Ten years ago our SSPX priest led a Eucharistic Procession to the steps of the local Novus Ordo parish.  There we had Benediction in reperation for the many sins and blasphemy s against Our Lord.  (Communion in the hand, Eucharistic Ministers, slovenly dressed parishioners...). What an example for my children!  What a stand for the rights of Our Lord!  Now what do you hear from the SSPX in reparation?....CRICKETS!

Henry, if there is more poison in the soup than ever, why does +Fellay now say it is okay to eat?  He now says Religious Liberty is very limited, and the New Mass is legitimate.  He says that SSPX must not act as bulldozers.  When the guard dog, the very dog who is responsible to serve, protect and defend Christ the King stops barking, it is useless.  

Why has +Fellay reduced the once barking SSPX into a whimpering puppy?

Put otherwise, what Archbishop Lefebvre might well have said—had he not been disinclined, both by nature and by long experience, to treat his interlocutors as simpletons—was that any such blank-check offer from Rome as the hypothetical one (a hypothesis that is being flogged with a vigor better applied to an object that can yield something more than howls of pain) would constitute prima facie evidence of a "sufficient conversion" of conciliar Rome to the True Faith. Hence, it would be just the sort of situation where a no-compromise resolve, even were it to be as strong as case-hardened steel, would have to yield, because the conditions under which the resolve had been formed no longer applied.

Yes, ABL makes it clear that receiving a bum deal from Rome was a sign that he could not trust them or deal with them. Until their conversion they would continually try to paralyze the Society. So in effect a "sweetie pie deal" could be a sign in and of itself of Rome's conversion, or at least a significant turn in the tide, and thus would be worthy of consideration.  

It could be argued that +Fellay is simply doing the same thing. "He will not make a bad deal". IOW if he receives a sweetie pie deal he will take that as a sign of Rome's sufficient conversion. However, he has obliterated any hope of using the example with all of the internal shifts he has already made to be more appealing to Rome and the NO public. Between GREC and the many concessions already made which are crystalized in the PC image he is branding for the Society, he could never hope to argue that he holds the same take-us-as-we-are-and-we-will-know-you-have-returned-to-Tradition ground as ABL. Where ABL realized he had to stand two feet away from the precipice (the TRUE definition of prudence, I might add), +Fellay is desperately hanging over it, blowing in the wind and angling to meet them halfway as if somehow that will bring them to his side. It inspires no confidence whatsoever in his judgment and it shows that he doesn't understand (or perhaps rejects) why the Society MUST stand strong in the first place.  


 

Quote from: Neil Obstat

… If you have a Mass where everything appears fine, the candles are lit and the linens are white and the altar boys kneel in reverence while the Priest raises the host, and so on -- if the Priest does NOT intend to do what the Church does in the Consecration and has no intention whatsoever to confect transubstantiation of the Eucharist, the effect will be that no Sacrament takes place, and all the faithful who line up for Holy Communion will in fact receive a wafer of bread but not the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus. Whatever graces they receive via their good will and desire is another topic, but they receive objectively nothing from the host that is placed on their tongues, other than the physical nutrients of the wafer's ingredients, wheat flour and water.

Because it's plain what Neil is getting at, I take no pleasure in saying what follows, but the simple fact is that the sort of ordinary-language use of the word intention that the quoted passage employs is just not the one that orthodox theology from Aquinas down to the present day—even including such a towering modernist (i.e., unorthodox) figure as Schillebeeckx—has in mind. In the context described, "proper intention," "an intention to do as the Church does," must be assumed ipso facto by the priest's use of the words and by his performance of the prescribed liturgical actions in the manner called for by the rubrics. Any insistence that validity required one to know an intrinsically unknowable interior state was rejected by Aquinas as a condition that God in His beneficence could not impose on His Church. That is, His beloved children are entitled to have confidence in the salvific effect of the actions of those of His priests whose outward conduct comports with rubrical norms.

Like I said, there is more.

In his sermon just before the Consecration, this priest mentioned that the host represents Jesus "symbolically" and the Mass is a meal in commemoration of His life, death and resurrection.  The priest said that he's not here to magically change anything, and this Mass is intended for the "pastoral care" of the assembly.  Finally, he reminded everyone that God is everywhere, so certainly He is here with us today.

After this Mass, one of the attendees who had heard this sermon approached this priest and asked him if he believes the host at Mass becomes the Real Presence of Our Lord, and the priest frankly replied, "No, I do not.  And neither should you.  The host is bread and a mere symbol of God's presence all around us, and nothing more.  The real presence you're asking about is a figment of your own imagination, quite possibly rooted in some medieval fable of mysterious other-worldly power."

There goes your "intrinsically unknowable interior state."

