Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

Macchabees? Where?

Macchabees? Where? on January 26, 2019

What does the reunification of the Society of St Pius X with Rome mean to the great mass of the world’s inhabitants, even to the large number of its Catholics? The answer must be, very little. Similarly when passengers on the Titanic saw a team of engineers going below decks to investigate something or other, they may not have shown much interest, but as soon as they came to learn that their great ship was doomed, their interest must have grown much keener. The Catholic Church hit the iceberg of Vatican II over 50 years ago. A great engineer of the Church warned the Church’s captain of what had happened, and what would be the result, and he showed how to stop the Church from sinking. Alas, Archbishop Lefebvre was not heeded by the captains then or since, and his discouraged successors prefer today to listen to the misguided captains, who are, if the Society no longer shows the true way out, to be pitied.

Let us recall the last six years of the process of reunification, and assess where it is at today.

The decisive step in that process was the Society’s General Chapter of 2012, where it renounced the Archbishop’s fundamental principle that without a doctrinal agreement between the Society and Rome, no merely practical agreement could serve the Church. This is because a Catholic is a Catholic firstly by his subjective virtue of faith submitting his mind and will to the objective creed of the Church’s Faith. What the error of subjectivism does is to render the objective Faith subjective, so that I become free to believe, and consequently to behave, how I like. Like believing 2 and 2 are 4, OR 5 OR 6 OR 6,000,000. This unfaith of Vatican II the Society essentially adopted in 2012, yet Society leaders immediately began reassuring their priests and laity that nothing essential had changed in the Society. BUT –

In 2013 began a series of publicly admitted meetings in Rome with the Roman authorities, to prepare a step-by-step process of full recognition. This process duly followed:—

In 2014, There were visits of Roman dignitaries to SSPX seminaries, and there was the temporary Jubilee “concession” of official jurisdiction for SSPX Confessions.

In 2015, the “concession” on Confessions and Extreme-Unction was made permanent.

In 2016, priestly ordinations in the SSPX were no longer to be punished by suspension “a divinis.”

In 2017, Society Marriages were rendered “licit” by the participation of a Newchurch priest as witness.

In 2018, the SSPX General Chapter elected for their General Council three men who are no tigers of the Faith, and created two new positions alongside them (General Councillors) to enable Bishop Fellay and Fr. Schmidberger to retain their power as the two leading tigers of reunification.

And in 2019? – Rome has just re-absorbed the Commission Ecclesia Dei (ED) into the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), from which it was hived off in 1988 to draw back to Rome Catholics tempted by the Society’s episcopal consecrations to follow the Archbishop instead of Rome. As such, ED was meant to be relatively kind to Traditionalists. But Pope Francis has no time for Tradition. Therefore since the Newsociety now agrees with Rome that there is no longer the clash with Rome that there was in 1988, he has put an end to ED. But ED was kind to Tradition, whereas the CDF are tigers of the Newchurch. Like Little Red Riding Hood, the Newsociety is throwing itself into the jaws of Rome – “Oh, sweet Big Bad Rome, what lovely teeth you have!” “All the better to eat you up with, you silly child!”

And the Society? Just as it will be happy if Rome dissolves ED because the CFD will then treat it as belonging fully to the Church, so it risks being happy if Rome were to attach to the Society two relatively decent Newbishops to look after its need of Ordinations and Confirmations, but from outside the Society and always under Rome’s own control. On Rome’s part it would be a clever move, closing the trap even tighter on what remains of the Archbishop’s Society. And how many Newsociety priests will even see that here is “a sea of troubles,” let alone “take arms, to end them” (Hamlet)? Not many, one may fear.

Kyrie eleison.

“Resistance” Acting?

