Today, Trinity Sunday, I found copies of a letter from Fr. Michael Simoulin at the St. Joseph Chapel (Greenwood, Indiana) in the location Father places SSPX notices, letters, mailings, etc.

I do not know who this priest is or when it was originally written, but it is apparently reflects the point of view of the priest that comes to our chapel.  I do not find comfort in this letter and it indicates to me that the agreement will happen and the SSPX will soon be on the very same level as the FSSP, ICK, and any other Conciliar “traditional” group.  All italics are from the original.

I haven’t seen this text posted.  If it has been, I apologize for the duplicate post.

I do not know what the situation will be at the time of the publication of this bulletin, but I think that it is useful to reflect together on the current events.  I do not speak about this “republican” masquerade we are living through [the elections in France], but our relations with Rome.

Recently, somebody sent me a text with this question:  “When will we return to the fundamentals of our Society?  When will we have the humility to respect the heritage of its founder?”

I believe that I know a little our Society – of which I have been member for 35 years – and thus to have the right to remind all that our “fundamentals” are engraved in golden letters in our statutes:  “the goal of the Society is the priesthood and all that refers to it and only what relates to it, i.e., such as Our Lord Jesus-Christ wanted it when He said:  Do this in memory of Me.”  Such is the heritage of our founder, such are our “fundamentals”; we do not have any others, and we do not want to have others.  The Society is not an army raised up against Rome, but an army formed for the Church.

Then, allusion is made to Mgr. Lefebvre’s refusal to follow the path towards an agreement in 1988.  And the Archbishop is quoted:  “With the protocol of May 5th we would have died soon.  We would not have lasted a year…”  All this, of course, intended to warn us and to invite us to refuse any Roman offer, something that we should do “under pain of death.”.

Yet another echo reaches me:  “in Rome serious things are happening, very serious…  but I cannot tell you more!”  Not that this is of much help for me!

Then, let us be reasonable.  To do so, it will be good to remember a little the events of 1988.  After having signed the draft of an agreement on May 5th (which was not yet an agreement, but was nonetheless, a very imperfect and even dangerous text, and which did not let Mgr. Lefebvre sleep in peace), on the morning of May 6th the Archbishop wrote a letter to Cardinal Ratzinger, not to retract his signature (“Yesterday, with a real satisfaction, I put my signature to the protocol prepared on the previous days.  But you noted yourself a deep disappointment at the reading of the letter that you gave me with the answer of the Holy Father about the episcopal consecration”), but to urgently require that this consecration could take place on June 30th, in order to be certain of having a bishop to continue his work.  This letter of May 6th is entirely and exclusively concerned with this one point:  “If the answer were to be negative, I would find myself obliged, in conscience, to proceed to the consecration, based on the approval given by the Holy See in the protocol for fhe consecration of a bishop member of the Society.”  Thus, the reason for stopping the process was neither a doctrinal question nor the statute offered to the Society, but the date of the consecration of the bishop that had been granted.  And it should be noted that the rupture of the relations was decided then, not by Mgr. Lefebvre, but by Cardinal Ratzinger, who refused this episcopal consecration for June 30th.

If, indeed, Mgr. Lefebvre had accepted that the protocol of May 5th were not to have been followed by this episcopal consecration, then, yes, “with the protocol of May 5th we would have died soon.  Se would not have lasted a year…”, because without a bishop, we would have been delivered to the good (or bad) pleasure of Rome and the bishops.

After our Jubilee [pilgrimage] of the year 2000, Rome took the initiative of new relations.  Today, the same cardinal become Pope has told us that the Tridentine Mass was never abrogated (July 7th, 2007):  “It is thus allowed to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass according to the standard edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by Bl. John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated”); he rehabilitated our four bishops (January 21st, 2009); he accepted that we hold doctrinal discussions during two years…all things that Mgr. Lefebvre did not require in 1988.  It is not exaggerated to say that Bishop Fellay obtained more than what Mgr. Lefebvre required, without however having the same prestige or moral authority.  Then, must we be even more demanding than Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Fellay?

Whatever the state of Rome is, whatever still remains worrisome in Rome, simple good sense and honesty should lead us to consider the current situation with different eyes that in 1988!  To take up the formula of one of our bishops, we should not fall into “eighty-eightism”!  (1)  We are no longer in 1975 with Paul VI nor in 1988 with John Paul II, but in 2012 with Benedict XVI.  You can tell me as much as you want that the state of the Church is still very alarming, that our Pope has a sometimes strange theology, etc… we have said it enough, it seems to me, but you cannot tell me that the state of things is the same as in 1988 or even worse.  To do so would be contrary to reality and to the truth, and can only be the effect of a more or less secret refusal of any reconciliation with Rome, perhaps even a lack of faith in the holiness of the Church, composed of poor sinners but always governed by her head, Jesus-Christ, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost.  The SSPX is not the Church and it can “respect the heritage of its founder” only by preserving his spirit, his love for the Church and his desire to serve her as a loving son, in fidelity to the founding blessings.

I do not know if all realize the weight of this decision, which belongs only to Bishop Fellay, a decision that was entrusted to him again last October by our Superiors meeting in Albano, a decision considered together with his assistants:  What does the Church expect from the Society in 2012?  How must the Society answer to the “needs” of the Church today?

This requires a highly supernatural virtue of prudence, to a degree that none of us has the grace to reach, because it does not pertain either to our abilities or to our responsibility.  Only Bishop Fellay and his assistants have, by definition, the totality of the information required to judge rightly about the current situation.  The question that each one must rather ask himself refers to our benevolence towards authority and, especially, to our trust in that authority.  For twelve years Bishop Fellay has been arguing with Rome, with ups and downs, to finally arrive at the results quoted above, and even to an amazing result that perhaps nobody has even noticed: these doctrinal discussions, which did not make nay noise in the market place, have enabled us to say to Rome what we think… to the point of making the discussions end abruptly!

And yet, what hasn’t been said about the silence of the superiors around these discussions and about the docuмents exchanged these last months, and about their great discretion out of respect for Rome and the Holy Father?  It has all been interpreted as a form of dissimulation, and even the beginning of a compromise.  How can anyone doubt the uprightness of our superiors in such a gratuitous and arbitrary way?

No one knows yet the conclusion that Benedict XVI will want to give to these twelve years of slow work, or searching for a better understanding, and to the prayers and rosaries accuмulated.  The time is now for prayer, as we were asked by Bishop Fellay, and for trust in the Church.  The Immaculate Virgin, who we will particularly honor during this month of May, will obtain for us all the necessary graces, if we want nothing other than the victory of Her Son and of the Church.


1.  Fr. Simoulin makes reference to Bishop Williamson’s warning about the dangers of getting stuck into “fiftyism”, that is, into a particular period of the history of the Church…

Frankly, Fr. Pfeiffer pretty much refuted just about everything in this letter.  I find it sad that the SSPX, an organization founded on rejecting false obedience, is now appealing to obedience that they have no right to.

Only Bishop Fellay and his assistants have, by definition, the totality of the information required to judge rightly about the current situation.

Of course they wouldn't be the only people with the information had they shared any of it and not kept everything "confidential".

"The question that each one must rather ask himself refers to our benevolence towards authority and, especially, to our trust in that authority. "

Trust is earned, not awarded, and when lost very difficult to recover.