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Newchurch never seems to learn: reject the wisdom of the Church's Tradition, and you create problems for yourself. The invalid Novus Ordo Protestant-Masonic-Pagan service is infected again, this time with the deadly meningococcal bacterium. The Catholic Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, has decided that juice will no longer be given to congregations to be slobbered from a shared cup. As in the past, other dioceses may soon follow.
At least two deaths have been recently linked in Lafayette to the bacterium. It was not disclosed whether the two had been infected by "communion" juice or something else. The disease is transmitted from respiratory secretions that can be passed from an infected person by sharing a cup with an uninfected person.
Already by the 11th century, the practice in the Latin Church was to distribute Holy Communion to the laity under the form of bread alone. This practice arose partly to counteract the heretical error that Christ is not received whole and entire under either species, partly to prevent the spilling of the Most Precious Blood, partly to reflect an increasing reverence for the Most Precious Blood, and partly to distribute Holy Communion in an orderly way to the large numbers of Catholics who attended Mass in the West, even daily Mass.
The Sixteenth Oecumenical Council, of Constance (1414-1418), answered the heretical teachings of the proto-Protestants by decreeing the distribution of Holy Communion to the laity under one species as a custom of universal obligation in the Latin Church. This the Council did as a cure to the make it understood that Jesus Christ is present entire under both or either species.
This decree was renewed by the Seventeenth Oecumenical Council, of Basel (1431-1449), against the Taborites and Calixtines and by the Nineteenth Oecumenical Council, of Trent (1445-1463), against the Lutherans and Calvinists. The Council of Trent further decreed (Sessio XXI, Cap. 1) that there is no divine precept binding anyone, except the celebrant of the Mass, to receive both species.
In the 15th century, the proto-Protestants John Hus, John Wyclif, and Jerome of Prague began to demand that Holy Communion be given to the laity under both species. The reintroduction of Communion under both species was an outward manifestation of the rejection of the Catholic Eucharistic doctrine, which taught that Christ was present, whole and entire, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in each and every portion of the Holy Eucharist. From that time this demand became the "badge and the criterion and the shibboleth" (Hughes) of a Protestantizing attitude toward the Holy Eucharist.
It is the doctrine of the Church that in transubstantiation all of the bread is changed into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ, that all of the wine is changed into the body, blood, soul and Divinity of Christ, and that reception of either species was reception of the entire Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.This Catholic practice is indicated in Sacred Scripture and fully canonized by Tradition. The sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel speaks twice of receiving the Species of bread alone. Both the Eastern and Western Church from early times distributed Holy Communion variously under either one or both Species. For example, in the East infants were given the Most Precious Blood only, as they were not yet able to digest bread. Even today the Eastern Churches, although most rites commonly distribute Holy Communion under both Species, do not consider it a matter of necessity.
The dogmatic Council of Trent pronounced: "If anyone says that the Holy Catholic Church has not been influenced by just cause and reasons to give Communion under the form of bread only to laymen and even to clerics when not consecrating, or that she has erred in this, let him be anathema" (Sessio XXI, Canon 2).
Given what has happened in the Novus Ordo Mess, with flagons of wine being unceremoniously "consecrated" and then sacrilegiously poured down the drain, let alone spilled, one can see the wisdom of the Tradition of Holy Mother Church in this regard.
Traditional Roman Catholics can be absolutely certain that when they receive Holy Communion under one Species, they are receiving their Lord whole and entire, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity and that they are conforming themselves to a practice more than one thousand years old, which has been canonized by at least three dogmatic oecumenical councils.
You may remember the Newchurch controversy in St. Louis. St. Stanislaus Kostka Church there has a Roman Catholic archiepiscopal charter from over 125 years ago to manage itself from the archdiocese through a Board of Trustees. This was a common arrangement in the Catholic Church in the United States, and the Board of Trustees and parishioners have managed their own beautiful Gothic church for 125 years without taking one cent from the archdiocese, even during the Great Depression. They were excellent stewards of their church, and now sit on $10,000,000 in property and assets.
Enter Newchurch Archbishop Raymond "Bully" Burke. He came from LaCrosse, Wisconsin, in 2003, where the Riverfront Times has reported that he routinely suppressed reports of sex crimes and himself received into final vows as a "nun" a "trangendered" female/male. With bills for more sex crimes in St. Louis, he had to find a golden calf -- and that became St. Stanislaus Kostka Church and its $10,000,000.
Burke tried to extort control of the church and its assets against from the independent Board of Trustees and the parishioners, but these courageous people weren't going to stand for such outright theft. They refused the bishop. So, he huffed and puffed and hurled Novus Ordo "excommunications" against everyone in sight. The parishioners took a vote and decided by a majority of 99% that they didn't want to be part of any New Order that would steal their church.
The parishioners found a presbyter, Mark Bozek, originally from Poland, but then serving in the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Newchurch diocese. He agreed to pastor their flock. So "Bully" Burke "excommunicated" him too. But Burke, who can hardly be called a Catholic bishop, was put in his place on Sunday, February 18, when Bozek delivered a pointed sermon about authority and obedience in the Church, aimed squarely at Burke. "Catholics," said Bozek, "are taught to respect the Church's authority and the authority of those in the Church hierarchy. Though it is central to the Church":
"Obedience, thank goodness, is not the highest value. There are three other values that are higher: justice, truth, charity. Authority and obedience need to serve these three values. If any authority demands of you obedience that would be unjust, untruthful, uncharitable, you -- as a Catholic -- not only can be disobedient, but should be disobedient."
Bozek said to the St. Louis Post Dispatch that when he was five years old in Poland, his father was murdered, most likely by Soviet troops stationed nearby along the Poland-Soviet Union border. Bozek talks with pride about his association, as a teenager, with anti-Communist Polish groups. He sees himself today as a passionate idealist who will stand up to injustice. God grant us traditional priests like that, priests whose First Commandment is not loyalty to some organization, but to God first.
For his courage, Bozek has been calumniated vilely -- just as those who stand up to Newchurch, just as those who stand up to the Liberalist Faction of the SSPX or other groups that place obedience to themselves over obedience to God, when the two come into conflict. Bozek says that he left his Newchurch post in Cape Springfield-Cape Girardeau to bring the Sacraments back to the people of St. Stanislaus and that his resolve has only strengthened since he arrived. "I would never get involved here if the archbishop had not taken away the sacraments from these people," he said. Now listen carefully to what Bozek has to say about the perversion of Newchurch:
"This is the biggest atrocity in the 21st century in the Catholic Church -- to use the sacraments as a game. That's a bigger abuse than the abuse of minors, or at least the same gravity, because the sacraments are the most holy thing for Catholics. If you take seriously what the Church teaches about sacraments, it's the very presence of the Lord. And how can you use the very presence of God to manipulate someone?"
This young presbyter of 31 has more wisdom than most any Novus Ordo presbyter, of any age, that you will meet, and more understanding of the current situation than many traditional priests you will meet!
Bozek is living in the U.S. on a religious worker's visa, and has a one-year contract with St. Stanislaus, which can be extended. He is paid $1,900 per month, his rent is paid for, he receives a food allowance and he has insurance benefits. Meanwhile, parish activity at St. Stanislaus is buzzing. Bozek has increased the number of parish households from 250 to 500. Attendance at "services" have increased 400%. Apparently, Novus Ordo "excommunications" aren't worth the paper they're printed on!
Bozek even has familiarity with Latin. He says that when he is calumniated by Newchurch, he relies on a Latin aphorism, per aspera ad astra to help him get through the loneliest points. "Christianity is not about easy solutions, it's about just and true solutions," he says. "And sometimes justice demands self-sacrifice. This crusade found me."
At heart, this presbyter is a traditional Catholic! Pray God that he converts to the true Faith one day -- and brings St. Stanislaus Kosta Parish with him!
On February 22, Benedict-Ratzinger appointed fifteen new cardinals for Newchurch. Although it is no surprise, the two men appointed for the United States have both been under heavy criticism for incompetence as bishops -- and worse!
William Levada, former archbishop of San Francisco, is under double federal subpoena in the Great Sex Crimes Scandal. Both in San Francisco and in his former diocese of Portland, Oregon, he has been the subject of suits for allowing his presbyters to victimize children sexually. Just when the heat was turned up, Levada was hustled off late last year to Newvatican by his friend, Benedict-Ratzinger. The ploy didn't completely work, however. The federal court threatened to revoke Levada's U.S. passport and prohibit him from leaving the country unless he returned to face the music. Levada, with no good alternative except to become a fugitive from the law, acquiesed.
Sean O'Malley, archbishop of Boston replacing the discredited Bernard Law, was censured by Newvatican for illegal conversion of funds, in effect, ecclesiastical thievery. He has also done such things as endangering the safety of children entrusted to his care by throwing them out onto the streets in heavy traffic, just to avoid a demonstration against him by their parents. O'Malley's behavior was so objectionable, in fact, that several state and municipal officials condemned him publicly -- an event that would never have occurred in ultra-Catholic Boston before.
It is often said that the caliber of a leader is shown by the people with whom he surrounds himself. Benedict-Ratzinger seems to be surrounding himself with shady characters of a criminal bent. But Benedict-Ratzinger himself has had quite a hand in perpetuating the Great Sex Crimes Scandal. He himself was fingered as an undicted co-conspirator in a Texas case and weaseled out only by claiming "diplomatic immunity."
Well, thank goodness, God doesn't give the pope moral immunity. In fact, according to St. John Chrysostom, the Great Eastern Doctor of the Church, "The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of rotten bishops."
It should be no surprise that the Newchurch over which Benedict-Ratzinger presides has the morals of a barnyard. Newchurch's Great Sex Scandal is out of control, and Newpope cannot seem to lift his voice against it. He appoints as his Sex-Crimes Czar Archbishop William Levada, who is under double subpoena concerning sex crimes in not one, but two, dioceses over which he had charge. Then Newpope appoints as Levada's replacement in San Francisco Bishop George Niederauer, of Salt Lake City, who is about as "gay-friendly" as they come.
But finally the dam had to break. Newchurch, which essentially rejects the principles of the traditional morality of the Catholic Church, had to expose itself eventually. And that it has done in the person of Newchurch's Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, Archbishop of Vienna. In addition, Schonborn was the principal fabricator of the Vatican II Catechism.
The German periodial, Die Presse, reported that on St. Valentine's Day, February 14, of this year, Schonborn announced through the rector of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna that he would start "blessing" homosexual couples. Presbyter Anton Faber claimed that the blessing of homosexual unions is "based on solid Catholic ground and are in a 100% concordance with the directives of the Austrian [Newchurch] Bishops' Conference."
The fact that the Vatican II Catechism itself calls such a thing "disordered," the fact that Newvatican blew cool in a 2003 document on homosexuality makes no difference. The dead words on paper that Newvatican has issued since Vatican II are not meant to be taken seriously. They are just empty posturing -- and everybody knows it.
The first ceremony occurred in the cathedral on St. Valentine's day and was attended by roughly 1000 persons, according to Die Presse. No excommunications were announced by Benedict.
And, remember, Schonborn was touted as a "conservative" in Newchurch circles. It just goes to show that there are no "conservatives" in Newchurch. If you're Novus Ordo in any way, you're a Modernist and can go wacko at the drop of a hat -- even a cardinal's hat!
From presbyters, bishops, right on up to Newvatican and Newpope, Newchurch has tried to assure the Novus Ordinarians that the sex-crimes of Newchurch are under control now. Yeah, sure. Their program has essentially been to sweep as much as possible under the carpet as quickly as possible, and that program hasn't really changed in recent years, even after two independent reviews, funded by the Newchurch bishops themselves, found that the bishops were essentially doing nothing to correct the situation. As two chairman of the U.S. Newchurch Bishops' Sex Crimes Commission, one an FBI agent and one a judge, have publicly stated, the situation is worse now that it was before.
Pity poor Cardinal George, of Chicago. After claiming to be one of the most vigorous rooters-out of such crimes, the fat hit the pan. One of his own presbyters was charged in January for multiple sex crimes in a high-profile scandal. George wrote glowingly in June 2002 that the U.S. Newchurch bishops had promised that presbyters "who were shown to have ever abused a minor, even once, would be permanently removed from public ministry if not from the priesthood [Newchurch presbyterate]" and that programs would be set up to protect children from harm.
Oops! Even George had to confess publicly on February 19: "The case of Father Daniel McCormack undermines all this now." McCormack was investigated by police and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services in the summer of 2005, but George did not remove him from ministry, as the U.S. Sex Crimes Program promised. Supposedly, George "monitored" him, but that "monitoring" consisted of leaving him at St. Agatha's Newchurch parish, the scene of his previous sex crimes! McCormick then proceeded to molest another youth as recently as December 2005. [Chicago WBBM 780]
Too bad Cardinal George isn't living in the 12th century. Then perhaps like King Henry II, he would be forced to crawl on his knees from the palace to the cathedral to do penance for his grievous sin, not just have a propaganda letter read from the pulpit in absentia.
In France, Fernando Rifan, Newrome's puppet bishop of the Campos group that sold out to the Novus Ordo in 2002, after the SSPX-consecrated bishop Luciano Rangel resigned in favor of Newchurch, is on a mission for traditional converts to the New Order in Paris and in Bordeaux. He is being welcomed by "indult" groups here. It is reported here that Newrome is in a hurry to get the sellout of the SSPX and wants to create an "Apostolic Administration" to silence objections to the Modernist Vatican II theology and liturgy.
It is said that the Superior of Avrillé, Dominican Innocent-Marie, had a meeting this week in Bordeaux with Rifan. It was an SSPX Dominican of this monastery who wrote the two-part series in the SSPX's organ, Angelus, at the behest of Schmidberger and the German Network. The goal is to stop any legitimate debate about the invalidity of the new rite for the consecration of bishops. Here in France, the Pierre-Marie articles have been the subject of a total refutation paper by the Traditional Study Group.
In all the politicking, Archbishop Lefebvre's words of 1987, spoken shortly before the Archbishop proceeded to the episcopal consecrations to perpetuate the traditional Roman Catholic Faith, addressed to Cardinal Ratzinger personally, have apparently been forgotten by Fellay & Schmidberger: Ratzinger is working on the de-Christianization of the Church; thus, the collaboration of the Society with Newchurch is "impossible."
The original French text of the Archbishop's words:
"Je l'ai résumé au Cardinal Ratzinger en quelques mots, n'est-ce pas, parce que c'est difficile de résumer toute cette situation; mais je lui ai dit : 'Éminence, voyez, même si vous nous accordez un évêque, même si vous nous accordez une certaine autonomie par rapport aux évêques, même si vous nous accordez toute la liturgie de 1962, si vous nous accordez de continuer les séminaires et la Fraternité, comme nous le faisons maintenant, nous ne pouvons pas collaborer; c'est impossible, impossible, parce que nous travaillons dans deux directions diamétralement opposées: vous, vous travaillez à la déchristianisation de la société, de la personne humaine et de l'Église, et nous, nous travaillons à la christianisation. On ne peut pas s'entendre.
Rome a perdu la foi, mes chers amis. Rome est dans l'apostasie. Ce ne sont pas des paroles, ce ne sont pas des mots en l'air que je vous dis. C'est la vérité. Rome est dans l'apostasie. On ne peut plus avoir confiance dans ce monde-là, il a quitté l'Église, ils ont quitté l'Église, ils quittent l'Église. C'est sûr, sûr, sûr.
An English rendition of the Archbishop's words:
I have summed it up to Cardinal Ratzinger in a certain words, of course, because it is difficult to sum up this whole situation; but I said to him: "Eminence, see, even if you grant us a bishop, even if you grant us a certain self-government in relation to the bishops, even if you grant us all the liturgy of 1962, if you grant us to continue the seminaries and Society, as we do it now, we cannot collaborate; it is impossible, impossible, because we work in two diametrically opposed directions: you, you work for the de-Christianization of society, of the human person, and of the Church, and we, we work for its Christianization. They cannot be in agreement."
Rome has lost the Faith, my dear friends. Rome is in apostasy. It is not just words, it is not just words in the air that I say to you. It is the truth. Rome is in apostasy. One cannot have confidence any more in this world. He has left the Church, they have left the Church, they are leaving the Church. It is sure, sure, sure.
