Number CCCXLVII (347)   8th March 2014

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FIFTIESISM OBSERVED
If there is, at least up till now, relatively little reaction from within the Society of St Pius X to its complete change of direction under Bishop Fellay, that is because of the desire to return to the Catholicism of the 1950’s. So observes a Catholic attending Mass at an SSPX Chapel in the English-speaking world. She wrote to me recently:--

“Why is there no "Resistance" in our part of the world ? I think I've figured it out. You've mentioned many times that most of the original leaders of the Society of St Pius X never really understood Archbishop Lefebvre. Locally, I think that that applies to many of our original chapel founders here, who are the ones clinging to the Society and to its present leaders. How come ? Why don't they take action, when what they fought so long and hard for is threatened with destruction from within?

“On Sunday, an elderly lady summed it up for me. As she and her husband see it, they strove valiantly through the 1970s into the early 80s, and the fruit of their labours is the chapel itself. The Mass with all the outward trappings, the property, the buildings, the pews, the statues, the vestments -- this is what is threatened by the mere existence of the Resistance! They fought all those years to restore for themselves the Catholicism of their youth. For them, it's NOT a question of doctrine at all. The woman is member of a Third Order, yet she believes doctrinal matters are for priests and bishops, not laity. For example, to study Papal encyclicals is meddling in affairs that God assigned to the hierarchy.

“I asked if they see a need to understand their Faith, if individual souls do not answer to God for knowing their Faith? Their response was sincere, I believe, but to me it was astonishing. They said, ‘No! The responsibility of the Catholic is to obey his superiors.’ And if the superiors are in error? ‘Obey anyway! To do otherwise is rebellion.’ It is for a Catholic ‘a sign of rebellion’ to even question his superiors ‘in matters that do not concern him,’ i.e. doctrine. If the superior is wrong, God will judge him – ‘You will never go wrong obeying the priest.’ So there you have it. The Resistants are rebels, disobedient, disrespectful. How dare they question the superior? How dare they presume to study doctrine, to ask questions of their superiors about it? The Resistants are evil, not because they are doctrinally wrong, but because their words and actions threaten the Catholicism of the 1950’s.

“But blind obedience is ridiculous! What are we lambs to do when the Shepherd is struck and the sheep are scattered ? Pretend all is well. and let ourselves be devoured by wolves in the name of obedience ? What can one say to such people? They are wilfully ignorant in the belief that wilful ignorance is a virtue! Where does such a mindset come from ? What error crept into the Church to make Catholics switch off their minds? All I can say is that if the SSPX is left with flocks of lobotomised sheep, it will be easy for Rome to wipe out the last fortress of Tradition! The SSPX chapels need only to be handed over to the jurisdiction of the local bishop by formal agreement, or by de facto cooperation with Novus Ordo priests, which we have seen locally.”

Notice her evocation of the possibility of Rome absorbing the SSPX no longer by any clear-cut agreement, but by a gradual merger. It is a real danger. I wonder if that is not what SSPX HQ is being advised to do by its “new friends” in Rome.

Kyrie eleison

A lack of resistance to the liberal slide of the SSPX is partly explained by souls only wanting to return to the 1950’s.
 
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(I'm going to add some formatting to make it easier to see who's talking..
+W is in blue, his author is in black, and the IDEAS of the person his author refers to are in dark red.)

Number CCCXLVII (347)                8th March 2014

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FIFTIESISM OBSERVED


If there is, at least up till now, relatively little reaction from within the Society of St Pius X to its complete change of direction under Bishop Fellay, that is because of the desire to return to the Catholicism of the 1950’s. So observes a Catholic attending Mass at an SSPX Chapel in the English-speaking world. She wrote to me recently:--
 

+W has touched on this theme previously over the years, and he has raised the red flag of warning, planting the seed of awareness in the minds of his listeners.  This, it seems to me, is another reason +F had it in for +W for so many years, perhaps since day one, but +F kept his differences concealed so he could first gain power before taking military action.

+W is quoting below (in black) a letter from a Catholic who has paid attention, and has learned the lesson, and now, +W would like to show us what good fruit looks like when it comes to maturity.  He doesn't say so, but he is pleased with seeing his work bearing such good fruit after so many years of labor in the vineyard.

“Why is there no "Resistance" in our part of the world ? I think I've figured it out. You've mentioned many times that most of the original leaders of the Society of St Pius X never really understood Archbishop Lefebvre. Locally, I think that that applies to many of our original chapel founders here, who are the ones clinging to the Society and to its present leaders. How come? Why don't they take action, when what they fought so long and hard for is threatened with destruction from within?

