Once the conversations between the Holy See and the Priestly Society of St. Pius X (X-2009/IV-2011) had come to an end, the Congregation for the Faith offered the Society a Doctrinal Preamble (14-IX-2011), not made public. Were the Society to accept it, this would in some way make possible its reintegration into the Church. In mid-December the Society gave its “reply” to the Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, although its content is not known. Nevertheless, over the past months several very significant texts have been published on so important a matter.

–(29-IX-2011). Fr. Niklaus Pfluger, first Assistant General of the Society of St. Pius X, on the DICI portal, the SSPX’s documentary news service, gives an interview in which he speaks about the offer of the Preamble a few days after receiving it.

-Interviewer: “Some critics say that with this preamble Rome would be trying to lay a trap for the Society. A Society juridically integrated could, to be sure, bring to the modern Church the ‘charism of Tradition,’ but it would also have to accept the other paths and conciliar thought in the sense of a pluralism.

-Fr. Pfluger: “This criticism is entirely justified and must be taken seriously. For how could we dispel the impression that a silence is being established, in a certain measure complicit, leading in fact to that parallel multiplicity which relativizes the truth, when that is precisely the basis of modernism?

“Assisi III, and still more this unfortunate beatification of John Paul II, and many other examples, show clearly that the authority of the Church is not yet willing to abandon the false principles of Vatican II and their consequences. So that any proposal made to Tradition must guarantee us, at the same time, the freedom to carry on our work and our criticism of ‘modernist Rome.’ To be honest, this seems very, very difficult. Once again, any false or dangerous compromise must be discarded.

“There is no sense in comparing the present situation with that of the conversations of 1988. At that time, Rome wanted to prevent an autonomy of the Society of St. Pius X; the bishop that—who knows whether or not they meant to grant us—was in any case to depend on Rome. That seemed to Archbishop Lefebvre simply too dangerous. Had Archbishop Lefebvre given way, Rome could indeed have hoped that a Society without ‘its own’ bishops would fall into line with the Council. Today the situation is very different: four bishops and 550 priests throughout the world. And the structures of the official Church are cracking more and more, and faster. Rome is no longer positioned before the Society as it was 20 years ago.”

–(2-XII-2011). Msgr. Fernando Ocáriz publishes in “L’Osservatore Romano” an article, Adherence to the Second Vatican Council, pointing out at once the necessity of that adherence and its modes and degrees.

–(XII-2011). Fr.  Jean-Michel Gleize, professor of ecclesiology at the Seminary of Écône, writes in December a rather long text in reply to Msgr. Ocáriz: A Crucial Question: the Magisterial Value of the Second Vatican Council, published in its full text by the SSPX of Italy. I commented on it in the article Fr. Gleize’s (SSPX) Reply to Msgr. Ocáriz (28-XII-2011). Both authors took part in the conversations referred to above. And on the part of the Society there have been other important written statements, above all the two I transcribe now, which are worth knowing.

–(21-XII-2011). Bishop Fellay, Superior General of the SSPX, writes the Letter [no. 79] to the Friends and Benefactors of the SSPX, published by the Society on DICI. I reproduce in full the Spanish version that the same outlet provides, and to the little crosses with which the Author divides the text I add some subheadings in bold.

“Dear Friends and Benefactors,

In a few days we shall celebrate the blessed coming of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The holy Liturgy of Advent and of the Christmas season is filled with faith in the divinity of Our Lord. Drawing above all on the Old Testament, there where His coming is prophesied, it steeps our understanding and our heart in the infinite grandeur of the prerogatives and rights of the newborn Child.

“He who from all eternity was born of a Father without a mother is born in time of a Mother without a father!” (Profession of faith of the Eleventh Council of Toledo).

Receiving His human nature from the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, His Mother, whose Virginity He preserved, He shows by that very fact that He lost nothing of His Divinity. “In the burning bush that Moses beheld unconsumed, we acknowledge your praiseworthy and unspoiled Virginity.” (antiphon of Lauds, 1st of January). True God, true man, the Church rejoices to receive Jesus Our Saviour, honouring Him with the title of King.

