Society of St. Pius X

Father Bruewiler

Father Bruewiler on October 26, 2019

The following analysis of the present situation of the Newsociety of St Pius X appeared in the St Gallen parish bulletin #3 of Fr Aloïs Bruewihler for autumn of this year. Fr Bruewihler is a former Society priest who left the Society in 2015 because he could not reconcile himself with the false direction being taken by the Newsociety which is still pursuing recognition by the Newchurch authorities in Rome, although these are always insisting on acceptance by the Newsociety of the profoundly anti-Catholic documents of Vatican II as the indispensable condition of that recognition. Fr Bruewihler’s article is adapted here to the A4 length of each of these “Comments.”

In a time of severe crisis when life’s very foundations are being attacked, shaken and even overthrown, a Catholic must in all humility, with trust in the protection of Almighty God, concentrate on “the one thing necessary” (Lk. X, 42), without calling God in question, but instead humbly accepting the trial that His Eternal Wisdom has allowed (or even set up?) as a grace-laden means of punishing or purifying or sanctifying or saving us, body and soul.

Since Mother Church, humiliated and in chains since Vatican II, is as occupied and swamped as ever by sinister Freemasonic powers established within the “Conciliar church,” God’s all-wise Providence gave to Catholics a faithful successor of the Apostles, Archbishop Lefebvre, in order to guarantee for us in our extreme and continuing need an emergency source of the unadulterated doctrine of Christ. The more the Newvatican speaks and acts under the influence of the “smoke of Satan,” the more attention Catholics should pay to the doctrinal heritage left to us by the Founder of the Society of St Pius X if they wish to save their souls. For just as St Paul warned the Corinthians to keep to the Gospel as he had preached it to them, and as he had received it from Christ (I Cor. XV, 1–3, etc.), so today to abandon the Archbishop’s teaching on the New Mass and the Council is in effect to abandon the teaching of Christ.

But soon after the Archbishop’s death in 1991, the Society’s leaders set out on a new path, by which they have striven ever since to “normalise” the Society’s canonical standing within the mainstream Church, as though it were the Archbishop’s Society and not the Conciliar Church that was abnormal. This change of direction began clearly to appear with the Society leaders’ attempt in 2001 to submit to the Conciliar Romans, and it came still more clearly into focus with the Letter to those leaders on April 7, 2012, from three of the Society’s four bishops, one of whom was soon after excluded from the Society. The Society was being split in two, and whoever approved of that exclusion then must be approving now of the Society’s new friends, such as the Swiss Newchurch Bishop, whose doctrine on Council and Mass is far from that of Archbishop Lefebvre. Thus the Newsociety is now being formed on the basis of practical unity before doctrinal truth, which is a Freemasonic principle, absolutely not Catholic. Yet, more and more blinded priests and laity seem to be hoping that a Society-Rome agreement will come about.

The problem goes back to Vatican II (1962–1965) when faithful Catholics, in their families and at work, had to learn to their cost what it meant for Church officials to depart from Catholic Truth. Catholics could no longer follow or obey those Popes, bishops and priests who had authority over them, because Catholic Authority is at the service of Faith and Justice. On the contrary, Benedict XVI’s “Motu Proprio” of 2007, and the SSPX Superior General’s ambiguous and misleading Press Statement issued at the same time, are two examples of serious disregard for truth and justice. As Bishop Tissier said in 2016, “The ‘Motu Proprio’ Mass is not the true Mass.” We could add, the Newsociety, forming steadily ever since 1991, is no longer the true Society.

Kyrie eleison.

Modern Convert

Modern Convert on October 19, 2019

If anybody is tempted today to think that Almighty God has resigned from governing His Church or the world, there are testimonials reaching the office of these “Comments” which show clearly – at least in this Commentator’s opinion – that the Holy Ghost is still at work. A fallen away Catholic tells below how he came back to the Church, how he then found Catholic Tradition and soon after that the “Resistance,” and what sense he makes of it all. Amidst the confusion and discouragement which we all know, he writes with a remarkable breadth and serenity, surely a sign that he is being led by God.