It would be nice to know:  what part of the world is it, of which she speaks?  Can anyone take a guess?  We have clues:  "SSPX chapel in the English-speaking world."  If she is from Southern California, I would be pleased to make her acquaintance!  

This theme of "never really understanding ABL" is a chilling thought, really.  It gives pause to ask:  "Do I really understand him?"  This reflects on MANY of the cccxlvi previous ECs.  

I.e., There is a LOT more to say about this!

This touches close to home for me, because I see it happening all around me.  I see founders who have labored long and hard to keep what was slipping away from them, and now, they simply refuse to think that there is some kind of danger.  "But the SSPX are very good priests," they say, and do not want to see any of the Resistance writings.  They don't want to know about the great Fr. Patrick Girouard and Sacrificium.org.  They don't want to know about the excellent letters of fine, traditional priests like Fr. Fuchs or Fr. Trauner or Fr. Violette or Fr. Hewko or Fr. Cardozo.  They turn a blind eye to the Open Letter to Fr. Themann, and refuse to think about any of the questions it raises.  

They don't want to think about it.

“On Sunday, an elderly lady summed it up for me. As she and her husband see it, they strove valiantly through the 1970s into the early 80s, and the fruit of their labours is the chapel itself. The Mass with all the outward trappings, the property, the buildings, the pews, the statues, the vestments -- this is what is threatened by the mere existence of the Resistance! ..

She spells "labours" as a Brit, so maybe she's in Scotland!  Because if she was anywhere near London, there IS a Resistance in THAT part of the world!

This is key.  When there is a fire, and your house is about to burn down, do you say that the Fire Department threatens the existence of your home?  When you have a heart attack, and you go to the hospital, do you say that the nurses and the doctors are the cause of your health problems?  When your car makes a loud banging noise in the engine and a friend tells you it sounds like you have a CONNECTING ROD problem, and it can get really serious, like you're going to need a new engine, do you blame him for being "what threatens the reliability of your transportation?"

..They fought all those years to restore for themselves the Catholicism of their youth. For them, it's NOT a question of doctrine at all.

Actually, +W has already talked about this.  It's called 'subjectivism' -- they think it's "not a question" of doctrine at all.  (Remember Fr. Themann and his definition of truth, "Truth is not firstly a question of words but of the ideas for which the words stand?")

The woman is member of a Third Order, yet she believes doctrinal matters are for priests and bishops, not laity. For example, to study Papal encyclicals is meddling in affairs that God assigned to the hierarchy.

Ah, yes, "This is much too difficult for me!  I'd like to return to my Bingo and Lawrence Welk re-runs."

So she's a member of a Third Order -- again, I'd love to know the name of the order.  Any guesses?  Franciscan?  Dominican?  Benedictine?  SSPX??

I know a CMRI priest who told a group of Catholics in my presence that to understand Pascendi (by Pope St. Pius X), "you need to have a degree in theology."  Well, if I ever hear anyone say that again in my presence, I'll tell them to their face that there are plenty of people WITH theology degrees who have no clue of what Pascendi means, and there are plenty of people WITHOUT any degree in theology who understand it quite well, so a degree in theology is neither here nor there, when it comes to understanding Modernism.  What matters is God's grace, good will, and a little bit of ELBOW GREASE.

If encyclicals were meant only for the eyes of priests and the hierarchy, then why are they made public?  Hmmmm???

“I asked if they see a need to understand their Faith, if individual souls do not answer to God for knowing their Faith?

Their response was sincere, I believe, but to me it was astonishing. They said, ‘No! The responsibility of the Catholic is to obey his superiors.’ And if the superiors are in error? ‘Obey anyway! To do otherwise is rebellion.’ It is for a Catholic ‘a sign of rebellion’ to even question his superiors ‘in matters that do not concern him,’ i.e. doctrine. If the superior is wrong, God will judge him – ‘You will never go wrong obeying the priest.’

So there you have it. The Resistants are rebels, disobedient, disrespectful. How dare they question the superior? How dare they presume to study doctrine, to ask questions of their superiors about it?

The Resistants are evil, not because they are doctrinally wrong, but because their words and actions threaten the Catholicism of the 1950’s.

Good words bear repeating:

The Resistants are EVIL, not because they are doctrinally wrong (for their doctrine is solid as a rock, but DOCTRINE IS NOT OUR CONCERN -- it's the concern of the clergy, and none of our beeswax!!) but because their words and actions threaten the Catholicism of the 1950's!!

“But blind obedience is ridiculous!  What are we lambs to do when the Shepherd is struck and the sheep are scattered?  Pretend all is well, and let ourselves be devoured by wolves in the name of obedience?  

