Peep
by Thomas A. Droleskey
The false ecclesiology of the Society of Saint Pius X has been critiqued on this site a number of times (see
March to Oblivion, High Church, Low Church,
Nothing to Negotiate, Those Who Deny The Holocaust, Recognize and Capitulate, A Little Bit "In," A Little Bit "Out",
Disciples of Caiphas,
Under The Bus,
Story Time in Econe, Shell Games With Souls, Pots and Kettles, One Sentence Says It All,
Smashing Through the Conciliar Looking Glass, and
Winning at the Waiting Game). It is necessary to do so once again as so many people within the Society of Saint Pius X are confused about whether the Society will, to quote the term used last year by one of its priests,
"defect" from defending Catholic Tradition.
Yes, at this late date, there are still many people who have yet to realize that the Society of Saint Pius X holds to a view of the Church that is as false as the "new ecclesiology" of the counterfeit church of concilairism itself. This false view of the Church has convinced the lion's share of those Catholics who are in the "resist but recognize" movement that the Society has been defending the Faith when it the actual truths is that they have been undermining and distorting authentic Catholic teaching concerning the Church's infallibility. Whether or not many of the laity who still assist at the Society's chapels realize it, a general belief has arisen in the past forty years that the decisions of the leaders of the Society make decisions that are beyond question, that they would "never" sell out the Society to the conciliar church. This has led to a situation of great confusion within the minds of many who remain partisans of the Society of Saint Pius X.
To wit, a person who attends a Society of Saint Pius X chapel asked me recently if Father Maximilian Kolbe was a "confessor" or a "martyr." She had been told by one Society priest that the great apostle of the Immaculata, who was "canonized" by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II on October 10, 1982, was a "confessor." Another Society priest told the person that Father Kolbe was a "martyr" even though he did not, strictly speaking, give us his life for the Holy Faith when he volunteered himself to be starved to death in the place of a Jewish prisoner (Franciszek Gajowniczek) in the Auschwitz concentration camp who did not convert to the Faith even after Father Kolbe's sacrifice for of his own life for him. Father Kolbe was killed off with an injection of carbolic acid by his brutal Nazi captors on August 14, 1941. The person was confused as to why two Society priests disagreed as to Father Kolbe's status, whether that of a confessor or of a martyr.
Although this article is not centering on how Father Kolbe should be referred to in the conciliar structures, I will say as one who is very devoted to him and his work in behalf of the Immaculata that he did confess the Faith tirelessly, starting in his days as a seminarian in Rome. Father Kolbe was an enemy of all forms of naturalism (Freemasonry, Socialism, Zionism, Communism, Nazism), which is why the Nazis rounded him up and sent him to Auschwitz in the first place. It can thus be argued, I believe, that he was willing to die as a martyr for the Faith by continuing his activities and that he was treated with great cruelty there because he was a Catholic priest. This is not, I will grant you, the same thing as being killed specifically for the Holy Faith. True enough. Had it not been for the Faith, however, Father Kolbe would not have been in Auschwitz. This is a matter, like all of the other conciliar "canonizations" that will be resolved one day by the authorities of the Catholic Church when the Church Militant is restored after the vanquishing of the apostates who pretend to be her officials in her counterfeit ape, the conciliar church. I am not going to resolve the matter to anyone's satisfaction in this article. That's for sure.
What I do want to discuss here, if ever so briefly, is the readiness with which some of the priests in the Society of Saint Pius X argue against positions that they have taken in the past without acknowledging that they are doing so. Yes, sure, this is nothing new. There were many times when the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre gave conflicting signals about his relationship to the conciliar church. What is very telling about the current round of memory purging (or--to use the phrase of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI--"purification of memory") in the Society of Saint Pius X is that many little things are being done to signal a complete and total surrender to the forces of concilairism as the "price of recognition." In the instance of Father Kolbe, you see, he is being called a martyr by many Society priests now because that is the title bestowed upon by Wojtyla/John Paul II at the former's conciliar "canonization" on October 10, 1982 (which was my father's sixty-third birthday at the time; gee whiz, I'm only four and a half years away from that age; that's not possible).
The conciliar party line must be followed in all things now as the Society seeks to have its own place in the One World Ecumenical Church of conciliarism that is large enough to accommodate "Anglo-Catholics" whose "profession of faith" is adherence to the conciliar church's Catechism of the Catholic Church that was critiqued in 1994 as not very Catholic in The Angelus, the flagship publication of the Society of Saint Pius X in the United States of America, (see
The New Catechism: Is it Catholic?) and who are being permitted to keep liturgical rites that were deemed heretical by Pope Saint Pius V in Regnans in Excelsis, March 5, 1570. One of the ironies of this is that William "Cardinal" Levada, the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has made it clear that the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X must accept that same "Catechism of the Catholic Church" as one of the conditions for their own place in that One World Ecumenical Church of conciliarism (see
Piracy, Conciliar Style)
There's plenty of room, therefore, for the Society of Saint Pius X in the One World Ecumenical Church of conciliarism if they simply refuse to criticise the false "pontiff" for esteeming the symbols of false religions and entering into places of false worship and calling them "sacred." I can almost--although not quite--guarantee you, my good and few readers, that most of the priests in a "reconciled" Society of Saint Pius X will celebrate the "feast" of "Giovanni Paolo Segundo Il Grande" ("John Paul the Great") if the man they once criticized so fiercely for things like the "new catechism" is "canonized" by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, whose own orthodoxy was assailed in the Si, Si, No, No publication of the Society twelve years ago
(Cardinal Ratzinger) and eleven years ago
(The Memories of a Destructive Mind: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's Milestones.)
