Tag: Catholic Authority

Catholic Balance

Catholic Balance posted in Eleison Comments on June 26, 2010

When last week’s “Eleison Comments” began by seeming to sympathize with the “sedevacantists” who believe that the Popes since John XXIII have not been Popes at all, and ended by seeming to sympathize with Cardinal Kasper for making fun of the unauthoritative Society of St Pius X, I know that there was at least one reader that was confused, and I suspect that she was not alone. But everything drops into place if one assumes that from Vatican II onwards, Catholic Truth has been split from Catholic Authority.

Now the Catholic Authority of the churchmen should be welded to the Catholic Truth of Our Lord, because that human Authority only exists to protect and teach that divine Truth. But at that dreadful Council (1962–1965), centuries of Protestant heresy and Liberal dissolution of truth had at last so wormed their way into the hearts and minds of a large majority of the Council Fathers that they gave up on the purity of Catholic Truth, and to this day they have been using all their Catholic Authority to impose on Catholics the Council’s new and false religion of man.

Whereupon Catholics have been torn apart, both from one another and in themselves, as was inevitable. For either they have had to cling to Catholic Truth, and more or less abandon Catholic Authority, which is the solution of the “sedevacantists.” And when one looks primarily at Catholic Truth, one may well sympathize with them, so horrible has been the betrayal of Truth by the highest churchmen, ever since that Council began. Or Catholics have chosen to cling to Catholic Authority, and more or less abandon Catholic Truth, which is the solution of Cardinal Kasper. And when one looks primarily to Catholic Authority, one may well sympathize with his loyalty to Benedict XVI, and understand the Cardinal’s smile when he finds himself rebuked for not being Catholic by the wholly unauthoritative Society of St Pius X, still practically excommunicated.

Yet Archbishop Lefebvre chose a third way, in between the two extremes of either Truth or Authority. His way, in which he has been followed by that SSPX, was to cling to Catholic Truth, but with no disrespect towards Church Authority, nor any blanket disbelief in the status of its officials. It is a balance certainly not always easy to keep, but it has borne Catholic fruit all over the world, and it has sustained a faithful remnant of Catholics with true doctrine and the true sacraments for the 40 years we have so far spent in the Conciliar desert (1970–2010).

In that desert we Catholic sheep may have to be scattered for a while yet, as long as the Shepherd in Rome is struck (Zech.XIII,7, quoted by Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane –Mt.XXVI,31). In this Gethsemane of the Church, we do need compassion on our fellow sheep. That is why I can sympathize with “sedevacantists,” and even with liberals (up to a point!). But that no way means that the third way as traced out by Archbishop Lefebvre has ceased to be the right way.

May the Great Mother of God long protect the little Society!

Kyrie eleison.

God Disposes

God Disposes posted in Eleison Comments on August 15, 2009

If it is true, as the proverb has it, that “Man proposes while God disposes,” then it can be wise to moderate in the light of God’s dispositions or Providence the fear one may have of men’s propositions or intentions. Even in this appalling crisis of Church and world, we need not panic, because in the words of another proverb, the lines of men may be crooked but with them the Lord God is still writing straight.

For instance, if the Church crisis, core of the world’s crisis, was let loose by Vatican II’s unprecedented split in all Church history between Catholic Truth and Catholic Authority, then Catholics clinging to Truth – broadly, “Traditionalists” – will be short on Authority, while Catholics clinging to Authority – broadly the mainstream Church – will be short on Truth. Do we not observe how “Traditionalists” who have not lost their sense of Catholic Authority are somehow or other proposing or intending to rejoin it, while mainstream Catholics who have not lost all sense of Catholic Truth (countless hordes have lost today all sense of any truth!) are somehow or other proposing or intending to recover it?

But both of these good intentions can become crooked. If on the one hand “Traditionalists” seek to please the world by using ambiguity, the classic start of abandoning Truth, they may please men (especially journalists) but they will certainly not please God, who “hates a double tongue” (Proverbs VIII, 13). On the other hand if Benedict XVI is seeking to re-incorporate the Society of St Pius X in the mainstream ecumenical Church as though Tradition were merely one option amongst many, then he too will be displeasing God by his refusal to see how absolute are the demands of Catholic Truth.

Yet even supposing such intentions are or become crooked, God can still be seen writing straight with them. For instance are not both “Traditionalists” who strive to maintain their sense of Catholic Authority and this Pope striving to maintain contact with Catholic Tradition, each in their own way serving God in His preparation of the future re-uniting of Truth and Authority? That re-uniting may not come as soon as we might like, but we need not panic. The Lord God is visibly at work, looking after His Church.

