Society of St. Pius X

Faith First

Faith First on November 23, 2013

The great lesson taught by Archbishop Lefebvre (1905–1991) to Catholics who had ears to hear was that the Faith is higher than obedience. The sad lesson we have learned since is that obedience keeps on being rated higher than the Faith. These “Comments,” driven continually by today’s confusion in Church, world and Society of St Pius X to get back to basics, have often attempted to explain why the Faith must come first.

Take for instance the arguments of an honourable SSPX priest who recently sent me an e-mail, accusing me of wrongly assessing the present state of the SSPX. My resistance to the – as I call it – Newsociety is, he says, 1) too personally motivated, 2) forgetting the good of the Church, 3) inconsistent with positions I have taken before, 4) lacking Catholic realism, 5) against Church indefectibility, 6) for each man being his own Pope, 7) for a modernist vision of the Church, 8) Protestant, 9) against union with Rome, and finally 10) pushing souls away from the Church.

Now, I am no Archbishop Lefebvre, and I do not pretend to be, but does my colleague realize that all of these arguments (except the third) he could have applied thirty years ago to the Archbishop’s resistance to the official Church authorities in Rome? Yet the Archbishop’s resistance was 1) motivated only by the urgent need to defend the Faith, 2) for the good of the Universal Church, 4) in a completely realistic way (as the Catholic fruits of his Society proved), 5) not disproving but proving, by his very resistance, the Church’s indefectibility, 6) for the Church of all time being the measure of the Popes, 7) against all craziness of neo-modernism, 8) against modernism’s renewal of Protestantism, 9) for union with the Catholic Rome of all time, and finally 10) helping many truly Catholic souls to keep the Faith instead of losing it.

And what justified the Archbishop’s resistance back then? What proved then that he was not, despite the appearances, a rebel like Luther, but truly Catholic, and a great servant of the Church? His doctrine, his doctrine, his doctrine! Whereas Luther denied a mass of Catholic teachings, the Archbishop affirmed every one of them. It was in the name of the doctrine of the Faith that the Archbishop took his stand against the Conciliar Popes and Church authorities who were radically undermining that doctrine by renewing and adopting the dreadful errors of modernism.

So what justifies now a certain resistance to the leadership of the SSPX? How can those who resist claim to be the truest servants of the SSPX? Doctrine, doctrine, doctrine! The mid-April Declaration of 2012 was proof of an appalling doctrinal deficiency at the top of the SSPX, and while the Declaration was withdrawn, its contents have not been retracted but even defended, as being for instance “too subtle”! Nor have the official SSPX documents of July 14, 2012 or June 27, 2013 properly undone the damage. The proof is that the governing policy of SSPX HQ has not changed. Dear colleague, your own Society was founded on putting Faith before apparent obedience, and now you want to defend that Society by putting apparent obedience to the Society before the Faith? Study the documents, and watch the actions!

Kyrie eleison.P.S. Meanwhile does anybody have a complete set of Spanish or French translations of this “Commentary” from when they began to appear, in the early EC 100’s? Please let us know.

Please Help

Please Help on November 2, 2013

Regularly over the last 20 years I have said that the Society of St Pius X could fail. Colleagues never liked me saying it, and contrary to what some people think, I did not enjoy saying it either, but here we are. Here for instance is a quotation sent to me recently by a reader, taken from an ordinations sermon I gave in 1984, and which of course I had completely forgotten:—

“At the beginning of the Church Militant Jesus Christ led his followers through the catacombs and persecution out into the open, and at the end of the Church Militant He may well lead them from the tent in the open field through persecution back to the catacombs. If it comes to that, and if we make it to the catacombs, for many of us it will certainly not have been without the Society but back in the catacombs we may have to do without the Society ( . . .). Dear seminarians! Regularly I tell them ( . . .) that the whole world is against them; that the whole world is going to hell in a hand-basket; that the Society of St. Pius X could easily perish; that the future is dark and where there is no gloom it is full of doom. Do you know, I do believe that if any of my dire forebodings actually came true, seminarians would be pleasantly surprised!” And what do I think I see now in the “Resistance”? The painful but steady emergence of the joyful remnant of Catholics from the remnant of Traditionalists who in their time emerged from the ruins of Vatican II. Nothing yet persuades me of the need for a structure or a seminary to replace those of the SSPX, but these are early days in the history of the Resistance. What I do think is needed is a base of Resistance operations in England, not far from the Continent nor from London airports, bricks and mortar to lend some solidity to the Resistance, and to provide, for instance, a refuge where priests can recuperate for at least a few days, under no kind of pressure, from the real hardships of today’s apostolate.”

