Society of St. Pius X

Conciliarizing Apace

Conciliarizing Apace on September 14, 2013

A good article arguing that the June 27 Declaration of three Society of St Pius X bishops is not as faithful to Catholic Tradition as it may seem to be, appeared in the August issue of England’s new Catholic monthly magazine, The Recusant, self-described as “An unofficial SSPX newsletter fighting a guerrilla war for the soul of Tradition.” A brief survey can hardly do justice to the article’s seven dense pages, but the main line of thought deserves to be known. Here it is –

At first sight the June 27 Declaration seems to be Traditional, but, as with the documents of Vatican II A, there is usually a loophole, a fatal flaw, which allows the rest of the document to be undone. Let us take a closer look, paragraph by paragraph:—

#1 “Filial gratitude” is expressed towards Archbishop Lefebvre, but only harmless and soft-sounding quotes of his are included in the Declaration, with nothing from his 1988 Consecrations sermon, and none of his hard-hitting reasons for creating bishops to resist the “antichrists” in Rome. #3 It is admitted that the “cause” of the errors devastating the Catholic Church is in the Conciliar documents, but that is not to admit that the errors are there, since cause and effect cannot be identical. Yet most serious errors are themselves in the Council’s texts, e.g. religious liberty. #4 It is recognized that Vatican II changed and vitiated the Church’s manner of teaching, or teaching authority, but the main problem is not authority, but doctrine – see #8. #5 Only relatively soft language is used to evoke the Conciliar Church’s “non-preoccupation” with the “reign of Christ.” In fact the Conciliar Church denies and contradicts the full and true doctrine of the Social Kingship of Christ the King, battle-flag of the Archbishop and true Catholics today. #6 As in #3, it is admitted that the Council text’s teaching on religious liberty leads to the dissolving of Christ, but the text is that dissolving, or putting of man in the place of God. Vatican II is the fruit not just of human weakness or absent-mindedness, but of a diabolical conspiracy. #7 Similarly ecumenism and interreligious dialogue are not just “silencing the truth about the one true Church,” they are denying and contradicting it. Nor are they just “killing the missionary spirit,” they are killing the missions, and with them millions of souls, all over the world. #8 On the other hand the ruin of the Church’s institutions is blamed on the destruction of authority within the Church by the Council’s collegiality and democratic spirit. But the essential problem (as the paragraph’s opening sentence does weakly say) is the loss of faith. Authority is secondary. #9 While pointing to real faults and serious omissions in the Novus Ordo rite of Mass, no mention is made of the worldwide carnage of souls wrought by its falsifying of their worship of God. The Novus Ordo Mass has been the main engine of the Church’s destruction from 1969 until today. #10 In conclusion, timid and deferential language is used to “ask with insistence” that Rome return to Tradition. But of course, in accordance with the SSPX’s “re-branding,” the Newsociety wants no more fighters or fighting talk. #11 The three bishops “mean . . .to follow Providence,” whether Rome returns to Tradition or not. What can that mean other than the eventual acceptance of a deal that will by-pass doctrine? #12 The Declaration concludes piously, with another dovelike quote from the Archbishop.

And The Recusant arrives at the sad but all too probable conclusion that the Declaration is only an apparent step backwards from the Declarations of April 15 and July 14 of last year, which were two clear steps forward in the conciliarizing of the SSPX. Heaven help it!

Kyrie eleison.

Resistance, Organize?

Resistance, Organize? on September 7, 2013

The debate continues as to whether and how today’s “Resistance” should be organized (let us here define “Resistance” as former members or followers of the Society of St Pius X so upset with its recently manifest change of direction as to take action of some kind to resist that change). Broadly speaking, the (relative) youngsters want an organisation to co-ordinate action and make it more effective, while the oldsters tend to think that any structured organisation is no longer possible or even desirable in today’s chaotic circumstances.

To begin with, one must take the measure of the chaos. It comes essentially from the shepherd being struck and the sheep scattered (Zech. XIII, 7; Mt. XXVI, 31). Whether it believes it or not, whether it likes it or not, for the whole world that shepherd is the Catholic Pope. As we observe today, if he goes crazy then nobody in the whole wide world can restore order. This is because the Incarnate God made his Church the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Mt. V, 13–14), and he designed that Church as a monarchy, a design which not even Vatican II could undo. Therefore nobody can take the Pope’s place, and if he says things like, “Who am I to condemn a God-seeking homosexual?,” as the present occupant of the See of Peter said recently, then “chaos is come again,” and there is very little that one can do about it, besides praying for God to intervene.

