church is by no means about to rise again, rather it is going to bleed to death in a most painful way until it even seems to be no longer there. Whether the SSPX (above all its priests) will be part of this glorious bleeding to death, Heaven alone knows. In any case it is the death by bleeding which is sowing seed for the resurrection.

If the SSPX refuses to belong to the bleeding Church by wanting to continue to work its way little by little into the multi-religious community presided over by Pope (?) Francis – and Menzingen and Fr Schmidberger have been at work for years to turn the Society into another such Fraternity of St Peter – then the Society will still bleed to death, because one way or another the persecution is probably coming for everybody, especially for people wearing the cassock. However, the Society will not then be suffering as glorious Apostles of the end-times, but rather, alas, as a punishment for their material comfort, lukewarmness and unfaithfulness to the Archbishop who founded their Society . . .

(If there is above a question mark against “Pope Francis,” it is because for objective reasons there is at the least some uncertainty, some doubt, as to whether he is Pope. That is precisely why in 1988 in the gentlest of ways Heaven separated the Society from a Rome which had become somewhat schismatic . . . . Indeed we have no communion in the Faith with the present authorities in the Vatican, we are truly outside of their communion, or ex-communicated – which is our good fortune and to our honour – just as on the afternoon of the first Good Friday, the Church severely reduced in numbers was also to be found only outside of Jerusalem, on Calvary . . . )

In truth, nothing throws so much light on the present state of the Church as the Gospel narrative of the Passion of Christ, and conversely one can say that nothing throws so much light on the Gospel narrative as the present desolation of the Church. And just as then the Apostles themselves, even after being repeatedly warned by Our Lord of his coming Passion (Mt. XVI, 21; XVII, 21; XX, 17–19) could still not believe it was real when it came upon them, so too now many a good Catholic can hardly believe that it is the Church of Christ which has such tormenting problems and such inadequate Popes.

But God’s purpose in creating the universe was to share His divine happiness by populating His Heaven with rational creatures, angelic or human, that would freely choose to join Him in His Heaven. The key word here is “freely.” With the faculty of reason God gives to every human being capable of using it, also free-will, and He so balances circumstances for each of us as to make the choice real between Heaven and Hell. Therefore He allows as much freedom as possible for human beings to kill His own Son or to pull down His Son’s Church, but never so much freedom as completely to frustrate His Son or His Church. Therefore He allows unimaginable tribulations for His Church such as only time will fully tell between now and world’s end, but the wisdom of God reaches way beyond our little imaginations (Is. LV, 8,9).

Kyrie eleison.

War Avoided? – II

War Avoided? – II on April 28, 2018

Since the best of political commentators rarely get anywhere near the religious well-springs of history, and yet as God governs man, so a man’s relations with his God (religion) govern his relations with his fellow-men (politics), and so religion governs politics, then a religious commentator must open up the religious dimension of political questions which most people without God may positively wish their political commentators to leave alone. Almighty God seems to be as unwelcome on the present world scene as He is nevertheless its complete Master!

The theme of religion in fact driving politics arose in these “Comments” last week when it was stated that a certain race of men was behind both the media lies and the military pressure to start the Third World War. Given how murderous the latest weapons of modern times will make that war, who on earth can think that they will gain more than they will lose by the global conflict? The answer is, a race of men so absolutely sure of their superiority over all other men that they are convinced that they deserve to rule all mankind, and that they can and must manipulate world events until they arrive at that dominion, by fair means or foul, because the end is so sacred that it justifies all means. Sacred? The obliteration of mankind, sacred? Yes, a twisted sense of the sacred is the key to the insanity: “We, the Chosen People, are so sacred that either we rule the world or it must be destroyed, and ourselves with it!”

