General Chapter

Rome Prepares?

Rome Prepares? on June 16, 2018

In the context of the crisis engulfing the Catholic Church for the last half-century since Vatican II (1962–1965), two recent moves of the Church authorities in Rome can seem surprising, because both moves seem to favour that Catholic Tradition which Pope Francis gives so many indications of wishing to uproot once and for all. Is the Big Bad Wolf really wanting to be nice to the Little Red Riding Hood of the Society of St Pius X, or are these another two wily moves to trap her in his Conciliar lair? Is Rome also preparing for the Society’s General Chapter in mid-July?

The first of the two moves was in mid-February of this year when the Ecclesia Dei Commission, launched in Rome in 1988 to slow down Catholic Tradition because it was threatening to speed up, granted to the semi-Traditional Fraternity of St Peter the use of the highly Traditional liturgical rites of Holy Week. These are the rites that were used for centuries and centuries prior to that reform of the liturgy by Cardinal Bugnini in the 1950’s which paved the way for the New Mass in the 1960’s. As rites for Holy Week the old rites are becoming more and more popular with Catholics who repudiate the New Mass, because the new rites contain so many features of that modernist liturgy which Paul VI would impose by deceitful trickery on the Universal Church in 1969. Is Rome at last backing away from the New Mass?

Hardly. As the famous line of Virgil runs, “Whatever it may be, I do not trust the Greeks, even when they bear gifts.” This gift to Tradition can easily have been designed by Rome to persuade all kinds of Little Red Riding Hoods, especially participants in the General Chapter of July, that the Big Bad Wolf is not so bad after all. The Chapter is important to Rome – that bastion of the Faith erected by the Archbishop must be dismantled, because by Archbishop Lefebvre’s true fight for the Faith it was a real road-block for the onward march of the New World Order, out of all proportion to the Society’s size. The fight has been severely weakened since his death, but Rome must fear the Chapter reviving it. Rome wants either another liberal as Superior General, or a compromise candidate will do, but not a fighter for the Faith!

The other surprising move of Rome was on May 16, when a well-known Vatican journalist, Andrea Tornielli, highlighted an extract from a recently appeared book written by a Roman official on Pope Paul VI (1963–1978). The extract is a detailed account of the September 1976 conversation held between the Pope and Archbishop Lefebvre, within two months of the Mass celebrated by the Archbishop in front of a huge crowd in Lisle, France. That Mass marked the beginning of the Traditional movement, so the Pope wanted to rein in the Archbishop. The conversation lasting a little over half an hour was noted down by the Romans at that time, and it was described somewhat differently by the Archbishop afterwards, but the Romans kept the contents to themselves for the last 42 years. Why publish them now?

The answer must lie in the “somewhat differently.” The admirable Internet site from Latin America, Non possumus, has published the details now released by the Romans and the Archbishop’s own account of the conversation alongside one another. Readers of Non possumus can check for themselves how the Romans have whitewashed the blindness of Paul VI and their own villainy. Outstanding example: Paul VI accused the Archbishop of making his seminarians swear an oath against the Pope, which was absolutely untrue. The Archbishop declared his readiness to swear on a crucifix that the Pope had accused him of such an oath. A Roman spokesman then officially denied that there had been any mention of any such oath.

In like manner Rome’s version glosses over the gulf between the modernism of Paul VI and the Faith of the Archbishop, as though the Capitulants need not worry that there is any huge gap between Conciliar Rome and the Society – let them elect another liberal for their Superior, but a compromise candidate will do!

Kyrie eleison.

Liberals Prepare

Liberals Prepare on June 9, 2018

Not everybody is asleep. Somebody in France is watching out for how the liberals are preparing to take over the imminent General Chapter of the Society of St Pius X, where the Society has its last chance, probably its last chance ever, to stand up for the Catholic Faith against Vatican II, as did Archbishop Lefebvre. Whoever it was wrote an excellent article on Fidélité catholique francophone denouncing some sinister words of the Society’s General Secretary, Fr Christian Thouvenot, spoken in an interview with the Society’s German District magazine early this year. What follows owes much to that article.

Firstly, the sinister words: “It is likely that the question of the present status of the Personal Prelature will be raised at the General Chapter (in July). But it is the Superior General alone who is at the head of the Society and who is responsible for relations between Catholic Tradition and the Holy See. In 1988 Archbishop Lefebvre made this point very clear.” These words are sinister because they are wide open to the interpretation that Menzingen, Society Headquarters where Fr Thouvenot works, is preparing members and followers of the Society for the General Chapter to be the time and place where Bishop Fellay will, apparently lawfully, take upon himself to accept Rome’s offer of a Personal Prelature, and by so doing will cripple once and for all the Society’s ability to defend the Faith by resisting the Novus Ordo Mass and the Second Vatican Council. And these words are sinister because they are ambiguous or false.

Firstly, it is not the Superior General who is alone at the head of the Society. By the Statutes of the Society established by Archbishop Lefebvre, it is true that once the Superior General is elected, he has remarkable powers at his disposal and for no less than a 12-year term, because the Archbishop wanted the Superior General to have time and power to achieve something, without being hindered as he himself had been in the Holy Ghost Fathers. But the General Chapter meeting every six or twelve years is above the Superior General, and he must follow the policies decided by it. Now in theory the General Chapter of 2012 decided that any “canonical normalisation” of the Society would require a majority vote of the full General Chapter, but in practice Bishop Fellay has already proceeded to “normalise” with Rome the Society’s confessions, ordinations and marriages. And now his General Secretary is talking as though the General Chapter has nothing further to say, as though Bishop Fellay alone can “normalise” the rest. Are all the forty future Capitulants of July aware of how Menzingen is talking? Do they agree?

Secondly, Fr Thouvenot claims that Bishop Fellay is – alone? – responsible for relations between Catholic Tradition and the Holy See. That is no doubt how both Rome and Bishop Fellay himself would like to see the situation, so that Rome can scoop up all of “Tradition” at one fell swoop and Bishop Fellay can extend his empire. But “Tradition” is a varying and heterogeneous collection of religious societies and communities which certainly do not all want to be scooped up by Conciliar Rome, or headed up by Bishop Fellay. For this reason Archbishop Lefebvre repeatedly refused to be called the head of Catholic Tradition. But both Bishop Fellay and his Secretary are playing the game of Conciliar Rome.

And thirdly, if the Archbishop insisted at the time of the Consecrations in 1988, that he alone was still in control of the Society’s relations with Rome, that was because he knew that the young collaborators around him were no match for the wily Romans, as we have seen to our cost since his death in 1991. It was not because he trusted in the structure of the Society to endow its Superior General with a special grace to match the Conciliar Romans. When men want to go wrong, it is not necessarily a structure that will save them. But what could the Archbishop do? He had to die some time!

Readers, if you know a July Capitulant, ask him if he knows what the General Secretary is saying!

Kyrie eleison.