Society of St. Pius X

Future Discussions

Future Discussions on March 5, 2011

To the relief of some, to the disappointment of others, it looks as though the doctrinal Discussions held over the last year and a half between theologians of Rome and representatives of the Society of St Pius X will after all come to an end this spring, because the main subjects of discussion will by then have been covered, without any real prospect of agreement opening up. Such is the conclusion tentatively to be drawn from remarks of the Society’s Superior General, Bishop Fellay, made in the course of an interview he gave on February 2.

Now let anyone disappointed be sure that there are Romans and important priests of the SSPX who will hardly give up their efforts to build a bridge between the churchmen of Vatican II and the churchmen of Catholic Tradition. But howsoever it be with such strivings to unite all Catholics of good will, strivings that ebb and flow, yesterday, today and tomorrow, Our Lord’s words are an anchorage: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mt. XXIV, 35). For on his life the Church’s life is modelled, and in his life there was an ebb and flow of human strivings and sufferings, culminating in the dreadful crucifixion, but while he felt every human urge to shy away from the crucifying will of his Father – “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me . . .” – still his human mind and heart were anchored in that divine will – “ . . .nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Mt.XXVI, 39).

So the same unchanging divine will that directed and anchored Our Lord’s human mind and will, must anchor also the life of his Church. So Popes, Councils, religious Congregations and Societies may come and go, but in order to be Catholic they must submit to that divine will to which Our Lord submitted, and they must tell the exact same truths that Our Lord transmitted from his Father to his Church. Like no other institution upon earth, the Catholic Church is so built around Truth that its survival is proportional to its fidelity to that Truth. It is because the Conciliar Church is putting human interests in the place of divine Truth, that it is disintegrating, and any Catholic Congregation or Society that would do the same will likewise fall apart.

It follows that whoever is faithful to the fullness of revealed Truth is in effect – not in principle, but in practice – in the driving-seat of the Church (See “Letters from the Rector” Vol. IV, p.164). Furthermore, whoever has that Truth and pretends he is not in the driving-seat would be what Our Lord would have called himself, had he denied his Father, “a liar” (Jn.VIII, 55). That is because any messenger disowning the divineness of his divine message is no true lover of his fellow-men, as he and they may like to think, but he has for his father the Father of Lies (Jn.VIII, 44).

There is a Truth, even if most people can barely recognize it. The right and ability of the Romans to govern the Church depends on their being faithful to that Truth. The right and ability of the SSPX to stand up to unfaithful Romans depends on the SSPX’s own faithfulness to the Truth. For now the SSPX has been faithful, so for now the SSPX will survive, but may Rome, by returning to the Truth, make that survival unnecessary!

Kyrie eleison.

Traditional Infection

Traditional Infection on January 29, 2011

Liberalism is an unbelievable disease, capable of rotting out the best hearts and minds. If we define it, most briefly, as the liberation of man from God, it is as old as the hills, but never has it been so deep or widespread or seemingly normal, as it is today. Now religious liberty is at the heart of liberalism – what use is it to be free from everything else and everybody else if I am not free from God? So if Benedict XVI lamented three weeks ago that “religious freedom is threatened all over the world,” he is certainly infected. Nor let even followers of Catholic Tradition be confident that they have immunity from the disease. Here is an e-mail I received a few days ago from a layman in Continental Europe:—

“For the longest time, about 20 years, I was moulded by liberalism. It is through the grace of God that I underwent a conversion with the Society of St Pius X. To my shock I have found liberal behaviour even in the ranks of Tradition. People are still saying that one should not exaggerate how bad things are at present. Freemasonry is hardly mentioned as being an enemy of the Church, because to do so might damage one’s personal interests, so people go on reacting as though, overall, the world is still in good shape.

“Some Traditionalists even recommend psycho-drugs to deal with the stress that goes with being a Traditional Catholic, and if you are looking for happiness, they say, you should go to a medical doctor to make life easier.

“The consequence of such behaviour is an indifferentism which is the seed-bed of liberalism. All of a sudden it is no longer so bad to attend the Novus Ordo Mass, to make common cause with modernists, to change one’s principles from one day to the next, to give up showing one’s faith in public, to study at a State university, to trust the State, and to act on the assumption that everybody does after all mean well.

“Our Lord has harsh words for this sort of indifferentism: the lukewarm he will “begin to spit out of his mouth” (Rev. III, 16). It may sound paradoxical, but the greatest enemies of the Church are liberal Catholics. There is even a liberal Traditionalism!!!” (end of layman’s quote).

What then is the antidote for this poison that threatens every one of us? Sanctifying grace, no doubt (Rom.VII, 25), which can clear the mind of confusion, and strengthen the will to do what the mind sees to be right. And how do I make sure of sanctifying grace? That is a little like asking, how can I guarantee my final perseverance? The Church teaches that one cannot guarantee it, because it is a gift – or the gift – of God. But what I can always do is pray the Holy Rosary, an average of five Mysteries a day – better, if reasonably possible, fifteen. Whosoever does that is doing what the Mother of God asks all of us to do, and she has a virtually unlimited maternal power over her Son, Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ.