The problem is that from Abraham to Christ, they really were the race chosen out by God to be the cradle and launching pad of His own Incarnate Son. For two thousand years they were to be strictly separated from the rest of men and lifted above them, specially privileged and specially punished when necessary, in any case specially treated to make them fit to provide the divine Son with His human nature, human Mother and friends and race and surroundings, so that as their Messiah He could redeem all men from their sins. And if the African proverb says that it takes a village to make a child, what did it take to make a Blessed Virgin Mary? Say what one will about that race today, they did fulfil their mission in this major respect. The drama is that when their Messiah came among them and proved that His mission was to conquer the world for the Kingdom of Heaven and not for their glory, then they crucified Him, and as they have repudiated him collectively ever since, so they set themselves, as the Messiah-hating Race of the Messiah, an insoluble pathological problem, unless and until they turn individually to the Christ they have so hated.

From this pathology – or rather theology – of the Jews down two millennia, there follows a cascade of consequences for the correct reading of today’s world events, but the most important conclusions to be drawn are the following. First and foremost, if Almighty God is deliberately allowing a small number of Jews to master-mind the corruption and chaos of a large number of Gentiles, it is only in order to drive these Gentiles back towards Him. For indeed the one and only thing that the Jews cannot handle is the true Faith of the one true Catholic Church. God created neither the world nor the Catholic Church for all souls to fall into Hell, and so that whenever souls pick up on the true Faith they have in hand their “victory over the world” (I Jn. V, 4). And nothing and nobody else can force them to abandon that Faith. If they do so, they have essentially nobody but themselves to blame.

Then let every one of us turn in heart and mind to the one true God of the one true Church (not that of Vatican II), and the enemies of God, Jew or Gentile, can only lose their present power. Here alone is the true solution to our present worldwide corruption and chaos. If at all possible, fifteen Mysteries a day of the most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Mother of God, the greatest human person that ever lived – and a Jewess.

Kyrie eleison.

War Avoided? – I

War Avoided? – I on April 21, 2018

At world’s end there will be “wars and rumours of wars,” says Our Divine Lord (Mt. XXIV, 6), but “see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet.” In the last few weeks we have certainly had rumours of war, including the threat in Syria of a major confrontation between the armed forces of the United States and of Russia. Since then the threat seems to have subsided. What happened to it, and what are the prospects for the future? Are we now safe from World War III?

It is difficult to tell for sure, because of course the public media are virtually all in the hands of that race which is pushing towards that Third World War which it hopes will enable them to complete their tyranny over mankind, left incomplete by their first two World Wars. Therefore virtually all media reports are slanted in favour of the people and events which could lead to war. However that race has not yet managed to control the Internet which has for the moment broken their monopolistic control of public opinion, so that sane voices can still be heard if one is looking for the truth. What follows is a version of events starting out from material supplied by two such commentators from the United States, both accessible on the Internet – Paul Craig Roberts, and “the Saker”:—

The latest feared confrontation between the USA and Russia in Syria was avoided because the leaders of the US armed forces in Washington would not risk a conflict with the Russians, because of the fearsome Russian weapons newly revealed by President Putin in Russia. These weapons would seem able to wreak havoc upon any American fleet presently in the Mediterranean. Therefore the Americans carefully avoided a strike which could have provoked a Russian retaliation, and they warned the Russians in advance, so that most of the attacking missiles were shot down by Syria, and the damage was minimal.

Does that mean that the danger is over? By no means. The race mentioned above still wants war, and it controls American foreign policy, as Ariel Sharon once boasted in Israel – “We control the Americans, and they know it.” By all means within their considerable power they will go to work on the dissenting American Generals and on President Trump, meanwhile working furiously to develop effective means of defence against the new Russian weapons. And as soon as they think that they have overcome these obstacles, their media will produce another set of lies to fool the stupid Western public, like “chemical weapons” (all long since removed from Syria), or building democracy (Syrians themselves are quite happy with their President Assad), or “Putin is Hitler” (he continues to show remarkable forbearance in the face of vile Western provocation, but if it will not stop, then one day he will more than understandably react).