The point is, if the priest openly STATES that he does not intend to do at his Mass what the Church has always done at Mass, why should we think his Mass is valid?  Why should we think that his Mass is the Mass of the Church? --just because it takes place in a building that says "Catholic Church" in the sign box outside?  

And if he wanted to be really honest, he would have an announcement at the very beginning of Mass, before any readings or prayers in the sanctuary, a kind of introduction for everyone to hear, and he would say that he makes no pretense of confecting the Eucharist.  Furthermore, he could announce that there shall be no exclusion of non-Catholics for anything --- including Communion.

After hearing such an announcement before Mass, are the listeners not apprised of what is about to take place, so as to have no doubts, and to conclude that this is not going to be a Catholic Mass, even though the sign in the box outside says "Catholic Church" in it?


P.S.  Once again, "there is more..."

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It takes very little, Neil, doesn't it, to prod you to revert to form and resume prancing about like a damn fool?

Do you seriously think that withholding essential information is a winning strategy in a discussion or argument? Or do you think that I am the only one who notices that none of the claims advanced in your churlish reply were present in your earlier comment, which had all the earmarks of a hypothetical case? Frankly, absent chapter and verse, I'm by no means sure that anything you wrote in the reply is even corroborable. Your record as a peddler of hot air could fill as many pages as War and Peace.

Even assuming that every word you've written correctly reports actual events—and that's a big assumption—I wouldn't accept your diagnosis of invalidity even if my life literally depended upon it. Substantially more evidence than hearsay is required just for a start. Then and only then might the case be presented for judgment to, at a minimum, a properly formed priest, though far, far better and more reliable would be the opinion of a sacramental theologian.

You fail to make the hurdle no matter how much the bar is lowered. In short, no one has good reason to accept that one and only one conclusion is to be drawn from your ramblings.

The bottom line is that the entirety of your commenting on this thread has been off topic and, as so often, tiresomely narcissistic. And when, oh when, are you going to stop preceding and following your irrelevancies with a three- or four-line space and a placeholding period? Do you think your comments are Rembrandts or Vermeers in need of a frame to display them at their best!?!

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I commend Sean Johnson for having the persistence and dedication to take on all these specific points along the way, because I think it's important to chronicle the wayward actions of +Fellay over the years, for the record if not for present purposes at hand.  

As for me, I lose my incentive to delve into all those details when I see a pattern of behavior in the S.G. that indicates a different purpose in mind than that of the Founder, ABL.  The Archbishop was not afraid to oppose the Modernism of Newrome in order to stand firm in the traditions handed down to him, whereas the current Superior has been steadily bending toward making peace with an unconverted Rome, with a litany of excuses as to why that's not objectionable.  

The thing that distinguishes Newrome from pre-Conciliar Rome is Vat.II, and ABL was aware of that.  But for whatever reason, ABL never came down hard on the invalidity of the false Council, per se, and I suppose he had his reasons, one of which might be that he had been there so he would be partially responsible for what had happened there.

This whole topic of answering a priest who is wont to defend the wayward actions of +Fellay skirts the problem of whether Vat.II should be recognized or abandoned.  While it's true that we do not have the authority to pass judgment on what the Church has apparently accepted as an Ecuмenical Council, still, we can raise the arguments against it just as we can continue to practice the Faith intact as it was in 1955 before the excrement started to hit the air flow generator.

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This back-and-forth has gone on for 53 years, ever since the beginning (not the end) of Vat.II, and there is no end in sight.

The Sean Johnsons of the world would wage battle with the Fellayist Accordistas forever and ever, amen.

There is a reason that this argument began at the start of Vat.II, and that is because the start (not the end) of Vat.II is when the war of words was initiated.  

Pope John XXIII fired the opening salvo of this battle of wits with his most regrettable speech on October 11th, 1962, the Feast of the Maternity of Mary.  The next thing you know, Newchurch eliminated that Feast Day, perhaps to cover up the context of this infamous diatribe of "good pope John" (he wasn't very "good" just like "good Queen Bess" wasn't really "good" either - she murdered Catholics by the thousands).  

If you are not familiar with that stupid speech, you should read it because it gives us all we need to know about Vat.II before Vat.II had even happened.

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2) "A deal [with Rome] is what we want."

That this opinion flies squarely in the face of Archbishop Lefebvre's prudential precondition for an accord (i.e., the conversion of modernist Rome back to the Catholic faith) is sufficiently demonstrated above (particularly if you click the links and read the entire interviews, which I spared you in this email, as it will be lengthy enough as is).

#1 has already been rebutted.

