The SSPX Position

There has been a fair amount of virtual turmoil within the SSPX in the last year and three articles that were published to provide some clarity to the situation stand out.

The first is a conference given by Bishop de Galarreta (SSPX) gives a good background.

The second and third I would classify as responses to the accusations of former members of the SSPX. These accusations typically contain a significant amount of what in marketing is called FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) as well as half truths, innuedoes, and having read the articles - error - in the theological sense.

I'm posting these articles for my own benefit as well as that of anyone that passes this way.

Tradical

Article 1: Conference of Bishop de Galarreta

Source

On Saturday, October 13, 2012, on the occasion of the “Tradition Days” in Villepreux (France), Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta gave this conference, in which he analyzes the state of the relations of the Society of Saint Pius X with Rome. 

Dear confreres, dear religious, very dear faithful, dear friends,

My intention is to speak to you about the qualities of the spiritual, Christian, Catholic militia, about the conditions that the combat for the faith must assume, and obviously to tell you a few words about the situation of the Society vis-à-vis Rome.

The Book of Job says:  “Militia est vita hominis super terram et sicut dies mercenarii dies ejus” (Job 7:1).  Man’s life on earth is a time of military service, and his days are like those of a mercenary.  This is Scripture, the Book of Job, that offers this very interesting image.

If the life of every man on earth is a combat, then much more so the life of the Catholic, of the Christian who is baptized and confirmed and therefore engaged in this combat for Christ the King.  And I would say that if the life of every Christian is a combat, then the life of a Christian today is par excellence a struggle, a combat, a time of service.

In this sentence we find a statement of the necessity of combat;  it is necessary, it is our human condition, and that is not something new;  always and everywhere people have had to fight.  There is a combat in life, but above all a combat in order to win eternity, which implies many things.

This is why a combative spirit is necessary.  What is required on the part of a soldier?  Certainly, that he be capable of struggling, of fighting, that he be courageous and valiant.

This very short text refers to Providence, because both a soldier and a mercenary are at the service of a master, and therefore we battle for God, we fight for Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Our Lord Jesus Christ is our Head, He is our Master, but He is also the Lord of history, and His Providence governs all particular circumstances.

Saint John of the Cross says that everything is Providence, in the sense that everything that happens to us is sent to us in an altogether conscious and deliberate way by Providence.

A supernatural view of the combat of faith

A soldier, then, and a mercenary struggle and fight for a victory, and if life here below is a combat, that means that the victory is not on this earth.  If our whole life is a combat, that means that our victory is in Eternity.

I think that we have to keep this supernatural, Faith-filled view of combat.

We struggle in this life on earth for an eternal crown.  But that does not mean that you are to be demobilized, because a Christian, a Catholic knows that this combat is waged in this life, that it is very real, that one must fight.  But knowing that the definitive victory is found in Eternity, we do not really need, so to speak, to have victory in this life, if God does not want it, since our victory, ultimately, is to win Eternity both for us and for those dear to us.

Moreover this short verse from Job shows us other aspects of this combat, for example:  it is laborious—laborious in the etymological sense of the word.  The combat for the Faith, the supernatural, spiritual combat, involves sufferings and trials, contradictions, and even defeats in this life.

Saint Teresa of Avila has one very beautiful passage in which she says that what is demanded of the Christian is not to win but to struggle, or rather she shows that fighting for the Faith is already the Christian’s victory.

And one author said:  Indeed, God does not require victory of us, but He requires that we not be vanquished.  This reflection is quite interesting;  you see how you can apply all this very well to the crisis in the Church today.

God does not ask us to conquer;  He is the one who gives the victory, if He wills, when He wills, as He wills.  That costs Him absolutely nothing.  But what He demands of us is to defend the good that we have and not to be conquered.

The teaching of Cardinal Pie

There is a passage by Cardinal Pie that I would like to read to you;  it is filled with Faith and instruction, and it is admirably well expressed.  “The wise man of Idumea said:  ‘The life of man on earth is a combat’ (Job 7:1), and this truth is no less applicable to societies than to individuals.  Being composed of two essentially distinct substances, every son of Adam carries within him, like Isaac’s wife, two men who contradict and fight one another (Genesis 25:22).  These two men, or, if you prefer, these two natures have contrary tendencies and inclinations.  Drawn by the law of the senses, the earthly man is in a perpetual uprising against the heavenly man, who is ruled by the law of the spirit (Galatians 5:17).  This is a deep-seated antagonism, which could end here below only by the shameful defection of the spirit, surrendering its arms to the flesh and placing itself at the latter’s discretion.”[1]

So therefore the only way of attaining peace in this combat, or of practicing pacifism, is victory of the flesh, and if we do not want that peace, we are obliged to fight until our death;  because the triumph is in the next world.  That is indeed what Cardinal Pie means to tell us:

“Let us say it, therefore, my Brethren:  man’s life on earth, the life of virtue, the life of duty, is the noble coalition, the holy crusade of all the faculties of our soul, supported by the aid of grace, its ally, against all the united forces of the flesh, the world and hell:  Militia est vita hominis super terram.”

This is a combat for us, but it is also a social, public combat.  “Now if you come to consider these same rival elements, these same antagonistic forces, no longer in the individual man but in that assemblage of men that is called society, then the struggle takes on grander proportions.”  And the Bishop of Poitiers cited Scripture, the Book of Genesis:  “‘And the Lord said to Rebecca: Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples shall be divided out of thy womb, and one people shall overcome the other, and the elder shall serve the younger’ (Gen 25:23).  So, my Brethren, the human race is made up of two peoples, the people of the spirit and the people of matter;  the one which seems to be the personification of the soul with everything that is noble and exalted about it;  the other represents the flesh with all that is coarse and earthly about it.  The greatest misfortunate that can befall a nation is a cease-fire between these two contrary powers.  This armistice was found in paganism.  And the Holy Ghost, who drew for us the picture of all the social and domestic evils that followed from this monstrous capitulation (Wis 14), completes the portrait with this final stroke:  the fact that men, unwittingly living in that stagnation that was a thousand times more deadly than war, deceived themselves to the point of giving the name of peace to such numerous and great evils.”  That is precisely the situation nowadays, isn’t it?  Peace, peace, peace!

“Fatal senselessness,” Cardinal Pie continues, “which was none other than the senselessness of death, a lugubrious peace that should be compared with the silent, calm work of the worms that gnaw at the cadaver in its tomb.”

