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.

[sitetest]

Dear ultima,

"These are NOT religious positions that any Catholic needs pay any attention to, but are the political and social views of a man who is clearly an arch-conservative."

You're in denial, ultima.

I'll keep praying for you.


sitetest

[St.Chuck]

Why is it that everyone on this board will attack a Bishop or an Order for sexual abuse allegations so long as that such Bishop or Religious order had a liberal streak in it.

I'll have to reacquaint myself with the charges being leveled in this case, but I have been very consistent in defending the decisions of all bishops, however unorthodox they might be, regarding sexual abuse allegations. Allegations. Allegations. Allegations.

Bishop Timlin has acted properly in this case. The suspects have been removed. They have not been reassigned. Bishop Timlin has acted cautiously and prudently despite enormous pressure to drop the hammer on these guys. I know it's not chic these days, but I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I believe Sammy Sosa too.

[St.Chuck]

Per your request to respond. I think this is the post you were referring to on another thread.

There can be little doubt the Catholic Church for forty years has been denigrating and rejecting its own past. Rather than affirming the pride former ecclesiastics took in Catholicism's confrontation with its adversaries, the modern Church now apologizes for its own history and gives its enemies fodder for more attacks. This can be attributed to one reason only: a loss of faith in traditional Catholicism itself.

I disagree. The past forty years have been spent soberly examining the Church's past. I reject the notion that any Doctrine has been altered, and the pope affirms and affirms that with every encyclical he issues. The only apologies the Church has offered have been for the excesses that members of the church may have been guilty of. The Church has not apologized for it's Doctrine.

Catholic ecclesiastics continue to confront their adversaries regularly. The bishop of Sacramento's principled stand regarding Gray Davis' support for abortion and Cardinal Arinze's remarks at the Georgetown commencement excercises are but two of the most recent examples. From Leonid Brezhnev to George W. Bush, the pope has a long history of opposing that which is inconsistent with Church Teaching. He has not displayed the timidity you suggest. That anti- Catholicism is alive and well and growing lends creedence to the fact that the Church remains and grows as a moral force and is indeed confrontational.

I don't know why you think that the past was somehow more Catholic acting. For every John Vianney in France, there were perhaps a thousand lazy, cowardly, inarticulate, unmotivated, distracted, undisciplined, poorly educated, worldly clerics just as there are now.

The result is evident everywhere--particularly in the language that theologians now use.

I don't know what the problem is with clarifying definitions and making them accessable to people in rapidly changing cultures. If you are perturbed by theologians, don't read them. The Catholic Catechism should be your definitive guide.

#1328, addresses your qualms about "sacrifice", "eucharist", and "mass". "The inexhaustible richness of this sacrament is expressed in the different names we give it." Inexhaustible richness!

The very meaning of the word "faith" itself has shifted. It now means a feeling of communion with God, an experience of the divine--and has lost its rational justification grounded in Catholic doctrines.

I'll take your word for it, but rather than say shifted, why not expanded? Don't the saints "experience the divine?" Are we not called to be saints? Is not an ever greater knowlege of God desirable?

This is why no one in Rome will discuss the New Mass doctrinally with the SSPX and why the Vatican is insisting on "regularization" without any basis in doctrinal agreement--which would reveal its own present course of contradicting Traditional teachings.

My sense is that there is nothing to discuss Doctrinally. The Vatican's position is since there has been no Doctinal change, there is no Doctrinal change to discuss. I think that will prove to be the stumbling block for the poor souls mired in the schism. I mean, how do you discuss a delusional proposition? It would be absurd to treat these claims as true. Impossible for the Church of Truth to take them seriously. I think it important to examine why the Church does not need to discuss these allegations. Either the Church is wrong or the SSPX is wrong.

Maybe more later.

[ninenot]

Your insight that "...[Williamson]..is as bad as any bad ["regular"] Bishop in the USA..." is dead-on.

It's not without reason that E Michael Jones keeps insisting that there ARE such things as enemies on the right.

However, I will not join your lively discussion with ultRat and his comrades. No point, and I won't deal with them because that presumes they are REALLY rational.

The presumption is a fallacy.

[ninenot]

You can make them happy AND save a lot of money: buy flour sacks. No shoes. No hose. No makeup.

AND--remember that under the Williamson regime (were he to be consistent)--there should be no females in a church choir, either.

[ninenot]

Helps to be "a local." The Institute of Christ the King had a priest (near LaCrosse, WI) who also had a problem with little boys...

Bp. Burke of LaCrosse is one of the better guys out there; he had invited the Institute into the Diocese; and has had to live with this, ever since.

BTW, the priest in question held the ultra-conservative women spellbound. They thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

[sinkspur]

Did you read the note I left you and Thorondir on another thread about the supposed "canonization" of Cassie Bernall, who allegedly was questioned about her belief in God, then shot at Columbine?

