Eleison Comments

Yesterday, March 25, was the 25th anniversary of the death of a great man of God, Archbishop Lefebvre, to whom so many Catholics keeping the Faith today have such a great debt. When in the 1960’s the Revolutionary demons of the modern world succeeded in bringing under their yoke the mass of Catholic churchmen either during or after the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), it was the Archbishop who almost single-handed stood by that Catholic Truth which Catholic Authority, blinded or cowed, was abandoning. For indeed to obey that Authority given over to the principles of the Revolution, Catholics had to abandon the Truth of the Church’s unchanging Tradition. Or else, to remain faithful to that Truth, they had to enter into “disobedience” to the Church Authorities.

Of course neither the Archbishop nor the Society of St Pius X which he founded in 1970 were in real disobedience, because Catholic Authority is the indispensable servant of Catholic Truth: indispensable, becaue Truth without Authority is torn to pieces amid the warring opinions of fallible men, but servant, because Authority is a means and not an end, the means of protecting and preserving that infallible Truth of Christ which alone can save souls. To this immutable Church Tradition Archbishop Lefebvre remained faithful to the end, yet without scorning or defying those Church Authorities which condemned him to the end. On the contrary he did all he could have done, in fact at a given moment, on his own admission, even more than he should have done, to help them to see the Truth and serve it, for the good of the whole Church, but in vain.

That is when, to ensure the survival of the Truth of salvation, in June of 1988 he consecrated four bishops without that permission of Church Authorities which is normally necessary. They must have hoped that his proceeding without their permission would spell the ruin of his Society, but on the contrary it flourished, because by now a significant number of souls had climbed out of their pre-Conciliar “obedience” to understand that Truth has to come first, and that truthful bishops are essential to the survival of the Church’s Truth.

But what happened to the Society which he left behind him when he died two and a half years later? His Catholic wisdom and personal charisma were no longer there to protect them from the magnetic pull of pre-Conciliar “obedience,” which took the form of seemingly reasonable propositions of a diplomatic compromise between Conciliar Authority and Catholic Tradition. False “obedience,” preferring Authority to Truth, now crept back at the top of the Society from which the Archbishop had exorcised it, and within a few more years his Society was hardly recognisable as its misleaders went to Rome, cap in hand, begging for official recognition from the Church Authorities.

Now Truth has no right to put itself in a position of begging for anything from a group of liars – “Catholicism is Revolutionary” is a dreadful lie – but the Society’s misleaders, then and now, justified their humiliating of Truth by appealing to the Archbishop’s example. For years, they said, he went down to Rome seeking official approval of the Society, and they were doing nothing else. But what might have seemed similar was in reality quite different. While they were going down to Rome in pursuit of some political agreement, by which, as became clear at the latest in the spring of 2012, they were ready to compromise doctrine, on the contrary the Archbishop only ever went down to Rome for the good of the Faith and the Church. For him the offical approval of the Society by Church Authority was only ever a means to help that Authority back towards Tradition and Truth, and when that Authority in the spring of 1988 demonstrated once and for all its refusal to look after Tradition, then the Archbishop broke off all negotiations and diplomatic contacts, and roundly declared that they would only resume when Rome returned to doctrinal Truth. In fact the Archbishop’s successors had never understood him. And today? See next week’s “Comments.”

Kyrie eleison.

On the day of the consecration, please God, of Dom Thomas Aquinas as third bishop for today’s Catholic “Resistance,” it seems appropriate to reproduce the testimony of a close friend of his, Professor Carlos Nougué, now leading a House of Studies attached to Dom Thomas’ Monastery of the Holy Cross. This testimony, which many of you may not have seen, is only slightly adapted from the original, which is accessible on the excellent Mexican site, Non Possumus. Note in particular the good influence of Corção, the close connection with Archbishop Lefebvre, the refusal to approach neo-modernist Rome and the Stalinist methods of Bp Fellay.

Kyrie eleison.!

