Eleison Comments

Sin Avenged

Sin Avenged on May 16, 2015

Immersed as we all are in the world around us, it is difficult, especially for young people, to realize into what an abnormal condition it has brought itself. Never in all human history has God been so discredited, disbelieved, and in effect discarded from men’s lives. And since all sin is primarily an offence against God, then as men lose all sense of God, so they lose all sense of sin. Therefore men are always right, and “God,” whoever he may be, is always wrong, so that whenever things go wrong “he” can always be brought back long enough to take the blame.

This widely spread attitude makes it virtually impossible to understand the apparent severity of God in the Old Testament, where for instance he commands the Israelites to exterminate whole peoples, as in the book of Joshua. But Catholic Scripture scholars who have not lost their sense of the true and unchanging God, put things back in perspective. Here for instance is a summary of the commentary by a modern Benedictine, Dom Jean de Monléon (1890–1981), on the slaughter of the Canaanites by the Israelites under their leader, Joshua:—

As far as Joshua himself is concerned, he was acting not out of hatred, racism, greed, ambition or whatever, but under strict, precise and repeated orders from God himself. St John Chrysostom says that Joshua might personally have preferred some less murderous solution, but certainly God had his own reasons. These we cannot know for sure, but we can make reasonable guesses. To begin with, all of us human beings, by our original sin (What is that?” cries modern man), have to pay the debt of death, the time, manner and place of which are decided by the Master of Life and Death, who is God. For sinners like the Canaanites, to die sooner rather than later can be a mercy, especially if the manner of death gives them time to repent and so save their souls for eternity.

Next, the Canaanites were indeed sinners, immersed in the committing of terrible crimes, and like mankind before the Flood, like the Sodomites and Gomorrhans, they had made the cup of God’s wrath overflow: prostitution of all kinds, bestiality, incest, witchcraft and in particular, the ritual murder of children, as proved by multiple archaeological excavations in Palestine, whereby tiny skeletons have been uncovered in surroundings clearly identifying them as sacrificial victims, etc.

Moreover if the Canaanites were allowed to survive, they would present a grave danger of corrupting the Israelites, as subsequent history only too clearly showed.

In more recent times, some 400 years ago (but still before the advent of liberalism!), the first missionaries in Canada found themselves bound to conclude that the only way to deal with a certain tribe was to exterminate them. A canonized Saint said, “After repeated experience of their treachery, whether for peace or for the Faith, there is nothing further to be hoped for from them.” (end of Dom Monléon summary)

This still shocks modern susceptibilities, but is it not simply tribal as opposed to individual capital punishment? The principle of capital punishment is that by such anti-social crimes as, for instance, murder, treason, counterfeiting, homosexuality, etc., men are capable of behaving in such a way as to render themselves unfit to live any more in society, and so society’s legitimate authority has the right to take their lives (one may object that not all the individuals in a tribe will be equally guilty, but it should go without saying that Almighty God can and will make all the distinctions necessary).

The problem all comes down to disbelief in the greatness and goodness of God, but let us just say that the Old Testament is neither as cruel nor as out of date as it is often made to appear.

Kyrie eleison.

“Found Wanting”

“Found Wanting” on May 9, 2015

Catholics striving today to keep the Faith do not have an easy task. Here is the description by an observer of the present state of the Society of St Pius X in the USA as he sees it, both positive and negative. Let us take the negative first, not in order to spite the Society, but in order to take the measure of the problem. As the American patriot, Patrick Henry, said in 1775: “For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to hear the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

“Up till now the Society priests in the USA have not reacted to the Modernist infiltration of their Society. Most bend over backwards to justify every word and act of their Superior General. How they can justify the compromise in doctrine is a mystery to me. One of them says that just talking with Bishop Fellay will clarify everything. The handful of US seminarians that I have met with are being malformed, lost in justifying everything, even the ‘good’ found in Vatican II. Blind obedience is the drum they march to. Conspiracy theories are taboo in the seminary, so that as future priests they will be easy prey for the enemy. There was no reaction to the visit there of Novus Ordo Bishop Schneider, or to the ‘Argentinian assimilation.’ The ‘Resistance’ to Bishop Fellay’s modernism is absolutely not discussed, being dismissed as another revolt, like that of the ‘Nine’ priests in 1983.

“Yet SSPX Priors indiscriminately permit attendance at Masses of St Peter’s Fraternity, and they define Modernism as a ‘dust pile’ to be swept to one side. A newly ordained priest was sent to attend the installation of a local Novus Ordo bishop. Overall there is no fight against the errors of Vatican II, nor against the errors of the Society’s own Doctrinal Declaration of 2012. Worst of all is the doctrinal slide that has taken place within the Society since 2012, yet still SSPX priests are saying that they will take no action until they see something concrete.”