Notwithstanding, Archbishop Lefebvre did all he could, and by the mercy of God he created an island of sanity and order, the SSPX. But, naturally, under pressure from one Conciliar Pope after another, his successors have given way. They ask, “How can we be Catholic and disobey the Pope?” – more confusion and chaos. However the Archbishop was so successful in organizing resistance to the Council that a number of those who understand what he was doing wish to organize the resistance to those betraying him. But can it be organized? That is the question.

A wise colleague, old enough to have campaigned hard and effectively at the Archbishop’s side in the worldwide expansion of the SSPX in the 1970’s and 1980’s, remembers from those early days a number of priests resisting the Council successfully all over the world, which they did independently of one another and of the Archbishop. They listened to him because he talked good Catholic sense, which is why many of them recognized his moral authority, but none of them obeyed him in the strict sense, and he demanded of none of them that obedience. Without the Pope, structured Catholic obedience was, and remains, impossible. My colleague goes on to point out that even the Archbishop’s Society resisted liberal Church and world for only 30, maybe 40, years, and the situation is rather worse now than it was in his day. When the homeland is occupied by an enemy army, my colleague concludes, it is impossible to organize an army of defence, all that remains is guerrilla warfare.

In my opinion he accurately portrays the increase of the chaos when he writes: “The hour of God and of the immaculate Heart will come (as she has said) only when everything seems lost, which must include the little SSPX. Bishop Fellay’s chief illusion was to have thought that the great SSPX would save the Church, to which the Devil added, “from within, like a Trojan horse.” All that we in fact needed to do was construct Noah’s Ark for the faithful remnant in accordance with the Founder’s plan, and to go on constructing it until the Flood. A deluded leader opened the Ark’s door ahead of time, and the Ark was flooded. God have mercy upon us all. The leader was not Noah, but the Captain of the Titanic.”

Kyrie eleison.

Resistance Vision

Resistance Vision on August 24, 2013

A number of Catholic souls today keeping the Catholic Faith are scared by the direction still being taken at present by the leadership of the Society of St Pius X, and since they appreciate just how much they have received from the Society over the last few decades, they desperately wish for a replacement Society to take its place. They are scared by the different vision of a network of independent pockets of resistance being their future. They may be reassured to know that it was the vision of an outstanding prophet and pioneer of the Traditional movement, the French Dominican priest Fr Roger-Thomas Calmel (1914–1975). Here are pages, freely translated and adapted from the French, of his Brief Apology for the Church of all Time (pp. 48–51):—

“However crazily the Catholic hierarchy may behave, priests cannot take the place of bishops, nor can laity take the place of priests. Do we then think of setting up a huge worldwide league or association of priests and Christian layfolk to enter into dialogue with the hierarchy and force them to restore Catholic order? It is a grand and touching idea, but it is unreal. That is because any such group, wanting to be a Church group but being neither a diocese nor an archdiocese nor a parish nor a religious order, will come under none of the categories over which and for which authority is exercised in the Church. It will be an artificial grouping, an artefact unknown to any of the Church’s real groups which are established and recognized as such.

“So, as with every grouping together of men, the problem of leadership and authority will arise, and the huger the group, the sharper the problem. Unfailingly it will come down to this: being an association, the group must solve the problem of authority; being artificial (no kind of natural or supernatural group), it cannot solve the problem of authority. Rival sub-groups will rapidly arise, war will become inevitable, and there will be no canonical way to end or wage such a war.

“Are we then condemned to being able to do nothing amidst the chaos, often a sacrilegious chaos? I do not think so. Firstly, the indefectibility of the Church guarantees that down to the end of the world there will be enough of a genuine personal hierarchy to maintain the sacraments, in particular the Eucharist and Holy Orders, and to preach the one and only unchanging doctrine of Salvation. And secondly, whatever be the failings of the real hierarchy, we all of us, priests and laity, have our little part of authority.

“Therefore let the priest capable of preaching go to the limits of his power to preach, to absolve sins and to celebrate the true Mass. Let the teaching Sister go to the limits of her grace and her power to form girls in the Faith, good morals, purity and literature. Let every priest and layman, every little group of laity and priests having authority and power over a little fort of the Church and Christendom, go to the limits of their possibilities and powers. Let leaders and inmates of such forts know and be in contact with one another. Let each of the forts protected, defended, trained and directed in its praying and singing by a real authority, become as far as possible a fortress of holiness. That is what will guarantee the continuation of the true Church and will prepare efficaciously for its renewal in God’s good time.

