Eleison Comments

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.

Menzingen’s Mistake – I

Menzingen’s Mistake – I on July 8, 2017

Not all readers of these “Comments” may appreciate their regular return to what can look like mere “quarrels between priests,” but let such readers recall – or learn – that the Catholic Church exists as the one and only sure means of saving souls for eternal Heaven, while the Devil exists as a first-class agent for sending souls to eternal Hell. If then Our Lord chooses priests to be the agents of His Church, the Devil will attack them, and one of the best means to attack priests is other priests. In fact easily most of the Church’s arch-heretics have been priests, e.g. Bishop Nestor and Fr. Martin Luther. “Quarrels between priests” are only unimportant if nobody still wants to go to Heaven, but then the Devil has really won!

So let us look at the 20-page document put out on June 13 by the priests of SSPX HQ in Menzingen, Switzerland, to defend their having welcomed Conciliar Rome’s April 4 document which proposed more or less close participation by Conciliar churchmen in the celebration of SSPX marriages. Menzingen’s Letter to Clarify and Rectify Marriage Questions is well put together and quite persuasive if one does not notice the special pleading, but it suffers from the crippling defect of the Society’s present leaders in Menzingen, namely it mistakes Conciliar appearances for Catholic substance. In words the “Letter” condemns repeatedly Conciliar errors in general and on marriage in particular, but in action it treats the Conciliar churchmen as though they are normal Catholic churchmen, when in reality they are profoundly abnormal churchmen – they are modernists. In St Paul’s words for the last times, they have “an appearance of godliness, but deny the power thereof” (II Tim. III, 5). And he adds, “Now these avoid.”

Thus the whole first part of the Letter presents the involvement of the diocesan bishop or the parish priest or their delegate in witnessing Catholic marriages to ensure their validity, as classic practice of the Church and part of its law since the Council of Trent. Who disputes that? But the application of this law has been since Vatican II in the hands of churchmen who have had a steadily more abnormal view of Catholic marriage. The Church today is no longer in normal times! Has Menzingen not noticed? Or chosen to notice no longer? It took a few centuries for Protestantism to break the universal grip of the Catholic Church. It took a few centuries more for liberalism to work its way upwards inside the Church’s hierarchy, but once God allowed, as a just punishment, the elections of John XXIII and Paul VI to prevail, then the highest Catholic authority became liberal, and ever since then never has it been easier for all Catholics under authority to convince themselves, even sincerely, that they are remaining Catholic even while they are destroying the Church.

When in 1987 Archbishop Lefebvre called the Conciliar churchmen “antichrists” (Letter to four future bishops), he was by-passing their possible subjective sincerity and keeping a firm grip on their certain objective destructiveness. When in 2017 Menzingen highlights the normalcy of hierarchical Superiors’ involvement in Catholic marriages, it is taking for granted the hierarchs’ sincerity and by-passing their ruinous liberalism. But liberals they remain, with a concept of marriage that includes easy annulments, and so on. If once they get their foot in the door of Traditional marriages, what stops them tomorrow or the day after from applying even the Church’s Traditional law in accordance with their “renewed” idea of marriage? In fact, how can they not, tomorrow or the day after, apply their own sincere convictions?

For tens of years since Vatican II, according as Catholics have realized what was happening to the Church and become “Traditionalists,” so they have put a distance between themselves and the Church’s official authorities. Without necessarily lacking in courtesy or respect, they have moved away in order to protect their Catholic Faith and morals. Now comes Menzingen moving towards these authorities and wanting all Traditionalists to follow! Menzingen has forgotten the famous quote from Virgil’s Aeneid: “Whatever it be, I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.” Menzingen trusts the Greeks!

Kyrie eleison.

Marriage Background

Marriage Background on July 1, 2017

Given original sin, holding together in marriage one man and one woman until death do them part is no easy matter, yet that was God’s original design for human beings from the beginning of Creation, and such it remains. However, by the time He instituted through Moses the Old Testament Law, allowance then had to be made for some divorce, “because of the hardness of men’s hearts” (Mt. XIX, 7–8). But that was not how God meant marriage to be, and so when Our Divine Lord instituted the New Testament, on the one hand He abolished all divorce, while on the other hand He made Marriage into one of the seven special channels of sanctifying grace, one of the supernatural Sacraments, so that all souls entering His Church would have access to special supernatural help in the holding of their marriages together.

