Bishop Bruskewitz to the Society of St. Pius X: "You can't have it both ways!"

St. Joseph Foundation ^ | August 22, 1996 | Charles M. Wilson

[NYer]

Bishop Bruskewitz to the Society of St. Pius X: "You can't have it both ways!"

By Charles M. Wilson

The Foundation has received more compliments on the lead article in the last issue than any article which has appeared in CHRISTIFIDELIS since the newsletter began publication in 1984. The Diocese of Lincoln has received thousands of letters expressing support and gratitude for Bishop Bruskewitz’s action and only an insignificant number criticizing him, so I am not surprised that our readers would react as they did. Even so, there is one category of criticism received by the Diocese of Lincoln and the Foundation which deserves a response. I am referring to the members and sympathizers of the Society of St. Pius X (hereafter the Society or SSPX) who objected to the Society’s being named at all and its being lumped together with such groups as Call To Action, Catholics for a Free Choice, Planned Parenthood and the Freemasons.

For an organization to be included in Bishop Bruskewitz’s legislation three conditions must be present: (1) It must have members in the Diocese of Lincoln; (2) membership therein is deemed by the bishop to be perilous to or incompatible with the Catholic faith; (3) it asserts falsely that membership does not contradict membership in the Catholic Church.

Let me state my position right off the bat. There is no doubt in my mind that conditions (1) and (3) apply to the Society and there is persuasive evidence that condition (2) also applies. I support Bishop Bruskewitz’s action and offer the following article in support of my conclusions.

 

Archbishop Lefebvre

 

Over 90% of the people who will read this article are Americans. Yet I hope that our good readers in Canada and other countries outside the United States will appreciate the use of some analogies drawn from American history which seem singularly on target. In the first place, some incidents associated with the birth of our country might give rise to a certain special sympathy for the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. We revere Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and many, many others who stood up to their lawful king, his ministers, his legislature and his army and navy rather than compromise their principles. The signers of our Declaration of Independence mutually pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in a cause history would now regard as a foolhardy rebellion against a duly constituted regime which by eighteenth century standards was most benign, had it been General Washington instead of Lord Cornwallis who was forced to surrender at Yorktown in 1781. It is then understandable that we would instinctively feel some degree of admiration toward a man who in our own time stood up for what he sincerely believed was right in the face of powerful opposition.

Faithful Catholics of all nationalities who embrace the teaching of the Church and love the beauty of her traditional liturgy are as well inclined to have feelings of sympathy and gratitude toward Archbishop Lefebvre. We sympathize because we agree with much of what he said and we are grateful because the celebration of the traditional Mass would not be possible and the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter would not exist save for him. Furthermore, in our constant and frustrating struggle against the kind of atrocities we see in "Straws in the Wind," we know that Archbishop Lefebvre was equally horrified. As the old Arab maxim goes, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Still, the sympathy, admiration and gratitude we may have toward Archbishop Lefebvre must not blind us to our duty toward the Church. It may be all right to consider the archbishop something of a latter day Patrick Henry, but only if we keep in mind that it was not George III who our Lord Jesus Christ was addressing when He said: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church" and "He who hears you hears me." Similarly, some have cast Archbishop Lefebvre as a modern St. Athanasius, suffering for his opposition to modernism much as the fourth century Doctor of the Church endured persecution and exile for fighting Arianism. This comparison falls short because the historical conditions are not analogous. Most of St. Athanasius’ persecutors were themselves heretics, usurpers or intrusive emperors. One exception was, of course, Pope Liberius, who under duress condemned Athanasius in 357. By contrast Archbishop Lefebvre has defied legitimate holders of ecclesiastical office, including Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. It is beyond question that John Paul II is the legitimate successor of Peter and was not acting under duress when Archbishop Lefebvre manifestly violated the Holy Father’s express, personal command by ordaining four bishops without the required mandate of the Holy See in 1988. Whether the act constituted schism in the strict sense of the word does not change this, nor do the differing opinions proffered by learned canonists.

 

The SSPX Today

 

Returning again to the American analogy, what that loose confederation called the United States of America would become was by no means certain when the Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783. There is not much doubt that Washington would have been crowned king had he wanted the job or that he and his generals could have easily established a military dictatorship. Conversely, the nation might just as easily have come apart, as it almost did 77 years later, and what is now the territory of the 48 contiguous states would contain a collection of smaller nations. What the United States was in 1783, what it was at various times between then and now or what it might have become is completely beside the point when one considers domestic or foreign policy matters in 1996. Likewise, what Bishop Bruskewitz had to consider was not what the Society was when Archbishop Lefebvre founded it in 1970 nor what it was when he illicitly ordained the four bishops in 1988 nor what it was at the time of his death on March 25, 1991, but what it is in the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska in 1996. It is from this perspective that we consider whether or not the SSPX meets the three criteria set forth in Bishop Bruskewitz’s legislative act of March 22, 1996.