I am a married man with two girls, one nearly adolescent and the other a baby. It is to my grandmother that I owe my return to the Faith. One day five years ago I was just passing by a church when out of the blue I thought of her praying the Rosary, and I was impelled to enter the church to pray. From then on I began to pray once more and to attend Mass. Of course it was the New Mass at first, until about three years ago when I discovered the existence of Catholic Tradition.

From then my family and I have been attending the local chapel of the Society of St Pius X, where we were welcomed with great joy by the priest and congregation. But I soon discovered that there were many divisions in the chapel, and so you can imagine the difficulty I had in sorting out what was going on. Having so recently arrived in Tradition, I needed a good deal of patience, courage and perseverance in order to hang on and not just run away in the first six months! But our thirst for truth and our search for roots overcame our fear, and so we stayed, thanks be to God.

I understood that the SSPX is truly a holy part of the true Catholic Church of Christ, and that is why I am staying at least for the moment inside the Society, with my family. But I am listening all the time to what the sedevacantists and “Resistants” have to say, in order to continue making up my mind. I have an enormous admiration for Archbishop Lefebvre, a true man of God, a holy successor of the Apostles. To see his Society vacillating under the world’s infernal pressure is very difficult to bear, and it requires of us to pray even more.

Certainly the Society still has a great deal to do, because it can still do much good. So can the so-called “Resistance” which plays, and is right to play, the part of a guard-rail whenever the Society strays off course and totters under the attacks of the modern world and the temptations held out to it by the Conciliar churchmen. I am convinced that the “Resistance” has a vital part to play, and that Our Lord enables it to exist for a great good, even inside the Society although it appears to be outside. Personally I count myself as a firm resistant to anybody who does not clearly attack, head on, the Second Vatican Council which was inspired by the Devil. After all, how can one live as a true Catholic today without resisting everywhere and all the time? So is not being a Catholic here below the hardest and most beautiful thing that there is? Thank you, granny, for praying to Jesus and Mary for me!

In this life we never see God Himself, but we do see Him at work: a grandmother’s prayers; prayer of a soul as its first and most important step; attending Mass as a next step: the New Mass still carrying grace, however strangled the grace may be; the Catholic soul being somehow shown Tradition by God, and gravitating towards it; the refuge in a local chapel of the Society, and the welcome there, only for the next severe trial to begin! Trial overcome by the need for roots and the love and pursuit of truth, which settles down in the mind staying open amidst all the confusion, but anchored in respect for the Archbishop and in hatred of Vatican II, profiting by both the Society and the “Resistance” for what each has had to give him, without excluding either; the recognition that any Catholic must swim against the current, and finally gratitude for how God has led him. Many lessons in not too many words. May God bless the writer, and keep him and his family faithful until death. He stands a good chance.

Kyrie eleison.

“Resistance” Unity

“Resistance” Unity on August 3, 2019

With the purpose of aiming a fire-extinguisher at pride, these “Comments” choose rarely to highlight any achievement of the priests and lay-folk labouring since 2012 to ensure the survival of Catholic principles and practice, especially but not exclusively within the Newsociety of St Pius X, i.e. that Society which is sliding into the arms of Rome. Newsociety leaders naturally condemn the so-called “Resistance” or “Fidelity” movement, pointing out in particular the divisions that have arisen between its various priests. But the time has come to highlight the contrasting unity of the Catholic “Resistance.”

For instance a long-standing observer of the “Resistance” scene makes the following pertinent remarks: The main argument of the Superiors of the Newsociety against the “Resistance” is to point out the divisions between Resistant priests. But while various Resistant priests have a variety of vocational gifts, giving rise to a variety of Resistant works (e.g. a Friary, a Seminary, a Monastery, a Priory, a Mission, etc.), there reigns amongst them all a remarkable unity as to the end being pursued – the survival of the Catholic Faith. On the contrary, the Newsociety is a giant with feet of clay, held together only by disciplinary measures, the fear of sanctions and personal interests, but as to the end being pursued it is highly divided: an Agreement with Rome, or not; marriages under official authority, or not; flirting with Conciliar bishops, or not – the Newsociety is cracking in all directions.

