By What Authority?

The title of this post might imply that it is a review of a book by Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson, who under this title wrote a novel treating of the English Reformation. As interesting as that topic might be, this post will deal with another subject that might equally claim a right to such a title, and that is the present collapse of authority as the means by which a Catholic lays hold of the truth.

In the crisis brought upon the Church by the triumph of Modernism at the Second Vatican Council, Catholics saw a division opening up between the authorities in the Church, such as the Pope or Diocesan bishops, and the content of the Faith itself. Archbishop Lefebvre summarized this conflict by his quote, well known in traditional Catholic circles, that “Satan’s masterstroke is to have succeeded in sowing disobedience to all Tradition through obedience.”  A gulf has opened in the life of Catholics. While the traditional teaching of the Church had before been defended by the hierarchy, the Council manifested a new tendency- to use the virtue of obedience in order to destroy the very Deposit of Faith the defense of which was the very purpose of the hierarchy. Thus, after the Council, Pope Paul VI and the world's bishops proceeded to replace the traditional Magisterium based on Scripture and Tradition with a new Magisterium. The venerable Rite of Mass that enshrined the Faith would now give way to a New Rite, the expression of the centrality of man even when it did not deny the existence of God. The results can be seen around us, liturgies more and more profane in their content, a great confusion as to dogma and whether it has any real power to bind the faithful, and the supreme doctrine of evolution expressed by the various "Magisteria" of each succeeding pope in which doctrinal "progress" replaces eternal and unshakeable truth.

Surely, such a disaster is unprecedented. But in the face of such confusion and heresy, what is to be the final answer? St. Vincent of Lerins posed a like question in the light of the various crises that had afflicted the early Church. His answer must stand even as it did in the fifth century:

"Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense Catholic, which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors."

It is of course the case that this Faith rests on Scripture and Tradition; but this same Faith must be transmitted to each generation of Catholics. It is to be found in the Magisterium of the Church, through which the Church teaches the faithful what is or is not to be found in the Deposit of Faith entrusted by Christ to His apostles. But in a crisis, when bishop is against bishop, and questions cannot be easily solved by recourse to the normal authorities, how is one to be sure that one possesses the truth? here St. Vincent provides the answer: recourse to what the Church has always taught, for all revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle, Saint John, and so revealed truth must come to us from the Church's beginning down to our own time. It is this witness of the Church's tradition that must be the voice that enables us to hold on to immemorial truth during the storm of heresy and unbelief.

This Archbishop Lefebvre knew well, for he based his entire programme after the Conciliar disaster on a simple fact: that which was now du jour in the Church would have resulted in his condemnation at the time when he was ordained and consecrated, while the very truths he was required to profess then were now found to be condemned. Over and over he appealed to the voice of the Roman Magisterium, to the ancient rites of the Church against the innovators. He did not appeal to his own episcopal charism; he did not appeal to the voice of his fledgling Society of Saint Pius X; he appealed to the immemorial teaching of the Roman See, to the Magisterium of the past popes and Councils that were now to be discarded by a new Magisterium and New Rite of Mass. It was, in fact, the test of Saint Vincent of Lérins: to be faithful to the immemorial voice of the Church heard before the crisis.

But the great Archbishop Lefebvre has long since left us. His Society, while weathering many storms, is not the barque of St. Peter. The wisdom of the Archbishop has given way to an appeal to authority, but it is the authority of the Society and not Tradition first of all. The faithful have grown tired of always being at variance with modern Rome, and while not giving up altogether, they have striven to sleep in the arms of the Society, trusting that it would be faithful. But to the Society was no promise ever given by Our Lord, and for a Catholic, no total allegiance can ever be given to any created authority- not the Society's Superior General, nor even the present Pope. It is to the voice of the Roman Pontiffs throughout the ages that the sheep must tune their ears, even as did the great Archbishop himself who fought in their name.

