Eleison Comments

Why Tradition?

Why Tradition? on August 19, 2017

If it is true that a generation of Traditional Catholics is growing up who do not know why they are Traditional, that is definitely one reason why the Society of St Pius X is “losing its savour” – see Mt. V, 13. To keep the Faith, every Catholic needs to know why he must follow Tradition. Now the Second Vatican Council was arguably the greatest single assault on Catholic Tradition in all the history of the Church. So let us look at a modernist encyclopedia’s useful ten-point summary of the new teaching of Vatican II, together with the briefest of pointers to the error in each point. The ten points are in italics, their skeletal refutation follows immediately each point:—

1 The Church is, first and foremost, a mystery, or sacrament, and not primarily an organisation or institution. “Mystery” and “sacrament” are deliberately vague words to get away from the Church’s structure, but Our Lord clearly instituted Peter to lead His Apostles and disciples in the saving of souls. Peter is Pope, and in St Paul’s Epistles clearly Apostles become bishops and disciples become priests.

2 The Church is the whole people of God, not just the hierarchy, clergy and religious. Of course the Catholic Church includes all Catholics as well as priests, but the priests are its backbone, or structure.

3 The Church’s mission includes action on behalf of justice and peace and is not limited to the preaching of the Word and the celebration of the sacraments. Doctrine and sacraments are the basic means by which the Catholic Church has contributed more than anybody or anything to justice and peace in the world.

4 The Church includes all Christians and is not limited to the Catholic Church. Non-catholic “Christians” can never be truly Christian, because they reject more or less of what Our Lord instituted.

5 The Church is a communion, or college, of local churches, which are not simply administrative subdivisions of the Church Universal. Today’s chaos in “local churches” all over the world proves how they absolutely need to be united and administered by a sane Universal Pope in Rome.

6 The Church is an eschatological community; it is not yet the Kingdom of God. Wherever souls are in the state of grace, there God is King, not only in Heaven but also already here below on earth.

7 The lay apostolate is a direct participation in the apostolate of the Church and not simply a sharing in the mission of the hierarchy. As a human body needs both skeleton and flesh, so the Mystical Body of the Church needs both clergy and laity (cf. I Cor. XII). Opposite errors (clericalism and laicism) are generated by exaggerating the role of either. The Church needs both.

8 There is a hierarchy of truths; not all teachings of the Church are equally binding or essential to the integrity of Catholic faith. Only non-dogmatic truths can be ranked in order of importance. All Catholic dogmas rank equally, because to deny just one is to deny God’s authority which is behind them all.

9 God uses other Christian churches and non-Christian religions in offering salvation to all mankind; the Catholic Church is not the only means of salvation. To all men alive God offers graces sufficient for salvation. These may come to men IN non-Christian religions or non-Catholic “churches,” but they can never come THROUGH anybody or anything except through Jesus Christ and His one Catholic Church.

10 The dignity of the human person and the freedom of the act of faith are the foundation of religious liberty for all, over against the view that “error has no rights.” Catholicism being the only true religion, then the only true religious liberty is the liberty to be Catholic. Error indeed has no rights.

Kyrie eleison.

P.S. On Sunday September 10, after Mass at 10h00, Dr David White will give three lectures in Broadstairs on Fr Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889), Jesuit priest and important English poet.

Clash Evolving

Clash Evolving on August 12, 2017

How is the Society of St Pius X evolving since the spring and early summer when strong tensions arose in it over the participation of Conciliar priests as official witnesses in Society marriages? In brief, relations continue to be strained between Society leaders favouring that participation and those Society priests and laity that condemn it. One can even foresee the Society splitting between the followers of Archbishop Lefebvre and the followers of Bishop Fellay. Such a split was inevitable from the day when Bishop Fellay began leading the Archbishop’s Society in a different direction from the Archbishop himself.

