Open letter to Father Benoît de Jorna
Superior of the District of France for the SSPX
13 April 2023
saint Hermenegild
Reverend Father,
At the seminary in Flavigny, France, for three years of study, more than thirty years ago, your clear, precise and acute teaching, without ambiguity or concession, filled my levitical youth with enthusiasm.
It was you who guided my steps in the discovery of the anti-liberal school and I can never thank you enough for having become, modestly, through you, an intimate familiar with the works of the Bishop of Poitiers and a few others…
I also owe you this appointment in the Pays Basque, where I spent fifteen very rewarding years as a priest.
This letter might appear disrespectful. It is not my intention. A few years ago, you took the liberty of asserting discreetly that my attitude was not motivated by doctrinal reasons. I blamed you for it because it was simply wrong.
Today's letter, in case you doubt it, is inspired solely by doctrinal motives. It is open, which avoids opening it, and which will allow others, because it is open, to become acquainted with it.
For some time now, some confreres have been telling me or making me say: “You left too quickly. It is true that the situation was critical in 2012-13, but things have recovered. No agreement has been signed and it is no longer in question. »
The time for my Memoirs having not arrived yet, I will say nothing today of the fate that was reserved to me in these years.
But are these words really true?
Wouldn't that be forgetting important innovations, such as the jurisdiction of the Conciliar Ordinary imposed on the priests of the SSPX, for the administration of marriage in 2017? Rumors are that you said that this jurisdiction was nothing else than a scrap of paper, but I could see that your words are not in line with your actions.
Wouldn't that still be forgetting that absolutions are also administered in the SSPX under the regime of this same conciliar jurisdiction?
After his signature (of the Protocol of Accords) on May 5, 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre recognized that he had gone too far. But reading his latest book For the Love of the Church published in 2019, Bishop Fellay seems to have only one regret: that of not having concluded an agreement in 2012.
What caused a lot of noise in the past has continued more quietly in recent years. Only those who take their dreams for reality can say that the situation has recovered. Rather, it seems to me that the SSPX is constantly backsliding.
A new step was taken last Holy Thursday, April 6, 2023, on the occasion of the ceremony of consecration of the Holy Oils at the German seminary of the SSPX by Bishop Huonder, a bishop ordained priest and consecrated bishop in the new rite. This is not something you ignore. If the doctrinal discussions may have seemed abstract and not very accessible to some, isn't the consecration of the Oils the "shock of reality"?
A little history.
That a conciliar bishop joins the SSPX is not a novelty. In the editorial of Fideliter n° 113 of Sept.-Oct. 1996 p. 3, you told your readers of an “tremendous joy”, that of having welcomed Bishop Salvador Lazo at the ordinations of June 27 in Ecône: “At Écône, on June 27, we had the immense joy of welcoming Bishop Salvador Lazo, Bishop Emeritus of San Fernando de la Union, Philippines. At the end of his Open Letter to Confused Catholics, Archbishop Lefebvre wrote: “Even if he is silent today, one or the other of the bishops will receive from the Holy Ghost the courage to stand up in his turn. » Bishop Lazo is the first, he will not be the last to join the fight for Tradition. And if a single bishop does not make the whole Church, any more than a swallow makes the spring, this coming shows that our fight begins to penetrate even the highest spheres of the Church. »
Bishop Lazo's attitude was, indeed, unequivocal. His Declaration of Faith of May 21, 1998 addressed to John Paul II and his Open Letter to Cardinal Sin on May 17 of the same year are proof of this. These two public interventions confessed the Catholic Faith and denounced modern errors. His conversion was obvious but it did not solve all the difficulties. Why has Bishop Lazo never ordained a single SSPX seminarian? Quite simply because his consecration, on February 3, 1970, in the new rite, was then considered doubtful by the authorities of the SSPX.
Despite his remarkable interventions, the situation of Bishop Vigano today is no different from that of Bishop Lazo yesterday.
In reading again, in recent days, the quotation you made in 1996 from this Open Letter to Confused Catholics published in 1985, it seemed to me very imprecise and insufficient. Archbishop Lefebvre had said: “There will be found throughout the world, I know, enough bishops to ordain our seminarians. Even if he is silent today, one or the other of these bishops would receive from the Holy Ghost the courage to stand up in his turn. »
Archbishop Lefebvre's hope did not come true, which is why he resolved to consecrate bishops on June 30, 1988 to allow the ordination of SSPX seminarians. Jean Madiran noted these words from the Open Letter to Confused Catholics and made reproaches to its author for contradicting himself.