Nor are merely the man and woman involved in their marriage. The proper upbringing of children calls for both their (biological) father and their (biological) mother, and normally it requires that the two stay together to provide a complete and stable home. Moreover the health of society as a whole requires that healthy children be able to grow up into healthy adults. Thus if Christendom ever achieved unprecedented heights of civilisation, it was much due, if one thinks about it, to the strength of Catholic marriage. It would follow that the Devil is constantly attacking natural and Catholic marriage as a major means for him of breaking down Christendom and of sending all souls to Hell.

In our own time the breaking down of Christendom by the weakening of the Church took a huge step forward with Vatican II (1962–1965). Before that Council, Catholic marriage annulments were strictly regulated. They were not divorces, because it had to be proved in front of Church officials that for some serious reason the marriage contract had been invalid from the very beginning, so that a valid marriage had never taken place. But ever since the Council, that strictness has been making way for laxity, so that from exceptions annulments have now become in some countries the rule, i.e. “Catholic divorce.” Therefore when Archbishop Lefebvre founded his Society of St Pius X to resist the decadence let loose by Vatican II, naturally his Society shunned easy annulments and did all it could to help Catholic couples in today’s dissolvent society to forge a marriage which would hold together.

Alas, the successors of the Archbishop at the head of his Society have worked now for 20 years in disguised but tenacious fashion to join the Conciliar Church, by abandoning his resistance to Vatican II. This means that when three months ago the Conciliar Pope authorised Conciliar bishops to delegate their Conciliar priests to take an active part in marriages celebrated within the Society, then on the one hand Newsociety Headquarters greeted the decision as a great gift from Rome and announced that this papal decision would change the Society’s marriage practice, while on the other hand seven senior priests in the Society’s French District protested publicly against Rome’s Conciliar interference in Catholic practice. Headquarters promptly degraded all seven protesters and also dismissed the author of the protest.

Thus the war between liberalism and Catholicism rages on. Three of the seven protesters are reported to be standing their ground. In brief, as one of them has written, any Conciliar bishop can now send a priest to a Society marriage – and how can any such priest be sent back, after he has been so welcomed by Headquarters? Or the bishop can refuse a priest – but that is only a fortunate accident, leaving intact the dangerous principle of Conciliar interference. Or the bishop is allowed to delegate a Society priest – but that is liable to give rise in any Society Priory to marriages both Conciliar and non-Conciliar, with falsified, not to say, warring, relations between the two of them. Conciliarism and Catholicism can be neither mixed nor reconciled with one another.

Kyrie eleison.

Fatima Crucial – II

Fatima Crucial – II on June 24, 2017

Last week these “Comments” argued that if only Church and world had heeded Our Lady’s great message given through the three children of Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, then the world could have been spared the material disaster of World War II, and the Church might have avoided the much greater spiritual disaster of the Second Vatican Council. But in 1960, which was the year when, at the latest, Our Lady wished the third part of the Secret given to the children in 1917 to be revealed, instead the churchmen locked it away, most likely because it condemned in advance the disastrous Council on which their hearts were set. And ever since, the same Conciliar churchmen have made war on Fatima, to stop it from condemning them.

Yet faithful Catholics knew of the existence of the “Third Secret” and wanted to know what it said. Over the next 40 years a few details of its contents leaked out here and there, and, especially thanks to the labours of Fr Nicholas Gruner, pressure built up for its publication. That is why in 2000 the churchmen in Rome made a special effort to bury Fatima once and for all. As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Cardinal Ratzinger published a text which he claimed was the Third Secret of Fatima. Alas, Fatima experts immediately saw serious differences between the Cardinal’s text and what was known of the true Third Secret, awaited since 1960. They suspected that the true Third Secret was still locked away inside the Vatican.

