Hong KongSeoul 10 June,
My dear faithful,
Part I
Nightmare Scenarios
· To wake up reconciled with the new rome is to wake up in a nightmare instead of out of it. We shall stop being a valid entity unless we apply ourselves to the virtue of prudence, porro videns, the virtue that looks ahead, but not too far ahead; the virtue that looks at what might be happening after one month and five days from now.
· Our Lady is going to intervene because the situation is desperate, as she said in Quito, but until then, the outlook remains pretty bad, and it is up to us to look for temporary solutions, however clumsy, because we are frail human beings. Our Lady chooses the time to intervene, but, in the meantime, we are not forbidden to consider the possibilities, that are now so near. I don’t agree with those who tell us we are not yet there. One month means we are there, prudence requests, while hoping for the best outcome of the General Council (GC), that we apply ourselves ahead a little.
· But before I start, I would like to make a retractation of a previous erroneous statement in the WAR ON docuмent that runs as follows: “the next solution, is to cancel, or even better, postpone the General Chapter”. That statement is false, Menzingen is proceeding as scheduled. (But.. wait.. oh gosh! I might have to retract this retractation… so please, stand by until 07/01)
Still waiting for serious objections to the WAR ON docuмent to correct other possible mistakes, after eating some punishment, threats and several forms of theft (with, cherry on the cake, my first canonical monition from Fr Couture (who, I guess, wants me out before the GC, so that all that crazy war talk will not mar the administrative debates)); all I want to say is “Non, rrrrien de rrrrien, je ne regrrette rrrrien” I don’t regret anything (Edith Piaf).
The first next thing for us is to keep our eyes open between now and the GC, on some three animals; the chameleon, the spider and the crocodile:
CHAMELEON
The most unassuring thing we have been witnessing so far is this constant shift of orientation; not just the proposed 180 degree return to Rome; but the fact that to know the position of Menzingen concerning roman proposals, we need to check it constantly in real time. The titanic April 14th letter clearly stated an intent to proceed and accept a roman offer that we cannot refuse, then the Pentecost sermon says that we are just looking without saying yes or no, and a few days later, June 07, we edge closer to the yes again. But, OK, let’s just say it’s an open decision making with points and counterpoints, thee shots and three vacant slots rolling in the cylinder of a Russian roulette; its cylinder rolling for ever… until that fateful July 15th, when the trigger shall be pulled… maybe… or maybe not: we must “follow the dictates of Providence”.
But Bishop Fellay is very brave, and will not countenance bullying, as any good leader, so I would guess, reading from the June 7th interview, that his purpose to have a deal with Rome is hardening, despite the difficulties, uncertainties, and despite the remaining opposition of the three other Bishops and the mounting refusal of the SSPX rank and file. Everything is now made to fit into the box of reconciliation, sweetly and strongly. Swiss are like that; they love peace and reconciliation, but at the same time, one bullies them at his own risk.
SPIDER
Ahead or wrapping its victim into its thread, the spider needs to sting it, to put it to sleep.
The spider needs to sting that “all this is just rumors, the whole SSPX is united behind Menzingen because it has the graces of state and a loftier vision and a constant and clear knowledge of the concrete circuмstances. Cows are munching peacefully, everything is in such harmony in this blessed time of the Society. On the contrary, people (like yours truly) are causing great damage and scandal, are truly possessed by a spirit of agitation, subversion and revolution and don’t understand in the least the concept of authority, putting relentlessly the notion of the Faith in order to excuse their rebellion on what they disapprove of Menzingen. Refusing to keep the debate in its proper place, just between them and their superiors, they dare to call on all the faithful and even on all those who are not of our persuasion, especially the sedevacantists, to condemn their superiors in a most violent, unfair and irregular way.
Look, nothing has happened, nothing is signed, wait for the outcome of the GC, calm down, take some vacation, pray, be holy, realize that you are in a time of desolation and trust in God.