“Resistance” Acting? on October 20, 2018

This time it is a grandmother who writes to “Eleison Comments” with a concern which is widely shared among readers and friends who sympathise in general with the aims of the “Resistance” movement, but wonder what it is actually doing today to help their situation. Here is her plea, slightly summarised:—

I am very disappointed in the lack of leadership which is being shown today in the Society and the Resistance. We support the Resistance but we hear nothing about what it is doing. You have recently consecrated three Bishops but what is their function? What are they doing to give some comfort and hope to the faithful? We don’t hear anything about them either. Can they not form some sort of opposition to the Society, together with some very solid priests that have left the Society? Surely God is looking for something more than just prayers. Years ago He raised up the Archbishop to protect His Church. Is He now going to leave us faithful followers in the lurch? I think many Traditional Catholics are desperately looking for some strong leadership today, whether in the Society or in the Resistance.

Dear Grandmother,

Let me begin to answer with a famous episode from Roman history before Christ. In 216 BC the Roman army, normally unbeatable, went to fight the Carthaginians led by Hannibal who had invaded Italy and were threatening the very city of Rome. But at the battle of Cannae in south Italy the Romans allowed themselves to be out-manoeuvred and surrounded by Hannibal, so that they were slaughtered by the Carthaginians. There was consternation in Rome. What should they do? Some Romans wanted to raise another army and go after Hannibal again, but the advice of the Consul Fabius was to avoid battle if possible, and instead, while keeping a close watch on the enemy, nevertheless to wait until he would go home on his own. The advice was good, and it was followed. Eventually the Carthaginians went home, where their army was crushed by the Romans fourteen years later. “Fabius the Delayer” had won.

No comparisons work perfectly. So after the Church’s crushing defeat at Vatican II (1962-1965), would anybody say that Archbishop Lefebvre was wrong to have raised a few years later what army he could to go on fighting the modernists? Surely not. But Vatican II was a major battle which left enough good soldiers scattered around for the Archbishop to be able to rally them together in a small army in the 1970’s. On the contrary, the defeat of that army from 2012 onwards was a numerically small defeat, leaving far fewer scattered soldiers to fight. Could the strategy be the same as in the 1970’s and 1980’s? Surely not. For one thing, the soldiers this time round, often children of the revolutionary 1960’s or later, had that much less sense of obedience or of an ordered Church or world than the scattered Catholics had had after the Council. For who can deny that the 2010’s are far more disordered and undisciplined even than the 1970’s? One may wonder if the Archbishop, with all his gifts, could or would have put together a “counter-Society” today. Perhaps, perhaps not…

As it is, the four bishops of the “Resistance” movement do what they can, each in his own part of the world, to provide the few Catholics wishing to keep the Faith with iron rations of sane doctrine and guidance available to all interested, together with the episcopal sacraments. That is a minimal achievement, neither glamorous nor sensational, but it may be the essential necessary. If it is, may God keep us faithful.

Kyrie eleison.

Rome Prepares?

Rome Prepares? on June 16, 2018

In the context of the crisis engulfing the Catholic Church for the last half-century since Vatican II (1962–1965), two recent moves of the Church authorities in Rome can seem surprising, because both moves seem to favour that Catholic Tradition which Pope Francis gives so many indications of wishing to uproot once and for all. Is the Big Bad Wolf really wanting to be nice to the Little Red Riding Hood of the Society of St Pius X, or are these another two wily moves to trap her in his Conciliar lair? Is Rome also preparing for the Society’s General Chapter in mid-July?

The first of the two moves was in mid-February of this year when the Ecclesia Dei Commission, launched in Rome in 1988 to slow down Catholic Tradition because it was threatening to speed up, granted to the semi-Traditional Fraternity of St Peter the use of the highly Traditional liturgical rites of Holy Week. These are the rites that were used for centuries and centuries prior to that reform of the liturgy by Cardinal Bugnini in the 1950’s which paved the way for the New Mass in the 1960’s. As rites for Holy Week the old rites are becoming more and more popular with Catholics who repudiate the New Mass, because the new rites contain so many features of that modernist liturgy which Paul VI would impose by deceitful trickery on the Universal Church in 1969. Is Rome at last backing away from the New Mass?

