doctrinal discussions

SSPX Re-Orientation

SSPX Re-Orientation on January 23, 2021

Last November Fr Pagliarani, SSPX Superior General, wrote a letter to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Society. Fr. Edward MacDonald, “Resistance” priest in Australia, wrote a valuable commentary on that letter, summarised here below –

1. Fr. Pagliarani asks: “Is the flame (‘that of a fearless charity’) received from our Founder still alive? Exposed to a crisis indefinitely prolonged in Church and world, is this precious torch not in danger of faltering and weakening?” – However, in his letter Fr. Pagliarani does not answer his own question.

2. In his entire letter Fr. Pagliarini barely mentions the Second Vatican Council. Yet, if there had been no Vatican II, there would have been no need for the SSPX. Rome is the source of all the errors of faith, doctrine and morals that the SSPX fought against. The post-Conciliar Popes implemented the teachings of the Council. The apostasy is centred and headquartered in the Vatican. Fr. Pagliarani mentions nothing about the errors of Vatican II. Why not? For him that fight is over. The SSPX is now with Vatican II and the Conciliar Church, against the “Resistance” movement. 

3. Fr. Pagliarani reduces the fight to “the spiritual life.” For Archbishop Lefebvre the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ came first, and bringing spiritual life to souls was a necessary by-product of that primary aim. But Fr. Pagliarani makes the spiritual life primary, saying: “Our combat is to allow Our Lord Jesus Christ to be the axis of our spiritual life, the source of all our thoughts, all our words and all our actions.” 

4. According to Fr. Pagliarani, everything has been said. There is no doctrinal battle left to wage. The SSPX will just continue to speak, presumably repeating old arguments, against the errors of Vatican II. In fact, the SSPX is not speaking against the errors of Vatican II. There is much new to say as the Pope continues to draw new errors out of the documents of Vatican II. Is the response to Amoris Laetitiae complete? If the SSPX has nothing new to say, it is because it has ceased to combat Vatican errors. 

5. Archbishop Viganò is finding plenty of new things to say about the errors of the Conciliar Church. The SSPX cannot say these things because it has capitulated and been silenced. It can no longer defend the rights of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In November 2020, Fr. Daniel Themann, SSPX District Superior of Australia, forbade members to make a public protest against some very public worship of Satan in Queensland. They made reparation quietly in their chapel. 

6. Weariness is a recurring theme in Fr. Pagliarani’s letter – this is not the case with the saints. They never weary, never grow tired of the battle. Archbishop Lefebvre never wearied of the fight, He was already retired when he realised that he had to take up arms in a new battle against the Conciliar Church. The SSPX has grown weary and fatigued and laid down its arms. It has “nothing new to say.” 

7. For the last fifteen or more years the seminaries of the SSPX have not been giving the seminarians the doctrinal formation to combat the modern errors. Modernism and liberalism have been promoted in the seminaries. The ordinands are willing to compromise on the truth, and eagerly work with and submit to the modernist diocesan bishops. Fr. Wegner, former US District Superior, once boasted that he had made deals with forty US bishops, all of whom were modernist Conciliar liberals.  

8. Every priest that has remained in the SSPX after its capitulation has decided explicitly, or at least tacitly, to accept this new orientation of the SSPX. They are no longer militant Catholics. The Church is indefectible. The SSPX was not. It has defected. 

9. There is no further important organisation to stand against the onslaught of the forces of evil in the form of the atheistic communist conquest of society. The sterilisation of the SSPX stopped the last great source of grace and blessings for the world. The few pockets of resistance remaining are incapable of stopping, or even just hindering, the communist enslavement of the world.

Kyrie eleison.

Two Bishops

Two Bishops on December 21, 2019

Ever since the summer and autumn of 2012 when it became clear that two of the three bishops of the Society of St Pius X were no longer taking the position towards relations of the Society with Rome which they had taken in their April 7 letter to Society Headquarters, followers of the Society, priests and laity, have wondered why. Few people, then or since, will have taken the bishops’ change of position to have been a question of persons or personalities. Since the letter warned severely against abandoning Archbishop Lefebvre’s clear refusal of contacts with unconverted Rome, most people took the two bishops’ change for what it was, namely a rallying to the Superior General’s new principle of contact before conversion. Yet since Conciliar Rome had hardly changed except for the worse between 1988 and 2012, why had the two bishops changed?

