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On the Deposition of the Pope (Part 2 of 2)

admin Apologetics, conciliar Church, The Fight for the Faith ,


ON THE DEPOSITION OF THE POPE  – continued  (Part 2 of 2)

Text of John of St. Thomas O.P.

Translated from the Latin and annotated by Fr. Pierre-Marie O.P. (Avrillé. France)

and published in Le Sel de la Terre [No. 90, Fall 2014]

Translated from French to English by Fr. Juan Carlos Ortiz

…

Response to the objections

It is easy to answer the objections of Bellarmine and Suárez against this view.

Objection 1. “A heretic is not a member, so cannot be head of the Church”

Bellarmine objected that the Apostle [St Paul] says that we must avoid the heretic after two admonitions, that is to say, after he clearly appears pertinacious, before any excommunication and sentence of a judge, as St. Jerome says in his commentary, for heretics separate themselves by the heresy itself (per se) from the Body of Christ.

And here is his reasoning:

  • A non-Christian cannot be Pope, for he who is not a member [of the Church] cannot be the head; now, a heretic is not a Christian, as commonly say the Fathers; thus, a manifest heretic cannot be Pope.
  • One cannot object that a character remains in him , because if he remained Pope because of a character, since it is indelible, it could never be deposed.  This is why the Fathers commonly teach that a heretic, because of heresy and regardless of excommunication, is deprived of any jurisdiction and power, as say St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose and St. Jerome.

Answer:  

I answer [to Bellarmine] that the heretic should be avoided after two admonitions legally made and with the Church’s authority, and not according to private judgment; indeed, a great confusion in the Church would follow , if it was allowed that the admonition is made by a private man, and that the manifestation of this heresy having been made without being declared by the Church and proclaimed to all, in order that they avoid the Pontiff, that all should be required to avoid; for a heresy of the Pope cannot be public for all the faithful on the report of a few, and this report, not being legal, does not require that all believe it and avoid the Pontiff; and therefore as the Church proclaims him legally elected by legally designating him for all, it is necessary that she deposes him by declaring and proclaiming him as a heretic to be avoided.

Therefore, we see that this has been practiced by the Church, when in the case of the deposition of the Pope, the cause itself was first addressed by the General Council before the Pope was declared “No Pope”, as we said above.  Therefore it is not because the Pope is a heretic, even publicly, that he will ipso facto cease to be Pope, before the declaration of the Church, and before she proclaims him as “to be avoided” by the faithful.

And when St. Jerome says that a heretic separates itself from the body of Christ, he does not exclude a judgment of the Church, especially in such a serious matter as the deposition of the Pope, but it indicates only the quality of the crime, which excludes per se from the Church, without any further sentence, at least from the moment he is declared [heretic] by the Church;  indeed, even if the crime of heresy separates itself (ex se) of the Church, however, in relation to us that separation is not understood as have been made (not intelligitur facto) without this statement.

It is the same thing from the reason added by Bellarmine.  A non-Christian who is such in itself AND in relation to us (quoad se et quoad nos) cannot be Pope;  however, if he is not in itself a Christian, because he has lost the faith, but if in relation to us he is not legally declared being infidel or heretic, as obvious as it may appear in a private judgment, he is still in relation to us (quoad nos) a member of the Church and therefore the head.   Accordingly, a judgment of the Church is required through which he is declared (proponatur) as being a non-Christian and to be avoided, and then he ceases in relation to us to be the Pope, consequently, previously he did not cease to be himself (etiam in se) [Pope], because all what he did was valid in itself.1

Objection 2. “The Church has no power over the conjunction of the Pontificate with the person.”

The points of this objection are these:

  • [a] The Church cannot have power over the conjunction of the pontificate with the person, unless you have power over the Papacy itself; indeed, when the Pope deposes a bishop he does nothing else than to destroy his conjunction with the episcopate, though he does not destroy the episcopate itself;  therefore, if the Church has power over the conjunction of the Pontificate with the person, consequently she has power over the Papacy and the person of the Pope.
  • [b] A confirmation of this argument is that the Pope is deposed against his will, therefore, he is punished by this deposition; but it belongs to the superior and to the judge to punish. Therefore, the Church who deposes or punishes through the punishment of deposition, has superiority over the Pope.
  • [c] Finally, one who has power over the united parties or their conjunction simply has power over the whole. Therefore, if the Church has power over the conjunction of the Pontificate with the person, she has simpliciter power over the Pope, which Cajetan denies.

Answer:

[a] We answer that it is not in the same manner that the Pontiff has power over the bishop when he deposes him, and the Church over the Pontiff: indeed, the Pontiff punishes the bishop as someone who is subjected to him, [the latter] being invested with a subordinated and dependent power, which [the former] can limit and restrict; and, although it does not remove the episcopate from the person [punished], nor destroys it, nevertheless he does it by the superiority he has over the person, including in this power which is subordinated to him.  That is why he really removes the power to [from] that person, and does not just remove that person from power.  On the contrary, the Church removes the Pontificate not by superiority over him, but by a power which is only ministerial and dispositive, in so far as she can induce a disposition incompatible with the Pontificate, as it was said.

[b] In response to the confirmation of the reasoning, the Pope is deposed against his will, in a ministerial and dispositive manner by the Church, [but] authoritatively by Christ the Lord, so that through him, and not by Church, he is properly said punished.

[c]  Regarding the latter reason, he who has power over the conjunction of the parties has power over the whole simpliciter, unless his power over the conjunction is ministerial and dispositive; we must distinguish between

  • physical realities when the dispositions have a natural connection to the very being of the whole, so that when the agent realizes the combination producing the dispositions binding the parties, it produces the whole simpliciter;
  • and moral realities, in which the disposition made by the agent has only a moral connection with the form, in relation to a free institution, so that he who does the disposition is not supposed to do the whole simpliciter;  for example, when the Pontiff grants to anyone the power to designate a place to be favored to gain indulgences, or remove indulgences by saying that the place is not privileged anymore, that designation or declaration removes or grants indulgences, not with authority and principaliter, but only ministerially.â€

[End of John of St. Thomas’s text]

Some thoughts as a conclusion

The main argument of sedevacantists concluding on the vacancy of the Apostolic See is “the theological argument of the heresy of the Pope,†namely of a Pope who becomes a heretic loses the Pontificate.

In the “Small Catechism on Sedevacantism†(Le Sel de la terre 79, p. 40), Dominicus explained that this argument cannot conclude, on the one side because it would be necessary to prove the formal and manifest heresy of the Pope, on the other, because a judgment of the Church stating that heresy would be necessary.

The text of John of St. Thomas develops this second point: the need for a judgment of the Church for the deposition of a heretical pope.

But at the same time, it shows the difficulty of such a judgment in the present circumstances of the Church.  Indeed, it is easy to see that the vast majority of bishops share the Pope’s ideas about false ecumenism, false religious freedom, etc.  It is therefore impossible to imagine in the current circumstances, a judgment of a General Council which would declare the heresy of Pope Francis.

Humanly speaking we see the situation is hopeless.  We must wait that the Providence, in one way or another, shows the way to overcome this impasse.  Meanwhile, it is prudent to maintain the position of Archbishop Lefebvre and pray for the Pope, while resisting his “heresies”.

Annexes

Here we give some other texts from Thomist authors who share the view of Cajetan and John of St. Thomas:  Báñez, the Carmelites of Salamanca, Billuart and Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange.

Báñez

Domingo (Dominicus) Báñez or Bannez O.P. (1528-1604) is one of the greatest theologians of the 16th century, the golden age of Theology in Spain (with Francisco de Vitoria, Domingo de Soto, Melchior Cano, Bartholomew Medina and Pedro de Sotomayor).

Báñez is regarded, rightly, as one of the most profound and safest commentators of the doctrine of St. Thomas. His style is clear, sober and nervous, without darkness or false elegance.  His erudition is abundant, without ostentation or clutter.  His logic power and intelligence of metaphysics are particularly noteworthy, and on this ground exceeds his teachers and his most famous colleagues. (P. MANDONNET, D.T.C., “Bañezâ€)

In his commentary on the Summa Theologica, he defends the view that:

If the Supreme Pontiff falls into heresy, he does not lose immediately the Papal dignity, before he is deposed by the Church. (In II-II q. 1 a. 10)

He explained that a number of theologians believe that the Pope, once he becomes a heretic, immediately loses his power.  But the opinion he defends is that of Cajetan, of which he summarizes the arguments:

  1. The other bishops, if they become heretics, retain their episcopal dignity until they are deposed by the Pope. […]
  2. If the Pontiff, once fallen into heresy, is ready to amend, he should not be deposed, as even those who hold the opposite view admit, so he does not cease to be Pope. […]

He then examines an objection against his thesis, and this is the most interesting passage for our study:

One objects that the Sovereign Pontiff ceases to be the head of the Church when he falls into heresy and therefore he ceases to be Pope.  Indeed, as soon as he falls into heresy he ceases to be a member of the Church, so to be its head.

One easily answers this objection with the doctrine we have given while explaining the definition of the Church.  The Pontiff is not said to be the head of the Church because of his holiness or his faith, because it is not thus that he influences the other members, but [rather] is said to be the head of the Church because of his ministerial office, which aims to govern the Church by defining the truth, by establishing laws, by administering the sacraments, all of which are carried out according externally according to a visible ecclesiastical hierarchy, and almost palpable.  Besides, the fact that the Pontiff, because of his heresy, ceases to be a member of Christ, for he ceases to receive from Him the spiritual influence for his own sanctification, does not prevent him of being called the chief member of the Church, namely its head, in relation to the ecclesiastical government.  Similarly, the head of a State is said to be the head of the Republic.  As the notion of membership is employed metaphorically, we have said above that there may be different points of view of the metaphor: according to one point of view [Editor’s note: from the spiritual influence received from Christ] the Pontiff is not a member of Christ or the Church, and from another [Editor’s note: the power of government] he is a member. (Venice edition of 1587, columns 194-196)

The Carmelites of Salamanca

The composition of the Cursus theologicus salmanticensis extends over seventy years, during the last three quarters of the 17th century. It is a renowned theological course composed by six Discalced Carmelite theologians of Saint-Elias Convent of Salamanca.  The convent was founded in 1581, during the life and under the counsel of St. Teresa of Avila.

They ask if the Pope, as an individual doctor, can become a heretic.  They cite some authors who think it is not possible (Pighi, Bellarmine, Suárez), and they continue:

The contrary view (which states that the Pontiff as a private doctor can err, not only in secondary objects, but even on matters of faith, and not just with a non-culpable error coming from ignorance or negligence, but also with pertinacity, so that he is a heretic) is much more probable (longe probabilior) and more common among theologians.

Among the reasons they give in favor of their opinion, there is this one:

Because the Church may depose the Pontiff of his dignity, as Cajetan shows in his Treatise on the Authority of the Pope (from chapter 20 to chapter 26) and Melchior Cano in his book De Locis theologicis (book 6, chapter 8).  But this power to depose is not vain in the Church, and it cannot be reduced to the act except if the Pontiff errs in the faith: so this error may be in the Pope as a private person. (De Fide, disp. 4 dubium 1, n. 7)

Billuart

Charles-René Billuart O.P. (1685-1757) is a French Thomist theologian.  He composed a Theology course which enjoys a high reputation.

In the Treatise on the Incarnation (De Incarnatione, diss. IX, a. II, § 2, obj. 2) Billuart defends the thesis that Christ is not the head of heretics, even occult.

It is objected that several doctors (Cajetan, Soto Cano, Suárez, etc.) say that the Pope fallen into occult heresy remains the head of the Church. So he must be a member.

Billuart denies the conclusion:

There is a difference between being constituted a head by the fact that one is influencing on the members, and being made a member by the fact that one is receiving an influx in itself;  this is why, while the pontiff [who] fell into occult heresy keeps the jurisdiction by which he influences the Church by governing her, thereby he remains the head;  but as he no longer receives the vital influx of Christ‘s faith or charity, who is the invisible and first head, he cannot be said to be a member of Christ or of the Church.

Instance: it is repugnant to be the head of a body without being a member, since the head is the primary member.

Answer:  I distinguish the first sentence: it is repugnant to a natural head, I agree; to a moral head, I deny it.  For example, Christ is the moral head of the Church, but he is not a member.  The reason for the difference is that the natural head cannot have an influence on other members without receiving the vital influx of the soul.  But the moral head, as the Pontiff is, can exercise the jurisdiction and the government over the Church and its members, although he is not informed by the soul of the Church, which are faith and charity, and that he does not receive any vital influx.   

In a word, the Pope is made a member of the Church through the personal faith which he can lose, and the head of the Church by the jurisdiction and the power which can be reconciled with an internal heresy. (Cursus theologiœ, Pars III, Venice, 1787, p. 66)

In the Treatise on Faith (De Fide diss IV to III, § 3, obj 2) Billuart defends the following thesis:   Heretics, even manifest (unless being denounced by name, or by leaving the Church themselves) keep the jurisdiction and absolve validly.

He considers the question of the case of a Pope, which is a special case, who receives his jurisdiction not from the Church, but directly from Christ:

It is nowhere stated that Christ continues to give jurisdiction to a manifestly heretical Pontiff, for this can be known by the Church and she can get another pastor.  However the common sentence [editor:  opinion] holds that Christ, by a special provision (ex speciali dispensatione), for the common good and peace of the Church, continues [to give] jurisdiction to a Pontiff even who is a manifest heretic, until he is declared manifestly heretical by the Church. (Cursus theologiÅ“, Pars II-II, Brescia, 1838, p. 33-34)

In the Treaty on the Rules of Faith (De regulis fidei, diss IV, VIII a, § 2, obj 2 and 6) Billuart defends the following thesis:  The sovereign Pontiff is superior to any council by authority and jurisdiction.

It is objected that the Pontiff is subject to the judgment of the Church in the case of heresy.  Why then he would not be subject also in other cases?

He replies:

This is because in the case of heresy, and not in other cases, he loses the pontificate by the fact itself of his heresy: how could remain head of the Church he who is no longer a member?  This is why he is subject to the judgment of the Church, not in order to be removed, since he is already deposed himself by heresy and he rejected the Pontificate (pontificatum abjecerit), but in order to be declared a heretic, and thus that he will be known to the Church that he is not anymore Pontiff: before this statement [of the Church] it is not permitted to refuse him obedience, because he keeps jurisdiction until then, not by right, as if he were still Pontiff, but in fact, by the will of God and accordingly disposing it for the common good of the Church. (Cursus theologiÅ“, Pars II-II, Brescia, 1838, p. 123)

Another objector remarked that the Church would be deprived of a remedy if she could not subject the Pope to the Council in the case that he would be harmful and would seek to subvert her.

Billuart replied that:

If the pope sought to harm her in the faith, he would be manifestly heretical, and he would thereby lose the Pontificate: however it should be necessary a declaration of the Church in order to deny him obedience, as we have said above. (Cursus theologiœ, Pars II-II, Brescia, 1838, p. 125)

If the Pope would harm the Church otherwise than in the faith, some say that one could resist him by the force of arms, however without losing his superiority.  St. Thomas Aquinas said it would be necessary to appeal to God in order to correct him or taking him away from this world (4 Sent. D. 19, q. 2, a. 2 q.1a 3, ad 2).

