Russia

Reply to Open Letter of Mgr. Nicola Bux

Reply to Open Letter of Mgr. Nicola Bux on March 24, 2012

London, 22 March, 2012.

Monseigneur,

In an Open Letter of March 19, addressed to Bishop Fellay and to all priests of the Society of St Pius X, you appealed to us to accept the sincere and warm-hearted offer of reconciliation that Pope Benedict XVI is making to the SSPX for the healing of the long-standing rift between Rome and the SSPX. Let me as one of the SSPX priests that you addressed take upon myself to give you my opinion as to what might have been the answer of that “great churchman,” Archbishop Lefebvre.

Your letter begins with an appeal for “every sacrifice in the name of unity.” But there can be no true Catholic unity that is not grounded in the true Catholic Faith. The great Archbishop made every sacrifice for unity in the true doctrine of the Faith. Alas, the Doctrinal Discussions of 2009–2011 proved that the doctrinal rift between the Rome of Vatican II and the SSPX is as wide as ever.

To this rift you referred on March 19 as no more than “remaining perplexities, points to be deepened or detailed,” but on March 16 Cardinal Levada was categoric that the position taken by Bishop Fellay on January 12 is “insufficient to overcome the doctrinal problems.” Bishop Fellay once observed how the churchmen of Rome can differ among themselves, but be their unity what it may, in any case Faith sacrificed for unity would be a faithless unity.

Of course, as you remind us, the Church is an institution both divine and human. Of course the divine element cannot fail, so of course the Church cannot ultimately fail, and the sun will rise again. But one may beg to differ when you say that the dawn is close at hand, because that true Faith which the SSPX upheld in the Discussions is not shining out from the Rome of Vatican II, where accordingly the SSPX could not be in safety. Nor could it bring light if itself it adopted the Conciliar darkness.

The sincerity of the Pope’s wish to welcome back the SSPX into “full ecclesial communion,” as shown in a series of gestures of real good will, is not in doubt, but “ a common profession of faith” between the SSPX and believers in Vatican II is not possible, unless the SSPX were to desert that Faith which it defended in the Discussions. And when the SSPX cries “God forbid!” to any such desertion, far from its voice being stifled, it is heard all over the world, and it bears for the Church Catholic fruits which today are the exception rather than the rule.

Certainly, “this is the appropriate moment,” certainly “the favourable time is come” for a solution to the agonizing problems of Church and world . However, it is that solution which the Heavenly Mother has long been calling for, and which depends upon the Holy Father alone. In fact when Our Lord put it in his Mother’s hands, she said that no other solution would work, so that He could not let any other solution work without making his Mother into a liar! Inconceivable!

The solution has been known of for a long time, for how could Heaven possibly have left the world in such distress as that of the last 100 years without providing a remedy like that provided by the prophet Elisha for the leprosy of the Syrian General Naaman? Humanly speaking, bathing in the River Jordan seemed ridiculous, but nobody could say that it was not possible. It required merely some faith and humility. The pagan General gathered together enough faith and trust in the man of God to do what Heaven asked for, and of course he was cured instantaneously.

Let the Holy Father but gather together enough faith and trust in the promise of the Heavenly Mother! Let him but seize this “appropriate moment” before the entire global economy collapses in ruins, and before madmen succeed in launching the Third World War in the Middle East! Let him, we beg of him, we entreat him, save Church and world by merely doing what the Heavenly Mother asked for. It is not impossible. She would overcome all obstacles in his way. By doing what she asks for, he alone can now save us from unimaginable – and unnecessary – suffering.

And if he wishes for any support in prayer or action with which the humble SSPX could help him to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart in union with all the bishops of the world, whom the Heavenly Mother would rally, he knows that he could count first and foremost on the support of Bishop Fellay and the other three bishops of the SSPX, least among whom is

Your devoted servant in Christ, +Richard Williamson.

Modern Art – II

Modern Art – II on July 17, 2010

By its very ugliness, modern art points to the existence and goodness of God. After three months (cf. EC 144), let us return to this paradox, in the hope that if any soul admits the common sense difference between beauty and ugliness in art, that soul may be helped further to see that if God did not exist, that difference would not exist either.