What confirmed this suspicion was the fact that later in the same year 2000, the Cardinal himself told a personal friend (and a saintly priest), Dr Ingo Dollinger, that “What we published was not the whole Secret. We acted under orders.” Over the next many years, Dr Dollinger told the story of the Cardinal’s admission for many priests, seminarians and lay-folk to hear. Most recently, he confirmed the story once more, and gave permission for it to be published on May 16, 2016. But the truth about the Third Secret could not be allowed to get out. See onepeterfive.​com/​confirmation-father-dollingers-claim-cardinal-ratzinger-fatima. Within days (May 21), the Vatican released a Press Statement that quoted Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Ratzinger, as saying that he had never spoken to Dr Dollinger about Fatima, and that the entire Third Secret had been made public! Obviously, Conciliar Rome will go to any lengths to stifle Fatima, but Fatima will not be stifled.

At onepeterfive.​com/​chief-exorcist-father-amorth-padre-pio-knew-the-third-secret on the Internet, see details of an interview given in 2011 by the famous exorcist of Rome (but no Conciliarist), Fr Gabriel Amorth, who wanted the interview to be made public only after his death – he died last year. Fr Amorth knew Padre Pio for 26 years, and the interviewer asked Fr Amorth if, in a conversation held with Padre Pio in about 1960, Padre Pio connected the Third Secret to the loss of faith in the Church. Padre Pio replied very sorrowfully: “You know, Gabriele?It is Satan who has been introduced into the bosom of the Church and within a very short time will come to rule a false Church.”

More recently still, it is the brave Cardinal Burke who is entering the fray on behalf of Our Lady of Fatima. He is one of the four Cardinals who earlier this year raised serious objections to the papal document, Amoris Laetitia, on marriage and family. On May 19 in Rome he appealed at a meeting of Roman Life Forum for Catholics to “work for the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” He admitted that John-Paul II had made such a consecration of the world in 1984, but “once again we hear the call of Our Lady of Fatima to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart, in accord with her explicit instruction.” The Cardinal is quite right. May he at least never be obliged to swallow his words!

Kyrie eleison.

Fatima Crucial – I

Fatima Crucial – I on June 17, 2017

There are still Catholics who cannot understand the importance of the Apparitions and Messages of Our Lady to three peasant children in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, together with the follow-up apparitions and messages given to one of them, Sister Lucy, for years afterwards. Yet the Church itself in Portugal in 1931 gave its official approval to Our Lady’s intervention, and in those Messages it is Our Lady herself who gave them great importance. Here is the text of the second part of the Secret of Fatima, which falls directly beneath the Church’s official approval. It is well known by many Catholics, but all men alive need to understand its importance, as underlined in the words in heavy black print:—

To save them [poor sinners who are on the road to hell] , God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace . The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse war will break out during the reign of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions against the Church and against the Holy Father. To prevent this , I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If My requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions against the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated . . . . . . . . . In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.

Our Lady was speaking here in 1917. “The war” referred to in line 3 was World War I (1914–1918), and “the worse war” was World War II (1939–1945), which would not have happened if all Catholics in the world, starting with the Pope, had listened to Our Lady of Fatima. “To prevent this,” as she had promised in 1917, in 1925 she came to Sister Lucy to ask for the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays, and in 1929 she came again to Sister Lucy to ask for the Consecration of Russia. Still Catholics in general and the churchmen in particular paid little attention. As a result, the “night light” prophesied in 1917 in line 4 above by Our Lady occurred as an extraordinary red glow in the sky all over Europe on the night of January 25, 1938, and in September of 1939 World War II broke out fully, with its 66 million dead.

So Fatima was not important? When it could have saved us from World War II? But even more important was how Fatima could have saved us from the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), and could still in 2017 save us from the devastating consequences of that Council, if only enough Catholics would wake up and do what Our Lady asked for.

In the dots in the quotation above, between “annihilated” and “In the end,” was framed in the original Secret what has come to be known as the “Third Secret” of Fatima, actually the third part of the one and only Secret. Our Lady said that this text was to be revealed at the latest in 1960, if Sister Lucy did not die before then. But it has still not been published, almost certainly because it contains Heaven’s condemnation of the essence of the coming Council. So the blind churchmen, set upon their favourite project, dared to proclaim that Our Lady had said that from 1960 onwards it might be published, a wicked lie if ever there was one. Thus Fatima could have saved from the godlessness of 20th century man not only the world but also the Church, if only the churchmen had listened. Is Fatima still unimportant?

