Posted on 09/11/2004 6:35:23 AM PDT by Land of the Irish
www.RemnantNewspaper.com
Canadian Cardinal “Ups the Ante” Against Mel Gibson’s Chaplain:
Father Somerville Responds Again
August 18, 2004
Rev. Stephen F. Somerville
Queensville, Ontario
Dear Father Somerville,
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Trebuchet MS'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">I wish to acknowledge receipt of your letter of August 12 in which you respond to my letter of suspension of July 15. I notice that, in the meantime, the letter of suspension and prior correspondence have been published on www.RemnantNewspaper.com
The only manner in which you can persuade me to revoke the suspension is by fulfilling the following conditions and this without any kind of qualification:
1. You write all the priests who have been sent your letter endorsing the publication Priest Where is Thy Mass? Mass Where is Thy Priest? and recant your endorsation;
2. You sever all ties with the Society of St. Pius X;
3. You make a declaration of fidelity to Pope John Paul II and your Archbishop;
4. You affirm the authenticity of the teaching of Vatican II;
5. You affirm the validity of the Eucharist celebrated according to all the Canons approved by the Church.
The conditions 2 to 5 are to be fulfilled in writing and sent to my address by August 31. Condition 1 is to be fulfilled in writing to all the addressees by the same date. We wish to see the text of your message before it is sent.
I am sorry it has come to this; we have known each other for a long time. But my fidelity to the Catholic truth gives me no choice but to suspend you. To all your pettifogging arguments I answer with St. Augustine's chief reply to the self-righteously pure Donatist sect, Securus indicat orbis terrarum.
Wishing you all the best, I remain,
Sincerely yours,
Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic
Archbishop of Toronto
Father Somerville Responds
Most Reverend Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic Archbishop of Toronto
23 August 2004
Your Eminence,
I acknowledge hereby your letter of 18 August further to the matter of my suspension and presenting five conditions requiring my unqualified fulfillment.
It was not my intention to cause you annoyance by letting our correspondence appear on the Remnant newspaper’s website and pages. Even though that consequence might have been foreseen. The Editor, Mr. Michael Matt, took his steps as a responsible journalist, and I learned of the result – by a print-out copy from a friend – only on 8 August. I had seen a number of such publishings of written theological disagreements between a bishop and a priest and sometimes a canonist in recent issues of the traditional Catholic magazines.
Much as it is dismaying to see in print this lack of Catholic accord between some priests and the hierarchy, I cannot regret the fact that such cases, my own included, have become rather public because the disagreements are serious in my judgment, as, I hope, in yours too, they touch on the truths of the faith, and express in deliberate language some aspects of the crisis in the Church since the Second Vatican Council. Without careful argument in print by responsible persons and media organs, vital truths might remain hidden or confused, even for intelligent Catholic laity as well as clergy. I have learned a great deal in these last three years since my relatively sudden and deeply moving rediscovery of Catholic Tradition, starting in those five weeks I spent (August 2001) in Houston Texas doing parish-like work and reading many books. You may remember that after my November 28, 2003 meeting with your chancellor, Msgr. John Murphy, I supplied him with a list— for your perusal also – of some 46 books and pamphlets on Tradition and Church crisis that I had acquired and read. I have today many more such books resting on my library shelves.
To exemplify the danger to the Faith, I can hardly do better than point to the big three themes of the Conciliar Church: Religious Liberty, Collegiality and Ecumenism. People are now conditioned to take these three ideas for granted, to see them as progress, as "good things" for the Church. Of course the Vatican II theologians lauded them. But all three are in need of much caveat and criticism. All are novelties in the Church. All were treated severely by earlier Popes. And they show a striking correspondence to the three-fold motto of that cruelly destructive disaster, the French Revolution of the late 18th century, that is, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.”
I will not further pursue the various theological arguments. But some have been illuminated in our more-than-two-sided correspondence. They might well have been left in the shade if we had been content with a face-to-face settling of our concerns. Your Eminence seems to have a reputation for dominating the conversation with an offending priest. This may have some merit. But forty years after Vatican II, we need a public debate over the consequences of that Council, with serious preparatory reading and study by all participants, and serious appraisal of the achievements of the Traditional Church.
You speak of “(your) fidelity to the Catholic truth” on the one hand, with sweeping bows to “fidelity to Pope John Paul”, “authenticity of the teaching of Vatican II”, “the validity (of the new approved ways) of the Eucharist” and on the other hand you dismiss my efforts to illustrate the Church crisis as “pettifogging arguments.” It seems that your approach does not advance “the love of the truth” (2 Thess 2: 10) but rather an unhelpful, stern control. Forgive me for this tentative criticism. Your five conditions for revoking the suspension seem to require a suspending of my hardly acquired understanding of current Church theologies, and certainly a straining of my Catholic conscience, difficult enough to attempt at leisure, but all the less manageable within the few days you grant me before 31 August.
