Bishop Fellay, "The Situation in Campos" - http://www.sspx.org/discussions/rome_sspx_...s_continued.htm


There are two reproaches we make against Campos.

The first is that they did not request any preliminaries from Rome as the Society did. That first step was necessary. Before you build the span of a bridge you must build solid footings on the banks to support it. Campos dismissed this step because they were in a hurry to have the thing. Now it has its beautiful car, and the nails are on the road.

The second reproach is the affair of the second Assisi Prayer Meeting [Jan. 24, 2002]. This affair of Assisi is such a scandal that it requires anybody who cares about the salvation of souls to stand up and say, "No way." Bishop Rangel did not stand up. The priests of St. John Baptist Mary Vianney did not stand up; they did not make any statement about Assisi. [JL: Neither did Bishop Fellay, about Assisi III. Fr. de Cacquerey managed to get Bishop fellay to approve his denunciation of Assisi III.]

Do you know what happened there? The different groups were asked, "What kind of room do you want?" So, for example, the Zoroastrians said, "We need a window because we are going to make a fire." So they got their room with a window. The Moslems wanted a room facing Mecca. They got it. The Jєωs said, "We want a room that has never been blessed." This is a direct denial of Christ because anything which is blessed is always blessed in the name of Christ. To say, "We want a room that has never been blessed," means, "We want something which has nothing to do with Christ!" What did Rome do? I don’t know, but they got their room.


All the crucifixes were removed from the monastery! And the crucifixes which they were not able to remove they covered. This was exactly the meaning of some drawings circulating in 1986 about the first Assisi Meeting where the pope is shown saying to Christ, "Go away. We have no place for you here". In order to have this meeting of other religions, Rome was obliged to remove Christ. It is horrible. It is really the abomination. They removed the Essential —the true God, the only Mediator, the only One through whom we can get anything good! They removed Him! And when you think that the animists at Assisi took a hen and they cut off the head of the hen —that is the way you can get peace? Oh, please! Unbelievable, the stories. It is absolutely ridiculous, but it is not only ridiculous; it is really a sacrilege, a blasphemy. The Society is definitely against it. From Campos, nothing! At the first Assisi Meeting, Bishop de Castro Mayer co-signed a letter with Archbishop Lefebvre against the meeting. They were together. They manifested this opposition. Now, the Society is alone. Campos doesn’t say anything anymore. Psychologically speaking, it’s perfectly understandable. You cannot smash the hand which has given you such a beautiful car, can you?

What kind of Rome do we have when it can sign an agreement with Campos and in the same week can do something like Assisi II? They definitely will not say "We recognize Tradition" in any universal sense. But Campos is contented because Rome has recognized Tradition in Campos. But has it, really? If Rome truly recognized Tradition anywhere it wouldn’t be able to have an Assisi II, the very contrary of Tradition. It is impossible to see in the recognition of Campos a recognition of Tradition.

On the contrary, Assisi II was extended to include Tradition! Rome is saying: "We have a place for the Zoroastrians, for Jєωs, for Moslems, for animists, Buddhists, Hindus, ...and we have a place for you!" That’s it. Rome has a place in the zoo for Tradition.

But that’s not the position of the Society of St. Pius X. Our position is that there is only one truth, the eternal truth. This truth is exclusive. Truth will not allow its contradiction to be made equal to it. In mathematics, it’s clear. Any student who would say, "Two plus two equals five," would fail, but ecuмenism says, "It is whatever figure you like." We say, "No, it is four, period." Only one number is the true one. We say all the other religions are wrong, only one is true. This truth is exclusive. It is the only one by which we can be saved. All the others are just cheating the people. They cannot lead to God. And, I may say, just looking at Assisi II helps us to see the enormous problem in the Church today. The Society is not the problem; the problem is in Rome.

Rome is not to be considered more traditional just because they made this move towards us. Events of last year prove otherwise.

....


[JL: Suddenly, Rome is to be considered more traditional because it has made further moves towards the Fraternity? Events of last year don't prove otherwise?]




