Vatican II

Fortieth Anniversary

Fortieth Anniversary on November 22, 2014

Yesterday was the 40 th anniversary of Archbishop Lefebvre’s historic Declaration on November 21, 1974, of the reasons for which he and the priests and laity following him were taking their stand against the total change of the Catholic Church and religion being wrought in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The Declaration is a fresh today as it was on the day when it was written, because the true Catholic religion of God is unchangingly true, while the Conciliar religion of man is resolutely false and it is occupying Rome more than ever.

The Declaration consists of ten brief paragraphs, little more than 50 lines in all: 1/ We cleave to Catholic Rome, eternal Rome. 2/ We refuse Conciliar Rome, neo-Protestant and neo-modernist. 3/ The Conciliar reform is destroying the Catholic Church and diminishing our Catholic Faith, 4/ as not even an angel from Heaven has the right to do (Galatians I, 8). 5/ We choose Tradition, we refuse innovations. 6/ Everything in the Church is being renewed in a way opposite to age-old Catholic doctrine. 7/ The Conciliar reform, coming from heresy and resulting in heresy, is unacceptable to Catholics, so 8/ we shall continue to form Traditional priests. 9/ And we shall cleave to the Catholic teaching and practice of all time, 10/ being convinced that by so doing we will remain truly faithful Catholics.

Notice firstly the clear and sharp distinction (1 and 2) between Catholic Rome and Conciliar Rome. Now it is true to say that Conciliar Rome is occupying the structures of Catholic Rome, but to say that the Conciliar Church is therefore none other than the Catholic Church is as foolish as to say that a cuckoo is a nightingale because it occupies a nightingale’s nest. (And to say that the Archbishop wrote of Conciliar and Catholic “Rome” and not of the Conciliar and Catholic “Church” is to quibble with words.)

But how does the Archbishop distinguish between Conciliar cuckoo and Catholic nightingale? By doctrine! Conciliarism is neo- Protestant and neo- modernist (2). Our faith is being diminished (3), in opposition to Catholic doctrine (6). Conciliarism is heresy (7). We cleave to Catholic teaching (9). And the brief summary above does not give all of the Archbishop’s references to doctrine. Catholic doctrine was the Northern star of his mind and action. It is because modern man wants freedom for his mind and action that he in effect wants his mind to be reduced to mush, whereupon doctrine has no more than a merely decorous function. It has no more bite upon man’s action, except the one disastrous doctrine that doctrine is unimportant. And that disastrous doctrine has a total bite. Here is why the Archbishop is being reduced within the Society of St Pius X, which he founded, to little more than a decorous mascot.

One is impelled to ask, what is it going to take to restore the bite of doctrine, the sense of reality and the love of truth in Society, Church and world? Surely suffering, no less. Solzhenitsyn made a remark to the effect that it will take the crowbar of events to smash open the concrete casing which modern man has built around his sinful way of life. Truly, Lord have mercy.

Kyrie eleison.

Context Upended

Context Upended on September 20, 2014

Starting out from arguments against sedevacantism as being a short-sighted error in a wholly abnormal situation, an Italian friend (C.C.) takes a longer view of that situation. Without being a priest or theologian, he ventures the opinion that sedevacantism is merely one of several attempts in the Church to fit the crisis of today into the categories of yesterday. There is no question of Catholic theology changing, but the real situation to which that theology has to be applied underwent a sea-change with Vatican II. Here is a key paragraph of his on that upended reality:—

“By its refusal of the objective reality of God’s existence and of the need to submit to his Law, today’s world is not normal, and the present Catholic unity is not normal either which has put man instead of God at the centre of things. Nor is it by a sudden swerve that the Church has arrived at this abnormal state of things, but following on a long and complex process of moving away from God, the disruptive effects of which showed up at Vatican II. For hundreds of years the germs of dissolution have been fostered within the Church, as have the men harbouring these germs, and they have beeen allowed to occupy all ranks of the hierarchy, up to and including the See of Peter.”

My friend goes on that if one fails to take into consideration this overall abnormality of the present state of the Church, which is unbelievably, yet truly, worse than ever, one runs the risk of dealing with a reality that no longer exists, in terms of reference that no longer apply. Thus for example the sedevacantists will say that today’s churchmen must know what they are doing, because they are intelligent and educated men. Not so, says C.C.: their preaching and practice may well no longer be Catholic, but they are convinced that they are wholly orthodox. The whole world has gone mad. They have merely gone mad with it, not by a loss of reason but by having given up the use of it, and as their Catholic faith grows weaker, so there is less and less to stop them from losing it altogether.