All those visits of members of the General Council and other SSPX experts don’t really mean anything. We are not tying ourselves canonically even if we are clearly beginning to see in what structure the SSPX is going to operate once we are recognized by the official church. Do not state your opposition now but after the deal with rome has been signed. Only then, when it will be so hard for you to move, will you have full and entire liberty to express that after being put to sleep and wrapped so tight, you are waiting, in the storage corner or the spider’s den, to be eaten after the Institute of Good Shepherd and the poor little Redemptorists. Then it will be time to speak out and the spider will have a more exciting meal.
CROCODILE
Last but not least the crocodile, and I have seen one recently in Davao, weighing one ton but capable to apply two tons of pressure with its jaw. The new rome is just the same, it is a powerful machinery of destruction of souls (cf. WAR ON Part one), but look, in its eyes there is a hole that contains extra eye protecting membranes. These look just like tears, just like this lonely Benedict XVIth so gently working at his desk for the good of the Church while the media are piling scandals against him, while he is being betrayed by the infidelity and the ineptitude of the whole Roman Curia, while he is tired and wants to retire… and we are one of the few of his remaining sons… and we are not going to listen to his appeal to come and help him make things better for the Church when he shows such great signs of benevolence towards us.
That is cruelty; brave oysters should stand and fight against the sadness and loneliness of the Walrus and Carpenter, do something to help them, always for the gooood of the Church. The Walrus wants it himself; (in the past indeed, he used to devour little oysters without inviting them politely) there is nothing more beautiful that to put ourselves forward bravely if a good and supernatural reason is provided for us to die.
Unfortunately, for the rashness of cutting the chameleon in two, squashing the spider and shooting the crocodile, some of us, and God forbid if the agreement is signed, many more in the future are getting threatened, admonished and expelled. Carefree as they were until that beginning of May, their life is taking an entirely new turn, with another, sevenfold nightmarish situation facing them.
1. Discouragement,
Once you get thrown out, let me describe to you how it feels in the outer space of the galaxy: pretty cold, and pretty hot. I guess that was the feeling of those who got thrown out or left too early, Father Gotte, Fr Cardoso, Fr Meramo, Fr Abramhowicz and the others whose name I don’t recount and those other priests who are on the spring board like me. They are facing impossible odds, no visibility, no prudential protection, no insurances, little support from only a few people etc. They could be tempted to become very pessimistic. Vae soli; woe to the loner, for he has nobody to pick him up if he falls (into discouragement).
2. Slicing
The second disaster is that those priests standing up against compromise get removed piece by piece, that is why as I am in my first monition, just in between of being in and being out (bureaucratically and invalidly), the best thing is to look at those on both side of the river and ask them to communicate and avoid
3. Isolation
Isolation is a killer for a priest, because a priest lives only with other priests, he is not an anachorete, he has defects that need daily correcting through community life, he is a human being with ups and downs, he needs friendship like anyone else and friendship of people of his kind and then, especially, he needs one or several bishops. I would otherwise have kept mum had I not known how silenced or at time persecuted, but especially, had I not known how much our Three faithful Bishops disagree with the proposed sell out.
4. Doctrinal confusion
Priestly crumbs, continuing to preach with whatever public voice is left to them will end up giving a different outlook on the situation, and depending on their state of mind sink differently into pessimism, exaggeration, or flip back and over in the novus ordo, like some sedevacantists of yore have done. Let alone piecing it together, their thought will be hard to get a hold of in the first place, and their little flock will also speak cacophonically. This is probably, of the seven, the worse part of the worse scenario, the triumph of that devilish spirit of confusion, leading next to:
5. Bitter zeal and sedevacantist trail
First of all I would like to thank my sedevacantist fellow Catholics for helping me to spread my message, but I’m afraid they are going to rue the day. Because us joining them would be a complete betrayal of Archbishop Lefebvre on our part. Our main claim is that we are not changing, so we are not going to turn ourselves into sedevacantists for the sake of maintaining the stance of the Archbishop, and we are going to dissuade any priests and faithful to follow that lamentable path. The solution of the crisis remains the same: the conversion of the papacy, that is why we put Menzingen and the sedevacantists on the same plane because both exclude the complete conversion of the Pope, each in his own disastrous way.
