Five Principles in Time of Crisis - Return to Fatima

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JMJ

The blog 'Return to Fatima' has posted a letter by Fr. Stehlin in which he identifies five principles for surviving a time of crisis ... such as the one the Catholic Church has undergone for the past 50+ years.

The whole article can be found here and its original here.

Interestingly, Father starts with obedience - true obedience.  If a person abandons true obedience for his own will, how can they be right? 

The ends do not justify the means.

P^3


From SSPX: News and Events,

First principle: the good of obedience

... St. Maximilian (and St. Thomas before him) tells again that only if superiors ask of us something immoral or against the Faith must we respect the greater obedience towards God and therefore refuse to obey His human instruments. Thanks to this principle, which is the essence of obedience, we have chosen the superior obedience towards God over obedience to His instruments who ask us to do or accept things against Faith and morals.
But if I am in front of a legitimate superior (see the second principle), I owe him total obedience, through which I accomplish the will of the Immaculate in perfect safety. And St. Maximilian insists that this obedience is thus supernatural because of our love for God and our submission to Him.

Second principle: authority

Another principle linked to the first is the principle of authority in se, which alone can save us from the Protestant free inquiry. All of Tradition holds together through this principle, without which everything would fall apart, for the duty to refuse the ordinary authority in order to safeguard the Faith implies the duty to submit to the authority of extraordinary supplied jurisdiction. Tradition has survived because Providence provided this supplied jurisdiction through the founding of the SSPX to which were attached friendly communities.[3]

Third principle: “One must not use bad means for a good end.”

You see, Father, once in my life I went around this principle, and if it hadn’t been for the intervention of Providence through my superiors’ firm hand, I would have fallen never again to get back up. Ever since that experience I have a profound horror of anything that violates this principle.
However, seeing the procedures of the so-called Resistance, I cannot help being deeply shocked by the constant violation of this principle, especially because of the internet, which spreads these things throughout the whole world, most of them to people who have no way to check the truth of what they are told.

Fourth principle: Ad majorem Dei gloriam[10]

We come now to the principle of principles that you evoke: “Everything here below is ordained to the glory of God,” and you would surely have nothing against adding “and the salvation of souls.” “Salus animarum suprema lex.”[11]

Fifth principle: Filius Ecclesiae

This principle tells me to love the Church as Christ loved her. However there is only one visible Church founded upon the Apostles. S