Helping Bishop Fellay To Find His Hermeneutic of Continuity

Part Two

by Thomas A. Droleskey

As I have noted several times on this site in the past sixteen months as the farce within the Society of Saint Pius X plays to its ultimate conclusion and Bishop Bernard Fellay completes his long march into oblivion (see Just Sign On The Dotted Line P.S. Don't Sweat The Details, Preparing To Sign On That Dotted Line?, Just About To Complete A Long March Into Oblivion, On The Terms Of The Enemies Of Christ The King, Trying to Stop the Waltz, "Yer Durn Tootin'", False Doctrine, Father Pfluger?, Uncrossed Ts and Undotted Is?, Oyster Bay Cove On Steroids, Oyster Bay Cove On Steroids, part two, Monkey Wrenches, Admit Bearer Only After Denying The Catholic Faith, Fret Not About Denying The Faith, Fret Not, Way, Way Over The Rainbow, Compromise With Error Must End In Disaster, Truly Needless Strife, What Lines Are You Reading Between, Bishop Fellay?, Bishop Fellay, Meet Bishop Fellay (or Say Good Night, Bishop Fellay), Memo To Bishop Fellay: Ratzinger/Benedict Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Loves Gerhard Ludwig Muller, Another Memo To Bishop Fellay: Ratzinger/Benedict Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Loves Walter Kasper, Finding Conciliarism's Irreducible Minimum At Long Last, part two, Finding Conciliarism's Irreducible Minimum At Long Last, part three, Contrast The Outrage, part one, All Together Now: Go Right Ahead, Gerhard, Make Our Day, Please Help Bishop Fellay Find His Hermeneutic Of Continuity, part one and Please Help Bishop Fellay Find His Hermeneutic Of Continuity, part two), it is important to escape from the needless strife that has as its root cause the false, Gallican ecclesiology that contends that Catholics have a right to "sift" through magisterial decrees an papal statements that might contain kernels of error before deciding to accept them. The Society of Saint Pius X has seen it as its mission to safeguard the integrity of the Faith against the errors of "Modern Rome" as its leaders adhere to what they call "Eternal Rome."

Alas, this is erroneous. This is no such thing as "Eternal Rome." There is the Catholic Church or there is apostasy.

Time and time again, my good, few and, at least for the most part, penurious readers, I have tried to point out that the Catholic Church cannot give us any liturgy that is an incentive to impiety, no less one that is invalid on its face and thus offensive to God and harmful to souls, or teaching that is erroneous or ambiguous, no less contradictory of articles contained in the Sacred Deposit of Faith and that have been taught from time immemorial by Holy Mother Church. It is impossible for a true pope to embrace one anathematized proposition after another or to give joint "blessings" with members of the Protestant laity dressed up as clergymen.

Sure, it has taken some of us a lot longer than it should have to understand and accept this as being true. Granted.

At this late date, however, it does a disservice to the very cause of truth that some in the Society of Saint Pius X dearly want to advance with all of their Catholic might to keep insisting that the Society's "resist but recognize" is valid. It is not. It is false. This false view of Holy Mother Church and of the papacy has done as much harm to the truth of the nature of her Divine Constitution and the doctrine of papal infallibility as have the "new ecclesiology" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Adherence to error can never be the path to the restoration of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was very courageous to have taken the stand that he did against the conciliar authorities. He was personally pious. Even though others, such as Father Gommar DePauw, had seen the problems with conciliarism as early as the mid-1960s, it was Archbishop Lefebvre who formed an organization that spread out across the world to attempt to defend the Faith and preserve at least a semblance of the traditional Worship of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church at a time of cataclysmic upheavals.

Archbishop Lefebvre did so despite being personally castigated by Giovanni Montini/Paul VI and his top lieutenants in apostasy. He did so despite being hated and denounced by conciliar bishops, many of whom were indeed true Successors of the Apostles in the 1970s despite their having defected from the Catholic Faith thereafter, and by "conservative" commentators eager to clothe their "papal" emperor with one rationalization after another.

To wit, I personally heard Father Benedict Groeschel, then still a member of the Orders of Friars Minor Capuchin, say in a day of recollection at Saint John the Baptist Church near Pennsylvania Station in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York, New York, that the "problems" in the Church began after the "Second" Vatican Council with a man who had been a missionary bishop to Africa by the name of Marcel Lefebvre. Even though I was not ready to recognize that Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II was an apostate and that conciliarism was a false religion, I thought that Father Groeschel's observation (and I was a friend of his for a long time) was very harsh. Why the hatred for a man who simply was trying to defend the Faith?

All of this having been noted, however, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre embraced a view of the Church that was wrong. This takes nothing away from his courage and holiness. Not at all. We must, however, adhere to truth, not to persons, no matter how grateful we may be to them for all of their courage and no matter how respectful we may be of their personal holiness and zeal for souls. Archbishop Lefebvre was not infallible. Neither is the Society of Saint Pius X, which is not now nor ever has been the "true church" in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

While the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X have been stalwart, valiant defenders of the Social Reign of Christ the King and fierce opponents of false ecumenism and cultural liberalism, a disease that afflicts so many fully traditionally-minded Catholics and chapels, its ecclesiology is false.

This point is understood very well by "Archbishop" Joseph Augustine Di Noia, O.P., the secretary of the Occupy Vatican Movement's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith an the vice president of "Pontifical" Commission Ecclesia Dei. He has challenged Bishop Bernard Fellay and the other bishops and the priests in the Society of Saint Pius X to recognize that they must adhere to the teaching of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes" and accept it as being in accord with what he calls the "living tradition" of the Catholic Church according to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's hermeneutic of continuity.

"Archbishop" Di Noia made this point six months ago when he was interviewed by a reporter for National Catholic Register:

Question: What do you say to the argument that if the Council documents are neither infallible nor unchangeable then they are therefore not binding?

Answer: To say they are not binding is sophistry. The Council contains swathes of the ordinary magisterium, which is de fide divina [of divine faith].

Now, the pastoral constitution “On the Church in the Modern World” [Gaudium et Spes] makes comments about the nature of culture which, generally speaking, everyone now believes was overly optimistic. Well, that’s not de fide divina. It’s not precise; it’s very imprecise. But the Council’s full of the ordinary magisterium. When I worked at the [U.S.] bishops’ conference and I was discussing, say, Veritatis Splendor, people would ask me: “Is it infallible?” I would say, “The more important question is: Is it true?”

What I meant was: The overemphasis is on infallibility. This is why John Paul II and Benedict XVI decided not to define anything infallibly anymore because you see what happens is: People say: “I only have to believe what’s been infallibly defined.” Now, that is very little. So that’s why there’s a distinction between the ordinary and extraordinary magisterium. The extraordinary magisterium is what the Church defines, and it almost always involves settling disagreements that probably have been defined. The Church would perhaps have never said Mary was the Mother of God if Nestorius hadn’t denied it. But with the ordinary magisterium there’s huge amounts of what we believe that’s de fide divina that’s never been defined. That’s why people have talked about the ordinary magisterium, trying to get out of this reductionist reading that says you only have to believe what’s infallible. So, no, the Council does have binding teaching. The Fathers are writing as bishops of the Church in union with the Pope; that’s why the Council is so important. ( "Archbishop Di Noia" Ecclesia Dei and the Society of St. Pius X.)

In this instance, of course, Joseph Augustine Di Noia's ecclesiology is better than that of the Society of Saint Pius X's. There is no such thing as an "authentic magisterium" of "Eternal Rome" and a "governing magisterium" of today. There is but one magisterium of the Catholic Church, the spotless, virginal Mystical Bride of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, she who can never give us any liturgy that is an incentive to impiety or give us any doctrines that an unclear, ambiguous or contradictory, either in whole or in part, of what the Catholic Church has taught from time immemorial.

It was none other than "Blessed" Paul The Sick, who was in death as in life the very antithesis of Christ the King, who stressed the binding nature of the "Second" Vatican Council, stating that its decisions must be "religiously observed," something that has not been done by the bishops and the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X:

APOSTOLIC BRIEF "IN SPIRITU SANCTO' FOR THE CLOSING OF THE COUNCIL - DECEMBER 8, 1965, read at the closing ceremonies of Dec. 8 by Archbishop Pericle Felici, general secretary of the council.

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, assembled in the Holy Spirit and under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom we have declared Mother of the Church, and of St. Joseph, her glorious spouse, and of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, must be numbered without doubt among the greatest events of the Church. In fact it was the largest in the number of Fathers who came to the seat of Peter from every part of the world, even from those places where the hierarchy has been very recently established. It was the richest because of the questions which for four sessions have been discussed carefully and profoundly. And last of all it was the most opportune, because, bearing in mind the necessities of the present day, above all it sought to meet the pastoral needs and, nourishing the flame of charity, it has made a great effort to reach not only the Christians still separated from communion with the Holy See, but also the whole human family.

At last all which regards the holy ecumenical council has, with the help of God, been accomplished and all the constitutions, decrees, declarations and votes have been approved by the deliberation of the synod and promulgated by us. Therefore we decided to close for all intents and purposes, with our apostolic authority, this same ecumenical council called by our predecessor, Pope John XXIII, which opened October 11, 1962, and which was continued by us after his death.

