Have others of you heard this?  If you listen to priests like Fr. Ceriani and Pere Morgon, you come away thinking that Bp. Williamson may have been supportive of +Fellay & Co. and their efforts to achieve a practical accord with Rome.  These priests assert, (as I understand it anyway), that Bp. W. was on board with the "accordistas" until 2010.  Only in 2010 and thereafter did H.E. go into a full "resistance" mode.  What say some of you?  

Saturday, September 29, 2007
Agreementitis
Eleison Comments XIII

An argument often heard in favor of the Society of St. Pius X coming to some kind of agreement with the neo-modernists in Rome runs something like this: “You cannot expect Rome to come back to the true Faith overnight. Down all the history of the Church such returns have taken tens or hundreds of years.  Do you want us to wait out our lives before we can be received back into the Church? You seem to like proverbs -- how about ‘Half a loaf is better than no bread’? Souls without number are waiting for the Society to move.”

There are in fact several arguments here. Let us take them one by one:-

*What I expect Rome to do or not to do is of no importance. On the contrary the true Faith, complete, is as important as eternal salvation or damnation. The true Faith, because “Without the faith it is impossible to please God (St. Paul to the Hebrews). Complete, because whoever denies one single Article of the Faith has lost the Faith altogether (Catholic doctrine), and neo-modernism turns to mush every single Article of the Faith.

*It may have taken a long time for past heresies to be washed out of the Church’s system, but if Catholics faced with the Arian heresy had agreed to Semi-Arianism or even Quarter-Arianism, how would the Church have survived? The Church survived thanks to Catholics like St. Athanasius who insisted on the entire Arian heresy being washed out – see the Athanasian Creed.

*A wait of 30 or 50 years or even longer is of little importance compared with the purity of the Faith. As St. Athanasius famously said, “They have the buildings, we have the Faith”. It is for those who, by the grace of God, have the Faith to “receive back”, so to speak, those who have mushed it (nor does any SSPXer in his right mind presume that the SSPX has any kind of monopoly on that Faith).

*Half a loaf is still bread, and nothing but bread. On the contrary half a truth is necessarily accompanied by poisonous untruth, otherwise it would be nothing but truth.

*If the SSPX were ever to give souls a lead in mixing Catholic truth with error, it would be better if it had gone out of existence first. May it never come to that! Kyrie Eleison.

Bishop Richard Williamson
Italy

Saturday, July 12, 2008
Bishops Agree
Eleison Comments LIV

Many friends of the Society of St. Pius X wonder what position towards an agreement with Rome is taken by Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta. He is one of the Society’s four bishops, but what he thinks and says is not so often quoted, at least in English, a language which he may understand, but which he prefers not to have to speak.

At the Society’s mother-house in Ecône, Switzerland, it was he who this year conducted the annual ceremony of ordinations to the diaconate and priesthood. Sections of his sermon are available on the Internet at christus.imperat, for instance. Here are two paragraphs, the first concerning the Society’s episcopal consecrations of June 30, 1988, because this year was their 20th anniversary; the second concerning Cardinal Castrillón’s “ultimatum” of June 4 and 5, one month ago.

From the truth no longer being preached, but merely looked for (as though one did not know it) followed, said the bishop, “the importance and need for those consecrations to ensure the survival of the Catholic priesthood. We are proud of the consecrations, not as being a revolt against the pope, but as being in reality the safeguard of the Catholic priesthood. We are also proud of the figure of Archbishop Lefebvre.

We are not “lefebvrists”, but we adhere to his way of thinking because it is Catholic. We are ashamed neither of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, nor of the unchanging Catholic Church, nor therefore of Archbishop Lefebvre.”

Further on, as to the Cardinal’s “ultimatum”, the bishop said that calling it an ultimatum was going too far. He went on, “We saw it rather as being meant to scare us, to put pressure on us to come to a purely practical (not doctrinal) agreement (with Rome). This is the way they want to make us go, but it is a dead end, and we will not go that way. We cannot undertake to betray our professing of the Faith, nor can we get drawn into an exercise in demolition. Our reply to the Holy Father is therefore to follow the steps laid down (complete liberation of Tridentine Mass and nullification of the “excommunications” of 1988) as preliminaries to a doctrinal encounter. Rome will react either with a slowing down or complete stop of contacts, or with a fresh condemnation – one wonders exactly what form that might take – or with a lifting of the “excommunications”.”