The house has been chosen, it does exist, we have agreed to buy, and donations are coming in, but we do now need both £40,000 by the end of November and another £360,000 by mid-December. I do not like making promises, but with the help of God I have no intention of abandoning the defence of the Faith, whatever form that defence may take over the next several years. Please help, and in today’s shadow of tomorrow’s collapse of currencies, do think of making a heavenly investment guaranteed by the whole host of Heaven. Bless you for any and all donations. I attach again details of means of payment.

Kyrie eleison.

* In ANY CURRENCY small credit- or debit-card contributions from anywhere in the world can easily reach us via PayPal. (Go towww.paypal.com/sendmoney and send the contribution to buildingfund@stmarcelinitiative.​com).

* Contributions in POUNDS STERLING by banker’s draft or check should be made out and sent to the St Marcel Initiative, P.O. Box 423, Deal CT 14 4BF, England.

* Banker’s drafts or checks in US DOLLARS should likewise be made out to St Marcel Initiative and sent to 9051 Watson Rd., Suite 279, Crestwood, MO 63126, USA (the US contributions will soon be tax-deductible).

* In EUROS, checks made out to “Institut Culturel St Benoît” should be posted to ICSB, BP 60232, F78002 Versailles Cedex, France. Euros can also be sent by wire transfer from inside France to RIB – [write to letters@eleisoncomments.com for the number]; from outside France to the International Bank Account Number IBAN – [write to letters@eleisoncomments.com for the number].

* For other bank wire transfers, please write to us for details at buildingfund@dinoscopus.org, or, in the USA, use the convenient “e-check/bank wire” form at www.stmarcelinitiative.com.

Falling SSPX

Falling SSPX on October 26, 2013

For the glory of God and for the salvation of souls it is essential to diagnose why in today’s circumstances an end is now threatening the 40 glorious years of the defence of the Faith by the Society of St Pius X. An article and a letter recently written may help in this respect: an article analyzing the Society’s fall, and a letter with a note of hope as to how it may rise again.

The article appeared in French on the Internet (see “Un Évêque se lève”). After reading a book on utopianism in modern education which compares it to the same unrealistic dreaming in modern politics, the article’s author found that the same pattern in six stages could be applied to the SSPX. Firstly, the pattern: 1 A refusal of human nature as a given to be worked with, and not against. 2 A dream of fabricating the child/man completely anew. 3 The exclusion of natural structures of family/society. 4 The total re-fashioning of the child to generate a perfect new society. 5 The disastrous results, despite all the initial good intentions – 6 Ignorant and perverse children, and a society apostatising and making war on God.

Secondly, the application to the SSPX: 1 Refusal of the reality of the unprecedented crisis in the Church. 2 Dream of fabricating a reconciliation between the Conciliar Church and Tradition. 3 Exclusion of natural interaction between leaders and led. 4 Total re-fashioning of Catholic authority to impose the dream. 5 Disastrous resulting Stalinization of the SSPX, despite all pious intentions – in education, politics or the SSPX, when the dreamer confronts unyielding reality, he is liable to use all the force he has at his disposal to crush the reality – his dream is so much more lovely. 6 Loss of fighting spirit, liable to lead to entire loss of Faith.

The letter, reaching me by e-mail, follows the same general line of analysis, but adds a note of hope. Pope Francis and Bishop Fellay being who they are (both utopians, one might add), the letter-writer thinks that a Rome-SSPX agreement is bound to come, and resistance to it will be crushed. If the SSPX thus falls, he thinks it will have been by its under-estimating of the laity and by its under-employing of them to help establish in society the Social Reign of Christ the King. The SSPX need only pick up again with the laity to work for that Reign, and – here is the hopeful note – it will rally and strengthen all kinds of Catholics who have kept the Faith despite all they have suffered in recent years,coming from the Novus Ordo, from Ecclesia Dei, from Fransiscans of the Immaculate, or wherever. Thus, concludes the letter-writer, “the SSPX by the action of those remaining faithful to it will not sink into chaos, quite the opposite.”

For myself, while I agree that clericalism (undervaluing the laity) has been one aspect of the problem of the SSPX, I do not think that it has been the root of the problem. I think that the root has rather been today’s universal turning to man instead of God (cf. Jer. XVII, 5,7), a falling away by no means confined to the SSPX, with the consequent loss of objective truth and falsehood, objective right and wrong. However, I do agree with the letter-writer’s vision of a new alliance being forged at some time in the future, of true Catholics from all corners of the Newchurch and the Church, to carry forward the Catholic Faith (cf.Mt.XIX, 30). May the SSPX shake off its present problems to play a leading part, or, better, a humble part, in that alliance.