The question retains all of its importance for today. What is to be gained by the Society for the Faith – not by the Faith for the Society! – through friendly contacts of the Society with the Conciliar Romans still hell-bent on their Vatican II ecumenism, down to and including the Pope’s veneration of the Pachamama idol in the very gardens of the Vatican? One thing seems certain: for the last 20 years the Society has staked everything for its future on that friendship, and to give it up now would mean admitting that these 20 years had all been a big mistake. Therefore the Society, in grave need of new bishops for its worldwide Traditional apostolate, cannot choose and consecrate its own choice of Traditional bishops, because these would certainly displease the Conciliar Romans. Therefore the two bishops in 2012 laid a heavy cross on their own backs, heavier each year – they helped to drive the Society up a blind alley – in 2019 it cannot have, and it cannot not have, its own bishops.

Recent information became available that throws some light on the two bishops’ decision to abandon the Archbishop’s line of conversion-before-contacts, to which they had so recently adhered. As for Bishop de Galarreta, we learn that almost as soon as the April 7 letter appeared on the Internet, he hastened to SSPX Headquarters to apologise to the Superior General for its appearance, which he absolutely disclaimed. But how could he disclaim the appearance without also dissociating himself from the content? It seems that the publication made him fear the imminent implosion of the Society more than the content made him fear the blind alley of the Society, its essential abandoning of the Archbishop’s defending of the faith. Was the Society’s survival more important than that of the faith?

Bishop Tissier de Mallerais took longer to retract his signature, so to speak, of the April 7 letter, but by early 2013 that retraction was also clear. To a friend he then gave the following episcopal guidance: Rome’s conversion cannot today come all at once. Official recognition will enable us to work that much more efficaciously from within the Church. We need patience and tact to take our time so as not to upset the Romans who still do not like our criticism of the Council, but we are making our way gradually – is that not what the Saints did? We must continue to denounce scandals and to accuse the Council, but we need to be intelligent so as to understand the way of thinking of our adversaries, who do after all include the See of Peter. Bishop Fellay’s policy has not really failed: nothing was signed on the 13th of June, 2012, nothing catastrophic, nothing stupendous has happened for the last 17 months. A few priests left us, which I find deplorable, from lack of prudence and judgment, but it was all their own fault. In brief, try to be more trusting in others and less trusting in yourself. Put your trust in the Society and its leaders. All’s well that ends well. That should be the spirit of your next decisions and writings.

Here end the bishop’s reasons for recommending his friend to follow Bishop Fellay. But have either Bishop de Galarreta or Bishop Tissier de Mallerais or Bishop Fellay fully understood the Archbishop’s reasons for cutting contact with the Conciliar Romans? Do not all three of them gravely underestimate the unprecedented crisis caused by the Conciliar churchmen’s on-going betrayal of the Truth and of the Faith? How can doctrinal compromise or merely human politicking with Rome solve that pre-apocalyptic crisis?

Kyrie eleison.

Sliding Still – II

Sliding Still – II on November 9, 2019

In case readers think that the August conversation reported here last week between Dom Placide of Bellaigue in France and Society of St Pius X authorities in Switzerland is insufficient to prove that the Society is still sliding away from the defence of the true Faith, here is another report leading to the same conclusion: at about the same time as the Society’s Superior General (SG) gave his re-assuring interview of September 12, he presided over the appointment of a Commission of three to go down to Rome and pick up again the theological discussions with the Conciliar Romans which ran from 2009 to 2011 with no result. And what three representatives of the Society were chosen for the discussions? None other than Bishop Fellay and Fathers Pfluger and Nély, the Society’s ruling triumvirate from 2006 to 2018, when all three were voted out of office at the elective General Chapter of July, 2018! A little background is again necessary.

