Catholic Church

GREC – II

GREC – II on March 9, 2013

Before we continue with the story of GREC, namely the Parisian group of laity and clergy meeting from the late 1990’s onwards in pursuit of reconciliation between Vatican II and Catholic Tradition, we must consider the basic attitude of GREC participants. The Church’s future depends on those Catholics who will understand GREC’s error, i.e. how modern minds lose their grip on truth. To illustrate that attitude let us take at random four quotes, typical of dozens and dozens in the book For the Necessary Reconciliationby the Newchurch priest, Fr Michel Lelong, one of the founders of GREC. In a letter he wrote to the Pope in July of 2008 are to be found the first two quotes:—

“We also wish that the excommunications(of the four SSPX bishops in 1988) be lifted and that the SSPX recover its place within the Church to which it has so much to give. That is why we ask the authorities of the SSPX to put an end to the polemical statements and articles criticizing the Holy See.”Comment: (Has that not happened over the last 10 years?) But if polemics are so bad, why were a number of Church Fathers – and Archbishop Lefebvre – so polemical? Polemics are only that bad if unity is that good. But unity is only as good as that around which it unites.

“In our society so tempted by materialism, indifferentism and sectarisms, we think that in response to your request, Holy Father, all Catholics must strive together to be faithful to Christ’s recommendation, ‘Be united so that the whole world may believe’.”Comment: “United” around what? Around Catholic truth, or around the lie that Catholic truth is reconcilable with Vatican II? Then the primary and crucial question for Catholic unity is where Catholic truth is to be found. But GREC leaves questions of truth to the “theologians.” So non-theologians can be saved by lies!?

This letter of Fr Lelong was so well received by Benedict XVI that GREC leaders and sympathisers wrote again a few months later. Here are two more quotes from the second letter to the Pope:—

“For sure we were saddened that the Holy See’s recent proposals were not accepted by the SSPX authorities, but we know that to heal wounds amongst Catholics always requires generosity and patience to restore confidence on both sides and to make reconciliation possible.”Comment: Are wounds only ever to be healed, and never inflicted? Did Our Lord not twice use a lash across the backs of the money-lenders in the Temple? There is a God, his honour is to be defended above all things, and men can be wicked enough to understand nothing but the lash, be it physical or verbal.

“We think that lifting the excommunications would set in motion an irresistible process of drawing closer, with a view to an agreement between the Holy See and the SSPX, or at least an agreement with a large part of the SSPX priests and faithful.”Comment: indeed the friendly contacts between Rome and the SSPX were setting such a motion in process in January of 2009, and only an outburst from within the SSPX of the most horrible heresy of modern times – “anti-semitism” – stopped that process. But either Catholic reconciliation with Vatican II is no problem, or one has to say that that outburst was providential, because it also stopped, at least for a while, the false reconciliation.

In conclusion, GREC, like millions of modern Catholics, above all else seeks unity, non-polemics, reconciliation, agreement, etc. But where does the God of truth figure amongst all these sweet sentiments? Is he a sugar-daddy who blesses all men’s lies, just so long as they lie in unison?

Kyrie eleison.

Liberals Innocent?

Liberals Innocent? on February 23, 2013

Four weeks ago “Eleison Comments” answered the question whether liberalism is as horrible as it is supposed to be in the affirmative: implicitly, liberalism is war on God. There remained the question whether the many liberals who deny they are liberals are right to deny it. The answer is surely that all of us today are so soaked in liberalism that few of us realize how liberal we are.

Liberalism in its broadest sense is man’s liberating himself from the law of God, which a man does with every sin that he commits. Therefore in its broadest sense every sinner is a liberal, and so whoever admits he is a sinner must admit he is a liberal in this broad sense. However, it is one thing to break God’s law while still admitting that God is God and his law is his law. Such a sinner is merely a practical liberal. It is quite another to break God’s law while denying that God is God or that his law is his law. Such a liberal in principle is the liberalism of modern times.