We decided moreover that all that has been established synodally is to be religiously observed by all the faithful, for the glory of God and the dignity of the Church and for the tranquillity and peace of all men. We have approved and established these things, decreeing that the present letters are and remain stable and valid, and are to have legal effectiveness, so that they be disseminated and obtain full and complete effect, and so that they may be fully convalidated by those whom they concern or may concern now and in the future; and so that, as it be judged and described, all efforts contrary to these things by whomever or whatever authority, knowingly or in ignorance be invalid and worthless from now on.

Given in Rome at St. Peter's, under the [seal of the] ring of the fisherman, Dec. 8, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the year 1965, the third year of our pontificate. (APOSTOLIC BRIEF - IN SPIRITU SANCTO.)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is not seeking to end conciliarism. He is a revolutionary to the core of his rationalist, Modernist being. He is playing the role of Mikhail Gorbachev, whose "perestroika" was designed to restructure and thus revive Communism in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Ratzinger/Benedict wants to provide a permanent and "binding" interpretation of the documents of the "Second" Vatican Council and the magisterium of the conciliar "popes" which the Society of Saint Pius X must accept, keeping "silent" about "disagreements" over various points in order to advance the "greater good" of the counterfeit ape of Catholicism that is the conciliar church.

Joseph Augustine Di Noia made the same point in his December 12, 2012, Advent letter to Bishop Bernard Fellay and the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X, misapplying the teaching of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas on how to correct a sinner that has absolutely nothing to do with the firm and unequivocal opposition to doctrinal, liturgical and moral errors that must be stated firmly and unequivocally no matter who holds to such errors and no matter now "nice" and "well-intentioned" that they may appear to be:

 

Consider these words Pope Benedict wrote to his brother bishops to explain why he promulgated the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum: “Looking back over the past, to the divisions which in the course of the centuries have rent the Body of Christ, one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity. One has the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden. This glance at the past imposes an obligation on us today: to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew” (Letter of 7 July 2007).

How might the virtues of humility, mildness, patience, and charity shape our thoughts and actions? First, by humbly striving to recognize the goodness that exists in others with whom we may disagree, even on seemingly fundamental issues, we are able to approach contested issues in a spirit of openness and good faith. Secondly, by practicing true mildness we may maintain a spirit of serenity, avoiding the introduction of a divisive tone or imprudent statements that will offend rather than promote peace and mutual understanding. Thirdly, by true patience we will recognize that in our striving after the arduous good we seek, we must be willing, when necessary, to accept suffering while waiting. Finally, even when we still feel the need to correct our brothers it must be with charity, in the proper time and place.

In the life of the Church, all of these virtues are aimed at preserving “the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph 4:3). If our interactions are marked by pride, anger, impatience, and inordinate zeal, our intemperate striving for the good of the Church will lead to nothing but bitterness. If, on the other hand, through the grace of God we grow in true humility, mildness, patience, and charity, our unity in the Spirit will be maintained and we will grow deeper in our love of God and of our neighbors, fulfilling the whole of God’s law for us.

We place such emphasis on the unity of the Church because it reflects and is constituted by the communion of the Holy Trinity. As we read in a sermon of St. Augustine: “Both the Father and the Son wished us to have communion both with them and among ourselves; by this gift which they both possess as one, they wished to gather us together and make us one, that is to say, by the Holy Spirit who is God and the gift of God” (Sermon 71.18).

The unity of the Church is not something that we grasp for ourselves by our own power, but is a gift of divine grace. It is in recognition of this gift that Augustine is able to say: “But one who is an enemy of unity has no share in the love of God.

Those, therefore, who are outside the Church do not have the Holy Spirit” (Epistle 185 §50). These are chilling words: one who is an enemy of unity becomes an enemy of God, for he rejects the gift that God has bestowed on us. “What proof is there that we love the brotherhood?” St. Augustine asks. “That we don’t sever its unity, because we maintain charity” (Homilies on the First Letter of John, 2.3). Hear what Augustine has to say to those who divide the Church: “You don’t have charity because, for the sake of your honor, you cause divisions in unity. Understand from this, then, that the spirit is from God. ... You are removing yourself from the world’s unity, you are dividing the Church with schisms, you are tearing to pieces the body of Christ. He came in the flesh so as to bring it together; you are crying out so as to scatter it” (ibid. 6.13). How can we avoid becoming enemies of God? “Let each one question his heart. If a person loves his brother, the Spirit of God is abiding in him. Let him look, let him probe himself before God’s eyes. Let him see if there is in him a love of peace and unity, a love of the Church spread throughout the earth” (ibid. 6.10).

What about those with whom fellowship is difficult? Listen to St. Augustine: “Love your enemies in such a way that you wish them to be brothers; love your enemies in such a way that they are brought into your fellowship” (ibid. 1.9). For Augustine, this authentic form of love can only come as God’s gift: “Ask God that you may love one another. You should love all people, even your enemies, not because they are your brothers but so that they may become your brothers, so that you may always be aflame with brotherly love, whether towards one who has become your brother or towards your enemy, so that by loving him he may become your brother” (ibid.10.7).

The example for loving our enemies so that they might become our friends ultimately comes from Christ himself: “Let us love, because he loved us first (4:19). For how would we love if he had not loved us first? By his love we were made his friends, but he loved us as enemies so that we would become his friends. He loved us first and bestowed on us the means of loving him” (ibid. 9.9).

For St. Augustine, then, the unity of the Church flows from the communion of the Blessed Trinity and must be maintained if we are to remain in communion with God himself. Through God’s grace, we must preserve this unity with great determination, even if it involves suffering and patient endurance: “Let us endure the world, let us endure tribulations, let us endure the scandals of trials. Let us not turn aside from the way. Let us hold onto the unity of the Church, let us hold onto Christ, let us hold onto charity. Let us not be torn away from the members of his bride, let us not be torn away from the faith, so that we may glory in his presence, and we shall remain secure in him, now through faith and then through sight, the pledge of which we have as the gift of the Holy Spirit” (ibid. 9.11). (Di Noia's letter.)

So much sophistry, so little time to deal with it adequately. Even though it is now after Midnight, Eastern Standard Time, on the Feast of Saint Polycarp, I will try to do the best that I can for this site's vast readership.

First, Di Noia's reference to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Explanatory Letter on "Summorum Pontificum" accepts the false "pope's" premise that our true popes acted "unwisely" or "hastily" in various situations.

This was and remains, of course, nothing other than a continuation of the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's ceaseless, unremitting efforts to "apologize" for almost everything in the past that was authentically Catholic or "triumphalistic," to use Wojtyla's pet slogan about the matter. In the warped view of the conciliar revolutionaries, you see, unadulterated Catholicism unnecessarily "divides" people. Church leaders in the past did not, for example, engage in "inter-religious dialogue." They sought the unconditional conversion of the Jews (Saint Peter on Pentecost Sunday, Saint Vincent Ferrer in the Iberian Peninsula) or the Protestants (Saint Peter Canisius, Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Saint Francis de Sales) or the Orthodox (Saint Josaphat) or pagans (Saint Patrick, Saint Boniface, Saint Hyacinth, Saint Francis Xavier, the North American Martyrs, Saint Francis Solano) or heretics (Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, Saint Athanasius, Saint Basil. Saint Dominic). Pope Urban II was perhaps "too quick" to launch the Crusades in 1095 in order to wage a true holy war against the Mohammedan infidels. Perhaps Pope Leo IX did not "do enough" to prevent the Greek Schism in 1054. Pope Leo X might have acted "too hastily" in excommunicating Father Martin Luther, O.S.A., with the Papal Bull Exsurge Domini, June 15, 1520. Pope Saint Pius V could have effected "reconciliation" in England if he had not excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I with the Papal Bull Regnans in Excelsis, March 5, 1570.

Joseph Augustine Di Noia's reference to the passage in Ratzinger/Benedict's July 7, 2007, "explanatory letter" on Summorum Pontificum overlooks the inconvenient little fact that his "pope" dared to put into question decisions made by our true popes throughout the course of her history just seven days after releasing his Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China:

History remains indecipherable, incomprehensible. No one can read it. ( Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China, June 30, 2007.)

If history is "indecipherable" and "incomprehensible, as Ratzinger/Benedict contended in his Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China on June 30, 2007, then how was it possible on July 7, 2007, to "decipher" that "not enough was done by the Church's leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity?"

If "no one can read" history, then how can Ratzinger/Benedict claim to know that "not enough was done by the Church's leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity"?

Obviously, the contention made on June 30, 2007, is completely contradictory of his statement seven days later. Ratzinger/Benedict's statement about the "incomprehensible" and "indecipherable" nature of a history that "no one can read" also makes it impossible for him to "know" the alleged "historical circumstances" that he contends, contrary to right reason and Catholic dogma, that make specific dogma formulae and papal pronouncement "obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at their proper time."

