–Excuse me, but the length of this article is a real provocation for the readers.
–I hold my readers in high regard, and I trust that they will make a special effort to read in this long article the synthesis and the conclusion of all the previous ones. I do not think they will let me down.
The present situation of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X in relation to the Catholic Church must be understood in the light of several pontifical documents. I shall recall a few of the principal ones, even if only in abbreviated form, always giving the link to the full text.
–1988. John Paul II, in the Ecclesia Dei (apostolic letter–motu proprio, 2-VII-1988) expresses “the great affliction of the Church of God” caused by Archbishop Lefebvre in the ordination of four Bishops for the FSSPX:
“That act [30-VI-1988] was in itself a disobedience to the Roman Pontiff in a most grave matter and one of capital importance for the unity of the Church, such as the ordination of bishops, whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Therefore, that disobedience –which implies a true rejection of the Roman Primacy– constitutes a schismatic act (can. 751)…
“The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition… which advances in the Church under the assistance of the Holy Spirit… But above all contradictory is a notion of Tradition that is opposed to the universal Magisterium of the Church, which belongs to the Bishop of Rome and to the College of Bishops. No one can remain faithful to Tradition while breaking the bonds and links with him to whom Christ himself, in the person of the Apostle Peter, entrusted the ministry of unity in his Church (cf. Mt 16:18; Lk 10:16; Vatican I, ch. 3, Dz 3060)”.
“The success recently enjoyed by the movement promoted by Archbishop Lefebvre can and must be for all the faithful a motive for sincere and profound reflection on their own fidelity to the Tradition of the Church, authentically set forth by the ecclesiastical Magisterium, ordinary or extraordinary, especially in the Ecumenical Councils, from Nicaea to Vatican II. From this meditation all of us must draw a renewed and effective conviction of the necessity of deepening and increasing that fidelity, rejecting entirely erroneous interpretations and arbitrary and abusive applications in matters of doctrine, liturgy and discipline”. Here the Pope develops, in this sense, a special exhortation to the Bishops and to the theologians.
“In the present circumstances I wish above all to make an appeal at once solemn and heartfelt, paternal and fraternal, to all those who until now have been linked in various ways to the activities of Archbishop Lefebvre, that they may fulfil the grave duty of remaining united to the Vicar of Christ in the unity of the Catholic Church and cease to support in any way whatsoever that reprehensible manner of acting. Everyone should be aware that formal adherence to the schism constitutes a grave offence against God and carries with it the excommunication duly established by the law of the Church (can. 1364)”.
–1999. The Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei (PCED), replying to inquiries, has expressed itself on several occasions. Ten years after Ecclesia Dei, Msgr. Camille Perl, Secretary of the Commission, writes in a letter of 28-IX-1999: “The priests of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X are validly ordained, but they are suspended from the exercise of their priestly functions. To the extent that they adhere to the schism of the former Archbishop Lefebvre, they are likewise excommunicated. This means that the Masses celebrated by such priests are valid, but illicit, that is, contrary to the law of the Church”.
–2008. The same PCED, about a decade later, again through its Secretary, Msgr. Perl, in a letter of 23-V-2008 responds to some inquiries from Mr. Brian Mershon, among them one in which the questioner refers to the “repeated affirmations of Cardinal Castrillón [then President of the PCED] that the FSSPX is not in formal schism“, against what some Catholic canonists hold. Msgr. Perl replies:
“The statements made by Cardinal Castrillón need to be understood in a technical, canonical sense. To declare that the Society of Saint Pius X ‘is not in formal schism’ means to say that there has been no official declaration on the part of the Holy See that the Society of Saint Pius X is in schism. Until now, the Church has sought to show the utmost charity, courtesy and consideration toward all those involved, in the hope that such a declaration may not eventually be necessary”.
“The Masses offered by the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X are valid, but illicit… The sacraments of Penance and of Matrimony require that the priest enjoy the faculties of the diocese or have his own delegation. Since this is not the case with these priests, these sacraments are invalid. It remains true, however, that if the faithful are genuinely unaware that the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X do not have the proper faculty to absolve, the Church supplies these faculties so that the sacrament may be valid (canon 144)”.