However, even that race’s overpowering influence (barely alluded to by the two political commentators) does not go to the very heart of the matter (not mentioned at all by the commentators): that race is merely a scourge used – and protected – by God to serve Him by punishing the peoples on earth that turn their backs on Him. Thus that race has shown to leaders of the West all the kingdoms of the world, boasting that they are in its power, and it has promised to hand over to the West the New World Order if only the West will bow down and adore. The Western leaders and nations did not have to accept the offer, but of their own free choice they did.

Therefore unless the Western leaders and nations start to give the correct answer to that offer, namely “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve,” that race will continue to use all its special God-given talents to tempt and to scourge. World War III seems correspondingly likely to occur eventually, if not in Syria, then wherever else godless nations can be fooled.

Kyrie eleison.

Anti-Lefebvrism – II

Anti-Lefebvrism – II on April 14, 2018

Is there a reason why NM (see last week’s “Comments”), in order to deal with the problem of the Conciliar Popes, resorts to the dramatic solution of declaring that they have not been Popes at all? There would seem to be. The Catholic Church is both human (a society of human beings) and divine (specially animated by the Holy Ghost), and it is important not to confuse the two. Human beings as such are all fallible. God alone is infallible. The mistake of Catholics resorting to the dramatic solution of NM is that they are attributing to the human Popes too much of the infallibility that can come from God alone. Let us take an illustration from any modern home.

When I put an electric plug into a socket in the wall, the electric current does not come from the plug, it comes from the power station through the wall and socket into the plug and whatever appliance needs the electric current. The power station is God. The wall and socket are the Church. The current is the Church’s infallibility, coming from God. The plug is the four conditions which the Pope alone can insert into the socket. Those conditions are of course that he 1) speaks as Pope 2) in order to fix once and for all 3) a point of faith or morals 4) with the intention of binding all Catholics to accept it. Through the Pope’s engaging the four conditions, he and he alone has guaranteed access as a human being to the Church’s divine infallibility. The four conditions are the Pope’s to engage. The infallibility is God’s to engage.

Also of course, this particular socket, known as the Church’s Extraordinary Magisterium (EM), is not the only access of human beings to the Church’s infallibility. They accede to it much more by the Church’s Ordinary Magisterium (OM), which is Catholic Tradition, or, what all the Church’s teachers, Popes and Bishops in particular, have taught all over the world ever since Jesus Christ as God deposited that Deposit of the Faith with His Church, confirmed infallibly in the Apostles at Pentecost and handed down infallibly by them until the last of them died. From then on that doctrine was in the hands of fallible human beings, to whom God left their free-will to teach error if they chose to do so. But if ever human error made doubtful what belonged to the infallible doctrine and what did not, God gave to His Church also the Extraordinary Magisterium, precisely to fix once and for all what does and what does not belong to the Ordinary Magisterium. Thus OM is to EM as dog to tail, and not as tail to dog!

The problem of Catholics without number ever since the solemn definition in 1870 of the Church’s infallibility is that since the access of the EM to the Church’s infallibility is automatically guaranteed in a way in which the access of the OM is not, then the EM seems superior, and Catholics tend to exaggerate the EM and to transfer to the Pope personally that infallibility which in reality belongs automatically only to the Church. This means that if the Pope makes serious errors like those of the Conciliar Popes, then the only possible explanation is that they are not Popes. Or, if they are Popes, then one must follow their errors. The logic is good, but the premise is false. Popes are not as infallible as all that. They can make serious errors, as Vatican II and its Conciliar Popes have shown, as never before in all Church history! But the Church remains infallible, and therefore I know that Catholic Tradition will last to the end of the world despite the very worst that any poor Popes may try to do between now and then.

But how do I know that to the Pope as Pope belongs only the privileged access (four conditions) to the electric current (infallibility), and not the current itself which belongs to the wall (the Church)? Because the very definition of infallibility in 1870 says so! I need only read:—when the Pope engages the four conditions (mentioned above), then he “is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals.”

So Catholic Popes are free to make terrible mistakes without the Church being any less infallible.

Kyrie eleison.