Bishop Fellay on Pope Francis-"We have in front of us a genuine Modernist"

Bishop Fellay on Pope Francis - “We have in front of us a genuine Modernist!” 14/10/13 10:26 Bishop Fellay on Pope Francis “We have in front of us a genuine Modernist!”

Bishop Bernard Fellay warned on October 12, “The situation of the Church is a real disaster, and the present Pope is making it 10,000 times worse.”

He said this in an address at the Angelus Press Conference, the weekend of Oct 11-13, 2013, in Kansas City.

Bishop Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, gave an extensive lecture on Saturday afternoon that focused on the Third Secret of Fatima, and its apparent prediction of both a material chastisement and a great crisis in the Church.

This report will highlight some of the more dramatic aspects of the Bishop’s Saturday conference and his Sunday sermon.

Bishop Fellay quoted in detail Sister Lucia's words, those who have read the Third Secret, and those who have knowledge of the Secret. He noted Sister Lucia said that if we want to know the contents of the Third Secret, read chapters 8 through 13 of the Apocalypse.” (details of the Third Secret will be contained in the upcoming November edition of Catholic Family News)

Sister Lucia’s reference to Chapters 8 through 13 of the Apocalypse is particularly chilling, since the end of Chapter 13 speaks of the coming of Antichrist.

Bishop Fellay noted that Pope St. Pius X said at the beginning of his pontificate the ‘son of perdition’ may already be on the earth. He also noted the original prayer to Saint Michael of Pope Leo XIII mentions that Satan aims to establish his seat in Rome.

The bishop quoted Cardinal Luigi Ciapi, the Papal Theologian of all the Popes from Pius XII to John Paul II who said, “In the Third Secret we read among other things that the great apostasy in the Church begins at the top.”

He also spent a good bit of time on the famous and dramatic 1957 interview of Father Fuentes with Sister Lucia, in which she reiterated that “various nations will disappear from the face of the earth,” and that “the devil will do all in his power to overcome souls consecrated to God.”

Since the ministers of God are struck with this confusion and disorder, the faithful are left to fend for themselves for their own salvation. The help that should be provided by Churchmen is not there. This is “the greatest tragedy you can ever imagine for the Church.”

The times are very serious. We have to be serious about our salvation, “and to do this we are deprived of a very important element, which is the support of the [Church] authorities. What a tragedy.”

He spoke of Sister Lucia’s comforting words that God has given two last remedies for us: The Holy Rosary and Devotion to the Immaculate Heart.

Bishop Fellay alluded to the SSPX/Vatican drama of 2012: “When we see what is happening now [under Pope Francis] we thank God, we thank God, we have been preserved from any kind of Agreement from last year. And we may say that one of the fruits of the [Rosary] Crusade we did is that we have been preserved from such a misfortune. Thank God. It is not that we don’t want to be Catholics, of course we want to be Catholics and we are Catholics, and we have a right to be recognized as Catholics. But we are not going to jeopardize our treasures for that. Of course not.”

He continued, “To imagine that some people continue to pretend we are decided [still] to get an Agreement with Rome. Poor people. I really challenge them to prove they mean. They pretend that I think something else from what I do. They are not in my head.”

As for the discussions with Rome: “Any kind of direction for recognition ended when they gave me the document to sign on June 13, 2012. That very day I told them, ‘this document I cannot accept.’ I told them from the start in September the previous year that we cannot accept this ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ because it is not true, it is not real. It is against the reality. So we do not accept it. The Council is not in continuity with Tradition. It’s not. So when Pope Benedict requested that we accept that the Second Vatican Council is an integral part of Tradition, we say, ‘sorry, that’s not the reality, so we’re not going to sign it. We’re not going to recognize that’.”

“The same for the Mass. The want us to recognize not only that the [New] Mass is valid provided it is celebrated correctly, etc., but that it is licit. I told them: we don’t use that word. It’s a bit messy, our faithful have enough [confusion] regarding the validity, so we tell them, ‘The New Mass is bad, it is evil’ and they understand that. Period!’” Of course the Roman authorities “were not very happy with that.”

He continues, “It has never been our intention to pretend either that the Council would be considered as good, or the New Mass would be ‘legitimate’”.

“The [April 15, 2012] text we presented to Rome was a very, shall we say, delicate text that was supposed to be understood correctly; it was supposed to be read with a big principle which was leading the whole thing. This big principle was no novelty in the Church: ‘The Holy Ghost has not been promised to Saint Peter and his Successor in such a way that through a new revelation the Pope would teach something new, but under his help, the Pope would saintly conserve and faithfully transmit the deposit of the Faith.’ It belongs to the definition of infallibility [from Vatican I]. That was the principle, the base of the whole document, which excludes from the start any kind of novelty.