Miguel Ferreira da Costa was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1954. Before beginning his career in the law, he studied at Saint Benedict College in Rio de Janeiro, where I had the opportunity to be his classmate for a brief while. He took part in the traditionalist and anti-modernist movement organized around Gustavo Corção and Permanencia magazine; then he began his life of “faithful warrior and veteran of the post-Conciliar war for the Faith” – he quit the law to become a monk with the name of Thomas Aquinas, in the French monastery of le Barroux, where Dom Gérard was Prior at that time, and he was ordained priest in 1980, in Écône, by Archbishop Lefebvre. There he enjoyed the friendship, the example and the teaching of the SSPX’s Founder.

In 1987 he came to Brazil with a group of monks from le Barroux to found the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Nova Friburgo, up in the hills behind Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But in the meantime Dom Gérard, despite the grave warnings of the Archbishop, was advancing towards an agreement with Conciliar Rome, to which Dom Thomas Aquinas was also opposed. A split was inevitable. The Monastery of the Holy Cross, with Archbishop Lefebvre’s support, became independent in 1988, while retaining good relations with the SSPX. However, upon written advice of the Archbishop, the SSPX was not to have jurisdiction over him, because as Prior of the Monastery he needed autonomy.

Providential advice, because relations between the SSPX and the Monastery were deteriorating, especially with the approach of the SSPX to neo-modernist Rome. Dom Thomas refused to sing at Sunday Mass the Te Deum asked for by Bp. Fellay to celebrate Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio on the Mass. Similarly, for the “lifting of the excommunications” by the same Pope, Dom Thomas wrote to Bp. Fellay a letter refusing to follow him towards an agreement with Conciliar Rome. Thereupon I myself saw Bp. De Galarreta and Fr. Bouchacourt when they came to the Monastery to tell Dom Thomas that he had 15 days to leave the Monastery if he wanted the Monastery to continue receiving help and the sacraments (including Ordinations) from the SSPX.

I wrote to Bp. Fellay to complain about this injustice. He answered me that Dom Thomas had a mental problem, and as long as he did not leave the Monastery, it would not receive the Society’s help. I replied: “Then I should have the same mental problem, because I have known him for twelve years and I never realized.” It was truly like Stalinism, with its psychiatric hospitals for opponents of the Stalinist regime. But Dom Thomas hesitated: if he left the Monastery, that would be its ruin regarding the Faith, but if he stayed, he would deprive it of needed help. Then Bp. Williamson wrote to Dom Thomas promising the Monastery all the sacraments it would need. This meant Dom Thomas could stay.

This was enough for all of us to start reacting: it was the beginning of what is now known as the Resistance, which had as its first organ the website called SPES, no longer on line. The Monastery then became a reception center for refugee priests from the SSPX with nowhere to live. It was where Bp. Faure was consecrated, and now it is where Dom Thomas Aquino Ferreira da Costa himself will be consecrated, my spiritual father and the closest friend that God could have given to me.

Here are some small good news and some big bad news, but the balance may be a little redressed by the bad news being of the world while the good news is of the Church. First, the triple good news.

At the beginning of February at the “Resistance” Seminary of St Grignion de Montfort near Angers in France there was a meeting of the half dozen French priests of the Priestly Union of Marcel Lefebvre, USML for short. Bishop Faure presided. Fr Bruno, Benedictine monk, co-ordinated. The USML still has no structure worth speaking of, any more than did the remnant of faithful priests surviving the disaster of the NOM and Vatican II, but vigorous discussion of action to be taken did not prevent a meeting of minds. Faith may hold the USML friends together for a while yet.

Next, on the following day five young men, three from France, one each from England and Italy, received the cassock at the hands of Bishop Faure in a Pontifical Mass celebrated in the church of the Dominican Friary in Avrillé. Under the impulse of the USML the Seminary opened last autumn with eight seminarians, only one of whom is no longer there. They receive a large part of their daily schooling in the same Friary from the Dominican priests who are thus repaying a debt of their own origins to the Archbishop’s Society and Seminary in Écône, where their three pioneers, still their leaders of today, received their initial schooling in philosophy and theology in the late 1970’s and early ‘80’s. Truly, “What goes around, comes around,” but from Bishop Fellay’s Newsociety, hell-bound for Conciliar Rome, the Dominicans parted company prudently last year.

