A Charitable Response to Fr. Simoulin

Greetings Fr. Simoulin-

I was distressed to have come across your article, “Avoiding a False Spirit of Resistance” recently posted on the SSPX.org website, insofar as it reads like a condemnation and indictment of the SSPX mission and apostolate for the last 25+ years.

Several disturbing themes emerge in this reconciliationist apologetic, and I wanted to comment on some of them, in the hopes that perhaps I have misunderstood your arguments, and invite you to respond if such is the case.

First is your suggestion that, if perhaps Rome is ultimately responsible for the wreckage in the Church today, nevertheless this damage is not intentional, and we should not therefore accuse Rome of wanting to destroy the Church. While you and I could cite many of the Fathers of Vatican II in their own words as intending to do precisely that (e.g., “we must raze the bastions;” etc), the issue is essentially moot, insofar as the intention of the Romans is irrelevant to the grave general/public spiritual necessity in which their teachings and acts are placing the faithful. What matters most is not what Rome intends. What matters is what the consequences of their acts are to the integrity of the Faith, and the souls of the faithful. Surely you would not dispute this?

Second is your contention that it is not realistic to wait for Rome’s conversion, as this might not happen for many generations. Forgive me if I observe suggestions of despair, naturalist thinking, and scruples implicit in such a contrived concern. Despair, because to raise timeframes as an issue for regularization seems to imply that justified resistance to Roman (and worldwide) modernism is only legitimate for a certain and unspecified window of time, and you worry that such time is passing; the implicit thought being that a resolution to the “modernism versus Catholicism” conflict must for some unstated reasons transpire within our lifetimes. What is your source for this concern? Where do you find this idea in any of the manuals of moral theology and treatises on the doctrine of necessity? Resistance must persist so long as necessity remains! And from this despair of seeing the resolution to these problems in our lifetimes, you (along with the General Counsel in Menzingen) pass quickly to human prudence and solutions for a practical accord along naturalist lines; you push the pace ahead of providence, which only 2 years ago rebuked the last effort to submit to Rome.

And I mention the issue of scruples, because you seem to fear the development of a schismatic and sedevacantist spirit, should our “recognize and resist” position continue much longer. In discussing this point, you write very much from the perspective of the Ecclesia Dei communities; you use the very arguments they for so many years used against us. But perhaps it is I who should become scrupulous, since if today you are implicitly admitting they were right (i.e., by using their arguments against the position advocated by the SSPX for the last 25 years), it means that yesterday the SSPX was wrong. The inevitable logic of your line of argumentation heavily implies that conclusion. And in that case, the SSPX would be guilty of a monstrous self-serving deception of the faithful. Is that really the argument you want to make?

Thirdly, is the troubling equivocation so prevalent in this article: On the one hand, you assert we cannot go the way of the Ecclesia Dei communities, but on the other hand, you assert that “the only thing we can hope for is the freedom to discuss Vatican II” (i.e., the same deal given to the Institute of the Good Shepherd, which was later predictably revoked). You appear to have embraced the writing style of the modernists (which is not to accuse you of being a modernist), who love to include phrases which appear to hold the line, only to negate them in the next sentence with a contradictory proposition.

How is it that you would go to Rome as a beggar, not a chooser? Surely, your duty to keep the faith (a theological virtue) trumps your duty to obedience (a merely moral virtue) when the two are in (apparent) conflict? What right do you have to beg and negotiate for your duty to remain Catholic? How can you accept to descend from your current freedom to be integrally Catholic, to a degraded position of permission to discuss it?

And of course, from whence arises the bare assertion that a practical accord with anti-Catholic Rome will result in a “new youth for the Church?” What naivety! Do you yourself even believe this, or do you simply recognize in this empty slogan (once again, first tested on the faithful after Vatican II, with the chimerical “new springtime of the Church.”) the slick marketing value and impact you hope it to have on the smells-n-bells masses in the pews?