Ratzinger/Benedict, a disciple of the late Father Hans Urs von Balthasar, an Hegelian who believed in the heresy of "universal salvation" that contradicts the plain words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, daring to impute "ignorance" to Our Lord on the matter of the time of His Second Coming to judge the living and the dead on the Last Day (see Father Regis Scanlon, O.F.M., Cap., The Inflated Reputation of Hans Urs von Balthasar), is as blithe to his contradictions as he blithe to the fact that errors can in no way serve as the foundation of personal sanctity or of social order.

Know ye "pope's" documents, "Archbishop" Di Noia. You do not.

Second, "Archbishop" Di Noia's effort to invoke the teaching of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas is, as alluded to above, completely sophistic as both were writing about the method of correcting sinners, not those who were propagating doctrinal errors, no less those who believe themselves to be, no matter how falsely, true popes and true bishops of the Catholic Church.

Permit me, "Archbishop" Di Noia, to introduce you to Saint Augustine's teaching about the horror of error, referred to by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, that specifically condemned the notion of "liberty of conscience" that is so near and dear to the heart to you and your fellow conciliar revolutionaries, including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

 

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again? (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

Writing in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, Pope Pius VII specifically cited Saint Augustine's explicit condemnation of "religious liberty" as absurd.. Imagine that, will you? Not exactly very "tolerant" and "patient according to your standards, is it, "Archbishop" Di Noia?

The Catholic Church: For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me." (Pope Pius VII, Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, POST TAM DIUTURNAS)

 

What about Saint Thomas Aquinas, you ask?

Ah, let's see what he taught about those who cleaved to and taught heresy:

 

For two reasons one must not maintain relations with heretics. First, because of their excommunication since one must not have relations with excommunicated persons. Second, because of their heresy, and this for three reasons:

First, because of the danger that our relations may come to corrupt others, according to what is taught in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners.’ (15: 33).

Second, to not appear that one gives any approval to their perverse doctrines. In the second Epistle of St. John it is said: ‘If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him: God speed you. For he that saith unto him: God speed you, communicateth with his wicked works’ (1:10-11). Regarding this verse, the Gloss comments: ‘To talk with someone reveals communion, unless the talk is a duplicity, which should not occur among Catholics.’

Third, in order that our familiarity [with heretics] does not provide occasion to err for others. Another Gloss comments on this passage of St. John: “Even if you are not taken in by the heretic, seeing your familiarity with him, others can be fooled imagining that you take pleasure from such relations and believe in him.’ Still a third Gloss adds: ‘The Apostles and Disciples exercised such great vigilance in religious matters that they did not even have an exchange of words with those who had removed themselves from the truth.’

The exception to this rule is when someone speaks about salvation with a heretic with the intention to save him. (A Catholic Must Have No Relations with Heretics.)

Saint Thomas Aquinas also taught that heretics should be put to death:

 

1. BISHOPS must bind under oath when necessary in each parish, within and outside a city, a priest and two or more lay people of good reputation to diligently, faithfully, and often search out heretics in their parishes, individual suspicious houses, subterranean rooms and additions to houses, and other hiding places. If they discover a heretic, follower, patron, or protector of heretics, they must, taking precaution that they do not escape, quickly notify the bishop and mayor of the place or his bailiff so they will be duly punished (command of the episcopal inquisition according to the practice of the synods of Verona, Bourges, Narbonne, and the twelfth general synod).

2. Exempt abbots, who are not subject to episcopal jurisdiction, must act in the same way as the bishops.

3. The governors of the respective districts should order diligent search of country residences, houses, and forests for heretics and destroy their hiding places.

4. Whoever, allowing a heretic to stay on his property either for money or any other cause, if he confesses or is convicted, loses his property forever and his body is handed over to the civil authority for punishment.

5. He also is subject to legal punishment whose property, although without his knowledge but by negligence, has become an abode of heretics. . . .

1. The house where a heretic is found must be torn down and the property must be confiscated.

2. The bailiff who lives in a suspicious place and is not diligent in searching for heretics loses his office and is not permitted to be employed either there or in any other place.

3. In order to prevent an innocent person from being punished or slanderously accused of heresy we command that no one shall be punished as a heretic or follower of heresy before he is so declared by a bishop or other clerical persons.

4. All are permitted to search for heretics in others' territories, and the bailiffs must help them. The king can, accordingly, search for heretics in the territory of the count of Toulouse, and the count of Toulouse in the king's land.

5. If one who is tainted with heresy voluntarily gives up the heresy he is not allowed to remain in the house where he formerly lived in case the house was under suspicion of heresy. He must be moved into a Catholic house which is free from suspicion. Besides, he must wear two crosses on his coat; the one on the right and the other on the left, and of a different color from his coat. Such persons cannot hold public office or be admitted to legal actions unless they are fully re-instated after due penance by the pope or his legate.

11. Whoever has involuntarily returned to the Church, through fear of death or for any other reason, must be imprisoned by the bishop so he can perform his penance or not be able to seduce others. Whoever retains his property must, by order of the prelate, provide for his own necessities. If he possesses nothing, then the prelate must provide for him.

12. All members of a parish shall vow to the bishop under oath that they will preserve the Catholic faith and will persecute heretics according to their power. This oath must be renewed every two years.

13. Males and females who have attained the use of reason must confess their sins to a priest three times a year, or with their priest's permission to another priest. They must perform the imposed penances humbly and according to their strength and receive the holy sacrament of the Eucharist three times a year. Whoever does not do this is under suspicion of being a heretic.

14. Lay people are not permitted to possess the books of the Old and New Testament, only the Psalter, Breviary, or the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, and these books not in the vernacular language.

15. Whoever is accused of heresy or is only suspected of heresy is not permitted to practice his profession as a doctor. When a sick person has received Holy Communion from his priest he must be careful that no heretic or one suspected of heresy visit him, for terrible things have already happened through such visits. . . .

17. No prelate, baron or other superiors shall entrust the office of bailiff or steward to any heretic or follower of heresy, nor keep in his service one who has been condemned or suspected of heresy.

18. He is accused of heresy or is suspected of heresy who has been legally proved by good and honorable people before a bishop of having a bad reputation. .. .

42. Women who own castles or fortresses are not permitted to marry enemies of the faith and the peace. ... (Thomas Aquinas: Treatment of Heretics.)

Furthermore, "Archbishop" Di Noia, Saint Thomas Aquinas taught that heretics (and if you think that it is "impossible" to know heresy, let me refer you to Mr. Michael Creighton's list of the errors of the Society of Saint Pius X reproduced in the appendix below) were deserving of death after they had received several admonitions to reform and thus to abjure their errors publicly:

 

With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death.

On the part of the Church, however, there is mercy which looks to the conversion of the wanderer, wherefore she condemns not at once, but "after the first and second admonition," as the Apostle directs: after that, if he is yet stubborn, the Church no longer hoping for his conversion, looks to the salvation of others, by excommunicating him and separating him from the Church, and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death. For Jerome commenting on Galatians 5:9, "A little leaven," says: "Cut off the decayed flesh, expel the mangy sheep from the fold, lest the whole house, the whole paste, the whole body, the whole flock, burn, perish, rot, die. Arius was but one spark in Alexandria, but as that spark was not at once put out, the whole earth was laid waste by its flame." (SUMMA THEOLOGICA: Heresy (Secunda Secundae Partis, Q. 11.)

Saint Thomas Aquinas also replied the objection that heretics should be treated with tolerance and patience after they had been warned two times to abjure their errors:

 

On the contrary, The Decretal Ad abolendam (De Haereticis, cap. ix) says that "those who are found to have relapsed into the error which they had already abjured, must be left to the secular tribunal." Therefore they should not be received by the Church.

I answer that, In obedience to Our Lord's institution, the Church extends her charity to all, not only to friends, but also to foes who persecute her, according to Matthew 5:44: "Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you." Now it is part of charity that we should both wish and work our neighbor's good. Again, good is twofold: one is spiritual, namely the health of the soul, which good is chiefly the object of charity, since it is this chiefly that we should wish for one another. Consequently, from this point of view, heretics who return after falling no matter how often, are admitted by the Church to Penance whereby the way of salvation is opened to them.

The other good is that which charity considers secondarily, viz. temporal good, such as life of the body, worldly possessions, good repute, ecclesiastical or secular dignity, for we are not bound by charity to wish others this good, except in relation to the eternal salvation of them and of others. Hence if the presence of one of these goods in one individual might be an obstacle to eternal salvation in many, we are not bound out of charity to wish such a good to that person, rather should we desire him to be without it, both because eternal salvation takes precedence of temporal good, and because the good of the many is to be preferred to the good of one. Now if heretics were always received on their return, in order to save their lives and other temporal goods, this might be prejudicial to the salvation of others, both because they would infect others if they relapsed again, and because, if they escaped without punishment, others would feel more assured in lapsing into heresy. For it is written (Ecclesiastes 8:11): "For because sentence is not speedily pronounced against the evil, the children of men commit evils without any fear."