It would be an understatement to say that some kind of about-face has occurred in the mind of Franz Schmidberger, SSPX's First Assistant Superior General! On July 6, 1988, from Econe, the SSPX Headquarters, he (then Superior General) and 23 other courageous SSPX priests wrote an Open Letter to His Eminence Cardinal Gantin, Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, specifically requesting personal excommunication to stand clearly in the eyes of the faithful with the true Catholic Faith rather than be associated with the Counterfeit Newchurch:
For us, we are in full communion with all popes and all bishops who preceded Vatican Council II, celebrating exactly the Mass that they codified and celebrated, teaching the catechism that they composed, rising up against the errors that they condemned many times in their encyclicals and their pastoral letters. Therefore, judge carefully on which side the break has occurred....
We, on the other hand, have never wanted to belong to this system that styles itself the Conciliar Church and defines itself by the Novus Ordo Missae, the oecumenism of Indifferentism, and the secularization of all society. Yes, we have no part, nullam partem habemus, with the pantheon of religions of Assisi; our own excommunication by a decree of your Eminence or another dicastery would only be incontestable proof of that fact. We cannot demand more than to be declared excommunicated from the infidel wind that has blown in the Church for twenty-five years, excluded from impious communion with the infidels....
Therefore, to be associated publicly with the excommunication that hit the six Catholic bishops [Lefebvre, Castro de Meyer, Fellay, Galarreta, Tissier de Mallerais, Williamson], defenders of the Faith entirely and wholely, would be for us a mark of honour and a sign of orthodoxy before the faithful. The faithful have, in effect, a strict right to know that the priests with whom they associate are not in the communion with a Counterfeit Church, progressive, pentecostal, and syncretist....
/signed/
Fr. Franz Schmidberger, Superior General
and the Twenty-Three Superiors of the Regional Seminaries and Autonomous Houses of the Society of St. Pius X worldwide
After reading that courageous statement in 1988, one can only ask: Who in Newchurch got to Franz Schmidberger afterward?!
Dear Fathers:
Here in Europe we are beginning to get news that the SSPX was really shaken up internally as a result of the High Council meeting on February 7-8. It was reported here that during the High Council meeting, Fellay did a remarkable about-face and took the initiative to explain that there was no will for a signature with Newrome. Yet, rumors are abroad here that Fellay & Schmidberger are using the excuse of the Newrome "negotiations" to engineer a quiet purge in the Society of the elements most loyal to Archbishop Lefebvre's principles and most resistant to "negotiations" with Newchurch.
This explains the new harshness of the Society's position against the sede-vacantist theory and for the validity of the Novus Ordo rite of episcopal consecration, to which was devoted practically two entire issues recently of its publication Angelus. Benedict-Ratzinger was right in the middle of this dispute, since he is the first Bishop of Rome ever to have been consecrated in the Novus Ordo rite. The salient question is why, if the SSPX officialdom is so convinced that the New Order of Consecration (Ordination) is so unquestionably valid, it routinely re-ordains Novus Ordo presbyters "conditionally"!
Resistance from several SSPX bishops was felt at the High Council meeting. For example, Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais has been openly opposing discussions and negotiations Benedict-Ratzinger. Bishop Tissier lives in the seminary at Econe and remains faithful to the Archbishop's principles, at the same time that Fellay, Schmidberger, and the German Network are more favorable to a sell-out to Rome.
Bishop Tissier had given a lecture in Paris on December 10, 2005, at which Bernard Fellay was personally present. The occasion was the centenary of the birth of Archbishop Lefebvre. Bishop Tissier, who recently published a comprehensive biography of Archbishop Lefebvre, concluded his lecture with these words of Archbishop Lefebvre about NewRome: "No, they have no more the Faith!"
The Fathers Reply.
Some reports from the Newvatican Curia meeting on February 13 indicate that the intransigence of the New Order bureaucrats is now stirred up and coming to the fore, just as TRADITIO has always said that it would.
First of all, the Society would have to "make clear its acceptance of Vatican II's basic teachings on oecumenism, religious liberty, and other matters." Moreover, it has been reported that opinions among the twenty-some curial members present were "sharply divided on any concessions" to the SSPX. Francis Arinze, the Cardinal Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Sacraments, has already gone on record as warning that the pope "cannot disown Vatican II in order to make the Lefebvrites happy." Even Cardinal Hoyos, the President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, himself warned that whoever in SSPX came over to Newchurch could express no criticism of Vatican II and its bastardized Mess and sacraments except under the "charism of Peter," which is a Newchurch-speak for the New Order popes.
Catholic World News quotes others at the Vatican as believing that Benedict-Ratzinger himself has "no illusions about the Lefebvrites. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he unsuccessfully tried to reconcile with them in 1988 and later said the group had closed itself off in a type of 'fanaticism of the elect.'" That statement referred to SSPX Founder Archbishop Lefebvre's courageous stand against selling out to the New Order in control of Newvatican.
But is Bernard Fellay double-dealing? There continue to be troubling reports from the European press that an SSPX sellout is still underway. For example, the Italian daily L'Indipendente published on February 17 an article that claims that Fellay has been having secret telephone calls with Newvatican, in which he has indicated a much more liberal position than he has been taking within the Society, since he knows of the resistance to a sellout on the part of the majority of SSPX bishops and a substantial number of the SSPXers.
One has to wonder why, if Fellay & Schmidberger are not of a basic mind to sell out to the New Order, they continue to play games with Newpope and Newvatican instead of clearly restating the SSPX position against a sell-out and staying away from the games of Newchurch entirely. Remember, Fellay has admitted that he himself, not Benedict-Ratzinger, asked for the August 29, 2005, meeting. He does not have the excuse (vapid as it would be) of being "summoned" by Benedict-Ratzinger.
This is "TRADITIO's Challenge." The only way to put all these "rumors" to rest is a joint statement by the High Council and bishops that they will engage in no "negotiations" with Newchurch, until Newchurch rejects the errors of Vatican II and the phony Novus Ordo service. Until then, Fellay & Schmidberger can complain about "rumors" all they want, but their own connivance confirms the validity of the "rumors." Until TRADITIO's Challenge is met, as far as we're concerned, all the "rumors" of a sellout have continuing validity.
Since there has been so much talk these days about an SSPX sell-out to the New Order, it seems appropriate to show another of these Novus Ordo services. This example is nothing out of the ordinary from the point of view of Newchurch. This was a Mess celebrated as a direct result of Benedict-Ratzinger's World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne, Germany.
It was performed for a WYD group heading back to Rapid City, South Dakota, in an airport. Not in an airport chapel, but in an "open-air lounge" in Schipol Airport, Amsterdam. So, amidst the irreverent noise, conversations, and traffic in the middle of an airport, Presbyter Brian Christianson on something looking not much bigger than a TV table, with no crucifix in sight, performs Mess with a few cookies in a glass ashtray, while "Transitional Deacon" Jim Hoener, vested in shorts and running shoes, offers a bottle of spring water with a straw in it. (National Catholic Register)
And how did the Novus Ordinarians react to this travesty? "It was a real blessing," said, one, "and a wonderful way to begin my travels home." And this is the Newchurch that the Liberalist Faction of the SSPX wants to jawbone with? If the SSPX doesn't watch out, this may be the Mess of their future!
(For other Messes, see TRADITIO's Novus Ordo Service Photo Gallery.)
Dear Fathers:
Archbishop Lefebvre, Founder of the Society of St. Pius X, a man of much experience in the Church, was almost tricked into signing an agreement in June 1988 with the New Order, but, by the grace of God, he found, in the end, enough faith and prudence to resist. He came to the conclusion that Newchurch had no intention of embracing traditional Catholicism, much less giving up its false New Order.
As a result of this experience, he proceeded with the consecration of four bishops, whom he appointed not to be administrators and politicians, but simply to maintain the Sacraments among the faithful. He also he wrote a letter of instruction and guidance to these four bishops, translated here for your readers from the original French. Thus, we are in no doubt of what the Archbishop's intentions were and his absolute rejection of the New Order, its teachings, and its liturgy as unCatholic. Certainly Benedict-Ratzinger falls far short of the "perfectly Catholic" pope that the Archbishop envisaged in the Church one day.
Letter to the Future Bishops "Adveniat Regnum"
To Fathers Williamson, Tissier de Mallerais, Fellay, and de Galarreta
Very dear friends,
The Chair of Peter and the offices of Rome being occupied by antiChrists, the destruction of the Reign of Our Lord proceeds rapidly at the very heart of His Mystical Body here, by the corruption of the Holy Mass, the splendid expression of the triumph of Our Lord by the Cross: "Regnavit a ligno Deus," and the source of the extension of His Reign in souls and in societies.
So is obvious the absolute necessity of the permanence and continuance of the adorable sacrifice of Our Lord so that "His Reign come."
The corruption of the Holy Mass brought the corruption of the priesthood and the universal decline of faith in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
God raised the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X for the maintenance and perpetuity of His glorious and expiatory sacrifice in the Church. He has chosen some true priests educated and convinced of these divine mysteries. God has given to me the grace of preparing these clerics and conferring upon them the sacerdotal grace for the perpetuation of the true sacrifice, according to the definition of the Council of Trent. It is this that was worth to us the persecution of the antiChrist Rome.
This Rome, modernist and liberal, following her destructive work against the Reign of Our Lord, as is proven by Assisi and the confirmation of the liberal propositions of the Second Vatican Council on religious freedom, I find myself forced by divine Providence to transmit the grace of the Catholic episcopacy that I have received, so that the Church and the Catholic priesthood may continue to exist for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
That is why, convinced to fulfil only the Holy Will of Our Lord, I come by this letter to ask you to agree to accept the grace of the Catholic episcopacy, as I have already conferred it upon other priests in other circumstances.
I shall confer upon you this grace, confident that once the Chair of Peter shall be occupied by a successor of Peter perfectly Catholic, you will be able to deposit the grace of your episcopacy into his hands for him to confirm.
The main purpose of this transmission is to confer the grace of the priestly Order for the continuance of the true Sacrifice of the Holy Mass and to confer the grace of the Sacrament of Confirmation upon the children and upon the faithful who ask you for it.
I implore you to remain attached to the See of Peter, in the Roman Church, Mother and Teacher of all the Churches, in the complete Catholic Faith, expressed in the creeds of the Faith, in the catechism of the Council of Trent, in accordance with what was taught to you in your seminary. Remain faithful in the transmission of this Faith in order that the Reign of Our Lord may arrive.
Finally, I implore you to remain attached to the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, to remain soundly united amongst yourselves, subject to the Superior General in the traditional Catholic faith, remembering these words of Saint Paul to the Galatians (l:8 and 9): "sed licet nos aut angelus de caeli evangelizet vobis praeterquam quod evangelizavimus vobis, anathema sit. Sicut praedicimus et nunc iterum dico: si quis evangelizaverit praeter id quod accepistis, anathema sit."
Very dear friends, be my solace in Christ Jesus, remain strong in the Faith, faithful to the true Sacrifice of Mass, to the true and holy Priesthood of Our Lord for the triumph and glory of Jesus in Heaven and on the earth, for the salvation of souls, for the salvation of my soul.
In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, I embrace you and bless you. Your Father in Christ Jesus.
Marcel LEFEBVRE
One of the reasons that it is not tolerable for traditional Catholics to be an "indult" sect of Newchurch is that Newchurch just isn't Catholic. It is a false religion, no better than the golden calf the Jews worshipped. One of the areas in which this fact is most clearly demonstrated is the degree to which Newchurch has destroyed the Sacrament of Matrimony, in violation of both Catholic Scripture and Tradition.
According to the Newchurch periodical, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, "Catholic" divorces (aka "annulments") in Newchurch rose over 20,000% from 1930 (8) to 1991 (63,933). The Review estimates the percentage of divorced Novus Ordinarians in the United States at one in four. Half of all Catholic [sic] marriages end in divorce, the same as the general population. American Newchurch annulment mills approve 83% of applications and reject 2%. 90% of divorced Catholics [sic] don't bother going through the annulment process at all." Nearly all (98%) who apply to the New Order for a "Catholic divorce" and finish the procedure are awarded the annulment.
Thus, a substantial portion of marriages performed by pastors of Newchurch are invalid. Add to that the invalid New Order Mess, invalid "Sacrament of Reconciliation," and the rest, it is clear that Newchurch and its New Order is essentially devoid of grace. No wonder that Novus Ordo presbyters, and even bishops and Newvatican, have reverted to a kind of neo-paganism!
If there were any doubt that "the fix is in" with Newchurch, the case of the Schiavo-Centonze "marriage" proves it. You remember Michael Schiavo. He was the husband of Terri Schiavo, who was legally executed in March 2005 because phony evidence was trumped up that she was "brain dead." Even doctors disputed that diagnosis. But Michael had been battling Terri's parents, Mary and Bob Schindler, in the courts for over eight years in order to end the life of his wife. He was determined to have her killed, even though her parents and siblings were willing to take on the office of caring for her and themselves paying for that care.
Now, Michael had an adultress on the side: the divorcee Jodi Centonze. He had announced his engagement to Jodi in July 1997, while his wife was still living. After Terri Schiavo has been put to death, Newchurch blessed the "marriage" of Michael and Jodi in the Espiritu Santos Novus Ordo Church in Safe Harbor on January 21, 2006.
Newchurch bishop Robert Lynch, of St. Petersburg, stood by silent while Terri was forcibly starved to death -- after she struggled to declare that she wanted to live. Lynch issued a statement directly at odds with Church teaching that food and water is basic sustenance and cannot be withheld by private choice. In order to avoid responsibility in the matter, Lynch fled to Newrome, there to lie in the bosom of Benedict, who has already been cited as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Texas court for sheltering sex criminals.
Dear Fathers:
I am a daily visitor to the TRADITIO Commentaries, and as heart-wrenching as it is to learn of the abuses in Newchurch going on today, I am grateful that I have your site to keep me aware and fight stronger than ever for our true Catholic faith!
I graduated from two Catholic universities. I visited TRADITIO's Novus Ordo Service Photo Gallery (see TRADITIO's Novus Ordo Service Photo Gallery) of the abusive New Mess and was horrified to find photos of one of my own college professors, Sr. Martha Ann. I will always remember this woman for her behavior. On Ash Wednesday a couple of years ago, when the Novus Ordo service started, we witnessed the cookies being carried in a basket by a female student dressed in long, colorful robes, holding it above her head and swaying her arms as she pranced down the aisle. Then Sr. Martha Ann proceeded with the entire Novus Ordo Mess herself!
I was terribly upset, yet it didn't seem to bother any other students. I told my friend that we did not have to sit through it and we left. I'll never forget what a disgrace this was. I always wished I had spoken up more while I was a student there.
Dear Fathers:
I have been receiving solicitations from an organization called the Institute of Christ the King, but do not know that much about it. It portrays itself as "traditional," but, as you know, literature can be deceiving. Also, it is my understanding that the Institute recently hired someone from EWTN to do administrative functions. I would appreciate any guidance that you could provide in this matter, as I value your judgement greatly.
The Fathers Reply.
The fact that the Institute is an "indult" organization under the authority of the New Order is bad enough, but if your information that the Institute has associated itself with the Charismatic EWTN cable network is correct, it is even more to be eschewed. To be sure, it has had substantial "administrative" problems. According to the National Catholic Register, one of the Institute's former U.S. Superiors and one of its priests have been convicted of felonies in association with their ministries.
Dear Fathers:
Since the February 7-8 meeting of the SSPX High Council, Bernard Fellay & Franz Schmidberger and their Liberalist Faction have started an attack against resistance to the sellout inside the Society. They want to identify the opposition in their bosom and to remove it so that the way will be free for a signature on a sellout document with Newrome. [This information has been independently confirmed by another international SSPX Correspondent].
If Fellay cannot sign the sellout document before the duodecennial SSPX election this summer, Fellay will try to be re-elected to be sure that he will be able to sell out the Society to Benedict-Ratzinger. Fr. Alains Lorans, Editor of Documentation Information Catholiques Internationales (DICI), the press agency of the Mother House of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), is a prominent member of the German Network of Franz Schmidberger and is very influential in Paris and in the media of the Society, together with the Publisher, Fr. Arnaud Selegny, the SSPX Secretary General.
Today, Le Figaro has started to attack Fr. Beauvais, in charge of Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet, the Parisian church that was taken over from the New Order a few years ago by the Society. Fr. Beauvais is presented as the "leader of a very small minority of priests" against the sellout of the Society. Le Figaro is presenting Fr. de Tanouarn as a "good guy" speaking in favour of the sellout of the Society to Newrome. Fr. de Tanouarn was once the "Grand Theologian" of Fellay in Paris, but has since fallen into disfavour.