The word “art” means skill, or the products of human skill. It can cover paintings, drawings, sculpture, fashions in clothing, music, architecture, and so on. The expression “modern art” usually refers to paintings and sculpture in particular, as generated from the early 1900’s onwards by a movement of artists who deliberately rejected, and reject, all standards and measures of beauty as understood before the 20th century. The difference between pre-modern and modern art is as real and clear as the difference here in London between the classical Tate Museum on Millbank, and the Tate Modern, a completely new museum, floated ten years ago a short boat-ride downstream from its progenitor on the opposite bank of the Thames. It is as though modern art cannot sit still under the same roof as pre-modern art. They war on one another, just as do old church buildings and the New Mass.

Now modern art in this sense is characterized by its ugliness. Common sense agrees here with the Communist leader Kruschev, who is reported to have commented on a modern art exhibition in Russia, “A donkey could do better with its tail.” And what is ugliness? Disharmony. In Arianna Huffington’s admirable book, “Picasso, Creator and Destroyer,” she demonstrated how each time Picasso fell in love with another of his six (main) women, his calmer paintings reflected something of their natural beauty, but as soon as he fell out of love again, his rage tore that beauty to pieces in “masterpieces” of modern art. She shows how the pattern repeats itself in Picasso like clockwork!

Thus beauty in art comes from a harmony in the soul, be it a merely earthly harmony, whereas ugliness proceeds from a disharmony in the soul, as of hate. But harmony has no need of disharmony, on the contrary, whereas disharmony, as the word suggests, presupposes some harmony on which it is, essentially, making war. Thus harmony is prior to disharmony, and every disharmony testifies to some harmony. But more profoundly harmonious than any paintings of lovely women can be paintings of the Madonna, because the harmony in the soul of the artist painting the Mother of God can go far higher and deeper than the harmony inspired by any merely human model, however lovely. Why? Because the beauty of the Madonna derives from her closeness to God whose divine harmony – perfect simplicity and unity – infinitely surpasses the human harmony of the loveliest of mere creatures.

Therefore poor modern art points to the harmony it lacks, and all harmony points to God. Then let nobody resort to the ugliness of modern architecture to house the Tridentine Mass. One would guess he was wanting, or waiting, to go back to the disharmony of the Novus Ordo Mass!

Kyrie eleison.

Shifting Perspectives

Shifting Perspectives on August 29, 2009

A remarkable yet possible plan of Heaven for today’s world can be guessed at, if Orthodox Christianity is reviving within Russia in the manner described to me a few days ago in London by a Russian. His description corresponds to the impression brought away from Russia by an American friend visiting St Petersburg a few years ago – the average Russian has distinctly more spiritual substance in him then has the average spiritually wasted Westerner. Does this connect with Our Lady of Fatima . . .?

The Russian in London told me that the Orthodox Church in Russia is following rather than leading a revival of Orthodoxy amongst the people. Attendance at the Orthodox liturgy has increased by half over the last two years, and now 80% of Russians are at least calling themselves “Orthodox,” i.e. believers. New parishes are springing up everywhere. Bibles are snatched up as soon as they come on sale. Religious literature is flourishing, whilst atheistic propaganda is dying. “Holy Russia” is rising from the grave in which Communism from 1917 to 1989 strove to bury it.

For when the Communist structures of the Soviet “empire of evil” (Pres. Reagan) collapsed in 1989, the Russians turned for an ideology to replace Communism not to Western Liberalism but to their national and religious roots in Russian Orthodoxy. What indeed had the decadent West had to offer to Russia’s new needs in the 1990’s? In economics, the plundering of their wealth by capitalist vultures; in politics, the still on-going encirclement of their frontiers to ensure the United States’ permanent global hegemony by the construction of a ring of military bases which are one, if not the real, reason for the disastrous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan never to come to an end; in religion, the attempted push eastwards into their land of Conciliar ecumenism, with which apparently the Russian churchmen want nothing to do – on the contrary, they are aware of the Traditional Catholic movement, and support it.