 

Membership and Activities

 

St. Michael the Archangel Chapel in Lincoln is not a building but an association formed for the purpose of providing for the celebration of the Traditional Mass. Ironically, the building it has used is a cemetery chapel which is also the site of Masonic and Buddhist ceremonies. The fact that the SSPX has recently conducted public worship there was acknowledged by the Society’s District Superior, Father Peter R. Scott, in his letter to Bishop Bruskewitz, dated March 27 and since published by the Society.

The subject of membership is less simple. The SSPX does not have lay members in the strict sense of the word and none of its priest-members reside in the Diocese of Lincoln. If being formally enrolled as a member of the Society is what is necessary to incur the penalties legislated by Bishop Bruskewitz, then it is clear that no one in the Diocese of Lincoln has incurred interdiction or excommunication for being a member thereof. However, the obvious intent of the legislation was to deter Catholics from becoming so closely associated with any of the twelve organizations named that they would risk accepting those beliefs and practices which are in conflict with the Catholic faith. This means that what is really at issue is not formal enrollment but adherence. For example, if one were to regularly attend meetings and other public activities of Call to Action, participate in its illicit liturgies, subscribe to its publications, applaud its leaders and support it financially, then one could be considered an adherent and subject to the penalties established by law. The same could be said of the SSPX, so we must then proceed to determine if adherence to the Society is perilous to the faith and if it has claimed that such adherence by Catholics does not contradict their membership in the Church.

 

Perilous to or Incompatible with the Catholic Faith?

 

Some 35 years ago, I worked in the purchasing department of a large corporation. One day we attended a training session where a company lawyer was to instruct us on the discriminatory pricing sections of the Robinson-Patman Act. To do this in an hour was quite a challenge, so he began by saying, with tongue in cheek, "This is a subject on which thousand-page books have been written and most of them are regarded as terse and superficial." Now that I am going to try to deal with a subject far more complex than the Robinson-Patman Act in a few paragraphs, I know just how he felt.

That which God has made known to us in order to be saved is referred to by the Church as Divine Revelation or the Word of God. This Revelation is to be found only in sacred Scripture and that teaching of the apostles which was not recorded in writing at the time. The latter is called sacred Tradition. "Sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God, which is entrusted to the Church...But the task of giving authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it." (Vatican II, Dei Verbum, No. 10.) The Magisterium can be exercised in several ways. A solemn definition by the pope alone as well as a definition of a lawfully convened ecumenical council confirmed by the pope are protected by the Holy Spirit and, therefore, infallible. Also infallible is a teaching of the entire college of bishops, even while scattered throughout the world, in union among themselves and with the successor of Peter, when they agree that the teaching must be definitively held.

Anything which contradicts or seriously distorts this Word of God as faithfully interpreted and handed down by the Magisterium can surely be regarded as perilous to or incompatible with the Catholic faith.

The primary charge is that the SSPX contradicts or seriously distorts the Word of God as interpreted by the Magisterium appears to rest on its alleged non-acceptance of at least three of the sixteen pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council: The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, the Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio, and the Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis humanae. The secondary charge is that, by its defiance of the rightful authority of the pope and the bishops in communion with him, the Society has challenged the doctrine of papal primacy and the rightful authority of the bishops as lawful shepherds of their particular churches.

Bishop Bruskewitz has the authority to judge whether or not these charges are true insofar as they apply to what the Society and its adherents do within the Diocese of Lincoln. I have no such authority at all, either in the Diocese of Lincoln or anywhere else, so all I can do is express a private opinion.

Archbishop Lefebvre engaged in a lengthy dialog with the Holy See over the proper interpretation of Vatican II. Finally, in May, 1988, he signed an agreement with the Holy See in which he accepted Vatican II if interpreted in accord with sacred Tradition. In my view, that is the only way Vatican II or any other ecumenical council could possibly be interpreted. Unfortunately, Archbishop Lefebvre subsequently repudiated his agreement and an examination of recent public statements of the SSPX, including the current exchange of correspondence between Fr. Scott and Bishop Bruskewitz, leads me to conclude that the Society has gone beyond castigating the distortions and spurious interpretations of the Council and has, for all practical purposes, rejected the Council itself.

As far as I am concerned, there is no argument that the SSPX has considered itself absolved from any obligation of submission to the pope or any diocesan bishop. It conducts public worship and administers the sacraments wherever it chooses without so much as a nod in the direction of the competent authority. It reserves the right to alienate itself from the teaching authority of the pope and, in effect, has instituted its own canons of orthodoxy.