But then, one might object, God must have abandoned his Church. To reply, CC resorts to three quotations from Scripture. Firstly, Lk.XVIII, 8, where Our Lord wonders if he will even find the Faith on earth when he comes back. Obviously a small remainder of priests and laity (with perhaps some bishops) will be enough to ensure the indefectibility of the Church until the end of the world (one thinks of the present difficulties of the “Resistance” in taking shape). Likewise, secondly, Mt.XXIV, 11–14, where it is foreseen that many false prophets will deceive many souls, and charity will grow cold. And thirdly, Lk.XXII, 31–32, where Our Lord instructs Peter to confirm his brethren in the faith after he has converted, strongly suggesting that his faith will first have failed. So almost the whole hierarchy can fail, including Peter, without the Church ceasing to be indefectible, somewhat like when the Apostles all ran away in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt.XXVI, 56).

In conclusion, CC’s vision for the Church of tomorrow or the day after strongly resembles that of Fr Calmel: let each of us do his duty according to his state of life, and take part in building a network of little forts of the Faith, each with a priest to ensure the sacraments, but with no henceforth inapplicable theology of the Church, nor unobtainable canonical approval, nor with any out-dated dividing-walls over the top of which the Faith will have flowed. The forts will be united by the Truth and will have mutual contacts of charity. The rest is in God’s hands.

Kyrie eleison.

“Resistance” Failing?

“Resistance” Failing? on August 23, 2014

Some readers of these Comments no doubt objected to the reference made last week (EC 370) to the “Resistance” presently making “little apparent headway.” They might have preferred a valiant call to arms. But we must stay real. For instance, when the Traditional diocese of Campos in Brazil fell back into the arms of Newrome back in 2001, did not several of us say that out of some 25 priests formed in Bishop de Castro Mayer’s school, at least a few would break ranks? Yet not one of them has gone independent since then to continue defending Tradition as Campos had always defended it, and so all of them are more or less on the neo-modernist slide. However, if we do stay real, there is not nothing to be said.

First of all, God is God, and he is conducting this crisis his way and not ours. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, your ways are not my ways, says the Lord” (Is. LV, 8). We dream of the clear-sighted priests and laity banding together to stand up to his enemies, but God does not need anybody’s “Resistance” to look after his sheep or save his Church. Forty years ago when Archbishop Lefebvre hoped for and looked for a handful of fellow-bishops to stand beside him in public and throw up a real road-block in the way of the Conciliar steam-roller, surely he might have found them, but he never did. In fact when God intervenes to save the situation, as he certainly will, it will be obvious that the rescue was his doing, through his Mother.

Secondly, more than five centuries of rampant humanism have made man so ignorant of God, the Lord God of Hosts, that mankind has to be taught a lesson which it will not learn except the hard way. The ninth of St Ignatius’ 14 Rules for the Discernment of Spirits (first week) gives three main reasons for a soul’s spiritual desolation, which can be applied to the Church’s present desolation:‍—

1. God punishes us for our spiritual lukewarmness and negligence. God alone knows today just what a worldwide chastisement is deserved by our worldwide apostasy and plunge into materialism and hedonism.

2. God puts us to the trial to show us what is really inside us, and how we depend on him. Does not modern man seriously think that he can do a better job of running the universe than Almighty God? And might it be that the truth will not sink in until all of his own little efforts have failed?

3. God humbles us with desolation to cut short our pride and vainglory. Coming from the chief ministers of the one true religion of the one true God, was not Vatican II an unprecedented outburst of human vainglory, preferring man’s modern world to God’s unchanging Church? And the little Society of St Pius X thought that it could save the Church? Unless the “Resistance” remains duly modest in its claims and ambitions, it is doomed in advance.

Then what should those ambitions be? First and foremost, to keep the Faith, without which it is impossible to please God (Heb. XI, 6), and which is expressed in doctrine, in the Catholic Creed. Secondly, to give witness to that Faith, especially by example, if necessary unto martyrdom (“martyr” is the Greek word for “witness”). So howsoever the “Resistance” is or is not organized, it must devote its resources, however meagre, to whatever will help souls to keep the Faith. Then, since its stand for the Truth is bound to be recognizable as such, merely by existing it will not be failing, because it will be giving witness.

Kyrie eleison.

“Conciliar Church”?

