Tag: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

Disintegration

Disintegration posted in Eleison Comments on October 29, 2016

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold,
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of a passionate intensity.

These famous lines from The Second Coming, a poem written in 1919 in the wake of the First World War by the Anglo-Irish poet, W.B.Yeats (1865–1939), come to mind as a possible explanation of how the movement of resistance to the 2012 betrayal of Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society of St Pius X can be so strong in truth and yet weak in unity and numbers. 1919 is nearly a hundred years ago, and Yeats was neither Catholic nor particularly concerned with the condition of the Catholic Church, which did then seem to be flourishing. But poets can be visionaries, and Yeats caught in these lines an essential truth about Western civilisation as it emerged from that war that was “putting out the lights all over Europe” (Earl Grey): the Western nations were spiritually disintegrating in a process uninterrupted ever since.

Nevertheless many Catholics today who wish the Faith to survive are upset by the apparent weakness of the “Resistance” of Archbishop Lefebvre’s own priests in particular to the obvious betrayal of his principles by their present leaders, and they look for an explanation. Some think that the SSPX priests do not take a public stand against the false conciliation of Tradition with Vatican II because they are scared of being thrown out of the Society with nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. But the priests have to know that there are layfolk who would be glad to support them. A deeper explanation might be that the priests are scared of cutting themselves out of that Society which is both their human family and the framework by which they belong to the structural Church. But again with a strong enough faith they would know that Providence can supply for both needs.

On the other hand if we set the 2012 sell-out of the Society in the context of the double disintegration of the two World Wars, followed by the far more terrible disintegration of the Catholic Church at Vatican II (1962–1965), then we must admire the heroic feat of Archbishop Lefebvre in gathering together flying fragments from that unprecedented explosion, but we can hardly be surprised if the Society of St Pius X should in turn explode from within, or if refugees from its disintegration should have difficulty in re-integrating without. Things have fallen apart, and minds and hearts with them. I think that there is not enough integrity or integration left in hearts and minds for us to be able to think of repeating the Archbishop’s feat. We are nearly 50 years downhill from 1970 when the Archbishop founded the SSPX.

What that means is not that there is nothing to be done, but that what is to be done must be worked out more from God’s point of view and less from man’s. At the very end of the world, God will allow the Faith almost to disappear (Lk XVIII, 8), but there will still be a few souls believing, hoping and loving. In 2016 he is giving us a foretaste of that disappearance, but souls should be able to recognize that they still have considerable freedom to believe, hope and love. And they should be able to foresee that even the most powerful of police states will not have the power to stop them from doing so. Moreover, the more heavily circumstances are made to weigh upon that freedom, the more glorious in Heaven will be the persevering devotion of any soul to God, to his divine Son and to the Blessed Virgin, and the greater will be the merits of that soul. Above all, the greater will be its unstoppable contribution to the welfare of the Church. All is by no means lost, and it can never be lost. God’s Church is not a merely human affair.

Kyrie eleison.

Bishop Fellay – III

Bishop Fellay – III posted in Eleison Comments on August 20, 2016

Reading the two recent issues of these “Comments” on the mindset which induces the Superior General of the Society of St Pius X to pursue implacably a merely practical agreement with Church authorities in Rome, a good friend reminded me that the ideas driving him were laid out four years ago in his Letter of April 14, 2012, in which he replied to the Society’s three other bishops, who warned him seriously against making any merely practical agreement with Rome. Many readers today of these “Comments” may have forgotten, or never known of, that warning, or Bishop Fellay’s reply. Indeed the exchange of letters tells a great deal that is worth recalling. Here they are, summarised as cruelly as usual, with brief comments:—

The three bishops’ main objection to any practical agreement with Rome being made without a doctrinal agreement was the depth of the doctrinal gulf between Conciliar Rome and the Traditional Catholic Society. Half a year before he died Archbishop Lefebvre said that the more one analyses the documents and aftermath of Vatican II, the more one comes to realise that the problem is less any classic errors in particular, even such as religious liberty, collegiality and ecumenism, than “a total perversion of mind” in general, underlying all the particular errors and proceeding from “a whole new philosophy founded on subjectivism.” To a key argument of Bishop Fellay that the Romans are no longer hostile but benevolent towards the Society, the three bishops replied with another quote from the Archbishop: such benevolence is just a “manoeuvre,” and nothing could be more dangerous for “our people” than to “put ourselves into the hands of Conciliar bishops and modernist Rome.” The three bishops concluded that a merely practical agreement would tear the Society apart, and destroy it.

