Eleison Comments

April Ambiguity

April Ambiguity on September 8, 2012

In mid-April there was submitted to Rome on behalf of the Society of St Pius X a confidential document, doctrinal in nature, of which it was said that it laid out Catholic principles that all the SSPX authorities could subscribe to. In mid-June Rome rejected the document as basis for a Rome-SSPX agreement. Thank goodness, because it contained a supremely dangerous ambiguity: in brief, does an expression like “The Magisterium of all time” mean up until 1962, or up until 2012? It is all the difference between the religion of God, and the religion of God as changed by modern man, i.e. the religion of man. Here are some of the principles, as summarized for SSPX authorities:—

“1/ . . .Tradition must be the criterion and guide for understanding the teachings of Vatican II. 2/ So the statements of Vatican II and of the post-conciliar papal teaching with regard to ecumenism and interreligious dialogue or religious liberty can only be understood in the light of Tradition complete and uninterrupted, 3/ in a manner that does not clash with the truths previously taught by the Church’s Magisterium, 4/ without accepting any interpretation opposed to, or breaking with, Tradition and that Magisterium . . . .”

The 1962 or 2012 ambiguity lurks here in the words “Tradition” and “Magisterium.” Are these two words being taken to exclude doctrines of the Council (1962–1965) and its aftermath, or are they including them? Any follower of Tradition will read the passage so as to exclude them, because he knows that there is a huge difference between the Church and the Newchurch. But any believer in Vatican II can so read the passage as to be able to pretend that there is a seamless continuity between the Church before and after the Council. Let us take a closer look at how the Traditionalist and the Conciliarist can each read the passage in his own way.

Firstly, the Traditional reading:— “1/ Pre-conciliar Tradition has got to be the measure and judge of Council teachings (and not the other way round). 2/ So Conciliar and post-conciliar teaching must all be sifted according to the whole of Traditional teaching prior to the Council, 3/ so as not to clash with anything that the Magisterium taught prior to the Council, 4/ accepting no interpretation or text that breaks with the pre-conciliar Tradition or Magisterium.”

Secondly, the Conciliar reading (certainly that of the Romans in charge of today’s Church):— “1/ Tradition from before and after the Council (because there is no difference) must be judge of the Council. 2/ So Conciliar teaching on controversial subjects must be sifted according to the Church’s one complete pre- and post-conciliar Tradition (because that alone is the “completeness” of Tradition), 3/ so as not to clash with the Church’s pre- or post-conciliar Magisterium (because they teach the same), 4/ accepting no interpretation that breaks with pre- or post-conciliar Tradition or Magisterium (because there is no break between all four of them).”

This Conciliar reading means that the Council will be judged by the Council, which means of course that it will be acquitted. On the contrary by the Traditional reading the Council is utterly condemned. Ambiguity is deadly for the Faith. Somebody here is meaning to play games with our Catholic minds. Let whoever it is be anathema!

Kyrie eleison.

Six Conditions

Six Conditions on September 1, 2012

In an official letter of July 18 to Superiors of the Society of St Pius X, its General Secretary revealed the six “Conditions” for any future agreement between the SSPX and Rome. These were hammered out by discussion amongst the 39 capitulants of early July. Surely these Conditions demonstrate an alarming weakness on the part of the Society’s leaders as a whole.

The first “essential requirement” is freedom for the Society to teach the unchanging truth of Catholic Tradition, and to criticize those responsible for the errors of modernism, liberalism and Vatican II. Well and good. But notice how the Chapter’s vision has changed from that of Archbishop Lefebvre. No longer “Rome must convert because Truth is absolute,” but now merely “The SSPX demands freedom for itself to tell the Truth.” Instead of attacking the Conciliar treachery, the SSPX now wants the traitors to give it permission to tell the Truth? “O, what a fall was there!”

The second condition requires exclusive use of the 1962 liturgy. Again, well and good, insofar as the 1962 liturgy is no such betrayal of the Faith as is the Conciliar liturgy imposed by Rome from 1969 onwards. But do we not right now see Rome preparing to impose on Traditional Congregations that have submitted to its authority a “mutual enrichment” Missal, mixing Tradition and the Novus Ordo? Once the SSPX were to have submitted to Rome, why should it be any more protected?

The third condition requires the guarantee of at least one bishop. The key question here is, who will choose him? Readers, in the text of any future “agreement” with Rome, go straight for the paragraph about the appointment of bishops. In 1988 Rome proposed that the Archbishop present a selection of three candidates for Rome to choose one. Rome then rejected all three. When will people get it? Catholics must fight and fight in this titanic war between the religion of God and the religion of man.