A second piece of news is that Fellay is now trying to organise a new meeting with the three other bishops. The current goal of Newrome is to get a signature of all four bishops on a letter requesting Benedict-Ratzinger to remove the "excommunciations." By so doing, the other three bishops would implicitly recognize the authority of Benedict-Ratzinger, and thus Fellay would start the process of engineering a formal and final signature on the sellout.
This is a sneaky manoeuvre quite characteristic of Benedict-Ratzinger and his Modernist Newchurch, and, of course, Fellay will play his game. The question is whether the other three bishops will continue to resist. It is clear that the Archbishop-Founder of the Society, Marcel Lefebvre, strongly resisted, as is shown in the text of his last public letter, issue March 4, 1991, from Econe, Switzerland, the Society's headquarters, 21 days before his death:
... This compilation [of the speeches of the pope and Roman officials] throws a so searing a light on the doctrinal Revolution inaugurated officially in the Church by the [Second Vatican] Council and continued until our days, that one cannot help but think of the Seat of Iniquity predicted by Leo XIII, or in the loss of the Faith of Rome predicted by Our Lady at LaSalette.
The publication and adherence of the Roman officials to Masonic errors condemned many times by their predecessors is a great mystery of evil that undermines the foundations of the Catholic Faith.
This hard and painful reality obliges us in conscience to organize by ourselves the defense and protection of our Catholic Faith. The fact of being seated in the seats of authority is no longer, alas!, a guarantee of orthodoxy in the Faith of those who occupy them. THE POPE HIMSELF HENCEFORTH PUBLISHES WITHOUT INTERRUPTION THE PRINCIPLES OF A FALSE RELIGION, WHICH HAS AS ITS RESULT A GENERAL APOSTASY....
+Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
Econe, March 4, 1991
This letter shows that just before his death Archbishop Lefebvre was completely rejecting Newchurch. Some hours after this letter, Archbishop Lefebvre went back to the hospital, where he died. Franz Schmidberger, who was the Superior General of the Society at that time, arrived only the day after the death of the courageous Archbishop.
Dear Fathers:
Consider the following scenario:
Sounds just like what's going on right now, doesn't it? Wrong! It's 1988, with JPII and Lefebvre. The result was six "excommunications" of SSPX bishops, the start of an "indult" society (the Fraternity of St. Peter) that was later suppressed from its original purpose, and the constant Vatican badmouthing of traditional Roman Catholicism.
Is the leadership of the SSPX so blind that it has so soon forgotten its own history?
Preliminary reports from Agenzia Italia indicate that, among other issues discussed with the cardinals in charge of the various departments of Newcuria on February 13, Benedict-Ratzinger mouthed the Newvatican platitude about how "to find a rapid solution to the issue of the followers of Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre." There is no surprise in that. Newpope and Newvatican certainly want to recover the money and numbers that would be involved if the liberalist faction of the SSPX were to sell out to Newchurch.
But no action was taken at Newcuria. No "excommunications" were lifted. In fact, the whole matter was hastily postponed to March 20, and Newpope and Newcuria went on to more important business. The real issue now is with the High Council of the SSPX. Will they "hang tough" against the unCatholic corruption of the New Order, as they pledged to do on February 7-8 at their High Council meeting.
It was reported that Newrome might allow the SSPX "a certain degree of independence in terms of discipline, which would add up to acknowledging their different 'ritual.'" In other words, Newrome wants control of the SSPX in everything but (at least at the beginning) the 1962 Modernized Mass. The SSPX would have to come under the authority of the New Order and dance to Newchurch's piping, just as Campos does, just as the Fraternity of St. Peter and all the other "indult" organizations do, which were gutted after coming under the New Order. The Society of St. Pius X, would cease to exist and be given a new name. Those traditional Catholics who resist selling out to the New Order and remain faithful to Archbishop Lefebvre would then probably have to organize under different auspices.
Meanwhile, contacts inside the SSPX have relayed that Bernard Fellay is going to meet with the SSPX clergy in the United States later this month at Winona, Minnesota. The contacts also indicate that Fellay may indeed attempt to run for an unprecedented 24-year term as Superior General. If that is the case, he will deservedly merit the eponym that is already starting to circulate surreptitiously within the Society: "Fuehrer Fellay." Even the Archbishop-Founder of the Society set down the office after the prescribed twelve years (which is itself excessive). It appears that the SSPX Electors may well have created a monster in 1994.
Of course, this meeting has nothing whatsoever to do with the upcoming SSPX duodecennial elections. No, no, what can we be thinking? Fellay is simply providing he well-known unbiased "information," simply trying to set aside all those "rumors" with which he seems to be so obsessed. He really can't wait to go back to his beloved Swiss Alps and find a little cell where he can commune with the divine and drink the wonderful brandy the monks make there.
Five years ago it was all hail to the boondoggle of a $75,000,000 "JPII Cultural Center" in Washington, D.C. (this, ironically, for the "Rock Music" pope). Now the Washington Post reports that the JPII Museum is struggling for finances and attendance.
The hallways and exhibition galleries of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center are brightened by glass and limestone walls. The towering doors and enormous round table in the conference room are made of the finest blanched wood. There are rows of plush, immaculate seats in the three theaters. No expense was spared to deify the pope more known for his predilection for junk rock music, beatnik poetry, and Clown "Messes" than for his support of Aquinas, Palestrina, and Rafael.
What's missing from the $75 million complex is visitors. Much of the time, it is virtually empty. JPII endorsed this monstrosity "as a place that would explore interfaith issues from a Catholic perspective." It was designed to be a museum, think tank, and public meeting space. It seems, however, that other Faiths don't want to play Newchurch's Modernistic theological games. Most of the Lutherans already turned JPII and Ratzinger down on giving up the Protestant doctrine on justification that kick-started Martin Luther's Protestant Revolution. Fundamental and Evangelical Protestantism is the rage now, not liberalistic Unitarians. Traditional Episcopalians are breaking away from the liberalist Church of England. Even the Mohammedans mostly adhere to fundamentalist Islamism.
Even a papal endorsement couldn't entice many to the 10,000-square-metre facility in Northeast Washington, which opened in March 2001 with aspirations of turning it into a major cultural institution -- "where scholars would research Catholicism's role and influence, where religious leaders would gather for interfaith dialogue, where regular people would explore God and spirituality." Apparently, JPII's New Orderism just didn't inspire people as the traditional Roman Catholic Faith had, which set off at least four major cultural movements (Late Classical, Mediaeval, Renaissance, Counter-Reformation), with outpourings of philosophy, theology, literature, music, art, and architecture, of which the world has never seen the like.
Five years later, this Modernistic boondoggle is $40,000,000 in debt and has not drawn the attendance or financial support its founders expected. During a 2-1/2 hour period recently, only two visitors passed through. "It was a train wreck waiting to happen," admitted one Newchurch official, Monsignor William Kerr, the center's executive director. Planners initially forecast 200,000 to 500,000 paying visitors a year. The $8 admission fee soon was replaced by a $5 suggested donation. Even so, only about 80,000 people went through the doors last year to visit exhibits and hear concerts and conferences. "We thought people would be beating paths here, but it didn't happen," Kerr said.
Could it be that Newchurch officials still haven't come to grips with the fact that the bloom long ago fell off the Modernistic Vatican II rose and its bastard New Theology, New Mess and Sacraments, and New Morality. Wake up, Newchurch, New Order, Newpope. You're history. You just haven't realized it yet.
You can't trust the mainstream media. Even FOXNews, which claims to be "conservative," is just as bad as the liberalist press. One of its columnists on February 13 just couldn't refrain from a long column bashing Producer-Director-Actor Mel Gibson, Hollywood's best-known traditional Catholic, for donating several millions for what -- to build a church!
Instead of praising Gibson for standing apart from the rest of religion-bashing Hollywood and putting his money where his mouth is, the columnist is obviously offended by the fact that Gibson publicly disavows himself from Modernist Vatican II and has stated a fact about the "Holocaust," that not all the people who died in concentration camps were not all Jews. What heresy!
This FOXNews columnist even dares to quote the now discredited New York Times Magazine stringer, Christopher Noxon, who wrote a Gibson-bashing article during the controversy about the filming of The Passion of the Christ. Noxon, a typical liberalist, did not reveal to his readership the fact that his father had a vested interest in fighting Gibson over the land to be used for the church in Southern California.
So what is the columnist's problem with Gibson? Well, you see, his church "is not recognized by the archdiocese." Now what archdiocese would that be? The Newchurch archdiocese of Los Angeles, headed by the Arch-Modernist Roger, who got the head of the U.S. Conference of [Newchurch] Catholic Bishops Sex-crimes Commission canned because he called the bishops' group "a mafia, not the Catholic Church." But it turned out that former governor, former assistant attorney general, former FBI agent Frank Keating was dead right about that!
But don't worry, good Catholics. Mel Gibson's World Faith Foundation is now building his second independent traditional Roman Catholic Church. It is awash with money, a good part of it the proceeds of The Passion of the Christ, which turned out, in spite of all the liberalist bashing, to be one of the biggest money-makers of all time. Good ol' Mel always seems to outfox even FOXNews, doesn't he? Well, he's eligible to be elected pope in the next election. Get your faxes to the cardinals ready!
On February 10 Benedict-Ratzinger's Liturgy Czar, Francis Arinze, Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for [Novus Ordo] Divine Worship and the Sacraments, has admitted that Newpope will not "move against liturgical abuses" with an "ecclesiastical hammer." In Newvatican-speak, that means: "More talk and no action." You see, Benedict-Ratzinger is so bemused that he thinks that the Novus Ordo Mess is a result of "ignorance," not malice!
And, sure, Newpope would love, for political purposes, to entice the Society of St. Pius X into his New Order lair, but not at the cost of "disowning" the Second Vatican Council. Arinze admitted: "I do not expect an aggressive correction of abuses. I don't think the pope is going to use the ecclesiastical hammer." So, all you Novus Ordinarians out there who want your Menorah Mess, your Clown Mess, your Puppet Mess, your Vampire Mess, your Voodoo Mess, or just your plain old Parish Mess have nothing to fear. Benedict-Ratzinger will do nothing to throw cold water on your invalid services. It will be Novus Ordo business as usual all the way!
As to the Society of St. Pius X, Arinze said that people should realize that the pope "cannot change the faith of the Church. He cannot disown Vatican II in order to make the Lefebvrites happy. The pope cannot reinvent everything, or act as if Vatican II did not take place." Now, all along we thought that it was the New Order and its ecclesiastical bureaucrats who reinvented everything. Doesn't this statement turn the facts on their head?! In other words, for Benedict-Ratzinger's papacy, the Church is the New Order. How much clearer can he get?
And for those semi-traditionalists who have sold out to the "indult" counterfeit, Arinze replied that while some have proposed a wider indult to allow use of the 1962 Modernized Mass with fewer restrictions, he is happy with JPII's rules, which require the involvement of the local bishop. At least that's honest. That's the Newchurch reality, folks. Always has been. Always has to be.
Arinze also admitted that it will take another two years, making a total of six years, to "translate" the Neo-Novus Ordo of 2002. Newvatican leaves "translations" to local bishops, and there is so much disagreement among Newchurch bishops nowadays about what their "liturgy" is, they cannot agree on any "translation." Those Newchurch bishops should rue the day they ever dumped the Roman Catholic Mass, which required no "translation"!
There is really nothing new here. Traditional Catholic writer Patricius Anthony has previously exposed the Modernist agenda of Arinze. For further information, see ARINZE.HTM: Cardinal Arinze's Changing Church in the TRADITIO Features department.
What Hallmark and See's seem to have forgotten in the commercialism of this day is that today is not Valentine's Day -- it is Saint Valentine's Day. Its origins are not a day dedicated to human love, but to love of God.
Just who was this St. Valentine, whom the Church honors with a Feast this day? The Roman priest Valentine was imprisoned for courageously professing his Catholic Faith, and helping other Christians to do so, during the persecutions of Claudius the Goth about the year 269.
One account of the circumstances of his end has it that as he could not be with his congregation, he never ceased to think about them and pray for them. He wished to communicate with them, so he sent from the prison a dove with the message: "Remember your Valentine." From this it may be that the custom derives of exchanging greeting cards on this day.
St. Valentine was eventually martyred. The prefect of Rome commanded that he be beaten with clubs and afterwards beheaded. The martyr was buried on the Flaminian Way, one of the great roads leading out of the city of Rome. It is known that a catacomb was constructed near the area of St. Valentine's tomb.
In Latin, the name for a dovecot, also applied to the little niches in which bodies were placed in a catacomb, is columbarium, where the doves, the columbae, made their nests. It may be that the truth of the story of the dove is embedded in the historical reality of the catacomb. Later a basilica was built over the spot.
Far from representing mere sentimentalism, the red color and the hearts that are so prevalent this day recall the fact that St. Valentine gave his body's red heart and his life's blood as a martyr for his Catholic Faith.
When the bell rings at the Sanctus, and we kneel to adore the Lord God of Hosts, let us cry out a Hosanna in our hearts in gratitude to Our Lord for the great gift of the Roman Catholic Faith that we have received. When the priest utters at the Communicantes the names of those early martyrs, let us recall how much blood the millions of courageous Catholic martyrs, some 12,000,000 of them, shed to purchase that precious Faith for us -- a Faith that all too many today are ready to throw away for a counterfeit New Order.
Today is not Valentine's Day. It is Saint Valentine's Day. Make sure that you are careful to refer to it that way today. Make sure that your greeting cards say Saint Valentine's Day -- or write it in!
Remember when President Bill Clinton said, "I never had sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," and a whole nation laughed in his face? Well, Newchurch has made the same claim in the case of Bishop Lawrence Soens, of Sioux City, Iowa. Ten of the bishop's former high-school students say that Soens "repeatedly twisted the nipples of the accusers and ran his fingers up and down their genitals" (KETV News). But in Newchurch, "that's not sexual," as Michael Jackson, who is being hired by Newchurch to put JPII's poetry to rock music, used to say.
Newchurch just never learns does it? And now it's being led by Newpope Benedict-Ratzinger, an unindicted co-conspirator in sex crimes before a Texas court, and his Sex-crimes Czar, William Levada, who is under subpoena in two states investigating what his role was in multiple sex crimes there. Well, we shouldn't be too hard on Newpope and bishops. After all, their minds are having difficulty enough just figuring out what is is!
It appears that the efforts of TRADITIO and certain other independent sources around the world to draw attention to a potential sellout by the Liberalist Faction of the SSPX to Newrome led to a substantial enough backlash by SSPXers around the world, who previously had no real idea of what was going on, but had to rely principally upon SSPX organs and propaganda lectures by SSPX officials who are part of that Liberalist Faction.
SSPXers who stood unequivocally with the philosophy of their Archbishop-Founder not even to negotiate with the New Order foxes until those vulpines cleaned up their own house spoke up all over the world and let the leadership of the Society know exactly where they stood. Some SSPX priests even came out of the closet to stand against their liberalist leadership.
Documents from the Archbishop and from Ratzinger that had been forgotten came to people's attention again. The Archbishop's principle of staying away entirely from the New Order and its bureaucrats after 1988, as opposed to Benedict-Ratzinger's record of wooing traditional Catholics into the New Order by meretricious words, came into clear focus again after having been dulled over the last several months.
Preliminary reports from our sources indicate that when the SSPX High Council met on February 7 and 8, and Fellay & Schmidberger finally had to stand face to face with all the others, including all four of the SSPX Bishops, they had to confront the issue of a sellout and related matters directly with their peers. These preliminary reports indicate that now there will be a united policy of no compromise with Newrome, perhaps not even any more meetings with Newchurch at all. If the preliminary reports are true, this appears to be a victory for those SSPXers who stood faithful their Archbishop-Founder, and for the much larger Traditional Catholic Movement. But appearances can be deceiving. Fellay is still Superior General, and Schmidberger is still First Assistant Superior General.
The Fathers have expressed in a number of Commentaries the possibility that an outcry by those loyal to Archbishop Lefebvre in the Society could have an impact on the SSPX leadership's overtures to the New Order. We have pointed out the historical parallel with the imposition of the Novus Ordo Mess in 1969 and stated that if Catholics at that time had "just said no," the New Order would have been substantially stymied. The SSPX sellout has always been described here as a "possibility," if SSPXers faith to the Archbishop did not bring enough counter-pressure upon their leadership.