It burst upon the scene with the French Revolution of 1789. The charter of that Revolution, the Declaration of Human Rights, was in effect a declaration of man’s independence from God. From now on, if any man obeyed God’s law, he was doing so purely by his own choice, and not as under any command or commandment of God. In that apparent obedience he would not be behaving like a liberal in practice, but underneath, in everything he did, he would be a liberal in principle. This is the modern liberalism of which Catholics today often accuse their adversaries. Are these adversaries right, almost as often to deny it? Subjectively, yes. Objectively, no.

Subjectively, yes, because ever since 1789 men have drunk more and more deeply of the false principles of the Revolution, so that if they are accused of liberating themselves from the law of God, they can sincerely reply, “What law? What God? What are you talking about?” To such an extent have God and his law been apparently wiped out. But objectively, no, because God and his law have most certainly not ceased to exist, and deep down inside themselves even modern men know it. It is “inexcusable” to say that he does not exist (Rom. I, 20), and his law is written on all men’s hearts (Rom. II, 15), whatever they may say with their mouths. The “sincerely” just mentioned needs inverted commas – it is worth only what it is worth before God’s judgment seat.

Then may those authorities of the Society of St Pius X presently seeking to blend the Society into the Conciliar Church deny that they are liberals? Subjectively they are no doubt persuaded that they are doing their best for the Church, but objectively they are unrepentedly seeking to put Archbishop Lefebvre’s anti-Revolutionary work under the control of Church officials intent upon making the liberal Revolution triumph once and for all. They say we must rejoin the visible Church because that is the Catholic Church. But the Anglican “church” is still visible, all over England. Does that make it Catholic? And the present SSPX leaders cannot be unaware of how they distort and suppress words of the Archbishop to make him fit their vision of the Church.

The sad truth is that these liberals never really understood what the Archbishop was all about. While he was alive they were spellbound, like so many of us, by his Catholic charisma, but they never grasped that faith. which was to his charisma as root is to fruit. They loved the fruit – all credit to them for that – but not long after he was gone, the fruit without the root began to wilt and die. It was inevitable that unless they understood his faith, they would change his Society into their own. That is what we have seen and are seeing. Heaven help us!

Kyrie eleison.

Theresa’s Prayer

Theresa’s Prayer on February 2, 2013

It is extraordinary how far God is lost to the great number of souls around us today. It is in him that every one of us “lives and moves and has his being” (Acts, XVII, 28). Without him we cannot lift a finger, think a thought or do any naturally good action, let alone any supernaturally good action. All that we can do by ourselves, without him, is to sin, and even then the sinful action as action comes from God, only its sinfulness comes from ourselves, because the sinfulness is in itself something not positive but defective.

Yet the mass of souls around us treat God as though he does not exist, or, if he does exist, as though he is of no importance. It is a truly incredible state of affairs. It is getting worse day by day. It cannot last. It can only be compared with the state of mankind in the time of Noah. Men’s corruption at that time was such (Gen. VI, 11–12) that unless God took away from them the use of their most precious endowment, their free-will – just see how most men react when one tries to force them to do something! – then the only way they left for him to save any significant number of them was to inflict a universal chastisement in which they would nevertheless have time to repent. That was the Flood, a historical event proved by a mass of geological evidence.

Similarly today, a worldwide chastisement is surely, before God, the only way that mankind has left for him to save still any large number of souls from the horror of their damning themselves for eternity. As in Noah’s time, the mercy of God makes it virtually certain that the huge number of souls will be given the time and knowledge necessary to save themselves if they wish. And afterwards many of the large number that will be saved (alas, not the majority) will recognize that only that chastisement saved them from drifting with today’s corruption all the way down to Hell.

Still, it will be easy to be frightened by the explosion of the just anger of a majestic God. From miles and miles away the Israelites were terrified by a demonstration of his power on the top of Mount Sinai (Exod. XX, 18). In our own times it will be well to recall the famous prayer of St Theresa of Avila (given here with a rhyming translation into English to facilitate memorisation):—

Nada te turbe, Let nothing fret you, Nada te espante, Nothing upset you. Todo se pasa, Everything falters, Dios no se muda. God never alters. La paciencia Patience withal Todo lo alcanza. Will obtain all. Quien a Dios tiene Who to God will cling Nada le falta. Can lack for no thing. Solo Dios basta. God alone is enough.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I put in you all the trust I can lay my hands on. But help my lack of trust!

