Rome

Two Bishops

Two Bishops 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 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 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.

Defending Menzingen

Defending Menzingen on February 10, 2018

Thanks to the directly anti-Catholic words and deeds for the last five years of the present occupant of the See of Peter, delinquencies to which the way was opened by Vatican II, it is less comprehensible than ever that the successors of Archbishop Lefebvre still want to put the Society under Roman control, but in effect they do. Does a Cardinal’s hat appeal? Are they tired of the battle? Are they desperate to be “recognised” by Conciliarists? Can they really think that the Archbishop would have approved of what they are doing? God knows. Howsoever that be, servants of Menzingen are still trying to defend its 20-year slide down from the position of the Archbishop. Here are two recent examples:—

Firstly, to defend Bishop Fellay’s policy of accepting a personal prelature from Rome, a Society priest (http://​fsspx.​news/​en/​content/​34797) seems to think that such a prelature will guarantee for the Society protection from the modernists in Rome. But will Rome be in control of the prelature or not? If it is in control, it may take its time, as it did with St Peter’s Fraternity, but it will use its control slowly to strangle Tradition within the prelature. To think otherwise is simply not to have understood who these Romans are. “Only Saints believe in evil,” said Gustavo Corçao. As for the Archbishop, he called these Romans “antichrists.” And if the prelature does not put them in control, they will never grant it in the first place.

And secondly, this priest attempts to discredit adversaries of the prelature by claiming that they say that the Archbishop changed his principles when he refused the Protocol of May, 1988. The claim is groundless. As the priest himself says, the Archbishop’s change was merely prudential, following on the definitive demonstration just given by the Romans in the Protocol negotiations that they had no intention of looking after Tradition, such as the Society and the Archbishop understood Tradition. For as long as the Romans gave any sign of genuine concern for Tradition, the Archbishop was patient, and he went as far as he could to meet them (in fact further in the Protocol than he should have done, as he once admitted later). But once they had made it clear that in reality they had no such concern, then the Archbishop was inexorable – from then on doctrine would take the place of diplomacy, and the Romans would first have to prove that they were on the same doctrinal page as Catholic Tradition. That was on the Archbishop’s part no change of principles, but merely the final recognition that the Romans were set upon dechristianising, and not on rechristianising, as he wrote a month later to Cardinal Ratzinger.

Likewise the Catholic Family News blog of November last year serves Menzingen. The blog is intelligent, speculating that Rome’s real bait-and-trap to catch the Society is not aimed at the Society’s wholesale surrender, but at its piecemeal division and disintegration (actually, Rome is achieving both). Thus Rome makes repeated enticing offers, each of which divides Society priests so that some break away, while Menzingen gets up its hopes, only to see them dashed by another impossible demand of Rome. And the game will go on until the Society is completely undone. Therefore, concludes CFN, the Society must remain united at all costs and no Society priest must defect.

But, dear CFN, how did the Archbishop build up the Society in the first place? Certainly he too suffered from divisions and defections under him. Did he nevertheless build by crying for unity, unity, unity? That was the great argument of Rome against the Archbishop! His own great argument was the Faith, the Truth, the Faith. To plead as you do for the Society’s unity behind pro-Rome Menzingen is to plead for the Society’s destruction! Unity is always specified by that around which one is to unite. Under the Archbishop it was around Catholic Truth, the whole strength of the Society. Since 2012 it is around Menzingen, presently the division and ruin of the Society.

Take heart, dear readers. “The truth is mighty and will prevail,” with or without the Society of St Pius X.

Kyrie eleison.

“Official Church”?

“Official Church”? on February 3, 2018

One needs to be very careful with words, because words are the handle of our mind upon things, and things are the stuff of everyday life. Therefore upon words depends how we will lead our lives. At the flagship parish church of the Society of St Pius X in Paris, France, there is a Society priest taking due care of words. Fr Gabriel Billecocq wrote in last month’s issue (#333) of the parish’s monthly magazine Le Chardonnet an article entitled “Did you say ‘official Church’?.” In it he never once mentions Society Headquarters in Menzingen, Switzerland, but he does complain of the “wish” coming from somewhere, presumably on high, that the words “Conciliar Church” should always be replaced by the words “official Church.” And he is right, because the words “Conciliar Church” are perfectly clear, whereas the words “official Church” are not clear, but ambiguous.

For on the one hand “Conciliar Church” signifies clearly that large part of today’s Church which is more or less poisoned with the errors of the Second Vatican Council. Those errors consist essentially in the re-centring upon man of the Church which should be centred on God. On the other hand “official Church” is an expression with two possible meanings. Either it can mean the Church officially instituted by Christ and officially brought to us down the ages by the succession of Popes, and to that “official Church” no Catholic can object, on the contrary. Or “official Church” can be taken to mean that mass of the Church’s officials devoted to Vatican II who for the last half-century have been using their official power in Rome to inflict upon Catholics the Conciliar errors, and to this “official Church” no Catholic can not object. Therefore “Conciliar Church” expresses something automatically bad, while “official Church” expresses something good or bad, depending upon which of its two meanings it is being given. Therefore to replace “Conciliar Church” by “official church” is to replace clarity by confusion, and it also stops Catholics from referring to the evil of Vatican II.

