Vatican II

Faith Crucial – II

Faith Crucial – II on January 13, 2018

Your Excellency,

Talking with an Indult priest (one who says the true Mass but obeys the Church officials in Rome) I have become confused about Archbishop Lefebvre and the stand which he took in defence of the Faith. I thought he was right, but now I am not so sure. Here are some of that priest’s arguments:—

1 The Archbishop disobeyed Rome. That proves that he was proud.

2 Had he given up his Society and seminaries to obey Rome, he would have been heroic.

3 If he disobeyed Rome to save Tradition, he did evil in order to bring about good, which is wrong.

4 To obey a Pope as misguided as Pope Francis is, is a martyrdom by which one imitates Christ.

5 For Bishop Fellay to step into the jaws of the Roman lion is, in spiritual terms, heroic.

Dear Sir,

In sane times the Catholic Church gives to souls a clear direction as to what is true or false, right or wrong, and you would need to be in no confusion. But ever since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) these have not been sane times, because the Roman churchmen themselves at that Council abandoned God’s true Catholic religion and adopted a false man-made religion which we can call Conciliarism. So ever since the 1960’s, Catholics have been confused from top to bottom of the Church, by trying to go in two directions at once. For instance, your Indult priest says the Mass of the true religion, while meaning to obey the Romans set upon the false religion. No wonder it confuses you to listen to him. And you will remain confused until you fully grasp the difference between God’s true religion and men’s Conciliarism – God may want you to do some more homework.

A Catholic is a Catholic by the Faith he believes in, by the sacraments he receives and by the hierarchy which he obeys. But he is firstly Catholic by his Faith, without which he would have no concern for the Catholic sacraments or hierarchy. Therefore the Catholic Faith is fundamental to a Catholic, and it is that Faith which the Roman officials abandoned at Vatican II in order to get off the wavelength of God and onto the wavelength of modern man. Therefore Conciliarism is fundamentally different from Catholicism and it creates a quite different viewpoint from which to consider pride, heroism, obedience, and so on. The Catholic viewpoint is true, the Conciliar viewpoint is false. Now, to the Indult priest’s arguments:—

1 The Archbishop was not proud, because he was defending God’s truth and putting God before men. On the contrary, heretics like Luther and Conciliarists are proud because they are defying God to please men.

2 He was heroic not by giving way to Rome, but by resisting Rome, in order to put God first.

3 When he did what he did in order to save Tradition, he was doing not evil but good to achieve good.

4 Catholic martyrdom lies in suffering harm and death not just for any cause, but only for the true Catholic Faith. The Archbishop suffered a true martyrdom not by giving way to the Popes who had gone wrong, but by doing all he could to make them see how they were abandoning the true Faith.

5 His successors on the contrary, by doing all they can, since 2000 at least, to bring the Archbishop’s Society under the control of the Conciliar Romans, are in no terms heroic because they are putting men before God. Nor are they martyrs, nor are they truly imitating Christ, but they are indeed proud.

Dear Sir, I hope that by now you can see that everything in the Church must ultimately be judged in the light of the Truth and of the Faith. This is because a man’s faith or lack of it is his basic attitude to God. A man may choose to go to Hell if he wants, but if he wants to go to the one true Heaven of the one true God, then he must start by believing in Him, according to the true Faith.

Kyrie eleison.

SSPX, 2018?

SSPX, 2018? on January 6, 2018

As the world plunges downhill, more and more people are opening their eyes and are wondering where it will end. As the Catholic Church is led resolutely downhill by a pope who seems intent only on rubbing out the last traces of the pre-Conciliar Church, more and more Catholics are opening their eyes and are driven to wondering if the Council (1962–1965) was not some kind of problem for the true Catholic Church. Then they look towards the Society of St Pius X, because it was founded in 1970 by Archbishop Lefebvre precisely to ensure the continuation of the pre-Conciliar Church, and what do they find? A group of priests more and more sympathetic to the post-conciliar Church, less and less clear on Vatican II, and sliding into the arms of the Conciliar Romans. Result? Many of these souls looking for the Truth are more confused than ever. So where are the Church and the Society of St Pius X headed in 2018?