Billuart prefers to think that:

Whereas God governs and sustains his Church with a special Providence, he will not permit, as he has not permitted it so far, that this situation will happen, and if he permits it, he will not fail to give the means and the help appropriate. (Cursus theologiœ, Pars II-II, Brescia, 1838, p. 125)

St. Alphonsus Liguori

St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), Doctor of the Church, devoted several writings in defense of Papal power against the conciliarist heresy (which gave to the councils a higher authority over the Pope).  Collected in one volume by a Redemptorist religious on the eve of Vatican Council I, (Du Pape et du concile; Tournai, Casterman, 1869) these writings have helped to prepare the definition of the dogma of Papal infallibility.  St. Alphonsus does not really treat the issue of a heretical Pope, and he excludes it so that it does not disturb his subject.  But, without entering into the details, he said repeatedly that the heretical Pope loses his authority only when his heresy has been confirmed by a council.   He clearly shares the view of Cajetan and John of St. Thomas.

In an essay on the authority of the Pope, added by St. Alphonsus at the end of the edition of his Moral Theology in 1748,2 the Holy Doctor vigorously defends the superiority of the Pope over the council, but beforehand he declares:

  1. It should first be noted that the superiority of the Pope over the council does not extend to the dubious Pope in the time of a schism when there is a serious doubt about the legitimacy of his election; because then everyone must submit to the council, as defined by the Council of Constance.  Then indeed the General Council draws its supreme power directly from Christ, as in times of vacancy of the Apostolic See, as it was well said by St. Antoninus (Summa, p. 3 did. 23, c. 2 § 6).
  2. The same must be said of a pope who would be manifestly and exteriorly heretical (and not only secretly and mentally).  However, others argue more accurately that, in this case, the Pope cannot be deprived of his authority by the council as if it were above him, but that he is deposed immediately by Jesus Christ, when the condition of this deposition [= the declaration of the council] is carried out as required.3

After presenting the views of Azorius (viz. that the council is above a manifestly heretical pope), St. Alphonsus nuances it and therefore ultimately follows the position of Cajetan and John of St. Thomas, considered as “more accurate”.   St. Alphonsus did the same in his apologetical treatise Truth of Faith (1767):

“When in time of schism we are in doubt about the true Pope, the council may be convened by the cardinals and the bishops; and then each of the elected Popes is obliged to follow the decision of the council because, at that time, the Apostolic See is considered vacant.  It would be the same if the Pope would fall notoriously and perseveringly, persistently in some heresy.  However, there are those who affirm with more foundation that in the latter case, that the Pope would not be deprived of the papacy by the council as if it were superior to him, but he would be stripped directly by Jesus Christ because he would then become a subject completely disqualified and deprived of his office.†(Truth of Faith (1767), penultimate chapter “On the Superiority of the Roman pontiff over the councils”, art. I, Preliminary Notions, 2°)

St. Alphonsus defends again the same idea in 1768 in his refutation of the errors of Febronius:

If ever the Pope, as a private person, falls into heresy, then he would be immediately stripped of papal authority as he would be outside the Church and therefore he could not be the head of the Church.  So, in this case, the Church should not truly depose him, because no one has a superior power to the Pope, but to declare him deprived of the pontificate.  (We said: if the Pope fall into heresy as a private person, because the Pope as Pope, that is to say, teaching the whole Church ex cathedra cannot teach an error against Faith because Christ’s promise cannot fail). (Vindiciae pro suprema Pontificis potestate adversus justinum febronium, 1768, Chapter VIII, response to the 6th objection)

Father Garrigou-Lagrange O.P.

Father Garrigou-Lagrange examines the question of the heretical pope in his treatise De Christo Salvatore. (Marietti, Rome-Turin, 1946, p. 232)  After explaining that Christ cannot be the head of a formal heretic, he concludes:

This is why a baptized formal heretic is not a member in act of the Church, yet the Church has the right to punish him, in so far as he does not hold what he has promised, like a king has the right to punish a deserter.

Bellarmine objects that a Pope fallen into occult heresy remains a member of the Church in act, for he remains the head of the Church, as taught [also] by Cajetan, Soto, Cano, Suárez and others.4

I answer that this case is quite abnormal, so it is no wonder that it follows an abnormal consequence, namely that an occult heretical Pope would not remain a member of the Church in act (according to the doctrine we have just described), but he would keep the jurisdiction by which he influences the Church by governing her.  So he would retain the reason [= the nature] of head vis-à-vis the Church, on which he would continue to influence, but he would cease to be a member of Christ, because he would no longer receive the vital influx of the faith of Christ, the invisible and first head.  Thus, in a quite abnormal manner, in relation to the jurisdiction he would be the head of the Church, but he would not be a member.

This would be impossible if it were a physical head, but it is not contradictory for a secondary moral head.  The reason is that, while a physical head cannot exert any influence on the members without receiving the vital influx of the soul, a moral head, as is the [Roman] Pontiff can exercise jurisdiction on the Church even if it [he] receives from the soul of the Church no influence from internal faith and from charity.

In short, as Billuart says, the Pope is considered a member of the Church by his personal faith, which he may lose, and a head of the visible Church by the jurisdiction and power that may coexist with internal heresy.  The Church will always appear as a union of members placed under a visible head, namely the Roman Pontiff, although some of those who appear to be members of the Church are internal heretics.  Therefore we must conclude that occult heretics are only apparent members of the Church, which [the latter] they profess outwardly and visibly to be the true one.

On the Deposition of the Pope (Part 1 of 2)

admin Apologetics, conciliar Church, The Fight for the Faith ,


ON THE DEPOSITION OF THE POPE

Text of John of St. Thomas O.P.

Translated from the Latin and annotated by Fr. Pierre-Marie O.P. (Avrillé. France)

and published in Le Sel de la Terre [No. 90, Fall 2014]

Translated from French to English by Fr. Juan Carlos Ortiz

Foreword

“John of St. Thomas (1589-1644) is rightly regarded as one of the greatest Thomistic theologians. His contemporaries unanimously called him a second Thomas, a bright star in front of the Sun (St. Thomas Aquinas) and always he was placed, in the company of Cajetan and Báñez, alongside the Angel of the School.  His doctrine is none other than that of the Angelic Doctor, profoundly understood and faithfully expressed.† (J.M. Ramírez, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, “Jean de Saint-Thomasâ€, col. 806)

He was born in Lisbon, was educated at Coimbra University, then at Louvain University, before joining the Dominicans in Madrid at the age of 23. He was long time a professor at Alcalá (Madrid University).  The last year of his life he was the confessor of King Philip IV of Spain (1605-1665, king in 1621).  It is, moreover, much against his will and by obedience that he accepted this honor while telling his brothers in religion, “This is the end of my life, Fathers; I’m dead, pray for me.â€

“His life was a living reproduction of the virtues of the Angelic Doctor, from whom he had taken the name to mark his devotion to him.  In fact, he joined to his hard intellectual work, a great love of prayer and a burning desire for religious perfection.  Students flocked to his courses, attracted by the depth and solidity of his doctrine.†(Ibid. col. 804)

We give here the first [French] translation of the main passages of his dissertation on “Can the Pope be deposed by the Church as he is elected by Her, and in what case?†(Disputatio II, articulus III, in II-II, q. 1 a. 7, p. 133-140 in the edition of Lyon, 1663) which he wrote while commenting the first question of the II-II of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica.

This is a matter whose importance will not escape our lectors.  However, the book of Arnaldo Xavier da Silveira, La Nouvelle Messe de Paul VI: Qu’en penser?  5 often considered the reference on the question on the “heretical pope†does not have this opinion.  John of St. Thomas is not even mentioned in the extensive bibliography of the book.  In fact, Xavier da Silveira agrees with the opinion of St. Robert Bellarmine, while Cardinal Journet affirms that the studies of Cajetan and John of St. Thomas on this point are more penetrating than those of the Jesuit doctor.

As we have remarked in the report we did in Le Sel de la Terre 52 (p. 205), Father Jean-Michel Gleize [SSPX] thinks that this “thesis [of Cajetan on the deposition of heretical pope] does not hold†since St. Robert Bellarmine’s S.J. studies (1542-1621), and declares not being satisfied with the answers John of St. Thomas gave to the Jesuit theologian. (Thomas de Vio Cajetan, The Successor of Peter, annotated translation by Father Gleize in Courrier de Rome, 2004, n. 65, p. XXII and n. 473, p. 138.)

Nevertheless, a century after John of St. Thomas, Billuart (1685- 1737) also qualified this thesis of Cajetan and John of St. Thomas as ‘more common’. (See the text given in the Appendix.)  It seems, to us, to be solidly supported.  With the text published here and the appendices that follow, the readers may judge by themselves.

The subtitles and the notes are ours.

Le Sel de la Terre [No. 90, Fall 2014]

Introduction

“I affirm that the Pope can lose the pontificate in three ways: through natural death, by voluntary renunciation, and by deposition.

About the first case, there is no difficulty.

About the second case, there is an express provision [in Canon Law6 ], where it is established that the Pontiff may resign, as it was the case with Celestine V; at the Council of Constance, the resignation was asked to the doubtful pontiffs in order to finish with the schism as did Gregory XII and John XXIII. […]

About the third case of losing the Pontificate, many difficulties arise: to make this brief, we reduce all these problems to two main headers: [1] Under what circumstances a deposition can be made?   [2] And by which power this deposition should be made?

On the first point, we will mention three main cases in which a deposition can take place.  The first is the case of heresy or infidelity.  The second case is perpetual madness.  The third case is doubt about the validity of the election.â€

[COMMENT: Here we are only interested in the first case dealt with by John of St. Thomas: the deposition for cases of heresy or infidelity, as it is the case currently concerning us with Pope Francis.]

Can a deposition occur in cases of heresy or infidelity?

“Concerning the case of heresy, theologians and Canon lawyers have disputed very much.  It is not necessary to dwell at length.  However, there is an agreement among the Doctors on the fact that the Pope may be deposed in case of heresy: we will mention them in the discussion of the difficulty.

Arguments from authority

  • A specific text is found in the Decree of Gratian, Distinction 40, chapter “Si Papaâ€, where it is said:  “On earth, no mortal should presume to reproach (redarguere) any faults to the Pontiff, because he who has to judge (judicaturus) others, should not be judged (judicandus) by anyone, unless he is found deviating from the Faith.†(Pars I, D 40, c. 6)   This exception obviously means that in case of heresy, a judgment could be made of the pope.
  • The same thing is confirmed by the letter of Hadrian II, reported in the Eighth General Council [IV Constantinople, 869-870], in the 7th session, where it is said that the Roman Pontiff is judged by no one, but the anathema was made by the Orientals against Honorius, because he was accused of heresy, the only cause for which it is lawful for inferiors to resist their superiors. (MANSI, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova collectio amplissima, Venice, 1771, vol. 16, col. 126)
  • Also Pope St. Clement says in his first epistle that Saint Peter taught that a heretical pope must be deposed.7

Theological argument

The reason is that we must separate ourselves from heretics, according to Titus 3:10: “A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid (devita) him.†  Now, one should not avoid one that remains in the [Sovereign] Pontificate; on the contrary, the Church should instead be united to him as her supreme head and communicate with him.  Therefore, if the pope is a heretic, either the Church should communicate with him, or he must be deposed from the Pontificate.

The first solution leads to the obvious destruction of the Church, and has inherently a risk that the whole ecclesiastical government errs, if she has to follow a heretical head.  In addition, as the heretic is an enemy of the Church, natural law provides protection against such a Pope according to the rules of self-defense, because she can defend herself against an enemy as is a heretical Pope; therefore, she can act (in justice) against him.  So, in any case, it is necessary that such a Pope must be deposed.

Response to an objection.

An objection: Christ the Lord tolerated, in the chair of Moses, infidels and heretics, like the Pharisees: “The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses.  All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not.†(Mt 23: 2-3).  But the Pharisees were heretics and taught false doctrines according to various superstitions and traditions, says St. Jerome in his commentary on Chapter 8 of Isaiah.  St. Epiphanius lists their errors (Panarion, 1. 1, c. 16), and Josephus (Jewish War, 1. 2, c 7 on the end) and Baronius (Annals, v. 7).   So on the Chair of Peter, too, one must tolerate a heretic and an infidel, because he can define a heresy or an error, and thus the Church will always remain free of heresy.

I answer that Christ the Lord did not order that Pharisees be tolerated in the chair of Moses, even if they are declared heretics, or that any heretic or infidel should be kept in the priesthood or in the Papacy, but he only gave this counsel in case they are tolerated there.  If they are not yet declared and deposed from their chair, the faithful should listen to them and obey them, because they keep their power and jurisdiction; however, if the Church wants to declare them heretic and no longer tolerate them, Christ the Lord does not prohibit it by the words reported above.

Two conditions.

But we need to know if the Pope can be deposed in any case of heresy and in whatever form of being a heretic; or if some additional conditions are needed without which heresy alone is not sufficient to depose the Pontiff.

I answer that the pontiff cannot be deposed and lose the pontificate except if two conditions are fulfilled together:

  1. That the heresy is not hidden, but public and legally notorious;
  2. Then that he must be incorrigible and pertinacious in his heresy.

If both conditions are fulfilled the pontiff may be deposed, but not without them; and even if he is not unfaithful interiorly, however if he behaves externally as a heretic, he can be deposed and the sentence of deposition will be valid.

Concerning the first requirement, some among Catholics are of a different opinion, saying that even for an occult  heresy [Editor:  occult = “hiddenâ€, “not visibleâ€], the Pontiff loses his papal jurisdiction, which is based on the true Faith and right confession of Faith; supporting this opinion we have Torquemada (1, 2, 2 p. from v. 18 and 1. 2, c. 102), Paludanus, Castro, Simancas, Driedo […]

Others think that it is necessary that the heresy must be external and proved in the external forum in order that the Pontiff can be deposed of the pontificate; thus Soto (4 Sent. D. 22, q. 2. 2); Cano (from Locis, 1. 4), who believes that the contrary opinion is not even probable; Cajetan (On the Pope’s power, De Comparatione auctoritatis papae and concilii cum apologia eiusdem tractatus; Rome, Angelicum, 1936; c. 18 and 19), Suárez, Azorius, Bellarmine (On the Roman Pontiff, c. 30).

The principle is that occult heretics, as long as they are not condemned by the Church and being separated [by her], belong to the Church and are in communion with her, as like being moved from the exterior, even if they do not receive any more interiorly the vital movement; therefore the Pontiff, if he is an occult heretic, is not separated from the Church; therefore, he can still be the head, since he is still a part and a member, even if he is not a living one.

A confirmation of it is that the priests of a lower order can exercise the power of order and jurisdiction without Faith because a heretical priest can confer the sacraments and give absolution in cases of extreme need […]

The second condition, in order to be able to depose the Pope, namely that he is guilty of incorrigible and pertinacious heresy, is evident, because if someone is ready to be corrected and is not pertinacious in heresy, is not considered to be heretical (Decree of Gratian, No. 24. 3. 29 “Dixit Apostolus.â€); therefore, if the Pope is ready to be corrected, he should not be deposed as a heretic.

The Apostle [Paul] prescribes to avoid heretics only after a first and a second correction: if he comes to repentance after the correction, he should not be avoided; therefore, as the Pope must be deposed for heresy under this apostolic precept, it follows that if he can be corrected, he should not be deposed. […]â€

On the Deposition of the Pope

“It remains to deal with the second problem: by what authority should the deposition of the Pope be done?    And the whole issue revolves around two points:

  1. The declarative sentence by which the Pope’s crime is declared: should it be made by the Cardinals or by the General Council?  And if it is by the General Council, by what authority should it be assembled, and on what basis could this Council judge the case?
  2. The deposition itself which must follow the declarative sentence of the crime: is it made by the power of the Church, or immediately by Christ, being supposed made the declaration?

1. Who should pronounce the declarative sentence of the crime of heresy?

The declarative sentence should not be made by the Cardinals

On the first point, we must say that the statement of the crime does not come from the Cardinals, but from the General Council.

