My Journey out of the Lefebvre Schism

Envoy Magazine ^ | Pete Vere, JCL/M (Canon Law)

[ultima ratio]

Enough already with the documents. They prove nothing--especially if they are from Vatican II. Almost everything that was said was gainsaid somewhere else. As for the Pope, Vatican I said it definitively: the pope is not protected by the Holy Spirit when he institutes novelties. His job is to protect Tradition--not to oppose it.

[ultima ratio]

"The Church receives the Faith as delivered by Jesus Christ and handed down through the ages from the Apostles and their successors. The Church does not 'create' or 'establish' or 'invent' the Faith or its principles."

Exactly. This is what is meant by Tradition. Archbishop Lefebvre understood this as well. It is the Pope who "creates" and "establishes" and "invents"--contantly.

[NYer]

I do not support the Indult because it is no solution to the present crisis. The indult traditionalists exist in a zoo as captive oddities isolated by the modernist Church.

Are you saying that catholics who, like you, support the Latin Mass, but do so, with fidelity to the Magisterium, are freaks?

[NYer]

It is the Pope who "creates" and "establishes" and "invents"--contantly.

Congratulations! You rank right up there with RnMomof7 and DrSteveJ. Not only have you bought into the message of dissent given by Lefebvre, you have taken your wife and kids along for the ride, depriving them of full communion with the catholic church.

[ultima ratio]

Q: If a bad pope ordered a Catholic to break God's law--for instance, kill somebody innocent--should he do it? Isn't he bound by obedience?

A: Not all commands of a pontiff are lawful. Some may be evil and therefore should be disobeyed.

You see how silly it is to quote the Council? Implied in the document is the assumption that the Pontiff would not give an unlawful command which would be evil--such as doing harm to the Church. But popes are capable of errors in judgment and even outright malice. This is why the doctors of the Church tell us--Aquinas and Bellarmine both--that disobedience is proper if a superior, even a pope, gives a command that would result in harm to the Church.

It is the considered judgment of many that the Pontiff gave just such a command when he ordered the Archbishop not to consecrate, knowing such a lack of bishops would prevent the ordinations of traditional priests and therefore destroy Catholic Tradition once and for all.

Your logical difficulty seem to be that you do not understand the difference between an intrinsically evil act and a non-intrinsically evil act. The Archbishop's act of disobedience was not intrinsically evil. He disobeyed out of a state of necessity--as allowed in Canon Law itself.

Let me give you a for-instance. Unlawful breaking and entering is not intrinsically evil. If I break and enter somebody's residence to steal something, that is evil. But if I break and enter because the house is on fire and I want to save some children inside, that is good. The violation is therefore morally neutral, depending on the circumstances.

Clearly disobeying a pope in most cases is evil. But if the Church is on fire and you want to save Catholic Tradition, then your disobedience takes on a new dimension and is good. It all depends on the circumstances.

[ultima ratio]

"Are you saying that catholics who, like you, support the Latin Mass, but do so, with fidelity to the Magisterium, are freaks?"

No. Your language is intemperate. They are good Catholics and I know a lot of them. I attended the Indult myself for years. They are where they feel most at home in the present turmoil. Why do you want to pit one group against another? All traditionalists are together in opposing modernism and in praying for the restoration of traditional Catholicism. I sympathize also with sedevacantists--because I understand where they are coming from. To me they are infinitely closer to the true faith than those who blindly worship the pope.

[ultima ratio]

My reference to the "zoo" image is one Bishop Fellay has made. He does not want SSPX to be virtually quaranteened by Rome after some agreement--lacking the power to speak out against the enormity of modernism, for instance. He said that would be like being shut up in a zoo and made an oddity only, without power to effect necessary change. My comment was not intended as a knock against the Indult.

[Loyalist]

Not only have you bought into the message of dissent given by Lefebvre, you have taken your wife and kids along for the ride, depriving them of full communion with the catholic church.

"In doctrine now, a Catholic (including a Catholic priest) may be anything from a Tridentine rigorist to a Unitarian. The spirit of liberation from old rigidities is so pervasive that many of those in a position to shape the present spirit which governs the Church seem determined to avoid at all costs anything specific, distinctive, or unique, anything which could delineate Catholicism as a way of life."--James Hitchcock.

[ultima ratio]

Excellent point. Don't despair, though. Novus Ordo will go the way of the Protestant mainline churches--which are dying everywhere. I tried the Indult Mass and gave it up. I decided to bite the bullet and live what I believed in my gut and using my best understanding of the Catholic faith. I left the rest to God and went with the SSPX--though our chapels are none too pretty either.

[Loyalist]

Your screen name aptly defines where believing Catholics--not just traditionalists--are relegated to in the institutional Church.

None of us will live to see the Church restored; we will see worse outrages yet. But our great-great-grandchildren will benefit from the faithful remnant's struggles.

[ultima ratio]

Good quote. It's a deliberate homogenization. One world. One religion. It's what Paul VI called "auto-destruction", the Catholic Church deliberately committing suicide for the sake of ecumenical accord.

[Aloysius]

I attend the indult (which is only offered once per month two hours from where I live) and I feel like a freak in a zoo.

There's a reason it's known as the INSULT.

[ultima ratio]

It's a war. That's why I follow SSPX. They are in the front lines. It is amazing to me how fearful Rome is of the old Mass in particular. There is a lot of worry about this one small Society founded by a man who was initially reluctant to take on the task and had to be persuaded and begged by distraught seminarians. The Archbishop had been uncontaminated by modernism, having spent his adult years as a missionary in Africa rather than in the marble palaces of Europe. He came back for the Council and was shocked by the full-fledged assault against Catholic Tradition that was waged by the liberal contingent.

[Loyalist]

Take this quote with you from Eammonn Duffy's book on the English Reformation, The Stripping of the Altars

'Late medieval Christianity exerted an enormously strong, diverse and vigorous hold over the imagination and loyalty of the people up to the very moment of the Reformation. Traditional religion had about it no particular marks of exhaustion or decay, and indeed in a whole host of ways, from the multiplication of vernacular religious books to adaptations within the national and regional cult of the saints, was showing itself well able to meet new needs and new conditions.'

To summarize his book's thesis (per William Oddie in The Roman Option ): The reforms of the Anglican Church's founders were, in short, to complete the dispossession of the people from their spiritual patrimony by washing away their collective spiritual memory.

[ultima ratio]

This is exactly why the SSPX is a threat to Rome. It is the living memory of the Church. Rome is eager to restrain its influence by some agreement. It says, Agreement first, discussion afterwards. But the Society is wary of falling into a trap, being silenced, without influence or the ability to fight modernism. It wants discussion first, agreement after.

[Maximilian]

1. The Church receives the Faith as delivered by Jesus Christ and handed down through the ages from the Apostles and their successors. The Church does not "create" or "establish" or "invent" the Faith or its principles.

2. The Church teaches the Faith it has received to the current generation.

3.The Church defends the Faith it has received against error (i.e. heresy).

Exactly! This is an excellent concise summary. But one has to wonder if that is what is happening today.

BTW, sometimes it's difficult to tell the source of the documents you're posting. Are these the actual words of Lumen Gentium?

[sinkspur]

Why should I care what Rome thinks about anything at this point?

Who cares what you think about Rome?

Schismatics have absolutely no voice in the Roman Catholic Church because they are not in it!

[ultima ratio]

Traditionalists have no voice in the Church these days, not being feminists or gays or pedophiles or modernists with hug-a-mullah agendas.