Society of St. Pius X

Chaos Deciphered

Chaos Deciphered on March 24, 2018

Just before Holy Week is a good moment to reflect on the passion (suffering) of the Catholic Church. A

reader writes: “Can you tell us what on earth is going on with SSPX, Bishop Fellay, and others? We’re hearing some weird stories down here, and we don’t quite know what to believe. THINGS ARE FRACTURED ALMOST BEYOND BELIEF – EVERYWHERE. Starting from (1) the Novus Ordo, we have (2) the SSPX, (3) the Sedevacantists, (4) the SSPX Resistance, and (5) Fr. Pfeiffer’s group, with more splits to come, no doubt! What on earth is “Pope” Francis up to? He spends all his time playing politics, nothing spiritual! And one hears that Fellay is chasing a scarlet hat! What does that mean?

Dear Friend, the Catholic Church is in a state of chaos, by a just punishment of God, because His Church is the “light of the world” and the “salt of the earth,” but all over the world mankind is turning away from Him, including even His own churchmen. Nor is it any use God raising a good Pope too soon, because the churchmen would merely turn and tear him (Mt. VII, 6), as perhaps they assassinated John-Paul I. So the whole world is going to be in darkness (no light) and corruption (no salt), until enough men are so overwhelmed by today’s galloping chaos that they get back on their knees to beg God in His mercy to put the Pope back on his feet, who at the moment, as you say, is playing politics instead of religion.

The Pope is crucial because he is the rock on which the Church is built (Mt. XVI, 18), so that if he is fractured through wanting to follow the corrupt world instead of leading it out of its corruption, then as you say “things are fractured almost beyond belief – everywhere.” When Our Lord was struck in the Garden of Gethsemane all the Apostles were scattered (Zachary XIII, 7; Mt. XXVI, 31). Today Pope Francis is so deeply struck that authority throughout the Church is essentially dislocated.

The problem of Pope Francis goes back to the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), because that was when and where the Popes gave up resisting the decadent modern world and decided to follow it instead. Up till Pius XII included (1939–1958), the Popes had resisted that decadence, but it was so glamorous and overpowering that John XXIII, Paul VI, John-Paul II and Benedict XVI all allowed themselves to be deluded (not without their own fault). They created your (1), the Novus Ordo or Conciliar Church, named after the New Order of Mass which has turned masses of Catholics into virtual Protestants. Pope Francis not only shares these Popes’ errors from the accursed Council, but he also puts them most destructively into practice, causing more chaos in the Church than ever.

Yet soon after the Council, God had raised a Catholic Archbishop to found a Congregation to look after all souls that refused to abandon Catholic Tradition which was then being abandoned by the Popes and the mass of churchmen. That was your (2), the SSPX, or Society of St Pius X, which flourished until the Archbishop died in 1991. But before he died there began also your (3), the “sedevacantists” who are so scandalised by the Conciliar Popes that they refuse even to believe that they are true Popes. And after the Archbishop died, his younger successors at the head of his Society, suckled on the modern world, fell foul of the same errors as the Council, notably Bishop Fellay who may well be seeking a Cardinal’s hat as a reward for his corrupting the resistance of Tradition to the Newchurch. This betrayal of the Archbishop’s true resistance from inside the Society gave rise to your (4) the SSPX “Resistance,” in which scattered priests hang loosely together to keep the Catholic Faith being now corrupted inside both the Novus Ordo and the SSPX. Good Catholics hanker for less looseness, but by now half a century of Conciliar Popes had essentially broken Catholic structure. However, your (5) now arose, Fr. Pfeiffer’s group, to which the (4) “Resistance”did not seem to be resisting enough.

In brief, within all five groupings there are scattered Catholic sheep known to God, who have the faith and want and mean to be Catholics, but Conciliar Popes are incapable of pulling Catholics together in the true Faith. And since nobody less than a Pope in his right mind can fulfil that function, then “what cannot be cured must be endured,” until God intervenes. For God to intervene, let any Catholic – or non-Catholic! – pray 15 Mysteries of the Rosary every day for God’s Mother to intercede with her Son.

Kyrie eleison.

Menzingen Defended – II

Menzingen Defended – II on March 3, 2018

No doubt some readers of these “Comments” are not so interested in reading about what seem to them merely internal squabbles among relatively few Catholic priests. Let such readers beware of missing the importance of these “squabbles.” Religion leads the world because God exists, and how men stand to him (religion) governs how they stand to their fellow-men (politics). The Catholic Church leads religion because since Christ’s Incarnation Catholicism is the only religion founded by the one true God. And Catholic Tradition leads the Catholic Church because that Church is as essentially unchanging as Our Lord Himself. And for 42 years (1970–2012) the Society of St Pius X was in the front-line of the defence of Catholic Tradition because it was the only worldwide Catholic organisation effectively resisting the unfaithful modernisation of the Church by the Second Vatican Council. Therefore all men alive, atheists or Protestants or Conciliarists, especially priests and followers of the SSPX, are concerned by the problem of infidelity to Catholic Tradition within the SSPX. Read on, everybody!