A few days ago, some confreres published a copy of a letter written in English and dated October 28, 1988, that Archbishop Lefebvre addressed to a certain Mr. Wilson, on the topic of conciliar priests who joined Tradition: “ (...) I agree with your desire that these priests be conditionally re-ordained and I have made such re-ordinations a number of times. All the sacraments of modernist bishops and priests are now doubtful. The changes are multiplying and their intentions are no longer Catholic. We are in the time of the great apostasy. (...) »
This private docuмent is not without interest, but I prefer these public and solemn words of Archbishop Lefebvre, during his homily, on the occasion of the Consecrations of June 30, 1988: "You know my very dear brethren, you know that there cannot be priests without bishops. All these seminarians who are present here, if tomorrow the good Lord calls me back, and it will no doubt be without delay, well, these seminarians, from whom will they receive the sacrament of Holy Orders? From Conciliar bishops, whose sacraments are all dubious because we do not know exactly what their intentions are? It is not possible. Now which are the bishops who kept Tradition, who kept the sacraments as the Church gave them for twenty centuries until the Second Vatican Council? Well, it's Bishop De Castro Mayer and myself. I can't help it but that's the way it is. »
In 1998, the Authorities of the SSPX had not forgotten these words that their Founder had pronounced ten years earlier.
In a letter from Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, dated August 12, 1998, we read:
Menzingen, August 12, 1998
Dear father,
Thank you for sending me a copy of Dr. Rama Cosmaraswany's booklet "The Anglican Drama".
Having read it quickly, I conclude that there is a doubt about the validity of the episcopal consecrations conferred according to the rite of Paul VI.
The "spiritum principalem" of the form introduced by Paul VI is not sufficiently clear in itself and the accessory rites do not specify its meaning in a Catholic sense.
As for Monsignor Lazo, it would be difficult for us to explain these things to him; the only solution is not to ask him to administer Confirmation or Holy Orders.
Your devoted in Our Lord Jesus Christ.
†Bernard Tissier de Mallerais
P.S. Last minute, Bishop Lazo has already confirmed “quite a bit” in our chapels! It is obviously valid by the suppleance of the Church (can. 209), since a simple priest validly confirms with jurisdiction. And we do not see how to point out our doubts to Bishop Lazo. So, silence and discretion on this subject, please!
Reading the postscript to this letter, it seems that Bishop Tissier de Mallerais would not have been in favor of Bishop Lazo administering the sacrament of Confirmation. However, he does not express any doubt about these confirmations administered by Bishop Lazo because he is certain of his priesthood, received in the traditional rite, by a bishop consecrated in the traditional rite. But it seems obvious that Bishop Tissier de Mallerais does not envisage the possibility, for Bishop Lazo, of conferring Orders or consecrating the Holy Oils.
Incidentally, I have always been surprised at the requirement of this "silence and discretion" mentioned in this postscript, because reading the Declaration to the Pope and the Open Letter to Cardinal Sin, suggests that Bishop Lazo would not have been hostile to conditional episcopal consecration…
Does the Society of Saint Pius X have the same doubts today and does it retain the same attitude and the same dispositions that it had vis-à-vis Bishop Lazo twenty-five years ago?
The presence of Bishop Huonder in a house of the SSPX makes it easy to answer this question.
The concerns that some had expressed at the prospect of this conciliar episcopal presence in the SSPX are not so old.
Have these concerns been allayed?
The rather ambiguous communiqué from the General House, co-signed by the Superior General and by Bishop Huonder, which announced the arrival of the latter in a house of the SSPX, declared on May 20, 2019: “…The one and only goal of his coming is to devote himself to prayer and silence, to celebrate the traditional Mass exclusively, and to work for Tradition, the only means of renewal of the Church. » …
"Prayer and silence" are one thing, but what did it mean to "work for Tradition", when we know that Bishop Huonder had come with the agreement of Pope Francis with a view to helping to regularize the SSPX?
To my knowledge, Bishop Huonder has not, to date, imitated the example of Bishop Lazo. I don't know of any public statement rejecting his errors and condemning those of Vatican II.
Since his doctoral thesis in 1975, the relations that Bishop Huonder maintains with the Jews have been known. Everyone knows that Bishop Huonder is at the origin of this “dies judaicus – the day of the Jєωιѕн people” established in the Swiss church on the 2nd Sunday of Lent. For Bishop Huonder, it seems that the first Covenant was not abrogated by the incarnation of Christ. This is a scandal! Scandal which has never been, as far as I know, the object of the slightest retraction, let alone reparation.
Last April 6 in Zaitkofen, the oils were certainly olive oil. Were they also kosher?
This ambiguous situation motivated the departure of Fr. Rousseau, which you had announced in a brief message to the confreres of the District of France:
Suresnes, May 7, 2019
Dear confreres,
As we prepare for Pentecost to receive the Paraclete in order to abandon ourselves more perfectly to divine grace, it is my duty to announce to you the departure of Father Rousseau from the Society. He has already left the priory of Bailly to go alongside Father Morgan. The letter he wrote to me just before leaving us stipulates that his departure is “a question of truth”: the arrival, he says, of Bishop Huonder in Wangs, “wolf in the sheepfold”, is intolerable to him.
