March to Oblivion

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Much like the priests who left its ranks in 1988 and thereafter to form the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter following the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's consecration of four bishops without a "papal" mandate on June 30 of that year, the Priestly Fraternity of the Society of Saint Pius X is on the march to oblivion as its leadership continues negotiations with the counterfeit church of conciliarism to "regularize" its status within the ranks of what the Archbishop himself once called  in 1976 a "schismatic church:"

“That the Conciliar Church is a schismatic Church, because it breaks with the Catholic Church that has always been. It has its new dogmas, its new priesthood, its new institutions, its new worship, all already condemned by the Church in many a document, official and definitive.

“This Conciliar Church is schismatic, because it has taken as a basis for its updating, principles opposed to those of the Catholic Church, such as the new concept of the Mass expressed in numbers 5 of the Preface to (the decree) Missale Romanum and 7 of its first chapter, which gives the assembly a priestly role that it cannot exercise; such likewise as the natural — which is to say divine — right of every person and of every group of persons to religious freedom.

“This right to religious freedom is blasphemous, for it attributes to God purposes that destroy His Majesty, His Glory, His Kingship. This right implies freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, and all the Masonic freedoms.

“The Church that affirms such errors is at once schismatic and heretical. This Conciliar Church is, therefore, not Catholic. To whatever extent Pope, bishops, priests or faithful adhere to this new Church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church.”

 

Although Archbishop Lefebvre went back and forth in his views concerning the nature of the conciliar church, the statement above, made immediately after his "suspension" a divinis by Paul VI in 1976, expressed the beliefs of many of the priests within the Society of Saint Pius X at the time. Some of those had already come to the only logical conclusion that could be drawn by those remarks: that the conciliar church is not the Catholic Church and that the man who claimed to be the pope had fallen from the Catholic Faith and had therefore lost all claim to holding ecclesiastical office in the Catholic Church legitimately (see; Letter of 'the Nine' to Abp. Marcel Lefebvre and The Crux of the Matter, documents that hold up over the course of twenty-four years). The Archbishop himself, although he ruminated publicly in 1986 about whether it was time to declare the See of Peter vacant, never came to that conclusion, prompting a truly novel response to the novelties spawned by the counterfeit church of conciliarism, that one can recognize a man as the Supreme Pontiff yet parse his every statement to see whether it is truly Catholic and therefore worthy of being respected and obeyed. Father Anthony Cekada's sermon, The Errors of the Society of St Pius X, on this subject is very instructive.

With the prospect of the "liberation" of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition by Benedict XVI looming at some point in the coming months, a French priest who is a member of the Society of Saint Pius X is making an appeal to diocesan priests in France to consider using the Ordo Missae of 1965 as a way of "introducing" their parishioners to Tradition. Leaving aside the matter of the validity of the ordination of these diocesan priests and the validity of the episcopal consecrations of the men who "ordained" them, such an appeal, no matter how sincere or well-intentioned, proves that the trap posed by the "indult" and its unjust and illicit conditions is snaring at least some of those in the Society of Saint Pius X who had heretofore condemned the "indult" and its nefarious consequences for the Faith in no uncertain terms.

As was mentioned on this site in In a Flash over two months ago now, the Ordo Missae of 1965, which was introduced on Sunday, November 29, 1964, was meant to usher in a period of liturgical novelty and innovation and instability, the very opposite of what a legitimate Catholic liturgical rite is supposed to produce. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the Son to the Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross, is supposed to reflect the permanence and immutability and stability of the Blessed Trinity and of the truths He has deposited solely in the Catholic Church. Fallen man is unstable by his very flawed nature, wounded by the vestigial after-effects of Original Sin and of his own Actual Sins. Fallen man needs permanence and stability in his life, especially in matters that pertain to the worship of the Blessed Trinity in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and in the communication of the truths of the Faith. The Ordo Missae of 1965 was designed to accustom Catholics to ceaseless change in the liturgy of what purported to be the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church in order to prepare them for the contradictions of Catholic teaching (the new ecclesiology, ecumenism, religious liberty, Modernist Scripture interpretation) emanating from the "Second" Vatican Council.

Nevertheless, however, there are more than a handful of priests in the Society of Saint Pius X and in the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter who look fondly upon the Ordo Missae of 1965, which was in place for just five years before being replaced by the Novus Ordo Missae itself (which was a period precisely three years longer than the modernized 1961 Missal of John XXIII had been in place). There are still some priests in the Society of Saint Pius X, for example, who remain supportive, albeit privately, of the liturgical views of Father Carlos Urrutigoity, the founder of the corrupt Society of Saint John, which has now taken refuge under the protection, believe it or not, of the conciliar bishop of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, Rogelio Livieres Plano (who issued a letter in support of the Society of Saint John on September 8, 2006), a little fact that should prove that perversion is no impediment to being welcomed in the official quarters of the conciliar church.