However, let us be under no illusion: Russian Orthodoxy welds together religion and patriotism in a not wholly godly mixture, and Orthodoxy is still schismatic by refusing the Papal Supremacy, and heretical by refusing a number of dogmas, so Russians do need to be converted to the truly Universal or Catholic Church. But if Our Lady of Fatima has singled out their country for the Consecration to her Heart, may the reason not be, not that the Russians are still wicked Communists but that the Russian people’s huge sufferings from their 70 Babylonian years of Communist captivity are calling forth from the always religious depths of “Holy Russia” an upsurge of spiritual vitality? And could this not save the true Church, presently wilting in the West, where the mainstream Church may still have large numbers but has little Faith whilst the Traditional remnant has the true Faith but negligible numbers? God knows how the Western Church also needs conversion!

May it then be Russia’s smashing of the encirclement in a Third World War leading to an occupation of Europe, which will at last drive the Latin Pope to consecrate Russia to Our Lady’s Heart, as she has so long been asking for in vain? Will at that moment the Russians’ renewed religious vigor save our languishing Catholic Tradition, whilst our Tradition will cleanse their errors? If so, then God will once again have “concluded all in unbelief, that He may have mercy on all . . .How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways . . . To Him be glory for ever” (Rom. XI, 32 . . .36).

Catholics, mainstream and of Tradition, pray your hearts out for the Consecration of Russia to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of the Mother of God, or “Theotokos” as she is known in the Eastern Church.

Kyrie eleison.

81 / 121 Re-Structuring

81 / 121 Re-Structuring on June 27, 2009

Tomorrow, or the day after, there is hardly a box outside of which it will not be necessary to think. In Church and world, the mentalities and structures of so-called “Western civilization” are collapsing around our ears. Still the mass of Western souls are preferring to slumber on in their audio-visual dream, but reality is closing in all the time – they may awake not before they are shackled into the New World Order.

The USA has for nearly a century acted as the shield and sword-bearer of “Western civilization.” Now its financial, economic and political power structures are melting down in a welter of greed, corruption, selfishness and dissolution slung between Wall Street, New York, and Washington, DC. However – let it never be said too often – “We the people” have only ourselves to blame. We have wanted the cause: godless materialism. Now we must live with the effects: the final breakdown of fractional reserve “banking,” of paper “money,” of democratic “politics.”

City structures are crumpling. In Flint, Michigan, original home of General Motors presently employing 8,000 local people where once it employed 79,000 and now bankrupt, local politicians are pioneering an idea to save their dwindling city: raze entire districts and return the land to nature. This idea so appeals to the Federal Government that another 50 cities have been earmarked as potential candidates for salvation by the bulldozer, including Detroit, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

State structures are failing. In California, Controller John Chiang said a few days ago that if State lawmakers cannot quickly solve California’s 24 billion dollar deficit, then next week he will have to pay State debts with paper promises to pay. “Unfortunately,” said he, “the State’s inability to balance the check-book will now mean short-changing taxpayers, local governments and small businesses.” It is easy to imagine how these will react, but it is not easy to imagine how the budget deficit will be solved.

As for our national structures, if we will not acquiesce to their being merged into the international New World Order, then surely a Third World War will be engineered to persuade us, starting with an 81/121 (a 9/11 squared)! Yet all these collapses pale in comparison with Vatican II, because it was the Catholic Church that was upholding “Western civilization.” If the Catholic collapse is not soon reversed by the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, then one must wonder if the healthiest elements in the Church will not need re-structuring as an underground resistance movement.

Kyrie eleison.

Kings Insufficient

Kings Insufficient on May 2, 2009

I have never felt entirely comfortable around monarchists, by which I mean people for whom a return to kings and queens would solve a large part of our present democratic woes. I agree that bygone monarchies like those of England, France and Russia are great landscapes for a nostalgia trip, and that Cromwell, Robespierre and Lenin were treacherous pioneers of a ghastly New World Order. Nevertheless the nostalgia comes across to me as a distraction.