Such blindness can only be a punishment from God. What is he punishing? In the 1950’s Catholics seeking too much their own worldly comfort were punished by the Council of the 1960’s. To a faithful remnant God granted Archbishop Lefebvre, the true shepherd of the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Surely God was entitled in return to expect that these remnant Catholics would understand the problem, and flee the false solution of the 1950’s. But no. Since the late 1990’s the SSPX leaders and then priests and layfolk have been slowly but surely going back to “Fiftiesism,” or to the “Sunday Catholicism” of the 1950’s, which is a poor return on the multiple graces granted by him to the Society. It would seem that God has had enough. So he has, for instance, allowed a diocese in Argentina to set the example of granting official Church approval to the Society, dismissed by Society HQ as a “merely administrative measure,” but paving the way for a Roman or diocese-by-diocese complete Church approval which everybody would pretend not to notice, but which almost everybody would rejoice in. These Romans are masters!

However, Almighty God is still raising a Resistant remnant out of the Traditional remnant. The observer quoted above concluded: “I think that when the chips all fall, there will be a handful of Nicodemuses and Josephs of Arimathea from among the Society priests and Brothers, and hopefully Sisters. The “Resistant” faithful throughout North America are steady, with occasional newcomers, mostly from the Novus Ordo, or from nothing.” The same steadiness was evident in many Catholics’ reactions to the consecration of Bishop Faure. Here is a future for souls. But let us make no mistake this time round: Almighty God wants no more Sunday Catholics. He wants potential martyrs.

Kyrie eleison.

Vacancy Sense – II

Vacancy Sense – II on May 2, 2015

Concerning the deposition of a heretical Pope, the Traditional Dominicans of Avrillé in France have done us a great favour by publishing not only the classic considerations of John of St Thomas (cf. EC 405), but also those of other outstanding theologians. In brief, the best minds of the Church teach that a simple and popular argument today, namely that a heretical Pope cannot be a member of the Church and therefore all the less its head, is a little too simple. In brief, there is more to the Pope than just the individual Catholic who by falling into heresy loses the faith and with it his membership of the Church. For the Church, the Pope is much more than just an individual Catholic.

For clarity, let us present these theologians’ arguments in the form of question and answer:—

First of all, is it possible for a Pope to fall into heresy?

If he engages all four conditions of his Extraordinary Magisterium, he cannot teach heresy, but that he can personally fall into heresy is the more probable opinion at least of older theologians.

Then if he does fall into heresy, does that not make him cease to be a member of the Church?

As an individual Catholic person, yes, but as Pope, not necessarily, because the Pope is much more than just an individual Catholic. As Augustine said, the priest is Catholic for himself, but he is priest for others. The Pope is Pope for the entire Church.

But supposing that the great majority of Catholics can see that he is a heretic, because it is obvious. Would not his heresy in that case make it impossible for him to be Pope any longer?

No, because even if his heresy were obvious, still many Catholics might deny it, for instance out of “piety” towards the Pope, and therefore to prevent confusion from arising throughout the Church, an official declaration of the Pope’s heresy would be necessary to bind Catholics to stay united. Such a declaration would have to come from a Church Council, assembled for that purpose.

But if the heresy were public and obvious, surely that would be enough to depose him?

No, because firstly every heretic must be officially warned before being deposed, in case he would retract his heresy. And secondly, in Church or State every high official is serving the common good, and for the common good he must stay in office until he is officially deposed. So just as a bishop stays in office until he is deposed by the Pope, so the Pope stays in office until the official declaration of his heresy by a Church Council enables Christ to depose him (cf. EC 405).

But if a heretic is not a member of the Church, how can he be its head, the most important member?

Because his personal membership is a different thing from his official headship. By his personal membership he receives sanctification from the Church. By his official headship he gives official government to the Church. So by falling into heresy, he ceases to be a living member of the Church, that is true, but he does not thereby cease being able, even as a dead member, to govern the Church. His membership of the Church by faith and charity is incompatible with heresy, but his governing of the Church by his official jurisdiction, not requiring faith or charity, is compatible with heresy.

But by his heresy a former Pope has thrown away his Papacy!

Personally and in private that is true, but that is not true officially and in public until a Church Council has made not only public but also official his heresy. Until then the Pope must be treated as Pope, because for the Church’s tranquillity and common good, Christ maintains his jurisdiction.

Kyrie eleison.

