A pledge to Eternal Rome

 A new Motu Proprio has been issued by our Holy Father, Pope Francis. It is accompanied by an explanatory letter in which the Pope tells us the aim of the Motu Proprio which is to guide the bishops and faithful from henceforth regarding the Traditional Mass, and its relation to the new Rite of Pope Paul VI. For many Catholics, this document will come as a rude awakening. It is clearly meant to hinder the spread of the ancient Rite as well to as to insist that the new Rite is the sole expression of that "Lex Credendi" that has guided the Church throughout the centuries. It is indeed unfortunate for those who have tried to keep the Old Rite while living in peace with the apostles of the new Rite and its new religion. But those times are at an end. The allowance for the Old Rite is simply a temporary one so that Catholics will be brought gently to the awaiting arms of the new religion and its new form of worship. In this sense, this Motu Proprio is a blessing. The deliberately seductive words of the Motu Proprio of Benedict XVI, in which greater freedom to embrace the Old Rite was mixed with the idea that both old and new are both equally Catholic, and that one cannot refuse in principle to celebrate the new Rite if one is a priest, have been replaced by the harsh reality that has guided the hierarchy as a whole since the Mass of Paul VI was first promulgated. The Council and its new Mass are the only reality; these are the stars that have guided the mariners on the Barque of Saint Peter since the woeful days of Vatican II.

In response to this latest clarification, I for one, wish to make my own the immortal words of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in his declaration of 1974:

"We hold fast, with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome, Mistress of wisdom and truth.

We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.

All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the sacraments, to the disappearance of religious life, to a naturalist and Teilhardian teaching in universities, seminaries and catechectics; a teaching derived from Liberalism and Protestantism, many times condemned by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.

No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s Magisterium for nineteen centuries.

“But though we,” says St. Paul, “or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal. 1:8).

Is it not this that the Holy Father is repeating to us today?  And if we can discern a certain contradiction in his words and deeds, as well as in those of the dicasteries, well we choose what was always taught and we turn a deaf ear to the novelties destroying the Church.

It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo Missae correspond a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church—all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church.

This Reformation, born of Liberalism and Modernism, is poisoned through and through; it derives from heresy and ends in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation or to submit to it in any way whatsoever.

The only attitude of faithfulness to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation.

That is why, without any spirit of rebellion, bitterness or resentment, we pursue our work of forming priests, with the timeless Magisterium as our guide. We are persuaded that we can render no greater service to the Holy Catholic Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff and to posterity.

That is why we hold fast to all that has been believed and practiced in the faith, morals, liturgy, teaching of the catechism, formation of the priest and institution of the Church, by the Church of all time; to all these things as codified in those books which saw day before the Modernist influence of the Council. This we shall do until such time that the true light of Tradition dissipates the darkness obscuring the sky of Eternal Rome.

By doing this, with the grace of God and the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that of St. Joseph and St. Pius X, we are assured of remaining faithful to the Roman Catholic Church and to all the successors of Peter, and of being the fideles dispensatores mysteriorum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi in Spiritu Sancto. Amen.

November 21, 1974

Econe, Switzerland"

To this declaration, I would add the determination which here I express openly and by which I hope to strengthen the resolve of the faithful in this trial visited upon us, that I will never say the reformed rite of Mass foisted upon the Church by Paul VI, a rite that has led to a massive loss of Faith seen in every diocese within the Catholic Church, a rite which opens itself by nature to every kind of experimentation and inculturation, not to mention sacrilege. Likewise, I refuse to embrace the false claims of the Second Vatican Council regarding Ecumenism, Religious Liberty, and Collegiality but instead profess my belief that the Catholic Church- one, holy, Catholic, apostolic, and Roman- is the sole Church founded by Christ, outside of which no one can be saved; that man is free to embrace the Faith taught by her, and that faith only, that man is not free morally to embrace any other religion, since all other religions have the devil as their author, and that the Church is not ruled by synods, Councils or any other bodies, but is monarchical in nature, having the Roman Pontiff alone as its supreme head on earth under the Headship of Jesus Christ. To the new religion, I will not assent or give credence, though I appreciate the efforts of those within the Church who are presently confused, bishops, priests, and laity, to ensure the triumph of Christ and His religion, even if they do not see clearly the truth due to the instinct, normally a Catholic one,  to follow the shepherds come what may.

I will continue to offer up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the ancient rite of the Roman Church, whether with permission or without. I refuse, as every Catholic must, this attempt of the authorities to suppress Catholicism under the pretext of liturgical unity, as there cannot be true unity if the truth is compromised or suppressed by those wishing the destruction of the Church, whether consciously or not.

Why the Coronavirus?

As the days progress, and the coronavirus gains new victims, putting whole countries on lockdown (such as Italy) or in a state of semi-lockdown (such as France and Spain), men and women have been forced to face the possibility of death. In this modern world, infatuated with annihilating distance and drawing nations together into a kind of world village, this virus comes as a shock. The very modern means of travel and interconnectedness of trade and commerce have been the very instrument that has allowed this virus to spread world-wide. A world without borders, the dream of every liberal, has proven most inconvenient as travel has been restricted, and economies have begun to feel the effect of self-isolated persons no longer to be counted on to fuel industrialists.

If we look at the reaction to this state of affairs among the leaders of the Church, we may be surprised to see the shepherds scatter and the churches closing to the people. The pope no doubt was behind the decision to close all the churches of Rome, but the clamor of cardinals and others forced a volt face the day following the announcement. While there would be no public Masses, still the churches would be open for prayer. If one could identify a far more grievous affliction in the soul of churchmen, one would have to point to a lack of Faith. God seems to have nothing to say as to either the cause or end of the coronavirus pandemic; the Church has no business with it. The solution must be left up to politicians or scientists. But this blindness, not only restricted to modernists, is to be found in the ranks of so-called traditional Catholics, who preach the gospel of prudence. By all means, they seem to say. Close the churches; we can please God just as well as home as at Mass, after all. Thus speak these modern Luthers.

