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Traditional Catholic Faith => Crisis in the Church => Topic started by: Mr G on January 09, 2019, 12:26:43 PM

Title: Fr. Joseph Poisson Gives RadTrad Thomist an Exclusive Interview
Post by: Mr G on January 09, 2019, 12:26:43 PM
http://radtradthomist.chojnowski.me/2019/01/the-saint-peter-dossier-fr-joseph.html

Written transcript of Interview with Fr. Joseph Poisson, formerly of the FSSP, given to RadTrad Thomist in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho on January 5, 2019.



RadTrad Thomist has sat down with Fr. Joseph Poisson, former priest of the Fraternity of St. Peter, to give an exclusive interview concerning the inner workings of Ecclesia Dei’s Fraternity of St. Peter. What you don’t know about this organization WILL hurt you!





RadTrad Thomist: Father, I would like to start out with your story.  Can you tell us who you are and how you became a priest and how you got involved with the Fraternity of St. Peter?



Fr. Poisson:  I was always Novus Ordo. I come from Ontario. We lived way out on a dairy farm. The closest Latin Mass was in Ottawa. Because it was an international situation [being the capital of Canada] they have never let go of the Latin Mass. They always had the privilege of the Latin Mass. That is how the Fraternity started there, because of the commitment to keep it going. We were 85 to 100 miles from the place.  Other than that, it was all Novus Ordo around us. 

Well, I guess it started with the spiritual life. It started with me being more closer to God. We always had the rosary at home, but I must admit that when I went to college and university —- I took a two year agricultural diploma and then 5 years of computer science and mathematics at the University of Waterloo in Southern Ontario. Then I worked two years at an atomic energy plant, about 45 miles from home. I was running the dairy farm at the same time. My dad married when he was older, he was 36 and my mom was 20, mom was Polish and my dad was French so they spoke English at home. He had heart problems too, and I remember my prayer to God that I be able to finish my education before he died, because I was the oldest of 6. I was the oldest boy. There was one younger brother and 4 sisters. And sure enough, 8 days after my last exam he died in the hospital right after Mass. I was there with my mom. 



RadTrad: So how old were you at this point?



P: I was about 25 and after 2 years working I joined the seminary at 27, so I was a later start. Which was good because I was more mature, especially as compared with the French, they were still young and giddy. So I think it was the “Two Divine Promises” that started me going to daily Mass. I made that commitment. It was probably around 1986, I joined the seminary in 1990, so for 4 years I was always going to daily Mass. As you know it was Novus Ordo. I read the “Divine Promises.” My mom was getting a good library at home. She made a conversion too, getting more Catholic books from TAN. I did this quietly because I did not want to seem too “religious.” 



R: Yes, TAN Books are wonderful to help move people towards Tradition.



P: Yes, so that help me a lot with my vocation. That commitment, I knew what work was, being on a dairy farm. One of my sins is not laziness! So I must stress that. God was preparing me for the priesthood, because I would be one of the first Fraternity priests to start Masses and do a lot of sacrifices, which you don’t do now, to get the Mass started in many places, organizing your things to get things done. This was a part of me long before I joined Fr. [Joseph] Pfeiffer. 



R: So you were primarily operative in Canada?



P: I was all over. I was in Omaha for 9 months, and during that Omaha stay I would drive to Lincoln to say Mass at a hospital and then finally got to a church and a couple times before I left Omaha I was driving 3 hours a night to say a Mass.  I don’t remember exactly where, perhaps in South Dakota. It was 3 hours from Omaha. I said a 9PM Mass and driving back that night, getting back to say the Sunday Morning Mass. And then going to Saint Catherine’s [in Ontario] for 4 years after that, to start up the first Fraternity parish there. That is near Niagara Falls. I tried to live with a Novus Ordo priest there, with all the complications, to get things to what they should be. But there are good things that came out of there, I had to ask permission from the pastor to do things, [but] we had Wednesday Night adoration, Fatima processions for the six months, so we got good things going there.  We had things going on other than the Latin Mass. And then, all the book work, all the collections. I had to organize all that. Now a days they do not do that, because they have now these “special ministries” so when you walk into the parish that is all done. But all that was part of my blood. 



Then from St. Catherine’s I went to Oklahoma City.  For 2 1/2 years. Then there was a problem there. The priest before me got in trouble. He was from….Australia or the Philippines…. I forget exactly where he was from, but he joined the Fraternity. He was put in the seminary and then got this place in Oklahoma City and then he made the mistake of getting involved with an independent chapel there, so they put him back at the chancery and then at one of his morning Masses at the chancery, the secretary of the Archbishop came to the Mass and she wanted communion in the hand and the priest would not give it to her. So the bishop was infuriated.



