Posted on 11/22/2004 4:51:06 PM PST by Land of the Irish
My Brothers in Christ and My Friends, With great sorrow I read today that you are now "considered perfectly inserted in the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church." I never knew you left. During those memorable days when I visited you in 1991 while doing research for my book on your great and honored Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, I had the privilege of witnessing the Catholic life of your diocese, the most perfect embodiment of the Catholic life in a contemporary setting which I have ever witnessed and so much more than I could ever imagine. What a blessing you have been granted! What extraordinary graces you have received, undoubtedly through the prayers and sacrifices and work of the unique Bishop who tended the flock of Campos as shepherd for so many decades. In what way were you not then Catholic? In what way were you separated from the Church?
Your announcement that the Holy Father has signed a "letter of entrance," welcoming you "in full ecclesial communion" along with "the Catholic faithful (you) assist" suggests that there had been some separation with Rome, that you were in fact in some sort of schism. Had not the Catholic Faith been handed down intact and in perfect fullness from Our Lord Jesus Christ through His Apostles and through the Bishops of His Church until it came to be passed throughout the Diocese of Campos in our time by the fully Catholic Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer? What did he teach you which was not Catholic? Where did he lead you that left you separated from Rome and thus needing to "return"?
The sad fact is clear, even though the details are not yet fully revealed. You have signed an agreement with Modernist Rome and thereby turned your back on the great legacy of your great and beloved Bishop who left you in April of 1991, left you because God called him home, left you secure and Catholic and well provided for. His legacy has now been compromised through the compromise which must have been made with the current power players in Modernist and Progressive Rome, distinct and separate itself from Eternal Rome. To affect a compromise, one must assume leaving one’s position and moving toward a middle ground. The position you must leave is the fullness of the Tradition of the Catholic Faith; the new position you must reach is closer to the outskirts of the New Rome, the Rome of bureaucrats and ambiguous talk and ecumenism and collegiality and religious liberty, all the temptations and errors against which your good pastor so courageously and so comprehensively warned and instructed you.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his memorable and insightful address at the Harvard commencement ceremonies in 1978 stated that "a decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outsider observer notices in the West in our days." For many years the name of the Diocese of Campos has brought to Catholic souls battling error and decay in their own parishes, the clear and resounding call to Catholic courage. In our apostate times, perseverance becomes an act of courage. The colossal moral and spiritual stature of the small human man who was your Bishop stood as a model for Catholic courage. Do you now cut his memory and legacy down to merely human size? Will the name of Campos no longer loudly ring with courage but echo distantly with compromise?
Who can doubt your discomfort or not sympathize with the loneliness you must have felt over the years? A small group of priests, organized together as the Priestly Society of Saint Jean Marie Vianney, carrying on the work of Mother Church in isolation, unnoticed, ignored, except when vilified by the voices of those who long ago made their compromises. But what could be more indicative of your true role as alter Christi if not your work in loneliness and sorrow, with those mocking and derisive voices assailing you? To imagine yourselves now "inserted in the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church" is no solution. You may have a few moments in bonhomie with red and scarlet and purple in the cool marble palaces of the Eternal City, but will Tradition continue in the Diocese of Campos after the compromising and celebrating? How have all other traditional groups fared once they have put themselves under the sway of Modernist Rome? I will not give you the litany of loss and change for you are already aware of it; I will just ask you where is the Traditional Bishop promised to the Fraternity of Saint Peter fourteen years ago? Are the prelates in Modernist Rome to be trusted? Will they deliver to you on the promises they have made? I quote the wise Solzhenitsyn again, "Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?"
You have announced that in a solemn ceremony to be held in the Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior by His Eminence, Cardinal Msgr. Dario Castrillon, Prefect of the Holy Congregation for the Clergy, in the name of the Holy Father, the Pope, on the 18th January, there will be a reading of documents and the singing of the "Te Deum." The 18th of January also begins the "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" decreed by Rome which will culminate in the Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi on January 24th, the second such ecumenical outrage in recent years, a kind of gathering condemned, as you well know, by earlier popes. Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer in a joint statement with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre spoke with the voice of Roman Catholic Tradition in condemning the gathering of religions at Assisi in October of 1987 [sic; the event actually occurred in 1986], the first such outrageous ecumenical prayer venture. Have you forgotten his wise and proscriptive words? Will you now join your hands in prayer with Modernist Rome as it openly violates the First Commandment of God and prays with Lutherans and Anglicans and Muslims and Deists and animists in defiance of Catholic Tradition and then will you pretend still to be Traditionalists? Have you forgotten your own words when in your public Profession of Faith in 1982 you rejected "the ecumenism that makes the Faith grow cold and makes us forget our Catholic identity, seeking to negate the antagonism between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial..." ?
