What reconciliation? SSPX Demotes Former French Superior

Envoy Encore ^ | 5/28/03 | Pete Vere, JCL

[Theosis]

In the past week or two, even some of the most hardened traditionalists I know have complained about SSPX Bishop Williamson's latest monthly letter, in which he appears to take a very firm stand against the possibility of an SSPX reconciliation. Here's an excerpt:

Even if these Romans were to speak exactly the same language as the SSPX still, by their modernist religion, they would not be meaninq the same things. Therefore the "reconciliation" would be verbal, not real, and the SSPX would have lost the protection of its present marginalization.

This does not appear to be much different than his various negative comments about the Campos reconciliation. Williamson, as everyone knows, is from England and was raised (at least nominally) as an Anglican. Reportedly, he briefly passed through the Catholic Church on his way to the SSPX schism. He know runs the SSPX's American seminary, and his influence within North America appears to be quite strong.

On the other end of the spectrum, (which is surprising given his past reputation as a SSPX hardliner) L'Abbe Paul Aulagnier from France is now making some pretty strong statements in favor of reconciliation. To share a little of his background, he was one of the SSPX's first priests and has held the offices of District Superior of France (which if I understand correctly is sort of the position of "first among equals" when it comes to SSPX District Superiorships), District Superior of Belgium and Second Assistant to the Superior General. Here's a loose translation of an excerpt from a recent interview he gave ITEM, in which he tackles these same topics:

I am very happy with the positive reaction of Bishop Fellay. "The negotiations continue," he said, "they are not dead." This is something good. I am always very favorable towards these contacts with Rome. We cannot "separate" from Rome, "forget" Rome.

Thus the best thing is to keep things, it is to keep these contacts frequent. Otherwise our "battle" would lose its reason of being. Our goal, over and above the salvation of souls, is to see our Apostolic Tradition rekindle in Rome -- and from Rome to the entire Church.

All isolation is dangerous, and ours in particular.

If we were not to turn toward Rome, we could in time create "a little Church". [Basically a non-Catholic Church like the Old Catholics - PJV]

Then the schism would be consummated well and good. This is our danger. This is why I am happy about Bishop Fellay.

This is also why I'm happy with the "agreement" that Bishop Rangel worked to bring to a successful conclusion with Rome by creating a personal apostolic administration with an exclusive right to the Tridentine liturgy. I hope we will get there ourselves as well.

Granted, my translation isn't perfect, but you get the gist of what Fr. Aulagnier is saying. Despite couching his comments behind appeals to Bishop Fellay's recent comments, it has taken him great courage to state what he has stated in public. (Which is why I'm not gonna quibble with him over whether the SSPX is headed towards schism or already there -- suffice to say, it appears that we both agree the SSPX will end up there permanently in the future if negotiations and contacts aren't intensified.) My heart and prayers go out to Fr. Aulagnier and I pray he will be successful in urging the SSPX toward reconciliation.

Unfortunately, my head tells me that most SSPX clergy still stand behind Williamson, and that he will likely win out if we don't see a massive change of heart among these same clergy. My pessimism is further amplified by the fact Fr. Aulagnier was recently transfered to North America. This is not good in my opinion. I have always found the SSPX quite euro-centric and thus I would not venture to guess that this transfer to North America was a promotion -- especially as Aulagnier is now in the heart of Williamson's sphere of influence.

Which only raises the following question: whose side Bishop Fellay is really taking behind the scenes? In other words, if Bishop Fellay is really in favor reconciliation, why would he transfer the SSPX's most outspoken and well-respected reconciliarist ourside of his reported sphere influence after he appeared to break with the party line, when no action appears to have been taken against Bishop Williamson -- who appears to be the SSPX's most outspoken opponent to reconcilation?

This gives the appearance of a double-standard and sends a strong message to the outside world that Williamson's ideological influence has won out within the SSPX. In my opinion, traditionalists on both sides need to watch the SSPX's treatment of Fr. Aulagnier carefully, because it likely will be the litmus test of how serious the SSPX is in approaching negotiations. Those like myself at St. Blog who favor reconciliation need to make a strong statement in support of Aulagnier right now.