“While it is true that participation in the Mass in the chapels of the Society of Saint Pius X does not of itself constitute ‘formal adherence to the schism’ (cf. Ecclesia Dei 5c), such adherence can come about over a period of time in which one takes on a schismatic mentality that separates oneself from the teaching of the Supreme Pontiff and of the whole Catholic Church”… For this reason this Commission “cannot recommend that members of the faithful frequent their chapels”.
–2009. The lifting of the excommunication of the Bishops of the FSSPX (21-I-2009) and the subsequent apostolic letter explaining that remission (10-III-2009) were very important acts of the Pope with a view to facilitating the reintegration of the FSSPX into the full unity of the Catholic Church. The Pope explains that the lifting of the Bishops’ excommunication was intended to call them “to repentance and to the return to unity”, noting that “although they have been freed from the ecclesiastical sanction, they do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church”.
“The remission of the excommunication is directed to the same end as the sanction: to invite the four Bishops once more to return. This gesture was possible after the parties concerned had recognized in principle the Pope and his authority as Pastor, albeit with reservations regarding obedience to his doctrinal authority and that of the Council”.
–2009. The PCED is reformed, linking it to the Congregation for the Faith by means of the apostolic letter–motu proprio Ecclesiæ unitatem (2-VII-2009).
Benedict XVI explains the reason for the change: “Precisely because the problems now to be dealt with with the Fraternity are of an essentially doctrinal nature, I have decided –twenty-one years after the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei–… to reform the structure of the Commission Ecclesia Dei, joining it closely to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”. Henceforth its President is the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at present Cardinal William Levada, and its Secretary, Msgr. Guido Pozzo.
–2011. Interview granted by the Superior General of the FSSPX (2-II-2011), Bishop Bernard Fellay, at the Seminary of Saint Thomas (Winona, USA). In it he sets out at length the present situation of the Fraternity in relation to the Church. I link to the French text, in a first part and in a second. And in Spanish, only the first (the second is lacking).
Bishop Fellay begins by warning –and his warning is very important– that in the conversations held between the FSSPX and the Holy See “it is necessary to distinguish the end that Rome pursues from the one that we have. Rome indicated that there were doctrinal problems with the Fraternity and that these had to be clarified before a canonical recognition –problems which, dealing with the acceptance of the Council, would obviously come from our side. For us, on the contrary, it is a matter of something else: we wish to set before Rome what the Church has always taught, and thereby to point out the contradictions existing between this centuries-old teaching and what happens after the Council. On our part, that is the only objective we pursue”.
The conversations with “the Roman interlocutors”, Bishop Fellay goes on to say, are drawing to a close, and in his view there has been no major progress: “they do not accept to acknowledge the contradictions between Vatican II and the earlier Magisterium”. Nevertheless, for the Fraternity they are important meetings: “it is a matter of making the Catholic faith heard in Rome and, even more, of making it heard throughout the Church”. But one will have to wait. “Up to now Vatican II has always been regarded as a taboo, which makes the cure of this illness that is the crisis of the Church almost impossible”.
The Summorum Pontificum, he acknowledges, has been “a capital step”, but it has met with “the massive opposition of the bishops”. And two new difficulties have arisen, the coming meeting at Assisi, on the 25th anniversary of the first, and the announced beatification of John Paul II, which “is not only a consecration of the person of John Paul II, but also of the Council and of the whole spirit that follows from it”. To the question: “how is it possible that God should permit true miracles to authenticate a false doctrine, on the occasion of the many beatifications and canonizations carried out in recent decades?”, Bishop Fellay replies that, in his view, the miracles “are doubtful”, and that on the other hand “the terms for canonization have been changed, made less strong than before. I believe that this goes together with a new mentality, which does not wish to define dogmatically so as not to engage infallibility”.
The Fraternity has now completed its 40 years of existence, and “it is a work that continues to grow, which, humanly speaking, would seem almost impossible. It is clearly God’s sign upon the work of Archbishop Lefebvre”. The interviewer notes that the number of faithful and of chapels is growing, which makes it foreseeable that the consecration of other auxiliary Bishops for the Fraternity may perhaps become necessary; and he asks: “Do you believe that Rome could today be favourable to further episcopal consecrations in the Tradition?” –”For me the answer is very simple: there will or there will not be [consecration of] bishops according to whether the circumstances that occasioned the first consecration recur or not”.