Souls looking for the Truth must read (for instance Ralph Wiltgen’s The Rhine flows into the Tiber, or Archbishop Lefebvre’s Letter to Confused Catholics). That is how many Catholics found their way in the 1970’s and 1980’s towards the Traditional movement where they found again the true Church which they knew they had lost after the Council’s “renewal.” And in Archbishop Lefebvre (1905–1991) they found a leader with a clear and Catholic vision of what had happened at the Council – it had taken place under pressure from the modern world to conform to the world, whereas from the beginning of the Church through to the 20th century, it was always the Church that had put the world under pressure to conform itself to God. In this perspective, Vatican II represented an upheaval, a turning upside down, without precedent in all Church history, but the Council Fathers were nearly all more or less beglamoured by the modern world. It is this upheaval which set the course of the official Church from the Council until today. And given that the enemies of God and man were behind the modern world and behind Vatican II, and given that by a just punishment of God they are now deeply entrenched within the offices of the Vatican, then in 2018, short of a miracle or of grave events intervening, the official Church will continue on its downward plunge.

And the Society of St Pius X in 2018? At the beginning of July, in six months’ time, the SSPX holds its elections for those who are to be for the following 12 years its three senior officials, the Superior General and his two Assistants. If the 40 leading priests of the Society who vote in those elections wish to continue the Society’s slide into the arms of Conciliar Rome, i.e. the official Church, then no doubt they will vote for Bishop Fellay to be Superior General so that he can finish the work of replacing the Archbishop’s clear vision of the need to resist Vatican II with his own confused vision of blending Catholic Tradition with Vatican II, which is like blending fire with water. For just as Paul VI (1963–1978) dreamt of saving both Church and modern world by blending them in Vatican II, and almost crushed the life out of the Church by his tyrannical dream, so Bishop Fellay has drained the life out of the Society by clamping upon it his parallel dream of saving both Tradition and Council in a messianic reconciliation of his own making. The vision is quite different from the Archbishop’s. Then how will the 40 priests vote? Upon their vote depends how the Society will develop in 2018, at least from July onwards.

However, there was a reason for Vatican II, and that was the ever widening gulf between God’s true Church and modern man. The strain of holding them together became unbearable, and the Council Fathers snapped. Archbishop Lefebvre stood his Catholic ground and founded the Society, but his successors at its head have in turn snapped under the strain. Today’s godless world surrounds all of us, and its siren charms are highly seductive. Catholics must “watch and pray” – they need to read, and to continue reading, and they must have a strong prayer life by which to cleave to God – 15 Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, every day.

Kyrie eleison.

How Discern? – I

How Discern? – I on November 18, 2017

A young man with a good mind is asking a good question about the crisis in the Church, and another good question about the crisis in the Society of St Pius X. Here is how Joseph frames his first question:—

On the one hand the Conciliar crisis was one is a series of crises afflicting the Church, such as Protestantism, Liberalism, and Revolutions, with two World Wars, and therefore errors made their way at the Council which were clearly condemned by the Church before Vatican II. And after the Council its novelties were applauded by classical enemies of the Church, such as Freemasons and Socialists, while the Church’s missionary spirit has clearly been extinguished. On the other hand the ideas of the Council are the work of highly intelligent and supposedly Catholic churchmen, and one cannot all the time say that the Pope is not Pope, or that the majority of modernist Bishops are invalidly consecrated. Therefore can one say that the Conciliar crisis involves shadowed areas which still make it difficult to see clear? And if we cannot arrive at definite conclusions, can we be sure we are holding onto the true Faith?

The best reply comes from Our Lord Himself, speaking in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. VII, 15–20) – “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Obviously Our Lord knew that there would be constant attacks on His Church with repeated attempts of the Devil to sow confusion in His followers’ minds. The confusion that has followed on Vatican II is not different in kind from previous crises in Church history, even if by the defection of the churchmen at Vatican II the confusion today is unprecedented in degree – never before have the mass of Catholic shepherds been so lost, nor therefore the Catholic sheep.