To this deep objection, as deep as the gulf between subjectivism and objective truth, Bishop Fellay replied (google Bishop Fellay, April 14, 2012):— 1 that the bishops were “too human and fatalistic.” 2 The Church is guided by the Holy Ghost. 3 Behind Rome’s real benevolence towards the SSPX is God’s Providence. 4 To make the Council’s errors amount to a “super-heresy” is an inappropriate exaggeration, 5 which will logically lead Traditionalists into schism. 6 Not all Romans are modernists because fewer and fewer of them believe in Vatican II, 7 to the point that were the Archbishop alive today he would not have hesitated to accept what the SSPX is being offered. 8 In the Church there will always be wheat and chaff, so Conciliar chaff is no reason to back away. 9 How I wish I could have turned to the three of you for advice, but each of you in different ways “strongly and passionately failed to understand me,” and even threatened me in public. 10 To oppose Faith to Authority is “contrary to the priestly spirit.”

And finally, the briefest of comments on each of Bishop Fellay’s arguments:—

1 “Too human”? As the Archbishop said, the great gulf in question is philosophical (natural) rather than theological (supernatural). “Too fatalistic”? The three bishops were rather realistic than fatalistic. 2 Are Conciliar churchmen guided by the Holy Ghost when they destroy the Church? 3 Behind Rome’s real malevolence is its firm resolve to dissolve the SSPX’s resistance to the new Conciliar religion – as of how many Traditional Congregations before it! 4 Only subjectivists themselves cannot see the depth of the gulf between subjectivism and Truth. 5 Objectivist Catholics clinging to Truth are far from schism. 6 Freemasons hold the ring in Rome. Any non-modernists have no power there to speak of. 7 To believe that the Archbishop would have accepted Rome’s present offers is to mistake him completely. The basic problem has got only much worse since his day. 8 Bishop Fellay’s spoon is much too short for him to sup with the Roman devils (objectively speaking). 9 The three bishops understood Bishop Fellay only too well, but he did not want to hear what all three of them separately had to say. Does he take himself to be infallible? 10 St Paul for sure imagined that Authority could oppose Faith – Gal. I, 8–9, and II, 11. Did St Paul lack “priestly spirit”?

Kyrie eleison.

Bishop Fellay – I

Bishop Fellay – I posted in Eleison Comments on August 6, 2016

After the June 26–28 meeting of SSPX Superiors in Switzerland, the Superior General made not only for the general public the Communiqué of June 29, already examined in these “Comments” three weeks ago, but also a Statement on June 28 for the benefit of SSPX members, i.e. primarily SSPX priests. The Statement is in itself cryptic, but once deciphered (with the help of Fr Girouard), it is heavy with significance for the future of Catholic Tradition. Here is the merest outline of the first six paragraphs of the Statement, and the full text of the seventh:—

(1–4) Church and world are in crisis, because instead of turning around the Cross of Christ, they turn around man. The SSPX opposes this “deconstruction” of the Church and human society. (5) God’s own remedy for this disorder was to inspire an Archbishop to found a hierarchical Catholic Congregation turning around the sacrament of Holy Orders – Jesus Christ, his Cross, Kingship, sacrifice and priesthood, source of all order and grace, are what the Society founded by the Archbishop is all about.

(6) So the SSPX is neither Conciliar (it turns around Christ) nor rebellious (it is hierarchical).

(7) “Has the moment come for the general restoration of the Church? God’s Providence does not abandon God’s Church whose head is the Pope, the Vicar of Christ. That is why an indisputable sign of the general restoration will be when the Pope gives a sign of what he wants by granting the means to restore order in the priesthood, Faith and Tradition. This sign will in addition guarantee the Catholic unity necessary to the family of Tradition.”