“Conciliar Church”? on June 7, 2014

The expression “Conciliar church” obviously expresses a reality, something real, namely the mass of people and institutions professing themselves to be Catholic but in fact sliding into the practice of the new humanist religion of the Second Vatican Council. “Sliding,” because Conciliarism, or neo-modernism, is precisely designed to enable Catholics to maintain the appearances of the Faith while they empty out the substance. Catholics in the concrete can make this process as fast or as slow as they wish, they need not even take it all the way to its conclusion, but Conciliarism in the abstract is utterly opposed to Catholicism and, taken to its conclusion, it destroys both Faith and Church, as it was meant to do.

The process is not difficult to observe or to understand, but liberals at the head of the Society of St Pius X, seeking reconciliation with the Conciliarists in Rome, have done their best to confuse the question of the Conciliar church and the Catholic Church. For instance the Catholic Church is visible, they will say, and the Conciliar church is the visible church, so the Conciliar church is the Catholic Church, an argument dismissed years ago by Archbishop Lefebvre as “childish” (many churches are visible that are not Catholic). Equally childish is the argument that there is only one Church, so the Conciliar church and the Catholic Church must be one and the same (there are thousands of false churches).

The truth is not too complicated. The Catholic Church is a living organism, both divine and human, like its Founder, Jesus Christ. As divine, as being his Immaculate Bride, it cannot be corrupt or corrupted, but as being made up of sinful human beings, it can partially rot just like any other living organism. So one useful way to understand how the Conciliar church relates to the Catholic Church is to think of a rotten apple.

On the one hand the rot belongs to the apple. All rot was once apple. The rot is a corruption of the apple, a parasite on the apple, it could not exist without the apple and it remains firmly attached to the apple unless and until the rotten part falls off. Likewise Conciliarism belongs to the Catholic Church insofar as everything Conciliar was once Catholic, it is a corruption of the Catholic Church, a parasite on the Catholic Church, it could not exist without the Catholic Church, and it remains firmly attached to some part of the Catholic Church unless and until it destroys that part, as it was designed to do.

On the other hand the rot does not belong to the apple. No apple was ever meant to go rotten. All rot is a transformation of some apple, a corruption and parasite of apple, transforming it for the worse, resulting in something quite different from apple, something which nobody in his right mind would dream of eating or of saying that it was no different from apple. Likewise Conciliarism does not belong to the Catholic Church, it is a corruption of something Catholic and is a parasite on whatever is Catholic. It transforms (a human part of) the Catholic Church for the worse, resulting in something essentially non-Catholic which no Catholic in his right mind would call Catholic or want to associate with, on pain of losing his faith.

In brief, Conciliarism is rot, and the “Conciliar church” is the one divine-human Church being rotted in one or other of its human aspects. Of course the Catholic Church will last to the end of the world (Mt. XXVIII, 20), while the “Conciliar church” is merely one in a long line of parasite churches down the ages, living on what they rot and rotting what they live on. A plague on all liberals, confused and confusing!

Kyrie eleison.

Canonisations Unreal

Canonisations Unreal on April 5, 2014

The “canonisation”of two Conciliar Popes, John XXIII and John-Paul II, is scheduled for the last Sunday of this month, and many believing Catholics are scared stiff. They know that the Conciliar Popes have been (objective) destroyers of the Church. They know that the Church holds canonisations to be infallible. Are they going to be forced to believe that John XXIII and John-Paul II are Saints? It boggles the mind. But it need not do so.

In August of last year these “Comments” stated the fact that Newchurch “canonisations” are such a different reality from pre-Conciliar canonisations that no Catholic need believe that the post-conciliar canonisations are infallible. I was not wrong, but while I stated the fact that this is so, I did not give the reason why, which is a superior way of knowing something. On the contrary in a retreat conference, perhaps of 1989, Archbishop Lefebvre gave the deep-down reason why. This reason – modernist mind-rot – is crucial to understand correctly the whole Conciliar Revolution.

The Archbishop said that like a mass of modern men, the Conciliar Popes do not believe in any truth being stable. For instance John-Paul II’s formation was based on truth evolving, moving with the times, progressing with the advance of science, etc. Truth never being fixed is the reason why in 1988 John-Paul II condemned the SSPX’s Episcopal Consecrations, because they sprang from a fixed and not living or moving idea of Catholic Tradition. For indeed Catholics hold, for example, every word in the Credo to be unchangeable, because the words have been hammered out over the ages to express as perfectly as possible the unchanging truths of the Faith, and these words have been infallibly defined by the Church’s Popes and Councils.