If I were serving on a jury trying to decide the Society’s guilt or innocence, the evidence I have seen thus far would cause me to be inclined to vote guilty on the primary charge but I would want to see some more before casting a final vote. As to the secondary charge, I say guilty.

 

False Assertions of Union with Rome

 

In a letter dated May 13 to Fr. Scott, also published by the SSPX, Bishop Bruskewitz states that the Society’s chapel in Lincoln has claimed in advertisements in the local newspaper and telephone directory that it is "in full union with Rome." I would say that such a claim is deceptive, unless you go along with the Society’s definition of what "Rome" is or, more important, what "Rome says." Whenever we hear the term "Rome says," we understand this to mean the official pronouncements of the Holy See. However, judging by a recent promotional leaflet distributed by the SSPX, portions of which appear at the end of this article, it seems that the Society would define "Rome says" as the private statements of current or retired officials of the Roman Curia, observations of canon lawyers living in Rome or elsewhere, dissertations written by individuals studying at pontifical universities or replies of a department of the Holy See to inquiries from members of the faithful.

The leaflet bothers me more than the newspaper or telephone directory advertisements because it went to a lot more people, most of whom live in dioceses where the bishop is not as vigilant as Bishop Bruskewitz. The leaflet’s unmistakable message is that the SSPX and its priests are under no canonical sanction whatever and that the Catholic faithful are as free to attend Society Masses as they are to attend Masses celebrated in diocesan parishes. This is, at the very least, sheer balderdash and is obviously intended to entice the unsuspecting and the uninformed.

 

Some Difficulties with the Leaflet

 

The general difficulty I have with the leaflet is that it employs a non-sequitur which has nothing to do with the present case, i.e., whether or not the ordination of bishops by Archbishop Lefebvre without the mandate of the Holy See was intrinsically schismatic, and then leaps to the conclusion that the SSPX is perfectly O.K. Beyond that, I have very serious questions about the use of the statements of three individuals, none of whom has endorsed or is affiliated in any way with the SSPX.

Count Capponi did indeed make the statement the leaflet attributes to him. But he has also said publicly that, while he was a sympathizer of Archbishop Lefebvre, he was not a follower. Moreover, as the SSPX is well aware, in 1994 the "independent" traditionalist chapel of Our Lady of Fatima in Pequannock, NJ, received an offer from the Bishop of Paterson whereby the chapel would be regularized and served by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. A faction of SSPX adherents within the chapel membership wanted to reject the offer and demanded that Masses there be celebrated by Society priests, claiming that they were acting out of necessity according to c. 1323, 4°. In response and at my request, Count Capponi prepared an opinion wherein he said: "If Bishop Rodimer’s offer of reconciliation and the services of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter are refused, those who continue to attend the Masses celebrated by priests of the Society of St. Pius X cannot any longer claim to be acting in a state of necessity as foreseen by canon 1323, 4°."

Father Gerald Murray has written a very strong letter to the SSPX pointing out the outright errors made and quotations taken out of context in the extracts from an interview which appeared in The Latin Mass Magazine. The citation in the leaflet would imply that Fr. Murray sees nothing at all wrong with attending SSPX Masses, when in fact he clearly said otherwise in the same article. Incidentally, Fr. Murray has since reassessed the arguments made in his licentiate thesis (not his doctoral thesis, as erroneously stated by the SSPX) and now considers his earlier interpretation of the state of necessity as too broad.

Cardinal Ratzinger’s decision reversing the excommunication of six members of the faithful in Honolulu is used in an attempt to legitimatize the SSPX. As most of you know, the St. Joseph Foundation assisted in defending the "Hawaii Six" and I can say that the status of the Society was not at issue in that case. What was at issue was the conduct of the defendants which, while admittedly blameworthy in some respects, did not constitute schism. The records of the case show that the former Bishop of Honolulu, Most Rev. Joseph Ferrario, tried to use penal law to silence those six Catholics who were calling the attention of the public to what they perceived as the bishop’s follies and misdeeds. Cardinal Ratzinger has never explicitly or implicitly approved of the actions of the SSPX.

 

The SSPX and the Internal Crisis in the Church

 

I know that the Church is undergoing a terrible internal crisis. So does the SSPX, but I think our common understanding ends there. The St. Joseph Foundation now receives requests for assistance at the rate of over 2,000 per year and we know as well as anyone else just what faithful Catholics have to endure. Still, even if we cannot help them, I am confident that the vast majority will manage to bear their sufferings without refusing "submission to the Roman Pontiff or communion with the members of the Church subject to him" (c. 751).