Once again, what we are seeing today is how all Catholics without exception are undermined by the split between Catholic Truth and Catholic Authority which resulted from the conscious or unconscious betrayal of the 2000 bishops and two Popes who engineered Vatican II. Thus in 2019 on the one hand the “Resistance” holding to the Truth suffers outward divisions from the lack of Authority, because the need for authority cannot from below create its reality, because authority can by definition only come from above. On the other hand the Newsociety holding to Roman Authority suffers inward division from the lack of Truth, because that Roman Authority is clinging to the lies of Vatican II.

But Truth is the purpose of Authority, and not the other way round. “Peter, when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Lk. XXII, 32). In other words, firstly recover your own shaken faith in the Truth, then secondly exercise your Authority over the other Apostles. This is because in a fallen world, the inward Truth needs outward Authority to defend it, but if the outward Authority is no longer defending that inward Truth then it has lost its true reason for being, and it becomes an end in itself, ultimately a tyranny to serve personal positions, as with Paul VI and the Archbishop’s successors.

Thus however plentiful be the personal miseries of individual Resistants, so long as they are faithful to the Truth, the “Resistance” will outlive the Newsociety, just as the Archbishop’s Society, as long as it was faithful to the Truth, dominated, and will ultimately outlive, the Conciliar Romans. The ultimate problem is not one of persons or Authority, but of doctrines and Truth. Thus when in the early 2000’s the successor of the Archbishop at that time appealed to Authority to solve divisions inside the Society, he was already well down the Conciliar path of preferring Authority to Truth, of preferring will to reason. As a result, the Archbishop’s Society has been turned into a tyranny, and although the tyrant was apparently dismissed from the seat of power by the election of a year ago, really he is back there. Such is our modern world. Reality gives the lie to appearances.

Kyrie eleison.

Huonderland Again

Huonderland Again on June 1, 2019

On May 20th, the day on which Bishop Huonder’s term of office as head of the major Swiss Diocese of Chur since 2007 came to a close, the disputed question of his future place of retirement was settled once and for all by a Declaration signed jointly by himself and by the Society’s Superior General, Fr David Pagliarani – the Bishop will be living in the Society’s boys’ school in Wangs in Eastern Switzerland. Doubts had arisen as to where the Bishop would retire because of the natural improbability of a Conciliar bishop settling inside a Traditional house, but on both sides of the doctrinal abyss between the Second Vatican Council and Catholic Tradition, the anti-doctrinal dream of bridging that abyss has prevailed. Thus about his decision the honourable Bishop himself has just written, “In accordance with the wishes of Pope Francis, I shall strive there (in Wangs) to contribute to Church unity.” It is an honourable intention, but it leaves out of account the evil of Vatican II.

As the modern world goes, and with it the modern Church, and with the Newchurch the Newsociety, Bishop Huonder is a decent and well-meaning churchman, full of good intentions which can make any “decent” person think that he is good company, and safe to mix with, and safe to place within a “decent” school. Certainly one may hope that Traditional surroundings in Wangs will do him good.

But from the standpoint of God and of the true Catholic Church, he is a believer in the Second Vatican Council, and therefore he believes in working with the present Pope of that Council, Pope Francis, and in working with all followers of Tradition who have lost their grip on the objective ambiguity and evil of that Council, with its six Conciliar Popes. For indeed that Council is profoundly godless and contaminates all that it touches (see several issues of these “Comments” due soon to appear), and it twists out of true all persons who believe in it. Therefore from the standpoint of the salvation of souls – which is God’s own standpoint – Bishop Huonder is, objectively speaking, contaminated and twisted, not fit company at all for Catholics or a Catholic school, all the more dangerous for his being subjectively decent, well-meaning, likeable and so on.

