Posted on 02/03/2004 5:59:39 AM PST by NYer
ROME, FEB. 2, 2004 (Zenit.org).- The Society of St. Pius X founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre claims the Church is in "crisis" because of the ecumenical dialogue promoted after the Second Vatican Council.
The priestly fraternity made that point in a letter dated Jan. 6 and sent to several cardinals. Signed by Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the fraternity, and by four other bishops of the group, the letter was presented today during a press conference in Rome.
The letter presents a 47-page document entitled "From Ecumenism to Silent Apostasy: 25 Years of Pontificate" ("De l’oecuménisme à l’apostasie silencieuse, 25 ans de pontificat").
Even though John Paul II is keeping daily public engagements, the letter's signatories explain that "because of the aggravated state of health of the Holy Father, we have not written to him directly."
The document interprets the position of John Paul II and other Church figures on ecumenism as a sign of the loss of the Catholic Church's own identity by putting it on the same level with Christian denominations of other confessions.
No mention is made of the 2000 declaration "Dominus Iesus" on "The Uniqueness and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church," or of John Paul II's repeated rejection of this faulty view of ecumenism.
In a letter sent to Bishop Fellay on April 5, 2002, by Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy and president of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei," following contacts to overcome the fraternity's rupture with Rome, the cardinal referred to the "frontal attack" implied in the accusation addressed to the Pope of "having abandoned Tradition."
"It constitutes, in fact, a dangerous presumption to also judge the Supreme Authority" and, quoting Vatican Council I, the cardinal added that in these types of questions "we believe that no one can arrogate to himself the right to judge the Holy See."
In his 1988 apostolic letter "Ecclesia Dei," John Paul II stressed the "unlawful" ordination of bishops within the fraternity on the part of Archbishop Lefebvre, which constituted "a schismatic act." The archbishop died in 1991.
This doesn't surprise me. One of Williamson's "letters" is all about what women should and shouldn't wear.
He doesn't like pants, or culottes or anything that delineates the female form.
Of course, his concern is for the men who see the female form.
Williamson is a nutburger of the first order. He spent one of his goofy letters in a diatribe against The Sound of Music!
IOW, Williamson is a blatant anti-semite.
St. Mary's, Kansas, is a town driven by fear and controversy. When one father of a student at the academy talked of "Gestapo tactics," he meant that a moral tyranny rules the campus, that children are intimidated, brow-beaten, and informed upon by other children belonging to a perfectionist cadre called the Children of Mary. He means that people who disagree with Fr. Angles or cross him in any way are condemned from the pulpit, shunned and even physically threatened. Thirteen Academy students were expelled or suspended in the academic year 1990-91 for various imperfections in themselves or in their parents. Another 37 were withdrawn by distraught or shunned parents. A grandmother was refused Communion because her daughter had been shunned. A child was forced to kneel in the snow in the dead of winter for an hour as punishment for some minor infraction. Informants tell Fr. Angles if they spot a Society woman wearing pants in town. She and her family are then condemned from the pulpit. Children are taught to follow the rule of the priests and not their parents. If they follow their parents' authority instead, they are told that they are going to hell. They are told that their parents have satanic minds."
If you have read previous articles describing pernicious cults, you will recognize all the marks of a cult in the fortress at St. Mary's. A 10-year-old boy was brought to the clinic for a checkup. The doctor told the mother, "if I thought it would do any good, I'd turn you in for child abuse if you send that boy back to St. Mary's." The parents removed the boy from St. Mary's and placed him in public school, even though the priests taught the children that a child sent to public school would go to hell.
Psychological tests given public school entrants revealed a boy so traumatized that he was judged unable to function in a classroom setting. The family has now left the Society and left town.
Sandy Cossette's daughter planned to marry a young man from town who was not a Society member. She was denounced publicly from the pulpit. Her family was shunned. Now that family, still living in the town, is condemned to hell, according to the priests at St. Mary's. This type of supernatural sanction, perpetrated on strongly faithful Catholics, who know there is a heaven and a hell, and who have been taught that "Father is always right," is what brings St. Mary's right into line with the Moonies, the Hare Krishnas, the cult at Mount St. Michael, and all the other destructive cults that wield the stick of damnation over their flocks. "Outside the Society, there is no salvation," and anyone who crosses Fr. Angles is outside the Society. It is no wonder that one priest formerly associated with the Society describes St. Mary's as "a Jonestown waiting to happen."