The King of Peace, Rex Pacificus. Here we should like to develop this truth a little, for it lies as it were at the centre of the crisis that shakes the Church and that conditions the relations of the Society of St. Pius X with the Holy See.”

+ Jesus Christ, God and King, and religious freedom

“Indeed, it seems to us that the heart of the present problem can be summed up in a loss of faith in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh! Certainly many proclaim that they believe Jesus to be God, but very few are ready to draw the concrete consequences of this fundamental truth, which will shine forth before the eyes of the whole world at the end of time. In that moment He will at last let His glory blaze forth in all its perfection. The extent of His powers over every creature will be such that all men — pagans, Christians, atheists, unbelievers, brigands and faithful —, all will be prostrate before Him, for at His Name every knee shall bow on earth as in heaven. (Cf. Phil. 2:20)

During the short moment of His earthly life in which He was pleased to dwell among us, He hid His sovereignty in part. But that was only for the time of the trial, the time of fulfilling His redemptive mission: “he died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3).

But during that time in which He hid all His power from our eyes, He lost nothing of it.“All power is given to me in heaven and in earth” (Mt. 28:18) is an assertion to be taken literally—He who creates all things, by whom all has been made, without whom nothing that has been made was made. (Cf. Jn 1:3).

The practical rejection of the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ is manifested often in the history of men by the rejection of His Kingship, which was already the title and the reason of His condemnation:“Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Judaeorum” (Jn 19:19).

And very often in history, the rejection of God is manifested by the refusal of submission to Our Lord Jesus Christ.

One must come to the middle of the twentieth century to witness this incredible event that allowed a council to be seen which, supposedly in the name of adaptation to the concrete situation of a human society in full decadence, modified the proclamation of all the ages: “he must reign” (1 Cor 15:25). It is claimed that this manner of acting would be in harmony with the Gospels, when it is quite the contrary.

The sophists of liberalism made it be said that the State, human society —which is likewise a creature of God— was to treat with equality the one true religion and all the false ones, granting to each alike the right to exist, to develop without hindrance and to exercise its worship.

By this means it was sought to oppose the abuses of the totalitarian State which unjustly crushes human beings and oppresses the conscience of each one. The Freemasons themselves expressed their joy at hearing these theses, which belong to them, resound beneath the dome of St. Peter’s. (Cf. Yves Marsaudon, Ecumenism as seen by a Traditional Freemason, 1964).

Certainly there is some truth in the evil denounced. But the remedy is the one the Church always indicated: tolerance. The right to religious freedom, just as it was proclaimed at the Second Vatican Council, is something very different. This is one of the points on which we clash with the Holy See.

This religious freedom, which places the true and the false on an equal footing, deliberately dispenses the State and human society from their duties of honouring and serving God, their Creator. It opens the way to every license in religious matters. It is as though, in the Church, the prerogative of being the one way of salvation for men had been renounced. Those who still believe in it no longer say so. Many even give the contrary impression. This concession to the world of today is made at the cost of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

+ Ecumenism

“Another consequence, along the same line as what has just been said, is seen in the practice of ecumenism. Under pretext of being able to be closer to our ‘separated brethren,’ these truths are no longer proclaimed, even though they be salvific, because they are hard to understand. Even deliberately their conversion is no longer sought. Ecumenism NO LONGER WANTS TO CONVERT. This term has been banished, it is still tolerated, but in the name of religious freedom! Where, then, is the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ? Where has the dignity of Catholics gone? And it is their leaders who make them pusillanimous! As could be seen recently in France, when it was necessary to censor blasphemous plays. Had such an offense been committed against Muslims, the country would have been devoured by flames! Today Christians have become so weak that they let anything be done! An attack is made on the honour, not of a king of this world, but of the King of Kings, of the Lord of lords, Our Saviour, from whom we have received all!

Evidently we fervently desire the salvation and the return to the fold of all these souls so dear to the Heart of Our Lord, since He ransomed them at the price of His life! But the present manner of acting has nothing in common with the concern for the unity of the Church of ages past. It is claimed that everyone is good and, consequently, the prospect that some might damn themselves eternally causes scandal. It is preached that hell is empty, or nearly so. But the teaching of the Church is very different…”

+ Apostolic authority

“A third point of conflict is also bound up with the undermining of authority.