Kyrie eleison.

Two Journeys

Two Journeys on January 19, 2013

Journeys since mid-December, to North America and France, have enabled me to observe within the Society of St Pius X a dangerous state of indetermination. Where the District Superior is not blind, the danger is for the moment held back somewhat, so that resistance is puzzled. Where however the District Superior is a willing servant of SSPX headquarters, there the movement towards the Newchurch forges ahead, but also the Resistance is taking shape. What is at stake?

Ever since the breakout of Protestantism, the world has been sliding further and further away from God. Thanks to the Council of Trent (1545–1563), the Catholic Church held firm, but thanks to the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) the official Catholic Church joined in the slide. Then thanks mainly (but not only!) to Archbishop Lefebvre (1905–1991), relics of the Church of Trent gathered themselves together to form amidst the desert of modernity a Catholic oasis, the SSPX. But where the mighty Church had not been able to resist, it was, sure enough, merely a matter of time before the puny SSPX would be tempted in its turn to join in the slide.

However, just as at Vatican II the Church’s official leadership was obliged to pretend that it was not breaking with the Tridentine Church (such is, for instance, Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of continuity”), so the SSPX’s official leadership is now obliged to pretend that it is not breaking with Archbishop Lefebvre. Thus, like most politicians of the last 500 years, these SSPX leaders are talking to the right while walking to the left, because that is what a large number of people want, namely the appearance of Christianity without its substance (cf. II Tim. III, 1–5, especially verse 5). Like Descartes, such leaders “advance behind a mask,” seeking to disguise their move to the left beneath words to the right, or words clearly ambiguous.

What happened in the SSPX last spring, as Fr Chazal says, is that the mask came off, because the SSPX leadership must have calculated that the time had come for it to make its open move back into the mainstream Church. Alas for these leaders, there emerged between March and June enough resistance to block at the SSPX General Chapter in July any immediate attempt to join the Newchurch. And so from that Chapter onwards, the mask has gone back on. But liberals do not convert, short of a miracle of grace, because leftwardness is their real religion. That is why the SSPX leaders are surely waiting for the modern world, flesh and devil to continue their work of pulling SSPX clergy and laity to the left so that within a few years at most there will no longer be any significant resistance, as there was last summer, to the SSPX rejoining the Newchurch.

This leaves the SSPX betwixt and between. However, as the common sense of Archbishop Lefebvre remarked, superiors mould subjects and not the other way round. That is why, unless the present SSPX leaders are displaced by a miracle, the SSPX is doomed to be dissolved within the Newchurch. One can hardly say the punishment would not have been deserved. But let us pray to the Mother of God for some miracles of her Divine Son’s mercy.

Kyrie eleison.

Fiftiesism Returns

Fiftiesism Returns on January 12, 2013

Burning question: how could the leaders of the Society of St Pius X, which was founded by Archbishop Lefebvre to resist the Newchurch, now be seeking its favours in order to rejoin it? One answer is that they never fully understood the Archbishop. After the disaster of Vatican II in the 1960’s, they saw in him the best continuation of the pre-disaster Church of the 1950’s. In reality he was much more than that, but once he died, all they wanted was to go back to the cosy Catholicism of the 1950’s. And they were not alone in preferring Christ without his Cross. It is a very popular formula.

For was not the Catholicism of the 1950’s like a man standing on the edge of a tall and dangerous cliff? On the one hand it was still standing at a great height, otherwise Vatican II would not have been such a fall. On the other hand it was dangerously close to the edge of the cliff, otherwise again it could not have fallen so precipitously in the 1960’s. By no means everything was bad in the Church of the 1950’s, but it was too close to disaster. Why?

Because Catholics in general in the 1950’s were outwardly maintaining the appearances of the true religion, but inwardly too many were flirting with the godless errors of the modern world: liberalism (what matters most in life is freedom), subjectivism (so man’s mind and will are free of any objective truth or law), indifferentism (so it does not matter what religion a man has), and so on. So Catholics having the faith and not wanting to lose it, gradually adapted it to these erors. They would attend Mass on Sundays, they might still go to confession, but they would be feeding their minds on the vile media, and their hearts would be chafing at certain laws of the Church, on marriage for the laity, on celibacy for the clergy. So they might be keeping the faith, but they wanted less and less to swim against the powerful current of the glamorous and irreligious world all around them. They were getting closer and closer to the edge of the cliff.