You state that we must place “tradition back in the hands of the Pope as soon as possible.” That would be nice indeed, but what makes you think he is interested in receiving it? Do you think the man who places a beach ball on the altar (!) has any interest in rolling back the clock; that the man who mocks Rosaries offered for his intentions is anything but hostile to tradition?

“O senseless Galations, who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth?” (Gal 3:1).

You say that for Rome to allow you to discuss Vatican II is already the conversion of Rome? Really? How does it come to pass then, that they allowed the Institute of the Good Shepherd to “constructively criticize” Vatican II before reversing on them, and compelling them to accept it in totality? Which is the same thing as saying that a Rome converted back to tradition is still persecuting tradition, which is absurd! And while the destroyed and fragmented IBP is running from Rome and working to act independent of them once again (but not until having been depleted to 50% strength), you are passing them on the way back into the same trap?

And please excuse a frank observation: If already the SSPX has muzzled itself with regard to Vatican II (via the branding campaign) in anticipation of an accord, how likely is it that you will increase and maintain your opposition to Vatican II post-accord? You appear to have forgotten the lesson of Campos, per the wise observation of Fr. (now Cardinal) Cottier after his conquest: “Reconciliation carries within itself its own internal dynamism (i.e., self-censorship).” And again referencing his trophy in Campos: “Eventually, we must expect other steps…like concelebration.”

You make an attempt to harmonize the General Chapters of 2006 (which said no practical accord before the doctrinal issues are resolved), and 2012 (which lays out in 6 conditions the steps to a practical accord)! This evinces a mind becoming unhitched from reality in pursuit of a desperate goal. That is no ad hominem, Fr. Just an objective observation, which leads into my next observation.

Earlier, I mentioned a hint of scruples implicit in your attempt to craft by human prudence, an accord with a Rome bent on destroying you. You lament an imagined fear that we will lose the desire to return to Rome, and in fact have already lost it. From this, you regret that we have become accustomed to living in an abnormal situation of separation from modernist Rome. And naturally, from this phantom, jump to the conclusion that we risk becoming practical sedevacantists and schismatics if a deal is not struck soon.

But what does not occur to you is that, like you we await the time to place ourselves back under truly Catholic authorities who will not endanger our faith. But unlike you, we recognize that now is not the time; that if the “recognize and resist” position was ever correct, it is correct today, under the worst Pope perhaps in the history of the Church.

But what madness has you lamenting that the “Pope and bishops have no influence on concrete life?” If we have come to the SSPX all these years, it was PRECISELY to shelter ourselves from this damnable influence! And if we do not recognize, therefore, the voice of the Good Shepherd in your advice to follow the “wise and prudent direction of the leaders God has given us” (like Pope Francis or Cardinal Mahoney?) for desiring to bring us into Operation ѕυιcιdє, must we be blamed for desiring to survive with our faith intact?

“Am I then become thine enemy, because I tell thee the truth?” (Gal. 4:16)

In truth, I wish it not.

But if forced to choose, “we must obey God rather than man.” (Acts. 5:29)

With the danger to souls so palpably evident, we cannot follow you down this path you propose, without ourselves incurring culpability.

Therefore, we choose to adhere to the prudential path bequeathed to us by Archbishop Lefebvre until such a time as Rome returns to tradition, when our obedience will be safeguarded by their faith.

In Caritas,

Sean Johnson
St. Paul, MN
4-3-14

 :dancing-banana:Any way others can sign ourselves on to this letter?  I, for one, am willing.

Well done, good and faithful servant!  You have written a beautiful letter, SJ.

Good Job.

I've been staying off the fora for Lent but was told by a friend that your response to Fr. Simoulin was a must read.  Truly, better (and more charitable) words have not been spoken.  Thank you, Sean.

Great letter Sean.  It has been over a month since it was written.  I'm guessing he never replied?

Hi Ekim-

Actually, I only wrote/posted it on April 3, but thus far there has been no response.