It first appears from the practice of the Church. Indeed, in the case of Pope Marcellinus (Pope from 296 to 304) about the incense offered to idols, a Synod was convened, as stated in the Decree of Gratian. (Distinction 21, Chapter 7, “Nunc autemâ€)   And in the case of the Great [Western] Schism during which there were three popes, the Council of Constance was assembled to settle the schism.  Likewise in the case of Pope Symmachus (Pope from 498 to 514), a Council was convened in Rome to treat the case against him, as reported in Antoine Augustin in his Epitome juris pontificii veteris (Title 13, Chapter 14. See also Catholic Encyclopedia, Pope St. Symmachus); and the places of Canon Law quoted above, show that the Pontiffs who wanted to defend themselves against the crimes imputed to them, have done it before a Council.

Then we see that the power to treat the cause of the Pontiff, and what concerns his deposition, was not entrusted to the Cardinals.  In the case of deposition, this belongs to the Church, whose authority is represented by the General Council; indeed, to the cardinal is only entrusted the election, and nothing else, as can be seen in Canon Law [John of St. Thomas refers to what he said earlier in his works]: see Torquemada (Summa, 1. 2, c. 93), Cajetan (De Comparatione auctoritatis papae), and the Canonists (On the Decretal of Boniface VIII (in 6th), chap. “In fidei de haereticis†and the Decree of Gratian, Dist. 40).

The declarative sentence must be made by a General Council

[…] This council can be convened by the authority of the Church which is in the Bishops or the greater majority of them; the Church has, by divine law, the right to separate herself from a heretical Pope, and therefore she has all the means necessary for such a separation; now, a necessary means in itself (per se) is to be able to legally prove such a crime; but we cannot prove it see legally unless if there is a competent judgment, and in such a serious matter, we cannot have a competent judgment except by the General Council, because it is about the universal head of the Church, so much so that it depends on the judgment of the universal Church, that is to say, of the General Council.

I do not share the opinion of Father Suárez who believes that this can be treated by Provincial Councils; indeed, a Provincial Council does not represent the universal Church in a manner that this case can be treated by such authority; and even several Provincial Councils have no such representation or such authority.

If this is not about the authority under which one must judge, but about the one which has the authority to convene the [General] Council, I believe that this is not assigned to a specific person, but it can be done either by the Cardinals who could communicate the news to the bishops, either by the nearest bishops who can tell others so that all are gathered; or even at the request of princes, not as a summons having coercive force, as when the Pope convenes a Council, but as an “enuntative†convocation that denounces such a crime to the bishops and manifest it in order that they come to bring a remedy.  And the Pope cannot annul such a Council or reject it because he is itself part of it (quia ipse est pars), and that the Church has the power, by the divine right, to convene the council for this purpose, because she has the right to secede from a heretic.

2. On which authority is the Pope deposed?

The diverse opinions

On the second point, namely on which authority the declaration [of heresy] and the deposition are to be made, there is dissension among theologians, and it is not clear by whom that statement should be made, because it is an act of judgment and jurisdiction, which no one can exert on the Pope.  Cajetan, in his treatise On the Pope’s authority, refers to two extreme positions and two middle positions. (De Comparatione auctoritatis Papae and concilii; Angelicum, Rome, 1936; chapter 20)

The two extremes: one says that the Pope is removed without human judge by the mere fact of being a heretic (Bellarmine and Suárez); on the opposite, the other said that the Pope has truly a power above him by which he can be judged (this opinion is not sustained anymore; Cajetan considered it false).

The two middle positions: one says that the pope has no superior [on earth] in absolute terms, except in case of heresy; the other says that he has no superior on earth, neither absolutely, nor in the case of heresy, but only in a ministerial way: just as the Church has a ministerial power to choose the person [Pope], but not to give power, as this is done immediately by Christ, in the same manner, in the deposition, which is the destruction of the bond by which the Papacy is attached to such person in particular, the Church has the power to depose him in a ministerial manner; but it is Christ who deprives [his power] with authority.

The first opinion is that of Azorius (the church is above the Pope in case of heresy).  The second is that of Cajetan who develops it extensively.  Bellarmine quotes it and combats it (The Romano Pontifice, c. 20), especially on two points:  Cajetan said that the manifest heretic Pope is not ipso facto removed and that the Pope is actually deposed really and authoritatively by the Church.  Similarly Suárez (De fide Predisputatio, Sec. 6, num. 7) reproaches Cajetan for saying that the Church, in the case of heresy, is above the Pope as a private person, but not as a Pope.  This, in fact, Cajetan did not say: he holds that the Church is not above the Pope absolutely, even in the case of heresy, but she is above the link joining the Pontificate with such a person, and that she dissolves it, in the same manner as the Church has joined it in the election, and that this power of the Church is ministerial, because only Christ the Lord is simpliciter superior to the pope.

Bellarmine and Suárez therefore think that the Pope, by the very fact that he is a manifest heretic and declared incorrigible, is immediately deposed by Christ the Lord and not by any authority of the Church.

The opinion of Cajetan

Thus the opinion of Cajetan contains three points.

1.  The first is that the heretic pope is not deprived of the Pontificate and deposed by the mere fact of heresy, considered separately.

2.  The second is that the Church has neither power nor superiority over the Pope about his power, even in the case of heresy; never is the Church’s power above the power of the Pope, and consequently above the Pope absolutely.

3.  The third is that the Church’s power has for its object:

  • the application of the papal power to such person, in designating him by the election, and
  • the separation of the power with such a person, by declaring him heretical and to be avoided by the faithful.

Therefore, although the declaration of a crime is like an antecedent disposition preceding the deposition itself and that it relates to it only in a ministerial manner, however, it reaches the form itself of this dispositive and ministerial manner; insofar as it reaches the disposition, so it aims mediately to the form: in the same manner as in the generation and corruption of a man, the begetter neither produces nor educts the form, and the one who corrupts it does not destroy it, but the first one produces the combination of the form, and the second one the separation, immediately reaching the dispositions of the matter to the form, and through them, the form.

Cajetan’s FIRST POINT:  The heretical pope is not deprived of the Pontificate and deposed by the mere fact of heresy considered separately

The first point is obvious and is not legitimately opposed by Bellarmine.  His truth appears thus:

– First, because the Pope, no matter how real and public may be his heresy, by the moment he is eager to be corrected, he cannot be deposed, and the Church cannot depose him by divine right, for she cannot nor should avoid him since the Apostle [Paul] says, “avoid the heretic after the first and second correctionâ€; therefore, before the first and second correction he should not be avoided, and consequently he should not be deposed; therefore it is wrong to say that the pope is deposed (ipso facto) as soon as he is a public heretic: he may be a public heretic, but not yet corrected by the Church, nor declared incorrigible.

– Then, because (as Azorius rightly noted) any heretical Bishop, no matter how visible is his heresy, and although he incurs an excommunication, does not lose ipso facto the Episcopal jurisdiction and power until he is declared [such] by the Church and deposed; indeed only the excommunicated “not tolerated†[vitandus] loses jurisdiction ipso facto, namely those specifically excommunicated or those who manifestly struck a cleric (manifesti percussores clerici).  Therefore, if a bishop or some other prelate loses not ipso facto his power by the mere external heresy, why the Pope would lose it [even] before the Church’s declaration?   Especially since the Pope cannot incur excommunication: on the one hand, no excommunication at all – I suppose – is carried by divine law itself;  on the other hand, he cannot be excommunicated by human right, because he is superior to any human right.

The Church has neither power nor superiority over the Pope concerning his power of Pope, even in case of heresy

Thesis to be proved

The second point of Cajetan is proved by the fact that the power of the Pope absolutely (absolute) is a power derived from Christ the Lord, and not from the Church, and that Christ has submitted to that power the entire Church, namely, all the faithful without restriction: that is certain of faith [de fide] as we have shown it above.

Therefore, in no case the Church can have a power superior to him, except in a case where the power of the Pope would be made dependent to the Church, and inferior to her: and by the fact that it is made inferior in this case, his power is changed and remains the same as before, since before it was above the Church and independent from her, but in this case it is made dependent and inferior: thus, it never happened that the Church has [had] power over the pope formally, because in order to have a higher power than the papal power in a particular case, it is necessary that the papal power be formally other, and not so extensive and supreme as it was before.

Argument from authority

And one cannot cite any authority stating that Christ the Lord has given in such a manner to the Church a power above the Pope.  Those who were cited in the case of heresy, do not indicate any superiority over the Pope formally, but only speak about avoiding him, getting separated from him, to refuse the communion with him, etc., all things which can be done without a power formally above the Pope’s power.

Lack of foundation of the opposite opinion

There is no basis for the proposition which allows to affirm that Christ the Lord, who gave unrestricted, supreme, and independent power to the Pope and to the Holy See, has determined that, in the case of heresy, such a power would be formally as a power (in ratione potestatis) dependent on and inferior to that of the Church, which implies that it would remain subordinate to that of the Church, and not superior as before.

Cajetan’s SECOND POINT

Theological argument

This second point of Cajetan (the Church has never, in the strict sense, a superior power to the Pope), is widely proved by what has been said above, since the Church must be submitted to the Pope and the power of the Pope did not originate from the Church, as a political power, but immediately from Christ, of whom the Pope is the Vicar.

That, even in the case of heresy, the Church is not superior to the Pope, as a Pope, it appears:

  • On the one hand, because the power of the Pope is in no way derived from the Church, nor does it come from her, but from Christ, therefore never is the power of the Church superior [to that of the Pope].
  • On the other hand, because the power of the Pope, which originated in that of Christ, is established as a supreme power above all other powers of the Church here on earth (as we have shown above with many authorities); no case has been excluded by Christ in which this power [of the Pope] would be limited and subjected to another, but always and in relation to all [powers], He speaks of it as a supreme power and as a monarchy.   When He deals with the case of heresy, He does not assign any superiority [of someone] in relation to the Pope, but He prescribed only to avoid the heretic, to be separated from him, not to communicate with him, all things that do not show any superiority, and which can exist without it.  Therefore, the Church’s power is not superior to the power of the Pope, even in the case of heresy.

Canonical argument

Finally, Canon Law also gives us this conviction when it says that “the First Seat is judged by no one,†and this applies even in cases of infidelity, for the Fathers gathered to examine the case of Pope Marcellinus said: “Judge thyself.â€

Cajetan’s THIRD POINT:  The power of the Church has as its object the application of the Papal power to a person

Theological argument

The third point follows from the previous two.  For the Church can declare the crime of the Pontiff and proclaim (proponere) to the faithful that he should be avoided according to divine law, decreeing that a heretic must be avoided.

Now, a pontiff who must be avoided by this provision is necessarily prevented from being made the head of the Church, for he is a member which she must avoid, and therefore he cannot have an influence on her; this is why, by virtue of such a power, the Church dissolves ministerially and dispositively the link of the pontificate with such a person.  The implication is clear: an agent that can induce in a subject a disposition that necessarily causes the separation of the form, a disposition without which the form cannot exist in the subject, has power over the dissolution of the form, and acts mediately on the form, in order to separate it from the subject, and not to destroy it; it is clear in the case of an agent who corrupts a man: he does not destroy the form [the soul], but it induces the dissolution of the form, by putting in the matter a disposition without which the form cannot subsist.

Thus, since the Church can declare the Pontiff as a person to be avoided, she can induce in that person a disposition without which the pontificate cannot stand; the pontificate is so dissolved ministerially and dispositively by the Church, by the authority of Christ, in the same manner as the Church, in choosing the pontiff by the election, she ultimately disposes him to receive the collation of power by Christ the Lord.

Explanation of the words of Cajetan

When Cajetan says that the Church acts with authority (auctoritative) on the conjunction or separation of the Pontificate with the person, and ministerially on the Papacy itself, we must understand it in the sense that the Church has the authority to declare the crime of the Pope, as she has [the power] to choose him to the Papacy, and that what she does with authority in this declaration, acts at the same time ministerially on the form [the Papacy] to join or to separate [the person]: for the form itself, absolutely and in itself (absolute et in se), the Church cannot do anything because the Papal power is not submitted to her.

Canonical argument.

This is congruent with the provisions of the law that sometimes affirm that the deposition of the Pontiff belongs only to God, and that sometimes in case of heresy he can be judged by his inferiors: both are true,

  • On the one side, the “ejection†or deposition of the Pope is reserved only to God in order to be done with authority and from above (auctoritative et principaliter), as stated in the Decree of Gratian, Distinction 79 (Pars I, D 79, c. 11) and in many other places of the law, which say that God has reserved to Himself the judgment of the Apostolic See;
  • Secondly, the Church judges the Pontiff in a ministerial and dispositive manner, by declaring his crime and by proposing him to be avoided, as stated in the Decree of Gratian, in Distinction 40, chapter “Si Papa†(Pars I, D 40, c. 6) and in Part II, Chapter “oves†(q. 7 c. 13).

(To be continued)

Sons of the Church (part II)

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Sons of the Church  (part II)

in a time of crisis

By the Reverend Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P.

(Continued)

* * * * *

Too many ecclesiastical dignitaries have abandoned themselves to the modernist mental perversion; they have reached the point at which they no longer find monstrous the habit of affirming contradictories in the same statement because they deem the intellect incapable of knowing truth.  They rather suppose that it [that is, truth] exists somewhere, though where one knows not, a sort of religious noumena  [Editor:  (in Kantian philosophy) a thing as it is in itself, as distinct from a thing as it is knowable by the senses through phenomenal attributes.]  beyond reach about which the mind fabricates ingenious, infinitely variable systems over the course the evolution of our species, but always impotent to reach what is.  One thing counts: that these [supposed] systems, ideologies, theologies, be placed at the service of humanity’s development.  They will be appreciated for their power to stimulate a grand ascension toward freedom and progress. 

One who consents to such a warped mentality refrains himself from condemning heretics or heresies and does not deem himself bound by any dogma.   He contemplates with detachment and benevolence the most opposed theses, applying himself to bring out in each one the elements that can prepare a better future and that connect more or less with a so-called evangelical spirit, the Gospel being interpreted as a leaven of an ideal future, but not to be received as a definitive rule faithfully guarded by a divinely-assisted Tradition.   When prelates whose minds have been thus denatured occupy the commanding posts in the Church, it is a cause of unutterable distress for all the faithful.

“Unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved, but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened†(Matt. 24:22).

* * * * *

Some young priests from their very first days in the clergy, pushed by apparently noble motives to aspire keenly to reach the highest ranks in the Church, have offered the devil an easy prey.  The devil has taken them in charge in order to make them succeed, but he has made them pay a heavy price.  In olden times, during the Middle Ages or the early Church, whoever ambitioned the cardinalate, or higher, often had to become an accomplice, at least by his silence, in the sins and prevarications of Christian princes.  Today Christian princes don’t exist anymore; in any case, they have become irrelevant.  Power has passed to the secret societies, Masonic or Communist.  That’s where for the most part the horrible masters of modern times are to be found.  Today, then, a priest who cherishes the ambition to advance in the Church to its highest posts must deal with these princes.  He must become their accomplice.  Could he achieve his goal if he did not consent to become involved, perhaps only by degrees yet genuinely, in a radical perversion of the mind?  For if he refused to allow himself to be gradually won over by the spiritual darkness, he would remain incapable, despite all his efforts, of becoming a useful ally of the occult forces.  Do what he might, he would remain an adversary.  But he has to be an auxiliary; it is for no other reason that the modern Caesar has raised him to a position of command.