The fourth condition desires that the Society have its own tribunals of the first instance. But if any higher tribunal is of the official Church and can undo the lower tribunals’ decisions, what Catholic decision of any Society tribunal will still have any force at all?

The fifth condition desires exemption of SSPX houses from control by diocesan bishops. Unbelievable! For nigh on 40 years the SSPX has been fighting to save the Faith by protecting its true practice from interference by the local Conciliar bishops, and now comes the General Chapter merely desiring independence from them? The Society is not what it was, dear readers. It is in the hands of people quite different from Archbishop Lefebvre!

The sixth and last condition desires a Commission to be set up in Rome to look after Tradition, with a strong representation from Tradition, but “dependent on the Pope.” Dependent on the Pope? But have the Conciliar Popes not been ringleaders of Conciliarism? Is Conciliarism no longer a problem?

In conclusion, these six conditions are excessively grave. Unless the Society’s leadership is shaken out of its dream of peace with Conciliar Rome as revealed by them, then the last worldwide bastion of Catholic Tradition risks being on its way to surrendering to the enemies of the Faith. Maybe bastions are out of date.

Friends, prepare to fight for the Faith from within your homes. Fortify your homes.

Kyrie eleison.

Infection? – Who?

Infection? – Who? on August 25, 2012

A favourite proverb of mine comes from China: “The wise man blames himself, the fool blames others.” Not that others are never to blame, obviously, but that I can usually do little or nothing to change their behaviour, whereas I am at least in theory in command of my own. As the Imitation of Christ has it, we rarely think with profit on the sins of others, always with profit on our own.

This age-old wisdom is called to mind by the letter of a reader of “Eleison Comments” (# 263) in which she complains of the “Conciliar infection” that she observes in the way in which Society of St Pius X Tridentine Masses in the USA can be celebrated by the priests and attended by the laity. If her dark observations are summarized below, it is not in order to overwhelm priests or laity with the darkness, but to suggest how each of us can examine his own behaviour.

In general she says that the “Conciliar infection” has been creeping into the SSPX chapels for some time. She goes so far as to say that the situation is deteriorating and desperate, and the damage is already done. It is as though Latin has taken pride of place over the Faith, as though anything goes if only it is a Tridentine Mass said in Latin. Not having understood – or retained – what the Mass really is, she says, the laity find it normal merely to attend. Many attend Mass daydreaming, and then they receive Holy Communion in a very disrespectful way, just like in the Newchurch.

She blames the priests for not having sufficiently explained the Faith or the Mass. As for their sermons, she wonders at times whether they understand what they are proclaiming and at times she finds that the personal ideas of the priest and the context of the sermon as a whole come over as Conciliar. Liturgical rules are not respected, rubrics are not consistent, the Canon of the Mass is hurried through. In brief she is not surprised if a number of SSPX priests and layfolk are ready to join the Newchurch, nay, may even already belong to it.

Now nobody in his right mind would claim that her dark description fits all SSPX Masses, but such is the corruption of our age that a deterioration of the kind she observes is all too normal. The corruption presses upon priests and laity alike, and it means that all of us need to observe closely how it may be creeping up on ourselves. As Sister Lucy of Fatima once said in the 1950’s, the laity can no longer rely on the clergy to do all the work for them of getting them to Heaven. In fact they never could do so, but a lazy “obedience” is still today a common temptation. If layfolk want good priests to lead them, and if they do not want the SSPX to go Conciliar, then let them observe their own household to put it in order – for instance, how do I myself and my family attend Mass?

As for us priests, let us not forget the dire warning of the prophet Ezechiel (III, 17–21) to pastors: if the pastors tell the people how they are sinning, and the people go on sinning, the Lord God will punish the people but he will not hold the pastors responsible. Contrariwise, if the people sin and the pastors do not tell them how they are sinning, then the Lord God will hold the pastors guilty for the people’s sins. “Judgment should begin at the house of God” (I Pet. IV, 17).

Therefore it depends on all of us to do what is in our power to prevent the SSPX from catching the “Conciliar infection.” That is today more easily said than done, but as St Paul says (I Cor. IV, 3–5), let each of us look to his own sins. It is God who judges.

Kyrie eleison.