Such thoughts arise from a visit to the delightful Exhibition at the Tate (Britain) Gallery in London, open until May 17, entitled “Van Dyck and Britain.” Sir Anthony van Dyck, knighted by King Charles I, was the outstanding painter of 17th century England. Born in 1599 in Antwerp, in today’s Belgium, he showed an early talent for painting, and soon became the “best pupil” of the famous Flemish painter, Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). Amidst youthful travels on the Continent, in particular to Genoa to learn from the Italian masters, he made a brief visit to London in 1620–1621.

However, from 1632 until his early death in 1641, at the invitation of the Stuart King Charles I, a keen patron of the arts, van Dyck came to England mostly to stay. Here he became the fashionable and highly influential portrait painter of England’s ruling class, projecting, as no doubt the King had wished, a glamorous image of the Stuart kingdom. The glamour lives on in the colorful and characterful portraits that make up the bulk of this Exhibition.

Like his Continental masters, Rubens and Titian, and like the King’s spouse, Henrietta Maria of France, van Dyck was a Catholic. Even if a Puritan could be a painter, never could he rejoice as does van Dyck in the play of light upon gorgeous fabrics, nor could he portray costumes still more fanciful than they were in reality, like van Dyck’s ballooning sleeves. Of course the Puritans made war on Charles, and in 1649 they cut off his head, but with the Stuart Restoration of 1660 some of the color and joy returned, and van Dyck’s influence upon English portrait painting lasted – one thinks in particular of Gainsborough and Reynolds in the 18th century – through to the early 20th century, when at last the lights were switched out all over Europe, and remaining monarchies were extinguished with them, or gutted.

Therefore kings alone are not enough. They may patronize the arts, and their courts may uphold for a while the glamour and the glory, as reflected for instance by van Dyck, in whose dashing canvases one finds surprisingly little or no trace of the murderous tensions underlying the 1630’s in England. Nevertheless soon after him King and court were swept away, and only Restored on modern skids. What then does it take to overcome colorless and glamourless modernity? No less than the King of kings, and his Catholic Cross! “O crux ave, spes unica” – “Hail to thee, Cross, our only hope.”

Kyrie eleison.

Providence’s 2009

Providence’s 2009 on December 27, 2008

In mid-November last year “Eleison Comments” recommended “fastening seat-belts” for the year 2008, because a couple of private revelations and above all “pressure building towards a third World War” together constituted “at least an orange alert.” Was the alert justified? What about 2009?

As for the alert, WW III has still been postponed, but it is surely not cancelled. “The justice of God grinds slow,” says the old proverb, “but it grinds exceeding small.” In other words, the Lord God may take his time – “He dealeth patiently for your sake” says St. Peter, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance” (II Pet.III,9) – yet God does not miss the least little detail. The year 2008 has seen only the stepping up of the offences against him – indifference, blasphemy, immorality, etc, etc. At a given moment he is going to say, “Enough!” In 2009?

Possibly. In any case it is worth recalling that in 1917, under Pope Benedict XV, Our Lady said at Fatima that if Russia were not consecrated to her Immaculate Heart in the way she would come to ask, then another more terrible war than WW I, then raging, would break out “under the reign of the next pope.” This would be Pius XI. Yet Pius XI died in February of 1939, whereas WW II was declared by England and France only in September of that year, under Pius XII. Had Our Lady made a mistake?

That is not likely. What happened was that in January of 1938, while Pius XI was still pope, exactly when the unusual red light foretold by Our Lady to be the warning sign of “the more terrible war” was seen all over Europe’s night-sky, Stalin was being told in Russia how, by making an alliance with Hitler (the subsequent Ribbentrop Pact), he would enable Hitler to launch an exhausting war to the West (declared ten days after the Pact!) which would open the way for Russia to take over all Europe from the East. In other words, WW II broke out in public under Pius XII only because it had been previously planned and decided in private under Pius XI. So Our Lady was not mistaken. And God knows how for well over a century his enemies have been planning WW III.

So as for the coming year, let souls still asleep in economics or politics wake up to how it is God’s justice that is closing in, and let souls awake but who may be discouraged or frightened by what they see around them, take heart! Shortly before dying of a horribly painful tuberculosis, St Therese of Lisieux said, “I am more convinced than ever that Providence watches over the least little detail of our lives.” How could it be otherwise?

Kyrie eleison.