Firstly the Faith, then Rome – all four Society bishops follow substantially the Archbishop´s line of thinking, “because it is Catholic”. “Sooner die than betray,” he used to say.
Kyrie Eleison.
La Reja, Argentina

St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary
R. R. 1, Box 97 A-1
Winona, Minnesota 55987
---------------------------
(507) 454-8000


February 1, 2001


Dear Friends and Benefactors,

As many of you know, official contacts have been renewed between Rome and the Society of St. Pius X in the last few months. In theory, we should all be re-assured by this proof that the Society is not after all a non-entity in Rome's eyes, as Rome has since 1988 been pretending. In practice, all kinds of rumors are flying around, and many Catholics who love their Faith are anxious. What is going on?

Now on the one hand, nobody reasonable will expect somebody in my position to tell everything I know. On the other hand, the interests of the Society are the interests of every Catholic, so in this sense, every Catholic has a stake in the Society, and in this sense it is reasonable to tell every interested Catholic as much as may help him both to understand the issues involved, and to take part in the defense of Mother Church, wherever Our Lord has placed him on the battlefield. For it is less important to know exactly what is happening than to know why whatever happens does happen. Similarly, none of us at this point know exactly what will come of the recent contacts, but all of us need to know how to react if this or that does come from them.

Firstly, let us be VERY CLEAR that the initiative for these latest contacts came from Rome. It was Rome that opened up these latest contacts last summer with the Society, and not the Society that opened them up with Rome. Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos opened the fire with a letter to each of the Society's four bishops, beginning "My dear Brother", and declaring that the Pope's arms were wide open to embrace us. (I almost wept with emotion on reading this -- but not quite!)

Secondly, it was inevitable that Rome WOULD re-open contacts with the Society, not because the Society is the Society or has nice blue eyes or whatever, but because by the grace of God and by a measure of human cooperaton with His grace, the Society happens to have guarded the Deposit of the Faith around which Our Lord's Church officials, if they themselves lose it, must hover like moths around a flame. Therefore, if the Society loses the Deposit -- humanly, more than possible -- and if Rome continued to reject that Deposit, then tomorrow Rome will be hovering around whatever other flame God will have subsequently lit to take the entrapped Society's place.

Thirdly, so long as any organization like the Society has the Truth while Rome has not, then the Society is in the driving-seat FOR ALL CATHOLIC PURPOSES, and any behavior, shape, size or form of negotiations which would allow this Rome to get back into the driving-seat would be tantamount to a betrayal of the Truth. Of course, from the moment when Rome returned to the Truth, Rome would be back in the driving-seat, because that is how Our Lord built His Church: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church"(Mt XVI, 16). However, when Peter has for a prolonged period of time, as now, demonstrated in word but above all in action that he has to a significant extent -- albeit not entirely -- lost the Truth, then however much the organization in the Society's position may even supernaturally long to scuttle back under the skirts of Rome, the burden of proof lies with those who say the moment for negotiations has come, and not with those who say it has not come. To enter into negotiations at the end of such a period without that proof would, again, amount to virtual betrayal of the Truth.

This is because, fourthly, Roman Church officials are MASTERS of negotiating, of dealing, of manoeuvring, of out-manoeuvring their opponents. They have top-class brains, state-of-the-art networks of informants and information, and 2,000 years of experience in out-witting whoever happens to be facing them. When all these assets are used truly in the service of Our Lord, the results are magnificent. But when they are used, as today, in the service of Vatican II, then automatically the Society is in peril if it tries to cut a deal with these Romans. Our Lord said to his disciples, "I send you out as sheep amongst wolves", but that is no excuse for putting oneself in the wolf's throat, outside of extreme necessity. True, the Romans may always convert, but, again, given a track-record such as the Vatican's over the last 40 years, then the burden of proof lies with those who claim they have converted, and not with those who assume, by the Romans' fruits, that they are still wolves and foxes and sharks!

However, fifthly, Rome still being, by Our Lord's design, the command-center of the Catholic Church, it follows that if an organization like the Society can, by negotiating, wring important concessions from the "sharks", then those concessions may benefit the Universal Church, and this is the best-case scenario which must tempt an organization in the Society's position. But if the "sharks" remain sharks, in the service, for instance, of Vatican II, how can they possibly put into honest practice the concessions? And if in exchange they have succeeded in putting a leash and/or muzzle upon the Society which was until then free to serve God as best it understood, what will such a Society have gained in exchange for the freedom to serve God which it will have lost?