I note that conditions 4 and 5 are the points demanded by the Vatican for the reconciliation of the traditional priests of the Society of St Pius X, conditions they have been unable in Catholic honesty to meet. The SSPX also lays down two conditions to open the discussion: the lifting of the 1988 excommunications of their bishops and the freedom for all priests to say at any time the traditional Mass as it was up to 1962. Do these violate the Catholic conscience of the Vatican authorities?
It is true, as you indicate, that the orbis terrarum Catholic majority accepts the new Catholic order of things. But not by informed judgment (securus judicat). Rather, by somnolent unawareness, because traditional Catholic magazines and books are banned from their churches and bookstores. Liberate that literature and you will see a surge in traditional Catholic numbers.
I lay down my pen for the time being. May the Lord who sent the twelve apostles now send us prophets and thinkers and saints to restore the Church, the shining Truth and the kingdom of Christ.
Respectfully in Him,
(Rev.) Stephen Somerville
Father Somerville Appeals to Rome Once More
His Eminence Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos Prefect - Congregation for the Clergy Vatican City
23 August 2004
Your Eminence,
The letter of August 10, accompanying this present letter is, as you will see, a copy of my formal letter of recourse for requesting the lifting of my suspension by my Ordinary, Cardinal Ambrozic. I send you this copy simply to be sure that my appeal is registered in your office. The original letter was mailed to Cardinal Ambrozic, my Ordinary, following his chancellor's instruction.
Cardinal Ambrozic has written again to me, in evident annoyance because the Editor of The Remnant chose to publish our correspondence on his website and in print (15 Aug. 04). The Cardinal’s five new conditions for revocation are much sterner, but I do not lose hope for eventual resolution of this conflict. I am enclosing copies of the full correspondence between us, for your fullest convenience and information, with apologies for the many pages.
While not admitting to any fault, I understand, Your Eminence, that my rights in the Church may have been unrecognized in that I have not been advised re: requesting revocation or modification of the decree (c. 1734§ 1), re: services of an advocate (c. 1723), or whether one would be provided.
In the Autumn of 2002, I had the honour of an invitation to be the Catholic priest chaplain of a well-known traditional Catholic, Mel Gibson, during the shooting of the film The Passion of The Christ in Rome. Every morning Mr. Gibson served my Mass and counted on this to obtain God's graces for himself and his actors before he went on the set to start work. The result has been a monumental film, breaking records all over the world, inspiring conversions, and reviving the precious Catholic devotion to the Passion. Yet a number of Catholic clergy had belittled this film from their universalist and modernist viewpoint, certainly not for the good of souls.
The traditional Catholic Mass is closer to the Passion in its frequent affirmations of the Body and Blood of Christ as genuine sacrifice offerings to God, unabashed by the modem pressure to see only a memorial of the Last Supper. We discern here a need to strengthen the place of the traditional Mass in the Church.
With prayers for your work in the Church, I am,
Respectfully yours in Domino
Rev. Stephen Somerville
Maybe your attacks on the Pope and the Mass are attempts to justify your loss of Faith?
3. In itself, this act was one of disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience - which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy - constitutes a schismatic act.(3) In performing such an act, notwithstanding the formal canonical warning sent to them by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops on 17 June last, Mons. Lefebvre and the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta, have incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law.
I can see who is rational and who is not and who it makes no sense to try and have an exchange with.
The fact that one is dealing with a translation is no excuse for lapsing into relativism.
A translation can be completely accurate, completely inaccurate, somewhere in the middle, or maliciously deceptive.
I've been a professional translator for 16 years, and I think I know where the potholes are.
There is a great difference in the accuracy of the two versions I discussed. The Douay is accurate; the other is maliciously deceptive.
You just sail down your Egyptial river as you like; I'll discuss things with those who have the wit to distinguish between solid waste and shinola.
Who are you, the energizer bunny?
You post six messages without waiting for a single reply, and then talk about having an "exchange" with someone?
sorry. You are right. I was up early today and I was amazed at what I was reading. I should have waited for replies. My apologizes to you and everyone else, especially ultima ratio.
It's getting late on this side of the dateline, and I'm tired. Let me just pose these questions before I disappear for a few hours.
Is it true, or is it false, that the Catholic Church has had in its history bad popes and bad bishops?
Since it is undeniably true that we have had bad bishops and popes in the past, what is so outre about believing that to be true today?
We were not promised impeccable men. We were promised an indefectible Church.
It is amazing to me so many on your side make such a fundamental mistake yet are so vicious and judgemental towards the Pope and the Mass.
Talk about motes and beams.
I disagree however that there would have been the same results with the mass of St. Pius V and the reason is simple - that Mass was the only thing between truth and error, it was our #1 line of defense against the atrocities that we see as common place since its removal. Once the Holy Sacrifice was replaced with the Communal Gathering, our defense was replaced with the welcoming of error.
