Fr. Joseph Pfeiffer

Transatlantic Resistance

Transatlantic Resistance on December 7, 2013

From a late autumn journey I made through centres of Catholic Resistance in Canada, the United States and Mexico, it seems as though the Resistance may be weak in numbers but it is strong in the Faith, which means that it certainly has a future. Once more the story of a faithful remnant is being repeated. With God it is quality and not quantity that counts.

Québec, once the most Catholic province of Canada, was devastated by Vatican II, but after the Council the Society of St Pius X built up important Traditional centres in Montreal and in Lévis, near the city of Québec. In Lévis now the Traditionalists are being divided, as souls strong in the Faith pick up on the Society’s dangerous change of course towards the Newchurch. The split amongst Traditionalists is a great shame, but the Faith must come first, as souls can see that are being given the grace to join the Resistance. It has the future that the Newchurch has not.

A major interest for the future of the Resistance in the USA is Fr Joseph Pfeiffer’s seminary initiative in Kentucky, which had six seminarians when I passed through in early November. I admire the fact that Fr Pfeiffer is envisaging a different kind of priestly formation for today’s insane circumstances. Since internment camps have been prepared all over the USA for any “rebels” who will seriously oppose the New World Order, it makes sense to me to be thinking of making future priests learn by heart a catechism and a Bible history, as written for children! For have the Society’s classical seminaries produced many priests strong enough in the Faith to see the need for Resistance? As after Vatican II, how many “good” priests are just following along.

In Texas I addressed a meeting of right-wing patriots who have for many years rallied around the Spotlightnewspaper, now the American Free Press, to defend their country from anti-patriots. By no means all of them are Catholics, but they do grasp that there is a serious problem in their nation’s politics. In any case they listened attentively to the argument that politics are merely a spill-over from religion, or from its lack, and that the only solution is a return to Catholicism.

In northern Mexico a former SSPX priest from Chile, Fr René Trincado, is building up thriving Resistance chapels which I visited in Chihuahua and Saltillo, and it looks as though another major Resistance centre will soon emerge in Guadalajara, a major city which was at the centre of the famous Catholic uprising of the Cristeros in the 1920’s. In fact the Resistance is an unorganised and spontaneous uprising of Traditional Catholics all over the world. Their sense of the Faith is reacting instinctively to the change of direction towards the mainstream Church being imposed from the top of the Society. Unity in a return to that Newchurch is unity in suicide of the Faith.

My last stop was Mexico City, scene of Hernan Cortes’ famous military conquest of Mexico in 1521 Even more deserving of fame is Our Lady’s miraculous spiritual conquest of the land by her apparitions in Guadalupe ten years later, creating a brand-new Catholic country. To this day her shrine attracts millions of pilgrims, and it is the same instinct of the Faith that is enabling another former SSPX priest, Fr Hugo Ruiz, to begin building up what will surely become an important Resistance centre in his nation’s capital city.

In brief, the world may be plunging into chaos and the mainstream SSPX may be giving up on the effort to resist that plunge, but a remnant of souls are realizing what is happening, and they are taking action to preserve the Faith. It may have to go into hiding, but it will not die.

Kyrie eleison.

Resistance Rising

Resistance Rising on April 20, 2013

Another three-week journey on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean has just given me to see that the resistance to the collapse of the Society of St Pius X into the embrace of apostate Rome is rising, more in quality than in quantity (but Catholic quantity follows Catholic quality, and not the other way round). Traditionalists have been deliberately kept in the dark as to what is going on between the Society and Rome, but as they find out just how the true Catholic religion is being endangered, so a number of good men are reacting with seriousness and resolution.

I visited first of all Fr Jahir’s community of some dozen religious in northern Brazil, behind the city of Salvador where Fr Jahir was a parish priest for many years. Having fled the Newchurch, he sees the situation of the Newsociety very clearly. He has founded his own community in the true Faith, and it is easy to imagine several of his men becoming in a few years’ time valiant priests who will hold that Faith. I gave to one of them Tonsure and the first two Minor Orders, and then headed south to visit another Brazilian priest becoming famous for his staunch adherence to Tradition, as Archbishop Lefebvre understood it.

The Benedictine Dom Thomas is Prior of the Monastery in the mountains near Nova Friburgo behind Rio de Janeiro. It was founded in the 1980’s by Dom Gérard as an offshoot from the Traditional Benedictine Monastery which Dom Gérard had also founded in France in the 1970’s, with the encouragement and support of Archbishop Lefebvre. However, when the Archbishop consecrated bishops in 1988, Dom Gérard broke with him, took his monastery into the Newchurch, and crossed the ocean to do the same with the Brazilian monastery.

Here he ran into the resistance of Dom Thomas, who was still only a young monk, but who before becoming a monk had learned in depth from a famous Brazilian lay Catholic, Gustavo Corçâo, the wrongness of the Newchurch. With help from good laymen and with the support of Archbishop Lefebvre, Dom Thomas stood up to Dom Gérard and saved the Monastery for Tradition. With such a clash behind him it is not surprising that Dom Thomas also sees very clearly the situation both of the Newchurch and of the Newsociety. In a tent set up outside the small Monastery church for the extra visitors to the Holy Week ceremonies, we celebrated with few priests but with all the essentials the Maundy Thursday Consecration of Holy Oils. These the Monastery can now supply for this year to priests in particular whose supply could be cut off by the Newsociety.

Then I flew north to visit three more centres of the Resistance being launched in the USA by the brave Frs Joseph Pfeiffer and David Hewko. Near Connecticut, in New Jersey and in Minnesota I was able to give Confirmations and conferences to Catholics suspicious of what is going on in the Newsociety. They had good questions, deserving of truthful answers.

Good news for benefactors in Euroland: the St Marcel Initiative has at last a RIB and an IBAN, based in France, to facilitate donations in euros to the St Marcel Initiative. To make a bank transfer from inside France use the following RIB: [write to letters@eleisoncomments.com for the number]; from outside France use the following IBAN: [write to letters@eleisoncomments.com for the number]. The St Marcel Initiative has just been able to give a little serious aid, much needed, to Dom Thomas’ Monastery. He thanks all of you who have contributed to the Initiative.

Kyrie eleison.