For this reason the Church not only admits to Penance those who return from heresy for the first time, but also safeguards their lives, and sometimes by dispensation, restores them to the ecclesiastical dignities which they may have had before, should their conversion appear to be sincere: we read of this as having frequently been done for the good of peace. But when they fall again, after having been received, this seems to prove them to be inconstant in faith, wherefore when they return again, they are admitted to Penance, but are not delivered from the pain of death. (SUMMA THEOLOGICA: Heresy (Secunda Secundae Partis, Q. 11.)

Denying or putting into question even one point contained in the Deposit of Faith is not a matter of "dialogue" or "discussion." It is a matter of firm condemnation both for the sake of the heretic and for the sake of those who could be influenced adversely, both temporally and spiritually, by his errors:

The declared enemies of God and His Church, heretics and schismatics, must be criticized as much as possible, as long as truth is not denied.

It is a work of charity to shout: "Here is the wolf!" when it enters the flock or anywhere else. (Saint Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, part III, chap. 29)

Yes, unfortunately for the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X and the Society of Saint Pius X of the Strict Observance, as well as for "Archbishop" Joseph Di Noia, to defect from the Faith in one thing is to defect from It in Its entirety, and those who have done so can never hold ecclesiastical office in the Catholic Church legitimately;

 

With reference to its object, faith cannot be greater for some truths than for others. Nor can it be less with regard to the number of truths to be believed. For we must all believe the very same thing, both as to the object of faith as well as to the number of truths. All are equal in this, because everyone must believe all the truths of faith--both those which God Himself has directly revealed, as well as those he has revealed through His Church. Thus, I must believe as much as you and you as much as I, and all other Christians similarly. He who does not believe all these mysteries is not Catholic and therefore will never enter Paradise. (Saint Francis de Sales, The Sermons of Saint Francis de Sales for Lent Given in 1622, republished by TAN Books and Publishers for the Visitation Monastery of Frederick, Maryland, in 1987, pp. 34-37.)

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896. Those unconvinced of the fact that the conciliarists are heretics should read with care Gregorius's The Chair is Still Empty and the late Mr. Jerry Meng's Heresy: What Is It?)

Joseph Augustine Di Noia is hoping to lure the war-wearied Gallicanists in the Society of Saint Pius X into accepting a "charitable" and "prudent" silence in exchange for a "place" at the conciliar table. By so doing, you see, he believes that that the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X will "fall into line" as have the priests and presbyters and laity in diocesan Motu parishes as well as in such Motu communities as the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest, the Institute of the Good Shepherd, the Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney, the Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem, the Clear Creek (Oklahoma) Benedictines, Monks of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (Wyoming), Society of Saint John Cantius (which also stages the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service at Saint John Cantius Church in Chicago, Illinois), Canons Regular of the Mother of God (France), Fraternity of Saint Vincent Ferrer (France), various Benedictine communities in France (Fontgambault, Le Barroux, Randol), Mariwald (Germany) and, among others, the Servants of Jesus and Mary (Germany). Common to each of these groups, apart from their official status by the rebels who run the counterfeit church of conciliarism, is absolute silence on the long list of offenses against God and souls listed in What Lines Are You Reading Between, Bishop Fellay?. It will be no different for a "reconciled" Society of Saint Pius if the soap opera involving their "discussions" with conciliar authorities actually results in some kind of agreement.

Yet it is that Pope Pius VI, writing in his first encyclical letter, Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775, exhorted the bishops of the Catholic Church not to be silent about error, reminding them that they had a duty to call to correction and to refute error:

 

You yourselves, established as scouts in the house of Israel, see clearly the many victories claimed by a philosophy full of deceit. You see the ease with which it attracts to itself a great host of peoples, concealing its impiety with the honorable name of philosophy. Who could express in words or call to mind the wickedness of the tenets and evil madness which it imparts? While such men apparently intend to search out wisdom, "they fail because they do not search in the proper way. . . and they fall into errors which lead them astray from ordinary wisdom." They have come to such a height of impiety that they make out that God does not exist, or if He does that He is idle and uncaring, making no revelation to men. Consequently it is not surprising that they assert that everything holy and divine is the product of the minds of inexperienced men smitten with empty fear of the future and seduced by a vain hope of immortality. But those deceitful sages soften and conceal the wickedness of their doctrine with seductive words and statements; in this way, they attract and wretchedly ensnare many of the weak into rejecting their faith or allowing it to be greatly shaken. While they pursue a remarkable knowledge, they open their eyes to behold a false light which is worse than the very darkness. Naturally our enemy, desirous of harming us and skilled in doing so, just as he made use of the serpent to deceive the first human beings, has armed the tongues of those men with the poison of his deceitfulness in order to lead astray the minds of the faithful. The prophet prays that his soul may be delivered from such deceitful tongues. In this way these men by their speech "enter in lowliness, capture mildly, softly bind and kill in secret." This results in great moral corruption, in license of thought and speech, in arrogance and rashness in every enterprise.

When they have spread this darkness abroad and torn religion out of men's hearts, these accursed philosophers proceed to destroy the bonds of union among men, both those which unite them to their rulers, and those which urge them to their duty. They keep proclaiming that man is born free and subject to no one, that society accordingly is a crowd of foolish men who stupidly yield to priests who deceive them and to kings who oppress them, so that the harmony of priest and ruler is only a monstrous conspiracy against the innate liberty of man.

Everyone must understand that such ravings and others like them, concealed in many deceitful guises, cause greater ruin to public calm the longer their impious originators are unrestrained. They cause a serious loss of souls redeemed by Christ's blood wherever their teaching spreads, like a cancer; it forces its way into public academies, into the houses of the great, into the palaces of kings, and even enters the sanctuary, shocking as it is to say so.

Consequently, you who are the salt of the earth, guardians and shepherds of the Lord's flock, whose business it is to fight the battles of the Lord, arise and gird on your sword, which is the word of God, and expel this foul contagion from your lands. How long are we to ignore the common insult to faith and Church? Let the words of Bernard arouse us like a lament of the spouse of Christ: "Of old was it foretold and the time of fulfillment is now at hand: Behold, in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. It was sorrowful first when the martyrs died; afterwards it was more sorrowful in the fight with the heretics and now it is most sorrowful in the conduct of the members of the household.... The Church is struck within and so in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. But what peace? There is peace and there is no peace. There is peace from the pagans and peace from the heretics, but no peace from the children. At that time the voice will lament: Sons did I rear and exalt, but they despised me. They despised me and defiled me by a bad life, base gain, evil traffic, and business conducted in the dark." Who can hear these tearful complaints of our most holy mother without feeling a strong urge to devote all his energy and effort to the Church, as he has promised? Therefore cast out the old leaven, remove the evil from your midst. Forcefully and carefully banish poisonous books from the eyes of your flock, and at once courageously set apart those who have been infected, to prevent them harming the rest. The holy Pope Leo used to say, "We can rule those entrusted to us only by pursuing with zeal for the Lord's faith those who destroy and those who are destroyed and by cutting them off from sound minds with the utmost severity to prevent the plague spreading." In doing this We exhort and advise you to be all of one mind and in harmony as you strive for the same object, just as the Church has one faith, one baptism, and one spirit. As you are joined together in the hierarchy, so you should unite equally with virtue and desire.

The affair is of the greatest importance since it concerns the Catholic faith, the purity of the Church, the teaching of the saints, the peace of the empire, and the safety of nations. Since it concerns the entire body of the Church, it is a special concern of yours because you are called to share in Our pastoral concern, and the purity of the faith is particularly entrusted to your watchfulness. "Now therefore, Brothers, since you are overseers among God's people and their soul depends on you, raise their hearts to your utterance," that they may stand fast in faith and achieve the rest which is prepared for believers only. Beseech, accuse, correct, rebuke and fear not: for ill-judged silence leaves in their error those who could be taught, and this is most harmful both to them and to you who should have dispelled the error. The holy Church is powerfully refreshed in the truth as it struggles zealously for the truth. In this divine work you should not fear either the force or favor of your enemies. The bishop should not fear since the anointing of the Holy Spirit has strengthened him: the shepherd should not be afraid since the prince of pastors has taught him by his own example to despise life itself for the safety of his flock: the cowardice and depression of the hireling should not dwell in a bishop's heart. Our great predecessor Gregory, in instructing the heads of the churches, said with his usual excellence: "Often imprudent guides in their fear of losing human favor are afraid to speak the right freely. As the word of truth has it, they guard their flock not with a shepherd's zeal but as hirelings do, since they flee when the wolf approaches by hiding themselves in silence....

