What reconciliation? SSPX Demotes Former French Superior

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.

Not sure it this has been posted elsewhere, but the letter is worth reading, it it quite joyful and optimistic. I've only excerpted a few paragraphs here.

A victory for the Mass of Saint Pius V

by Fr Paul Aulagnier, SSPX

I was - and am - in favour of reopening negotiations with Rome even before Rome expressed this desire after our pilgrimage in the jubilee year.

My reasons are simple.

It is now fourteen years since the consecrations took place. They saved Tradition, its expression, and its modus vivendi in the Church. Without them, the Church's treasure, for example, the Tridentine Mass would have disappeared from the Church...and we with it. Providence did not permit that...On the contrary, the mainstream movement of Tradition was strengthened, as was the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X together with its associated work in Europe, and both North and South America...

We must continue these efforts. We must continue this expansion. "He who does not go forward, goes backwards!". It is not enough to guard a treasure and keep it for ourselves. We have to make it shine forth, and be loved throughout the Church. That is, by the way, the meaning of the inscription on the tomb of Mgr Lefebvre: "Tradidi quod et accepi". ("I have passed on what I have received").

There we have a watchword, an example to imitate...We must hand on... So Rome is opening its doors? How astonishing! Of course, we must be prudent but not fearful or timid. The conditions proposed by Rome are unique...unprecendented...especially the exemption from episcopal jurisdiction, which is of the highest importance. They have just put forward the juridical structure- an Apostolic Administration. These were all things which Mgr Lefebvre was asking of Rome.

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.

The result is evident everywhere--particularly in the language that theologians now use. There has been a radical change of definitions of essential Catholic terms, for instance--for words such as "Eucharist", or "Sacrament" or "Sacrifice". There is also an official absence among theologians of words like "Hell" or "Heaven" or "soul"; notice how they prefer the use of terms such as "presbyter" for "priest" or "diaconia" for "service" or "eucharist" for "Mass." 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. 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. Kasper pushes this attitude while dealing with the Protestant churches, seeking a unity based on spiritual feelings outside of doctrinal consensus.

Can anyone doubt there is some hidden intention behind these attitudes and changes in verbal usage? Romano Amerio in Iota Unum gives many examples of usages which contravene even essential dogmas of the Church. For instance, he shows how the dogma of the virginity of Mary is qualified in such a way by modern theologians as to negate its actual meaning. He cites J. H. Nicolas in La Virginite de Marie, who states that doubt is possible "not concerning the dogma itself, the dogmatic credentials of which are not contested by anyone, but as to its exact object, which does not necessarily include the miracle of giving birth without rupture of the body." This kind of affirmation-denial double-speak is typical.

The New Mass itself does this in subtle ways. While including Christ's words of Consecration in its Canon, it nevertheless fails to acknowledge the result--the Real Presence of Christ--by any word or rubric. Catholics are urged instead to ignore the Real Presence by not kneeling for Communion and by receiving Communion in the hand. After the actual Consecration, in fact, the missal text immediately--and oddly--shifts its attention away from the Real Presence to Christ's Virtual Presence in the assembly. Add to this the fact that tabernacles have been removed from their central positions in most churches, and it will be clear that something purposeful is happening to traditional Catholic belief in the dogma of Transubstantiation. Nothing has been crudely or overtly denied, it is true, yet this dogma--and others--have been subtley suppressed and the faith of Catholics has been gravely undermined.

But there have also been overt and radical contradictions to traditional Catholic teachings. For instance, Rome now teaches that the Church Christ founded actually only "subsists" in the Catholic Church. The verb "is", which clearly and unambiguously established identity, has been replaced by the verb "subsist"--which means to exist "under something else". This sunders such a clear identity--though the severence is subtle and only those attuned to other modernist subversions would notice. But whatever else and whereever else Christ's Church may be, it is now said to be not precisely the same thing as the Catholic Church, though it is said to exist somehow "fully" in the Catholic Church while at the same time existing in other churches as well. This is a major break with past Catholic teachings.

Other doctrines have shifted. For instance, the Council of Trent's unambiguous insistence that the Mass must never be celebrated primarily as a commemorative meal has been rejected. The Novus Ordo Mass clearly violates this anathema. Likewise, the Lutheran idea of justification is now considered wholly acceptable, whereas before it had been denounced as heretical; likewise the teaching that the Jews need to be converted to Christ and that they have historically rejected the true Messiah. Modern theologians as well as Rome itself reject these traditional teachings.