“And so take any kind of sentences from the text without this principle is just to take sentences that have never been our thinking and our life. These phrases in themselves are ambiguous, so to take away the ambiguity we wanted to put [in] this principle [from Vatican I]. Unfortunately, maybe that was too subtle and that’s why we withdrew that text, because it was not clear enough as it was written.

“So it is very clear our principle is always the same to stay faithful! We have received a treasure. This treasure does not ‘belong’ to us. We have received this treasure and we have to hand it to the next generation. And what is requested from us is faithfulness, fidelity. We do not have the right to jeopardize these treasures. These are the treasures we have in our hands and we are not going to jeopardize them."

Bishop Fellay returned to Sister Lucia’s 1957 statement that the Rosary and Devotion to the Immaculate Heart are the two last remedies God has given to mankind.

He said there is “definitely a ‘material’ chastisement of the world in sight. There is something big in front of us. "How? When? I have no idea. But if you put everything together, it is clear that God has had enough of the sins of man.”

He then spoke of those sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance, such as abortion, and the sins against nature, which was an allusion to the unnatural ‘re-definition’ of marriage and related sins. He also spoke of what appears to be a coming persecution of Christians.

“What do we do? Don’t panic, because panic is of no use at all. What you need to do is your job – your daily duty. That is the best way to prepare.”

He continued that we are in “very scary times” but we are not helpless. He noted the “the situation of the Church is a real disaster. And the present Pope is making it 10,000 times worse.”

“In the beginning of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, I said, ‘the crisis in the Church will continue, but the Pope is trying to put on the brakes.’ It’s as if to say, the Church will continue to fall, but with a parachute. And with the beginning of this [Pope Francis] pontificate, I say, ‘he cuts the strings, and he put a [downward] rocket’.”

“If the present Pope continues in the way he started, he is going to divide the Church. He’s exploding everything. So people will say: it is impossible that’s he’s the Pope, we refuse him. Others will say [and this is presently Bishop Fellay’s position]: “Wait, consider him as Pope, but don’t follow him. He’s provoking anger. Many people will be discouraged by what people in the Church do” and will be tempted to “throw it all away.”

But, he reminded, God is “much, much bigger than we are. God is able to have the Church continue” and even can work through these imperfect ministers. “But once again”, he repeats, “don’t follow them. Follow them when they say the truth, but when they tell you rubbish, you don’t” follow them on those points. “Any obedience to be true must be related to God. When I say I obey to a person” he should be a “a mirror of God.” But “when mirror tells me contrary of God, it is no longer a mirror, then I don’t follow him.”

Bishop Fellay noted that we cannot simply obey the present Popes without question, because then we would destroy ourselves, we would endanger our Faith.

Following the warning of Sister Lucia, Pope Leo XIII and Pius X, Bishop Fellay further warned that we may be entering into the time of Antichrist, but we cannot know when, or how far off in the future this may be.

Bishop Fellay returned to these themes at his Sunday sermon at the Pontifical High Mass offered at St. Vincent de Paul’s Church in Kansas city.

He amplified a few points regarding Fatima, the Secret, the 2012 drama with Rome, and then spoke of some of the many grave problems with Pope Francis.

“From the start,” he said, “we have the impression that we have something wrong with this Pope. From the start, he wanted to distinguish himself to be different from anybody else.”

A small example of this is Francis’ insistence on wearing black shoes instead of the red papal shoes, but this is minor compared to greater issues. We must look, said the bishop, at what is his vision of the Church, his vision of the Council, and what is his plan.

It was around the time of World Youth Day, late July of this year, that Francis began an avalanche of talks, interviews, phone calls, etc. “We may not have the entire picture at this point, we have enough to be scared to death.”

As is typical of the Modernist, as Pius X warned in Pascendi, the Modernist will sometimes speak in a heretical fashion, and then speak in an orthodox manner. Bishop Fellay gave the example of one of these contradictions:

He spoke of interview in early October that Pope Francis conducted with the atheist journalist Eugenio Scalfari in Rome’s La Repubblica wherein Francis appears to promote a dangerous relativism:

Scalfari: “Your Holiness, is there is a single vision of the Good? And who decides what it is?”

Pope Francis: “Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good.”

Scalfari: “Your Holiness, you wrote that in your letter to me. The conscience is autonomous, you said, and everyone must obey his conscience. I think that's one of the most courageous steps taken by a Pope.”