The healing of the church will come only from the top, and just as we exclude the theory of progressive conversion of Peter, we affirm, that once Peter is converted, it will take him some time to confirm the Church back into the truth of the Faith. But indeed Peter is the only instrument that can make such a miracle happen. That’s my take of St Malachi foretelling a Pope who will lead the Church through many tribulations.
6. Infightings
Once the truth is secure in the authorities’ head, the next thing is obedience, that coordination of actions of individual subject for the effecting of the common good and the preventing of division. The breaching of obedience is the constant reproach I have been hearing all these weeks, and I am sensible to it to the extent that once I am thrown out, I am not anymore a Samurai, but a Ronin, that is a leaderless Samurai. The Japanese solution is then to die honorably, which is very nice, but not a catholic and reasonable solution. “If we do not hang together, says Franklin, we shall all be hung separately”. Therefore I urge all of us expendable, General Issues or the SSPX, not to delay into finding a Bishop or a priest to lead and piece us together. It is vital.
7. Abandonment of the faithful
The saddest thing will be to see all these disoriented sheep looking for pastors, seeking refuge in the sacraments and catholic doctrine, and not finding it any more. Can we abandon those people who are facing the whole current of the modern world, and leave them without an organization of chapels, schools, priories, newspapers, pilgrimages, retreats, homes of the aged, nuns, scouts, youth groups, doctrinal congresses etc. How can we countenance their state of shepherdlessness?
· Methinks that in front of such a pile of Pandora’s boxes, the best and simplest is just to remain (“in time of desolation, don’t change your course of action”) as we are, SSPX priests and faithful. It would be a catastrophe to launch a new contraption, because, unlike the Mater Ecclesiae, SSP, Institute of Christ the King, Campos, Society of St John, etc. we are not departing from our Founder, while it is the official SSPX which is the departing side, just like before the SSPX crisis, it was not the SSPX that was departing from the Catholic Church, but the conciliar church that was departing from Catholicism. One (possibly the recent rewriter of Galatians) could rewrite the 1974 declaration along this line.
· Not only that, but it shall be us who shall rename the soft side of the SSPX; something to the tune of “reconciliar SSPX”, just like we still face a “conciliar church”.
· Day by day, joining the new rome becomes more a folly, for if Benedict XVI cannot control the Roman Curia, which is just under his nose, how is he going to refrain the local Bishops from suppressing us. Secondly, if Benedict actually retires, what kind of democratic papacy are we going to place ourselves under, since the redefinition of the “Petrine Ministry” has been in the ropes for a long time.
The argument that 550 priests will stand their ground better than the weaker fraternities and institutes of the past doesn’t stand either, because those 550 oysters will have to face the opposition of 400 000 novus ordo priests. And then, big question, is Bishop Fellay really going to march forward with 550 priests or not, because even one month ahead, in the middle of June the resistance is already getting public and viral. Once his purpose to reconcile is made, the more he waits to sign, the better the chances for him to go to Rome empty handed, or even naked.
Part II
Proposed Course of Action
Something needs to exist to receive all these priestly crumbs, those shattered, directionless, and uncoordinated warriors, but not something heavy and bureaucratized, but something endowed with that minimum of organization and visible authority for operating. Its first leaders get short mandates, until, much later, a college of leaders forms a General Chapter of some sort to nominate a more permanent figure to rally around be he be pwiest or Bishop.
The internal link called “Cor Unum” will have to be issued very soon, no matter how small the group may be at the beginning in order to rule out from the start, the isolation of resisting priests.