The answer to the coronavirus must be looked at in relation to the Ruler of all, that is to say God. This virus is a punishment for sin; it is as simple as that. If we look to the many plagues and epidemics of the past, Catholics reacted in a far different way than their modern counterparts. The Catholic of the past saw rightly the hand of God in all events. God was not simply a watchmaker, as thought the Freemasons, who started the universe and left it to run by itself. He both was Creator and Sustainer of all things, governing all things, whether in the lives of individuals or of nations. Yes, God uses secondary causes to accomplish His Will, but it is His Will that is being accomplished. Modern Catholics are under the illusion that God leaves the rule of all things to politicians, and all knowledge to scientists. But this is only an illusion. God rules all things for His glory, and when men turn away from the true religion, there will be consequences. Sin merits punishments. If we read the Old Testament, we see how the people of Israel suffer very real punishments for sin, and these not only individually but as a kingdom. The northern kingdom was destroyed, as was later Judah, because of idolatry. The Israelites in the desert were sent serpents that killed many because of sin. The saints in the age of the Church saw in the plagues and natural disasters the hand of God who was offended by the sins of men. And so we come to the heart of the matter.

The Catholics of former ages, in the face of natural disasters such as plague or famine, took to the streets and formed processions to beg God's mercy. Men flocked to the offering of Holy Mass, either in the churches or outside of them to beg that God's wrath be stayed and the plague cease. Holy Mass, says the Council of Trent, has as one of its effects to appease God's wrath for sin. Modern Catholics no longer believe in the justice of God. But justice is one of His perfections. There is a Hell where sinners who die in the state of sin go to be punished eternally. Sin has real consequences.

Modern Catholics turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the reality of sin and God's justice. They are blind to the very real punishment awaiting a country for abortion, for adultery, for living together outside of marriage, for conceiving children outside of wedlock, for gay marriage, for transsexualism, for pornography, for the use of drugs for pleasure, for false worship such as that of the Pachamama in the very garden of the Vatican, for false religion, for working on Sunday or buying unnecessarily on Sunday, for setting up States that do not think that they have to answer to Almighty God.

We are on the edge of an abyss. We must not keep people from Mass, but bring them to it, to beg in the Holy Sacrifice for the forgiveness of our own sins, and the sins of our nations. We must take up the Rosary and beg the Mother of God for her intercession; we must form processions as did St. Gregory the Great during the plague in Rome. God will be not be mocked. Sin is real, and the justice of God is real. Do we desire life or death? It is our choice.

Dawn of a new age

Today is the day in which Holy Mother Church rejoices in the birth of the Blessed Virgin, and it may be added, the day in which this writer has returned to this blog after nearly a year without internet access. If we look at the present state of the Church we see only more and more signs of apostasy and heresy among those who call themselves Catholic- the Pope radicalizing the faithful to a greater degree, the college of cardinals now finds itself with a slim majority of members being appointed by Pope Francis himself, bishops more and more throwing off any remnants of Catholic faith in favor of a vague Catholic sentimentalism and liberal politicization more concerned with the supposed rights of migrants than the dogmas of the Faith. It is not a hopeful picture if we are to analyze current trends in the light of history and human reason.

But fortunately, the Catholic relies on other sources of truth other than those possessed by political pundits. We have the Faith revealed by God, and the promise by the Virgin herself that the "Immaculate Heart would triumph" and that there would be given a period of peace to the world. It is in this promise of Our Lady that the Catholic must find his comfort and his peace. Yes, there are problems; yes, there are abuses and heresies; but the devil brings turbulence into the soul by seducing it by focusing its attention away from God and towards those thing which will keep it in a state of agitation.

It may well be asked what a soul is to do in this present crisis of the Church? The answer must begin with the same as always. Love God with your whole heart, and your neighbour for the love of God. Do your duty of state with fidelity. Obey the desires of Our Lord to Saint Margaret Mary and Our Lady to the three children at Fatima. Pray your rosary, go to daily Mass if possible, spend time with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, be holy yourselves.

It may be objected: but that does nothing to solve the crisis. Yet those are the only things that actually can help end the crisis. Does frustration end the crisis? What about knowledge of each and every abuse? No, the crisis continues the same. It is not ameliorated. If anything, agitation within the soul only increases the problem.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the path of protest to these abuses within the Catholic Church is leading only to the loss of souls for those who are not striving to love Our Lord as He has asked us to love him. The "true flock" has been reduced to such proportions that unless there is agreement in every point of prudence, then one is forbidden to attend Masses, etc of any priests save a handful, literally. But this is not Catholicism. Nor is it even sane. The true Church is where it has always been, visible and united around the throne of Saint Peter. Yes, the new rites and new catechisms have plunged the Church into chaos, but it is still the true Church- wounded perhaps, and certainly betrayed by its own, but the true Church still.

But what of our resistance to this evil? It must stay calm and united to the visible Church. But most of all, it must be confident in the triumph of Our Lady as she promised at Fatima. The devil is about, prowling about as a lion and destroying souls, but Our Lady is stronger than he, and will crush the devil's head. The Church will be victorious. And while we have to endure the pain of the Cross during this crisis, we must never forget that victory is ours if only we are faithful, not simply to the changeless teachings of the Church, but also faithful in love to our Head Jesus Christ, for knowing is not enough; loving is the only thing that can really please Him. To love Our Lady, to unite all we do to her and to give her all that we have, is the infallible means to unite ourselves to Him and to remain at peace where there is no peace.

Cardinal Burke: The Hope of Fatima?

A controversy has been brewing among Traditional Catholics regarding the address of His Eminence Cardinal Burke at the Roman Life Forum in May of this year. The subject of this address revolved around the continued importance of the Message of Our Lady of Fatima one hundred years after the apparitions in 1917, a reflection that moved the Cardinal to speak of a more explicit consecration of Russia, made by the Pope and bishops in union with him. The reaction to this address within the Traditional world was generally one of gladness. In fact, it was seen as a major breakthrough that could lead to the Pope fulfilling the explicit request of Our Lady that Russia be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart.

Now it is not the point of this reflection to enter into the personal motives of His Eminence. In fact, charity bids us to "hope all things". We trust that Cardinal Burke desires that Russia indeed be consecrated, and that he desires to obey Our Lady's command. But even giving him the most noble of desires, it does not seem laudable to ignore some very uncomfortable truths- the most important of these being that his vision of Fatima is closely tied to a vision of the designs of Providence not compatible with true Catholicism. After describing the events of Fatima, His Eminence identifies the desires of Our Lady for a triumph of Her Immaculate Heart with that of the triumph of the Conciliar Church. Her triumph, in his opinion, will indeed be the renewal sought by the "New Evangelization" of Pope Paul VI and Pope John-Paul II. Throughout the address the importance of the message being connected to the desires of the "saint" and the "blessed" cannot be denied. The Cardinal has made of the message of Fatima the very modernism so strenuously fought against by the forces of Tradition since Vatican II.