“The human race was languishing in this state of humiliation and moral prostration, when the Son of God came to earth, bringing not peace but the sword (Mt 10:34).  God the Creator had placed in man’s hands this sword of the spirit so that he might fight against the flesh, but man shamefully allowed it to fall from his hands.  Jesus Christ, as others before me have said,[2] picked it up from the ignoble dust where it had lain for a long time;  then, after dipping it into His Blood, after having tested it, so to speak, on His own Body, he returned it, sharper and more penetrating than ever, to the new people that He had come to establish upon earth.  And then began again within humanity the antagonism between the spirit and the flesh, never to cease again until the end of the world:  Non veni pacem mittere, sed gladium [I did not come to bring peace, but a sword].”

This is a long passage from Cardinal Pie, but you see that one could say that everything is there, everything is said, and very well said.  The necessity of this combat that Job speaks about, the word of God, is not just an interior, individual conflict, confined to the home or the school, it is also essentially a social, political and religious combat.  And there are the two spirits, the two cities.  We must engage in this unavoidable combat and we must continue it.

In my opinion, this picture allows you to understand well what the combat of the Faith consists of, the Catholic combat, the Christian combat in the city, the combat of Tradition in this horrible crisis of the Church, in this apostasy.  And so I will move on now to some reflections on our recent battle, the one that we went through during this past year, which was extremely difficult—to tell the truth, not because of the enemy, who is the same as ever, but because of the differences among us, altogether logical, explicable, human differences.  We don’t have to rend our garments because we discover that we are all human beings.  We have the same limitations as the rest, I mean radically, ever since original sin:  ignorance, malice, weakness.

That is indeed, practically speaking, the cause of all the difficulty of what happened during the past school year:  the difficulties and the trials among us, which are moreover the most difficult and the most painful trials.  That is why we must not take them lightly, much less resolve them carelessly.  It is like a little family conflict:  it must be resolved with a lot of tact, a lot of charity, a lot of prudence, a lot of shrewdness, but it certainly must be resolved!

A short historical account of our relations with Rome

I want to tell you what I think, since in this crisis we hear a lot of different opinions, conflicting voices, and maybe there is still some fall-out, and so I said to myself that you should know my thoughts at least.  I will therefore rapidly review a few facts in order to explain myself:  a short historical account, starting with the end of the Rosary Crusade, our prayer campaign with the goal of offering twelve million rosaries, a campaign that ended of Pentecost of this year.  After the end of this crusade we received three responses from Rome, one right after the other.  At that moment the Society’s proposal (for a doctrinal declaration), which had been submitted in April, was there in Rome, and it was after Pentecost that we received a first response from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In this response, the Roman authorities clearly told us that they rejected, that they did not accept our proposal, and they made several corrections that amounted to telling us:  it is necessary to accept the Second Vatican Council, it is necessary to accept the liceity of the New Mass, it is necessary to accept the living Magisterium, in other words, those authorities that are the authentic interpreters of Tradition, and therefore they say what is Tradition and what is not Tradition;  it is necessary to accept the new Code of Canon Law, etc.  That was their response.

Then, and I think that this was a Providential response, there was the appointment of Archbishop Müller.  They appointed him head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and also as President of the Ecclesia DeiCommission—the one that has charge of all the groups affiliated with Ecclesia Dei and that is in contact with the Society of Saint Pius X.  Well!  This bishop who was appointed to head that dicastery and the Ecclesia DeiCommission—besides the fact that he has called into question several truths of the Faith—is today the guardian of the Faith.  This is, let us say, an old acquaintance of the Society, since he was Bishop of Regensburg, the diocese where our seminary in Zaitzkofen is located, and since we had already had difficulties, confrontations with him.  Three years ago he had threatened to excommunicate the bishop who was going to perform the ordinations in Zaitzkofen, and I happened to be the one on that occasion.  Thus he threatened me with excommunication as well as the deacons who were going to receive priestly ordination, the new priests.  Then he backed down, but this is someone who does not respect us, who does not like us, that’s clear, and he already said that the bishops of the Society have only one thing to do:  send their resignations from the episcopate to the Holy Father and go shut themselves up in a monastery.  Rather cruel all the same, isn’t it?  Then he quite simply said that we have only to accept that Council, and that is all.  There was no longer anything more to discuss.

Just when we were waiting for the light of the Holy Ghost, we got that response.

Then, before the General Chapter, our Superior General had written to the pope to find out whether it was really his response, since a large part of the problem that we experienced was due to the fact that there were mixed messages from Rome.

Some authorities told us:  the response from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is official, they are doing their job, but don’t pay attention to it, just file it;  in any case we want an agreement, we want to recognize you as you are.

But the response of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the appointment of Archbishop Müller were not in keeping with this second message.  And so in order to get to the bottom of the matter, Bishop Fellay wrote to the pope to find out whether that really was his response, his thought.  And just before the Chapter, during the retreat that preceded it, Monseigneur received a response—this was the first time that there was a response from the pope to Bishop Fellay—and he told us at table on Sunday, at the end of the retreat:  here I have received a letter from the pope in which he confirms that the response of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is indeed his response, that he approved it.  And he recalls their demands, their sine qua nonconditions for a canonical recognition, summing them up in three points:

1) acknowledge that the living Magisterium is the authentic interpreter of Tradition—in other words, the Roman authorities;

2) that the Second Vatican Council is in perfect agreement with Tradition, that it is necessary to accept it;

3) that we must accept the validity and the liceity of the new Mass.

They wrote “liceity”, -in French that word has probably a slightly ambiguous meaning- for them that simply means “legal”, something that has all the legal forms, but in canonical language it goes much deeper, it means that it is a true law, that it has the force of law.  The Church, however, cannot have any law contrary to the Catholic faith.  And we have all disputed, in that sense, the legality of the liturgical reform and of the new Mass, because it cannot have the force of law in the Church;  that is impossible, because it is contrary to the Faith, because with it they are demolishing the Faith, and they really wrote “validity and liceity”.

In other words, you see that concerning everything that is essential in our combat—this combat between the two cities, the two spirits—it was necessary to give in and betray.  Obviously, then, on this point, Divine Providence had traced out for us the pathway of the Chapter.  Rome was the one saying:  No, we will remain at the doctrinal level, and you will accept everything that you have rejected until now.

The General Chapter (July 9-14, 2012)

Then there was the Chapter.  I cannot give you too many details, since we are bound by confidentiality, but Bishop Fellay himself has already revealed certain things, and some elements were specified in the Final Declaration.  These are the conditions that you already know.  What I can tell you is that Divine Providence helped us during the Chapter clearly and perceptibly.