Culture Matters!

Culture Matters! on April 25, 2015

From Friday evening, May 1st, to Sunday mid-day, May 3rd, there will be held here in Queen of Martyrs House, Broadstairs, another seminar by Dr. David White, as last year on Charles Dickens, so this year on T.S. Eliot (1888–1965), another giant of English literature with a direct connection to this corner of England. It was in an open-air pavilion overlooking Margate beach about five miles north of Broadstairs that between October and November of 1921 the world famous Anglo-American poet broke a writing-block and composed some 50 lines of the third of five parts of the most influential poem of the 20th century, at any rate in the English language, The Wasteland (1922).

The poem is a brilliant portrait of the nothingness in men’s hearts and minds in the wake of World War I (1914–1918). In The Wasteland Eliot forged a new fragmentary way of writing poetry that captured the broken spiritual condition of modern man. By his broad and deep grasp of the artistic masterpieces from the past, notably Dante and Shakespeare, Eliot was able to give shape to the spiritual poverty of today. For instance in the six lines of the peom which are clearly connected to Margate, one of three working-class girls tells how she gave away her honour, for nothing, and to highlight the emptiness of the lives of all three maidens, their words are framed within fragments from the song of the three Rhine maidens who open and close the cosmic vision of Wagner’s epic Ring of the Nibelungs.

Emptiness and nothingness. Why on earth should Catholics bother with such depressing authors? Salvation is by Our Lord Jesus Christ, not by culture, especially not by nihilistic culture. A particular answer concerns T S Eliot. A general answer concerns all “culture,” defined as those stories, pictures and music with which all men of all ages cannot help furnishing and forming their hearts and minds.

As for T S Eliot, he himself soon dismissed The Wasteland as “rhythmic grumbling,” and a few years later he became a member of the Church of England. He had given brilliant expression to modern nothingness, but he did not wallow in it. He went on to write a number of plays and especially the long poem of the Four Quartets, which are by no means nihilistic, and about which Dr White, who loves Eliot, will also be talking in Broadstairs in a few days’ time. Having grappled honestly with the problem, Eliot came up with no ostrich solution, like countless Catholics that have fallen for Vatican II.

For indeed culture in general is to religion (or irreligion) like the suburbs of a city are to the city centre. And just as a military general with the task of defending a city would be most foolish to leave the suburbs to be occupied by the enemy, so any Catholic concerned for his religion cannot be indifferent to the stories, pictures and music which are moulding the souls all around him. Of course religion (or irreligion) is central to a man’s life, compared with which “culture” is peripheral, because men’s culture is, deep down, a spin-off from their relation with their God. Nevertheless culture and religion interact. For instance, were so many Catholics not under the spell of “The Sound of Music,” would they so easily have fallen for Vatican II? Or had the present leaders of the Society of St Pius X, by contrasting Catholic culture and modern anti-culture, grasped the depth of the modern problem, would they be now so intent on getting back under the perpetrators of Vatican II? Culture can matter like Heaven and Hell!

Kyrie eleison.

Vacancy Sense – I

Vacancy Sense – I on April 18, 2015

The Dominican priests of Avrillé, France, have done us all a great favour by republishing the considerations on the vacant See of Rome written some 400 years ago by a famous thomist theologian from Spain, John of St Thomas (1589–1644). Being a faithful successor of St Thomas

Aquinas, he benefits from that higher wisdom of the Middle Ages when theologians could still measure men by God instead of having to measure God by men, a tendency which began as a necessity (if souls could no longer take medieval penicillin, they had to take a lesser medicine), but which culminated in Vatican II. Here, much abbreviated, are the main ideas of John of St Thomas on the deposition of a Pope:—

I Can a Pope be deposed?

Answer, yes, because Catholics are obliged to separate themselves from heretics, after the heretics have been warned (Titus III, 10). Also, a heretical Pope puts the whole Church in a state of legitimate self-defence. But the Pope must be warned first, as officially as possible, in case he would retract. Also his heresy must be public, and declared as officially as possible, to prevent wholesale confusion among Catholics, by their being bound to follow.

II By whom must he be officially declared a heretic?

Answer, not by the Cardinals because although they may elect a Pope, they cannot depose one, because it is the Universal Church that is threatened by a heretical Pope, and so the most universal possible authority of the Church can alone depose him, namely a Church Council composed of a quorum of all the Church’s Cardinals and Bishops. These would be convoked not authoritatively (which the Pope alone can do) but among themselves.

III By what authority would a Church Council depose the Pope?