Another champion of Menzingen, Fr. B., has stepped into the lists to defend its policy of rejoining Conciliar Rome – let us call them the Reconciliarists – with an article in the official monthly magazine of the SSPX in the USA. Ever since Vatican II separated Catholic Authority from the Catholic Truth which it only exists to defend and maintain, all Catholics have been necessarily more or less schizophrenic – either they follow Authority and abandon Truth, or they follow Truth and abandon Authority, or they choose any one of a variety of combinations in between.

The Founder of the SSPX, Archbishop Lefebvre, chose Truth, but kept as much respect for the holders of Catholic Authority as was compatible with faithfulness to the Truth, and as a result he suffered serious persecution and condemnation from all Catholics who more or less preferred Authority On the contrary, his successors at the head of his Society are wanting to take it back under Conciliar Authority, so that from 2012 the Society has been officially Reconciliarist. By this switch of the SSPX from the Founder’s Truth back to Conciliar Authority, they have filled the Society with schizophrenia, causing a movement of “Resistance” to their “Reconciliarism.”

For most of his article, Fr B. is Catholic in his principles, but at the end he is Reconciliarist in their application. Therefore possibly to help the Society’s present Reconciliarist Superior General to be re-elected in July, he attacks the “Resistance” not for its attachment to Truth, which is its strong point, but for its detachment from Catholic Authority, both in Rome and in Menzingen. Thus, Fr B. says, towards Rome the “Resistance” is for the sake of its own “ease and convenience” in danger of ignoring the Pope and of not acknowledging his authority, while towards Menzingen it is refusing proper respect and obedience, and by criticising every word uttered by the Superior General it is sowing suspicion and blocking the channels of grace.

But, Reverend Father, among your Catholic principles you yourself acknowledge the primacy of the Faith. Now Vatican II was a disaster for the Faith, by trying to put modern man in the place of God. Therefore Conciliarism and Reconciliarism are both disastrous, and both the officials of Rome and the Society’s present Superior General are to be judged accordingly. And he must not be replaced by another Reconciliarist. The problem is not the “Resistance” which does not “ignore” the Pope and is certainly not seeking its own ease and convenience, because it is highly uncomfortable for Catholics to be deprived of all support from recognisable Catholic officials above. Therefore the “Resistance” is neither falling into “a schismatic attitude in its own right,” nor is it wrecking the channels of grace. The problem is the Council causing schism, the Council poisoning the Popes and the Council strangling the grace of Jesus Christ. The present Superior General must not be re-elected if anything of the true Society is to survive.

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.

SSPX, 2018?

SSPX, 2018? on January 6, 2018

As the world plunges downhill, more and more people are opening their eyes and are wondering where it will end. As the Catholic Church is led resolutely downhill by a pope who seems intent only on rubbing out the last traces of the pre-Conciliar Church, more and more Catholics are opening their eyes and are driven to wondering if the Council (1962–1965) was not some kind of problem for the true Catholic Church. Then they look towards the Society of St Pius X, because it was founded in 1970 by Archbishop Lefebvre precisely to ensure the continuation of the pre-Conciliar Church, and what do they find? A group of priests more and more sympathetic to the post-conciliar Church, less and less clear on Vatican II, and sliding into the arms of the Conciliar Romans. Result? Many of these souls looking for the Truth are more confused than ever. So where are the Church and the Society of St Pius X headed in 2018?

Souls looking for the Truth must read (for instance Ralph Wiltgen’s The Rhine flows into the Tiber, or Archbishop Lefebvre’s Letter to Confused Catholics). That is how many Catholics found their way in the 1970’s and 1980’s towards the Traditional movement where they found again the true Church which they knew they had lost after the Council’s “renewal.” And in Archbishop Lefebvre (1905–1991) they found a leader with a clear and Catholic vision of what had happened at the Council – it had taken place under pressure from the modern world to conform to the world, whereas from the beginning of the Church through to the 20th century, it was always the Church that had put the world under pressure to conform itself to God. In this perspective, Vatican II represented an upheaval, a turning upside down, without precedent in all Church history, but the Council Fathers were nearly all more or less beglamoured by the modern world. It is this upheaval which set the course of the official Church from the Council until today. And given that the enemies of God and man were behind the modern world and behind Vatican II, and given that by a just punishment of God they are now deeply entrenched within the offices of the Vatican, then in 2018, short of a miracle or of grave events intervening, the official Church will continue on its downward plunge.