Urrutigoity's belief, expressed to me personally in an interview I conducted with him in Shohola, Pennsylvania, in November of 1999, is that "we should see where the liturgy would have gone" had there not been the "polemics" of the 1960s. In other words, "we" should be open to liturgical change so as not to "cement" the Mass according to any one Missal, which is why Urrutigoity, who had the full support of Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, said that he would sometimes use the Missal of 1910 or the Missal of 1955 or the Missal of 1962 or the Missal of 1965, but never the Missal of 1969, he emphasized. Urrutigoity thus was in favor of  some degree of  "approved" liturgical experimentation, a view that he professed during his days as a teacher at Saint Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, Minnesota, before his expulsion from the Society of Saint Pius X circa 1998.

There were some seminarians in Winona who supported Urrutigoity's liturgical approach but who did not want to denounce the late Archbishop Lefebvre by following him, Urrutigoity, out of the Society of Saint Pius X. There is at least some sympathy for Urrutigoity's view of the liturgy in some circles with the Society of Saint Pius X. Thus the very thing that has so devastated souls in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, liturgical experimentation, has varying degrees of support among some priests in the Society of Saint Pius X and among a few "priests" in the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, which has the additional "baggage" of "priests" within its ranks in France who will celebrate the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic service that is the Novus Ordo Missae at the behest of the local conciliar bishop (see Griff Ruby's THE RESURRECTION OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, an excellent review of the entire history of the Traditional movement, "fair and balanced" as a certain Masonically-owned cable propaganda network advertises itself).

Any concessions made, however, in the direction of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, whether liturgical or doctrinal, leads one to oblivion and results in the muzzling of one's most basic sensus Catholicus. Indeed, Father Louis Campbell, who worked with the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter for about five years, told us at dinner in Sugar Land, Texas, on Tuesday, December 19, 2006, that he found himself able to think for the first time in his priestly life once he left the Fraternity and started offering the Immemorial Mass of Tradition at Saint Jude's Shrine in Stafford, Texas. It was no longer necessary for him to stop himself from drawing logical conclusions or muzzling himself to avoid criticizing some statement or action of the late John Paul II as had been the case when he was in the "good graces" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Yes, the "indult" requires priests to check their brains at the rectory door so that they can merely offer the modernized version of the Mass of Tradition that was promulgated by John XXIII in 1961 while they are unable to defend the Faith in the midst of heresies, novelties, errors, blasphemies and sacrileges taking place under the official auspices of the conciliar church (see: The Energizer Benny and His Enablers).

The summary below is but a brief review of the harmful consequences of the "indult" and how any relationship with it leads to the numbing of one's Catholic mind and to sort of silence in the face of apostasy that is as novel in the life of the Catholic Church as the novelties that have been brought forth by conciliarism in the past forty-eight years:

1) The counterfeit church of conciliarism has no authority to require any Catholic to do anything. It is, to use the words of the late Archbishop Lefebvre, a "schismatic church" headed by apostates who believe in the One World Religion of Judeo-Masonry.

2) Priests who subscribe to the "indult" (and I was an indultering layman for over a decade, mind you) must concede that the Immemorial Mass of Tradition can be offered "legitimately" only by priests who assent to the doctrinal integrity of all of the documents of the "Second" Vatican Council and who asent to the doctrinal integrity of the Novus Ordo Missae, which is evil and whose validity I have come to recognize was demolished by the groundbreaking work of Patrick Henry Omlor.

3) Those priests who subscribe to the "indult" must, therefore, hold their tongues when a putative pope goes into a mosque and takes his shoes off to signify that he is in a "holy" place. They must hold their tongues when a putative pope claims that a true heretic and schismatic, the Patriarch of Constantinople, is a "pastor in the Church of Christ" despite his rejection of the Filioque and Purgatory and of papal primacy itself, to say nothing of supporting contraception and divorce (the Greek Orthodox Church, for example, permits its members to "marry" up to three times, see: The Stand of the Orthodox Church on Controversial Issues) and even abortion in the case where a mother's life is said to be endangered. (There is, not so coincidentally, a mutual bond between Orthodoxy and the conciliar church: the rejection of the immutable teaching of the Catholic Church that the civil state must recognize her as the one and only true religion and subordinate itself to her in all things that pertain to the good of souls.)

4) Those priests who subscribe to the "indult" find themselves thus unable to defend the Faith as had Saint Athanasius or Saint Basil or Saint Jerome in the midst of the Arian heresy. Such priests find themselves justifying their silence as "necessary prudence" while finding themselves complicit in the betrayal of the Faith for which so many shed their blood rather than to be silent in similar circumstances. Not a word may be spoken in opposition to religious liberty or ecumenism or the new ecclesiology. This is quite in contrast to the simple reminder provided by Pope Pius VI in Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775, that error must be opposed:

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.

5) Those priests who subscribe to the "indult" cannot proselytize in behalf of the Faith among non-Catholics. They cannot, in other words, seek converts. Such priests must adhere to the tenets of ecumenism, which forbids them to knock on doors to seek out the lost sheep and to call back those who had fallen away.