You may protest that you will maintain Traditionalism in your diocese, that you will still celebrate the Mass of All Time and teach the old catechisms and carry on in the Traditional ways. But do you not understand that in compromising you accept an absurd contradiction, an illogical proposition that any sane mind must condemn —that Mother Church in Her Divine Authority can teach contradictory ideas at different times and pretend they are both true. How can your Traditionalism co-exist with Modernism? How can the Mass of All Time be equivalent with the newfangled human contrivance? How can Catholics be forbidden from ecumenical prayer at one time and then encouraged in such actions at a later time? As Hamlet says, when staring at the skull of Yorick, the "gorge rises at it." Such a stark and deadly affront to reason is horrifying. Are you now willing to play this absurd Modernist game with Modernist Rome? Many weary and troubled Catholics will feel the weight of your decision. Already the remarks are circulating that you have "sold out" and "caved in" and "given up". The truth is you have abandoned reason. May I remind you of the words of a prayer you have often prayed? "...Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum..." As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end.
In his courageous statement of June 30, 1988, in Econe, on the occasion of the consecration of Traditional Bishops by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, your courageous Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer in his message of support and unity spoke the following words:
"It is sorrowful to see the lamentable blindness of so many confreres in the Episcopacy and the priesthood, who do not see, or who do not wish to see, the present crisis in order to be faithful to the mission which God has confided to us, to resist the modernism at present ruling."
You no longer "wish to see the present crisis"; you no longer wish "to resist the modernism at present ruling." By your action of compromise with the "modernism at present ruling," you have increased the sorrow of your great Bishop; you have increased the sorrow of your devoted friends. Our Lord in His agony in the garden certainly suffered from the hatred of His enemies, but such suffering was nothing compared to the certain knowledge that He would be betrayed and denied by His friends and disciples.
Be assured of my prayers.
In Christ,
David Allen White
In addition to his book, Dr. Allen White is a professor of literature at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.
In view of the following:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1276658/posts
Dr. White called it right on the money.
It's odd to read vitriol coming from some quarters when a bishop expresses his solidarity with the Vicar of Christ.
Maybe it's just advanced constipation.
Flap, flap, squawk, plop, plop, flap, flap
The Vatican's dealings with both Campos and the FSSP prove Archbishop Lefebvre was right. Rome can't be trusted.
Hic.
Of course it can't, Dickie.
Let's repeat the mantra: "JPII is a miserable failure."
Gee, I guess the Catholic faith has nothing to do with being in full communion with the successor of Peter. Funny how I thought that that was part of Sacred Tradition, e.g. in my eponymous bull about the necessity to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.
You may protest that you will maintain Traditionalism in your diocese, that you will still celebrate the Mass of All Time and teach the old catechisms and carry on in the Traditional ways.
I guess this new Lefebvrist religion is called "Traditionalism" -- I'm not surprised, since it certainly isn't Catholic in its rejection of the Pope and the Magisterium, whose authority is part and parcel of Sacred Tradition. But do you not understand that in compromising you accept an absurd contradiction, an illogical proposition that any sane mind must condemn —that Mother Church in Her Divine Authority can teach contradictory ideas at different times and pretend they are both true.
Teachings of the Deposit of Faith cannot be reversed. The authentic magisterium can elaborate and apply and make explicit the same. Obviously statements that are not part of the Deposit of Faith or infallibly defined by the authentic magisterium might be at odds with statements at different times.
How can your Traditionalism co-exist with Modernism?
The Pope is not a modernist and is fighting it and deserves our support in that struggle. To say that orthodox Catholics are "modernists" is wrong and slanderous. The Pope fully supports Sacred Tradition. Small "t" tradition outside of Sacred Tradition is not irreformable, and is neither modernist nor heretical as such. But then I forgot, the SSPX doesn't care about Catholicism, they only care about their new religion of "Traditionalism," which is whatever they subjectively say it is.
But then I How can the Mass of All Time be equivalent with the newfangled human contrivance?
I didn't know the apostles and martyrs of the early Church celebrated the Tridentine Mass? I thought the form of that rite was only formalized in the 1500s. Of course there are elements of the liturgy, e.g., the sacrifice of the eucharist, etc., that must be present, but the specific form of the liturgy is not part of the Deposit of Faith, or there would have been no varied rites within the Church. The liturgical legislation of one pope can be altered by another pope, as it was done several times after the Council of Trent and prior to the Council of Vatican II, as for instance adding St. Joseph to the canon.
How can Catholics be forbidden from ecumenical prayer at one time and then encouraged in such actions at a later time?
Because obviously there is a hierarchy of teaching, and not every word of a pope is irreformable or infallible. Infallibility relates to the protection of error of papal dogmatic definitions and in a broader sense the general concepts taught as part of the ordinary and universal magisterium, even if not reduced to a specific verbal formula. Rules about whether to meet or be polite with members of other ecclesial bodies or religions are not part of the Deposit of Faith or the ordinary and universal magisterium and are reformable.