R: But she knew that it was a Fraternity Mass?



P: Yes, but the priest knew that it was his death toll.  He left the priesthood after that. I cannot think of his name right now. So that was another crisis. After that it was back to headquarters [for me]. It is in Pennsylvania. In Elmhurst. I started the first Fraternity Mass in hαɾɾιsburg. I found the famous chapel of St. Lawrence. The problem was that the cathedral was down the street and they would have their music concerts there. After one of the concerts in the chapel, I came to find out that a lady from the cathedral had come to put the Blessed Sacrament in a safe during the concert and then put it back into the tabernacle after the concert.  After that, I got an increase of knowledge of the SSPX because they had the Angelus magazines just sitting there, at headquarters. After reading these, I felt like an SSPX priest in a Fraternity habit. 



R: So you identified with what they were saying.



P: They were really hammering the catechism on the heresies. So that was really an eye-opener. When they spoke about faculties and confessions and how the Church supplies. Because when I think of my time when I was considering the priesthood, I was committed to never going to a Novus Ordo seminary. Then I saw an article in Fr. Nicholas Gruner’s Magazine speaking about a traditional seminary in Germany [Fraternity of St. Peter Seminary in Wigratzbad] in 1989. 



R So that is what you wanted. The traditional liturgy with no compromise.



P. Yes, I wanted no compromise and I said to myself that I would never say the Novus Ordo Mass. Even if I had to say Mass alone for the rest of my life, I was that committed. I did not care about people showing up or how big the parish was.



R. You knew that there was something wrong with the Novus Ordo.



P. Oh, yea. Any ways, the first experience I had with the traditional Mass was when a priest showed me the black and white video of a traditional Mass with Bishop Sheen. When I saw this I said to myself, “Wait, our Mass [i.e., the Novus Ordo] is watered down.” I had never seen this before. That was an eye-opener. Now these old books that I was reading made sense. They are talking about the Mass and not what I was going to. It made a lot of sense. So that really opened my eyes and opened my way to join the Fraternity.



R. So when you got to the Seminary in Wigratzbad [1990] was it what you expected?



P. Yes and no. First of all, I had never had any exposure to the SSPX. I did not know about it until I went to the seminary and I heard others talk about it and about Archbishop Lefebvre. But I was so focused on my vocation. I wanted to do everything right, I did not want to break the rules. I had to make sure the other seminarians were following the rules. Adhering to “Grand Silence,” etc. So I was just focused on doing my job. And, of course, the language problem. Learning German. It was a very great cross to carry. I had studied French in high school,  and I got very good at it, but you are still not bi-lingual. I studied the German language before I took the flight over to the seminary. It was all providential because the Germans are so friendly, whereas the French are so….



R. French.



P. The Germans would give me the questions in English, so I could take the tests In English. So it was really providential that I went to Germany. 



R. So what were some of your experiences in the seminary? Some that may have shown you that there was some problem or it was not what you expected.



P. So many things would be put in my memory. But many of these things I only put together after I left the Fraternity and even after that, the answers to my questions were still not clear until about 4 years after I left the Fraternity, being home with my mom on the dairy farm. No internet, no nothing. But she had books that actually solved the questions. She had outside sources, like materials from the SSPX and the Fatima Crusader and material about Archbishop Lefebvre. Books from lawyers who were saying that there was no real excommunication [for the consecrations of 1988]. People would say that these are SSPX lawyers. No, these are people from outside the community who are saying these things. So that added up. Also, books by Fr. Malachi Martin, they opened up my mind. Saying that some of the sacraments are doubtful. So I was hearing from another source what the SSPX was saying, what Archbishop Lefebvre was saying. This opened my eyes and put things together. And even, with regard to 2012, there was a change with regard to how Bishop Fellay was saying things. Twisting things, already before that. I realized that there was a change. So I was saying to myself, this was true, under Archbishop Lefebvre but then things happened. So I had to take time to understand that. That transition. 



R. Did the other priests of the Fraternity see what you were going through? 



P. No. So I was ostracized because I wanted to be a holy priest and preach the truth, so I would be hammered by either fellow priests or laypeople and then I would get in trouble. Preaching against immodesty in dress, cremation, and speaking about the proper observance of the Lord’s Day. People would say that, “You are too strict.” But they were precepts in the old books. I got threatened with suspension, because I refused communion to these two girls who on Assumption Day, at a night Mass, they were just “fulfilling their obligation” but even though there was a Novus Ordo church down the street they came in their shorts and their spaghetti  straps and I said [to myself] “No thank you” and I denied them communion. 



