Eleison Comments

Farewell, SSPX

Farewell, SSPX on May 3, 2014

Bad news from France: the 40-year fight for the Faith by the Society of St Pius X against the modernists in Rome is virtually over. Oh, the Society’s priories, schools, seminaries and associated convents and monasteries will continue to function, to provide for at least a while valid sacraments and decent doctrine, maintaining all the appearances of Tradition, but the essential fight for the complete Faith will be censored, or self-censored, out of existence. It looks like being only a limited number of priests more that will have the understanding of Archbishop Lefebvre’s work and the necessary courage to break ranks and take to the hills.

The news is that the modernists in Rome are offering to the Society a « recognition by tolerance » without the need for any formal agreement or signed document such as raised within the SSPX so much opposition to a deal with Rome in the spring and early summer of 2012. Here is the essence of how the Society’s Second Assistant, Fr. Alain Nély, expressed it, with enthusiasm, to two members of religious Orders three months ago: « The solution for the SSPX will be its unilateral recognition by Rome . . .we will not be asked to sign anything . . .to see how things evolve . . .we shall see. »

To prevent such a revelation from spreading, the Society’s Superior General wrote to the two religious concerned that they had misunderstood Fr. Nély’s remarks because there was no kind of « agreement » in view. Of course not. Therein lies the cunning of the proposed « recognition » without signature. It will allow numbers of SSPX priests to pretend that nothing will have changed so that they can continue their ministry just as before. Thus, as reported, Bishop Fellay himself recently told SSPX seminarians in Zaitzkofen: « There is no question of signing any agreement, etc., etc.» However, ten minutes later, « But if Rome proposes a recognition of tolerance for us, that’s a different matter, that would be very good. »

And so there is every likelihood, sooner rather than later, that a large number of SSPX priests will docilely follow their official leaders into the embrace of the loving modernists in Rome, an embrace that will become over time as tight as necessary to stifle any remaining effort to fight against that deadly modernism which is killing off the official Church and putting millions of souls on the path to Hell. In retrospect one may guess that Bishop Fellay has worked skilfully with the Romans towards this embrace for at least the last 15 years. Bishop de Galarreta has seen what is at stake, but has thrown in his lot with Bishop Fellay. Bishop Tissier also sees clearly the deadly threat to the Archbishop’s work, but he does not see the need to follow the Archbishop’s example of putting the Faith before all normal rules of obedience and unity.

And so, dear friends, if we wish to keep the fullness of the Faith and help others to do so, we must at least internally take to the hills. Have no fear. Keep a cool head. There is no need to lose heart, or despair. God does not change, and the fight for his cause becomes more glorious than ever. Priests, keep watch, and above all do not deceive yourselves that nothing in the Society is changing. It has already essentially changed. Lay-folk, keep watch also, and pray, and God will give you the leaders and priests of your prayers. In God we trust, and in his Blessed Mother.

Kyrie eleison.

Resistance Policy – II

Resistance Policy – II on April 26, 2014

The Faith must be preserved despite the Shepherd being struck (cf. EC 348). If there was one man given to us by God to show us how to keep the Faith in stricken times, by preserving the true sacrifice of the Mass and the true Catholic priesthood, that man was certainly Archbishop Lefebvre (1905–1991). And since the disaster wrought upon the Church by the Conciliar Shepherds has not essentially changed since his time, then what he said and wrote applies essentially today, and any newcomer to the disaster cannot do better than read and study his words.

However, the disaster has also grown much worse since his death, and any so-called movement of “Resistance” today will do well to learn the lessons that are there to be learned from the threatening fall of that Society of St Pius X which it was the Archbishop’s stupendous achievement to found, within the collapsing mainstream Church, for the preservation of the Faith. Why is the leadership of the SSPX now taking it in a direction different from the Archbishop’s, a direction that must lead to the SSPX’s entirely similar collapse?

Because, in my opinion, the leaders which the SSPX chose for itself after the Archbishop’s death in 1991 at the General Chapters of 1994 and 2006, never took the full measure of the Conciliar disaster, because they were children of the undermined 1950’s or the Revolutionary 1960’s and later still. Having drunk in the Revolution with their mothers’ milk, so to speak, they never understood how it wrecks from within churchmen still seeming Catholic without. In brief, these leaders have either never studied modernism, or never understood what they studied, or have been too “pious” or “supernatural” to think that it could apply to the mainstream churchmen in front of them.