But nothing shakes the determination of Bishop Fellay’s Menzingen to steer away from the line traced by the Archbishop and towards the line of Conciliar Rome. Just recently it is reported that in France a Society couple engaged to be married refused to have anything to do with the Conciliar authorities, whereupon their SSPX priest refused to marry them. Obviously he had his Superiors’ support. Does this insistence upon dismantling the Archbishop’s Society have any rational explanation? Three factors may be at work, amongst others.

Firstly, Providence chose Switzerland to serve as the Society’s first geographical base, and Switzerland has enjoyed ever since a corresponding importance and prestige within the SSPX. Thus its top two officials at present, and many of its priests, are Swiss citizens. Now Switzerland is a country of order which is famous, for example, for how its trains run on time, whereas the lack of official recognition for a truly Catholic Congregation is normally a disorder that will be the more keenly felt by an orderly people. Secondly, SSPX priests can be dreaming of how large an apostolate will open up to the Society if only it can be recognised by Rome. And thirdly, there can seem to be no other solution to the Society’s serious internal strains than its putting itself under the authority of Conciliar Rome – Bishop Fellay does not want to hear of apocalyptic solutions like an intervention of God.

But firstly, the supreme order for Catholics is not the order of the State, however desirable that may be, but the order of God, trampled underfoot by Vatican II. Secondly, modernists by their nature can give every appearance of being “converted” because they see no problem in their own subjectivism. But it is so comfortable that few have any intention of quitting it for any objective conversion involving the Cross. As Fr Vallet said, liberals do not convert. And thirdly, to think that the only solution to the unprecedented problems of today’s world and Church is to go along with the lies, betrays a serious lack of faith, however triumphant those lies may seem. Do we really think that God’s arm is shortened because we men are wicked (Isaiah L, 2; LIX, 1)? God knows exactly how He will deal with the unprecedented lies, as we need only wait to see, but in the meantime He does not want us to be going along with them!

However, there is also good news – some priests and laity refusing to go along with the lies are also resolute. A reader in France tells me that a number of SSPX priests have been woken up by the concrete problem over marriages. The best of the SSPX priests are not resorting to Conciliar witnesses for Society marriages, much to the annoyance of their Superiors. Three of the demoted Deans have written strongly against Conciliar marriage witnesses even after their own demotion, and one has just spoken out strongly against the Personal Prelature, because it is by no means out of the question, even since Cardinal Müller’s damning Declaration of late June. We are by no means “back to Square one,” as Bishop Fellay claimed at that time. “Like a bad business manager at bay,” says this reader, “he has forfeited all trust from any colleagues with a brain in their head, even the most respectful.” What matters now, the reader concludes, is not to save the SSPX as a whole, because that would take a miracle, but to save as many priests and laity as possible from the downward slide of the SSPX.

Kyrie eleison.

Fatima Consecration – II

Fatima Consecration – II on August 5, 2017

Here is the second and last part of the formula of Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, as used by four bishops in the United States three months ago:—

Just three years later that punishment began with the churchmen’s refusal to make public the third part of your Secret message of Fatima, which you had asked them to publish at the latest in 1960. By an almost unpardonable lie they pretended that you had told them, that from 1960 onwards they might publish it, and this effort of theirs to stifle your message of Fatima has continued ever since, culminating in the year 2000. But you have never given up your attempts to save us, while the churchmen were even more severely punished by the blindness which overwhelmed them at the Second Vatican Council. In the third part of the Secret it is most likely that you had warned against exactly the errors which prevailed at that Council. And now the entire Church is in darkness, and the world is on the brink of the third and most terrible World War.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, most Holy Mother of God, we cry to you in our distress. Help of Christians, Refuge of Sinners, Comforter of the Afflicted we trust in you. Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, Mother of the Church, we implore your most loving, maternal and Immaculate Heart to have mercy upon us poor sinners, your children; hear and answer our plea. We beg of you to obtain from your Divine Son, the graces necessary for the Holy Father and the bishops to fulfil without further delay the long-standing command of Heaven, by consecrating with the bishops of the entire world, Holy Russia to your Immaculate Heart, as was requested and in the manner requested by you, on behalf of the Most Holy Trinity so long ago, and which has yet to be accomplished.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, you know how much suffering mankind would have avoided over the last 90 years if only one of the Popes during that time had heeded your request for the Consecration of Russia. Mother of God, you and your Divine Son alone know what a frightful chastisement is now hanging over the heads of mankind if the Popes, for whatever inadequate human reasons, still refuse your request. If it depends upon them, they are liable to prevaricate, although you told us one hundred years ago how much that would make them suffer. Mother of God, your Divine Son can refuse you nothing that you ask of Him. He wishes the Consecration to depend on you, because He wishes your Immaculate Heart to be honoured as the source of the Consecration’s triumph. Holy Mother of God, most humbly upon our knees we beg of you to obtain those graces needed by the Pope to perform the Consecration.