If I may impose on our readers outside the United States just one more time, I will close with a final American example which I personally remember. During World War II, the former heavyweight boxing champion, Joe Louis, was drafted into the army. When the "Brown Bomber" arrived at the induction station, a reporter asked him if he did not think it unfair that he was forced to serve in the army of a country in which his people had suffered and were suffering so many injustices. Louis thought for a moment and said: "There’s nothing wrong with this country that Hitler can fix."

I am by no means equating Archbishop Lefebvre with Adolph Hitler or the SSPX with the National Socialist Party, but the analogy remains an apt one. Terrible things are happening in the Church, but I don’t see anything that the Society of St. Pius X can fix.

    

[ninenot]

UlRa, I am going to reverse the rules of Lent and Easter.

For Lent, I will give up the suffering of reading your posts. For Easter, I will give up the joy of smacking your sullen mouth.

Buh-bye

[ninenot]

Your post specifically states that "if it were not for SSPX, there would be no [Old Rite]..."

All I said was that Una Voce did the heavy lifting and SSPX, sort of like the fleas on the dog, came along after UV had done most of the work.

Great to hear you are a member of UV. You ought to pay attention to what they actually DO..

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

You ought to pay attention to what they actually DO..

They DON'T name call and hurl insults at SSPX, that is for certain.

[TradicalRC]

If obedience to the Pope is the hallmark of Catholicism then 99% of all Bishops should be excommunicated starting with the bishops who forbid the Tridentine Indult IN DEFIANCE of Ecclesia Dei.

[ultima ratio]

You confuse "hundreds of conservative causes" with a desire to preserve the faith itself. This is not just another "cause", it is a fight for the very definition of what it means to be Catholic--that is to say, for the deposit of faith itself. It was Paul VI who protestantized the Mass and it is JnPII who protestantizes Catholic dogma. SSPX changed nothing. It merely opposes revolutionary change which would destroy what we have inherited from apostolic times. The key word here is "revolutionary."

Your equating Gaia worship with the SSPX, therefore, does what all New Religion people do--rejects our Catholic past and ridicules its practices. Even Rome shows more respect these days for SSPX than you do by making such a disparaging comparison. It acknowledges at least that it has a problem for which it is partly responsible. You don't even acknowledge that much. You will blame bad bishops but exonerate the Pope. That on the surface is implausible. It is the Pope who is in charge and who is responsible for the preservation of Catholic Tradition--which he has refused to do.

As for the claim that Archbishop Lefebvre was disobedient, excuse me, while I laugh. --When was the last time a disobedient bishop was denounced by Rome? As far as I can tell, a Novus Ordo bishop can say Mass naked and baptize chimpanzees for all anybody in Rome would give a damn. It's only those who insist on the Traditional Mass who have been reviled. They are still under extreme pressure, even within the Indult. Just ask FSSP priests whose superior general was unceremoniously fired and whose seminary instructors were summarily dismissed--for the crime of asserting their doubts about the glorious revolution. Everything else is up for grabs, even the dogmas of the Real Presence and the Divinity of Christ. Just don't question with too much gusto the nonsense that passes for Catholicism these days.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: obedience to even the pope comes after preservation of the faith itself. Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated traditional bishops in defiance of a papal proscription in order to guarantee the preservation of Catholic Tradition which the Vatican itself wished to stamp out. He was old and about to die and he knew who his enemies were--and they included JnPII who wished to destroy the seminary at Econe--which merely was guilty of practicing the old faith--at the very same time seminaries elsewhere in Europe and America were stewing in apostasy and corruption but were shown patience and tolerance by Rome. That is the simple truth and it is still another blot on this Pontiff's record.

The good Archbishop disobeyed lawfully, moreover, by having recourse to the Pope's own Canon Law which provided the right of disobedience in a time of emergency. Archbishop Lefebvre recognized he was living through such a time, that the Church was in crisis, was, in fact, in a stage of auto-destruction, something even Paul VI had acknowledged, but which JnPII has steadfastly denied. The Pope is still waiting for his springtime to happen, was waiting, in fact, right through the famous Jubilee Year of 2000 which was a gigantic flop. Even now, in the face of decades of scandal and the collapse of Catholic belief everywhere, he waits for something good to come from the multiple lunacies that have been promulgated by his beloved revolution.

[ultima ratio]

I don't doubt you would want to give up an exchange which has become incoherent on your part. Interesting choice of words, though, "smacking your sullen mouth." I am not at all sullen--and you should try fighting a little better with words and ideas, especially during Lent.

[ultima ratio]

This post is so absurd it is difficult to know where to begin. When you claim SSPX "want the right to rant and rave against legitimate Church authority, to undermine the authority of the papacy, to make a career of drawing upon the papacy and the Church the worst forms of vile hatred witnessed in centuries and justify it all as does UR," you are creating an imaginary enemy that does not exist in fact.

