ABOUT A DECLARATION OF FR STEFAN PFLUGER, DISTRICT SUPERIOR OF THE GERMAN DISTRICT OF THE FSSPX
An article published in
InfoCatolica on the statement of Fr. Stefan Pfluger reflects the direction that Bishop Fellay imprinted upon the Society of St. Pius X during his twenty-four years at the head of the Fraternity.
Fr. Stefan Pfluger is the Superior of the District of Germany. Although his statement does not have the same weight as a statement of the Superior General, it gives us some insight into the thinking of the Fraternity, thinking that reflects, at least in part, the positions previously taken by Bishop Fellay.
When Bishop Fellay attempted an agreement with Rome in 2012, there was a lively reaction from several priests as well as three bishops of the Fraternity. Although these agreements did not come to fruition, we can still see some traces of Bishop Fellay's ideas in the thinking of Father Stefan Pfluger, among others.
Fr. Stefan Pfluger says, “We don’t want to separate from Rome and we belong to the Church.” Archbishop Lefebvre too, and more than anyone. But Archbishop Lefebvre said what Fr. Pfluger does not say. He said that he gave all his adherence to eternal Rome and refused to follow the Rome of neo-modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies that clearly manifested itself in the Second Vatican Council and in the reforms that arose from it.
Fr. Pfluger is right to emphasise that we must not separate from Rome, but which Rome is he talking about? He does well to affirm that he belongs to the Church. But the current crisis forces us to ask: "To which Church?”
Bishop Fellay coined the term Concrete Church. This seems like a way of avoiding the question. If this distinction between the Catholic Church and the Conciliar Church is false, why does Archbishop Lefebvre use it? Why then does he say: “It is therefore a strict duty, for every priest who wants to remain Catholic, to separate himself from this Conciliar Church, for as long as it does not rediscover the tradition of the Magisterium of the Church and the Catholic Faith” (The Spiritual Life, p. 31 –
Editora Permanência)?
That this is a mystery, there can be no doubt. How can there be two churches? How can the Catholic Church be occupied by her enemies? I don't know. What I do know is that she is occupied. It is a fact. She is occupied and it is a strict duty of every priest who wants to remain Catholic to separate from this Conciliar Church, as long as she does not rediscover the tradition of the Magisterium of the Church and of the Catholic faith. It is easier to establish a fact than to explain it. But it is foolhardy to reject the observations made by Archbishop Lefebvre. To speak of the Concrete Church is already to seek to approach the enemies of the Church that occupy it.
Fr. Pfluger suggests that the Society will do everything possible to obtain from Rome consent for new episcopal consecrations. In itself, this request, even made to Rome occupied by a modernist pope, is not necessarily a fault, for even if it is occupied the Church has not moved its seat to any other place. However, the example of Archbishop Lefebvre shows us that he did not think this request was essential. He announced in 1987 that he would probably consecrate bishops on the feast of Christ the King that year. If I am not mistaken, more than one date was proporsed. Rome then rushed to offer Archbishop Lefebvre the possibility of an agreement and the granting of bishops. Instead of Archbishop Lefebvre asking, it was Rome who offered. The sequence of events is well known and can be found in Mgr Tissier de Mallerais' book.
Archbishop Lefebvre told me, in the years 1984-1985, that he was very loath to consecrate bishops without the permission of Rome, but that he wondered if Our Lord would not say to him, after his death: “You could do it. Why didn't you do it?"
The question of permission is very important, but it is not essential in the state of necessity in which we find ourselves. Dom Licínio was consecrated in 1991 in São Fidelis, State of Rio de Janeiro, by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, assisted by Bishop Williamson and Bishop de Galarreta. I have never heard that permission was sought from Rome for this.
Some of the Society's priests seem to have a diminished sense of the current crisis. Not all of them. Some are faithful to Archbishop Lefebvre. Some, perhaps, think that the Resistance is sedevacantist. No. The Resistance is a disciple of Archbishop Lefebvre, who was neither modernist, obviously, nor sedevacantist nor accordist. Archbishop Lefebvre is the St. Athanasius of the Vatican II crisis. The solutions he gave to the current crisis, his words and his attitudes are a light for all Catholics who want to remain faithful to the promises of their baptism.
May Our Lady obtain for us the grace to be faithful to her teachings, which are none other than the teachings of the Catholic Church, enshrined in her two-thousand-year-old Tradition. They are the teachings of our Lord, entrusted to the holy apostles.
+ Tomas de Aquino O.S.B.
The reference article:
https://www.infocatolica.com/?t=noticia&cod=50997https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2024/11/we-do-not-want-to-separate-ourselves.html
Topic: Bishop Thomas Aquinas OSB on Declaration of Fr. Stefan Pfluger re Consecrations (Read 52196 times)