Kyrie eleison.

Assisi-Ism – No!

Assisi-Ism – No! on January 8, 2011

Some people are still afraid that Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society of St Pius X is on the way to a bad agreement with Benedict XVI’s Rome, but by the Pope’s Assisi-ism amongst other things, one might say that Benedict XVI himself is doing his best to prevent any such occurrence.

Six days ago he argued in theory that the world’s “great religions” can constitute “an important factor of the peace and unity of mankind.” Five days ago he announced in practice that in October of this year he will go “as a pilgrim” to Assisi to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Prayer Meeting of World Religions held there by Pope John-Paul II in 1986. But the theory of all “great world religions” contributing to world peace was absolutely rejected by Archbishop Lefebvre, and the practice of the 1986 Prayer Meeting in Assisi he condemned as a flagrant violation of the First Commandment, which, coming from the Vicar of Christ, constituted a scandal unheard of in all the history of the Church. Only the fear of too much repetition being counter-productive might have stopped him from castigating this latest piece of Assisi-ism.

However, the Archbishop did recognize that all too few Catholics then grasped the enormity of the scandal. This is because the whole modern world marginalizes God, brackets out the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, makes religion a matter of free choice and turns Catholic Tradition into a mere question of sensibility or feeling. Infecting even the Popes, this way of thinking has become so normal all around us that every one of us is threatened. Let us get back to basics:—

All being requires a First Cause. That Cause, to be the First, must be Being Itself, which must be all-perfect being, because any second god, to differ from the First, would have to have some perfection lacking to the First. So the true God can only be one. This one true God took human nature once, and only once, in the divine Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who proved his divinity by a quantity and quality of miracles that have accompanied no other man ever, but have accompanied his Church ever since: the Roman Catholic Church. Membership of that Church is by faith and is open to all men. If they believe, that is the indispensable start of their eternal salvation. If they refuse to believe, they are on their way to eternal damnation (Mk. XVI, 16).

Therefore if by their past and future Assisi events, Popes John-Paul II and Benedict XVI have encouraged souls to think that Catholicism is not the one and only way to a happy eternity, but merely one amongst many other promoters (even if it is the best) of mankind’s “peace and unity” in this life, it follows that both Popes have facilitated the dreadful damnation of countless souls in the next life. Rather than have any part in such a betrayal, Archbishop Lefebvre preferred to be scorned, rejected, despised, marginalized, silenced, “excommunicated,” you name it.

There is a price to be paid for holding to the Truth. How many Catholics are ready to pay it?

Kyrie eleison.

Fortieth Anniversary

Fortieth Anniversary on November 6, 2010

Last Monday was a moment to be immensely thankful, and somewhat wary. It was the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Society of St. Pius X, when, on behalf of the Universal Church, Bishop Charriere of Geneva, Lausanne and Fribourg gave his official approval to the Society’s Statutes, submitted to him some months beforehand by Archbishop Lefebvre.

To anybody striving to keep and to live by the Catholic Faith amidst today’s soft global apostasy, the occasion for thankfulness is clear. Ever since Vatican II, the official Church has been in a state of collapse which is still going on, because the leading churchmen are clinging to the novelties of that Council by which man is to be put in the place of God. So the Catholic people are still being misled, and the pyramidal structure of God’s Church is crumbling from top to bottom.

Therefore for a devout but pyramidally-minded churchman to see the need for a minor counter-pyramid to be constructed within the falling ruins of the major pyramid was a first miracle. For him to succeed in erecting that minor pyramid beneath the papal weight of the collapsing major pyramid was a second miracle. And for the Archbishop’s successors to have upheld the minor pyramid for nearly 20 years since his death, is a third miracle. Now the SSPX has no monopoly on the defence of the Faith – God forbid! – but it has for many years up to today been the backbone of that defence. We owe boundless thanks to God for his goodness to every one of us that understands what a gift the SSPX has been.

But we must also be wary. Father Barrielle (1897–1983) was the Spiritual Director at the SSPX’s first seminary at Econe in Switzerland from its early days, and I can remember how often he quoted words of his beloved master, Father Vallet (1883 -1947), great preacher of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, and moulder of them in that five-day form so profitable to followers of the SSPX all over the world – through their transmission to SSPX seminarians by Fr. Barrielle. Fr. Vallet studied the Exercises and their history deeply, and one thing he observed was that if any Congregation was founded to preach the Exercises and did so successfully, then within a certain space of time the Devil would succeed in diverting, distracting or destroying that Congregation. What space of time, according to Fr. Vallet, as quoted by Fr. Barrielle? “Forty years”!

Now preaching the Exercises is not the SSPX’s only apostolate, so it may hope to be spared that concentrated attention of the Devil? On the contrary! If that minor pyramid is still the backbone of the defence of the Faith amidst the ruins of the Church crumbling all around, it can only be the object of his super-concentrated attention! Let all of us beware, and – because of that pyramidal structure of the Church – let us especially include in our gentle prayers the leaders of the SSPX.

Kyrie eleison.

Delay Condemning?

