Tag: Martin Luther

Excellent Communiqué?

Excellent Communiqué? posted in Eleison Comments on November 19, 2016

On October 31 Pope Francis held in Sweden an ecumenical meeting with leading Lutherans to prepare for next year’s 500th anniversary of Luther’s revolt against the Catholic Church. After the meeting the Pope signed with the President of the Lutheran World Federation a joint Declaration, which is yet another utter scandal, coming as it does from the man who is meant to be the Vicar of Christ. On November 2, in protest, the Superior of the French District of the Society of St Pius X issued a Communiqué to condemn that scandalous Declaration. Much of the Communiqué is excellent, and it should be what is needed from Society Superiors in order to place a serious obstacle in the way of the Archbishop’s Society being betrayed to the Roman neo-modernists, but the conclusion is weak, and so the Communiqué may have the opposite effect.

Fr Bouchacourt opens his Communiqué by stating that the scandal of the Pope’s pro-Lutheran Declaration is such that he “cannot keep silent.” And the whole passage where he denounces Luther is beyond reproach. Here it is:—

How can we be “profoundly thankful for the spiritual and theological gifts received through the Reformation” (quotation from the joint Declaration) , when Luther manifested a diabolical hatred towards the Sovereign Pontiff, a blasphemous scorn for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as well as a refusal of the saving Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ? He also destroyed the doctrine on the Eucharist by refusing Transsubstantiation, turned souls away from the Most Blessed Virgin Mary and denied the existence of Purgatory. No, Protestantism brought nothing to Catholicism! It ruined the unity of Christendom, separated whole countries from the Catholic Church, plunged souls into error, putting their eternal salvation in peril. We Catholics want Protestants to return to the unique fold of Christ which is the Catholic Church, and we pray for this intention. In these days when we celebrate all the Saints, we call out to Saint Pius V, Saint Charles Borromeo, Saint Ignatius and Saint Peter Canisius who heroically fought the Protestant heresy and saved the Catholic Church.

But compared with this denunciation, Fr. Bouchacourt’s conclusion is relatively lame:—

We invite the faithful of the District of France to pray and do penance for the Sovereign Pontiff so that Our Lord, whose Vicar he is, may preserve him from error and keep him in the Truth of which he is the guardian. I invite the priests of the District to celebrate a Mass of reparation and to organise a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament, to ask pardon for these scandals and to beg Our Lord to calm the tempest which has been shaking the Church for more than half a century now. Our Lady Help of Christians, save the Catholic Church and pray for us!

Fr Christian Bouchacourt, SSPX French District Superior.

This conclusion is pious, and perfectly respectful towards Pope Francis, but does it give any idea of the gravity of the Pope’s disorientation when the Pope so praises one of the greatest anti-Christian heretics in all Church history? It is difficult to imagine Fr Bouchacourt not having obtained from Bishop Fellay prior permission to publish his Communiqué. Was it Bishop Fellay who had no problem with the Luther of 500 years ago being denounced, but insisted on toning down the criticism of the major wrecker of the Church here and now? In any case the Communiqué serves Bishop Fellay’s purpose of deceiving Traditional priests and laity and putting them to sleep by suggesting that the supposedly imminent Personal Prelature will prevent none of them from denouncing Papal scandals, etc . . .

Then does Fr Bouchacourt realize how, like his predecessor, he may be serving, even against his own will, the betrayal of the Society? Let us be “simple as doves” but also “as wise as serpents” (Mt. X, 16).

Kyrie eleison.

Deep Problem

Deep Problem posted in Eleison Comments on November 17, 2012

Many Catholics do not conceive of the full depth of the problem posed by the Conciliar Revolution of Vatican II (1962–1965) in the Catholic Church. If they knew more Church history, they might be less tempted either by liberalism to think that the Council was not all that bad, or by “sedevacantism” to think that the Church authorities are no longer its authorities. Did Our Lord question the religious authority of Caiphas or the civil authority of Pontius Pilate?

The problem is deep because it is buried beneath centuries and centuries of Church history. When in the early 1400’s St Vincent Ferrer (1357–1419) preached all over Europe that the end of the world was at hand, we today know that he was out by over 600 years. Yet God confirmed his preaching by granting him to work thousands of miracles and thousands upon thousands of conversions. Was God confirming untruth? Perish the thought! The truth is that the Saint was correctly discerning, implicit in the decadence of the end of the Middle Ages, the explicit and near total corruption of our own times, dress rehearsal for the total corruption of the end of the world.