Hardly. As the famous line of Virgil runs, “Whatever it may be, I do not trust the Greeks, even when they bear gifts.” This gift to Tradition can easily have been designed by Rome to persuade all kinds of Little Red Riding Hoods, especially participants in the General Chapter of July, that the Big Bad Wolf is not so bad after all. The Chapter is important to Rome – that bastion of the Faith erected by the Archbishop must be dismantled, because by Archbishop Lefebvre’s true fight for the Faith it was a real road-block for the onward march of the New World Order, out of all proportion to the Society’s size. The fight has been severely weakened since his death, but Rome must fear the Chapter reviving it. Rome wants either another liberal as Superior General, or a compromise candidate will do, but not a fighter for the Faith!

The other surprising move of Rome was on May 16, when a well-known Vatican journalist, Andrea Tornielli, highlighted an extract from a recently appeared book written by a Roman official on Pope Paul VI (1963–1978). The extract is a detailed account of the September 1976 conversation held between the Pope and Archbishop Lefebvre, within two months of the Mass celebrated by the Archbishop in front of a huge crowd in Lisle, France. That Mass marked the beginning of the Traditional movement, so the Pope wanted to rein in the Archbishop. The conversation lasting a little over half an hour was noted down by the Romans at that time, and it was described somewhat differently by the Archbishop afterwards, but the Romans kept the contents to themselves for the last 42 years. Why publish them now?

The answer must lie in the “somewhat differently.” The admirable Internet site from Latin America, Non possumus, has published the details now released by the Romans and the Archbishop’s own account of the conversation alongside one another. Readers of Non possumus can check for themselves how the Romans have whitewashed the blindness of Paul VI and their own villainy. Outstanding example: Paul VI accused the Archbishop of making his seminarians swear an oath against the Pope, which was absolutely untrue. The Archbishop declared his readiness to swear on a crucifix that the Pope had accused him of such an oath. A Roman spokesman then officially denied that there had been any mention of any such oath.

In like manner Rome’s version glosses over the gulf between the modernism of Paul VI and the Faith of the Archbishop, as though the Capitulants need not worry that there is any huge gap between Conciliar Rome and the Society – let them elect another liberal for their Superior, but a compromise candidate will do!

Kyrie eleison.

Faith Crucial – II

Faith Crucial – II on January 13, 2018

Your Excellency,

Talking with an Indult priest (one who says the true Mass but obeys the Church officials in Rome) I have become confused about Archbishop Lefebvre and the stand which he took in defence of the Faith. I thought he was right, but now I am not so sure. Here are some of that priest’s arguments:—

1 The Archbishop disobeyed Rome. That proves that he was proud.

2 Had he given up his Society and seminaries to obey Rome, he would have been heroic.

3 If he disobeyed Rome to save Tradition, he did evil in order to bring about good, which is wrong.

4 To obey a Pope as misguided as Pope Francis is, is a martyrdom by which one imitates Christ.

5 For Bishop Fellay to step into the jaws of the Roman lion is, in spiritual terms, heroic.

Dear Sir,

In sane times the Catholic Church gives to souls a clear direction as to what is true or false, right or wrong, and you would need to be in no confusion. But ever since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) these have not been sane times, because the Roman churchmen themselves at that Council abandoned God’s true Catholic religion and adopted a false man-made religion which we can call Conciliarism. So ever since the 1960’s, Catholics have been confused from top to bottom of the Church, by trying to go in two directions at once. For instance, your Indult priest says the Mass of the true religion, while meaning to obey the Romans set upon the false religion. No wonder it confuses you to listen to him. And you will remain confused until you fully grasp the difference between God’s true religion and men’s Conciliarism – God may want you to do some more homework.

A Catholic is a Catholic by the Faith he believes in, by the sacraments he receives and by the hierarchy which he obeys. But he is firstly Catholic by his Faith, without which he would have no concern for the Catholic sacraments or hierarchy. Therefore the Catholic Faith is fundamental to a Catholic, and it is that Faith which the Roman officials abandoned at Vatican II in order to get off the wavelength of God and onto the wavelength of modern man. Therefore Conciliarism is fundamentally different from Catholicism and it creates a quite different viewpoint from which to consider pride, heroism, obedience, and so on. The Catholic viewpoint is true, the Conciliar viewpoint is false. Now, to the Indult priest’s arguments:—

1 The Archbishop was not proud, because he was defending God’s truth and putting God before men. On the contrary, heretics like Luther and Conciliarists are proud because they are defying God to please men.

