Tag: Society of St. Pius X

 Pope’s Disintegration

 Pope's Disintegration posted in Eleison Comments on April 17, 2021

In an interview which he released early last month, the Superior General of the Society of St Pius X, Fr Davide Pagliarani, tackled in his own words a subject which is of supreme importance in today’s Church and world, but which is not often tackled because it is so unthinkable, namely the disintegration of thinking. For in attempting to analyse the thinking of Pope Francis, Fr Pagliarani concludes that the Pope, in his desire to reach modern man wherever he is, has abandoned all system of thinking, all Catholic philosophy or theology in the classical sense of those two words. This would mean that to get to modern man, Pope Francis is giving up on Catholic doctrine. Here is the SG’s argument:

Pope Francis is “above” all systems of thinking. Whereas for John-Paul II certain doctrines were untouchable, and whereas Benedict XVI was always concerned to appear faithful to Tradition, on the contrary Pope Francis is demolishing all Catholic bastions from the past. Indeed it was inevitable that as Vatican II (1962–1965) with its religious liberty and ecumenism undermined the Church’s dogma, so with

the passing decades her moral teaching without basis in dogma would also give way. Thus with his Amoris Laetitia of 2016 Pope Francis taught, as solemn Church doctrine, a completely new approach to morality, namely Mother Church must face the modern facts and become a quite different kind of mother. She can no longer impose herself and her laws as she has always done before. Now she must listen to, understand and accompany her children, adapting herself passively to whatever they do. Obviously moral principles are going to change with men’s changing practice in evolving historical circumstances.

Thus Francis misunderstands love – no mother loves her child drowning in a dangerous river by jumping in with him. He misunderstands mercy – it is no mercy to a man to leave him in a state of sin displeasing to God. By such a falsification of God’s true love and mercy, not only does the Church give up on the whole supernatural order, she also leaves him “free” in the natural order, so that no bastion remains, because Mother Church has adapted to the sins of the world, by making no more claims on her children. With Vatican II she adapted to the world. With Pope Francis she goes further, adapting to the sins of the world, leaving her children, deeply wounded by original sin, with no supernatural grace to heal them.

What then does Pope Francis propose instead, as a goal or goals for Church and world? Firstly, the universal imposition of a utopian integral ecology, to look after Mother Earth (Pachamama) in all material respects (Laudato sí, 2015), and secondly a quasi-masonic universal brotherhood for us to look after our fellow-men (Fratelli tutti, 2019). Thus, Mother Church is reduced to a purely natural priesthood, stripped of all supernatural power, at the service of the secular State in all of its superior secular humanism.

The Superior General concludes that the real answer to all modern problems is for Mother Church to preach once more infallible doctrine, namely the supernatural dimension and destiny of man in Heaven eternal, the Fall of man in time with its lasting consequence of Original Sin, and the absolute need of the grace of Christ to overcome sin. The doctrine of Christ the King embodies by itself the eternity of Heaven, the victory of the Redeemer over sin, and the indispensable help of the supernatural grace which He brought as Redeemer to enable men to get to Heaven. And His Mother will play a very special part in what will be the Church’s final victory over the passing triumph of errors so subtle and pernicious.

This analysis by the Superior General of the Pope’s thinking and action presents a coherence and logic for which we should all be grateful. There is certainly some light at the top of the Society of St Pius X. We say sincerely, thanks be to God. But does it mean that the Society is out of danger? That must remain to be seen. The Doctor has not as such the virtues of the Martyr. Please, God . . .

Kyrie eleison

Ruinations Causes

Ruinations Causes posted in Eleison Comments on March 13, 2021

Two weeks ago in these “Comments” a veteran Traditionalist made some interesting comments on the subject of infiltrators, conscious or unconscious, wrecking the Catholic Church from within. Readers may recall how he strove in vain to restore Catholic Tradition within the Conciliar structure. He found out that it could not be done. When further asked, “But how could the very churchmen commit the Church’s suicide? That makes no sense!,” he had further interesting things to say –