Clearly the first six paragraphs lead up to the seventh. And it is not unreasonable to take the seventh to mean that when Pope Francis gives official approval to the Society, then that will be the proof that the moment has come at last for the whole of the Catholic Church to get back on its feet, for the Catholic priesthood, Catholic Faith and Catholic Tradition to be restored, and for all Traditionalists to join with the Society of St Pius X behind its Superior General. Bishop Fellay would seem to be repeating here for the benefit of all Society priests his steady vision of the Society’s glorious role, because at the Swiss meeting, as we hear, at least some of their Superiors had just questioned that glory coming in the form of reunion with official Rome. But those Superiors in opposition were right, because Bishop Fellay is here dreaming! It is a noble but deadly dream.

The dream is noble, because it is all to the honour of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of his Church, of his sacrifice, of Archbishop Lefebvre, of the Catholic priesthood and so on. The dream is deadly because it turns rather on the priesthood than on the Faith, and while it credits quite correctly Pope Francis and the Romans with being the holders of Church Authority, it takes no account of how far they are from holding the Catholic Faith. If Archbishop Lefebvre can be said to have saved the Catholic priesthood and Mass, that was for him only as a means of saving the Faith. The Faith is to the priesthood as end to means, and not as means to end. What would the priesthood be without the Faith? Who would believe in the Sacraments? Who would need priests?

And as to that Faith, the present Pope and the Roman officials who hold sway around him have lost their grip on Truth as being one, objective, non-contradictory and exclusive, and therewith they have lost their grip on the true Faith, not to say, lost the true Faith. That means that if Pope Francis did indeed approve officially of the Society, it would by no means be a sign of the Society restoring the Church to sanity, but rather of the official Church absorbing the Society into its insanity.

Kyrie eleison.

Archbishop’s Legacy – II

Archbishop’s Legacy – II posted in Eleison Comments on April 2, 2016

In 2012 the Archbishop’s successors at the head of his Society of St Pius X, having failed to understand his fundamental putting of Catholic Truth before Catholic Authority, claimed falsely to be following his example when at the Society’s General Chapter of that summer they prepared to put Truth back under Authority by opening the door to some political and non-doctrinal agreement with the liars of Rome – “Catholicism is Revolutionary” is a monstrous lie. For years now these successors have been spreading rumours that the agreement is imminent, but Rome has them where it wants them, by their own fault, and risks continuing to extract concessions such as, possibly, the disastrous interview of March 2 granted by the Superior General to a professional predator. Conciliar Rome never forgets what the SSPX seems no longer to want to remember – Catholic Tradition and Vatican II are absolutely irreconcilable.

However, the Archbishop has disciples who have not forgotten this. They are going under the name of the “Resistance,” which is a movement rather than an organization, as is only logical. Clinging to Truth against the false Authority both of Rome and now of the SSPX, any internal authority amongst them can at best be supplied, i.e. an abnormal authority supplied invisibly by the Church in case of emergency for the salvation of souls. But such authority, by the invisibility of its transmission (contrast the visible ceremonies by which many kinds of authority amongst men are transmitted), is that much weaker and more contestable than normal authority in the Church, which descends always, ultimately, from the Pope. Therefore the “Resistance” has the strength of Truth but a weakness of Authority normally essential to protect Catholic Truth.

Surely resistant Catholics, inside or outside of Tradition, have to take into account the many consequences of this split between Truth and Authority, imposed by Vatican II on the entire Church. God’s Supreme Shepherd being supremely struck by Conciliar folly, how can God’s sheep not be supremely scattered (cf. Zach. XIII, 7: Mt. XXVI, 31)? Not to be suffering, Catholics would have to not belong to the Catholic Church. Is that what they want? Then Catholics for the time being should be neither surprised by betrayals nor disappointed by divisions. The Devil is being given for the moment almost a free hand to cause divisions (“diabolein” in Greek), and when Catholics are all fighting for eternal salvation the divisions are frequently bitter. Patience.

Next, from Conciliar Popes there can no longer be the lifeblood of true Catholic Authority flowing down into Catholic institutions, and so Catholic persons can no longer depend upon Catholic institutions like they should normally be able to do. Rather, any such institutions have to depend for Truth upon the persons, as we have seen the SSPX depending on Archbishop Lefebvre. But persons without institutional backing or control are always liable to be fallible, and so it seems unwise to expect that any grouping of Catholics today for Truth is going to attract large numbers. Catholics may naturally long for structure, hierarchy, Superiors and obedience, but these cannot be fabricated out of thin air. Surely remnants are the order of the day. Patience.

