Tag: Rome

Communism Returning

Communism Returning posted in Eleison Comments on January 2, 2021

The USA presidential election of November last year has seen a decisive confrontation between the conservative political right and the revolutionary political left. This is because for a long time in the West the conservatives whose strength was God have been growing weaker, while the revolutionaries whose strength is revolt against God have been growing stronger. A confrontation had to come, and if the left does not prevail in 2020, no doubt they will be back in force in 2024, unless the American people turn back seriously to God between now and then.

Meanwhile an editorial printed in the Dixie Heritage Letter of last November from the American South highlights in four paragraphs four main points of the 2020 confrontation. The text is abbreviated, the four main points are highlighted in heavy print –

1 The judges judging Trump’s appeal for fair play are liberals with no concern for truth or justice. Concerning the massive electoral fraud which without doubt took place in the presidential election of November 3rd, Mr. Trump’s legal team has dug up all manner of evidence. But it will not be easy for them to prevail, mainly because many of these judges hearing their complaints are “never-Trumpers” who, quite frankly, do not care what evidence is presented, no matter how compelling, because they are denizens of the Deep State and they must make sure that Trump is not re-elected, no matter what.

2 Even Supreme Court “conservatives” are weaklings in the face of resolute liberals.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers will have to go all the way to the Supreme Court and then pray that one or two of the “conservative” jurists do not decide to sell out the way John Roberts did years ago, when as a supposed conservative he voted liberal. Roberts was actually a conservative except when he was busy placating the liberals, which seems to be happening more and more of late. You might almost say “with conservatives like Roberts, who needs liberals?”

3 Decent liberalism cannot stand up to the indecent communism to which it naturally leads.

A local editorial said, “Many Americans believe communism is an abstract concept, something that only affects faraway nations, without realizing that it has already arrived at our doorstep. Communism has spread in America under such names as socialism, progressivism, liberalism, neo-Marxism, and so on, in a slow process over decades of systematic subversion by first the Soviet Union and now the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Belief in God and the principles derived from the belief are the fundamental reasons why the United States can enjoy freedom, democracy, and prosperity, and why the United States has become the nation it is today. This year the democratic process has been subverted. The far-left and the communist devil behind it are using lies, fraud, and manipulation in an attempt to deprive the people of their rights and freedoms.”

4 The USA is on the brink of communism if our judges prefer their anti-religion to reality.

We do not realize how close to becoming a communist country we really are. We may end up being communist if the elite in this country somehow decides that Trump’s opponents need to be the winners, no matter what. Then, as they say “You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.” That’s why the left wants your guns. You’re not supposed to be able to shoot your way out. A lot depends on the outcome of this election – for both sides.

Kyrie eleison

Madiran; the Heresy

Madiran; the Heresy posted in Eleison Comments on November 14, 2020

In his book “The Heresy of the 20th Century” Jean Madiran (1920–2013) has presented the heresy’s gravity (Foreword); its underlying philosophy (Part I) and the bishops responsible for it (II); in Parts III, IV and V he comes to the heresy itself, which he analyses according to its seven Propositions. In Part III he presents the first two on their own because of their importance; in Part IV the first six in a little detail; in Part V the seventh Proposition, also on its own because of its overwhelming importance for Madiran. Part III, subject of this week’s “Comments,” sub-divides into six Chapters.

In Chapter One, Madiran declares that on the eve of Vatican II (1962–1965) the religious atmosphere was already pestilential in general, but the then Bishop of the city of Metz in Eastern France, Msgr. Schmitt, brought the whole vague pestilence into clear focus. Seven Propositions sum up what was in fact the new religion which he backed by all his episcopal authority. The first Proposition declares that today’s changing world imposes a change in the very concept of salvation brought by Jesus Christ. And the second declares that the Church’s idea of the plan of God was up till then not evangelical enough. In brief, (P1) the Church must promote “socialisation,” says the Bishop of Metz, because (P2) the old Church was not collective enough, but too merely personal in its practice of the Gospel. But what the Bishop is in fact promoting is Communism, says Madiran.

