conciliarism

Doctrine – Why? – I

Doctrine – Why? – I on September 11, 2010

Why is doctrine in general so important to Catholics? And why in particular does the Society of St. Pius X, following Archbishop Lefebvre and now Bishop Fellay, insist that agreement on doctrine must precede any other kind of agreement with Conciliar Rome? Why can the SSPX not accept to be regularized by Rome now, and leave the doctrinal differences to be worked out later? Here are two connected but different questions. Let us start with the general question.

The word “doctrine” comes from the Latin doceo, docere, meaning, to teach. Doctrine is a teaching. In our liberal world where everybody wants to think and talk just as he likes, the word “indoctrination” has become a dirty word. Yet to put an end to indoctrination, one would have to close down all schools, because wherever a school is open, indoctrination is going on. Even if a teacher is teaching that all doctrine is nonsense, that is still a doctrine!

However, everyone in fact agrees on the need for doctrine. For instance, who ever would climb into an aeroplane about which he was told beforehand that its designer had defied the classic doctrine of aerodynamics, and turned the wings upside down? Nobody! Aerodynamic doctrine which is true, saying for instance that wings must taper downwards at the back and not upwards, is not just words being spoken or written out of the blue, it is life and death reality. If a plane is to fly and not to crash, true aerodynamic doctrine, in fine detail, is essential to its design.

Similarly if a soul is to fly to Heaven and not crash into Hell, Catholic doctrine, teaching it what to believe and how to act, is essential. “God exists,” “All human beings have an immortal soul,” “Heaven and Hell are eternal,” “I must be baptized to be saved,” are not just words being imposed on souls to believe, they are life and death realities, but of eternal life and eternal death. St. Paul tells Timothy to teach these truths of salvation in or out of season (II Tim. IV, 2), and for himself he says, “Woe to me if I do not teach the Gospel” (I Cor. IX, 16). Woe to the Catholic priest who does not indoctrinate souls with the Church’s infallible doctrine!

But the question remains: surely the SSPX, to obtain from Rome that precious regularization which Rome alone has the authority to grant, could come to a practical agreement by which no Catholic doctrine would be denied, but by which the doctrinal differences between Rome and the SSPX would merely be bracketed out for the moment? Surely there need be here no betrayal of those great truths of salvation mentioned above? Bishop Fellay himself answered that question briefly in an interview which he gave to Brian Mershon in May of this year, published in the “Remnant.” Here are his words: “It is very clear that whatever practical solution would happen without a sound doctrinal foundation would lead directly to disaster . . . We have all these examples in front of us – the Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King and all of the others are totally blocked on the level of doctrine because they first accepted the practical agreement.” But need that be so? Interesting question . . .

Kyrie eleison.

Wasteland Remedies – I

Wasteland Remedies – I on August 7, 2010

“Alright, your Excellency,” I can hear parents saying, “so the ‘universities’ are a wasteland. But on that reckoning of yours you must admit that just about everywhere else is a wasteland as well. Then what are we to do with our children? God’s law forbids us to use unlawful means to prevent their arriving. They arrive. And then?”

The swift answer is that in a world worse than ever, souls that want to get to Heaven will have to be more heroic than ever, but their reward will be correspondingly greater than ever.

Pius XII said that the world was worse in his day than in the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he died in 1958! What would he say today? Facing the same problem, the Popes who followed him “moved the goal-posts” at Vatican II in order not to have to go on condemning, condemning, condemning. But that was the easy way out. To switch off the alarms is not the same thing as to extinguish the fire. Church and world are blazing merrily, and the first thing parents must do is to face the problem: extreme danger for their children’s eternal salvation.

If once they grasp that danger, their Catholic Faith will tell them that they cannot take the Conciliar low road, nor any other low road, they must take the heroic high road. “We will not get to Heaven on feather-beds,” said St Thomas More. Our Lord said, “He who would be my disciple, let him take up his cross, and follow me” (Mt.XVI, 24), and “He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved” (Mt. XXIV, 13). Parents must make up their minds that if to save their children’s souls they need to be heroes, then heroes they will be. At that point, as the proverb says, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” so once parental love has the will, it will find a way, inside and outside the home.