Nevertheless, to find one’s way out of the confusion, the same infallible principle still applies: actions speak louder than words, and the fruits of a man’s actions are the surest guide to who he is and what he really intends. Especially in the case of modernism a man can be deceiving himself as to what he wants or intends, because nobody is so deeply detached from reality as a modernist. “The end of the world will be characterised by men doing evil while thinking they are doing good,” said Fr Faber in mid-19th century. In the 21st century we are at the wrong end of this centuries-long process of mankind deceiving itself as it has turned away from God. Then would God be leaving His sheep defenceless against such unprecedented wolves in sheep’s clothing as modernists are? No, because to judge by the fruits is something that anybody can do, with a minimum of common sense and upright will.

Therefore, Joseph, you observe that today’s Church authorities are highly intelligent men and supposedly Catholic, and you quite reasonably assume that they are the valid authorities of the Church, because even if you know that their fruits are so little Catholic as to make many a Catholic dispute that validity, notwithstanding who else is there who is authorised to speak and act for the Universal Church? But at the same time you observe that their ideas are in line with grave anti-Catholic errors from the past, and that they are now applauded by classic enemies of the Church, such as Freemasons. Arguments on one side and on the other. Doubts and shadows. How do you resolve the confusion?

Answer, by your own further observation that the missionary spirit has disappeared from the Church since Vatican II. Here are the fruits. The Council preached ecumenism ( Unitatis Redintegratio ), religious liberty ( Dignitatis Humanae ) and the relative acceptability of false religions such as Hinduism, Islam and Judaism ( Nostra Aetate ) – how could the Catholic missionary spirit not collapse after the Council? And have not countless monasteries, seminaries, convents, dioceses and parishes also emptied out and closed down since Vatican II? Did new ones open anywhere? Yes, under the leadership of the one Catholic bishop worldwide who from the beginning repudiated openly the Council and all its works, Archbishop Lefebvre. Here were the selfsame fruits of the selfsame Catholic principles, faithfully applied in defiance of Vatican II. Joseph, you need look no further.

Kyrie eleison.

Real Islam

Real Islam on November 4, 2017

When Britain had an Empire, its administrators were in direct contact with peoples, races and religions all over the world, and they were apt to speak from experience. Today, by and large, the rulers of Britain have only their liberalism and its unreal ideology, which is why so few of them know what they are talking about. On the contrary Fr. Henry Boulad is an old-school Jesuit priest born 86 years ago in Alexandria, Egypt, of an old Syrian Christian family of the Melkite rite, former Professor of Theology in Cairo, Superior of the Jesuits in Alexandria and of the Jesuits in Egypt, with, obviously, a direct life-long experience of Islam and Muslims. The terrorist attacks last spring on two Christian Churches in Egypt impelled him to give an interview in France and to write a book from which the following remarks are adapted. He certainly knows what he is talking about! –

“I accuse Islam but not individual Muslims, who are the prime victims of Islam. I have made up my mind to denounce the source of the terrorism: the main source of Islamic radicalism in the world is the University of al-Azhar” in Cairo, Egypt, where the deadly ideology is taught as the official doctrine of Islam. I accuse the University of al-Azhar in Cairo, supposedly the embodiment of moderate Islam, of creating a spirit of fanaticism, intolerance and hatred in millions of students and Muslim clerics coming from all over the world to receive a formation in its institutes. By this means al-Azhar becomes one of the main sources of terrorism worldwide.

I accuse Islam itself and not just “extremist Islamism,” because Islam is by nature both political and radical. 25 years ago I wrote that Islamism is merely Islam stripped bare, in all its logic and rigour. It plans for a society aiming for a worldwide caliphate based on Shariah law, which is the only legitimate law, as coming from God. It is a plan taking in the entire globe, all-encompassing and wholly totalitarian. I accuse all those who pretend that the crimes committed by Muslims “have nothing to do with Islam,” of being deliberate liars. These crimes are committed in the name of the Koran and its clear instructions. The mere fact that the Muslim call to prayer and the call to kill non-Muslims are preceded by the same cry “Allah-ou Akhbar” (God is great), is highly significant.

