Letter of Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos to Mgr. Fellay

Letter of Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos to Mgr. Fellay (English translation by Mr. Ken Jones, Una Voce St. Louis)

Since the beginning of our fraternal contacts to find a way toward full communion, I believe that we have experienced the solicitude of our merciful Lord: truly he has not spared us His aide and His support, to gather together all the good things that unite us and overcome what still divides us.

I read at the time attentively, in prayer and not without suffering, your letter of last June 22. I have also studied certain documents concerning our conversations, written by members of the Fraternity of St. Pius X, published on the Internet and disseminated by other means of communication. I have also reread the letters of the bishops of the Society of St. Pius X, the interviews granted by Your Excellency and the letters that you have sent me.

Until today, for my part, I have never agreed to grant interviews on the subject, in order to maintain the privacy of the details of our dialogue: for me they have always had a provisional and discreet character, because of the great responsibility that I feel in conscience for this matter. It now seems to me opportune, for the love of truth, to clarify here several aspects of the development of this reconciliation, with the intention of imparting a new impetus, to be frank, to move beyond possible suspicions and misunderstandings that compromise the outcome that, I have no doubt, Your Excellency also desires.

The subject that we are considering will have, in fact, particularly important historical consequences, because it touches the unity, the truth and the holiness of the Church, and it is necessary therefore to treat it with charity but also with objectivity and truth. Our sole judge is Christ the Lord.

First of all, I must reiterate a historical truth, at the root of everything. My first initiative was not the result of a Pontifical mandate and was not the fruit of an agreement or project of some other person from the Apostolic See, contrary to what has been written and rumored, as if it was a matter of a definite strategy. As I have already had the occasion to say several times, the dialogue was completely my own personal initiative.

In the second week of August 2000, on returning from Colombia, I learned through the media that was available on the airplane, and only through it, that the Society of St. Pius X was participating in the Jubilee. On my own initiative, and without speaking to anyone about it, I decided to invite the four bishops of the Fraternity to a private dinner with me. The meeting with brother bishops would be a gesture of fraternal love, the occasion of a reciprocal exchange. I therefore had the joy of meeting Your Excellency, as well as Their Excellencies Tissier and Williamson. As you will recall, we did not discuss any subject thoroughly, even if, naturally, we did speak about the liturgical rites, and I was able to become familiar with several aspects of the current life of your Fraternity. I manifested publicly the good impression that the aforementioned Prelates made on me.

I subsequently gave an account of this meeting to the Holy Father, and I received from him words of encouragement. I expressed a desire to maintain contacts to explore the possibilities of this much hoped for unity. The Sovereign Pontiff asked me to continue, and he manifested his clear will to accommodate the Society of St. Pius X, by promoting the conditions necessary for this accommodation. Some time later I read, with a private satisfaction, the interview granted by Your Excellency to the magazine 30 Days. The journalist put these words on your lips: "If the Holy Father calls me I come, or rather I run." I had occasion to speak with the Holy Father about this interview, in which Your Excellency expressed freely and spontaneously his thought: the Holy Father indicated to me, one more time, his generous will to accommodate your Fraternity.

As a result, I contacted Cardinals Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State for His Holiness, Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Jorge Medina Estevez, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, as well as with His Excellency Mgr. Julian Herranz, President of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts. All manifested their satisfaction with a view to an eventual solution of the difficulties. I also consulted Cardinals Paul Augustin Mayer and Alfons Marie Stickler, who were of the same opinion. It is thus that we studied the fundamental theological problems, already present in 1988 when an accord with His Excellency Mgr. Lefebvre was prepared. It did not seem to us that there have been any new problems. Then we began studying several juridical forms that would make a reintegration possible; this appeared very much desirable. Throughout history, the desire for unity has always been a constant for the See of Peter.

To all it seemed appropriate, if Your Excellency agreed, that the undersigned could proceed to a new dialogue of a provisional character. It was not a matter of discussing theological problems in depth, but preparing the way for reconciliation.

I therefore invited Your Excellency by letter; you amiably accepted the invitation and the meeting took place on Dec. 29, 2000.

As Your Excellency knows well, we then studied the possibility of reconciliation and of the return to full communion, as a very concrete and special fruit of the Jubilee. We concluded with a dinner at my residence, attended also by the Rev. Michel Simoulin, in a very cordial and fraternal climate.