A shepherd fearing to speak the right is simply a man retreating by keeping silent." But if the wicked enemy of the human race, the better to frustrate your efforts, ever brings it about that a plague of epidemic proportions is hidden from the religious powers of the world, please do not be terrified but walk in God's house in harmony, with prayer, and in truth, the three arms of our service. Remember that when the people of Juda were defiled, the best means of purification was the public reading to all, from the least to the greatest, of the book of the law lately found by the priest Helcias in the Lord's temple; at once the whole people agreed to destroy the abominations and seal a covenant in the Lord's presence to follow after the Lord and observe His precepts, testimonies and ceremonies with their whole heart and soul." For the same reason Josaphat sent priests and Levites to bring the book of the law throughout the cities of Juda and to teach the people. The proclamation of the divine word has been entrusted to your faith by divine, not human, authority. So assemble your people and preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ. From that divine source and heavenly teaching draw draughts of true philosophy for your flock. Persuade them that subjects ought to keep faith and show obedience to those who by God's ordering lead and rule them. To those who are devoted to the ministry of the Church, give proofs of faith, continence, sobriety, knowledge, and liberality, that they may please Him to whom they have proved themselves and boast only of what is serious, moderate, and religious. But above all kindle in the minds of everyone that love for one another which Christ the Lord so often and so specifically praised. For this is the one sign of Christians and the bond of perfection. (Pope Pius VI, Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775.)

One is never permitted to maintain silence about offenses given to God in matter of Faith, Worship and Morals no matter who is propagating them;

 

I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom: [2] Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. [3] For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: [4] And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. [5] But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober. (2 Tim. 4: 1-5.)

But it is vain for them to adopt the name of catholic, as they do not oppose these blasphemies: they must believe them, if they can listen so patiently to such words. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, Epistle XIV, To Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, St. Leo the Great | Letters 1-59 )

One of the great ironies in Bishop Bernard Fellay's continued hope for a "reconciliation" with men who have expelled themselves from the bosom of the Catholic Church by virtue of their adhering to propositions that have been condemned solemnly by her true popes and dogmatic councils, each of which has met under the infallible guidance of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, is that he once warned the laity of the Society of Saint Pius X against efforts to help them make a "reconciliation" with what was called by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul as "living tradition" and is referred to by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as the "hermeneutic of continuity:"

 

I just would like to give you some steps on one person who is the head of Campos. Before he was consecrated a bishop, Fr. Rifan, just a few months before, said in Rome to the Vicar General —who repeated it to Fr. Schmidberger, so we have it from a direct source —said, "I have no problem with celebrating the New Mass, but I don’t do it because it would cause trouble to the faithful." So when Rome is consecrating Rifan a bishop, they know already that he has no objection to celebrating the New Mass. I think it is important to see that. That is the first step.

I may say that there is even a step before. Before that, he goes with the diocesan Corpus Christi procession, and he says to those who oppose it, "If we would not have done that, we would have jeopardized the agreement with Rome." It shows you the direction.

The next step will be the jubilee of the diocese of Campos. For that occasion, of course, the local bishop is having a great ceremony, and Rome invites Bishop Rifan to go to that New Mass, to be there. And Bishop Rifan goes there. He does not participate in the sense of concelebrating the Mass, but he is there present with all his ecclesiastical ornaments, with a surplice and so on. He is really there at this New Mass.

The next step will be the Requiem [i.e., the Novus Ordo "Resurrection"] Mass for the bishop who had kicked them out, Bishop Navarro. At that Requiem Mass, you have Bishop Rifan there, and also the nuncio. The nuncio invites Bishop Rifan to go to Communion, and Bishop Rifan receives Communion at this New Mass.

The next step will be the Mass of Thanksgiving of the new cardinal of Sao Paolo. This time, Bishop Rifan is there again present at that New Mass; he is in the choir. He is not in his surplice; nevertheless, at the time of consecration, with the other priests and bishops celebrating, he raises his hands and says the words of consecration. A seminarian saw him.

And now, the 8th of September this year, we have photos and even a video of the Mass concelebrated by Bishop Rifan on the occasion of the centennial of the coronation of Our Lady of the Aparecida, who is the patroness of Brazil. He is concelebrating the New Mass, a New Mass where you have really scandalous happenings: ladies giving Communion in the hand, a ceremony of coronation where, among all the cardinals and bishops, there is a lady who is crowning our Lady, and so on. Trying to defend himself, he said "But I did not say the words of consecration." I may say, that makes it even worse, because that means he is cheating.

That’s the evolution: now he is two years a bishop, and he is already concelebrating the New Mass. You see, and that is the natural development which was announced from the start by the officials in Rome, Cottier, now Cardinal Cottier and Msgr. Perl. At the time of the agreement between Campos and Rome, Cottier said: "Now they have recognized the Council. The next step will be the new Mass." He even said, "There is a natural, psychological dynamic." And you see in Bishop Rifan a real, natural, clear demonstration of this phrase. (EXTRACT from Bishop Fellay's November 10, 2004 conference in Kansas City, MO regarding Bishop Rifan's actions.)

Observers who are truly objective and dispassionate recognize that Bishop Fellay himself has demonstrated this same "natural, psychological dynamic" ever since he met personally with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI on August 29, 2005, the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, at the traditional summer headquarters of popes at Castel Gandolfo outside of Rome, Italy.

Although there was muted criticism of the Assisi III event in 2011, last year, there has been, for example, no criticism of Ratzinger/Benedict's "joint blessings" with the "clergy" of Protestant sects and Orthodox churches offered by Bishop Fellay or any of his chief lieutenants.

There have been no criticisms of the false "pontiff's" various visits to Talmudic synagogues or Mohammedan mosques as he has treated these places of false worship as though they are sacred in the eyes of the true God of Divine Revelation.

Bishop Fellay did not criticize Ratzinger/Benedict for praising "separation of Church and State" in Portugal on May 11, 2010 despite the fact that Pope Saint Pius X had condemned, specifically and directly, that very arrangement in Portugal when he issued Iamdudum on May 24, 2011. (See Trying To Understand Apostasy and Witness Against Benedict XVI: The Oath Against Modernism.)

Bishop Fellay has already taken the path of Bishop Rifan that he had criticized so severely in 2004 (we heard one variation of his conference at Saint Ignatius Retreat House in Ridgefield, Connecticut, on Sunday, November 7, 2004, just three days before the conference that he gave at Saint Vincent de Paul Church in Kansas City, Missouri).

More than that, however, the official websites of the Society of Saint Pis X have taken to praising conciliar "bishops" such as Timothy "Cardinal" Dolan, the conciliar "archbishop" of New York, as they have invoked the mantra of "religious liberty" to criticize the mandate imposed by the administration of President Barack Hussein Obama to require all employers, including religious institutions such as schools, colleges, universities and hospitals, to provide health insurance coverage for contraception and related "family planning" services. It used to be the case that priests and at least a few of the laity within the Society of Saint Pius understood that errors of Modernity such as "religious liberty" and "separation of Church and State" have resulted in the proliferation and institutionalization of social evils under cover of the civil law (see, for example, the late Dr. Justin Walsh's Heresy Blossoms Like a Rose, which appeared in The Angelus magazine of the Society of Saint Pius. Dr. Walsh himself, who died in 2011, taught for a time at Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, Minnesota, which, of course, is run by the Society.)

This is indeed the "natural path" taken by others. Even though it was bad enough that the Society of Saint Pius X helped to propagate the falsehood that one has a right to "resist" the teachings of a true Successor of Saint Peter that is as harmful to a true understanding of the nature of the Church Militant on earth as is the "new ecclesiology" of conciliarism, the path on which Bishop Fellay has trodden  for the past nearly seven and one-half years is one that leads to complete and total silence and thus of passive acceptance of the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges of conciliarism in the mistaken, indeed quite delusional, belief that it is "enough" to have a modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and that they are now going to "work from within the structures" to "restore" the Church in a "quiet, restrained and prudent" manner. This is why I could have entitled this article something along the lines of "seeking entrance into Mindanao" (see Still Hunkered Down In Mindanao (And In The Wrong Church).)

Some would protest by saying that that Bishop Fellay would never stage the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service. Yet it is that conciliar officials have made clear that no priest of its version of the Roman Rite can refuse to do so. More to the point, however, is the fact that the modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition that is used by the Society of Saint Pius X and the Novus Ordo itself, some of whose liturgical language and practices have made their way into chapels of the Society of Saint Pius X on an incremental basis in some cases over the course of the past few years, are meant to give way to a "unified" liturgy. Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger told us this in the past. "Father" Federico Lombardi has told us this. And Kurt "Cardinal" Koch, the President of the "Pontifical" Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told us nearly two years ago now this will be the case:

 

From this point of view, then, the new prayer for the Jews in the liturgy in the ancient rite does not weaken, but postulates an enrichment of the meaning of the prayer in use in the modern rite. Exactly like in other cases, it is the modern rite that postulates an enriching evolution of the ancient rite. In a liturgy that is perennially alive, as the Catholic liturgy is, this is the meaning of the coexistence between the two rites, ancient and modern, as intended by Benedict XVI with the motu proprio "Summorum Pontificum."

This is a coexistence that is not destined to endure, but to fuse in the future "in a single Roman rite once again," taking the best from both of these. This is what then-cardinal Ratzinger wrote in 2003 – revealing a deeply held conviction – in a letter to an erudite representative of Lefebvrist traditionalism, the German philologist Heinz-Lothar Barth. (Sandro Magister, A Bishop and a Rabbi Defend the Prayer for the Salvation of the Jews.)