Bishop Fellay, "Rome, the SSPX, Campos, Assisi, etc." http://www.sspx.org/discussions/rome_sspx_campos.htm

So now, let’s go to the facts. Let’s see if Rome has really changed its attitude towards Tradition. I would like to flash some light on different aspects of the situation. I could do this by reviewing chronologically the events of the Society’s recent relations with Rome while also including the Fraternity of St. Peter and even Una Voce. In fact, while Rome was making this new approach towards us, they engaged in very interesting behavior towards the Fraternity of St. Peter and Una Voce. Divine Providence was good enough to give us the necessary information to know what was happening within them so that the Society of St. Pius X could position itself correctly in its negotiations with Rome. [JL: Apparently, we are now deaf to the voice of divine providence telling us about what is happening within the Institute of the Good Shepherd.]

Finally, I will speak of Campos because I imagine some are asking the questions, "If Rome is granting Campos something so attractive, why not to the Society of St. Pius X?" or, "Why doesn’t the Society make the same move?" I hope the facts I will give you will provide the answers.
Ecclesia Dei and the Fraternity of St. Peter ...It is apparent that Msgr. Perl’s intention is to oblige Ecclesia Dei to have an Old Mass which looks as much as possible like the New Mass.

In 1999, an interesting thing happened within the Fraternity of St. Peter. Sixteen priests signed a letter which they sent to Rome, accusing the Superior General of St. Peter’s of making it a Lefebvrist society. At the same time, some bishops complained to Rome that a certain number of priests of St. Peter refused to concelebrate in the new rite, or, when members did accept to concelebrate, the Superior General scolded and punished them. Rome moved against St. Peter’s and the other Ecclesia Dei societies with Protocol 1411 (July 3, 1999) [see The Angelus, Nov. 1999 —Ed.], which stated that the general law in the Church is the New Mass, and as such every Catholic priest has a strict right to make use of the general law. Conclusion? Any superior in an Ecclesia Dei society is forbidden to prohibit their priests from celebrating the New Mass. It was a knock-out blow in the sense that these societies did believe, as much as I can make of it, that they had an exclusive right to celebrate only the Tridentine Mass. We have to give credit to Fr. Bisig [Superior General of the Fraternity of St. Peter at the time —Ed.] that he had fought all these years to celebrate only the Tridentine Mass. When Fr. Bisig heard that decree, he went to Rome to appeal the Protocol with a fellow superior of an Ecclesia Dei society. They met with Cardinal Medina who told them, "I am your best friend." This was the cardinal who issued that decree! The following day they met with Cardinals Medina, Ratzinger, Felici and Msgr. Perl. They protested the Protocol. They begged to have it remain unpublished. Msgr. Perl replied that he did not see anywhere in the Fraternity’s statutes an exclusive right to the Tridentine Mass.

It’s terrible what I say now, but it is an example of how Rome is arbitrary. They know where they want to go, and they just go! They are above the law. There have been several examples of this. In 2000, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos intervened in the Society of St. Peter by removing Fr. Bisig as Superior General. The majority of the chapter made recourse against this decision of the Cardinal. Now, when you make a recourse, it is to a higher authority from whom you seek justice. In this case, however, the appeal was returned to Cardinal Castrillón. They were obliged to make the recourse to the same person who made the decision! Of course, it was a done deal!

It was also during this time that the Ecclesia Dei Commission —and especially Msgr. Perl —wanted to introduce the 1965 rubrics of the Mass to its societies. It is apparent that Msgr. Perl’s intention is to oblige Ecclesia Dei to have an Old Mass which looks as much as possible like the New Mass. This means to suppress, for example, the prayers at the foot of the altar, having lessons only in the vernacular, etc. There was even a rumor about introducing the new calendar.

In September of the same year, Michael Davies, representing Una Voce, and Cardinal Castrillón spoke about these matters. In an exchange of letters between them in October, you see affirmed by the cardinal an absolute power of decision without reference to any right or custom. Nothing! They just decide. In one letter he obliges all Ecclesia Dei priests to give Communion in the hand to faithful who request it. They base their argument on the fact that in the Roman Missal of 1962 nothing definitive is said about the faithful necessarily receiving Communion on the tongue. We could argue, of course, that in 1962 the 1917 Code of Canon Law then in effect clearly expressed how to receive Communion. But they just don’t care: they just go to their point.

