This is an article written in 2001 by the late WJ Morgan of England, when news of the SSPX-Rome talks first broke out.
Counter-Reformation Association
NEWS AND VIEWS
La Guerche, Monks Kirby, Warwickshire CV23 0QZ
Septuagesima Special AD2001
Tota pulchra es, Maria,
Et macula originalis non est in te
REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
At Christmas, it still appeared a matter of straws in the wind. At the time, it seemed to me – mistakenly as it has now proved – not only unreasonable, but also prematurely alarmist, to draw readers’ attention to the way the wind was blowing, both in terms of direction and strength. However, by Candlemas the gale had reached London, and during the week which followed, its effects were beginning to be felt throughout the country.
I refer, of course, to Fr Jacques Emily’s announcement that the leadership of the Fraternity of St Pius X had agreed to enter into preliminary negotiations with Conciliar Rome regarding the terms for a mutual rapprochement. The Polish Antipope wants to achieve the maximum extent of Christian unity – and that includes, from his perspective, the right-wing schismatics of the FSPX, their institutional allies, and the lay people who look to them.
Given its “official public position” of giving token recognition to Karol Wojtyla as a valid Pope, it is inevitable that part of the Fraternity’s collective psyche should yearn for renewed official recognition and formal communion with the heretical “Holy Father”. Of course, the FSPX is a notoriously schizophrenic institution, and even abstracting from the key issue of the status of Karol Wojtyla, its right hand never quite seems to know what its left hand is doing – even when the figurative hands in question belong to the same person.
The Abbe Paul Aulagnier’s high-profile activism makes him the natural representative of this aspect of the Fraternity’s institutional psychology. When reading the Second Assistant to the FSPX Superior General’s eloquent rhetoric – in his Saint-Jean-Eudes Bulletin, and now in his book of interviews with the Abbe Guillaume de Tanouarn, “La Tradition sans peur” – it is clear that his right hand rejects the New Mass as lacking doctrinal rectitude. However, his left hand gives the appearance of thinking that the crucial Mass issue is the right of every priest freely to celebrate the Tridentine Mass in any church.
That being the case, providing that Cardinal Ratzinger, or any other Vatican representative, is able to concentrate on the Abbe’s left hand, there is little doubt but that Conciliar Rome will be able to offer him a package which he could hardly refuse – even though it effectively meant amputating his right hand!
It requires very little reflection to understand what the package may contain. As Mgr Perl, of the “Ecclesia Dei” Commission, told the Ciel conference in Rome last year, the 5th May 1988 Protocol is still on offer. In his muddle of reasons for refusing to stand by the Protocol, Mgr Marcel Lefebvre’s key concern was that he should be the one to chose the bishops (in fact already chosen) to be consecrated by him on 30th June, rather than the Vatican choosing one member only of the Fraternity for consecration on 15th August. Accordingly, part of Conciliar Rome’s new deal will obviously include a post mortem honouring of Mgr Lefebvre’s wishes in the matter, by his choice of bishops being accepted by the Vatican. (And surely the status of Mgr Lefebvre himself, like that of the excommunicated Eastern dissidents under Paul VI, could be amicably regularised?)
The Protocol already offers the Fraternity the autonomous status of a Society of Apostolic Life. It is taken for granted that they will continue to celebrate a form of the Tridentine Mass (as confirmed in “Ecclesia Dei Afflicta”), along with the traditional Latin sacramental rites. If the more centralising Conciliarists in the Vatican feel strong enough to face down local Episcopal opposition, it is not beyond the bounds of credibility that they will make the Latin Mass Society’s dream come true – and grant every priest, anywhere, the right to celebrate the Tridentine Mass.
Quite apart from such “perks” which might be on tacit offer from the Vatican for obliging FSPX members (like Dom Gerard’s abbatial mitre), could the Abbe Aulagnier’s left hand really resist such a settlement? Of course, his right hand wouldn’t like it, but which way would he go – left or right?
But what, in that case, appalled readers must be asking themselves, will be the price that the Abbe Aulagnier’s left hand will have to pay for this package of goodies from Conciliar Rome? The answer is, surely, what is already part of the 5th May 1988 Protocol – no more polemics. That means no more public witnessing against the official Conciliar Reform and the New Mass. Or, in those famous words of Bishop Bernard Fellay (as reported by the Abbe Xavier Grossin) on a different matter: “Believe what you like but keep quiet.”
Will the FSPX leadership, or alternatively some of its individual members, accept Conciliar Rome’s left-handed deal? Who can tell? Because the Fraternity is racked with incoherent thinking and practice, anything is possible. Paradoxically, the Abbe Aulagnier himself may be taken aback by the prospect he has helped to bring about. Meanwhile, FSPX members in general appear to confuse matters of doctrinal principle with pragmatic considerations. How will such a deal effect them, is more likely the question anxiously discussed, rather than what does their witness to the Catholic faith as against the Conciliar Reform require of them.
A few robust minds must be wondering about the question of the legal ownership of FSPX property. In this country, that includes not only the churches and priories but also St Michael’s School. They may recall that the matter had to be fought out in the American civil courts, following the 1983 expulsion of the American Nine.
Then there are the Fraternity’s important client religious communities. How, for example, could convents and convent schools survive without the material and spiritual support of the FSPX – that is, on the supposition that any of them were clear-minded enough to recognise that their defining anti-Conciliarist witness had been betrayed?
Many lay people, understandably, must now be anxiously considering the implications of a Rome-Econe deal for their own assistance at Mass and reception of the sacraments. Will they, in conscience, be able to go on assisting at Masses in Fraternity churches? Or will they be forced to stay at home, or – all over again – establish Mass centres, to be served by those recalcitrant priests who will have rejected the deal, and been peremptorily expelled from the FSPX and rendered destitute? Will some of the Londoners, for instance, stage a Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet style occupation of St Joseph’s Church, to prevent it from becoming formally part of the Conciliar Church? It may seem unlikely, but who knows what lay people may be driven to do if faced with another clerical betrayal?
All these unanswered questions indicate how dangerous the course is to which the FSPX leadership has committed itself. It is not sedevacantists only who will refuse any accommodation with Conciliar Rome. The Abbe Aulagnier and his associates have proverbially sown the wind, and –whatever the precise outcome – are in danger of reaping a whirlwind.
5-II-2001 William Morgan
Topic: Rome rejects SSPX (Read 10429 times)