A few members in the growing army of the ostracized, sick and tired of being threatened by Fr. Angles, have bought guns to protect their families. Meanwhile, a stalwart in the pro-Angles faction says that if criticism continues, "there will be blood on the streets of St. Mary's."
How have things comes to this pass? Not too long ago, a woman who had dared criticize Fr. Angles had an accident and went to the hospital. When she returned, she found her house had been burnt to the ground. There is no evidence that Fr. Angles and his henchmen were responsible, but they take a kind of spiritual credit for it. A woman caught wearing slacks received a letter from the administration saying "anyone who crosses Fr. Angles meets with tragedy," a reference to the house burning. This is the message that comes from the pulpit and spreads across the town to breed fear and, increasingly, a kind of desperate rage.
A couple months ago, a crony of Fr. Angles purchased a shipment of 15 or 20 SKS (Chinese) automatic rifles from a local gun dealer. An observer tells me that these guns are reappearing, one by one, in the hands of devoted Society members in the town. Not long ago, a friend went target shooting out by the Kansas river and ran into a bunch of these amateur marksmen trying to hone their skills. St. Mary's is not a happy town. It is a town face-to-face with the possibility of bloodshed.
The rehabilitation of Adolf Hitler is not just an aberration of Fr. Angles. The first American priest ordained into the Society of St. Pius X was one Father Gregory Post. One day, he took a plane flight and arrived at the San Jose, California, airport dressed in the fun regalia of an SS German army officer, complete with helmet, boots and swastika arm band. San Jose Pius X members who picked him up at the airport were indignant, and the then district superior of the society had to fly out to San Jose to reprimand the priest and cool off the situation.
There is a virulent sickness of hatred and Hitlerism running through the traditional Catholic movement. Why these folks have taken on the clothes of the very devil they detest is a matter for God to sort out. The strain runs through the Society of St. Pius X in France, whose priests see Marshall Petain as a hero and his pro-Nazi Vichy government of World War II as a paragon of virtue.
Do you deny the nuttiness of this Fr. Angeles?
And how can one calumniate Richard Williamson by quoting his very own words?
Wow. Thanks for posting this. I have seen a few sites with some scary stuff here and there, but your post is incredible. Certain evidence that the evil one is working hard on us all, and sometimes making way too much progress.
THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF FOLLOWERS OF ARCHBISHOP LEFEBVRE
From the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts -- The commentary is from the current issue of the magazine of the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Wth this document there can be no honest dissent on the illegal status of Lefebvrian clergy or the Society's schism.
THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF FOLLOWERS OF ARCHBISHOP LEFEBVRE
Annexe to Prot.N. 5233/96
Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts
NOTE: On the excommunication for schism which the adherents to the movement of Bishop Marcel Lefebvre incur.
1 . From the Motu Proprio "Ecclesia dei" of 2nd July 1988 and from the Decree "Dominus Marcellus Lefebvre" of the Congregation for Bishops, of 1st July 1988, it appears above all that the schism of Monsignor Lefebvre was declared in immediate reaction to the episcopal ordinations conferred on 30th June 1988 without pontifical mandate (cf CIC, Can. 1382). All the same it also appears clear from the aforementioned documents that such a most grave act of disobedience formed the consummation of a progressive global situation of a schismatic character.
2. In effect no. 4. of the Motu Proprio explains the nature of the "doctrinal root of this schismatic act," and no. 5. c) warns that a "formal adherence to the schism" (by which one must understand "the movement of Archbishop Lefebvre" ) would bring with it the excommunication established by the universal law of the Church (CIC, can. 1364 para.1). Also the decree of the Congregation for Bishops makes explicit reference to the "schismatic nature" of the aforesaid episcopal ordinations and mentions the most grave penalty of excommunication which adherence "to the schism of Monsignor Lefebvre" would bring with it.