First, I personally don't rant and rave. I present arguments--as anyone familiar with my style of posting will testify. But this has been even more true of SSPX bishops and priests who have engaged in theological argumentation primarily. The dialogues with Rome have been respectful and always reasonable.

Second, the SSPX has never questioned the legitimacy of the papacy nor has sought to undermine it. But it has been placed on the horns of a dilemma by actions of the conciliar popes themselves--since these actions fly in the face of all previous popes and councils. It has been forced to choose between the whole of our Catholic past and the last forty years, between tradition and recent papal novelties. It has chosen to side with the old faith rather than with the revolution.

You make other absurd claims. You write, "What the schismatics do not have a right to do is to dishonestly scandalize others by claiming to be Catholic while engaging in rank disobedience and defiance of legitimate authority. SSPX people are not attacked for leaving. They are attacked for leaving while fraudulently claiming to have stayed. As the living saint of Lincoln, Nebraska says: They cannot have it both ways."

First, we do not scandalize by merely speaking the truth. Subordinates have the right to resist superiors who are wrong and do bad things. In fact in today's climate it is hard to even think of what I or anybody else would say that could heap more scandal on a self-scandalizing Church. When the Pope prays with witchdoctors and voodoo priests and thereby gives legitimacy to their lunacies, or when he kisses the Koran, or when he ignores serious sexual abuse of children and teens--gay scandals which have been going on for decades with full knowledge of the Vatican--or when he elevates to the cardinalate a known apostate, it is hard to talk of doing more scandal than the Pope inflicts on himself. It is he who scandalizes the faithful, not the other way around.

Second, the letter from Msgr. Perle--no friend of SSPX--is the one who has stated SSPX followers have not left the Church, something we have always known but has taken years for him and others to admit. Why do you doubt such a statement of authority and continue to fight such a judgment? Are you not yourself resisting legitimate authority by making the ridiculous claims you continue to make? I say I am Catholic because I am, not because I wish to decieve others. I worship and pray and think as a Catholic. I may not be a good one, I may even be a bad one, but I am still a Catholic within the Church, whether you or Bishop Bruskewitz wish to believe this objective fact or not.

Again, you are wrong when you call Archb. Lefebvre "self-important," dismissing his lifetime as a humble missionary living in Africa. He was not one of those who dwelt in palaces in Rome or Paris, or sought for worldly notice. Econe was established, not by his own initiative, but because desperate young seminarians begged him to establish a seminary where they could pray the rosary and study the Church Fathers. He was simply adhering to the traditional faith as it has been handed-down from apostolic times.

Finally, it is not SSPX nor I who wish to have it both ways. It is Bishop Bruskewitz and you who want it both ways by wishing to be considered traditional Catholics by supporting a protestantizing revolution very far from traditional Catholicism. The confusion is yours, not ours.

[ultima ratio]

In 1999 the Prefect of Ecclesia Dei fired the superior general of FSSP plus two of his seminary theologians at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Elmhurst, PA, for the mere suspicion of "not thinking with the conciliar Church." The incident caused an earthquake in Traditional circles and is widely perceived as a betrayal by Rome. It has been written-about extensively in traditional publications such as the Angelus, the Remnant, the Latin Mass.

As for the difference between SSPX and the Indult, you need to understand something--there were no Indult Masses until the Archbishop consecrated his bishops. Up to that point SSPX alone offered the traditional Mass. Rome wanted nothing to do with the old Liturgy up till then, and, in fact, did all it could do to stamp it out. After the consecration in 1988, the Pope devised a scheme to split the SSPX politically by offering a very limited Indult. FSSP was the result, formed from those priests who left SSPX. It flourished for a while but was slapped-down in 1999--which is what SSPX feared would happen all along.

As I say, for a full decade FSSP flourished. But rather than rejoice in its success in attracting priests and seminarians in this time of vocational scarcity, Rome actually reacted in an opposite way by firing its superior general and several of its seminary theologians. It did this at a time when most other seminaries are centers for dissent within the Church, even openly pushing for sexual freedoms never before allowed in seminaries. Rome ignores all this to punish FSSP--which has got to be amazing to anyone with an open mind. One must question the wisdom of cracking-down on people who pray the rosary and adhere to the old the faith instead of people who cruise gay bars and abuse teenage boys, but such is the way of Rome these days.

[ultima ratio]

Two points. First, the Vatican never officially abrogated the old Mass and even after the institution of the Novus Ordo every priest was free to use the old Missal. Contrary to what most people have been led to believe, the Novus Ordo was never meant to prohibit the old Mass. But bishops adopted it througout the early seventies even while the old Mass was still being celebrated. Eventually they ruthlessly and illegitimately strong-armed traditional priests out of their dioceses.