Starting from these documents and declarations, I now proceed to comment on them.
–The Lefebvrist Fraternity is growing and feels strong in its present position. We already saw (130 in fine) the false triumphalist interpretation that the FSSPX gave to the lifting of the excommunication of its Bishops, as manifested in Bishop Fellay’s letter (24-I-2009): an excommunication is lifted “which we always rejected”, that is, which was always held to be null; “the Catholic Tradition is no longer excommunicated”, and “we await the prompt rehabilitation of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre”. On the other hand, Bishop Fellay, in the first answer of the interview referred to, makes it quite clear that the FSSPX does not intend, in the present conversations with Rome, to obtain canonical recognition by the Church, that is, full and visible union with the Catholic Church, which is precisely the principal aim of the Holy See. That, as I understand it, would imply a subjection to the Pope from which they are at present free. As they now are, they enjoy a prosperous and growing situation.
According to statistics of July 2010, the FSSPX, from 1970 until today, has been growing at a steady rate. It has 6 seminaries, 14 Districts, 161 Priories, 725 Mass Centres, 90 schools, 529 priests and 214 seminarians, 117 Brothers, 176 Sisters, 5 Carmelite convents, and is present in 31 countries.
–The schismatic situation of this great Lefebvrist Community becomes evident because it “refuses submission to the Supreme Pontiff” (can. 751) and to the Catholic Bishops, in whose dioceses it normally installs its Priories. For more than two decades the Fraternity has governed itself entirely apart from the apostolic authority of the Pope and of the Bishops. And without any problem of conscience, it illicitly exercises its episcopal and priestly ministries, celebrating Masses, marriages, confessions, confirmations, ordinations, catechesis, etc., since it judges that its sui generis situation in the Church is perfectly licit, inasmuch as it is required by divine Providence “for the continuity of the Church”. That is what makes of it a schismatic Community, even though such a condition has not been formally declared. And that is why the Pope calls them “to repentance and to the return to unity”, because they broke with her.
–To the extent that errors and abuses persist in the Catholic Church, the FSSPX justifies itself and develops. This was already noted by John Paul II in Ecclesia Dei (1988, 5a). From the success of the work promoted by Archbishop Lefebvre, he said, “all of us must draw a renewed and effective conviction of the necessity of deepening and increasing that fidelity… rejecting entirely erroneous interpretations and arbitrary and abusive applications in matters of doctrine, liturgy and discipline”. Those local Churches that do not respond to this pressing demand of the Pope will see apostasy or Lefebvrism grow within them.
The number of Lefebvrists and of philo-Lefebvrists increases, and all of them confirm themselves in their positions, every time that in the Catholic Church –a Cardinal celebrates a Mass with little balloons, –another remarks that the resurrection of Lazarus was not, of course, as the evangelist describes it, –another forbids in his Cathedral the celebration of the old Mass, –another demands respect for the medical decision to induce the abortion of a pregnant little girl, –another publishes a book in which he is ashamed of Humanæ vitæ. The FSSPX affirms itself and grows –every time that a Catholic theologian, without losing his chair, admits the possibility that the resurrection of Jesus did not cause him to recover his own body in a glorified state; –every time that a Bishop prevents, “in order to avoid divisions in the Diocese”, the publication of an eventual Roman Notification reproving a theologian of his jurisdiction; –every time that in religious Bookshops, sometimes diocesan, heretical books are circulated; –whenever in parish funerals purgatory is done away with, declaring simply that “our brother already enjoys God in heaven”; –whenever soteriology, salvation-condemnation, is suppressed in preaching and in catechesis; –whenever some missionary boasts of not preaching the Gospel and of limiting himself to inculturation and to charitable works, etc.
–Reservations about the authority of the Pope. Benedict XVI, in his letter explaining the lifting of the excommunications (10-III-2009), says that it “was possible after the parties concerned had recognized in principle the Pope and his authority as Pastor, albeit with reservations regarding obedience to his doctrinal authority and that of the Council”. This is a sentence of complex and delicate interpretation. How are we to understand those reservations in obedience to the doctrinal authority of the Church, that is, those hesitations in “the obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5)?