I think all of this comes down to a love of the Truth or a lack of Truth. In my opinion, those who truly love the Truth will find it – or struggle until they do find it, and then act upon it. I think the Faith collapsed in the 1960 and ‘70s because Catholics had become so weak. At the noon Mass at my parish in the 1950s, practically no one went to Communion. Priests come from the people, and the people had become soft. When the changes came, one half of those people gladly accepted those changes since it made living the “Faith” much easier, because non-Catholics were no longer hostile, one faith was as good as another, we could now all smile at each other, and did the clergy ever lead lead the way! Most of the other half either joined Protestant sects or simply gave up religion altogether. A few brave souls, a tiny minority who still possessed that love of the Faith, formed their own chapels. Their greatest inspiration was Archbishop Lefebvre, who alone had the faith to grasp that the hierarchy was in a hopeless state of apostasy.

God alone can judge men’s hearts, but in my opinion there is no excuse for those who abandoned the Faith. Perhaps nearly all who did so will pay with their souls. My generation is the worst because we were born and raised in the Faith and we abandoned it because we thought it would make life easier and far less of a challenge. The following generations, although a bit less guilty because they were denied their Catholic heritage, still had little excuse, as everyone has a duty to live the Truth. Where the faith is soft, Catholics are cowards, particularly when it comes to abortion. The bishops won’t even speak out against it, for fear of losing their tax status or of offending someone. Senator Timothy Kaine who lives in our city is as pro-abort and pro-perversion as one can be, while still claiming that the Catholic Faith is the most important thing in his life. He said it all when he said, “I am a Francis-type Catholic.” To my knowledge, the Bishop of Richmond has never challenged him on abortion, much less denied him what passes for Holy Communion, when he should have excommunicated him long ago.

The veteran above is probing the general collapse of Catholics after Vatican II. Another reader of these “Comments” seeks below the cause of the particular slide of the Society of St Pius X, which had nevertheless been raised by God to resist that general collapse –

I think it’s Pharisaism. It’s the same Pharisaism that killed Our Lord that is now killing the Church and the Society. True humility and charity have been lost. Pharisaism, as of the “whited sepulchres” in the Gospel, leads to spiritual blindness – “Make this people blind, so that seeing they may not see, hearing they may not hear” . . . . The Pharisees had a perfect knowledge of the Scriptures and the Law, yet still they killed their Messiah. Today they are killing the Church, and they simply cannot see it, they are blind . . .

In the Society I do believe there were at least subversive priests, and at the top some leaders suffering from complete blindness, but these would have gotten nowhere if the Society as a whole had not fallen into Pharisaism. Had they humbly followed their saintly Founder, they would not have thought they knew better than he did, nor would they have pushed aside Our Lady’s requests for Rosaries for the Consecration of Russia, thinking they knew better than God Himself. Such an insult could not go unpunished by Him. The punishment was the spiritual blindness as of the Pharisees, a dreadful punishment! God, have mercy upon us!

Kyrie eleison.

Unconscious “Infiltrators”

Unconscious "Infiltrators" posted in Eleison Comments on February 27, 2021

In these “Comments” of three weeks ago, where a reader was looking for an explanation of the decline of the Society of St Pius X after the death in 1991 of its Founder, Archbishop Lefebvre, the question arose of possible infiltration of the SSPX by enemies of Catholic Tradition. Had there been infiltrators? These “Comments” took the position that no conscious or clear infiltrators had ever been discovered, but there had been a number of SSPX priests at the top of the Society who had used all their influence at the top to change the Society’s direction from that given to it by the Archbishop, without their being necessarily conscious of acting as infiltrators. In fact they may have infiltrated all the more effectively for being unconscious infiltrators! God knows, one or the other of them may have known exactly what he was doing to cripple the Society from within, but it never seemed so outwardly.

We are right up against the mystery of modernism, which must have sent millions of souls to Hell. Let us take yet another look, with another witness, a veteran Traditionalist who has spent tens of years in the fight for Catholic Tradition in Traditional chapels of the United States. The heavy black print is from the editor of the “Comments,” but every word in italics is from the veteran –

As one who has been a member of three Traditional parishes, a principal founder of two, and an activist in all three, I remember saying many years ago and many times over that the Devil infiltrates with his own people every single Traditional parish, that is, with people who are usually “sleepers,” who bide their time waiting for the right moment to strike. Having an Angelic intelligence and having been around for thousands of years, he is far from stupid and knows it is much easier to destroy a parish from within rather than from the outside. I have encountered these people in all three parishes. No doubt they are within the SSPX, with most not conscious that they are the Devil’s helpers, but he knows it. In fact, if they are not there, he is not doing his job.