Thus it came about that what had been an illegitimate action became generally accepted. So much so, in fact, that in 1986, shortly after he had ascended to the papacy, JnPII had to convene a secret ad hoc commission of nine cardinals to determine whether or not the old Mass had ever been officially suppressed. According to Cardinal Stickler who was one of the members of that commission and who revealed this in 1995, the answer was a resounding NO. The others on the commission were Cardinals Ratzinger, Mayer, Oddi, Casaroli, Gantin, Innocenti, Palazzini and Tomko.

Regarding this anomalous situation, one of the sticking points between Rome and the SSPX in last year's dialogue about possible reconciliation was the insistence on the part of the Society that the Vatican make all of this public. It asked that what was known to the Holy See privately should be shared with the faithful openly--namely, that all priests had a perfect right to choose the old Missal rather than the new. On every other point there had been agreement, but Rome would not concede this point, claiming it feared a schism with French bishops. SSPX doesn't buy this excuse, but suspects instead that the same modernist thinking that sought to destroy Tradition still holds the Holy See in the tightest of grips.

[ultima ratio]

The year of the Indult was 1988--shortly after Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated his bishops for the SSPX.

[ultima ratio]

You need to read up on this. Some subordinates of the superior general complained to the prefect of Ecclesia Dei in the Vatican that Fr. Bisig would not permit them to concelebrate the Novus Ordo Mass. A handful of disgruntled priests, a distinct minority--and probably implanted for this very purpose--went over their superior's head and wrote a letter complaining to Rome. Within WEEKS Rome reacted, making the claim that the Indult had not intended that the priests of the FSSP might never concelebrate in another rite--though that had been the understanding of the Fraternity from the beginning.

In any case, the duly elected Superior General was fired, a new superior was appointed, and some seminary theologians were dismissed as well. It was an astonishingly quick and brutal put-down of traditional priests who had merely acted upon the understanding they believed they had had with Rome. And this came at a time when other Orders and seminaries were openly seething with dissent and corruption--yet were receiving not so much as a hint of disapproval from the Vatican.

The shock waves of that betrayal of the traditionalist's raison d'etre are still reverberating throughout the movement and is probably the real reason why the SSXP and Rome could not surmount their differences last year. The SSPX suspects the whole affair with FSSP was a set-up, particularly considering the speediness of the response by the Vatican--so notoriously slow to react in matters of even pressing importance.

[Cap'n Crunch]

"Obedience is the sacrifice of one's own will, and it is a great sacrifice for man, when what is commanded is contrary to his inclination and to his advantage."-St. Bonaventure

St. Augustine calls obedience the greatest of virtues.

St. Teresa declares that no path leads so quickly to the summit of perfection as the path of obedience.

"Learn to comply willingly with the wishes of thy equals, and thus thou wilt learn to fulfil cheerfully the commands of thy superiors."-St. Francis de Sales.

"The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God: for great is the power of God alone, and He is honored by the humble."-Ecclesiaticus

"Take away self-will, and there will no longer be any hell."-St. Bernard

[Cap'n Crunch]

"In our days people have often lost sight of the intrinsic value of religious profession. They no longer see how the great vows chiefly uplift intrinsically the whole of religious life. This profound and superior idea is exiled; it not longer finds a milieu to understand it. Very frequently people think only superficially and extrinsically about this fundamental idea. The influence of the great theology of the Middle Ages has lost its dominion. For this great error, casuists, who have materialized the concept of religious life, are responsible. Under the pretext of avoiding sin, they have considered everything from a negative point of view. Religious obedience has lost its profound meaning. The vows of poverty and chastity, which are more frequently transgressed, and often mortally, have in fact come to the foreground in several manuals; whereas obedience, which is the foundation of the whole edifice, has been placed in the background, because it is rare that obedience is a mortal sin."

"They have thus actually reversed supernatural values. In many centers this condition of affairs has become a general state of mind. The positive and profound value of religious immolation by the vows, the complete domination of the religious life and of its activity by the virtues of religion and obedience, which render the existence of a religious something 'sacred,' has been lost sight of. As a consequence, they no longer see the intrinsic value of the religious life, and some have remarked that this deficiency often works on vocations like a 'fatal corrosive.' For many, obedience is no longer anything but a 'discipline,' an 'exterior religious observance,' a professional practice which one can personally sublimate if one is noble-hearted, as a soldier or a clerk can sublimate the practices of his profession or his position."

