Eleison Comments

Newsociety Thinking – II

Newsociety Thinking – II on February 14, 2015

Some 650 words of a single “Eleison Comments” are by no means enough to make clear the enormous problem posed by the interview given by the Newsociety’s First Assistant to a Newsociety magazine in Germany towards the end of last year (cf. last week’s EC). Fr. Pfluger’s thinking springs from the poisonous modern mentality, so that it is not surprising if Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society of St Pius X (SSPX) is being poisoned from top to bottom and changed into Bishop Fellay’s Newsociety (XSPX). The poison consists in the move from God to man; from the religion of God to the religion of man; from the truths of God to the liberties of man; from the doctrine of Christ (“Going, TEACH all nations” – Mt.XXVIII, 19) to the uniting of mankind.

Like millions upon millions of modern men, thousands upon thousands of churchmen in high office and all too many priests and layfolk of what was once the SSPX, Fr Pfluger does not understand the crucial importance to the Church of Catholic doctrine. “INDOCTRINATE all nations,” Our Lord could have said. Why? Because all men are created by God to go to Heaven (I Tim. II, 4). This they can only do by Jesus Christ (Acts IV, 12), by firstly believing in Jesus Christ (Jn. I, 12), which they can only do by hearing about the Faith (Rom. X, 17), in other words by hearing Catholic DOCTRINE. For someone to be disinterested in Catholic doctrine means that he is not interested in going to Heaven. Good luck to him, wherever he will spend his eternity!

Now from start to finish Fr Pfluger’s German interview betrays his relative disinterest in Catholic doctrine, but as last week’s “Comments” declared, that disinterest is most clearly betrayed by his implicit disparaging (not too strong a word) of the great anti-liberal, anti-Masonic, anti-modernist documents, notably Papal Encyclicals, of the 19th and 20th centuries, let us say from Mirari Vos of 1831 to Humani Generis of 1950. To Fr Pfluger’s way of thinking, probably these “anti” documents seem merely negative, whereas Catholic doctrine is essentially positive. One might as well think that medicine is merely negative, while health is essentially positive. But medicine can be essential to preserving health, for goodness’ sake! However, why are the Encyclicals such necessary medicine for the health of the Church today?

Because man is not made to live alone (Rousseau’s noble savage), he is by nature a social animal (Aristotle) – observe the thousand ways in which men get together. Now the French Revolution of 1789, by spurning Aristotle and following Rousseau, overthrew the natural basis of society and placed it on merely man-made foundations instead, hostile to human nature as designed by God, and therefore hostile to God. Therefore as the Revolutionary ideas advanced, through France, Europe and the world, so the Catholic Church found itself in a more and more hostile social environment, because the profound influence that any society has upon the individuals belonging to it has been working more and more against God and against the salvation of souls.

For a long time the Catholic Popes were not deceived, and they revived the medicine of the Church’s true social doctrine to apply it through their Encyclicals to the sickness of Revolutionary mankind. Thus the Encyclicals teach nothing but the Church’s age-old doctrine on the nature of human society between man and God, that social doctrine which it had not been necessary to repeat for as long as it had gone without saying. Thus the Encyclicals are not an unfortunate accident of unfortunate times in the past. They are central to the defence of the Faith in the present, as Archbishop Lefebvre so well learned from Fr Le Floch. But then came “good” Pope John to declare that modern man is no longer sick, and now comes Fr. Pfluger. More next week.

Kyrie eleison.

Newsociety Thinking – I

Newsociety Thinking – I on February 7, 2015

Towards the end of last year, the second-in-command of the Newsociety of St Pius X, Fr. Niklaus Pfluger, gave an interview to a Newsociety magazine in Germany, Der Gerade Weg, in which he answered seven questions ranging over the Church, Tradition, the “Resistance” and the XSPX. Given his important position, his thinking cannot be without interest. Its main lines are presented here below, and then its main flaw.

The Catholic Church is broad, much broader than just the Traditional movement. This movement began in the 1970’s as an understandable reaction of Catholics rendered homeless by the Conciliar revolution, but we will never make Tradition attractive or convincing if we remain mentally stuck in the 1950’s or 1970’s. Catholic Tradition is a vast treasure, not to be confined within the condemnations, which were routine in the 19th and 20th centuries, of modernism, liberalism and Freemasonry. In the 1970’s and 1980’s the SSPX did act as a lifeboat for souls drowning, but in 2014 “our time is different, we cannot stand still.” Church Tradition is one, but traditions are many, and much that is modern is not immoral.