Kyrie eleison.

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary on October 12, 2013

I have good news for all Catholics who understood what Archbishop Lefebvre was about. An eight-bedroom house is being bought in south-east England to serve as a base of operations for anybody wishing to continue his work outside of the present SSPX. For a whole year since my “exclusion” from the SSPX I have lain low, at least physically speaking, to watch and wait to see how things would develop within the SSPX, but they are not getting any better, alas.

And so just as the Archbishop can only have wished that Conciliar Rome would come back to its Catholic senses so that there would be no further need for his Society to maintain Tradition, so too one might now wish that the present SSPX leaders would come back to the Archbishop’s way of thinking about Conciliar Rome, so that resistance to their virtual conciliarism would be unnecessary. But wishes do not make reality go away, and that reality is that just as Conciliar Rome is obdurate in its apostasy, so too the SSPX leaders have not stopped promoting their own authority to do what they like with the Archbishop’s legacy – authority over truth. That is why some bricks and mortar have become a necessity for the on-going service of the true Church.

The house is being bought in England because England is the only country that I cannot be thrown out of as a foreigner. It is in south-east England with a relatively gentle climate for England, in a town not too far by fast train from London, and of easy access by Eurostar from Paris and Brussels. It is a picturesque town, and should be an agreeable place for priests to visit, to wind down, to talk (in all discretion), and to wind up again for today’s difficult apostolate. But it will cost more or less £400,000 to buy, and it will cost rather more to run than my present frugal way of life, for which I have not been in need and have hardly appealed. Let people who are themselves in need not think of contributing (see II Cor.VIII, 12–13), but let investors with fragile investments think of transferring funds to their completely secure bank accounts in Heaven before the stock markets collapse and before today’s paper monies are inflated out of all recognition. I must find within two months or so a tenth of the sum, and the rest soon afterwards.

* In ANY CURRENCY small credit- or debit-card contributions from anywhere in the world can easily reach us via PayPal. (Go to www.paypal.com/sendmoney and send the contribution to buildingfund@stmarcelinitiative.​com)
* Contributions in POUNDS STERLING by banker’s draft or check should be made out and sent to the St Marcel Initiative, P.O. Box 423, Deal CT 14 4BF, England.
* Banker’s drafts or checks in US DOLLARS should likewise be made out to St Marcel Initiative and sent to 6051 Watson Rd., Suite 279, Crestwood, MO 63126, USA (the US contributions will soon be tax-deductible).
* In EUROS, checks made out to “Institut Culturel St Benoît” should be posted to ICSB, BP 60232, F78002 Versailles Cedex, France. Euros can also be sent by wire transfer from inside France to RIB – [write to letters@eleisoncomments.com for the number]; from outside France to the International Bank Account Number IBAN – [write to letters@eleisoncomments.com for the number]. For other bank wire transfers, please write to us for details at letters@eleisoncomments.com, or, in the USA, use the convenient “e-check/bank wire” form at www.stmarcelinitiative.com.

Any contribution please mark “Building Fund.” Thank you in advance for all and any help.

Kyrie eleison.

Fatal Moment

Fatal Moment on October 5, 2013

Most readers of these “Comments” have probably understood by now the grave problem that is paralysing the defence of the Faith by the Society of St Pius X, and they might rather read of other things. But such is the mess created in millions of people’s minds by the global falling away from the Faith that I think one can hardly analyse too much today the nature of the Faith, the need of the Faith and how it gets undermined. Let me then, without wishing to harp on the SSPX’s recent misfortunes or misdemeanours, borrow one more example from its history of last year.

The Society’s General Chapter of July, 2012, was hailed immediately afterwards by many of its participants as a triumph of Society unity over the distress and tensions of the several previous months. Since that time however, a more sober view of the Chapter has taken over from the euphoria, and a number of those who took part in it see it rather as having been a disaster for the Society. One of the participants, or capitulants as they are called, has described the fatal moment when the Society’s leading 39 priests (myself excluded) put their own Society and Superiors in front of the doctrine of the Faith, just as the mass of Catholic bishops had done at Vatican II.

The Chapter’s deliberations proper opened with a serious doctrinal attack by the Rector of the SSPX seminary in Écône on the mid-April Doctrinal Declaration by which the SSPX had officially been ready to compromise with the neo-modernists in Rome on the Council, on the New Mass, on the New Code of Canon Law and on Pope Benedict’s “hermeneutic of continuity.” The attack was expressed in moderate and respectful terms, but it was most grave in substance. It meant in effect that whoever had drafted the Declaration, or encouraged its being submitted to Rome, was incompetent in Catholic doctrine. If they were consciously incompetent, they were traitors to the Faith. If unconsciously, they were unfit to be at the head of a Catholic Congregation founded to defend the Faith. So a hush fell upon the Chapter as capitulants began to realize how grave was the implicit accusation against their Superiors.

