[Dominick]

You have never answered my arguments, but instead continually disseminate falsehoods. This being the case, I am forced to once again spell out the deception and the injustice perpetrated against Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX. Here are the facts.

OK lefts look at them.

1. In all the years since Vatican II, neither Paul VI nor John Paul II had allowed a single traditionalist priest to be consecrated.

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2. The Archbishop was 82 years old and failing in health.

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3. Meanwhile the Church was imploding. Scandals were erupting everywhere.

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4. Negotiations ensued between the Archbishop and Rome.

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5. The Archbishop pushed for a definite date--and got none. He finally got tired of vague promises and came to the conclusion Rome was playing a waiting game--waiting for him to die in order to take over the movement and destroy it.

The consecration of Priests and the installation of Bishops are to be done with the goal of propagating the Faith. Surly there was more than one other Bishop who could continue this work. No, this argument falls flat on the point that LeFebvre was not the only Bishop, and other Bishops were there and ready. He was not the last Bishop around who was like himself. There were others, and there could have been others behind him.

He had been ordaining Priests, and this is not a disputed fact, nor is that a cause for excommunication. Installing Bishops without a mandate from the Pope is cause and has been applied.

You left out that on the eve of the Installation, the Pope sent a car for a private audience to try a last ditch effort to bring this to a reasonable end. The Pope gave a direct warning, and yet, was giving the Archbishop a way out of the mess without losing any face. Lefebvre never got in the car to talk in Rome. His pride must have got the better of him.

6. Four traditionalist priests were consecrated as bishops.

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7. But there was also another canon that supported the Archbishop as well. It was a canon which stated that even if an individual WERE MISTAKEN ABOUT A STATE OF NECESSITY, as long as his belief was sincere, there could be no penalty.

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8. The Pope chose to ignore all this as well as his own canons.

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Lets look at this last one, the Pope didn't ignore the Canon, he correctly said that this didn't apply, it there was indeed an emergency, what better and more honorable way to solve the problem than a direct face-to-face meeting with the Pope. I could agree with emergency if there was no way to talk to Rome, or no way to get permission back. I would then expect the Archbishop to go directly to Rome in obedience and explain the reasoning. Once again, pride prevented this.

9. In fact, the Canon Law decree was latae sententiae--that is to say, it was automatic and was totally dependent on the internal dispositions of the individuals involved.

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10. Those who defend the Pope, do so on grounds of the Archbishop's disobedience. But disobedience is not inherently evil--it is not always and everywhere wrong.

Both these arguments are circular. He can't know anyone's mind, only what they admitted, the SSPX admitted they had committed the act. How can the Pope say the abortionist or genocidal maniac didn't have good reason, how can he know those people's minds as well? Indeed, every schismatic had a good reason.

Greek Orthodox: Filioque is a heresy!
Martin Luther: Indulgences for Sale
Henry VIII: I must have a male heir!
????????: Non Serviam

Perhaps the whole of the Protestant Schism is over!

Yay!

11. St. Thomas Aquinas says something similar. Popes do not have a mandate to harm the Church. Nor may they impose a sentency of "schism" where it does not exist.

Changing the Mass in of itself is not an act of harm. Lets say the Pope decided to kill those who disagreed with him, no wait that already happened in the middle ages, let say the Pope had decided to keep a concubine, no wait, that actually happened too. Bring up the crime and I bet a Pope sometime has done it. Even if you only consider Alexander Vi, even if you discount a lot that he was accused of, he was definitely capable of Evil.

There I could say I would resist that Pope of the House of Borgia in all matters that conflicted with Law. he can't rewrite the Ten Commandments, and even if he tried, why would the Holy Spirit let him?

Changing the Mass is hardly an act of Evil, and even at that a Indult is available, but only if you can say the Novus Ordo is a Mass as valid as Tridentine. The Pope may say who is and in not in union with them. In fact it is his job to make those declarations, and his alone.

12. Had the Pope wanted to prove the Archbishop culpable, he had recourse to a papal tribunal which would have had the right to call witnesses, to include evidence, and which would have allowed the accused the right to defend himself.

