CHURCH ABUSE - ARCHBISHOP REMBERT WEAKLAND

I have seen your posts occasionally which seem to imagine that yours is a good and noble fight between the one true SSPX Church and all those AmCaths (by which I assume you mean AmChurch liberals). You are here also claiming the other 75% of what you call Traditionalists who are not SSPX. By this I imagine you mean those of us, yes, us, who belong to Tridentine Mass communities WITHIN the Roman Catholic Church. Now, of course, you would nonetheless view me as some sort of heretic for attending novus ordo masses about half the time and believing that the standard is the making imminent upon the altar of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross or for believing that the pope is the pope and entitled to obedience and deference as the Vicar of Christ on Earth or in believing with the entire Church from its inception that: Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia (Where Peter is, there is the Church, for those not into Latin).

I too flirted with the SSPX schism when I was in Connecticut simultaneous with the illicit "Bishop" Williamson but remembered Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia before jumping off the cliff. We also had soi-disant "Archbishop" John McKenna (ordained in the Thuc line of the Vietnamese schism initiated by President Diem's brother who had been Archbishop of Hue after Diem's assassination) and who had been a Dominican priest at St. Mary's in New Haven which was my parish before the Tridentine Mass was again allowed and encouraged at New Haven by the late Archbishop Whealon.

My wife and I were married at a Tridentine Nuptial Mass courtesy of Archbishop Whealon (thought by Gary Potter of the Wanderer to be the first allowed by any American bishop in communion with Rome after the requirement of the Novus Ordo Missal). We are not exactly AmCath or AmChurch liberals and I bet I attack AmChurch liberals more than you do on this site but not from a vantage point of schismatic darkness. Being a conservative is no warrant for disobedience.

As to OPH, it seems initially curious that the schismatic to the right (who at least may make rational arguments) wants to rise to the defense of Mr. self-obsessed victim and regular Church basher who continually attempts to inflict collective judgments upon the Church rather than upon his molestor thirty years after the fact. On second thought, there is a certain consistency, isn't there?

As to my manners according to Emily Lefevbre's Etiquette, I regard manners as infinitely less important than the consequences of schism and I believe in the right to be rude. It is an antidote to Oprahism. I think you agree because it is also not good manners to take the name Catholic when schismatic is the more appropriate term. You spoil our good name and gain nothing for yourself.

I think you agree because it is also not good manners to take the name Catholic when schismatic is the more appropriate term.

I see your ability to engage in intelligent discourse begins and ends, as with your fellow Am-Cath above, in screaming from the highest building "schismatic!" Brilliant. How many times do you use the word in this little paragraph of yours? Five or so? There is little point engaging shrill voices such as yours, and frankly the "I was also a schismatic" appeal to pathos wears a little thin.

I have seen your posts occasionally which seem to imagine that yours is a good and noble fight between the one true SSPX Church and all those AmCaths (by which I assume you mean AmChurch liberals).

You clearly know little about the SSPX, whose central motto is "We are not the Church, which was "made in answer to the accusation that we in the Society of Saint Pius X believe that outside the Society there is no salvation. Now this is a manifestly preposterous statement. Society priests do not have a monopoly of the Catholic Faith. There are many other Catholics, in all the rites, who accept all that the Church teaches."

But then I never expect you Am-Caths to do any rational thinking when it comes to issues such as these. You worship this pope and his two predecessors in violation of the First Commandment, but you spit on the multitudes of Saintly Popes through the past centuries who have taught the exact opposite of your modernist heroes. And hold your breath: I am not saying and never said that the Seat of St. Peter is empty, though I know how happy that would make you, as it would post an easy target for your bullets.

You are here also claiming the other 75% of what you call Traditionalists who are not SSPX. By this I imagine you mean those of us, yes, us, who belong to Tridentine Mass communities WITHIN the Roman Catholic Church.

Indeed (though those of us who assist at a Traditional Mass in an SSPX are also within the Roman Catholic Church). The remaining 75 percent who reject the modernist "new mass" are in dioceses where they can assist at an Indult (though why one needs permission from a mere bishop to assist at a Mass guaranteed "in perpetuity" by one of the Church's greatest popes -- a Saint, literally -- is beyond me), or who assist at Traditional Masses at independent Catholic chapels whose bishop is outside the geographic diocese. These last two categories make up the majority of the Traditionalist movement, but they are bound together by their rejection of the "new mass" and adherence to Roman Catholic Tradition and the Magisterium passed down by ALL popes and councils, not just those since 1962. The Am-Caths and Neo-Caths believe the Church somehow just began in 1969, with the promulgation of the "new mass." Bizarre.