That structure must be flexible and adaptable to the situation of each and every, ie., it must admit that we do not reach the good conclusion about this crisis at the same time: therefore priests must be allowed to jump in at different points in space and time.
The assets of that something should not be owned by the something itself, in a centralized and legal way, but by the local faithful, so as to prevent the whole ship to go down, should its captain desire to compromise again with the new rome. Many religious orders operate this way, which helps so well to repress that stupid clerical propensity for bureaucracy.
In God’s time, as soon as a Bishop cares to join, a Seminary will open, and in the meantime candidates and expelled seminarians will be trained, albeit informally.
Especially, it must be something that can accommodate the anger of our enemies comfortably enough, so that we can take the blows with the support of our brothers in arms and our spiritual profit without “being absorbed by sadness” (Corinthians).
FAITH:
We are being told that on both side of the divide, we are all for the Faith.
Well, it is not the case any longer on two counts:
First we can now accuмulate several statements on the Council, emanating from Menzingen that show a change of stance. The April 14th letter says that the three Bishop make of the errors of Vatican II super heresies, despite the fact that for 40 years we have always said that Vatican II is a super heresy, the worse disaster in the entire history of the Church. It states also that the “Hermeneutic of continuity” (of Benedict XVIth) condemns many errors, which is a fall in its trap because the old trick or Vatican II is to be partially true. If we buy something partially true now, we’ll buy more later.
Then we bumped in the disastrous CNS interview, the full text of which is not yet available to put the statements of Bishop Fellay in full context. The 6 minute extracts were deemed good enough by Menzingen at some stage, otherwise they would not have been posted on official SSPX district websites.
Secondly, and more insidious than the first is the brushing aside of the issue of Vatican II, already implicit in the Titanic April 14th letter and better explained later by Fr Simoulin in May 05th.
This fallacious theory is now fully endorsed by the June 07th interview on DICI, namely that we disagree with Vatican II, and made such a disagreement very clear, but the Church has bigger problems and we are first and foremost sons of the Church and not sons of just “resistance to Vatican II” Now is the time to help the Church, and by this help, the course of time, the fading of the Vatican II generation, that outdated collection of thoughts called Vatican II will be relegated to the dustbin of history.
This delusion is truly amazing, because, as today’s reigning Popes repeat over and again, the whole Church policy is dictated straight from Vatican II, (just like for 400 years the whole orientation of the Church was dictated by the Council of Trent); I mean Vatican II, its time bombs, consequences of its reforms on the morality of the clergy, openings to heresy, destructive spirit, new mass, new code, new ecclesiology, rosary, way of the cross, new evangelization, charismatic renewal, new rules for religious orders, new Roman Curia, college of Cardinals, episcopal conferences, attitude to other religions and 10 other etc. at least.
How can we simply brush aside THE problem and say “Let us worry about the Church”, when it is the Church itself, the mystical body of Christ, that is being crucified by Vatican II?
This also reveals that the doctrinal discussions were in fact a reconciliationnal trick, and that those poor four experts of ours, all of them thinking so traditionally, were used as instruments to show that we can work out our differences with the new rome in an open and sincere athmosphere, and that we can both work within the official Church and keep our doctrinal reservations freely.
All of this is completely disingenuous and, if you ask me, calls for apologies to Bishop Gallareta, Fr de Jorna, Fr de la Rocque, and Fr Gleize.
In the end, it is an affirmation that the affairs of Faith don’t matter all that much or get settled in due time automatically by this miraculous reconciliationnal process.
HOPE:
It is the virtue of the soldier. We pick up this fight, I hope, not because we are upset, but because the SSPX is fixable. Compared to Vatican II, we are only in the 50’s, but if we miss the opportunity of 2012, the leadership of the SSPX will be gradually replaced by reconciliationnists, so that the apple will fall by its own weight without Menzingen having to do any campaigning.