"Neither the Missal of Pius V and John XXIII -- used by a small minority -- nor that of Paul VI -- used today with much spiritual fruit by the greatest majority -- will be the final 'law of prayer' of the Catholic Church." ("Father" Federico Lombardi, Zenit, July 15, 2007.)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's easing of restrictions on use of the 1962 Roman Missal, known as the Tridentine rite, is just the first step in a "reform of the reform" in liturgy, the Vatican's top ecumenist said.

The pope's long-term aim is not simply to allow the old and new rites to coexist, but to move toward a "common rite" that is shaped by the mutual enrichment of the two Mass forms, Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said May 14.

In effect, the pope is launching a new liturgical reform movement, the cardinal said. Those who resist it, including "rigid" progressives, mistakenly view the Second Vatican Council as a rupture with the church's liturgical tradition, he said.

Cardinal Koch made the remarks at a Rome conference on "Summorum Pontificum," Pope Benedict's 2007 apostolic letter that offered wider latitude for use of the Tridentine rite. The cardinal's text was published the same day by L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

Cardinal Koch said Pope Benedict thinks the post-Vatican II liturgical changes have brought "many positive fruits" but also problems, including a focus on purely practical matters and a neglect of the paschal mystery in the Eucharistic celebration. The cardinal said it was legitimate to ask whether liturgical innovators had intentionally gone beyond the council's stated intentions.

He said this explains why Pope Benedict has introduced a new reform movement, beginning with "Summorum Pontificum." The aim, he said, is to revisit Vatican II's teachings in liturgy and strengthen certain elements, including the Christological and sacrificial dimensions of the Mass.

Cardinal Koch said "Summorum Pontificum" is "only the beginning of this new liturgical movement."

"In fact, Pope Benedict knows well that, in the long term, we cannot stop at a coexistence between the ordinary form and the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, but that in the future the church naturally will once again need a common rite," he said.

"However, because a new liturgical reform cannot be decided theoretically, but requires a process of growth and purification, the pope for the moment is underlining above all that the two forms of the Roman rite can and should enrich each other," he said.

Cardinal Koch said those who oppose this new reform movement and see it as a step back from Vatican II lack a proper understanding of the post-Vatican II liturgical changes. As the pope has emphasized, Vatican II was not a break or rupture with tradition but part of an organic process of growth, he said.

On the final day of the conference, participants attended a Mass celebrated according to the Tridentine rite at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter's Basilica. Cardinal Walter Brandmuller presided over the liturgy. It was the first time in several decades that the old rite was celebrated at the altar. (Benedict's 'reform of the reform' in liturgy to continue, cardinal says.)

It's only a matter of time and of "pacification of spirits," which the false "pontiff" has been single-minded in doing with respect to the remaining traditionalist "resistance" to his schemes to institutionalize the "correct" interpretation of the doctrinal and liturgical revolutions that he helped to unleash for many generations to come. He has told us that it is goal to "pacify" the "spirits" of those who have a "one-sided" view of the "Second" Vatican Council:

Leading men and women to God, to the God Who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith - ecumenism - is part of the supreme priority. Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in seeking peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of Light - this is inter-religious dialogue. Whoever proclaims that God is Love 'to the end' has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity - this is the social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the Encyclical 'Deus caritas est'.

"So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church's real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who 'has something against you' and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents - to the extent possible - in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim Him and, with Him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?

"Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things - arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them - in this case the Pope - he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint. (Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre, March 10, 2009.)

Fr Federico Lombardi, S.J., Director of the Holy See Press Office: What do you say to those who, in France, fear that the "Motu proprio' Summorum Pontificum signals a step backwards from the great insights of the Second Vatican Council? How can you reassure them?

Benedict XVI: Their fear is unfounded, for this "Motu Proprio' is merely an act of tolerance, with a pastoral aim, for those people who were brought up with this liturgy, who love it, are familiar with it and want to live with this liturgy. They form a small group, because this presupposes a schooling in Latin, a training in a certain culture. Yet for these people, to have the love and tolerance to let them live with this liturgy seems to me a normal requirement of the faith and pastoral concern of any Bishop of our Church. There is no opposition between the liturgy renewed by the Second Vatican Council and this liturgy.

On each day [of the Council], the Council Fathers celebrated Mass in accordance with the ancient rite and, at the same time, they conceived of a natural development for the liturgy within the whole of this century, for the liturgy is a living reality that develops but, in its development, retains its identity. Thus, there are certainly different accents, but nevertheless [there remains] a fundamental identity that excludes a contradiction, an opposition between the renewed liturgy and the previous liturgy. In any case, I believe that there is an opportunity for the enrichment of both parties. On the one hand the friends of the old liturgy can and must know the new saints, the new prefaces of the liturgy, etc.... On the other, the new liturgy places greater emphasis on common participation, but it is not merely an assembly of a certain community, but rather always an act of the universal Church in communion with all believers of all times, and an act of worship. In this sense, it seems to me that there is a mutual enrichment, and it is clear that the renewed liturgy is the ordinary liturgy of our time. (Interview of the Holy Father during the flight to France, September 12, 2008.)

Liturgical worship is the supreme expression of priestly and episcopal life, just as it is of catechetical teaching. Your duty to sanctify the faithful people, dear Brothers, is indispensable for the growth of the Church. In the Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum”, I was led to set out the conditions in which this duty is to be exercised, with regard to the possibility of using the missal of Blessed John XXIII (1962) in addition to that of Pope Paul VI (1970). Some fruits of these new arrangements have already been seen, and I hope that, thanks be to God, the necessary pacification of spirits is already taking place. I am aware of your difficulties, but I do not doubt that, within a reasonable time, you can find solutions satisfactory for all, lest the seamless tunic of Christ be further torn. Everyone has a place in the Church. Every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home, and never rejected. God, who loves all men and women and wishes none to be lost, entrusts us with this mission by appointing us shepherds of his sheep. We can only thank him for the honour and the trust that he has placed in us. Let us therefore strive always to be servants of unity! (Meeting with the French Bishops in the Hemicycle Sainte-Bernadette, Lourdes, 14 September 2008.)

 

"Archbishop" Joseph Augustine Di Noia, O.P., is just trying to help the process of "pacification" reach its logical conclusion as he assists Bishop Bernard Fellay in finding his own and uniquely personal "hermeneutic of continuity."

Yes, the conciliarists love to flatter themselves with their "creativity" as they rehash, recycle and rename one old heresy after another to claim for themselves the mantle of "innovation" and "lovers of progress" for the "advancement" of mankind. Holy Mother Church has constantly rejected "innovation" as being nothing other than a tool of the devil to flatter men anew as he had done with Eve, who then turned to Adam to do the serpent's bidding for him:

These firings, therefore, with all diligence and care having been formulated by us, we define that it be permitted to no one to bring forward, or to write, or to compose, or to think, or to teach a different faith. Whosoever shall presume to compose a different faith, or to propose, or teach, or hand to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles or Jews, or from any heresy, any different Creed; or to introduce a new voice or invention of speech to subvert these things which now have been determined by us, all these, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laymen: let them be anathematized. (Sixth Ecumenical: Constantinople III).

As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.)

They [the Modernists] exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.'' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

 

We must remain steadfast in Faith. We must do so, however, by praying fervently for those who disagree with us, praying especially for the conversion of men such as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict, Gerhard Ludwig Muller, Joseph Augustine Di Noia and each of the other conciliar revolutionaries. No prayer is ever wasted. Those of us who are consecrated to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary entrust ourselves entirely unto her as her slaves, worrying not about how whatever merits are attached to our prayers and fasting and sacrifices and good works are dispensed by her. We look not for results. We look to remain faithful to the end as the martyrs who have been mentioned so briefly--and the Martyrs of Gorkhum, who are also commemorated on July 9 (see appendix below), did--with such great peace, joy and gratitude.

Once one does recognize and accept the truth, however, it is important to act upon it, as integrity of a rightly formed conscience is indeed quite vital to our salvation. This is especially incumbent upon those who believe themselves to be bishops and priests even when this is not actually the case. Pope Saint Gregory the Great had some pointed words for such men who refuse to speak out in defense of the truth:

 

The Lord reproaches them through the prophet: They are dumb dogs that cannot bark. On another occasion he complains: You did not advance against the foe or set up a wall in front of the house of Israel, so that you might stand fast in battle on the day of the Lord. To advance against the foe involves a bold resistance to the powers of this world in defense of the flock. To stand fast in battle on the day of the Lord means to oppose the wicked enemy out of love for what is right.

When a pastor has been afraid to assert what is right, has he not turned his back and fled by remaining silent? Whereas if he intervenes on behalf of the flock, he sets up a wall against the enemy in front of the house of Israel. Therefore, the Lord again says to his unfaithful people: Your prophets saw false and foolish visions and did not point out your wickedness, that you might repent of your sins. The name of the prophet is sometimes given in the sacred writings to teachers who both declare the present to be fleeting and reveal what is to come. The word of God accuses them of seeing false visions because they are afraid to reproach men for their faults and thereby lull the evildoer with an empty promise of safety. Because they fear reproach, they keep silent and fail to point out the sinner’s wrongdoing.