It went very well, I tell you quite frankly;  we were able to speak calmly, freely, openly;  we were able to address the crucial problems, even though we had to omit other questions that had been on the initial agenda.  We took all the time necessary to debate and we compared points of view, as is fitting among members of the same congregation, of the same army.  That causes no problem;  the Society is not a girls’ school, right?  Then if from time to time there are debates among us, one should not make a big thing out of it either.  Read Cardinal Pie when he supports public debate with the bishops, in France, in the nineteenth century.  He justifies them, he explains why, he says that it is a combat, and so there you have it!  That is to say, one should not make a tragedy out of it either.  The tragedy would be to abandon the Faith, but it is normal that there are debates on questions of prudential judgment about one thing or another.  There are different aspects, there are temperaments, there are situations….  It is extremely complicated, and one cannot draw a sword to cut the Gordian knot by saying:  “There, I resolve the question in one fell swoop.”  No!  The Chapter took place, as I told you, and I think that we really drew some useful lessons from the trials that we have had, even though it is not perfect, which is another aspect to keep in mind.  In our life, everything happens in imperfect circumstances;  read the history of the Church!  We must not demand a perfection that is not of this world, but we must have our eyes fixed on the essentials, on what counts;  afterward you can let a lot of things slide.  Don’t you do that in your family life?  Yes, you do that.  Otherwise nothing stands in this world, in this life, and even among us.

Some people worry:  “Oh, yes, but…!”  It is necessary to see the complexity of the problem, of the situation.  And don’t forget that there is also the part played by the passions.  They exist even among us.  All this is to say that in my opinion we must not carp about these questions.  We have to see whether the essentials are there or not.

As I see it, we have truly overcome the crisis, we got through it, and in the way that we were supposed to, especially in the practical measures, thanks to the debates that allowed us to clarify some points face to face, to weigh the arguments well, under all their aspects, to sort through them, to arrive at a more perfect insight and clarity about the situation, which is the good thing about trials if you learn from them.  Based on these extremely important and productive discussions, we have established some conditions that could allow us to envisage hypothetically a canonical normalization.  In this regard, if you really reflect on it, what was accomplished amounted to taking the whole doctrinal and liturgical question so as to make of it a practical condition.

The conditions for a possible canonical normalization

Now certainly, as I said to you, it is not perfect, and we ourselves saw rather quickly afterward that the distinction between sine qua non conditions and desirable conditions was not very accurate, nor … desirable.  In fact, as far as we are concerned, among the conditions that we indicated as desirable, there are some sine qua non conditions, but rather in the practical, canonical, concrete order.  The General House of the Society had already demanded these conditions of Rome, and for the most part—after repeated quarrels, and a lot of back-and-forth—Rome was ready to concede them, even at the present moment.  But the purpose of the Chapter, its concern was to define clearly not the consequence, i.e. what will ensue, but rather the essential prerequisite that we had not clearly defined until now.  To put it differently, in the case in point of a pope, a future pope who would really like to reach an agreement with the Society, what are the conditions of a doctrinal order, which concern doctrine, fidelity to the Faith, to Tradition, to the public profession of the Faith, and even to public resistance against those who spread errors, even when they are ecclesiastical authorities.  This is the point on which we defined with great precision the first two sine qua non conditions.

And it is obvious that everything is there.  I can reread them for you.

The first:  “The freedom to keep, transmit and teach the sacred doctrine of the constant Magisterium of the Church and of the unchangeable Truth of divine Tradition”.  No doubt this language seems to you a bit difficult, while in fact it is extremely precise.  “To keep” means that we have a guarantee of it in any normalization on the part of the pope who would recognize us.  To put it differently:  to assure us in a written agreement that we can keep, transmit and teach the sacred doctrine, the sacred doctrine of the constant Magisterium.  Because the Roman authorities have an evolving notion of the Magisterium, and if we say “Magisterium” that is not enough;  if we say “the Magisterium of all ages” that is still ambiguous in their language, and so we specified “unchangeable Truth of the divine Tradition”.  Why “unchangeable Truth”?  Because for them the tradition is living….  And so you see that it is very precise, by virtue of the experience of the discussions that we had for almost a year and a half with the Roman commission.  Let us continue with this first point:  “The freedom to defend the truth, to correct and reprove even publicly those who promote the Second Vatican Council’s errors or novelties of modernism, of liberalism, and their consequences”.  I think that it would be difficult to add anything.  Everything is there.  This is about a freedom to acknowledge errors and to attack them publicly, a freedom to teach publicly the truths that have been denied or diluted, but also for us to oppose publicly those who spread the errors, even ecclesiastical authorities.

What errors?  The modernist, liberal errors: those of the Second Vatican Council and of the reforms that resulted from it or of its consequences in the doctrinal, liturgical or canonical order.  Everything is there.  Even public resistance, up to a certain point, to the new Code of Canon Law, to the extent that it is imbued with the collegial, ecumenical, personalist spirit, etc.  Everything is there.

Next, the second point:  “To use the 1962 liturgy exclusively”, and therefore the whole liturgy of 1962, not just the Mass:  everything, even the Pontifical.  To preserve the sacramental practice that we have presently, including what concerns Holy Orders, Confirmation and Matrimony.  You see here that we have included some aspects of sacramental and canonical practice that are necessary in order for us truly to have, in the event of an agreement or a recognition, real practical freedom in a situation that would continue to be more or less modernist.  We re-ordain, if necessary, we re-confirm, and then [as for] marriages, we obviously do not accept some new causes for nullity.

Then, still within the sine qua non conditions:  the guarantee of at least one bishop.  You see, I told you that this is not perfect, for we all agree in the Society about the fact that we have to demand several auxiliary bishops, a prelature.  We all agree, there is no problem.  That was not the problem before and it is not a problem now.  Therefore one should not nitpick about that.

On the other hand, we did define what was a problem, because in fact that was not clearly defined on our side, and also because there was a mixed message on Rome’s part.

It was also decided in this Chapter that if ever the General House attained something valuable and interesting with these conditions, there would be a deliberative Chapter, which means that its decision is necessarily binding (on the members of the Society).  When there is a consultative Chapter, the authority asks for advice but then decides freely.  A deliberative Chapter means that the decision made by the absolute majority—one half of the votes plus one, which seemed reasonable to us—that decision will be followed by the Society.

As the recent Chapter proved, on the day when we were able to speak face to face, as it should be, we overcame the problem of the misunderstandings that we had experienced.  It is evident that a deliberative Chapter is a very wise and sufficient measure for possibly approving what will have been obtained from Rome.  For it is almost impossible that with the majority the Superior of the Society… [starting the sentence over:]—after a frank discussion, an in-depth analysis of all the aspects, of all the ins and outs—it is unthinkable that the majority could be wrong in a prudential matter.