What you fail to understand, by the way, and this is a critical failure on your part stemming -- I would suppose -- from your irrational hatred for your fellow Catholics, is that there is no "membership" in the SSPX. The Society is merely a group of Traditionalist priests. There is no lay "membership." Yes, I go to Mass at an Society chapel. I go because the Traditional Mass -- the mass codified "in perpetuity" by Pius V -- is said there without modernist influence.

I know it is difficult to understand those of us who reject the experimentation with a new mass in the 1960s, but look objectively where it has led the Church? Do you think it was a coincidence that shortly after the promulgation of the "new mass" the entire Body of Christ began to fall apart? Who do you blame for this, if not the 1960s radicals who determined to fix that which was not broken and was forbidden to "reform." Who?

Finally, I am curious: why do you assert that the Traditional Mass is schismatic? Why do you assert that those who assist at such Mass are also "schismatics"? Do you not understand that SSPX priests and bishops are not, even by the 1983 Code of Canon Law, excommunicated?

Here is one answer to that silly accusation:

What, moreover, constitutes a schismatic act? —Not the mere deed of consecrating bishops without pontifical mandate. The 1983 Code of Canon Law itself lists this offense under Title 3 (abuse of ecclesiastical powers) and not under Title 1 (offenses against religion and the unity of the Church) of its penal section (Book 6).

Nor would it be a “schismatic act” to consecrate against the express wish of the Holy Father. That could amount to disobedience at most.* But disobedience does not amount to schism; Schism requires that one not recognize the authority of the pope to command; disobedience consists in not obeying a command, whilst still acknowledging the authority of the one commanding. “The child who says ‘I won’t!’ to his mother does not deny that she is his mother” (Fr. Glover, in Is Tradition Excommunicated?

Oh well, I have long abandoned hope of a rational discussion with you Neo-Caths. Go ahead and call me "schismatic" again if it makes you feel better.

OK, you are a schismatic and so are those who frequent SSPX Masses except in case of emergency, which does not include personal distaste for the dreadful customary rubrics of novus ordo. There, that feels better.

I trust that you will feel better if you call me an AmCath or a neoCath (are you a paleo-Cath? No, you are a schismatic). There that feels better.

If a refusal of obedience to the pope constitutes schism, then the action of Marcel Lefevbre abetted by Castro de Mayer and the four illicitly consecrated bishops including Williamson will do until the real thing comes along. SSPX is the same sorry old song played out for the reasons of the moment. In the 1850s, those not fond of Pius IX rejected Vatican I and its doctrine of papal infallibility, aiding and abetting the enemies of the Church by weeping, wailing and whining over the intellectual disrespectability of it all. Soon enough, their soi-disant bishops were marrying along with their clergy and, you must admit, they certainly have made impressive progress over the last 150 or so years.

This reiteration of the cult-terms of AmCath and neoCatholic not heard outside the precincts of SSPX is proof of nothing other than cult origins. AmChurch is the ordinary term for the concept but that would not allow the living martyrs of SSPX (and boy would Pope St. Pius X be furious at this use of his name: Read Pascendi Dominic Gregis) to distinguish themselves from the dregs of society who, while attending Tridentine Masses with regularity, have given up the immortal pride retained by SSPX by knuckling under to papal authority. Imagine, Catholics obedient to the pope and especially one like JPII who defied the towering will of Marcel Lefevbre (sp.?)! I do have sympathy for Castro de Mayer, an elderly and saintly man of iron determination who remained faithful to Rome until just before the end when he volunteered to join the schism tempted by moral equivalency to schismatic solidarity with Lefevbre and whose mandatory resignation by age as ordinary of Campos, Brazil, had been accepted by the termites during JPII's convalescence from the assassination attempt. The oldest temptation of them all is to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge so that you may be as God! Pride is the oldest sin and inv9lved in every other.

By the way, I am well-acquainted with SSPX through its adherents at St. Mary's, Kansas. Their mindset is a danger to the soul and one with which Traditionalists remaining within the Church must struggle daily. All we have to do is remember that good taste is not God, bad taste is not Satan, that Pope St. Pius V's Papal Bull Quo Primum insofar as it purported to bind his successors on matters of discipline or prudential judgment acted beyond his powers in anathematizing in advance those who would change in any way the Tridentine Missal, that the See of Peter is not vacant, that Lefevbre (despite the habit of having music appropriate to Papal Masses played when he said Mass) was not pope, that JP II is and was pope.

