conciliarism

Difficult Discussions – III

Difficult Discussions – III on September 19, 2009

Two objections to the very principle of the Society of St Pius X possibly entering soon into doctrinal discussions with the Church authorities in Rome, help to frame the nature, purpose and limitations of any such discussions. The first objection says that Catholic Doctrine is not up for discussion. The second says that no Catholic may presume to discuss with representatives of the Pope, as though on an equal footing. Both objections apply in normal circumstances, but today’s circumstances are not normal.

As to the first objection, of course unchanging and unchangeable Catholic doctrine is not up for discussion. The problem is that Vatican II undertook to change that doctrine. For instance, may, or must, a Catholic State tolerate the public practice of false religions? Catholic Tradition says “may,” but only to avoid a greater evil or achieve a greater good. Vatican II says “must,” in all circumstances. But if Jesus Christ is recognizably the incarnate God, then no more than “may” is true. On the contrary if “must” is true, then Jesus Christ cannot be necessarily recognizable as God. The “may” and the “must” are as far apart as Jesus Christ being God by divine nature or by human choice, i.e. between Jesus being, or not being, objectively, God!

Yet today’s Roman authorities claim that the doctrine of Vatican II represents no rupture with Catholic dogma, but rather its continuous development. Unless then – which God forbid! – the SSPX is also abandoning Catholic dogma, it is not discussing with these authorities whether Jesus is God, it is not putting up Catholic doctrine for discussion, rather it is hoping to persuade any Romans with open ears that the doctrine of Vatican II is gravely opposed to Catholic Doctrine. In this respect, even were the SSPX’s success to prove minimal, it would still consider that it had been its duty to testify to the Truth.

But the Romans may reply, “ We represent the Pope. How dare you presume to discuss with us?” It is the second objection, and for all those who think that Conciliar Rome is in the Truth, the objection appears valid. But it is the Truth that makes Rome and not Rome that makes the Truth. Our Lord himself repeatedly declares in the Gospel of St. John that his doctrine is not his but his Father’s (e.g. Jn.VII, 16). But if Catholic Doctrine is not in Jesus’ power to change, how much less is it in his Vicar’s power to change, i.e. the

Pope’s! If then the Pope, by his God-given free-will, chooses to depart from Catholic Doctrine, to that extent he has laid aside his Papal status, and to that extent he puts himself and/or his representatives beneath whoever remains faithful to the divine Master’s Doctrine.

Therefore the same status in discussion that the Pope lays aside insofar as he departs from the Truth, any Catholic acquires by being faithful to that Truth. As Archbishop Lefebvre once famously said in front of the Roman authorities interrogating him for his dissension from Pope Paul VI, “It is I who should be interrogating you!” To stand for the Truth of God the Father is the pride and the humility, the vocation and the glory of the Archbishop’s little SSPX. If discussions with Rome meant the least danger of the SSPX being untrue to this vocation, that is when there should be no discussions.

Kyrie eleison.

Difficult Discussions – II

Difficult Discussions – II on September 5, 2009

What is the best outcome one may hope for, and the worst outcome one may fear, from the “doctrinal discussions” due in theory to begin this autumn in Rome between the mainstream Church and the Society of St. Pius X? In practice the doctrinal gulf between Rome’s Conciliarism and the Society’s Catholicism is so fundamental (can or cannot 2 and 2 equal both 4 and 5?) that the “discussions” may not even begin. However, supposing that representatives of Rome and of the Society sit down together on two sides of one table, what is to be hoped for?

Short of a stupendous miracle of God, there is, humanly speaking, no hope whatsoever of the Romans abandoning their devotion to Vatican II, that Council whose letter mixes the religions of God and man while its spirit is definitely the religion of man. For over 40 years the churchmen controlling Rome have been possessed by the conviction that God’s religion needs to be adapted to modern man, and nothing indicates that they are collectively about to abandon their deadly “combinazione,” on the contrary. See for instance the Pope’s latest Encyclical, “Charity in Truth.”

Therefore the most that can be hoped for on the side of the Romans is that to the Catholic Truth laid before them by the SSPX, a handful of them will react positively, most likely in private – may they save their souls! On the side of the SSPX, at best it will have witnessed to the Truth at the summit of the Church where it most matters, and even if on those heights it does little to no apparent good, still one may hope that an open account of the “discussions” presented afterwards to all Catholics of good will may reinforce their grasp of that doctrine by which Catholics are Catholics, and strengthen their Catholic common sense that, naturally and supernaturally, 2 and 2 make 4 and nothing else.