And the Society of St Pius X in 2018? At the beginning of July, in six months’ time, the SSPX holds its elections for those who are to be for the following 12 years its three senior officials, the Superior General and his two Assistants. If the 40 leading priests of the Society who vote in those elections wish to continue the Society’s slide into the arms of Conciliar Rome, i.e. the official Church, then no doubt they will vote for Bishop Fellay to be Superior General so that he can finish the work of replacing the Archbishop’s clear vision of the need to resist Vatican II with his own confused vision of blending Catholic Tradition with Vatican II, which is like blending fire with water. For just as Paul VI (1963–1978) dreamt of saving both Church and modern world by blending them in Vatican II, and almost crushed the life out of the Church by his tyrannical dream, so Bishop Fellay has drained the life out of the Society by clamping upon it his parallel dream of saving both Tradition and Council in a messianic reconciliation of his own making. The vision is quite different from the Archbishop’s. Then how will the 40 priests vote? Upon their vote depends how the Society will develop in 2018, at least from July onwards.

However, there was a reason for Vatican II, and that was the ever widening gulf between God’s true Church and modern man. The strain of holding them together became unbearable, and the Council Fathers snapped. Archbishop Lefebvre stood his Catholic ground and founded the Society, but his successors at its head have in turn snapped under the strain. Today’s godless world surrounds all of us, and its siren charms are highly seductive. Catholics must “watch and pray” – they need to read, and to continue reading, and they must have a strong prayer life by which to cleave to God – 15 Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, every day.

Kyrie eleison.

How Discern? – II

How Discern? – II on November 25, 2017

After Joseph’s first question concerning confusion in the Church in general (cf. these “Comments” of last week), his second question concerned the Society of St Pius X in particular. Here it is:—

You wrote last week that judged by their fruits, Vatican II was not Catholic, while Archbishop Lefebvre was. However, in the Society of St Pius X which he founded, there seems to have arisen a new way of thinking which one might articulate in a series of propositions. For example –

1 However badly the Pope and bishops behave, they are still the valid authorities of the Church.

2 Pope Francis may be a modernist, but he still has the power to bring the SSPX back into the Church.

3 The Conciliar bishops are not all bad. They can have Christian reactions, show awareness of the Church crisis, defend Catholic morals in public, call for respect for God in the liturgy, show devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and so on.

4 An agreement with Rome can be envisaged as long as we are “accepted as we are.”

5 We are at fault if we are systematically refusing any agreement whatsoever with Rome.

6 It is more useful to speak of Archbishop Lefebvre’s piety than of his opposition to the Council.

7 Better to be on good terms with the SSPX than to get on bad terms for the sake of fallible opinions.

8 Conciliarists are indisciplined and disobedient. SSPXers need to be disciplined and obedient.

In conclusion, given the complexity of the situation in which Catholics find themselves today, can members or followers of the Society be blamed for thinking along the lines of these propositions?

Answer, it all depends on how much those members or followers know. For instance, older SSPXers knew that the Council was a new religion, and that therefore the Archbishop’s opposition to it was a matter of Faith, intrinsically more important than piety, because how can there be piety without faith? Those veterans of the Society are much to blame (unless and until at last they react in public), because they are allowing what Joseph above calls “the new way of thinking” to take over the Archbishop’s Society, so that Society youngsters have that much less chance of grasping what is wrong with the eight propositions above. A new generation of Society priests is as pious as one could wish, but (always with exceptions) it is clueless as to the crisis now devastating the Church for more than half a century:—

1 True, the Pope and bishops, according to appearances, seem to be the valid authorities of the Church, but their behaviour as to the Faith is so bad that many serious Catholics call in question that validity.

2 Into what Church would the Pope bring the Newsociety? Into the Newchurch? “They have expelled me from the Newchurch?” said the “excommunicated” Archbishop – “So what? I never belonged to it!”

3 Indeed the Conciliar bishops are not all bad, but they are nearly all modernists, which means that many of them have lost their Catholic faith without even realising it. Modern man is so corrupt that when his Catholic religion is made to fit his modernity, he does not even realise that it is no longer Catholic.

4 “Accepted as we are” was for the SSPX one thing in, say, 1987. It is quite another thing in 2017!

5 If only Rome were to come back to the true Faith, there would be no further need for any agreement.

6 Thanks be to God for the Archbishop’s piety also, but by far his most important quality was his faith.

7 “Fallible opinions”? There is such a thing as truth! Has anybody of any importance in the Newsociety actually studied the documents of Vatican II? Do they deny it represents a new religion?

8 SSPXers must be disciplined and obedient to what? To the new Conciliar man-centred religion?

The problem with all of these propositions is that the SSPX was born in the thick of the great war being waged by the modern world on God, but since the Archbishop’s death in 1991, its leaders have lost all effective grip on who is waging that war, and how and why. Joseph, read “Pascendi,” again and again, until you fully grasp it!

Kyrie eleison.