Thus where Archbishop Lefebvre saw clearly that the Conciliar Church, by losing all four marks of the Catholic Church (one, holy, catholic, apostolic), was not the Catholic Church, Bishop Fellay (Superior General since 1994) and Fr Nicholas Pfluger (First Assistant since 2006) insist today that there can only be one Church, and so the Conciliar Church is the Catholic Church. Naturally then, where the Archbishop kept the SSPX at a safe distance from the Conciliar Church, Bishop Fellay and Fr Pfluger want to abolish that distance and bring the SSPX back within that Church which is Conciliar. And neither Bishop Fellay nor Fr Pfluger will feel Catholic until they have achieved that end.

But the Faith is firstly in the mind and not in the feelings. It follows that whoever has, for whatever reason, begun to recognize that the present leadership of the SSPX is on the wrong track, must continue by studying the total problem of the Revolution, of modernism and of Vatican II. That is a tall order, because one can have a text-book knowledge of the Revolution and still not recognize it right under one’s nose. I feel so nice when I feel that everybody else is nice that I lose from view the objective falsity of almost all of us as seen by God. One may say that it requires a special grace from God to see that falsity as he sees it, without losing one’s compassion, but a soul can obtain that grace if it seeks God seriously, especially in prayer.

God is good to those that seek him, says Scripture in many places. Assuming he exists, what could he be other than supremely good to those that seek him?

Kyrie eleison.

Balance Proposed

Balance Proposed on April 19, 2014

“Keep therefore and do the things which the Lord God hath commanded you: you shall not go aside neither to the right hand nor to the left.” This instruction from the Lord God to be passed on by Moses to the Israelites (Deut.V, 32) is certainly valid for God’s Chosen People of the New Testament (Rom. IX, 25–26), but it is not so easy to apply in our own time when the Shepherd of the New Testament is struck, and we sheep are scattered (Zech.XIII, 7). Is the Pope so lightly struck that Catholics need not take care how they obey him? Or is he so seriously struck that he cannot be Pope? In any case the sheep are scattered and will remain so, until Russia is consecrated to the Immaculate Heart.

Meanwhile, as it seems to me, a letter published in the latest issue of the Angelus, official magazine of the Society of St Pius X in the USA, goes astray to the left. Fr. S. has several reasons for urging the SSPX to put itself “in the hands . . .of the Pope as soon as possible.” Firstly, to think that the Roman churchmen are intentional destroyers of the Church is implicit sedevacantism. But I need be no sedevacantist, implicit or explicit, to recall that their subjective intentions no way lessen the objective damage that they have done to the Church, and would do to the SSPX, if it came under their control. Secondly, for the SSPX to wait until the Romans’ full doctrinal conversion to put itself into their hands, is unrealistic. But one heresy is enough to make an enemy of the Faith, and modernism is an all-embracing heresy (Pascendi, Pius X). Too much contact with the Romans has already seduced the SSPX’s leaders.

Thirdly, the SSPX must give back to Rome as soon as possible the doctrine and practice of the true Faith. But if Rome were still only half modernist, such a giving back would be to throw pearls before swine (Mt.VII, 6). Fourthly, the SSPX has for so long kept its distance from Rome that it risks losing all Catholic sense of hierarchy, obedience and authority. But the true Faith must be kept at a safe distance from all-embracing heresy. If the heresy is not my fault, God can look after my Catholic senses, so long as I am faithful to him, for 40 years or more in the desert, just as he looked after the faithful Israelites (Exod. – Deut.). And fifthly, the so-called “Resistance” is dividing and weakening the SSPX’s true resistance to Conciliar Rome. But unity around any non-doctrinal understanding with modernists will be unity around error, fatal for Archbishop Lefebvre’s SSPX. In brief, Fr. S. has lost sight of just how seductive and deadly for the Faith is the error of modernism.

On the other hand, as it seems to me, a priest now refusing any longer to mention the Pope’s name in the Canon of the Mass is in danger of going astray to the right. If I see the deadly danger of modernism to the Faith, certainly I see the enormous objective damage done to the Church by Conciliar Popes. But can I truthfully say that there is nothing at all still Catholic left in them? For example, as Fr. S. would say, do they not still have at least good subjective intentions? Have they not all at least meant to serve the Church? In which case can I not celebrate Mass in union with whatever is still Catholic in them? The mainstream Church may be sick unto death, but I for one could not maintain that there is nothing Catholic whatsoever still happening within it. It is not yet completely dead.

“In things certain, unity. In things doubtful, liberty. In all things, charity.”