2 He was heroic not by giving way to Rome, but by resisting Rome, in order to put God first.

3 When he did what he did in order to save Tradition, he was doing not evil but good to achieve good.

4 Catholic martyrdom lies in suffering harm and death not just for any cause, but only for the true Catholic Faith. The Archbishop suffered a true martyrdom not by giving way to the Popes who had gone wrong, but by doing all he could to make them see how they were abandoning the true Faith.

5 His successors on the contrary, by doing all they can, since 2000 at least, to bring the Archbishop’s Society under the control of the Conciliar Romans, are in no terms heroic because they are putting men before God. Nor are they martyrs, nor are they truly imitating Christ, but they are indeed proud.

Dear Sir, I hope that by now you can see that everything in the Church must ultimately be judged in the light of the Truth and of the Faith. This is because a man’s faith or lack of it is his basic attitude to God. A man may choose to go to Hell if he wants, but if he wants to go to the one true Heaven of the one true God, then he must start by believing in Him, according to the true Faith.

Kyrie eleison.

SSPX, 2018?

SSPX, 2018? on January 6, 2018

As the world plunges downhill, more and more people are opening their eyes and are wondering where it will end. As the Catholic Church is led resolutely downhill by a pope who seems intent only on rubbing out the last traces of the pre-Conciliar Church, more and more Catholics are opening their eyes and are driven to wondering if the Council (1962–1965) was not some kind of problem for the true Catholic Church. Then they look towards the Society of St Pius X, because it was founded in 1970 by Archbishop Lefebvre precisely to ensure the continuation of the pre-Conciliar Church, and what do they find? A group of priests more and more sympathetic to the post-conciliar Church, less and less clear on Vatican II, and sliding into the arms of the Conciliar Romans. Result? Many of these souls looking for the Truth are more confused than ever. So where are the Church and the Society of St Pius X headed in 2018?

Souls looking for the Truth must read (for instance Ralph Wiltgen’s The Rhine flows into the Tiber, or Archbishop Lefebvre’s Letter to Confused Catholics). That is how many Catholics found their way in the 1970’s and 1980’s towards the Traditional movement where they found again the true Church which they knew they had lost after the Council’s “renewal.” And in Archbishop Lefebvre (1905–1991) they found a leader with a clear and Catholic vision of what had happened at the Council – it had taken place under pressure from the modern world to conform to the world, whereas from the beginning of the Church through to the 20th century, it was always the Church that had put the world under pressure to conform itself to God. In this perspective, Vatican II represented an upheaval, a turning upside down, without precedent in all Church history, but the Council Fathers were nearly all more or less beglamoured by the modern world. It is this upheaval which set the course of the official Church from the Council until today. And given that the enemies of God and man were behind the modern world and behind Vatican II, and given that by a just punishment of God they are now deeply entrenched within the offices of the Vatican, then in 2018, short of a miracle or of grave events intervening, the official Church will continue on its downward plunge.

And the Society of St Pius X in 2018? At the beginning of July, in six months’ time, the SSPX holds its elections for those who are to be for the following 12 years its three senior officials, the Superior General and his two Assistants. If the 40 leading priests of the Society who vote in those elections wish to continue the Society’s slide into the arms of Conciliar Rome, i.e. the official Church, then no doubt they will vote for Bishop Fellay to be Superior General so that he can finish the work of replacing the Archbishop’s clear vision of the need to resist Vatican II with his own confused vision of blending Catholic Tradition with Vatican II, which is like blending fire with water. For just as Paul VI (1963–1978) dreamt of saving both Church and modern world by blending them in Vatican II, and almost crushed the life out of the Church by his tyrannical dream, so Bishop Fellay has drained the life out of the Society by clamping upon it his parallel dream of saving both Tradition and Council in a messianic reconciliation of his own making. The vision is quite different from the Archbishop’s. Then how will the 40 priests vote? Upon their vote depends how the Society will develop in 2018, at least from July onwards.