It happens that a man or woman, in the throes of passion, opens with a terrifying determination the sacred door of their liberty to the spirit of lust.  The devil becomes their master.  He is as it were invested with the power to precipitate them into the pit; he has opportunities to almost totally paralyze the will of his victims.  Now, the demon of pride is more fearsome than the one of carnal desires.  How powerful, then, will be his hold over the priest who, avid for power in spiritualibus [in spiritual things], has entrusted himself, even only indirectly, in order to be more sure of gaining his ambition, to these formidable occult organizations of our time over which the devil rules as master.  Into what mental contortions will the devil not induce the ambitious priest?  If he does not succeed in getting a grip on himself in time, his reason will be invincibly falsified by the prince of this world.

* * * * *

Were the Church’s plight a hundred times worse, a hundred times more cruel, it is still the Lord who is forever Master and King.  It is to Him that all power has been given; it is before Him that every knee must bow in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, including those in this kind of hell, for the moment painless, which is the modernist sect.  Its harmfulness cannot extend beyond the strict limits set by the Lord, and the Lord only grants it a certain power to obscure, to falsify, and to scandalize in thousands of ways, only for the good of the elect and to augment the gracious splendor of His Church.  We ought not to be fearful, but rather persevere with confidence in the Church of always, the everlasting Church, the Church of all time.

(Prologue to Apologia for the Everlasting Church)

Father Calmel’s Apologia first appeared in the journal Itinéraires, No. 151, March 1971, pp. 104-111.

Sons of the Church (Part I)

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Sons of the Church

in a time of crisis

By the Reverend Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P.

(Prologue to Apologia for the Everlasting Church)

Prelates who occupy the most important posts in the Church, misled by the grand chimera of their own desire to find easy, infallible means to achieving once and for all the religious unity of mankind, are working to invent a church without borders in which all men, unconditionally dispensed from renouncing the world and Satan, will soon be united in the bonds of brotherly love.  Dogmas, rites, hierarchy, discipline, should one insist, would all be carried over from the first Church, but everything would be bereft of the safeguards willed by the Lord and specified by Tradition.  By that very fact, everything would be drained of Catholic vitality, namely grace and holiness.  The adepts of the most divers beliefs, and even those who refuse to have any, would enter as equals, but they would enter on equal footing into a dummy church.  Such is the present endeavor of the prestigious Master of lies and illusions.  Behold the masterwork, of Masonic inspiration, to which he commits his minions—faithless priests promoted as eminent theologians; oblivious or disloyal bishops, if not disguised apostates, rapidly elevated to the choicest honors and invested with the highest prelatures.  They spend their lives and lose their souls building a postconciliar Church under the star of Satan.

— Dogmas, affected by relativism because of the new pastoral praxis that refuses to condemn heresy, no longer propose any precise supernatural object.  Consequently, in order to accept them, even supposing that the notion still means anything in this case, neither intellectual assent nor purity of heart is required.

— The sacraments are placed within reach of those who do not believe; almost nothing keeps even unbelievers and the unworthy from approaching them, so far have the new ecclesiastical rites, by their instability and fluidity, become alienated from the sacramental sign efficacious in and of itself, divinely fixed by the Saviour once and for all “until He comes again.”

— As for the hierarchy, it is dissolving insensibly into the people of God, of which it is tending to become a democratic emanation, elected by universal suffrage for a provisional function.

Thanks to these unprecedented innovations, their instigators are congratulating themselves for having torn down the barriers that kept out of the Church those who even yesterday, in the recent ante-conciliar period, rejected the Church’s dogmas, spurned the sacraments, and defied the hierarchy.  Undoubtedly, as they were understood before the Council, dogmas, sacraments, government, a needful inward conversion, gave the Church the aspect of a fortified city—Jerusalem quae aedificatur ut civitas (Ps. 121:3)—with well-guarded doors and impregnable ramparts.  No-one was permitted across the sacred threshold who had not converted.

Henceforth, however, things have been changing before our eyes:  doctrines, liturgy, interior life have been subjected to a treatment of dissolution so violent, universal, and perfected that they no longer admit the distinction between Catholics and non-Catholics.  Since yes and no, the definite and the definitive, are held to have been surpassed, one wonders what would prevent the non-Christian religions themselves from being a part of the new universal Church, continually updated by ecumenical interpretations.

One wonders about it, at least if one accepts the point of view so many former Council Fathers, circumvented by Vatican II, allowed to be imposed upon them: to forge a heretofore unknown system and a new apparatus in order to win over the world without being exposed to failure, nor suffering, nor persecution, beginning with relativizing the supernatural.  But that means nothing, for:

  • On one hand Jesus Christ has said: The servant is not greater than his master; if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also (John 15:20).
  • On the other hand the supernatural is not formless or modifiable; it is firm and precise; it presents a determined aspect; it has an achieved, definitive configuration; since the Incarnation of the Word, since Redemption by the Cross and the sending of the Holy Ghost, the only supernatural that exists is Christian and Catholic. It has no reality except in Christo Jesu, et Virgine Maria et Ecclesia Christi. That is why if one keeps in one’s soul the viewpoint of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the first twenty Councils, one sees quite well what routs the chimera of ecumenical unity: the duty to bend the knee before the Son of man, author and sovereign dispenser of salvation, but only in the one Church He established.

(To be continued)

Attendance at the New Mass

admin Apologetics, conciliar Church, The Fight for the Faith


Attendance at the New Mass

Is it permitted to take part in the New Mass?

Even if the New Mass is valid, it displeases God in so far as it is ecumenical and protestant.  Besides that, it represents a danger for the faith in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It must therefore be rejected. Whoever understands the problem of the New Mass must no longer assist at it, because he puts voluntarily his faith in danger, and, at the same time, encourages others to do the same in appearing to give his assent to the reforms.

How can a valid Mass displease God?

Even a sacrilegious Mass celebrated by an apostate priest to mock Christ can be valid. It is however evident that it offends God, and it would not be permitted to take part in it. In the same way, the Mass of a Greek Schismatic (valid and celebrated according a venerable rite) displeases God insofar as it is celebrated in opposition to Rome and to the unique Church of Christ.

Can one attend the New Mass however when it is celebrated in a worthy and pious manner by a Catholic priest with a faith that is absolutely certain?

It is not the celebrant who is called into question, but the rite that he is using. It is unfortunately a fact that the new rite has given very many Catholics a false notion of the Mass, which is closer to that of the protestant last supper than that of the Holy Sacrifice. The new Mass is one of the principal sources of the current crises of the faith. It is therefore imperative that we distance ourselves from it.

Can one assist at the new Mass in certain circumstances?

We must apply to the new Mass the same rules we use for the attendance at a non-Catholic ceremony.  One can be present for family or professional reasons, but one behaves passively, and especially does not receive Holy Communion.

What can one do when it is not possible to assist every Sunday a traditional Mass?

Whoever does not have the possibility to assist at a traditional Mass is excused from the Sunday obligation. The precept of the Sunday obligation only obliges in the case of a true Catholic Mass. One must however, in this case strive to assist at a traditional Mass at least regular intervals. What’s more, even if one is thus dispensed from assistance at Mass (which is a commandment of the Church), one is not thus so for the commandment of God (“Thou shalt sanctify the Day of the Lord”).  One must replace, by one manner or another this Mass which one cannot have, with for example the reading of the text in one’s missal, and uniting the intention, during the time of the Mass to a Mass celebrated elsewhere, and in practicing a spiritual communion.

(Directly translated from “Catéchisme catholique de la crise dans l’Église†[“Catholic Catechism of the crisis in the Church†by Fr Matthias Gaudron SSPX; French translation, subdivisions and revisions made by the Dominican Fathers of Avrillé.]

What about the attendance at an Indult Mass or at a Mass celebrated by an Ecclesia Dei priest?

Answer coming soon…

Francis, Martians and the Patience of God (NEW VERSION WITH PICTURES)

admin conciliar Church, The Fight for the Faith ,


Francis, Martians and the Patience of God

by Alexandre-Marie

(Translation from the French)

Pope Françis receives smiling José Mujica – President of Uruguay: Marxist, atheist, promoter of homosexuality and abortion. Afterwards, Pope Francis will say to the press that he is pleased to have spoken with “a wise man”.

Unperturbed, he stated that he does not believe in a Catholic God because “there is no Catholic Godâ€; he did not hesitate to say that proselytism is a “perfect absurdityâ€; he declared that Mary standing at the foot of the cross felt “ deceived †by God and revolted against Him; he said that the Roman Pontiff has no right to judge “ gaysâ€; he advised the Moslems to seek spiritual sustenance in the Koran…

Decidedly, Francis seems to wish to become the most innovative and atypical pope in history. And we must admit that until now he has achieved this goal brilliantly. To be convinced of this, all we need to do is look at some of the statements he made in his brief pontificate that caused world-wide interest. Unperturbed, he stated that he does not believe in a Catholic God because “ there is no Catholic God †; he did not hesitate to say that proselytism is a “ perfect absurdity †; he declared that Mary standing at the foot of the cross believed herself to be “ deceived †by God and revolted against Him ; he said that the Roman Pontiff does not have the right to judge “ gays †; he advised the Moslems to seek spiritual sustenance in the Koran; he firmly stated that “ dialogue †is “ the only means †of attaining world peace, that the laicization of the State is beneficial towards guaranteeing “ religious pluralism â€, that what is important in the education of children is not teaching them religion, but “ feeding themâ€, that all men are the sons of God and are saved, “ including atheists â€, that the Petrine ministry is “a pernicious work†, that the Old Covenant “was never revoked †and that the Jews “ have no need to convert â€, that Faith and Certitude are incompatible, and that the president of Uruguay Jose Mujica, an atheist who endorses homosexuality and abortion, is “ a wise man†8 .

These are only a few of the pearls dropped by Francis in the exercise of his media, pseudo-magisterium teaching sui generis in which his incontinent logorrhea accompanies foolproof demagoguery.

Rabbi Sergio Bergman Argentine claims to have found in the Cardinal Bergoglio his “rabbi” because he always has “listened and advised about his vocation” and helped “find the Jewish roots of Catholicism” during his ministry in Argentina.

Always aiming to go beyond and to outdo himself in his search for originality, “my Rabbiâ€, as his friend, the Argentinian Rabbi Sergio Bergman calls him, Francis expressed a very novel idea in his sermon given in St Martha House that the Church ought not refuse to baptize Martians (!) if they desire it.  Apparently it stands to reason that the Holy Spirit is pushing the Church to move on, “to go beyond its limits â€, and that we ought not “ place obstacles or close doors †to people we still erroneously think of as “impureâ€.  To tell the truth, it is improbable that Francis is seriously thinking about giving baptism to extra-terrestrials, although with him, I must admit that nothing would surprise me anymore.   Rather, it is all about giving Communion to the divorced and remarried and about conferring the sacraments on the “gaysâ€, to use the astounding language of Bergolio.  In this homily he said that “Martians†really represent the divorced and the homosexuals seeking baptism from the Church that is intolerant and that arbitrarily shuts the door to them for being “impureâ€, thereby preventing the “Spirit†to go where He will.  It goes without saying that this extravagant outburst from the current occupant of St Martha House is a strategy intended to desensitize the minds in order to prepare for the Extraordinary General Assembly Synod of Bishops, convoked by Francis under the theme: “Pastoral challenges for families within the context of evangelizationâ€, which took place in the Vatican between October 5 and 14, 2014.

Several weeks ago there was the case of a telephone call made by Francis to an Argentinian woman who was married to a divorced man in a civil union.  She had written to Francis, expressing her incomprehension at the refusal of her parish priest to hear her Confession and to give her Communion.  According to the testimony of this adulteress – and this was spread throughout the world by the media – the Pope apparently told her that some priests are “more Catholic than the pope†and that, in order to resolve this problem, all she had to do was “go to Confession and Communion in another parishâ€.  This statement has never been contradicted by the Press Office of the Holy See and therefore lends credence to the story spread by the adulterous couple about the “private telephone call†they received from the Vatican.

This revolutionary program, which most probably will lead to new applications of the reception of the sacraments and of family pastoral care, was insidiously announced by Francis in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium and was promulgated last November.  This is what he said in paragraph 47:

The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open.  One concrete sign of such openness is that our church doors should always be open, so that if someone, moved by the Spirit, comes there looking for God, he or she will not find a closed door.  There are other doors that should not be closed either.  Everyone can share in some way in the life of the Church; everyone can be part of the community, nor should the doors of the sacraments be closed for simply any reason.  This is especially true of the sacrament which is itself “the doorâ€: baptism.  The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.  These convictions have pastoral consequences that we are called to consider with prudence and boldness.  Frequently, we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators.  But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems.

In addition to irregular marriage cases, it does not take a prophet to foresee that the next Synod will likely deal with the question of the status of those demanding the lifting of the bans against those practising the vice against nature.

Several highly symbolic deeds give an indication that this is coming; for starters, the legendary: “Who am I to judge a ‘gay’? †uttered by Francis at the conclusion of the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in an airplane conference on his way back to Rome.  This inconceivable question comes from the lips of the man who right from his election on March 13 of the previous year called himself the Bishop of Rome.

And this statement – we should not forget – came just several weeks after the well publicized funeral of Don Gallo, the famous Communist priest who was an ardent promoter of the “right†to abortion and was also an undisputed champion of the homosexual cause.  His funeral was celebrated with solemnity in Genoa in May 2013 by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the president of the Italian episcopal conference.

Cardinal Bagnasco, president of the Italian episcopal conference, distributing Holy Communion to the trans-sexual LGBT activist Vladimir Luxuria, at the funeral of the priest advocate of homosexuality, Don Gallo.

It must be made clear that in the homily, the Cardinal made the panegyric of the revolutionary priest and allowed two transsexuals to make a plea for the LGBT 9 ideology at the time of the “universal prayer†where they ardently thanked the apostate priest for helping “the trans-gender [sic] created beings to feel loved and wanted by Godâ€.  The Italian prelate then personally distributed Communion to them, thereby profaning the Holy Eucharist.  A scandal of the greatest proportion which, it goes without saying, went without any outcry on the part of the Vatican.

The grotesque spectacle of a lesbian duo desecrating the cathedral of Córdoba, with the portrait of the godmother of “their” child, the Argentine president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, represented by a uniformed aide; the farce was performed with the consent of the local bishop, Mgr. Carlos Ñáñez.

 

We could well add other similar examples, such as the two Argentinian lesbian “mothers†whose “daughter†was baptized with great publicity in the cathedral in Cordoba last April with the express authorization of the Ordinary of the location, Msgr. Carlos Nanez.  The godmother was none other that the president of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the raging harpy who in 2010 was behind the “laws†permitting “homosexual marriage †and “ adoption by homosexuals†in Argentina, thereby giving Argentina the sad privilege of becoming the first Latin-American nation to put into place the LGBT agenda of the UN globalists.  A socialist, feminist and “homosexual†icon, this impious woman has thereby become co-responsible, thanks to the sacrilege permitted by the Bishop of Cordoba (co-responsible), for the Christian education of the poor little girl living with her two lesbian “mothersâ€.

Cardinal Schönborn, primate of Austria, welcomed the success of his compatriot, the “drag queen” Conchita Wurst, the song festival of Eurovision and asks God to “bless his life,” because there are “diversity of colors in his multicolored garden. “

 

 

Another example: that of Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, who publicly complimented a homosexual football player for making his “coming out â€Â  (“ Bravo! I am happy for him; may God bless him! â€) or that of Cardinal Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, who warmly congratulated his compatriot, the bearded “ drag queen†Conchita Wurst, for his winning song at the festival on Eurovision (“I am delighted that he had such success! In God’s multicoloured garden there is a variety of colours: I pray that his life may be blessed! â€).

