Pope St. Pius X

John XXIII Missal

John XXIII Missal on October 25, 2008

The Society of St. Pius X gets attacked, but so long as it is attacked about equally from modernist left and from sedevacantizing right, it need not worry too much – it is probably doing something right. However, equality here is not to be measured by quantity alone – attacks from the right make up in venom for what they lack in numbers! Presently the SSPX is again being attacked for its use of the Tridentine Missal of 1962, as opposed to that of 1955, or 1945, or 1905 – you name it! Three comments:

Firstly, as Archbishop always used to explain, the “Missal of John XXIII,” so called because it was promulgated under his reign in 1962, was actually fully prepared before 1958, under Pope Pius XII, no darling of modernists. Moreover the Archbishop personally knew the Benedictine liturgist who did the preparing, and the Archbishop testified that the Benedictine he knew was no modernist either.

Secondly, as always needs to be repeated, if the Archbishop chose the 1962 Missal for his Society of St. Pius X, it was because on the one hand that Missal contains nothing against the Faith, whereas the Novus Ordo Missal of 1969 is heavily protestantized and the 1967 missal was already being de-catholicized; on the other hand the Pope is master of the liturgy in the Catholic Church, which is why the 1962 missal was the last fully orthodox rite of Mass to have been also lawfully promulgated by a reigning pope, and as such the Archbishop chose it, by a reasoned judgment and not by personal taste. Previous rites were superseded. Following rites were not Catholic.

Thirdly, the difference between, let us say, the “John XXIII” and the Pius X missals lies in the former’s omission of many a detail from the latter, but in essence the two missals are the same – otherwise how could it be so easy to celebrate a “John XXIII” Mass from a Pius X missal? Now in no situation can I overestimate the importance of detail without underestimating that of essentials. If then by my furious refusal of the “John XXIII Missal” I declare that in the details omitted by “John XXXII” the essence of the Tridentine Missal has been betrayed, I am in actions, not words, albeit unawares, so downgrading the essence of the Tridentine missal, for instance the unchanged Canon and Consecration, that by my exaggeration of the relative importance of details, I am, funnily enough, paving the way for souls to lose sight of the absolute importance of essentials, and I am helping souls to quit the Tridentine Mass altogether! It will not have been the first time that unbalanced exaggerations on the right have driven souls to the left!

Divine Lord, please bring soon your lawful Vicar back to his fully Catholic senses!

Kyrie eleison.

Deadly Mush

Deadly Mush on April 19, 2008

I have never believed any of the Conciliar Popes not to be truly popes. Modern thinking turns minds into mush, and I have always held the Conciliar Popes to be too modern to be capable of the clear firm thinking in matters of Faith necessary to make them such clear firm heretics as could no longer hold their high office in the Church.

By no means everybody agrees with me when I say this, but I do believe Archbishop Lefebvre was making the same point in a different way when he said that these popes were liberals, but being liberals did not necessarily put them out of the Church. Here for example is what he said in an interview he gave in 1987:

“I think we must judge of today’s churchmen in Rome, and of all churchmen and bishops coming under their influence, in the same way that Popes Pius IX and Pius X judged of liberals and modernists. Pius IX condemned liberal Catholics, going so far as to say that they were “the Church’s worst enemies.” What worse could he say of them? Yet he did not say that all liberal Catholics were excommunicated, or were out of the Church or had to be refused Communion . . . Pius X in ‘Pascendi’ was just as severe on modernism, saying it was “where all heresies come together.” Could any movement be more severely condemned? Yet he never said that henceforth all modernists were excommunicated, out of the Church and to be refused Communion. In fact he only excommunicated a few of them. So, following Pius IX and Pius X, I think we should judge of these churchmen in Rome severely, but without concluding that they are necessarily out of the Church.”

Two objections immediately come to mind. Firstly, how can a liberal Catholic be worse than the formal heretic who flatly refuses the Faith which is the foundation of Catholic living and of eternal salvation? Answer, the enemy without can never do so much damage as the enemy within. Whereas the heretic puts himself out of the Church, the liberal Catholic stays within, from where the higher his office, the more he can harm the Church. Is not the very havoc wrought upon the Church by recent popes better accounted for by their being the enemy within rather than, as “sedevacantists” would have it, the enemy without?