The bottom line about the Society of Saint Pius X is this: its leaders have long considered the "Society" as the "official" representative of "Tradition," a force chosen by God Himself to restore Holy Mother Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal. Its leaders have long pilloried priests who dissent from whatever "party line" they, the leaders, adopt even if that "party line" contradicts the previous "party line" within a matter of months. And the "party line" in the past nearly five years, dating back to the time that the Society's Superior-General, Bishop Bernard Fellay, met with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI on August 29, 2005, has been to remain silent, at least for the most part, about conciliar apostasies and the very blasphemies and sacrileges of the false "pontiff" himself.
What word has issued forth from the mouth of Bishop Fellay to defend the honor and glory and majesty of God as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has esteemed personally the symbols of false religions with his own hands and as he has entered into mosques and synagogues, call them "sacred" places?
What word has issued forth from the mouth of Bishop Fellay to condemn Ratzinger/Benedict's abject apostasy when stating that Jews and Christians "pray to the same Lord"?
Was the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who, to be sure, took many different stands concerning his view of the conciliar Rome (see Bishop Donald Sanborn's
Logical Chickens Coming Home to Roost: A Commentary on Recent Events in SSPX and his The Mountains of Gelboe), silent in the face of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's visit to the Talmudic synagogue in Rome on April 13, 1986? Look for yourselves:
And most recently, the Pope has been in the synagogue of the Jews in Rome. How can the Pope pray with the enemies of Jesus Christ? These Jews know and say and believe that they are the successors of the Jews that killed Jesus Christ, and they continue to fight against Jesus Christ everywhere in the world. At the end of the Pope's visit, the Jews sang a "hymn" that included the line "I believe with all my heart in the coming of the Messiah," meaning that they refuse Jesus as the Messiah, and the Pope had given permission for this denial of Christ be sung in his presence, and he listened, head bowed! And the Holy See announces that in the near future that he will visit Taize to pray with the Protestants, and he himself said in public at St. Paul Outside the Walls that later this year he will hold a ceremony gathering all of the religions of the world together to pray for peace at Assisi in Italy, on the occasion of the Feast of Peace proclaimed by the United Nations due to take place on October 24.
“Now all these facts are public, you have seen them in the newspapers and the media. What are we to think? What is the reaction of our Catholic Faith? That is what matters. It is not our personal feelings, a sort of impression or admission of some kind. It is a question of knowing what our Faith tells us, faced with these facts. Let me quote a few words - not my words - from Canon Naz’s Dictionary of Canon Law, a wholly official and approved commentary on what has been the Catholic Church’s body of law for nineteen centuries. On the subject of sharing in the worship of non-Catholics (after all, this is what we now see Pope and bishops doing), the Church says, in Canon 1258-1: ‘It is absolutely forbidden for Catholics to attend or take any active part in the worship of non-Catholics in any way whatsoever.’ On this Canon the quasi-official Naz Commentary says, and I quote, ‘A Catholic takes active part when he joins in heterodox; i.e., non-Catholic worship with the intention of honouring God by this means in the way non-Catholics do. It is forbidden to pray, to sing or to play the organ in a heretical or schismatic temple, in association with the people worshipping there, even if the words of the hymn or the song or the prayer are orthodox.’ The reason for this prohibition is that any participation in non-Catholic worship implies profession of a false religion and hence denial of the Catholic Faith. By such participation Catholics are presumed to be adhering to the beliefs of the non- Catholics, and that is why Canon 2316 declares them ‘suspect of heresy, and if they persevere, they are to be treated as being in reality heretics.’
“Now these recent acts of the Pope and bishops, with Protestants, animists and Jews, are they not an active participation in non-Catholic worship as explained by Canon Naz on Canon 1258-1? In which case, I cannot see how it is possible to say that the Pope is not suspect of heresy, and if he continues, he is a heretic, a public heretic. That is the teaching of the Church.
“Now I don’t know if the time has come to say that the Pope is a heretic; I don’t know if it is the time to say that. You know, for some time many people, the sedevacantists, have been saying ‘there is no more Pope,’ but I think that for me it was not yet the time to say that, because it was not sure, it was not evident, it was very difficult to say that the Pope is a heretic, the Pope is apostate. But I recognize that slowly, very slowly, by the deeds and acts of the Pope himself we begin to be very anxious. I am not inventing this situation; I do not want it. I would gladly give my life to bring it to an end, but this is the situation we face, unfolding before our eyes like a film in the cinema. I don’t think it has ever happened in the history of the Church, the man seated in the chair of Peter partaking in the worship of false gods.