However, SSPXers who stand with the principles of Archbishop Lefebvre should not let down their guard. These are only preliminary reports and only from one meeting. These last few months should be a lesson that the SSPX leadership can go awry at any time and needs to be reined in by the SSPXers themselves. They need to keep informed, keep involved in their local chapels, and be sure that they are not being kept in the dark, or propagandized, about their own affairs.
A number of critical junctures are coming up. There will be a meeting of Newchurch officials under Benedict-Ratzinger in Rome on Monday, February 13, at which it has been announced in the Italian press that the topic of the SSPX will come up. The Newchurch foxes and their leader have not all of a sudden become lambs just because Benedict is Newpope. SSPXers and all traditional Catholics must keep up our guard always for the malice and snares of the New Order and its bureaucrats, who roam through the world seeking the ruin of souls in their hatred of the traditional Roman Catholic Faith.
This summer, the duodecennnial elections of the SSPX leadership take place. Given the dangers that the Society has endured these last months because of its incompetent liberalist leadership, SSPXers loyal to Archbishop Lefebvre should be warned that they must do everything they can to ensure that their leaders reflect the wisdom, prudence, and humanity of their Archbishop-Founder. Although SSPXers are barred from voting for their Superior General and his assistants by the current SSPX Constitution, they certainly can have a powerful indirect influence, since they should not forget that they are the body and the purse, without which their leaders can do nothing.
As we seem to gave gotten past one critical juncture, the Fathers wish to take the opportunity thank all the courageous individuals both within and outside of the SSPX, inside Newvatican, and inside the Traditional Catholic Movement around the world who continue to allow us to keep analyzing events with the knowledgeable, experienced, and tenacious independence that TRADITIO has been known for these more than twelve years. We know that we have been hitting the mark of truth, justice, and the Catholic way because those who have opposed the publication of such independent information to have become more and more irrational with wilder and wilder rumors. We, however, agree with Sacred Scripture, which teaches us: Magna est veritas, et praevalet.
Dear Fathers:
It is not the 450-odd SSPX priests who vote for the new Superior General this summer, but only forty individuals of the inner sanctum. This setup is more representative of the secretive Opus Dei than of the more democratic Dominicans. Here is the list that has been circulated here in Europe:
MEMBRES DU CHAPITRE GENERAL Annee 2006 I] Maison generale S.E. Monseigneur Bernard FELLAY (Superieur general) Monsieur Monsieur I'abbe Franz SCHMIDBERGER (1o Assistant General) S.E. Monseigneur Alfonso de GALARRETA (2o Assistant General) Monsieur I'abbe Arnaud SELEGNY (Secretaire general) Monsieur Monsieur "abbe Eme,ric BAUDOT (Econome general) II] Eveques mernbres de la Fraternite S.E. Monseigneur Bernard TISSIER de MALLERAIS (Econe) III] Superieurs de district Monsieur I'abbe Nikiaus PFLUGER (Allemagne) Monsieur I'abbe Christian BOUCHACOURT (Amerique du Sud) Monsieur I'abbe Daniel COUTURE (Asie) Monsieur I'abbe Edward BLACK (Australie) Monsieur I'abbe Michael WEIGL (Austriche) Monsieur I'abbe Jurgen WEGNER (Belgique - Pays-Bas) Monsieur I'abbe Jean VIOLETTE (Canada) Monsieur I'abbe John D. FULLERTON (Etats-Unis) Monsieur I'abbe Regis de CACQUERAY (France) Monsieur I'abbe Paul MORGAN Monsieur l'abbe Alain NELY (Italie) Monsieur I'abbe Mario TREJO (Mexique) Monsieur I'abbe Henri WUILLOUD (Suisse) IV] Superieurs de seminaire S.E. Monseigneur Richard WILLIAMSON (Seminario Nuestra Senora Corredentora) Monsieur I'abbe Stefan FREY (Priesterseminar Herz Jesu) Monsieur I'abbe Benoit de JORNA (Seminaire Saint Pie X) Monsieur I'abbe Peter SCOTT (Holy Cross Seminary) Monsieur I'abbe Patrick TROADEC (Seminaire Saint Cure d'Ars Saint) Monsieur I'abbe Yves Le ROUX (Thomas Aquinas Seminary) V] Superieurs de Maison autonome Monsieur I'abbe Coenraad DANIELS (Afrique du Sud) Monsieur I'abbe Patrick GROCHE (Gabon) Monsieur I'abbe Ramon ANGLES DOMINGUEZ (Irlande) Monsieur I'abbe Christophe NOUVEAU (Kenya) Monsieur I'abbe Karl STEHLIN (Pays de l'Est) VI] Membres les plus anciens Monsieur I'abbe Jean-Yves COTTARD (08-Dec-71) Monsieur I'abbe Emmanuel du CHALARD (08-Dec-71) Monsieur I'abbe Gregory POST (20-Mai-72) Monsieur I'abbe Louis-Paul DUBROEUCQ (08-Dec-72) Monsieur I'abbe Didier BONNETERRE (08-Dec-72) Monsieur I'abbe Jean-Michel FAURE (08-Dec-73) Monsieur I'abbe Pierre-Marie LAURENCON (08-Dec-73) Monsieur I'abbe Jean-Pierre BOUBEE (08-Dec-73) Monsieur I'abbe Freddy MERY (08-Dec-74) Monsieur I'abbe Jacques EMILY (08-Dec-74)
With Septuagesima Sunday, the season of Septuagesima begins for traditional Catholics. The New Order, hating the very idea of sin and repentance, has done way with this traditional season to prepare us for Lent proper.
The word itself comes from the Latin for seventy, as from today until Easter there are some seventy days, though not exactly seventy -- the term is used as a round number. The number seventy is associated with the seventy years during which the Jews were captive in Babylon in the sixth century before Christ. For them, this was a time of somberness and reparation for their transgressions against God. As Psalm 136 describes it: "Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept when we remembered Sion" (Psalm 136:1/DRV). Now the Church observes this seventy-day period spiritually in reparation for our sins, just as the Jews did penance physically by their captivity.
To make a transition from the joyousness of Epiphany time to the penitential character of Lent, the Church has inserted between Septuagesima Sunday and Ash Wednesday a kind of "pre-Lent" before Lent proper begins on Ash Wednesday. We see the altar clothed not in the green of hope, but in the violet of penitence. The music of the organ, however, remains until Lent proper begins on Ash Wednesday, after which it may be used only to accompany the chant.
At Vespers of Septuagesima Sunday, the Fathers traditionally doubled the usual single Alleluia as a final sign of joyfulness before the penitential season that will last for the next seventy days. During Septuagesima, the Church takes the song of the Angels, the Alleluia, away from us. It will not return until the Vigil of Easter, when the triumph of Our Lord's Resurrection is proclaimed upon earth by those same Angels.
From now on, we no longer hear the joyous Alleluia, the Gloria in Excelsis, or the Te Deum in the Divine Office or Masses of the season. This elimination of joyfulness from the Sacred Liturgy for Septuagesima is quite ancient, going back at least to the Rule of St. Benedict in the sixth century.
The Gospels of these three Sundays focus their message upon a single theme: an invitation to us to commit ourselves to our faith even more fervently. The Propers of these Masses are some of the earliest in the Roman Missal, being composed in the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great, perhaps by the great saint himself. The Fathers urge you to take the time to meditate upon them out of your missals.
Dear Fathers:
Because your readers are English-speaking, they may not be aware that Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict) wrote on June 23, 2003, that he would do away with the "Tridentine" Rite, that the Church must have only one rite, which is essentially the Novus Ordo. A copy of this letter used to be posted on the Society of St. Pius X's German web site, but has since been removed.
Cardinal Ratzinger wrote the letter, in German, to Prof. Dr. Heinz-Lothar Barth, of the Department of Classical Letters at the University of Bonn, who is an attendee of the Society's chapel in Bonn. Prof. Dr. Barth is a close associate of SSPX Superior General Bernard Fellay and SSPX First Assistant Superior General Franz Schmidberger. He organized a liturgical symposium in Bonn in the Summer of 2005, at which Fellay and a Dominican from the SSPX monastery at Avrille participated under the chairmanship of Schmidberger. I quote the salient points of the Brief an Dr. Barth here [translated into English]:
If the Holy See were to "authorize the old rite [Traditional Latin Mass] once again worldwide and without limitation," as you wish it and have heard it by report, it is not so easy to say. Besides, too many Catholics share a negative attitude -- indoctrinated over some years -- towards the traditional liturgy, which they call proudly "pre-conciliar," and many bishops would oppose in great numbers a general authorization of the old rite. The situation is different if only a limited authorization is envisaged....
But I think that in future the Roman Church must have only a single rite. The existence of two rites is hardly "managable" for the bishops and the priests. The Roman Rite of future must be a single rite, celebrated in Latin or the vulgar tongues, but based entirely in the tradition of the old rite. That single rite could integrate some novel elements that have proven themselves [from the Novus Ordo]: some Prefaces, some longer readings -- more choices than before, but not too many: one Prayer of the Faithful, that is to say, a litany of prayers of intercession after the Oremus before the Offertory, where its primitive place is....
One must, however, be careful against stirring up too great a hope, too much of a hope, in the faithful tied to Tradition....
We learn from this letter, written by the current pope less than three years ago, that:
The Fathers Reply.
Although this letter, which we have never heard of before, must come as quite a shock to anyone in the Traditional Catholic Movement who had any hope that Benedict-Ratzinger was in full-throated support of the Traditional Latin Mass (or at least the Modernized Mass of 1962), the content of it is no surprise to TRADITIO.
Good Catholics, you are going to be shocked by this: TRADITIO agrees with the pope! We have said all along that, aside from the dogmatic questions involved, a parallel Novus Ordo Service/Traditional Latin Mass situation is unmanageable and, if tried, will simply fail as the Campos deal has failed.
The sentiments contained in this Letter to Prof. Dr. Barth are pure Ratzinger. He has said them many times before, in many books before. Sure, he may have a nostalgia for Latin and Mozart, but he certainly doesn't see a Church in which the Traditional Latin Mass is restored, or even celebrated, except with "limited authorization." If Ratzinger believed any differently, he had 24 years, from 1981 to 2005, to do something. He didn't. He won't. At least nothing important, nothing that will last. If Fellay & Schmidberger have their way, SSPX laypeople will end up attending Neo-Novus Ordo in Latin that is just as phony as that EWTN counterfeit!
Dear Fathers:
I'd like to think you Fathers for the news you provide. I know that you Fathers posted a quote on Archbishop Lefebvre, in which he considered the possibility of sede-vacantism. While reading the newly-published Biography of Marcel Lefebvre by SSPX Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais (p. 487), I was interested to find these very forthright comments from the Archbishop on the state of the post-conciliar popes:
The Council turned its back on Tradition and broke with the Church of the past. It is a schismatic council.... If we are certain that the Faith taught by the Church for twenty centuries can contain no error, we are much less certain that the Pope is truly Pope. Heresy, schism, excommunication ipso facto, or invalid election are all causes that can possibly mean that the Pope was never the Pope, or is no longer Pope....
Because, ultimately, since the beginning of Paul VI's pontificate, the conscience and faith of all Catholics have been faced with a serious problem. How is it that a Pope, the true successor of Peter, who is assured of the help of the Holy Ghost, can officiate at the destruction of the Church -- the most radical, rapid, and widespread in her history -- something that no heresiarch has ever imagined to achieve? --From the August 3, 1976, interview granted to Le Figaro
Dear Fathers:
I had a good laugh when a new SSPX organ admitted that Fr. Jenkins went ballistic when TRADITIO mentioned the fact that Fr. Trytek left the Society of St. Pius X because he disagreed with the "erroneous recognition of Benedict XVI as a Catholic pope by Society and the resulting consequences." Fr. Jenkins was tripping all over himself trying to erase what he had already announced publicly!
It seems obvious that once again the Society is trying to cover up its internal problems. Can you break down the rhetoric of Jenkins? What classic devices is he using? Quite honestly, I don't understand his position.
The Fathers Reply.
We don't either. "The lady doth protest too much." After all, we revealed nothing private. Jenkins, in his official SSPX capacity, publicly sent out a document that he himself called an "Announcement," which he himself admitted was "diffused in several mailing lists in English."
The "rhetoric"? Well, it is entirely typical of the Liberalist Faction of the SSPX. First of all, Jenkins, as you indicated, is now trying to cover up the facts that he himself admitted:
The passage in quotes above, which were previously reported by TRADITIO, are taken verbatim from Jenkins' own Announcement! The rest of Jenkins' "reply" is mindless viotriol, which is used to drown SSPXers in irrelevancies and draw attention away from the two simple facts cited above, which he himself published in his original Announcement. Who reports the facts is irrelevant. After all, if the devil speaks the truth, it is still the truth.
Sure, Jenkins' original statement was filled will a pacel of SSPX propaganda, but TRADITIO is not a news agency for the SSPX. Therefore, like Zenit and Catholic World News (both of which TRADITIO pre-dates), or even Reuters and Associated Press, we don't publish verbatim press releases for organizations. The Society has its own press organs, such as The Angelus, which it has been increasingly using in recent months to promote the newly pro-Novus Ordo organizational policies of the Liberalist Faction rather than the general-interest articles that it previously carried.We know from sources inside the SSPX that the Liberalist Faction is putting immense pressure upon SSPX officials to take the line of the Liberalist Faction, led by Fellay and Schmidberger. Perhaps Jenkins has been called on the carpet by his Liberalist Superiors because his official public Announcement was badly phrased and revealed too much about a serious problem within the management of the Society. Jenkins let the cat out of the bag, and now he is trying to put the genie back into the bottle (to mix metaphors), just as Fellay & Schmidberger, now that more and more SSPXers every day are expressing their outrage against them, are back-pedaling as fast as they can to make it appear that they never intended to sell out to the New Order.
Good Catholics, all this is quite reminiscent of Newchurch's Great Sex & Embezzlement Scandal. For almost a decade now, Catholic people have been scandalized that not one Newchurch bishop has yet really fessed up to the mismanagement (to put it mildly) that caused the Great Scandal (outside of a few self-serving press releases and "forgiveness liturgies"). We seem to be seeing the same thing happening now in the Society under the management of Fellay & Schmidberger. They all seem to have forgotten St. Augustine's sage words: "It is better that the truth be known than the scandal be covered up."
Bernard and Franz should be humble and honest: admit to the problems and work on solving them. Instead, they deny, cover up, "spin," threaten, and propagandize their own officials, clergy, and laypeople. This attitude is entirely contrary to the great humility and charity for souls that their Archbishop-Founder exhibited during his leadership of the Society. The Society will never change for the better until its leaders honestly recognize its problems and work with, not against, their own clergy and members to make the Society a better organization, a more Catholic organization.
As the leadership of the SSPX draws closer and closer to the New Order (and, as a matter of fact, it cannot be denied that it is closer to the New Order in the last several months than at any time since 1988), it seems to be aping more and more the modus operandi of its New Order "friends." Therefore, the next time you read of an SSPX official browbeating one of its own, consider that you are looking at more of the same in your future, if Fellay & Schmidberger sell out to the New Order and its methods.
Dear Fathers:
When you enter a SSPX seminary, you have, at one point, to sign a document where you recognize Ratzinger as the true pope. So if you hold the sede-vacantist position, you can't enter a SSPX seminary. If you don't sign the document, you will not be ordained.
Fr. Jenkins writes that sede-vacantism is a private opinion, but it's strictly forbidden for a SSPX priest to talk about his sede-vacantist point of view. I know the case of one former SSPX priest. He was holding the sede-vacantist position. Bishop Fellay said to him: "You can think what you want, but you are not allowed to reveal your position to the public," meaning that Bishop Fellay doesn't bother his priests to be sede-vacantist as long as they officially keep to the SSPX point of view. Of course, this priest left the SSPX.
When writing to several SSPX priests about sede-vacantism, I got different answers. One told me that that Ratzinger is the true pope. Another told me that Ratzinger isn't Catholic, but he is the true pope. One told me that he agrees with the sede-vacantist position.
Here in France our study group is considering what the origins are of the surprising turn of the Society's leadership to making peace with the New Order since the election of Benedict. We are studying why the SSPX hierarchy is now strongly inclined to find an agreement with Newrome that could be more or less palatable to nearly all SSPX faithful. Well, not its whole hierarchy, as a matter of fact, but only Bishop Fellay and especially his main counselor, Father Schmidberger, who happens to be German. This means that the other three bishops are kept aside. Is this how the Letter of Mission that Archbishop Lefebvre sent to all four priests soon to be consecrated in 1988 is respected today?