What can one say to such people?
They are wilfully ignorant in the belief that wilful ignorance is a virtue!

Uhhh.... bowler!   Stubborn!  We have a live one here!!  

Where does such a mindset come from?

Is that a rhetorical question, or do you really want to know the answer?

Because I have the answer for you, and so does Stubborn, and so does bowler.  Maybe you will believe THEM, if you won't believe me!!

What error crept into the Church to make Catholics switch off their minds? All I can say is that if the SSPX is left with flocks of lobotomised sheep, it will be easy for Rome to wipe out the last fortress of Tradition! The SSPX chapels need only to be handed over to the jurisdiction of the local bishop by formal agreement, or by de facto cooperation with Novus Ordo priests, which we have seen locally.”

Notice her evocation of the possibility of Rome absorbing the SSPX no longer by any clear-cut agreement, but by a gradual merger.  It is a real danger.  I wonder if that is not what SSPX HQ is being advised to do by its “new friends” in Rome.

Kyrie eleison

A lack of resistance to the liberal slide of the SSPX is partly explained by souls only wanting to return to the 1950’s.

 

 
www.dinoscopus.org

I don't think we need to wonder at all.  The XSPX is being advised by its new friends in Rome, as well as the Re-branding company in Holland, and by GREC -- it's like Warsaw at the beginning of WWII, attacked by nαzιs from the north and the southwest, and by the Soviets from the east, all at the same time.  The only difference is, the XSPX seems to be ENJOYING the attack.  


.

Only the elderly know the 50s. And so many were treating Sunday ceremonial as recreation while the rest of the week they were active participants in the brave new world. This juxtaposition works better when religious obligation becomes undemanding cultural belonging. Those born later have only revivalist simulation to rely upon but it continues to be a solution for contemporary Catholics needing more glamour. And Retro is big business!

The bishop again speaks through someone else. It is a clever tactic and avoids direct responsibility although he is getting a message across while perhaps posturing a neutral position airing the grievances of others. Gosh, he should have been a politician ..... he was made for today!

If he is saying ABL was never really understood, we all could be forgiven for not understanding him. He had his own logic and sense of importance which would skew the counter-movement and continue to do so. Why does he not bear some responsibility for the way the Society is today? Flirting with Rome was a policy long before his successors delighted in it. And it has to be said Bp. Williamson enjoyed his fair share over a very long period.

Rehashing what happens when an institution goes wrong becomes very boring. We know the script  ..... but let those so aggrieved go through the motions if it makes them feel better. I only hope the bish moves into positive territory before long because we are suffering from 'resistance' exhaustion! And I was never that fond of the SSPX anyway!

 Their response was sincere, I believe, but to me it was astonishing. They said, ‘No! The responsibility of the Catholic is to obey his superiors.’ And if the superiors are in error? ‘Obey anyway! To do otherwise is rebellion.’ It is for a Catholic ‘a sign of rebellion’ to even question his superiors ‘in matters that do not concern him,’ i.e. doctrine. If the superior is wrong, God will judge him – ‘You will never go wrong obeying the priest.’ So there you have it..

.

If they truly believed this they would have obeyed their superiors in the late 1960's and '70's and they would now be Novus Ordo !