But then the Rector of the Society’s seminary in Argentina broke the hush by saying that the Chapter could not possibly administer a slap to its Superior General by requiring of him to retract his Declaration. That retraction, he said, would be implicit in the Chapter’s final Declaration. Then some other capitulant raised a different point, and the Chapter slid on to other business. However, the doctrinal problem of the treacherous mid-April Declaration was properly resolved neither by the Chapter’s final Declaration or six Conditions for a future agreement with Rome, nor by any clear subsequent retraction on the part of the Superior General himself, on the contrary. And the Society continues to be led in practice in accordance with the same policy of being gentle with the enemies of the Faith in Rome, who tear to pieces the Faith and with it the Church.

How could the capitulants not see that “respect for Superiors” was being put in front of the Faith? How could they not insist that the doctrinal problem, by far the most important problem in front of the whole Chapter, should be made clear, until all of them could fully grasp what action needed to be taken immediately, and not cleverly postponed until the end of the Chapter? The answer must be that collectively they were, like the bishops of Vatican II, children of the modern world for whom the doctrine of the Faith is not a vital necessity, but just something one learns in the seminary to become a priest, and then honours, but more or less disregards. Readers, read!

Kyrie eleison.

Horrible Fall – III

Horrible Fall – III on September 21, 2013

Last June readers of these “Comments” were promised a third article on the horrible fall of the Society of St Pius X, to consider what can be done. Just recently there appeared on the website “Avec l’Immaculée” an article with some good answers to this question, starting with the question whether Catholics can go on attending SSPX Masses. I summarize and adapt:—

In 1984 an Indult from Rome allowed the Tridentine Mass to be celebrated, under certain conditions, within the framework of the official Church. Asked whether Catholics could attend these Masses, Archbishop Lefebvre replied soon after that they should not attend, because their re-entering the mainstream framework under those conditions was tantamount to accepting Vatican II and the subsequent reforms. The priests saying Indult Masses would not be able to speak freely, and by accepting implicitly the New Mass with the Indult, they would risk sliding into the new Conciliar religion and taking their people with them.

In 2012 Bishop Fellay declared that the New Mass was legitimately promulgated, which is tantamount to saying that it is legitimate. He stifles critics of Vatican II, and while still keeping priests and people as much in the dark as possible as to what he is really up to, he steadily pushes forward the ideas of his pro-Conciliar Declaration of April, 2012. Therefore just as the Archbishop ruled out attending Indult Masses, so now, as a general rule, attending SSPX Masses should be ruled out, because even if this particular Mass is still celebrated in accordance with Tradition, the SSPX is being remoulded in general as a framework within which the new Conciliar religion is less and less disapproved, so that there is more and more of a danger in attending its Masses.

However, particular SSPX priests vary from the genuinely Traditional to the virtually Conciliar. Obviously there is less danger in attending Masses of the former than of the latter, but if the priest concerned either defends and approves of the new direction being imposed by SSPX HQ, or if he persecutes and excludes from the sacraments anybody taking any part in the Resistance, these are two signs that his Masses should be avoided, especially if there is the Mass of a resisting priest not too far away. But circumstances do also come into play, so that if, for instance, one’s children risk being thrown out of a still decent SSPX school, that may justify still attending the local SSPX Mass. When the trunk of a tree is rotting, there can still be branches bearing green leaves.

The fact remains that the trunk of the SSPX is mortally stricken, without hope, humanly speaking, of recovery. Like the Synagogue between the death of Our Lord on the Cross and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D, it is carrying death within it, but it is not yet dead. Apostles preached there, and good Jews still attended, but they were all persecuted and eventually thrown out. If a Catholic can see today that throughout the body of the SSPX, from the head downwards, the deadly virus of a disguised Conciliar mentality is coursing, he must take action to help rescue as many souls as possible before they make shipwreck in the faith with the sinking lifeboat.

Let him, to forge his own convictions, read all he can lay his hands on, starting with the exchange of letters between the three bishops and Bishop Fellay in April of 2012. Let him talk to priests and fellow-parishioners, to co-ordinate, for instance, the putting together of refuges for priests who might not otherwise take action. There is much to be done, however few there are, at least for the moment, to do it. God is with these few.

Kyrie eleison.