In the same Audience he states that Mass can still be offered in Latin and also
This is but one example of the contradictory nature of the results of the Council. To say in one breath that latin is gone, then in the next say its still here, only serves to confuse clergy and laity alike. Such contradictions are rampant throughout the decrees of the Council and serve to only allow error to be confused with the truth, to promote change for the sake of change and to confuse the laity and clergy without discrimination.
The problems associated with the changes were obvious in a very short time, as demonstrated below:
The innovations in the Novus Ordo and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place--if it subsists at all--could well turn into a certainty the suspicion, already prevalent, alas in many circles, that truths which have always been believed by the Christian people can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound forever. The recent reforms have amply demonstrated that new changes in the liturgy could not be made without leading to complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful, who already show signs of restiveness and an indubitable lessening of their faith. Among the best of the clergy, the result is an agonizing crisis of conscience, numberless instances of which come to us daily. - A. Card. Ottaviani A. Card. Bacci 25 September 1969
But it is special, aside from it being beautiful and the language of the Church, it is a dead language - a type of automatic safeguard against change, which is why it has no place in the N.O.
I have actually attended the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass said entirely in english by an old priest who only thought he remembered his latin - until he tried to say the Mass that is.
The fact is, there was no reason to ever change anything about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - let alone replace it entirely. As night divides the day, the new mass, whether its in the vernacular or in latin, obviously divides as it obviously does not unify. If the new liturgy continues on its current path of "divide and conquer", can you imagine what it will be like in another 40 years?
This is patent nonsense. If you hang around traditionalist communities, you get the impression that the movement for the Latin Mass is much bigger than it actually is.
The truth is, out of 65 million American Catholics, those who attend a Tridentine Mass number less than 200,000.
The only ones dividing are the SSPX. If they had taken up Rome's offer for an apostolic prelature, where they would be free, like the FSSP, to offer the Tridentine Mass and have their own bishops, this would all be over.
But, you see, the SSPX has no desire to exist alongside the Novus Ordo. It wants to suppress the Novus Ordo, which is never going to happen.
So, you see, the rest of the Church is united behind the Novus Ordo while some tiny number of traditionalists jump up and down and insist that it is right and everybody else is wrong.
A Tridentine Rite would be a perfectly acceptable solution, but the SSPX won't stand for it.
Since the changes, there has not been one aspect of the faith that has seen any type of growth, only massive, therefore obvious decline.
In every area that is statistically verifiable — for example, the number of priests, seminarians, priestless parishes, nuns, Mass attendance, converts and annulments — the "process of decadence" is apparent.
I guess I can understand why people, when looking face to face with reality, will deny the obvious for personal reasons - but that does not change reality.
We've had this discussion on this board before, and it is a waste of time to pursue it.
You just stay with the SSPX, if it suits you.
"The truth is, out of 65 million American Catholics, those who attend a Tridentine Mass number less than 200,000. "
That 200,000 would go way up if it were made available in more places.
According to your way of thinking, all is well in the land of Oz and everyone wears a happy face - all the while, before your very eyes, the the defenses have been penetrated and the enemy can now operate with complete freedom from within - and that is whats real.
Without the Mass, this world cannot survive. As Padre Pio made famous his saying: "We can live without the sun, but without the Mass we cannot survive" - he was not speaking of the new liturgy, he was speaking about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Speak for yourself.
It does seem as though Fr. S. would have us believe that the Christian community of (say) 750 AD were all thoroughly informed of the theological issues, and had carefully weighed all of them, before accepting any Papal documents.
That's a strawman.
In reality, the sensus fidelium has a great deal to do with 'common sense' and very, very LITTLE to do with arguments over arcana.
We have The Mass. Your implication that the Novus Ordo is not The Mass is ridiculous.
I disagree.
I share your thoughts in general terms--that the NO was ill-concieved, implemented without sufficient pastoral judgment, and has subsequently been horribly abused by variously-agenda'ed groups of termites, snakes, pederasts, anti-nomians, and other scum-sucking detritus. Clear?
However, your statement above presumes that SSPX has valid arguments on several fronts, which is inaccurate. They do not, as has been shown here (and in far more pacific journals) countless times.
Thus, "bashers" are, in fact, defenders of the Church, contra your assertion.
You got some numbers to put behind that "flourishing" statement?
Psssst: the Tridentine Rite was canonized by the Pope FOLLOWING the council of Trent, around 1560AD or so.
Some elements of the Mass of Trent were extant as early as 100AD--many were not, but put in place though the influence of various local Churches--the Gallicans in particular.
There were also a number of tweaks and modifications to the MR/Trent made by (among others,) Pius XII as late as the 1950's, including modifications to the regulations surrounding the celebration of the Mass.
If you are claiming that the NO was fabricated from 'whole cloth,' your claim is inaccurate, too, as many of the prayers and forms of the prayers can be traced to established practices (some of Eastern Uniates) from early times.
IF, however, you wish to claim that there are some flaws, gross and egregious TRANSLATION errors, and a serious lack of recognition of 'sacred time, sacred space, sacred language' concepts in both the rubrics AND the surrounding regulations: you are correct.
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