Founded and run by the Jesuits, the Pontifical University of Saint Francis Xavier in Bogota, Colombia, has organized annually since 2001 an “academic pink cycle”, to promote LGBT ideology, under the indulgent gaze of the Vatican.

Let us not forget the statements of Fr. Leonardo Steiner, the general secretary of the episcopal conference in Brazil, the most important Catholic nation in the world with the largest number of faithful.  Fr. Steiner stated that “it is necessary to dialogue about the rights to civil unions between persons of the same sex who decide to live together, and that they should be given legal protectionâ€.  He justifies his remarks by proposing that “the Church is not the same throughout the various epochs†and that the Church “ is searching for ways to respond to the needs of todayâ€. And what can be said of the words of Msgr. Nunzio Galantino, named last March the secretary general of the Italian episcopal conference by Francis himself.  Msgr. Galantino, in response to a journalist who asked him what he hoped from the Church of Italy, said that he hopes “to be able to talk without taboo on any subject, like for example, about married priests, about giving Communion to divorced and homosexualsâ€.  He also firmly stated that he does not identify himself “with the inexpressive faces of those who pray their Rosaries in front of abortion clinicsâ€.

Founded and run by the Jesuits, the Pontifical University of Saint Francis Xavier in Bogota, Colombia, organized annually since 2001 an “academic pink cycle”, to promote LGBT ideology, under the indulgent gaze of the Vatican.

Another example to illustrate the calamitous situations of our times: the pontifical university Saint Francois-Xavier of Bogota in Colombia, founded and run by the Jesuits, has organized every year since 2001 a “Pink academic cycleâ€, which openly promotes the “gay†lifestyle.  And as is to be expected, there has never been given the slightest sanction to this “pontifical†university, neither on the part of the episcopal conference in Colombia, nor on the part of the Vatican.

These examples could go on and on as cases of defection from the Faith and betrayal of morality have become commonplace among the clerics of the ecumenical “Church of Vatican IIâ€, where apostasy goes hand in hand with bad taste and the most basic lack of human decency.

Father Luigi Ciotti with his mentor and friend, the anarchist priest and defender of sodomites issues, the late Don Gallo.
Fran̤ois hand in hand with Luigi Ciotti Рpriest, leftist activist, and staunch supporter of the homosexual cause.
When we really think about it, what else can we expect from a society [conciliar church] whose head makes a public spectacle of himself, who surrounds himself with champions of the sodomite cause such as the Italian priests Luigi Ciotti (a close friend and fellow fighter for homosexual causes of the pervert Don Gallo), who was filmed holding hands with the Pope by Italian television and Michele de Paolis, whose hand he kissed after having concelebrated with him in St Martha House under the watchful eyes of journalists who were eager to capture the moment for history?

Speaking to the press, Francois bowed deeply to reverently kiss the hand of Michele De Paolis: priest and supporter of gay rights, after the pope concelebrated with him at home Santa Marta, in the Vatican.
Pope Francis was named “Person of the Year 2013” by The Advocate, the iconic US magazine promoting the LGBT ideology.
What can be said of the unwarranted – to say the least – award “the Person of the Year 2013†accorded to Francis in December by the American magazine The Advocate, the major LGBT publication in the USA?  This embarrassing and troubling distinction awarded to Francis was met with not even the slightest explanation on the part of the Vatican.  At best, all this will no doubt offend the souls of the faithful.

It goes without saying that this brief list of repeated scandals, chosen to illustrate the abysmal conciliar debacle, could go on indefinitely.  Instead, what will surely not go on indefinitely is Divine Patience.  We can say this without a shadow of a doubt because God has loved us so much that He warned us in advance about the outcome of this grotesque farce.  We, who are the powerless witnesses of this tragic hour wherein the mystery of iniquity is unfolding in all its arrogance, we are witnessing this abominable imposture, amazed by the unprecedented greeting, this profane and highly subversive “buona sera” pronounced in the loggia of St. Peter’s Square on March 13, 2013, which already then was the symbol presaging the endless calamities that would occur during this pontificate.

Not wanting to predict the future – as no one knows neither the day nor the hour when the Son of man will return to earth to judge each man according to his works – but when faced with so many scandals, can we not ask this question:  Are we living in the times of the reign of the beast and the false prophet as announced in the Apocalypse by St. John (Book of Revelation, Chapters 13 to 19)? What is yet to come before the manifestation of “anotherâ€, as Our Lord called him (John 5, 43), in order for “ the man of iniquity â€, the “ son of perdition â€, “ the adversary â€, as St. Paul called him (2 Thess. 2, 3), to appear?

“Rome will lose the Faith and will become the seat of the Antichristâ€, Our Lady foretold at La Salette (1846). By committing these scandals, is not Francis steadily paving the way for the coming of the Antichrist?

FATIMA

admin Apologetics, conciliar Church , ,


FATIMA

Or the means chosen by God to redress the present situation

by a Dominican father

This is a sermon given in the Dominican monastery la Haye-aux-Bonshommes in Avrillé (France).

The Fatima Message

Starting on May 13, the Most Holy Virgin appeared to three young shepherds on the 13th of every month in the presence of a growing number of pilgrims and the inquisitive. The children alone saw Our Lady.

It is not sufficient to say that the message was a call for prayer and penance, as the Vatican claims. Such a lack of precision allows the particular demands given by Our Lady for our times to be placed under the bushel. We must therefore state the exact nature and the aim of the prayer request. Therefore, it is more correct to say that the instructions given by Our Lady between May 13 and October 13 may be summed up in these words: the daily Rosary and sacrifices for the conversion of sinners. That is the Fatima message in general.

To this general message were later added two particular requests that were in keeping with the promise made as early as July 13:

– in 1925, the request was made for the Five First Saturdays devotion in reparation for sins ;

– and in 1929, the request was made for the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the Pope in union with all the bishops in the world.

It would be an error to limit the Fatima message to these two particular requests and to forget the general request: the daily Rosary and sacrifices for the conversion of sinners.

The Miracle of the Sun: the Facts

Let us go back to the 13th day of October 1917, the day that we are commemorating today.

As early as July 13, the Virgin Mary announced a huge miracle that would take place on October 13 so that the entire world may believe in the reality of the apparitions and in the serious nature of Heaven’s warning.

The story is well known: a crowd of nearly 100,000 people gathered in the area; they were mostly Catholics, but also non-believers, militant atheists, and even the freemasonic government minister for national education. A torrential rain pouring from midnight on soaked everyone to the bones and rendered the Cova da Iria10 into a muddy field: in order to give blessings, God wills that we first do penance. At midday, Lucy asked the people to fold their umbrellas. The entire crowd complied and magnificently displayed their faith and obedience. A few moments later, the sun broke through the clouds and Our Lady appeared above a small holm-oak. She asked for the conversion of sinners and, as in every apparition, she insisted on the daily recitation of the Rosary.

Then, suddenly, Lucy cried out: « Look at the sun! » In front of the stupefied crowd of people, the sun gyrated in on itself as if it were a fire wheel, turning various colors of the rainbow. This lasted nearly eight minutes but seemed like hours. This cannot be attributed to a collective hallucination, because the phenomenon was seen within a forty-kilometer radius by various individuals.

While the sun was spinning around, the three young shepherds, Lucy, Jacinta and Francisco alone saw a vision that symbolized the three sets of the mysteries of the Rosary:

– representing the Joyful Mysteries: St. Joseph appeared with the Child Jesus and Our Lady: St. Joseph and the Child Jesus were blessing the world;

– representing the Sorrowful Mysteries: Our Lord appeared with Our Lady of Sorrows;

– representing the Glorious Mysteries: the Virgin Mary in Heaven was seen holding the scapular of Mount Carmel.

The sun then turned blood red in color and seemed to fall from the sky and hurl itself towards the earth. Everyone believed that the end of the world had come. Then everything stopped – the sun returned to its normal place in the sky.

The people got up and noted another phenomenon: their soaked clothes were completely dry.

The non-believers had to acknowledge the reality of the facts. The following day, newspapers, including those most hostile towards the Church, all reported on the event.

What lessons may we draw today from this miracle?

The Miracle of the Sun: Lessons to be Drawn

The largest miracle in the entire history of the Church

Firstly let us observe the spectacular nature of this miracle. We must turn to the Old Testament to find similar prodigies that were performed in front of an immense crowd of people: such as the manifestation of God to Moses and to the Hebrew people on Mount Sinai (Ex 19); or when Joshua stopped the sun and the moon from advancing so that nightfall would not prevent the Jews from exterminating the enemies of Yahweh (Jos 10). The miracle of October 13, 1917 is assuredly the largest miracle in the entire history of the Church. Let us ask why.

The history of the Church is the history of the struggle between two cities: the city of God and the city of Satan:

These two Cities are made by two loves: the heavenly City by love of God even to the contempt of self; the earthly City by love of oneself even to the contempt of God (St. Augustin, The City of God).

This magnificent synthesis of St. Augustine is nothing other than what is written in the Book of Genesis:

I will put enmities between thee [the snake] and the Woman [the Virgin Mary], and between thy seed and her seed [Our Lord; the Church]: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel [the persecutions of the Church] (Gen 3, 15).

We are now living in the times when « the devil is fighting the decisive battle, meaning the final battle », says Our Lady11. This is the day when the general assault of all anti-Christian forces is launched against the Church.

It is urgent that we realize the terrible reality that we are in. We do not wish to frighten people, but this is an urgent call to the reality of our situation, comments Sr. Lucy 12.

And it is in order to draw our attention to this final phase of the history of the Church that Heaven produced the largest miracle of the past 2,000 years.

Paradoxically, the current Church authorities are totally silent on this event.

And so, in the year 2000, when Cardinal Ratzinger released to the public a questionable version of the third secret of Fatima, he made no allusion whatsoever to this miracle.

Why this silence?

The current Church authorities have not yet fulfilled the Virgin Mary’s request, and so it is understandable that they are embarassed by this miracle, which clearly proves the heavenly origin of this request. At the same time – could it be their guilty conscience? – these authorities feel obliged to talk from time to time about Fatima and to perform the consecrations of the world or of mankind. Pope Francis made one such consecration on October 13, 201313. However, by not consecrating Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as Our Lady requested, the popes are unable to provide the world with the promised remedy, and the situation continues to get worse.

The Fatima apparitions are the key to understanding the entire history of our era

We will now move to the second important consideration: the Fatima apparitions are the key to understanding all the events of the 20th century and all that we are living through today, whether in the religious or political sphere. To be truly convinced of this, one only needs to read the authoritative work by French Br. Michel of the Holy Trinity, The Whole Truth about Fatima14.

The troubles, the upheavals and the unprecedented decadence of our times are the direct consequences of the fact that churchmen have not yet wished to fulfill the request of Our Lady of Fatima:

I will come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and for the Five First Saturdays in reparation for the sins, said Our Lady on July 13, 1917. If my requests are granted, Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If my requests are not granted, Russia will spread her errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions against the Church.

The October 1917 Revolution that took place immediately after the request of Our Lady of Fatima was not a simple coup d’état bringing about a regime change. The aim of the Revolution was especially « to spread throughout the world the institutions and the mores of atheism15 », and the immorality that was to follow in its wake16.

This Revolution occurred precisely during the huge conflagration of 1914 – 1918, which was the first Great War aiming to prepare for a one-world government. It is this that constitutes the errors of Russia: the creation of an atheistic society without Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the supreme assault against the Social Kingship of Our Lord. And we must admit that these errors have now spread throughout the entire world. No nation has been spared.

The only effective obstacle to this plan was the Church. In order to protect the Church and the world from this plot, the Virgin Mary requested Pope Pius XI in 1921, by the intermediary of Sr. Lucy, to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart. The Pope did not believe the matter was worth pursuing. Ten years later Our Lord complained to Sr. Lucy:

Tell My ministers: because they are following the example of the king of France in delaying the fulfillment of My request, they will share in his tragedy17.

It was indeed during those years that an organisation was put in place by Moscow in order to infiltrate seminaries and novitiates with agents who had false vocations. These agents later reached influencial positions and gradually worked to effect a new orientation in the Church. This has been proven by a good number of documents. (We have provided references in an article about Fatima18 in our review le Sel de la Terre.) The Pope having ignored the protection that Heaven was offering, the Church became the plaything of her enemies.

At the time of the Second Vatican Council, Moscow doubled the budget they allocated to the Pax organization, which was one of the principal agents of Communist infiltration into the Church19. Among other things, this group contributed to the attacks directed at the Curia during the Council20.

We should therefore not be surprised that the two major documents passed by the Council, and not without opposition, were:

– the document on Religious Liberty21, which sanctions the secularization of States, that is to say their becoming atheistic States, preventing the Social Reign of Our Lord and forbidding the constitution of officially Catholic nations;

– and the document Nostra Aetate22 which, along with the decree on Ecumenism23, leads to what we see today: churchmen who abandon missionary activities in order to work towards uniting all religions for the service of the atheistic and anti-Christian world government. Last October 1st, in an interview with the chief editor of the newpaper Repubblica in Italy, an interview which made huge waves, Pope Francis declared: « Proselytism [that is, missionary activity] is a pompous absurdity ». But this Ecumenism, which refuses the conversion of non-Catholics, leads to Religious Indifferentism, and Religious Indifferentism leads to Apostasy and to Atheism. That is what we see today in the entire world.

Yes, the errors of Russia have penetrated inside the Church.

The means chosen by God to redress the current situation

So, what must we do? And can we do anything, we who are so few?

We need to understand that God alone can now redress the situation. There is no longer any solution on the purely human level. But that does not mean that there is nothing for us to do: God always wants the co-operation of His creatures, but the co-operation must be in accordance with His plan.

The Two Battles

Some years ago an eminent traditional Catholic thinker summed up the situation very well when he said that there are two battles that must be fought at the same time:

1) We must fight in order to preserve our last holdings. It is obvious that we must above all maintain our chapels, our monasteries, our schools, our publications, our associations24, and, generally speaking, we must hold on to our hope of salvation and to the orthodoxy of our Doctrine. This is the lower battle. It is a defensive battle, a battle where we hold our own against the enemy.

2) But on a level higher than these countless battles of self-preservation, a battle of the greatest importance has begun and whose objective is the transfer of power25. « I will reign in spite of My enemies », said the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret-Mary in 168926; a promise that was renewed in the 19th and 20th centuries to a large number of mystics, in particular to Madame Royer in France. […] We may rest assured that today Our Lord is working mysteriously, as He always does, towards the destruction of the Beast and towards the restoration of His own Reign. This mysterious battle which is led by Christ the King constitutes the higher battle, and that is the principal objective27.

The Lower Battle

Concerning the lower battle, the battle fought by men, Fr. Calmel O.P. had these enlightening words to say:

May each priest, each layman, each little group of priests and laymen, who have authority and influence over a small remnant of the Church and of Christendom go to the utmost of their possibilities and power. […] May the leaders of the small groups and their members know each other and communicate with each other. May each of these small groups thus protected, defended, led and guided in their prayer and chants by a true authority, become as much as possible a bastion of holiness: this is what will garantee the continuity of the true Church and what will efficaciously prepare for a revival, when the day chosen by God comes28.

Let us note what Fr. Calmel says: our bastions must be bastions of holiness.

What is worrisome at the moment is not so much the advancement of the forces of evil, but rather the softening of the good. Actually, there’s probably a link between the two tendencies. Those who knew the heroic beginnings of Tradition with Archbishop Lefebvre note that today the traditionalists have become quite lukewarm in comparison to those heroic days: the slovenly manner of dressing, sinful and imprudent use of the Internet, weakening of the convictions among the young, the faithful who no longer read in order to maintain their Faith and to oppose errors, fewer people going on spiritual retreats, a proportional decrease in vocations, etc.