Our Lord is the head of the Church. But because He willed His Church to be visible, having ascended into heaven, He gave His Church a visible head who is His Vicar upon earth, Peter and his successors… To him alone Our Lord gave the power to feed the lambs and the sheep; he alone has a full, sovereign, immediate power over each and every one of the members of the Church. That is why the Church has always proclaimed itself a monarchy, governed by one alone. Certainly the human character of government makes understandable the seeking of the counsel and opinions of wise persons, but a form of democracy, introduced into the Church by collegiality and by the parliamentary parody of the episcopal conferences, permits every kind of abuse and hands over to the pressure of groups the dispositions of divine right which determine that each diocese has only one head, the bishop of the place.

Today authority is seriously shaken, not only from without, by the contestation of lay office-holders who demand to share in government, but also within the Church, by the introduction of a quantity of councils and commissions which, in today’s atmosphere, hinder the equitable exercise of the authority delegated by Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

+ Conclusion

“Is it not overwhelming to note how, in each one of these reefs, we find in the end the same problem? To please the world, or at least to adapt to it, the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ has in one way or another been sacrificed—over the Christian faithful, over all the men for whom He shed His Blood, over all the nations whose members they are.

Behold what is tearing the Church apart. To come out of this crisis it is necessary “to re-establish all things in Christ” (Eph. 1:10). Everywhere and in everything to give Him the first place, to Him who wills to be all in all. As long as one is unwilling to abandon this liberal air that infects the Church, she will go on deteriorating.

Because of this painful reality our relations with Rome are difficult.

That is why in the Society we speak so often of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is the summary, in practical life, of the acknowledgment of His Divinity. He has an absolute right over us.

To Him all men, pagans or Catholics, young or old, rich or poor, powerful or weak, all, absolutely all, will render an account of their life here below—to Him, their sovereign Judge and their God, from whom they have received everything. Let us hope that these lines may show how timely is the doctrine of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, how the combat for this Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ is not outdated but, quite the contrary, most necessary. Today it is something imperative for survival.

May Our Lady, Mother of Jesus, Mother of God, hear our prayers for the glory of her Son. May she protect us, may she watch over our little Society in the midst of so many dangers, and may she be our guide, our advocate, our victory against ourselves and our pusillanimity. May she be our hope, while we await her triumph, for which we pray assiduously; may she be our joy already here below and for all eternity.

Nos cum prole pia, benedicat Virgo Maria.

+ Bernard Fellay

On the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, 21 December 2011.”

–(28-XII-2011). Fr. Régis de Cacquerey, Superior of the District of France, which is by far the most numerous of the Society of St. Pius X, a few days later publishes a letter, Good Wishes (les voeux) 2012 for the Friends and Benefactors. The original text is found on La Porte Latine, the official site of the Society in France. The letter, somewhat longer than that of Bishop Fellay, sets out with great force and clarity the growing dominion of the devil over society, referring especially to France. And it is divided into several subheadings: –The existence of Satan. –The Devil unmasked. –What “freedom of expression” truly is. –Churchmen and the pope himself have gone astray. –Let us remain Catholic! –Let us dwell in our home, which is the Heart of Mary. I translate and transcribe only the fourth heading in full.

-Churchmen and the pope himself have gone astray (Les hommes d’Église et le pape lui-même se sont fourvoyés)

“Unhappily, since the Council churchmen, and even the last popes themselves, have sought an impossible pact: to reconcile the spirit of the Gospel with that of the world. The Church finds herself incredibly devastated. The spirit of the world has penetrated even into the sanctuaries, and Christian souls have been scattered and lost through the fault of their pastors. The repetition of the latest scandal of Assisi, where once again all the religions gathered, suffices to show us to what point the evil continues. It is, alas, the very vicar of Christ, Benedict XVI, who called for the celebration of the silver jubilee of the first Assisi meeting, provoking a new and incalculable scandal, and thus encouraging relativism and religious indifferentism.