[jt8d]

"In your world, Hussein would still be in power, not only in Iraq, but in Kuwait, too, as the Pope opposed the Gulf War in 1991."

In "[my] world," Saddam Hussein would never have made his presence felt, because his ancestors--and those of his Islamic thugs, would never had escaped Godfrey of Bouillon and his Crusaders' swords. Hussein, terrorism, et al. are the sole fruit of the Mohammedian heresy, which, in turn, is one more result of Protestant trechory.

[ultima ratio]

I have read his letters--none of them goofy. If anyone is goofy, it's yourself, peddling this stuff. Yes, he mentioned the Unibomber's writings--but he put distance between himself and the man first, addressing only the writings, which were hostile to unbridled technological development. I am not a fan of this viewpoint--but it is not goofy. His views on women's dress are old-fashioned, but not worthy of the kinds of overwrought attacks you favor. The charges of Nazi sympathizing is the most serious attack of all--which you hurl freely, without consideration of the harm this does. This is culpable, and slanderous, motivated by sheer malice.

[sitetest]

Dear ultima,

"Neither you nor sitetest do anything but slander people."

ROTFLMAO.

For myself, all I've done is quote the guy, and then offered my opinion about it.

I guess that's slander enough. All you have to do is read his trash, and you can figure it out on your own. And if you can't, it says more about you than even about Mr. Williamson. ;-)

As for picking bishops, our Holy Father is responsible for choosing more than 3000 bishops, worldwide. He has relied on his brother bishops from around the world to assist him. Unfortunately, time has shown that not all these brother bishops were worthy of his trust, and they didn't assist him as they should.

Yet, he could not have appointed scores or even hundreds of bishops per year without assistance.

Mr. Lefebvre only felt the need to defy God in consecrating four schismatic bishops. These were men he knew well, or should have known well. But in his choice of Mr. Williamson, he shows how easily he could be deceived by even one quite close to him. It is clear that the Holy Spirit was not with him in his decision to defy God and consecrate these rebel renegade bishops.


sitetest

[sinkspur]

Read the WTC letter. You'll see that Dickie-boy's not wild about Arabs either. In fact, he seems to dislike most everybody, but himself.

You missed the fun last night, ur.

Is the SOUND OF MUSIC pornographic? Does your wife wear shorts, or pants, even in your own home? Did your wife go to college?

Does she ever have an idea? Williamson's not wild about women having ideas.

No. Your man passed from Anglicanism, briefly through Catholicism, on his way to the SSPX.

BTW, I'll start posting references to you when you start posting references, something you never do.

[ultima ratio]

Yes, I have read some of Kasper's works and have remarked on them on this site. He doubts the historicity of the Resurrection. He interprets this event as a spiritual reality, rather than as something that physically happened and was even witnessed--as St. Paul argued. This is why Ratzinger opposed his being awarded the red hat--but JnPII went ahead anyway.

[sitetest]

Dear sinkspur,

"Did your wife go to college?"

Hey, what's wrong with you anyway?? Don't you know that:

"That girls should not be in universities flows from the nature of universities and from the nature of girls: true universities are for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, so true universities are not for true girls."

- Richard Williamson

Oh, wait, I guess that's slander. LOL!


sitetest

[k omalley]

Thanks, UR. I really need to read the book. I hope I'll understand it. I think I have permanent brain damage from deconstruction studies.

[sinkspur]

The charges of Nazi sympathizing is the most serious attack of all--which you hurl freely, without consideration of the harm this does.

I never said Dickie-boy was a Nazi sympathizer; I said he admired things Nazi and has Nazi paraphernalia in his residence, according to an ex-SSPXer.

Now, maybe he just likes broken crosses, or maybe he thinks Hitler was a genius (as Pat Buchanan does). I don't know. Do you?