The Hope of the resistance is growing very fast now; France, the biggest district (170 priests), is getting rapidly out of the control of Menzingen. Here in Asia, there was strictly no preparation for the 180 degree turn, so the enrolling of the priests and faithful is comparatively easy. Some smaller districts are already resisting in one piece, and in those districts that we thought were lost to the fight we are beginning to see encouraging signs of resistance.
CHARITY
But all this will have to end as one same FAMILY. All we believe is that the Devil and Benedict XVI have used Bishop’s Fellay’s goodness, and that it is not out of cowardice that Bishop Fellay was deceived, but because the Devil made use of what is best in him (just like +W, +TDM, +G have their own “best in him”). In Bishop Fellay, it is goodness or Charity, that is, the highest virtue per se, and the best known virtue of Archbishop Lefebvre, which explains why Providence would let it normally shine in the one who was voted Superior general in 1994.
Secondly, we are not going to be the exploders of the SSPX. Until that question is solved we are going to give our adversaries in the Society a huge pile of headaches, but we are not going to be rid of them, just as they are not going to be rid of us; we are family. In absolute numbers, 550 priests is not a bad number of priests, but relative to the size of the Church, and the size of the World, that still need to be saved, that is nothing. The splitting of the SSPX would set back the work of restoration something like 20 years; we cannot allow it to happen in the view of the so many souls who shall not be saved should an irreparable split happen.
Thirdly, we have no plans of retaliation should our side win. For my part I know so well Fr Pfluger and Nely, who were my spiritual directors at a crucial times, same as Fr Iscara, whose straight A student I was, Fr Celier, Lorans, Le Roux, Rostand, Thouvenot… but I have too much respect for those priests not to hate the liberalism that corrupts the great good they can do otherwise. It is true that I think they put us on a slippery liberal path, but the Archbishop had a very prudent and charitable (and quite determined) way to deal with liberals, and I was a liberal myself in the past, well acquainted with them, still agreeing on their critique of what is weird among our circles and a current reader of their prose.
I can believe that these above mentioned priests have been at time calumniated and their work unjustly criticized, and must be very hurt by these public attacks of mine, and I would still love to work again with them, eat and laugh at their table, pray in the same chapel.
Charity demands that if they err I should give them some (in your face, chazallian & clownesque) fraternal correction. We cannot back off; they have to back down publicly from their errors or stand down (first prelude of this docuмent).
My problem is that I cannot prove in advance whether I am going to be a Stalinist retaliationnist or not, once their surrender is accepted, since I am the underdog right now.
PRUDENCE:
I don’t think the official SSPX is going to like us keeping the SSPX name after throwing us out. They will throw court cases so that we don’t put SSPX on our chapel doors, tee-shirts and coffee mugs.
Once faced with overwhelming legal and police force, we will have to concede and just call ourselves catholic priests, trad cats, Catholics, Christians, human beings hoping to be in the State of Grace. But anywhere else they can’t reach us, i.e., on the tags of our socks and suitcases, we shall just put that nagging SSPX. Funny situations are going to emerge, like the Chartres-Paris pilgrimage, for which I am not quite sure if I can suggest that we start it one day before, because it might be imprudent and uncharitable to let the official SSPX pick up our garbage. We are going to need quite a load of prudence. And prudence, they say, (Bishop Tissier said rightly “l’abbe Chazal est un imprudent!”) is not my forte. But since these days are thrust upon us by God, God will provide a prudent enough leader.
The other question that prudence needs to answer is this: How do we deal with liberals?
Liberalism is the disease of our time; everyone is affected to varying degrees, therefore there is no absolute need to call a liberal names (lillylivered liberal, implacable placator, popularity seeker…). But it remains to heal liberalism by correcting the appetites. (Liberalism is basically the invasion of the intellect by unchecked appetites (for reconciliation in our present case), and, in turn, the misdirecting of the appetite by a corrupt intellect.) This medicinal correcting of appetites is the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore I do believe that liberals need to squeal, but at the same time we must show them friendship, otherwise they are not going to take the medicine properly. One last question: is this WAR ON – WHAT NEXT making them squeal enough? I doubt it, that’s why a third pill is coming: WAR WON.