This point must not be forgotten. The "New Evangelization", as rightly pointed out by the writer Cornelia Ferreira, is not the same as a "re-evangelization". It is not the Faith once delivered to the saints  being re-propagated, but rather, it is the preaching of the new definition of it expounded by the Council and the popes following that Council, the popes who have based their pontificates upon it. The change of doctrine brought by the Second Vatican Council is at the heart of the desires of these popes. There must be a new evangelization, that is the preaching of a new Evangelium (Gospel), even as there is now a new ecclesiology and a New Pentecost. Let us listen to the words of the Cardinal as to his belief that Our Lady's message is linked to this Conciliar vision:

"… let us heed once again the maternal direction of the Virgin of Fatima for a new evangelization of the Church and, thus, of the world.”

“Reflecting upon the pressing need to respond to the grace of a new evangelization, we see how timely the apparitions and message of Our Lady of Fatima remain.”

“The words of Pope Saint John Paul II make clear the perennial importance of the Message of Fatima: the giving of one’s whole heart, together with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and thus the commitment to become an ever more effective agent of the sorely needed new evangelization of our culture.”

Over and over, His Eminence makes mention of the Fatima message as being the natural complement of the desires of Pope John-Paul II and Pope Paul VI. It will not be the purpose of this reflection to spend time refuting such a proposition, but merely to remind the reader that for those holding on to Tradition, an unbridgeable chasm exists between the desires of these popes and the Tradition of the Church. One wonders if Traditional Catholics have suddenly suffered from amnesia when they read the Cardinal's claim that "The pontificate of Pope Saint John Paul II, in fact, may be rightly described as a tireless call to recognize the Church’s challenge to be faithful to her divinely given mission in a completely secularized society and to respond to the challenge by means of a new evangelization." The pontificate of John-Paul II may be described in various ways, but for any Catholic who holds to Tradition, this is not one of them! Have Catholics forgotten the disaster, universal in scope, brought about by Popes Paul VI and John-Paul II?

If one is to add insult to injury, the Cardinal assures us that "Attention to the maternal direction of Our Lady of Fatima draw souls to Christ Who will give them the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit for the conversion of their lives and the transformation of a culture of death into a civilization of love." This choice assurance follows upon a paean of the saintly pontificate of the Polish pope. That pontificate is not so distant in the past as not to cause the writer to wince at the memory of the many falsities of doctrine and scandalous if not heretical actions committed by John-Paul II, so well symbolized by the supposed excommunication of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Bishop de Castro-Mayer, and the four newly consecrated bishops! Such was the attempt at the assassination of Catholic Tradition by the ally of Fatima!

While His Eminence indeed recalls many truths to mind in his address, he interweaves the errors of the Second Vatican Council and the post-Conciliar popes, But this is not to be wondered at. Cardinal Burke has always been the champion of the Council and the new doctrines. He has never refused to say the "bastard rite" of Pope Paul VI disastrously foisted upon the Church since the liturgical reforms. His vision is the new vision, not the vision of Catholic Tradition. Conservative he is, no doubt, in many things; outspoken he may be against some of the more radical moral ideas now current; but his talk is certainly not compatible with the truth. The wrath of Heaven rests on the vision and reforms of Vatican II, and until the cause of our disaster is truly admitted, His Eminence Cardinal Burke cannot be the hope of Fatima, however much sympathy we may have for him for the good that he has done.

Which Code for Tradition?

One of the more noticeable developments within the Society of Saint Pius X in recent years has been the growing references to canons found in the Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John-Paul II. Although one might be tempted to speculate as to the reason of this development, this present reflection will limit itself to the problem of the Code itself. Certainly, there has been disagreement among those Catholic desiring to be faithful to Tradition as to the respective status of the two Codes of Canon Law- that of 1917 and 1983. Those who hold to the sedevacantist thesis reject the New Code on the grounds that the man who promulgated it was no pope, and thus incapable of imposing anything upon the Church. Among those who embraced fully the Second Vatican Council, there was likewise no problem. Pope John-Paul II had acted within his rights, and indeed, within the realm of his duty- to reform the law of the Church in the light of the Council.

But for those who both recognized the legitimacy of John-Paul II as Successor of Saint Peter and yet questioned the decisions of Vatican II, things were not so simple. On the one hand, there were those who argued that since the Pope had promulgated the New Code, there was a duty to accept it, or at least as much of it as was possible, given the problematic nature of some of the canons. These saw the code as simply a collection of individual canons. One could not speak truly therefore of the Code as one thing, except as a convenience. It was one in the sense that all the canons were gathered together within it and organized. Each canon was what counted, since each canon was a law promulgated by the pope. In such a scenario, every canon would be accepted save for those which went contrary to the teaching of the Church, such as Canon 844.4 which allows non-Catholics to receive the sacraments (such as Holy Communion) from the Catholic Church provided they cannot approach their own ministers and likewise profess the Faith of the Church regarding those sacraments. This, of course, is contrary to the practice of the Church for reasons grounded in the Faith itself. One cannot have the virtue of Faith only on one point, while rejecting other dogmas of Faith. But apart from such cases, all of the other canons are received as validly promulgated.

Yet there is another manner of regarding the Code of Canon Law. One may regard it not as a simple collection of individual canons, but as something promulgated as a unity or whole. Pope John-Paul II, after all, did not speak of the Code as a simple collection of canons, brought together for convenience sake into one book. It was as one thing that he promulgated it, and it was meant to be taken as something unified, a book of Law. Indeed, the Code was to be the canonical embodiment of the Second Vatican Council, the legal incarnation of its teaching. Thus, in the L'Osservatore Romano of the 12th of March, 2012, it is affirmed,

"In his report during the introduction to the new Code of Canon Law in 1983, he [Pope John-Paul II] emphasized to the bishops that the Code was part of the Council and that in this sense it was the Council’s last document."

