by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Even though there has been no official "communiques" issued as of this writing by the Society of Saint Pius X or by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's spokesflack, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, there are still some elements of Bishop Bernard Fellay's "interview" with the Society's version of Lombardi, the DICI website that should be explored as they are redolent of the make-believe world in which Bishop Fellay has decided to exist.
Yes, Bishop Fellay and his official press organs have been
singing the old songs that I used to sing ("The pope is surrounded by bad men, he's getting
pressured by all kinds of terrible influences, he make bad appointments because he has to make them, he wouldn't do these things if we could convince him that he's getting bad advice" etc.) aplenty during the
first fifteen years or so of the false "pontificate" of "Pope" John
Paul II. The very man who condemned what he called "doctrinal mutism" in his DICI interview has been very, very, very, very mute as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has esteemed the symbols of false religions with his own priestly hands, daring to enter false temples of worship and to be treated as an inferior while praising adherents of the Talmud or the Koran or of this and that sect of Protestantism as "believers" in helping to build up "the civilization of love" to combat the "dictatorship of relativism." ignoring the fact that any religion other than Catholicism is relativistic of its very false, diabolical nature.
As noted two days ago in Rebels in Rerun Season, part two, Bishop Fellay and others in the "resist but recognize" camp made a conscious decision in 2005 to give Ratzinger/Benedict the same kind of "pass" that many of us in the "conservative" camp in the 1980s an early-1990s did with Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II as he retained "bad" "bishops" (John McGann, Francis Mugavero, Rembert Weakland, John Quinn, John Roach, Robert Brom, Daniel Pilarcyzk, et al.) even though we "knew" that our "pope" was going to "restore" what we thought was the Catholic Church when he thought that the time was "right" to do so. So what if the Polish "pope" appointed men such as Joseph Bernardin and Roger Mahony to the second and third largest Catholic archdioceses in the United States of America? He was just getting "bad advice."
This is essentially what Bishop Fellay did when he criticized "Archbishop" Gerhard Ludwig Muller's multiple defections from the Catholic Faith while ignoring this simple fact: JOSEPH RATZINGER/BENEDICT XVI HAS KNOWN GERHARD LUDWIG MULLER FOR DECAES. HE LIKES HIM. HE AGREES WITH HIM. HE APPPOINTED HIM KNOWING FULL WELL WHAT HE HAS WRITTEN AND THUS WHAT HE BELIEVES. Pardon me, I very rarely write in such a manner. However, I am a New Yorker even if I am living in Ohio. As a New Yorker, you see, I would be screaming this very loudly at Bishop Fellay if he was within earshot of my booming, sonorous voice. One has to suspend all rationality and pretend that those who will read insanity are completely stupid and without any ability to recognize the simple fact that Gerhard Ludwig Muller is not the problem right now. The false religion of conciliarism that spawned him, a false religion that was cultivated and nurtured by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict, which is why the false "pope" desires to appoint men such as Muller who are as committed to its propagation and institutionalization in the name of the "new evangelization" as he is.
Once again, therefore, take a look at Bishop Fellay's airbrushing Ratzinger/Benedict out of the Gerhard Ludwig Muller picture:
DICI : What are your thoughts on the appointment of Archbishop
Mueller as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith?
Bishop Fellay : It is nobody’s secret that the former bishop of
Regensburg, where our seminary of Zaitzkofen is located, does not like
us. After the courageous action of Benedict XVI on our behalf, in 2009,
he refused to cooperate and treated us like if we were lepers! He is the
one who stated that our seminary should be closed and that our students
should go to the seminaries of their dioceses of origin, adding bluntly
that “the four bishops of the SSPX should resign”! (cf. interview with Zeit Online, 8 May 2009).
For us what is more important and more alarming is his leading role
at the head of the Congregation for the Faith, which must defend the
Faith with the proper mission of fighting doctrinal errors and heresy.
Numerous writings of Bishop Mueller on the real transubstantiation of
bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, on the dogma of Our
Lady’s virginity, on the need of conversion of non-Catholics to the
Catholic Church… are questionable, to say the least! There is no doubt
that these texts would have been in the past the object of an
intervention of the Holy Office, which now is the very Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith presided by him. (Bishop Felly Spins a Tale after Having His Head Handed to Him.)
Poor, poor, desperate Bishop Fellay, so eager to seek to protect and indemnify the very man who appointed Gerhard Ludwig Muller to be the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Here is a memorandum of interest to Bishop Fellay:
Item One: It is nobody's secret, to borrow your phrase, that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did not stop Gerhard Ludwig Miller from criticizing the the Society of Saint Pius X after the false "pontiff" lifted the "excommunications" on January 21, 2009, that Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II had imposed upon the four bishops who were consecrated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and co-consecrated by Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer on June 30, 1988.
Item Two: It is nobody's secret, to borrow your phrase for a second time, that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did not reprimand Gerhard Ludwig Muller for calling for the closing of the Society of Saint Pius X Seminary in Regensburg, Germany.