Informed of this new reunion, and despite the amount of work he had in the last days of the great Jubilee, the Holy Father received you with the Abbe Simoulin on Dec. 30, 2000 in his private chapel. After a few minutes of silent prayer, the Holy Father said the Our Father, followed by those present, then he wished them a Holy Christmas. He blessed them by offering several rosaries and encouraged them to continue the dialogue undertaken.

In the same Apostolic Palace and in the presence of the personal secretaries of the Holy Father, I read to Your Excellency a Protocol regarding the dialogue of the preceding day, which would be sent to the Sovereign Pontiff. You have expressed your agreement by specifying two points: 1) the prayer for the Pope in the Canon of the Mass was not your decision but was a prior provision of Mgr. Lefebvre; 2) reservation about Vatican II especially regarding religious liberty, since the rights of God over the public order could not be limited. The secretary took notes in order to make a report to the Holy Father.

I note that the date of Castrillon-Hoyos' letter is April 5, 2002.

Try this baby on for size, from the hair-on-fire American bishop of the SSPX, Richard Williamson:

Bishop Williamson's Letters

TEACHERS OF OUR LORD - JUDAS AND THE NEWCHURCH

Winona March 1 2002

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Recent events in Catholic Tradition have reminded us how easy it is to fall away from the truth, and how especially seductive is the corruption presently devastating the Catholic Church. We can hardly come back too often to take its measure.

In "The Keys of This Blood" (1990), the late Malachi Martin wrote a fascinating chapter entitled "The Judas Complex", in which he compared the fall of the Catholic churchmen into the Newchurch of Vatican II with the fall of Judas Iscariot. The comparison may seem violent at first sight. Surely even the Newchurchmen are not as wicked as that? But then Judas did not start out that wicked either... Let us, for Lent, reflect on the terrible figure of the Apostle who betrayed, in the hope of course that such reflection will help ourselves not to betray. Let us begin with what is of Faith in the Gospels, fill out the picture with a 20th century elaboration of the Gospels, and conclude with a brief application to the Newchurchmen, along the lines laid out by Malachi Martin.

Understandably, the Gospels tell us little of the Apostle who turned traitor. Before the Passion, they tell us almost nothing of the Apostle listed twelfth (eg. Mt X, 4), except that he had betrayed his function as bursar of the Apostles by stealing, a detail mentioned by St. John to help explain Judas' begrudging the expensive ointment poured out on Our Lord by Mary Magdalene a few days before the Passion (Jn XII, 2-6). Perhaps Our Lord's gentle rebuke on this occasion (Mt XXVI, 10-13) was what finally drove Judas to hand Our Lord over to the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver (Mt XXVI, 14-16). Then Judas' pretended innocence at the Last Supper, and early departure; the treacherous kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane, and his subsequent despair; his flinging back the blood-money at the contemptuous chief priests, and his terrible suicide - all these details are well-known from the Gospel narrative. But how did Judas come to this? The Gospels hardly say.

However, from the moment we begin to reflect on the drama of Judas, one shattering truth breaks through: the reality of free-will. Jesus, foreknowing infallibly and from eternity that Judas would betray him, could not possibly have accepted him amongst the Apostles with their correspondingly huger graces and responsibilities unless Judas had been genuinely free for all three years of his apostleship to convert, had he wanted to - But he did not, finally, want to.

This great truth is underlined again and again in the full-length portrait of Judas given in Maria Valtorta's "Poem of the Man-God". This - in English - five-volume life of Our Lord, based on visions supposedly given by Our Lord himself to a bed-ridden Italian woman during the Second World War, is much controverted. But in our time of all-round and on-going betrayal of the Catholic Church, who can dispute the reasonableness of the last of the seven reasons given supposedly by Our Lord for his granting this panorama of his life to mankind in mid-20th century? - "To acquaint you with the mystery of the fall of a soul upon which God had bestowed extraordinary benefits... to acquaint you with the process by which servants and sons of God fall, changing into devils and deicides, killing the God who is within them by killing grace... Apply yourselves to studying the horrible but all too common figure of Judas, a knot tying together, like twisting snakes, all seven capital vices... how many people, in all walks of life, imitate Judas by giving themselves over to Satan and hurtling to their eternal death!" Judge for yourselves the authenticity of the portrait of Judas Iscariot as presented in the "Poem of the Man-God": -

He is presented as an intelligent and talented young man, but proud, complicated, sensual and worldly. He recognizes Jesus' outstanding qualities, correctly discerns in him Israel's King and Messiah, and begs repeatedly to be accepted as an Apostle so that he will share in the triumph of Christ the King. Again and again Jesus warns Judas that this kingdom will be spiritual and not political. Outwardly Judas accepts this disclaimer, but inwardly he never renounces his own ideas. Jesus, knowing that the Apostleship may be Judas's best - or only - hope of conversion and salvation, gives way to Judas' insistence on becoming an Apostle.