JUSTICE
We have received too much from the SSPX, so how can we leave it and how can we not hope to salvage it from liberalism? What we owe to it is not an opposite hostile organization, but a shift of orientation within itself, defending those superiors and members within the official SSPX that show bravery, and exposing compromises adroitly, forcibly and relentlessly.
But we also have given to the SSPX; 24 years in my case, eleven assignments etc. Leaving the SSPX would make us regret all the time, efforts and wealth spent for it, and that is not going to happen, because we are going to continue to support it, to tell people not to leave this or that mass center, but from now, to keep their eyes open and make a stand when possible and necessary. The ingratitude of some official authorities of the SSPX should be ignored, because overall we are very grateful of what we have received, especially of the gift of the priesthood. Isn’t what we used to say when a priest was leaving the Society: “The Archbishop gave him everything, gave him the priesthood… and there he leaves him; how is that possible?” …And in my case it is Bishop Fellay who gave me the Priesthood.
That is why we are not going to change our name, especially when justice to the SSPX means to return it to the fight of the Immaculate. Again, we are not asking for justice for ourselves, we are asking for justice for the SSPX.
FORTITUDE:
It is divided in two, the aggredi (attack) and the sustinere (forbearance). Most of our aggression is directed to the new rome because, Benedict XVI, as a valid pope, is responsible for the misdirection of the ship and a proven collaborator to the damnation of hundreds of millions of souls. But as far as our beloved and mistaken confreres, and the faithful, lawyers, policemen and fighting ladies they may throw at us, all we have to offer is the sustinere because : j only the lamb can demonstrate by action and not by words on which side is charity, k to humble ourselves and get ourselves crucified with Our Blessed Lord, l to win over our enemies.
TEMPERANCE:
Once again, temperance represses pride. We are not the saviors of the SSPX, just like trad cats are not saviors of the Catholic Church; our only duty is to remain Catholics and to keep the faith. The rest is God’s.
Part III
Hopeful Happenings
I’m sorry, my dear faithful, I just fooled you; all this proposed course of action is just another scenario. I exclude it in fact, although it is very proud, brave, adventurous and tempting for a crazy priest like me. The nightmare scenario is completely excluded from happening by Part II scenario, but the idea of a heroic resistance within the SSPX is ridiculous in its turn, because it is based on the idea that Our Lady is not going to help us at this time.
The motherly instinct of Our Lady is irresistible, because it is not based on motherhood, but on DIVINE motherhood. In the family situation we are undergoing now, any mother would intervene, and now we are going to believe that Our Lady is not going to intervene? Anyone with such a belief better put away his Rosary and images of Our Lady… his “devotion” to her is a waste of time.
Not being in the politics of the GC, I can’t give you another victory scenario there either, but all I know is what to find or not to find at the outcome in mid-July (2 preludes), and since I exclude the failure of the GC, here is what I hope and pray will happen after its happy outcome:
I
That the SSPX regains its official fighting stance.
Of course, we fight, and that’s official, but look at our DICI website, and our muted reaction to Assisi III! Archbishop Lefebvre went thermonuclear on Assisi I, called the Pope an antichrist, got very fiery leaflets printed, declared that it was a sign to proceed for the consecration of bishops and much else. We do not have any more Holy Anger. No, such anger is a breach of the rules of discernment of spirit, it is too natural, it is not holy, it is subversive and rebellious, but especially, it is excessive.
We must not be excessive any more. The chopping, crushing, and nailing (Jahel being one of my favorite figure of Our Lady) of heads, no, all that is for Sacred Scripture; it is merely figurative, meaning only that we should be more supernatural.
But wait a minute. The Word of God is our rule of life and is loaded, almost at every page with fighting, especially in St John. Therefore our very life is a fight (Job 7 – St Ignatius etc.). How can this be reconciled with the idea of “being taken as we are with full liberty and autonomy for ourselves”?