Item Three: It is nobody's secret, to borrow your phrase for a third time, that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's officials continued to warn the Society of Saint Pius X that its priestly ordinations continued to be illicit even though the "excommunications" had been "lifted."
Item Four: It is nobody's secret, to borrow your phrase for a fourth time, that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, appointed Gerhard Ludwig Muller as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith knowing full well his countryman's heretical views on Transubstantiation, Our Lady's Perpetual Virginity and his refusal to seek the conversion of non-Catholics to the Catholic Church. You see, Bishop Fellay, it is nobody's secret that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI shares each of those views perfectly.
You state, quite correctly, Bishop Fellay, that Gerhard Ludwig Muller's writings would have been "the object of an intervention of the Holy Office." It seems to be a "secret" to you, Bishop Fellay, that Father Joseph Ratzinger himself was under suspicion of heresy for his own writings by the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII, a fact that was noted when he was appointed by Giovanni Montini/Paul VI to the "International Theological Commission" at is insipid inception on April 28, 1969:
On 28 April
1969, Paul VI announced the foundation of the International Theological
Commission, a organ intended to be parallel to the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith.
On that occasion, the serious French magazine Informations Catholiques Internationales (n. 336 - May 15, 1969, p. 9), reported the story and gave the list of the 30 theologians chosen for the Commission (below in French). Among them, we translate this description:
Joseph RATZINGER: German, age 45, dogmatic theology, ecumenism; previously suspect [of heresy] by the Holy Office; member of the Faith and Ecumenism Commission; outstanding work in collaboration with Karl Rahner: Primacy and Episcopate.
Other
theologians also under suspicion by the Holy Office were Yves Congar,
Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. (Joseph Ratzinger under suspicion of heresy.)
Why the selective memory, Bishop Fellay? You do a grave disservice to the cause of truth, leaving aside the disservice done to the cause of truth by the whole false position of "resist but recognize" taken by the Society in the first place.
Item Six: It is nobody's secret, to borrow your phrase for a sixth and last time, Bishop Fellay, that Gerhard Ludwig Muller receive a "papal" commendation from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, after receiving an honorary doctorate for his commitment to "liberation theology" from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru on November 28, 2008:
About Benedict XVI's approval for his position on Liberation Theology,
Muller provided these data while expressing his joy to receive the
honorary
doctorate: "For me it is a great honor to receive this distinction
because it comes from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, and
also because Pope Benedict XVI complimented me when he
learned of the news. When I was in Rome some weeks ago for the
launching of the [first volume of the] theological work of His Holiness, he was very
pleased and congratulated me for receiving this recognition."
About the trust Benedict places in Muller, he noted: "I have known Card.
Joseph Ratzinger since he was Archbishop of Munich, but I met with him
more often when he was member of the International Theological
Commission, to which I belonged for five years before
I was named Bishop of Regensburg. After many meetings, the Pope had
confidence in me and, for this reason, he charged me with the task of
compiling his work, which amounts to more than 3,000 writings in
different languages. With this
end in sight, I founded the Benedict
XVI Institute in Regensburg, a place where he lived and taught theology
for many years." (Muller awarded for his support of Liberation Theology.)
Why indemnify your "pope," Bishop Fellay, while criticizing Gerhard Ludwig Muller, whose views are certainly well-known and endorsed by Ratzinger/Benedict, something that the latter made clear on the occasion of Muller's sixtieth birthday in 2007?
Dear Bishop Gerhard Ludwig,
II wanted to contribute at least a salutation to the Festschrift for your 60th birthday. I well remember our first meeting when you gave
me your dissertation on the Sacraments in the thought of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer. That was an ecumenical work of a unusual kind; everyone thinks that they know at least the main
theses of that great Protestant thinker, but you showed surprising
aspects of his thought, thereby inviting an encounter of a special kind.
In the year 1995 you sent me your Dogmatic Theology. As far
as I can see it is the only handbook
in our field on the market written by a single author. It is thus able
to reveal the whole structure of the world of the Catholic Faith in its
inner unity. It also has the particular advantage of being limited to a
size which makes it suitable as a textbook for students. You thereby
sent an important signal; theology, and even the field of dogmatic
theology, is in danger of dissolving into specializations which obscure
the greater whole, but every part of our Faith is only really
intelligible in the light of the whole.
These encounters were primarily literary, but we became personally close
in the years in which you were a member of the International
Theological Commission, of which I (as prefect of the CDF) was
president. We were all deeply impressed by your comprehensive knowledge
of the whole history of dogma and theology, which your interventions
always showed, and which was the foundation of your ever-reliable
judgment. In everything we sensed that your theology was not just
academic learning, but that it was and is – as the essence of theology
demands – a thinking-with the word of the Faith,
a thinking-with the “we” of the Church as the communal subject of the
Faith.