Kyrie eleison.

French Tour

French Tour on April 12, 2014

Good news again, this time from France, once more small in quantity but high in quality. A handful of good priests are gathering together and taking action to make sure that the Faith will continue to be defended along the lines laid down by Archbishop Lefebvre, steering between sedevacantism on the right and conciliarism – from above. SSPX HQ will be left to disarm its followers, while a remainder of happy priests will continue to take arms with the true religion for the next stage in their persecution.

This is what I observed on a fourth lecture tour since last autumn of centres in France where the laity are interested in the anti-liberal doctrine of the Catholic Popes between Pius VI (1717–1799) and Pius XII (1876–1958). That doctrine was not new, even at the beginning of the century and a half over which it was elaborated. It was merely that particular part of the Church’s timeless teaching which needed to be refreshed from the moment when the Christian social order of 15 centuries was undermined and supplanted by the French Revolution of 1789.

That Revolution was Freemasonic liberalism making war on God by seeking to overthrow throne and altar. Since then the Catholic thrones have been virtually overthrown by “democracy,” while the Catholic altars were virtually overthrown at Vatican II by that Council’s conversion to the religion of man. Archbishop Lefebvre however, cleaving to the religion of God, wished that his seminarians would be thoroughly familiar with the Church’s anti-Revolutionary doctrine in order to know how to take their Catholic stand in the midst of a liberal world. It follows that Catholic lay-folk who can see how the Archbishop’s Society of St Pius X is being cunningly transformed into the Newsociety, are interested in the Popes’ Encyclical Letters of those 150 years before Vatican II. On the first of my four lecture tours there were five stops. On the latest, between end March and early April, there were nine, and there risk being more invitations. There are, all the time, more French lay-folk waking up to how the Society is being misled.

Alas, all too many SSPX priests are still spellbound by a master of seduction, lost in his worldly dream. I met a few of them on this latest tour. They are no doubt good men, they have been good priests, they have their eyes open and see many things, but when they are exposed once more to that seducer, their vision clouds over and their will is puzzled. The Greek verb “diaballein” from which come the English words “diabolical” and “devil,” means to turn upside down, to throw into confusion.

These confused priests contrast with the half dozen mentioned above who have seen clear and are taking action on what they see. The tension by which they were tortured for as long as they tried to remain loyal to diabolical leaders is a thing of the past. They are serene, and happily making plans for the continuation of the Archbishop’s work. Fr. de Mérode, ordained many years ago, has left the SSPX of his own accord, has bought one house in Lourdes and is buying another in the Southwest of France. These will act both as bases for an apostolate to many interested souls in the region, and as refuges for priests needing somewhere to recover. I can add that I met a venerable soul in Lyon who is offering a studio of hers in that city to any priest similarly looking for a roof. Also the “Resistance” House in Broadstairs, England, is now open and can receive priestly visitors. One has already come by. Discretion guaranteed.

Outside, Archbishop, of its structure bent

Your noble work continues, as you meant.

Kyrie eleison.

Canonisations Unreal

Canonisations Unreal on April 5, 2014

The “canonisation”of two Conciliar Popes, John XXIII and John-Paul II, is scheduled for the last Sunday of this month, and many believing Catholics are scared stiff. They know that the Conciliar Popes have been (objective) destroyers of the Church. They know that the Church holds canonisations to be infallible. Are they going to be forced to believe that John XXIII and John-Paul II are Saints? It boggles the mind. But it need not do so.

In August of last year these “Comments” stated the fact that Newchurch “canonisations” are such a different reality from pre-Conciliar canonisations that no Catholic need believe that the post-conciliar canonisations are infallible. I was not wrong, but while I stated the fact that this is so, I did not give the reason why, which is a superior way of knowing something. On the contrary in a retreat conference, perhaps of 1989, Archbishop Lefebvre gave the deep-down reason why. This reason – modernist mind-rot – is crucial to understand correctly the whole Conciliar Revolution.

The Archbishop said that like a mass of modern men, the Conciliar Popes do not believe in any truth being stable. For instance John-Paul II’s formation was based on truth evolving, moving with the times, progressing with the advance of science, etc. Truth never being fixed is the reason why in 1988 John-Paul II condemned the SSPX’s Episcopal Consecrations, because they sprang from a fixed and not living or moving idea of Catholic Tradition. For indeed Catholics hold, for example, every word in the Credo to be unchangeable, because the words have been hammered out over the ages to express as perfectly as possible the unchanging truths of the Faith, and these words have been infallibly defined by the Church’s Popes and Councils.