And the last part of the good news from France is that by no means all the SSPX priests in the French District are blindly following their misleader. How could they, when the present head of Conciliar Rome commits day by day, in word and deed, one outrage after another against the Catholic Faith, as though he were set upon destroying the entire Church? The Archbishop’s Society may be sinking, and it may yet sink in this overwhelming storm of liberalism and neo-modernism, but it has not yet sunk. We must pray to the Archbishop in case he can save his Society from the deluded liberals into whose hands it has fallen.

The bad news from the world (see http://​www.​tfmetalsreport.​com/​blog/​7422/​dangerous-moves-new-cold-war) is that the Cold War between the West and Russia is heating up again and becoming more dangerous than ever since the Cuban missiles crisis of 1961. In particular at the end of January the United States government announced its decision to put a fully equipped combat brigade, mobile but permanent, in the countries of East Europe bordering directly on Russia, from the Baltic States down to Syria. Never has US military force been placed so close to Russia. The previous closest was Berlin. And the arms race is back on. Both sides are modernising their nuclear weapons, now much more expensive and dangerous, being smaller, more precise, more controllable and therefore more “usable.” The nuclear clock is ticking – at 11h57, say some – and there is no debate.

How can the Western media not be making known a situation developing so dramatically? Because they are controlled by the enemies of God and man who want the Third World War to give them that global dictatorship to which they are convinced that they are entitled. Is there a human hope of stopping them from inflicting upon all of us their folly? It depends not on them but upon Almighty God, whom they are serving as a scourge for ourselves, godless mankind. Let each of us pray the Rosary and do our daily duty. We can do little more. We can do no less.

Kyrie eleison.

To present Fr Calderón’s arguments for the Newrite of Consecration of Bishops being “most likely valid” does not mean defending the Novus Ordo as a whole, nor saying that there is no problem with this Newrite. It does mean that the problem must be weighed not by hothead emotions but by the Church’s sacramental theology, a domain in which it is apt to happen, as the proverb says, that “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Here are Fr Calderón’s arguments, still heavily summarized:—

What is needed to guarantee the validity of a sacramental Rite is its long-standing approval by the Church. Because the Newrite of Episcopal Consecration (NEC) is an entirely new rite, fabricated under Paul VI in the wake of Vatican II, it has no such guarantee. Moreover that Council’s anti-liturgical spirit, quasi-heretical collegiality and anti-authoritarian spirit, forming the context in which the NEC was fabricated, combine to raise a doubt as to its validity: has the new Matter in the NEC been so changed as to invalidate the sacrament? Does the NEC show its promulgator’s new Ritual Intention to make a Rite to consecrate bishops to “do what the Church does” (and always has done)? And has the Form been officially established by the Church, and does it sufficiently express not necessarily the grace of the bishopric to be conferred, but at least the episcopal order which necessarily implies that grace?

The new Matter of the NEC raises no doubts, because it has not been significantly changed from the Traditional matter. On the other hand the promulgator’s new Ritual Intention is problematic, because Paul VI may have been the highest authority in the Church, nevertheless all his liturgical reforms are shot through with his typical modernist desire both to “do what the Church does” and at the same time not to do it. This contradiction characterised almost his entire pontificate, causing untold confusion throughout the Church. Thus the NEC as a whole betrays his democratic spirit, altering radically in several places the Traditional concept of a Catholic bishop and his authority. This new Ritual Intention is ambiguous.

As for the NEC’s new Form, it was established by the highest Church authority, Pope Paul VI, but not with his Extraordinary infallibility, nor with the Church’s Ordinary infallibility (which never breaks with Tradition), so that a final Church judgment upon its validity must wait for the restoration of the Church’s sane Magisterium, presently eclipsed. Meanwhile as a sacramental Form it does seem valid, because “Accept the Principal Spirit” is a Form similar to other Forms approved by the Church, and any intrinsic ambiguity as to the order of bishops is wholly clarified by the immediately surrounding extrinsic Rite.