Doctrine Again

Doctrine Again on August 18, 2012

The scorn of “doctrine” is an immense problem today. The “best” of Catholics in our 21st century pay lip-service to the importance of “doctrine,” but in their modern bones they feel instinctively that even Catholic doctrine is some kind of prison for their minds, and minds must not be imprisoned. In Washington, D.C., around the interior dome of the Jefferson Memorial, that quasi-religious temple of the United States’ champion of liberty, runs his quasi-religious quotation: I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. Surely he had Catholic doctrine in mind, amongst others. Modern man’s quasi-religion excludes having any fixed doctrine.

However, a sentence from the “Eleison Comments” of two weeks ago (EC 263, July 28) gives a different angle on the nature and importance of “doctrine.” It ran: So long as Rome believes in its Conciliar doctrine, it is bound to use any such(“non-doctrinal”) agreement to pull the SSPX in the direction of the(Second Vatican) Council.In other words what drives Rome supposedly to discount “doctrine” and at all costs to conciliarize the SSPX is their own belief in their own Conciliar doctrine. As Traditional Catholic doctrine is – one hopes – the driving force of the SSPX, so Conciliar doctrine is the driving force of Rome. The two doctrines clash, but each of them is a driving force.

In other words, “doctrine” is not just a set of ideas in a man’s head, or a mental prison. Whatever ideas a man chooses to hold in his head, his real doctrine is that set of ideas that drives his life. Now a man may change that set of ideas, but he cannot not have one. Here is how Aristotle put it: “If you want to philosophize, then you have to philosophize. If you don’t want to philosophize, you still have to philosophize. In any case a man has to philosophize.” Similarly, liberals may scorn any set of ideas as a tyranny, but to hold any set of ideas to be a tyranny is still a major idea, and it is the one idea that drives the lives of zillions of liberals today, and of all too many Catholics. These should know better, but all of us moderns have the worship of liberty in our bloodstream.

Thus doctrine in its real sense is not just an imprisoning set of ideas, but that central notion of God, man and life that directs the life of every man alive. Even if a man is committing suicide, he is being driven by the idea that life is too miserable to be worth continuing. A notion of life centred on money may drive a man to become rich; on pleasure to become a rake; on recognition to become famous, and so on. But however a man centrally conceives life, that concept is his real doctrine.

Thus conciliar Romans are driven by Vatican II as being their central notion to undo the SSPX that rejects Vatican II, and until they either succeed or change that central notion, they will continue to be driven to dissolve Archbishop Lefebvre’s SSPX. On the contrary the central drive of clergy and laity of the SSPX should be to get to Heaven, the idea being that Heaven and Hell exist, and Jesus Christ and his true Church provide the one and only sure way of getting to Heaven. This driving doctrine they know to be no fanciful invention of their own, and that is why they do not want it to be undermined or subverted or corrupted by the wretched neo-modernists of the Newchurch, driven by their false conciliar notion of God, man and life. The clash is total.

Nor can it be avoided, as liberals dream it can. If falsehoods win, eventually even the stones of the street will cry out (Lk.XIX, 40). If Truth wins, still Satan will go on raising error after error, until the world ends. But “He that perseveres to the end will be saved,” says Our Lord (Mt.XXIV, 13).

Kyrie eleison.

Free-will Valued

Free-will Valued on August 11, 2012

Concerning the drama of souls falling into Hell (and many choose to do so – Mt.VII, 13; XXII, 14), a reader raises a classic problem which can be framed briefly as follows. Either God wants souls to be damned, or he doesn’t. If he does want it, he is cruel. If he does not want it, yet it still happens, then he is not omnipotent. Then is he cruel, or is he not omnipotent? Which?

Let us establish immediately that God sends no soul to Hell. Every one of the many souls damned sent itself to Hell by the series of choices that it made freely during its time on earth. God gave to it life, time and free-will, and also any number of natural helps and supernatural graces to persuade it to choose to go to Heaven, but if it refused, then God let it have what it wanted, namely an eternity without him. And that loss of God, for a soul made by God only to possess God, is by far its cruellest suffering in Hell. Thus God wished that the soul might choose Heaven (“He will have all men to be saved” – I Tim. II, 4), but he wanted to allow the evil of its choosing Hell in order to bring out of that evil a greater good.

Notice the use made here of the two English words, “wish” and “want.” To “want” something is more full-blooded than merely to “wish” it. Thus a family father may well not wish his son to suffer harsh experience in life, but in view of all the circumstances he can want to let him suffer because he knows that that is the only way his son will learn. Similarly in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father did not wish to let his younger son leave home and squander his heritage, but he wanted to let him do so because that is what the father in fact did, and good did come of it – the return home of the son, now repentant, a sadder but wiser young man.