Moreover, sixthly, even if negotiations, for all kinds of reasons such as above, come to nothing, then the simple fact of having entered into negotiations will have played for Rome and against the organization in the Society's position. This is because any Catholic organization resisting Rome in crisis suffers from the unavoidable internal tension between staying close to Mother Rome and keeping away from her neo-modernist leprosy. So members of the Society will stretch all the way from those for, to those against, any negotiation. Let Rome but make an offer calculated to please the ones as much as it displeases the others, and the Society will be strecthed to breaking point. Rome will at least have divided, if not conquered.

In 1921, the Irish rebels had fought the British Empire to a standstill. Cleverly, the British stopped fighting and offered a Peace Treaty which split the Irish down the middle. The immediate result was that in 1922, instead of fighting the British, the Irish began fighting one another! Now the British were cunning rulers of a great Empire at the time, but compared with these Church officials of Rome, the Brits were mere beginners!

All of which means, seventhly, that any organization in the Society's position stands a good chance of falling into a Roman trap. At best, it obtains unsure concessions in exchange for a sure loss of freedom; at worst, it obtains nothing at all and is divided into the bargain. Wise after the event, we might say that the Society's best course in the circuмstances would be not to talk with Rome at all, but that is for Catholics easier said than done.

However, eighthly and finally, "The Truth is mighty and will prevail." What is unique about the Catholic Church amongst all organizations of men on earth is that it rises with the Truth and falls with untruth. Neo-modernist Rome has fallen with the untruths of Vatican II. The Society of St. Pius X has, at least until 2001,risen by being faithful to the Truth of Catholic Tradition. As soon as Rome comes back to the Truth -- as it will -- Rome will rise again, to the joy of us all. Equally, if the Society turns unfaithful to Tradition, it will inevitably and deservedly fall. But "fear not, little flock," as Our Lord told us, "your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things" (Lk XII, 3; Mt VI, 32). Souls seeking God will never be left without the means of finding Him. That is because God created the whole world only for souls to come to Him. And that is why, as Our Lord on Palm Sunday told the Pharisees who were angry at his disciples crying out Hosanna to the Son of David, if all human beings were to stop crying out the Truth, the very stones of the street would rise up to proclaim it. (Lk XIX, 40)

This Rome may then -- worst-case scenario -- succeed in reducing the Society of St. Pius X to paralysis and silence, but if it did, that would only be a just judgment of God, and the Truth would be upheld elsewhere. What does the Society presently deserve? Time will tell.

Personally, I think that in the United States, in France, in fact all over the world, most Society priests are quietly working at ground level to sanctify and to save souls, that such real and humble work is blessed by God, and so I think most Society priests – and the laity who are with them -- will be protected by God from falling in with Roman corruption. However, even if I am right this time around, there will certainly be a next attack on the Society from the Devil or from his Rome, and since these days are such that if they were not shortened, even the elect would not be saved, then I do not know if the Society will survive in its present form all the way until that shortening of these evil days.

BUT IT DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER IT WILL OR NOT, WHETHER I KNOW OR NOT. I do not have to worry today about the problems of tomorrow --"Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof" (Mt VI, 34). Let me be the best Catholic that I can, day by day, and the rest I can leave in God's hands. The rest is HIS problem!

Dear readers, spring is not far off when one can look around and say with the poet:

"The world is so full of such wonderful things,
Why can't we all be just as happy as kings?"

Nobody will be able to do away with God, however hard they try. So let us by all means pray for the Society of St. Pius X, because things will be that much easier if it does hold up. But at the same time, let us be prepared, if it goes the way of all flesh, not to be stricken with panic. "God alone suffices" -- St. Terese of Avila.

May He love you and bless you.

In Christ,

+ Richard Williamson

What is recorded on Non Possumus is the interview with Bishop Williamson. Father Ceriani uses everything the bishop says to attack him.
He is obsessed. Radio Cristiandad attack everything posted on Non Possumus because this blog defends the Bishop. They analize every single word to find something to attack His Lordship.
They attacked also the Father Raphael declaration. They attack everything, that's why non possumus is quoted on Radio Cristiandad very often.

Father Ceriani thinks he is the only one priest of the word who defends the true Catholic Faith.