If someone says he believes with reservations in the virginity of Mary, we understand that he has no faith in it, since certainty is a property proper to theological faith. If someone believes with reservations in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, we deduce that he does not have the Catholic faith. Although in this case it might be that those doubts bore upon the truly priestly condition of the one consecrating: if he is not an ordained priest, there is no real Eucharistic presence in his false consecration. Those doubts that a person may have, therefore, do not refer to the doctrine of the Catholic faith, but to the concrete sacramental or non-sacramental reality that he has before him.
Now then, I already pointed out in the previous article (131) that the Catholic faith is the faith which believes in this Catholic Church, the one that exists visibly in our time, visible, audible and palpable, and in this Pope, by his own name… And I already indicated that whoever does not believe in this Church and in this Pope remains in unbelief, in solitary spiritual exposure, or in some mode of Lefebvrism, believing in “the eternal Church” and in “the Primacy of Peter”, but outside the unity of the Church. The aforesaid reservations about the authority of the Pope seem to me a mild and benign expression of Benedict XVI. But in reality there seems to be no middle ground in this grave question: either there is faith that this Pope is the Pope, and in that case there is no room for reservations, or there is no faith that this Pope is the Pope, and one falls into sedevacantism, which builds for itself, to the measure of its own thoughts and desires, a Church as eternal as it is imaginary, with an illusory Roman Primacy.
These reservations about the authority of and obedience to the Pope explain why the Fraternity continues to regard the schismatic ordination of its Bishops as licit and even heroic: they consider it fully justified and licit. These reservations also explain why, in good conscience, it continues for more than twenty years to hold the sanctions of the Church to be wholly null, and consequently to ignore that “its ministers do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church” (Benedict XVI, 10-III-2009). Still more, they explain why the FSSPX is today prepared, should it judge that tomorrow’s circumstances so require –as Archbishop Lefebvre judged in 1988–, to carry out new episcopal ordinations “to ensure the continuity of the Church”…
In an interview granted recently by Bishop Fellay in Buenos Aires (31-III-2011) he recounted that when, in June of the previous year, the FSSPX was preparing some ordinations of subdeacons in Germany, there were great protests, especially from the German Episcopate. “Three consecutive calls we received from Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, asking in the name of the Pope that we not carry out the ordinations”. But, the four Lefebvrist Bishops having gathered, the Superior General of the Fraternity goes on to relate, they decided to carry them out, as an inescapable measure of survival, though transferring them to Switzerland. As can be seen, the recognition that the Fraternity gives “in principle to the Pope and to his authority as Pastor” is purely verbal.
–Reservations about the authority of the Ecumenical Council Vatican II. The Catholic faith obliges us to receive without reservations an ecumenical Council and to interpret it in the light of the earlier Councils, for faith gives us the certainty that the chain of the apostolic Magisterium develops, over the course of the centuries, under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, a growth homogeneous with Catholic doctrine. That is why the continuist hermeneutic of Vatican II is a requirement of faith, and not simply a stratagem to defend it; and on the contrary, a rupturist interpretation is contrary to Tradition and to the Catholic faith.
And very paradoxically progressives and Lefebvrists coincide in giving Vatican II a rupturist interpretation. In his magnificent conference We need a new Syllabus (17-XII-2010), Bishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary Bishop of Karaganda (Kazakhstan), notes that
“two groupings become evident that uphold the theory of rupture. One of these groups attempts to protestantize the life of the Church doctrinally, liturgically and pastorally. On the opposite side are those traditionalist groups that, in the name of tradition, reject the Council and withdraw themselves from submission to the supreme living Magisterium of the Church, to the visible Head of the Church, the Vicar of Christ on earth, submitting themselves for now only to the invisible Head of the Church, awaiting better times”.
The progressives do not interpret the Council in the light of the apostolic Tradition, the only legitimate way of understanding it, but rather make it say –when they deign to cite it; rarely– what they themselves think and desire. And the Lefebvrists likewise do not interpret it in the light of Tradition, as is commanded, but rather reject it as opposed to her on grave questions, that is, they harbour “reservations about the authority of the Council”.
