Rome

Newchurch, Newblesseds

Newchurch, Newblesseds on April 9, 2011

On May 1, in a few weeks’ time, John-Paul II is due to be declared “Blessed” by Benedict XVI amidst great celebration in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. But Catholics clinging to Tradition know that John-Paul II, while being a great promoter of the Conciliar Church, was an effective destroyer of the Catholic Church. How then can he be called “Blessed,” the last step before being canonized, when Church canonizations are infallible? The swift answer is that John-Paul II will not be beatified as a Catholic Blessed by a Catholic beatification in the Catholic Church, but as a Newblessed by a Newbeatification in the Newchurch. And Newchurchmen are the first to claim novelty, the last to claim infallibility, for what they do.

Let us illustrate the nature of the Newchurch by a comparison drawn from modern life. Pure gasoline (petrol) smells, tastes and acts like gasoline. On it a car can run. Pure water smells, tastes and acts like water. On it a car cannot run. Gasoline mixed with surprisingly little water may still smell and taste like gasoline, but it no longer acts like gasoline – – on it a car cannot run. The little water has taken away its combustibility.

Pure gasoline is comparable to pure Catholicism – highly combustible! Pure water in our comparison is like pure secular humanism, or the religion of globalism, with not a trace of Catholicism left in it. Now Catholicism and secular humanism were mixed together in the Second Vatican Council and in its 16 documents. So Conciliarism, or Newcatholicism, may still smell and taste like Catholicism, enough to make “good Catholics” expect Conciliar beatifications to be on their way to infallibility, as were beatifications in the pre-Conciliar Church, but in reality a small admixture of secular humanism has been enough to stop the Catholicism from functioning, just as it takes not too much water to stop gasoline from combusting.

Thus Newbeatifications may taste and smell to unwary Catholic nostrils like Catholic beatifications, but on closer examination it is clear that Newbeatifications are not at all the same reality. Famous example: a Catholic beatification used to require two distinct miracles, while a Newbeatification requires only one. And the rules for a Newbeatification are significantly relaxed in other ways as well. Therefore no Catholic should expect anything other than a Newblessed to emerge from a Newbeatification. John-Paul II was indeed a Conciliar “Blessed.”

What deceives Catholics is the elements of Catholicism that still remain in the Conciliar Church. But just as Vatican II was designed to replace Catholicism (pure gasoline) with Conciliarism (gasoline-water), so Conciliarism is designed to give way to – let us call it – the Global Religion (pure water). The procession is from God to Newgod to Nongod. Right now we still have Newrome pushing the Newgod of Vatican II with Newblesseds to match, but before long sheer criminals will be the “Blesseds” of the Nongod.

However, the true God will let no sheep be deceived that does not want to be deceived. Nor will he abandon any soul that has not first abandoned him, says St. Augustine. Marvellous quote!

Kyrie eleison.

Now Where?

Now Where? on April 2, 2011

If, as seems to be the case, the doctrinal discussions over the last year and a half between Rome and the SSPX have persuaded neither Rome to convert nor the SSPX to betray, then the question arises, where do we go from here? Surely the crisis of Vatican II proved if anything the need for Catholics to do some thinking for themselves on such a question, and not just follow their leaders blindly – are not millions of Catholics still being softly led into apostasy? That is why to the bishops of the SSPX a fighting Gaul puts a threefold question, surely serious enough to deserve an answer (his questions are abbreviated and adapted):—

In your opinion, does the recent announcement of Assisi III, solemn commemoration of John-Paul II’s ecumenical encounter of various religions held in Assisi 25 years ago, add anything new to what we already know of the ecumenical course being followed by Benedict XVI? Answer: It is one more proof that the Church leadership in Rome is intent upon persevering along the disastrous path of giving official Catholic approval to all sorts of false religions. “I do not think we can say,” Archbishop Lefebvre once said, “that Rome has not lost the Faith.”

