Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

John XXIII Missal

John XXIII Missal on October 25, 2008

The Society of St. Pius X gets attacked, but so long as it is attacked about equally from modernist left and from sedevacantizing right, it need not worry too much – it is probably doing something right. However, equality here is not to be measured by quantity alone – attacks from the right make up in venom for what they lack in numbers! Presently the SSPX is again being attacked for its use of the Tridentine Missal of 1962, as opposed to that of 1955, or 1945, or 1905 – you name it! Three comments:

Firstly, as Archbishop always used to explain, the “Missal of John XXIII,” so called because it was promulgated under his reign in 1962, was actually fully prepared before 1958, under Pope Pius XII, no darling of modernists. Moreover the Archbishop personally knew the Benedictine liturgist who did the preparing, and the Archbishop testified that the Benedictine he knew was no modernist either.

Secondly, as always needs to be repeated, if the Archbishop chose the 1962 Missal for his Society of St. Pius X, it was because on the one hand that Missal contains nothing against the Faith, whereas the Novus Ordo Missal of 1969 is heavily protestantized and the 1967 missal was already being de-catholicized; on the other hand the Pope is master of the liturgy in the Catholic Church, which is why the 1962 missal was the last fully orthodox rite of Mass to have been also lawfully promulgated by a reigning pope, and as such the Archbishop chose it, by a reasoned judgment and not by personal taste. Previous rites were superseded. Following rites were not Catholic.

Thirdly, the difference between, let us say, the “John XXIII” and the Pius X missals lies in the former’s omission of many a detail from the latter, but in essence the two missals are the same – otherwise how could it be so easy to celebrate a “John XXIII” Mass from a Pius X missal? Now in no situation can I overestimate the importance of detail without underestimating that of essentials. If then by my furious refusal of the “John XXIII Missal” I declare that in the details omitted by “John XXXII” the essence of the Tridentine Missal has been betrayed, I am in actions, not words, albeit unawares, so downgrading the essence of the Tridentine missal, for instance the unchanged Canon and Consecration, that by my exaggeration of the relative importance of details, I am, funnily enough, paving the way for souls to lose sight of the absolute importance of essentials, and I am helping souls to quit the Tridentine Mass altogether! It will not have been the first time that unbalanced exaggerations on the right have driven souls to the left!

Divine Lord, please bring soon your lawful Vicar back to his fully Catholic senses!

Kyrie eleison.

Bishops Agree

Bishops Agree on July 12, 2008

Many friends of the Society of St. Pius X wonder what position towards an agreement with Rome is taken by Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta. He is one of the Society’s four bishops, but what he thinks and says is not so often quoted, at least in English, a language which he may understand but which he prefers not to have to speak.

At the Society’s mother-house in Ecône, Switzerland, it was he who this year conducted the annual ceremony of ordinations to the diaconate and priesthood. Sections of his sermon are available on the Internet at christus.imperat, for instance. Here are two paragraphs, the first concerning the Society’s episcopal consecrations of June 30, 1988, because this year was their 20th anniversary; the second concerning Cardinal Castrillón’s “ultimatum” of June 4 and 5, one month ago.

From the truth no longer being preached, but merely looked for (as though one did not know it), there followed, said the bishop, “the importance and need for those consecrations to ensure the survival of the Catholic priesthood. We are proud of the consecrations, not as being a revolt against the Pope, but as being in reality the safeguard of the Catholic priesthood. We are also proud of the figure of Archbishop Lefebvre. We are not “Lefebvrists,” but we adhere to his way of thinking because it is Catholic. We are ashamed neither of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, nor of the unchanging Catholic Church, nor therefore of Archbishop Lefebvre.”

Further on, as to the Cardinal’s “ultimatum,” the bishop said that calling it an ultimatum was going too far. He went on, “We saw it rather as being meant to scare us, to put pressure on us to come to a purely practical (not doctrinal) agreement (with Rome). This is the way they want to make us go, but it is a dead end, and we will not go that way. We cannot undertake to betray our professing of the Faith, nor can we get drawn into an exercise in demolition. Our reply to the Holy Father is therefore to follow the steps laid down (complete liberation of the Tridentine rite of Mass and nullification of the “excommunications” of 1988) as preliminaries to a doctrinal encounter. Rome will react either with a slowing down or complete stop of contacts, or with a fresh condemnation – one wonders exactly what form that might take – or with a lifting of the ‘excommunications’.”

Firstly the Faith, then Rome – all four Society bishops follow substantially the Archbishop´s line of thinking, “because it is Catholic.” “Sooner die than betray,” he used to say.

Kyrie eleison.