If our principal focus in this lower battle is not on our sanctification, we will not preserve our bastions. We will be swept away in the general apostasy. Let us be watchful, let us wake up!

The Higher Battle

Above this battle of self-preservation lies the higher battle whose goal it is to completely defeat the forces of evil. This is where God’s battle lies. And where do we stand in this battle?

There is but one simple action that each one must take. Our Lady confided that action to Sr. Lucy of Fatima:

Many times, while I was spending precious hours in her company, Our Lady insisted that we fulfill our daily duties according to our state in life and that we offer this effort for the reparation of our sins and for the conversion of sinners. This is the fundamental condition which will enable us to push back the forces of evil that threaten to submerge the world today and which will bring about the conversion of Russia and a period of peace to the world. But she also explained the importance of the Rosary because it is the one principal means given to us by Our Lady for the sanctification of our daily duties29.

This is how we can truly and efficaciously participate in the final battle which will definitively crush the enemies of the Church. This is within everyone’s reach and that is very encouraging!

Conclusion

Let us conclude with the words of Abp. Lefebvre which he gave in a sermon in his last Pontifical Mass on November 1, 1990 in Écône on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the SSPX. This is his testament:

My dear Friends, you can easily see the importance of your role. […] You are a small remnant, but you carry the torch boldly. […] Ah! What a beautiful task, what a noble crusade lies ahead of you! The good God has placed you in a period of the history of mankind that is exciting for young people such as yourselves! It was just like this at the time of the Machabees when they left the corrupt Jewish society, and they too were very few. Judas Machabee with only eight hundred soldiers faced an army of twenty thousand – and he defeated them. And so, be confident, my dear Friends, God is with you. He will not abandon you, just as He has not abandoned us over the course of the last twenty years. Nor will He abandon you in the future because it is Himself that God wants. God does not want to disappear; He is God, He wants to remain God, not only in Heaven, but also here on earth. That is why He wants soldiers in His army.

Is there a conciliar church?

admin conciliar Church, The Fight for the Faith , ,


Is there a conciliar church?

A study by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais

Presentation of the document

This study was first published in French in the tri-monthly review of the Dominicans of Avrillé, Le Sel de la Terre n°85 (summer 2013).

It reflects Archbishop Lefebvre’s true way of thinking concerning the mystery of a Pope presiding over the destruction of the Church: the Pope remains the Pope, but he is at the head of two churches; the Catholic Church, of which he was elected the head, and another society, the “conciliar churchâ€, which has its dogmas, its liturgy, its new institutions, etc. The conciliar church is not the Catholic Church, but a counterfeit “churchâ€. We must separate ourselves from it if we want to keep the Catholic Faith.

Ever since the authorities of the Society of Saint Pius X have been getting closer to conciliar Rome in the hopes of obtaining a canonical recognition, their language has changed. A new thesis contrived by a theology professor at Écône named Fr. Gleize, maintains that there is no conciliar church in the sense of an organized society; the current crisis is rather an “illness†affecting the men of the Church, and the Church presently at Rome is the Catholic Church. This is what Bishop Fellay says, for example in his ordination sermon at the seminary of La Reja (Buenos Aires, Argentina) on December 20th, 2014:

The problem of jurisdiction shows the importance of being recognized canonically. […] The official church is the visible Church; it is the Catholic Church, period.

To affirm that the official church is the Catholic Church, – something which Archbishop Lefebvre never did – leads one to look for an official recognition, because one cannot remain outside of the Catholic Church. With his new manner of speaking, this is exactly what Bishop Fellay is trying to persuade the priests and faithful to do, and that puts Tradition in grave danger.

This article by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais is therefore of crucial importance if we want to preserve ourselves from the confusion caused by the new language coming from Menzingen.

It is of interest to note that Bishop Fellay reproached the Dominicans of Avrillé for having published this study of Bishop Tissier de Mallerais. Likewise, Fr. Rostand (at that time district superior of the U.S.) had the Letter to Friends and Benefactors of the Dominicans of Avrillé of September 2013 removed from the press tables of all SSPX chapels, precisely because it contained an article treating this same subject. You will find it here in an appendix.

The article of Bishop Tissier de Mallerais

The publication of this text does not engage the responsibility of Bishop Tissier de Mallerais with regard to the presentation above, and to any other texts on this site.

Does there exist a conciliar church, a constituted society which is distinct from the Catholic Church, differing from it, if not in its members, then at least by its goals? And if this is the case, what is its relation with the Catholic Church? These are the questions conforting every catholic conscience since the 25th of June 1976, the day deputy Secretary of State of Paul VI, Bishop Giovanni Benelli 30 used this expression in a letter written on behalf of the Pope to Archbishop Lefebvre;

“[If the seminarians of Econe] are of good will and seriously prepared for a priestly ministry in true fidelity to the conciliar Church, we will take it upon ourselves to find the best solution for them.”

Many studies have appeared in the Sel de la Terre 31 on the subject since then. Let us formulate a new status quæstionis to respond to this.

An attempt to define the conciliar church

Let us try first of all to define the two churches in question, by their four causes according to Aristotle. A society is a moral being, of the [philosophical] category of relation. Relations create the link between its members. We can distinguish:

— The material cause: These are the persons united to each other within the society. We will say that in the case of the Catholic Church, as in the conciliar church, these are the baptised.

— The efficient cause is the head of the society: for the Catholic Church, Our Lord Jesus Christ, it’s founder, and the Popes who are his vicars; and for the conciliar church, the Popes of the Council, therefore the same Popes; in such a way that the same hierarchy seems to govern the two Churches.

— The final cause, which is the cause of causes, the common good sought by its members: in the case of the Catholic Church, the good sought is eternal salvation; in the case of the conciliar church, it is more or less principally the unity of the human race: “The Churchâ€, says the Council, “is in Christ as the sacrament or, if you will, the sign and the means to attain the intimate union with God and the unity of the human race 32.”

— The formal cause is the union of minds and wills of it’s members in seeking the common good. In the Catholic Church, by the profession of the same Catholic faith, the practices of the same Divine worship and the submission to the same pastors and therefore to the laws they make, that is Canon law. In the conciliar church, it is by acceptation of the teaching of the Council and the magisterium which comes from it, and by the practice of the new liturgy and obedience to the new Canon law.

From these rough notions we can deduce the approximate definitions of the two churches:

* The Catholic Church is the society of the baptised who want to save their souls in professing the Catholic faith, in practising the same Catholic worship and in following the same pastors, successors of the Apostles.

* The conciliar church is the society of the baptised who follow the directives of the current Popes and bishops, in espousing more or less consciously the intention to bring about the unity of the human race, and in practise accepting the decisions of the Council, following the new liturgy and submitting to the new Code of Canon law.

If this be so, we have two churches who have the same heads and most of the same members, but who have different forms and ends diametrically incongruous: on the one hand eternal salvation seconded by the social reign of Christ, King of Nations, on the other hand the unity of the human race by liberal ecumenism, that is to say broadened to all religions, the heir of the conciliar decisions of Unitatis Redintegratio, Nostra Ætate, and Dignitatis Humanae, and which is the spirit of Assisi and the antithesis of the social reign of Christ the King. This is only a quick summary but what will follow show clearly the reality of this opposition.

Is it possible to have one hierarchy for two churches?

That the Catholic hierarchy governs at the same time the Catholic Church and a society which has the appearance of a counterfeit church seems to go against the assistance promised by Christ to Peter and his successors, guaranteeing the unerring magisterium and the indefectibility of the Church (Mt. 16, 17-19; 28,20).

If the Pope directs another church, he is an apostate and he is no longer pope and the sedevacantist hypothesis is verified. – We simply need to respond that “Prima sedes a nemine judicatur” and that by consequence, no authority can pronounce obstinacy, declaring the pertinacity of a sovereign Pontiff in error or deviance; and that on the other hand in case of doubt, the Church supplies at least the executive power of the apparent Pope (can. 209 of the Code of Canon law 1917 33). As for the magisterium it is only assisted if it has the intention to transmit the deposit of the faith and not profane novelties 34. And as for the indefectibility of the Church it does not hinder the fact that it can come to be that the Church, following a great apostasy as that announced by St. Paul (2 Thess, 2,3), is reduced to a modest number of true Catholics. In consequence, none of the difficulties raised against the existence of a society truly called the conciliar church and directed by the Pope and the Catholic hierarchy are decisive.

It is however preferable to avoid these extreme responses. One could thus try to deny the existence of the conciliar church as an organised society and which is directed by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, or to extenuate 35 the membership of it’s adherents to this conciliar church.

Is the conciliar church just a mind set?

One could say first of all that the conciliar church is nothing but a liberal and modernist “spirit”36 which penetrated the Church at the time of the Council, as Archbishop Lefebvre responded to Cardinal Seper who asked him:

“Your Excellency, in a preliminary note 37 to a letter addressed to the Holy Father, you wrote; ” Make no mistake of it, it is not about a quarrel between Archbishop Lefebvre and Pope Paul VI, it is about a radical incompatibility between the Catholic Church and the conciliar Church, the Mass of Paul VI representing the program of the conciliar Church.” This idea is rendered more explicit in a homily made on the 29th of June last during the Mass of ordination at Econe; “This new Mass is a symbol, an expression, an image of a new faith, a modernist faith… Now it is evident that this rite, if I can say, supposes another conception of the Catholic faith, another religion.” Must one conclude from these affirmations that, according to you, the Pope in promulgating and imposing the new Ordo Missae, and the body of Bishops who received it, have instaured, and visibly gathered around themselves a new conciliar “Church”, radically incompatible with the Catholic Church 38?”

Minimising the weight of his comments, the Archbishop responded:

“I remark first of all that the expression “conciliar Church” is not from me but from H.E. Bishop Benelli, who in an official letter asked that our priests and seminarians submit to the “conciliar Church”. I consider that a spirit of modernist and protestant tendency shows itself in the conception of the new Mass and in all the liturgical reform”.

We judge that the strategic backing off by the prelate of Econe is perfectly justified by the circumstances: the Holy office was entering into a process which could lead to his condemnation. In addition to this, the explanations which would have been needed for the support of his idea of the existence of a parallel and organised society called the conciliar church would have required too many documents and facts to cite and organise in a dialectic manner within the limits of a short response to a such a questioning. We cannot argue from his evasive response that Archbishop Lefebvre had really reduced the conciliar church to a “spirit”.

Is the conciliar church just an infirmity?

But, one will say, did not Archbishop Lefebvre invoke many times a simple debility which affects the body of the Church, a kind of “spiritual AIDS”, as he said, which weakens the capacity of resistance of the Church to contaminations? We respond that they are not mutually exclusive. The effects of the conciliar church on the Catholic Church are an effect firstly of poisoning, a paralysis and therefore a weakening of the Catholic Church in the face of it’s enemies. This is what Archbishop Lefebvre explained to the same Cardinal Seper in a letter preceding his interrogation.

“In this world, there are forces opposed to Our Lord, and to his reign. Satan and all the auxiliaries of Satan, conscious or unconscious, refuse this reign, this way of salvation and fight for the destruction of the Church. Thus the Church is engaged by her Divine Founder in a gigantic combat. All means were and are employed by Satan to triumph. One of the last, extremely efficacious stratagems is to destroy the combative spirit of the Church by persuading her that there are no more enemies, and that we must put down our arms and enter into a dialogue of peace and cordiality. This fallacious truce will permit the enemy to penetrate everywhere and corrupt the forces of the Church. This truce is liberal ecumenism, a diabolical instrument of auto-destruction of the Church. This liberal ecumenism will result in the neutralisation of the arms which are the liturgy with the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments, the breviary, the liturgical feasts, the neutralisation and ceasing of the seminaries…”

It is obvious that the sickness or the “AIDS” of the Church in face of her enemies is not just a simple sickly diminution of the fight for the faith, but the result of the stratagems plotted by influential members of the Church, relayed by a part of the hierarchy, and supported by the Popes themselves. These Popes, victims of their liberalism, are nevertheless conscious and consenting actors of this liberal ecumenism, an ecumenism received with favour by the great majority of Catholics who are seduced by the eases offered by this new kind of religion. All of this is precisely what we have defined as being the conciliar church.

But if one holds to calling it a pure sickness of the Church, the image of a cancer would be more realistic: is not the conciliar sickness the act of a parasite and the colonisation of the healthy tissue of the Church by a virus which provokes the proliferation of anarchy? We would have to therefore inquire about the existence and nature of the viral agent.

Is membership in the conciliar church doubtful?

On the other hand, if one accepts the image of a society, a counterfeit church,  yet while wishing to avoid affirming its [actual] existence, [then] one could reduce the membership of most of its adherents to a simple material [as opposed to formal] membership, from the fact that most of the members follow the movement by conformity, without knowing or sharing the goals of the conciliar church, which would be almost void of real members and reduced to the state of a phantom in that which concerns the members, and to a skeleton when it comes to the hierarchy. The truly skeleton-like state of the conciliar church, would confirm the hypothesis. We would have to further minimise the belonging to it, when we consider that the link which unites its members has nothing to do with the solidity of the theological virtue of the Catholic faith, which is entirely supernatural in its object, its motive and its end: it makes us “believe God, believe in a God, and believe in God 39.” For if many conciliarists approve the attempt of conciliation between the religion of God made man and the religion of man quite simply, on the common base of the dignity of the human person, they do not perceive the ambiguity of this principle of conciliation stated in the Council by Gaudium et spes: “Believers and non-believers are generally in agreement on this point; everything on earth must be ordained to man as its centre and its summit.”40 The Catholic Church makes a precision along with Saint Ignatius Loyola: “All things on earth are created because of man, to help him in his salvation”, which is a completely different end! In comparison with the communion of saints, a fruit of the Catholic faith and of theological charity, what communion can be founded by the conciliarists with the mixture of principles so diametrically opposed? We call it, along with Saint Anne-Catherine Emmerich, the communion of the profane or the communion of the anti-saints 41.

Furthermore, to the ambiguity of its form, the Conciliar Church adds ambiguity to its end: ” The unity of the human race” by it’s essence earthly and natural, “in Christ”, using our Lord as an instrument at the service of a plotonic idea; tomorrow, by the wave of a magic wand, without effort, without the conversion of the world, “the Church will be the human race” ! The Church no longer needs to be missionary, it is enough to present itself to the world, to be media-friendly. The incessant publicity voyages of John-Paul II illustrated the reality of which Julio Meinvielle already described in 1970 as “the church of publicity”:

“This church of publicity glorified in the press, with bishops, priests and theologians publicised, can be won over to the enemy and change from the Catholic Church to the gnostic church, (as opposed to) the other, the Church of silence, with a Pope faithful to Jesus-Christ in its teaching and with some priests, bishops and faithful who are attached to it, scattered like the pusillus grex over all the earth 42. “

Until now, this pusillus grex has been missing itsâ€Pope faithful to Jesus-Christâ€! The post-conciliar Popes, elected Popes of the Catholic Church, have been above all Popes of the church of publicity!

From all that has been said, it is clear that the conciliar church is not only a sickness, nor a theory, but that it is an association of high ranking catholic Churchmen inspired by liberal and modernist thinkers, who want, according to the goals of the one worlders, to bring to fruition a new type of church, with many Catholic priests and faithful won over by this ideal. It is not a pure association of victims. Formally considered the conciliar church is a sect which occupies the Catholic Church. It has its organised instigators and actors, as had the modernism condemned by St. Pius X, whom we must cite:

Is the Modernist Sect dead?