“What conclusion must we draw in a few months if we are confronted by these repeated acts of partaking in false worship? I don’t know. I wonder. But I think the Pope can do nothing worse than call together a meeting of all religions, when we know there is only one true religion and all other religions belong to the devil. So perhaps after this famous meeting of Assisi, perhaps we must say that the Pope is a heretic, is apostate. Now I don’t wish yet to say it formally and solemnly, but it seems at first sight that it is impossible for a Pope to be publicly and formally heretical. Our Lord has promised to be with him, to keep his faith, to keep him in the Faith - how can he at the same time be a public heretic and virtually apostatise? So it is possible we may be obliged to believe this Pope is not Pope. (The Angelus, July 1986, transcripts of talks given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on March 30 and April 18, 1986.)
What has changed?
Are the actions of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI less offensive to God than those of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II?
Was Archbishop Lefebvre wrong to condemn the actions of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II twenty-four years ago?
Is Bishop Fellay correct to remain silent about the actions of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI?
What has changed?
Only one thing: the self-serving "party line" of the Society of Saint Pius X. That's what has changed. Nothing else. And those priests of the Society of Saint Pius X who do see that this is the case and have spoken out publicly against Bishop Fellay's spirit of accommodationism with the conciliar Vatican are either expelled (Father Basil Meramo, Father Florian Abramowicz, Father James Dolan) or choose to leave on their own (Father Juan Carlos Turco).
The objective truth of the offenses given to God by Ratzinger/Benedict (leaving subjective judgment of the false "pontiff's" soul to God alone) is the same as the objective truth of offenses given to God by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. God is no more pleased with the current conciliar "pope" than He was with his predecessor in the conciliar structures.
Bishop Bernard Fellay can remain as mute as he wants. His silence doesn't change the objective truth of the offenses given to God by the "pope" he says recognizes while choosing to disobey edicts from the conciliar Vatican not to proceed with priestly ordinations at this time.
Those priests who are willing to do his bidding for him can remain as mute as they want in the hope that the Society of Saint Pius X will be able to take its place alongside "Catholic" Charismatic Renewal, Opus Dei, Focolare, Cursillo, the Sant'Egidio Community, the Shalom Catholic Community, the Chemin Neuf Community, the International Community of Faith and Light, Regnum Christi, Communion and Liberation, the Emmanuel Community, the Seguimi Lay Group of Human-Christian Promotion, and, among many, many others, the Neocatechumenal Way in the One World Ecumenical Church of conciliarism. Their silence and intellectual dishonesty do not change the objective truth of the offenses given to God by the "pope" they say they recognize while offering Holy Mass without his permission. They are suddenly become as silent as the priests/presbyters in the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter and the Institute of Christ the King they used to criticize harshly as "compromisers."
The bishops and the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X so intent on being silent in the face of things that they know are opposed to the Catholic Faith and thus offensive to God Himself must reckon with these words of Pope Saint Leo the Great:
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 )
The bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X must also reckon with these telling words contained in
Father Charles Arminjon's The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life:
This judgment is rightly called universal because it will be exercised over all members of the human race, because it will cover every crime, every misdemeanor, and because it will be definitive and irrevocable.
In the first place, the last judgment will be exercised over all the members of the human race.
The men of every nation, every tribe, and every tongue will appear at it. There will be no more distinction of wealth, birth, or rank among them. Those whose names were Alexander, Caesar, and Diocletian will be jumbled together with herdsmen who, at this moment, are grazing their flocks on unknown, deserted shores, where the ashes of these masters of the world lie scattered. Men will then be ruled by concerns other than those of curiosity and empty admiration. Far more serious spectacles will hold their gaze and attention; the figures of the world will have passed away, and the victories of great captains, the works conceived by genius, the enterprises and great discoveries will be deemed mere shams and child's play.
Just as in the theater, says St. John Chrysostom, when an actor goes off the stage, it is not because of the part he has played that people admire him; they praise neither the fact that he has imitated the personality of a king, nor the fact that the has acted a lackey or a beggar: rather, they praise his skill, and they applaud only the perfection with which he has played his part. So at the last judgment, a man will not be honored because he was a king, an eloquent orator, a minister, and a great statesman. All these honors and distinctions, which the world holds in such high esteem, will be deemed of no merit and of no value. Men will be praised solely for their virtues and good works: Opera enim millrun seguungtur illos.
Secondly, this judgment is called universal, because it will cover every crime and offense. Only then will human history begin. In the clarity of the light of God, all the crimes, public and secret, that have been committed in every latitude and in every age, will be seen clearly and in detail. The whole life of each human being will be laid bare. No circumstance will be omitted: no action, word, or desire will remain unknown. We shall be reminded of the different periods we have gone through; the lustful man will have his disorderly living and libertine speeches set out before him; the ambitious man, his devious, Machiavellian ways.