“So we need not to be afraid, but to pray with all confidence and to exercise without fear, according to Tradition and in the sphere that is ours, the power we have, preparing thus for the happy time when Rome will come back to being Rome and bishops to being bishops.”

Kyrie eleison.

Continuing Damage – II

Continuing Damage – II on August 3, 2013

Besides arguing that the Doctrinal Declaration of mid-April last year was refused by Rome and so is of no further interest, people claiming that there has been no significant change in the Society of St Pius X also resort to the three bishops’ recent Declaration of June 27, which was obviously designed to reassure people that the SSPX lifeboat is undamaged and still perfectly seaworthy. However, souls wishing not to drown need to take a closer look.

It is the 11th paragraph which has become notorious. In brief, the bishops here state that they intend in the future to follow Providence, whether Rome soon returns to Tradition, or it recognizes explicitly the right and duty of the SSPX to oppose in public the Conciliar errors. Now this “whether” clause is out of the question because nothing short of a divine intervention is going to make the enemies of God, firmly established within the Vatican, let go of their Council. We come to the “or” clause. What can the bishops have meant by Rome “explicitly recognizing” the “right and duty” of the SSPX to oppose the Council?

The obvious meaning is that Rome would grant to the SSPX some official status within the mainstream Church, or some form of canonical regularisation. Some such recognition is obviously what the SSPX leaders have been striving for ever since they adopted the ideas of the Parisian think-tank, GREC, well over ten years ago. But when those leaders in April of last year largely accepted Rome’s terms for such a recognition, they created such a storm of protest within the SSPX that they were forced to pretend that they no longer want any such recognition based on the mid-April terms. Then what can the “or” clause of June 27 mean?

Within a few days the French District Superior put to them exactly that question. He was told that the “or” clause does not necessarily entail any official recognition, but merely the eventuality of a weak but Catholic Pope being on the one hand Catholic enough to recognize the SSPX’s “right and duty,” etc., but on the other hand too weak and isolated within Rome to be able to impose on the Romans any official recognition, etc. And the District Superior at least appeared to be content with this answer when he immediately transmitted it to the priests of his District.

Well, knock me over with a feather! Firstly, who, just reading the text of June 27, could ever have guessed that this was what the bishops had in mind? And secondly, what in the text of June 27 excludes a range of other possibilities that the bishops would accept in the name of “following Providence”? Given that on June 17, 2012, Bishop Fellay wrote to Benedict XVI that he would continue to do all he could to pursue a reconciliation between Rome and the SSPX, what in the text of June 27 excludes the cunning Romans eventually making to the bishops such an offer of reconciliation that – always in the name of “Providence” – they could not refuse?

Good luck to anyone who accepts the interpretation of the “or” clause given to the French District Superior. However, there are many of us who will remain unconvinced that the leadership of the SSPX has given up on its mad dream of reconciling irreconcilables. Until clear proof to the contrary, we will assume that those leaders remain, however unwittingly, intent upon turning the SSPX lifeboat into a deathboat. And when everyone drowns, they will make it all the ocean’s fault!

Kyrie eleison.

Continuing Damage – I

Continuing Damage – I on July 27, 2013

When people wish to defend the very bad Doctrinal Declaration (DD) officially submitted by the Society of St Pius X to the Roman authorities in mid-April of last year as the basis for a practical agreement between Rome and the SSPX, they will often argue that since Rome refused the DD, the DD is of no further interest and may be forgotten. But in this month’s issue of the “Recusant,” newly arisen magazine of the Resistance in England, there appears a contrary argument which deserves careful attention. Here it is, either quoted directly from the original, or summarized:—

“The DD, as both its name and its contents make clear, is a statement saying that a number of doctrinal positions on questions of the greatest importance in the present crisis in the Church are acceptable to the SSPX. The problem is that several of the positions expressed in the DD are not acceptable.” For instance the SSPX’s General Chapter of last July was told by a leading theologian of the SSPX that “This Declaration is ( . . .) profoundly ambiguous and sins by omission against the duty to denounce clearly the principal errors which are still raging within the Church and are destroying the faith of Catholics. As it stands, this Declaration gives the impression that we would accept the ‘hermeneutic of continuity’.” “The harm done by the DD is therefore that of a doctrinally dubious public statement. Nor has it, as such, been “withdrawn” or “renounced.” In fact Bishop Fellay consistently refuses to admit that there is anything doctrinally dubious about his Declaration. At the very most he admits to having tried to be “too subtle,” but he does not admit that such subtlety is highly objectionable in matters pertaining to the defence of the Faith. Bishop Fellay complains that the whole problem is that he “has not been properly understood” even by theologically very skilled members of the SSPX. He allows, among others, Fr Themann in the USA to defend the Declaration in public conferences that have been recorded and are being distributed among the faithful.”