For indeed “socialisation,” argues Madiran in Chapter Two, rests upon a Marxist view of history, materialistic and determinist, which shows that the Bishop of Metz has lost the Christian faith, because how can the spiritual goals of Christianity coincide with the materialistic goals of Communism? Communism is a social system to be rejected for religious reasons, because as a social system it pretends to replace the Church’s social system and therewith Christianity.

In Chapter Three Madiran rejects Bishop Schmitt’s claim that men today best of all understand Gospel brotherhood (cf. Proposition II above). Such a down-grading of all the social works and achievements of the pre-Conciliar Church is ridiculous and for Catholics, says Madiran, it is an unseemly narcissism.

Thus by 1967, says Madiran in Chapter Four, it had become clear to the world that Bishop Schmitt was promoting no less than a new religion, or a heresy, vandalising centuries upon centuries of Catholic tradition. The French bishops are vandals without intelligence or character. Henceforth it is up to the laity to defend the Penny Catechism, in other words the very basics of the Faith!

In Chapter 5, against keeping up with the times (Prop. I), Madiran upholds the First Commandment, because it is the unchanging God and not the changing world that must hold first place in our hearts and minds. Nor will the times ever be with the Church, because the Church is with Jesus Christ. It is only worldly Catholics that the world admires. And against the Church not practising the Gospel enough (Prop. II), Madiran says that the Saints never invented anything in order to be “evangelical enough,” on the contrary they always strove to be as faithful as possible to tradition in order to put the Gospel into practice.

In conclusion, Chapter Six, Madiran denies that there is any truth to be salvaged from Propositions I and II, and he declares that Bishop Schmitt’s new religion wants the Church to gain the whole world by losing its own soul. The new religion has neither true authority nor true obedience, and Madiran has a prophetic vision of Catholic Tradition surviving Vatican II, because it makes free men kneel nobly before their God in accordance with a real authority and a real obedience. Such Catholics will never follow the false religion of poor bishops like the Bishop of Metz, just let him wait and see!

Kyrie eleison.

Men Lacking

Men Lacking posted in Eleison Comments on May 23, 2020

When Authority abandons Truth in the Catholic Church as it has been doing ever since Vatican II, then it is easier said than done to walk the fine line between heresy on the left and schism on the right. So it is not surprising if an unusually sharp remark like that of Archbishop Lefebvre quoted in the last two issues of these “Comments” (“Hoist the ladder . . . ”) arouses interest.

One layman even doubted the authenticity of the remark – could the sweet Archbishop really have said such a thing? Oh yes, he did. The original words are a little less elegant than the polished quotation, but the substance is identical – “With that, all that’s left is to pull up the ladder. There’s nothing to be done with these people (the Conciliar Romans). What have we got in common with them? Nothing! It’s not possible. It’s not possible” (6 Sept. 1990). The 1990 audio tape reference is Audio – Retrec – PASCALE90 or SACERDOTALE90. (However, let anyone wishing to check the quotation for himself beware of “revised” collections of the Archbishop’s tapes, because any words of his strongly opposed, like these to the Conciliarists in Rome, may well have been cut out by “editors” of the pro-Rome Newsociety.)

Another reader who reacted to the quotation is a priest, from the Novus Ordo, but now firmly established in a Newsociety Priory in Switzerland (without having been conditionally re-ordained, as best we know).

He thinks that “things really look different today” because the present generation of officials in Rome are a different breed from those that the Archbishop was reacting to in the 1980’s, and the best of them want a genuine restoration of the Church. He concludes that to adopt the Archbishop’s attitude today leaves only two solutions – either the “Resistance” or sedevacantism.

But, Father, while the present breed of Church leaders may be different men from the traitor-priests of the Archbishop’s time, who did all they could to destroy the true Church, have they understood (or read) Pascendi? And what use are sweet and well-meaning Church authorities to the Faith or to the Church or to the SSPX or to the “Resistance,” if they have not grasped that the problem is rubber minds which cannot even conceive of truth condemning error or of dogma condemning heresy? A rubber mind sympathetic to Tradition is basically no more use to Tradition than a rubber mind condemning Tradition. Nor is it true that things are “really different” from the Archbishop’s time. The sign that a priest has really understood the problem is when – at least figuratively – he wants to go down to Rome with a machine-gun and send all sweetie-pies to meet their Maker, as Putin would say. In brief, the “Resistance” must stay on the road, otherwise the road will be torn up to provide stones to cry out the Truth in place of the silent shepherds and their non-barking dogs (cf. Lk XIX, 40). The “Resistance” must not, may not, give way!