The judgment will unravel and bring out all the strands and the duplicity of those intrigues, so cleverly hatched; it will set out in their true light all those base repudiation of principles, those craven acts of complicity, that men invested with public authority have sought to justify, whether by invoking the specious reasons of state, or by covering them up with the mask of piety or disinterestedness. The Lord, says St. Bernard, will reveal all those abuses people concealed from themselves, all those unknown dissipations, those planned crimes where the only thing lacking was the actual commission; those pretended virtues and those forgotten, secret sins, blotted out from the memory, will appear suddenly, like enemies darting out form an ambush: Prodient ex improvisio et quasi ex insidiis.
Without doubt there are men so hardened in evil that the thought of this terrible manifestation has little effect upon them. Being familiar with crime, they treat it as a subject of amusement and boasting. They probably boast in assessing the judgment with the same insolence, to defy by their cynical and arrogant attitude the majesty of God and the conscience of [mankind]. Vain hope! sin will no longer be viewed from the opinion of carnal men, ready to excuse the most violent outbursts because they do not harm any neighbor, either in his goods or in his life.The foulness and disorder of sin will be revealed in the ineffable clarity of the light of God. Sin, says St. Thomas, will be judged as God Himself judges it: Tunc confusio, respicie aestimationem Dei quae secundum veritatem est de peccato.
Three main classes of men will draw attention to themselves. The first of these will be the sons of justice and light, whose merits and good works will be extolled, and given public praise and approval by the perspicacious and infallible Judge, whose testimony can admit of no error or contradiction.
In the second class will be the sons of Voltaire, the leaders of free-thought and revolution who, at the present time, are hatching dark and sacrilegious plots against Christ and His Church. They will be terror-stricken, and they will tremble with unspeakable horror, when they see appear in His glory and omnipotence Him whom they had wished to crush, whom they had stigmatized by calling Him the enemy, fool, and the infamous one. They will utter a final scream of rage and malediction, crying out like Julian the Apostate: Thou hast conquered, Galilean!
Finally, the third category of men who will be given special attention at the judgment will be composed of the sons of Pilate, the worshipers of the golden calf and the chameleons of wealth and power. Clouds without water, as St. Jude calls them, drifting along with every opinion and doctrine, with no other religious or political compass than that of their ambition, always ready to ride rough-shod over their conscience and their principles; speculating on the blood of souls, for lack of gold, and delivering up Christ like the Roman money-lender, in order to purchase the honors and goodwill of the master of the moment.
This hideous, repellent type recurs continuously, with the same characteristics, at every period of crisis and social unrest. St. John, in his Gospel, has popularized this archetype of lying and cowardice in a figure of speech forever popular and living, in which all our Pilates in legislation and government, who sell the just man for the sake of procuring favors and lucrative honors, will be eternally recognized. Such men as these will learn at the judgment that it is not expedient to serve two masters. They will curse the straw Caesars to which they rendered that which they refused to render to God, and will exclaim: Ergo erravimus. We have erred then." (Father Charles Arminjon,The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life, translated by Susan Conroy and Peter McEnerny. Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2008, pp. 101-104.)
The bishops and most of the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X are going "peep" right now to their "master of the moment," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, a man who has openly, brazenly denied the nature of dogmatic truth with his doctrinally condemned and philosophically absurd "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," thereby denying the very nature of God Himself, a man who has praised false religions and their nonexistent "ability" to "contribute" to the "betterment" of the world, a man who endorses such things as religious liberty and separation of Church and State that the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, for all of his inconsistency in his dealing with the conciliar Vatican, defended with admirable zeal and valor even to Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger's very face:
Under pressure, Rome gave in. On July 14, Cardinal Ratzinger received Archbishop Lefebvre at the Holy Office. At first the Cardinal persisted in arguing that "the State is competent in religious matters."
"But the State must have an ultimate and eternal end," replied the Archbishop.
"Your Grace, that is the case for the Church, not the State. By itself the State does not know."
Archbishop Lefebvre was distraught: a Cardinal and Prefect of the Holy Office wanted to show him that the State can have no religion and cannot prevent the spread of error. However, before talking about concessions, the Cardinal made a threat: the consequence of an illicit episcopal consecration would be "schism and excommunication."
"Schism?" retorted the Archbishop. "If there is a schism, it is because of what the Vatican did at Assisi and how you replied to our Dubiae: the Church is breaking with the traditional Magisterium. But the Church against her past and her Tradition is not the Catholic Church; this is why being excommunicated by a liberal, ecumenical, and revolutionary Church is a matter of indifference to us."