In your opinion, does this announcement prove or disprove the opportuneness of doctrinal discussions being undertaken between the SSPX and Rome? Answer: It surely proves the opportuneness of their coming to an end. While they were going on, they did have collateral advantages, well enumerated by Bishop de Galarreta (see EC 156, July 10, 2010). However, their mere taking place at all also had the disadvantage of creating in souls either false hopes or true fears of a pseudo-reconciliation between doctrinal positions which are, in reality, absolutely irreconcilable. The announcement of Assisi III has helped to put an end to such hopes and fears, at least for the moment – but dreamers cling to their dreams!

Just as Assisi I was a major incentive for Archbishop Lefebvre to consecrate four bishops in 1988, should the announcement of Assisi III be encouraging the SSPX to consecrate more bishops? Answer: The SSPX’s Superior General answered this question two months ago in the USA. He said that if the circumstances of 1988 which drove the Archbishop to consecrate were repeated, then there would be more bishops. The question then becomes: are the circumstances of Assisi III repeating those of Assisi I? One can only reply, opinions vary. Many serious Catholics think the circumstances have grown much worse, but that is not necessarily the opinion of Bishop Fellay, who as Superior General is responsible for such a major decision for the SSPX.

Then back to our original question: where now for the SSPX? The answer is clear. It must continue along the path set for it by its Founder, namely firm resistance to the (at least objective) apostates in Rome, making known as widely as possible the Archbishop’s diagnosis of the otherwise insoluble problems of Church and world. His solution is simply to maintain Catholic life in accordance with the pre-Conciliar Catholic doctrine and morals of all time, for the greater glory of God and for the salvation of as many souls as possible.

Kyrie eleison.

Future Discussions

Future Discussions on March 5, 2011

To the relief of some, to the disappointment of others, it looks as though the doctrinal Discussions held over the last year and a half between theologians of Rome and representatives of the Society of St Pius X will after all come to an end this spring, because the main subjects of discussion will by then have been covered, without any real prospect of agreement opening up. Such is the conclusion tentatively to be drawn from remarks of the Society’s Superior General, Bishop Fellay, made in the course of an interview he gave on February 2.

Now let anyone disappointed be sure that there are Romans and important priests of the SSPX who will hardly give up their efforts to build a bridge between the churchmen of Vatican II and the churchmen of Catholic Tradition. But howsoever it be with such strivings to unite all Catholics of good will, strivings that ebb and flow, yesterday, today and tomorrow, Our Lord’s words are an anchorage: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mt. XXIV, 35). For on his life the Church’s life is modelled, and in his life there was an ebb and flow of human strivings and sufferings, culminating in the dreadful crucifixion, but while he felt every human urge to shy away from the crucifying will of his Father – “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me . . .” – still his human mind and heart were anchored in that divine will – “ . . .nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Mt.XXVI, 39).

So the same unchanging divine will that directed and anchored Our Lord’s human mind and will, must anchor also the life of his Church. So Popes, Councils, religious Congregations and Societies may come and go, but in order to be Catholic they must submit to that divine will to which Our Lord submitted, and they must tell the exact same truths that Our Lord transmitted from his Father to his Church. Like no other institution upon earth, the Catholic Church is so built around Truth that its survival is proportional to its fidelity to that Truth. It is because the Conciliar Church is putting human interests in the place of divine Truth, that it is disintegrating, and any Catholic Congregation or Society that would do the same will likewise fall apart.

It follows that whoever is faithful to the fullness of revealed Truth is in effect – not in principle, but in practice – in the driving-seat of the Church (See “Letters from the Rector” Vol. IV, p.164). Furthermore, whoever has that Truth and pretends he is not in the driving-seat would be what Our Lord would have called himself, had he denied his Father, “a liar” (Jn.VIII, 55). That is because any messenger disowning the divineness of his divine message is no true lover of his fellow-men, as he and they may like to think, but he has for his father the Father of Lies (Jn.VIII, 44).

There is a Truth, even if most people can barely recognize it. The right and ability of the Romans to govern the Church depends on their being faithful to that Truth. The right and ability of the SSPX to stand up to unfaithful Romans depends on the SSPX’s own faithfulness to the Truth. For now the SSPX has been faithful, so for now the SSPX will survive, but may Rome, by returning to the Truth, make that survival unnecessary!

