“By Martin Blackshaw
Two
Twounfortunate events occurred this Christmas Season which dented forever my belief in what Chico Marx once described in his broken Italian as "the Sanity Clause."
The first of these festive crackers was news from the farm, not so much "the funny farm" as the Pfeifer farm, that the "Resistance" has consolidated in Kentucky. I have dubbed it the new KFC, or Kentucky”
“Kentucky Fathers Confederation, whose head, if only by "moral authority," is none other than His Excellency Bishop Richard Williamson.
Their newsletter, predictably entitled "News from the Resistance," bears photographs of said "moral authority" with what are evidently his 10 disciples. It reads more depressingly like ‘last stand at the Alamo’ than anything remotely akin to the spirit of Archbishop Lefebvre. In the newsletter, there is an air of entrenchment, of digging in, quite appropriate for a farm really, and of setting up a "bulwark" against the “Neo-SSPX" of Menzingen and its "operation ѕυιcιdє." But there are many who fear that these tragic "Resistance" priests are the ones heading for the cliff edge.
They don’t see it that way, however. For them it is 1970 all over again, only without the saintly Archbishop Lefebvre’s hand on the tiller. If only these poor priests could comprehend that they are actually re-living 1983, which, as some elder statesmen may recall, was the year Archbishop Lefebvre expelled "the nine" priests from the SSPX for their disobedient and schismatic incitement” “to rebellion over his negotiations with Rome.
Exactly the same situation arose then as now. Archbishop Lefebvre was accused of "selling out" to Modernism, of compromising sacred tradition, of fraternising with the enemy whose stronghold is Rome and whose leader is Pope! Sound familiar?
For those who are not acquainted with the events of that time, I suggest a read through the transcripts of the Archbishop’s April, 1983, Ridgefield Seminary Conferences,” “available at:
http://www.proecclesia.com/abl.htm Suffice it to say His Grace described the rebel priests of his time as "hard, hard, hard" in their bitter spirit, as opposed to his own spirit of patience and charity in trying to win sinners back to Christ and the Faith. The angry ones didn’t listen then and they’re not listening now, which brings to mind the admonition of St. James that: "... the anger of man worketh not the justice of God."
And so Bishop Fellay and his assistants are today undergoing the same barrage of calumnies and accusations” “accusations that the holy founder of the Fraternity himself had to endure. Like him, they have neither compromised nor sold out tradition during recent negotiations with the Holy See. All they have done is obey an expressed wish of the Pope, our Pope, that talks should take place with a view to resolving doctrinal questions between the Fraternity and Rome. For this they have been publicly denigrated by some of their own.
Recounting similar hysterical accusations against him in 1983, Archbishop Lefebvre declared: ”
“Where is this compromise? Where?
...
We do all we can to bring the pope back to Tradition. That is the end of all my actions in Rome: not any compromise at all...That is only their vain imagination!" Bishop Fellay rightly echoes this response to the accusations of today’s recalcitrant ones.
Sadly, it seems this mixed group of ex-SSPX and independent priests is of a mind now to expand its operation” “operation. There is talk of retreats for priests, children and adults down on the farm, and even of a seminary.
And what about this newsletter quote for tragic irony: "…since the mid-1800’s this northern part of Kentucky, called the ‘Holy Land,’ has been a bulwark of Catholicism in the midst of a mainly Protestant region."
Hmmm! Perhaps that regional Protestant spirit has finally made unexpected inroads to the "Holy Land" through certain disgruntled Catholic clergy who have made of it a little base from which to” “PROTEST?
Once again, Archbishop Lefebvre’s 1983 observation concerning "the nine" appears to be prophetically applicable today: " Now their rebellion is clear, against the Superior General, against the Fraternity. It is now public...Thus, slowly, slowly, they put all the people far from Rome, far from the pope, far from the Church. That is very dangerous!"
Oblivious to any such danger, the "Resistance" newsletter announces that Bishop Williamson is to return to the bolt hole between December”“28 and January 1 for a "
Family Workshop,"
the theme of which will be "
to fortify in this time of global crisis."
Then the message goes out to other SSPX priests that they should "
jump out of the ship, before wreckage...!"
What wreckage? It seems to me that “this scaremongering about some imminent SSPX crash is just another baseless manifestation of that "vain imagination" Archbishop Lefebvre lamented.
My advice to any SSPX priest sufficiently unhinged to contemplate jumping ship is that he be very wary of leaping into the spiritual minefield and razor wire fortifications surrounding today’s Pfeifer farm. I would also remind him that God is not in the storm of mutiny, but rather in the calm of holy unity, charity and obedience. Consecrated souls of God above all should know “this. The entire business is so heart rending that one can only exclaim with GENUINE Traditional Catholic sincerity – Kyrie Eleison!
This brings me to my second Christmas cracker, which only goes to show that where there is extremism there is madness.
I write now of a recent announcement that the USCCB is submitting a petition to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in favour of Dorothy Day. Yes, the Catholic Bishops of the U.S. want she who was dubbed "Moscow Mary" in the “1950s, as a result of her sympathies with Marxist causes, to be raised to the honour of our altars.
Now there is much controversy surrounding the activities of Dorothy Day. Some hold her to have been a great champion of Catholic Social Justice and the ‘Distributist’ movement fostered by such as Belloc and Chesterton. The majority, however, or at least those who have a deeper grasp of the teachings of Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI on the subject, see in her a feminist agitator who sought to destabilise the U.S. with radical Socialist views wrapped in ......
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