Finally a good priest seeks to console us with the news from a Society Prior that the Newsociety Superior General told a meeting in February of all Newsociety Priors in France that discussions between the SSPX and Rome are at a standstill because the SSPX is still insisting on doctrine first – well done, Fr Pagliarani – while Rome insists on fixing first a practical agreement. But need Rome even be concerned? Need it not merely wait for the ripe fruit to fall into its lap? Bishop Tissier is now so unwell that reportedly a room is being hospitalised inside Écône for him to retire to. Only two SSPX bishops remain to look after its worldwide needs. So either the Superior General must submit to Rome’s terms for the consecration of further bishops, continuing his predecessor’s disastrous conciliating of Church leaders who, however sweet they are, have lost the Faith, as the Archbishop said. Or he must consecrate more bishops without the Pope’s permission, as the Archbishop did. But would the Newsociety still follow in the Archbishop’s heroic line, of defying the (at least) objective traitors in Rome? One may doubt it.

Kyrie eleison.

Two Bishops

Two Bishops posted in Eleison Comments on December 21, 2019

Ever since the summer and autumn of 2012 when it became clear that two of the three bishops of the Society of St Pius X were no longer taking the position towards relations of the Society with Rome which they had taken in their April 7 letter to Society Headquarters, followers of the Society, priests and laity, have wondered why. Few people, then or since, will have taken the bishops’ change of position to have been a question of persons or personalities. Since the letter warned severely against abandoning Archbishop Lefebvre’s clear refusal of contacts with unconverted Rome, most people took the two bishops’ change for what it was, namely a rallying to the Superior General’s new principle of contact before conversion. Yet since Conciliar Rome had hardly changed except for the worse between 1988 and 2012, why had the two bishops changed?

The question retains all of its importance for today. What is to be gained by the Society for the Faith – not by the Faith for the Society! – through friendly contacts of the Society with the Conciliar Romans still hell-bent on their Vatican II ecumenism, down to and including the Pope’s veneration of the Pachamama idol in the very gardens of the Vatican? One thing seems certain: for the last 20 years the Society has staked everything for its future on that friendship, and to give it up now would mean admitting that these 20 years had all been a big mistake. Therefore the Society, in grave need of new bishops for its worldwide Traditional apostolate, cannot choose and consecrate its own choice of Traditional bishops, because these would certainly displease the Conciliar Romans. Therefore the two bishops in 2012 laid a heavy cross on their own backs, heavier each year – they helped to drive the Society up a blind alley – in 2019 it cannot have, and it cannot not have, its own bishops.

Recent information became available that throws some light on the two bishops’ decision to abandon the Archbishop’s line of conversion-before-contacts, to which they had so recently adhered. As for Bishop de Galarreta, we learn that almost as soon as the April 7 letter appeared on the Internet, he hastened to SSPX Headquarters to apologise to the Superior General for its appearance, which he absolutely disclaimed. But how could he disclaim the appearance without also dissociating himself from the content? It seems that the publication made him fear the imminent implosion of the Society more than the content made him fear the blind alley of the Society, its essential abandoning of the Archbishop’s defending of the faith. Was the Society’s survival more important than that of the faith?

Bishop Tissier de Mallerais took longer to retract his signature, so to speak, of the April 7 letter, but by early 2013 that retraction was also clear. To a friend he then gave the following episcopal guidance: Rome’s conversion cannot today come all at once. Official recognition will enable us to work that much more efficaciously from within the Church. We need patience and tact to take our time so as not to upset the Romans who still do not like our criticism of the Council, but we are making our way gradually – is that not what the Saints did? We must continue to denounce scandals and to accuse the Council, but we need to be intelligent so as to understand the way of thinking of our adversaries, who do after all include the See of Peter. Bishop Fellay’s policy has not really failed: nothing was signed on the 13th of June, 2012, nothing catastrophic, nothing stupendous has happened for the last 17 months. A few priests left us, which I find deplorable, from lack of prudence and judgment, but it was all their own fault. In brief, try to be more trusting in others and less trusting in yourself. Put your trust in the Society and its leaders. All’s well that ends well. That should be the spirit of your next decisions and writings.