The good God permits this long and terrible trial for a greater good that we do not yet know. What we are sure of is that the Church, though she may find herself weakened to the utmost, will never perish, and that we must not doubt her permanence unto the end of the world. Nevertheless, it is necessary that we now oppose all who are bent on her self-demolition, and that we be convinced (avoir bien conscience) that we can never associate ourselves with those who carry out that demolition from without or from within.”

* * *

–In the two preceding letters, as in other Lefebvrist texts, great truths of the Catholic faith are stated. And precisely there are affirmed truths at times much silenced today in the Church, above all in the rich, dechristianized West; and lucid and courageous diagnoses of the present situation of the Church are also made. Some judgments are unacceptable, as when reference is made to the “scandal of Assisi,” as if it were a matter of support by the Pope for relativism and religious indifferentism. But, in general, we should already like to see a like lucidity and courage in not a few Pastors and Catholic faithful who do not proclaim with force those truths so often today denied or silenced; who do not denounce or restrain with sufficient apostolic authority not a few doctrinal errors and so many abuses in liturgical and moral matters; and above all, who do not seem to realize the profound devastation the Church is suffering, content with the World Youth Days and with a few other positive signs.

Other Catholic authors and media likewise spread these great truths of the faith, and we make those same denunciations, waging those same combats for orthodoxy and orthopraxis in the Church. But we do so with one great, fundamental difference: we lean continually on the Magisterium of the Popes present and past, and on the twenty-one ecumenical Councils of the Church, including, of course, the Second Vatican Council.

Without even leaving this same blog —since it is what the reader and I have most at hand (Index of Reform or apostasy)—, one can verify that we denounce the practical elimination of the soteriology of the Gospel of Christ, as if salvation were universal and necessary (8-9); we point out that both in missionary and in ecumenical activity there is very little call to conversion, being limited to interreligious dialogue (13); that frequently the action of the demon is ignored or denied (16-18), and that likewise many other fundamental truths of the faith are silenced (22-23) or are proposed in an obscure and weak language (24), which little resembles the clear and strong word of Christ and of the Catholic tradition (25-32). We affirm that liberalism, so many times described and combated by the Popes and by men such as Cardinal Pie (33-38), having imposed itself as the cultural form of the modern world, gives rise within the Church to innumerable heresies (39, 46-60, 76-79), which are insufficiently pointed out and combated when the teaching authority is weakened in Pastors and theologians (40-47). Moreover, we show that the political demobilization of Catholics, widely generalized, in order to avoid confrontations between the Church and the world, comes to accept, in the pursuit of the unity of society and of peace (!), that Christ the King should not reign in the nations (95-125).

–The Society of St. Pius X, on the other hand, together with the great truths of the faith and of the discipline of the Church, spreads most grave errors. The Superior General of the Society, its first Assistant, the Director of the most numerous District, a theologian professor who took part in the conversations with the Holy See, persisting for more than 25 years in the same theses of Archbishop Lefebvre, are saying that the Pope and the Bishops have gone astray, that the poison of the Council is poisoning the Catholic people through the funnel of the new Liturgy, that the Christian faithful have been scattered and lost through the fault of their Pastors, etc. Will it be fitting to keep silence before calumnies so grave? These separated brethren are separating many Catholics from the historical Rome, the present Rome of Benedict XVI, the only one existing, in order to keep them faithfully united to a timeless Rome that does not exist. What would St. Paul, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Ignatius of Loyola and so many other holy defenders of the Church of Christ do in a like situation? Would they have kept silence? In what language, with what terms would they have expressed themselves? Can you imagine it?… I do not think it prudent to be silent, if we wish to be faithful to the tradition of the saints.

These high representatives of the Society of St. Pius X manifest again and again that they understand Infidelities in the Church —so I entitled a work of mine— as Infidelities of the Church today. And this is a most grave falsehood and calumny. The conciliar Fathers and the post-conciliar Popes are not sophists of liberalism who, in documents such as Gaudium et spes, Dignitatis humanæ or Unitatis redintegratio, have assimilated and spread among the Christian people the liberal theses of Freemasonry, seeking to fuse the spirit of the Gospel with that of the world. It is equally false to say that, adapting to a modern society in full decadence, and modifying the proclamation of the faith made in all the ages, they have accepted—reeking of liberalism—that Christ has no right to reign in the nations. Concretely at Vatican II, the right to religious freedom which the Church promotes in no way places the true and the false on an equal footing, nor exonerates men and nations from acknowledging and giving worship to the one true God and to His Son Jesus Christ (DH 1-2), nor ceases to believe and to preach that the one Church of Jesus Christ is the “universal sacrament of salvation” (LG 48, AG 1).