The SSPX should disengage all contact with the Conciliar Church until that day when that masterpiece creation of the Devil is converted, which will be almost certainly after God chastises it in the most severe way along with its partner: the world. The SSPX is attempting to do what I attempted to do locally when I and another individual sat down three times in 1990–91 with Richmond’s two bishops and requested and negotiated the founding of St. Joseph’s parish, which, incidentally, was at that time the first and only Traditional Catholic parish in the world in union with Modernist Rome, with the Mass and all Sacraments in the Traditional Rite. ( . . . )

With St. Joseph’s, it was my intent to draw in hundreds of Novus Ordo Catholics and over time to make them all good Traditionalists. I was dreaming. St. Joseph’s today, with its likely thousand plus parishioners and its paid for 2 ½ million dollar building on multiple acres is in the hands of the doubtfully ordained Fraternity of St. Peter priests. It is a hybrid parish, with the “Traditional Mass and Sacraments” but in every other way Novus Ordo. I have not the slightest doubt that should it close its doors today, nearly every parishioner would be at a Novus Ordo “Mass” next Sunday. Such a fate awaits the SSPX should it merge with the Novus Ordo.

Now, were the two bishops and our veteran conscious “infiltrators”? The veteran certainly not. The two bishops possibly, but is it not equally possible that they too were acting in good faith? What seems most likely is that all three men were “dreaming.” Of what? Surely of mixing oil and water. Of mixing Traditional Truth with Conciliar Authority. But it cannot be done. The Archbishop knew that from the beginning. Our veteran came to know it, God bless him. Many souls in the Society still do not know it. They are dreaming, and they are all, in effect, unconscious “infiltrators.”

Kyrie eleison.

SSPX Re-Orientation

SSPX Re-Orientation posted in Eleison Comments on January 23, 2021

Last November Fr Pagliarani, SSPX Superior General, wrote a letter to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Society. Fr. Edward MacDonald, “Resistance” priest in Australia, wrote a valuable commentary on that letter, summarised here below –

1. Fr. Pagliarani asks: “Is the flame (‘that of a fearless charity’) received from our Founder still alive? Exposed to a crisis indefinitely prolonged in Church and world, is this precious torch not in danger of faltering and weakening?” – However, in his letter Fr. Pagliarani does not answer his own question.

2. In his entire letter Fr. Pagliarini barely mentions the Second Vatican Council. Yet, if there had been no Vatican II, there would have been no need for the SSPX. Rome is the source of all the errors of faith, doctrine and morals that the SSPX fought against. The post-Conciliar Popes implemented the teachings of the Council. The apostasy is centred and headquartered in the Vatican. Fr. Pagliarani mentions nothing about the errors of Vatican II. Why not? For him that fight is over. The SSPX is now with Vatican II and the Conciliar Church, against the “Resistance” movement. 

3. Fr. Pagliarani reduces the fight to “the spiritual life.” For Archbishop Lefebvre the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ came first, and bringing spiritual life to souls was a necessary by-product of that primary aim. But Fr. Pagliarani makes the spiritual life primary, saying: “Our combat is to allow Our Lord Jesus Christ to be the axis of our spiritual life, the source of all our thoughts, all our words and all our actions.” 

4. According to Fr. Pagliarani, everything has been said. There is no doctrinal battle left to wage. The SSPX will just continue to speak, presumably repeating old arguments, against the errors of Vatican II. In fact, the SSPX is not speaking against the errors of Vatican II. There is much new to say as the Pope continues to draw new errors out of the documents of Vatican II. Is the response to Amoris Laetitiae complete? If the SSPX has nothing new to say, it is because it has ceased to combat Vatican errors. 