Delay Condemning? on October 30, 2010

Following on several recent numbers of “Eleison Comments” emphasizing the importance of doctrine (EC 162, 165–167, 169), a reader asks if it would not nevertheless be wiser to delay the condemnation of Vatican II, on the grounds that neither the Church officials in Rome nor Catholics at large are ready to accept that the Council is doctrinally as bad as the Society of St Pius X, following Archbishop Lefebvre, says that it is. Actually, it is far worse.

The doctrinal problem with the documents of Vatican II is not, mainly, that they are openly and clearly heretical. In fact their “letter,” as opposed to their “spirit,” can seem Catholic, to the point that Archbishop Lefebvre, who took direct part in all four Sessions of the Council, signed off on all but the two last and worst of those documents, “Gaudium et Spes” and “Dignitatis Humanae.” However, that “letter” is subtly contaminated with the “spirit” of the brand-new man-centered religion towards which the Council Fathers were inclining, and which has been corrupting the Church ever since. If the Archbishop could vote again today on the 16 documents, one wonders if with the wisdom of hindsight he would vote for a single one of them.

So the documents are ambiguous, outwardly interpretable as being Catholic for the most part, but inwardly poisoned with modernism, that most pernicious of all Church heresies, said St Pius X in “Pascendi.” So when for instance “conservative” Catholics, out of “loyalty” to the Church, defend the documents, what exactly are they conserving? The poison, and its ability to go on corrupting the Catholic Faith of millions of souls, thereby setting them on the path to eternal damnation. It all reminds me of one Allied convoy crossing the Atlantic with vital supplies for the Allies in World War II. An enemy submarine succeeded in surfacing in the very middle of the defensive perimeter of ships, so that it was free to torpedo them one after another, because the Allied destroyers were chasing around and around the perimeter outside to hunt down the submarine, never imagining it could be in their midst! The Devil is in the midst of the Vatican II documents and he is torpedoing the eternal salvation of millions of souls, because he is so well disguised in those documents.

Now imagine a sailor with sharp eyes on board one of the merchant-ships in the convoy who has noticed the little tell-tale wake of the submarine’s snorkel. He yells, “The submarine is inside!,” but nobody takes him seriously. Is he to wait and keep quiet, or is he to scream “Blue Murder!,” and go on screaming, until at last the captain is brought to see the deadly danger?

The SSPX must scream about Vatican II, and go on screaming, and without ceasing, because millions of souls are in deadly and unceasing danger. To grasp that danger, admittedly difficult to grasp in theory, read, or get translated into your own language, Fr. Alvaro Calderon’s profound book on the Vatican II documents, “Prometeo: la Religion del Hombre.”

Kyrie eleison.

Vocations – Wherefrom?

Vocations – Wherefrom? on October 2, 2010

After following over tens of years a variety of part-time and full-time courses in the Humanities at two universities in major cities of an “advanced” Western nation, Robert (as I will call him) finds himself in substantial agreement with the criticism of modern universities that appeared in a recent “Eleison Comments” (EC 158), but he has an interesting objection that goes one, or two, steps further. Let us begin with his live experience of today’s university “system.”

A few years ago, after seemingly endless years of study, Robert did finally obtain his Doctorate in history, but only just, and in such a way as to disqualify him from ever getting a job as a university professor. The politically correct system, he says, had successfully defended itself from his “extreme right” ideas. “The integrist had been muzzled, democracy had been saved. The imbecile had thrown himself in front of the steamroller, and he had been duly crushed, as easily as Winston in George Orwell’s famous novel, “1984.”

“Given my experience,” he writes, “I would recommend no youngster to study Humanities at any University, still less my own children. Let them rather choose some manual trade or advanced technical training, the ideal being to work for oneself, in the country or at most in a small town, so as to avoid today’s enslavement to salary.” Had he his life to live over again, he says, that is what he would do, because as a Catholic intellectual he feels that his action has been limited to giving witness.

However, Robert has a serious objection to this solution of preferring some manual trade or advanced technical training. In brief, engineers may be better paid than philosophers, but the clip-clear nature of their work – on-off, zero-one – will disincline them to take any interest in the human, all too human, complications of religion or politics. Ideally, one might be a technician by day and a poet by night, but in reality it is difficult to lead a life divided between such opposites, says Robert, and a man will normally lose interest in one or the other.

He observes the same tension within the Society of St Pius X school in his part of the world. In theory the Humanities there have pride of place, but in practice boys and staff tend to go for the Sciences because of the better job openings. The youngsters coming out of the school are correspondingly less well equipped to understand in depth the problems of the Conciliar Church or the modern world, as it seems to Robert. End of his testimony.

The problem is grave. For instance, the SSPX schools are under pressure to incline towards the sciences, but future priests surely need rather a good formation in the Humanities, because souls do not function on clip-clear one-zero, on-off. Yet if vocations do not come from the SSPX’s own schools, where will they come from? How are things spiritual to be protected in a whole world giving itself over to things material? How are boys’ souls to be oriented towards the priesthood? I have observed that what is decisive in many cases is their father taking his religion seriously. Read in the Old Testament the book of Tobias (neither long nor difficult to understand) to see how God rewards fathers through their sons.

Kyrie eleison.