In this life there is no absolute guarantee, because no individual—starting with oneself—has every possible guarantee as to what he will do tomorrow.  And so a Chapter is broadly adequate to break the deadlock in which we found ourselves, for if you carefully examine it, our last Chapter set exactly the same conditions as Rome did, but in reverse:  they require this of us, and we demand the contrary.  Obviously the possibility of an agreement becomes more distant, but most importantly the risk of a bad agreement is, in my opinion, definitively removed.  “Definitively” means not forever, but for this time.

We also avoided a division among us, and that is no mean feat.  Nevertheless it was necessary to think about it and to understand that we were going to divide all of us, in the Society, in the [affiliated religious] Congregations, in the families, and since we are rather formidable in combat, we would have torn each other apart vehemently and persistently, as you can imagine!  That was indeed the reality.  But thanks to that understanding among us, thanks to this decision, even though it is imperfect, we overcame a division that would have been a form of dishonor for what we are defending, for the true Faith, for our combat, for those who preceded us, Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop de Castro Mayer.

Conditions in View of the Good That We Could Do in the Church 

Next, as I said, thanks to our experience, to the trials, discussions and sometimes the contradictions that we have gone through, we have come to a better understanding, and a better definition of the reality.  The Society’s position is much more precise and clear now than it was six months ago; it is much better, for we do not exclude the possibility of Providence choosing to bring about a return to the Faith through a conversion first of all: through the return of the Pope and some of the cardinals to the true doctrine; we do not exclude this.  It is no more difficult than the other way, the practical way.  We have simply said: if there is not firstly a return on the part of Rome or of the next Pope to Tradition in theology, in principles, in the Faith, in their teaching, but if this Pope wishes simply to allow Tradition;  what are the conditions that would allow us to accept a canonical normalization, in view of the good that we could do in the Church and this good is considerable? – we must not deny this possibility.

I believe that this, too, is an improvement.  We have clearly defined the conditions that will be able to protect us completely in the Faith and in the complete combat for the Faith.  But guessing the future is for prophets or fortune tellers;  we do not know what God will send us.  I am presenting you with an example, a hypothesis;  imagine that tomorrow there is a pope in the same situation as at present, but he is not modernist in his mind, as is the case today;  imagine that he is not modernist in his theology either, nor in his mind, nor heart, and that he wishes truly to return to Tradition;  but he lacks the conviction to resist in the true Faith and to persevere;  it takes a truly heroic conviction to confront all the modernism that infests the Church.  Imagine that he does not have this conviction, or that he is fairly convinced, but weak, fearful, conditioned by those around him:  the example I give you exists in the history of the Church;  there have been bishops and popes like this.  There have been popes who were very good as far as doctrine goes, but who had very bad morals, and vice versa very weak popes;  and there have been popes who made mistakes;  we say now that they were mistaken in certain historical decisions that had enormous consequences.

So, in the eventuality of a pope who lacks conviction, strength or the means to solve on his own the present situation in the Church, he could very well use us as the blade of his lance in this crisis of the Faith;  he could very well accord us the conditions necessary for us to be able to be the blade of his lance against this abscess.  Besides, if we think about it, if a pope one day grants us these conditions, he is the one who will be dealing the first blow to the edifice of Vatican Council II and the conciliar Church, for he would be admitting by this very act that the Council contains errors, that we can refuse it, and that a return to Tradition is necessary.  As soon as a Pope takes into consideration these demanding conditions, all but impossible from a human point of view, there would be war in the conciliar Church.  The so-called conciliar Church would be blown up, that is for sure.  And that is why the canonical question is nothing but a little detail in our eyes.  For if a pope decides to grant us the first two points, that means that he is ready to grant us everything, including on the canonical level; and we are of course going to ask for it.

The Necessity and Usefulness of Trials 

I obviously had many more things to say;  I think I have told you the most interesting things.  Just a thought to end with, concerning the necessity and usefulness of trials;  it is a Catholic and traditional teaching, contained in Holy Scripture, when the angel says to Tobias:  “Because you are pleasing to God, it was necessary that you undergo a trial,” (Tobias 12:13) for much good comes of trials.

And St. Augustine says that the worst thing that can happen, the worst misfortune, is that of those who draw no lesson, no profit from their misfortunes;  so the most miserable man in the world is the one who draws no lesson from his misfortune, nor the good that could come of it, and so his trial is worse than before.  Be careful!  If a trial is useful, that means that we must seek its utility and harvest its fruits.

Now we always tend to draw lessons for others from their calamities, sufferings and trials: “See! I was right, you sure got a heavy blow there.”  But there are many lessons in a trial, and we might say that it is all our own weaknesses and defects that are revealed through trials.  So each one must draw from them a lesson for oneself, in order to correct oneself and avoid committing the same error again, for often, even when we are defending a good cause, we do it very poorly.  There are lessons of humility to be learned, and it is just as well, for that reminds us to be vigilant.  Maybe we are sleeping, maybe we are not passing on well enough to future generations the spirit of the combat, maybe we must depend more on God, maybe we must have more patience, fortitude, hope in the combat.  It all goes together: fortitude, courage, and patience.  The virtue of fortitude has two acts: sustinere et aggredi.  This means that we must suffer, undergo, endure, but also undertake and attack – not aggress;  aggredi does not mean to aggress, it means to attack and undertake.

Magnanimity is also a part of the virtue of fortitude.  And patience, says St. Paul, engenders hope, patience in the combat, in trials.  Let us pay attention to hope today, for we can fall by lack of Faith, by lack of charity, but also by lack of hope.  We become pessimistic or defeatist, and that is a form of surrender.  When we no longer have hope, we are no longer committed, and we are conquered.

Trials are also a means of merit, of expiation, and often they are a vaccination.  Indeed, maybe we had just the flu today, but it will spare us catching pneumonia tomorrow.  And I think that is the case.  Often trials are a preparation for other combats, to make us more lucid, more decisive, more vigilant for what is to come. Who knows?

I wanted to say this because if we do not draw fruits from trials, we turn down the wrong path.  For God sends us these trials precisely in order to keep us on the right path, and He makes re-examine everything in order to see where we were beginning to weaken or to deviate a little, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, and often downwards.

In this crisis, one of the teachings that could still be brought to light even better is the goal of trials, which is precisely to show us where the excesses and defects are, for sometimes there are both excesses and defects.  In other words, to see where there is a disorder, and I mean a disorder of reason, in prudence above all, for obviously these questions of prudence are questions for the intelligence.  To see where reason and measure were lacking;  sometimes there are excesses in the defense of what needed to be defended;  we let our excessive passions loose, look at our impatience and hurry to resolve the crisis.  This can go in many directions, so we must be very careful in all these aspects.  And if we have been weak in this sense, we must correct it: that is the lesson.  That is why God has allowed this trial.  And if we do so, the whole body will come out of the trial much stronger and ready for more, even greater combats.