We are studying whether there is a "German connection" between Pope Benedict and Fr. Schmidberger. The highly-questionable German intellectual movement has strong links not only with Fr. Schmidberger but also with Cardinal Ratzinger. This "German connection" gives rise to serious concern, since it is strongly tainted with Lutheranism, whereas Archbishop Lefebvre, who managed all along to make Newrome dance to his own tune, was French, and still today two-thirds of SSPX priests are French.
Fr. Jan Jenkins, of the Society of St. Pius X, in a public announcement dated January 16, 2006, has confirmed that Fr. Rafa Trytek has left Society because he disagreed with the "erroneous recognition of Benedict XVI as a Catholic pope by Society and the resulting consequences." A report given indicates that on January 16, a few minutes before the office of Compline, Fr. Trytek announced his decision to leave the Society.
Fr. Jenkins calls Fr. Trytek's decision "a shock," particularly since Fr. Trytek "had never even once, neither throughout his seminary training, nor to the priests of the priory, nor to any of the faithful, gave any hint of ideas approaching sedevacantism."
Then Fr. Jenkins goes on to say something quite strange. "Even in the event that he would hold such opinions, sedevacantism is by its nature only a theological opinion, an opinion which in no way engages the consent of Faith." In other words, Fr. Jenkins implies that, although the Society disapproves of the sede-vacantist hypothesis, it really amounts only to a personal opinion, which does not essentially affect a priest's ministry. Well, that makes sense. That is what we here at TRADITIO, who are not sede-vacantists, have consistently held. Perhaps the SSPX is more reasonable down in the trenches of Poland than in the high Alps of Econe.
As the case of Fr. Trytek tends to confirm, it has been generally understood for many years that a significant number of priests in the SSPX hold to one degree or another of sede-vacantism hypothesis. In the past, this had not been a particular problem for the SSPX, as the priests understood that as long as they kept their opinion private, they could stay on; otherwise, the Society's leadership would terminate them. Of course, some SSPX priests have left voluntarily.
However, it has become clear that since Fellay & Schmidberger's association with the New Order, the SSPX Liberalist Faction has made a point of ferociously attacking the sede-vacantist hypothesis. The SSPX magazine The Angelus has become more and more filled in recent issues with such attacks. Franz Schmidberger devotes a significant number of his propaganda lectures to SSPX sites to condemning sede-vacantism.
One doesn't have to be a sede-vacantist to wonder whether the SSPX Liberalist Faction "doth protest too much." Why is even an academic discussion of the sede-vacantist hypothesis, which St. Robert Bellarmine, a Doctor of the Church, and other theologians, entertained, so terrifying to Fellay & Schmidberger that they despise it more than the New Order Religion, with which they are willing to "negotiate"? Coupled with the fact that the two latest issues of The Angelus have been substantially devoted to a defense of the New Order, specifically, the New Order rite for the consecration of bishops, the answer is not difficult to figure out.
Fellay & Schmidberger have taken an actual or virtual loyalty oath to Newpope and Newchurch. They had to. That was Newvatican's non-negotiable requirement even to talk to them. Cardinal Hoyos' interview, previously commented upon, makes that point crystal clear. They must affirm that Benedict-Ratzinger, the first Bishop of Rome to have been consecrated in the disputed Novus Ordo rite, not the traditional rite of his 265 predecessors, is really pope. They must affirm that Vatican II is not a "bastard" council like the papally-condemned Council of Pistoia (1794) to which it is essentially similar, but valid. (Sure, they'll play language games about viewing the Council "in the light of Tradition," but is it really possible in any way to view strychnine as a healthful tonic?!)
The Superior Generalate of Bernard Fellay and his First Assistant, Franz Schmidberger, has been a disaster for the SSPX. Under their leadership, the SSPX has lost its way and abandoned the principles of its Archbishop-Founder. At the death of Archbishop Lefebvre in 1991, any SSPX member knew exactly what the Society stood for: the uncompromising Roman Catholic Faith against the New Order Religion. An compromise with the New Order Religion was in now way tolerable for the Archbishop and the Society!
We doubt that now SSPX members could clearly explain what the purpose of the Society is. Is it to stand against the New Order Religion? Well, not exactly. If Newchurch gives the Society its own little "approved" bailiwick, Fellay & Schmidberger seem ready to sell out. Is it to stand against the Novus Ordo service and sacraments? Well, not exactly. If Newchurch offers a Campos-like "indult," Fellay & Schmidberger seem ready to sell out.
It appears that a major shift in SSPX philosophy has quietly occurred, just like Hannibal Bugnini's "gradual" New Order, with Fellay never getting the buy-in of the laity, let alone of the clergy and the High Council. In January 2004, Fellay sent to all 5000 or so Newchurch bishops around the world a lengthy letter condemning the New Order. Now, two years later, he seems to be willing to sell out the Society to the same New Order that he condemned just 24 months ago.
Yes, Virginia, something is rotten the kingdom of Denmark, and all the Fellay & Schmidberger propaganda lectures to SSPX sites are not going to wash away the clear record indicating that Fellay & Schmidberger have turned against the philosophy of their Archbishop-Founder and have turned against uncompromising traditional Catholicism to making deals with the Newchurch foxes.
Dear Fathers:
I found this great quote, which seems to sum up were we are in the Catholic Church today. I certainly see this in my (former) Newparish.
We are obliged by obedience [to Newchurch] to accept doctrine that is no longer truly orthodox, and sacraments that are doubtful. These are things that have never happened in the Church before. From "Error Spreads in the Church through Obedience" by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, May 3, 1982
It does seem that some SSPX members like lemmings are following Newrome off the cliff. Through God's grace my eyes are opened.
The Fathers Reply.
TRADITIO has always said that Archbishop Lefebvre was a wise and experienced man, and did a very courageous thing in forming the Society of St. Pius X to combat the false New Order religion. It is all the more sad that, having been founded and guided in its first two decades by such a man, the SSPX could find no better a successor than Bernard Fellay, who seems willing to place his Faith and the Society in danger through dealing with the New Order foxes.
We frequently hear these days that Catholics and Mohammedans "worship the same god." This is just another one of those false oecumenisms. The Catholic Church traditionally condemns Mohammedanism, also known as Islamism, for its false and dangerous beliefs. Here is a statement from Catholic Apologetics, published in 1928.
The religion of Islam (i.e., "submission to God's decrees "), as it is called by its followers, was founded by Mohammed. He was born at Mecca in Arabia, 570 AD. In early life he was a shepherd, but later became a merchant, and traveled to Syria and Palestine. He was much given to prayer and fasting, and was subject to epileptic fits. In his fortieth year he professed to have received a call from the Angel Gabriel to preach the worship of the one true God to his people, the Arabs, who, though descended from Heber and Abraham, had lost the purity of their primitive belief, and had fallen into idolatry.
His preaching was rejected at Mecca. He fled to Medina, where he succeeded in making many converts and in organizing a small army. In spite of some severe reverses, he was enabled by his talents as a general and leader to crush in detail the warring factions of Arabia, and to weld them into a formidable military state (A.D. 630). Towards the close of his life he showed himself a monster of lust, cruelty, and rapacity. He died in 633.
The sum of his doctrinal teaching is expressed in the formula: "There is no God but the true God, and Mohammed is His prophet. "This single confession however implied six articles, viz., belief in (a) the unity of God; (b) His angels; (c) His scripture -- Al Koran, the sacred book which Mohammed wrote; (d) His prophets -- among whom are reckoned Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Mohammed himself, the last and greatest of all; (e) the Resurrection and Day of Judgment; (f) God's absolute and irrevocable decree, predetermining all things, good and evil (Fatalism).
His moral teaching is concerned almost entirely with externals. It includes forms of prayer, alms, fasting, the obligation of making a pilgrimage to Mecca, and of waging war against the infidel. It permits polygamy and divorce, and approves of slavery. The motive to virtue is the assurance of admission after death to a paradise of fantastic sensuality. Within a hundred years after Mohammed's death, a succession of able generals spread his religion through all the neighbouring countries, along the North African coast, into Spain, and even across the Pyrenees. But the tide of conquest was stemmed at Tours by Charles Martel, 732.
Its rapid propagation was due (1) as in the case of Buddhism, to the clearness and consistency of its monotheistic doctrine in contrast with the confused and contradictory teaching of polytheism; (2) to its pandering to base passions; but above all (3) to the might of the sword.
At the present day (1918), it has about 223 million followers, nine-tenths of whom belong to the Sunnite or Orthodox sect, under the headship of the Sultan of Turkey. It is said that there are, in all, 73 sub-divisions of Mohammedans, but it must be admitted that in the essentials of doctrine and practice they hardly differ. The fragments of revealed truth which the religion contains were borrowed from Judaism or Christianity.
Its fatalism, its low morality, its gross conception of eternal happiness, and the character of its founder stamp it plainly with falsehood, and make its propagation impossible among civilized peoples. It is professed chiefly by undeveloped or unprogressive races, it clings to the old lines of Mohammedan conquest, and owes almost all its present strength to political support.
One year earlier, in 1927, Pope Pius XI decreed that in all Catholic churches and chapels on the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King, the last Sunday of October, the following prayer should be recited by the people before the Most Blessed Sacrament exposed, as part of the Consecration of the Human Race to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus:
Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism, and refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God.
Reuters News Service reports that Newvatican has been engaging in secret discussions with rock star Michael Jackson to put the prayers of the late JPII to music. A big wrinkle occurred, however, when members of the press had got wind of the project. On February 5, it emerged that Jackson had secretly flown to Venice to sign a contract. But as news of his arrival leaked, he fled the city under cover of night and was thought to be on his way back to his private castle at Never Neverland, California, where he has become a virtual recluse since multiple accusations of child molestation were lodged against him.
JPII had been roundly criticized by Novus Ordinarians and the press when he associated with rock stars and publicly stated that he preferred rock trash music. Newvatican's standards have sunk a long way from the papacy of Pope John XXIII, when it approved the classical musician Darius Milhaud to set selected Latin text from the pope's Encyclical Letter Pacem in terris for an oratorio.
Newvatican officials, caught flatfooted, did finally admit: "We had hoped the fact that we have been in contact with Michael Jackson would remain a secret. But sadly it has leaked out ahead of time. We are in discussions and trying to sort it out... He disappeared. We don't know where he is now." Newvatican official Giuseppe Moscati dismissed Jackson's seamy past and insisted that it was no barrier to him working with the Newchurch.
And why should Newvatican be concerned? JPII himself and Benedict-Ratzinger have been mired in charges of aiding sex crimes around the world. Newchurch has also been rocked by the sex crimes of Novus Ordo presbyters, bishops, and cardinals. In the United States alone, the Church has paid out more than $1,000,000,000 for its clergy's sex crimes, with more to come.You don't think that Newchurch's rejection of Catholic doctrine isn't having its effect on the world? Here is a particularly salient comment from liberalist commentator John Burns. Now maybe you violently disagree with his conclusions, but remember that he is drawing perfectly logical conclusions from the words and deeds of the Church of the New Order.
It is instructive, both to Catholics and the rest of us, how easily the Vatican can discard tenets of the faith when it suits. In 1905 Pope Pius X, later canonised, said: "Children who die without baptism go into limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer, either." Now it seems this pope wasn't speaking infallibly; it may have been a case of papal bull. One of his successors, John Paul II, referring to the victims of abortion, said that the Church actually "doesn't know the fate of unbaptised infants"....
With limbo going the way of the geocentric universe and the Latin Mass, we can presumably look forward to a more realistic and human church. And if you believe that, you'll believe in anything. Even limbo.
In France, a website has exposed a kind of "shadow government" within the Society of St. Pius X, organized by Schmidberger. This noyau dirigeant, or "leadership cell," is said to include, like the Communist cells of the 1940s and 1950s, a small number of priests inside the SSPX tightly linked to Ratzinger and controlling the Society's external communications to its members. The information associates the common German background of Schmidberger and Ratzinger and describes how this "shadow government" took control of the Society after the death of its Archbishop-Founder.
Sources within the Society report that Fellay & Schmidberger have in fact been arranging a deal with Newrome. However, when TRADITIO and other international sources started reporting the Big Picture, a firestorm erupted around them, and they had to backtrack, so are now issuing denials of what they previous said and did. In effect, Fellay & Schmidberger are creating the "rumor" mill that they accuse others of doing.
Cognoscenti in the Society believe that Newrome is playing Fellay & Schmidberger for naifs, putting out rumors to inflame the situation and cause divisions within the SSPX. It is feared that if Newrome does "lift the excommunications" next week, the Society could split, and it is Fellay-Schmidberger & Co. who have put them in this bad position.
I have been reading quite a bit more on the whole Fellay-SSPX shenanigans for a friend. I was attending an SSPX chapel for a while. My husband and I were fooled and caught up in the whole glorious and wonderful provisions and antiquity that the SSPX seems to offer to the laity. They offer everything from schools, choir, and societies for the laity, to the old-fashioned doughnut gatherings on Sunday after Mass. It is easy to get caught up into it all along with the SSPXers or the SSPX rah-rahs (as we refer to them) that are sworn true to the Society.
To any uneducated layperson looking for the nostalgia of the Catholic Church that once was before Vatican II, it would be easy to fall into the rah-rah, along with all of the brainwashing that goes with it. When my family decided to leave the SSPX chapel, we had a visit by the SSPX pastor a week or two later. He came to our home obviously angry because we left. I told him that the SSPX held an illogical position. We told him that we could not stand with a Society that recognizes the Mess that the Novus Ordo Church claims to be valid. And trust me when I tell you that they do accept it as valid. Or at least most in the Society do; the others just say that it is "questionable."
A priest I know attended the SSPX seminary for close to eight years. His class was asked to sign a document before they could be ordained, which asked them to swear to the belief that the post-conciliar popes were valid and that the Novus Ordo is a valid rite, including the Novus Ordo Sacraments. I also got proof of this from a current SSPX priest still offering within the Society. He confirmed it was true at least for his class.
Something is definitely afoul, or, as William Shakespeare penned, "something is rotten in Denmark." Last week we learned that there was growing speculation of a "compromise of the Society with Modern Rome." And yet Fellay & Schmidberger propaganda road-show was still in denial. However, there seems to be almost a "methinks thou dost protest too much" fortress mentality from the Liberal Wing of the SSPX these days.
Whether these denials are warranted or just following the conciliar formula for deception, we shall probably know by the Ides of February. It does not bode well for holding fast to Tradition when the official publication of the Society, the Angelus, did a 360-degree turn in bending over backwards to canonize the New Order's rite of episcopal consecration. Does anyone remember Bishop Fellay's declaration sent to every conciliar cardinal and bishop exactly two years ago? What he shouted from the rooftops two years ago has been terribly softened today. Something is afoot this month, and the SSPXers cannot afford another Campos sellout.
Many believe that Fellay & Schmidberger's marching orders have come down from Il Commandante himself, Benedict XVI, who is requiring a show of sincerity that the SSPX really is going to repudiate what it has stood for over the past thirty years -- Catholic truth. Is Bishop Bernard Fellay bulletproof as Superior General? Is Franz Schmidberger telling the truth? We know that Modern Rome is certainly not! Listen for the quacks, because if the SSPX leadership sounds like a Novus Ordo duck, looks like a Novus Ordo duck, and walks like a Novus Ordo duck, it's most probably a Novus Ordo duck!
I know an older, retired Novus Ordo presbyter who has personally experienced Eucharistic miracles. At the time of consecration, a spot of blood appeared on the host (before he elevated it). This was at a Novus Ordo service. If you don't believe that transubstantiation occurs during Novus Ordo services, how do you explain this?
The Fathers Reply.
Sometimes this argument about Novus Ordo "miracles" is offered in a desperate effort to prove that the Protestant-Masonic-Pagan Novus Ordo service is valid.
First of all, how does one determine that anything is a "miracle"? These occurrences (if in fact they actually occured) are investigated by the Church for centuries before any determination is made, so that the scandal of the Church being associated with phony "miracles" can be avoided.
Secondly, no such determination is ever dogmatic. No "miracle" after Christ and the Apostles is a matter of doctrine. Scripture and Tradition, that is, the Public Revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ with consequent dogmata are what we must believe in.
