Bishop Bernard Fellay

REASON for the “RESISTANCE”

REASON for the “RESISTANCE” on February 10, 2024

God gave us the wise old Saint He knew we need –

How could a youngster think that he could lead?

Less than one month ago, on January 24, the Brazilian Prior of the Traditional Benedictine Monastery of Santa Cruz, nestling in high hills of Brazil behind Rio de Janeiro, Bishop Thomas Aquinas, published a severe denunciation of a prominent leader who is active worldwide in the Traditional Catholic movement. But surely Traditionalists have enough problems from outside of Tradition without having to fight among themselves as well? Normally that is Catholic common sense, but not if the very basis of Catholicism, the Catholic Faith, is at stake. Now in the struggle between Rome and the Society of St Pius X, never has it not been at stake. Let readers judge for themselves if, as a shepherd of Our Lord’s flock, Bishop Thomas has done anything other than his bounden duty by denouncing this wolf in sheep’s clothing – 

The reason for the existence of the Resistance is none other than Dom Fellay, with his words and actions. His words minimized the gravity of the crisis and of the Council. His actions exposed Tradition to suffer the same fate as the Ecclesia Dei communities. 

Dom Fellay did not speak like Dom Lefebvre. Dom Lefebvre strongly denounced the Council’s mistakes, as well as the churchmen who were the cause of those mistakes. He warned virtually all the popes about their responsibilities. He told John Paul II that if he continued on the path of ecumenism he would no longer be the good shepherd, and in the drawing about Assisi he said, with images and words, that John Paul II would go to hell if he continued to be an ecumenist. He told Cardinal Ratzinger that he, Ratzinger, was against the Christianization of society. The Archbishop denounced the apostasy of Vatican II. ( . . . ) He defended priests and faithful from modernist contagion. He exposed himself to an invalid but degrading excommunication. In defence of France he did not back down in the face of the Muslim danger. He protected us against Dom Gérard’s Roman temptation. He was, in short, like bishops of old: the defender of Christianity and of its basis, which is the faith. He was the man of theological virtues, who sustained our faith and all virtues. 

And Dom Fellay? Did he continue Dom Lefebvre’s actions? No. Both in word and in deed, Dom Fellay distanced himself from Dom Lefebvre. Regarding the heresy of Religious Freedom, he minimized the seriousness of what the Council had said. He did not react to the mistakes like Dom Lefebvre. He did not talk about the two churches, as did Dom Lefebvre. He did not clearly distinguish the official Church from the Catholic Church, but spoke of a “Concrete Church,” confusing the faithful and even priests. What specific church is this? Do we have to be in this church? We are in the Catholic Church. We recognize the Pope, but not the Conciliar Church that Cardinal Benelli spoke of. We recognize the Pope, but not his doctrine or his actions contrary to Tradition. These acts are not Catholic, but anti-Catholic. 

It was under the influence of Dom Fellay that the 2012 Chapter modified the principle enunciated by the 2006 Chapter: there can be no practical agreement without doctrinal agreement. This did not please Dom Fellay, and it was changed. Under certain conditions, the Fraternity can now reach a practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement. It is a legal loophole, opening the way to lead the Fraternity down the path of the Ecclesia Dei communities. He did not go that far, but he lowered his guard, and Rome took advantage of that. Opposition from within the Fraternity Dom Fellay repressed by expelling Dom Williamson and other priests; then he punished others, such as the seven deans who rightly protested against Rome’s marriage document. Dom Fellay disorganized Tradition, walked away from Dom Lefebvre’s line, and made others also depart from it. To resist this departure was the reason for the “Resistance” coming into existence. 

We want to follow Dom Lefebvre in everything, in doctrine and also in practical solutions, because, as Aristotle and St.Thomas teach, the examples of the ancients serve as principles of action. We follow Dom Lefebvre in doctrine and action, especially in relation to modernist Rome, and we do this to be faithful to Eternal Rome, teacher of truth and holiness. 