–The bad Lefebvrist interpretation of the Second Vatican Council on not a few very grave questions is patent. I shall limit myself to recalling the three capital errors of the Council that Archbishop Lefebvre pointed out in his long and solemn conference The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X and Rome (1987), a year before the schismatic episcopal ordinations (cf. 130).
“There are three fundamental errors, which, of Masonic origin, are publicly professed by the modernists who occupy the Church. [1] The substitution of the Decalogue by the Rights of Man [in reference to religious liberty]… [2] This false ecumenism which in fact establishes equality among the religions… [3] And the denial of the social kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ through the secularization of the States… The situation is, then, extremely grave, because everything indicates that the realization of the Masonic ideal has been accomplished by Rome itself, by the Pope and the cardinals. This is what the Freemasons have always desired, and they have obtained it not by themselves but through the very men of the Church”.
1.-The theocentrism of the Decalogue is replaced in the conciliar Church by the anthropocentrism of the Rights of man. In the 1000 pages of the Second Vatican Council we can find some somewhat ambiguous rhetorical expressions about man as the centre of the universe, which, erroneously interpreted, may give rise to an anthropocentric Christianity. We find, on the contrary, hundreds of conciliar expressions clearly theocentric, biblical and traditional, which give the true doctrine of the Council and which, with a minimum of intellectual honesty, oblige us to interpret in a Catholic sense those other possible ambiguous expressions. Systematically, these expressions so clear and precise are omitted by the Lefebvrists, who hold only to the ambiguous phrases.
The theocentrism of Vatican II is manifested above all in its precious liturgical doctrine: “The Liturgy is the summit toward which all the action of the Church tends and at the same time the fount from which all her strength flows” (SC 10; cf. a much-repeated principle, OT 16, PO 5). The whole life of the Church, in this way, is oriented toward the glorification of God. But this theocentrism is likewise affirmed with insistence from many other perspectives: “The divine law, which is eternal, objective and universal, is the supreme norm by which God orders, directs and governs the world and the ways of the human community according to the design of his wisdom and of his love” (DH 3). “Man has a law written by God in his heart, in obedience to which his very dignity lies and by which he will be judged personally” (GS 16). The faithful must strive to procure the common good, “bearing in mind that in every temporal matter they must be guided by the Christian conscience, since no human activity, not even in the temporal domain, can be withdrawn from the dominion of God” (LG 36). Therefore, “if by ‘autonomy of the temporal’ it is meant that created reality is independent of God and that men may use it without reference to the Creator, there is no believer to whom the falsity wrapped up in such words could escape. The creature without the Creator vanishes” (GS 36). On the contrary, all temporal, family, professional activities, etc. must be bound up with “the religious values, under whose most exalted hierarchy all things cooperate unto the glory of God” (ib. 43).
2.-A false ecumenical equality among all the religions seeks to arrive at “a kind of syncretism which would bring together all the religions”. To attribute that teaching to the Council and to the post-conciliar period is a grave calumny. We could demonstrate it with innumerable texts.
“This pilgrim Church is necessary for salvation. The one Mediator and way of salvation is Christ, who makes himself present to us all in his Body, which is the Church” (LG 14). Again and again Vatican II insists on the “unicus Mediator Christus” (ib. 14, 28, 49, 50, citing Trent, Dz 1821). In the decree on religious liberty Vatican II teaches that man “redeemed by Christ the Saviour and called through Jesus Christ to the divine sonship, cannot adhere to God, who reveals himself, unless, drawn by the Father, he renders to God the rational and free homage of faith” (DH 10). “And since he who does not believe is already judged, the words of Christ are at one and the same time words of condemnation and of grace, of death and of life” (AG 8). For this reason it is the sacred duty of the Church to announce through the missions the name of Jesus, since “in no other is there salvation” (Acts 4:12). It is necessary, then, that all be converted to him, made known by the preaching of the Church, and by baptism be incorporated into him and into the Church, which is his Body” (ib. 7), excluding in ecumenical action “every kind of indifferentism and confusionism” (ib. 15, cf. 22; cf. SC 9). It would suffice, moreover, the apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi of Paul VI (1975) and the encyclical Redemptoris missio of John Paul II (1990) to demonstrate that Tradition remains splendidly intact also in the post-conciliar documents.