I accuse learned Muslims of the 10th century of promulgating the decrees, now irreversible, which have led Islam into its present frozen state. The first of these decrees cancelled every kind of precedence for the Koran’s verses from Mecca calling for peace and harmony, and it gave priority instead to the verses from Medina which call for intolerance and violence. Two further decrees were promulgated to make this first decree irreversible: the Koran was decreed to be the uncreated word of Allah, hence immutable; and any further effort at reflection was forbidden by “the gate of ijtihad (reflection) being closed once and for all.” These three decrees, made sacred, have fossilized Muslim thinking, and contributed to the keeping of Muslim countries in a state of backwardness and chronic stagnation.

I accuse the Vatican II Decree “Nostra Aetate” of launching an inter-religious dialogue meant to be open, welcoming and understanding of Muslims, because for 50 years we have not taken one step forward, and now we are stopped dead. The dialogue with a sheikh from al-Azhar ended up with his proclaiming that “all Christians are going to Hell.” Nothing is moving, just as nothing has moved for the last 11 centuries. Dialogue, yes, but I want a dialogue based on truth. Charity without truth goes nowhere! I accuse the Catholic Church of pursuing a dialogue with Islam based on seeking to please, on making compromises and on double-dealing. After 50 years of initiatives all going one way, the Church’s monologue has got nowhere. By giving way to the “politically correct,” by pretending that the dialogue must not offend the Muslims because we must “live together,” all thorny but vital questions are studiously avoided. But true dialogue begins with the truth. I have asked to meet Pope Francis. No reply.

Kyrie eleison.

Benevolent Ally? – II

Benevolent Ally? – II on September 9, 2017

When last year Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana in Kazakhstan in an interview with Adelante la Fe expressed many views in agreement with Catholic Tradition and with positions taken by Archbishop Lefebvre, these “Comments” (498, Jan. 17, 2017) asked if he was a true ally of the Archbishop’s Society.

In July of this year he authorised the publication of an article expressing views of his, even more Catholic and supportive of Tradition. If he was not yet a true ally, has he become one? To answer the question, one must distinguish: subjectively, his heart is in the right place because he wants to save souls by the faithful application of unchanged Tradition, but objectively his mind is still not all the way there, because he still thinks, or says he thinks, that the original intent of Vatican II was not to create a new Church. But, Your Excellency, Our Lord said that by their fruits you will know them. Fruits of Vatican II? Newchurch!

Thus, much that Bishop Schneider says this time about Catholic Tradition is Catholic doctrine, entirely true. For instance (paragraph 6), Tradition is the criterion by which to judge all later doctrine, and (8) in case of doubt raised by ambiguity or novelty, Tradition has the priority. There are ambiguities and novelties of Vatican II which clash with Tradition (10), and the “Hermeneutic of Continuity” is insufficient to resolve the clash. Alas (19), for 50 years a Nomenklatura (Communist-style bureaucracy) within the Church has used the ambiguities of Vatican II to distort the Council’s original intent, and to create a new church, of a relativist and protestant kind. Climaxing today (20) is the use of the Council’s objective ambiguities and departures from Tradition to block all discussion by declaring these to be “infallible.” But this “infallibilising” of the Council must stop (22), and give way to free and open theological discussion, to which (24) a canonically recognised SSPX could make a valuable contribution. True doctrine alone is truly pastoral, and alone is the will of God for the salvation of souls. Thus far the Bishop’s latest article.

But, your Excellency, what makes you so sure that the original intent of the Council was not to create a neo-protestant Newchurch? Do you think the ambiguities were not deliberate? Have you not read, for instance, how Fr Schillebeeckx admitted that they were planted as time-bombs, to be detonated after the Council? Maybe many Council Fathers could say after the Council, like William II of Germany, “Ich habe es nicht gewollt,” I did not want it (WW I). But certainly not all of them did not want the Newchurch, and the “movers and shakers” did want it. You cannot think that the “new church,” as you yourself call it, came out of the Council by accident! Study books about the Council, like The Rhine flows into the Tiber” by Ralph Wiltgen . The Council was an epic struggle, and the Catholics lost.

