Bishop Richard Williamson of the SSPX has written his latest column about the state of the Romans. To make his point, Williamson extols the sagacity of an anonymous email writer. Here is the crux of what Williamson and his anonymous writer say:”…
The churchmen in Rome are battling with us (clergy and laity of the Society of St. Pius X) to bring us around to accepting their Conciliar religion. Cardinal Castrillon and even the Pope are convinced that we are mistaken, and that it is their duty by all means fair and borderline foul to get us to accept the essence of the Second Vatican Council, which has become their Credo. To this end they work on us with determination and patience, but also with authority, always “for our own good”.
“On our side, because we insist on sane thinking as an essential precondition to staying faithful to the irreformable doctrine that has been handed down to us, we find ourselves obliged to resist their pressure and so to disobey today’s Magisterium in order to obey the God who does not change. However… we must never forget that despite their courtesy and subjective kindness, these Romans are, objectively speaking, our enemies.
So in plain black and white Williamson and his anonymous alter ego declare themselves open enemies of the Magisterium and the Pope. Contrast this to the official statement of ‘filial devotion and loyalty’ on the SSPX website.
The Society of St. Pius X professes filial devotion and loyalty to Pope Benedict XVI, the Successor of Saint Peter and the Vicar of Christ.
The priests of the SSPX pray for the intentions of the Holy Father and the welfare of the local Ordinary at every Mass they celebrate.
If the SSPX is serious about its statement of loyalty to the Pope, it is high time that the SSPX divorce themselves from Williamson and his ilk. If not, then the statement on the website is a lie and we all know what ‘true faith’ says about lying.
April 5, 2008 at 2:14 am
To the last comment:
I did not write that Las Vegas, Toledo, and Laredo were the only U.S. dioceses without every-Sunday Masses; I suggested that only those three have large Catholic populations (over 200,000) or cities in them. There are presently about 40 U.S. dioceses not having the old Mass every Sunday, but only about 5% of U.S. faithful live in those 40 (out of 176) U.S. sees.
It is true that Pueblo has never had an every-Sunday Mass, but does it have a S.S.P.X one? Not. Ditto for the nearby dioceses of Gallup, Dodge City, Salina, Grand Island.
P.K.T.P.
April 5, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Note from Kit – Dear David (et al.)It’s simple. It’s just my innate horror of any sort of publicity or public exposure of any kind. I have avoided it all my life to the greatest extent possible, and see no reason to change now. But I do want to participate in these discussions because they are so important. The only reason that I check these comments is to learn what others think. The majority of the comments are quite encouraging and give me reason to hope for the future of the Church. I understand why people don’t like the fact that a group like the SSPX exists. I don’t hold it against them: I don’t like it either. However, I believe that the SSPX is largely responsible for 1) preserving the TLM to the extent that it has been preserved 2)causing the Vatican to return to tradition to the extent that it has. So when dismissive and derisive comments are made about the SSPX, I want to defend it. It deserves it. The Society is not perfect by any means, but what on earth is? As far as why things don’t change faster? Of course I want to know why, that’s why I’m here. Hopefully fora such as these can educate us and change hearts and minds, including mine. There is much inertia (mea culpa), but that can be overcome too, if we keep trying. Sorry to go on so long, but this is really important to me. Kit
April 5, 2008 at 7:43 pm
The last writer defended the S.S.P.X. I agree with much of what he or she has written. It is true, in my view, that, without the S.S.P.X, there would be no 1984 Indult, no “Eccesia Dei”, no thirty-some regularised traditionalist societies of apostolic life and institutes of consecrated life, probably no Campos arrangement, and certainly no “Summorum Pontificum”. I also agree that the position of the Society between 1976 and 2000 was not only plausible but, in my own judgement, also correct, although it was possible to be faithful to the Church without supporting the Society at that time too.
As for Bishop Williamson, he is a man of logic and is to be lauded for his honesty and forthrightness, but I question his judgement.