Do Not Oppose the Truth of Charity 

But let us always be very careful of the false dilemmas that are presented to us, and that sometimes tempt us because of the situation itself.  Yes, it is inherent in our situation.  They say that we have to go either against the truth or against charity, against the Faith or against mercy, against prudence or against fortitude.  Well!  No, not at all!  We must keep them all;  we must have all of the above to remain on the right path.  But we tend to favor whatever is more adapted to our temperament, our character, whatever is easier for us. And we often neglect all the other aspects.

When we say that we need order, balance, measure, that does not mean that we must be mediocre everywhere.  We know very well that that is not what virtue is.  Moral virtue is a summit between excess and defect.  And even the theological virtues, in their application to life, to works, to action, to circumstances, can have excesses and defects;  not the virtue in itself, in its proper object, which is God, for we can never love God too much.  But we can very well love God badly, all the while thinking we love Him well.  How often do we see this, especially among ourselves!

So we have a constant double risk, and in trials, we must draw a lesson for ourselves and for all;  but we must not plan too much on people and their future evolution.  There is God’s grace, and we can all be bought back and redeemed.

There are also falls, and so long as the crisis is not over, we must not sum it up.  Some of us who may have been a bit unprepared in the trial, may in the end have a very good reaction.  And others who at first had a very good reaction may go downhill.

The Faith, the confession of the Faith, is not the only thing to be kept.  There is also true charity, love, prudence, fortitude, love of the Holy Church.  We are Catholics, and we tend to remain fully Catholic, and for that, it is not enough to keep the Faith.

To conclude, I think that we have three stars, three lights that have gone before us and that can guide us without the risk of misleading us in doctrine, prudence, or the Catholic spirit.  These three persons are Cardinal Pie, Pope St. Pius X, and Archbishop Lefebvre;  each of them was perfectly adapted to his times, and perfectly adapted to the needs of the Church, each with a different style, different qualities, but also with so many similar qualities, that are especially necessary today, in the combat for the Faith.  In this way, we can draw a line from Cardinal Pie to St. Pius X to Archbishop Lefebvre, and if we continue the line, we have the path we must follow laid out.  Exactly.  Be it on the doctrinal level, the level of the Faith, the level of holiness of life – yet another chapter on which we could continue for a long time! -  the level of prayer, of the confession of the faith, of fortitude, of prudence.

They are exemplary;  we must take them as models to follow.  And the path is, so to speak, laid out.

Let us ask the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, especially today, Saturday, October 13, the anniversary of the miracle of the sun in Fatima, to give us the grace to persevere in the true Faith, in the true combat for the Faith, but also in the true spirit of the Church, and to make us every day more faithful to grace, to God and to the demands for holiness of our day and age.

May Our Lady give us the grace to be worthy successors and worthy sons of these great champions of the Catholic Faith!

The spoken style has been reserved in order to preserve the character of this conference. The title and subtitles are inserted by the editor. (DICI Oct. 20, 2012)

Article 2: Various Churches

Source

Various Churches?

By Fr. François Laisney

Truly much confusion reigns on the subject of the Church, and dangerous notions are put forward, even among Catholics attached to Tradition. One can read: “That part alone of the visible Church is Catholic which is one, holy, universal and apostolic. The rest is various sorts of rot.”

Immediately the question is raised: is the Catholic Church merely “a part of the visible Church”? And this leads to another more fundamental question: is it legitimate to distinguish between the Catholic Church, Christ’s Church and the visible Church?

On the contrary, does not the Catholic Faith oblige us to profess the identity between Christ’s Church, the Catholic Church and the visible Church? Yes! Christ’s Church is the Catholic Church, and this Church is visible!

It was because he was attached to this dogma of Faith that Mgr Lefebvre has always rejected the sedevacantist position which practically leads to an invisible Church, having lost all hierarchical bond,having no more hierarchy.

True, the author of the above quoted passage affirms that the Catholic Church is recognisable by its four notes; but he lets the reader understand that these four notes belong only to “a part of the visible Church.” So he puts in question not the first, but the second equality.And the great danger of such an affirmation is that the limit of the Catholic Church becomes practically invisible.

The author thinks he sufficiently affirms the visibility of the Catholic Church by writing: “But to say that the Catholic Church is visible, therefore the visible Church is the Catholic Church, is as foolish as to say that all lions are animals so all animals are lions.” The error of such a phrase is to fail to grasp the true meaning of the affirmation “the Catholic Church is visible.” When the Church teaches this truth – e.g. Pius XII in Mystici Corporis – it does not consider the Catholic Church as a species within a genus (which is the relation between lions and animals)  as if he were saying nothing else than anyone could see people called Catholics as they could see people called Anglicans, Orthodox, Episcopalians, etc, as if visible Church was a genus within which one species would be the Catholic Church.

No! The affirmation “the Catholic Church is visible” means: “the Church of Christ is visible, and the Catholic Church is this Church.” Nowhere Pius XII, neither any other Catholic authority, has ever taught that the Catholic Church would be merely a “part of the visible Church”. No! The whole Church of Christ is visible, and the whole is the Catholic Church. And it is WITHIN the Catholic Church that one finds a mixture of good and bad fishes (Mt 13:48), of good grain and cockle (Mt 133:25), of wheat and chaff (Mt 3:12), of good Apostles and Judases. Never did the Catholic Church teach that it only comprised the eleven good Apostles (the part that had the note of holiness), and that Judas was the rot, outside of that faithful part. Yes, Judas was rotten, but within the Catholic Church, the only Church of Christ. Then what is the Conciliar Church? This expression was coined by Mgr Benelli: it manifested clearly the novelty of the reforms introduced by Vatican II. But did it designate a separate Church, with its own structure, its own faithful separated from the Catholic Church? Not really. It signified a new spirit, new principles, but not a new structure, nor a separate hierarchy and separate faithful. This new spirit causes the members infected by it in the Church to rot in as much as they are infected by it; it is like a virus in the Mystical Body of Christ: some cells are entirely corrupted, others only partially infected, some more some less, and few are exempt from it. It is true to say that this spirit is not Catholic; it is a spirit of rupture, a revolutionary spirit, it is 1789 in the Church.