Dear readers, pray the Holy Rosary and practise the Devotion of the First Saturdays, as Our Lady of Fatima asked. It is when enough of us listen to Her that Church and world begin to turn around.

Kyrie eleison.

Refined Hypocrisy

Refined Hypocrisy on June 10, 2017

Let us assume then, with Fr Gleize’s first article here six weeks ago (EC 511), that it is not certain that a Pope cannot fall into heresy. To save souls from Luther down to today, God may have given to the authorities of His Church of the decadent Fifth Age special graces to resist that decadence, but that Age came virtually to an end with Vatican II. Conciliar Popes have been the death of the Church. But are they formal heretics? The interest of Fr Gleize’s second article is its highlighting of just how these Popes have managed to kill the Church by subverting Catholic doctrine while seeming to remain Catholic. What is their technique? Fr Gleize examines the case of the five “dubia” or doubtful points raised by the four Cardinals against the text of Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia ( AL ): do these points make him a conscious and wilful denier of defined Church doctrine? Seemingly, no, says Fr Gleize, but in effect, yes.

Seemingly, no, because on each of the five points Pope Francis does not directly deny Church doctrine, rather he leaves it ambiguous, or leaves it out. The first of the five points is an example of ambiguity: the Pope does not say, “Divorcees may receive Communion,” but, “In certain cases divorcees may receive Communion.” Here the “in certain cases” is open to a broad or narrow interpretation. It is ambiguous, and that ambiguity is apt to undermine Church Law, because there are many divorcees and all too many priests and prelates who will be happy to take the broad interpretation.

In all four remaining points the Pope undermines Catholic doctrine not by denial, but by omission. For instance (fourth point), he does not say, “There is no such thing as an objectively sinful act,” because the Church has always named a series of objectively sinful acts, starting with God’s Ten Commandments. Rather the Pope says, “Objective sinfulness does not necessarily mean subjective guilt.” Now of course the Church has never denied that there can be circumstances for this or that act which take away its guilt, but to put the subjective excuse in the foreground is to put the objective sin in the background. Sinners will love it!Yet the Catholic Church has always ranked the objective nature and moral rightness or wrongness of acts above the subjective blameworthiness of this or that person performing the act. “The exception proves the rule,” says one proverb, and another, “Hard cases make bad law.” On the contrary the subjectivism of Pope Francis undermines Church law (and common sense) with hard cases, even while he avoids directly contradicting Church law. Fr Gleize concludes that the four Cardinals’ five doubts are fully justified.

However, the Pope is covering his tracks by not making dogmatic or anti-dogmatic statements. He himself writes in AL that its purpose is to “collect in-put from the two Synods on the family, together with further considerations capable of guiding thought or dialogue or pastoral practice.” This is professedly not a dogmatic purpose. Therefore it is difficult to pin on Pope Francis the ticket of “formal heretic.” But just as Vatican II professed to be merely a “pastoral,” i.e. non-doctrinal, Council, and yet it blew Catholic doctrine and the Church sky-high, so Pope Francis is in AF not professing that he is teaching doctrine, and yet he is blowing Catholic morals and the family sky-high. It is the classic Communist or Neo-modernist means of subversion, using practicalities to undermine truth, not in principle but in practice. Compare Rome to Bishop Fellay: “Get practical recognition first, we’ll talk about doctrine afterwards.” Compare Bishop Fellay to the SSPX: “We are not changing doctrine,” while he himself is hardly breathing a word of criticism any more of Pope Francis’ destruction of the Church. Would Archbishop Lefebvre have kept silent? To ask the question is to answer it.

Fr Gleize concludes that Pope Francis may not be a “formal heretic,” but he is certainly “favouring heresy.” “Formal heretic” should be the worse of the two tickets, but not at this wrong end of the Church’s Fifth Age, when the hypocrisy of the Church’s enemies is more refined than ever. Heaven help us more than ever! Pray the Fifteen Mystery Rosary every day!

Kyrie eleison.