But the crisis in the Society has revealed another, more serious one. Some of the faithful have indeed seen that there is a problem: one cannot pretend that any manner of agreement with a Rome that does not believe in its own Magisterium is not worse than hopeless: it is treason. But the motivations are more complex than simple adhesion to truth and rejection of heresy. Distrust of the modernist hierarchy has deepened to a distrust of any authority outside of oneself. While Archbishop Lefebvre appealed to his knowledge of Tradition gained in Rome while a seminarian, the faithful now find in scattered internet articles the basis of their own final say in what constitutes Tradition. The caution of the Archbishop has changed into the unbounded pride of pastor-less sheep. Even some traditional priests have used the crisis to further private opinions as articles of Faith. It is indeed true that there is a sensus fidei that alerts the sheep to the presence of heresy. Such was the case with Nestorius, whose blasphemous claim that Our Lady could not be invoked as "Mother of God" resulted in riots in Constantinople. The faithful did not need to be theologians to sense the presence of the wolf in the bishop's words. But this sensus fidei was never meant to make of each of the faithful either a theologian or the final court of appeal in matters of Faith. Now the laity, without any instruction in dogmatic or moral theology claim equality with those who spent six years or more drinking in the Church's Magisterium and the teaching of the doctors. Is this reasonable or according to the mind of the Church? If it is, it was a great waste to have seminaries at all. Even as Luther, these so-called faithful believe that every truth can be as easily grasped by Joe Six-Pack as by the most learned theologian. There is no appeal to Catholic Tradition, to the works of the Magisterium, to the past theologians. There is only recourse to the divine internet, or to articles in the now infallible Magisterium of the Society, expressed online on Society websites. Perhaps the Archbishop is appealed to as the final court in matters of Faith or morals. But neither the Society nor the saintly Archbishop can claim such a privilege.

The faithful of the "Resistance" had better return to the mind of the Church if it wishes to avoid becoming a cult of the worst kind, in which the ignorant vomit forth their doctrines and opinions as if they were the  elixir of life. We must always bear in mind the rule of Saint Vincent, the doctrine, worship, and law of the Holy Roman Church our mother, while avoiding errors more grave even than those of the Modernists. For if in the end, the final authority is only the self, it makes little difference if the man is called a "modernist" or a "traditionalist"; the god he worships is only another name for himself.

Brother Kirill, Sister Church...

On February 12th, ecumenists the world over were given the treat of seeing Pope Francis and

Patriarch Kirill meet together on the island of Cuba. This was an event eagerly awaited ever since the Second Vatican Council, for the Russian Orthodox Church was the most important of those bodies within Orthodoxy; vainly had Pope John-Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI hoped that they would be the protagonists in such a meeting. The Patriarch of Moscow would have none of it. Yet at last a pope was to meet with the Russian patriarch. Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill not only spoke amiably in an informal setting, but the two of them signed a joint declaration. It was the first swallow foretelling a Russian spring and warmer relations between Rome and Moscow.

Nevertheless, save for those who were lost in past memories of flower children and the Summer of Love, the meeting and joint declaration were nothing over which to rejoice. Ecumenical meetings between popes and non-Catholic leaders have hardly been a novelty since the Council; the Conciliar popes have seemed to relish humiliating the Roman Papacy in the name of brotherly love- whether due to a misguided sense of brotherhood or an abhorrence of Roman triumphalism, or both, must be left up to the guess of the reader. In any case, this meeting was symbolic and significant. For those with an acquaintance of Kirill's past, his presence on Cuban soil was indicative. The Patriarch, as a priest was closely involved with the KGB. According to an important defector from the Soviet bloc, he had been an apostle of Liberation theology, that marxist imitation of Christianity that came to demolish the Faith of so many Catholics in Latin America. Pope Francis, on the other hand, has made it clear how much he admired one of his communist professors in University, and a book has been written concerning his successful harbouring of Communists fleeing from the persecution of the Argentine authorities. Cuba was indeed a fitting place for such a meeting. This was not lost on either one, since the following claim is made on Cuba's behalf:

"Our fraternal meeting has taken place in Cuba, at the crossroads of North and South, East and West. It is from this island, the symbol of the hopes of the “New World” and the dramatic events of the history of the twentieth century, that we address our words to all the peoples of Latin America and of the other continents."

One is not sure how Cuba is the symbol of the hopes of the "New World", an island dominated by Communism since the revolution of Fidel Castro. Certainly Cuba has never been the great light of hope. Even in the Spanish Empire, Cuba, while important, was dwarfed by the Viceroyalty of New Spain centred in Mexico. Only for the Soviet Union was Cuba a beacon of hope, for it was the Soviet toehold in the Western Hemisphere.