So “we must continually re-position ourselves,” somewhere between denying that there is any crisis of modernism at all in the Church, and denying Church reality, as does the “Resistance.” They turn a purely practical problem of re-positioning into a question of faith, but that “faith” is a fabrication of their own, subjective, personal and in extreme denial of reality — how can Rome not be Catholic? How can Bishop Fellay be Enemy Number One? Ridiculous! The “Resistance” is sectarian, narrow-minded, evil-spirited and divisive.

As for SSPXHQ having betrayed Tradition in 2012, its actions were attacked from both sides, so it acted with reasonable moderation. Its texts were not dogmatic, just responding to circumstances. It did depart from General Chapter decisions of 2006, but who back then could imagine how much less aggressive towards the SSPX Rome would become by 2012? In 2014 our three bishops could all celebrate public Masses in the Basilica of Lourdes!

In brief, the SSPX follows the Spirit, It draws on Tradition. It saved the liturgy (thanks to Archbishop Lefebvre). It is neither monopolistic, nor as disunited or defeated as it may seem. Storms in the Church do continue, but down with conspiracy theories and Apocalypticism, and up with faith, hope and a new youth! (See francefidele.org for the original in German, and a French translation; see abplefebvreforums or cathinfo.com for an English translation)

So where is the flaw in Fr Pfluger’s thinking? It is most clearly seen in the first paragraph above, where he suggests that Tradition can thrive outside of the “19th and 20th century condemnations of modernism, liberalism and Freemasonry.” For Fr Pfluger, as for all liberals, these condemnations are not integral to the Catholic Faith but merely “substantial anchorages” (Cardinal Ratzinger’s own expression), which in a different age the ship of the Church can leave behind, as corresponding no longer to the different circumstances. Therefore if Fr Pfluger does not have a different faith from that of Archbishop Lefebvre, Pius IX, St Pius X, Pius XII, etc., he certainly has a different concept of that Faith, and that different concept underlies all his remarks in the interview quoted.

Thus the problem is much more than just “practical re-positioning.” Today’s Rome is indeed not Catholic. Bishop Fellay is a huge problem. The 2006 General Chapter was implicitly dogmatic. Tradition is not to be made attractive to men, but true to God (mentioned only once, passingly, in the interview). The “Resistance” is far from creating its own “faith.” And so on and so on.

Kyrie eleison.

Hebdocure

Hebdocure on January 31, 2015

Last week these “Comments,” in a most politically incorrect manner, presented the heavily publicized January 7 attack in Paris on Charlie Hebdo as an attack upon the remains of Christian civilisation in France. Then let them this week put forward how Christian civilisation would solve the problem, in the same order, for cartoonists, gunmen, politicians, peoples and conspirators.

As for the cartoonists, if France were still Catholic, Church and State would still be united, as they were until the French Revolution, and State authorities would absolutely have forbidden such blasphemous anti-Christian cartoons as those by which Charlie Hebdo may well have provoked Almighty God to allow for the silencing of its cartoonists. But that would be censorship? Only a fool can think we suffer under no censorship today. The censorship is simply anti-Christian instead of Christian. Who today is free to blaspheme against Holocaustianity and its “gas-chambers”?

As for the muslim gunmen, to a Catholic France they might never have come. Never would Catholic State authorities have despised or hated muslims in their own countries, but at the same time never would they so have lost sight of the historic clash between Islam and Christianity as to allow to settle in France such a mass of muslim immigrants as have been allowed, even encouraged, to settle in France since World War II. Nor would they ever have learned to scorn their own race and despise their own traditions as they have allowed themselves to be taught to do today. By the Fourth Commandment a Catholic loves his own country above all, without wishing ill to any others.

Most important of all, if France had stayed Catholic, neither the politicians nor the people would have become the puppets that they are today of hidden puppet-masters, the Globalists. In the 17th century France was Catholic as a whole, but in the 18th century, for lack of Catholic faith, its ruling class allowed itself to become thoroughly infected with another form of Globalism, Freemasonry. Launched in its modern form in apostate England in 1717, Freemasonry swiftly spread to France and North America where it master-minded the American and French Revolutions in 1776 and 1789 respectively. Both of them were major steps towards the Globalists’ New World Order.

