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Superior General's
Letter to Friends & Benefactors
#63
January 6, 2003
Feast of the Epiphany
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
OUR RELATIONS WITH ROME
Once again our Letter to Friends and Benefactors is reaching you a little late. Once again we hesitated to write to you sooner for fear of leaving out an important development in our relations with Rome, especially after the Campos-Rome agreement.
In the eyes of Rome, obviously, what happened in Campos was merely meant to be the prelude to our own "regularization" in the Society of St. Pius X, but in our eyes what is happening to our former friends should rather serve as a lesson to us.Generally speaking, Rome means, all things being equal, to come to an agreement with the SSPX. On all sides we hear that the pope would like to settle this matter before he dies. Alas, our fears roused by the Campos agreement have proved to be well-founded, and
the evolution we observe of the Campos Apostolic Administration, contrary to Roman expectations, leaves us distrustful.Of course we are dealing with a volatile situation capable of sudden and surprising changes, like in times of political instability. And in such a situation, nobody can be certain of what turn it will take. Also we do behold in the Vatican offices a certain questioning of the way things have gone for the last few decades, and a desire on the part of some officials to put an end to the downhill slide.
However, it is clear that the principle governing today's Rome is still to put the Council into practice as has been done for the last 40 years. Neither official docuмents nor general policy show any fundamental re-thinking of this principle, on the contrary, we are always being told that what the Council set in motion is irreversible, which leads us to ask why there has been a change of attitude with regard to ourselves. Various explanations are possible, but it is primarily because of the pluralist and ecuмenical vision of things now prevailing in the Catholic world. [NB: See the letter of the Three Bishops, which said exactly this.] According to this vision, everybody is to mix together without anybody needing any longer to convert, as Cardinal Kasper said in connection with the Orthodox and even the Jєωs. From such a standpoint there will even be a little room for Catholic Tradition,
but for our part we cannot accept this vision of variable truth any more than a mathematics teacher can accept a variable multiplication table. [Channeling Bishop Williamson?
]
The day will come, we are sure and certain, when
Rome will come back to Rome's own Tradition and restore it to its rightful place, and we long with all our hearts for that blessed day.
For the time being, however, things are not yet at that point, and to foster illusions would be deadly for the SSPX, as we can see, when we follow the turn of events in Campos. For this purpose, let us emphasize two points in the evolution of the Campos situation:
firstly, how their attitude to Rome has changed since the agreement and secondly, how Campos is moving further and further away from ourselves, with all the upset that that implies. [NB: Both factors are already apparent within the Fraternity. Softlining towards "rome" and moving away from the Archbishop and his loyal sons.]
CHANGES IN CAMPOS
Campos, through its leader, Bishop Rifan, is crying out for all to hear that
nothing has changed, that the priests of the Apostolic Administration are just as Traditional as before, which is the essence of what they have been granted, and why they accepted Rome's offer: because Rome approved of the Traditional position.
For our part, let us begin by noting that we are well aware that in any disagreement one tends to discredit one's adversary. For instance in the case of our former friends in Campos, there are certainly false rumors circulating to the effect that "Bishop Rifan has concelebrated the New Mass", or, "Campos has completely given up Tradition". However, that being said, here is what we observe:
The Campos website lays out the Campos position on the burning question of ecuмenism: they claim to follow the Magisterium of the Church, past and present. There are quotes from Pius XI's encyclical letter Mortalium Animos, next to quotes from John Paul II's Redemptoris Missio. We cannot help observing that there has been a careful selection process: Campos quotes John Paul II's traditional passages while other passages introducing a quite new way of looking at the question are passed over. We read, "Being Catholics, we have no particular teaching of our own on the question. Our teaching is none other than that of the Church's Magisterium. The extracts which we publish here from certain docuмents old and new, bear especially on points of Catholic doctrine which are in greater danger today".
The ambiguity implicit here has become more or less normal in the new situation in which they find themselves: they emphasize those points in the present pontificate which seem favorable to Tradition, and tip-toe past the rest. Say what we will: there took place in Campos on January 18, 2002, not only a one-sided recognition of Campos by Rome, as some claim, but also, in exchange, an undertaking by Campos to keep quiet, And how could it be otherwise? It is clear by now that Campos has something to lose which they are afraid or losing, and so in order not to lose it they have chosen the path of compromise: "We Brazilians are men of peace, you Frenchmen are always fighting".
Which means that, in order to keep the peace with Rome, one must stop fighting. They no longer see the situation of the Church as a whole, they content themselves with Rome's gesture in favor of a little group of two dozen priests and say that there is no longer any emergency in the Church because the granting of a traditional bishop has created a new juridical situation...They are forgetting the wood for a single tree.