The Society’s position has been that, since the salvation of souls is the highest law, the grave danger posed by liberalism and Modernism at every level of the hierarchy in recent decades caused a state of necessity which justified ‘rightful diobedience’ to legitimate authority and which invoked supplied jurisdiction. I agree.
But, in 2000, Pope John Paul II, whom the Society recognised as the true Pope, suggested a form of juridical protection for the Society which would have allowed it to carry out its divine mission safely. Soon thereafter, the S.S.P.X declined this jurisdiction, while the Campos accepted it (albeit, in the latter case, for a small territory). The structure suggested for the Society would have been international, ordinary, exempt, and personal, and was FAR MORE than what Archbishop Lefebvre was prepared to accept in 1988.
What possible justification can there be for the Society’s refusal? Bishop Fellay once said in response to this argument that much has changed since 1988. But has much changed for the worse? The worst event for the Society was Assisi, which occurred TWO YEARS BEFORE 1988, in 1986. What has been worse since 1988? Mainly, there has been more of the same, except for the truly abominable seminary document, about which the Society has (quite wrongly) said little.
Once the Church suggested protection for the Society and then actually conferred it on the Campos, to show her good faith, all claims of rightful disobedience, cases of necessity, and supplied jurisdiction ceased. Some in the Society have realised this; hence the Institute of the Good Shepherd.
Since the election of Benedict XVI, the situation, if anything, has improved for tradition as a result especially of “Summorum Pontificum”. Would Archbishop Lefebvre still refuse an international diocese for itself under present conditions? Not a chance.
Bishop Williamson and other hardliners, I opine, have largely prevented a rapprochement with the Society by threatening to divide it. He did this publicly in the pages of “The Remnant” in the period 2000-2001, when Rome was proposing the ordinary structure for the Society. Recently, he has been doing it in his columns. He has been pointing out the indisputable fact that the Society, unlike the Church, is not indefectible, and that the S.S.P.X is just one possible vehicle in which the Church may operate. In other words, he, Williamson, and those who agree with him, are where the Church is. Since they are now in the S.S.P.X, the Church is to be found in the S.S.P.X (but not exclusively). If the S.S.P.X makes a deal with ‘Conciliar Rome’, then the S.S.P.X will cease to be a vehicle in which the Church ‘subsists’ (ironic, eh?) and Williamson will have to find a new vehicle by leading a revolt out of the Society.
Mr. Archbold asked how the Church can be indefectible if neither Rome nor the Society is indefectible. Williamson has made it clear that the Church is larger than any one group and that she subsists in both the Society and among many who are regularised, and perhaps in other unregularised independent priests.
Let us assume that Williamson’s analysis is correct, and that faithful are given by God the requisite means of discerning where the Church is, for they are inspired by faith to pray for such knowledge. Still, if Benedict XVI is the true pope, which the Society has recognised him to be, it does not follow that regularisation with the true Pope must jeopardise the mission of the Society or of the Church within the Society.
Indeed, the Society was regularised in the period 1970 to 1976. It is true that any rapprochment with Rome at least indirectly threatens the Society, since, over time, there will always be a tendency to remain reconciled and since Rome is not yet purged of the heretics in her hierarchy. But there must always be some threat to the Faith as long as we have the devil with us and, as Williamson has pointed out, the Society is not the Church. The Church will not fail because Christ has promised that the gates of Hell will not prevail against her. The question, then, is whether or not current conditions and opportunities afford the Society a reasonable opportunity to safeguard and advance her mission. They do. There is no longer a case of necessity, only a case of risk. In a case of necessity, there must be an honest belief that disobedience is the only reasonable way to protect the true and the good. It no longer is. There is really only one way one could come to refuse Benedict XVI under current conditions. That would be if he were an anti-pope. Is that what Williamson reaally thinks? It is frequently alleged that there are many sedevacantists in the Society. If so, they will obviously never accept a jurisdiction from one they consider to be an anti-pope!