Tell that to your fellow Mao worshipers, Mr. Clear Conscience.
What a hypocrite: a true schismatic calling a traditional Catholic "schismatic".
I thought we hashed out the CCPA issue yesterday -- why are you harping on it again?
Why do you think?
By the way, nothing was ironed out. You said you still have a clear conscience.
Did the apostles and martyrs "celebrate" (as you like to say) gay masses, clown masses, hockey masses, Halloween masses and cookie masses?
1. "Gee, I guess the Catholic faith has nothing to do with being in full communion with the successor of Peter"
Not these days when the faith itself is being compromised by the Pope himself. No Catholic is obliged to follow a pope who does not preach or practice Church doctrine.
2. "I guess this new Lefebvrist religion is called 'Traditionalism' -- I'm not surprised, since it certainly isn't Catholic in its rejection of the Pope and the Magisterium, whose authority is part and parcel of Sacred Tradition."
You make two errors. First, the Lefebvrists teach nothing new whatsoever. What they teach and practice has been what the Church has always taught and practiced. The new religion is coming out of Rome, not out of the SSPX. It is Rome, for instance, that says Jews have no need for Christ's redemption, the Pope who invites witchdoctors and voodoo priests to pray at Assisi's altars and organizes youth rallies resembling outdoor rock concerts. All this is brand new. The SSPX only protests such abominations.
Your second mistake is to suppose that the rejection of a papal novelty is the same thing as a rejection of the Magisterium--or a rejection of the pope himself. This is false. No pope can present a novelty as a magisterial teaching binding on the faithful. Only those doctrines which conform to what the Church has always believed and asserted may be considered magisterial. Nor can a pope command obedience if his command would injure the Church. So you are very confused in your theology.
As proof of this, I challenge you: name a single magisterial teaching the SSPX has ever rejected. You cannot do this--because it has rejected not a single authentic Church teaching promulgated by the Church's Magisterium. It only rejects papal novelties--and rightly so--since these have no divine protection whatsoever. Catholics are under no obligation to follow a pope in error.
3. "The Pope is not a modernist and is fighting it and deserves our support in that struggle. To say that orthodox Catholics are 'modernists' is wrong and slanderous. The Pope fully supports Sacred Tradition."
The evidence is otherwise. It's clear as a bell what he intends. It's no secret at all. After all, he is the man in charge. He is the one with plenary powers. He alone was the one who could have turned the present chaos around. He didn't do it in the days of his prime. Why? It can only be because he agreed with what has been happening for forty years. He WANTED the clown Masses. He WANTED to elevate a cardinal who doubts the Resurrection. He WANTED seminarians to be kicked out of the seminary for the crime of saying the Rosary or for being too orthodox in general. True Catholicism itself is now found only in small pockets around the world. Most of the rest of the once-mighty Catholic Church is virtually dead or dying.
Let me give you one stunning for-instance. There is the clear will to diminish faith in the Blessed Sacrament by modernist bishops everywhere. Even the Vatican itself has admitted this. It is achieved through the text of the new liturgy, through changes in its rubrics, through the priest's desacralizing attitude, through the new ways of catechizing, through handing-out Hosts like potato chips at papal Masses, through reducing genuflections, through ripping out communion rails and kneelers, through standing for Communion, through Communion in the hands, through careless confection of hosts, through a shunting-aside of the tabernacle, through inter-faith Communion services, through reception of Communion by non-Catholics--all of which has been going on for thirty years plus. Yet the Pope did nothing ever to stop any of this. So much for his love of Tradition.
4. "Rules about whether to meet or be polite with members of other ecclesial bodies or religions are not part of the Deposit of Faith or the ordinary and universal magisterium and are reformable."
Oh, come off it! There's a difference between indifferentism or syncretism--and being polite. If the Pope wants to be polite to animists, let him host a luncheon or meet them in a conference hall. What he did was PRAY with them, offer libations to the Great Thumb in their sacred forest, allow them the use of our sacred altars to pray to their false gods. That is not being polite--that is a violation of the First Commandment.
Actually, they celebrated a "Mass" very similar to the Novus Ordo. They also took the Eucharist home with them for consumption during the week.
Actually, no, I'm not going to shut up, and there is plenty of evidence the Indult is a sham set up by Rome to undermine Tradition.
FSSP, Campos, Fr. Wickens stolen chapel... the evidence abounds.
Like hell. Your comments are based on unsubstantiated claims. The fact is there is very little known about the Liturgical rituals prior to the third century.
Just please argue intelligently. Baseless accusations and conjecture or speculation do us no good. We are on the same side, but I am tired of trads being our own worst enemy.
Read "The Didache". It was written in the second century, and the Ritual of Thanksgiving mirrors the Novus Ordo almost exactly.
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