I can only regret his unexpected departure and obviously recommend him to your prayers.
Father B. de Jorna
Two years later, Father Rousseau could answer the “question of truth” since he revealed on his site on May 25, 2021 that “What was to happen…” had happened.
What had happened?
In spite of the reproaches of distorting the reality that the General House made to Fr. Rousseau, obviously Bishop Huonder did not give himself up only to "prayer and silence", but the former bishop of Chur heard Confessions, taught catechism, gave Confirmation and even had just said a Pontifical Mass for Pentecost 2021 at the seminary of Zaitzkofen...
It should be specified that if Bishop Lazo had validly confirmed [cf. the postscript of Mgr Tissier de Mallerais] because he was certainly a priest [ordained in the traditional rite by a bishop consecrated in the traditional rite], this is not the case of Mgr Huonder who was not only consecrated a bishop, but also ordained a priest, in the new rite.
An additional step was therefore taken last Maundy Thursday with the consecration of the Holy Oils which will be used by dozens of priests of the SSPX for the administration of the sacraments.
Is it illegitimate and reckless to wonder which Oils will be used next June for the priestly ordinations at the German seminary of Zaitkofen?
What would prevent Bishop Huonder from now conferring priestly ordinations? It would not be the first time since he did it on Saturday June 23, 2018, for the FSSP.
I hear some priests inviting their faithful to “trust the superiors”. Doesn't this attitude, so unlike Archbishop Lefebvre’s, consist in confusing obedience with resignation?
Is it distorting reality to affirm a practical change of attitude between Bishop Lazo and Bishop Huonder on the part of the SSPX? A change that would manifest that the SSPX now considers the new sacraments to be certainly valid.
I am therefore no longer surprised to have heard in the last few years some confreres (formed under your authority at the Séminaire d'Écône) affirm without flinching the validity of the new rite of ordination and, moreover, recognize the new code of Canon Law and the validity of the Mass of Paul VI.
What happened? Did Father Gleize receive revelations from the Holy Ghost? Has the light struck your eyes and enlightened your mind? As far as I'm concerned, I must have missed an episode!
Was Archbishop Lefebvre mistaken in asserting: “Conciliar bishops, whose sacraments are all doubtful because we do not know exactly what their intentions are”?
Based on these words, some say that Archbishop Lefebvre questioned the intention alone. Nothing is more remote from truth since he has conditionally confirmed thousands of people due to a doubtful matter.
Others say that conditional administration was not systematic and that Archbishop Lefebvre did not demand it. It is so true that Archbishop Lefebvre himself conferred ordination in Fontgombault - under the constraint of the master of ceremonies of the abbey - Father Jean-Yves Cottard, according to the new rite. He only then proceeded to give the supplements lacking to the ceremony. This attitude would suggest that at that time, Archbishop Lefebvre considered valid the matter and the form of the new sacrament of Holy Orders. It was in 1973, fifteen years before the Consecrations during which Archbishop Lefebvre did affirm: “Conciliar bishops, whose sacraments are all doubtful because we do not know exactly what their intentions are. »
The case of Father B., former monk of Flavigny Abbey is interesting. He collaborated for ten years in the apostolate of the SSPX, before being dismissed. Here is what I read in a recent letter from Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, dated June 20, 2022:
"Father B., former monk of the monastery of Saint-Joseph de Flavigny does not collaborate in the works of the Society of Saint Pius X, because he does not accept the proposal we made to him to be re-ordained a priest under condition, to remove any doubt, and any hesitation on the part of the faithful. »
This observation about “hesitation on the part of the faithful” is interesting, but it does not seem to have been taken into account with regard to Father Belwood. This is just one example.
To be impartial, I must also say that Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, in the same letter that I have just quoted, writes: "As for priestly ordination according to the rite of Paul VI, I consider it valid, because the form of the sacrament of the order of the presbyterate is the same as in the traditional Roman rite, apart from the deletion of an "ut" which gives way to a single comma, which is nothing. It is always to be feared that the intention of the bishop contradicts the doctrine of the Catholic priesthood, but nothing proves such a thing to me in Bishop Coloni, who accepted (and wanted) to ordain the monks of Flavigny who then had a reputation of being traditionalists.
“As for the episcopal consecration of Mgr Coloni, like that of Mgr Lustiger who consecrated him bishop, etc., my judgement, shared by the best professor of theology in our seminary in Argentina, Father Alvaro Calderón, is that the sacramental form of the order of the episcopate in the rite of Paul VI sufficiently signifies the order of the episcopate, namely its power to govern a flock (its diocese, at least its eventual diocese). » …
Who to believe? Bishop Tissier de Mallerais of August 12, 1998 in his letter concerning Bishop Lazo or Bishop Tissier de Mallerais of June 20, 2022?