Through the following three years, Judas is by no means always evil. Patiently instructed by Our Lord, there are moments when he sees himself as he really is, weeps over his own hardness of heart and genuinely tries to be better. Alas, these moments pass, and by shameless lying in particular, he works his way regularly back to the world, the flesh - and the Devil.

His falls get progressively worse. Finally he has himself convinced that Jesus is a mere man, and that the Temple authorities are right to want him out of the way. Our Lord leaves him free to make his own appalling choice, but in the hope of preventing Judas' terrible damnation, covers for him to the very last moment, in Gethsemane, a moment known to us from the Gospels: "Friend" (friend!!), "whereto art thou come?" To the traitor on the very brink of the abyss, the Sacred Heart still gently appeals!

The portrait in the "Poem" of Judas from Gethsemane to his death, is truly harrowing, but corresponds to what we know with certainty from Scripture - Mt XXVII, 3-10, and Acts l, 16-20. Still we ask, how could somebody so close to Jesus for so long have come to such an end? Malachi Martin makes a fascinating analysis when he compares Judas with the Newchurchmen in "The Keys of This Blood" (pp. 660-676). Here is how: -

Judas began serving Our Lord with the best of intentions, and received great graces. He had no desire to leave Jesus, in fact he resolutely stayed with him each time Our Lord left him perfectly free to depart. Similarly Newchurchmen no doubt began their vocations well, received many graces and loved Our Lord. Nor, like Judas, do they mean to leave Him or to destroy His Church - they only want to fit Our Lord to the world according to their own ideas.

For indeed Judas truly hoped for the kingship of Jesus, with a major role for himself in the future kingdom. But Jesus would keep on refusing political power, he would insist on clashing with the Temple authorities, he would not stop acting in an unworldly way. Now if only he would listen to Judas who got along with those authorities and understood the ways of the world, then a decent compromise could have lead to an enormous success of Jesus' kingdom, powered jointly by Jesus' extraordinary gifts and the Temple's worldly clout.

Similarly the Newchurchmen really wish for the Catholic Church to triumph, with a major part for themselves to play in the New World Order. But Catholic Tradition is uninterested, in fact it insists on condemning the modern world and its Judeo-masonic masters. If only Catholics would listen to the Newchurchmen who understand the modern world, if only all Catholics would agree to an up-dating of Tradition, then a decent compromise could lead to the Church's worldwide success, powered jointly by the force of Tradition and the ideals of the Revolution.

Finally Judas is so disillusioned with Jesus' unworldliness that he ceases to believe Jesus is God. And since Jesus insists on wasting his gifts on an unreal kingdom highly disturbing to the normal, and practical, Temple authorities, then best let them deal with him. Similarly the pre-Council Churchmen were so tired of the failure of the pre-Conciliar Church to get through to the modern world that they ceased to believe in the divine origin of Catholic Tradition. And since that Tradition was nothing but an obstacle in the way of the admirable modern world, then best if an ecumenical Council would turn Tradition over to the world. Hence the historic compromise of Vatican II, a Judas betrayal, a tissue of ambiguities mixing Our Lord with his enemies who run the modern world, and putting him into their power.

Therefore the Newchurchmen are, objectively, Judases, however sincere or well-intentioned they may be. In fact they are crusading Judases, because they have themselves convinced that their Newchurch will save both Church and world. That is why they not only firmly believe in compromising Catholic Tradition with the world, but also they are set upon pulling what remains of Tradition into their compromise. That is why the SSPX both refused the recent approaches of "Rome" to draw it into the Newchurch, and must prepare to resist any more such approaches.

This situation is bound to continue until the Newchurchmen abandon their (objective) Judas compromise with the world, and return to Catholic Tradition. On that day they will have once more a huge problem with the same old wicked world, but at least they will be true churchmen again. And a clear sign of their return to sanity will be that they have no more problem with Catholic Tradition, not even with the SSPX!