As this tirade ended, Joseph Ratzinger gave in: "Let us find a practical solution. Make a moderate declaration on the Council and the new missal a bit like the one that Jean Guitton has suggested to you. Then, we would give you a bishop for ordinations, we could work out an arrangement with the diocesan bishops, and you could continue as you are doing. As for a Cardinal Protector, and make your suggestions."
How did Marcel Lefebvre not jump for joy? Rome was giving in! But his penetrating faith went to the very heart of the Cardinal's rejection of doctrine. He said to himself: "So, must Jesus no longer reign? Is Jesus no longer God? Rome has lost the Faith. Rome is in apostasy. We can no longer trust this lot!" To the Cardinal, he said:
"Eminence, even if you give us everything--a bishop, some autonomy from the bishops, the 1962 liturgy, allow us to continue our seminaries--we cannot work together because we are going in different directions. You are working to dechristianize society and the Church, and we are working to Christianize them.
"For us, our Lord Jesus Christ is everything. He is our life. The Church is our Lord Jesus Christ; the priest is another Christ; the Mass is the triumph of Jesus Christ on the cross; in our seminaries everything tends towards the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. But you! You are doing the opposite: you have just wanted to prove to me that our Lord Jesus Christ cannot, and must not, reign over society.
Recounting this incident, the Archbishop described the Cardinal's attitude: "Motionless, he looked at me, his eyes expressionless, as if I had just suggested something incomprehensible or unheard of." Then Ratzinger tried to argue that "the Church can still say whatever she wants to the State," while Lefebvre, the intuitive master of Catholic metaphysics, did not lose sight of the true end of human societies: the Reign of Christ." Fr. de Tinguy hit the nail on the head when he said of Marcel Lefebvre: "His faith defies those who love theological quibbles." (His Excellency Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, The Biography of Marcel Lefebvre, Kansas City, Missouri: Angelus Press, 2004, pp. 547-548.)
Where is Bishop Fellay's outrage in defense of the Social Reign of Christ the King? Oh, you say that he is defending Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Social Kingship by means of his representatives in their negotiations with the representatives of William "Cardinal" Levada? That's nice, except for the fact that there is never any need to "negotiate" on points of Catholic doctrine with representatives of the Catholic Church.
The Society of Saint Pius X is founded in the false belief that it is possible and even is necessary to sift the words and actions of men who claim to be true "popes" and to compare those words and actions with those of the popes of the past. Indeed, the Society of Saint Pius X sees itself as the vessel anointed by God to do this work of sifting the words and actions of men they have recognized as true "popes" as its bishops and priests "compare" those words and actions with what they call "the supreme magisterium" of Tradition.
Although it took me a few years to divest myself of this Gallicanism, I have indeed learned that it is never necessary to seek to "convert" a true Successor of Saint Peter as it not possible for there to be "heretical" popes (see the section from Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki's Tumultuous Times provided in Story Time in Econe). The Catholic Church brings forth the teaching that she has received from her Divine Founder and Invisible Head in precise fidelity to the spirit expressed by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928:
For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
The very fact that there is a "need' for "negotiations" on the teachings of the "Second" Vatican Council and the conciliar "pontiffs" proves the apostate nature of conciliarism as the doctrines of the Faith "remain intact forever" "that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men."
Indeed, the Society of Saint Pius X's belief that Catholics are not bound by all pronouncements made by a true pope or issued with his approval by the authority of the Catholic Church has been condemned by Pope Pius IX in The Syllabus of Errors:
22. The obligation by which Catholic teachers and authors are strictly bound is confined to those things only which are proposed to universal belief as dogmas of faith by the infallible judgment of the Church. -- Letter to the Archbishop of Munich, "Tuas libenter," Dec. 21, 1863. (Proposition condemned by Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.)
The Society of Saint Pius X's belief that it is necessary for various bishops or a council not convened by a true pope to review the words and actions of a legitimate Successor of Saint Peter has been condemned by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794:
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.
The Society of Saint Pius X has considered itself to be a "check" upon the sacramental rites authorized by and the statements made and the actions committed by men they have considered to be true, valid and legitimate Successors of Saint Peter. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, however, founded the Catholic Church upon the rock of Peter, the Pope, not upon the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X. It is without precedent for a society of apostolic life that has not had a "canonical mission" to exercise any ministry within the Catholic Church for over thirty-three years to serve as "check" on the theological orthodoxy and the liturgical reverence exhibited by men deemed to be true popes. Is it necessary for the infallible guidance of God the Holy Ghost that is guaranteed to Holy Mother Church to be augmented by the Society of Saint Pius X? This is without precedent in the history of the Catholic Church.
Father Schmidberger admitted in an interview last year with the Catholic News Agency of Germany that the Society of Saint Pius X desires to provide "medicine" to the "pope" and his "bishops" even though they may not realize that they are need the Society's "medical" assistance:
KNA: More ordinations are planned for the coming weekend, although Rome has said that they are illicit. Why do you insist on these ordinations?