[ultima ratio]

Where are these "quotes" from? Are you sure they are Williamson's? I find them hard to believe. I have been reading his letters the past several years--and never came across anything like these quotations.

[jt8d]

"Now, maybe he just likes broken crosses, or maybe he thinks Hitler was a genius (as Pat Buchanan does). I don't know. Do you?"

Now, sir, I have got your number. It is becoming most obvious that you puposely quote out of context, that you may imply injury where none exist, and thus affect gross character assassination. We both know full well, Sinkspur, that Pat Buchanan did in no way advanced the message of Hitler being a "genius" under a positive light, which you here ascribe to him very shrewdly. The context of Buchanan's remark revolved around Hitler's cunning, as a populist orator, to manipulate an entire nation. Even as Hitler set to motion a system that accomplished efficiency in the material realm--which one could generically ascribe the character of organizational "genious," doing so in no way implies a benevolent, or otherwise complimentary, global sense of the word, for Hitler's true "genious" was that of being supremely evil.

Sinkspur, while I may not agree with Mr. Buchanan on several issues, I would still maintain my integrity by quoting the man in full context. That you willfully attempt to turn the phrase, in order to slander Pat Buchanan, is obvious.

[ultima ratio]

On Women attending the University. Here is what you left out:

"But Pius XII encouraged you to make the best of being forced out into the world? - Maybe he was making the best of an already bad situation in the 1940's and 1950's, when he hoped women would bring to bear their femininity on the public domain. However, by the definitions of "feminine" and "public", that is a contradiction in terms. Fifty years later, who can deny that the public domain has de-feminized, woman? As a friend said, "Women used to have careers open to them only in nursing and teaching, which they did well. Now they no longer know how to do either!"

"It is high time for Catholics to buck the current and to buck the world! Europe, center of Christendom, is collapsing, because European girls are all being taught to go to "university" and to "put off' having babies! Woman and family are in desperate crisis - do we want to follow the swine over the cliff?

"But men today are unfit to lead, so you have to go to university to take their place? – You cannot take their place!!!! (The exception proves the rule). Today you are merely following them into "universities", tomorrow you will be following them out. By hook or by crook, do something motherly, play your part as God meant you to do, and God can give you back from above the manly leaders and the husband that you pray for and need, but that you cannot by the nature of things wrest to yourselves from below. You cannot restore God's order by breaking it. Get behind your men! Behind, you have an enormous power to inspire and guide. In front, you will merely make them more irresponsible than ever..."

I do not ascribe to this view, neither does my wife--which has always been an obstacle for me as far as Williamson goes. But neither should his view be trivialized as goofy. He clearly knew he was exaggerating. As women are more masculinized, men have become more feminized. This was his essential point.

[ultima ratio]

On WTC--here is the full quote:

"For the last fourteen hundred years Mohammedans, whether Saracens or Arabs or Moors or Turks, have served God as a scourge to punish faithless Christians, or slack Christendom. When Catholics are fervent, God can grant them miraculous victories over the Mohammedans, as at the sea-battle of Lepanto in 1571. When Catholics are slack, God can allow the very survival of their nations to be threatened, as now, by birth-rates in Europe, by terrorism in the USA. When Spanish Catholics were slack in the 700's, God allowed the Jews to betray Spain to the Arabs. When Spanish Catholics were truly Catholic, God granted them by 1492 to reconquer Spain from the Arabs, and then granted them to create a Catholic empire in the Americas. Either way, God writes straight with crooked lines for the salvation of souls.

"The Jews are a similar case. As early as 200 the Church author Tertullian remarked that as Catholic faith goes up, so Jewish power goes down, while as Catholic faith goes down, so Jewish power goes up. In the Catholic Middle Ages the Jews we're relatively impotent to harm Christendom, but as Catholics have grown over the centuries since then weaker and weaker in the faith, especially since Vatican II, so the Jews have come closer and closer to fulfilling their substitute-Messianic drive towards world dominion.