3.-The denial of the Lordship of Christ over the nations is the cause of the secularization of the States. We know well that in the West the wealthy nations of ancient Christian filiation have to a large extent turned their backs on God and on his envoy Jesus Christ, in a process that has its beginning above all in the eighteenth century: “we will not have this man to reign over us” (Lk 19:14). And that after the prosperity regained following the Second World War, this process reaches an outbreak of collective apostasy, which affects very especially the political structure of the States. To lay the blame for all this on the Second Vatican Council and on the Pope is, then, an enormous error and a great injustice. Archbishop Lefebvre says, in the aforementioned conference of 1987: “The Pope has willed and has practically achieved the secularization of Societies, and thereby the suppression of the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ over the Nations”. This is one of the great calumnies that the FSSPX keeps alive, spreading the writings of Archbishop Lefebvre and formulating the same teaching in other words.
On the contrary, the Church, the faithful Bride of Christ, has always willed and wills that “Christ reign” over the nations and over all men (1 Cor 15:25). Thus Vatican II expressed it: that the laity strive with all their might “to bring it about that the divine law be inscribed in the earthly city” (GS 43), and work “to establish the temporal order in such a way that it conform to the higher principles of the Christian life” (AA 7). And this is not a duty binding only on persons, for as the Catechism says (2105), citing places of the Council,
“the duty of rendering authentic worship pertains to man individually and socially considered. This is ‘the traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and of societies toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ’ (DH 1). By ceaselessly evangelizing men, the Church works so that they may be able ‘to imbue with the Christian spirit the mentality and mores, the laws and the structures of the community in which each one lives’ (AA 13). It is the social duty of Christians to respect and awaken in each man the love of the true and the good. It requires them to make known the worship of the one true religion, which subsists in the Catholic and apostolic Church. Christians are called to be the light of the world. Thus the Church manifests the kingship of Christ over all creation and, in particular, over human societies [citation here: Leo XIII, enc. Immortale Dei; Pius XI, enc. Quas primas]”.
Vatican II therefore maintained intact the traditional Catholic doctrine concerning the moral duty of men and of societies, also of the States, toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ. Never has the Church, in the Council or after it, taught that the Christian confessionality of a nation is illicit or always inopportune. This is a false thesis, contrary to Tradition and to the conciliar teaching. The Commission that drafted the declaration Dignitatis humanæ on religious liberty, clarifying for the conciliar Fathers the meaning of the text that they were to vote on, affirmed that
“if the question is rightly understood, the doctrine on religious liberty does not contradict the historical concept of what is called a confessional State… Nor does it forbid that the Catholic religion be recognized by public human law as the religion of the State” (Relatio de textu emendato, in Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II, Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, v. III, pars VIII, p. 463). Vatican II, therefore, neither forbids nor requires the confessionality of the State, whose opportuneness will depend on the religious circumstances of each country. And it teaches that, in principle, the Church and the State both being at the service of the human common good, “they will accomplish this service the more effectively, for the good of all, the more they cultivate a sound and better cooperation between themselves, taking into account the circumstances of place and time” (GS 76).
How, then, do Archbishop Lefebvre and the FSSPX dare to ignore in Vatican II so many traditional teachings of the present Catholic Church and to interpret the conciliar and post-conciliar texts in a key of rupture with Tradition, accusing the Pope and the Church, among many other errors, of a crass anthropocentrism, of a heretical syncretism and of a secularist resistance to the Reign of Christ? Why do they not interpret the ambiguous texts that there may be in the light of the very numerous clear and certainly traditional texts –present at times in the very document that includes obscure texts–, as an honest hermeneutic requires? They deliberately and habitually apply a hermeneutic of rupture, as the progressives do, thereby succeeding in betraying the very essence of the Tradition that they seek to defend.
