Fr. Ceriani's comments on General Chapter Declaration:


From Fr. Ceriani http://radiocristiandad.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/p-ceriani-declaracion-contra-declaracion/


Declaration versus Declaration

We have read today the SSPX’s General Chapter Statement, of July 2012.

Let us remember Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s Declaration of November 21, 1974:

Quote:
We hold firmly with all our heart and with all our mind to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to the maintenance of this faith, to the eternal Rome, mistress of wisdom and truth.

We refuse on the other hand, and have always refused, to follow the Rome of Neo-Modernist and Neo-Protestant tendencies, which became clearly manifest during the Second Vatican Council, and after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.

In effect, all these reforms have contributed and continue to contribute to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments, to the disappearance of the religious life, and to a naturalistic and Teilhardian education in the universities, in the seminaries, in catechetics: an education deriving from Liberalism and Protestantism which had been condemned many times by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.

No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can compel us to abandon or to diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church's Magisterium for nineteen centuries.

"Friends," said St. Paul, "though it were we ourselves, though it were an angel from heaven that should preach to you a gospel other than the gospel we have preached to you, a curse upon him" (Gal. 1:8).

Is it not this that the Holy Father is repeating to us today? And if there is a certain contradiction manifest in his words and deeds as well as in the acts of the dicasteries,* then we cleave to what has always been taught and we turn a deaf ear to the novelties which destroy the Church.

It is impossible to profoundly modify the Lex Orandi without modifying the Lex Credendi. To the New Mass there corresponds the new catechism, the new priesthood, the new seminaries, the new universities, the "Charismatic" Church, Pentecostalism: all of them opposed to orthodoxy and the never-changing Magisterium. This reformation, deriving as it does from Liberalism and Modernism, is entirely corrupted; it derives from heresy and results in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this reformation and to submit to it in any way whatsoever. The only attitude of fidelity to the Church and to Catholic doctrine appropriate for our salvation is a categorical refusal to accept this reformation.

That is why, without any rebellion, bitterness, or resentment, we pursue our work of priestly formation under the guidance of the never-changing Magisterium, convinced as we are that we cannot possibly render a greater service to the Holy Catholic Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to posterity.

That is why we hold firmly to everything that has been consistently taught and practiced by the Church (and codified in books published before the Modernist influence of the Council) concerning faith, morals, divine worship, catechetics, priestly formation, and the institution of the Church, until such time as the true light of tradition dissipates the gloom which obscures the sky of the eternal Rome.

Doing this, with the grace of God, the help of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and St. Pius X, we are certain that we are being faithful to the Catholic and Roman Church, to all of Peter's successors, and of being the “Fideles dispensatores mysteriorum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi In Spiritu Sancto”. Amen.

Comparing both Declarations, it is found that the SSPX General Chapter of July 2012, not only differs from the Open Letter of July 6, 1988 signed by all the Major Superiors, but also denies its Founder’s Declaration, when it abandons the distinction between the Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith, the eternal Rome, and the Rome of Neo-Modernist and Neo-Protestant tendencies.

Archbishop Lefebvre’s Declaration
Quote:
We hold firmly with all our heart and with all our mind to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to the maintenance of this faith, to the eternal Rome, mistress of wisdom and truth.

General Chapter’s Statement
Quote:
It seems opportune that we reaffirm our faith in the Roman Catholic Church, the unique Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, outside of which there is no salvation nor possibility to find the means leading to salvation; our faith in its monarchical constitution, desired by Our Lord himself, by which the supreme power of government over the universal Church belongs only to the Pope, Vicar of Christ on earth

So far, there is not a significant difference… but the poison comes in the details…

Archbishop Lefebvre’s Declaration

Quote:
We refuse on the other hand, and have always refused, to follow the Rome of Neo-Modernist and Neo-Protestant tendencies, which became clearly manifest during the Second Vatican Council, and after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.

No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can compel us to abandon or to diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church's Magisterium for nineteen centuries.

"Friends," said St. Paul, "though it were we ourselves, though it were an angel from heaven that should preach to you a gospel other than the gospel we have preached to you, a curse upon him" (Gal. 1:8).

General Chapter’s Statement

Quote:
The Society continues to uphold the declarations and the teachings of the constant Magisterium of the Church in regard to all the novelties of the Second Vatican Council which remain tainted with errors, and also in regard to the reforms issued from it.

The difference is obvious: there is not condemnation nor rejection.
This coincides perfectly with the statements made on several occasions by the current Superior General, Bishop Bernard Fellay:

1) Conference of December 11, 2005, which recounts his meeting with Benedict XVI.
At this conference, with the itch to assert the perpetuity of the Church visible (which is true), Bishop Fellay even says that today's Rome is the guardian of the Faith. For that, he uses the Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre of November 1974 , but giving the opposite sense:

Quote:
Archbishop Lefebvre expressed this first principle of attachment to the Catholic faith admirably on November 21, 1974, and we may say that it is still our charter today:

“We wholeheartedly adhere with all our soul to Catholic Rome, guardian of the Catholic faith and of the traditions necessary to keep this faith; to eternal Rome, mistress of wisdom and truth”.

We wholeheartedly adhere to this text.

“To Catholic Rome” means something. This Catholic Rome is not an abstraction, let us be very careful about this! It is not an abstraction. It is a reality.

When the Archbishop says:

We adhere to Catholic Rome, this means Catholic Rome today. It is not merely adhesion to Michelangelo’s Rome or Saint Peter’s Rome. It is the Rome that exists today, with the following characteristics: this eternal Rome is Catholic, guardian of the faith, preserving the faith.

What was Bishop Fellay thinking and what he wanted to convey when saying: "When the Archbishop says, "We adhere to the Catholic Rome", that means today’s Catholic Rome"?

2) Remember the Communique after the hearing of August 2005:
Quote:
The audience was an opportunity for the Society to manifest that it has always been attached —and always will be —to the Holy See, Eternal Rome.

Very good! But he omitted the second part, the distinction from "the Rome of Neo-Modernist and Neo-Protestant tendencies, which became clearly manifest during the Second Vatican Council..."

3) Press Release and Letter to the Faithful, January 24, 2009
Quote:
“We are ready to write the Creed with our own blood, to sign the anti-modernist oath, the profession of faith of Pius IV, we accept and make our own all the councils up to the Second Vatican Council about which we express some reservations.”


4) February 16, 2009. Conference at the seminary in Flavigny, before more than 60 SSPX priests:
Quote:
Some, to make things easier, identify the official Church with the Modernist Church. But that is wrong, because we talk about a concrete reality.


5)Letter to the other three bishops of the SSPX, April 14, 2012:
Quote:
Reading your letter one seriously wonders if you still believe that the visible Church with its seat in Rome is truly the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a Church horribly disfigured for sure from head to foot, but a Church which nevertheless still has for its head Our Lord Jesus Christ. One has the impression that you are so scandalised that you no longer accept that that could still be true. It Benedict XVI still the legitimate pope for you? If he is, can Jesus Christ still speak through his mouth?

This failure to distinguish leads one or the other of you three to an "absolute hardening". This is serious because such a caricature no longer corresponds to reality and logically it will in the future finish up in a true schism. And it may well be that this fact is one of the arguments pushing me to delay no longer in responding to the pressure from Rome.

It is obvious that we are before a new Society of Saint Pius X…

Fr. Juan Carlos Ceriani

 

(Someone said "Fr. Ceriani was considered one of the 'big brains' of the SSPX for years.")