But this spirit does not constitute a separate Church; it infects more or less the members of the Catholic Church. The separation between the sound members and the infected members is not visible, from the very fact that some members are only partially infected. It is like the separation between good and evil within the Church: the limit is within each member himself, since nobody is perfect here below! It is only at the end of the world that the separation shall be achieved, not by human judgement, but by the Judgement of Christ Himself, the Sovereign Judge, true God and true man. This does not mean that the infection is not visible: as evil members are visible in the Church (and scandals have not lacked after Vatican II), so also this conciliar infection is visible, especially in those who are fully infected: modernist theologians, modernist priests’ petitions in Austria… One sees these false principles at work in the practical ecumenical meetings (Assisi, concelebrations, visits to Synagogues, kissing of the Koran…)

These false principles do not constitute a separate Church, not even a distinct part of a whole which the visible Church would be.

To say that “the Conciliar Church is not the Catholic Church”, if one means by this that the conciliar principles, the conciliar spirit are not Catholic principles, not a Catholic spirit, this is true: this is the meaning of certain words of Archbishop Lefebvre. But if one implies such a separation as that between a rotten part and sound part of an apple, it is not conform to reality, it is false; it is totally opposed to the teaching of Archbishop Lefebvre.

To separate within the visible Church, a Conciliar part, rotten, which “is not the Catholic Church”, and a Catholic part which would only comprise that “which is one, holy, universal and apostolic”, that takes away from the Catholic Church her structure (indeed the author does not hesitate to write: “the official Church is largely Conciliar and not Catholic”), the part that would remain Catholic would then be deprived of the structure which Our Lord Jesus Christ has given to His Church! It would no longer be recognisable as the Church of Christ. Such affirmations are therefore very dangerous to the Faith.

It is true that, due to the Conciliar crisis, the four notes have been somehow darkened, less visible in the whole of the Church – e.g. so many priests and religious abandoning their most sacred vows has put a stain of the visibility of the note of holiness – thus Archbishop Lefebvre has not hesitated to say that these notes are more visible among the faithful and priests attached to Tradition. But never did he say that the Catholic Church was only that sound “part of the visible Church”! On the contrary, he applied to the Church, to the whole of the Church, what was true of Christ during his Passion: He was hardly recognisable as the Messiah at that moment, as was prophesised by Isaiah: “Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not” (Is. 53:3). Because of the modernist crisis, the Church passes as through her Passion, and is hardly recognisable. Thus it is very clear that for Archbishop Lefebvre the Catholic Church is the whole, not a mere part.

On sees in this false understanding of the distinction between Conciliar and Catholic, the doctrinal error which is in some at the root of their opposition to Bishop Fellay in this year 2012. Indeed, the author concludes: “the official Church is largely Conciliar and not Catholic”, which logically leads to the refusal of any regularisation. One no longer sees that those who hold office in the Church have received the authority that Our Lord Jesus Christ has given to His Church, and thus have received a good thing – indeed what Our Lord Jesus Christ has established is evidently excellent – the abuses of that authority do not take away from the goodness of that authority in itself, of that hierarchical order; and thus if the Pope wants to regularise the place of the Society of Saint Pius X within that order, he wants something good (order is good) – therefore against which one has not the right to resist, in as much as he gives it with no evil conditions and with the sufficient guarantees so that this order be solid. At the root of this doctrinal error, there is the ignorance of the great principle of St Augustine against the Donatists: in the Catholic Church communion with the wicked does not harm the good so long as they do not consent with their wickedness. Such an error leads to a “Catharist” notion of the Church, a Church of the pure, not infected by the Conciliar rot: such notion is simply not Catholic.

Kyrie eleison! May the Lord have mercy on those who could be tempted by such notions, and give them the grace to correct themselves, to return to the traditional notion of the Church, as the Church herself taught from the beginning, especially St Cyprian against the Novatians and St Augustine against the Donatists, both being authors of a book on the unity of the Church.

Some texts of Archbishop Lefebvre will illustrate this teaching.

“Therefore we count on the support of your prayers and on your generosity, to continue in spite of the trials this priestly formation, indispensible for the life of the Church. It is not the Church nor the

successor of Peter who strikes us, but rather men of the Church imbued with liberal errors, occupying high positions in the Church and profiting of their power to obliterate the past of the Church and to establish a new Church which has nothing of Catholic.” (Letter to Friends and Benefactors, 9 Sept. 1975 at the end.)

In other words, those striking Archbishop Lefebvre were truly “men of the Church” truly “occupying high position in the Church”, but were acting against the Society of Saint Pius X, not as “successor of Peter”, but rather as “imbued with liberal errors.”

“The Church is not ecumenical, much less liberal ecumenical, the Church is missionary. That is what I never ceased to repeat in my letter to Cardinal Seper, because he was asking some small precisions on facts, on our obedience, on our submission to the holy Father, and such matters. I think that it was necessary to address the matter from much higher, because these are profound and very elevated reasons that prevent us from being fully obedient to the Pope and the Roman congregations. These are excessively important reasons. It is the whole new orientation of the Church, which is no longer a Catholic orientation, which is not the orientation of the Catholic Church. There is a very great difference between the missionary Church and the ecumenical Church. The missionary Church is that one truth-bearer, knowing that she possesses the truth in herself and bringing it to others to convert them. Her goal is conversion. On the other hand, ecumenism’s goal is to find the truth in the errors and practically putting oneself on the level of the errors, putting the whole truth on level with error, and thus embracing errors. And this is absolutely inconceivable. It is the destruction of the truth of the Church. We cannot admit this. Now all the reforms, all what they want us to accept, by the suppression of the seminary, the suppression of the Fraternity, by the penalties imposed on us, the goal, the intention is always to make us accept all that the Council has done and all what was done after the Council, that is this new Conciliar Church, which is not the Catholic Church. This new Conciliar Church is not the Catholic Church because of its ecumenism. It considers error with the same respect as truth: you are in error, you are as worthy as those who are in the truth.” (Spiritual conference at Ecône, 13 March 1978).


The two underlined passages here show very well that what Archbishop Lefebvre understood by “this new Conciliar Church” was precisely “the whole new orientation of the Church”, not a separate structure. “This Conciliar Church… [is] following roads which are not Catholic roads: they simply lead to apostasy… It is clear that the only truth that exists today for the Vatican is the conciliar truth, the spirit of the Council, the spirit of Assisi. That is the truth of today. But we will have nothing to do with this for anything in the world! … That is why, taking into account the strong will of the present Roman authorities to reduce Tradition to naught, to gather the world to the spirit of Vatican II and the spirit of Assisi, we have preferred to withdraw ourselves and to say that we could not continue. It was not possible. We would have evidently been under the authority… in the hands of those who wish to draw us into the spirit of the Council and the spirit of Assisi. This was simply not possible… This is why I sent a letter to the Pope, saying to him very clearly: We simply cannot accept this spirit and proposals, despite all the desires which we have to be in full union with you. Given this new spirit which now rules in Rome and which you wish to communicate to us, we prefer to continue in Tradition; to keep Tradition while waiting for  Tradition to regain its place at Rome, while waiting for Tradition to reassume its place in the Roman authorities, in their minds.” (Sermon of the Consecrations, 30 June 1988) One sees clearly that, in the most solemn moment of his opposition to this conciliar Church, Archbishop Lefebvre meant by this expression the spirit of the council, spirit of Assisi… which reigns in Rome… [i.e.] in the minds of the Roman authorities, i.e. in the mind of the men of the hierarchy of the Roman Church, which is the Catholic Church. Archbishop Lefebvre was always absolutely opposed to this new spirit, which is not a Catholic spirit; but never did he consider the Church as split between a rotten part and a Catholic part, reducing the Catholic Church to a mere “part of the visible Church”.