You took care to make the work of the International Theological Commission better known in Germany,
and in all those years you continually published important contributions
on the pressing theological questions of the day. You made great
efforts to explain the true meaning of the document “Dominus Jesus”
which had so often been distorted in the reduction to a few slogans. As
bishop of Regensburg you took the foundational biblical expression
“Dominus Jesus: Jesus is the Lord” (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 12:3) as your motto,
and by so doing you determined your agenda: Christ stands at the center
of the episcopal ministry; He is the center of our Christian existence.
At the time of your episcopal ordination, when the debate about the
document beginning with those words was raging, your motto was a
reminder that the Magisterium wanted thereby to call us back to the
center of our Faith.
Now it has already been five years since the See of St Wolfgang was
entrusted to you. You have had to endure many storms, and more will
surely come. But during this time, no one could doubt that you wanted
only the one thing: to give witness to Jesus Christ, in whom God has
turned His Face toward us and opened His Heart for us. And so on your
60th birthday I hope
and pray that the Lord might help you to always remain His faithful witness and thus to be a “co-worker of our joy” (cf. 2 Cor 1:24) (Muller: Papal praise & gift from Heaven.)
I've said it before and I will say it again: Say Good Night, Bishop Fellay. You are intellectually dishonest. You deceive souls while you offend God, Who is Truth Himself. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI really, really, really, really, really loves the work of Gerhard Ludwig Muller.
And now, good readers, I say good night (or "good day," depending upon when you are reading this) to you as I am going to try to get some sleep.
Well, let me say a few words about today's saint, Saint Camillus de Lellis, before I pray my night prayers and get to bed.
Saint Camillus de Lellis teaches us about
serving the sick and the dying for supernatural reasons, making sure
that those who are near death would die well, that is, in that state of
Sanctifying Grace. Although I might have missed an allocution or two, it is rare for one to see Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI make a single, solitary
reference to Sanctifying Grace in any of his allocutions. Well, after all, as noted two days ago now, Ratzinger/Benedict is a
man who is relatively unconcerned about the fact that some Catholics
only assist at what he thinks is Holy Mass on Sundays occasionally. He is the "pope" of"love,
not correction." Unfortunately, he is the "pope" of a disordered love
founded on the disordered, Hegelian theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar
and other of the "new thinkers" whose theology was condemned by Pope
Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.. Far from his mind is the description of Saint Camillus de Lellis found in The Liturgical Year:
Admirable is the harmony of nature
and grace; the latter so honours the material part of our being that she
will not draw the soul without it to the light and to heaven. For in
the unfathomable mystery of sanctification, the senses do not merely
serve as a passage; they themselves experience the power of the
sacraments, like the higher faculties of which they are the channels;
and the sanctified soul finds the humble companion of her pilgrimage
already associated with her in the dignity of divine adoption, which
will cause the glorification of our bodies after the resurrection. Hence
the care given to the very body of our neighbour is raised to the
nobleness of holy charity; for being inspired by this charity, such acts
partake of the love wherewith our heavenly Father surrounds even the
members of His beloved children.
I was sick, and ye visited Me, our
Lord will say on the last day, showing that even the infirmities of our
fallen state in this land of exile, the bodies of those whom He deigns
to call His brethren, share in the dignity belonging by right to the
eternal, only-begotten Son of the Father. the Holy Spirit, too, whose
office it is to recall to the Church all the words of the Saviour, has
certainly not forgotten this one; the seed, falling into the good earth
of chosen souls, has produced a hundredfold the fruits of grace and
heroic self-devotion. Camillus of Lellis received it lovingly, and the
mustard-seed became a great tree offering its shade to the birds of the
air. The Order of Regular Clerks, Servants of the Sick, or of Happy
Death, deserves the gratitude of mankind; as a sign of heaven's
approbation, angels have more than once been seen assisting its members
at the bedside of the dying.
It seems as though the loss of the sensus fidei in Rome is accelerating rapidly. Jews are saved by the Mosaic Covenant,
which has not been superceded by the New and Eternal Covenant
instituted by Our Lord at the Last Supper and ratified by the shedding
of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy
Cross. "Proselytism" of Protestants and the Orthodox is discouraged, if
not forbidden altogether in the practical order of things. The civil
state does not have to recognize the true Faith, Catholicism as the
foundation of personal and social order. "Peace" in the world can be
obtained by a "respect" for human solidarity and brotherhood, by the
efforts of all "religions" to cooperate with and respect each other.
These are grave departures from the Catholic Faith. These are examples
of the apostasy facing us at present. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year.)
How can it be that true popes and true cardinals and true archbishops and true bishops and true priests are bereft of the sensus Catholicus? It can't. Plain and simple. It can't.
Pray your Rosaries.
Remember that this madness will all pass. The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph in the end.
As the late William C. Koneazny, the wonderful Godfather of the the Catholic Rendezvous, said: "Our Lady will come and throw the bums out!"
Viva Cristo Rey!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for 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 Camillus de Lellis, pray for us.
Saint Symphorosa and her Seven Sons, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