Here end the bishop’s reasons for recommending his friend to follow Bishop Fellay. But have either Bishop de Galarreta or Bishop Tissier de Mallerais or Bishop Fellay fully understood the Archbishop’s reasons for cutting contact with the Conciliar Romans? Do not all three of them gravely underestimate the unprecedented crisis caused by the Conciliar churchmen’s on-going betrayal of the Truth and of the Faith? How can doctrinal compromise or merely human politicking with Rome solve that pre-apocalyptic crisis?

Kyrie eleison.

“Pious” Dreams – II

“Pious” Dreams – II posted in Eleison Comments on May 19, 2018

If there is one thing certain about Catholic Tradition and the Second Vatican Council, it is that they are irreconcilable. It is tempting to think that they can be reconciled, because of course the letter of the 16 documents of the Council does include a number of Catholic truths. But the spirit of the Council is driving towards a new religion centred on man, and as the spirit inspired the letter of the documents, so even the Catholic truths which they include are harnessed to the Conciliar “renewal” and are made part of it. Indeed, Catholic Truths (and Hierarchy) have been used by the Modernists as carriers for their liberal poison, as a Trojan horse for their heresies. Therefore even Catholic truths are poisoned in the Conciliar documents. Thus in 1990 Archbishop Lefebvre saw and said that Vatican II is 100% infected by subjectivism, whereas in 2001 Bishop Fellay said that the documents of Vatican II are 95% acceptable.

It is indeed tempting to pretend that Catholic Tradition and Vatican II are reconcilable. In this way I need no longer be torn apart by trying to follow both Catholic Authority and Catholic Truth at the same time, because ever since that Council, as the Archbishop said, Catholics have been forced either to obey the Conciliar Popes and depart from Catholic Tradition, or to cleave to Tradition and “disobey” these Popes. Hence the temptation to pretend by one means or another that Tradition and the Council are reconcilable. But the fact that they are irreconcilable is the most important reality now governing the life of the Church, and so it will continue to be until Church Authority comes back to the Catholic Truth of all time.

In the meantime however, the present Superior General of the Archbishop’s Society, Bishop Fellay, is adamant that Catholic Tradition and the Conciliar Romans can be reconciled with one another, and ever since he approved of GREC in the 1990’s, he has been striving to bring them together. His problem is that he does not understand how modernism maintains Catholic appearances for them to act like a Trojan horse to deceive Catholic souls, while there is no true Catholic horse beneath what appears to be one. But Bishop Fellay believes that the false horse has all the makings of a true horse so that, with the tender loving care of the Society, it will become once again a Catholic horse. All too many Traditionalists have allowed themselves to believe in this mistaken policy and to follow his lead towards the Conciliar Romans, but the Romans for their part have not been deceived. They have played along with his policy by making apparent concessions to the Society and to Tradition (e.g. authorizations to confess, ordain, and marry), and by repeatedly pretending to him that he is on the brink of obtaining canonical recognition for the Society, so that for instance “only the final stamp is missing from the agreement.” But unlike him they have it clear in their minds that Catholic Tradition is irreconcilable with their Council, and so every time they have led him to the brink, they have insisted on the Society submitting to their Council.

However, with each “concession” that Bishop Fellay has accepted for the Society, the Romans have lured him further into their trap, and it has become harder for him to turn back. With each “concession” the agreement with Rome has become more and more of a practical reality, with or without the “final stamp.” By holding it back the Romans, by Bishop Fellay’s own fault, can play him like a fisherman plays a fish – how can he now unravel the “concessions” granted, and admit that his policy of 20 years has been a mistake? Yet his policy was wrong from the start. Lacking the Archbishop’s faith, he misconceived the Church’s problem and the Society’s “problem,” and trusted in human politics to solve them both. But of course the Romans with 2,000 years’ experience have been the more skilful politicians – “Your Excellency, enough of these games. For years we have made all the concessions, you have made none” (a big lie, since to accept Conciliar “concessions” is itself a concession to Rome). “Before July you accept the Council, or we excommunicate you, and show you up to the world as a failure. Choose!”