Schmidberger: The highest law of the Church is the salvation of souls. The faithful have the right to the celebration of the traditional form of the Mass. It is all about providing priests that desire to proclaim the gospel. The ordinations are not meant to be an affront to anybody. They are actually being done to help the Pope and the bishops, but they are acting like sick people who refuse to take the medicine that would help the improve their health.
KNA: And so you claim the role of physician.
Schmidberger: Yes that is true. Tradition is the only guide to bringing the Church out of the present crisis. In 1950, 13 million Catholics [in Germany] went to Sunday Mass. Now it is just under 2 million. That is a drop of 85 percent. In ten years all of the Churches will be empty. Is that what the bishops want? What is going to happen to our children? It is about preserving Christianity in the West. (Fr. Schmidberger: 'In the direction of Tradition)
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI sees his role as a physician as well! He wants to "heal" the Society of Saint Pius X of "one-sided" positions so that they will learn to "broaden" their "vistas" just as other traditionally-minded Catholics in the conciliar structures have been pacified as a result of the 1984 and 1988 "indults" granted by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and his own Summorum Pontificum, which was issued on July 7, 2007:
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 ON REMISSION OF EXCOMMUNICATION LEFEBVRE BISHOPS)
As we can see very clearly, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's dose of "sleepy-time" medicine is already taking its effect on the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X as they have learned how to be as silent about the offenses listed above that Ratzinger/Benedict has given to the honor and majesty and glory of the Most Holy Trinity. Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior-General of the Society of Saint Pius X, and Father Schmidberger have been as silent as have Bishop Fernando Rifan of the Society of Saint John Mary Vianney and Father John Berg of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter and Monsignor Gilles Wach of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest and every other traditionally-minded priest or presbyter attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism about the apostasies and blasphemies committed by Ratzinger/Benedict during pilgrimage to Jordan and Israel between May 8, 2009, to May 15, 2009.
Ratzinger/Benedict wants to pacify the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X by giving them a "personal prelature" somewhat along the lines of Opus Dei, something admitted by Father Schmidberger in his German news agency interview last year, while at the same time reassuring his "ultra-progressive" conciliar "bishops" that their own participation in this exercise of pacification will help to institutionalize acceptance of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the "post-conciliar" popes and of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service. Ratzinger/Benedict wants to put an end to the totally baseless suspicions of those "ultra-progressive" bishops that he, the false "pontiff," desires to use the Society of Saint Pius X to undo the "council" when his goal is to purchase silence from the Society of Saint Pius X about conciliarism in exchange for a place in a little corner of the conciliar "zoo," to borrow a phrase used by Bishop Fellay himself in a sermon he gave at Christ the King Church in Ridgefield, Connecticut, on Sunday, November 7, 2004. Ratzinger/Benedict believes in his "diversity in unity" as the model for "false ecumenism" with non-Catholics and as the basis for "reconciling" "diverse" views and practices within the conciliar church.
Gone is any word of criticism from the leaders of the Society of Saint Pius X who used to froth and foam at the mouth at the mere mention of the words "Novus Ordo." Archbishop Lefebvre once called the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service and its associated "rites" as "bastard" rites. No such word of criticism is heard now from Econe, Switzerland, or Kansas City, Missouri, or Winona, Minnesota, or Ridgefield, Connecticut. It's the "party line" that matters.
Alas, the belief that the Catholic Church can give us liturgical rites that are incentives to impiety that need to be "reworked" so that their "sacrificial nature" can be "explicitly expressed" has been condemned by the Council of Trent:
CANON VII.--If any one saith, that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs, which the Catholic Church makes use of in the celebration of masses, are incentives to impiety, rather than offices of piety; let him be anathema. (Session Twenty-Two, Chapter IX, Canon VII, Council of Trent, September 17, 1562, CT022.)
It is also evil to maintain that a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter can give us false or "ambiguous" doctrines and defective liturgies. It is impossible to reconcile the "ambiguities" and errors of the "Second" Vatican Council and of the conciliar "popes" with this aforementioned passage from Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos:
For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
There is little from the counterfeit church of conciliarism that is brought to the faithful "with ease and security to the knowledge of men," which is in and of itself proof positive of its apostate nature. There is much that the conciliar "popes" and their "bishops" have done to undermine and, at times, to entirely contradict the patrimony of the Faith, including when Joseph Ratzinger, acting as "Pope" Benedict XVI in the Rome synagogue on Sunday, January 17, 2010,, referenced The Jewish People and Their Scriptures in the Christian Bible, May 24, 2001, which includes a preface written by himself in which he stressed that a "Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one":
First it declares that “the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Scriptures of the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading, which developed in parallel fashion” (no. 22). It adds that Christians can learn a great deal from a Jewish exegesis practised for more than 2000 years; in return, Christians may hope that Jews can profit from Christian exegetical research (ibid.). I think this analysis will prove useful for the pursuit of Judeo-Christian dialogue, as well as for the interior formation of Christian consciousness. (Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to The Jewish People and Their Scriptures in the Christian Bible, May 24, 2001.)