It is in this canonical embodiment of the Council's teaching that we must examine the binding nature of the Code of 1983. It is insufficient to simply regard the Code as if it was a collection of canons, each independent and to be examined according to each one's merits. The Code has a purpose and a spirit that defines it. This is not something that is hidden, or the opinion of conspiracy theorists. Indeed, in the Constitution whereby the New Code was promulgated, "Sacrae Disciplinae Leges" the Pope speaks precisely of the purpose of the New Code and its new spirit.

To understand the problem more deeply, it is necessary to turn to some notions from philosophy. This is not to turn the discussion to matters too difficult for the normal Catholic to understand. These notions can be understood. Philosophy speaks of all things created as having four causes: the Formal Cause, the Material Cause, the Efficient Cause, and the Final Cause. This breakdown is of such importance that all four can be found in the definition of every true law given by Saint Thomas Aquinas. To this definition, indeed we will soon turn. In any case, if we examine the Code by looking at each cause we will see the following. The Final Cause, which is the most important, is that the Code will move the Church in the direction willed by the Second Vatican Council, the renewal of the Church through the teaching of the Council. The Formal Cause will be the translation into the Code of its new teachings. These must inspire the Code if it is to bring us to that renewal. The Pope tells us of this new spirit. The Code is to translate the new ecclesiology expressed at Vatican II. Let us look at the Pope's own words, found in the promulgating Constitution:

"...Indeed, in a certain sense, this new Code could be understood as a great effort to translate this same doctrine, that is, the conciliar ecclesiology, into canonical language. If, however, it is impossible to translate perfectly into canonical language the conciliar image of the Church, nevertheless, in this image there should always be found as far as possible its essential point of reference.

From this there are derived certain fundamental criteria which should govern the entire new Code, both in the sphere of its specific matter and also in the language connected with it. It could indeed be said that from this there is derived that character of complementarily which the Code presents in relation to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, with particular reference to the two constitutions, the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium and the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes.

Hence it follows that what constitutes the substantial "novelty" of the Second Vatican Council, in line with the legislative tradition of the Church, especially in regard to ecclesiology, constitutes likewise the "novelty" of the new Code.

Among the elements which characterize the true and genuine image of the Church, we should emphasize especially the following: the doctrine in which the Church is presented as the People of God (cf. Lumen gentium, no. 2), and authority as a service (cf. ibid., no. 3); the doctrine in which the Church is seen as a "communion," and which, therefore, determines the relations which should exist between the particular Churches and the universal Church, and between collegiality and the primacy; the doctrine, moreover, according to which all the members of the People of God, in the way suited to each of them, participate in the threefold office of Christ: priestly, prophetic and kingly. With this teaching there is also linked that which concerns the duties and rights of the faithful, and particularly of the laity; and finally, the Church's commitment to ecumenism."

The Pope makes it quite clear that this Code of 1983, is meant to be the Council's "last document", for it embodies the "novelty" of its teaching by putting it into canonical form. There is indeed a unifying spirit that binds the canons together, and that is the new vision of the Church put forward by the Council. Thus we see that the Church must express itself now according to the new idea of itself found especially in "Lumen Gentium" and "Gaudium et Spes". This new vision permeates the Code, gives it life, and therefore provides the reason why Catholic Tradition must refuse it. There cannot be a new definition of the Church, given to us now after 1900 years. The Church's nature has always been understood by the Magisterium. It certainly does not now need to be discovered.

If we look at the definition of Saint Thomas on the nature of Law, we find that he teaches that it is an ordinance of reason, promulgated by the proper authority, for the common good. In this succinct definition, we have the four causes. It is an ordinance (material cause) of reason (formal cause) promulgated by the proper authority (efficient cause) for the common good (final cause). It is not enough that it be promulgated by the proper authority. The same must hold true for the promulgation of the Code. It is not enough that it be promulgated by the Pope. It must be for a purpose, and this purpose governs its nature. The Laws of the Church must be ordered to their purpose- the salvation of souls, and this salvation can only be acquired by means established by God firstly: Faith and the life of the virtues. The supernatural order was not discovered at Vatican II. The Church had had myriads of saints from her founding, all of whom reached Heaven by adherence to the true Faith and by sanctity of life. The New Code is ordered to the "renewal of the Christian life" according to new principles, principles which did not demand conversion of life and opposition to the world. And so the Code incarnates this new vision, a vision of a modern Church no longer at war with the world, but  friends with it, a Church no longer identified with the Catholic Church.

So we end with the stark reality of this Code of 1983 having a life of its own, child of a Council turned away from the past towards a humanistic future. The new spirit is the life binding together the canons even as the soul makes one in operation the organs of the body. It cannot be accepted for the very reason the reform cannot be accepted, even if there are good and traditional elements sometimes present. The life and direction of this new law is the death of the Catholic spirit. For Tradition then, Catholics must hold on to the 1917 Code, inspired by its own life and finality. It is not a question of denying the Pope's authority, but of taking John-Paul II at his own word. This is a New Code for a New Ecclesiology, not for the Catholic Church.

Sanctity is the Answer

Fr. Mateo Crawley-Boevey

"It is not scholars or great orators that we need, especially at the present moment; it is Saints." These words might seem too simple when we are faced with the disaster that is the modern post-Conciliar world. Within the Church we see the spirit of apostasy spreading. Churchmen seem to daily question more and more of the dogmatic and moral teaching of the Magisterium. Many, from the Pope downwards, seem to wish to divorce teaching from practice. Yes, Divorce and "remarriage" are wrong; but such as those who have entered into illicit unions may still be able to approach the sacraments, even if the union continues. Contraception has again become a topic of discussion, along with other subjects answered long ago by Rome.

In the face of such heresy and moral depravity, the average Catholic is adrift. How is he or she to know the truth if those who are by office the teachers of the faithful bend the truth to please a world which is ever-more weary of the Faith and the truth?  It is a grave situation indeed. But while its gravity cannot be doubted, all is not hopeless. The words of Our Lord cannot be ignored "... the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it [the Church]."