Hopefully, there is still some fight in us and I salute especially those who have fought me so well in recent times, those whom I call implacable placators. All I ask God is to turn their talent against his enemies.
II
That the SSPX reclaims its canonical clout
Nothing illustrates our own mellowing these days, than this first canonical monition of expulsion issued by Fr Couture, condemning me through the use of the new code of canon law, promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1983, referred to three times, and each time ahead of the old code, because of course the official SSPX still remembers the old code to some extent.
I would like my dear Fr Couture to go back to the drawing board and condemn me according to his wish to be taken seriously by me. That entails that he listen to the call of Prophet Elias “Children of Israel, how long are you going to limp on one code of canon law, and then on another, entirely opposite code of canon law. If the old code of canon law is the correct one, stick to it, and if the new code is the correct one follow it! But don’t follow two codes and, even better, do as your forefather(s) taught you.”
In recent times, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais was very angry about this and got the matter corrected in the US district, but it is not because of him that we refuse the new code… it is because of Archbishop Lefebvre, who called the new code a worse disaster than the new mass itself. I am not a canonist to understand this statement fully, but what I know for sure is that I did not enroll myself in the Society of St Pius X to be placed under the law of Vatican II, or even worse, to be placed under a Frankenstein law, contradictory in terms.
III
That the SSPX recovers its doctrinal spine
The sense of clarity against errors is gradually fading in us; we are becoming Catholics of traditional persuasion, with our disagreements with the new rome, but nothing more. The sermons of Archbishop Lefebvre sound impressingly strong compared to our way of preaching today; “the apostate rome, the bastard mass, the modernist church, the public mockery of the first commandment in Assisi…” we just dismiss all this by saying that this was good and admirable for the Archbishop to say in his own time and that he didn’t say it all the time. Things have changed; we cannot talk like that any longer, even a few times a year.
It is becoming less and less correct to keep a spotlight on the deeds of the new rome in our publications and to analyze in detail the different statements that emanate from Rome. The fact that the Pope doesn’t punish delinquent Bishops does not faze us all that much, and we are especially mum when ‘conservatives’ like Cardinal Ranjith, call for their people to fast on Buddha’s birthday; why? Because we are amicably engaged with him, we are refusing to challenge him on this breach of the First Commandment (which we don’t like in private). Of course we don’t like Jezebel (the German and French Bishops), but we like Ahab. But Ahab is very wrong and misleading for his people; and being the nice guy that he is (read Scripture, you can see that Ahab has his good moments) doesn’t change a thing in the eyes of Elias.
On the contrary, when I look at the “news from Rome” subsection of the DICI, I myself, sense that groovy kind of feeling that at last, after 40(00) years, the blessed time of the return of Rome to Tradition has come; imperfectly, yes, but definitely. The good news outweighs so much the bad and there is so much that this good Pope is trying to do despite the opposition of a diminishing remnant of hard line novus ordo bishops, priests and laity...
How mistaken I feeel.
IV
That we stop breeding “pious” priests
I mean pious pious priests, very holy and supernatural, but without doctrine, without spine; giving boring sermons. Fr le Floch said it is Pietas cuм Doctrina; that’s it. Our lord came into this world, and for this was born : to bear witness to the truth. Look at all these old priests, most of them gone, that passed the torch to us; I can’t find any of them pious pious, pray and obey, very holy. Most of them are the like of Fr le Blanc, Mgr Donahue, all of them are tough like Fr Heidt, Fr Ringrosse, Fr Gruner etc.
I don’t like the way some of our seminaries are run today; it is different from yesterday. In the US, there is now a clear line between the priests trained yesterday, that is, priests trained to fight; and priests trained today, that is priests trained to pray. The behavior of too many of the latter is so much alike the behavior of 50’s priests. That doesn’t mean that priests should not be pious, but have the piety of the Psalms, and that instead of being half asleep on their breviary they say wholeheartedly “Blessed be the lord that teaches my hands how to fight”.