Kyrie eleison 

Archbishop Tranferred

Archbishop Tranferred on September 26, 2020

Two days ago, the mortal remains of Archbishop Lefebvre were transferred from the vault next to the Seminary of Écône where they had rested temporarily since his death in 1991, to a solid marble sarcophagus in the crypt beneath the Seminary Chapel specially prepared for their permanent repose. All splendour is fitting for the place of burial of the greatest man of God, the greatest hero of the Catholic Faith, of modern times, the Archbishop who virtually single-handed saved the Catholic doctrine, sacraments and priesthood from perishing, from their corruption and elimination by modern men who no longer believed in them as they had been handed down by the faithful Catholic Church through nearly two thousand years.

And one may say that after his death his successors continued his work more or less faithfully for another 20 years, but then in 2012 occurred a change in his Society of St Pius X which obliged many souls to speak of a New-society, somewhat as the changes in the Church following on the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) obliged many Catholics to speak of a New-church, so radical were the changes. Alas, the ceremony of transferral of the Archbishop’s remains reflected this transferral of his work from Society to New-society, because it was celebrated not by the present Superior General, Fr. David Pagliarani, but by his predecessor as Superior General, the one who was mainly responsible for the transfer from Society to New-society. This choice of Fr. Pagliarani’s predecessor to celebrate such an outstanding event in honour of the Society’s Founder is neither a good omen nor is it an accident. It reminds us of the quote of Our Lord (Mt. XXIII):

29  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

It may well be that today the universal hypocrisy of a world spurning Our Lord runs so deep that many souls taking part in the ceremony of two days ago were not conscious hypocrites, God knows, nor so severely to be condemned as Our Lord condemned those who He knew were about to crucify Him. For indeed many Catholics, who had been faithfully following the Archbishop in his “disobedience” towards the Church’s unfaithful officials, were skilfully mislead by his successors back towards the same officials with their Conciliar religion of man. Nevertheless, objectively speaking, the parallel is clear.

* The Pharisees built monuments to honour the prophets that they themselves would also have killed.

The New-society builds a sarcophagus for its Founder when it itself has been making friends with the Pachamamists whom he already abominated.

* To the Pharisees Our Lord promised to send messengers to denounce their infidelity, but these they would kill just the same.

To the New-church and New-society he sends an Archbishop Viganò to remind them of their infidelity. As for the New-church, it would kill him. The New-society does its best to pay no attention to him.

* The Pharisees were warned by Our Lord of the grave consequences of their infidelity, and indeed in 70 AD Jerusalem was utterly destroyed.

As for the New-society, it has for now reduced the work of Archbishop to radical impotency, because the worldwide network of the Faith which he built up is in absolute need of new bishops to maintain that Faith, but by the New-society’s refusal to consecrate new bishops without the Pachamamists’ consent, it is refusing new bishops who will maintain the faith of Archbishop Lefebvre, because the Pachamamists will never consent to the consecration of bishops who will defend that faith.

In brief, the New-society’s members allowed that predecessor of Fr Pagliarani to honour their Founder’s place of burial who did more than anyone else to bury his work. Are they aware of how they risk contributing to the transferral of a gathering for heroes into a playpen of Neo-pharisees?

Kyrie eleison.

Rigged Video Game – I

Rigged Video Game – I on August 18, 2018

Charity certainly prays for the new Superior General of the Society of St Pius X that God may give him the insight and the strength to bring the Society back onto the course set for it – and for the good of the Universal Church – by Archbishop Lefebvre, but realistically Fr Pagliarani may not even have the desire to do any such thing. Realistically, on the human level, the indications are that he is on the same wavelength as Bishop Fellay, and that his election as Superior General was Rome’s and Bishop Fellay’s joint back-up plan for the Chapter if Bishop Fellay himself failed to be re-elected, as seems to have been the case. Thus if Fr Pagliarani would look after Bishop Fellay’s interests, Bishop Fellay would in case of need promote his candidacy for Superior General. Here are a few indications that the two of them are conspiring to bring the Traditional Society under Conciliar Rome –

* At the interim (non-elective) General Chapter of 2012, it is reported that it was Fr Pagliarani who saved Bishop Fellay from devastating arguments presented to the Chapter for Bishop Fellay’s dismissal and replacement as Superior General. Fr Pagliarani told the Chapter that it should not give the Superior a slap in the face – and the weak-kneed Chapter went straight on to other business.