It has merely taken time, God’s own time, several centuries, for that implicit corruption to become explicit, because God has chosen at regular intervals to raise Saints to hold up the downward slide, notably the crop of famous Saints that led the Counter-Reformation in the 16th century. However, he would not take away men’s free-will, so that if they chose not to stay on the heights of the Middle Ages, he would not force them to do so. Instead he would allow his Church, at least to some extent, to adapt to the times, because it exists to save present souls and not past glories.

Two examples might be Molinist theology, made virtually necessary by Luther and Calvin to guarantee the protection of free-will, and the Concordat of 1801, made necessary by the Revolutionary State to enable the Church in France to function at all in public. Now both Molinism and the Concordat were compromises with the world of their time, but both enabled many souls to be saved, while the Church allowed neither to undermine the principles which remained sacred, of God as Pure Act and of Christ as the King of Society respectively. However both compromises allowed for a certain humanising of the divine Church, and both contributed to a gradual secularising of Christendom. Compromises do have consequences.

Thus if a slow process of humanizing and secularizing were to go too far in that world from which alone men and women are called by God to serve in his Church, they could hardly enter his service without a strong dose of radio-active liberalism in their bones, calling for a vigorous antidote in their religious formation. Naturally they would share the instinctive conviction of almost all their contemporaries that the revolutionary principles and ideals of the world from which they came were normal, while their religious formation opposed to that world might seem pious but fundamentally abnormal. Such churchmen and churchwomen could be a disaster waiting to happen. That disaster struck in mid-20th century. A large proportion of the world’s 2000 Catholic bishops rejoiced instead of revolting when John XXIII made clear that he was abandoning the anti-modern Church.

So nobody who wants to save his soul should follow them or their successors, but on the other hand the latter are so convinced that they are normal in relation to modern times that they are not as guilty as they would have been in previous times for destroying Christ’s Church. Blessed are the Catholic souls that can abhor their errors, but still honour their office.

Kyrie eleison.

Mass Error

Mass Error posted in Eleison Comments on October 3, 2009

An interesting criticism of the Society of St. Pius X, mainly false but slightly true, was made by Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos in an interview which he gave ten days ago to a South German newspaper (text available on the Internet). He said that the SSPX leaders whom he met in 2000 gave him the impression of being fixated on the New Mass as though it were “the source of all evil in the world.”

Obviously the reform of the Latin liturgy of the Mass which followed on Vatican II (1962–1965) is not responsible for all evil in the world, but it is responsible for a great deal of the evil in the modern world. Firstly, the Roman Catholic religion is the one and only religion instituted by the one true God when he once, and only once, took human nature, becoming the God-man Jesus Christ, 2000 years ago. Secondly, Jesus Christ’s bloody self-sacrifice on the Cross, alone capable of placating the just wrath of God inflamed by today’s global apostasy, maintains that placation only through that sacrifice’s unbloody re-presentation in the true sacrifice of the Mass. Thirdly, the ancient Latin rite of that Mass, essential parts of which reach back to the beginnings of the Church, was significantly changed after Vatican II by Paul VI, in a manner which he himself told his friend Jean Guitton was designed to please the Protestants.

But all Protestants take their name from their protesting against Catholicism. That is why the rite of Mass reformed “in the spirit of Vatican II” severely dominishes the expression of essential Catholic truths: in order, 1/ Transubstantiation of the bread and wine, making 2/ the Sacrifice of the Mass, constituting in turn 3/ the sacrificing Priesthood, all by 4/ the intercession of the Blessed Mother of God. In fact the complete ancient Latin liturgy is the complete expression of Catholic doctrine.

If then it is primarily by attending Mass and not by reading books or by attending lectures that the great number of practising Catholics absorb these doctrines and live them out in real life, and if it is by so doing that they act as the light of the world against error and as the salt of the earth against corruption, then it is small wonder if today’s world is in such confusion and immorality. “Let us destroy the Mass, and we will destroy the Church,” said Luther. “The world can sooner do without the light of the sun than without the Sacrifice of the Mass,” said Padre Pio.

That is why Archbishop Lefebvre’s first priority in founding the SSPX was to save the ancient Latin rite of Mass. Thank God, it is slowly but surely making its way back into the mainstream Church (which it will not do under the Antichrist). But now his Society must save the full doctrinal underpinning of that Mass from the victims and perpetrators of Vatican II, still firmly ensconced in Rome. We must pray hard for the “doctrinal discussions” due to open this month between Rome and the SSPX.

Kyrie eleison.