Now, for as long as the Catholic Church was still in its right mind, it denounced and condemned Freemasonry as being a secret society designed to undermine and overthrow the Catholic religion altogether – see for instance Leo XIII’s Encyclical Letter, Humanum Genus of 1884. Thus from the French Revolution onwards, States have been ever more separated from the Catholic Church and have been put instead on secular and democratic foundations. More and more the new middle-class rulers have abandoned the Catholic religion in favour of liberalism, which is in effect a substitute religion, adoring man and his liberty instead of God and his Truth. So in the name of “freedom” journalists took over from priests, and their liberal media took over the people’s thinking. But all the while journalists and media have been secretly directed by Freemasonry, working for the Globalists’ New World Order. Here is how, under cover of “democracy” and “freedom,” the highly motivated Globalists have been able to reduce peoples and politicians to puppets of public opinion, moulded by their media. To turn one’s back on God’s Truth is to enslave oneself to Satan’s lies.

The Charlie Hebdo attack was designed for a huge demonstration to favour godless liberty, or rather licence, and a murderous muslim-European tension. More such events will follow, to arrive at bloodbaths from which the Globalists count on emerging supreme, from which Almighty God hopes that men will see that rejecting him is a huge problem, the basic problem. If the States will not see this, it remains only for families to pray the five Mysteries a day, and individuals the fifteen a day (if reasonably possible), to beg Our Lady to intercede with her Son.

Kyrie eleison.

Hebdomania

Hebdomania on January 24, 2015

The Charlie Hebdo attack of January 7 in which two muslim gunmen killed a dozen cartoonists and journalists in the Paris office of a satirical French weekly, and the enormous public protest of Jan. 11 against the attack in which leaders of several European nations were photo-opped as taking part, are best understood as one more episode in the war being waged by the enemies of God upon what little remains of Christian civilisation. Let us consider in order the cartoonists, the gunmen, the puppet politicians and peoples pandering to Islam and the puppet-masters behind them all.

The cartoonists lampooned not only Islam and muslims but also, from the world’s one true religion, the Holy Trinity, our divine Saviour and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Now the one true God is extremely patient, but he is not mocked (Gal. VI, 7). As men have a right not to suffer from terrorism, so the true God has a right not to endure the public repetition of obscene and blasphemous cartoons. Then nobody justifies terrorism as such, but given that the French Church and State authorities refuse to censor obscene blasphemy, is it surprising if God allowed muslims to avenge his honour?

The gunmen, two young muslims, must have been acting religiously, because politically it was entirely foreseeable that their action would rouse opinion against Islam. Still, how could they dare to attack? Because across Europe muslims are by their birthrate and immigration getting stronger in numbers all the time, and they make no secret of the fact that, as soon as they are strong enough, by a bloodbath if necessary, they will islamize the once Christian nations of Europe.

So who persuaded these nations to adopt the suicidal policy of almost unrestricted immigration and unbelievable welfare benefits for the in fact unassimilable immigrants, and so on? Who but our bribed or bullied puppet politicians? In a moment of truth a year or so ago, the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, admitted that “multi-culti,” the mixing of contrary cultures, does not work. But a week or so ago in connection with the Hebdo attack, did she not proclaim that “Islam belongs to Germany”? She had been brought to heel. She is a puppet because she is constantly acting against Germany’s true interests. For instance, were there not so many muslims in France, would Charlie Hebdo ever have bothered to ridicule Islam? And who votes for these puppet politicians? Puppet peoples, who allow their thinking to be enslaved by their vile media.

Then who are the puppet-masters? They are enemies of God, intent upon establishing their own godless New World Order, a police State designed to ensure that not one living soul escapes eternal Hell. Let us call them “Globalists.” Then was the Hebdo attack their work, one of their events like 9/11 in the USA and 7/7 in the UK, engineered to move public opinion, this time towards freedom for blasphemers and civil war? Most likely. The event was certainly not what it was made to seem. Famous example: the three-minute film clip showing a gunman shooting in the head point-blank a “muslim policeman” lying on the ground, with no blood, no recoil of the gun, and little movement of the “victim.” The clip may still be found, starting from here – http://youtu.be/gobYWXgzWgY.

And the Good Lord amidst all this madness? “Those whom he wishes to destroy, he first makes mad,” is the old saying. Pray 15 Mysteries a day for the triumph that he will engineer, through his Mother alone. Are the poor Globalists ever going to be taken by surprise!

Kyrie eleison.

Contradictory Epitaph

Contradictory Epitaph on January 17, 2015

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you ’grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be.
Home is the sailor, home from sea
And the hunter home from the hill

     —R.L.Stevenson (1850–1894)

This epitaph for the poet himself is eloquent by its simplicity, and touching, because it touches on death, that inevitable tragedy of human life. Commemorating life and love, poets often treat of death, which so mysteriously cuts off both. Not wishing to think on the meaning of life or death, poor materialists cut off poetry and will print it as prose if they can, precisely to avoid having to think about anything higher than matter. But the mystery remains . . .