Fr Billecocq never suggests that Society Headquarters did “wish” such a thing, but a fact and a speculation do suggest it. As for the fact, earlier this month the Society’s French District Superior, Fr Christian Bouchacourt, being interviewed in public about the Society’s up-coming elections in July, said: “As soon as a Superior General is elected, the Vatican is immediately notified of the decision.” Such notifying of the Vatican by the Society as to Society elections has never been done before. And it strongly suggests that the Society’s present leaders look forward to Rome not only being informed but also giving its official approval of the Society’s choice of its leaders – why notify if not to get approval? What else will the Newsociety beg for from the Newchurch? What will it not beg for? How far the Society has come from the days when the faith of Archbishop Lefebvre used to force Rome to do the begging!

As for the speculation, we hear that two main candidates are being groomed by Menzingen for voters at the Society’s July elections to choose as Superior General, because the post will no longer be taken by a bishop. At a guess, Rome is already in virtual control of these major decisions being taken within Society Headquarters. In that case Rome has little to fear of either of these two candidates substantially changing Bishop Fellay’s pro-Roman policies, while it may have much to gain from the appearance of a change at the top, and it may be able to make use of Bishop Fellay in Rome to be head of a “renovated” Ecclesia Dei Congregation, to include all Traditional communities, including his own former Society.

Who can doubt the skill of the Romans to turn all situations to their advantage? Unless . . . unless there were to break out again within the Society that Faith and Truth which were the driving force of Archbishop Lefebvre and of his victory over all the liberals and modernists in Rome. These demons strive to undo once and for all God’s Catholic Tradition which is the most serious potential obstacle to their new One World Religion. And God may require no less than the blood of Catholic martyrs to stop them. The martyrs coming from among the Society’s priests and lay-folk will be its glory.

Kyrie eleison.

Menzingen Commands

Menzingen Commands on November 11, 2017

By no means all readers of these “Comments” are in favour of criticism of the words and deeds of the Headquarters at Menzingen of the Newsociety of St Pius X. However, there are many who see that just as Archbishop Lefebvre was, for the good of the Catholic Church, fully justified in taking his fruitful stand against its being wrecked by the Second Vatican Council, so one is fully justified, for the same salvation of souls, to criticise in public the slide of that Newsociety into the arms of Rome’s Conciliar officials. The June issue of Menzingen’s in-house journal for Society priests, “Cor Unum,” published yet another hard-hitting justification of that slide. Menzingen is obdurate. Menzingen must be corrected, in public.

There follows in italics a fair summary of some of the main arguments, which can be checked (in French) on the Internet at the website Résistance catholique francophone:: Cor Unum juin 2017

Archbishop Lefebvre made Society relations with Rome the concern of the Superior General (SG) alone.

That was because he knew that his own priests under him could not be relied upon to understand the extreme need for prudence in dealing with the Roman officials. The present SG proves how right he was.

The General Chapter of 2006 entitled the Society authorities to dismiss from the Society any priest disagreeing with their policies in public – “This warning is to be taken seriously.”

That is just how Paul VI “dismissed” Archbishop Lefebvre. Does Menzingen see who it is imitating? And did the priests voting in 2006 foresee where their authorising such dismissals was going to lead?

No matter how good are the dissenting arguments, public dissent always harms the common good.

Did Archbishop Lefebvre harm the (true) Church’s common good by his two decades of dissent? Truth is the ultimate measure of authority, especially in the Catholic Church, and not the other way round!

Archbishop Lefebvre saved the Church by forming priests in accordance with Catholic Tradition.

Not exactly. Forming good priests was his way of saving the Catholic Faith. But priests now being formed by Menzingen to go along with Conciliar Romans risk saving neither Faith nor Church.

The Archbishop always recognized, and wanted Society priests to recognize, the Church authorities in place, both before and after he consecrated four bishops in 1988.

Yes, but in 1988, after the Romans had once and for all proved that they would not look after the Faith, his attitude towards them changed radically: “Up till now, diplomacy, but from now on doctrine,” he said, as Menzingen well knows, but Menzingen just does not see doctrine’s importance as the Archbishop did.

Exactly. Dissenters from Menzingen are making questions of prudence into matters of Faith.

No. To submit believing Catholics to Conciliar – i.e. disbelieving – Romans, is directly a matter of Faith.

But how can such Romans be converted if the Society’s believing Catholics refuse all contact with them?

How can Catholics keep the Faith if they submit to contagious, even innocently dangerous, modernists?

But not everything in today’s mainstream Church is Conciliar. It includes conservatives, who like us.

But the conservatives have no power. All power in Rome is in the hands of Freemasons who are bitter and resolute enemies of Catholic Tradition, of Our Lord’s Church, of Our Lord and of God. And everything in the mainstream Church is being taken ultimately in the Conciliar direction, especially by Pope Francis.

Kyrie eleison.