As outrageous as this flowery language might be, the next paragraph is worse. Latin America's religiosity is praised as the pledge of future glory. Given that millions upon million of Catholics have left the Church in order to join heretical sects, so many in fact that Catholics no longer make up the majority of several Latin American nations, this hope is scandalous. It is only a fitting foundation of the betrayal to come in the rest of the Declaration.

Heresy looms its ugly head in the fourth paragraph. It is claimed that both Catholics and Orthodox profess the Faith of the first Millennium:

"We share the same spiritual Tradition of the first millennium of Christianity. The witnesses of this Tradition are the Most Holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, and the saints we venerate.  Among them are innumerable martyrs who have given witness to their faithfulness to Christ and have become the 'seed of Christians'".

How can two opposing versions of Christianity share the same Tradition? Is not the primacy of the pope part of the Deposit of Faith? And what of the Mother of God? Is she looking on as a witness, or is the Catholic and Orthodox veneration of her the same? Did Rome renounce the Immaculate Conception or Moscow suddenly convert to it? What of the nature of marriage? is it indissoluble or not? What of the Filioque of the Creed? Given the next paragraph, one is left wondering why there is any division in the first place...

"Notwithstanding this shared Tradition of the first ten centuries, for nearly one thousand years Catholics and Orthodox have been deprived of communion in the Eucharist. We have been divided by wounds caused by old and recent conflicts, by differences inherited from our ancestors, in the understanding and expression of our faith in God, one in three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are pained by the loss of unity, the outcome of human weakness and of sin, which has occurred despite the priestly prayer of Christ the Saviour: 'So that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you … so that they may be one, as we are one” (Jn 17:21).'"

So, the Faith was the same. The whole problem is to be blamed on the politics of our ancestors. it is likewise obvious that to these two, Christ's priestly prayer has gone unanswered. The unity of the Church was lost because of human weakness and sin. A very serious phrase has been included which is meant to explain how these two "Churches" while believing the same, have excluded one another from participation in the Holy Eucharist. The difference lies in the "understanding and expression" of the Faith. The Faith is the same, its expression differs. Even a divergence in the understanding of the Faith does not prevent one from sharing the same Faith. This common Faith, professed in a plurality of ways, will be the basis for the idea of a common evangelization.

It is obvious that an indispensable answer to the disunity of Christians will be found in "dialogue", that incessant process of always learning and never teaching: "Interreligious dialogue is indispensable in our disturbing times. Differences in the understanding of religious truths must not impede people of different faiths to live in peace and harmony. In our current context, religious leaders have the particular responsibility to educate their faithful in a spirit which is respectful of the convictions of those belonging to other religious traditions. Attempts to justify criminal acts with religious slogans are altogether unacceptable. No crime may be committed in God’s name, 'since God is not the God of disorder but of peace' (1 Cor 14:33)." While it might seem good to remind the world that the followers of Christ are law abiding and therefore do not engage in criminal activity, there is a lack of clarity here as well. Totalitarian regimes of one kind or another have not failed to criminalize religious activity, and in this age the danger of such false laws against the Faith is not small. Is it a crime to obey God rather than men? If one means the Divine Law, one can never act against it; but if it is a question of an unjust law of the State, such resistance can become a duty. The presence of relativism in the question of dialogue itself cannot go unnoticed. The difference in religions is in the understanding of religious truths, not in the presence of falsehood in the very doctrines of the religions themselves.

The madness of claiming that Catholicism and Orthodoxy are actually the same religion, divided only by misunderstandings arising from a different mode of expression in confessing the same truth finds a place in the Declaration by the idea of a common evangelization: "Orthodox and Catholics are united not only by the shared Tradition of the Church of the first millennium, but also by the mission to preach the Gospel of Christ in the world today. This mission entails mutual respect for members of the Christian communities and excludes any form of proselytism." So now both have a Divine mission to preach the Gospel. What a mockery of those saints who died rather than deny the pope's primacy of jurisdiction over the Church! This common mission can only be possible if, in fact, the Catholics and Orthodox both are members of the One Church of Christ, for there can be no Divine mission granted to heretics or schismatics to propagate their false religions. There is no other possibility for such a double mission save that of being members of the Same Church. While this document does not make such a claim overtly and clearly, the Declaration can only be read in such a light. This alone makes it savour of heresy, if nothing else does. Yet this is the symbolic meaning of the brotherly meeting. One does not meet and sign agreements with one's enemies. Proselytism is forbidden, for why should any strive to convert the Orthodox to Catholicism if both are members of the same Church? No wonder there is such a point of emphasizing the prayer of Christ that there be unity; the One Church stands divided.