However, there was a reason for Vatican II, and that was the ever widening gulf between God’s true Church and modern man. The strain of holding them together became unbearable, and the Council Fathers snapped. Archbishop Lefebvre stood his Catholic ground and founded the Society, but his successors at its head have in turn snapped under the strain. Today’s godless world surrounds all of us, and its siren charms are highly seductive. Catholics must “watch and pray” – they need to read, and to continue reading, and they must have a strong prayer life by which to cleave to God – 15 Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, every day.

Kyrie eleison.

Liberalism = Religion

Liberalism = Religion on December 2, 2017

Not only is liberalism a serious sin that dishonours Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is in fact a religion. We are dying of liberalism and of its consequences. For two centuries it has spread everywhere, in our schools, in our societies. It is a poison that destroys the commandments of God, together with everything that makes the beauty and greatness of a Christian civilization. In his Encyclical Humanum Genus Leo XIII said about Freemasons: “We must tear off their mask and show them as they are, so that we avoid them and their errors.” I believe that liberalism is a fruit of Freemasonry which also needs to be unmasked, until we fully understand its dangers.

Liberalism has its goddess: it is liberty. At the time of the French Revolution, liberals worshipped the goddess of Reason in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, that is to say, liberty, the liberty of Man, this liberty which has its statue at the entrance of New York harbour, which they celebrated in an incredible way not long ago. Man is free, finally freed from all law, and in particular from the law of God. Liberty is the goddess of the religion of liberalism.

Liberalism has its priesthood, in the person of Freemasons, a secret, organized, extremely efficient priesthood. There are thousands and thousands of Freemasons. The exclusively Jewish sect of B’nai B’rith alone, with its very frequent access to churchmen in Rome, and its presence at the meeting of Assisi, has five hundred thousand members throughout the world. The Grand Orient is also widespread.

Liberalism has its dogmas: they are the Declaration of the Rights of Man. As the Popes have taught, these rights of liberalism are the instruments invented by Freemasonry to use against God, to free man from God. Henceforth man is free to sin, to disobey God . . . liberty of the press . . . is just one of several supposed Rights of Man which have been condemned by the Popes for a century and a half.

Liberalism has its morality which is simply immorality: no brakes on liberty. For twenty years liberals have succeeded in introducing into the legislation of almost every State all those principles which go against Catholic morality, such as abortion, free union, etc. – living in sin is favoured by tax systems.

Liberalism has its politics: notably democracy, the democracy of numbers. It is the people who are – supposedly – in charge. But in fact, “democracy” is about better subjugating them, dominating them, dispossessing them for the benefit of an omnipotent State, of a totalitarian socialism which gradually destroys the right of ownership, which makes the citizen work for a third of the year for the State. Citizens become in effect slaves of the totalitarian State. Liberty so-called is the politics of Liberalism.

Liberalism has its education: education must be atheistic, secular, and one throughout the nation. In France, it was not the bishops who defended the freedom of non-governmental education, but families. If there had not been two million people who went to Paris to defeat the socialist law on education, there would be in France today only government education, and private education would have disappeared.

Liberalism has its economics, directed by international financial associations. To the extent that States apply a liberal morality, a liberal economy, a liberal education, liberal laws, even if they incur enormous debts, they are supported by the International Monetary Fund. On the contrary States resisting liberalism are financially undermined and economically ruined, if possible. The Vatican itself was ruined by International Finance. Freemasons infiltrated the pontifical finances, and transferred the Vatican fortune to Canada, where it disappeared. Immediately the Freemasons and International Finance intervened with the offer of any financial support needed. Here are the pressures that can be exerted on Rome in the appointment of bishops or cardinals, on anything that the Pope does. He is now practically in the service of masonic liberalism. We have to say it like it is.

So said Archbishop Lefebvre (abbreviated) in Barcelona in 1986. Need one word be changed today?

Kyrie eleison.