Canadian Cardinal “Ups the Ante” Against Mel Gibson’s Chaplain

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 18^th 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

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Vatican 1

Chapter 2. On the permanence of the primacy of blessed Peter in the Roman pontiffs

That which our lord Jesus Christ, the prince of shepherds and great shepherd of the sheep, established in the blessed apostle Peter, for the continual salvation and permanent benefit of the church, must of necessity remain for ever, by Christ's authority, in the church which, founded as it is upon a rock, will stand firm until the end of time [45] .

For no one can be in doubt, indeed it was known in every age that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the apostles, the pillar of faith and the foundation of the catholic church, received the keys of the kingdom from our lord Jesus Christ, the saviour and redeemer of the human race, and that to this day and for ever he lives and presides and exercises judgment in his successors the bishops of the holy Roman see, which he founded and consecrated with his blood [46] .

Therefore whoever succeeds to the chair of Peter obtains by the institution of Christ himself, the primacy of Peter over the whole church. So what the truth has ordained stands firm, and blessed Peter perseveres in the rock-like strength he was granted, and does not abandon that guidance of the church which he once received [

47] . For this reason it has always been necessary for every church--that is to say the faithful throughout the world--to be in agreement with the Roman church because of its more effective leadership. In consequence of being joined, as members to head, with that see, from which the rights of sacred communion flow to all, they will grow together into the structure of a single body

[48] . Therefore, if anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ the lord himself (that is to say, by divine law) that blessed Peter should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole church; or that the Roman pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy:let him be anathema.

**** When I read such posts of yours I am amazed and saddened. I can read these simple, dogmatic, declarative sentences and it is clear as a bell that those like yourself (I am not singling you out - there are several others on here who post like you)have ceased to believe.

What good is the old liturgy if it leads you into such grave errors and blinds you to dogmatic truths?

I have seen many like you (again, I am not singling you out) insist that it is only the old mass that will help preserve the Faith yet it is those who most fervently and frequently make this assertion who are the very ones who deny the Dogmatic Truths of Vatican 1.

PLease pray and think about this

The SSPX is hanging on to the lex orandi of 2k years

The 1962 Missal is 2000 years old?

From time immemorial the ecclesiastical hierarchy has exercised this right in matters liturgical. It has organized and regulated divine worship, enriching it constantly with new splendor and beauty, to the glory of God and the spiritual profit of Christians. What is more, it has not been slow - keeping the substance of the Mass and sacraments carefully intact - to modify what it deemed not altogether fitting, and to add what appeared more likely to increase the honor paid to Jesus Christ and the august Trinity, and to instruct and stimulate the Christian people to greater advantage.
The sacred liturgy does, in fact, include divine as well as human elements. The former, instituted as they have been by God, cannot be changed in any way by men. But the human components admit of various modifications, as the needs of the age, circumstance and the good of souls may require, and as the ecclesiastical hierarchy, under guidance of the Holy Spirit, may have authorized. This will explain the marvelous variety of Eastern and Western rites. Here is the reason for the gradual addition, through successive development, of particular religious customs and practices of piety only faintly discernible in earlier times. Hence likewise it happens from time to time that certain devotions long since forgotten are revived and practiced anew. All these developments attest the abiding life of the immaculate Spouse of Jesus Christ through these many centuries ... Private individuals, therefore, even though they be clerics, may not be left to decide for themselves in these holy and venerable matters ... the sacred liturgy, as We have said, is entirely subject to the discretion and approval of the Holy See ... No more can any Catholic in his right senses repudiate existing legislation of the Church to revert to prescriptions based on the earliest sources of canon law. Just as obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation. (Pius XII, Mediator Dei 49-50,58,60,63)

Of course, for Lefebvrists, divine Providence no longer oversees the Church: "Rome would remain far from the Tradition. And it would be the end of the Church ... his ideas are heretical ... and they lead to heresy ... it seems that the Holy Spirit has taken a vacation" (Msgr. Lefebvre, qtd. in 30 Days, 1988, July/August).

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