In this letter to Mr. Davies was included a reminder that the first condition for an Ecclesia Dei community to be granted the Indult Mass is to have nothing to do with those who question the legitimacy of the New Mass. Well, that’s the Society of St. Pius X! Yet, barely a month later Cardinal Castrillón sent me an invitation to visit him in order to prepare a visit to the Pope!







Letter to the Friends and Benefactors

No. 62 - June 2002

The Most Reverend Bernard Fellay
Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Catholic Tradition, in its relations with the Vatican, has truly lived through a number of important events over the last two years.

Since Rome first approached us at the end of the year 2000, it seems to us that the time has now come to take stock, and to reply to a number of objections or questions which the whole issue raises. However, we would also like to mention that if we go into these questions, they are not our main pre-occupation. Celebrating the Holy Mysteries, imparting grace in abundance to your souls, being the instrument of numerous and always very touching conversions, is at the heart of our lives, and these are facts which show us to be truly Catholic, whereas all the discussions and disagreements with the Vatican are merely the expression of our will to remain Catholic.

Recently, an important group of seminarians from Bombay joined us. For their seven years at the Seminary, the existence of the Devil was denied and the word "hell" never once fell upon their ears, any more than the words "Sacrifice of the Mass." Their coming over to us brought down on our heads the wrath of the Cardinal of Bombay, of course. In the US, several priests are either joining us or drawing closer. One of them said to me, "I did everything I could not to finish up with you." That is eloquent testimony: after exhausting all of today’s alternatives, from their own diocese through the Indult Mass to the various Ecclesia Dei congregations, these priests and seminarians have come to the conclusion, despite their disinclination and their initial fear of being connected with Traditionalists still being branded as schismatic, that to lead a fully Christian life we are the only way to go.

What confusing times! Good is condemned, evil is all too often blessed. That is the experience of numbers of priests today who simply wish to remain Catholic. What tribulations! Like the two seminarians rebuked by their Rector for being caught red-handed praying the Rosary! But when they were caught attending the Indult Mass, then they were hauled before the Cardinal in person... We would like to hear of at least comparable reprimands being handed out for all kinds of real misbehavior,

Yet while a number of priests draw closer to us, Campos is going back to Rome. We think that the decisive argument for Rome to win them over was the promise of a bishop alongside Bishop Rangel, now gravely ill. They wrote to me that they considered that they could not refuse the Holy Father’s wish to give them a bishop, because "that would be schismatic." By way of a bishop, all they have is a promise: "I shall give you a successor." Of course, nobody dares doubt such a promise, but the whole question turns on the identity of this successor: who will he be? Where will he be chosen from? One may well think that Rome will seek to ensure the future bishop’s faithfulness to Vatican II, because some of the Romans still have reservations as to the "orthodoxy" of Campos’s doctrinal stance. Suspicion reigns in Rome.

Campos had also been promised freedom to operate throughout Brazil, but when local bishops opposed the idea, then the freedom of action of the Administration granted by Rome shrank back to the limits of the diocese of Campos, period.

What will Campos do? While Campos sets out on its hazardous enterprise armed with ambiguous statements, we see something of great interest happening: at the very same moment, several Catholic communities in Brazil of men and women in no way connected with the priests of Campos have contacted the Society of Saint Plus X and wish... to join Tradition! And to send their future seminarians to the Society’s South American seminary. In fact, a significant number of faithful scattered all over the huge area of Brazil are beginning to react, and are asking for our help, not for the help of Campos. What a surprise development! It is as though suddenly Brazil was opening up to the Society’s apostolate. All we need are workers, meaning priests, and more priests...

Meanwhile, having succeeded in drawing Campos away from the Society and, little by little, from its doctrinal positions, Cardinal Castrillón sent us on April 5 of this year a written reply to our letter of June 22, 2001. In it he proposed to re-start the "dialogue." Before saying a word about it, let me recall the previous exchanges:

When Rome began by offering to the Society a juridical structure with official recognition, then, while expressing our readiness to open discussions, we emphasized the need to rebuild trust.