But there is even something more revolutionary going on. Under Modernism a clear tendency to shift the meaning of Catholicism away from its transcendental goal of supernatural life to a more secularized purpose is consistently evident. The loss of the very idea of dogmatic truth is now not only widespread among the faithful, but it is even defended in theological circles as well. Here, for instance, is the Bishop of Autun, cited by Amerio in his classic study: "Today I state clearly how glad I am to see my Church, which has too often been seen as always sure of itself, the master and judge of all truth, breaking that image in order to pen itself up, to understand, to welcome other people's thinking, to recognize its own limitations, and to carry out at last a 'truth-finding operation'; which is quite a different thing from explaining and defending 'truths.'"

That a Catholic bishop should utter such words is itself astonishing. What is this but an expression of the crisis in the Church's own self-understanding? Hitherto she alone had known herself to be the proprietor of the meanings of Sacred Scripture. Now, having broken her ties with her own sacred tradition, she finds herself one among many other searchers for truth. Here is another modernist theologian, Varillon, in the French Jesuit review Etudes: "Today's faith in its adult state can do without dogmas; it is big enough to be able to discover God by personal contact. Faith should not be founded on revealed truths, but on events unfolding in history."

This is the very essence of modern philosophy--that all truth is relevant and changing--and it is the heart and soul of existential and phenomenological theory. It has led to enormous changes in Biblical exegesis, for instance, even among the scholars of the Pontifical Biblical Institute--which had been the Vatican organ which published its revolutionary theory that there was no need for the Jews to convert. Perhaps the greatest shift of meaning has been to prescind from the historicity of Gospel accounts and to slip into poetic interpretations instead, translating the New Testament into mere spiritual feelings and denying historicity based on factual events. This is Cardinal Kasper's approach to the Resurrection, for instance, and to even Christ's claim to Divinity--that these doctrines must be "spiritually" understood as inspiring, but not necessarily based on historical realities. Despite such openly heretical teachings, however, Kasper was rewarded the cardinalate by JnPII.

So it is not true, as you suppose, that nothing has changed. We are in the midst of a revolution--and it is not yet over. You need to recognize this and decide which side you're on.

"So, the colonists' rebellion was thoroughly justified? It seems to me, your second treatise railed against the colonists and their "Revolution" against the monarchy."

The point of whether the "American" revolution was "justified" is a side issue, for reason only that, in the main, the colonialists were Protestant, and thus inebriated with their own inflated sense of self-worth, which is typical to Protestants by political temper, and reinforced through their materialistic and situational-ethic minded theology.

The central theme of my "treatise" is that throughout history man has endeavored to, ever so shrewdly, build himself up--to lord it over God: by his intellectual, self-centered pompous arrogance; and always under the pretext of "enlightenment." Hence: the "Rights" of the individual increasingly undermine, dominate, and finally dispose with, the Rights of God. Protestants have a keenly honed skill for applying this tactic by their ingenious method of rationalization.

The irony is that, for all their juridical cunning, the Protestants' "bulwark" of republican government begot only the inevitable downward slide into the muck, as Man increasingly unbridles his insatiable desire for rebllion against God. So, therefore in the end, Man is not uplifted by the "blessings" of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity; but rather, Man is further debased into his self-indulgent deception of individual freedom--a misery that he has so shrewdly created for the stated purpose of increasing Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. We forge heavy chains, for ourselves and our posterity, in the name of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.

"If not you, then I've read that from your fellow throne-sniffers, who think any rebellion against a king violates some kind of dictum from Jesus."

Uncomfortable and unbearable although a monarch may be at divers times throughout history, the fact remains that such leaders hold power only at God's pleasure--not by the edicts of "the people." That arrangement may "suck" eggs for the pride of men, but that is the way scripture judges the issue--NOT I."

The point of whether the "American" revolution was "justified" is a side issue, for reason only that, in the main, the colonialists were Protestant, and thus inebriated with their own inflated sense of self-worth, which is typical to Protestants by political temper, and reinforced through their materialistic and situational-ethic minded theology.

The more you rant, the more you reveal your religious bigotry.

Man is not uplifted by the "blessings" of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity; but rather, Man is further debased into his self-indulgent deception of individual freedom--a misery that he has so shrewdly created for the stated purpose of increasing Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Yep. You're certifiable. You wouldn't be permitted to write these words, or even be on a forum like this, in the regime you envision.

Uncomfortable and unbearable although a monarch may be at divers times throughout history, the fact remains that such leaders hold power only at God's pleasure--not by the edicts of "the people."

Thing is, your "monarch" gets to determine what God's pleasure is, doesn't he?

I'll trust the will of the electorate over the "enlightenment" of an individual in matters political, no matter how "enlightened" he, or you, think he is.

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