It is likewise calumnious to affirm that in the Church today apostolic Authority has been gravely ruined (sérieusement ébranlée), falsifying the monarchical form that Christ gave it —the Pope in the universal Church and the Bishop in his local Church— by the parliamentary parody of the episcopal conferences, incapable of overcoming errors and abuses, subject as they are to the pressures of commissions and councils. It is equally false to affirm that the Church, to please the modern world, has sacrificed the authority that Our Lord Jesus Christ has over Christians and over men and nations, thus collaborating to weaken faith in His divinity.

–The followers of Archbishop Lefebvre are inviting people to join the schism. All those most grave accusations, intermingled with great truths of the faith and with sincerely pious words, lead directly to the affirmation that Archbishop Lefebvre already formulated on numerous occasions in similar phrases: “Les hommes d’Église et le pape lui-même se sont fourvoyés”. They are baneful words, which evidently call to schism. The Christian people, by the will of Christ, must be gathered together and guided by sacred pastors. Now then, if the Pope and the Bishops today “have gone astray,” and are leading the Christian people along paths of perdition, it will be necessary to seek out other Pastors faithful to the Catholic faith, capable of guiding the people along paths of salvation. They are, then, saying: Do not follow the Pope and his Bishops, who are lost. Follow us, who keep ourselves faithful to the Catholic faith. We already know that, in principle, the charism of “confirming the brethren in the faith” belongs to the Bishop of Rome; but in practice, given the circumstances of “extreme necessity” in which the Church finds herself, the Chair of Peter being infested by so many errors, that charism belongs to us, the Priestly Society of St. Pius X, by a most special divine Providence.

Thus there is maintained in the Society the foundational discernment of Archbishop Lefebvre: “Rome has lost the faith, Rome is in apostasy.” It is necessary, with a grave and tragic obligation of conscience, to distance oneself from the Pope and from the Bishops, to ordain truly Catholic Bishops, who may form apart truly Catholic communities, in a gesture “necessary for the history of the Church and for the continuity of the Church.”

I transcribe some words of Archbishop Lefebvre that I already quoted at the end of my article Philo-Lefebvrians –and VII. “On the day when Rome returns to the truth of the Church of all times, these bishops [that I might ordain] would place their episcopal dignity into the hands of the pope, saying to him: ‘here we are. What do you wish to do with us? If you so wish, we shall now live as simple priests; and if you wish to make use of us, we are at your service’” (IX-1986, in a priestly retreat). And in his Letter to the future bishops: “I shall confer this grace upon you, trusting that without delay the See of Peter will be occupied by a perfectly Catholic successor of Peter, into whose hands you may deposit the grace of your episcopate so that he may confirm it (29-VIII-1987).”

Twenty-five years later, it seems, Rome has not returned to the Catholic truth of all times, nor has there come to the supreme apostolic Chair “a perfectly Catholic successor of Peter”…

–Do not eat of this excellent cake, for it is poisoned! The texts I have cited from the men who are today the chief figures of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X make us recall that classic Latin principle, bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque defectu: the good requires that everything be good, and a thing is evil by any defect whatever. A great pastry cake may be composed of several ingredients of excellent quality; but it is enough that it contain a few drops of a strong poison for the whole cake to be poisonous and inedible. And logically, the greater the quality of the cake, the greater its attractiveness and its dangerousness.

The Lefebvrist Society, with its activities and writings, can do and is doing much harm. And it is necessary to defend the Catholic people from that poison, supplying them apologetically with the needed antidotes. It is doing much harm especially among very fervent Catholics, who are those who suffer most from the heresies and abuses that occur within the Church. I myself have verified this in many cases, above all in Spanish America. And that harm affects not only the Lefebvrist members of the Society of St. Pius X, but also the philo-Lefebvrists —there are many of them—, Christians who are not integrated into it, but who to a greater or lesser degree assimilate its errors and its phobias, expressing them at times even with greater virulence.