However, since Paul VI established this Newform both meaning and not meaning to break with the Traditional concept of a Catholic bishop, then in accordance with the doctrine of Leo XIII’s “Apostolicae Curae,” had his dissolving of episcopal authority been clear and explicit, his NEC consecrations would certainly be as invalid as Anglican Orders. As it is, the modernist errors are only implicit in the context of the NEC’s institution. But it is a dark shadow overhanging the validity of the NEC.

Fr Calderón’s conclusion was given here last week: the Matter, Form and Ritual Intention of the NEC are certainly illegitimate because of their break with Tradition, but they are most probably valid because they signify what needs to be signified and most of their elements come from Rites accepted by the Church. However, that validity is not certain because the Ritual Intention to break without breaking with Tradition is illegitimate, the NEC is only similar to Church-approved Rites, and the changes go all in a modernist direction. But the sacraments call for absolutely certain validity, especially the consecration of bishops on whom the Church hangs. Therefore newbishops and newpriests were best conditionally re-consecrated and re-ordained.

Kyrie eleison.

A recent study by a competent Society of St Pius X theologian concerning the validity of the Newrite of Consecration of Newbishops introduced in 1969, provides remarkable confirmation of the second point of Freemasonry’s three-point plan to destroy the Catholic Church, which the dying Cardinal Liénart (1884–1973) allegedly revealed on his death-bed. The Cardinal was a leading neo-modernist at Vatican II, and surely a Freemason himself. Before quoting from the summary of the Cardinal’s testimony which appeared in these “Comments” (#121 of October 31, 2009), let us remind readers that the validity of a Catholic sacrament requires, besides a valid Minister, a valid Form and Matter (words and actions at the heart of the ceremony) and the sacramental Intention to do what the Church does. All other words to be spoken at the ceremony constitute the Rite, surounding and framing the Form. Now from EC 121:—

According to the Cardinal, Freemasonry’s first objective at the Council was to break the Mass by so altering the Catholic Rite as to undermine in the long run the celebrant’s Catholic Intention: “to do what the Church does.” Gradually the Newrite was to induce priests and laity alike to take the Mass rather for a “memorial” or “sacred meal” than for a propitiatory sacrifice. Freemasonry’s second objective was to break the Apostolic Succession by a Newrite of Consecration that would eventually undermine the bishops’ power of Orders, both by a Newform not automatically invalidating but ambiguous enough to sow doubt, and above all by a Newrite which as a whole would eventually dissolve the consecrating bishop’s sacramental Intention. This would have the advantage of breaking the Apostolic Succession so gently that nobody would even notice ( . . . )

Do not today’s Newrites of Mass and Episcopal Consecration correspond exactly to the Masonic plan as unveiled by the Cardinal? Ever since these Newrites were introduced in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, many serious Catholics have refused to believe that they could be used validly. Alas, they are not automatically invalid. How much simpler it would be, if they were. They are worse. Their sacramental Newform is Catholic enough to persuade many a celebrant that they can be validly used, but the Newrite and Newform are designed as a whole to be so ambiguous and so suggestive of a non-Catholic interpretation as to invalidate the sacrament over time by corrupting the catholic Intention of any celebrant who is either too “obedient,” or is not watching and praying enough. Newrites thus valid enough to get themselves accepted by nearly all Catholics in the short term, but ambiguous enough to invalidate the sacraments in the long term, constitute a trap satanically subtle.