6) Those priests who subscribe to the "indult" find themselves promoting such novelties as the "luminous mysteries" (Saint Mary's Oratory in Wausau, Wisconsin) and such travesties as World Youth Day (Institute of Christ the King, Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem, Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney).

7) Those priests who subscribe to the "indult" must ignore the evidence amassed proving the invalidity of the 1968 Rite of Episcopal Consecration.

8) Those priests who subscribe to the "indult" may find themselves forced in some instances to "concelebrate" the Novus Ordo Missae, especially during diocesan Chrism Masses, and on other special occasions (the subject of two articles of mine in Catholic Family News in 2004, "The Price of Recognition" and "The Price of Recognition is Much Higher Than We Thought," each of which dealt with Bishop Fernando Areas Rifan's participation in a Novus Ordo Mass in Brazil and his storyline that evolved much thereafter).

9) Although conditions vary from conciliar diocese to conciliar diocese, to be sure, it is the case in many instances that members of the laity who assist in "indult" chapels must subject their children to diocesan "sacramental preparation" programs, which sometimes involves explicit instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments.

10) The faithful, therefore, become convinced in most, although not in all, instances that they must silent about errors and controversies, and that it is not necessary to avoid contact with the Novus Ordo Missae, which some "priests" in the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter have actually advised their parishioners to assist at rather than, say, going to Masses offered by priests of the Society of Saint Pius X, to say nothing of priests belonging to sedevacantist communities.

 

This is just a partial listing of the truly fatal consequences associated with the "indult." The "indult" has, unquestionably, served as the "bridge" by which many of us came to find our way to the Society of Saint Pius X and thence to examine the sedevacantist thesis and the doctrinal principles supporting it. Nevertheless, however, the "indult" has been from the very beginning in 1984 and in its "expansion" in 1988 a trap to lead Catholics to trade in their sensus Catholicus in order to "have" a modernized version of the Mass of Tradition and in order to be considered in "good standing" with the spiritual robber barons who run the counterfeit church of conciliarism. It thus necessary, I believe, for the good priests who serve souls so zealously in the Society of Saint Pius X and in non-sedevacantist chapels to look dispassionately at the evidence supporting the sedevacantist position and to recognize publicly that the Catholic Church cannot be the author of a defective liturgy and/or doctrines that contradict her authentic patrimony. There should be no more talk of "associating" with a counterfeit church. There should be talk only of recognizing that these words of Pope Leo XIII, expressed in Satis Cognitum, December 8, 1896, apply to the conciliarists, including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

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).

 

Once again, therefore, I invite those priests who are in the "recognize and resist" camp to listen to the lectures given by His Excellency Bishop Mark A. Pivarunas at Mount Saint Michael's Church in Spokane, Washington, on October 13, 2006:

Oct. 13, 2006 Sedevanctism Part I     (35 Minutes)

Oct. 13, 2006 Sedevanctism Part II   (31 Minutes)

Oct. 13, 2006 Sedevanctism Part III (33 Minutes)

Oct. 13, 2006 Sedevanctism Part IV  (35 Minutes)

 

A review of the following articles will also prove helpful in assessing the assertion that the Roman Pontiff cannot do the things that have been done by the papal claimants of the counterfeit church of conciliarism:

Opinionism, - Bp. Williamson's Mentevacantist Error, Vatican II, the Pope and SSPX: Q & A, Letter to Bishop Bernard Fellay, The Mountains of Gelboe, The New Ecclesiology: An Overview, Critical Analysis of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, Sedevacantism, The Betrayal of Christ’s Mystical Body

 

While we must deal with each other charitably in a time of terrible confusion and apostasy, recognizing that many of us took a very long time to examine the issues raises in these lectures and articles, it is still nevertheless necessary to be honest about our situation and to let the truth take us where it will. The precisely wrong direction to go in these times of apostasy is to make any kind of concessions with the counterfeit church of conciliarism in order to have oneself granted its "official" "recognition" and "approval." The martyrs gave up their lives rather than succumb to the allure of human respect. We must call upon their intercession from Heaven to help us continue on our march to join them there, not to march on a road that leads to oblivion and that requires us to be silent in the face of fundamental betrayals of the Catholic Faith.

Ever trusting in the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary as a refuge in this time that demands so much perseverance from us backsliding slackers who are so prone to take the wide and smooth path that leads to perdition, may we use this upcoming season of Lent to make reparation for our own sins and to resolve to be ever more forthright and steadfast in our march on the narrow and rocky road that leads to the Gate of Eternal Life Himself, her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The possession of Heaven for all eternity is the reason for which we have been created. We can only hope and pray that we will keep close to Our Lady as her consecrated slaves in this life so that we can enjoy the blessedness of Heaven in her glorious company, ever mindful that we must plant whatever seeds we can for the an end to conciliarism in all of its demonic aspects and thus the restoration of Tradition in the lives of all Catholics and of Christendom in the world.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Romuald, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint  Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.

Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.

Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.

Saint Dominic, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Basil, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Juan Diego, pray for us.

 

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls. 

Response:  Amen.