"The formal motive of obedience is not that the thing commanded seems reasonable in itself, but that it is commanded by a legitimate superior, the spiritual or temporal representative of God, from whom comes all power to command. If a man obeyed solely because the thing commanded seemed to him essentially reasonable and prudent according to his own judgement, he would lose the merit proper to obedience, as one would lose that of faith if one accepted only evident revealed truths because of their evidence. The formal motive of faith is the authority of God who reveals mysteries that remain obscure. The specific object of obedience, says St. Thomas, "is a command tacit or express, because the superior's will, however it becomes known, is a tacit precept."

Written by a contemplative religious and taken from 'The three ages of the interior life' by Father Garrigou-Lagrange

[BlackElk]

You do not understand this. If someone rejects the Real Presence, that someone is not a Catholic. If someone engages in unrepentant and unforgiven pederasty, one is self-excommunicated by the mortal sin in question (and ought to be jailed for as long as possible as soon as possible). If someone practices without repentance and without forgiveness birth control, again one is self-excommunicated. In each of these cases, you are blaming the law and the law enforcement apparatus for the crimes of the criminal. It is the sinner and not the Church that commits such sins/crimes and it is also the sinner who practices disobedience to legitimate Church authority and calls it Catholicism or scandalizes actual Catholics by preaching disobedience and stirring up hatred against the pope, the papacy, the Vatican, the Curia, all to indulge personal cultural preferences.

As to the Magisterium, that is a handy word to throw around when making Catholic arguments. If I have to bet my soul on whether you and UR are accurate and authentic teachers of the Magisterium, or that John Paul II is, I am going out on a limb here and betting on the pope as the reliable authority.

You may or may not believe that where you are I have been and twenty-five or more years ago decided that the path you are choosing or at least the path chosen by SSPX is an absolute dead end. Ubi Petrus Ibi Ecclesia even when Petrus is John XXIII or Paul VI. I find it absolutely astonishing that anyone calling himself or herself a Catholic finds John Paul II objectionable without a peep about those two but each was actually pope and had the keys of Peter as does JP II. I will chalk up to probable ignorance the general absence of legitimate concern over the papacy of Benedict XV without which none of these conversations would be possible since he cancelled the program of Pope St. Pius X of bringing the modernist heretics to heel. The seeds planted during his papacy burst forth as the weeds of the 1960s which cause you to be tempted to schism.

What might St. Thomas More say as to your notion that it is surely reasonable to be looking askance at the hierarchy and reasonable as well to be entertaining serious doubts. Useful analogies might be made to his discussion with Richard White in which he asked him if Wales were really worth his soul and what he would do when, after all the laws had been leveled in order to more efficiently pursue the devil, he would do when the devil turned on him.

SSPX has stolen the Apostolic Succession for schismatic purposes. That is a second cousin to stealing the Eucharist for nefarious purposes. Stop the charade that your ancestors and mine would have approved the outrageous behavior of the SSPX schismatics. May the next pope offer the SSPX adherents (card-carrying or not) a final opportunity to repent and submit and, if they do not, may he apply the full penalties available to those who think they have a right to defy legitimate authority and still call themselves Catholic while consecrating rebellious bishops, ordaining rebellious priests and encouraging the apostasy of the laity.

You might bear in mind the First Commandment admonition not to have strange gods before him. Someone who commits adultery or theft or murder obviously regards these as more important than God himself since he has forbidden such behavior. Those who insist on the "right" to defiance and disobedience of papal authority as a default position, who nitpick JP II endlessly in their incessant campaign of hatred over his excommunication of their impudent heroes (and that decision proves wiser with each disrespectful response by the schismatics) have their own imagination of "tradition" as the false god whom they put before the one, the only God.

I take it that if you were residing in Red China, you would rush to become a part of the Chinese "Patriotic" Catholic Church which also has apparently obtained the stolen goods of a "valid" but illicit apostolic succession to facilitate the consecration of schismatic bishops, the ordination of schismatic priests, the defiance of the Vatican all because the Chinese "Patriotic" Catholic Church, a collective stooge of the Chinese Communist Party, does after all, say only the Tridentine Mass and is ceaseless in its attacks on and disobedience to the Holy Father, being Traditional Chinese Communists. What else is needed to be the "remnant" of the Church since the end of the "good old days", right?

Serious doubts as to what? Certainly not as to the Faith itself. Christ guaranteed that permanently and not in the form of some silly, self-important pack of schismatics, here, in France or in Red China. If you indulge yourself in doubting the Church, you doubt Christ. If you indulge yourself in the ever-growing fantasy that somehow Christ and the Holy Ghost have slipped up and sent us a heretic as pope because he does not delight YOU or do what YOU want, then you doubt Christ and the Holy Ghost. My preference is for the Tridentine Mass. Nonetheless, I am wearying of 90 minute funereal-pace performances with multiple collects and what not. There are reverent Novus Ordo Masses with first rate preaching available locally which are Masses and not careers.