May God grant us all to be faithful until that day. Meanwhile, may you all have a holy remainder of Lent, and a happy Easter, and may you find something useful in the enclosed Seminary tape flyer.

ln Christ,

+ Richard Williamson

Williamson manages to drag the nutty Malachi Martin, the "Judeo-masonic" cabal, and the "New World Order" into his letter, which urges the SSPX to resist all attempts at reconciliation.

Fellay has this lunatic to overcome before he can have any hope for reintegration.

More lunacy from the troll who will assure that the SSPX never reintegrates with Rome:

Bishop Williamson's Letters

CAMPOS - WHAT WENT WRONG?

June 1,2002

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

ln February this letter presented the fall, finalized in January, of the Traditional bishop and priests of Campos back into the clutches of neo-modernist Rome. That fall was a disappointment for the Society of St. Pius X, whose lone stand for Truth they had shared for 20 years. To explain that fall, I think it is worth further presenting to you an analysis sent to me recently by a priest stationed in Brazil, who is a friend of the SSPX, and who was for a long time a friend of those Campos priests. Here is what he wrote to me: -

“I had already prepared to put in the post an essay by one of our priests on Campos, or rather on the last statements coming out of Campos as compared with what they used to teach. However, this comparison does not go to the heart of the problem. In my opinion, the heart of the problem is to be found in the lofty vision of Archbishop Lefebvre, a lofty vision lacking in Campos.

"The Archbishop achieved a well-balanced overview of the whole problem in the Church, which was the fruit of his experience and spirit of prayer, his virtues and gifts received from God. Bishop de Castro Mayer drew closer to the Archbishop in his last years, but it seems that the Campos priests did not have their own bishop's wisdom or, perhaps, his humility. ln my opinion the Campos priests have gone backwards because they had a different way of looking at the crisis of the Church.

"Let me explain: up until the consecrations of 1988 Bishop de Castro Mayer's reaction to the crisis was curious. On the one hand he was legalistic, tending to stick to the letter of the law. For instance after ceasing to be the diocesan bishop of Campos, he ordained no more priests except one that he ordained after the 1988 Consecrations. On the other hand he had a tendency towards sedevacantism, as when he would say of John Paul Il, 'Whoever does not belong to the body of the Church cannot be its head'.

"Archbishop Lefebvre was aware of this twofold tendency in Bishop de Castro Mayer, which is why he would say concerning the bishop's legalism, 'Bishop de Castro Mayer must understand that today we have to "go illegal", if necessary' (a remark to be understood, obviously, in the present context), and concerning his sedevacantism, Archbishop Lefebvre said, 'Were it not for me, Bishop de Castro Mayer would be sedevacantist, but in order not to separate from us, he holds back from sedevacantism'.

"I think the Archbishop was right. There were in Bishop de Castro Mayer the two tendencies of legalism and sedevacantism. The bishop's friendship with Archbishop Lefebvre moderated these two tendencies and enabled Bishop de Castro Mayer to take courageous and well-founded positions. However the Campos Priests seem never to have completely shaken off these two false ways of posing today’s problem, because they seem to me to argue like the sedevacantists: 'If John Paul Il is Pope, we must obey him. If we do not obey him, we must declare that he is not Pope'...

"The Campos priests, in my opinion, are lacking in vision. They are taking too simple a view of this crisis. What is the cause of this turning back of theirs? Either they never judged the crisis in the way that the Archbishop did, or, under the influence of some of their own number, they slipped back, and left the good road on which Bishop de Castro Mayer had set out before he died... For sure and certain they always kept a certain distance between themselves and the Society".

End of analysis of the fall of Tradition in Campos by the Society's priest-friend in Brazil. It is an analysis rich in lessons, or in reminders, of how this 40-year old crisis of the Church does its damage.

Firstly, let us relativize the criticism of Bishop de Castro Mayer implicit in this analysis by recalling his enormous achievement which the analysis was not designed to bring out. Catholic Tradition has few enough heroes today, and this bishop is certainly one of them.