Pope Francis: “And I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place."

With a good deal of emotion, Bishop Fellay said of the Pope’s response: “That’s really not Catholic! Because whatever I think has absolutely no value if it does not fit with reality. We have a conscience, but it will only lead us to Heaven if our conscience is a mirror of God.” The conscience must be formed according to God’s law. “So to pretend that anyone can full his own idea is just rubbish,” said Fellay, “It has nothing to do with Catholic teaching. It is absolute relativism.”

About a week after this, however, Pope Francis spoke of the necessity of fighting the devil, the final battle with the devil, that nobody can fight the devil half way, and that we must fight relativism. Francis said the opposite of what he said to La Repubblica. “There is the contraction with him”.

Next: what is the vision of Pope Francis on Vatican II? This is found in his much-publicized recent, lengthy interview with the Jesuits, published in various publications throughout the world, and in the Jesuit’s America magazine in the United States

Bishop Fellay says that Pope Francis “takes it for granted that the Council was bright success. What was the main theme of the Council?” To re-read the Faith in light of modern culture. You could say, “to incarnate the Gospel in the modern world.” Francis “is very happy with this…” and believes “The Council brought forth many good fruits. The first example he gives is liturgy – the reformed liturgy. That is the beautiful fruit of the Council. That’s what he says. And he’s very happy with it.”

Francis tells us “this re-reading of the Gospel within the modern culture is irreversible, so we will not go back. We are in front of a major fight.”

Of the Old Mass, Francis speaks of the “Vetus Ordo” (Old Order). Francis believes that Pope Benedict probably helped restore the Old Mass as a prudential act for those who still hold to it. “But don’t expect Francis to come back to the Old Mass. Maybe he will ‘indulge’ it [let us celebrate it unmolested]. God knows.”

But Francis “sees there is a problem with this Old Mass. Because there are people who ideologize this Mass. Guess to whom he is aiming? I don’t need to say much. So what is going to happen with us? What I see: there is quite an obsession in him about those people who look to the past. Listen to the Pope’s words":

Pope Francis: “What is worrying, though, is the risk of the ideologization of the Vetus Ordo, its exploitation. … If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‘security,’ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists—they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies. I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life.”

Bishop Fellay continues, “The impression we have in the present Pope is that he has a zeal for the ‘more or less’, for the ‘about’; and he wants at all cost to escape what is too clear and too certain. But the Faith is like that [it is certain] because God is like that. Well, that’s not what he thinks.”

“If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. For me, this is an important key. If one has the answers to all the questions—that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt.”

Bishop Fellay exclaims in response: “What Gospel does he have? Which Bible does he have to say such things. It’s horrible. What has this to do with the Gospel? With the Catholic Faith? That’s pure Modernism, my dear brethren. We have in front of us a genuine Modernist.”

"How much time will be needed for people in the Church to stand up ‘by no means!’ [will we accept this new teaching]. I hope and pray this will happen. But that means an enormous division in the Church.”

He speaks of the Pope making a mess, and reminds us that this is what the Pope urged at world Youth Day: he urged the young people to “make a mess”. Bishop Fellay responds, ”Incredible. We have never heard of this [a Pope speaking like this]. But that’s what he wants."

Francis also tells us he is a greater admirer of the ultra liberal Jesuit Cardinal Martini (now deceased). Martini wrote a book calling for a total revolution in the Church. “And that is what Francis wants. And he told us the eight cardinal he chose to help him ‘reform’ the Church think like him."

Bishop Fellay says Pope Francis claims “very little has been done in this direction.” This is astounding, the bishop notes, because ecumenism has launched untold disaster to the Church, to Catholic nations. Yet the present Pope says, "very little, almost nothing has been done in this direction.”

As part of his summing up, Bishop Fellay says: “The mystery of the shadow on the Church has never been so great. We are in front of very hard times. Don’t have any illusions. And it is clear the only solution is to stick to what we have; to keep it, to not let it go by any means.

“Pope St. Pius X said that it was the essence of any Catholic to stick to the past. The present Pope says exactly the contrary: forget about the past; throw yourself into the uncertainty of the future.

“Definitely we need the Immaculate Heart of Mary. What are experiencing is the Secret of Fatima. We know what we have to do: pray, pray, pray, and penance, penance, penance. To pray to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the means given to us precisely in these hard times; and to pray the Rosary.

“Be certain,” says Bishop Fellay, “The next [Rosary] Crusade is not far off. Go to the Rosary. Pray it every day. We live in very dangerous time for the Faith, and we need this Heavenly protection.”