And if the Newchurch is the fruit of a conspiratorial minority steering a mass of cardinals, bishops, priests and laity towards it, who watch too much television and do not say enough prayers, do you really think that “free and open theological discussion” will solve the problem? Half a year before he died, Archbishop Lefebvre said that the real problem with Vatican II was not even the major identifiable errors like religious liberty, collegiality and ecumenism, but an all-pervading subjectivism which empties out of Catholic doctrine all its objective force, and thereby dissolves the Catholic Church. And the question is not even whether the Archbishop said that, but whether it is true. And it is resoundingly true. The mind of modern man has been reduced to mush, by his own fault and that of Freemasonry in particular. Your Excellency, do you know anything about Freemasonry, or do you think, like so many poor souls have been induced to think, that it is a harmless organisation of do-gooders, unjustly calumniated?

Between 2009 and 2011, there were half a dozen sessions of “free and open theological debate” between four theologians of Rome and four from the SSPX (prior to its betrayal by the General Chapter of 2012).

Result? Nothing! Menzingen promised that the contents of the discussions would be published. We are still waiting. To please Rome, somebody within the SSPX wants to brush Tradition under the carpet!

Kyrie eleison.

Fatima Consecration – I

Fatima Consecration – I on July 29, 2017

When last May four bishops in Vienna, Virginia, in the United States, did what they could to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, they used a formula for the Consecration never used before, and which was somewhat different from the usual formulas. It included a brief history of Our Lady’s request for the Consecration, showing how the leaders of the Church failed, and are still failing, to respond adequately to Heaven’s simple solution to the unprecedented problems of today’s Church and world. The purpose of such a formula was to help everybody to realize that these otherwise insoluble problems are the fault not of Almighty God but of a lack of faith on the part of His churchmen. They must do what Our Lady asked them to do, despite whatever Vatican II makes them want to do. What disasters will it take to make them finally do what She wants, to save all of us? Here is the first half of the Virginia Consecration:—

Most Holy Mother of God, Immaculate Heart of Mary, Seat of Mercy, Seat of Goodness, Seat of Pardon, sure door by which souls are to enter Heaven, see on their knees before you four sons of Archbishop Lefebvre, four bishops striving to do what they can to help you to obtain from the Pope and bishops of your Divine Son’s one true Church that Consecration of Russia to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart which can alone obtain peace for mankind, now in the shadow of a frightful third World War. In Fatima, Portugal, one hundred years ago, you first warned mankind of the Second World War to come, of famine and persecutions, if people would not cease offending God. To prevent these disasters, you promised to return to ask for the Consecration of Russia to your Immaculate Heart, and for the Communion of Reparation on First Saturdays. If your requests were heeded, Russia would be converted, and there would be peace. If not, disasters would follow and Russia would spread its errors throughout the world. Within the next 12 years you returned as you had promised, and you made the double request.

However, trusting in human means to solve the Church’s grave problems, the Catholic churchmen did not immediately do what you had requested. Two years later your Divine Son Himself warned mankind through Sister Lucy of Fatima, that since His ministers were delaying to carry out His command, they would suffer grave consequences: Russia would spread its errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church, and the Pope would suffer greatly. Still the Pope preferred his human means of dealing with Russia.

In 1936 Our Lord explained to Sister Lucy that Russia’s conversion depended upon its consecration to your Immaculate Heart because He wanted the whole Church to recognize that that conversion was a triumph of your Heart, so that devotion to your Heart would rank alongside devotion to His own Sacred Heart.

Still the churchmen hesitated, so that in 1939 the terrible Second World War broke out, and all over the world Communism extended its power. Immediately after the war your pilgrim statues of Fatima had great success, but still the churchmen would not do exactly as you had requested, and so in 1957 before Sister Lucy was silenced by the churchmen, she expressed your own sadness that neither good people nor bad people had paid attention to the message of Fatima. You said that the good people gave it no importance, while the bad cared nothing about it. But you warned us once more that a terrible punishment was imminent.

For that punishment, see next week’s “Eleison Comments.”

Kyrie eleison.