The Society, while stating great Catholic truths, fostering authentic Christian virtues, spreading spiritual reading of the first quality (if we set aside the old or modern integrist works), celebrating a worthy and sacred liturgy (but illicit, its Bishops and priests being suspended a divinis), at the same time introduces into its followers the schismatic poison, which denies obedience to the Pope and to the local Catholic Bishops, and which regards the Second Vatican Council and a good part of the subsequent apostolic Magisterium as a “source of poison.” And this horror has already lasted twenty-five years.

–Do not listen to the call of those who declare the Pope and the Bishops to have gone astray. Flee from them as from poison. Unite yourselves more than ever to the Pope and to your own Bishops in this hour so difficult for believers. “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in faith” (1 Pet 5:8). The Catholic Church —the one over which Benedict XVI presides as Vicar of Christ, the only one existing— sails the sea of the modern world through enormous storms. Today the Catholic Church suffers very strong external persecutions, coming from many ancient and modern sources —Protestantism, liberalism, Freemasonry, Marxism, aggressive secularism, modernism—, which have gone on shaping a modern culture ever more closed to Christ and to God: in school and university, in philosophy and art, in great international organizations, in criminal laws of States without God and without natural law, in many social communications media, etc. Christians are at present the most persecuted among the religious men of the world. “In our time —says the Pope—, in vast regions of the earth the faith runs the risk of being extinguished like a flame that dies out” (Fátima 12-V-2010).

And the Church suffers still more today from the infidelities that occur in her own interior. Pope Benedict XVI told journalists on his journey to Fátima that “the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from external enemies, but is born of the sin within the Church” (11-V-2010). The sin of the heresies that are spread in her interior, of the sacrileges in the liturgy, of generalized contraception, of the majority absenteeism from Sunday Mass, of the near disappearance of the sacrament of penance, of the worldlification of minds and customs, of the lack of vocations, of lust and immodesty, of the cult of wealth and of so many other infidelities to the Gospel, to Tradition and to the Magisterium. It is a most grave hour of history, and more than ever we Catholics must be united to the Pope and to our Bishops. Those who calumniate and discredit them, separating from their pastoral guidance a part of the Catholic people, would do well to reread the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, with his moving praises of the unity of the Church, and his most severe warnings against those who attack that unity.

It is the hour of prayer, of penance and of the sacramental life, of eucharistic adoration and of the apostolate, of the ceaseless pastoral ministry —so often heroic— in the parishes, of authentic religious life, active and contemplative, of the lay movements, of courageous evangelizing endeavour in faithful collaboration with the Pope, with one’s own Bishop “and with all the other Bishops who, faithful to the truth, hand on the catholic and apostolic faith” (Roman Canon). It is the hour to “fight the good fight of faith” (1 Tim 6:12), returning more and more to the Gospels, to the study of Tradition, to the teaching and example of the saints, to the meditation of the great documents of the pontifical Magisterium ancient and modern, assimilating well their true teachings, so as to be able to defend them both from the progressive-modernists, who falsify them in favour of their errors, and from the integrists, who reject in great part the apostolic Magisterium of the Second Vatican Council and of the present time, alleging that it breaks with Catholic Tradition.

It is not the hour to calumniate the Church of today, which is the one Church of Christ —there is no other—. It is not the hour to declare the Pope and the Bishops “gone astray,” distancing oneself from them “to save the Church,” universal sacrament of salvation, from a schismatic estrangement.

It is the hour of the prayer that asks God for miracles. It falls within the ordinary Providence of God, and is therefore an object of our hope, that in very difficult moments of the history of the Church extraordinary miracles should occur, in which the Saviour saves His Church, delivering the barque of Peter from shipwreck. And those miracles the Lord works by His powerful grace through the actions of His faithful and apostolic disciples, but above all in answer to the prayers that, full of hope, rise up through the suppliant voice of His holy, one and most beloved Spouse, the Catholic Church.

Author: Fr. José María Iraburu