The Book of the Apocalypse? SSPX? What the hell is he talking about? Ehh.. Oh. He’s not Catholic. All so much clearer now.

“Tensions between the society and the Holy See reached their height in 1988, when Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops against the orders of Pope John Paul II, resulting in a declaration of excommunication against the bishops who consecrated or were consecrated, an excommunication remitted for those still alive in January 2009[4] with a hope expressed that all members of the society would quickly return to full communion.”

The bishop quoted Cardinal Luigi Ciapi, the Papal Theologian of all the Popes from Pius XII to John Paul II who said, “In the Third Secret we read among other things that the great apostasy in the Church begins at the top.”

Interesting. I never knew that quote. Personally I am not a devotee of the Fatima apparitions, and I am a little skeptical of any such events and claims. But, this quote is interesting, especially as, given the context of the references to the Apocalypse of John and the Third Secret, so called, it gives an indication of what Fellay is saying. I am guessing that he fears a general apostasy beginning with Pope Francis and working down through the Church. Interesting idea I suppose.

Bishop Fellay exclaims in response: “What Gospel does he have? Which Bible does he have to say such things. It’s horrible. What has this to do with the Gospel? With the Catholic Faith? That’s pure Modernism, my dear brethren. We have in front of us a genuine Modernist.”

I wish that I could disagree with this comment. Sadly, even if Fellay is wrong in every claim he makes about the faith (I don't think this is so, though I am not associated with the SSPX in any way) on this he seems to be right. Broken clocks and all that I suppose. We are heading into interesting times no doubt.

The Book of the Apocalypse? SSPX? What the hell is he talking about? Ehh.. Oh. He’s not Catholic. All so much clearer now.

The Book of Apocalypse is mostly known as the 27th book of the NT canon---Revelation. So it is in the NAB as well.

I am wondering why you are not calling the SSPX Catholic? Don't they keep a more traditionally sound Roman Catholic practice?

Well, ecclesiastical disobedience, rebellion and schism are biggies.

This does not justify any of the deviations found within the RCC. I could elaborate on this, and so could you.

It's just that schism per seembodies a conviction that Christ has indeed allowed the "gates of hell" to prevail. So they have broken, not only with Peter's successor, but also, by implication, with the whole Catholic proposition, based on the reliability of the words of Christ.

Perhaps they are the best --- the very best -- of Protestants.

The use of the word “Apocalypse” in the article was a quote from Sister Lucia. But with respect to the name of that Book, although it is often correctly referred to as the “Book of Revelation”, it was written in the Greek language and originally bore the name “Apocalypse”. The word apocalypse in Greek translate into revelation.

But those small points aside, you obviously disagree with this article, so I would be interested in learning what substantive disagreements you (or other readers) might have with what has been stated.

As for Bishop Fellay and the SSPX, quite frankly, I don’t know what to think about either the bishops or the society. I’m not sure that I agree that he is wrong for what he believes, but the back and forth between the SSPX and the Vatican has the stale smell of politics. But while this post is not intended to debate the merits of either Fellay or the SSPX, I would be happy to discuss that issue in depth at some other time.

What this post does raise is the serious issue of Modernism. Perhaps Fellay is an imperfect messenger, but the baby shouldn’t be thrown out with the bath water. The last sainted pope of the Church Saint Pius X declared not only that Modernism is the “synthesis of all heresies”, but he also said that “there is no part of Catholic truth which they [Modernists] leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt”.

Fellay also raised a number of additional issues regarding statements that Pope Francis has recently made that could only be considered as bizarre to the faithful, practicing Catholic. Surely you are not suggesting that these are defensible? Or are you? And I’m asking that question in good faith with the hope that you might carefully read the article and share your thoughts with me and others about just what is giving you concern––other than you take issue with the man that’s speaking.

Interesting. I recently heard a priest mention the term “post-Modernism”, but I don’t know of it’s use in anything other than art. I’m wondering, therefore, if you might be using that term as I would use the term “New Theology” (nouvelle théologie)? If so, I think might agree with you. If not, please enlighten me as to how “post-Modernism” would differ from Modernism, and why you believe what you are reading is post-Modernism.

Sure. As we have seen throughout history the arts start an idea by expression then closely follows philosophy, then politics, sometimes scientific theory and finally theology.