“The partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are more mischievous the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, lacking the safeguards of serious philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put themselves forward as reformers of the Church; and forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not even sparing the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man. […] Hence the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate. Moreover, they lay axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibres. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree. […] What efforts do they not make to win new recruits! They seize upon professorships in the seminaries and universities, and gradually make of them thrones of pestilence43. “

50 years will go by; in spite of Pascendi of Saint Pius X in 1907 and Humani generis of Pius XII in 1950, the modernist sect will conquer influential positions in the Church and, on the occasion of Vatican II, will impose on the Church and present to the world the new type of church which we have described by its form and end. This sect will, by the magisterium and the reforms of the Popes who follow the Council, implement this new system of the Church. The roles of Paul VI, the liberal and contradictory Pope, and that of John Paul II, the philosophical and ecumenical Pope, are undeniable in the establishment of what is the conciliar church, with its hierarchy which, with rare exceptions, is exactly that of the Catholic Church.

The conciliar church: the work of a Masonic plan

Let’s take a backward step to look at 130 years before the council; such retrospection will help us understand that the establishment of the conciliar church is the fruit of a plan plotted by free-masonry, which did not even dare to believe in the accomplishment of its designs. Let’s cite extracts from the internal correspondence of the Carbonari, Italian freemasons of the 19th century, published by the Popes Gregory XVI and Pie IX:

“What we ask, what we must look for and wait for as the Jews wait for the Messiah, is a Pope according to our needs […] you want to establish that the clergy walk under your banners while believing to walk under apostolic banners. […] You will have preached a revolution in Tiara and Cope, walking with cross and banner, a revolution which will only need to be spurred on a little bit to put fire to the four corners of the world.”

Here is another extract from a letter of Nubius to Volpe (code names to keep the secret which is a rule in Freemasonry) of the 3rd of April 1824;

“We have put a heavy burden on your shoulders dear Volpe. We must work for the immoral education of the Church and come to it, by little means in a gradual manner, to the triumph of the revolutionary idea by a Pope. In this project which has always seemed a superhuman calculation, we walk still groping.”

The triumph of the revolutionary idea by a Pope, this is truly the supreme criminal attack, as Archbishop Lefebvre says citing these documents in his book They Have Uncrowned Him 44 and commenting on them as follows:

“A superhuman calculation, says Nubius; he means to say a diabolical calculation! For it is to calculate the subversion of the Church by her very head, what Mgr Delassus calls the supreme criminal attack, because one cannot imagine anything more subversive for the Church , than a Pope won over to liberal ideas, than a Pope using the power of the keys of St. Peter to serve the counter Church! Now, is that not what we are living through at the moment, since Vatican II, since the new code of Canon law? With this false ecumenism and this false religious liberty promulgated at Vatican II, and applied by the Popes with a cold perseverance despite the ruins it has caused.“

The occupied Church, incontestable status of the Church of the last fifty years

Archbishop Lefebvre said:

“Which Church are we talking about? Are we talking about the Catholic Church, or another church, a Counter church45, a counterfeit of the Church? Now, I think sincerely, that we are talking about a counterfeit version of the Church, and not the Catholic Church. It does not teach any longer the Catholic faith. It teaches something else, it leads the Church to something else other than the Catholic Church. It is not longer the Catholic Church. They are sitting in the chairs of their predecessors, […] but they are not continuing in the line of their predecessors. They no longer have the same faith, nor the same doctrine, nor the same morality as their predecessors. So it is no longer possible. And principally, their great error is ecumenism. They teach an ecumenism which is contrary to the Catholic faith. […] The Church is occupied by this counter- church which we know well and that the Popes 46 knew perfectly, and that the Popes have condemned throughout the centuries; for what will be soon four centuries, the Church did not stop condemning this counter-church which was born especially with protestantism, and which was developed with protestantism, and which is at the origin of all modern errors, which has destroyed all philosophy, and which has led us to all the errors we have known, that the Popes have condemned; liberalism, socialism, communism, modernism, sillonism 47. We are dying from them. The Popes did everything to condemn that, and now behold those who are in the chairs of those who condemned these errors are in agreement with this liberalism and ecumenism. Now we cannot accept that. And the more things become clear, the more we perceive that this program […] all these errors, were elaborated in the masonic lodges48. “

In what we call the conciliar church, It is not necessary that the Pope (the Pope of the Catholic Church) be the head; he may only be the executor of directives coming from, if not a hidden power, at least a controlling core or pressure groups of collaborators or theologians under masonic influence. Let’s remember Annibal Bugnini and his mysterious influence over Pope Paul VI in the liturgical reform. This Annibal seems to have been a freemason. It is notorious that the masonic lodges worked among the members of the Curia of the Holy-See during the pontificates of Paul VI and John-Paul II.

The conciliar Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI participated actively in the Council, the first as a conciliar father and the second as a council expert, and pushed it in the direction of the new theology, that of a universal redemption and of a evolving faith. And they have as Popes applied these errors. But if they applied this conciliar program, there is nothing to prove that it was them who conceived it, and that consequently they have only applied, consciously or not, an agenda which comes from elsewhere. The directors of the Alta Vendita, who were preparing for the advent of a Pope according to their designs, had made very clear that they did not wish that this Pope be a member of their sect 49. Whatever may be the way the masonic sect influences the conciliar Church, its influence is undeniable.

Formal membership and material membership

The influence of the masonic spirit, or at least the penetration of the liberal spirit, being naturalist, ecumenical and globalist spirit among the members of the conciliar church is not obviously the same in all of them. Among the clergy and the religious, most of the bishops, the religious superiors, and the professors of the seminaries and universities, and the aged priests, most adhere formally, that is to say consciously and willingly, to the ends outlined, whilst a minority of young priests or religious and seminarians do not want to hear of the Council or at least don’t pay any attention to it, and desire a return to the theology of St. Thomas, the traditional Mass, classical discipline and Christian virtues. These latter, at heart, do not belong to the conciliar church. Between these two extremes, are the majority of Catholics, conciliar by habit, a spirit of conformism or ease who, as said above, belong only “materially†to the conciliar church. The haziness of the lines between these categories does not help the clear demarcation between the two churches.

Should we deduce two materially distinct churches: one Catholic and one conciliar?

From what has been said, it is good to draw two conclusions concerning the relationship between the two churches.

Firstly, the conciliar church is not materially separate from the Catholic Church. It does not exist independently from the Catholic Church. There is a distinction certainly between them, a formal one, without an absolute material distinction. The hierarchy of the conciliar church coincides almost exactly with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, the members of the conciliar church are all members at least materially of the Catholic Church. Just as one can say (with a pinch of salt) that liberalism is a catholic heresy, in the sense that it was born in the bosom of the Catholic Church and only exists and develops by “feeding off†the Catholic Church, so one can say that the conciliar church is born of the corruption of the Catholic Church and it cannot exist but by living of this corruption, as a parasite lives depending on an organism, sucking of the substance of its host to construct its own substance. There is a sort of transfer of substance, I would dare to say, from one to the other, in a metaphoric sense obviously and not in a philosophical sense. To become conciliar, there is no need to separate oneself from the Catholic Church, it is sufficient to allow oneself to become corrupted by the conciliar poison and to let one’s substance become absorbed by the conciliar parasite. It is sufficient to practice the Mass of the new religion and to adhere, formally or materially to the liberal ecumenism which gives it its form.

On the other hand, the conciliar church does not necessarily coincide with the Catholic Church, neither in its leaders nor its members. The leaders of one are not always leaders of the other. The members of the first can, by heresy, cease to be members of the second, but not necessarily. The Catholic Church is the only true Church, the only Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ. But this does not hinder the conciliar church from being a social reality; not only a section, but a counterfeit church, led by a sect of directors, a sect whose ideology or system is the form of this conciliar church, and which manoeuvres it towards its ends, with its relays and its executors, formed of a large part of the hierarchy and faithful Catholics more or less conscious and consenting, to a diametrical overturning which it is trying to bring about. In this sense, Fr. Calmel O.P. was able to speak of the “church of Pirates”; this metaphor says it all.

“The conciliar church is a schismatic church!”

In 1971, 5 years before the “conciliar church” of Bishop Benelli, the same Fr. Calmel O.P.denounced in the French review Itineraires, the “new church that Vatican II has tried to show,the new post-vaticanesque church” and explained:

“The false church which is showing itself amongst us since the curious Vatican II is diverging tangibly year after year, from the Church founded by Jesus Christ. The false post-conciliar church is splitting away more and more from the holy Church which has saved souls for twenty centuries (not to mention the support and enlightenment lent to civil society). The pseudo-church in construction splits away more and more from the true Church, the only Church of Jesus Christ, by the most strange innovations in the hierarchical constitution as well as in its teachings and morals 50.”

The expressions “false church”, “pseudo church” are very strong. And the verb “split away” indicates a formal mutation of a part of the Church, which detaches itself from the Catholic sphere to stray formally outside it. Father Calmel was truly a prophet. It was only five years later, after having received the famous letter of Bishop Benelli and having been struck by Paul VI with a a divinis suspension, that Archbishop Lefebvre affirmed even more forcefully the existence of this “counter church”, qualifying it as “schismatic”:

“How could it be more clear?! From now on it is the conciliar church one must obey and be faithful to , and not to the Catholic Church. This is precisely our problem. We are suspended a divinis by the conciliar church, of which we do not want to be a part. This conciliar church is a schismatic church, because it breaks with the Catholic Church of all time. It has it’s new dogmas 51, it’s new priesthood 52, it’s new institutions53, it’s new liturgy54, already condemned by the Church in many official and definitive documents. This is why the founders of the conciliar church insist on obedience to the church of today, making abstraction of the Church of yesterday, as if it didn’t exist anymore. […] The church which affirms such errors is at one and the same time heretical and schismatic. This conciliar church is therefore not Catholic. In the measure in which the Pope, the bishops, priests or faithful adhere to this new church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church. The church of today is the true Church only in the measure in which it continues and is one with the Church of yesterday and of always. The norm for the Catholic faith is Tradition55. “

Faced with the conciliar church, what becomes of the Catholic Church?

Archbishop Lefebvre seemed to admit the mutation of the Catholic Church into the conciliar church. What becomes of the Catholic Church? Archbishop Lefebvre responds that it is in the measure that, according to the degree which the authorities and the baptised adhere to this new kind of church, that constitutes a new church, characterised by its worldly, humanist, naturalist, socialist ecumenical and one-world goals, in such a way that this new church conceives itself as being more vast and universal than the Catholic Church. We must add the distinction between an exclusive adhesion of these sectarian leaders with these profaning goals, and the seeking of a compromise between these goals and the Catholic goals on the other hand, a compromise which was well expressed by the conciliar text Lumen Gentium (section 1); “The Church is, in Christ, a sort of sacrament, that is to say at one and the same time the sign and the means of an intimate union with God and the unity of the human race.” This ambivalence complicates in a singular manner the problem of the distinction between these two churches. The text of Archbishop Lefebvre has to be understood with precision; it is in the measure which the conciliars adhere exclusively to these profaning goals outlined, that they leave the Catholic Church. And of this measure we are not the judges. Despite its polemical style, with precisions, the text of Archbishop Lefebvre is irreproachable. It is with this very precision that the last sentence has to be understood: “The Church of today is only the true Church in the measure that it continues exclusively, and makes itself one exclusively with the Church of yesterday and of all time.” A church which covets at one and the same time a humanist and one-world goal along with a goal of supernatural eternal salvation of souls, is no longer catholic, it is the concrete everyday expression of the conciliar church in its attenuated viral state.

And beside this vulgar conciliar church, what remains of the Catholic Church? We respond that, even reduced to the modest number the sane faithful comprising its “healthy partâ€, and perhaps one only faithful bishop, as may be the case according to Father Emmanuel, of the Church at the end of time, the Catholic Church remains the catholic Church.

How the conciliar church was canonised

Six years will pass by and the promulgation by John Paul II of a new code of canon law will justify the view of the Archbishop on the conciliar Church. In his apostolic constitution, the Pope declares clearly to be imposing on the Church a “new ecclesiology”:

“[This] code […] put into act the spirit of the Council whose documents present the Church as “a universal sacrament of salvation”, as the people of God, and where its hierarchical constitution appears founded on the college of bishops united to their head. […] In a certain sense one can even see in this code a great effort to translate into canonical language the very doctrine of conciliar ecclesiology. […] The result will be that what constitutes the essential newness of Vatican II, in continuity with the legislative tradition of the Church especially in what concerns ecclesiology, and equally constitutes the newness of the new code. Among the elements which characterize the real and authentic 56 image of the Church, we must mention above all the following: The doctrine according to which the Church presents itself as the people of God. (Lumen Gentium 2) and the hierarchical authority as a service (Lumen Gentium 3); the doctrine which shows the Church to be a communion and which as a consequence show which sort of relations must exist between the particular Churches and the universal Church and between collegiality and primacy; the doctrine according to which all members of the people of God, each one according to his manner, participates in the triple function of Christ: the priestly, prophetic and royal functions. Alongside this doctrine goes that concerning the duties and rights of the faithful and in particular of lay people; and finally the engagement of the Church in ecumenism57. “

This outline of the conciliar church shows the ruin which it operates in the personal exercise of authority received from God, the lowering of the hierarchy to the profit of the lower ranks; the willful omission of the necessity to belong to the Catholic Church to be saved; the reduction of the priesthood and the priestly identity mixed in with the common priesthood of all baptised; the aspiration to a universal society more vast than that of the Catholic Church. All this is what we have indicated to be the form of the conciliar church. Rather than a society we should call it a dissociety, that is to say the ruin resulting from the dissolution of this divine and human society which is the Catholic Church, or better; if we can say, the new congregation whose governing principle is the disintegration of the Catholic Church. Does this not evoke the words of the revolution; “Solve, coagula” 58 according to a new principle? And this dissociety which is the conciliar church exists; the Pope, the quasi-totality of the Catholic hierarchy, the conscious or unconscious mass of baptised Catholics who are its members, either formally or materially.

However this dissociety headed for auto-destruction holds together by the strength of it’s agents. In the coagula, the promoters of this society uphold a pact: all must adhere to the Council and its conciliar reforms, in such a manner as those who do not accept it are “outside of communion” or “outside of full communion” with the conciliar church. This conciliar Church holds together by fear and violence; the Catholic Church holds together by faith and charity.

The methods by which the conciliar church continues to live

Destined for auto-destruction, the conciliar church does nonetheless continue to live on vigorously. What is the cause of this tenacity? It is that their hierarchy uses all the powers of the Catholic hierarchy which it occupies, detains and deviates.

Since the installation of the Mass of Paul VI, she continues to persecute the priests faithful to the true Mass, the true catechism, the true sacramental discipline, and the religious faithful to their rule and their vows. Numerous are the priests who died of sorrow for having been obliged by obedience – or so they thought – to take on the new rites and usages. Numerous also are those who died ostracised, canonically and psychologically relegated, but happy to give inflexible witness to the catholic rite, the entire faith, and to Christ the King. The threats, the fear, the censures and other punishments did not shake them. But alas, how many are those who ceded to these methods of violence: the threat of being labeled “disobedient”, the possibility of being destitute, all put on them by their superiors. It is here that we see first-hand the malice of liberalism and of its heads: Is it not right to say that there is no one more sectarian than a liberal? Not having principles to establish order, they rule with a regime of submission by terror.

The malice of the conciliar hierarchy is taken to its highest degree by the usage they make of lies and equivocation. Thus the Motu Propio of Pope Benedict’s XVI declaring the traditional Mass to have never been suppressed and that one is free to celebrate it, requires conditions contrary to this freedom, and goes so far as to qualify the authentic Mass and its modernist counterfeit opponent as “the extraordinary and ordinary form of the same Roman rite.”