In the meantime, however, let no Catholic think there is equivalence between Tradition’s pulling of Authority towards Truth and the Pope’s pulling of Truth towards Authority. Truth has the absolute priority: “For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth,” says the Incarnate Word (Jn. XVIII, 37). The highest Authority of all subordinated himself to Truth. Mistaken Authority must give way. As for Tradition, however truthful it may be, it must remain humble and charitable, always looking towards Authority, without any illusions but with an unshakeable hope.

Kyrie eleison.

Unthinkable Reality

Unthinkable Reality posted in Eleison Comments on July 18, 2009

Whereas “Eleison Comments” ten weeks ago said that the split between Catholic Authority and Catholic Truth was responsible for today’s incomparable ruination of the Church, a recent objector said that such a split was unthinkable because Catholic Truth comes through Catholic Authority. The brief answer is: normally, yes; today, no. Let us see that the objection is mistaken, and then why.

That Truth and Authority are split is proved by the fruits (cf. Mt.VII, 15–20). Catholic Truth bears good fruit, but the Conciliarism that Catholic Authority has been pushing ever since Vatican II has borne only bad fruit – on all fronts the Conciliar Church is collapsing, unless one re-defines the word “collapse.” This collapse can be recognized by the laity more easily than by the clergy, partly because the laity do not usually undergo that heavy Conciliar indoctrination now normal for the clergy, partly because the laity have not usually staked their lives and reputations on the success of the Council, as by and large today’s Church authorities have done.

One way of describing the greatness of Archbishop Lefebvre is to say that he was one of the very few Church authorities who in the aftermath of the Council not only saw how Catholic Truth had been abandoned by Catholic Authority, but also at great personal cost stood by what he saw. How often we heard him say, in the 1970’s, “C’est inconcevable, c’est inimaginable,” meaning that the disaster going on in the Church was – “unthinkable.”

But that never stopped him from recognizing that it was the reality.

Why it had become the reality he used to explain by the preceding 500 years of Church history: Protestantism rose up against Catholicism, and once it had established itself in the face of Catholicism it gave rise to Liberalism, whereby all “truths” are as good as one another. For a time such nonsense was resisted by what remained still of men’s common sense and Faith, and especially by the Catholic churchmen – Authority still clung to Truth – but eventually, at the Council, these churchmen too gave up resisting. If the sun goes on sinking, eventually it sets. If you go on drinking, eventually you get drunk. If the tide goes on and on rising, eventually it goes over the top of all dikes built to hold it back.

St. Pius X’s great Encyclical on Modernism, “Pascendi,” portrays that final corruption of the mind which by spilling over all dikes spells the end of times, if not the end of the world. That corruption swamped the Catholic churchmen at Vatican II, and they abandoned the Catholic Truth. Has then Almighty God abandoned His Catholic Church? By no means (Mt.XXVIII, 20). But He never promised that His Church could not shrink to a tiny remnant, whether now or at the end of the world (Lk.XVIII,8).

Kyrie eleison.

Just Claims

Just Claims posted in Eleison Comments on May 30, 2009

On the assumption that the Second Vatican Council established within the Catholic Church a serious split between Catholic Truth and Catholic Authority, “Eleison Comments” three weeks ago (“Flat Contradiction”) divided today’s Catholics between those who cling to Truth and have problems with Catholic Authority, and those who cling to Catholic Authority and have problems with Catholic Truth or doctrine, for instance on religious liberty.

Setting up such a parallel between “Conciliarists” following Vatican II and “Traditionalists” following the age-old doctrine and liturgy, may well shock numbers of both, for the reasons evoked above, but let us appeal to the realities in the Church around us. Do we not observe that as Traditionalists who wholly reject present Church authorities risk losing their Catholic sense, so too Conciliarists who wholly scorn present Traditionalists (as do most German bishops) risk ceasing to be Catholics for lack of any sense of doctrinal truth?

However, the parallel only goes so far. For while outright “sedevacantism” and outright Neo-modernism are in this logical respect comparable, they are by no means equivalent, because Truth is higher than Authority, which only exists to serve Truth. If all Authority disappeared, Truth would still be there (“My words will not pass away,” says Our Lord – Mk.XXV, 35). But if all Truth were smothered in lies, as is happening today, we would see, as we are seeing, all Authority discredited with it, and being replaced by brute force. Truth and its ensuing Justice are the life-blood of Authority. Authority is merely the servant and protector of Truth and Justice.