What we may fear on the contrary is that this primacy of doctrine may be blurred amidst the charms of the Roman autumn. “He who lies down with Roman dogs gets up with purple fleas,” says a proverb (adapted by a friend). The temptation for the SSPX, especially if Rome waves both the stick of further condemnation as well as the carrot of recognition in front of the still scorned donkey’s nose, will be to glide over the doctrinal gulf and settle for some kind of “practical agreement” whereby the SSPX, already being very nice to Benedict XVI, would, for instance, be granted juridical status within the mainstream Church in exchange for an at least tacit understanding to stop attacking its Conciliarism.

However, any such understanding would be the beginning of the end, not the end of the defence of the Faith but of the SSPX’s defence of it, because as old-fashioned Communism knew, it should never fight Catholics over doctrine, where Catholics are strongest. Rather its strategy was to propose any kind of practicalagreement whereby the Catholics would pass over the doctrine and just co-operate in action with the Communists. As Communists always knew, the rest would follow . . .

Kyrie eleison.

Shifting Perspectives

Shifting Perspectives on August 29, 2009

A remarkable yet possible plan of Heaven for today’s world can be guessed at, if Orthodox Christianity is reviving within Russia in the manner described to me a few days ago in London by a Russian. His description corresponds to the impression brought away from Russia by an American friend visiting St Petersburg a few years ago – the average Russian has distinctly more spiritual substance in him then has the average spiritually wasted Westerner. Does this connect with Our Lady of Fatima . . .?

The Russian in London told me that the Orthodox Church in Russia is following rather than leading a revival of Orthodoxy amongst the people. Attendance at the Orthodox liturgy has increased by half over the last two years, and now 80% of Russians are at least calling themselves “Orthodox,” i.e. believers. New parishes are springing up everywhere. Bibles are snatched up as soon as they come on sale. Religious literature is flourishing, whilst atheistic propaganda is dying. “Holy Russia” is rising from the grave in which Communism from 1917 to 1989 strove to bury it.

For when the Communist structures of the Soviet “empire of evil” (Pres. Reagan) collapsed in 1989, the Russians turned for an ideology to replace Communism not to Western Liberalism but to their national and religious roots in Russian Orthodoxy. What indeed had the decadent West had to offer to Russia’s new needs in the 1990’s? In economics, the plundering of their wealth by capitalist vultures; in politics, the still on-going encirclement of their frontiers to ensure the United States’ permanent global hegemony by the construction of a ring of military bases which are one, if not the real, reason for the disastrous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan never to come to an end; in religion, the attempted push eastwards into their land of Conciliar ecumenism, with which apparently the Russian churchmen want nothing to do – on the contrary, they are aware of the Traditional Catholic movement, and support it.

However, let us be under no illusion: Russian Orthodoxy welds together religion and patriotism in a not wholly godly mixture, and Orthodoxy is still schismatic by refusing the Papal Supremacy, and heretical by refusing a number of dogmas, so Russians do need to be converted to the truly Universal or Catholic Church. But if Our Lady of Fatima has singled out their country for the Consecration to her Heart, may the reason not be, not that the Russians are still wicked Communists but that the Russian people’s huge sufferings from their 70 Babylonian years of Communist captivity are calling forth from the always religious depths of “Holy Russia” an upsurge of spiritual vitality? And could this not save the true Church, presently wilting in the West, where the mainstream Church may still have large numbers but has little Faith whilst the Traditional remnant has the true Faith but negligible numbers? God knows how the Western Church also needs conversion!

May it then be Russia’s smashing of the encirclement in a Third World War leading to an occupation of Europe, which will at last drive the Latin Pope to consecrate Russia to Our Lady’s Heart, as she has so long been asking for in vain? Will at that moment the Russians’ renewed religious vigor save our languishing Catholic Tradition, whilst our Tradition will cleanse their errors? If so, then God will once again have “concluded all in unbelief, that He may have mercy on all . . .How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways . . . To Him be glory for ever” (Rom. XI, 32 . . .36).

Catholics, mainstream and of Tradition, pray your hearts out for the Consecration of Russia to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of the Mother of God, or “Theotokos” as she is known in the Eastern Church.

Kyrie eleison.

Perillous “Sincerity”

Perillous “Sincerity” on August 22, 2009

If Benedict XVI is not a positive destroyer of the Church, then like John XXIII, Paul VI and John-Paul II before him, he is at least presiding over its destruction. A recent critique of Fr. Peter Scott’s excellent analysis of Benedict XVI’s latest Encyclical (accessible at angelqueen.org) raises once more the crucial question, have these Popes been aware of the destruction taking place under their responsibility? Broadly speaking, there are three main answers.