Thirdly, Our Lord Himself warned us that false "miracles" can be used by Satan to deceive: "For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect (Matthew 24:24/DRV).
I happened to be present at one of Schmidberger's recent propaganda lectures in the central United States. I thought that TRADITIO readers might be interested in certain information that came out. I am not a member of the Society, but am interested in its program and activities.
First of all, it was very clear that Schmidberger, who is the #2 man in the SSPX, prefers the Novus Ordo religion to the sede-vacantist hypothesis. Schmidberger took a great deal of time assailing sede-vacantism, the hypothesis that the Apostolic See is vacant because of unCatholic actions of the popes since Paul VI. As TRADITIO has pointed out, this is not a matter of doctrine one way or the other, but a personal conclusion that some people have reached simply from their view of the facts. Several Church Fathers and theologians, such as St. Robert Bellarmine, have written about the possibility and, at the time the Protestant revolution, were afraid that the Protestants might become powerful enough to infiltrate the election of the pope. Therefore, they discussed the theology that could hold a pope invalid because of falling from the Catholic Faith and the Roman See vacant for another election.
So why is this sede-vacantist hypothesis, which denies no doctrine of the Catholic Faith, certainly not that of the papacy, which it upholds dogmatically -- a hypothesis that is supported, in theory, even by Doctors of the Church -- considered by Schmidberger personally to be more dangerous than the unCatholilc New Order? After all, the New Order has in fact, not in just theory, created a Newchurch, a New "Mass," New Sacraments, a New Theology, and a New Morality that are clearly not Catholic.
The reason was made clear from Schmidberger's lecture. If Fellay & Schmidberger should sell out the SSPX to the New Order, they want to be sure that as many SSPXers as possible go with them to the Novus Ordo rather than opt out to go to another alternative. One of those alternatives is to go to a traditional organization that holds the theoretical possibility, or actuality, that the post-Vatican II popes have fallen so far from the Faith that they cannot be called Catholic popes at all.
Secondly, Schmidberger gave it out that Fellay could run for yet another twelve-year term as Superior General of the SSPX. In other words, he could become legally SSPX Dictator for 24 years, a term longer than SSPX's Founder-Archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre, who held only one twelve-year term. Moreover, Archbishop Lefebvre prudently forbade, in his Constitution for the Society, that a bishop should be Superior General. The Roman Dictator Julius Caesar ruled only four years until Roman Republicans assassinated him for going too far. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt held office for 12 years, and as a result the American people passed a constitutional amendment to prevent a President from serving more than eight years.
Further, Schmidberger said that the decision to sell out to Newrome was that of the Superior General only. The High Council could make recommendations, but the Superior General alone would make the decision and sign the papers.
Finally, it was clear that Schmidberger reads TRADITIO avidly. At one point Schmidberger admitted that he first learned through TRADITIO of the February 13 meeting called by Benedict at Rome to consider the case of the SSPX. He praised (grudgingly, to be sure) TRADITIO for having gotten the jump on other major sources about this important piece of information.
My overall sense from this lecture was that Schmidberger & Fellay are quite ready to sell out the SSPX to the New Order. They are getting the constitutional processes in place so that they, the SSPX's Liberal Wing, will extend their control over the Society. They are engaging in a campaign of badmouthing sede-vacantists, among others, so that disaffected SSPXers will not consider going to those traditional sites.
They apparently foresee the SSPX being essentially the only "indult" organization, holding all properties and money. Eventually, they would coopt the Fraternity of St. Peter and, once baptized by Newchurch as part of the New Order, become the only international "indult" organization in a way that spits in the face of Archbishop Lefebvre and his courageous actions against the New Order and Newchurch.
Dear Fathers:
Please, I just want to say that it is wrong to spread rumors. Fr. Schmidberger had visited Central Minnesota and talked about all the rumors. He is so mad because nothing is true. First of all, Fellay will not sell out to Newrome to become a cardinal, and Schmidberger is not wanting to become a bishop of the New Order. Just wanted to make that point clear. There is a better chance of Newrome allowing Tradition worldwide than the SSPX going to the Novus Ordo Mass.
The Fathers Reply.
Yes, it is wrong to spread rumors. Schmidberger should be ashamed of himself. At the same time he says that "nothing is true," the Italian daily Il Giornale is reporting that Benedict-Ratzinger has called a meeting in Newrome for February 13 on the SSPX question. Why didn't Schmidberger tell you about this?
Come on, Mike. You're smarter that being a shill for someone else's opinion. Schmidberger & Fellay are spreading just the rumors that they want their troops to hear. They don't want you and the other SSPXers to know what is really going in Newvatican and in the Traditional Catholic Movement at large. Their proven record is to hide, to deny, and spread rumors, just like the Newchurch bishops, from whom they seem to have been contaminated a lot since their recent tete-a-tetes in Newrome. Perhaps some of that New Order modus operandi is rubbing off on them rather than the opposite, as they claim!
All the information given here on TRADITIO is from cited international publications, from Newvatican, or from officials and members of the SSPX. Don't get taken in by that "rumor" ploy. You're smarter than that. Schmidberger & Fellay want to control what information you get, so they have come upon the ploy of calling everything that disagrees with their plans a "rumor."
Don't you think Schmidberger & Fellay are telling you exactly what they as the corporate executives of the SSPX want you to know -- and only that? Do you honestly think that if Fellay were hankering after the scarlet and Schmidberger after the purple, they would tell you? Of course not. They will deny it, just as Nixon denied Watergate and Kofi Annan denied the Arab Oil Scandal. Why aren't you considering what certain SSPX officers are telling you to be the "rumors"?! We have never said, "Believe TRADITIO." We say: weight all the information, consider the record and actions of the individuals, analyze for yourself, use your own mind. That's the Roman way.
So, we're supposed to rejoice that Newrome might "allow" tradition? To the contrary, all Catholics have the right -- and obligation -- of Tradition. It is dogmatically one of the two fonts of the Public Revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Those who want to sell out to the phony "authority" of the New Order should have done so in 1969 and saved us all the heartache of the last forty years.
So, Newrome is going to "allow Tradition"? The way it "allowed" the "indult" Fraternity of St. Peter to be co-opted by the Masonic-friendly Newchurch bishop Fabian Bruskewitz and slowly fade into the sunset, with a third of its clergy now wanting out? Newrome is going to "allow Tradition," the way it "allowed" the Campos "indult" bishop Fernando Rifan to violate his oath and publicly join other Newchurch bishops in the celebration of the Novus Ordo Mess? Mike, if you really believe that the New Order is going to embrace Traditio, there is a bridge in Brooklyn we'd like to sell you!
In the previous message we heard that Newrome was supposedly going to "allow Tradition." Sure, the fanatical Novus Ordinarians are just going to stand back and embrace Latin and Gregorian chant in place of Swahili and Kumbaya. Not! Let us turn back the clock to July 27, 2003.
The New York Times reported then that at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Newchurch Parish in Tuxedo Park, New York (which, according to our correspondents, hosts not a Traditional Latin Mass, but a Novus Ordo Mess clothed in a little Latin), a group of fanatical Novus Ordo parishioners pummeled their Presbyter John Perricone, enraged because Perricone is imposing on them aspects of the Novus Ordo Latin Mess.
Nearly three-dozen parishioners carrying signs denouncing the presbyter -- "Get Rid of John Perricone -- picketed Our Lady of Mount Carmel before and after the 10:30 a.m. service, which drew nearly 200 people. The fanatical Novus Ordinarians screamed at the presbyter for using too many elements from the Traditional Mass. They said that he faced the altar instead of the congregation when he prepared communion, did not allow communicants to drink from the chalice, did not speak out loud for the consecration of the host; and did not allow lay ministers to hand out communion. And this is the New Order Church of New Pope and Newvatican that is going to "embrace Tradition"? No, Good Catholics. The traditional Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles is one thing. The New Order Church of Hannibal Bugnini and the conciliar popes is another thing entirely.
If you can't see the difference, we suggest that you view the excellent video, What We Have Lost ... and the Road to Restoration: A Critical Look at the Changes in the Catholic Church, put out by the In the Spirit of Chartres Committee. This 50-minute VHS videocassette is beautifully produced, with historical footage of the Traditional Latin Mass, Sacraments, and papal ceremonies, as contrasted with the inanity of the New Order Mass and other rites. The contrast will truly be shocking to those who have gradually slipped into the Novus Ordo Worship Service without realizing its unCatholicity. For further information, see the TRADITIO Library of Files for FAQ05: What Traditional Books Do You Recommend?.
Your readers might be interested to hear eye-witness reports of the latest in the saga of Fr. Wickens's St. Anthony of Padua Church in West Orange, New Jersey, on which TRADITIO has previously 1provided the most comprehensive coverage. Your readers may remember that Fr. Wickens had had a thriving independent traditional church and community for several decades, but when he fell terminally ill, the vultures couldn't wait to swoop in to take control for themselves.
It turned out that the board of directors that Fr. Wickens had trusted eventually sold his great work out to the very thing he detested: the New Order. The board handed over the church to the unCatholic local Newchurch bishop and his ill-starred protege presbyter. As a result the traditional flock that Fr. Wickens had so industriously built up was scattered. Some went to other independent churches at a greater distance, some stayed at the Novus Ordo "indult" arrangement under the protege. Some just gave up.
Now the "indult" presbyter has been removed from the church. Reports are that he used up all of the funds that Fr. Wickens carefully built up. At least the board members who sold Fr. Wickens out to Newchurch were present as the presbyter attempted to empty out the rectory upon his removal and kept him from taking what did not belong to him. A fracas ensued, and the police were even called. When the police arrived at the rectory, the presbyter was ordered to call back the four to five vans (!) that had already left with property from St. Anthony's and to have his "helpers" unpack everything, because three sets of vestments were found, for which the chapel had been charged $24,000. It is reported that a number of items are still missing: thuribles, incense boats, etc.
The SSPX tried to step in and squeeze out from the bereaved and evicted traditional flock, or some of what remained of it, $1,800,000 in real estate for a new church. It sounds as if the SSPX is trying to get as many individuals as they can committed to the SSPX via real estate. Of course, even that precarious attempt has gone sour because if SSPX sells out to Newchurch, as current reports indicate is a strong possibility, any property that the individuals bought for the SSPX will go to Newchurch, and the poor flock will have lost yet another building.
Good Catholics, the moral of this story is that if your community has real property, you should be clear on how you are organized. That property should not be under the control of some outside organization, but should be in the control of a local board of trustees that is responsible to the local membership of the church or chapel, not to an outside organization. That way, at least if your property is given away, it will be the members who did it rather than an outside organization or a planted ruling clique. The SSPX in particular has had a deplorable record in the past of virtual extortion: often demanding that all local money and property be turned over to the Society before it will even talk to you.
We have received a report from Flavigny, France, where a meeting of SSPX-affiliated monasteries was called for February 1. SSPX Superior General Bernard Fellay addressed the monks in part on the status of the possible SSPX sell-out. Although Fellay seems to be singing the old tune that "there is nothing special planned, nothing new," he still seems obsessed with the boogeyman of "rumors, mistrust, speaking of a 'secret accord' or that the Society would become an Apostolic Administration, something that is supposedly to be signed around Easter time. This is completely false, nothing but empty air."
Well if that is true, good! But we shall see. It seems that, more and more, Fellay has been incorporating in his lectures (for whatever it is worth) statements that could have been taken directly from TRADITIO and public letters of SSPXers in opposition to a sellout. Previous to the latest round of propaganda lectures of Fellay & Schmidberger, they had little to say of Archbishop Lefebvre's outspoken position against "dialoguing" with Newchurch and a lot to say about "negotiations" with Newpope. Remember, Fellay himself admits that it was not Benedict-Ratzinger who called the August 29, 2005, Beheading Meeting with Fellay, but that it was Fellay himself who asked for it.
We suspect that if it is true, TRADITIO had a major hand in being the only independent source to expose to the public the duplicitous statements and actions of Fellay & Schmidberger. As a result, SSPXers who are still loyal to their Archbishop-Founder's principles started making noise within the SSPX. Fellay & Schmidberger talk a good game, but what they say just doesn't seem to correspond to reality. For example, while Fellay tells the monks in France that there is "nothing new," the Italian press is boiling with the announcement of a meeting on February 13 called by Benedict-Ratzinger himself to take up the SSPX matter (and possibly other matters as well). Moreover, web sites in France authored by SSPX priests have already published the outlines of a talking agreement.
The fact that significant information is often relayed by French publications in Europe seems sometimes to be a ploy for limiting circulation of information, as North and South Americans in particular tend to be ignorant of foreign languages. It is well known that the SSPX is Franco-Germanic biased. Some years ago traditional Catholics were shocked to find out that the SSPX seminary at Econe was teaching its theology courses not in Latin -- which even Pope John XXIII demanded in his Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia, solemnly promulgated before the cardinals meeting at Vatican II -- but in French and German. English and Spanish-speaking seminarians are out of luck. They have to spend a good deal of extra time learning French or German instead the Latin in which they should be fluent for their studies.
Reports from Anglo-American and Hispanic seminarians over the years has deplored this nationalist bias, which should be entirely absent from any Catholic organization. After all, as Pope John so clearly pointed out, this is one of the great advantage of Latin as the Church's language: it is beyond nationalist biases. As Hutton Gibson predicted some time ago, Schmidberger and Ratzinger would negotiate in their own language, come to a deal, and then mutually brand all non-accepting traditional Catholics as "schismatics."
According to our source, Fellay in his Flavigny lecture poopooed the idea of "lifting the excommunications." If true, that is good. Archbishop Lefebvre blew off that silliness back in 1988. With Newvatican, it was always a political ploy, and even Newvatican's own most prominent canonists have gone on record as stating that the "excommunications" are null and void. If Newvatican tries to entice the SSPX fly into the Newchurch web by lifting the "excommunications," we fully expect Fellay and the other SSPX bishops to do the honorable thing and return the document to Newrome marked: Refused!
Dear Fathers:
Given all the recent rumours about a juridical arrangement for the SSPX, I thought that readers of TRADITIO might want some insights on what an Personal Apostolic Administration" would mean for the SSPX. This is the structure that is being discussed. What power would the unCatholic and even unChristian Novus Ordo bishops have over this structure?
The local bishops would retain absolute control over their own Novus Ordo churches and chapels and oratories. In other words, all the beautiful old stone churches with stained glass that were designed for the One True Mass and built by the pennies of real Catholics in the past would continue to forbid the True Mass in favour of the Novus Ordo Mess, and the SSPX would continue to be confined to the few buildings that it can acquire with its limited funds. This often means clapboard former Methodist and Quaker meeting halls and whatnot.
Meanwhile, while the local bishops would have no juridical authority over the PAA, Newrome certainly would. As a PAA is essentially an "indult," revocable by any pope at any time, the very pope who approved a document that guarantees that Novus Ordo seminaries and the Novus Ordo presbyterate will be taken over by Novus Ordinarians of the most questionably morality would have the right to impose the 1965 Pre-Novus Ordo Mass and then the 1967 Non-consecratory Mess and then the 1969 Protestant-Masonic-Pagan Mess of Bugnini on the SSPX. All by baby-steps. Slowly does it. One step at a time. Same as the New Mess. Is this the pope to trust? After all, this is the pope who has betrayed Novus Ordo seminarians to the rainbow wolves. This is the pope who flew the Newchurch archbishop of San Francisco, who was under subpoena in two dioceses about sex crimes, off to Newvatican to be his #3 man.
Fellay & Schmidberger must have lost their minds if they think that this pope is the man to "reconcile" with. They might want to consult the Ontario Provincial Police to learn just whom this pope has been harbouring these days -- think of the pope's man, Monsignor Bernard Prince, Secretary General for the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith, who was recently arrested for sex crimes in Canada).
Dear Fathers:
I've been watching the events with Fr. Schmidberger & Co. earnestly. I attended one of the lectures he gave about the negotiations when they first began. I still can't say which shocked me more: what he suggested or the attitude of the people toward what obviously amounted to a treacherous sellout to the Newchurch Modernists. I knew that my days attending Society Masses were numbered.
The people seemed all too ready to follow wherever they were led with a few glorious exceptions. One man told Fr. Schmidberger that he was "dancing with the devil." The rest appeared oblivious to what he was saying. When one attendee asked whether he really expected SSPX members to co-exist with the New Order religion, he raised his hands in exasperation and said that the Society was going to continue as always. It was as though the resistance demonstrated for the last 30 some years was no more than one preferring Italian and another preferring Chinese cuisine.