This is what "Pope" Benedict XVI reiterated in the Rome synagogue, Bishop Fellay, four and one-half months ago. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, why have not you defended the integrity of the Catholic Faith? What true pope of the Catholic Church has ever spoken thus?
Enough of this madness. Catholics will never go "peep" in the face of defections from the Faith or in the face of the blasphemies committed by Ratzinger/Benedict against the honor and glory and majesty of God. The saint whose feast was commemorated yesterday, Saint Athanasius, did not do so? Why should we?
Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., provided us with a reflection on the life of Saint Athanasius that should inspire us to reject the conciliarists just as Saint Athanasius reject the Arians, making no compromise in the slightest to those who are enemies of Christ the King and thus of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of Holy Cross:
The Court of our divine King, during his grandest of seasons, is brilliant beyond measure; and to-day, it is gladdened by the arrival of one of the most glorious champions of the world of truth for his holy cause. Among the guardians of the word of truth, confided by Jesus to the earth, is there one more faithful than Athanasius? Does not his very name remind us of dauntless courage in the defense of the sacred deposit, of heroic firmness and patience in suffering, of learning, of talent, of eloquence--in a word, of everything that goes to from a Saint, a Bishop, and a Doctor of the Church? Athanasius lived for the Son of god; the cause of the Son of God was that of Athanasius; he who blessed Athanasius, blessed the eternal Word; and he who insulted Athanasius insulted the eternal Word.
Never did our holy faith go through a greater ordeal than in the sad times immediately following the peace of the Church, when the bark of Peter had to pass through the most furious storm that hell has, so far, let loose against her. Satan had vainly sought to drown the Christian race in a sea of blood; the sword of persecution had grown blunt in the hands of Diocletian and Galerius; and the Cross appeared in the heavens, proclaiming the triumph of Christianity. Scarcely had the Church become aware of her victory when she felt herself shaken to her very foundation. Hell sent upon the earth a heresy which threatened to blight the fruit of three hundred years of martyrdom. Arius began his impious doctrine, that he who had hitherto been adored as the Son of God was only a creature, though the most perfect of all creatures. Immense was the number, even of the clergy, that fell into this new error; the Emperors became its abettors; and had not God himself interposed, men would soon have set up the cry throughout the world that the only result of the victory gained by the Christian religion was to change the object of idolatry, and put a new idol, called Jesus, in place of the old ones.
But he who had promised that the gates of hell should never prevail against his Church, faithfully fulfilled his promise. The primitive faith triumphed; the Council of Nicaea proclaimed the Son to be consubstantial with the Father; but the Church stood in need of a man in whom the cause of the consubstantial Word should be, so to speak, incarnated--a man with learning enough to foil the artifices of heresy, and with courage enough to bear every persecution without flinching. This man was Athanasius; and everyone that adores and loves the Son of God, should love and honour Athanasius. Five times banished from his See of Alexandria, he fled for protection to the West, which justly appreciated the glorious confessor of Jesus' divinity. In return for the hospitality accorded him by Rome, Athanasius gave her of his treasures. Being the admirer and friend of the great St. Antony, he was a fervent admirer of the monastic life, which, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, had flourished so wonderfully in the deserts of his vast patriarchate. He brought the precious seed to Rome, and the first monks seen there were the ones introduced by Athanasius. The heavenly plant became naturalized in its new soil; and though its growth was slow at first, it afterwards produced fruit more abundantly than it had ever done in the East.
Inspiring words for our own day. May Saint Athanasius help us to persevere in our unswerving fealty to the Holy Faith without any concessions made to conciliarism whatsoever.
Today, May 3, 2010, is the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross by Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, who saw the Sign of the Cross in the sky and was given by Our Lord Himself to know
"In hoc signo vinces" ("In this sign you will conquer"). Let us turn again to Dom Prosper Gueranger for a stirring account of this feast day:
It was most just that our divine King should show himself to us with the sceptre of his power, to the end that nothing might be wanting to the majesty of his empire. This sceptre is the Cross; and Paschal Time was to be the season for its being offered to him in glad homage. A few weeks back, and the Cross was shown to us to be the instrument of our Emmanuel's humiliation and as the bed of suffering whereon he died; but has he not since then conquered Death? and what is his cross now but a trophy of his victory? Let it then be brought forth to our gaze and let every knee bend before this sacred Wood, whereby our Jesus won the honour and praise we now give him!
On the day of his birth at Bethlehem we sang these words of the Prophet Isaias: A child is born unto us, and a son is given unto us, and his government is upon his shoulder. We have seen him carrying this Cross upon his shoulder; as Isaac carried the wood for his own immolation; but now it is no longer a heavy burthen. It is shining with a brightness that ravishes the eyes of the angels; and after having received the veneration of man as long as the world lasts, it will suddenly appear in the clouds of heaven, near the Judge of the living and the dead--a consolation to them that have loved it, but a reproach to such as have treated it with contempt or forgetfulness.