Traditional Catholics, if we may so name them, see that the truth cannot change; that the Church before the Council cannot be discarded in favour of an updated one, friends now with all species of unbelievers from heretics to atheists. This grace of remaining true to the unchanging doctrine of the Church certainly is to be acknowledged for what it is: a gift from God. But this grace of seeing the truth is given in a time of war and possible discouragement. How is a Catholic to respond to the present crisis? We must be on our guard; for although light has been given to us, the devil has not forgotten us. He desires the destruction of the Church and the means of salvation. He goes about, says Scripture, like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

One of the traps laid down by the demons is one of hyper-intellectualism. By this it is not to be thought that one must avoid the use of the intellect. Every Catholic must know his Faith if he is to avoid the manifold errors of our time. The Catechism must be learned and understood; good books on the subject of the crisis, such as those written by Archbishop Lefebvre, must be taken up and studied. But knowledge alone will not suffice. Often Catholics become deceived as to the extent of their knowledge in matters beyond their actual understanding. Armchair theologians have sprung up like mushrooms after the rain, theologizing on every subject whether they actually understand it or not. Seminaries have been replaced by one forum or another. "In this crisis no one may be trusted," except of course oneself. Catholicism is thus reduced to knowing about the Faith, rather than practicing it. One might even say that it is kind of Gnosticism whereby a false intellectualism replaces the actual teaching of the Church on the spiritual life. It is knowledge that saves according to this mode of temptation. But this is not the answer, for it betrays Tradition in the name of a false Traditionalism.

Another trap is that of Ecclesiastical politics, which is at root a form of Naturalism. God cannot restore the Church by grace; only by seeking approval by the authorities in the Church can Tradition be restored. But this brings with it grave dangers, if not fatal ones. How can there be a union based not upon the Faith, but upon some other agent of union? It is not a question of denying that the Pope or the diocesan bishops have their authority from the Apostles, but rather of the simple fact that they are not in the discharge of their offices faithful to their charge. Many have fallen into heresies of one kind or another, while many more at least hold ideas that savour of heresy. A growing number of Traditional Catholics have begun to thing that "traditional Catholicism" is not simply Catholicism. Yet the entire point of the resistance to these new teachings and practices rests on the fact that these new things are not Catholic. It is as simple as that. And there is no doubt that Pope Francis and those authorities constituted by him hold these false notions. The "novus ordo," to give it a name that is perhaps not theologically exact, manifests a recognizable spirit, false and leading to heresy; a spirit that binds the new thing together. There can be no regularization until this New Rome converts and professes the same Faith as has always been professed.

What must be the answer to our current distress? The answer lies in becoming that which we know God desires us to be- saints: "this is the will of God, your sanctification"(I Thess 4:3). In other words, the only answer possible to a spiritual crisis is a spiritual one, a supernatural one. It is not a question of rejecting the intellect, of laying aside those works that help us know the immemorial teaching of the Church. Truth must inform our mind, for God is Truth. But knowledge alone does not make us good. We may know all about the causes of the crisis, but this will not really solve anything if we do not do God's will. Knowledge must be joined to the love of God, to devotion, to the actual practice of the Faith. It must involve going to Holy Mass where the only sacrifice really important is offered up for the glory of God and the salvation of our souls. We must pray our Rosary with devotion and attention, approach the fountains of grace which are the sacraments, and fulfill the great law of Charity both towards God and towards ones neighbour. The words at the beginning of this reflection are from the great apostle of the Sacred Heart, Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, and they confront us with the truth. It is sanctity that is the solution to the problem of sin, and thus to the problem of the modern crisis.  It is the saint that alone can turn the tide, for the saint alone fulfills in himself the petitions, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven."

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.

Bishop Fellay and the Grace of State

As the battle presently waging between the adherents of Bishop Fellay and those who have been dubbed "the resistance" shows no signs of ending, it might be (and indeed is) useful to examine an argument that has gained more and more currency among the followers of the SSPX so as to justify their current position and at the same time silence their opponents. This argument might be reduced to this: Bishop Fellay, as the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X, has been given the grace of state so as to be able to make any decisions regarding an approval of the Society by the Holy See. Given this special grace, it is in fact disobedience to deny the rectitude of such an accord, or even to question it in any way. The adherents of this position have gone as far as to accuse the "resisters" of following down the path of Luther and the protestant reformers. Thus, we see the resistance labelled a sect for its lack of submission to the legitimate authority of Bishop Fellay and the other superiors of the Society. Sacraments are at times refused to these resisters, not to mention children of resisting parents being threatened with expulsion from Society schools- and not merely threatened. Many aspects of the Society's present position might be examined as to its correctness, but rather than shoot at any and all possible targets, this writer will look more closely at the one underlying many of the actions and attitudes of the Society leadership, namely the question of whether Bishop Fellay possesses a grace of state, and following upon that, to what extent this grace may be relied upon by the faithful as a sure guide of the rectitude of Bishop Fellay's actions.

Firstly, then, we examine the idea of a "grace of state". We know that God gives to each of the faithful special graces that correspond to his duty of state. The existence of a grace particular to ones state is closely allied to the dogma of Divine Providence. God, by His Providence, places us in a position whereby we have certain daily duties that we must perform. Sanctity will only be possible if we submit to what God wishes for us, and this is manifested on one level by the circumstances that He places us in. Thus, a mother of a family does not have the grace to be a nun, because her duty is specific to her role as wife and mother. It is not unheard of, unfortunately, that using the excuse that Saint X., who was a nun and saint, spent many hours a day in devout contemplation before the Blessed Sacrament, must be imitated by Mrs. Z. who has a number of neglected children needing to be taken care of. Mothers therefore, who shirk their duty to change their babies' diapers or feed children and husband so as be like Saint X, offend God who gave them a different task to perform so as to attain sanctity. Because God has given us duties in accordance with our state in life, He likewise wishes to give us the graces necessary in order to live in that state in a fitting manner, and by means of that state of life, reach union with God.

Now, there are sacramental graces that are immediately connected with a state of life, such as Holy Orders or Matrimony. If a priest is ordained, not only does the power to confect other sacraments come with the character of that sacrament, but also a special grace so as to be a fitting priest in the discharge of his duties. Grace is then at hand so as to be a priest according to the Will of God, for God demands not only that a thing be accomplished, but that it be accomplished in a fitting manner. What does this mean when it is a case of the priesthood!? "Imitate that which you handle" are the words of the Pontifical when the priest is ordained- and thus a grace is attached so as to do just that.