Meanwhile before you here today, we commend, we entrust, and we do whatever lies within our own power, to consecrate Russia to your Immaculate Heart , not because we can remotely take the place of the Pope and the bishops of the whole world, but because we wish to honour your requests as far as we can. If only Holy Russia became Catholic once more, the Eastern Church might resurrect the Western Church, presently devastated by materialism and atheism. Mother of God, we commend our own selves also to your protection and to your all-powerful intercession with Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings, but who is at the same time a Son who infinitely loves His Mother, and will do anything she asks. Beloved and Blessed Mother, we have not a shadow of doubt that in the end your Immaculate Heart will triumph.

It stands to reason that Almighty God would not leave mankind without some simple means to turn back towards Him, if it wanted. It also stands to reason, if men offended Him too much, that He would entrust these means to His Mother. Hence Fatima. Every one of us must pray the Rosary and practise the devotion of the First Saturdays, so that at last the churchmen fulfil her simple request.

Kyrie eleison.

Fatima Consecration – I

Fatima Consecration – I on July 29, 2017

When last May four bishops in Vienna, Virginia, in the United States, did what they could to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, they used a formula for the Consecration never used before, and which was somewhat different from the usual formulas. It included a brief history of Our Lady’s request for the Consecration, showing how the leaders of the Church failed, and are still failing, to respond adequately to Heaven’s simple solution to the unprecedented problems of today’s Church and world. The purpose of such a formula was to help everybody to realize that these otherwise insoluble problems are the fault not of Almighty God but of a lack of faith on the part of His churchmen. They must do what Our Lady asked them to do, despite whatever Vatican II makes them want to do. What disasters will it take to make them finally do what She wants, to save all of us? Here is the first half of the Virginia Consecration:—

Most Holy Mother of God, Immaculate Heart of Mary, Seat of Mercy, Seat of Goodness, Seat of Pardon, sure door by which souls are to enter Heaven, see on their knees before you four sons of Archbishop Lefebvre, four bishops striving to do what they can to help you to obtain from the Pope and bishops of your Divine Son’s one true Church that Consecration of Russia to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart which can alone obtain peace for mankind, now in the shadow of a frightful third World War. In Fatima, Portugal, one hundred years ago, you first warned mankind of the Second World War to come, of famine and persecutions, if people would not cease offending God. To prevent these disasters, you promised to return to ask for the Consecration of Russia to your Immaculate Heart, and for the Communion of Reparation on First Saturdays. If your requests were heeded, Russia would be converted, and there would be peace. If not, disasters would follow and Russia would spread its errors throughout the world. Within the next 12 years you returned as you had promised, and you made the double request.

However, trusting in human means to solve the Church’s grave problems, the Catholic churchmen did not immediately do what you had requested. Two years later your Divine Son Himself warned mankind through Sister Lucy of Fatima, that since His ministers were delaying to carry out His command, they would suffer grave consequences: Russia would spread its errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church, and the Pope would suffer greatly. Still the Pope preferred his human means of dealing with Russia.