Kyrie eleison.

Assisi-Ism – No!

Assisi-Ism – No! on January 8, 2011

Some people are still afraid that Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society of St Pius X is on the way to a bad agreement with Benedict XVI’s Rome, but by the Pope’s Assisi-ism amongst other things, one might say that Benedict XVI himself is doing his best to prevent any such occurrence.

Six days ago he argued in theory that the world’s “great religions” can constitute “an important factor of the peace and unity of mankind.” Five days ago he announced in practice that in October of this year he will go “as a pilgrim” to Assisi to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Prayer Meeting of World Religions held there by Pope John-Paul II in 1986. But the theory of all “great world religions” contributing to world peace was absolutely rejected by Archbishop Lefebvre, and the practice of the 1986 Prayer Meeting in Assisi he condemned as a flagrant violation of the First Commandment, which, coming from the Vicar of Christ, constituted a scandal unheard of in all the history of the Church. Only the fear of too much repetition being counter-productive might have stopped him from castigating this latest piece of Assisi-ism.

However, the Archbishop did recognize that all too few Catholics then grasped the enormity of the scandal. This is because the whole modern world marginalizes God, brackets out the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, makes religion a matter of free choice and turns Catholic Tradition into a mere question of sensibility or feeling. Infecting even the Popes, this way of thinking has become so normal all around us that every one of us is threatened. Let us get back to basics:—

All being requires a First Cause. That Cause, to be the First, must be Being Itself, which must be all-perfect being, because any second god, to differ from the First, would have to have some perfection lacking to the First. So the true God can only be one. This one true God took human nature once, and only once, in the divine Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who proved his divinity by a quantity and quality of miracles that have accompanied no other man ever, but have accompanied his Church ever since: the Roman Catholic Church. Membership of that Church is by faith and is open to all men. If they believe, that is the indispensable start of their eternal salvation. If they refuse to believe, they are on their way to eternal damnation (Mk. XVI, 16).

Therefore if by their past and future Assisi events, Popes John-Paul II and Benedict XVI have encouraged souls to think that Catholicism is not the one and only way to a happy eternity, but merely one amongst many other promoters (even if it is the best) of mankind’s “peace and unity” in this life, it follows that both Popes have facilitated the dreadful damnation of countless souls in the next life. Rather than have any part in such a betrayal, Archbishop Lefebvre preferred to be scorned, rejected, despised, marginalized, silenced, “excommunicated,” you name it.

There is a price to be paid for holding to the Truth. How many Catholics are ready to pay it?

Kyrie eleison.

Delay Condemning?

Delay Condemning? on October 30, 2010

Following on several recent numbers of “Eleison Comments” emphasizing the importance of doctrine (EC 162, 165–167, 169), a reader asks if it would not nevertheless be wiser to delay the condemnation of Vatican II, on the grounds that neither the Church officials in Rome nor Catholics at large are ready to accept that the Council is doctrinally as bad as the Society of St Pius X, following Archbishop Lefebvre, says that it is. Actually, it is far worse.

The doctrinal problem with the documents of Vatican II is not, mainly, that they are openly and clearly heretical. In fact their “letter,” as opposed to their “spirit,” can seem Catholic, to the point that Archbishop Lefebvre, who took direct part in all four Sessions of the Council, signed off on all but the two last and worst of those documents, “Gaudium et Spes” and “Dignitatis Humanae.” However, that “letter” is subtly contaminated with the “spirit” of the brand-new man-centered religion towards which the Council Fathers were inclining, and which has been corrupting the Church ever since. If the Archbishop could vote again today on the 16 documents, one wonders if with the wisdom of hindsight he would vote for a single one of them.