It is true that matters might have been worse if Rome had accepted the DD, but that does not lessen the standing damage wrought by the DD’s manifestation of what is doctrinally acceptable to the SSPX. For if Bishop Fellay says that he “withdraws” and “renounces” the DD, he certainly seems to mean no more than that it was inopportune at that moment, as being liable to cause division in the SSPX. “He has never as much as suggested that the DD is doctrinally dubious and unacceptable. And that is where the real issue has been all along, and that is the issue that is far from being solved: the Superior General seems to refuse to make any unambiguous profession of the SSPX’s position.”

In conclusion, the scandal caused by the DD has still not been repaired “Trying to downplay the seriousness of the matter for the purpose of maintaining or regaining peace and quiet among the faithful risks encouraging the mentality that doctrine does not matter all that much, as long as things run smoothly and we can keep the true Mass, etc.” Such downplaying will only make the scandal worse (End of the article in the “Recusant”).

This article states very moderately the problem of the DD not being publicly recanted or retracted by Bishop Fellay. But how can any Catholic Congregation keep and serve the Truth when it is led by a Superior who so obstinately plays at ducks and drakes with the Truth? If the SSPX is a lifeboat, either it gets rid of this deluded Captain who constantly seeks to drill holes in the floor of the lifeboat, or the SSPX turns into a deathboat. May God in his mercy open the SSPX’s eyes.

Kyrie eleison.

Long-Range Forecast

Long-Range Forecast on July 20, 2013

Nearly 20 years ago, a certain bishop of the Society of St Pius X showed that it was possible to foresee the betrayal of Archbishop Lefebvre’s SSPX which nearly happened in 2009 and 2012, and which still risks happening. Disturbed by the self-admiration and lack of seriousness which he had observed at the SSPX’s recent elective General Chapter, here is a summary (with a few direct quotes) of what he said in the Society’s house in Le Brémien, France, on 17 July, 1994 (See on the Internet: Un évêque s’est levé le Brémien, and you should find the original text in French).

It would be nice to be able to say that in the SSPX we are opening houses everywhere, we are building, we are entering new countries, we have vocations, that everybody is nice and sweet and young and enthusiastic, that we have four bishops, and so on. “But why should the SSPX have any special protection against the forces unleashed today which have swept away thousands of excellent bishops and priests in the mainstream Church? ( . . .) What are the Society’s qualities, what are its guarantees?” Youth, oh yes, youth is nice, good-looking, physically strong, but what about age, experience and the wisdom of years? How can youth be expected to be wise?

In the 1950s and 1960s the Church appeared to be in good health, heroically resisting the onset of the post-war world. In England and the USA, there were huge numbers of conversions each year, so that the world could seem to be on the point of converting to the Catholic faith. But what happened? Exactly the opposite. With Vatican II, the truth stopped fighting and the Catholic Church surrendered to the modern world.

So let me give you a parallel scenario for the Society. In the 1990s this lovely little Society with all its marvelous little priests is heroically resisting the failings and betrayals of the official Church. There are conversions, and people are realizing that the new Church is false and non-functional, but just when the official Church seems to be on the point of surrendering, what might we see? I do not say we shall see it, but what might we see? The Society surrendering and going over to the official Church. If the Universal Church could collapse, why not all the more a tiny Society?

And here is another consideration. Before Vatican II every Catholic Order and Society had above it the Congregations of the Roman Curia so that “if something went wrong in a Society, not excluding a failure on the part of its leaders, something always humanly possible, then one could always appeal to Rome and Rome could intervene. In olden days it would generally intervene for the best, whereas today it generally intervenes for the worst, so now “it is better not to be under Rome, but watch out, there is a price to be paid, namely that there is nobody above us, and so our General Council, our little Superior-General, are the ceiling! Danger!” The Society is thrown back on its own resources. Now Archbishop Lefebvre was 65 years old when he founded the Society. But how many old men with long experience does the Society have in 1994?

In brief why should the Society be spared the problems of the Universal Church? I do not want the Society to break up, and please God, I shall do nothing to help it do so, but I can only say I would not be surprised if it did break up. God may preserve it, but He may also allow it to go the way of all flesh, to make us realize how little we are capable of by ourselves. We need wisdom, and special help from God.

Kyrie eleison.