I am guessing Fr. Simoulin does not frequent this website, and therefore will likely remain unaware of it.

Here is an article written by Father Simoulin back in 2001 - yes, 2001 - in which we already see him presenting this new orientation of the SSPX.

In the article, he says:

- that there are not 2 churches (the conciliar and the Catholic), but just one that is poisoned by a foreign, non-Catholic spirit (the same assertions that Father Gleize makes in his 2013 article, Can one speak of the 'conciliar Church'?

-Rome is changing. There are only a few real heretics and secret enemies there. The majority want to work for the Catholic Church.

- if we are offered a no-strings-attached agreement from Rome which will allow us to work within the Church, are we obliged to refuse it because we think that they are all villains?

- do we have the right to wait for a doctrinal conversion first?


ARTICLE

In this crisis of the Church,
 let us remain truly ROMAN Catholics

By Father Michel Simoulin, District Superior of the Society of Saint Pius X for Italy.

In spite of the failure of the discussions with Rome, the ideas expressed here by Father Simoulin remain true, because they stay on the level of principles and of immutable truth, which we always must keep in mind, whatever happens.


 
First and foremost, expressions such as “We can’t expect anything from Rome” or “Rome is returning to Tradition” having to be avoided, and everyone being always ready to honestly correct that which he believes to be true, these considerations are given here to help us not to lose our correct thinking on the Church and our love for Rome, and with the grace of God, to maybe enlighten some of our colleagues on the subject.

 Indeed, for years now we have become accustomed to speak of the eternal Rome and the modernist Rome, the Catholic Church and the conciliar Church, the Catholic religion and the religion of Assisi, etc… two Romes, two churches, two religions which oppose and confront one another, having apparently nothing in common.

These comparisons are excellent. They strongly depict the drama existing in the Church for the past forty years. They are indicative and accurate, but within the limitations of an analogy. If one accentuates the strict sense of the terms, they may become a source of terrible confusion and may breed a manicheism (or over-simplification) in which the understanding of the Church, faith in the divinity and a simple sense of the supernatural would be the first victims.

Certainly it is evident that neither Rome nor the Church are made up of material substances or of henchmen, but they are societies, moral entities in which the unity consists of a unity in faith, in hope, and in charity, with a common intention and a will committed to the same goal: the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation of souls, for the glory of God.

Thus, we cannot consider here two entities which are perfectly distinct, unconformable and identifiable, but rather a single moral existence, the sole authentic Catholic Church, but poisoned by a foreign spirit which tends to corrupt and destroy it.

In fact, neither modernist Rome nor the conciliar Church exists distinctly and separately from eternal Rome and the Catholic Church. They cannot, just as the evil cannot exist without leaving its grip on the good which it would like to destroy, and it cannot destroy it without destroying itself.

In reality, what is the conciliar Church? It is precisely the disfigurement of the Catholic Church by the Council and by that which is foreign to its spirit from the interpretation of the Council. Under that which we call the conciliar Church, there still lives the Catholic Church, our mother, buried, sleeping and more or less reduced to silence.

But it remains clear – for those who keep the faith in the divinity of the Church, the Mystical Body and the Spouse of Jesus Christ – that this “non-Catholic way of thinking” of which Paul VI spoke, will always be powerless to take possession of the soul of the Church, of its thinking and of its heart, and “will never represent the thinking of the Church”. The spirit of the Council can only take over its members and its mouth, to make them profess that which she can neither think nor believe: It can penetrate to its very soul, as St. Pius X said, but it cannot and will never be able to totally gain control over it. To not believe this is to doubt the promises made by Our Lord to His Church. The Catholic Church is submerged into the spirit of the world, she lives her “Exinanivit” – abasement ‑ in the fidelity of her spouse  but this does not signify that she is devoid of a wounded body which continues to be her own.

The Catholic Church is at Écône, it is true. But who, without falling into a sectarian way of thinking, would dare to say that She is only at Écône? She is also at Rome, She is primarily at Rome with the Catholic Rome.