For outside the home, see next week’s “Eleison Comments” for alternatives to the ‘university’ For inside the home, any priest worth his salt will tell them to start by firmly establishing the family Rosary in the home, and to continue by throwing out that television set which is a tabernacle of the world, the flesh and the Devil. From the youngest age, let children’s hearts and minds be filled in the home with live interchange and lively discussion of everything under the sun. This is because by the time children are of an age to go to ‘university,’ the die is usually cast, for good or ill, so that if a boy has grown up in a real live home, lifted towards Heaven by prayer, the worst of ‘universities’ may not do him too much harm, whereas if he has been raised as a televidiot, the best university may not help him too much towards Heaven.

Notice that EC 158 did not tell parents never to pay for a boy of theirs to go to ‘university’. It said to think hard before doing so. If parents think hard while their boy is still young, their Faith should tell them how life at home needs to be changed, without too much delay. As St. Paul says (I Cor. II, 9), quoting Isaiah (LXIV, 4), Heaven is infinitely well worth every effort, infinitely surpassing even the wildest human imagination.

Kyrie eleison.

Discussions’ Usefulness

Discussions’ Usefulness on July 10, 2010

Many Catholic souls presently worried by the on-going discussions taking place between Rome and the Society of St Pius X might be somewhat re-assured if they could hear, as I did two months ago, Bishop de Galarreta giving his reasons why these discussions should proceed to their appointed end (but no further). They present little danger and several advantages, he says.

After the introductory meeting last October, there were discussions proper in January, March and May of this year. Each meeting has a before, a during and an after. Beforehand, the team of four SSPX representatives submits to the four Roman theologians a declaration of Catholic doctrine on the matter in hand, together with the problems raised by the contrary doctrine arising out of Vatican II. At the meeting itself, the Romans give their answers, and the ensuing oral discussion is recorded. Afterwards, the SSPX draws up a written summary of the recorded discussion. So far only the liturgy and religious liberty have been discussed, but the Bishop envisages all further necessary discussions being terminated by the spring of next year.

In evaluating these discussions, he distinguishes between the mere fact of their taking place, and their content. As to their content, he says that the SSPX team is disappointed by the oral discussions because, as another member of the team told me, “They lack theological precision. Two lines of thinking which cannot meet produce not a dialogue but rather two monologues. However, the Romans are nice to us, so the meetings are not so much vinegar as mayonnaise. We say what we think. We are under no illusions.” But the Bishop does say that the discussions’ written product from before and after the meetings will constitute a valuable dossier for the demarcation of Catholic Truth from Conciliar error, and for the tracking down of the latest evolution of that error. “Since the time of John-Paul II it has become more subtle,” he says.

As to the mere fact of the discussions, the Bishop sees several further advantages. Firstly, it is good for Romans to get to know representatives of the SSPX, and vice versa – such contact can cut out much of the Devil’s beloved smoke and mirrors. Nor does the Bishop see great danger in the contact, because these particular Romans are not perverse, he says, and it is clear where they are coming from and where they want to go. Secondly, the mere fact that Rome at the highest level is seriously discussing SSPX doctrine gives to the SSPX credit in the eyes of many a mainstream priest of good will, otherwise inaccessible for Tradition. And thirdly, some of Rome’s best brains are occasionally stopped in their tracks by the old arguments being newly put forward by the SSPX. In other words Catholic Truth may be only beginning, but it is beginning, to impose itself once more.

Dear readers, let us have patience, and a boundless trust in the Providence of God – after all, it is his Church! And let us pray to the Mother of God to maintain in each of us the love of that Truth which alone can save our souls, and without which Catholic Authority can never be restored.

Kyrie eleison.

Catholic Balance

Catholic Balance 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.

Cardinal Smiles

Cardinal Smiles on June 19, 2010

A recent smile of Cardinal Kasper confirms my long-standing belief that despite the profound liberalism of the Conciliar Popes since John XXIII, still one need not doubt their really having been Popes. A number of serious and believing Catholics do doubt it because they cannot see how real Vicars of Christ can depart so far from the Catholic Faith and Church of Christ as these Popes have done. Indeed there is a problem, grave beyond all measure.

These “sedevacantists,” as they are usually called, argue that if anybody walks like a heretic, talks like a heretic and, as Americans say, quacks like a heretic, then he IS a heretic. But a heretic excludes himself from the Church. Therefore these Popes have excluded themselves from the Church and cannot possibly have been its Head – how can a non-member be a head?

The true answer, I believe, is that the heresy which automatically casts out of the one and only Ark of Salvation is so grave that to commit it, somebody must fully know and fully mean what he is doing. He must realize that he is denying Catholic truth that has been defined with God’s own authority by God’s Church, in other words that he is defying God. Without this realization, called “pertinacity” by the Church, he may be denying divine truths, but he is not yet defying God, or casting himself out of the Church.