Nor need he be blamed any more or less than thousands of other “decent” bishops since Vatican II for having let himself be misled by a series of Conciliar Popes, nor need he be insulted as though he is a villain, nor need he be socially shunned like a pariah. But Catholics should absolutely avoid any kind of contact with him, social or otherwise, which might give rise to any temptation to keep with him, for as long as he believes in Vatican II, any kind of company in matters of the Faith. And if to avoid any such temptation it would be necessary to shun his company altogether, then his company should be shunned altogether. God and the Faith must come “first, last and foremost,” otherwise we risk losing our souls.

In conclusion, we can only wish to Bishop Huonder in his retirement all grace of God to understand the perfidy of Vatican II, and we can only wish all grace of God to the Traditional inmates of the Society school in Wangs to help him by their example to understand the danger of the “wishes” of Pope Francis towards the Society, which another example has just brought to light.

The report has come from Rome in the last few days that the Argentinian priest who was appointed by Bishop Fellay to be the Society’s General Bursar, at the request of Pope Francis and with the permission of his successor at the head of the Society, Fr Pagliarani, has rejoined the official Church, and in accordance always with the wishes of Pope Francis he resides presently in the Casa Santa Marta where the Pope himself lives; he will be incardinated in the diocese of Rome, possibly waiting to be appointed bishop by Pope Francis. If such a report were only half true, what would it not still reveal of the inability or unwillingness of high Society officials to understand that Archbishop Lefebvre fought the Second Vatican Council for reasons of the Faith?

Kyrie eleison.

Ill Straw

Ill Straw on May 25, 2019

Brace yourselves, dear readers, for another piece of bad news. It is not the end of the world, but it is one more straw in an ill wind, one more indication that the wind is blowing in the wrong direction when we had hoped that the wind might have turned in the right direction. After all, when at the General Chapter of July last year a new Superior General was elected, was it not a sign that the firm grip of the liberals on the direction being taken by the Society was at last being loosened? That there was a hope that the new Superior General might take the Society in a rather healthier direction than that taken by the Archbishop’s two immediate successors?

This hope received a rude shock when we learned that just before the end of the Chapter it had created beside the Society’s normal governing body which is the triumvirate of its Superior General and his two Assistants, two brand new posts of Counsellor, to advise the triumvirate – and who did it appoint to these two posts? – none other than the two previous Superiors General! But in case we were afraid that this might mean that there would be no change in the Society’s increasing nightmare of the last 20 years, we were re-assured that the two new Counsellors would only be counselling on the inclusion or exclusion of Society members, or on the opening or closing of Society houses. And whosoever wished to believe that re-assurance did so.

Further to allay fears that at the top of the Society the more things changed the more they would stay the same, fears that the Society was still in the firm grip of its internal enemies, we were also told that the former Superior General would no longer be living in Society Headquarters in Menzingen, near Zurich, but would be taking up residence in the Society’s main seminary in Écône, with a range of high mountains between it and Menzingen. Such a move scared some of us by the shadow that would be cast over the whole Seminary by the former Superior General’s proximity to the priestly formation of the Society’s future French-speaking priests, but at least he would not be overshadowing his successor in Menzingen. At least in this respect we could hope that he would be leaving his successor as Superior General free to determine future Society policy on his own. And that is surely what the move from Menzingen to Écône was meant to make us think. Alas, it looks as though we were once more being taken for fools.

For indeed the latest news, coming from more than one source and surely easy enough to verify, is that the former Superior General has packed his bags in Écône and moved back to Menzingen. It does look as though he has calculated either that there was little potential reaction to his staying in Headquarters, or that the reaction had blown over, in any case that it was safe for the spider to return to the centre of his web, because none of the flies would notice.