(Here is the main difficulty because Christ gives to the Pope supreme power over the entire Church, with no exception, as Vatican I defined in 1870. Already John of St Thomas gave arguments of authority, reason and Canon Law to prove this supreme power of the Pope. Then how can a Council, being beneath the Pope, yet depose him? John of St Thomas adopts the solution laid out by another famous Dominican theologian, Thomas Cajetan (1469–1534). The Church’s deposition of the Pope would fall not upon the Pope as Pope, but upon the bond between the man and his Papacy. That may seem hair-splitting, but it is logical.)

On the one hand not even a Church Council has authority over the Pope. On the other hand the Church is obliged to avoid heretics and to protect the sheep. Therefore, just as in a Conclave the Cardinals are the ministers of Christ to bind this man to the Papacy, but Christ alone gives him his papal authority, so the Church Council would be the ministers of Christ to unbind this heretic from the Papacy by their solemn declaration, but Christ alone, by his divine authority over the Pope, would authoritatively depose him. In other words, the Church Council would be deposing the Pope not authoritatively from above, but only ministerially from below. John of St Thomas confirms this conclusion from the Church’s Canon Law, which states in several places that God alone can depose the Pope, but the Church can pass judgment on his heresy.

Alas, as the Dominicans of Avrillé point out, nearly all Cardinals and Bishops of the Church today are so largely infected with modernism that there is no human hope of a Church Council seeing clear to condemn the modernism of the Conciliar Popes. We can only pray and wait for the divine solution, which will come in God’s good time. To follow, is a Pope not automatically deposed by his mere heresy?

Kyrie eleison.

Faith Undermined

Faith Undermined on April 11, 2015

The editorial in a recent Priory bulletin of an honourable colleague of the Society of St Pius X shows one major reason why Society priests are not yet joining the “Resistance” – they do not yet believe that the Faith is at stake. We wonder what it will take to persuade them. We can be sure that the leaders in XSPX headquarters are convinced that they are not themselves changing the Faith, and that they find it that much easier to continue persuading Society priests and laity that they are not changing the Faith. But if they had the true Faith, how could they dream of putting its Lefebvrian defence under the neo-modernists’ control in Rome?

The editorial is entitled “Obeying Fallible Superiors.” It recognizes that resistance to fallible Superiors is legitimate when the Faith is at stake, but the editorial’s emphasis is rather on the limits to be set to such resistance: anarchy and disrespect for authority are never lawful; obedience to lawful Superiors is essential to any society; Superiors have special graces of state; care must be taken in warning sheep that cannot make the necessary distinctions; there is a dangerous spirit of independence abroad today (Benedict XV); name-calling should be avoided, etc. – the principles are impeccable, the problem lies in their application.

For instance, while shunning name-calling the editorial nevertheless recognizes that Pius IX named “liberal Catholics” as being the Church’s “worst enemies.” Indeed in any Church crisis to identify and name the Church’s enemies, e.g. “Protestants” in the Reformation, is a major first step towards being able to fight them. No doubt the editorial’s author would grant as much where the Faith is at stake, only he would deny that there is any crisis of the Faith taking place within the Society. But, Father, do you think that liberal Catholics of the 19th century who came under Pius IX’s condemnation would have denied a single Article of the Faith? On the contrary, they would have vigorously affirmed their belief in every such Article. And yet would they not with equal vigour have condemned Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors? The problem for a modern mind to be Catholic lies not in its accepting or rejecting any one truth of the Faith, but in its instinctive undermining of all truths whatsoever, and this dreadful dissolution of the mind is, without a divine miracle, a virtually insoluble problem for and of the Faith.

And it has reached to the top of the Society. Father, do you recognize that Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of continuity” is tantamount to the suspension of the law of non-contradiction? And have you studied paragraph III.5 of Bishop Fellay’s Doctrinal Declaration of April, 2012, a document which he circumstantially “withdrew,” but never substantially retracted? It states that non-Traditional statements of Vatican II must be interpreted as Traditional. Is that not a perfect example of the “hermeneutic of continuity,” of interpretation overtaking reality? Then do you really think that the Society has no problem of the Faith when its Superior joins in Rome’s suspending the law of non-contradiction, and swims in contradictions and in what Churchill graciously named “terminological inexactitudes,” as happily as a fish swims in water?

By the way, you also say that anybody who “doubts that hierarchy can still exist in the early 21st century excludes himself from all Catholic life.” If he doubts it in principle, one might agree with you, but if he is merely relating what he observes in practice, might he not be merely observing the extension one century later of what you quote Benedict XV already observing as “the dangerous spirit of independence abroad” in 1914?

Kyrie eleison.