Article 3: Pseudo Anti-Liberals

Source of copy

Original


The following is written by Fr. Francois Laisney, originally appearing on http://sspxasia.com, and is published with permission.

For some time now, certain persons have been publishing the most grievous accusations against the superiors of the SSPX to an almost obsessive degree without realising that they themselves have lost contact with reality; they have fallen into errors which I will call “pseudo-anti-liberal”, because they pretend to be anti-liberal, though they themselves fall into the very defect they condemn, as wrote St Paul: “Wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou dost the same things which thou judgest” (Rom. 2:1).

A CANONICAL REGULARISATION – SOMETHING GOOD IN ITSELF

After having defined the notion of a liberal – someone who rejects the authority of God and of His Law – in order to conclude that the authorities of the SSPX are liberal, they logically need to prove that these authorities have rejected God and His Law. Now, not only have they failed to prove that Bishop Fellay and the authorities of the SSPX reject God and His Law, they have also failed to recognise that is precisely in order to obey the Law of God that – following the example of Archbishop Lefebvre (who always rejected sedevacantism) – these authorities are attached to the Catholic Church, as it is concretely today (sadly disfigured by modernism and liberalism as Christ was disfigured on the Cross), but remaining nonetheless the Catholic Church founded by Christ on Peter and against which the gates of Hell shall not prevail. St Thomas Aquinas explains that all law is essentially an order, ordo rationis: this submission to the Law of God therefore implies necessarily the love of order, and thus the desire to be in order within the Church of God; a canonical regularisation has no other purpose. There is therefore nothing liberal in this, on the contrary.

DISTINCTION: SUBMISSION TO THE SUCCESSOR OF PETER

Where is the problem then? It comes from the fact that many of those who possess authority in the Church today are infected by liberalism to diverse degrees. This neither Bishop Fellay nor any priest of the SSPX denies. But, while Bishop Fellay and the faithful priests of the SSPX, following the example of Archbishop Lefebvre, make the distinction between being subject to the successor of Peter as successor of Peter and not as liberal, nay, while resisting his liberalism, those who oppose Bishop Fellay seems to be viscerally unable to make such distinction and persevere in their ignorance of the teaching of St Augustine against the Donatists: in the Catholic Church communion with the bad ones does not harm the good ones so long as they do not consent to their evilness. The words bad ones translate the Latin mali. Put liberals in place of bad ones, since liberalism is bad, and the principle of St Augustine is exactly the position of Bishop Fellay and the refutation of those who oppose him: in the Catholic Church, communion with the liberals does not harm the good ones so long as they do not consent with their liberalism.

To understand the principle of St Augustine, one must remember the great truth which Father Calmel often recalled: the head of the Church is Christ; the Pope is only his vicar. It is because the communion with the members of the Church is first of all communion with Christ that it does not harm the goods, so long as they do not consent to the evil. And it is because they forget Christ at the head of the Church that certain persons are so afraid of this communion, paying attention only to the human side of the Church and forgetting the Sacred Heart who is in control of everything in His  Church. Their zeal so bitter – so opposed to the spirit of Archbishop Lefebvre – manifests this neglect  of the Sacred Heart. Let us pray for them.

DEGREES OF LIBERALISM

Archbishop Lefebvre often pointed out that there are many degrees of liberalism. Some reject  systematically the very principle of any law and any obligation: such liberals have clearly not the true  Faith. Others, while recognising God and His Law, and all the truths of the Catholic Faith, do not apply them sufficiently to concrete situations or don’t have the courage to recognise their consequences in modern society; and among these liberals there are also many degrees. These still have the Faith, though they deserve this reproach of Our Lord to His Apostles: “Oh ye of little faith!” (Mt. 8:26, 17:16, etc.) One must not therefore indifferently condemn all those infected by liberalism, as if they were all equally guilty of the most horrible crime, viz. to be at war with God. Moreover one ought not systematically to interpret every action of a liberal as evil; in the 19th century, some great anti-liberal Catholics such as Pope Pius IX or Cardinal Pie did not fear to praise the good done by some liberals such as Mgr Dupanloup or the Count Montalembert, while vigorously denouncing their liberalism.

THE VISIBLE CHURCH

Moreover there is a surprising dearth of logic in the Bishop Fellay’s accusers. I quote: “They say we must rejoin the visible Church because that is the Catholic Church. But the Anglican ‘church’ is still visible, all over England. Does that make it Catholic?” This argument would stand only if the leaders of the SSPX would have said: “because it is visible, it is Catholic,” or “all visible churches are Catholic.” But they evidently have not said anything like this; thus the pretended rebuttal (‘But the Anglican…’) is a mere sophism.

The truth upon which Bishop Fellay and the authorities of the SSPX insist is that the Catholic Church is visible, not only yesterday but also today. It was this visible, concrete, Roman, Catholic Church which yesterday was acknowledged by Archbishop Lefebvre and which today is recognised by Bishop Fellay and the SSPX (of which we have been living members from its beginning in 1970, and in which our duty is to be “in order”). There is nothing liberal in all that.

If those who oppose Bishop Fellay today reject this visible, concrete, Roman Catholic Church, which church is theirs? Where is it? Is it visible? Or is it like their “loose association”, without authority nor obligations? Such a concept has nothing Catholic about it! Not that I think that this is their idea of the Church. But it seems to me that their error consists in considering the unity of the Church as secondary and accessory with regards to the Faith, as if having the Faith would dispense them from ecclesiastical communion with other members of the Church if these be liberals. Indubitably, one ought to hold fast to the Faith in all its purity, because “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6); but faith without charity does not profit anything (1 Cor. 13:2). It is charity, “the bond of perfection” (Col. 3:14), which obliges use to keep that bond of communion, as St Augustine often explained (Archbishop di Noia has given some beautiful passages on this matter, and one could easily find a great number of similar ones). Here is a real and odd danger: to save the traditional faith, they lean towards the sola fide?