* Soon after that Chapter Fr Pagliarani was promoted – rewarded? – by Bishop Fellay with the elevated post of Seminary Rector at the Society’s seminary for Latin America in La Reja, Argentina. There Fr Pagliarani has been heard to criticise whoever does not understand the need for an agreement between the Society and Rome – Bishop Fellay’s own policy.

* We may hope one day to know for sure exactly how it happened that the two “Counsellors” were added to the Society’s General Council, thus putting Bishop Fellay close back to the seat of power in the Society from which he had just been dethroned a few days before. But is it likely that the all too docile and respectful Capitulants would have voted for such a move if it had not seemed to be agreeable to the new Superior General himself? In fact, if it had not been proposed by Fr Pagliarani himself?

Such questions remain speculations until the facts are made known, but they are not idle speculations, because upon the course of the Society over the next few years depends a great deal in the Universal Church. Will the Society become again the central bulwark of resistance to Conciliar apostasy wreaking havoc within the Church, or is it going to join that movement of apostasy? Within the mainstream Church the Society was always numerically insignificant when compared with all the other institutions together making up the Universal Church, but the Society’s unique faithfulness to the Catholic doctrine and sacraments of all time, being abandoned or perverted by the Church’s highest officials, made the Society a force to be reckoned with. The Archbishop’s stand on Truth made him redoubtable. The Conciliar Popes could neither swallow him down nor spit him out. They have long since swallowed down and eaten up Bishop Fellay.

Time will tell how Fr Pagliarani will handle his tremendous responsibilities. Meanwhile we pray for him, but we are not humanly hopeful. The risk is all too great of the Society’s leaders following the rest of the world’s leaders, and turning the Society into a “rigged video-game,” as somebody well described today’s world. To punish mankind abandoning God everywhere, He is giving power to His enemies to root out the last remains of Christ and of Christian civilisation. However, at least for a while yet, appearances of Christ and His Church must be maintained until they no longer arouse even nostalgia in men being de-christianised. Hence the video-game with no reality beneath the appearances emptied out. Hence the rigging of elections and of Chapters to bring about the Brave New World, without Christ or God.

Alas, for these poor enemies. God exists, and Our Lord is going to strike!

Kyrie eleison.

General Chapter – III

General Chapter – III on August 11, 2018

When Catholic Truth and Catholic Authority move apart, as at Vatican II, it cannot be the Truth that is moving, because Catholic doctrine does not change. It can only be the Authority that has moved, and therefore the Church authorities can alone be to blame for the separation. All the more reason to treasure those authorities that did not betray the Truth, such as Archbishop Lefebvre and his Society of St Pius X. All the more reason to take at least one more look at what happened to it at its recent General Chapter – did the Society in fact get back on the Archbishop’s track which it left in 2012, or did the French proverb apply, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”?

At the beginning of the Chapter three new men were elected to form the triumvirate (body of three men) ruling the Society, and many a good priest in the Society breathed a great sigh of relief and enjoyed a few days of real hope for the future. But then at the end of the Chapter there were voted onto the Society’s General Council, where major decisions are taken, the previous Superior General together with his own predecessor as Superior General. This was by the creation of a novelty in the Society, a new post of “Counsellor.” And many a good priest’s heart must have sunk in his breast. What hope could there be now for a change of the Society’s disastrous course from faithful Truth to faithless authorities when that course’s two main architects were reinstated on the Society’s General Council?

At least one participant in the Chapter was reassured that the two “Counsellors” will not be living in Society headquarters in Menzingen, Switzerland; that they will only be advising on questions of setting up or closing Society houses and admitting or expelling Society members; that creating the “Counsellors” was a clever move of the Chapter because it will help to heal divisions in the Society. Does anyone feel re-assured? Menzingen must win back the trust which its ambiguous politics for 20 years have lost. Here is one commentator among many who does not trust such recent soothing words of the Society’s rulers:—

In reality the choice – fixed beforehand – of Fr Pagliarani for the new Superior General disguises the policy likewise fixed beforehand of confirming the status quo, as to the future direction of the Society. Shamelessly there were placed at the side of the New Superior two more Assistants, hardly outstanding for their resistance to modernist Rome. Moreover the Chapter had the nerve to invent the function of two “Counsellors,” unheard of in the Society’s Statutes, and to “choose” for the job the two characters most in favour of an agreement with Rome that the Society has ever had: Fr. Schmidberger, known for his friendship with Cardinal Ratzinger, and Bishop Fellay, known for his “new friends” in Rome and for his dedication to liquidating the Society, to be handed over bound hand and foot to the Roman apostates.