Firstly, liberals and modernists deny that any destruction has been going on, so of course the recent Popes are unaware of being or having been destroyers. They have been good Popes, they are not to be blamed, they need only be followed. Secondly on the contrary, Sedevacantists say these Popes have been responsible for a devastation of the Church, and they have all been far too well educated, they have known too well the pre-Conciliar Church (being all of them older men) and they have all sworn too often (in their younger days) the daunting Anti-Modernist Oath, for them not to have been aware of the destruction they have wrought. Not only must we blame them, but we cannot logically hold them to have been Popes, let alone fit to be followed.

Thirdly, as dawn and dusk are not contradictory or illogical simply because they mix night and day, but both are real happenings once every 24 hours, so the position of Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society of St Pius X is not contradictory simply because it is more complicated, falling as it does between the relatively simple positions of the liberals and Sedevacantists. On the contrary it is more real than either, corresponding better to the complicated reality of these liberal Catholic Popes. (Archbishop Lefebvre used to say that a liberal Catholic is a walking contradiction.)

Against the liberals this third position holds that of course there has been a destruction of the Church under these Popes, who with their education, pre-Conciliar experience and solemn Oaths should certainly have known better. So all are to be blamed for failing in their grave responsibilities, even if the exact degree of blame due is known to God alone.

Against the Sedevacantists however, in our profoundly sick modern age, while blindness like that of these Popes is objectively blameworthy, it may be subjectively more or less sincere. For instance in his post-war German seminary, the young Joseph Ratzinger was exposed to brilliant and no doubt charismatic modernist professors who will have taught him that the Traditional Church needed to be, if not destroyed, at least changed beyond recognition to fit modern man. And Joseph Ratzinger has believed it ever since: the Traditional doctrine, the Tridentine Church and its solemn Oaths were all good, even excellent in their day, but that day is past! Objection: did not Pius X (“Lamentabili” #58) solemnly teach that Truth cannot evolve? Cardinal Ratzinger said that “Lamentabili” too was excellent teaching – for the past!!

Again, God alone is judge of the exact responsibility of the young Joseph and his teachers for his mind having fallen into the trap of evolving truth, but what is certain is that once a mind has fallen into that trap, it can, in today’s environment, only with supreme difficulty be pulled out again. Until a divine Warning and/or Chastisement cleanses the environment, liberals can easily be in grave error, yet sincere.

SSPX, beware of that “sincerity” which makes error feel nice! Truth first, and no lies or ambiguity, even if our sick world comes down on you like a ton of bricks!

Kyrie eleison.

Rector’s Letters – I

Rector’s Letters – I on August 8, 2009

Let me be forgiven for suggesting why readers of “Eleison Comments” could be interested in taking a look at one or all four Volumes of “Letters from the Rector,” now in print and available from True Restoration Press in the USA: in brief, they present a combination not always to be found, of some grasp of the true Faith with some grasp of our false modern world.

It was logical that as the modern world fell into apostasy and distanced itself more and more from God, so the temptation for Catholic minds, unless they were willing to be stretched, was either to cling hold of the world and let go of God, like Vatican II, or cling hold of God and let go of the modern world, like many a Catholic “Fiftiesist” giving up the effort to deal with modernity and retreating into some imaginary and often sentimentalized refuge of supposed pre-Conciliar Catholicism.

But Catholicism cannot be unreal if it is to lead to the real Heaven! The 1950’s are over. Done with. Gone. Of course not all Catholics of the 1950’s were living in unreality. Archbishop Lefebvre is an outstanding example of refusing unreality. But too many of them had disconnected their Faith from surrounding reality, which is why when it dramatically closed in on them in the 1960’s, their faith bent, and they more or less happily launched into the Vatican II religion of man, a religion truly modern but falsely Catholic, however clever the disguise. Reality will not be disregarded!

Then what maybe characterizes the “Letters from the Rector” is that while they proclaim the true Faith of the unchanging Church, at the same time they tackle head on, in the light of that Faith, a variety of modern problems which, while they existed before the Council, have grown immeasurably worse since: Faith twisted, men unmanned, women in trousers, families disintegrating, rampant sentimentality, mendacious media, treacherous politics, etc, etc, and, worst of all, Catholic churchmen who have lost their way. Alas, it was logical that they too would finally slip anchor, under pressure from – surrounding reality, that they had not cared to handle.

The “Letters” offer an analysis of many such problems. Their author would claim no infallibility for his solutions, but he would claim that unless Catholics tackle the problems he raises, they risk before long launching more or less happily into

Vatican II-B.

Kyrie eleison.

Unthinkable Reality

Unthinkable Reality 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.