None of it's true; not the canonization, and not even the story.

It's linked at snopes.com.

[Maximilian]

AND--remember that under the Williamson regime (were he to be consistent)--there should be no females in a church choir, either.

If you were on the Latin Mass email list you'd know that this is actually true at many traditional parishes today, including indult parishes, such as those run by the FSSP. The choir is designed to be an organic part of the offering of the sacrifice, not an ornamental addition.

[ultima ratio]

Your last post indicates to me you have no idea what's going on. Definitions matter. When you keep the word and change its meaning, you are changing the faith itself. There is a real and irreconcilable clash between classical theology of the preconciliar Church and the theology that informs the contemporary Church. They are not reconcilable, but are in opposition and incompatible.

The New Mass, for instance, introduces a new notion of the meaning of "sacrifice" based on the "theology of the Paschal Mystery". No less a theologian than Cardinal Ratzinger has rejected the concept that any sort of "immolation" takes place in such a sacrifice, stating that "a destruction does not honor God." (The Problem of Liturgical Reform, 103-104.) For him and the new theologians, sacrifice consists "not in the destruction, but in the transformation of man."

Classical theology rejects this interpretation since such a conception of sacrifice cannot account for Christ's act of expiation--which, no doubt, is why the entire dimension of expiation for sin, a primary dogma of the Catholic faith regarding the Mass, is left out of the Novus Ordo. Sin for the new theologians is only considered as it concerns ourselves, not as it relates to God. Reparation no longer means satisfaction of divine justice, but only our conversion. In other words, nothing is as it was--we are in the realm of a new belief-system, a new religious ideology--one that had already been condemned by the Council of Trent.

Cardinal Ratzinger has stated, "We can no longer imagine that human fault can wound God, and still less that it would require an expiation equal to that which constitutes the cross of Christ." Yet this is contrary to the classical doctrine of expiation--found even in the writings of St. Paul--and repeated over and over for twenty centuries, a doctrine which was signified by the old rite. Here is how the Council of Trent put it: "For, after He had celebrated the ancient feast of the Passover, which the multitude of the children of Israel sacrificed [immolabat] in memory of their exodus from Egypt, He instituted a new Passover, Himself to be immolated [immolandum]under visible signs by the Church through the priests, in memory of His own passage from this world to the Father." (Denzinger, #1741.)

In classical theology the death of Christ was an immolation, an expiation for our sins, and the Mass itself was a true reenactment of His death on the Cross; but in the new theology no immolation takes place, there is no need for expiation, there is no reenactment of the Cross but a commemorative meal instead which celebrates our "transformation" or conversion from sin. These are real doctrinal differences that can't be sloughed off or wished away. They mean we are celebrating the Mass now, not as we had done for two thousand years, but in a new way, and are thereby affirming a new religion.

And, remember, I am only dealing here with only ONE of the many shifts in the meanings of traditional Catholic terms that have occurred over the past forty years. There are many other novelties never before taught that now have wide currency. The notion you present in your last post is therefore way off the mark. Even more is your further contention that the Church is a growing moral force. The opposite is true: its moral influence is in considerable decline--just check the daily newspapers. Notwithstanding this Pope's conservative moral theology on issues such as abortion--which you focus on but which I have never denied--he nevertheless subscribes to a modernist theology that is novel and irreconcilable with former Church teachings, supporting it and affirming it throughout his papacy. This has had a devastating affect on the postconciliar Church that will be felt for many generations to come.

[ultima ratio]

Look, I have often said here Williamson is not my cup of tea. I have no idea why Aulagnier has been transferred here, but it need not be for the reasons you suggest. I trust Fellay--he is a prudent and decent man and not at all opposed to reconciliation if the foundation is there for the faith to flourish. As I've already said, it may well be Father Aulagnier has been transferred here to exert an influence on Williamson. What you perceive as "mistreatment" may not be that, especially since there is a way the rumor-mill gets going once somebody favored is transferred.

Moreover, I don't see how a loose cannon like Williamson can be censured by his peers for quoting the Protocols and opposing the Sound of Music. Perhaps it is because his statements have been too obviously expressed as opinions on contemporary affairs and not as formal teachings of the perennial Church. It's hard to take seriously the quotes cited, which are admittedly an embarrassment and show ignorance, but not a major breech in violation of the faith. My own view is that if there is a reconciliation and Williamson refuses to go along, he will be isolated, along with a few of his American followers. I don't think they will be that great in number--though I think the thought of a split is nevertheless giving Fellay and others heartburn. Most want rapprochement with Rome--if Rome returns to its theological senses--but they don't want to split off from America.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

though I think the thought of a split is nevertheless giving Fellay and others heartburn. Most want rapprochement with Rome--if Rome returns to its theological senses--but they don't want to split off from America.

Doesn't the European headquarters of SSPX 'own' the institution per se in America? If Williamson split, could he legally take everything and everyone with him regardless of who wants to go?