There is no room left in this week’s “Comments” to do justice to the recent article of Fr Alvaro Calderón, but let us present its grand lines (whose justification will have to wait for another issue of these “Comments”): the Newrite of episcopal Consecration is an entirely new Rite. As such, is it valid? It is certainly illegitimate, because no Pope has the right to make such a break with Catholic Tradition. On the other hand in the context of the Newrite and its institution, the Newmatter, Newform and Newintention are very probably valid, because they signify what needs to be signified and most of their elements come from Rites accepted by the Church. But the validity is not certain because the break with Tradition is not legitimate, and because the Newrite is only similar to Rites approved by the Church, and all the changes go in a modernist direction. Therefore the absolute need for certain validity in sacramental Rites applies: until the restored Magisterium of the Church pronounces that the Newrite of Consecration is valid, then to be safe, Newbishops should be reconsecrated conditionally, and Newpriests ordained only by Newbishops should be re-ordained conditionally.

Neo-modernism is “uniquely slippery.” It was designed to be so.

Kyrie eleison.

Ever since the General Chapter of July, 2012, when under Bishop Fellay’s direction the Society of St Pius X took a decisive lurch towards a compromise agreement with Conciliar Rome, Catholics of Tradition have wondered where the two other SSPX bishops stand, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais (BpT) and Bishop de Galarreta (BpG), because both have been rather discreet in public since that time. However, firm words spoken by each of them last month have raised hopes for the future of the SSPX. Are the hopes justified? Catholics may need to remain on their guard . . .

The Confirmations sermon of BpT given on January 31 in Saarbrücken in Germany could not have been more upright or clear. For instance: In the SSPX’s confrontation with Rome, it may never go in for compromise or double-dealing. We can never negotiate with Rome so long as the representatives of the Newchurch (sic) cling to the errors of Vatican II. Any talk of ours with Rome must be unambiguous, and have as its purpose the conversion of the Newchurch representatives back to our one and only truth of Catholic Tradition. No compromise or double-dealing until they have got over their Conciliar errors, and have converted back to the Truth.

Admirable words! Uprightness is not BpT’s problem. He is no politician, God bless him. His problem is that when it comes to putting words into action, his “Fiftiesism” makes him obey his Superior and fall back in line with the politicians of SSPX HQ in Menzingen. Nothing indicates that this will not happen again this time, but we may always pray that, as the proverb says, “Even a worm will turn.” BpT is far from a worm, but he is hiding from himself, or genuinely cannot see, the full malice of Menzingen’s action. It is not just the unity and welfare of the SSPX which is at stake, but the Catholic Faith.

On the contrary BpG is a politician. Unfortunately we do not have the full text of the conference he gave in Bailly, France, on January 17, because his exact words count, so we can only quote from a summary of his main thoughts: Rome’s latest theological and canonical proposals for a Rome-SSPX agreement remain unacceptable, but the Pope certainly wants an agreement and he is perfectly capable of overriding his own officials and of imposing a “unilateral” recognition on the SSPX. Such a recognition could definitely harm the SSPX internally, but if the SSPX had done nothing to obtain it, then there is nothing that the SSPX could do about it. However, Providence would once more watch over the Archbishop’s work.

But, your Excellency, Menzingen has now for many years been doing all it can by political negotiation to arrive at official recognition by Rome, and its eventual “unilateral” arrival would be a mere pretence to deceive Traditionalists so as to sell out the SSPX under cover of claiming, no doubt with Rome’s permission behind the scenes, that it was all Rome’s fault. But the fact would remain that the Archbishop’s Society would finally be betrayed, and you with your own “No, no, a thousand times no . . . but possibly, yes” would have to answer for not having done all you could and should have done to block its betrayal.

In brief, that emergency lighting system of the Universal Church in Conciliar darkness, which is the SSPX, is itself flickering and in danger of no longer giving light. Therefore that repair team to sustain the emergency lighting, which is the “Resistance,” is still needed, and that team needs a sufficiency of good foremen. A third bishop for the “Resistance” is planned, as last year for March 19 at the monastery near Nova Friburgo in Brazil. He is its Prior, Fr Thomas Aquinas, faithful warrior and veteran of the post-Conciliar war for the Faith. May God be with him, and with all the humble and faithful servants of God.

Kyrie eleison.