The same may be said for a husband or wife. Matrimony, though it does not last for eternity, and thus confers no character, nonetheless is a constant state of life that is only broken by the death of one of the spouses. There are many crosses that come with marriage, even as there are many joys. A special grace is given to the spouses so as to be fitting spouses, which means at the very least to be able to fulfill the vows exchanged at the time of their marriage. Thus, God gives, together with the duties incumbent upon the spouses, the graces necessary to be true spouses. Are there problems between the spouses? There is a grace of state ready to help remedy the situation.

Now, it must be plain to anyone who has met either priests or spouses, that the mere fact that grace has been, and will be given so to aid the persons involved to fittingly fulfill their duty of state, does not guarantee that these priests or spouses have in fact, fulfilled their offices fittingly. There is no lack of either bad priests or unfaithful spouses. Does this mean that there was no grace of state in the case of the unfaithful? Hardly. A grace may be offered, but man may, and does, refuse these graces when offered. The grace of state will only profit those who humbly make use of it. Man has the power to refuse grace that is offered, and Hell is a witness to how many times man may say "no".

In the case at hand, there is more to the question than the grace of state. In the case of the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre, each of them was, and is, given the grace to fittingly fulfill their duty of state as Catholic bishops. In this, there is no difference between Bishop Fellay and the other three. He is a bishop and so are they. Thus, in those things appertaining to being a bishop, there is a grace offered by God so that the bishop may exercise his power in a fitting way. Now, in the case of the four bishops, there is no conferral of ordinary jurisdiction, but only what pertains to orders. Thus, there is no power of rulership or office given to them by the Church in the normal fashion. But it would be inaccurate to ignore that there is also a role given to the bishops by way of extraordinary jurisdiction. This jurisdiction is conferred by the Church when the good of souls requires its exercise, and this only occurs when it is not possible to have recourse to those who possess ordinary jurisdiction. Given the fact that the Roman authorities and those of the dioceses are the apostles of a distorted Catholicism, even if they are of the best of wills, fidelity to the Catholic religion demands the necessity of shepherds who are trustworthy in their adherence to the Faith of all times, and the worship and discipline that goes with it. Thus, extraordinary jurisdiction enables the bishops to both lead the faithful in the way of salvation and protect them from the wolves of false doctrine and morals. This extraordinary jurisdiction, of course, presupposes a state of emergency in the Church. If there is no state of emergency in which recourse is not possible to those possessing ordinary jurisdiction, then there is no extraordinary jurisdiction conferred. Recourse does not mean simply being able to speak to those in authority. It also means that there is the possibility of trusting to the Catholicity of their judgements as well. In our present situation this is not the case. Given that they are infected with Modernism, we cannot have recourse to them. In other words, given the fact that these authorities no longer are faithful to the Faith handed down from the apostles, they must be avoided until such time as the true Faith is professed both by the superiors and by the subjects. And this brings us to the heart of the matter.

We have spoken of the grace of state, and that this grace is immediately related to the duty of state determined by God through the working of His Divine Providence. However, if we look at the arguments adduced in favour of Bishop Fellay, the grace appealed to is more specific than that of a general grace of state. The actual argument derives from the grace of office. This is a special grace given to those who bear an ecclesiastical office that involves the sanctification of souls. While all of the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre are given the grace connected with the order of the episcopacy both sacramentally and in the acts of extraordinary jurisdiction that they possess for the salvation of souls, the grace of office is more particular. This grace is joined to a particular office and possesses, if it is the case of a superior of subjects, ordinary jurisdiction. Bishop Fellay is the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X. Thus, it is claimed that he possess a grace in virtue of this office whereby his decisions may not be criticized unless they would be openly against the Faith. In this claim, Bishop Fellay is relying on the ordinary jurisdiction he claims as Superior General of the Society, not as simply a bishop. This claim is what we must examine.

Firstly, all offices are not created equal, and consequent upon the distinction of office, there is a distinction of graces attendant upon that office. Thus, the Pope, who is the visible head of the Church, possessing universal jurisdiction, is given by Christ a corresponding grace of office. The Pope's office, as it is the greatest in the Church, and bears upon every one of the faithful by its extension, has the greatest grace of office so that that role may be fittingly exercised. The higher the office, the greater the graces necessary. This grace of office exists not only for the one filling it, but even more so for those who are subjects of that office. In the Church, an office is related to the salvation of the subjects of that office. It exists for the good of the Church. We know, of course, that the papacy possesses a grace that no other office possesses, and that is the charism of infallibility in the cases laid down by the First Vatican Council, for the Pope is the principle of unity in the Church, and that unity rests on the unity of the Faith. As Pope Leo XIII pointed out in "Satis Cognitum",

"Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord among men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful..."

No other office possesses the charism of infallibility, for no other office is the principle of ecclesiastical unity. But this principle of unity rests upon the Faith that the papacy guards and extends. From the papacy, there are various lower offices. The lower the office, the less the grace of that office. Within the religious orders, there are distinctions of importance as well. There are the orders that are greater rank, whose members profess solemn vows, such as the canons regular, the monks, and the friars. And there are others with simple vows, etc. In those congregations without vows, some are bound by promises, and least of all, those bound by simple oblation. It is in this category that the Society of Saint Pius X falls. But this is not the only criterion to determine the importance of the office of superior.

There are various ranks of congregations based upon their canonical importance. Some are orders in the strict sense, that enjoy being papally exempt, or of Pontifical Right. These have special privileges in law and can only be suppressed by the Holy See itself. The Society does not fall under this category. Then there are others that are of Diocesan Right, and again, the Society does not fall under this category either. At the very bottom, are what in the traditional Canon Law are named "Pious Unions". Those of this rank may be suppressed the most easily and enjoy the least privileges of law. This is the situation of the Society of Saint Pius X. Let us look at the decree of erection written by Bishop Charriere:''

"The International Priestly Society of Saint Pius X is erected in our diocese as a Pious Union... We approve and confirm the Statutes, here joined, of the Society for a period of six years ad experimentum, which will be able to be renewed for a similar period by tacit approval; after which, the Society can be erected definitively in our diocese by the competent Roman Congregation..."

We do not have to guess at the rank of the Society, or the importance of the office of its superior. The Church erected it as a Pious Union on an experimental basis for six years, at the end of which it could be approved for another six years as long as the bishop did not intervene. After that, it could be approved definitively by Rome. Now what is immediately apparent, is that it never got to the definitive stage. In 1976, there was the attempted suppression of the Society. Even if we admit the invalidity of this suppression by the then bishop in concert with the Holy See, we must also admit that the Roman Congregation mentioned did not give it any definitive status. It was certainly never approved by any decree elevating it to any higher rank. In the very best stretch of canonical imagination, it only remains a Pious Union, and that is being very generous indeed.

