Williamson is right.  

First, Archbishop LeFebvre had no authority to "give permission" to attend or not to attend any Liturgy by anyone.  

RE: Wiliamson's December 1996 letter. The question prior to the one concerning Michael Davies demonstrates that Williamson is consistent.  

Referring to a person starting at the bottom in the mud and then discovering the Indult.  

He points that someone fully in Tradition should not go to the Indult in his opinion because it's a trap to bring people into the Novus Ordo.  

But what is a "halfway house"  to bring a person down can be an escape hatch for someone already at the bottom to help them up.  

Furthermore, with reference to Lumen Gentium as Williamson has said, "the language is ambiguous, so you can interpret it back on the high ground."  

The traditional understanding of that description in Lumen Gentium is that the Holy Ghost is always offering grace to people both actual and in some cases sanctifying in order to eventually lead them into the Catholic Church.  

For Lent, I happen to be reading the "The Life of Mary" as seen by the mystics.

There is an interesting phrase that was used to describe the prudential use and proper understanding of reading the writings of visionaries.  

It described finding the proper balance between blind faith and blind scorn.  

In the crisis we have the blind faith of the Neo-Catholics and blind scorn of the sedevacantists and certain cliques among "trads."  


ps, it's interesting to note, that most of the complaints that Archbishop LeFebvre made about the Novus Ordo are not "intrinsic to it"  He is complaining about innovations and experiments but not anything intrinsic to the Novus Ordo.

He ends up saying that there is a "spirit of Protestantism" impregnated into the Novus Ordo.  

What he was never asked was can a spirit of Catholicism be impregnated into the Novus Ordo as well?  

I think Williamson has been aware of that double edged sword over the decades and LeFebvre  would not have understood the process of subjective and incremental  conversion like Williamson does.  This is despite his work as a missionary.  

Obviously LeFebvre's biggest error was refusing Baptism to natives in Africa when they requested it, telling them they would be saved by Baptism of Desire if they were not Baptized.  

A reluctance to reject Newchurch outright is based on a notion that things can be turned around. By definition Newchurch is supposed to mean something other than what went before and why should trad leaders invent this new terminology if it is not to drive home the seriousness of this sea change. Again, bullets have been manufactured for the trusting rank and file to fire.

This temporary state of emergency that trads thrive on without having to come to terms with the permanence of Newchurch and her underlying philosophy is wearing very thin. Instead of there being a crisis of the Church, we have a crisis among trads. Bp. Fellay resolves this by crawling back to Rome; others institutionalise the emergency by creating   a confederation of resisting apostolates all claiming to be continuing the work of ABL.

The crisis among the children of ABL can be all about reading the archbishop's mind. Many would come unstuck by taking him too literally and then finding his meandering unbearable. Groupies like Bp. Wiliamson would swing with him and no doubt inherit an expectation that his followers would do likewise. If he is consistent, it is the consistency of the SSPX way of operating. Liturgical permissiveness, for example, may develop into some form of syncretism and still be regarded as being part of Lefebvre's mercurial agenda! Quite bizarrely, the archbishop is being seen as a vehicle going many places. One as a high church brand inside Newchurch; another as a protesting force to rival the Anglicans and Old Catholics in their detachment; yet another may succeed in becoming a floating church of the imagination dispensing her own spiritual graces and reassurances.             It may be beyond the power of human expression to fully capture the essence of this post-V2 phenomenon; one that has invented its own school of logic to turn full circle.        

The importance of the "TLM Trailblazers" (i.e. ABL, Bishop De Castro Meyer, Fr Wathen, Fr DePauw, among many, many others) is that they guided catholics through the murky waters of Vatican II, which was very new and very confusing.

But now, 50 years post-VII, it just seems that too many adult catholics haven't "grown up" and have not started to think for themselves.  Yes, ABL is still important/relevent (as well as the rest of the "trailblazers") but not in the same way they used to be.  

The crisis in the church has NOT changed, but the strategy needs to change, because the enemy has changed tactics.  The indult of the 80s changed the game and now the motu proprio has further changed the game.  In the 70s/80s Rome was trying to destroy/replace the TLM; now, realizing it won't be destroyed or replaced, they are trying to modify/cheapen it by putting it on the same level as the N.O.