[huskyboy]

Ah, but these movies and other entertainments are from today - light years away from the Sound of Music. You can't compare them and then use today's entertainment to condemn the Sound of Music - that's a straw man.

I wasn't trying to compare anything. All I'm trying to say is, if the morals that the Church teaches (as well as the faith) do not change, then it would necessarily follow that if one movie was bad back in the day, it is still bad today. Again, the only thing that changes is people's sensitivity to it. The other thing I observed is that there appear to be fewer and fewer suitable movies each successive year (which I may have already pointed out earlier).

My kids are protected from harmful and sinful music, movies and TV. The Sound of Music can not be considered equally harmful or have the word "pornographic" included in any description of it.

Just thought of something which can be tied in with my earlier charge of anti-Catholicism. Even if the earlier movies seem to be okey in terms of morality (as most people see it), there is still the anti-Catholic element to deal with. Earlier movies may seem innocent, but if the portrayal of Catholicism is false in terms of substance, then the movie is just as anti-Catholic as one which shows and glorifies outright prejudice against the faith and against the faithful. How much does Sound of Music resemble The Story of the Trapp Family Singers? The Song of Bernadette shows St. Bernadette's father as ashamed of his poverty, which is not true in reality. The Messenger contains historical inaccuracies and attempts to put a new age/occult spin on life of Joan of Arc. You may not find them morally objectionable, but that may be because you're only looking on the surface. When one looks at the substance and symbolism, (s)he can find out often that a movie is saying a lot more.

I wonder why blasphemous movies like Dogma and Bruce Almighty do so well at the box office. Could it be because the vigilance against such stuff has dropped over the years? Did we fail to recognize that we compromised truth and genuine Catholic culture and faith in the arts, all in the name of making a movie "look good"? Shouldn't these movies be designed to transform the world, rather than accomodate to it?

You really did not address this particular problem directly. You discussed the immorality of immodest dress (no argument from me there, although I wouldn't take it as far as you) but you never addressed the abortion-as-it-relates-to-pants idea that is so wrong.

Let us review the "objectionable" paragraph again:

Girls, be mothers, and in order to be mothers, let not wild horses drag you into shorts or trousers. When activities are proposed to you requiring trousers, if it is something your great-grandmother did, then find a way of doing it, like her, in a skirt. And if your great-grandmother did not do it, then forget it! Her generation created your country, your generation is destroying it. Of course not all women who wear trousers abort the fruit of their womb, but all help to create the abortive society. Old-fashioned is good, modern is suicidal. You wish to stop abortion? Do it by example. Never wear trousers or shorts. Bishop de Castro Mayer was right.

(bold text I added for emphasis)

I still don't see a direct connection between the two, but something makes sense, intuitively. See, women wearing pants is a modernist phenomenon. And abortion - although it was condemned by the earliest feminists - is also a modernist phenomenon. Women think they can wear pants because the times have changed (so it must be okey). It leads to wearing other types of immodest clothing, again, because times have changed. So, does that mean extramarital activity is okey because the times have changed? If that must be okey, then if woman conceives afterwards as a result of extramarital activity, then it probably follows that it's acceptable to seek an abortion; after all, the times have changed.

Now, there's a problem with that line of thinking. The Church already condemned abortion, immodest clothing, and extramarital activity. The Church also condemns situational ethics (which is what I've just shown above) because it is rooted it relativism and modernism, which have in turn been condemned by the same Church.

For the sake of consistency (and to avoid charges of hypocrisy), anti-modernists necessarily have to stop thinking that the idea of women wearing pants is acceptable, especially since they too oppose abortion. It's a very big stretch to make the connection, but if a woman is wearing pants - regardless of intent - it may give the signal to others that it's okey, and is a potential for scandal. Clothes have a language of their own, too.

[huskyboy]

You and Williamson seem to have some issues of your own regarding sexuality. Most mature men can admire an attractive woman, and move on.

You really don't know me. The only issues I have is regarding morality. I'm keeping the discussion inside that fence.

Having said that, is there something wrong with preventing one person from leading others into sin?

[huskyboy]

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

The Protocols of Zion is Masonic - excuse me, Illuminist - document. The only reason why it appears to be otherwise is to divert people's attention from the real source of the problems.

[Theosis]

As I've already said, it may well be Father Aulagnier has been transferred here to exert an influence on Williamson.

Fr. Aulagnier and I have several friends in common. They all say the same thing. He does not grasp enough English to read the menu off of a McDonald's restaurant. Additionally, how do you explain his removal as Second Assistant to Bishop Fellay on the SSPX's General Council before being sent over? I'm afraid the facts simply clash with your opinion.

[sinkspur]

Having said that, is there something wrong with preventing one person from leading others into sin?

I suppose a ham sandwich could be an occasion of sin to some.