True canonisations are another example: (1) the Pope pronounces as Pope, (2) such and such a person to be a model of faith and morals, (3) once and for all (nobody used to get uncanonised), (4) for all the Church to accept as such a model. As such, canonisations used to fulfil the four conditions of infallible Church teaching, and they were held to be infallible. But this Catholic idea of an unchangeable truth is inconceivable for fluid modern minds like those of the Conciliar Popes. For them, truth is life, a life developing, evolving, growing towards perfection. How then can a Conciliar Pope perform, let alone impose, an infallible canonisation?

The Archbishop imagines how a Conciliar Pope might react to the idea of his having done any such thing: “Oh no! If ever in the future it turns out that the person I canonised did not have all the qualities required, well, some successor of mine may well declare that I made a declaration on that person’s virtue but not a once and for all definition of their sanctity.” Meanwhile the “canonising” Pope’s “declaration” has made the President of the local Republic and the local Christians happy, and he has given them all an excuse to have a party to celebrate.

If one thinks about it, this explanation of the Archbishop applies to the Newchurch across the board. What we have in Vatican II is the demanding beauty of God’s unchangeable Truth, which leads to Heaven, being replaced by the undemanding ugliness of man’s fluid fantasy, which may lead to Hell but enables man, as he thinks, to take the place of God. The key step in this process is the unhooking of the mind from reality. When the process is applied today to the Church as modernism, the results are so totally unlike what went before that the new realities absolutely call for new names: Newchurch, Newcanonisations, Newsaints, etc. After all, are not the Conciliarists proud of making everything new?

Kyrie eleison.

Substitute Religion

Substitute Religion on March 29, 2014

Two months ago a self-declared atheist celebrated in France his 85th birthday, to whom all theists of the true religion owe a serious debt of thanks, because in today’s world of lies Professor Robert Faurisson has been a powerful defender of truth. I for one might wish that many more believers in the true God would have his intelligence and honesty in discerning the truth, and his courage to tell it.

For instance, whether or not it is a historical fact that there were six million victims of gassing in gas chambers of the Third Reich, Prof. Faurisson insists on treating it as a historical question to be settled by the facts and scientific evidence, and not by emotion and legislation – what could be more reasonable? And yet on this particular question a mass of our contemporaries will not listen to reason. Are their minds still functioning? Our warm gratitude goes to the Professor for bringing an excellent and scholarly mind to bear on a historical question as a question of history and not of something else.

Something else? Again, whether or not the Six Million are a historical reality, it is the Professor who states that they have in any case acquired the status of a secular religion. Does it take a supposedly irreligious man to discern what serves as the main religion of our times? I might wish a few more Catholics would have the gumption to see and say what is today’s main rival to their true religion. Here is a very brief overview of an article written on the subject in 2008 by Professor Faurisson:—

The Six Million constitute a lay religion with its own dogma, commandments, decrees, prophets, high priests and Saints: St Anne (Frank), St Simon (Wiesenthal), St Elie (Wiesel). It has its holy places, its rituals and its pilgrimages. It has its temples and its relics (bars of soap, piles of shoes, etc.), its martyrs, heroes, miracles and miraculous survivors (millions of them), its golden legend and its righteous people. Auschwitz is its Golgotha, Hitler is its Satan. It dictates its law to the nations. Its heart beats in Jerusalem, at the Yad Veshem monument.

It is a new religion that has enjoyed a meteoric growth since World War II. It has conquered the West and is setting out to conquer the world. Whereas the progress of scientific thinking in our consumer society has weakened the grip of all the classic religions by making people more and more sceptical as to the truth of religion’s stories and the promises religion holds out, the new religion prospers to the point that anybody caught denying its basic dogma is branded as a “Revisionist,” is cast out of the community, and is treated like only heretics used to be treated. It is in effect a religion, and it is today a major instrument, and, one might say, the popular religion of the godless New World Order.

The Professor argues that this success can be attributed to its resorting to the consumer society’s own techniques of advertising and selling. Here I think he does lack the religious perspective. Surely the apostasy of the once Christian nations is the main explanation. Christ is God. When God is pushed out, he leaves behind him a huge void which must be filled by something. The promoters of the new religion have by their history a matchless instinct for the fabrication of substitute religions. But be that as it may, I would invite believers to pray for the unbelieving Professor so that he may collect the divine reward which, humanly seen, he deserves for the heroic services which he has rendered to the truth.

Kyrie eleison.