R. So you got in trouble for that.



P. Yes, I got threatened with suspension if I did it again. 



R. How did your colleagues in the Fraternity respond to that? 



P. They would never support the priest if the bishop said something. If there was a complaint by the diocese, the rule was to hammer the priest. And even the faithful would condemn the priest as guilty. 



R. So they wanted you to be Novus Ordo even though you were a Fraternity priest.



P. Yes, all they wanted is to have no problems with the bishop. 



Many more revelations from Fr. Poisson to come. Stay tuned.
Title: Re: Fr. Joseph Poisson Gives RadTrad Thomist an Exclusive Interview
Post by: josefamenendez on January 09, 2019, 04:54:50 PM
Fr Poisson is truly a holy priest. I pray that he be conditionally ordained by Bishop Zendejas through the line of Archbishop Lefebrvre.
Title: Re: Fr. Joseph Poisson Gives RadTrad Thomist an Exclusive Interview
Post by: Mr G on January 10, 2019, 12:30:56 PM
http://radtradthomist.chojnowski.me/2019/01/the-saint-peter-dossier-part-ii-when.html
Continuation of RadTrad Thomist's interview with Fr. Joseph Poisson. Part II, When the Bishop says "Jump"!

Fr. Poisson:  The solution of the Fraternity, if there is a problem with the bishop, is to change priests. I knew then, since I was being picked on, that I would never be a parish priest. At one point, I could not even go to the bishop’s Mass, the Holy Thursday [Chrism] Mass anymore. Now I wanted nothing to do with it. So I could only be an assistant priest and I was happy with that. That released me from it. Then I was sent to Scranton.  

RadTrad Thomist. What was your experience of the [Novus Ordo] bishops that you met along the way? 

P. What can I tell you on that? 

R. What did they seem to want from you?

P. Oh! They just wanted the money! They want the collections. They want their fund raising They want their Fraternity priests to make their [financial] goals. It is just about their money. We give you the church, the privilege to be here, the collections are meant to be kept up, keep everybody happy. 

R. So if you preach too hard they don’t like it.

P. Well not necessarily. It depends what you preach on. If the big money giver gets upset, he won’t give money. I do feel guilty. I should have preached against the bishop and Vatican II and all that. Again, this did not strike me until I left the Fraternity, “Hey, they don’t preach against Modernism, because they are part of Modernism. So we never had a class in Modernism in the seminary, a class in Pascendi!

R. So how did they understand the situation in the Church? What was wrong?

P. For example, Fr. House, he was one of the first to join the Fraternity, he was the one killed. I remember him saying, “You need to read Pascendi!” But there was no classes on it, like Fr. Pfeiffer has classes on it, and it is very hard to understand by yourself, but it is a very important one if you are going to understand the crisis in the Church. Modernism is the basis of the crisis. 

R. You would think that Modernism is the whole reason for the Fraternity to exist.

P. It is to deal with the bishop and compromise. It is all part of the problem. But really, it is all based on one simple statement, “If Archbishop Lefebvre is not excommunicated, the Fraternity is built on a lie."  After I got all of the evidence, I realized that it was not built on a rock, it was built on sand, it was built on a lie. 

R. It was based on his “excommunication” it was established in the same docuмent as the “excommunication.” When you go back and read Ecclesia Dei, the docuмent, you see that it has this new understanding of Tradition. They speak of “living Tradition.” 
Were you feeling doctrinally on the “outs” with the Fraternity?

P. I could feel a change with my superiors. There was more Liberalism. Things that are let go. Even with the priests, the quote ‘holy ones’ in the seminary, when they become a priest they become different. When you got a parish, when you got power, they make compromises. 

I noticed these things, so I said that we need to stand up for the truth.  These things were growing in my mind and no one was there to help me with it. There were a couple of others that thought the same way, but, ultimately, they all gave in. So I said, I just want a small post where I can teach truth? There were so many questions that were not answered until I got out of the  “bubble” of the Fraternity. Because when you are in you are so concentrated on your priesthood and the faithful, that you do not see things until you are outside. I was not seeing the situation. I just needed for things to slow down, and to read and pray. But when I went home, my mom had the books there! The answers to my questions were right there. She had all of these books at home, but I was never home to read them. The others don’t really…they just want to go along with the flow. I could not talk to anybody. That is one of the worst thing that the Fraternity has, when you are out in the parishes you have to go to a Novus Ordo priest for confession. 