The lies continue with the so-called “lifting” of the excommunications, supposedly incurred by the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988, as if they had been really incurred.

But by a surprising contrast the conciliar hierarchy has never been able to make the fifth commandment of God “Thou shalt not kill” be respected, which is hardly ever preached by the bishops: the countries recently Catholic are the countries where abortion is most in use; and the encyclical Humanae Vitae of Pope Paul VI was hardly relayed by the bishops, so much so that the contraceptive pill is in widespread use among most girls and women in the Catholic Church. The filthy morals of the modern world are simply the overflow of the vices which the conciliar hierarchy has been powerless to eradicate. This conciliar church draws into its pseudo-communion a mass of Christians living in reality in sin and practical paganism.

To not belong to the conciliar church is a grace and a providential witness

Blessed are those who are not in this “communion of the profanes”, who are providentially excluded from it or threatened to be excluded from it! O happy relegation and dereliction! The vocation of the priestly Society of St. Pius X, since it’s erection by the Catholic Church in 1970 and the decree of praise with which it was honoured in 1971, has never been to receive the benedictions and recognitions of this conciliar church! It was without a doubt necessary that this priestly society, along with all the families of Tradition, be like the lighted torch not to be put under the conciliar bushel, but on the candlestick of the pillory, in order to enlighten all those who are in the house of God. It was certainly providential that according to the ways of providence, this healthy part of the Church having become like the divine Master, a stumbling block and a stone rejected by the builders of the conciliar ecclesiastical dissociety, be transformed into cornerstone and keystone59 of the indestructible Catholic cathedral. Our inflexible witness to the true Church of Jesus Christ, to the priesthood and the royalty of Christ, Priest and King, requires on the part of the conciliar church the exclusion and the ostracism pronounced against us and what we represent. But in the same way that Saint Joseph in his exile in Egypt carried the Infant Jesus and His divine Mother, so too does the traditional family in her exile carry the Church in her, without being exclusive in the glorious role, but having the marrow and heart of it, in integrity and incorruption. It carries in her by consequence the roman pontiff, who being the successor of Peter will liberate her someday from a long captivity60 and will come out of her great illusions, to proclaim as once the first Pope did at Caesar Philippi to his Divine Master; ” You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!”

Thenceforth, if we are complicated we will regret being deprived of the conciliar communion and its apparent ecclesiastical communion and will be unhappy and worried, always on the quest for a solution. If on the other hand we have the faith and simplicity of a child we will look simply for what witness we can give to the Catholic faith. And we will find that it is first the witness of our existence, of our permanence, of our stability, as well as the profession of our Catholic faith whole and entire and our refusal of the conciliar errors and reforms. A witness is absolute. If I give witness to the Catholic Mass, to Christ the King, I must abstain from conciliar Masses and doctrines. It is like the grain of incense to the Idols; it is one grain or no grains at all. Therefore it is “not at all” 61. And after this witness there is also persecution, which is normal on the part of the enemies of this faith, who want to reduce to nothing our diametrical opposition to the new religion, and this will go on for as long as it pleases God that they persevere in their perverse plans. Is it not God himself who put this enmity between the race of the devil and the children of Mary? Inimicitias ponam 62!

And so, as soon as we perceive in the collectedness of our contemplation this particular vocation which is ours, adapted by God to the current crisis, we acquire a perfect uprightness and great peace; uprightness incapable of cooperating with the enemy, and peace without bitterness. We run to it, we bond to it and we cry as with Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, “In the Church my Mother I find my vocation!” And we ask this great saint: “ Obtain for me the grace of having in the Church and for the Church the soul of a martyr or at least that of a confessor of the faith!”

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DOCUMENT : The forbidden letter

Read this letter, not forgetting that this kind of discourse is now forbidden by Bishop Fellay. The conclusion is obvious: something changed in the Society.

One cannot deny it !

Letter from the Dominicans of Avrillé

No. 14, September 2013

The Conciliar Church

Dear Family, Friends, and Benefactors,

This summer we had the grace of three priestly ordinations. Deo Gratias! Three more priests for the Church. Yes, but for a Church that is in such a state that they must truly be “fighters for the faith†as Pope Honorius III called the first friars of the Order. Here are some reflections on the subject. Please pray that our new priests be faithful to their calling.

In a letter dated June 25, 1976, addressed to Archbishop Lefebvre on behalf of Pope Paul VI, Mgr. Giovanni Benelli (substitute for the secretary of State) was the first to use the expression: “The Conciliar Churchâ€:

“[If the seminarians of Ecône] are of good will and seriously prepared for a priestly ministry in true fidelity to the conciliar Church, we will then take care of finding the best solution for them.â€

Archbishop Lefebvre had noted this expression. Sanctioned by a suspens a divinis for having ordained candidates on June 29 of the same year 1976, he wrote on July 29:

“What can be more clear! In the future, one must obey and be faithful to the conciliar Church and no longer to the Catholic Church. This is precisely our problem; we are suspens a divinis by the conciliar Church and for the conciliar Church, of which we do not want to be a part

This conciliar Church is schismatic because she breaks away from the Catholic Church of all time with new dogmas, a new priesthood, new institutions, and a new form of worship already condemned by the Church in many official and definitive documents.â€

Several defenders of Catholic Tradition commented on this expression. Among others let us quote Jean Madiran (from the special issue of Itinéraires April 1977: La condamnation sauvage de Mgr Lefebvre, p. 113-115):

“That there be at the present time two Churches with the one and the same Paul VI at the head of both, we can do nothing about it, we are not inventing anything, we remark that such is the case.â€

Gustavo Corçao in the periodical Itinéraires November 1974 and then Father Bruckberger in L’Aurore March 18, 1976 publicly pointed out:

“The religious crisis no longer consists, as in the 16th century, in having simultaneously two or three Popes for one Church. The crisis today is to have one Pope for two Churches, the Catholic Church and the post-conciliar Church.â€

Among the different studies that have come out on this topic let us note:

* An article on “Compared Ecclesiology†published in Le Sel de la Terre 1, summer 1992. The author follows up on some of Archbishop Lefebvre’s reflections concerning the four marks of the Church and the new ecclesiology (the new doctrine on the Church) which was exposed by Pope John Paul II at the time of the promulgation of the new Code of Canon Law. The author shows that the Conciliar Church is a reality distinct from the Catholic Church, having four characteristic marks: she is ecumenical, humanist, believing, and conciliar (instead of being One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic).

* The editorial of Le Sel de la Terre 59 (winter 2006-2007), “One hierarchy for two Churchesâ€, in explaining the four causes of a society, defined the new conciliar Church in this way:

“It is the society of those who are baptized and who submit themselves to the directives of the present Pope and Bishops in their desire to promote conciliar ecumenism, and who thus admit the teachings of Vatican II, the new liturgy, and the new Canon Law.â€

Afterwards, the editorial answered the objection: “It is not possible that the same hierarchy direct two Churchesâ€, because if one is in charge of a Church other than the Catholic Church, one apostatizes. If the Pope is in charge of another Church, he is no longer Pope; one falls into sedevacantism.

“The objection’s error is to imagine the conciliar Church as a society that formally imposes schism or heresy as the Orthodox or Protestants do. For example, if I adhere to the Anglican Church, I am formally a schismatic, and even a heretic, and therefore I am no longer a member of the Catholic Church.

Yet I can be conciliar – that is to say ecumenical – and still keep the Catholic Faith. Without a doubt I put my faith, and that of others, in danger, but I do not immediately abjure it.

Hence the members of the hierarchy, provided that they do not push their errors to the point of denying the Catholic Faith, remain members of the Catholic hierarchy even though they are conciliar.â€

* Father Alain Lorans SSPX also makes some reflections on this topic in a conference given at the 8th Si Si No No theological congress and entitled “One Pope for Two Churches†(see Nouvelles de Chrétienté n° 115, January-February 2009). The author insists on the discontinuity between the two Churches, and shows that Pope Benedict XVI tries in vain to solve the dichotomy by his hermeneutic of continuity.

* The most recent and thorough study on this matter is that of His Excellency Bishop Tissier de Mallerais. It was published in Le Sel de la Terre 85 (summer 2013) and is entitled “Is there a Conciliar Church?â€

It is certain that the Conciliar Church is not to be put on the same level as the Catholic Church. The latter is the one true Church, the only Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ. This truth, however, does not stop the Conciliar Church from being a reality: a party, a system, a society that analogically resembles the Church, temporarily occupying it, and turning it away from its end. The dream that the Haute Vente (black lodge of Italian Freemasonry) puts forth has become a reality. Popes Gregory XVI and Pius IX published the Masonic documents on this subject. Here is an excerpt of these documents dating back to 1820:

“That for which we must ask, seek, and await as the Jews wait for the Messiah, is a Pope according to our needs. You want to establish (…) that the clergy marches under your banner while thinking that he marches under that of the Apostles. (…) You will have preached a revolution in tiara and in cope, walking with the cross and the banner, an almost effortless revolution setting the four ends of the world on fire.â€

Here is another excerpt of a letter from “Nubius†to “Volpe†(coded names in order to keep the secret which is the rule in Freemasonry), dated April 3, 1824:

“Our shoulders have been loaded with a heavy burden, dear Volpe. We must accomplish the education of immorality in the Church, and attain, by little means, well-dosed, although somewhat poorly defined, the triumph of the Revolution by the way of the Pope. We are still walking hesitatingly in this plan, which always seemed to me to be one of a superhuman calculation.â€

The triumph of the Revolution by the Pope is truly the supreme attack, as Archbishop Lefebvre says quoting the above passages in his book They Have Uncrowned Him. Here is the commentary that he gives:

““Superhuman calculation” says Nubius, which means diabolical calculation! To calculate the subversion of the Church by the Pope himself is what Mgr. Delassus calls the supreme attack because one cannot imagine anything more subversive for the Church than a Pope won over by liberal ideas, a Pope using the power of the keys of St. Peter at the service of the Counter-Church! Are we not living this now since Vatican II, since the new Code of Canon Law? With false ecumenism and false religious liberty promulgated at Vatican II and taught by the Popes with frigid perseverance despite all the ruins provoked for more than twenty years!â€

The Archbishop said also:

“The Church is occupied by this Counter-Church that we well know and that the Popes know perfectly, and that the Popes have condemned for centuries. It will soon be four centuries that the Church has not ceased to condemn this Counter-Church which began by, and developed along with Protestantism, and which is at the origin of all the modern errors, destroying every philosophy, and inducing us into all the errors that we know and which the Popes have condemned: liberalism, socialism, communism, modernism, sillonism. We are dying from all this. The Popes did everything in order to condemn these errors, and behold the men who are now on the seats of those who condemned these errors and who are now in agreement with liberalism and ecumenism. We cannot accept this program. And the more things clear up, the more we see that this program, (…) that all these errors have been elaborated in Masonic lodges (June 21, 1978, see Le Sel de la Terre 50, p. 244).â€

Alas, nothing has changed since these reflections of Archbishop Lefebvre. The ruins have accumulated for almost fifty years now. We have only to pray that Our Lord destroy the edifice of the Conciliar Church with the breath of His mouth and that, in the meantime, He keep us strong and generous in the fight for the Faith, and assiduous in the study of this mystery of iniquity.

Ecclesia Dei

admin conciliar Church, Uncategorized ,


Why such a doctrinal evolution of the Ecclesia Dei Communities ?

This text was written several years ago by a priest of the Society of Saint Pius X. It was addressed to those of his confreres who had left the SSPX in order to receive an official canonical status from the Conciliar Church. He was trying to find a reason that would explain their doctrinal evolution.

There is an important difference between the clear, consistent declarations made by Archbishop Lefebvre right from his early days on Liturgical Reform, Religious Liberty and Vatican II, and the position presently held by yourself.

To explain this situation, there are only three possible hypotheses: 1) either you never knew the real position of Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX, and you followed him not properly knowing why; 2) you understood his position but did not approve of it, and so you hypocritically gave the appearance of remaining with Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX; or 3) your doctrinal position evolved between the period “beforeâ€, and the period “after†the Episcopal consecrations.

1. The hypothesis that you may be ignorant seems to be psychologically impossible and even absurd. It is simply impossible for any of you not to have read even one work by Archbishop Lefebvre, not to have heard even one of his sermons, and not to have known his firm official position. Your ignorance in this matter must be categorically rejected.

2. The hypothesis of hypocrisy may well be possible. Nevertheless, it seems highly improbable given the number of persons involved and their moral character. Furthermore, the hypothesis of hypocrisy represents an insult so serious that I would accept it only after hearing an explicit declaration upholding this position by the individuals in question. That is why I reject this hypothesis as the explanation for your evolution.

3. Therefore, if you know Archbishop Lefebvre’s position on Liturgical Reform, Religious Liberty and Vatican II (we reject ignorance); if you are not a secret opponent and liar (we reject hypocrisy); then that only leaves the third hypothesis as the right one: your change of position can only be explained by a doctrinal evolution of your position.

But where does this doctrinal evolution come from?

Here, two hypotheses are possible: either the cause is of a purely intellectual order, or it is of a moral and psychological order.

A. The hypothesis that the evolution is purely intellectual seems to fall under the heading of  miracles rather than factual history. One would have to imagine that there was a sudden change in thinking, an intellectual illumination, on the goodness of Liturgical Reform, on the truth contained in Dignitatis Humanae, or on the timeliness of Vatican II.  A serious historian must reject such an unlikely hypothesis.

B. The only valid hypothesis is that of a moral and psychological order, in other words, one that originates from exterior circumstances.  Only one conclusion is possible: it is your dealings with Rome and with diocesan bishops that have brought about this doctrinal evolution.

Indeed, all your Roman and diocesan contacts are in favour of the Liturgical Reform, of Dignitatis Humanae and of Vatican II. It is completely normal, obvious, and historically certain that once you negotiate with Rome and the bishops and once you demand certain concessions, you must then be silent, you must soften or altogether abandon your opposition to the Liturgical Reform, to Dignitatis Humanae and to the Council, or else you will find yourself in a position that will be psychologically unbearable. This is the one true cause of your doctrinal evolution: the moral weight of those with whom you dialogue and your own desire to achieve tangible results from these difficult negotiations where you are in a minority position. This situation forces you to make concessions, if only verbal concessions.

I do not claim that you are making these concessions out of cowardice. I simply claim that, once you have evolved beyond a certain point, you then start to think it possible and even necessary to temper your opposition in the hope of obtaining greater results. But, if I were to consider your present attitude objectively, I would be obliged to note that there has been a shift concerning points that have always been considered as vital in the combat for Tradition.

The conclusion is therefore extremely clear: in spite of your good intentions and your initial desire to remain faithful to Tradition, it was impossible for you to continue to firmly resist the Liturgical Reform, Religious Liberty and the Council, and at the same time to pursue negotiations with those who are firmly in favour of these three key points.

As things stand at present, negotiations and agreements with Rome and with diocesan bishops must necessarily end up, sooner or later, with the abandonment of the positions that were always held in Tradition and notably by Archbishop Lefebvre.

In other words, present-day Rome has but one goal: to lead all who negotiate with Rome towards the errors of the Council and Liturgical Reform. The truth is there for all to see: Rome is not in favour of Tradition. That is why they have not kept their promises. That is why Rome did not sincerely wish the negotiations to succeed.

* * *

The author of the above text has now “evolved†himself, as is shown in a statement in the December 2014 issue of a widely diffused publication:

« We wish with all our hearts for a speedy “reconciliation” that would benefit both groups and also the entire Church. The difficulties are objective and do not primarily depend on individuals, but we may always pray that Our Lord “gather His Church in unity”. That is what we fervently ask for every day. »

Conciliar Rome has not converted. The danger remains the same.