In the preceding elective General Chapter of 2006, the Society’s 40 leading priests remained faithful, less faithful than in 1994 (as Bishop Fellay once admitted) but nevertheless faithful, to Archbishop Lefebvre’s principle of Catholic common sense, that in the clash between the Society and Rome such important questions of the Faith were at stake that no merely practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement could possibly resolve the clash. Now by 2006 Bishop Fellay had himself long since ceased to take doctrine seriously. For him, like for Pope Benedict XVI, for all modernists and for the mass of the world’s inhabitants today, God’s Truth is less important than men’s unity, but he knew that inside the Society many members still followed the Archbishop in their respect for God’s Truth, and so he continued to ask Pope Benedict for doctrinal discussions to take place so that the Society and Rome could be united.

The request was intrinsically foolish from the very start, because the doctrines of Catholic Tradition and of Vatican II can no more be united than the doctrines of 2+2=4 and 2+2=5. But both the Pope and the SG apparently hoped that the two sides could settle for 2+2= four and a half, because for both of them unity was more precious than truth. And so “doctrinal discussions” took place between four representatives on each side, from 2009 t0 2011. However, back in 2009 Bishop Fellay had still had to appoint four Society representatives who took Catholic Truth seriously, while the Romans were adamant in their attachment to the anti-truths of Vatican II, so that the discussions went nowhere. Unity failed then to prevail over Truth.

But at the Society’s interim (non-elective) General Chapter of 2012, opinion had shifted among the Society’s 40 leading priests, so that the Archbishop’s principle of doctrine first was abandoned, and the Society officially accepted that unity should come first. However, a hard-core resistance movement of Society priests immediately arose, threatening Society unity. And so when at the elective Chapter of 2018 the 40 priests still loved the Truth enough to vote Bishop Fellay and his two Assistants out of office, the new SG picked up afterwards on the idea of doctrinal discussions with the Conciliar Romans, an idea still intrinsically foolish but always as appealing as it is to have one’s cake and eat it. Down he went to Rome, and both the Romans and the SG must still have been dreaming of four-and-a-half, so it appears that “doctrinal discussions” are back on the table.

But whereas in 2009 Bishop Fellay had had to choose lovers of the Truth to represent the Society, the new SG seems to have chosen the very three officials of the Society who presided over the Chapter of 2012 which put unity before Truth! So who is fooling who? If the new SG is fooling himself that a non-doctrinal unity is possible, woe unto the Society, now and for the foreseeable future. If he is not fooling himself, is he acting under pressure from Rome or fellayised Menzingen, or both? It is the same thing, because Bishop Fellay did all he could to put Menzingen and the Society under Rome’s power. It is Rome that is therefore calling the shots, and rubbing the Society’s nose in the Society’s own dirt. Honourable Fr. Pagliarani, if you do not like taking responsibility for such dirt, the honourable thing to do is to resign!

Kyrie eleison.

Bishops’ Letter

Bishops’ Letter on October 5, 2019

A reader asks what were the circumstances behind the writing of the letter of April 7, 2012, addressed to Bishop Fellay and his two Assistants, by the three other bishops then of the Society of St Pius X. The letter is fast becoming ancient history, but readers may remember that the letter played an important part in making Traditional Catholics aware of the significant change of direction of the Society that had been surreptitiously taking place over the last 15 years, and which many of them had not noticed. But in March of 2012 the animal had just broken cover, or come out into the open.

In that month in “Cor Unum,” the Society’s magazine appearing three times a year for priests, the Superior General (SG) wrote that it was time for the Society to change Archbishop Lefebvre’s policy of no practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement, because the hostility of the Roman churchmen towards Catholic Tradition was growing less, and so the Society’s trust in the Conciliar Romans should grow more. In fact since the early 2000’s, more and more priests and laity of the Society had been suspecting that the Society was being led in a different direction. Now the SG himself was confirming those suspicions. That “Cor Unum” caused quite a stir within the Society.

At the dinner-table in the Society’s Priory in London, England, the editor of these “Comments” wondered aloud about writing to the SG a letter of protest against the change of direction, and about sending it to Bishop Tissier for him to check the contents. A priestly colleague at table asked if the letter should not be submitted also to Bishop de Galarreta, in case it could go to Society Headquarters as a joint protest against such a serious departure from the Archbishop’s constant preaching and practice of “Doctrine first.” The colleague was right, and so the idea of a letter of the three bishops was born. When consulted on the project, Bishop Tissier recommended that a draft of the letter be written, and when a draft was submitted to him he gave to it his enthusiastic approval. The draft was then submitted to Bishop de Galarreta who also approved, but reinforced considerably the draft by rewriting the last part of it. A final text was then signed by all three bishops and posted to Headquarters in Menzingen with copies for the SG and his two Assistants.