The picture that emerges is not necessarily one of unconditional surrender, but we catch a glimpse of a new way of getting closer to Rome, with a little more caution and a little more diplomacy towards the priests and laity of the Society. However, given that God both sees and foresees, and that while man proposes, it is God who disposes, then another possibility is that Our Lord intervenes and infuses in the relatively young Fr Pagliarani the Gifts of Counsel, Fortitude and Fear of God which he will need to straighten out the course of the Society lifeboat, and bring it safely to port. May that be God’s will!

In fairness, the Chapter did succeed in changing the Superior General, which was the most important thing that it had to do. Bishop Fellay and Fr Schmidberger as “Counsellors” may well go on scheming with the Romans on how to bring what remains of the Archbishop’s Society under the heel of Conciliar Rome, but supreme power in the Society now belongs to Fr Pagliarani. Will he make good use of it? God only knows. “Charity believes all things, hopes all things” (I Cor. XIII, 7). We must pray for him.

Kyrie eleison.

Liberals Prepare

Liberals Prepare on June 9, 2018

Not everybody is asleep. Somebody in France is watching out for how the liberals are preparing to take over the imminent General Chapter of the Society of St Pius X, where the Society has its last chance, probably its last chance ever, to stand up for the Catholic Faith against Vatican II, as did Archbishop Lefebvre. Whoever it was wrote an excellent article on Fidélité catholique francophone denouncing some sinister words of the Society’s General Secretary, Fr Christian Thouvenot, spoken in an interview with the Society’s German District magazine early this year. What follows owes much to that article.

Firstly, the sinister words: “It is likely that the question of the present status of the Personal Prelature will be raised at the General Chapter (in July). But it is the Superior General alone who is at the head of the Society and who is responsible for relations between Catholic Tradition and the Holy See. In 1988 Archbishop Lefebvre made this point very clear.” These words are sinister because they are wide open to the interpretation that Menzingen, Society Headquarters where Fr Thouvenot works, is preparing members and followers of the Society for the General Chapter to be the time and place where Bishop Fellay will, apparently lawfully, take upon himself to accept Rome’s offer of a Personal Prelature, and by so doing will cripple once and for all the Society’s ability to defend the Faith by resisting the Novus Ordo Mass and the Second Vatican Council. And these words are sinister because they are ambiguous or false.

Firstly, it is not the Superior General who is alone at the head of the Society. By the Statutes of the Society established by Archbishop Lefebvre, it is true that once the Superior General is elected, he has remarkable powers at his disposal and for no less than a 12-year term, because the Archbishop wanted the Superior General to have time and power to achieve something, without being hindered as he himself had been in the Holy Ghost Fathers. But the General Chapter meeting every six or twelve years is above the Superior General, and he must follow the policies decided by it. Now in theory the General Chapter of 2012 decided that any “canonical normalisation” of the Society would require a majority vote of the full General Chapter, but in practice Bishop Fellay has already proceeded to “normalise” with Rome the Society’s confessions, ordinations and marriages. And now his General Secretary is talking as though the General Chapter has nothing further to say, as though Bishop Fellay alone can “normalise” the rest. Are all the forty future Capitulants of July aware of how Menzingen is talking? Do they agree?

Secondly, Fr Thouvenot claims that Bishop Fellay is – alone? – responsible for relations between Catholic Tradition and the Holy See. That is no doubt how both Rome and Bishop Fellay himself would like to see the situation, so that Rome can scoop up all of “Tradition” at one fell swoop and Bishop Fellay can extend his empire. But “Tradition” is a varying and heterogeneous collection of religious societies and communities which certainly do not all want to be scooped up by Conciliar Rome, or headed up by Bishop Fellay. For this reason Archbishop Lefebvre repeatedly refused to be called the head of Catholic Tradition. But both Bishop Fellay and his Secretary are playing the game of Conciliar Rome.