It is true that Pope Benedict XVI poses a threat to the Faith. The idiotic papolaters known as ‘conservatives’ or ‘neo-conservatives’ are living in a fantasy world. They think ‘my Pope right or wrong’ and defend the author of “Summorum Pontificum” even when he does something truly objectively evil, like signing the seminary document he signed. These twits can be found everywhere on blogs such s this. They are the sort of over-emotional fools who would have supported Liberius over St. Athanasius. Real traditionalists must be more circumspect. This Pope was a liberal peritus at Vatican II who wore a business suit in place of the cassock and who wrote a book whom many traditionalists have said is “full of [material] heresies”. He cannot be trusted. However, he has also done very good things, and the structure his predecessor offered really would afford the Society the protection it needs. We shall never get the ‘perfect pope’: the Pope is the successor of St. Peter, not the successor of Jesus Christ.
A real traditionalist, while he must revile the positions of the neo-conservative papolaters, must also do that which is reasonable; he must recognise the dictates of right reason. Williamson is a man of high intelligence, honesty, and, I assume, goodness. But he is not balanced; he has poor judgement. He has misjudged how best the Society may fulfil her mission. Under current conditions, it may best do so by protecting its real property and then accepting a de facto international diocese.
Peter Karl T. Perkins
Victoria, B.C., Canada
April 5, 2008 at 9:16 pm
“This Pope was a liberal peritus at Vatican II who wore a business suit in place of the cassock and who wrote a book whom many traditionalists have said is ‘full of [material] heresies.’ He cannot be trusted.”
I’ve read about Benedict’s life, in particular the effect the campus riots in 1968, when he was a professor, had on him. He thought of his speculations as having at least some grounding, much like a kite tied to a string no matter how high it goes. The tumultuous events of that year gave him considerable pause, and he has been identified as a “traditionalist” in his theology ever since.
To say that about a man — for that matter, to defend any man — does not presume to make an idol of him. The “papalotry” charge is quite a leap in this instance.
(By the way, Perkins, it’s time to stop being just another lurker in the comboxes and start your own blog. I think you could do a pretty decent job. That’s why I wanted you to contact me directly, so I could talk you into it. Now I’ve gotta do it here. See what you made me do?)
April 6, 2008 at 12:52 am
On Mr. Alexander’s last comments.
First of all, I agree that it is not fair to tarnish someone owing entirely to past views. Those of us who are sensible are always willing to change our views, and I agree that Joseph Ratzinger has apparently changed some of his. However, it remains the case that Benedict XVI has never repudiated past opinions or tendencies, and there is evidence that he continues to hold some liberal views. I cannot imagine a Pope St. Pius X praying with Muslims in the Blue Mosque, for example. Can anyone? Pius would have preferred death to that.
I wish to steer between the two extremes of unquestioning papolatry, on the one side, and wild attacks against the Pope as a formal heretic, on the other. Both, in my view, are radically mistaken. On this blog, at least, there is an unfortunate attempt by some to idolise this Pope as a future Benedict the Great. The cause is fanstay, emotion, and an over-reading Summorum Pontificum. S.P. is an excellent document. No question. The Pope is also doing other wonderful things. He is setting a superb liturgical example and restoring real music to the Church–all by his example.
I wish to add that he has quite often safeguarded doctrine and protected the tradition of celibacy in the priesthood. But bad things have also happened in this pontificate, and we must not be unrealistic. The seminary document was the very worst thing this Pope has done, removing the title ‘Patriarch of the West’ was very bad, assuming an Anglican heralidic achievement sans tiara was unthinkably bad. He has also prayed in synagogues and mosques, something every real traditionalist will abhor. Some of his appointments have been superb or, at least, good in the circumstances, but he has also appointed the liberation theology (i.e. communist) Cardinal Hummes to the curia, and one of his very first appointments, in Brazil, was of a Capuchin priest who had been a birth control advocate. And then there is this Pope’s absolute refusal to deal with the very worst case of scandal in the history of the Church. I am referring to the case of Fr. Raymond Gravel, M.P., in Québec. The case is too shocking for words. This man dons a collar to promote abortion and inverted marriage on television and breaks Church law to run for political office–successfully. Before he entered seminary, he was a male prostitute.