Carrot Again

Carrot Again on July 5, 2008

So it looks as though I guessed right last week. On the one hand the Society of St. Pius X did not comply with the June 5 “ultimatum” of Cardinal Castrillón as the Cardinal might have wished. It replied instead with a letter of Archbishop Lefebvre to Pope Paul VI in which in 1975 the Archbishop explained why he was defending Tradition, yet with no disrespect intended towards the Church authorities in Rome. Once again, the Society may have raised a few anxieties, but it has not “given away the store”

On the other hand, the Cardinal did not proceed to any further official exorcism of the Society, but – reportedly – declared that he had never intended his text of June 5 to be an “ultimatum.” And so the situation returns to where it was before. I think we may expect the past pattern to go on repeating itself. The loving son will continue to try to get close to his leprous mother, the leprous mother will continue to try to hug him, the loving son will continue to jump back, then try to get close again, and so on.

What confusion! A distinguished Italian journalist cannot understand the Society’s rejecting Rome’s “generous advances.” Reportedly Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Castrillón have both been sincerely hurt by recent statements coming from the Society about Rome or about Romans suffering from leprosy. “What? Lepers? Us???” “Ay, there’s the rub,” as Hamlet said. Leprosy is an Old Testament figure of heresy, and Vatican II is not only heresy, it is a total new religion.

A Catholic is a Catholic primarily by his faith. He chooses with his mind to adhere to a series of true propositions which are supernatural, i.e. beyond the reach of his merely natural mind. His will is therefore needed to push his mind to submit to these truths above it. But these truths are not merely wishful thinking. They are revealed by God, transmitted by the Church, and may not be tampered with. Did or did not Vatican II tamper with them? Hamlet again: “That is the question.”

The leader of the Traditional Redemptorists based in the Orkney Islands north of Scotland, who has just led as many of them as will follow him back into the embrace of Conciliar Rome, writes ecstatically of how “sweet” it “tastes” to be once more in “peaceful and undisputed communion” with the Vicar of Christ. Good luck, dear Father, with avoiding the leprosy! But at least you must be giving some consolation to Cardinal Castrillón! What confusion!

Kyrie eleison.

Deadly Mush

Deadly Mush on April 19, 2008

I have never believed any of the Conciliar Popes not to be truly popes. Modern thinking turns minds into mush, and I have always held the Conciliar Popes to be too modern to be capable of the clear firm thinking in matters of Faith necessary to make them such clear firm heretics as could no longer hold their high office in the Church.

By no means everybody agrees with me when I say this, but I do believe Archbishop Lefebvre was making the same point in a different way when he said that these popes were liberals, but being liberals did not necessarily put them out of the Church. Here for example is what he said in an interview he gave in 1987:

“I think we must judge of today’s churchmen in Rome, and of all churchmen and bishops coming under their influence, in the same way that Popes Pius IX and Pius X judged of liberals and modernists. Pius IX condemned liberal Catholics, going so far as to say that they were “the Church’s worst enemies.” What worse could he say of them? Yet he did not say that all liberal Catholics were excommunicated, or were out of the Church or had to be refused Communion . . . Pius X in ‘Pascendi’ was just as severe on modernism, saying it was “where all heresies come together.” Could any movement be more severely condemned? Yet he never said that henceforth all modernists were excommunicated, out of the Church and to be refused Communion. In fact he only excommunicated a few of them. So, following Pius IX and Pius X, I think we should judge of these churchmen in Rome severely, but without concluding that they are necessarily out of the Church.”

Two objections immediately come to mind. Firstly, how can a liberal Catholic be worse than the formal heretic who flatly refuses the Faith which is the foundation of Catholic living and of eternal salvation? Answer, the enemy without can never do so much damage as the enemy within. Whereas the heretic puts himself out of the Church, the liberal Catholic stays within, from where the higher his office, the more he can harm the Church. Is not the very havoc wrought upon the Church by recent popes better accounted for by their being the enemy within rather than, as “sedevacantists” would have it, the enemy without?

But then – second objection – if the Church cannot excommunicate such damaging enemies within, what means does she still have to her to defend herself? Answer, that is perhaps the most serious reason of all for thinking that only a divine chastisement comparable to the Flood can clean out the present corruption in Church and world. Catholic Tradition is today’s Ark.

Kyrie eleison.

Romans Measured

Romans Measured on March 29, 2008

From France I received earlier this month what seems to me a well-balanced assessment of who exactly today’s Roman churchmen are and what they are trying to achieve. Here are extracts:

” . . .The churchmen in Rome are battling with us (clergy and laity of the Society of St. Pius X) to bring us around to accepting their Conciliar religion. Cardinal Castrillon and even the Pope are convinced that we are mistaken, and that it is their duty by all means fair and borderline foul to get us to accept the essence of the Second Vatican Council, which has become their Credo. To this end they work on us with determination and patience, but also with authority, always “for our own good.”