That is one of the biggest things against the Fraternity, you are out there in nowhere. But God has His ways.  God gaves me signs from other people. They would say, “You have to go!” 

R. God speaks in strange ways!

P.  The Passionist priests are in Scranton, St. Anne’s, they are terrible confessors. But these were my spiritual directors, and so I asked the question of my confessor —- under the seal —- I asked him if it was God’s will that I should go. The priest said, “Go in peace!” So I knew that it was God saying, Go! I did not know where I was going to go, but it was under the seal and God can speak through the priest. So even though the priest is a heretic, he can still give an answer with his mouth. Things were building up. Priests were picking on me because of my preaching. These were all signs that maybe its just not me but maybe it is what they are built on. 

R. I think that is one thing for people to understand is that sometimes the appearances don’t reflect the actual substance. Is that the case with the Fraternity of St. Peter. Is it therefore deceptive? 

P. Well, when I said to myself that I could no longer go to a Novus Ordo Mass any more, I could not go to the bishop’s Mass any more, you begin to extend that to, is it more than that. Is it Vatican II? Do I need to read about the SSPX? I found myself minimizing everything, like the collection. I would make the collection for the bishop, but I would just give him a little bit and not what he wanted. I just suffered the consequences. Finally, I decided to get out of it. 

R. So you were led into it by this appearance of orthodoxy and traditional practice…..

P. I just kept asking myself “How can I get out of it and still be in the Church?” But I started reading the Angelus and later I said, when I started looking at the history of the Church, that there is such a thing as false obedience. That is what the Fraternity has built, to obey these superiors and bishops. But obedience goes so far as mortal sin, but this is not talked about. Faith is greater than obedience. All of these things were coming to me. If I left or was drawn out by Our Lady, I might not have a salary, but if truth was outside the Fraternity and the Novus Ordo church than I need it. I don’t care about security. I care about truth, that is my “drawback.”  My view of the future is well-formed. Catholic prophecy helped me to understand about the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, to understand where the crisis in the Church was going, Fatima, Our Lady of Good Success, I knew about these things more so than the other priests of the Fraternity of St. Peter. 

R. No one could give you satisfaction.

P. Correct, “What ever satisfies the pope and the bishops that is what we do,” “We are ‘yes’ people.” “Yes, bishop, if you want us to jump 3 feet tomorrow, we will jump 3 feet tomorrow. If you want us to jump 2 1/2 feet the next day, we will jump 2 1/2 feet the next day. What ever makes you happy.” 

 

Much more to come for the St. Peter's Dossier. Only about 1/3 of the interview has so far been posted.



 


 
 
Title: Re: Fr. Joseph Poisson Gives RadTrad Thomist an Exclusive Interview
Post by: Mr G on January 11, 2019, 10:20:51 AM
http://radtradthomist.chojnowski.me/2019/01/the-saint-peter-dossier-part-iii-trek.html

Part III of RadTrad Thomist's exclusive interview with Fr. Joseph Poisson, former Priest of the FSSP. 
 

Fr. Joseph Poisson: The Fraternity priest in Scranton one year brought the bishop to the Mass on the Epiphany. Then there was a nice supper afterwards, and they said nice things and he said nice things.  It is just talk and they sang music to him. It was just stupid. He does not give us the Sacraments, we get the Sacraments from Bishop Timlin. He is just there to look happy and to see the pretty girls in dresses. They are dressed modestly. Everything to make the bishop happy. He never gave us anything. He never gave us the Sacraments. The retired Bishop Timlin gave the Sacrament of Confirmation. Because our bishop would not get into the old rite. Our Lady was really giving me a sign that I was to get out. Another thing that was pulling me towards the SSPX occurred when I went to Nigeria for 9 months. Before I left for Nigeria in 2010, a woman knocked on the rectory in Saint Catherines, Ontario, and I thought she wanted catechism, a couple of classes. But she said, “You know Father, I feel I have to give this to you.” It was a 1st class relic of St. Pius X. I asked her, “Where did you get this?” It did not have the papers, but they were remodeling the wall in a house down the street, they were demolishing the wall and it was found in the wall! They just found this. So I said, “OK”. Because it does not have the papers, I always wear it on me. I was saying to myself, “Should I join SSPX?” 