In the same way God wishes on the one hand all souls to be saved, because that is what he created them for, and that is why he died for all of them on the Cross, where one large part of his suffering lay precisely in his knowing how many souls would not choose to profit by their Redemption to be saved. Such a God can in no way be considered or called cruel! On the other hand God does not want all souls to be saved unless they also want it, because if he did, they would all be saved, because he is all-powerful, or omnipotent. But, given all the circumstances, that would mean in effect overriding the free choice of those who, left to themselves, would choose not to be saved, and that would mean trampling on their free-will. Now just see how passionately men themselves value their free-will, when you see how they dislike being given orders or like being independent. They know that their free-will is the proof that they are not just animals or robots. So God too prefers his Heaven to be populated with men and not just with animals or robots, and that is why he does not want all men to be saved unless they also want it.

Yet God does not want souls to be damned, because that again would be cruelty on his part. He only wants to allow them to be damned, in view of the circumstances that souls will thus have the eternity of their own choice, and he will have a Heaven of human beings and not just animals or robots.

Thus his wish to save all souls means that he is by no means cruel, while the damnation of many souls proves on his part not a lack of omnipotence, but a choice to value his creatures’ free-will, and the infinite delight that he takes in rewarding with Heaven souls that have chosen to love him on earth.

Mother of God, now and in the hour of my death, help me to love your Son and to choose Heaven!

Kyrie eleison.

A Chapter

A Chapter on August 4, 2012

As many of you know, a certain bishop was excluded from the General Chapter, or meeting of heads of the Society of St Pius X, held last month in Écône, Switzerland. To confirm the exclusion, use was apparently made of the adaptation by “Eleison Comments” (#257, June 16) of St Paul’s seemingly murderous wish that the corruptors of the Catholic Faith be “cut off” (Galatians V, 12). Actually Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and Chrysostom all think that the wish, in context (Gal.V, 1–12), is aimed at the Judaisers’ manhood rather than at their very lives, and Chrysostom thinks it is a jest.

However, when I heard what serious use was being made of the jest at the Chapter, I must admit that I had a naughty vision: I imagined my noble colleagues in SSPX headquarters looking out of the windows at night to see if there might not be a lanky episcopal Englishman, heavily disguised as Jack the Ripper, prowling around in the bushes with a long carving-knife gleaming in the moonlight, seeking someone to carve to pieces. Dear colleagues, sleep easy – I have no murderous ambitions. Honestly!

But the Chapter was serious business. What did it produce? Above all, a Declaration, made public a few days later, and six conditions for any future Rome-SSPX agreement, leaked on the Internet soon after that (given how many souls are presently entrusting their faith and their salvation to the guidance of the SSPX, I find such a leak not unreasonable). Now all honour to the good men at the Chapter who by all accounts did their best to limit the damage, but if the Declaration and conditions give us the present mind of the Society’s leaders as a whole, then there has to be cause for concern.

As for the Declaration of 2012, it is enough to compare it for a few moments with Archbishop Lefebvre’s Declaration of 1974, to wonder what has happened to his Society. Whereas the Archbishop explicitly and repeatedly denounces the reformation wrought by Vatican II (“born of Liberalism and Modernism, poisoned through and through, deriving from heresy and ending in heresy”), in words that brought down upon him the wrath of the Conciliar Popes, on the contrary the Declaration of 2012 refers only once to the Council with its “novelties” merely “stained with errors,” in terms that one can easily imagine Benedict XVI underwriting from beginning to end. Does the SSPX now think that the Conciliar Popes represent no serious problem?

As for the six conditions for any future Rome-SSPX agreement, they deserve a detailed examination, but suffice it to say here and now that the demand made by the SSPX’s 2006 General Chapter for a doctrinal agreement prior to any practical agreement seems to have gone completely by the board. Is it now the mind of the SSPX that the doctrine of the Romans to whom they would submit is no longer so important? Or is the SSPX itself succumbing to the charms of Liberalism?

For a contrarian point of view, may I venture to recommend a collection of “Sermons and Doctrinal Conferences” of His Excellency Jack the Ripper from between 1994 and 2009, now available on seven CD’s from http://​truerestorationpress.​com/​node/​52, with special incentives to purchase expiring at the end of this month? Not every word in these 30 hours of recordings may be golden, some words are no doubt too temperamental, but at least the effort is made to disembowel the enemies and not the friends of our Catholic Faith.

Kyrie eleison.