True canonisations are another example: (1) the Pope pronounces as Pope, (2) such and such a person to be a model of faith and morals, (3) once and for all (nobody used to get uncanonised), (4) for all the Church to accept as such a model. As such, canonisations used to fulfil the four conditions of infallible Church teaching, and they were held to be infallible. But this Catholic idea of an unchangeable truth is inconceivable for fluid modern minds like those of the Conciliar Popes. For them, truth is life, a life developing, evolving, growing towards perfection. How then can a Conciliar Pope perform, let alone impose, an infallible canonisation?

The Archbishop imagines how a Conciliar Pope might react to the idea of his having done any such thing: “Oh no! If ever in the future it turns out that the person I canonised did not have all the qualities required, well, some successor of mine may well declare that I made a declaration on that person’s virtue but not a once and for all definition of their sanctity.” Meanwhile the “canonising” Pope’s “declaration” has made the President of the local Republic and the local Christians happy, and he has given them all an excuse to have a party to celebrate.

If one thinks about it, this explanation of the Archbishop applies to the Newchurch across the board. What we have in Vatican II is the demanding beauty of God’s unchangeable Truth, which leads to Heaven, being replaced by the undemanding ugliness of man’s fluid fantasy, which may lead to Hell but enables man, as he thinks, to take the place of God. The key step in this process is the unhooking of the mind from reality. When the process is applied today to the Church as modernism, the results are so totally unlike what went before that the new realities absolutely call for new names: Newchurch, Newcanonisations, Newsaints, etc. After all, are not the Conciliarists proud of making everything new?

Kyrie eleison.

Sedevacantist Anxiety – I

Sedevacantist Anxiety – I on January 25, 2014

The words and deeds of Pope Francis since his election earlier last year have been so little Catholic and so outrageous, that the idea that recent popes have not really been Popes (“sedevacantism”) has been given a new lease of life. Notice that Pope Francis merely expresses more blatantly than his five predecessors the madness of Vatican II. The question remains whether any of the six Conciliar Popes (with the possible exception of John-Paul I) can really have been Vicars of Christ.

The question is not of prime importance. If they have not been Popes, still the Catholic Faith and morals by which I must “work out my salvation in fear and trembling” (Phil. II, 12) have not changed one iota. And if they have been Popes, still I cannot obey them whenever they have departed from that Faith and those morals, because “we ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts, V, 29). However I believe in offering answers to some of the sedevacantists’ arguments, because there are sedevacantists who seem to wish to make the vacant See of Rome into a dogma which Catholics must believe. In my opinion it is no such thing. “In things doubtful, liberty” (Augustine).

I think that the key to the problem of which sedevacantism is merely one expression is that Vatican II was a disaster without precedent in all the history of the Church of Jesus Christ, while at the same time it was the logical conclusion of a long decadence of the Catholic churchmen reaching back to the late Middle Ages. On the one hand the divine nature of the Catholic Church and the principles governing any of its crises, including the Conciliar crisis, cannot change. On the other hand the application of those principles must take into account the ever changing human circumstances within which those principles operate. The degree of human corruption today has no precedent.

Now two of the unchanging principles are that on the one hand the Church is indefectible because Our Lord promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it (Mt.XVI, 18). On the other hand Our Lord also asked if he would find faith on earth at his Second Coming (Lk. XVIII, 8), an important quotation because it clearly suggests that the Church will almost completely have defected at the end of the world, just as it seems to be almost completely defecting in 2014. For indeed if we are not today living through the end of the world, we are surely living through the dress rehearsal for that end of the world, as Our Lady of La Salette, the Venerable Holzhauser and Cardinal Billot all suggest.

Therefore today, as at world’s end, the defection can go very far. It cannot reach beyond the power of Almighty God to guarantee that his Church will never altogether disappear or fail, but it can reach as far as God will allow, in other words nothing need stop his Church from defecting almost completely. And just how far is that “almost completely”? God alone knows, and so time alone can tell, because none of us men are in the mind of God, and only the facts can reveal to us after the event the contents of the divine mind. But God does partly reveal his mind in Scripture.

Now as to the end of the world, many interpreters of Chapter XIII, 11–17 of the Apocalypsethink that the lamb-like Second Beast serving the Antichrist is the authorities of the Church, because if those authorities resisted the Antichrist he could never prevail, as Scripture says he will. Then is it so extraordinary if in the dress rehearsal for the end of the world the Vicars of Christ talk and behave like enemies of Christ? Against this necessary background, next week’s “Comments” will propose answers to some of the sedevacantists’ main arguments.

Kyrie eleison.