What authority is qualified to make a certain and definitive judgment? Father Alvaro Calderón?
Really the evidence and the coherence are not there and many surprises will be reserved for the one who will objectively undertake the doctrinal history of the SSPX!
Today the SSPX entrusts the consecration of the Holy Oils to Bishop Huonder. Yesterday it dismissed Father Hervé Mercury who had not refused that Bishop Bonfils (local Ordinary) confirm the faithful of the chapel (FSSPX) in the traditional rite and with the holy oils consecrated by a bishop of the SSPX... Understand who can!
Can you contradict me when I see that the gap between the SSPX and the FSSP becomes imperceptible?
What an evolution! Development all the more incomprehensible as the disorder of the conciliar church is accentuated each day more... "We are in the time of the great apostasy", wrote Archbishop Lefebvre on October 28, 1988. We must never make a pact with the apostasy.
I can still hear the professor of moral theology tell us at Ecône, speaking of the administration of the sacrament of baptism: “They did not touch to the essential! » He was thereby asserting that modernist baptisms were valid.
My modest personal experience has shown me that this statement could be false. Here is an example: what to think of this baptism, administered by an elderly and pious priest, who at the time of the infusion of the waters, asks the older brother of the child to be baptized, to pour the water, and to his great sister, to pronounce the ritual formula?
Archbishop Lefebvre gave the example of the formula used for the consecration of Archbishop Danneels, auxiliary bishop of Brussels: "Be an apostle like Ghandi, be an apostle like Luther".
The consequences of such a mess are incalculable and therefore impossible to identify. This auxiliary bishop of Brussels - who really could not be a bishop - what has become of him? How many priests did he ordain? Did he consecrate bishops?
How can one consider taking the risk of administering sacraments, perhaps void, when it is so simple to ensure their certain validity?
The SSPX does not recognize the authenticity of recent saints' canonizations. Father de Cacqueray recalled in his Editorial of Fideliter n° 182 of March-April 2008 "Avoiding arbitrariness for the saints": "The Society of Saint Pius X has chosen not to choose, and to wait for the decisions of the Magisterium to make things clear again.
“During the 2006 Chapter, the SSPX renewed this non-choice “in order not to fall into the need to choose [between the saints] and fall into arbitrariness”. The reflections proposed here are therefore speculative, and do not claim to settle the question definitively. »
This attitude was not always respected. As a proof: the liturgical Ordo of the sisters of Trévoux which for many years has indicated Saint Padre Pio on September 23. But the latest edition (2023) no longer mentions holy but blessed Padre Pio. The article by Father Toulza published in Fideliter n° 265 of January-February 2022 p. 35-49: The saints that should not be celebrated, is perhaps not for nothing in this change.
Shouldn't this cautious attitude towards the saints apply to the new sacraments?
Should we not apply to these possibly dubious sacraments what you affirmed, yourself, at the General Chapter of 2012 about the new mass:
«It is not enough to affirm that the new mass is valid. The new mass is bad in itself. It represents an occasion for the sin of unfaithfulness. This is why it cannot constitute a matter of obligation to sanctify Sunday. At a time when Rome recognizes the two rites, it is necessary to remember: “about the new mass, let us immediately destroy this absurd idea: if the new mass is valid, one can participate in it. The Church has always forbidden to attend the Masses of schismatics and heretics, even if they are valid. It is obvious that we cannot participate in sacrilegious Masses, nor in Masses that put our faith in danger”.
It's clear! Why shouldn't your reasoning be valid for the new sacraments?
“Every regime lives by a principle, said Napoleon, when it loses it, it disappears. »
Moreover, on May 15, 2001, responding to the journalist Giovanni Pelli, you affirmed: “I personally think that he [John Paul II] wants to integrate us into this pluralist church. Integration which would be our disintegration. »
Is the intention of the Vatican authorities no longer the same?
Has your rating changed?
Be that as it may, if it is still possible to say that nothing has changed in the SSPX since last Maundy Thursday, it is impossible to think so.
It is high time to conclude. The length of this letter is not its least defect.
Deceived by some faithful who, probably, took their desire for reality, one of my good colleagues understood that I regretted not being a member of the SSPX anymore and asked your permission (!) to enter in contact with me. You would have refused it on the grounds "that I should not be led to believe that the SSPX needs me..." Is this really your state of mind?
No, be reassured, I never felt this regret at having been expelled from the SSPX, and I believe I can tell you that if I were still a member of it today, the time would have come for me to leave it, for I cannot consider, for a moment, the risk of administering the sacraments with questionably consecrated oils.
Le ver est dans le fruit (the rot has already set in), isn’t it simply Huonderful?
Father Nicolas Pinaud