In conclusion, Catholics striving to keep the Faith must take their well-deserved punishment, renounce all human illusions and fabrications, and beg in prayer for Almighty God to intervene. When enough souls turn to him for his solution instead of theirs, they will recognize that his Providence provided it for them in the form of the Devotion of the First Saturdays of the month, to make reparation to his Mother. For when enough reparation is made, then he will give to his Vicar on earth the grace to Consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart, and then order begins to be restored, as he has promised. For the practice of that Devotion, do not miss next week’s “Comments.”

Kyrie eleison.

Sickness Unimaginable

Sickness Unimaginable posted in Eleison Comments on March 7, 2015

In the Society of St Pius X’s “hot summer” of 1976, after Paul VI “suspended” Archbishop Lefebvre for ordaining 14 priests for Tradition, the clash between Pope and Catholic Tradition was so sharp that one of the two moments occurred that August when the Archbishop most seriously considered whether the See of Rome might be vacant. As can be heard from the recording of words he then spoke, he was agonizing over that clash: how possibly could a true Vicar of Christ be so destroying the Church? The Archbishop never finally adopted the sedevacantist solution, but let us see how clearly he stated the problem, and then offer once more a line of solution which he may have been too sane in mind to think of. Here is a summary of his words in August of 1976:—

People ask me what I think of the Pope [Paul VI]. It is an incredible mystery. The true Pope is the unity of the Church, inspired by the Holy Ghost, and protected by the promise of Our Lord in upholding the Faith. But in the aftermath of Vatican II, Paul VI is systematically destroying the Church. Nothing is spared: catechism, universities, Congregations, seminaries, schools. Everything Catholic is being destroyed. One looks for a solution.

A series of false solutions can be dismissed out of hand, e.g. Paul VI is a prisoner, drugged, victim of his underlings, etc. For when he blessed the Charismatics or kissed the feet of the Orthodox Patriarch, did he have a revolver at his head? I have watched him in public audiences, speaking with the skill, presence of mind, pertinence and intelligence of a man in full possession of his faculties. Cardinal Benelli told me that it was the Pope himself who wrote those letters to me [crushing Tradition], that he is fully informed, that he knows exactly what he is doing, it is his will, they are his decisions. The Cardinal said that he reported to the Pope every day, and would do so again, straight after our own conversation.

Then can Paul VI be not a true Pope? That is one possible hypothesis. Theologians have studied the problem. I do not know. Do not put words in my mouth. But the problem seems theologically insoluble.

The Archbishop spoke of Paul VI, but the problem is essentially the same for all six Conciliar Popes (except perhaps John-Paul I). Let us divide the problem in two: how can the true God allow such destruction of his Church? How can his true Vicars be the main destroyers?

As for Almighty God, firstly the destruction will be still worse at world’s end (Lk. XVIII, 8). Secondly, God may easily be purifying his Church to prepare for the Triumph of his Mother’s Immaculate Heart. Thirdly, God did protect Paul VI from utterly destroying the Church, when for instance he arranged for the “chance” discovery to Paul VI of a plan to dissolve the Papacy by the text of Lumen Gentium. This enabled the Pope to block the plan by adding the Nota Praevia.

As for the Vicars, Archbishop Lefebvre never seems to have considered the solution which follows, which may be why in that August even he seems to have been nearly impaled on the horns of the sedevacantist-or-liberal dilemma. But if with each year liberalism comes closer to confusing the mind of every man on earth, how should the Popes escape the universal malady of being “sincerely” wrong? Because they are educated men? But liberalism reigns especially in the schools and universities. So if the miseducated Conciliar Popes are “sincerely” convinced that “truth” evolves, they will not even by their grave errors be pertinaciously denying what they know to be defined Catholic Truth, because even defined Truth, if it is to be for them “truth,” evolves in their direction.

Kyrie eleison.

Archbishop Commented – II

Archbishop Commented – II posted in Eleison Comments 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.