Their reply came just one week later. Not for nothing had Headquarters been changing the Society’s direction while disguising the change. They genuinely thought that Conciliar Rome was becoming more Catholic, to the point that the Archbishop’s grave reservations as to co-operating with the Neo-modernists in Rome were in effect out of date. To Cardinal Ratzinger in 1988 the Archbishop had said that co-operation was impossible, because the SSPX and Rome were working in directly opposite directions – Rome wanted to de-christianise society while the SSPX was striving to re-christianise society. But in 2012, SSPX Headquarters were adamant that the situation had changed, and so by opposing the three bishops they were not opposing the Archbishop. But what would the latter have said about the shenanigans of Pope Francis? What would he not have said? Yet in a recently appeared book-interview of the now former SG, Bishop Fellay vigorously repudiates even the least criticism of Pope Francis.

And so on a pre-arranged date in June of 2012 the latter presented himself in Rome with a trusted adjutant to put the seal on an agreement with Rome which would at last put an end to what SSPX Headquarters must have considered was an unnecessary 37-year squabble between the SSPX and Rome. Unnecessary? Squabble? Conciliar Rome is at war with Catholic Tradition! And the Romans had obviously learned of the three bishops’ letter. In which case what use would it have been for them to trap the Society’s official leadership if the other three of its four bishops avoided the trap? Tradition risked starting up all over again. And so the SG in 2012 was sent away from Rome, empty-handed. He would have to get to work on those bishops to bring them round. He wasted no time . . .

Kyrie eleison.

Discussions Renewed? – III

Discussions Renewed? – III on December 15, 2018

Many readers of these “Comments” may not be content if for the third time in succession they deal with what can seem to them mere arguments between priests, namely the meeting on November 22 in Rome between Cardinal Ladaria and Fr Davide Pagliarani. But every human being, Catholic or not, must suffer eternally in Hell if he does not save his soul. This can only be done in accordance with Catholic doctrine, and so that doctrine must be kept pure. Since the 1970’s the staunchest defender of Catholic doctrine against Vatican II confusion inside the Catholic Church, was the Society of St Pius X. But since 2012 the Society too has been wavering in its faithfulness to that doctrine. Therefore it is a matter of concern to every human being alive whether discussions with Rome today will or will not put an end to the Society’s faithfulness to the Church and to the doctrine of the one and only Saviour of men, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Two weeks ago these “Comments” (EC 594) presented in general the press release of November 23 in which Society Headquarters in Menzingen, Switzerland, described the meeting on the previous day between the Society’s new Superior General, Fr David Pagliarani, and Rome’s head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ladaria. One week ago the “Comments” (EC 595) presented the full text of the third and fourth paragraphs of that press release, with their glimmer of hope that the Society will come back on its Founder’s track to defend the doctrine of the Faith. But when the fifth paragraph concluded that doctrinal discussions with Rome should be re-opened, the glimmer grew dark, not only because doctrinal discussions between Rome and the Society were already held between 2009 and 2011 (EC 594); not only because neo-modernists like today’s Romans cannot think straight (EC 595); but also because Rome has only one purpose in discussing with the Society, and that is to put a final end to the Society’s historic resistance to their own sell-out to Satan’s New World Order.

Thus whenever Communists wanted to take over a country, the main obstacle in their way was always the Catholic Church, which utterly rejects – doctrinally – the atheistic materialism of Communists. But Communists learned not to fight Catholics on doctrine, where faithful Catholics are too strong. Instead they invited Catholics to join them in a joint action, supposedly on behalf of the people, because once Catholics and Communists were collaborating in action, the Communists would exploit the practical contact to get around the doctrinal blockage. The one thing that the Communists did not want was for the Catholics to break off all contact. Then they no longer had the means of working on them.