But then – second objection – if the Church cannot excommunicate such damaging enemies within, what means does she still have to her to defend herself? Answer, that is perhaps the most serious reason of all for thinking that only a divine chastisement comparable to the Flood can clean out the present corruption in Church and world. Catholic Tradition is today’s Ark.

Kyrie eleison.

“Pascendi” – II

“Pascendi” – II on November 3, 2007

Before the centenary year of Pope St. Pius X’s great anti-modernist encyclical, “Pascendi,” closes out, let us give two examples of the light which it throws upon today’s undiminishing confusion in Church and world: the primacy of objective truth, and the non-binding nature of sedevacantism (the disbelief that recent Popes are true popes).

Over the last two centuries, the modern world has fallen more and more into the grave error of subjectivism, whereby every man (or subject) makes his own truth, so that he is free from any supposedly objective truth imposing itself upon his mind from outside. One hundred years ago this error threatened to undermine the objectivity of all Catholic dogma – hence the Encyclical. Yet one hundred years later, despite Pius X’s efforts, the mass of Catholic churchmen are awash in this error – hence Vatican II, Religious Liberty, Ecumenism, etc.

In Pascendi, Pius X nailed the unhooking of the subjective mind from objective reality as the foundation of the coherent Newfaith of the modernists’ Newchurch. What mental rest and spiritual relaxation to be able to lean on the one true religion given to us from outside and above by the one true God, without our having to pay heed to the mass of modern fantasies!

However the Conciliar fantasies have taken such a grip on many of today’s churchmen that the temptation arises to consider that none of them are churchmen at all, in particular the last few Popes. But Pascendi can offer a way out of this temptation by its same teaching that subjectivism unhooks churchmen’s minds from reality. Are they fully aware of how mad they are, when virtually everyone shares in their madness? And if they are not fully aware, do they necessarily disqualify themselves as churchmen? Pascendi suggests at least to me that sedevacantism is not binding.

By no means everyone agrees with letting the Conciliar churchmen off the hook in this way, but that is of secondary importance. Back to Pascendi – what is of primary importance is to give glory to God and to save our souls by submitting our minds to that one objective Faith which God has revealed, and without which nobody can please God (Heb XI:6).

Kyrie eleison.

“Pascendi” – I

“Pascendi” – I on July 28, 2007

In a little over one month’s time, on September 8, all Catholics who rejoice in Pope Pius X’s resistance to modernism will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of his great Encyclical letter, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (in English, “Feeding the Lord’s Flock”).

I think it is essential to come to grips with the central doctrine of Pascendi if one does not wish to lose one’s footing in today’s crisis of the Church, ongoing and by no means over, on the contrary.

In brief, Pius X says that thanks to delinquent modern philosophy (both reflecting and promoting modern living), the human mind has become unhooked from objective reality, and is spinning around inside the subject, fabricating whatever he wants and then imposing it on his surroundings. One name for this stupendous error is “subjectivism.” Truth becomes what I say it is. This is such insanity that I can only survive by applying it only selectively. For instance two and two will be four when I need them to be (e.g. in designing an aeroplane); they will be five when I want them to be (e.g. in choosing a religion).

Now when this error began in the universities, over 200 years ago, a lot of peasants living on the land still had a lot of common sense. But today a lot of city-dwellers have little or no common sense left, and a mass of quite ordinary people are subjectivists, indeed so many that they are no longer the exception, they have become the rule. Whereupon it is that much more difficult for them to realize that they are – objectively – insane. They can well think – subjectively – that they are perfectly sane.

Such is surely the case with many – not all – modernist churchmen, and I would include Pope Benedict XVI amongst them. So he can be objectively insane from the standpoint of the Catholic Faith, and yet subjectively in a kind of good faith. What does this “good faith” matter if he is objectively way off the mark? What matters is that he thinks he is normal and in the truth, so he behaves as though he is, and so he persuades many Catholics that he is. Here is why this crisis of the Church is so terrible – so many cardinals, bishops and priests cannot believe that they or their Pope are in any way off the mark.

Conclusion? – I need not believe that they are not at all cardinals or bishops or Pope, because when virtually everybody is insane, they are that much less necessarily aware that they are not sane. So I can treat the Pope with all the charity and respect due to his exalted position, and I can rejoice in all the objective good that he does, for instance in the recent Motu Proprio but I will do nothing, but nothing, to associate with his insane Conciliar belief-system until it is clear as clear can be that he repudiates both Vatican II and his subjectivism.

Read Pascendi! Kyrie eleison.