The conciliar Church is at Rome, it is true. But it is also all over the world where the spirit of the council has been able to penetrate the Church and to dominate it.

But one cannot find the conciliar Church without finding, buried underneath, that which is at one and the same time its support and its victim – the Catholic Church.

It happens sometimes that Jesus Christ permits His Church to be victorious and to make His voice be clearly heard (on the subject of women priests, natural morality…). Alas, it happens that the conciliar Church makes itself heard even more strongly, on grand occasions (Assisi, the asking for pardon, ecuмenical or inter-religious ceremonies…). But most often, the daily bread that the Church distributes is in a dosage which is a changing mixture of one voice and then the other, insipid and insignificant, sentimental and philanthropical, with vigor neither for the good nor for the bad, neither for the true nor for the false. It is our disfigured Church, too human, too worldly, not definitely Catholic and anti-modernist, nor definitely modernist and anti-Catholic.

All of this does not hinder, in spite of the general orientation given to the Church through its conciliar prelates, that the Church could become stronger, and that something good could come to the Church through the conciliar Church, without it being conscious of it and contrary to its will. It is this alone which explains why the Archbishop never hesitated to go to Rome, or to ask modernist Rome to allow Tradition, or to ask for the recognition of the Society and for the permission to consecrate bishops, etc… because he believed that the Church still resides at Rome and that She can use conciliar members to accomplish good.

Furthermore, we should not forget that the Church is not something purely spiritual. She is an incarnate reality. She has need of a juridical constitution, more or less developed, to incarnate Herself and to incarnate Jesus Christ. She has need of institutions and of men to render Her spiritual and divine reality visible, efficacious and accessible. It is precisely here, it is in this human dimension alone that the spirit of the Council can intervene and dominate to produce this conciliar Church, contrary to the Catholic spirit. But the perpetrators and the authorities who use the spirit of the Council to make the Catholic Church become the conciliar Church are coming from the Catholic Church. It is a mystery of the divine permissions, symbolized by the parable of the good seed and the bad seed: two spirits, two religions, two churches… inextricably tangled in the unique entity which is the Catholic Church, my Mother without which I cannot live and for which I would gladly suffer and endure that which She suffers and endures.

This being so, if we consider these same relations in their incarnation, what we are dealing with are human beings, people with flesh and blood, endowed with an intelligence and a will, with sentiments and passions, with emotions, qualities and faults, with sins and virtues, capable of the worst treasons but always accessible to grace.

The realities of the Church are not mere abstractions on which one can speculate at one’s ease. To say that two churches, two Romes, two religions present themselves is true, but what does such a statement concretely signify? It can mean nothing more than the fact that the Church is penetrated with a spirit which is not Catholic and which seeks to dominate it so as to destroy it more easily. To give it more signification than this would be to succuмb into the temptation of that subtle and simplifying manicheism that wishes all the pure and good to be on the right, and all the impure and bad on the left [/b](without a political connotation!). These realities are more subtle and less simple, and therefore, it is true, they are less easily grasped.

Encountering a Pope, a cardinal, a bishop, a priest, a layman, a being with flesh and blood, who would be able to tell me in all truthfulness that this or that one is absolutely conciliar to the point of no longer being Catholic; or that he is absolutely Catholic with nothing at all conciliar? Where precisely do we find the boundary line separating the two spirits, the two churches, the two Romes? From what point does one become completely conciliar or not at all?

Perhaps it is easy to answer this with sufficient probability for a certain few: on the one hand the true conciliars, doctors in heresy, conscious voluntary destroyers of the Church… and on the other hand the obvious Saints. But we must admit that these two categories have always been few in number in the Church. Only God knows the secrets of our hearts. He alone knows if the numbers are greater than we are aware of.