So the documents are ambiguous, outwardly interpretable as being Catholic for the most part, but inwardly poisoned with modernism, that most pernicious of all Church heresies, said St Pius X in “Pascendi.” So when for instance “conservative” Catholics, out of “loyalty” to the Church, defend the documents, what exactly are they conserving? The poison, and its ability to go on corrupting the Catholic Faith of millions of souls, thereby setting them on the path to eternal damnation. It all reminds me of one Allied convoy crossing the Atlantic with vital supplies for the Allies in World War II. An enemy submarine succeeded in surfacing in the very middle of the defensive perimeter of ships, so that it was free to torpedo them one after another, because the Allied destroyers were chasing around and around the perimeter outside to hunt down the submarine, never imagining it could be in their midst! The Devil is in the midst of the Vatican II documents and he is torpedoing the eternal salvation of millions of souls, because he is so well disguised in those documents.

Now imagine a sailor with sharp eyes on board one of the merchant-ships in the convoy who has noticed the little tell-tale wake of the submarine’s snorkel. He yells, “The submarine is inside!,” but nobody takes him seriously. Is he to wait and keep quiet, or is he to scream “Blue Murder!,” and go on screaming, until at last the captain is brought to see the deadly danger?

The SSPX must scream about Vatican II, and go on screaming, and without ceasing, because millions of souls are in deadly and unceasing danger. To grasp that danger, admittedly difficult to grasp in theory, read, or get translated into your own language, Fr. Alvaro Calderon’s profound book on the Vatican II documents, “Prometeo: la Religion del Hombre.”

Kyrie eleison.

Blessed Cave

Blessed Cave on October 16, 2010

How absurd it is to separate grace from nature! The two are made for one another! How much more absurd to conceive of grace as though it makes war on nature! It makes war on the fallen-ness of our fallen nature, but not on the nature, coming from God, which underlies that fallen-ness. On the contrary, grace exists to heal that underlying nature from its fallen-ness and falls, and to elevate it to divine heights, to a partaking in the very nature of God (II Pet. I, 4).

Now nature without grace may lead to Revolution, but grace scorning nature leads to a false “spirituality,” for instance Jansenism, which also leads to Revolution. Of the gravity of this Protestantising error, which sets grace against nature instead of against sin, I was reminded on a seven-day visit to Italy which took in a visit to four mountainous sites, to which four great medieval Saints, all in the Breviary and the Missal, fled, to get close to God – in Nature. They were, in chronological order, St. Benedict (March 22, Subiaco), St. Romuald, (Feb.7, Camaldoli), St. John Gualbert (July 12, Vallombrosa), and St. Francis of Assisi (Oct.4, la Verna).

From Camaldoli and Vallumbrosa, high in the hills around Florence, two monastic Orders took their name and origin in the 11th century. In la Verna, high in the Tuscan Apennines, St Francis received the stigmata in 1224. All three locations are now reached with relative ease in bus or car, but they are still surrounded by forestland, and they are high enough above sea-level that they must be bitterly cold in winter. That is where these Saints went to commune with God, far from the comfort of cities with their “madding crowd,” still madding enough even in the rather smaller cities of those days.

Perhaps the site which struck me most was Subiaco, an hour’s car journey east of Rome, where St Benedict as a young man spent three years in a cave perched on a mountainside. Born in 580 A.D., as a young student he fled from the corruption in Rome, and took to the hills at the age of 20 or, some say, 14! – if so, what a teenager! From about 1200 A.D. a full-scale monastery began to be nested in the mountainside around the spot made sacred by this young man, but one can still guess what he found there in his search for God: clouds and sky above, the torrent rustling in the valley far below, nothing but wild woodland on the mountain-face opposite, and for company nothing but the birds wheeling to and fro off the steep cliff-face . . . alone with Nature . . . God’s Nature . . . alone with God!

Three years, alone with God . . . those three years so enabled one young Catholic to possess his soul, with Christ, in Nature, that his famous Benedictine Rule enabled the collapsed Roman empire to mutate into soaring Christendom, now in turn collapsing as “Western civilization.” Where are the young Catholics today, who will save Christendom by re-possessing their own souls by re-possessing, with Christ, their nature?

Mother of God, inspire our young men!

Kyrie eleison.