–Certain “gestures” of John Paul II caused profound displeasure to not a few Catholics, including Cardinals. But always, respecting as is due the Vicar of Christ, we gave them a benign interpretation. In kissing the Koran, the Pope was not expressing his veneration for the doctrines of Muhammad, but his immense love for the thousand million Muslims held captive by that false book. In receiving on his forehead the mark of Shiva that an Indian lady imposed upon him with affectionate respect, he was in no way expressing his accord with the myths of Hinduism, but was simply thanking her with a smile for the act, as if in Hawaii a garland of flowers had been placed upon him. That is the only way to interpret honestly and truthfully those ambiguous acts of the Pope.
Indeed, gestures express in non-verbal language thoughts and intentions that can have very varied interpretations, although these are usually patent from the person and the circumstances. Words, on the other hand, have a much more precise and univocal expressiveness. It is evident, therefore, that if the concrete gesture of a person suffers from an ambiguous expressiveness, this must be interpreted by keeping to his words. Another question, doubtless, intimately connected but distinct, is the fittingness of a given gesture. Saint Peter, for example, by not eating with the Gentiles, performs a gesture that merits the censure of Saint Paul (Gal 2:11-13), but which in no way compromises the faith in the Christian salvation of the pagans, a faith certainly common to the two Apostles (Acts 1:15; 14:27).
The Assisi meeting was the pontifical gesture most abominated by Archbishop Lefebvre. John Paul II arranged it in the International Year of Peace (1986, and afterward in 2002) with his best intention of uniting all the religious men of the world in the unanimous search for peace. The gesture, so it seemed to many of us, ran grave dangers of being interpreted crookedly in a syncretist key by ill-formed or ill-intentioned persons. The Pope himself tried to justify his gesture in an allocution to the Cardinals (22-XII-1987). And Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, later made the same attempt as well, on the occasion of Assisi-2002 (30 Giorni II-2002). And these explanations convinced some of us more and others less. But none of the sons of the Church doubted for an instant the perfect Catholic faith of John Paul II, expressed thousands of times, whether in those very texts of Vatican II recalled above concerning the missions, which he formulated as a conciliar Father together with the Pope and the Bishops, or in so many other documents of his own, right up to the formidable declaration Dominus Iesus (2002).
On the contrary, the statements that Archbishop Lefebvre made again and again about the Pope on the occasion of Assisi-1986 seem to us shameful and utterly preposterous. This was one of the questions that most influenced his decision to ordain Bishops against canon law and against the express will of the Pope.
“We are faced with a most grave dilemma which, I believe, has never existed in all the history of the Church: that he who is seated on the See of Peter should take part in the cults of false gods. I do not know. I ask myself. But it is possible that we are obliged to believe that this pope is not pope” (Écône, hom. of Easter Sunday 1986; Tissier 564). Relating that event, Bishop Tissier takes the occasion to cite the Code of 1917: if a Christian incurs the communicatio in sacris, active participation in non-Catholic rites (can. 1258), he comes to be made “suspect of heresy” (can. 2316). Archbishop Lefebvre, like this one, uttered other enormous outrages: “I really believe that I can say that there has never been a greater iniquity in the Church than the day of Assisi” (Sermon at the schismatic ordination of Bishops, 18-VI-1988).
–The reintegration of the FSSPX into the Catholic Church does not seem possible for now, being nonetheless so heroically sought by Benedict XVI, universal Pastor, and so desired by all the Catholics who love the unity of the Church. It does not seem possible.
1. It does not seem to be desired today by the FSSPX. And two cannot be united if one does not wish it. As we saw, for example, in the first sentence of the cited declarations of Bishop Fellay, the return to full union is the end intended by the Holy See in the conversations, but the Fraternity seeks in them another end, to affirm its own orthodoxy, “converting” Rome, infected with heresy; and only that.
The Fraternity, by maintaining its “reservations” toward the authority of the Pope and of Vatican II, does not consider viable for now that “unity”, which in its view would be false. On the other hand, especially after the lifting of the excommunications, it does not see the fittingness of changing its present situation, growing in number and awaiting the rehabilitation of Archbishop Lefebvre. The Pope calls them “to repentance and to the return to unity”, but as long as they go on seeing the Catholic Church as they see it, infected with modernism, neo-Protestantism, syncretism, heresies and apostasy, they will refuse, in conscience, to take a step in that direction. To the applause of the sedevacantists, who reproach him, on the other hand, for his sporadic relations with the Holy See.