5. Archbishop Viganò is finding plenty of new things to say about the errors of the Conciliar Church. The SSPX cannot say these things because it has capitulated and been silenced. It can no longer defend the rights of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In November 2020, Fr. Daniel Themann, SSPX District Superior of Australia, forbade members to make a public protest against some very public worship of Satan in Queensland. They made reparation quietly in their chapel. 

6. Weariness is a recurring theme in Fr. Pagliarani’s letter – this is not the case with the saints. They never weary, never grow tired of the battle. Archbishop Lefebvre never wearied of the fight, He was already retired when he realised that he had to take up arms in a new battle against the Conciliar Church. The SSPX has grown weary and fatigued and laid down its arms. It has “nothing new to say.” 

7. For the last fifteen or more years the seminaries of the SSPX have not been giving the seminarians the doctrinal formation to combat the modern errors. Modernism and liberalism have been promoted in the seminaries. The ordinands are willing to compromise on the truth, and eagerly work with and submit to the modernist diocesan bishops. Fr. Wegner, former US District Superior, once boasted that he had made deals with forty US bishops, all of whom were modernist Conciliar liberals.  

8. Every priest that has remained in the SSPX after its capitulation has decided explicitly, or at least tacitly, to accept this new orientation of the SSPX. They are no longer militant Catholics. The Church is indefectible. The SSPX was not. It has defected. 

9. There is no further important organisation to stand against the onslaught of the forces of evil in the form of the atheistic communist conquest of society. The sterilisation of the SSPX stopped the last great source of grace and blessings for the world. The few pockets of resistance remaining are incapable of stopping, or even just hindering, the communist enslavement of the world.

Kyrie eleison.

Archbishop Tranferred

Archbishop Tranferred posted in Eleison Comments on September 26, 2020

Two days ago, the mortal remains of Archbishop Lefebvre were transferred from the vault next to the Seminary of Écône where they had rested temporarily since his death in 1991, to a solid marble sarcophagus in the crypt beneath the Seminary Chapel specially prepared for their permanent repose. All splendour is fitting for the place of burial of the greatest man of God, the greatest hero of the Catholic Faith, of modern times, the Archbishop who virtually single-handed saved the Catholic doctrine, sacraments and priesthood from perishing, from their corruption and elimination by modern men who no longer believed in them as they had been handed down by the faithful Catholic Church through nearly two thousand years.

And one may say that after his death his successors continued his work more or less faithfully for another 20 years, but then in 2012 occurred a change in his Society of St Pius X which obliged many souls to speak of a New-society, somewhat as the changes in the Church following on the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) obliged many Catholics to speak of a New-church, so radical were the changes. Alas, the ceremony of transferral of the Archbishop’s remains reflected this transferral of his work from Society to New-society, because it was celebrated not by the present Superior General, Fr. David Pagliarani, but by his predecessor as Superior General, the one who was mainly responsible for the transfer from Society to New-society. This choice of Fr. Pagliarani’s predecessor to celebrate such an outstanding event in honour of the Society’s Founder is neither a good omen nor is it an accident. It reminds us of the quote of Our Lord (Mt. XXIII):

29  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

It may well be that today the universal hypocrisy of a world spurning Our Lord runs so deep that many souls taking part in the ceremony of two days ago were not conscious hypocrites, God knows, nor so severely to be condemned as Our Lord condemned those who He knew were about to crucify Him. For indeed many Catholics, who had been faithfully following the Archbishop in his “disobedience” towards the Church’s unfaithful officials, were skilfully mislead by his successors back towards the same officials with their Conciliar religion of man. Nevertheless, objectively speaking, the parallel is clear.

* The Pharisees built monuments to honour the prophets that they themselves would also have killed.

The New-society builds a sarcophagus for its Founder when it itself has been making friends with the Pachamamists whom he already abominated.

* To the Pharisees Our Lord promised to send messengers to denounce their infidelity, but these they would kill just the same.

To the New-church and New-society he sends an Archbishop Viganò to remind them of their infidelity. As for the New-church, it would kill him. The New-society does its best to pay no attention to him.

* The Pharisees were warned by Our Lord of the grave consequences of their infidelity, and indeed in 70 AD Jerusalem was utterly destroyed.