He was 56 years old, and the normal Catholic bishop of the little diocese of Campos, three hours by car north of Rio de Janeiro, when the Second Vatican Council opened in 1962. During the Council he was a steady opponent of the neo-modernists' Revolution overthrowing the Church, and after the Council he would not let his diocese follow the new religion. When Pope Paul VI imposed the New Mass in 1969, Bishop de Castro Mayer most respectfully resisted him to his face, and allowed his own priests to continue celebrating the true Mass. The good bishop was followed in this faithfulness to the old religion by the large majority of his priests and people, so that amidst the thousands of Church dioceses throughout the world which were (at least objectively) letting themselves be led into apostasy, his diocese alone stayed essentially Catholic.

ln 1981 at age 75 he had to retire. For his successor, the Newchurch sent in a chain-and-wrecking-ball bishop to smash the Traditional diocese. That is when Bishop de Castro Mayer and his faithful priests began publicly to associate with the Society of St. Pius X in its policy of re-building alongside the mainstream church, but not outside the Catholic Church. Under his leadership, his priests built for the true Mass a series of brand-new churches alongside their former parish churches, now hijacked for the new religion.

And so Bishop de Castro Mayer's heroic defence of the Faith continued in Campos until he died in April of 1991, with his faithful priests clustered around his death-bed. Had he lived longer, there can be no doubt that he would have stayed on the course he had set between 1981 and 1991, and there can be little to no doubt that his priests would have continued to surround him. As it was, it took ten years for them to fall back into the powerful magnetic field of "obedience to Rome".

It was necessary to recall this unique fidelity and achievement of Bishop de Castro Mayer lest anyone should think that the priest's analysis, quoted above, was meant to pull him down. Not at all. But what the analysis does is to remind us of the incredible power of the apostasy of the 1960's, which had even an excellent bishop wavering between the twin false solutions of legalism and sedevacantism through the 1970's, until thanks to a still greater archbishop he steadied his Catholic balance through the 1980's.

That an apostasy should carry away millions of Catholics, thousands of priests and hundreds of bishops, well, that is what apostasies do. But that - as the analysis quoted above suggests, and I think it is right - even a churchman of the quality of Bishop de Castro Mayer tottered in the wake of Vatican II is testimony both to the volcanic force of all that was behind that Council and - here again I think the analysis is correct - to the extraordinary gifts and wisdom of Archbishop Lefebvre.

Far be it from me to indulge in a cult of personality, or to declare that the Archbishop was infallible or impeccable. However, the fruits are there to tell us how much God gave us in him, or, what a gift of God to us he was: the guidance of his example enabled a wise fellow-bishop to keep the heads above water of the Campos priests around him, but now that both bishops are dead, those priests slip back beneath the waters of apostasy - may they rest in peace!

But they cannot. Already they are taking positions that contradict everything they said and did for the last 20 years. They will soon be bearing little more Catholic fruit than the rest of the Conciliar Church, and meanwhile they have scandalized and alienated all Catholics of Tradition.

Whereas the Society, continuing along the lines of Archbishop Lefebvre, continues to bear Catholic fruit, as I have been able to see from recent journeys to the Philippines and to Germany. In the Philippines, we now have a dozen Mass-centres, all weil attended by Catholics joyfully picking up, or picking up again, on the true Faith, while in our German centres families are at last re-appearing with large numbers of children. It has taken Germany time, because the anti-birth "culture" has been so strong, but the Faith wins out in the end. In death-dedicated Europe this flourishing of children is like a miracle, but nobody who knows the power of the Faith can be surprised.

And so death-dedicated Rome continues to harass the Society, and will cripple if, if it can. To the Italian press Cardinal Castrillion Hoyos recently spoke of the Society as being composed of a majority of reasonable bishops, priests, laity, etc., who want to re-join Rome, while a "difficult and fanatical" minority will perhaps continue "in schism, believing that they possess the truth, and forgetting that where there is Peter, there is the Church". And then the Cardinal denies that he is trying to split the Society!

One may pray for the Cardinal, as for the priests of Campos, but humanly speaking, one may fear they will only increase in blindness. Lord, have mercy - upon us all!

At the Seminary's Doctrinal Session from July 30 to August 3 these Encyclicals will be studied - From TAN's "The Popes Against Modern errors", "Diuturnum Illud", "Rerum Novarum", "The Sillon", "Lamen- tabili" and the Anti-Modernist oath; from TAN's "A Light in the Heavens", "Satis Cognitum". Sign up, men, to see that the Society of St. Pius X is only standing for what the Catholic Church has always stood for.

Priestly ordinations take place here at Winona on Saturday, June 22. The more numerous you are, to come and show your joy and appreciation of four new "Lefebvrist" priests, the more vocations God will surely incline to awaken. Come, and fill our meadows with your children, so as to fill your seminary with seminarians!

Sincerely yours in the Sacred Heart of Jesus,

+ Richard Williamson

Crazy dude!

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