Now the Archbishop had his failings, which one may think are reflected in the present difficulties of the Society. Let us not idolize him. Nevertheless he was in the 1950’s a bishop who had both the appearances of Catholicism and, deep inside him, its substance, as proved by the rich fruits of his apostolic ministry in Africa. Thus when Vatican II succeeded in crippling or paralyzing nearly all of his fellow bishops, he managed to recreate, almost alone, a pre-Vatican II seminary and Congregation. The appearances of his Catholic oasis amidst the Conciliar desert dazzled many a good young man. Vocationa were also attracted by the Archbishop’s personal charisma. But from ten to 20 years after his death in 1991 the substance of his heritage came to seem heavier and heavier to push against the ever stronger current of the modern world.

So, disinclined to go on bearing the Cross of being scorned by the mainstream Church and the world, the SSPX leaders began to dream of being once more officially recognized. And the dream took hold, because after all dreams are so much nicer than reality. We must pray for these leaders of the SSPX. The 1950’s are gone, gone for ever, and it is sheer dreaming to wish for their return.

Kyrie eleison.

Culture Alert

Culture Alert on December 29, 2012

As the leadership of the Society of St Pius X seems to be faltering, so Catholics who love the Society because they have received so much from it in years gone by might be tempted to think that there is nothing much that they as simple faithful can do about it. They would be wrong. Let them read these reflections from a friend of mine, and they should be able to read between the lines that if God does not rescue the Society for them, as of course he could do, then it has at least in part depended on them. My friend’s letter is adapted here below:—

“A practical agreement would be ruinous to the cause of Catholic Tradition. One need only look at what has happened to the Traditional Redemptorists in Scotland . . . The two Masses cannot co-exist. One will always drive the other out . . . At a Novus Ordo Mass I attended recently, the whole church was pervaded by chatter and continual clapping . . . The two sides are simply too far apart for an agreement to work. No meeting of the minds is possible between modernity and Tradition.

“Then there is the profound revolution which has overwhelmed modern civilization, including the Traditional movement, and which has for the most part been missed by the leadership of Tradition . . . Electronic technology has wrought a cultural revolution in our lives, especially of the younger generation. If it is not managed properly, it certainly weakens the faith because it can take over people’s whole lives. Youngsters are liable to be captured by it. They hang on it all day long. People too engulfed in it become dysfunctional, unable to get up in the morning, or to maintain a live conversation, or to hold down a job.

“Now if a sports team is not admonished by its coach, its playing standards begin to fall. If Catholics are not admonished on cultural issues like music, women’s dress, or watching television, their cultural standards begin to fall, which has profound implications for their faith. Traditional parents are being left to struggle alone with their families to keep the worldliness of modern society out of their homes, because the leadership of the SSPX has either missed this cultural revolution, or it is not giving it the attention that it deserves. I have had many long discussions with Traditional families who are concerned about the way that the Traditional movement is going. Religious movements must take a stand on cultural issues if they are to flourish. Tradition was strengthened when it used to take a stand on television. But if a stand is not taken on cultural issues, the stand on doctrinal issues soon begins to weaken.

“The latest Chapter of the SSPX may have pulled the organization back from the brink, but I cannot take much comfort from it. It spent much attention on defining the parameters of any future discussions with Rome in making an agreement. Yet, Rome is basically unchanged from 1988. In my opinion, the SSPX needs to recover the prophetic role that it performed when Archbishop Lefebvre was still alive. The Traditional movement needs to strongly denounce the modernism and liberalism that is leading the Catholic Church to its destruction. These denunciations lately have been muted. Perhaps many Traditional priests are distracted by the comforts that they think an agreement with Rome would bring them.”

Over to you, dear readers. Away with trashy and valueless music in the home. Get rid of the television set. Reduce electronics to a minimum. Mothers, wear skirts whenever possible, which is most of the time. Otherwise do not complain if God does not rescue the Society. He forces his gifts upon nobody. Blessed be his name for ever.

Kyrie eleison.