But what Mr. Johnson confuses here is the desire for an agreement (viz. a principle) and the prudent act of accepting (or not) an agreement. It is obvious that the Society is in an irregular status: owning various properties, sending priests into dioceses without the local ordinary’s approval, the operation of supplied jurisdiction to validate some sacraments etc. Hence a desire for regularisation within the hierarchy must be a principle, but it is prudence that dictates whether any proposal is accepted. "A deal with Rome is what we want” - not at any cost to be sure – but it is what the Society has always wanted in principle, Mr. Johnson simply doesn't understand this.

Mr. Johnson propounds some “super” pre-condition that he (wrongly) attributes to the archbishop. He does not define it in concrete terms; he cannot (for one thing he lacks the competency) we’re just given a fluffy ‘conversion of Rome’. He does not define what a ‘conversion’ is - from what to what - or even the competent authority that will make the judgment. So what we have in reality is not a ‘prudential precondition’ since it undefined and limitless, but a pre-condition which amounts to a principle of no agreement with Rome under any circuмstance; they must join us - just like the Orthodox. This is, essentially, schism. Further, if Rome is not the Catholic Church (as her ‘conversion’ is required) then the refusal of any agreement cannot be a ‘prudential precondition’ since one could never seek an agreement with a false church under any circuмstances, therefore it must be a matter of principle, and yet the Archbishop did make an agreement with this false church.

Mr. Johnson now changes direction and advances the allegation that the Society has changed, but this too is easy to disprove. It has already been shown that the Archbishop was never against a practical accord if the Society could be sufficiently protected:

”I would have indeed signed a definitive accord after signing the protocol if we had had the possibility of protecting ourselves effectively against the modernism of Rome." (Fideliter 68, March 1989)

And this ‘protection’ was always a corner stone of any agreement.  A comment on this very quote before the current round of SSPX/Rome discussion began appeared in the French district monthly publication ‘Notre Dame d’Aquitaine’ (March 2006) which confirms this:

Un accord qui ne suppose aucune concession doctrinale, ni sur la Messe ni sur le Concile, n’est durable qu’avec une véritable protection à Rome et contre les évêques.

Mr. Johnson thinks 2002 to be a good year for Bp. Fellay. Well here is the bishop, or should I say a summary of a conference he gave that year at St Michael's School, England (6 May 2002) and appeared in the SSPX GB District Newsletter (‘Further Negotiations with Rome’, June/July 2002):

His Lordship then summarized the content of his meeting with Cardinal Castrillon on 29 December 2000, during which the Cardinal suggested a personal prelature for the Society (like Opus Dei). Bishop Fellay said that if the Society were to enter into such an arrangement, it would still be obliged to fight against modernism, liberalism and Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ. He also raised the recent treatment of the Society of St Peter as a reason for not trusting the Vatican, and its official policy of not attempting to convert the Old Catholics or the Orthodox.

The Bishop also gave an account of his five-minute meeting with the Pope, in which the latter expressed his happiness about the negotiations.

On his return from Rome, Bishop Fellay called a meeting with all the traditional Catholic bishops (including Bishop Rangel). It was decided that the bishops should request the lifting of the (false) excommunication, and permission for all priests, throughout the world to say the old Mass. This would remove the pretence that the old Mass had been abrogated, make it very difficult (if not impossible) to abrogate it in the future and would cause many graces to flow into the Church because of the increased celebration of the old rite. The answer from Rome to this request was that "Basically, the Pope does agree that the old Mass has never been abrogated and that all priests have the right to say it" but the request was refused because some of the older secretaries (of the Curia) "think that it would be an insult to Pope Paul VI and all the work that has been done for the new liturgy."

In this reply, Rome signaled that it was not prepared to defend the old Mass and so, Bishop Fellay decided to suspend further discussions.
…
Despite the breakdown in the discussions with Cardinal Castrillon, Cardinal Ratzinger has invited Bishop Fellay to doctrinal discussions. Although the Bishop felt that these might be more interesting, there would still be the difficulty of using words like 'truth', 'infallibility' and so on, that have come to mean different things for those in today's Vatican.

So there we have it. Over thirteen years ago the same practical agreement was on the table and Bp. Fellay was considering it and the only sticking point was the refusal of Rome to publically acknowledge that the Tridentine Mass had never been abrogated – he had secured it exclusively for the Society – but he knew that this crisis in the Church is bigger than just the Society; he wanted unrestricted use and access for all clerics and all the faithful. He refused to budge. Bravo Bishop Fellay!

So the same deal was offered in 2002, but where were all the objections then? I dare say a large chuck of those in the Resistance did not attend an SSPX chapel at that time (the editor of ‘The Recusant’ did not), but they believe themselves to be the authority on what the Society and her Superior General wanted and always wanted.

The Society always considered practical agreement put forward by Rome but she could never do this if there existed some super pre-condition; if Rome had agreed to publically state the old Mass had never been abrogated in 2002 there would have likely been an agreement.

This is more than sufficient to rebut Mr. Johnston’s 2nd point.