This is why Traditionalists clinging to Truth are, as such, repeat, as such, better Catholics than Conciliarists clinging to Authority – judge by the fruits! And while Truth, by its nature of corresponding to the object and not to the subject, cannot bend to Authority, on the contrary the Church authorities, Popes and Cardinals and Bishops, must one day bend back to the Truth, and the sooner the better. Nor is saying so remotely an arrogant claim on the part of Traditionalists, as Cardinal Ratzinger once opined, because Traditionalists never invented Tradition, Tradition was a given, from being merely faithful to which they got their name. Archbishop Lefebvre had engraved on his tombstone St. Paul’s “Tradidi quod et accepi” (I Cor.XI, 23), because he was the very first to maintain that he had done no more than hand on what had been handed down to him.

This fundamental primacy of Truth over Authority applies inside and outside the Catholic Church, inside and outside any part of the Church. But modern souls have lost almost all grip on Truth. Here is the drama.

Kyrie eleison.

Flat Contradiction

Flat Contradiction posted in Eleison Comments on May 9, 2009

Ever since, with the Second Vatican Council, Catholic Authority and Catholic Truth substantially parted company, the Catholics who clung to Authority have had problems with the Truth, and the Catholics who clung to Truth have had problems with Catholic Authority. What could be more logical? Catholics on both sides long for a reunion. Especially amongst decent Conciliar Catholics, this takes the concrete form of the ardent wish that Pope Benedict XVI and the Society of St. Pius X come to an understanding.

Well and good. But there is a problem. Vatican II contradicts Catholic Truth, outside of which Catholic Authority dissolves, is now dissolving, because its Divine Master, Our Lord Jesus Christ, is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn. XIV,6). For proof of the contradiction, read for instance Michael Davies’ The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty, where he shows that while the Catholic Church has always taught that no man has a true right not to be prevented from propagating error, Vatican II (Dignitatis Humanae) taught that every man has a true right not to be prevented from propagating error (save public order – see Davies’ Chapter XXII in particular). The contradiction is direct.

At first sight it may seem unimportant, because what does it matter if a few crazy people more or a few crazy people less spout nonsense in public? But in fact the difference between the right and the non-right to propagate error is all the difference between Hollywood’s candy-on-a-leash deity, and the Lord God of Hosts, whose thunder and lightning struck terror into the hearts of the Israelites even miles distant from his flaming Mount Sinai (Exodus XX, 18–21).

For indeed all human action follows on some thought. But thought is uttered between men, or socialized, mainly with words. Thus the being and action of any human society hangs on exchanges of words. Therefore either truth and error in those exchanges are of no importance to the existence of any society or the direction it is taking, or any society must control public speech in its midst, at least sufficiently to check significant transmission of significant error.

Now the only limit set by Vatican II to public discourse is that it should not disturb “public order.” So for Vatican II, any heresy or blasphemy may be uttered in public so long as the police do not have to be called in, and any deity that may exist must bow down before this “freedom and dignity of the human person”! On the contrary the Lord God of Sinai, the Holy Trinity whose Second Person is Jesus Christ, tells us we will answer for every idle word (Mt. XII, 36), and even for sinful thoughts (Mt.V, 28). So in accordance with God’s Truth (and so long as it will do more good than harm), Catholic society checks the public propagation of error against Faith or morals.

Kyrie eleison.

A Letter

A Letter posted in Eleison Comments on January 31, 2009

Following in the steps of Our Lord (Jn. XVIII, 23) and St. Paul (Acts, XXIII, 5), Archbishop Lefebvre gave his Society the example of never so cleaving to God’s Truth as to abandon respect for the men holding God’s Authority. In the midst of last week’s media uproar, surely aimed rather at the Holy Father than at a relatively insignificant bishop, here is a letter written to Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos on January 28 by that bishop:

To His Eminence Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos

Your Eminence,

Amidst this tremendous media storm stirred up by imprudent remarks of mine on Swedish television, I beg of you to accept, only as is properly respectful, my sincere regrets for having caused to yourself and to the Holy Father so much unnecessary distress and problems.

For me, all that matters is the Truth Incarnate, and the interests of His one true Church, through which alone we can save our souls and give eternal glory, in our little way, to Almighty God. So I have only one comment, from the prophet Jonas, I, 12:

“Take me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.”

Please also accept, and convey to the Holy Father, my sincere personal thanks for the document signed last Wednesday and made public on Saturday. Most humbly I will offer a Mass for both of you.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

+Richard Williamson