When the facts of the case and an admission is clearly made, no tribunal is made. If he had presented himself asking for a hearing, what would be heard? He admitted the facts of the case, and indeed the emergency is well know to the Pope, if he agreed he would have been able to act. The Pope has done a lot in acting on the objections posed by the SSPX, and continues to talk.

13. Another belief by those who disagree with the SSPX is that the Pope "imposed" an excommunication or declaration of schism on the SSPX. But he did no such thing. He only gave his opinion about what he believed happened automatically as a result of the consecrations.

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14. Others claim the Pope is the Supreme Legislator in the Church and may decide what he wants on the matter. But this is only partially true. He is supreme only in the legal, not the moral, sense. He can LEGALLY declare something, but he cannot effect it as a reality unless the individuals were actually guilty.

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If he does such an unjust thing, such a decaration would be a nullity.

Most of the time these are carried out with no fort her action.No action is needed because this is a complete act, one needing no ratification, but instead he did ratify it, in a legal document. It violated no canon law, he simply denied that there was an actual emergency, and even if Lefebvre thought there was an emergency, why would he not express it to the Pope the night before?

Nope, this is a valid charge. If goes beyond this one act of disobedience, the See says the SSPX sows a schismatic mentality, one of resisting otherwise lawful orders, and also denigrates otherwise licit Sacraments. I agree the Priests would not say such a stupid and untrue thing, but among the faithful this is openly said. I have heard it from SSPX people here, and in my town.

The SSPX looms closer to reunion with Rome, but many faithful are finding more in common with sedavacanists. Like I said before, some will return and some are lost.

[ultima ratio]

1. All the traditional bishops were old and failing. None had seminaries.

2. You can't ordain priests without bishops. They were dying out. None since the Council were being consecrated--not a single one. That was the whole point. The Traditional Mass was being starved to death by modernist Rome.

3. Lefebvre was not looking for a way out of the mess. He was looking to preserve the ancient faith from destruction at the hands of those in the revolution who thought they knew better than all the preconciliar popes and councils and saints put together.

4. The Archbishop tried the negotiation route--it was futile. There was absolutely no trust left between him and Rome. The Pope had just organized Assisi--to the great scandal of all traditional Catholics. It appeared things were going from bad to worse, yet even so, because he revered the papacy, he tried to negotiate. But it was absolutely one-sided and went on pointlessly without the Pope budging an inch or committing himself to anything in writing. The Pope only reacted after the consecrations--with an outburst of anger which was the motu proprio.

5. The act was committed, yes. But the Pope wasn't judging that. He was judging motivations when he decided the bishops were excommunicated and in schism. They could only have been truly excommunicated if they never actually feared a state of necessity. But they did fear such a state and had stated this openly for years! And they could only be in schism if they acted to deny the Pope's legitimacy--but they did not act for that reason! They acted to protect the faith! You are excusing the Pope for trying to do what was impossible--judge the interior motives of others. He assumed they were disobedient because they wanted to deny his papacy--he totally discounted the real motive, which was to protect Catholic Tradition.

6. It was indeed harmful to the Church to attempt to destroy the ancient Mass. You may not think so--the Pope obviously did not think so--but traditional Catholics profoundly believe this, and nothing will ever shake their conviction. For over a thousand years the ancient Mass had been the crown jewel of the Catholic faith--and now it was being scheduled for execution. Even worse, the evidence was everywhere that the introduction of the New Mass and the suppression of the Old Missal had done immense injury to the Church. This is all beyond dispute. But even if the Archbishop were wrong about this, even if the new Mass were not the protestantizing, Trent-defying liturgy he supposed--he nevertheless believed this sincerely--and therefore could not have been culpable under canon law. Under Canon Law it is what he believed when he acted that mattered, not what the Pope or anyone else imagined to have been his motive.

7. Of course the Motu Proprio is a nullity as far as condemning the SSPX goes. Why? Because it is superceded in authority by the Pope's own Canon Law which allowed for the SSPX to disobey if they feared a state of necessity existed. Canon Law has priority over the Pope's own whim in a letter. Not only this, but Divine Law itself demands that the Pontiff concede this point out of justice.