A very devoted friend of the SSPX said that these negotiations are the worst thing to come down the pike since the New Mess and Vatican II. I exhort TRADITIO readers around the world to pray for the religious of the SSPX. It seems to many that the younger priests have been formed with this sellout in mind. If we really believe in the holy Catholic faith, not a day should go by that we haven't prayed for the preservation and expansion of the holy priesthood. Catholics should never take traditional priests for granted. If you have a good priest to succor you spiritually, thank God!
I can't express in words how sorry I feel for the SSPX priests. Many of them are very fine men and are not of the ilk of some of their more liberal superiors. I pray that the Immaculata will preserve all the traditional priests and give them a refuge in her Immaculate Heart.
Dear Fathers:
I'm a Protestant convert. Could you explain for me how independent priests and societies operate when the "institutional" Church has essentially abandoned the true Faith? How is this situation different from Protestantism? Your past comments and advice have been invaluable.
The Fathers Reply.
The Church is currently in a state like that of the 4th century, when the Arian heretics were in control of the "institutional" Church. This we know from specific statements by St. Jerome and other Fathers of the Church. In such a case, bishops and priests who wanted to remain true to the Faith and Christ had to operate independently against the heretic bishops (and probably pope), as it was unthinkable to them to operate in a structure controlled by heretics.
This was the period in which the great independent bishops and priests operated: St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Anthony of the Desert, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, St. Basil the Great, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Dionysius of Milan, St. Eusebius of Samosata, St. Gregory Nazianzus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Hermenegild (executed because she refused to receive Communion from an Arian bishop), St. Hilary of Potiers, St. Hosius of Cordova, St. Jerome, St. Lucifer of Cagliari, St. Martin of Tours, St. Paul the Hermit, St. Peter of Alexandria, St. Phoebadius, and others.
St. Theodore of Studium (758-826) wrote the following of St. Athanasius of Alexandria's and St. Eusebius of Samosata's modus operandi during the period of the Arian heresy in the Church:
Because of pressing needs, in these critical moments when heresy stands strong, everything is not done in exactly the same manner that has been established in times of peace. Consider precisely what blessed Athanasius and the very holy Eusebius publicly did: both imposed hands [i.e., ordained and consecrated] outside the limits of their jurisdiction. Also, now, in the present [Iconoclast] heresy, the same thing is happening.
In the fourth century St. Eusebius of Samosata traveled thorough Eastern dioceses devastated by the Arians and ordained orthodox pastors for them, without having particular jurisdiction over them. These are evidently extraordinary actions, as were the circumstances that gave rise to them. (Dom Adrien Grea, O.S.B.)
In his Letter to His Flock, St. Athanasius enunciated the Catholic principle without mincing words:
May God console you!... What saddens you ... is the fact that others [the heretics] have occupied the churches by violence, while during this time you are on the outside. It is a fact that they have the premises -- but you have the apostolic Faith. They can occupy our churches, but they are outside the true Faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the faith dwells within you. Let us consider: what is more important, the place or the Faith? The true Faith, obviously.
Who has lost and who has won in the struggle -- the one who keeps the buildings or the one who keeps the Faith? The true Faith, obviously. That therefore the ordinances which have been preserved in the churches from old time until now may not be lost in our days,... rouse yourselves, brethren,... seeing them now seized upon by aliens.
You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the Church by your Faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis.
No one, ever, will prevail against your Faith, Beloved Brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day. Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim that they represent the Church; but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray.
Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ.
The situation of the Arian (4th century) and Iconclast (8th century) periods parallel the situation of post Vatican II Conciliar period. So there is undeniable precedent in the Catholic Church, approved by the greatest Saints by their own acts, for acting independently in times of crisis to preserve true Catholic doctrine, tradition, and sacraments. As such, it is recognized in Catholic moral theology. That is what Archbishop Lefebvre, Founder of the Society of St. Pius X, stated as the justification, even the necessity, for his actions.
There is no correspondence to Protestantism in this. Martin Luther, for example, was not trying to preserve Catholic doctrine and tradition. Quite the contrary. He was trying to change them. He changed the Bible and changed several doctrines of the Church (on justification, on faith and works, on the Sacraments, and many more).
And lest you think that some Newchurch-approved "indult" Mass is an out, listen to just one of many reports that we have received of what is going on at many such sites:
As I often have to travel for work, I attend the many Masses listed in the Official Traditional Catholic Directory. At the "indult" Mass in Portland, I witnessed a deacon distribute communion and then not perform any ablutions. I have witnessed an elderly priest give "communion in the hand" at the site in Ventura.
It has probably seldom crossed anyone's mind that the tables could be shortly turned. Think of Newchurch trying to reconcile itself with the traditional Catholic Faith. This could happen in a short while, with the restoration of the papacy, through Divine intervention. Newchurch would then be considered outsiders having to answer to the pope. This is not that unlikely, and I think that it will happen quickly, splendidly, and maybe soon. When it does, it will be "sit back, relax, and enjoy the show."
The Italian daily Il Giornale reports in its February 2 issue that Benedict-Ratzinger has called a meeting of the responsible cardinals and ministers for February 13 at 10:30 in the Apostolic palace of the Vatican concerning the SSPX sellout. The meeting was purported called to take up the matter of the excommunications and the SSPX situation under a Novus Ordo "indult" kind of situation a la Campos, Brazil.
Whenever something gets out that Fellay & Schmidberger want to keep secret, they condemn it as a "rumor." This is becoming an all-too-familiar modus operandi with them.
But now we have a report from the largest Italian daily, crediting as fact what Fellay & Schmidberger have denied. If what Il Giornale has published is true (you don't have to take TRADITIO's word for it) is fact, it stretches credibility beyond the breaking point that Fellay & Schmidberger did not know of this meeting. Yet they are going around the world holding conferences telling everyone that nothing is happening, just one or two informal talks with Newvatican officials, and that they are not selling out, but sticking to past rejections of Vatican II and the New Order.
Is this Vatican meeting the real reason why Fellay called his own meeting of all the SSPX-affiliated French monasteries for February 1 and a meeting of the SSPX High Council on February 7-8? Schmidberger in his latest propaganda lectures for SSPXers claims that the SSPX meetings are purely administrative, only to prepare for the upcoming election of a new General Superior for the SSPX.
As Pope Adrian put it: Videbimus et expectabimus. But the past record doesn't leave us in doubt as to who is giving out the "rumors" and who is giving out the facts!
I worry that, after ten or twelve years, Conciliar Rome might suddenly decide to replace the 1962 Mass with the 1965 Mass, and then the 1965 Mass with the completely modernized 1967 Mess -- that disaster that came out of Tres Abhinc Annos. One traditional society on the East Coast of the United States (now defunct) tried exactly that. And, finally, Conciliar Rome could impose a "nice" Novus Ordo in Latin -- all by "baby steps." Notice how Conciliar Rome tricked the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), allowing its seminarians to hold the erroneous belief that their society could be prevented from celebrating New Mess. Then, after twelve years, once Newrome had sucked them in, down came the axe.
Bishop Fellay should not make a deal now. And why would Bishop Fellay want to accept a deal from a hierarchy that continues to worship with heretics and schismatics? Note that, should a personal apostolic administration be granted, it would have a proper ordinary as apostolic administrator. Like local ordinaries, proper ordinaries serve until the age of 75. Is Bishop Fellay trying to extend his rule for another twenty years? Is Fr. Schmidberger looking for the same purple given to that other negotiator, then-Fr. Rifan of the Priestly Union of St. Vincent Ferrer (Campos)?
Let us hope that wiser heads than Fellay & Schmidberger in the SSPX put the brakes on this process. Nothing has changed in Conciliar Rome except for more Mozart and fewer polkas. Sodano is still Secretary of State, and Re is still Prefect for Bishops. It's the same gang.
The Toronto Globe and Mail reports that Ontario Provincial Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Monsignor Bernard Prince, who was Secretary General for the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Prince, now living in Rome, has been accused of sex crimes in Canada. He is not the first official of the Newvatican ecclesiocracy to have been charged.
Prince would not say whether he was planning to return to Canada to face the charges or whether he would claim "diplomatic immunity," as Benedict-Ratzinger did when named by a Texas court as an unindicted co-conspirator in sex-crime cases. If Prince does not return voluntarily, Benedict-Ratzinger has in the past shielded his presbyters and bishops from the law under the shroud of "diplomatic immunity." Rick Romley, a former Arizona prosecutor who has urged Newvatican officials to apply pressure to a number of presbyters wanted in the United States, stated that Newvatican has returned the indictments unopened.
Romley pointed to the duplicity of Newvatican. "They continued to publicly state that they would co-operate. Perhaps they spell co-operation differently than me. Behind the scenes, they were very uncooperative." Investigations by the Dallas Morning News have shown that superiors within Newchurch knowingly transferred presbyters who were wanted for crimes or who were being investigated by authorities, including some who were sent to Rome for shielding. Although Newvatican habitually shields clergy criminals, Italy extradites wanted members of the clergy.
Dear Fathers:
One correspondent mentioned that SSPX's Fellay & Schmidberger are seeking a Newchurch personal prelature. This is not the case, and such a structure would be a complete disaster for the SSPX. I have read from a Society source that it is seeking a personal apostolic administration, the same structure granted to the SSJV in Campos, Brazil, which would purportedly give the SSPX juridical independence from the local Newchurch bishops.
I no longer support the "indult" movement or Newchurch "approved" Masses. My reason is Benedict's abominable seminary document, which has an exception clause that lets the Newchurch bishops continue to bring the sodomites into the Newchurch seminaries. This is the worst abomination in recent Church history, signed by a pope who fiddles with Mozart while the Church burns down around him. The SSPX should not even consider negotiating with the Newchurch hierarchy, which would let these sodomite infiltrators continue to take over the Newchurch presbyterate.
This is not the time for a phony "reconciliation." Once Conciliar Rome converts from her errors, then there will be time for a reconciliation of Newchurch to the Roman Catholic Faith.
The Fathers Reply.
That is exactly our point. Moreover, Newvatican will never permit such an arrangement for any traditional organization, let alone the hated SSPX. This has been a Newchurch smokescreen from the beginning. Newpope has made it very clear that he will not interfere with the local bishops' authority, and the Newchurch bishops will brook no opposition from another authority within their diocese.
As TRADITIO has already covered, several Newchurch bishops have gone to Rome to tell Benedict-Ratzinger that if he should dare to do anything on behalf of "traditional" Catholics, they will reject him. And, as Cardinal Hoyos' statement reported here on TRADITIO here made clear, Newpope is uncertain of his papacy and needs all the public support that he really is pope, including the already demanded public support from Fellay & Schmidberger.
And don't forget that the vaunted Campos group (which even Fellay failed to condemn when it formed in opposition to its original SSPX consecration) has already turned Novus Ordo, with its "traditional" bishop, handpicked by Newrome, publicly concelebrating the New Mess. Next year we can probably expect to find all the Campos clergy having to perform the Novus Ordo Mess from time to time.
If the SSPXers allow their leaders to sell them out, they will shortly have a very bitter pill to swallow, just as Catholics in 1969 did when they failed to speak up in opposition to the Novus Ordo Mess. The SSPXers will have the same experience that the first pope did: "And Peter going out, wept bitterly" (Luke, 2:62/DRV).
There is another perspective that one could apply to the current SSPX situation. It seems that all the resources of the SSPX are being tied up in these pointless "negotiations" with Newchurch. This is simply playing into the hands of the New Order. Fellay & Schmidberger have bought airline tickets on the SSPX to take them around the world, and they are spending all their time justifying their actions to local SSPX sites, which are getting really antsy about what is going on. More airline tickets on the SSPX are being bought to fly the SSPX High Council to have a personal tete-a-tete in Europe on February 7-8. The week before, more time will be spent by Fellay-Schmidberger to drum the SSPX monasteries into line with their liberalist program.
Meanwhile, TRADITIO receives complaints from around the world that the SSPX is not paying attention to the their needs. They want a traditional presence; they want priests; they want the traditional Catholic Faith proclaimed. Fellay & Schmidberger have failed monumentally in the last twelve years to bring the Society into Phase II: The Great Traditional Catholic Outreach. In Stage I, the years before 1988, the Society had to build its infrastructure. But once that was achieved, Stage II should have begun: The Great Traditional Catholic Outreach.
This is just the time that the SSPX should be telling increasingly-disaffected Newchurch members world that the true Catholicism still does exist. We read in the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament that the Apostles, realizing that their time was being spent more and more in administration that Apostolic work, ordained deacons to handle administration. The Apostles were inspired in that realization. Archbishop Lefebvre understood the point as well in his original Constitution for the Society, but Fellay has violated it by becoming Superior General.
It costs only a few thousand dollars to put a full-page advertisements in major newspapers around the world. Can you imagine the response that would be received from disaffected Novus Ordinarians, closet traditional Catholics, even "conservatives," if a well-worded advertisement were published? The Knights of Columbus ran much smaller ads than that before Vatican II and received floods of responses for its little booklets on conversion to the Catholic Faith. Fr. Gommar DePauw understood this with the formation of his Catholic Traditionalist Movement in 1964. He sponsored broadcasts of the Traditional Latin Mass on radio stations across the United States, which brought many Catholics back to the true Faith from Vatican II error. Mel Gibson did it without even trying to, by making a few well-placed statements against Vatican II, which the press eagerly followed up with pacels of reports on traditional Catholicism, which theretofore most people did not even know existed.
It is time for the Great Traditional Catholic Outreach, but what are Fellay & Schmidberger spending the SSPX resources on: flying hither and thither around the world to explain and justify their "negotiations" with Newchurch and piddling away their time not on evangelizing for the traditional Catholic Faith, which they were consecrated to do, but to schmooze in vain with Newrome's bureaucracy? What's worse is that Newvatican may be deliberately leading them on, keeping them busy with pointless "negotiations" so that they can't organize a program to evangelize internationally for traditional Catholicism.
It's a crime. Fellay & Schmidberger are piddling away a great opportunity to win souls for Christ. If they were real leaders, they would organize the Society into Phase II, an mission to evangelize the world for traditional Catholicism. It's been done before with much less. Twelve people in the first century changed the face of the earth.
Bernard & Franz, we call on you to stop playing your vain games with Newrome and start Phase II: The Great Traditional Catholic Outreach! If you want Newrome to listen to you, that is how you do it.
Fellay & Schmidberger had better protect their flank. All the while they claim to be having cordial tete-a-tetes with Benedict-Ratzinger, Hoyos, Medina, and the like, Newvatican is doing nothing to stop traditional Catholic bashing by Newchurch bishops around the world. One recent example was reported by Catholic World News on January 31:
Kenyan Prelate Urges Faithful to Shun Traditionalists
Archbishop Raphael Ndingi Mwana'a Nzeki of Nairobi has warned Kenyan [Newchurch] Catholic faithful against attending services at a new church opened in the Kenyan capital city by traditionalist followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. In a written warning to all parishes, chaplaincies, and religious houses, the Kenyan archbishop said that all Catholics should bear witness to their communion with the Holy See, by refusing to attend Mass at the traditionalist chapel. He argued that the split from Rome by Archbishop Lefebvre was "undoubtedly one of the main crosses of the pontificate of our beloved John Paul II, who had worked and prayed incessantly to avoid this schismatic act, realizing fully all the scandal and harm to souls that it would inevitably cause."
This just typical Newvatican doublespeak. Newpope pulls the wool over Fellay's eyes at Castel Gandolfo and then lets his archbishop blacken Fellay and his group elsewhere. Now, what would really show that Newpope was serious: for him to censure Nzeki publicly. Newchurch bishops have no intention of allowing Benedict-Ratzinger to do anything, even if he wanted to (which he really doesn't in any practical sense).
Dear Fathers:
There is a lot of information now about the SSPX and the possibility that it might be given the status of a personal prelature. I don't have any idea what will become of it all, but pray that they will be brought back into full communion with the Church, and admit that I would love to see a greater freedom to celebrate the Tridentine Rite Mass.
The Fathers Reply.
You certainly seem to have bought the Counterfeit Church hook, line and sinker! Coming back into the fold? Hardly! Since when is the New Doctrine, the New Mass and Sacraments, and the New Morality the Catholic "fold"? Our Lord says: "He shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats" (Matthew 25:32/DRV). Newchurch is the goats "on his left." There is not to be "communion" with the left, the sinister (from the Latin), communion with error and evil, communion with the destruction of the validity of the Mass and Sacraments.