For indeed, tens of years of oppression, marginalization, threats, condemnations, and veritable persecution because of our remaining attached to the Catholic Church’s Tradition would not vanish all on their own. So we required by way of pre-condition for discussions a concrete gesture on the part of the Roman authorities: the recognition that the Tridentine rite of Mass was not abrogated, and that the Declaration "excommunicating" any members of the Society was null.

Cardinal Castrillón began by telling us that the Tridentine rite of Mass was liberated in principle, but not in practice. Later he told us it was liberated neither in principle nor in practice, because any such liberation would be to the detriment of the Novus Ordo. As for the nullification of the "excommunication," that was promised us as soon as there would be an agreement.

Following on this double refusal, further reinforcing the climate of distrust, the Cardinal wrote a letter on May 7, 2001, which I answered by saying that it was setting up a dialogue of the deaf and going nowhere.

To help things forward, I then proposed a different approach to the whole question. In brief, we laid out that our whole disagreement with today’s Rome was being caused by no culpable ill will on our part, but by a terrible crisis shaking the Church for the last 40 years, as clearly signaled by the Second Vatican Council and the post­Conciliar reforms; we mentioned some facts to show the reality and gravity of this crisis.

Now comes the Cardinal in his letter of April 5, one month ago, with a fivefold rebuke. Firstly, we are judging the Pope and the Holy See; secondly, we are stating that the Church has lost the Faith; thirdly, we are denying the Pope’s rights over the Church’s universal liturgy because we are stating that the Novus Ordo Mass is bad; fourthly, we no longer believe in the true concept of Tradition; and fifthly, we are incapable of grasping the continuity of the Church’s past and present, in particular that of Vatican II and the liturgical reform.

Obviously, these points require an answer.

But at the same time this letter clearly illustrates that the dialogue of the deaf is not over: how little this Rome understands our position! We might have been willing to go into these various points had the letter not been accompanied by maneuvers making us recall Archbishop Lefebvre’s words just before the Episcopal consecrations of June, 1988, when he said: "The moment for a free and open collaboration between the Society and Rome has not yet come," words as relevant as ever. The maneuvers were twofold:

On the one hand, the Cardinal stated in his letter that, given the gravity of the matter in hand, he had always abstained from giving public interviews; yet only a few days later in an interview given to the prominent Italian newspaper La Stampa, he declared that the Society was divided into two groups: "a large majority ardently desiring reconciliation with Rome to relieve its conscience (Letter of April 5), and a little group of fanatics wanting nothing to do with Rome." (Yet in his letter, the Cardinal expressed his desire not to divide the Society).

[JL: And now he has succeeded, a situation Bishop Fellay regards with a newfound equanimity.]

On the other hand, a few days after sending me the April 5 letter in strict privacy (double envelope, "personal," "confidential"), he faxed the same letter to three other members of the Society! There is no need to go looking for what he was up to, the facts speak for themselves; there is a real attempt here to divide us, which tells us clearly what we must do: keep our distance.

In such circuмstances, to begin discussions with Rome is not reasonable. It is imprudent, impossible. Truly, these Romans have no idea what we are about.

For us, it is truly scandalous acts, deeds and statements that have forced us to refuse all novelties and to redouble our attachment to the centuries-old teaching and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church, our Mother. So here is the answer to the Cardinal’s fivefold rebuke of April 5:

Firstly, we are not setting ourselves up as judges of the Holy See by merely laying out the facts, such as the Pope’s visiting the ѕуηαgσgυє or the mosque, kissing the Koran, pouring out libations in the Togo forest, receiving the tilac in India, gestures profoundly upsetting Catholics in their Faith. The same is true of numerous other statements and docuмents. If to mention such facts is to set oneself up as judge, then one must even slop thinking!