Now “sedevacantists” find ridiculous the idea that Popes, profoundly educated in Church teaching, do not know what they are doing when they utter such enormities as does Benedict XVI, to take just one example amongst many, on the on-going validity of the Old Covenant. To make a heretic fully realize what he is doing, in olden days, when the Church was in her right mind, the Pope’s Inquisition (or Holy Office) would pull him over, confront him authoritatively with his error, and urge him to renounce it. If he refused, then his pertinacity was clear to all, and the wolf was cast out of the sheepfold. But such a confrontation requires authority, both to summon the heretic and to declare his error. What then if, since Vatican II, it is the highest Church authority which no longer discerns Catholic truth?

Enter Cardinal Kasper. At a press conference he held on May 4 in Paris (already referred to in EC 148), he is reported as saying, correctly, that the Society of St Pius X staunchly opposes the Catholic Church’s dialogue with other Christian churches for which he is responsible. “They’ve attacked me as a heretic,” he said with a smile.

Well might he smile. By what authority, if you please, does the mere SSPX condemn the ecumenical dialogue which has been the Universal Church’s principle and practice ever since Vatican II, which is preached everywhere by Benedict XVI, and for which he is the Pope’s prime agent? Surely it was only charity towards those misguided “Traditionalists” that prevented the good Cardinal from bursting into laughter!

Humanly speaking, the Church is finished. But not divinely.

Kyrie eleison.

Sleepless Pope

Sleepless Pope on May 15, 2010

Conciliar Rome’s radical misunderstanding of what the Catholic Traditional movement is all about, was illustrated once more in Paris last Wednesday when Cardinal Kasper, head of the Vatican department for relations with other Christian churches and with Jews, gave a press conference. From the Reuters report let me quote as faithfully as possible what the Cardinal thinks, summed up in five propositions, and then comment.

1) The doctrinal discussions presently taking place every two months between four theologians of Rome, and a bishop and three priests of the Society of St Pius X, are not proving easy. 2) The main problem is the concept of tradition. “Do we want a living tradition or a petrified tradition?” asked the Cardinal. 3) He said he is for this dialogue with the SSPX, but it has to be on Rome’s conditions and not on those of the SSPX. 4) If an agreement is to be reached, the SSPX will have to make concessions, and it will have to accept the Conciliar reforms. 5) Without an agreement the SSPX will have no official status, its priests will not be recognized as Catholic priests, nor will they be allowed to exercise their ministry.

(1) Of course it is not proving easy to reconcile 2+2=4 (Tradition and the SSPX) with 2+2=4 or

5 (Vatican II and Conciliar Rome). We are in the presence of two profoundly different

conceptions of arithmetic, of two just as profoundly different conceptions of Catholic Truth.

(2) 2+2=4 is truth, unchanging and unchangeable, therefore “traditional.” 2+2=4 or 5 is a brand

new arithmetic, as “living” as one likes, but utterly unreal, and so not traditional at all.

(3) If one is discussing true arithmetic, it will be on true arithmetic’s terms and not on the terms

of either party discussing, even if one of the parties takes its stand on those terms.

(4) Who wants, or needs, to arrive at an agreement that 2+2=4 or 5 (Vatican II)? Only

merchants of fantasy who no longer care for true arithmetic!

(5) If “official status,” “recognition as priests” and “being permitted to minister” all depend on

accepting that 2+2 can be 4 or 5, then all such “status,” “recognition” and “permission” are

being bought at the price of Truth. But if I sell off the Truth, how can I still have it to tell it?

And if I can no longer tell the Truth, what kind of a priest can I be, with what kind of a ministry?

Therefore in conclusion, it is not just on “tradition” but on the very nature of truth that these Romans and the SSPX part company. Changing truth, these Romans have lost the Truth, in fact they are, at least objectively speaking, murdering it, as Macbeth “doth murder sleep” (II,2). Indeed in the same Reuters article the Pope is quoted as having said that the SSPX problem “robs him of his sleep.” Holy Father, do believe that the Truth is far above the SSPX, which is no more than one of its tiny momentary defenders. Every one of us in the SSPX wishes you all kinds of well, especially to sleep well. It is not the SSPX, but murdered Truth, which is keeping you awake at night.

Kyrie eleison.