As for the New-society, it has for now reduced the work of Archbishop to radical impotency, because the worldwide network of the Faith which he built up is in absolute need of new bishops to maintain that Faith, but by the New-society’s refusal to consecrate new bishops without the Pachamamists’ consent, it is refusing new bishops who will maintain the faith of Archbishop Lefebvre, because the Pachamamists will never consent to the consecration of bishops who will defend that faith.

In brief, the New-society’s members allowed that predecessor of Fr Pagliarani to honour their Founder’s place of burial who did more than anyone else to bury his work. Are they aware of how they risk contributing to the transferral of a gathering for heroes into a playpen of Neo-pharisees?

Kyrie eleison.

Men Lacking

Men Lacking posted in Eleison Comments on May 23, 2020

When Authority abandons Truth in the Catholic Church as it has been doing ever since Vatican II, then it is easier said than done to walk the fine line between heresy on the left and schism on the right. So it is not surprising if an unusually sharp remark like that of Archbishop Lefebvre quoted in the last two issues of these “Comments” (“Hoist the ladder . . . ”) arouses interest.

One layman even doubted the authenticity of the remark – could the sweet Archbishop really have said such a thing? Oh yes, he did. The original words are a little less elegant than the polished quotation, but the substance is identical – “With that, all that’s left is to pull up the ladder. There’s nothing to be done with these people (the Conciliar Romans). What have we got in common with them? Nothing! It’s not possible. It’s not possible” (6 Sept. 1990). The 1990 audio tape reference is Audio – Retrec – PASCALE90 or SACERDOTALE90. (However, let anyone wishing to check the quotation for himself beware of “revised” collections of the Archbishop’s tapes, because any words of his strongly opposed, like these to the Conciliarists in Rome, may well have been cut out by “editors” of the pro-Rome Newsociety.)

Another reader who reacted to the quotation is a priest, from the Novus Ordo, but now firmly established in a Newsociety Priory in Switzerland (without having been conditionally re-ordained, as best we know).

He thinks that “things really look different today” because the present generation of officials in Rome are a different breed from those that the Archbishop was reacting to in the 1980’s, and the best of them want a genuine restoration of the Church. He concludes that to adopt the Archbishop’s attitude today leaves only two solutions – either the “Resistance” or sedevacantism.

But, Father, while the present breed of Church leaders may be different men from the traitor-priests of the Archbishop’s time, who did all they could to destroy the true Church, have they understood (or read) Pascendi? And what use are sweet and well-meaning Church authorities to the Faith or to the Church or to the SSPX or to the “Resistance,” if they have not grasped that the problem is rubber minds which cannot even conceive of truth condemning error or of dogma condemning heresy? A rubber mind sympathetic to Tradition is basically no more use to Tradition than a rubber mind condemning Tradition. Nor is it true that things are “really different” from the Archbishop’s time. The sign that a priest has really understood the problem is when – at least figuratively – he wants to go down to Rome with a machine-gun and send all sweetie-pies to meet their Maker, as Putin would say. In brief, the “Resistance” must stay on the road, otherwise the road will be torn up to provide stones to cry out the Truth in place of the silent shepherds and their non-barking dogs (cf. Lk XIX, 40). The “Resistance” must not, may not, give way!

Finally a good priest seeks to console us with the news from a Society Prior that the Newsociety Superior General told a meeting in February of all Newsociety Priors in France that discussions between the SSPX and Rome are at a standstill because the SSPX is still insisting on doctrine first – well done, Fr Pagliarani – while Rome insists on fixing first a practical agreement. But need Rome even be concerned? Need it not merely wait for the ripe fruit to fall into its lap? Bishop Tissier is now so unwell that reportedly a room is being hospitalised inside Écône for him to retire to. Only two SSPX bishops remain to look after its worldwide needs. So either the Superior General must submit to Rome’s terms for the consecration of further bishops, continuing his predecessor’s disastrous conciliating of Church leaders who, however sweet they are, have lost the Faith, as the Archbishop said. Or he must consecrate more bishops without the Pope’s permission, as the Archbishop did. But would the Newsociety still follow in the Archbishop’s heroic line, of defying the (at least) objective traitors in Rome? One may doubt it.

Kyrie eleison.