There is also the failure of this Pope, so far, at least, to deal with the Marcial Maciels who seem all too common in the priesthood. How many innocent children will be buggered before this Pope defrocks them? And how many politicians will be allowed to receive Holy Communion while they promotion the butchering of children by abortion? One is too many.
I believe in giving every man his due and I confess that I love this Pope and jumped for joy when he was elected. But I absolutely will not confuse fantasy with reality and think of him as what he is not. He is definitely not another St. Pius X or another Pius XII. We can hope that, given the change in direction under this Pope, future popes will continue the difficult task of pulling the Barque of Peter back on course. I am sanguine about the prospects.
My own blog? I am not computer literate enough to pull it off. I am a man of letters, not of all these infernal machines.
P.K.T.P.
April 6, 2008 at 1:27 am
Mr Perkins, thou hast writ:
“[R]emoving the title ‘Patriarch of the West’ was very bad, assuming an Anglican heralidic achievement sans tiara was unthinkably bad.”
He could change his mind about either one of those, and probably would, but he’s a pretty busy man. The coat of arms thing is one of those things you take care of at the beginning, and assume you don’t have to hear about it again. My God, man, is that the worst thing he’s done? Our first Pope denied Christ three times, and he turned out good enough, didn’t he?
Is something “Anglican” just because it’s short? Are we attaching a type of phallic significance to the height of a bishop’s mitre? (Just something that occurs to me.)
I think that cleaning house and improving administration, as well as speaking more forcefully on issues than his predecessor, will go a long way towards resolving the Scandals. He’s only had three years at this job, remember, and he’s only as effective as the people around him.
As to praying “with” Moslems, I will grant you, he was in a mosque, and he was standing next to Moslems while praying. He was also holding on to his pectoral cross. If you or I had tried that, we would have been beheaded on the spot. For all we know, he might have risked ticking them off. That makes it a pretty gutsy move. No, Pius wouldn’t have done it. Then again, he was never asked.
Finally, let’s not hear any of that “I’m not computer literate” stuff. Sites like Blogger make it all too easy to create something from a template. You have to be able to follow instructions.
You can do this.
April 6, 2008 at 8:06 am
On Mr. Alexander’s comments:
(1) No, Pope St. Pius X would never have prayed in a mosque even if he had been asked. Benedict XVI prayed there while Muslims prayed there at the same time. It is true that he has not crossed the ultimate line, which would be to pray the same prayers together with them. John Paul II didn’t do that either, but some bishops have. This post-conciliar mispractice of praying in mosques and synagogues while infidels and heretics pray there at the same time is probably the major reason for the rift with the S.S.P.X. Popes in the past would have preferred death to such practices.
It is a cause of scandal that a Pope should pray in a mosque, a temple, a synagogue. And we can see the dangers this example sets, and what it can lead to. For example, last week, the Diocese of Trento (yes, that’s Trent, the famous one), contributed its Sunday collection to the building of a mosque in that city.
It is scandalous for a pope to pray in a mosque or a synagogue because it could lead those with weak faith to think that erroneous faiths are respectable. They are not; they are false and abominable. (The situation was different in the Apostolic age because the Jews had mostly not been preached to, and Christianity grew out of Judaism as its fulfilment. No Pope has prayed in non-Catholic places from the third century to the twentieth. When St. Augustine of Canterbury found that Celtic Christians were praying in the same buildings as pagans, he ended the practice immediately.