Three months ago, I wrote in a text entitled Various churches? : “One can read [in one of their articles]: ‘That part alone of the visible Church is Catholic which is one, holy, universal and apostolic. The rest is various sorts of rot.’ Immediately the question is raised: is the Catholic Church merely ‘a part of the visible Church’? And this leads to another more fundamental question: is it legitimate to distinguish between the Catholic Church, Christ’s Church and the visible Church? On the contrary, does not the Catholic Faith oblige us to profess the identity between Christ’s Church, the CatholicChurch and the visible Church? Yes! Christ’s Church is the Catholic Church, and this Church is visible!” Such was the faith of Archbishop Lefebvre.

THE FIGHT AGAINST ‘CONCILIAR ROME’

It seems to me that those who “never understood the faith of Archbishop Lefebvre” are truly those who reject this visible, concrete, Roman Catholic Church, in which Archbishop Lefebvre believed and to which he devoted his whole life, his last years included. Another accusation against Bishop Fellay is that he “uses his authority to oblige his inferiors to follow a direction contrary to that which they had when they joined the SSPX, i.e. the refusal of the fight against the Conciliar Rome.” From the start, one must clarify the expression conciliar Rome: if by that they mean the conciliar spirit, the errors of Vatican II and their multiple applications, such an accusation is a calumny, i.e. it is false and grievously offending to the reputation of Bishop Fellay. The very choice of the SSPX members for the theological discussions with Rome shows that Bishop Fellay wanted no weakness in the defence of the Catholic truth against the conciliar novelties, and at the very beginning of last year he clearly set as his first principle: no compromise on the Faith! And the following months only proved that he was faithful to this principle, in spite of the false prophecies announcing that he would compromise the SSPX. If on the contrary one means by conciliar Rome another ecclesial structure than that of the Catholic Church, then one must say that such persons had a wrong conception of the crisis of the Church, a conception other than that of Archbishop Lefebvre! No, Bishop Fellay is not a “depraved father”, but rather a faithful father (with a small number of rebel children!)

FOR CATHOLIC ROME

Let us add, and this is a fundamental argument, that the essential position of Archbishop Lefebvre is not primarily a position against but rather a position for. It was because he was for a total fidelity to the Catholic Faith of all times, that Archbishop Lefebvre was against the conciliar novelties. Such an attitude first of all for and then against is very clear in his famous Declaration: “We adhere with our whole heart, and with our whole soul to Catholic Rome, the Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of those traditions necessary for the maintenance of that Faith, to eternal Rome, Mistress of Wisdom and Truth. On the contrary we refuse and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo Modernist and neo Protestant tendencies, such as were clearly manifested during the Second Vatican Council, and after the Council in all the resulting reforms.” But those who set themselves primarily against a situation of triumphant modernism as that of the 70s and 80s, can no longer position themselves in a different situation, as under Benedict XVI where there was an effort (incomplete but real) to correct some evident deviations and to return to a more traditional approach to liturgy and the life of the Church. They do not know how to position themselves because they did not have (or forgot) the superior positive principle, which itself remains valid in every situation.

INEPT RESISTANCE

There is another all too frequent illusion among these critics: they compare their resistance to Bishop Fellay with the resistance of Archbishop Lefebvre to the conciliar novelties; we hear them put in parallel “the conciliar revolution and the accordist revolution.” But this comparison rather shows the inanity of their position. Nay, this comparison turns out to be rather a striking contrast. We can consider three aspects. First, Archbishop Lefebvre resisted the conciliar novelties after they were introduced: it was after the Council and after the New Mas that he started his work at Ecône; it was after Assisi that he did the Consecrations. On the contrary, it was before any compromise, in the fear of a future compromise which never came that these critics attack bishop Fellay. Secondly, let us consider the magnitude of the cause: on one hand, the Council, the New Mass (and the whole liturgical reform, since no sacrament was spared), and Assisi: these are huge scandals, causingimmense damages to millions of souls. On the other side, they put forth a few words in an impromptu interview and on a few other occasions that one can count on one’s hand. There is here such a contrast that one can but wonder at the blindness of those who do not see it. Thirdly Archbishop Lefebvre never requested the resignation of Paul VI in spite of the gravity of the conciliar and liturgical reforms, nor of John Paul II in spite of the gravity of Assisi; but these critics request the resignation of Bishop Fellay. St Augustine teaches that it is not suffering and death that makes the martyr, but first and foremost his cause: Archbishop Lefebvre had a just and proportionate cause for his resistance to the conciliar and liturgical novelties, but Bishop Fellay’s critics have no proportion for their resistance which is bare rebellion.

LIBERAL ANTI-LIBERALS

I wrote at the beginning that “they pretend to be anti-liberal, though they themselves fall into the very defect they condemn.” Indeed, the characteristic of liberals is the refusal of authority, be it the authority of dogmatic truth, of divine law or ecclesiastical authority. “The liberal is a fanatic of independence, he promotes it even to the point of absurdity, in all domains”, this is how Canon Roussel defined him, quoted by Archbishop Lefebvre (They have uncrowned Him, p.14). And now, behold our great anti-liberals are proposing “independent cells”, i.e. a loose association among them… without authority! Because they have not known how to obey, now they know not how to command. And since authority comes from above, having cut themselves from their legitimate superiors, they have lost all authority. On the contrary, Archbishop Lefebvre founded his Society, as a living branch well rooted in the trunk of the Church by the canonical approval of Mgr Charrière, and thus with a legitimate line of authority, as any truly Catholic work… not so among our critics.

Archbishop Lefebvre himself knew how to exercise this authority (among other examples, by expelling the sedevacantists). Here again one sees the contrast between the legitimate resistance of Archbishop Lefebvre and the rebellion of our critics, who, by their refusal of authority, have fallen in the very fault that they criticised.

There is a great illusion in pretending to “rely on a model of paternity (which includes authority) and not on an authoritative structure as such”, because precisely by rejecting that authoritative structure they fall back willy-nilly on a paternity without authority, typical of liberalism. They say: “if it weren’t contradictory, I would envisage a structure without authority, but with paternity, yes, with paternity! This is indispensable!” Unfortunately for them, it is contradictory! The very word authority comes from the word author; a father who would not be the author of his children would not really be father! A father who would refuse to have a true authority on his children would be… a liberal father! There is no true paternity without authority. They do well to denounce liberalism as “a religion with no rules except their own will.” But why then are they making a free association of priests, association with no rules except their own will?

Let us pray that they correct themselves and humbly ask to be readmitted in the Society of St Pius X. May St Joseph obtain this grace for them!

Fr. François Laisney

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