Our Saviour did not think the time between his Resurrection and Ascension a fitting one for glorying the instrument of his victory. The Cross was not to be brought into notice until it had subjected the world to him whose glory it so eloquently proclaimed. Jesus was three days in the tomb; his Cross is to lie buried, unknown to men, for three centuries: but it is to have its resurrection, and the Church celebrates this resurrection to-day. Jesus would, in his own good time, add to the joy of Easter by miraculously revealing to us this sacred monument of his love for mankind. He entrusts it to our keeping--it is to be our consolation--as long as the world lasts: is it not just that we should love and venerate it?
Never had Satan's pride with such a humiliation as when he saw the instrument of our perdition made the instrument of our salvation. As the Church expresses it in her Preface for Passiontide: 'He that overcame mankind by a Tree, was overcome by a Tree." Thus foiled, he vented his fury upon this saving Wood, which so bitterly reminded him both of the irresistible power of his conqueror and of the dignity of man who had been redeemed at so great a price. He would fain have annihilated the Cross; but knowing that this was beyond his power, he endeavoured to profane it, and hide it from view.He therefore instigated the Jews to bury it. At the foot of Calvary, not far from the sepulchre, was a deep hole. Into this was the Cross thrown, together with those of the two thieves, the Nails, the Crown of Thorns, and the Inscription or Title written by Pilate. The hole was then filled up with rubbish and earth, and the Sanhedrin exulted in the thought its having effaced the memory of the Nazarene. who could not save himself from the ignominious death of the Cross.
Forty years after this, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, the instruments of God's vengeance. The Holy Places were desecrated by idolaters. A small temple to Venus was erected on Calvary, and another to Jupiter over the Holy Sepulchre. By this, the pagans intended derision; whereas, they were perpetuating the knowledge of two spots of most sacred interest. When peace was restored under Constantine, the Christians had but to remove these pagan monuments, and their eyes behold the holy ground that had been bedewed with the Blood of Jesus, and the glorious Sepulchre. As to the Cross, it was not so easily found. The sceptre of our divine King was to be raised up from its tomb by a royal hand. The saintly Empress Helen, Constantine's mother, was chosen by heaven to pay to Jesus--and that, too, on the very spot where he had received his greatest humiliations--the honours which are due to him as the King of the world. Before laying the foundations of the Basilica of the Resurrection, this worthy follower of Magdalen and the other holy women of the sepulchre was anxious to discover the instrument of our salvation. The Jews had kept up the tradition of the site where it had been buried: the Empress had the excavations made accordingly. With what holy impatience she must have watched the works! and with what ecstasy of joy did she behold the redeeming Wood, which, though not at first distinguishable, was certainly one of the three Crosses that were found! She addressed a fervent prayer to the Saviour, who alone could reveal to her which was the trophy of his victory; the bishop, Macarinus, united his prayers with hers; and their faith was rewarded by a miracle that left them no doubt as to which was the true Cross.
This glorious work was accomplished and the Church was put in possession of the instrument of the world's Redemption. Both East and West were filled with joy at the news of this precious discovery, which heaven had set on foot, and which gave the last finish to the triumph of Christianity. Christ completed his victory over the pagan world by raising thus his standard--not a figurative one, but his own real standard--the Cross, which, up to that time, had been a stumbling-block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Gentiles; but before which every Christian is henceforth to bend his knee. . .
How dear, then, to us should this day be, which blends together the recollection of the Holy Cross and the joys of the Resurrection of that Jesus who by the Cross has won the throne to which we shall soon see him ascend! Let us thank our Heavenly Father for his having restored to mankind a treasure so immensely precious as is the Cross. Until the day comes for it to appear with himself in the clouds of heaven, Jesus has entrusted it to his Spouse, as a pledge of his second coming. On that day, he will collect together all the fragments by his divine power; and the tree of Life will then gladden the elect with its dazzling beauty, and invite them to eternal rest beneath its refreshing shade.
May we cling to the Cross of Our Divine Redeemer, praying as many Rosaries each day in this month of May as our state-in-life permits. The sufferings of this present life will pass. Christ the King will triumph over His enemies in the counterfeit church of conciliarism and in the world. Every extra moment we spend in prayer before Our King in the Most Blessed Sacrament and every extra set of mysteries of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary that we pray will help us to be more and more conformed to the likeness of Our Divine Redeemer, Who endured the Cross, heedless of Its shame, to redeem us and to make us members of His Catholic Church.
We must always remember that this is the time that God has appointed from all eternity for us to live and thus to sanctify and to save our immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church. The graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flows into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, are sufficient for us to handle whatever crosses--personal, social and ecclesiastical--that we are asked to carry. We must give thanks to God at all times for each of our crosses as we seek to serve Him through Our Lady in this time of apostasy and betrayal.
Remember the words of the late William C. Koneazny:
"Our Lady will come and throw the bums out!"
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of Fatima, 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.
See also: A Litany of Saints