Modernism was with us a long time and I believed flamed out in the early 90s (don’t quote me on that). With Modernism there were stated absolutes. Even though evil, communism, for example, was an absolute. It was an evil human made absolute. So those who agreed with communism followed its evil absolutes not matter how twisted. We opposed it of course contrasting our values based on our absolutes. It was a nice linear battlefield so to speak. Starting with the 90s and the whole new world order nonsense, I saw a shift to no absolute “value” system. Oh it was brewing here in the US since the 60s, but took a slow course to permeate 30 years later. We saw this post-modern non-system take form in universities as they slowly became hot beds of indoctrination.

This is the “value” system of post-modernism...morals, ethics are relative. Every person sorts our their own values. There are no absolutes. The Modernists at least had some absolutes, they were horrible and wrong but at least they had a system to confront and defeat. Not so with the relativistic approach. Now everyone thinks they are an island unto themselves. That is why we see morals out the window, cold hearts abound and everyone is out for themselves. Why not? Because we are all right within our own little individual systems.

The next step is obvious. With billions of “values systems” out there one, some a group will eventually will its will on others or complete anarchy will follow.

Either you don’t have proper understanding of Feeneyism, or your familiarity with both the SSPX and Catholic Family News is very shallow.

Father Leonard Feeney interpreted the Church dogma of “Eclessium Nulla Salus” (no salvation outside the Church) very strictly. He preached that it meant that unless you were a Catholic you did not go to heaven. That was never a teaching of the Catholic Church. He recanted that believe on his deathbed and the excommunication was lifted. Neither the SSPX or CFN ever subscribed to this believe.

But what both the SSPX and CFN do profess is that the Catholic Church is the one and only true Church. That all other religions are false. That is not Feeneyism. It may not be politicly correct these days, that’s for sure; but it is Catholic dogma. Neither the SSPX or the CFN have ever backed away from that dogma in the slightest way. And if you are a Catholic that attends Mass every Sunday you will state precisely that in the Nicene Creed. If you are unaware of what you are professing, you should learn.

But what this article is about (which you seem to have dismissed without comment) is that Pope Francis is a Modernist that would have Catholics now believe the truth is whatever you believe the truth to be! Feeneyism, was certainly a false teaching and Father Feeney deserved to be excommunicated for refusing not to teach that as Catholic doctrine. But for you to suggest with your comment that Feeneyism even closely compared to the heresy being proclaimed today by our pope, is mind boggling. I’d suggest you carefully read what Fellay has to say about say about all this and at least give it some thought.

Well said. And as for the SSPX and Fellay, although I happen to be a solid traditionalist and a daily Communicant, I can’t say that I’m anything even closely resembling an SSPX devotee. We have a place on the west coast of Florida and when we’re down there we regularly attend a daily TLM. At those time I’ve had the opportunity to speak to many other trads about any number of hot-button Catholic topics. The SSPX, however was never discussed––at least not in any serious way. So while traditional Catholicism is always lumped into the negative press enjoyed by the SSPX.I don’t believe it is deserved.

Nevertheless, although I’m not jumping to the defense of Fellay and the SSPX, I’m not dismissing them either. There is absolutely nothing that they profess as being true that I don’t subscribe to myself. Each and every member of that society are probably infinitely more holy and orthodox than the majority of our bishops.

The posted article was written by John Vennari of Catholic Family News. In him and his publication I place great confidence. But probably the greatest badge of merit that Fellay and the SSPX can claim as far as I’m concerned, is that the secular media is dead against both of them. They’ve certainly got to be doing something right to win that title.

As for Fatima, I believe I can appreciate your not wanting to accept it as being the reason for everything good. Cautious thinking is always wise. But within the last year or so I’ve read a number of books on the subject, and I’m becoming more and more convinced that there genuinely is some “there” there. When you read these detailed publications (which the bishops of the Church totally denounce), you are left with the sense that this whole thing about Fatima is either completely wrong, or absolutely right. And since I’m having a very difficult time accepting the version of the Vatican, which is that everything Lucia has to say is true, but everyone should just move along since there’s nothing else to see, I’m slowly moving toward becoming a believer.

From my reading of Catholic Family News I gathered that they were Feeneyites.

Fr. Feeney was NOT excommunicated for his false interpretation of extra ecclesiam no salus. He was excommunicated for direct disobedience to his superiors.

He never retracted his teaching, and his excommunication was lifted without any requirement of any retraction. His excommunication was lifted by Paul VI strictly out of mercy, so Feeney could die in good standing in the Church.

I have lost count of the Feeneyites who have told me that: 1) Feeney was not a heretic because he wasn’t excommunicated for heresy; and 2) Feeney was not a heretic because no retraction was demanded when his excommunication was lifted.

The excommunication simply had nothing to do with his heresy.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.