In 1936 Our Lord explained to Sister Lucy that Russia’s conversion depended upon its consecration to your Immaculate Heart because He wanted the whole Church to recognize that that conversion was a triumph of your Heart, so that devotion to your Heart would rank alongside devotion to His own Sacred Heart.

Still the churchmen hesitated, so that in 1939 the terrible Second World War broke out, and all over the world Communism extended its power. Immediately after the war your pilgrim statues of Fatima had great success, but still the churchmen would not do exactly as you had requested, and so in 1957 before Sister Lucy was silenced by the churchmen, she expressed your own sadness that neither good people nor bad people had paid attention to the message of Fatima. You said that the good people gave it no importance, while the bad cared nothing about it. But you warned us once more that a terrible punishment was imminent.

For that punishment, see next week’s “Eleison Comments.”

Kyrie eleison.

Menzingen’s Mistake – III

Menzingen’s Mistake – III on July 22, 2017

Another Society of St Pius X priest (Fr. PR, for public relations) has descended into the arena to defend his Superiors’ pursuit of official recognition of the Society by Rome. Fr. PR’s defence is also well presented, but again it suffers from the same essential fault as does the pursuit of the recognition which he is defending – a lack of realism. Principle is one thing, practice is another, even if it is governed by principles. To be a master of principles is not to be a master of practice, and vice versa. It is noteworthy how Fr. PR’s defence of his Superiors’ pursuit of recognition starts out by saying that in this defence he, Fr PR, is only interested in the principles: firstly, whether one can in principle accept recognition from a modernist, and secondly, just how far one can in principle collaborate with a modernist.

To prove that one can accept recognition from a modernist Pope, he argues that Archbishop Lefebvre sought it from Paul VI until the latter’s death in 1978, and in 1988 he only refused collaboration with John-Paul II in practice, but not in principle. Nor did the Society’s General Chapter of 2012 demand of Benedict XVI a profession of Catholic Faith, to do which betrays at any time a schismatic spirit. But, one replies, the clash between the Archbishop and Paul VI from 1974 onwards is well-known, and behind the Archbishop’s refusal in practice of the Protocol of 1988 were the principles of his Faith. 2012 was just the moment when the Society abandoned the Archbishop by abandoning his stand on the Faith in principle, and as for a schismatic spirit, who was in reality in schism? – the Archbishop or the modernists? As for Pope Francis, Fr PR argues that he is the Pope; that the Church is what not he, but what Our Lord, made it; that collaboration with him is with him only as Catholic Pope. But, one replies, in real life, as the rot of an apple is and is not apple, so the Conciliar Church is and is not the Church. In real life, the Society is not dealing only with the Catholic Church or a Catholic Pope, but directly with Conciliar rot.

Thus when Fr PR, examining secondly how far one can collaborate with a modernist, answers that one can do so insofar it is for the good of the Church, he constantly abstracts from today’s reality. Thus:—

* The Church is indefectible – Sure, but Conciliar churchmen are defecting all the time.

* The Society is serving the Church, not churchmen – Sure, but it has to go through false churchmen.

* A Catholic prelature could not be refused – Sure, but not if it is managed by false churchmen.

* The Pope need only stick to its terms – Sure, but what protects a piece of paper from such managers?

* The Pope’s authority is from God – Sure, but not in order to destroy the Church (II Cor. XIII, 10).

* The Society was right to accept jurisdiction for confessions and marriages – Fr. PR, are you so sure? What if that was just the cheese on a mousetrap?

* Such a practical question as this last question on our situation right now “is not in the power of this article to judge,” replies Fr. PR, but the very possibility that it might not be a trap proves for him that accepting or not Rome’s canonical recognition “should not be judged only on the basis of one’s unity with the Pope’s faith.” And so he concludes that “canonical recognition should be accepted if it is for the good of the Church and rejected if it is not, regardless of the Pope’s faith.”