So where does that leave Bishop Fellay? In the letter to the world's bishops following upon the lifting of the excommunications Bishop Fellay and his three fellow bishops by Pope Benedict XVI, the Pope explicitly states,

"The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church."

This statement on the part of the Pope is clear on one thing, at least, and that there is no office of the Superior General admitted by Rome, and thus no grace of state. For modern Rome the Society has no legitimate ministry in the Church, and that is the end of the question for the Holy See. Thus, there can be no argument that Rome admits any grace of state whatsoever, deriving from any legitimate office in the Society of Saint Pius X. This claim can certainly be denied on the basis of the present state of emergency, which derives firstly from the heresies and errors currently being forced upon the member of the Church by the hierarchy, the pope included.

Even if we claim that Bishop Fellay still holds a legitimate office in the Church, this office cannot be greater than that given to the Society's head by the Church herself, namely as the head of a Pious Union. This is something, but it is worlds away from any supposed protection from error due to his office. If the Pope and all the bishops can be unfaithful to the graces of their offices, the highest established by Christ, then all the more so can Bishop Fellay, who is not even of the rank of the head of the Arch-confraternity of Our Lady of Perpetual Help!

Archbishop Lefebvre was never so unskilled a theologian as to base his role in the crisis upon that of a supposed grace of office. By the time of the Society, he was archbishop-bishop emeritus of Tulle and the former Superior General of the Holy Ghost fathers. He was then the Superior General of the Society, and that soon passed into the hands of another. Archbishop Lefebvre did not base the rightness of his position on grace of state or of office. That is the absurdity of the present claim of Menzingen. A Pious Union has no claim to any infallibility. Even the office of Superior General extends only to what the Statutes give it, and that binds only the clerical members. No, the Archbishop defended his actions on another principle altogether, and refused the nonsensical appeal to a minuscule grace of office:

"Don't say, 'We follow Mgr. Lefebvre,' No! Why Mgr. Lefebvre? He's no saint! But you follow Jesus Christ and the Tradition of the Church. You remain Catholic! What more do you want? No other thing!

I refuse to say, "I am the chief of the people who follow tradition." No, no, no, no! I am a Catholic bishop, no more, and I continue my work to preach Catholic doctrine. I do my work to prepare Catholic priests, and through them, the Catholic faithful, and no other thing. No! Don't say "the doctrine of Mgr. Lefebvre." I have no doctrine. I have no new teaching. My teaching is that of the Church, the teaching of the Catholic Church and the catechism of the Council of Trent. That is very important - to remain in the true way - and not to give the impression that you have founded a new Church. That is what the Modernists are doing - they build a new church. We don't build a new church; we follow the Catholic Church of always.

The grave error of Bishop Fellay is to invent a grace of state that mimics that of the Pope, and to impose by fear upon the priests and faithful this false reality. But if the Pope's grace of office has not stopped him from making the gravest of errors in every part of the Faith, even more so is it no protection for Bishop Fellay who can claim nothing but at most the grace joined to the office of Superior of a Pious Union. This novel claim on his part is enough to warn the faithful of doctrinal aberration. He has invented an ecclesiology of the Society that is not true. Secondly, he has deviated from the truth on other matters. To mention but one, the claim that he knew nothing of Bishop Williamson's ideas concerning the number of Jews killed under Hitler is blatantly untrue. Bishop Williamson's views were open and notorious. There was the affair in Canada long before the Swedish television incident. Every priest with any connection with Bishop Williamson knew about his ideas. And yet, Bishop Fellay publicly denied knowing anything. He only knew Bishop Williamson was a bit "eccentric" and this was laid at the feet of his being British. This should have been a warning that there was a grave problem. Then there was the flagrant violation of canon law concerning Bishop Williamson being excluded from the General Chapter. The canon given as an excuse had no bearing upon the matter at all. The trustworthiness of Bishop Fellay can never be restored, barred a miracle. Yet this is not even the gravest thing. The Society has invented its own laws concerning the discipline of the

sacraments, the supervision of groups such as the Benedictines, the Dominicans, and the Capuchins, a situation nowhere envisioned in canon law for the head of a Pious Union.

So we return to the question of the grace of state or of office enjoyed by Bishop Fellay. As a bishop without ordinary jurisdiction consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre, he enjoys the same grace of the episcopal state. He exists because the Roman authorities are not trustworthy and are enemies of the Faith objectively speaking. They cannot be trusted, as he now cannot be trusted. As to the grace of office, at most he possesses a grace that is attendant upon his role as superior of a Pious Union. That is at the very most, and that is small indeed. His importance is only based on his fidelity to the Tradition of the Church in the present crisis, to follow the Catholic Church of always.

It is to be lamented that Bishop Fellay clings to the declaration that he sent to Rome so as to be approved, and that the blame is to be laid on the Roman authorities. Blame is to be laid everywhere byt at his own door. The General Chapter put out its six conditions for an agreement with Rome, reaffirming the betrayal. The Pope had refused Bishop Fellay's declaration before the General Chapter had taken place, and yet Bishop Fellay proceeds onward. Then, there is the declaration of the Three Bishops made for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Society and in paragraph eleven we have the same door open to being approved by Rome. All dissent is followed by punishments, and this continues. Bishop Fellay, after all, has the grace of state. Indeed.

Yet if we are asked, why the great concern about an agreement that never took place? We can answer that this was not because of any reticence on Bishop Fellay's part, but only on Rome's. Nothing has changed but the invention of a grace of state greater even than the Pope's. And so those who disagree with Bishop Fellay are Schismatics, protestants, rebels- all the names thrown once upon a time upon Archbishop Lefebvre. In his case, at least the person he stood against was the Pope. Now it is given to those who have left the new Catholic Church built upon Bishop Fellay. I choose the one founded by Christ.