3. Unfortunately, the schismatic act which gave rise to the Motu Proprio and the Decree did no more than draw to a conclusion, in a particularly visible and unequivocal manner - with a most grave formal act of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff - a process of distancing from hierarchical communion. As long as there are no changes which may lead to the re-establishment of this necessary communion, the whole Lefebvrian movement is to be held schismatic, in view of the existence of a formal declaration by the Supreme Authority on this matter.
4. One cannot furnish any judgement on the argumentation of Murray's thesis (see below) because it is not known, and the two articles which refer to it appear confused. However, doubt cannot reasonably be cast upon the validity of the excommunication of the Bishops declared in the Motu Proprio and the Decree. In particular it does not seem that one may be able to find, as far as the imputability of the penalty is concerned, any exempting or lessening circumstances. (cf CIC, can. 1323) As far as the state of necessity in which Mons. Lefebvre thought to find himself, one must keep before one that such a state must be verified objectively, and there is never a necessity to ordain Bishops contrary to the will of the Roman Pontiff, Head of the College of Bishops. This would, in fact, imply the possibility of "serving" the church by means of an attempt against its unity in an area connected with the very foundations of this unity.
5. As the Motu Proprio declares in no. 5 c) the excommunication latae sententiae for schism regards those who "adhere formally" to the said schismatic movement. Even if the question of the exact import of the notion of "formal adherence to the schism" would be a matter for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it seems to this pontifical Council that such formal adherence would have to imply two complementary elements:
a) one of internal nature, consisting in a free and informed agreement with the substance of the schism, in other words, in the choice made in such a way of the followers of Archbishop Lefebvre which puts such an option above obedience to the Pope (at the root of this attitude there will usually be positions contrary to the magisterium of the Church),
b) the other of an external character, consisting in the externalising of this option, the most manifest sign of which will be the exclusive participation in Lefebvrian "ecclesial" acts, without taking part in the acts of the Catholic Church (one is dealing however with a sign that is not univocal, since there is the possibility that a member of the faithful may take part in the liturgical functions of the followers of Lefebvre but without going along with their schismatic spirit).
6. In the case of the Lefebvrian deacons and priests there seems no doubt that their ministerial activity in the ambit of the schismatic movement is a more than evident sign of the fact that the two requirements mentioned above (n.5) are met, and thus that there is a formal adherence.
7. On the other hand, in the case of the rest of the faithful it is obvious that an occasional participation in liturgical acts or the activity of the Lefebvrian movement, done without making one's own the attitude of doctrinal and disciplinary disunion of such a movement, does not suffice for one to be able to speak of formal adherence to the movement. In pastoral practice the result can be that it is more difficult to judge their situation. One must take account above all of the person's intentions, and the putting into practice of this internal disposition. For this reason the various situations are going to be judged case by case, in the competent forums both internal and external.
8. All the same, it will always be necessary to distinguish between the moral question on the existence or not of the sin of schism and the juridical-penal question on the existence of the delict of schism, and its consequent sanction. In this latter case the dispositions of Book V1 of the Code of Canon Law (including Cann.1323-1324) will be applied.
9. It does not seem advisable to make more precise the requirements for the delict of schism (but one would need to ask the competent Dicastery, cf. Ap. Const. "Pastor Bonus", art 52). One might risk creating more problems by means of rigid norms of a penal kind which would not cover every case, leaving uncovered cases of substantial schism, or having regard to external behaviour which is not always subjectively schismatic.
10. Always from the pastoral point of view it would also seem opportune to recommend once again to sacred pastors all the norms of the Motu Proprio "Ecclesia Dei' with which the solicitude of the Vicar of Christ encouraged to dialogue and has provided the supernatural and human means necessary to facilitate the return of the Lefebvrians to full ecclesial communion.
Vatican City, 24th August 1996.
No, it doesn't accuse him of apostasy, but of promoting a false ecumenism which has led to a situation which he himself described as "the silent apostasy of Europe." This fact seems irrefutably obvious.
RM
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