If the pride and personal opinions of SSPX are to prevail, why would we have any business condemning Luther and Melancthon on the basis of disobedience (yes they are condemnable as to doctrine). If SSPX can, with impunity, defy the pope by consecrating bishops in direct defiance of direct orders not to do so, then discipline is at an end. Feminazis will rejoice. Plain old feminists will rejoice. The National pseudo-Catholic Reporter will rejoice. The United Nations will rejoice. The World Council of Churches will rejoice and hell itself will rejoice (but its gates will still not prevailagainst the Church. That's a guarantee).

If you do not think that the actual consecration of renegade bishops in direct disobedience to the Hole See is an act of schism, you have not thought this through. Where would you draw the line if not at the consecration of renegade bishops. Your leaders did this because they did not trust Rome, did not trust JPII, did not trust the promises of Jesus Christ in the Peter passage of Matthew, did not trust the Holy Ghost Who would be with us all days even unto the end of the world, but trusted only in their own pride and their own paranoia that their will might not be obeyed by the pope, which is certainly putting the cart before the horse. There, but for the grace of God and the intervention of a now-deceased and saintly orthodox priest, Father Facciuto, would have gone I. There, but for the grace of God and other specific means of transmission of His graces, would go many other Traditionalists whom you have the effrontery and cheek to try and rope into your schism without any permission from us. A key to your attitude is the language questioning why permission for Tridentine rites is necessary. What part of "because the pope says so" is so incomprehensible?

You are a schismatic. There that feels better.;

What part of "because the pope says so" is so incomprehensible?

You papolators are all alike. The pope is Christ's Vicar on earth, but he is not Christ himself. Is that so difficult to understand? Have a look at the First Commandment. Also, what of Quo Primum? What of the Roman Rite as codified more than 400 years ago and guaranteed "in perpetuity" by Pope Pius V as the only Missal to be used for the Roman Rite? I notice you refuse to even tip-toe around that issue. You worship the three modernist popes (who have objectively led the Church to the brink of total collapse) and spit on the Saintly Popes who have preceded them -- and who have preserved the Faith. There is no denying that. So who is "schismatic"?

If you do not think that the actual consecration of renegade bishops in direct disobedience to the Hole See is an act of schism, you have not thought this through.

I don't need to "think this through": I have Canon Law -- even the modernist Canon of 1983 -- to back me up:

What, moreover, constitutes a schismatic act? —Not the mere deed of consecrating bishops without pontifical mandate. The 1983 Code of Canon Law itself lists this offense under Title 3 (abuse of ecclesiastical powers) and not under Title 1 (offenses against religion and the unity of the Church) of its penal section (Book 6).

Nor would it be a “schismatic act” to consecrate against the express wish of the Holy Father. That could amount to disobedience at most.

This is so laughable that it bears repeating here. Oppose the SSPX and all those who cling to Roman Catholic Tradition and instead embrace modernism and its companion phoney ecumenism or you will be helping feminazis and anti-Church types!!! What a riot, what twisted logic. You remind me of the other guy above, who asserts that only by embracing the revolution of the 1960s can one be a real Catholic Traditionalist. You guys must be sore from all the logical contortions you twist yourselves into.

Finally, I will repeat: obedience to error -- even if promulgated by priests, bishops, or the pope himself -- is a grave sin. To assert anything less is to put one's soul in peril. The great Saint Athanasius was forced to challenge his own pope when that pope was compromised by the Arian heresy. Our Lord would not let His Church disappear, and St. Athanasius prevailed. Likewise, as the post-concillar, modernist Church whithers on the vine, as Churches empty out and dioceses sell off empty seminaries to pay for the crimes of their pedophile priests, as the horror of ecumenism run amok penetrates the most sacred shrines of the Faith, God must be smiling down on we Traditionalists who hold fast to the Faith of All Ages, the unmoved and unmovable, the Sacred Roman Catholic Tradition, which stares modernism and indifferentism in the face, which even stares modernist popes in the face when they embrace novelty and modernism. God must be smiling down on us as he did St. Athanasius when he faced a similar challenge, because as the modernist Church is shrinking, the Traditionalist movement -- in communion with our Holy Father John Paul II -- is growing at an astonishing rate.

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