Not all of the Declaration is made of such nonsense. There is a reminder of the persecution of Christians in the Mideast; there is a reminder of the evil of abortion and false ideas concerning the family. But the central theme is clear: neither the Catholic Church nor the Orthodox "Church" can claim to be the One Church of Christ. While both share the same Faith, historical accidents blamed on past misunderstandings keep them apart. The push towards a future unified Church, in the hands of those tarnished with past sympathies to Communism, goes forward. The Pope proceeded on from his meeting to visit Mexico, and while there, could not resist kneeling at the tomb of a bishop well know for his sympathy for Liberation Theology, the Communization of Christianity. let us pray that the Successor of Saint Peter be delivered from the bonds of his Modernism.

Is the pilot light going out?

"I have compared the Society of St. Pius X to the pilot light on a gas stove. When the gas is turned off, the gas-rings go dead, no cooking can be done and very little heat comes off the pilot light, but so long as one can see the pilot light still lit, one knows that the action will resume as soon as the gas is turned on again. But turning on the gas is not within the power of the pilot light itself." Bishop Richard Williamson, September 1991.

It has been over 20 years since the then Rector of Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary wrote the above words in one of his letters to friends and benefactors. In those days, few thought that the Society of Saint Pius X was in any real danger; after all, both Pope Paul VI and Pope John-Paul II had striven to destroy the work of Archbishop Lefebvre, hurling the thunderbolts of suspension and then excommunication against that French prelate, with little effect. The Society still remained, and though the saintly Archbishop had died earlier in that year of 1991, there was no serious threat that the defenders of Catholic Tradition would collapse. But the future is rarely easy to predict, and time would reveal a growing desire in the top echelons of the Society for some kind of rapprochement with Rome, the growing discontent with Bishop Williamson's reluctance for such a softening, and his final expulsion from the very Society that had trained him, ordained him priest, and consecrated him bishop. The tool for such an exclusion was at hand when the bishop's ideas on the "holocaust", though widely known for many years by all those in Society headquarters, were revealed to the eyes of the media, much to the chagrin of the Roman authorities.  A showdown was inevitable, as the Society distanced itself from any public criticism of the Jewish problem. Such a controversy would hardly be becoming if one wanted the right hand of fellowship from those who lauded Catholic-Jewish relations. So it was that expulsion was necessary, and timely as well, since it removed a very visible opponent to a Roman deal.

It might have seemed that a mass revolt within the ranks of the Society would be inevitable. Although such a revolt would not occur simply because of theories on the "holocaust", it would hardly be unthinkable that such a flare-up of discontent would arise over a future resolution of tension with Rome. There was some complaining, of course, but there was also a steadfast refusal to stand up on the part of those who might have been expected to defend the course of Archbishop Lefebvre. A few were vocal and then expelled; some groups like the Benedictines in Brazil and the Dominicans of Avrillé found themselves outside the camp; but most of the clergy and laity steadfastly closed their eyes and hid themselves behind the dream of the Society's indefectibility. The Society had shown itself to be faithful to Tradition- indeed it had replaced the modernist authorities in the hearts of the faithful. There was really nothing to fear.

Gone was the idea of the Society being a "pilot light". Indeed, it was now far better organized than in the old days; its priories were much more comfortable; the seminaries were ever so much more "spiritual" (meaning that uncomfortable things such as the loss of millions of souls at the hands of the modernist popes and bishops should not bother the future priests of the Society overly much); the Superior General had discovered that he alone really had the grace of state to make decisions for the Society priests, faithful, and even those religious orders who had fought beside the Archbishop- an amazing discovery on the part of one who held supreme office in a Pious Union! The Pilot light had evolved into being the means of bringing the Church back to her senses. Now the only concern was to find a way to convince the Pope and the bishops to approve the Society and let it join Rome in the desire to help the Church. This could not be done, of course, if the Society's image was one of being a complainer. A re-branding was in order, one which would allow the Society to showcase a more positive image. Its official pronouncements, its magazines, its entire manner of showing itself to the world would be one of accentuating the positive. It was the thought of Pope John XXIII re-vivus.