In theory, Stevenson’s epitaph is brave. In the last three lines of each verse, in six lines out of eight, he says in six different ways that he is happy to die. But the poem is laden with contradiction. If “Glad did he live,” how could he gladly die? If he was so glad to die, how could he have been glad to live? To be as glad to die as he claims, he must have lost his will to live, or shut it down, which he could only do by refusing to his life any destiny or meaning or existence beyond his animal death, and this he could only do by pretending to be no more than an animal. But what animals take the trouble to write poems eloquent and touching?

O Robert Louis, you knew you were not just an animal. You took the trouble to write many literary works, including a spellbinding tale of life and adventure for boys, Treasure Island, and a harrowing tale of corruption and death for adults, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and your collected works make of you currently the 26th most translated author in the world. True, your parents were Scottish Presbyterians, a Calvinist sect dour enough in mid-19th century to turn many a good man into an atheist. But how could you sell yourself so short at death? How could you pretend that death is “home”?

The Creator did not originally design for animal death the rational animal that is man. Had all men from Adam and Eve made the right use of their rationality, or reason, for the appointed duration of their earthly lives, then instead of their now inevitable animal death they would have glided painlessly into the eternal life which the right use of their reason would have deserved for them. But that original design was frustrated when Adam disobeyed his Creator, and when by the mysterious solidarity of all future mankind with its first Father, he dragged down all men into original sin. From that moment on, contradiction is intrinsic to all human nature and life, because we have a created nature from God at war with our fallen nature from Adam. Our true – not false – “immortal longings” come from our nature as made by God and for God, while our animal death is “home” only to our nature as fallen. “Unhappy man that I am,” cries out St Paul (Rom.VII, 24–25), “who will deliver me from this body of death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ Our Lord.”

Kyrie eleison.

Archbishop Commented – II

Archbishop Commented – II on January 10, 2015

Before leaving Archbishop Lefebvre’s realistic remarks of 1991 (cf. the last two EC’s), let us comment further, in the hope of helping Catholics to keep their balance between scorning authority in the name of truth and belittling truth for the sake of authority. For ever since the churchmen of Vatican II (1962–1965) put their full authority behind the Church Revolution (religious liberty, collegial equality and ecumenical fraternity), Catholics have been thrown off balance: when Authority tramples upon Truth, how indeed is one to maintain one’s respect for both?

Now in the tormented aftermath of Vatican II, who can be said to have borne fruits comparable to that preservation of Catholic doctrine, Mass and sacraments for which the Archbishop was mainly (albeit not solely) responsible? In which case, the balance that he himself struck between Truth and Authority must be especially deserving of consideration.

Firstly, let us consider a simple observation of the Archbishop on authority: “Now we have the tyranny of authority because there are no more rules from the past.” Amongst human beings all with original sin, truth needs authority to back it, because it is a Jeffersonian illusion that truth thrown into the market-place will prevail all on its own without a disaster being necessary to teach reality. Authority is to truth as means to end, not end to means. It is Catholic faith which saves, and that Faith lies in a series of truths, not in authority. Those truths are so much the substance and purpose of Catholic Authority that when it is cut loose from them, as by Vatican II, then it is cut adrift until the first tyrant to lay hands on it bends it to his will. The tyranny of Paul VI followed naturally on the Council, just as by pursuing approval from the champions of the same Council, the leadership of the Society of St Pius X has likewise behaved itself tyranically in recent years. Contrast how the Archbishop built up his authority over Tradition by serving the truth.

A second remark of his from 1991 deserving of further comment is where he said that when in 1988 he tried to reach an agreement with Rome by means of his Protocol of May 5, “I think I can say that I went even further than I should have.” Indeed that Protocol lays itself open to criticism on important points, so here is the Archbishop himself admitting that he momentarily lost his balance, tilting briefly in favour of Rome’s authority and against Tradition’s truth. But he tilted only briefly, because as is well-known, on the very next morning he repudiated the Protocol, and he never again wavered until his death, so that from then on nobody could say either that he had not done all he could to reach agreement with Authority, or that it is an easy thing to get the balance always right between Truth and Authority.

A third remark throws light on his motivation in seeking from 1975 to 1988 some agreement with Roman Authority. Judging his motives by their own, his successors at the head of the SSPX talk as though he was always seeking its canonical regularisation. But he explained the Protocol as follows: “I hoped until the last minute that in Rome we would witness a little bit of loyalty.” In other words he was always pursuing the good of the Faith, and he never honoured Authority for anything other than for the sake of the Truth. Can as much be said for his successors?

Kyrie eleison.