Then as to the liturgical reform of 1969, some Cardinals at the time went so far as to say that "it departed significantly from Catholic theology, both as a whole and in detail" (Ottaviani Intervention). And even recently Cardinal Ratzinger took it upon himself to say that this extension of papal power in the domain of the liturgy gave the impression that the Pope, basically, was omnipotent over the liturgy, especially if he was acting based on a mandate from an Ecuмenical Council. The results of this impression were particularly visible after Vatican II. That the liturgy is in fact something given and not a reality to be manipulated at will, had completely disappeared from the consciousness of Western Catholics. Yet Vatican I in 1870 had defined the Pope to be, not an absolute monarch, but the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The legitimacy of his power was bound up above all with his transmitting of the Faith. This fidelity to the deposit of the Faith and to its transmission concerns in a quite special way the liturgy. No authority can "fabricate" a liturgy. The Pope himself is only the humble servant of its homogenous development, its integrity, and the permanence of its identity. ("Spirit of the Liturgy," Ad Solem, 2001, p.134)

Then as far as the continuity of modern doctrines with the past is concerned, here is what persons "above all suspicion" say concerning religious liberty, key text of Vatican II: "It cannot be denied that a text like Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty says, at least as far as the words go, something quite different from the Syllabus of 1864, in fact just about the opposite of sentences 15, 77 and 79 of the Syllabus" (Fr. Yves Congar, The Crisis in the Church and Archbishop Lefebvre [Cerf, 1976], p.51).

Then as to the definition of the Church in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium, again Cardinal Ratzinger says, "One cannot, when all is said and done, fully resolve from a logical point of view the difference between subsistit in and est" ("Ecclesiology of the Conciliar Constitution Lumen Gentium," in Docuмentation Catholique, No. 2223, p.311).

Then on the concept of tradition in Vatican II’s Dei Verbum, again Cardinal Ratzinger writes:

Vatican II’s refusal of the proposal to adopt the text of Lerins, familiar to, and, as it were, sanctified by two Church Councils, shows once more how Trent and Vatican I were left behind, how their texts were continually reinterpreted....Vatican II had a new idea of how historical identity and continuity are to be brought about. The static semper of Vincent of Lerins no longer seems to Vatican II adequate to express the problem. (L.Th.K., Vol. 13, p.521)

Then on the Council’s key text Gaudium et Spes, Cardinal Ratzinger describes it as a Counter-Syllabus, in other words the opposite of the Catholic Church’s authoritative Syllabus of 1864. The Cardinal writes (Principles of Catholic Theology [Téqui, 1982], p.42ó),

If we seek an over-all analysis of Gaudium et Spes, we could say that it is (linked with the texts on religious liberty and on world religions), a revision of Pius IX’s Syllabus, a sort of Counter-Syllabus... Let us recognize here and now that Gaudium et Spes plays the part of a Counter-Syllabus insofar as it represents an attempt to officially reconcile the Church with the modern world as emerging since the French Revolution of 1789.

Thus far Cardinal Ratzinger. For our part, we believe in the homogeneous development of doctrine, as the Church has always taught. But the Catholic Faith, which does not do away with the law of non-contradiction, obliges us also to reject any heterogeneous development of doctrine.

In conclusion, we see how far Cardinal Castrillón has gone wrong... All of us desire the Church’s unity, a unity grounded in the Faith, carried out around Peter confirming his fellow bishops in that Faith, and consummated in the union of Catholics in the Eucharist. To preserve that unity, all of us, to obey our Catholic conscience, have had to avoid driving onto the broad and easy highway proposed by the Conciliar reforms. It is to ease our conscience that we are where we are, and our conscience would be in no way eased if we were to suddenly set out on a path which, precisely in order to stay Catholic, we have refused for 30 years.

In the name of the Faith of our baptism, in the name of our baptismal pledges to which we promised to remain faithful, we say "No" to anything that does not ensure our salvation. Such is our right. Such is our duty. May the Sacred Heart fill you with His burning charity, with an unfailing love for the Church and for its hierarchy however much they are presently making us suffer, with a love for souls, souls to be saved at the price of our uniting with Our Lord’s Sacrifice, the Holy Mass that will make us ever stronger in the Faith and in Our Lord’s love, bringing about reparation and satisfaction. All for Jesus, all for Mary, all for souls.