And thirdly, if the Archbishop insisted at the time of the Consecrations in 1988, that he alone was still in control of the Society’s relations with Rome, that was because he knew that the young collaborators around him were no match for the wily Romans, as we have seen to our cost since his death in 1991. It was not because he trusted in the structure of the Society to endow its Superior General with a special grace to match the Conciliar Romans. When men want to go wrong, it is not necessarily a structure that will save them. But what could the Archbishop do? He had to die some time!

Readers, if you know a July Capitulant, ask him if he knows what the General Secretary is saying!

Kyrie eleison.

Refined Hypocrisy

Refined Hypocrisy on June 10, 2017

Let us assume then, with Fr Gleize’s first article here six weeks ago (EC 511), that it is not certain that a Pope cannot fall into heresy. To save souls from Luther down to today, God may have given to the authorities of His Church of the decadent Fifth Age special graces to resist that decadence, but that Age came virtually to an end with Vatican II. Conciliar Popes have been the death of the Church. But are they formal heretics? The interest of Fr Gleize’s second article is its highlighting of just how these Popes have managed to kill the Church by subverting Catholic doctrine while seeming to remain Catholic. What is their technique? Fr Gleize examines the case of the five “dubia” or doubtful points raised by the four Cardinals against the text of Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia ( AL ): do these points make him a conscious and wilful denier of defined Church doctrine? Seemingly, no, says Fr Gleize, but in effect, yes.

Seemingly, no, because on each of the five points Pope Francis does not directly deny Church doctrine, rather he leaves it ambiguous, or leaves it out. The first of the five points is an example of ambiguity: the Pope does not say, “Divorcees may receive Communion,” but, “In certain cases divorcees may receive Communion.” Here the “in certain cases” is open to a broad or narrow interpretation. It is ambiguous, and that ambiguity is apt to undermine Church Law, because there are many divorcees and all too many priests and prelates who will be happy to take the broad interpretation.

In all four remaining points the Pope undermines Catholic doctrine not by denial, but by omission. For instance (fourth point), he does not say, “There is no such thing as an objectively sinful act,” because the Church has always named a series of objectively sinful acts, starting with God’s Ten Commandments. Rather the Pope says, “Objective sinfulness does not necessarily mean subjective guilt.” Now of course the Church has never denied that there can be circumstances for this or that act which take away its guilt, but to put the subjective excuse in the foreground is to put the objective sin in the background. Sinners will love it!Yet the Catholic Church has always ranked the objective nature and moral rightness or wrongness of acts above the subjective blameworthiness of this or that person performing the act. “The exception proves the rule,” says one proverb, and another, “Hard cases make bad law.” On the contrary the subjectivism of Pope Francis undermines Church law (and common sense) with hard cases, even while he avoids directly contradicting Church law. Fr Gleize concludes that the four Cardinals’ five doubts are fully justified.

However, the Pope is covering his tracks by not making dogmatic or anti-dogmatic statements. He himself writes in AL that its purpose is to “collect in-put from the two Synods on the family, together with further considerations capable of guiding thought or dialogue or pastoral practice.” This is professedly not a dogmatic purpose. Therefore it is difficult to pin on Pope Francis the ticket of “formal heretic.” But just as Vatican II professed to be merely a “pastoral,” i.e. non-doctrinal, Council, and yet it blew Catholic doctrine and the Church sky-high, so Pope Francis is in AF not professing that he is teaching doctrine, and yet he is blowing Catholic morals and the family sky-high. It is the classic Communist or Neo-modernist means of subversion, using practicalities to undermine truth, not in principle but in practice. Compare Rome to Bishop Fellay: “Get practical recognition first, we’ll talk about doctrine afterwards.” Compare Bishop Fellay to the SSPX: “We are not changing doctrine,” while he himself is hardly breathing a word of criticism any more of Pope Francis’ destruction of the Church. Would Archbishop Lefebvre have kept silent? To ask the question is to answer it.

Fr Gleize concludes that Pope Francis may not be a “formal heretic,” but he is certainly “favouring heresy.” “Formal heretic” should be the worse of the two tickets, but not at this wrong end of the Church’s Fifth Age, when the hypocrisy of the Church’s enemies is more refined than ever. Heaven help us more than ever! Pray the Fifteen Mystery Rosary every day!

Kyrie eleison.