The exaggerated slow-motion that characterizes many of today's renditions of the Tridentine Mass and causes what ought to be a half-hour Mass to stretch to one and a half-hours so that the devotees can indulge themselves in sloooooow motion and remain a cult of insiders. "If you do not wallow luxuriously in every unnecessary additional ten-minute graft-on", so it goes, "how can you REALLY call yourself Catholic? You can't be as good Catholics as we are! Can't we PLEASE have a 2 1/2 hour Mass to show what liturgical athletes we truly are?"

Your ancestors and mine did not attend such marathon extravaganzas. If those who are in love with the endless renditions are so in love with them, fine. Just see to it that there are Masses available in manageable time frames. I confess to being partially Irish by ancestry and devoted to old Irish notions on such matters such as crisply said Masses.

Every Mass need not be Mozart and Palestrina. There is a place for everything and everything in its place. Every Mass need not be high Mass, or Solemn High. On the Novus Ordo side, there are plenty of abuses but the transformation of the Tridentine into a historical preservation project and one distorted into a megamarathon timewise when it used to be simply a part of our culture as Catholics is also an abuse. Let there be each week at least one low Mass of obligation said crisply and without the full smorgasbord of trappings and maybe you would see more enthusiasm by more people for the return of the ancient rite. As things stand, in many locales where the Tridentine is regularly offered, these abuses cause even the worst Novus Ordo Masses to have better attendance.

I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that SSPX is faithful to the Tridentine rite because I most certainly am not going to patronize the schism to find out despite the constant mischaracterization of Monsignor Perl's letter to somehow claim it a Magna Carta for the schism.

[BlackElk]

My daughter wants to know what drugs you were foolishly using when you imagined that there was some sort of emergency justifying Schismatic Marcel's grotesque disobedience or that you were left to sit in judgment of the pope.

[Cap'n Crunch]

Bravo. Well said Sir.

[BlackElk]

As to cracking down, why should there be a choice? May the next pope enjoy the youth and stamina necessary to crack down on people who cruise gay bars and abuse teenage boys and crack down on those who abuse prepubescent children and crack down on those who violate their vows of chastity generally and also those who massacre their vows of obedience such as Marcel the Self-Important and his unrepentant followers. Why choose between crackdowns? In the next papacy, we can have all of them.

The Angelus, as you well-know, is a flat out schismatic publication of the SSPX schism. So don't represent it as Catholic because it is not. The Remnant is a shade closer to the Church. The Remnant manages to be published by a rump faction of the Matt family which faction apparently thinks the Wanderer revolutionary. It publishes such outright kooks as Solange Herz, those others who think old Europe always and ever far superior (sighhhhh!) to our pedestrian and plebeian United States, and those who flirt regularly with the schism such as Ferrara and Woods, and those who think that Fr. Gruner's career of disobedience is also to be emulated. Not something I want my children reading regularly. Latin Mass magazine has gone markedly downhill since change in ownership.

The issue in FSSP was whether members might say the Novus Ordo, was it not? Personally, I would far prefer Fr. Bisig to his successor. You are probably sharply disappointed that FSSP exists, having been founded by priests who left the schism of SSPX to return to the Church and that your disappointment is multiplied when FSSP does not join SSPX in rank contempt for the normative Mass of the Church. One ought not to regard it as at all necessary that FSSP priests say the Novus Ordo but, obedience and submission are obedience and submission. No one requires any of the FSSP priests to say the Novus Ordo. You want them to hate Novus Ordo as you do. They do not. They are Catholic priests. Most never were schismatics (but were ordained after the establishment of FSSP) and the rest repented and returned to the Faith.

FSSP still flourishes and will likely continue to flourish AND what is more it will be in communion with the Holy See and not in the outer darkness of apostasy and schism.

Again, if you think that JP II permitted the Tridentine Mass because he feared that some tsunami of a handful of schismatics would sweep away the Roman Catholic Church established by Jesus Christ, you have a serious reality problem. He excommunicated Marcel and the illicitly consecrated bishops, declared SSPX in schism and granted the Indult. If you choose to view this as a scheme to split SSPX, that would be no more self-servingly delusional than most of what you post.

As to your "analysis" of your allegations as to the goings on at the Elmhurst, PA, seminary, what makes you credible given your extraordinary levels of spinning everything according to the delusions of the SSPX schism? A perfunctory editorial by you is no substitute for the facts. What are the facts, objectively with full detail?

Do you also suppose that SSPX has obtained some sort of monopoly on saying the rosary? Do you think JP II is cracking down on the saying of the Rosary? Rest well.