The word of reproach is a key that unlocks a door, because reproach reveals a fault of which the evildoer is himself often unaware. That is why Paul says of the bishop: He must be able to encourage men in sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. For the same reason God tells us through Malachi: The lips of the priest are to preserve knowledge, and men shall look to him for the law, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. Finally, that is also the reason why the Lord warns us through Isaiah: Cry out and be not still; raise your voice in a trumpet call.

Anyone ordained a priest undertakes the task of preaching, so that with a loud cry he may go on ahead of the terrible judge who follows. If, then, a priest does not know how to preach, what kind of cry can such a dumb herald utter? It was to bring this home that the Holy Ghost descended in the form of tongues on the first pastors, for he causes those whom he has filled, to speak out spontaneously. (For two different translations, see: The Book of Pastoral Rule and That the ruler should be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech .)

Remember, we cannot be too hard on our fellow lay Catholics for not seeing the true state of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal when we keep in mind that the men they believe to be "bishops" and "priests" do not do so, reaffirming them that "all is well" and/or that it is "prudent" to be "silent" about things that offend God and are harmful to souls. Again, subjective judgment belongs to God. Objective truth and our objective responsibility to seek it out, cleave to it and defend it forcefully stands entirely on its own, Joseph Augustine Di Noia's self-serving sophistry, positivism and revisionist history to the contrary notwithstanding.

There is simply no escape from this question: is the conciliar church the Catholic Church or is it not?

As I am wont to say some who write me about this or that latest outrage in the counterfeit church of conciliarism or the latest attack on the Faith from the lords of Modernity, do not get lost in the "trees." The devil is having his time in the world now. He loses. He always does. In the end, of course, the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph and the madness of the present time will pass. We must simply try to keep Our Lord company in prayer before His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament, if this is possible to do in your part of the world, and to pray as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

Accept the chalice of suffering that comes your way because you have embraced the truth of our ecclesiastical situation without regard for creatures. Embrace it. Embrace all of the suffering and rejection and ostracism and ridicule that you must in order to avoid making a single compromise with error as such compromise, no matter how seemingly "necessary" it may appear when chosen, leads to disaster. Always. Inevitably. Without fail. Our patient embrace of suffering and our fidelity to Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary might just win the day for those from whom we are estranged so that we might be able to enjoy a good reconciliation with them in eternity in the glory of the Beatific Vision even if such a reconciliation does not take place in this life here on earth.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now so that we can plant a few more seeds that might result, please God and by the intercession of Our Lady, in the restoration of the Catholic Faith and the vanquishing of conciliarism and all of its egregious errors and novelties and blasphemies and sacrileges and heresies once and for all? Just one Rosary more. Right now. Isn't it time?

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

 

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Polycarp, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix A

Pope Pius VI Against the Ecclesiology of the Society of Saint Pius X

6. The doctrine of the synod by which it professes that "it is convinced that a bishop has received from Christ all necessary rights for the good government of his diocese," just as if for the good government of each diocese higher ordinances dealing either with faith and morals, or with general discipline, are not necessary, the right of which belongs to the supreme Pontiffs and the General Councils for the universal Church,—schismatic, at least erroneous.

7. Likewise, in this, that it encourages a bishop "to pursue zealously a more perfect constitution of ecclesiastical discipline," and this "against all contrary customs, exemptions, reservations which are opposed to the good order of the diocese, for the greater glory of God and for the greater edification of the faithful"; in that it supposes that a bishop has the right by his own judgment and will to decree and decide contrary to customs, exemptions, reservations, whether they prevail in the universal Church or even in each province, without the consent or the intervention of a higher hierarchic power, by which these customs, etc., have been introduced or approved and have the force of law,—leading to schism and subversion of hierarchic rule, erroneous.

8. Likewise, in that it says it is convinced that "the rights of a bishop received from Jesus Christ for the government of the Church cannot be altered nor hindered, and, when it has happened that the exercise of these rights has been interrupted for any reason whatsoever, a bishop can always and should return to his original rights, as often as the greater good of his church demands it"; in the fact that it intimates that the exercise of episcopal rights can be hindered and coerced by no higher power, whenever a bishop shall judge that it does not further the greater good of his church,—leading to schism, and to subversion of hierarchic government, erroneous. (Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794.)

The violent attacks of Protestantism against the Papacy, its calumnies and so manifest, the odious caricatures it scattered abroad, had undoubtedly inspired France with horror; nevertheless the sad impressions remained. In such accusations all, perhaps, was not false. Mistrust was excited., and instead of drawing closer to the insulted and outraged Papacy, France stood on her guard against it. In vain did Fenelon, who felt the danger, write in his treatise on the "Power of the Pope," and, to remind France of her sublime mission and true role in the world, compose his "History of Charlemagne." In vain did Bossuet majestically rise in the midst of that agitated assembly of 1682, convened to dictate laws to the Holy See, and there, in most touching accents, give vent to professions of fidelity and devotedness toward the Chair of St. Peter. We already notice in his discourse mention no longer made of the "Sovereign Pontiff." The "Holy See," the "Chair of St. Peter," the "Roman Church," were alone alluded to. First and alas! too manifest signs of coldness in the eyes of him who knew the nature and character of France! Others might obey through duty, might allow themselves to be governed by principle--France, never! She must be ruled by an individual, she must love him that governs her, else she can never obey.

These weaknesses should at least have been hidden in the shadow of the sanctuary, to await the time in which some sincere and honest solution of the misunderstanding could be given. But no! parliaments took hold of it, national vanity was identified with it. A strange spectacle was now seen. A people the most Catholic in the world; kings who called themselves the Eldest Sons of the Church and who were really such at heart; grave and profoundly Christian magistrates, bishops, and priests, though in the depths of their heart attached to Catholic unity,--all barricading themselves against the head of the Church; all digging trenches and building ramparts, that his words might not reach the Faithful before being handled and examined, and the laics convinced that they contained nothing false, hostile or dangerous. (Right Reverend Emile Bougaud, The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. Published in 1890 by Benziger Brothers. Re-printed by TAN Books and Publishers, 1990, pp. 24-29.)

Appendix B

Mr. Michael Creighton's List of the Errors of the Society of Saint Pius X

Mr. Michael Creighton has catalogued the principle errors of the Society of Saint Pius X and the ways in which those who assist at Society chapels justify these errors by way of responding to an article that appeared a few years ago on the Tradition in Action website:

To briefly enumerate some of the problems in the SSPX, they are:

1  A rejection of the of the ordinary magisterium (Vatican I; Session III - Dz1792) which must be divinely revealed. For instance Paul VI claimed that the new mass and Vatican II were his “Supreme Ordinary Magisterium” and John Paul II promulgated his catechism which contains heresies and errors in Fide Depositum by his “apostolic authority” as “the sure norm of faith and doctrine” and bound everyone by saying who believes what was contained therein is in “ecclesial communion”, that is in the Church.

2  A rejection of the divinely revealed teaching expressed in Vatican I , Session IV, that the faith of Peter [the Pope] cannot fail. Three ancient councils are quoted to support this claim. (2nd Lyons, 4th Constantinople & Florence). Pope Paul IV’s bull Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio teaches the same in the negative sense of this definition.

3  A distortion of canon law opposed to virtually all the canonists of the Church prior to Vatican II which tell us a heretical pope ipso facto loses his office by the operation of the law itself and without any declaration. This is expressed in Canon 188.4 which deals with the divine law and footnotes Pope Paul IV’s bull, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio. The SSPX pretends that sections of the code on penalties somehow apply to the pope which flatly contradicted by the law itself. The SSPX pretends that jurisdiction remains in force when the code clearly says jurisdiction is lost and only ‘acts’ of jurisdiction are declared valid until the person is found out (canons 2264-2265). This is simply to protect the faithful from invalid sacraments, not to help heretics retain office and destroy the Church. Charisms of the office, unlike indelible sacraments, require real jurisdiction. The SSPX pretends that penalties of the censure of ipso facto excommunication cannot apply to cardinals since it reserved to Holy See (canon 2227). This is another fabrication since the law does not refer to automatic (latae sententiae) penalties but only to penalties in which a competent judge is needed to inflict or declare penalties on offenders. Therefore it only refers to condemnatory and declaratory sentences but not automatic sentences. To say that ipso facto does not mean what it says is also condemned by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei.

4  The SSPX holds a form of the Gallican heresy that falsely proposes a council can depose a true pope. This was already tried by the Council of Basle and just as history condemned those schismatics, so it will condemn your Lordship. This belief also denies canon 1556 “The First See is Judged by no one.” This of course means in a juridical sense of judgment, not remaining blind to apostasy, heresy and crime which automatically takes effect.

5  The SSPX denies the visible Church must manifest the Catholic faith. They claim that somehow these men who teach heresy can’t know truth. This is notion has been condemned by Vatican I, Session III, Chapter 2. It is also condemned by canon 16 of the 1917 code of canon law. Clearly LaSalette has been fulfilled. Rome is the seat of anti-Christ & the Church is eclipsed. Clearly, our Lords words to Sr. Lucy at Rianjo in 1931 have come to pass. His “Ministers [Popes] have followed the kings of France into misfortune”.