(2) Yes, it’s true that the Pope needs more time to correct some errors, and I do think that the arms and the title fiascoes were done mostly without his approval. But they need to be corrected. Heraldry is extremely important because it is pure symbol. It says, This is who I am. Catholic bishops have not used the mitre as the crest in centuries: this is now accepted as the mark of an Anglican bishop. Most prelates in the Catholic Church, which is the only real Church, use prelatical hats. The Pope is supposed to use a tiara, not a mitre. This is a terrible scandal. I says, symbolically: I am only a bishop, and an Anglican one at that. There are signs it may be corrected. When the Pope visited Brazil, I noticed that several official renderings had the mitre put back. But I know of no official actions on this yet.
(3) The seminary document is a huge mistake and it is indeed scandalous in the extreme that we have not seen any real action taken yet to purge the clergy of sodomites. What could be more important than the welfare of children?
The Pope needs to do the right think even when this is not expedient. Ridding the Church of the priest-predators is not expedient in the short term during a shortage of priests. But it would restore respect and confidence to the Church.
I think that Benedict XVI is a much better Pope than was John Paul II, and that John Paul II was considerably better than Paul VI. But that’s not saying all that much, really. None of them are of the same calibre as St. Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, or Pius XII. A balanced view is needed here. Benedict XVI is a conservative, even an archconservative; but he is no traditionalist. However, his papacy is definitely a turn in the right direction.
P.K.T.P.
April 6, 2008 at 8:25 am
CMR said:
“If the SSPX is serious about its statement of loyalty to the Pope, it is high time that the SSPX divorce themselves from Williamson and his ilk. If not, then the statement on the website is a lie and we all know what ‘true faith’ says about lying.”
>>>>> If the Holy Father was serious about Summorum Pontificum, he would tell his bishops to get with it and begin the implementation of the Motu Proprio in a serious manner. As it is since Vat2, Rome talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk.
How about the bishops who LIED about hiding the molesting priests? If Rome was serious about these scandals, then the offending bishops should be ditched also.
How about whack jobs like Greeley and McBrien, etc.? Shouldn’t the same thing be done you claim SSPX should do with Williamson? C’mon, no one-sided finger-pointing.
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Mark said:
“Without the SSPX there would be No Summorum Pontificum!”
>>>>>This is not true at all, Mark. The Holy Father issued the Motu Proprio to repair the hermaneutic rupture of the past and to reverse the liturgical chaos gone unchecked since Paul VI. The SSPX may have been a consideration but they were not the sole motivation for Summorum Pontificum. 😉
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IMO, I think we should be grateful for the SSPX. At least they have made a concerted effort to uphold Roman Catholic values and principles and to try to preserve Sacred Tradition as much as possible. Everyone spazzes over them but nothing is said in objective criticism of our so-called separated brethren–the Orthodox and whomever else falls into that catagory. All laud and honor over them but spit at the SSPX? Yeah, right. One can get clearer points of Church teaching from them than the average parish priest. I may not attend an SSPX Mass due their sacerdotal irregularity with Rome, but I sure as sh’t wouldn’t even show up at an Orthodox anything also.
April 6, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Mark is correct that, without the S.S.P.X, there would be no S.P.
It is true that the Pope himself, as a member of the 1986 Commission of Cardinals, favoured the declaration made in S.P. However, the convening of that commission in the first place came about owing to the continued opposition of the S.S.P.X; in fact, it was part of a negotiation with the S.S.P.X to bring it back into the fold after the suspension a divinis of 1976 and the continued growth of the Society.
While the Cardinal Ratzinger of that time certainly did come to favour the finding that the old Mass had never been abrogated, there is little evidence from before 1986 that he would have made this finding as a matter of policy. Only Carinals Oddi, Palazzini, Stickler, and Mayer really promoted the interests of the old Mass. Ratzinger was (and still is) and advocate of a reform of the New Mass in the traditionalist direction.
At any rate, even if the pre-condition of the Society was not the sole cause of the change, it was the sole *adequate* cause, meaning that the two years of stick-handling by the Pope to get this through the curia simply would not have happened had he not been determined to reconcile the Society.
No, it’s not a ‘post hoc’.
P.K.T.P.