A final point might be made. In the quote from Pope Leo XIII we are reminded that unity of Faith is the first unity. Since when did modernist Rome convert to the one Faith? How can there be a union when there is no union? When is the unity of the Church built without the unity of the Faith? When anyone can show us that Rome now believes that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice offered to appease God who is offended by sin, that there is one and only one true Church- the others being false religions and hateful to God, that the Pope alone is head of the Church and not a college of bishops with him leading them, and that the right to worship God publicly according to his conscience, even when this conscience is wrong is a damnable lie, then please notify us. Otherwise, it is Assisi and a unity without Faith. That is the fruit desired by Bishop Fellay and his new doctrine of the meaning of grace of office.

New Book

This week saw the publication of a book by this author: "Restoring the Bastions: The Church Militant at War". The hardback edition can be found at Lulu.com for 25.00, while a soft back edition may be purchased at createspace.com or Amazon.com.

They Labour in Vain who Build It

"Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it."

This verse of Psalm 126 should have been in the hearts and on the tongues of Catholics as the results of the last American presidential election began to flood into homes throughout the United States. Certainly the hopes of conservatives had taken a beating, as they saw that the candidate chosen by the Republican Party had been swept away by the forces of the New America and its poster boy, the incumbent Barack Obama. Surely grim faces met the morning light the following day, as the so-called conservatives found that the America that most voters believed in was not the America touted by Mitt Romney and Neo-Conservatism but the more forward America of Barack Obama.

This election is certainly a turning point in American politics. Some have pointed out that the present government, having become the source of income for millions of Americans who rely upon it for their daily bread, have in fact created an electorate that will not bite the hand that feeds it. Big government provides the bread and circuses that in turn provide a comfortable life to millions, and these beneficiaries will be the last to vote for any candidate that will withdraw the benefits they now enjoy, even if that means ignoring the abyss drawing ever nearer- a default on the increasing debt now in the trillions of dollars. Thus the Democrats are assured of ever greater power as the huddled masses longing to be fed and entertained increase in size and influence. But despite this unsettling fact, it must also be admitted that the Republicans are incapable of providing any real alternative. Even on the purely practical level, if the Republican Party lowered the amount of money spent on supporting those dependent upon government, its constant desire for more and more wars in the Middle East in order to bolster the power of the State of Israel would only end in increasing the debt of America, rather than lowering it. Its claim to moral superiority over the Obama regime fades therefore when American blood is pledged in unjust wars, and becomes indeed ludicrous when its touted stand against abortion is seen for what it is- only a pledge to restrict the murder of children to certain cases instead of all- not that that pledge would ever really be put into effect. What have Republicans learned out of this election? And what of those more conservative Catholics who have up to the present put their trust in that party and its supposed conservatism?

Republicans seem to now admit that there is a problem. Many, however, see this problem as the party being out of step with an America that is farther left socially. Their answer? Embrace the dream of social liberalism, while focusing on fiscal conservatism. In other words, embrace yesterday's dreams of the Democrats, while preaching a fiscal conservatism that piles on debt through military interventions in countries over which we are not sovereign. Not a very convincing plan if the idea is actually to be fiscally conservative.

The truly tragic part of this drama is not the frantic attempts to bring the Republicans "up to date." It is not even the fact that Obama won a second term in the White House. Those things are tragic enough, of course, but they are not at the heart of the tragedy. The true tragedy is being played out in the Catholic Church, among American Catholics in this case. Perhaps one can speak of a "Comico-Tragedy" as one studies the photo of Cardinal Dolan, Prince of the Church and head of the Archdiocese of New York, as he enjoys his guests at the Al Smith Dinner. On his left laughs the Republican candidate Romney, who gave his approval to a Health Care Law in Massachusetts that in no wise protected Catholic institutions from paying for contraceptives; on the other side was the laughing face of the pro-abortion, pro-contraceptive, pro-left Obama, no doubt enjoying the fact that Religion was certainly no obstacle to the Cardinal's invitation to dinner; while in the middle roared the Cardinal himself, making such a spectacle of himself that if one guest was noticeably absent, it was the decorum of a Prince of the Church. Would that the Cardinal had the dignity of an Irish peasant bowing before an English "milord" rather than the gracelessness of a buffoon in the court of liberal politics. When the election came round, it was plain to see that for the majority of bishops, there was no intention of really stopping the forces of secularism. They had grumbled loud enough to be noticed in Rome for their fidelity, but then had made sure that religion did not get in the way of a democratic victory. Not even all of this, however, was at the heart of the tragedy of 2012.

The real tragedy was the fact that no one questioned the underlying bases making this Obama victory possible. Non-Catholics, of course, had been carefully brought up in ignorance as to the lies underlying Republicanism and the Democrats, so an answer from them was hardly to be expected. But Catholics! Centuries of Catholic Christendom allowed the truth to reign in politics as in so many other areas where Christ was acknowledged as ruler over His creation. The Church has the answer and had condemned the madness that lies at the foundation of modern, liberal civilization, but its children from top to bottom in this age are immersed in the dream of an anti-Catholic liberalism. From the millions of Catholic in America, there has arisen no answer at all to the dilemma of the two headed serpent of Obama and Romney. Answers there are aplenty, all of them wrong. Conservative pundits pondered over how such a loss of Republican values was possible, politicians such as McCain pontificated on the need to be silent on such issues as abortion (it was not for him to be telling young women how to live their lives!), Romney reeled from the victory that he thought would surely be his, and was numb to any answers. For some, it was almost time to despair. Almost, but not quite. In this case, however, despair is precisely the beginning to an answer. It is an answer that is not new, nor is it to be invented by materialists or socialists. The answer was given two thousand years ago. It is the Catholic Faith, and the civilization that rises from it. Christ has given the only answer to man's difficulties. Every other answer is wrong and can only lead to destruction, as the 2012 election is a proof, and not the only one.

The Catholic Church alone has the answer, for it is God's own answer. Catholics must despair of the false answers of liberal protestantism or the "founding fathers" whose false dreams have led to the only end possible for falsehood: the fall of the West and the loss of sanity in matters even natural. We must despair of the entire American process given to us by heretics and unbelievers and return to the sanity of Catholic civilization. Christ must reign, or He will destroy us so as to make way for those who will obey His Law and His Gospel. "He MUST reign" says Sacred Scripture. It is not an option. Until Catholics say "no" to the entire system of Antichrist that has been built slowly but inexorably since the Reformation and even more so, since the founding of the New Atlantis, nothing will be solved. One must either submit oneself and ones nation to Christ the King, or be under the prince of this world. Tertia non datur.