6  The SSPX reject every doctor of the Church and every Church father who are unanimous in stating a heretic ipso facto is outside the Church and therefore cannot possess jurisdiction & pretends that is only their opinion when St. Robert states “... it is proven, with arguments from authority and from reason, that the manifest heretic is ipso facto deposed.” The authority he refers to is the magisterium of the Church, not his own opinion.

7  Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis is misinterpreted by the SSPX to validly elect a heretic to office against the divine law. A public heretic cannot be a cardinal because he automatically loses his office. This decree only refers to cardinals and hence it does not apply to ex-cardinals who automatically lost their offices because they had publicly defected from the Catholic faith. The cardinals mentioned in this decree who have been excommunicated are still Catholic and still cardinals; hence their excommunication does not cause them to become non-Catholics and lose their offices, as does excommunication for heresy and public defection from the Catholic faith. This is what the Church used to call a minor excommunication. All post 1945 canonists concur that Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis does not remove ipso facto excommunication: Eduardus F. Regatillo (1956), Matthaeus Conte a Coronata (1950), Serapius Iragui (1959), A. Vermeersch - I. Creusen (1949), Udalricus Beste (1946) teach that a pope or cardinal or bishop who becomes a public heretic automatically loses his office and a public heretic cannot legally or validly obtain an office. Even supposing this papal statement could apply to non-Catholics (heretics), Pope Pius XII goes on to say “at other times they [the censures] are to remain in vigor” Does this mean the Pope intends that a notorious heretic will take office and then immediately lose his office? It is an absurd conclusion, hence we must respect the interpretation of the Church in her canonists.

Errors/Heresies typical of an SSPX chapel attendees & priests:

1)  We are free to reject rites promulgated by the Church. [Condemned by Trent Session VII, Canon XIII/Vatican I, Session II]

2)  The Pope can’t be trusted to make judgments on faith and morals. We have to sift what is Catholic. [Condemned by Vatican I, Session IV, Chapter III.]

3) We are free to reject or accept ordinary magisterial teachings from a pope since they can be in error. This rejection may include either the conciliar ‘popes’ when teach heresy or the pre-conciliar popes in order to justify the validity of the conciliar popes jurisdiction, sacraments, etc [Condemned by Vatican I (Dz1792)/Satis Cognitum #15 of Leo XIII]

4)  The Kantian doctrine of unknowability of reality. We can’t know what is heresy, therefore we can’t judge. [Condemned by Vatican I, Session III, Chapter 2: On Revelation, Jn7:24].

5)  The faith of the Pope can fail. Frequently this is expressed as “we work for” or “we pray for the Popes conversion to the Catholic faith”. [condemned by Vatican I and at least 3 earlier councils mentioned above].

6)  Universal salvation, ecumenism, religious liberty, validity of the Old Covenant, etc. can be interpreted in a Catholic sense. [Condemned by every saint, every doctor of the Church and every Pope who comments on such issues; for instance Pope Eugene IV (Cantate Domino – Council of Florence)]

7)  Contraries can be true. [Hegelian doctrine against Thomistic Philosophy]. If these positions appear to be contradictory, they are.

When I point out these positions are against the Faith, frequently the Hegelian doctrine is employed by those in attendance at the SSPX chapel.

Appendix C

Father Frederick William Faber on the Hatred of Heresy

The love of God brings many new instincts into the heart. Heavenly and noble as they are, they bear no resemblance to what men would call the finer and more heroic developments of character. A spiritual discernment is necessary to their right appreciation. They are so unlike the growth of earth, that they must expect to meet on earth with only suspicion, misunderstanding, and dislike. It is not easy to defend them from a controversial point of view; for our controversy is obliged to begin by begging the question, or else it would be unable so much as to state its case. The axioms of the world pass current in the world, the axioms of the gospel do not. Hence the world has its own way. It talks us down. It tries us before tribunals where our condemnation is secured beforehand. It appeals to principles which are fundamental with most men but are heresies with us. Hence its audience takes part with it against us. We are foreigners, and must pay the penalty of being so. If we are misunderstood, we had no right to reckon on any thing else, being as we are, out of our own country. We are made to be laughed at. We shall be understood in heaven. Woe to those easy-going Christians whom the world can understand, and will tolerate because it sees they have a mind to compromise!

The love of souls is one of these instincts which the love of Jesus brings into our hearts. To the world it is proselytism, there mere wish to add to a faction, one of the selfish developments of party spirit. One while the stain of lax morality is affixed to it, another while the reproach of pharisaic strictness! For what the world seems to suspect least of all in religion is consistency. But the love of souls, however apostolic, is always subordinate to love of Jesus. We love souls because of Jesus, not Jesus because of souls. Thus there are times and places when we pass from the instinct of divine love to another, from the love of souls to the hatred of heresy. This last is particularly offensive to the world. So especially opposed is it to the spirit of the world, that, even in good, believing hearts, every remnant of worldliness rises in arms against this hatred of heresy, embittering the very gentlest of characters and spoiling many a glorious work of grace. Many a convert, in whose soul God would have done grand things, goes to his grave a spiritual failure, because he would not hate heresy. The heart which feels the slightest suspicion against the hatred of heresy is not yet converted. God is far from reigning over it yet with an undivided sovereignty. The paths of higher sanctity are absolutely barred against it. In the judgment of the world, and of worldly Christians, this hatred of heresy is exaggerated, bitter, contrary to moderation, indiscreet, unreasonable, aiming at too much, bigoted, intolerant, narrow, stupid, and immoral. What can we say to defend it? Nothing which they can understand. We had, therefore, better hold our peace. If we understand God, and He understands us, it is not so very hard to go through life suspected, misunderstood and unpopular. The mild self-opinionatedness of the gentle, undiscerning good will also take the world's view and condemn us; for there is a meek-loving positiveness about timid goodness which is far from God, and the instincts of whose charity is more toward those who are less for God, while its timidity is searing enough for harsh judgment. There are conversions where three-quarters of the heart stop outside the Church and only a quarter enters, and heresy can only be hated by an undivided heart. But if it is hard, it has to be borne. A man can hardly have the full use of his senses who is bent on proving to the world, God's enemy, that a thorough-going Catholic hatred of heresy is a right frame of man. We might as well force a blind man to judge a question of color. Divine love inspheres in us a different circle of life, motive, and principle, which is not only not that of the world, but in direct enmity with it. From a worldly point of view, the craters in the moon are more explicable things than we Christians with our supernatural instincts. From the hatred of heresy we get to another of these instincts, the horror of sacrilege. The distress caused by profane words seems to the world but an exaggerated sentimentality. The penitential spirit of reparation which pervades the whole Church is, on its view, either a superstition or an unreality. The perfect misery which an unhallowed  touch of the Blessed Sacrament causes to the servants of God provokes either the world's anger or its derision. Men consider it either altogether absurd in itself, or at any rate out of all proportion; and, if otherwise they have proofs of our common sense, they are inclined to put down our unhappiness to sheer hypocrisy. The very fact that they do not believe as we believe removes us still further beyond the reach even of their charitable comprehension. If they do not believe in the very existence our sacred things, how they shall they judge the excesses of a soul to which these sacred things are far dearer than itself?

Now, it is important to bear all this in mind while we are considering the sixth dolor. Mary's heart was furnished, as never heart of saint was yet, yet with these three instincts regarding souls, heresy, and sacrilege. They were in her heart three grand abysses of grace, out of which arose perpetually new capabilities of suffering. Ordinarily speaking, the Passion tires us. It is a fatiguing devotion. It is necessarily so because of the strain of soul which it is every moment eliciting. So when our Lord dies a feeling of repose comes over us. For a moment we are tempted to think that our Lady's dolors ought to have ended there, and that the sixth dolor and the seventh are almost of our own creation, and that we tax our imagination in order to fill up the picture with the requisite dark shading of sorrow. But this is only one of the ways in which devotion to the dolors heightens and deepens our devotion to the Passion. It is not our imagination that we tax but our spiritual discernment. In these two last dolors we are led into greater refinements of woe, into the more abstruse delicacies of grief, because we have got to deal with a soul rendered even more wonderful than it was before by the elevations of the sorrows which have gone before. Thus, the piercing of our Lord with the spear as to our Blessed Lady by far the most awful sacrilege which it was then in man's power to perpetrate upon the earth. To break violently into the Holy of Holies in the temple, and pollute its dread sanctity with all manner of heathen defilement, would have been as nothing compared to the outrage of the adorable Body of God. It is in vain that we try to lift ourselves to a true appreciation of this horror in Mary's heart. Our love of God is wanting in keenness, our perceptions of divine things in fineness. We cannot do more than make approaches  and they are terrible enough. (Father Frederick Faber, The Foot of the Cross, published originally in England in 1857 under the title of The Dolors of Mary, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 291-295.)