I think it's a waste of time trying to dig up old quotes by ABL or whomever and try to fit their "thoughts" to the current situation.  In a general sense, what ABL said 20 years ago still applies, but specifically, it does not.  So, arguing about what ABL "might have said" today is a waste of time.  

We all have 50 years of evidence to see the effects of VII and the N.O.  We should all have enough knowlege to make judgements without consistently going back to 20 year old qutoes to support our stand against modernism.  Those who are inching closer and closer to Rome (and it seems this number grows by the day) should be called out and rebuked but we don't need an ABL quote as authority to correct them; we can use our own words, our own evidence, our own mouths to speak!  We all have just as much a call to defend the Faith as any of the "trailblazers".  And it's time that more people speak up, or else all the hard work of the last 50 years is going to be lost.

wessex,

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yet another may succeed in becoming a floating church of the imagination dispensing her own spiritual graces and reassurances. It may be beyond the power of human expression to fully capture the essence of this post-V2 phenomenon; one that has invented its own school of logic to turn full circle.

This would be the half rotten Church, which can still nourish the imaginers if they wish fervently enough, or are ignorant, but good willed enough not to know the difference.

No different than when the Church was more than half-rotten with Arianism.

+W is setting up a "straw man" imo.  I'm sure there are catholics left in the new-Church, but why is this a concern of a TLM Bishop?

Isn't it simply to show the error of "Outside the TLM there is no salvation"?

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Isn't it simply to show the error of "Outside the TLM there is no salvation"?

Yes, unfortunately, I believe so.  Just like it's easier for a cop to "fight crime" by handing out traffic tickets instead of fighting drug dealers with guns, it's easier for +W to chastise TLM'ers for their apparent lack of charity than it is to fight the modernists and their never ending twisted logic and lies.  What a shame.

We are trying to navigate a narrow road of truth during this Crisis in the Church, like a rock bridge going across a 5 thousand foot deep chasm.

Who are you to criticize +W for defining the RIGHT EDGE of that bridge with a fence, as well as the left edge? He doesn't want Catholics to fall off EITHER SIDE into the depths of ERROR.

Error is error. You can veer off the true path TO THE RIGHT just as easily as TO THE LEFT, and with just as disastrous results.

I'm not convinced that errors to the right (excessive conservatism, in this case home alone-ism) is any worse for souls than errors to the left (liberalism, Novus Ordo abuses, protestantism).

They both lead to destruction, and the devil will happily use EITHER to destroy traditional Catholics.

But I ask you: which one does the average Trad really have to watch out for?

Pharisaical self-righteousness and/or home alone-ism (being so picky about priests/groups that there are no longer any available to you in your area)
or
Going back to the Novus Ordo

Well, as a life-long Trad who's seen 5 thousand trads come through CathInfo over the past 10 years, I'm here to tell you that Home Alone-ism is much more seductive and tempting to most Trads. The Novus Ordo is disgustingly repulsive and therefore no danger to most Trads.  

Most TLM'ers are concerned about the dangers of ROME, not the few N.O. families out there.

This needs to be clarified.

Yes, Trads are concerned with the Crisis ending someday, and soon. That is healthy, to be expected, and of course we all pray for that.

But the Novus Ordo poses no tantalizing temptation to the majority of Trads.

When it comes to WHERE DOES THE DANGER LIE for the average Trad personally, it is everything BUT the Novus Ordo. Except for a few recent converts from the Conciliar Church, over 90% of Trads wouldn't go back to the Novus Ordo even if all Trad priests were put to death tomorrow.

Maybe 90% is an optimistic estimate; maybe it's more like 70%. I'll give you an example. When the SSPX started to destabilize in Ridgefield, CT, about 300 people left the parish of 500. 100 went to the Resistance (Fr. Zendejas), 100 went to the Sedevacantists, and 100 went to the local Indult.

So there's your breakdown. If the SSPX shut down every chapel tomorrow, and every SSPX priest was taken out of the picture, about 2/3 would hold the course (Resistance) or head to the right (Sede), while 1/3 would go to the left (Indult).

So enticements to the left are NOT the only, or even the main, danger for Trads.