So, to jump ahead, before I joined Fr. [Joseph] Pfeiffer last November, I dd have a meeting with the prior of the SSPX church in Toronto. My former altar boy liked the SSPX and joined them and became a brother. He was one year in France and then he was going to the St. Joseph Oratory in Montreal, so he passed by my home [by this time, Fr. Poisson was already out of the FSSP for 4 years]. So he set up an appointment for me with the SSPX prior and since I had no car and no money I could not meet him in Toronto. So the prior said, “I will meet you in Ottawa, so I borrowed my aunt’s car to drive there. Everything that day was a red flag. We were supposed to meet at Tim Horton’s restaurant and there were not even two seats in the restaurant, the McDonalds had blasting music, so I just said, “Let’s talk in my car.” Fr. Dominique Boulet, he has been around many years. He said to me, “We are almost there. We almost have the Personal Prelature.” I thought, “You want to sign THAT? And he was so enthusiastic about having marriages and confessions with the pope’s permission. 



RadTrad Thomist: Well what is your attitude towards all that? You have gone from the inside, doing it “normally” and then you are speaking to someone who wants exactly that. 



P. I said to myself, “They are following in the footsteps of the Fraternity.” And I could see that from coming from the inside. I did not say any of this to him then, but I was in a daze afterwards. I was so overwhelmed by that meeting that I could not even say my rosary coming home. I could not even get out a “Hail Mary.” I was so exhausted, going over and over in my mind what he had said. 



R. So you thought there would be some answer?



P. Nothing worked. I said to myself, “That is not for me. I guess it is back to prayer.” Shortly after that, a few weeks, it was the Feast of the Miraculous Medal, I started to think, “Wouldn’t it be nice to just drive coast to coast and just preach Fatima and say Mass? Maybe that is what Our Lady wants me to do. And then the phone rang. Normally I just wanted to be quiet, I would let mom answer it, but since she was in bed, I answered it. It was some lady in Niagara Falls, she knew me, she knew that I preached the truth, she had mass intentions for me, she said to me, “Why don’t you speak to Fr. [Joseph] Pfeiffer?” Now when I was in the Fraternity, I had heard the name “Fr. Pfeiffer” but I was so focused on my work that I did not even think much about the name. I had a friend of the SSPX “Resistance” in Toronto, so she got me Fr. Pfeiffer’s number. I called him immediately, about 7pm at night, and he was at some airport and he answered right away, “Hello, this is Fr. Pfeiffer!” Very friendly. “Why don’t you come down to Kentucky.” But, I felt like I had to call him back, I needed to help my mother out and my brother who was running the dairy farm. It was already November and with the snow in Canada, I needed to help them both out with the farm. So I called him back, told him the situation, and then said that, “I will call you back after Easter.” So I wanted to go, and then after Easter, I drove down to Buffalo airport and then to Kentucky. But I did not know much about Fr. Pfeiffer at the time. I did not have internet at my mother’s house. When I met him at the airport with Fr. Hewko I thought he was a brother, because he was wearing a white cassock, so I asked him, “Are you a brother?” 



R. Either that or the pope? 



P. So they brought me to a restaurant. That was the first question I asked Fr. Pfeiffer, “Why are you wearing a white cassock?” “Okay, Okay, that is the Asian summer, etc.” That was my first exposure to him. 



R. So I have this relic of St. Pius X and all I was hearing from them was “Resistance,” not “Pius X”. During the first week, I was walking back to the chapel and I picked up a pamphlet which spoke of “SSPX MC” Society of Saint Pius X Marian Corps. So I saw, SSPX, they were still sons of Archbishop Lefebvre. I was directed there through Our Lady. I did not care what everyone else would care about. There were chickens walking around where the seminary was, but I did not care about that. First, I was years a priest, second, I was in Nigeria, so there are chickens and poverty. So the fact that I did not have a fancy room, that was nothing to me. Plus I was a traveling priest for all these years when I was a Fraternity priest, it was all in my blood. This is nothing to me.



R. What kind of spirit did you find there when you pulled in?



P. First of all, Fr. Pfeiffer is amazing. He has a heart of gold. I know how to see through people. Nobody is perfect in this world. There is only Our Lady and Our Lord. Only they were perfect. But I know that “Charity covers a multitude of sins.” You know, his reward in heaven is great. He is doing things that will blow your mind out. If he is $5,000 in the hole, the next week he gets out of it. Someone gives a donations and he is back in the black. He needs plane tickets to go to the faithful, he gets the money. He does not look back. 



R. How long have you been with him now?




P. Since May [2018].