V
That we recognize that liberalism is creeping
It is creeping in the ranks of our faithful who have a special need to be warned about the false restoration, taking place at the hands of Pope Benedict XVI. A certain contraceptive mentality has crept in many families, a big number of our youth are fans of Lady Gaga, many don’t think it is bad to go to the indult Mass, modesty is still an issue in various places, the addiction to modern gadgets is less and less in check, and we are not quite sure if our youth is as conquering as it used to be. In too many places, there is no fire in the troops. That fire in the troops is just good for the heroic times of Archbishop Lefebvre, and we shall make a nice movie about it.
VI
That the SSPX gets debureaucratized,
decentralized, and demediatized.
It is not just the regular bureaucracy that is a problem, even if it is true that we are now very mired in the bureaucracy and red tape, but the added layer of computers, cell phones, tablets… Not that yours truly totally excludes the use of these things, (otherwise you couldn’t hear him talking loud these days, but these gadgets, when privately owned and abused by a priest, do kill in him the life of prayer, the intellectual light that comes alone from reading and studying, and possibly, the light of Grace. This is extremely serious; I wrote to Menzingen on the topic, but, as usual, no answer. Palantirs or modern means of communication are not all accounted for, sayeth Gandalf to Menzingen.
Therefore we do not need mediatic organs to doctor, spin and premasticate opinion within Tradition. Our doctrinal unity is sufficiently established by the harmony of our teaching in our six seminaries, and it is the pulpit that must remain our first means to let the truth known to the world. It should suffice to us to have good newspapers and magazines, and it is from them and their websites that the information should pass.
VII
The abandonment of the concept of
“Superioralgeneral Infallibility”
It is a very worrying thing to see some priests believe so strongly that Menzingen can do no wrong. For them, all the graces and talent of the Archbishop have in Menzingen migrated, and Bishop Fellay can’t ever be wrong in major decisions.
Just like Catholics have been deceived by a long line of good and even saintly popes into following whatever the popes says today even if it contradicts what the Church has always taught in the past and other popes’ previous statements…
…so a certain number of SSPX priests and very good people, after the constantly great leadership of Archbishop Lefebvre, are deceived into following whatever Bishop Fellay says today, even if it contradicts the whole policy of the SSPX since its inception, and Bishop Fellay’s own past statements.
This stands in complete contradiction with Church History, if one cares to look at what happened to Liberius, Honorius I, Paschal II and John XXII when they made erroneous statements. They had to face the resistance of their inferiors and had to stand down from their errors. Hopefully this happens infrequently enough so that we may trust our superiors in normal time and in the majority of time.
I think this time though, Bishop Fellay has plenty more elements that, if put together, can clearly show him that he is leading us in a very wrong track. But in the future, after this crisis, superiors will have to have a little humbler opinion of themselves, realizing that if Almighty God has allowed the Papacy itself to be so wrong and for such a long time and in the dogmatic level, it is not impossible for them to err, especially in the prudential level.
As of now two armies are beginning to line up and have started to come to grips in some places, like in Asia; and maybe, short of a practical agreement with the SSPX, that was what the new rome wanted to get, and could be a reason why it is less in a hurry to have a deal now.
Getting tired of modern means of communication at the end of this artillery adjustment, may I ask one of you to text, fax or e-mail to Menzingen this message:
“My Lord Bishop Fellay, in whose hands the SSPX is,
Yield to the Queen of Heaven, to whom the SSPX belongs even more:
Retract your past and public erroneous statements and
Do not throw us under the Fornicating New Rome, which She detest for the killing of her children.
She really doesn’t want it and you don’t want to see her angry.
Don’t yield to us if you will and throw us out if you may,
but yield only to Her,
Because this time she is going to have it her own & immaculate way.”
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