It has little to do with fifty-ism. For most of the bamboozled in Ridgefield, New Jersey, Hartford, NYC, Long Island, Philadelphia-- they were not around in the fifty's. They were not around in the sixty's. Most were not even around in the early seventy's! A lot of the (more mature) SSPX goers joined from the Novus Ordo in the eighty's. Nostalgia, consistency, sense of discipline, decorum and such things brought them in-- not any adherence to doctrine. If it was doctrine-- they would have revolted when Lorans, de Mallerais, Schmidberger, Williamson, Fellay,Aulangier and others were pushing Archbishop Lefebvre toward s an "agreement" in 1988. VERY FEW resisted. Almost all the priests were in favor of an agreement!!
   Rome had shown precious little of returning to Catholicism; yet, most SSPX priests wanted an agreement. What kind of adherence to doctrine is that?
    They were tired of being called "schismatic" (like the SSPX is today). Because they never fully understood Archbishop Lefebvre's great question of 1976 (I think that's the year):" Suspended by who? By what Church? By the Conciliar church--a church to which I have no desire to belong?"
   If they understood that statement (for it is a statement--he was not looking for an answer, he gave the answer in the question) they NEVER would have accepted to slide into friendship with the Vatican during the 90's and 2000's. They certainly would not have been gleeful about the 2000 pilgrimage of homage to JPII.
    Whatever brought them in (to SSPX chapels), the nice imagery helped them stay. The conciliar "heat" was turned down low, so they now accepted modern doctrines little by little.
    In the late sixty's and early seventy's , the "conservative" stalwarts still inside the diocesan parishes told us: "we know its bad-- these abuses and crazy things the priests are saying; but the 'Holy Father' (Paul VI) doesn't approve--and he does not know about it! Write him a letter and let him know!" In the late 90's and early 2000's, Fellay and Co. changed this to:'Oh its soo bad-- but the 'holy father'(sic) is conservative, and he's trying to turn it around--we only have to get into Rome and we can turn it around!"  In the early 90's, Schmidberger even bragged that  'If I had only 1,000 priests, we would turn the entire Church back to the true faith.'
    So again, they never understood the Archbishop. He had fought unbelievers and anti-christians in the jungles of Africa. And he knew you had to fight on doctrine. he knew you had to fight on the truth. he knew you had to "tear down their altars"  The Archbishop did to the unbelievers in Africa exactly what Martin Luther, Crammer, Bugnini and Ratzinger did to the believers:"Tear down their Altars!"
    When the Archbishop told Ratzinger that 'even if you give us an independence, you give us a seat at the commission, you give us a bishop-- WE WOULD STILL BE SWALLOWED UP, we would be destroyed in short order', most people in the SSPX, and most priests, have no idea what the Archbishop meant! They were following the man because of his personal piety and sanctity, his personal magnetism. They were following his priests because, for a time, they all held the aura of ABL.
    And, as they aged, their children were put into SSPX schools. Their names are on the pews. The Family names are on the windows.(Many even uprooted their entire families to move to an SSPX chapel/school) The seminarians they supported have now been ordained. The chapels and schools they built now have a seat with their form worn into them. And as the heat of conciliarism was turned up, they were unaware. they became accustomed to the higher temperature. Their minds became foggy, and their muscles became weaker. They got tired of "being on their guard". They questioned the change to the 1962 missals and were rebuffed; they questioned the change in the Calendars and were rebuffed; they questioned the changes in Holy Week and were rebuffed; they questioned the acceptance of  N.O. presbyters and were rebuffed; they questioned the placement of the popes(sic) picture next to the Archbishop's in their church , and they were rebuffed. Pretty soon they stopped questioning.
   Their grandchildren are now in the SSPX schools: you can't question the administration when the kids are in the schools. You've now given the criminals a huge tool with which to control you (The Novus Ordo learned this in the 70's!).
    Then again, many are in their twilight years. The normal things take over. Sickness sets in, thoughts suddenly change to the final days. The priest before the pews today, may be called upon tomorrow for the sacraments. How many are keen on being in the midst of a doctrinal disagreement with the priest they may call upon for a family member tomorrow?
    So, the resistance is left floundering . Only Fr. Girouard, as far as we see, has thought it all out and is maintaining  a Catholic parish life for the faithful. Maybe its the same in South America. In general,however, the faithful are left on their own.
    And the resistance insists: Francis is our pope; Benedict was our pope; we can't work with those who question how a heretic could be pope. They also don't understand the Archbishop. Of Ratzinger: "He is not Catholic!" To Ratzinger: "We cannot work with you--you are for the destruction of Christianity!" What a  terrible indictment!! The resistance  doesn't understand what the Archbishop said:
" No! No!-- These are not just words! We don't just beat our fists in the air!"  The resistance does not understand what the Archbishop meant when he said, before the last Assisi: 'We may be coming to a point where we have to say he is not pope.'
    But they want to keep the "mantra" of SSPX on their shoulders. It still feels good. They 'like it.' But they also want to get back into this perverted Rome. maybe slower, maybe with different terms, maybe with greater protection-- but they want to get back in. Fundamentally, they have not yet - and they may never- realize that ROME HAS LOST THE FAITH-- just as Our Lady said it would !
   So-- why waste time trying to analyze why more people don't join the "resistance" when we still agree with the overall objective of getting back into this  Rome? It would be better time spent building Catholicism, parish by parish-- and let the SSPX dissolve into the cesspool into which is lusts after.

Recommended reading for certain.

'Faith and Fear in the Struggle for a Catholic Society'

It contains the essay 'Why Catholics Are Cowards'?

Excellent post by hugemaan

John,

Neither Liam's book not the Catholic position Paper links appear to work from the post. Just so you know.

UPDATE:

You can find excerpts of the Catholic Action Book here  on Cathinfo/Traditional Catholic Faith/The Library/Catholic Action. I don't know how much is posted there-- it looks to be three or four sections of the book.

 The other (Catholic Position Paper) doesn't appear to show up in Google.