Similarly, when Cardinal Castrillón was Rome’s man to deal with the Society ten years ago, he used basically the same tactic – “Let us first get together, and we will sort out all the doctrinal problems afterwards, once we are together. The important thing is first a practical agreement,” he said. On the contrary Archbishop Lefebvre always insisted on Catholic doctrine coming first. His successors thought that they knew better, and have time and again sought contact with the Roman apostates, who have been, logically, only too happy to oblige, with the result that the Society’s defence of the Faith has grown steadily weaker since 2000. The salt is losing its savour. Unless the Society seriously changes course it will become fit only to be thrown out and trampled underfoot (Mt. V, 13).

Another problem is if the Society is wanting discussions in order to obtain official permission for the consecration of the new generation of bishops that it needs for its worldwide apostolate. But if it does not want to consecrate them without Rome’s permission, then it can only agree to Rome’s terms, because it is making itself the beggar and Rome the chooser. But thereby the Society is putting the Conciliar Romans firmly in the driving-seat, where for the defence of the Faith, they absolutely do not belong. So is the new Superior General wanting to re-open discussions with a view to obtaining a Roman permission? God knows. But in any case, discussing with Rome means that the Superior General will be dancing with wolves. A dangerous occupation.

Kyrie eleison.

Discussions Renewed? – II

Discussions Renewed? – II on December 8, 2018

The official press release coming from Society of St Pius X Headquarters on Friday two weeks ago, of the meeting held on the previous day between the Society’s Superior General and Rome’s Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, is full of good words. What remains to be seen is how these words will translate into acts on the part of the new Superior General.

The press release contains seven paragraphs. The first two paragraphs introduce Cardinal Ladaria and Father Pagliarani with their respective colleagues, and state that it was the Cardinal who invited Fr Pagliarani to Rome to discuss the state of relations between Rome and the Society, as they may be evolving since Fr Pagliarani’s election as the Society’s new Superior General last July. The third and fourth paragraphs place the problem between Rome and the Society exactly where it belongs, in the domain of doctrine. Here they are, in the full text:—

(3) In the course of the meeting with the Roman authorities, it was recalled that the underlying problem is well and truly doctrinal, and neither Rome nor the Society can get around that fact. It is the unyielding divergence of doctrine which has for the last seven years frustrated every attempt to work out any statement of doctrine acceptable to both sides. Here is why the question of doctrine remains absolutely basic. (4) The Holy See is saying nothing different when it solemnly states that there can be no setting up of any juridical status for the Society until a document doctrinal in character has been signed.

However, the fifth paragraph proceeds to conclude that “Everything therefore impels the Society to re-open theological Discussions,” their purpose being not so much to convince the Romans as to bring before the Church the Society’s uncompromising witness to the Faith. The last two paragraphs give expression to the Society’s trust in Providence. Its future lies in the hands of God and His Blessed Mother. (End of press release)

Alas, one may well question whether it is useful or prudent to seek to re-open Doctrinal Discussions with these Romans. As one of the four Society representatives commented on the four Roman representatives after the last series of such Discussions held from 2009 to 2011, “They are mentally sick, but it is they who have the authority.” This comment was not meant personally, rather it testifies with precision to the incapacity of the Roman Neo-modernists to grasp the very essence of Catholic doctrine, namely its objective character, allowing of no subjective interference. Almighty God means what He says, He says it through His Church, and so there can be no question of re-moulding for modern times – as did Vatican II – what His Church always and unchangingly said before Vatican II. How then can today’s Romans be loyal to God’s Church and at the same time to Vatican II without either their minds being sick with contradiction, or their having a completely false idea of the Church?

That being so, if and when the Holy See issues a press release on the same meeting of November 22, it will be interesting to see how they present the prospect of a re-opening of the Doctrinal Discussions. They certainly want Discussions, in the hope of luring the new Superior General out of his impregnable fortress of Church doctrine, but their own Conciliar doctrine can only be false insofar as it departs from that Tradition. And so the two great arguments available to them must be, as always, authority and unity, disregarding doctrine. But what is Catholic authority when it no longer serves Truth? And what is Catholic unity if it unites around a pack of slippery lies (Vatican II)? Alas, authority and unity are the only legs that these Conciliar Romans have to stand on.

Therefore, honourable Superior General, here is an act to follow your words: why not make public a clear and fair summary of the record of the last Doctrinal Discussions of 2009–2011? You would be backing your fine doctrinal paragraphs of November 23 with a real doctrinal act!

Kyrie eleison.