Priests of Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society of St Pius X, in his name we appeal to you: believe if you must that the policy of re-submission to Conciliar Rome is not suicidal for his Society and for the purpose for which he founded it, but in Hamlet’s words, “lay not the flattering unction to your souls” that the change of Superior General in July has made any real difference to that policy. It does look as though the same mafia of liberals is still in charge and is still intent – of course with the best of intentions – on undoing what he did.

The problem is profound, reaching far outside the little Society – stay tuned.

Kyrie eleison.

Invitation Withdrawn

Invitation Withdrawn on April 6, 2019

Bishop Vitus Huonder, still bishop of the large diocese of Chur in Eastern Switzerland which includes Zurich, is not after all going to take up residence in the boys’ school of the Society of St Pius X in Wangs when he retires later this month. In January his diocesan spokesman had announced that the bishop was moving into the school on behalf of Rome’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in order to maintain contact between Rome and the Society, but last month the bishop himself announced that he would not be retiring to the Society school in Wangs after all. And so the loving encounter between Rome’s bishop and the Society’s school was called off. Was it Rome, or the Society, or both, that had cold feet at the last moment? We do not know. It does not matter. What matters is to see clearly the never ending conflict between God’s reality and men’s false dreams, and to prefer God’s reality.

In this case the reality of God is that His Catholic Church and the churchmen’s Conciliar revolution can never blend together, while the dream of the churchmen is that they can. But God puts God before men, while the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) puts men before God. The two positions are as irreconcilable as Jesus Christ and Satan. From eternity Our Lord, Goodness itself, can only reject evil. Ever since Satan fell just after his creation, he has been fixed in evil and can only hate God, and His divine Son, and His Son’s true Church. And men are torn between the two from conception until death, because they receive from God their basic human nature and possibly sanctifying grace which both incline them to God, while from the Fall of Adam their nature is wounded with original sin which inclines them to Satan and to evil. Nor can any man alive avoid this conflict. Either he is advancing in good and becoming less evil, or he is retreating from goodness by sinking into evil.

Therefore if Bishop Huonder, a Conciliar bishop, had moved into the Traditional Catholic school in Wangs, one of two things must have happened. Either he succeeded in making the school less Traditional, or the school succeeded in making him more Catholic. And so if his residence in Wangs has been called off, either Rome feared his becoming more Catholic, which is not likely because Bishop Huonder is a typical crusader for the Newchurch of Rome, or the Newsociety changed its mind, and instead of installing the Conciliar wolf in its sheepfold in Wangs, decided to exclude him, after its prior decision to install him. Why the change of mind?

There are two possible explanations. Either by virtue the Newsociety for at least a moment stopped dreaming of wolves being nice, or by necessity it was forced by two extra revelations of wolvishness to delay the wolf’s welcome. On the one hand details came to light of a discreet meeting held in April four years ago in Oberriet, Switzerland, between Bishop Huonder and Bishops Fellay and de Galarreta with five more priests of the SSPX, to discuss the ecumenism of Vatican II. BpH began with a position which can be summed up as “Agreement first, doctrine second,” which is typical for a Conciliarist. The SSPX bishops and priests responded by putting in front Catholic doctrine on ecumenism, in a manner worthy of Archbishop Lefebvre. BpH concluded with the promise to take to Rome the SSPX objections to Conciliar ecumenism. But the Romans know those objections inside out – in brief, BpH’s arguments show him to have been a faithful servant of Conciliar Rome. On the other hand details also came to light of BpH’s extensive work within the Newchurch, especially since 2011, on behalf of official friendship between the Catholic Church and the Jews. Such work is again typical of a Conciliarist either innocently or wilfully ignorant of nearly 2,000 years of consistent – and proud – Jewish hatred of the Church.

So these two revelations showed BpH to be imbued with the spirit of the Council, a potentially dangerous inmate of a house of the SSPX. The true Society would not invite him again. But the Newsociety risks merely waiting until Traditionalists are soft enough to accept such Conciliarism in their midst.

Kyrie eleison.