The majority, however, are somewhere between the two. It is this grand mass of humanity - “wavering”, of which I no doubt belong, who would like to choose, who choose sometimes, who walk from one side to the other, uncertain of themselves and of God, and are forever looking for that impossible third path where they can love God with all their heart without ceasing to love themselves a little… at times more Catholic and at times more conciliar, depending on the circuмstances. It is the Church in all Her human misery, the true miracle of the grace of Jesus Christ, and continues to be the only way of salvation and sanctity.

But the conciliar Church, as such, in actuality is nothing but a very few ideologists, formal heretics, those who have formally rejected the Catholic Church. Who are they? That is God’s secret.

I wish to add, it seems to me that we are no longer in 1970, nor even in 1988. I strongly agree with Bishop Williamson that we must not belong to the seventy-ism or the eighty-eight-ism! On the one hand, although we no longer have the Archbishop with us, with all his sanctity, his wisdom, his experience with Rome and his profound understanding of the Church, we have all that is necessary to continue and we are also more numerous, stronger, and more united (at least, I hope so). Our General Chapters and meetings with the Superiors have manifested this vigor and this unity. Recently, our pilgrimage to Rome was made with splendor, giving back to our priests and to the privileged faithful an appreciation and a love for eternal Rome.

Moreover, it appears to me that the Council’s “triumphant” hour of the 70’s is past. We are in the hour of the “tottering” Council, as the Holy Father incarnates it. The “doctors” of the Council are passing away. Aside from this, the Pope himself and his loyal Ratzinger treat of us today with the disciples of the Council, those who have received nothing else but the Council. They have been nourished with that; some are more faithful to it than others, either from conviction, from obedience, for interest, or simply naïve followers, because they don’t know anything else. At any rate, they are more open-minded to other opinions, if only out of curiosity. They no longer say “obey”, and they willingly listen to a Catholic sermon. Obviously, they don’t understand, but they no longer have a hostile prejudice. At Rome, even if nothing is officially changed on the procedure to follow and it is staunchly adhered to by the Council’s ideologists, they still feel less enthusiasm for the conciliar ideals, repeated as in a well-learned lesson, but with perhaps less illusion than before. We have not yet arrived at a nullifying of the Council, but it is said that a flaw will soon be brought in which will permit the seed of this nullification to be introduced. In short, little by little Rome is losing its last “living relics” of the Council. There remain a few profiteers of different sorts, the real heretics, the secret enemies, and then there are the majority of the Council’s disciples, some more convinced than others, who have the desire and the enthusiasm to work for the Catholic Church.

In a word, everyone notices, and it is even seen in the congregational committees at Rome, that the young clergy are more desirous than their predecessors for a priestly life modeled after the sublime Heart of Our Lord.

Therefore, must we or must we not accept an agreement with Rome?

I’ve been told that our “excommunication” with the conciliar Church is the best guarantee of Catholicity that we could give to the faithful. This is true, and it is why in 1988 we asked to participate in the “excommunication” of our bishops. That being so, thirteen years later, must we persist in demanding this appellation? Our faithful know what it signifies, and I hope that they have the formation to conserve its signification in spite of its possible disappearance. I dare to hope that for them, the principle is more important than the name. As for the other faithful, those who are frightened by this appellation, it seems to me that they do not make the distinction between the Catholic Church and the conciliar Church. For them, we are excommunicated, and that is enough to frighten them. The withdrawal of this appellation, without basically changing anything, will bring them liberty.

What is more important, if tomorrow the conciliar Church, out of scorn or even with hidden motives, yet through Providence, gives us the means, without us having to deny anything, change anything or promise anything – other than to serve the Church and the truth – if it gives us the means to serve the Catholic Church buried beneath it, to help it to reawaken itself with all its supernatural strength (Mass, sacraments, doctrine, morals, discipline) and to rid itself little by little of the spirit of the Council, would we truly be obliged to refuse contact with them, or refuse to consider a reconciliation of our situation, under the pretext that they all are villains? Would the Catholic Church at this point be deprived of divine assistance to no longer have the strength to help members of the conciliar Church, who are also Her own, to remove their enemies and to distinguish themselves to the world with all their renewed vigor? Mustn’t we help them if we are given the possibility?