"If we return for a moment to politics, the United States is now caught precisely between these two scourges of God. Unquestionably one main grievance of Arabs against the United States, provoking their terrorists to lash out as we have seen, is the United States' one-sided favoring of Israel over the Arabs for the last forty years. But each time the United States attempts to act even-handedly towards the Arabs, Jewish power inside the United States - e.g. virtual control of finance and the media - blocks the attempt, and the United States returns to oppressing the Arabs.

"This problem of the United States is politically insoluble, because it is a religious problem! The United States is caught between these two scourges of God, because it has turned away from God. God chastises those whom He loves (Heb. XII, 6), so that if God were not now chastising the United States, it would be the proof not that He loved, but that He did not love the United States! Let us be grateful that God is using Arab and Jew to chastise us! And let us therefore, with no thought of hating Arab or Jew, because they are NOT the real problem, turn to the real problem, which is the sins by which we offend God."

Again, I do not ascribe to these views--but they are not anti-Semitic strictly speaking. If anything, they are biased against other religions, the Islamic and the Judaic. Williamson's reading is toxic, perhaps, but not crazy. Any Catholic is free to disagree--and most do, including most traditionalists.

[sinkspur]

That you willfully attempt to turn the phrase, in order to slander Pat Buchanan, is obvious.

How much of Pat Buchanan have you read? The man is obsessed with 1) Jews and 2) Hitler. Bill Buckley concluded, in 1992, that he could not defend Pat against charges of anti-semitism, and Pat has only gotten worse as time has gone on.

Pat's dad was an old "America Firster", a follower of the Jew-hating Fr. Coughlin and the Hitler-admiring Charles Lindbergh. Pat himself has argued against the theory of diesel engines being used in concentration camps, and defended the infamous John Demjanjuk against charges of being a guard in a Nazi concentration camp, only to find out that ole John had been a guard in a Russian concentration camp.

Pat's pretty well discredited himself, and will never be anything but an interesting anachronism.

[sinkspur]

In the Catholic Middle Ages the Jews we're relatively impotent to harm Christendom, but as Catholics have grown over the centuries since then weaker and weaker in the faith, especially since Vatican II, so the Jews have come closer and closer to fulfilling their substitute-Messianic drive towards world dominion.

You don't find this to be anti-semitic? It's the old "Protocols of Zion" point of view.

Go here to see how well Williamson seems to know the "Protocols," one of the most anti-semitic, conspiratorial screeds ever written.

[ultima ratio]

Granted Williamson is our hairshirt. He ascribes to especially far-right views at times, but neither is he typical of how most SSPXers think. I have said this before. Using him as a whip to scourge traditionalism generally--as Sinspur does--is ridiculous.

[ultima ratio]

I don't think it reflects the "Protocols" so much as a distrust of Jewish freemasonry and Zionism.

[sitetest]

Dear ultima,

Oh, heck, ultima, you left out the very best part of the WTC dreck:

"That is a religious and not a political calculation. Man proposes, God disposes. On the political level, we can be virtually certain that the vile media will not tell us the full story. There is serious reason to believe--that in 1898, it was not the Spaniards who sank the 'USS Maine'; that in 1917, it was not the Germans who set up the "Lusitania" as a target; that in 1941 it was not the Japanese who set up Pearl Harbor for attack; that in 1963 it was not Lee Harvey Oswald who killed President Kennedy. In 1990 it was certainly not Saddam Hussein who promised not to react if he invaded Kuwait. In 1994 it was certainly not Timothy McVeigh's van exploding outside the Alfred Murrah building in Oklahoma City which brought the front of the building down. In 2001...? Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, now Osama bin Laden, from CIA-assets to personal enemies of the American people -how many more times will the trick work?"

This crackpot sounds more like the leader of some nutjob Aryan Nation or Christian Identity group rather than a "catholic" bishop. Heck, if I didn't know better, I'd think that Oliver Stone was writing his material!

Listen, if you want to defend him, be my guest. If you want to say that this dreck isn't off the wall, be my guest.

Or, I could be wrong and you're really not offended by this sewage!

The Catholics here think the guy is a basket-case.

sitetest