But, Father, ask yourself – this Pope’s “faith” being what it is, would or would not a canonical recognition bring the Society under mainstream, i.e., modernist, Superiors? Yes, or no? In real life, do you really think that this Pope would grant a prelature which would not bring the Society under Rome’s control? In other words, under the control of people who no longer believe in objective truth? There is much beauty in Catholic principles, but they have to be applied in a real, often all too real, world.

Kyrie eleison.

Menzingen’s Mistake – II

Menzingen’s Mistake – II on July 15, 2017

The problem of the June 13 letter from Society of St Pius X headquarters in Menzingen, Switzerland, meant to “set the record straight on marriages” after Rome’s April 4 proposal to facilitate the integration of Society marriages into the Conciliar structure, is no small problem of merely this or that argument or this or that detail. The problem is the total Conciliar mentality of the churchmen making the proposal. In the immortal words of one of the three Society theologians who, led by Bishop de Galarreta, stood up to four Roman “theologians” in the “Theological Discussions” of 2009 to 2011, the four Romans were “mentally sick but they have the authority.” Such is the Romans’ (objective) “mental sickness” that many a believing Catholic is tempted to conclude that they have lost all Church authority. Alas, they still at least appear to have it, so that in the name of “obedience” they are objectively destroying the Church, whatever may be – God knows – their subjective good intentions.

Thus the first major part of Menzingen’s Letter on Marriages (see last week’s “Comments”) argued that Rome’s April 4 proposal was merely to bring Society marriages back into line with the Church’s ancient and reasonable practice since the Council of Trent. Yes, Menzingen, but what is reasonable law worth when it is to be applied by “mentally sick” administrators? A profound scholastic axiom says, “Whatever is received is received in the manner of the receiver.” Sane Tradition in the hands of (objectively) insane churchmen is liable to become insane. For instance in the third part of the Letter Menzingen claims that to officialise Society marriages will make them more secure. Secure, did you say? When today’s Church officials are virtually turning official annulments into “Catholic divorce”?

The second main part of the Letter sets up eight main objections to Rome’s proposal in order to refute them. The essence of most of the objections is that, in context, to accept Rome’s proposal means going along with the Conciliar betrayal of the Faith: with the Conciliar theory and practice of marriage (1,2), with the Conciliar condemnation of previous SSPX marriages (3), with the new Code of Canon Law (8), and so on. Menzingen’s answer is that taken merely in itself, abstracting from its context, the Roman proposal is doing no more than to make available to Society couples an extra way of getting married in harmony with the official Church. Yes, Menzingen, but how can a marriage be celebrated in real life without a context? And how can any official Church context be anything today other than Conciliar?

The fifth objection is a classic example of Menzingen’s Cloud Cuckooland reasoning which separates the inseparable: to the objection that Rome’s easing of access to the officialising of Society marriages is merely the cheese on a Personal Prelature mousetrap, Menzingen replies that “in itself ” cheese is only cheese! Menzingen even recognises that Rome’s proposal itself mentions that it is a step on the way to the Society’s eventual “institutional regularisation,” in other words that the cheese is, objectively, part of a trap. Menzingen’s answer is that to avoid all such traps, the Society would have to cut all contacts with Roman officials, which Archbishop Lefebvre said in 1975 that he would never do.

Yes, Menzingen, but that was before another 13 years of contacts and negotiations with the Romans finally proved to the Archbishop that they had no real intention of looking after Tradition. Then and only then did he consecrate four bishops to look after Tradition (as they did until 2012), but never did he refuse all future contact with the Romans. He only said that henceforth doctrine had to precede diplomacy, so that contact could only be resumed when the Romans returned to the great Papal condemnations of liberalism and modernism. And since 1988? Menzingen pretends that Rome has changed for the better, so that a trap is no longer a trap! Oh, Menzingen! You have caught the Romans’ “mental sickness”!

Kyrie eleison.