Of course, as mentioned above, a few of the priests and faithful along with the redoubtable Bishop did not find the new way applaudable. These began to voice their opposition. Newly founded Mass centres were set up, and the "resisting" priests now began to work in a much smaller milieu. Some of these could not live without the presence of the infallible Society, and so proceeded to claim infallibility for themselves, if not in words, at least in action. A cry went up for a new Society to replace the old; after all, the catholicity of the Church had to manifest itself somewhere, and the Society of Saint Pius X had defaulted from its Divine mission. Instead of the Society, there was now the "Resistance". This resistance was all that was left of true Catholicism. To support this new dogmatic identification of Tradition with the "Resistance", a great fight broke out over the possibility of attending Mass at places not "approved" by the "Resistance". One group identified itself as "red-lighter" while others took a "yellow" or "green" light position. One might well ask where the authority arose to make such determinations. It has always been clear that one could not attend the Masses of heretics or schismatics. But were Society priests now in either of those two categories? What would have happened before Vatican II if someone had decided that it was immoral to attend a Mass said by a Jesuit due to the fact that the theologians of the Jesuit Order had betrayed the doctrine of Saint Thomas on grace and predestination? What about the Scotist Franciscans? The most radical branch of the "Resistance" had narrowed down Catholicism to the question of what one thought of the 2012 Declaration of the General Chapter of the Society on a future deal with Rome. This is not to depreciate the dangers of that declaration, but such a declaration did not contain heresy. It is one thing to resist the present direction of the Society, and quite another to invent sins as a result.

No surprising, God has struck at the pride of some of these "resistants". The movement now finds itself hopelessly divided. One cannot help but be sympathetic to the reluctance of Bishop Williamson to lead a hierarchically structured counter-Society. It has proven wise for a number of reasons: there is no likelihood whatsoever that those priests who have proven the most anti-Williamsonian would ever have obeyed him in such an organization; secondly, the only hierarchy that can solve this present crisis is the one Divinely constituted of St. Peter's Successor and the bishops, and this is counter to the pride of the Society-Saviour or the Resistance-Saviours; the insanity of priests and laity who theologize on such topics as whether there could ever be a eucharistic miracle in cases when the host was consecrated at the New Mass only show that pride has overthrown all sense of the Faith. When did Archbishop Lefebvre ever deny the validity of the New Rite per se? The New Mass could be invalid in those cases where there was not proper matter, form, and intention, but that was never presumed to be the case in every New Mass. The New Mass was not held to be intrinsically invalid. Anyone who says differently has conveniently forgotten some facts about the Society while the Archbishop was still alive. Indeed, if one thing has become increasingly clear, it is that the Archbishop has been re-invented by those who hold the most unusual positions, positions not at all those of Archbishop Lefebvre. The radical branch of the Resistance has also given up a belief that the hierarchical Church still exists. This is logical, given the fact that adherence to the positions of certain resistance priests has become the mark of the true believer. The Conciliar Church has finally been identified with the "official Church". This being the case, the hierarchy has left the Church. Pride has led to heresy, for the true Church must be hierarchical in the real sense, that is, it must exist with bishops who hold ordinary jurisdiction. Without that, the Church ceases to be Apostolic.

Should we then despair of the situation? Certainly not. The breakdown within Tradition is not a sign that Christ's promises have failed, but quite the contrary. It shows that on the one hand, the Church can never be anything else than what Christ founded it to be- the sole means to salvation, even in this corrupt time.  Christ will not substitute anything else for the Pope and bishops. If He permitted this present disaster, it is only to be a temporary thing until He decides when the Church recovers.  The Society was a providential consequence of Christ's refusal to allow the entire Church to succumb to error. It was only to be a pilot light however, only to last for a little while. Secondly, as this collapse of both the Society and the Resistance continues, this only shows that Christ's triumph is at the door. The Fifth Age is closing, and the Sixth Age, the most glorious Age is near at hand.
"In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph" points the way towards the Age that is to come.