That is no doubt a crude version of how the cunning Romans can put pressure upon the Superior General, but it is he that should never have gone begging to Truthless Authority. In the case of the Catholic Church, Truthless Authority is in fact toothless Authority.

Kyrie eleison.

“Pious” Dreams – I

“Pious” Dreams – I posted in Eleison Comments on May 12, 2018

In June of last year a colleague in France put together a good article on whether the Society of St Pius X should or should not obtain from the Church authorities in Rome a canonical status that would protect the Society’s interests. Obviously Society Headquarters in Menzingen, Switzerland believe in obtaining such a status, and if the present Superior General is re-elected for a third term in July, that is the goal which the Society will continue to pursue. However, it is rather less obvious that such a goal should be pursued. An argument of eight full pages from Ocampo # 127 of June 2017, is compressed below into one single page.

The article’s position is that the Society can in no way put itself under all-powerful Church authorities imbued with the principles of the French Revolution as embodied inVatican II, because it is the Superiors who mould the subjects, and not the other way round. Archbishop Lefebvre founded the Society to resist the betrayal of the Catholic Faith by Vatican II. By submitting to the Conciliarists, the Society would be joining the traitors to the Faith.

Church authorities are the diocesan bishops and the Pope. As for the bishops, those downright hostile to the Society might be less dangerous than those who may be friendly but have not understood the absolute demands of Catholic Tradition, which are not just the demands of the Society of St Pius X. As for the Pope, if his words and deeds show him to be working against that Catholic Tradition which it is his duty to uphold, then Catholics have the right and duty to protect themselves both against the way in which he is misusing his authority, and against their own in-born need to follow and obey Catholic authority. Now in theory a Conciliar Pope can promise a special protection for the Society’s Tradition, but in practice he must by his own convictions be striving for the Society to recognise the Council and abandon Tradition. Given then his great authority as Pope to impose his will, the Society must stay out of his way.

Experience shows that Traditionalists who rejoin Conciliar Rome may begin by being merely silent as to the Council’s errors, but they usually finish by accepting those errors. Their initial agreement to keep quiet is in the end deadly for their professing of the Faith. And by the natural downhill slide from one compromise to another, they can even finish by losing the Faith. It is the Faith that made Archbishop Lefebvre say that unless the Conciliar Romans return to the doctrine of the great anti-liberal Papal Encyclicals – which they have not done since his time and are not about to do – further dialogue between the Romans and Traditionalists is useless, and – he could have added – positively dangerous for the Faith.

The article also lists eight objections to this position, given here in italics with the briefest of answers:

1 With the Personal Prelature Rome offers the Society a special protection. Protection from the diocesan bishops, maybe, but not from the Pope’s own supreme authority in the Church. 2 Rome’s demands for the agreement have been diminishing. Only because concessions towards practical co-operation are more effective to obtain Catholics’ submission, as Communists well know. 3 The Society is insisting on being accepted by Rome “as we are,” i.e. Traditional. For the Romans that means “As you will be, once practical co-operation has made you see how nice we are.” 4 So the Society will continue to attack the Council’s errors. Nothing will change. Rome can take its time to insist on ever greater changes. 5 But Pope Francis likes the Society! As the Big Bad Wolf liked Little Red Riding Hood! 6 The Society is too virtuous to be fooled by Rome. Foolish illusion! The Archbishop himself was at first fooled by the Protocol of May 5, 1988. 7 Several Traditional communities have rejoined Rome without losing the true Mass. But several of them have gone over to defending major errors of the Council. 8 Pope Francis as a person is in error, but his function is sacred. To recognise the sacredness of his function cannot oblige me to follow his personal errors, i.e. the misuse of his function. The true Faith is above the Pope.

Kyrie eleison.