It is certainly true that we already work for the Catholic Church. We have safeguarded all so as to serve Her in all that we have received from Her, in all Her most beautiful treasures. But why have we safeguarded them? For us? No, for Her. And we must realize that all the limitations that the conciliar Church has placed upon us create real obstacles to our zeal for the Church. If we procure that modernist Rome retract these obstacles to our efforts, without us having to change anything, would we refuse to consider this possibility of a more generous and greater service to the eternal Rome? If, for example, modernist Rome grants to us a canonical recognition, this would clearly be for us the means for working to reestablish doctrine within the Church in the fullness of Catholic truth. Will this be done without us? God could certainly do it, considering so many prayers, sacrifices and lives offered for the Church during so many years. But this would be a miracle on the moral level, and we cannot count on that. Most often God uses secondary instruments to accomplish His designs. Wouldn’t we like to be numbered among those ministering to the most noble of causes, thus adding our part to the work of grace in the Church and in souls?

 I have also heard: Let Rome convert, and then we shall see. My answer is the same: It is not Catholic to assure ourselves of a miracle. Rome will not convert if no one labors for it, if no one is acknowledged as a valid negotiator in a legitimate theological debate, to bring the truth back to its throne. Furthermore, there are many ways that lead to conversion. “There are some souls who go from light to love, and others who go from love to light” as the holy priest Father Berto penned so beautifully. Some are converted by using their intellect: Hungry for truth, they wish to acquire it to render it homage by making all their life depend on it, and afterwards their knowledge turns into love, because the light that is in them seeks to diffuse itself to others and thus make them love. But there are others who begin with love and desire to give, but to give more than themselves because they know their limitations and cannot be satisfied with giving less than the infinite. Therefore they make themselves avid searchers of truth to be able to give God, thus placating their love and satisfying the hunger of those whom they love, for the Spirit of Truth. The writings of the Doctors of the Church, of the great mystics, from St. Thomas to St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, passing through St. John of the Cross, all agree on this. Have we the right to wait for a doctrinal conversion without trying to lead them to the light, through the heart or through the intellect? "

Albano, February 16, 2001.
Father Michel Simoulin

 

Here is an article written by Father Simoulin back in 2001 - yes, 2001 - in which we already see him presenting this new orientation of the SSPX.

2001?

How about 1988 and an open letter sent to Cardinal Gantin by the SSPX superior general, distict superiors ans seminary rectors shortly after the Episcopal Consecrations:

"... we have never wished to belong to this system which calls itself the Conciliar Church, and defines itself with the Novus Ordo Missæ, an ecuмenism which leads to indifferentism and the laicization of all society. ... We ask for nothing better than to be declared out of communion with this adulterous spirit which has been blowing in the Church for the last 25 years; we ask for nothing better than to be declared outside of this impious communion of the ungodly. We believe in the One God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and we will always remain faithful to His unique Spouse, the One Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church..."

Or how about 1979 and Archbishop Lefebvre's examination before the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith:

CDF: Are we to conclude from those statements that according to you, the Pope, promulgating and imposing the new Ordo Missae, and all the bishops who have received it, have founded and assembled visibly around them a new "Conciliar" Church radically incompatible with the Catholic Church?

ABL: I remark, first of all, that the expression "Conciliar Church" comes not from me but from H.E. Mgr. Benelli who, in an official letter, asked that our priests and seminarians should submit themselves to the "Conciliar Church."

I consider that a spirit tending to Modernism and Protestantism shows itself in the conception of the new Mass and in all the Liturgical Reform as well. Protestants themselves say that it is so, and Mgr. Bugnini himself admits it implicitly when he states that this Liturgical Reform was conceived in an ecuмenical spirit. (I could prepare a study showing how that Protestant spirit exists in the Ordo Missae.)

The SSPX's position seems very consistant to me.