2. The Fraternity would have to confess openly that Christ entrusted to the Roman Church the mission of keeping all Christians in the orthodox faith and in unity, and that the FSSPX has not received from God a higher mission, with apostolic authority to watch over and guarantee the fidelity of “Rome” in her own mission. It is the See of Peter that receives from Christ the supreme charism of confirming all Christians in the faith; and it is not the FSSPX that receives, in our time, this mission, above Rome, distancing itself from her. This latter conviction would be wholly irreconcilable with Sacred Scripture and with Catholic Tradition.
3. The Fraternity would have to recognize the jurisdictional judgments of the Pope and of the Holy See on the schismatic character of the episcopal ordinations carried out by Archbishop Lefebvre, on the validity of the excommunications and suspensions a divinis, and concerning the illicitness of its priestly celebrations. It is the Authority of the Church that, in this world and in the name of Christ, judges her sons; and it is not they who judge their own causes. It is not they who have the last word. That belongs, as they themselves say, to “Rome”.
4. The Fraternity would have to renounce the illicit exercise of the episcopal and priestly ministries, while receiving from the apostolic Authority the necessary canonical recognitions, which on the part of the Holy See would be possible, in the form of a Prelature or as might be fitting.
5. The FSSPX would have to accept the Mass of the Novus Ordo. At present, among the celebrants of the new Mass there are many, unfortunately not all, who esteem the old Mass and some who even celebrate it at times. But in the Lefebvrist Priories none is open to the new Mass; all remain until now hermetically closed to it, and give no sign of any change. They thus resist the Summorum Pontificum, which on the other hand they regard as a triumph of their own.
In it the Pope warns that “obviously, in order to live full communion, neither may the priests of the Communities that follow the ancient use, in principle, exclude celebration according to the new books. Indeed, the total exclusion of the new rite would not be coherent with the recognition of its value and holiness”. Thus have other traditional Communities integrated into the unity of the Church accepted it, as we already saw (127 in fine).
6. The Fraternity would have to retract publicly the innumerable insults of Archbishop Lefebvre against the Pope, Vatican II and the post-conciliar Church, asking pardon for them, and withdrawing the distribution of the writings that spread so many calumnies.
There is no possible pardon without repentance and confession of sins. The return of the FSSPX to ecclesial unity does not seem viable unless they withdraw from their means of diffusion so many allusions against the Catholic Church: a Church modernist, liberal, Masonic, syncretist, neo-Protestant, anthropocentric, bastard in its Mass, in its priesthood, in its sacraments, fallen into heresy and apostasy, occupied in the See of Peter and in the principal Roman posts by antichrists, etc. But neither does the Fraternity seem to have this intention, although it is indeed true that on some of its internet pages very considerable emptyings have lately been recorded.
7. The Bishops of the FSSPX would have, finally, to place their offices at the disposal of the Pope, acknowledging the illegitimacy of their origin. This step, so hard, we find suggested by Archbishop Lefebvre, but to be taken on a very different supposition: for when Rome returns to the Catholic truth.
“On the day when Rome returns to the truth of the Church of all time, these bishops [whom 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 will now live as simple priests; and if you wish to make use of us, we are at your service'” (at a priestly retreat, IX-1986: Tissier 573). And in his Letter to the future bishops (29-VIII-1987) he says to them: “I will confer upon you this grace, trusting that without delay the See of Peter will be occupied by a successor of Peter perfectly Catholic, into whose hands you will be able to deposit the grace of your episcopate so that he may confirm it” (578).
The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X considers today that this moment has not yet come. It judges, apparently, that Benedict XVI is not “a successor of Peter perfectly Catholic”… But, in the end, through the prayer of supplication, let us keep the hope that one day ecclesial unity with the FSSPX may be attained, since what is not possible through the wretchedness of men is possible through the mercy of God. Let us pray, let us pray, let us pray.
Mater Ecclesiæ, ora pro nobis.
Author: Fr. José María Iraburu