Bishop Rifan, in the course of a brief visit to Europe, went to see Dom Gerard at Le Barroux Abbey in France to present his apologies for having so criticized him back in 1988 when Dom Gerard condemned Archbishop Lefebvre's consecrating or four bishops. [In the circuмstances, this was only decent. Bishop Fellay should do the same thing, to many deal-making groups.] In a lecture he gave to the monks, Bishop Rifan pretended there were two phases in the life or Bishop de Castro Mayer: up till 1981 he was supposedly a docile bishop respecting the rest of the hierarchy, from 1981 onwards he was a much harder churchman... "We choose to follow the pre-1981 de Castro Mayer", said Bishop Rifan to the monks, some of whom were surprised at such words, and one of them was scandalized to the point of coming over to the SSPX.
Within this way of thinking even the Novus Ordo Mass can be accommodated. Campos forgets the 62 reasons for having nothing to do with it, Campos now finds that if it is properly celebrated, it is valid (which we have never denied, but that is not the point). Campos no longer says that Catholics must stay away because the New Mass is bad, and dangerous. Bishop Rifan says, by way of justifying his position on the Mass: "So we reject all use of the traditional Mass as a battle-flag to insult and fight the lawfully constituted hierarchical authority of the Church. We stay with the traditional Mass, not out of any spirit of contradiction, but as a clear and lawful expression of our Catholic Faith (…)". We are reminded of the words of a Cardinal a little while back: "Whereas the SSPX is FOR the old Mass, the Fraternity of St. Peter Is AGAINST the New Mass. It's not the same thing". That was Rome's argument to justify taking action against Fr. Bisig of the Fraternity of St. Peter at about the same time that Rome was cozying up to the SSPX. The cardinal's curious distinction is now being put into practice by Campos, as they pretend to be for the old Mass but not against the new. Likewise for Tradition, but not against today's Rome.
"We maintain that Vatican II cannot contradict Catholic Tradition", said Bishop Rifan quite recently to a French magazine, Famille Chretienne. Yet a well-known cardinal said that Vatican II was the French Revolution inside the Church. Bishop de Castro Mayer said the same thing....
So little by little the will to fight grows weaker and finally one gets used to the situation. In Campos itself, everything positively traditional is being maintained, for sure, so the people see nothing different,
except that the more perceptive amongst them notice the priests' tendency to speak respectfully and more often of recent statements and events coming out of Rome, while yesterday's warnings and today's deviations are left out. [NB: It's a good thing we have our own forums, and do not rely upon sspx.org... ] The great danger here is that in the end one gets used to the situation as it is, and no longer tries to remedy it. For our part we have no intention of launching out until we are certain that Rome means to maintain Tradition.
We need signs that they have converted.LEAVING THE SSPX BEHIND
Besides this wholly foreseeable evolution of minds by which the Campos priests have, whatever they say, given up the fight, we must note another occurrence,
the increasing hostility between us. Bishop Rifan still says that he wants to be our friend, but some Campos priests
are already accusing us of being schismatic because we refuse their agreement with Rome.A little like one sees a boat pushing into mid-river, drifting down-stream and leaving the bank behind, so we see, little by little, several indications of the distance growing between ourselves and Campos.
We had warned them of the great danger, they chose not to listen. Since they have no wish to row up-stream, then even while inside the boat things carry on as before, which gives them the impression that nothing has changed, nevertheless they are leaving us behind, as they show themselves more and more attached to the magisterium of today, as opposed to the position they held until recently and which we still hold, namely a sane criticism of the present in the light of the past.
To sum up, we are bound to say that the Campos priests, despite their claims to the contrary, are slowly being re-molded, following the lead of their new bishop, in the spirit of the Council. That is all Rome wants —for the moment.One may object that our arguments are weak and too subtle, and of no weight as against Rome's offer to regularize our situation.
We reply that if one considers Rome's offer of an Apostolic Administration just by itself, it is as splendid as the architect's plan of a beautiful mansion. But the real problem is the practical problem of what foundations the mansion will rest on. On the shifting sands of Vatican II, or on the rock of Tradition going back to the first Apostle?To guarantee our future, we must obtain from today's Rome clear proof of its attachment to the Rome of yesterday.
When the Roman authorities have re-stated with actions speaking louder than words that "there must be no innovations outside of Tradition", then "we" shall no longer be a problem. And we beg God to hasten that day when the whole Church will flourish again, having re-discovered the secret of her past strength, freed from the modern unthought of which Paul VI said that "It is anti-Catholic in nature, Maybe it will prevail. It will never be the Church. There will have to be a faithful remnant, however tiny".
...
+Bishop Fellay
January 6, 2003
http://www.sspx.org/superior_generals_news/supgen_63.htm
Topic: Compilation: pre-2012 SSPX position against a practical deal. (Read 1085 times)