dogma

1984 Attracts

1984 Attracts on January 26, 2008

When in a small publication of the Society of St. Pius X in England – circulation about 500 – an article recently appeared describing the police-state fast closing in on Great Britain, the British authorities complained to SSPX headquarters in Switzerland! It gives one to reflect . . . .

As people have today less and less religion, so they have less and less reason to control themselves. If I believe neither in God nor in any moral law, nor in any after-life, eternally rewarding or punishing my observance or non-observance of that law, why should I put any brake upon satisfying my selfish desires in this life? But a society of such egoists must turn into a jungle of human beasts devouring one another.

Therefore where the people have neither faith nor internal self-discipline, they must welcome any external discipline enabling their society to survive, e.g. (or i.e.) a police-state. As seminaries close, so prisons must open. Today, prisons can hardly be built fast enough.

Now in any such dissociety of course there will be villains fabricating reasons to impose and extend the police-state for their own nefarious purposes. 9/11 is a classic example. However, even in the case of 9/11 there might have been amongst the authorities some honest men who said, “Lies and fabrications are nasty, but how else can one govern a modern population?” Alas, they would have had a point!

So the police-state may be a bad substitute for godliness, but where the people are godless, such a State may appear to be the only way to hold a society together, and whoever opposes the police-state will then appear to be anti-social. In this respect the defenders of modern police-states may mean well, and not deserve blame.

However, let them have no part in tomorrow’s persecution of Christians towards which today’s police-states are being steered! The Catholic Faith upheld by the SSPX is not in fact their problem, but it is, of their real problem, the true solution.

Kyrie eleison.

Agreementitis – II

Agreementitis – II on November 10, 2007

The argument in favor of the SSPX “coming in from the cold” and “getting back into the Church” can also be expressed in this sort of double proposition: all great clashes in the Church have always finished in some sort of compromise – what other solution is possible for the long-standing discord between the SSPX and Conciliar Rome?

As to the first part of the proposition, one might agree to some compromise if it were not the Faith at the root of this discord. To help out the Pope, or to restore the good name or canonical status of the SSPX, some compromise might be conceivable, but not if the Faith is at stake, because the Catholic Faith is that body of objective supernatural truths without (an at least rudimentary) belief in which, no soul can be saved (Heb. XI, 6).

But is the very Faith involved in the so far 37-year struggle of the SSPX? Yes, says a distinguished German theologian, Professor Johannes Dörmann, who is quite independent of the SSPX. After prolonged and professional study of the complete speeches and writings of John-Paul II, he recognized and declared that “Lefebvrism” was not just about Latin or the liturgy, but about the very foundations of the Faith. Indeed. Being another form of subjectivism, Neo-modernism turns any rock of truth into plastic.

As to the second part of the proposition, there being no other solution possible than some kind of compromise, one may reply that there are problems which man can make and which God alone can solve. An elephant can fall into an elephant-trap, but not by himself climb out again. In Noah’s time, mankind had so “corrupted its way” (Gen. VI, 12) that the Lord God was driven to wash it out and virtually start all over again.

In the Sodom of today’s Church and world, have not merely human solutions been made similarly impossible? When in the troubles of the near future enough human beings get down on their knees to beg the Lord God to rescue them, then through his Mother he will do so. Meanwhile the bounden duty of all Catholics belonging to the “remnant chosen by grace” (underline the “by grace” – Rom. XI, 5), is not to let anything, love of Rome or family or life or whatever, take precedence over safeguarding the true Faith, which is an obedience to, and love of, the true God. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us!

Kyrie eleison.

Westward Ho!

Westward Ho! on October 6, 2007

A recent case in Northern Italy confirms that in the Church’s ongoing difficulties, hope lies rather at grassroots than with the Hierarchy. Three mainstream Italian parish priests, seminary comrades of ten to fifteen years ago, have been learning over the last several months to say the true Mass. Two of them have resolved “never again” . . . . hmm . . . . to say the Novus Ordo Mass. One of these has smashed his Newaltar facing the people. A charming reversal!

They asked their bishop if they could say the true Mass in public. He said it would be alright, if it was alright by Rome. They went down to Rome to ask. The “Ecclesia Dei” Commission said it would be alright “as long as there is no confrontation” – as though confrontation can be avoided in the war to the death between Catholicism and Conciliarism!

Sure enough. Their bishop has now written to them, requiring of them “to obey.” We all know what that means – “Shape up (Novus Ordo shape), or ship out.” Either they buckle under, or they are “suspended,” “excommunicated” etc., in any case expelled from their parishes. An old pattern.

However, in Italy the SSPX has had to send out on request 600 DVD’s, soon 700, on how to celebrate the true Mass, nine out of ten of them to priests and seminarians. This picture of a Hierarchy in darkness while light glimmers amongst humble priests and laity puts one in mind of a well-known English poem of yesteryear, accessible on the Internet under its title of “Say not the struggle nought availeth,” by Arthur Hugh Clough. Here are the last two verses:—

For while the tired waves vainly breaking

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light,

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

But westward, look, the land is bright.

Almighty God, of your mercy look after the three priests.

Kyrie eleison.

Slay Errors

Slay Errors on September 15, 2007

A soul complained to me recently of my “dialectical thinking” on the Pope’s Motu Proprio of July 7, meaning no doubt that I was going backwards and forwards in a confusing way. I replied that what I had said was surely just an application of an old Catholic principle memorably formulated by St. Augustine many centuries ago: “Slay the errors, love the people erring.”

This is because God is Truth, so there is no way that untruth, or error, can get a soul into his Heaven. As error, or false doctrine, leads to sin, so only truth can lead to God. If then I wish to get to Heaven and to help other souls to get there, I must be strict on Catholic doctrine. Many people do not know its truth, but it is knowable (this is what liberals deny), and it is known. For my own salvation and theirs, I must tell it to them without watering or softening it down.

On the other hand I am (in varying degrees) bound in charity to wish to all souls that they get to Heaven, and this is the purpose of telling them the truth. Therefore I will not tell it when telling it will only help them to Hell – Jesus was silent before Herod, and fell silent before Pilate. I may and must, according to circumstances, “temper the wind to the shorn lamb.” I must love both the truth and souls. So I must “Slay error but love those erring.”

In fact the more I love the truth, the more – and not the less – I can afford to have compassion for souls. The more firmly I am attached to the tree on the bank, the more safely I can reach out to souls drowning mid-stream. But woe to me reaching out if I am not firmly attached! Lack of doctrine is why liberals also lack true charity.

Thus the doctrine of Benedict XVI in his Motu Proprio and its accompanying Letter to the Bishops is a confused and confusing mixture of Catholicism and Vatican II, and I cannot cease highlighting the error of that Council’s attempting to reconcile the true Faith with the false modern world. On the other hand the so-called “Tridentine Mass” is loaded with Catholic doctrine, so I can only rejoice that the Motu Proprio both recognizes that it was never properly suppressed and grants a certain freedom to priests to celebrate it. “In the land of the blind” where even “the one-eyed is king,” that recognition and even limited grant are surely major steps forward.

Kyrie eleison.