Nor is there any talk about the "Tridentine Rite Mass." The only Mass that is ever spoken of in this context in the Modernized Mass of 1962, complete with its change to the ancient Catholic and Apostolic Canon, its changes in the most ancient rites of the Church, that is, of Holy Week, with its demotion of the Apostles and Saints. And once the deluded are satisfied with the 1962 Modernized Mass, then they will be gradually cajoled into the 1964-1965 pre-Novus Ordo Mess, then the 1967 invalid Mess, and finally the full-blown 1969 Mess.
Judas thought that he had made a great deal by selling out his Lord to the vile Caiphas for thirty pieces of silver. Those who sell out the true Catholic Church, the true Mass and Sacraments, the true doctrine, and the true morality should take instruction from the Holy Gospel of St. Matthew (27:4,6): "Then Judas ... repenting himself, brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and ancients..., and casting down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed and went and hanged himself with an halter."
Dear Fathers:
Since Fellay-Schmidberger seem to be "nuancing" Archbishop Lefebvre's position on sede-vacantism, here, for your readers, is the Archbishop's statement from the July 1986 Angelus, the official organ of the SSPX in the United States, from talks that the Archbishop gave on March 30 and April 18, 1986:
Now I don't know if the time has come to say that the Pope is a heretic. I don't know if it is the time to say that. You know, for some time many people, the sedvacantists, have been saying "there is no more Pope," but I think that for me it was not yet the time to say that, because it was not sure, it was not evident, it was very difficult to say that the Pope is a heretic, the pope is apostate. But I recognize that slowly, very slowly, by the deeds and acts of the Pope himself we begin to be very anxious.
I am not inventing this situation. I do not want it. I would gladly give my life to bring it to an end, but his is the situation we face, unfolding before our eyes like a film in the cinema. I don't think it has ever happened in the history of the Church, the man seated in the chair of Peter partaking in the worship of false gods....
Yet it is a great grace for us to live in this time. From before the destruction, we were chosen by God to continue the Catholic Church. Even if we are condemned by Rome, even if we are persecuted by the bishops, that is not important. What is important is to stay Catholic, to keep the grace we received at Baptism, to save our souls. Nobody can say we are heretics or schismatics for believing as the Popes, Saints and Church of old believed for twenty centuries. It is a great grace of God to have been chosen to continue the Faith and the Church, but it is a great responsibility.
Messrs. Fellay and Schmidberg, are you listening to your Archbishop-Founder, or are you bound and determined to go off his path on your own perilous way?
Dear Fathers:
I am informed that as a condition for the renewal of "talks" after the death of Archbishop Lefebrve, Newrome demanded as a pre-condition the acceptance by the SSPX of all the Conciliar popes from John XXIII to Benedict-Ratzinger. This would explain the about-face of Fellay-Schmidberger & Co. To unite with Newrome will be the end of the Society as Archbishop Lefebvre founded it. The Society might well demand from its members a similar pledge, as was provided for in 1984 for the Novus Ordinarians, if they wanted to take advantage of the "pre-indult."
The Fathers Reply.
The Fellay-Schmidberger liberalist faction, in its new-found desire to please Newrome, seems to have lost track of its two "non-negotiable conditions" before "talks" would resume: the lifting of the "excommunications" (which is cosmetic) and Newrome's public confirmation of the right (in fact, obligation) of any priest to say the Traditional Latin Mass at any time and at any place, without anyone's permission. In effect, Fellay has made a mockery of the Society by laying down "non-negotiable conditions," then proceeding to negotiate before Newrome accepted them!
Schmidberger himself let the cat out of the bag in his January 15, 2006, meeting in Ridgefield, Connecticut, to rally the SSPX behind his liberalist faction. It seems that Fellay-Schmidberger have scaled the Society's original demands way back and will be satisfied now if Benedict-Ratzinger "will free" the Traditional Latin Mass (really, the 1962 Modernized Mass) to all priests/presbyters for "private" celebration. He cannot allow the Traditional Latin Mass to be said publicly without the Newchurch bishop's permission, since he has publicly stated that he will not go against the Newchurch bishops in exercising the papacy, but will be "collegial." Newpope is said to fear the Modernist forces existent in Newchurch.
So, at best, Fellay-Ratzinger & Co. seem inclined to sell out the Society for another phony "indult" situation that means nothing. The 1984 "indult" Quattuor abhinc annos was a dead letter. The 1988 "indult" Ecclesia Deo has become essentially a dead letter, with the Fraternity of St. Peter for the last several years placed under the watchful eye and the powerful thumb of the Masonic-friendly bishop Fabian Bruskewitz. A previous Commentary here indicated that a number of FSSP priests are getting fed up with the "indult" situation.
Such a "private indult" is worthless. In practice, any priest/presbyter can say the 1962 Mass now privately, alone. Newchurch doesn't really care. It is the public celebration that Newchurch doesn't want. Already Newchurch bishops have made provision for individual priests/presbyters to say "private" Masses, as long as the church doors are locked, and absolutely no one is present.
Here is something to think about....
If the SSPX "reconciles" with Newrome, which Church will they be reconciling with: the Catholic Church or the Novus Ordo Church?
If it says "the Catholic Church," the Society is admitting that it has been out of union with, and at odds with, the Catholic Church for all these years.
Yet, if it says "the Novus Ordo Church," the Society is admitting that it is reconciling with a false Church and the New Religion -- and why would it do that?
I attend an SSPX chapel and an indult site. I noted the SSPX may find itself going to bed with a dog and waking up with fleas. The Society can't say that it wasn't warned. As a matter of fact, the Society itself has chastised the "indult" situation of the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP). Every criticism that the Society has published about the FSSP will become true of the SSPX if it goes the way of Newrome!
Dear Fathers:
I wish to thank you for your level-headed approach to the most controversial issues concerning the state of our Holy Mother Church, most especially "sedevacantism." As one the faithful who recognize the present vacancy of the Holy See, I must say you are the only non-sedevacantist web site that is not bigoted or biased when it comes to this delicate matter.
You won't be seeing quotations from Benedict-Ratzinger on TRADITIO -- or many other places for that matter. Newvatican has decided that Newpope's words are going to cost you to publish. Newpope has "infallibly" decreed that all his public statements and written works, past, present, and future, are under full copyright.
Newvatican and Newpope have come under harsh criticism for what amounts to the grave sin of Simony. According to La Stampa, a Turin newspaper, the Vatican publishing division, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, recently billed a Milan-based publisher $18,000 for printing a total of 30 lines from speeches Benedict delivered as Cardinal Ratzinger. The lines were spoken to fellow cardinals immediately before the conclave to choose a new pope and during his subsequent inauguration ceremony.
Apparently, collections to Newchurch have dropped so precipitously that Newpope has to sell his words now to increase the Newchurch coffers. [Religious News Service]
Newpope's chaplain has preached to Benedict-Ratzinger and his household the Lutheran heresy that "faith alone will save them." The doctrine of fides sola is that of the Protestant arch-heretic Martin Luther, whose teaching contradicted even the Bible, which he claimed to be the sole authority, Biblia sola, rejecting Tradition.
Yet the Bible itself proclaims: "But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" (James 2:20/DRV). Catholic teaching has always balanced faith and works in a Scriptural way, holding that faith must be demonstrated in good works. Capuchin Presbyter Raniero Cantalamessa uttered the Lutheran proposition in his December 16 Advent meditation, delivered to Newpope and his household. There is no report that Newpope discharged his chaplain for preaching Lutheranism.
Dear Fathers:
A most reliable and well-informed source from the SSPX asked me to give your readers the following piece of news. A meeting of all religious communities having ties of some kind with the SSPX will take place on February 1 at Flavigny, France. The Dominicans of Avrille, who have managed to keep traditional Catholic standards up to now, are invited too. Being heavily dependent on SSPX (for ordinations, among other things), they are very worried at the prospect of taking part at this meeting since they fear that it will result in the announcement of a "rally" to Newrome.
In addition, a meeting of the SSPX High Council will take place on February 7-8, probably at Mentzingen, Switzerland. All four SSPX bishops will be present. Current reports here are that one bishop will certainly refuse to "rally." A second may refuse too, but no one can tell for sure. The third bishop will probably go along with the Fellay-Schmidberger faction. This is just a strong hunch at the moment. Stay tuned for further reports.
Dear Fathers:
Recent SSPX developments are causing much consternation here in heartland USA, especially after the effective end of the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) as anything Catholic and the revelation that "indults" are as idolatrous as the Novus Ordo. There are surely many SSPX clergy who are well-meaning, but Newchurch is cunning. How can it ever be clearly proven that the SSPX organization itself is not actually a part of it now -- the false resistance? Such claims were made in some detail long ago by Hutton Gibson and various other independents, and were never openly refuted to any satisfaction. The insular attitude of the SSPX is famous.
Dear Fathers:
What position should a traditional Catholic take on "sede-vacantism"? What practical difference does it make whether a priest is "sede-vacantist" or not?
The Fathers Reply.
It is interesting that Archbishop Lefebvre, Founder of the Society of St. Pius X, admitted the possibility of sede-vacantism. According to SSPX Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, who in December 2005 issued the comprehensive Biography of Marcel Lefebvre:
He [Archbishop Lefebvre] said more than once about these popes -- about Paul VI from 1976, and about John Paul II, after the prayer meeting of religions at Assisi in 1986 -- that he did not exclude the possibility that these popes were not popes, that one day the Church will have to examine their situation, that a future pope and his cardinals might have to pronounce the finding that these men had not been popes. But for himself, he preferred to consider them as popes. --The Angelus, August 1998, p. 7
Sede-vacantism amounts to a merely personal opinion on the part of someone that involves applying certain principles of Roman Catholic theology to a specific factual situation. It isn't a doctrinal issue, as a sede-vacantist certainly accepts the Roman Catholic dogma on the papacy as defined at Vatican I. A personal opinion of sede-vacantism has no impact on the validity of the true Mass, Sacraments, and Faith. It has nothing to do with heresy or schism. Traditional Catholic theologians of the past indicate various ways by which an official decision could be made. Thus, sede-vacantism was considered at least a theoretical possibility by even Doctors of the Church.
TRADITIO doesn't hold to the sede-vacantist position because we don't think that Church history and Catholic theology require that conclusion under the present circumstances. De Romano Pontifice of St. Robert Bellarmine, a Doctor of the Church, and other authoritative works on the theology of the papacy give us adequate room to deal with the present situation, and ecclesiastical history provides a number of analogies for handling the present situation, which is not that unique in the history of the Church.
In practice, traditional Catholics are minimally affected by the issue. Traditional Catholics are not going with the "New Mass," the "New Sacraments," the "New Morality," and the "New Theology," no matter who is pope, because that would be an offense against God Himself and a violation of the Apostolic Deposit of Faith. Any pope who would dare to violate the constitution of his papal office is acting outside his authority, and such acts are thus null and void anyway, according to the Dogmatic Decree Pastor Aeternus of Vatican I.
What a particular priest's opinion about an individual pope (as opposed to the doctrine on the office of the papacy itself) is, does not impinge on the traditional Mass, Sacraments, or Faith. Those are set in Catholic doctrine and Tradition, no matter who the pope is.
After all, the Deposit of Faith does not belong to the pope. It is the Church's treasure of truth from Our Lord Jesus Christ, which has been taught for twenty centuries. The pope is obligated to transmit it faithfully and exactly to all those under him. He is not free to do anything he pleases. Nor can we follow his error and change God's truth, just because the one who is charged with transmitting it is weak and allows error to spread around him.
Remember that dogmatic council Vatican I found that some 40 of 260 popes had at one time or another personally taught error. One pope was excommunicated. One was deposed from office. Catholics must remain faithful to the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy of two thousand years, not novelties that have been taught for just the last forty years.
What you should be looking for is a site where the unadulterated Traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments are offered and where the traditional Roman Catholic Faith is preached. In the end, if you have a priest who professes the traditional Roman Catholic Faith, celebrates exclusively the Traditional Latin Mass, and administers the traditional Sacraments, support him, help him, be loyal to him, pray for him. You have a very special gift for which hundreds of thousands of traditional Catholics around the world are praying ceaselessly.
Dear Fathers:
Why do some "independent" SSPX sources dismiss the current crisis within the Society and feel so reluctant to play any part in important decisions that could affect their very existence? Americans seem blind to what is happening in France and are putting such faith in the current leadership who operate on another continent and in another language. There seems to be a reluctance to talk about such things.
The Fathers Reply.
An interesting question. We seem to be experiencing a replay of the late 1960s. Why didn't Catholics stand against the counterfeit New Order in 1969? It seems that in many cases some SSPXers have simply substituted false obedience to men (Fellay, Schmidberger) in place of false obedience to a Newchurch out of control. It's really pretty scary, isn't it? The similarity between the New Order and the SSPX Liberalist faction is frightening.
We saw the same self-imposed intimidation in the late 1960s in the New Order. We see it today in the form of the "indult." One "indult" organization openly tells its membership to pander to the Newchurch officials. If some Newchurch bishop "permits" a semi-1962 Mess at 5:00 a.m. in the rectory chapel, the indultarians are supposed to fawn all over the bishop, not to demand their Catholic rights.
There is very little "independence" these days in the sources that most people listen to. Whether they know it or not, they often fall prey to some kind of organizational propaganda without even bothering to analyze it. Part of the problem too is that these sources are often either young students or former Protestants or political conservatives. They are in fact ignorant of the Roman Catholic Faith and its recent or ancient history. They just construct a soap-box for today, and tomorrow, when they get tired of this subject, they will move on to flower-arranging or some such.
TRADITIO is one of the very few informed sources that have maintained independence from any organizational politics. We apply our many years of experience in the Church from before and after Vatican II, our extensive knowledge of the issues and personalities, to a search for the Big Picture of what is going on. TRADITIO will never be lock-step as a propaganda organ for any organization. That is why over 3,000,000 readers have turned to TRADITIO, the First Traditional Roman Catholic Internet Site, operating longer than any other such site, and longer even than the Vatican's site. At times some people may not like the directness and forthrightness of our analysis, but they come to respect it.
All we have ever asked is that our readers think and analyze for themselves. Unlike certain organizations, we don't look for knee-jerk acceptance. We view ourselves like the muon that Socrates describes in his Apologia, which goads the slothful mule into action. We certainly don't want to see a repeat of the craven acceptance of the New Order in 1969, for which we are paying dearly to this day.
Dear Fathers:
Here in Portugal many SSPXers are reading TRADITIO, so they are not very happy about the situation. The prior here tries to explain everything away. I mentioned that one reason for suspicion is a shift of viewpoint, which is obvious from the fact that Fellay condemned Assisi 1 & 2 and the visit of JPII to the Synagogue, but he did not condemn the visit of Benedict, but instead insisted on a mere "explanation." You can see the denial.
On the top of this, the prior started slandering the Society of St. Pius V (SSPV), which split from the SSPX in 1984 because even at that time the SSPX was turning liberal. He also tried to blame the controversy about the sellout on the "sedevacantism," which seems to be some kind of fixation with the SSPX Fellayites for all the evils in the world. But they don't seem any longer to attack the New Order or its pope-proponent with the same zeal.
May God wake up the brains of Fellay and Schmidberger to the horror of their proposed sellout of Archbishop Lefebvre's once-courageous organization.
The Fathers Reply.
The SSPX Liberalists under Fellay & Schmidberger seem to want to blame the SSPX's problems on everyone but themselves. Yet Fellay is SSPX Superior General and Schmidberger is his First Assistant. This totally uncritical attitude about their shortcomings is like the CEO of Ford Motor Company blaming General Motors for its own recent debacle.
As more information comes about Fellay and Schmidberger and their fellow SSPX Liberalists, it is becoming all the more clear why the SSPX has been stumbling in recent years. Persistent reports from all over the world indicate that the SSPX leadership treats its members with disdain, its clergy with condescension, and its archbishop-founder with lip-service.
No wonder Fellay and Schmidberger can't put the genie back in the bottle with all their threats, hostilities, and intimidates. Apparently, they have not read their new friend's latest encyclical letter Deus caritas est, because they certainly don't exhibit the loving qualities that Benedict calls for in his Newchurch subordinates. Any leaders who treat their own founder, officers, and members with such disdain are eventually going to be run out like Transylvanians running out a vampire with the crucifix of Christ!
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