“On our side, because we insist on sane thinking as an essential pre-condition to staying faithful to the irreformable doctrine that has been handed down to us, we find ourselves obliged to resist their pressure and so to disobey today’s Magisterium in order to obey the God who does not change. However . . . we must never forget that despite their courtesy and subjective kindness, these Romans are, objectively speaking, our enemies. Beneath the appearance of good they are motivated by a spirit that is not good. An old proverb says that if you sup with the Devil, you need a long spoon . . .”

The writer’s conclusion is also wise: “ . . .On our side we should be devoting all our energies and abilities to keeping our faithful informed, to strengthening them spiritually and to forming them doctrinally . . . by not doing this enough, we lose in men and resources every time Rome attacks. In the trials lying ahead of us, reinforcing the quality of our troops will have more effect than trying to amass large numbers of Catholics who do not understand the need to fight.”

“As Archbishop Lefebvre said on September 4, 1987, in Econe, “We must hold on, absolutely, through thick and thin . . . Rome, I declare, has lost the Faith, Rome has apostatized.” End of the writer’s quote.

Kyrie eleison.

Guideline Queries

Guideline Queries on March 22, 2008

A reader of “Eleison Comments” of two weeks ago had some reasonable questions. Here are some answers:

Q.1 If the Conciliar Church is proving defectible by its Conciliarism while the Society of St.Pius X is defectible by nature (not having the Church’s guarantees of indefectibility), then where is that indefectible Church?

A 1 Defectible plus defectible equals defectible. But defectible plus defectible plus God equals indefectible. In the Arian crisis of the fourth century, Pope Liberius was proving defectible by his support of Arian bishops while St. Athanasius enjoyed no guarantee of indefectibility. Yet the Lord God used both to carry the Church through until the Papacy came back to its Catholic senses. Even with the best of Popes, the Lord God alone is responsible for his Church’s indefectibility. In God’s good time he will rescue his popes from Conciliarism. Meanwhile the SSPX, amongst others, is playing the part of St. Athanasius, but even if the SSPX were to defect – God forbid! – it would be child’s play for the Lord God to raise other carriers of his Church’s indefectible Truth.

Q 2 Does the indefectible Church still exist outside the SSPX?

A 2 Of course it does. Catholic Authority and Catholic Truth, meant to be firmly united, were split by Vatican II, but the Authority continues through the line of popes (unless and until we have clear proof to the contrary, which we do not yet have, and may or may not ever have), while the Truth continues outstandingly (for the moment) through the SSPX. In God’s good time that Authority and Truth will be reunited. Meanwhile the SSPX’s function is to carry, and not betray, the Truth.

Q 3 But both the Conciliar Church is defectible, and the SSPX is defectible! I insist – how can the indefectible Church be continuing?

A 3 A river split into two streams still continues to flow. Normally the two streams rejoin. Certainly the stream of Catholic Authority and the stream of Catholic Truth will rejoin. Meanwhile the Lord God is obtaining the purification of his Church . . .

Q 4 Did not Archbishop Lefebvre sign on finally to all the supposedly heretical documents of Vatican II? Was he not then also a heretic? A 4 Firstly, the Archbishop always said that he never signed on to two of the worst documents, namely Gaudium et Spes and Dignitatis Humanae, and when people used to say that he did sign on to them, he replied that he himself should know what he did or did not sign on to.

Secondly, what more than anything characterizes the Council documents is their ambiguity (see the first Volumes of Prof. Doermann’s series on the theology of John-Paul II, and of Atila Guimaraes’ series on the Council). Countless propositions in those documents can be read in a Catholic or in a non-Catholic way. Whatever the Archbishop signed on to, he no doubt signed on to in its Catholic sense.

Q 5 But where, if anywhere, did the Archbishop clearly repudiate the non-Catholic sense of the Council’s ambiguities? A 5 In most everything he wrote and said about the Council, he was attacking the errors disguised within the ambiguities. However, for as long as a heretic is still being ambiguous, he may not yet be clearly heretical, and it is correspondingly difficult for him to be clearly “repudiated.” Precisely here is the deadly character of Vatican II. Whenever the defenders of Vatican II are attacked for their Neo-modernism, they can scuttle back within the Catholic sense of their ambiguities, and the liberalism in which the mass of us are today marinated enables them to get away with it. It would follow that God alone can clean up this mess in his Church.

Kyrie eleison.