+ Bernard Fellay
Feast of the Sacred Heart
Menzingen, June 7, 2002

A LETTER TO POPE JOHN PAUL II
From Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer
Originally published in the January 1986 issue of The Angelus magazine

Econe
August 31, 1985

During the fifteen days preceding the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Your Holiness has decided to gather together an Extraordinary Synod in Rome, with the purpose of making the Second Vatican Council, which closed twenty years ago, “an ever more living reality.”

On the occasion of this event, allow us, who took an active part in the Council, to make known to you with all due respect our apprehensions and our desires, for the good of the Church, and for the salvation of the souls entrusted to us.

These twenty years, as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith himself says, have provided sufficient illustration of a situation resulting in a real self-destruction of the Church, except in those areas where the millennial Tradition of the Church has been maintained.

The change wrought within the Church in the nineteen-sixties was given concrete form and expression in the Council by the Declaration on Religious Liberty, which granted man the natural right to be exempt from any restraint imposed on him by divine law to adhere to the Catholic Faith in order to be saved, a restraint necessarily embodied in ecclesiastical and civil laws in subordination to the legislative authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

This freedom from any restraint by divine law or human laws in the matter of religion is inscribed among the freedoms proclaimed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, an impious and sacrilegious declaration condemned by the popes and in particular by Pope Pius VI in his encyclical Adeo nota of April 23, 1791, and in his Consistory Allocution of June 17, 1793.

From this Declaration on Religious Liberty the following consequences flow, as from a poisoned spring:

Religious indifferentism of states, even Catholic states, carried out over twenty years, at the instigation of the Holy See.
The ecuмenism pursued unceasingly by yourself and by the Vatican, an ecuмenism condemned by the Church’s Magisterium, and in particular by the Encyclical Mortalium Animos of Pius XI.

All the reforms carried out over twenty years within the Church to please heretics, schismatics, false religions and declared enemies of the Church, such as the Jєωs, the Communists and the Freemasons.

This freedom from the restraint of divine law in the matter of religion obviously encourages freedom from restraint in all divine and human laws, and destroys all authority in all areas, especially in the area of morals.

We have never ceased protesting, both during the Council and after the Council, at the incredible scandal of this false religious liberty. We have protested in speech and in writing, in private and in public, resting our protest upon the most solemn docuмents of the Magisterium: among others, the Athanasian Creed, the Fourth Lateran Council, the Syllabus (No. 15), the First Vatican Council (DS 2008), and the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas concerning the Catholic Faith (IIa IIae, Questions 8 to 16), a doctrine which has been that of the Church for almost twenty centuries, confirmed by Canon Law and its applications.

That is why, if the coming Synod does not return to the traditional Magisterium of the Church, in the question of religious liberty, but instead confirms this serious error from which heresies flow, we shall be forced to think that the members of the Synod no longer profess the Catholic Faith.

For their actions are contrary to the immutable principles of the First Vatican Council, which stated in the fourth Chapter of the Fourth Session:

For the Holy Ghost was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard the revelation transmitted through the Apostles, or the Deposit of Faith, and might faithfully expound it.

This being so, we can only persevere in the Church’s holy Tradition and take whatever decisions are necessary for the Church to keep a clergy faithful to the Catholic religion capable of repeating with St. Paul, “For I received of the Lord what I also delivered unto you.”

Holy Father, your responsibility is heavily engaged in this new and false conception of the Church which is drawing clergy and faithful into heresy and schism. If the Synod under your authority perseveres in this direction, you will no longer be the Good Shepherd.

We turn to our Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, rosary in hand, begging her to impart to you her Spirit of Wisdom, as to all members of the Synod, in order to put an end to the invasion of Modernism within the Church.

Holy Father, be so good as to forgive the frankness of our approach to you, which has no other purpose than to render unto our one and only Savior, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the honor which is due to Him, as also to His one and only Church, and deign to accept our homage as devoted sons in Jesus and Mary.

(Signature: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre)
Marcel Lefebvre,
Archbishop-Bishop Emeritus of Tulle

(Signature: Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer)
Antonio de Castro Mayer,
Bishop Emeritus of Campos