I am often struck by the vagueness and corresponding inaccuracy of the texts produced by the so-called Resistance to the SSPX. The following is a classic, and therefore offers an opportunity to illustrate how confused the entire matter is. There is no deal, and there is no prospect of a deal, and has been none since June 2012 at the latest, yet "the deal" is still being "resisted". Let's have a look at how.
From Ignis Ardens:
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Question: Some people say, “Yes, but Archbishop Lefebvre should have accepted an agreement with Rome because once the Society of St. Pius X had been recognized and the suspensions lifted , he would have been able to act in a more effective manner inside the Church, whereas now he has put himself outside.”
Archbishop Lefebvre: Such things are easy to say. To stay inside the Church, or to put oneself inside the Church – what does that mean? Firstly, what Church are we talking about? If you mean the Conciliar Church, then we who have struggled against the Council for twenty years because we want the Catholic Church, we would have to re-enter this Conciliar Church in order, supposedly, to make it Catholic. That is a complete illusion. It is not the subjects that make the superiors, but the superiors who make the subjects.
The above is an extract taken from an interview given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to Fideliter magazine and published in its July/August 1989 issue. Note how the Archbishop makes it clear that to think we could enter the conciliar church in order to make it Catholic is a complete illusion. Yet today we have the superiors of the SSPX stating the opposite of what the good Archbishop emphatically claimed, despite the fact that these same superiors were once on board with his position. These superiors now claim that we must join them in order to beat them! The irony of it all is that the way the current SSPX superiors have acted towards those who have spoken out against a canonical regularization and the way most of these priests (and faithful) have responded have only demonstrated how right the Archbishop was.
Back around the Spring/Summer of 2012, two bishops and several priests had spoken out against a canonical regularization, but where are they now? After the July 2012 General Chapter, they are no longer fighting the good fight. Some of them have even come to make excuses for the SSPX leadership or, even worse, have jumped on board the Bishop Fellay train. There are also those priests who watched from a distance and never took a public stance one way or another, but were privately against a canonical regularization. They cringed at the way their brother priests had been treated for speaking out. I am sure many of us know some of these priests as we had come to respect them in their preaching of the truth and defence of the Faith prior to this SSPX crisis. We thought them to be warriors. However, to our disappointment, they never took a public stance in agreement with their private one. Instead, they became either too busy making excuses for the SSPX leadership or have also jumped onto the Bishop Fellay train, albeit with one foot still not firmly entrenched on it. Then, several weeks ago, the April 15, 2012 Doctrinal Declaration of Bishop Fellay came to light. We thought we finally had what we needed to clearly demonstrate that Bishop Fellay had deviated, no longer simply from a position of prudence but from Catholic doctrine itself. Our confidence was even further strengthened when Bishop Williamson, unjustly booted from the SSPX, wrote an open letter to SSPX priests that they ought to speak out against Bishop Fellay’s Doctrinal Declaration for the sake of the faithful. “Yes! The priests have to speak out now”, we declared. But….unfortunately….’til this day, there has been hardly a whimper coming from the priests. Instead, we hear Resistance priests telling us that they had spoken to several priests who had either defended Bishop Fellay’s Doctrinal Declaration or had brushed it off. What a disappointment!
I ask, “What has happened to the SSPX of old? Where did it go?” Barring a miracle, I think it is now safe to say that it has gone down the memory hole. I hope to be proven wrong, but I am afraid not. The slide of the SSPX will continue until it is in the arms of conciliar Rome. And most of priests will go along for the ride until they find themselves at a point of no return. Very sad indeed – the years after Vatican II all over again.
Archbishop, you were right. The superiors do make the subjects. What has transpired in the past year within the Society you founded is just a case in point.
Now, a quick analysis by interjection.
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The above is an extract taken from an interview given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to Fideliter magazine and published in its July/August 1989 issue. Note how the Archbishop makes it clear that to think we could enter the conciliar church in order to make it Catholic is a complete illusion.
Well, this writer says that the Archbishop "makes it clear" but in fact there's ambiguity there, because we know that the Archbishop in the very same interview stated very clearly that he had no problem "entering the conciliar church" if that meant being given canonical recognition without compromise, but that what he would not do was enter into any kind of arrangement whereby the Fraternity would be able to be crushed. He said, "Realizing the impossibility of coming to an understanding, on the 2nd of June I wrote again to the pope: It is useless to continue these conversations and contacts. We do not have the same purpose. You wish to bring us round to the Council in a reconciliation, and what we want is to be recognized as we are." In other words, if JP2 had been prepared to recognize the SSPX as it is, Archbishop Lefebvre would willingly have kept to the Protocol he had already signed. He'd have "entered the conciliar church".
But does that mean he was being inconsistent? No, and to understand him one must be clear that for the Archbishop the notion "conciliar church" stood for two related but distinct ideas. On the one hand, in his mind there is a programme - the programme of Vatican II, and therefore of the Conciliar Church - which infects and afflicts the true Catholic Church and which leads men by stages from her and into either membership in the Conciliar Church or outright apostasy. On the other hand, there is a real body of men in a definite unity which is not the Catholic Church, and these constitute the Conciliar Church, a false church. In Archbishop Lefebvre's thought, it is clear that these men are not
all of those caught up in the Novus Ordo milieu; they are not even all of the bishops of the Novus Ordo milieu; they are the most obvious and open Modernists, the Bugninis, the Suenens, the Villots.
So, when he said "we cannot enter the conciliar church" he meant, we cannot be subject to the enemies of the Church, including most of the ordinaries and the Roman Curia. On the other hand, if JP2 had erected a Commission, with a majority of members being traditional Catholics, and had granted the permission for at least one bishop to be consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre for the Fraternity, then the Archbishop would have "entered the conciliar church" on those terms. This is plain from the very interview cited above. Anybody who wishes to understand the Archbishop's mind on this matter needs to read the entire interview right through, without preconceptions:
http://www.sspx.org/archbishop_lefebvre ... ations.htmThe other point to make here is how strikingly similar the position that the Archbishop took in that interview is to the stance taken by Bishop Fellay. In both cases - 1988 and 2012 - the deal foundered on prercisely the same grounds. In 2012 the Vatican, having learned from past experience, specifically offered to recognise the SSPX
as it is. When this offer proved to be untrue, Bishop Fellay pulled out. Lefebvre: "We do not have the same purpose. You wish to bring us round to the Council in a reconciliation, and
what we want [present tense] is to be
recognized as we are."
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Yet today we have the superiors of the SSPX stating the opposite of what the good Archbishop emphatically claimed, despite the fact that these same superiors were once on board with his position.
No quotes are provided to support this assertion, and I suggest that this is because none exist. Its vagueness is absolutely classical in "Resistance" literature. A falsehood is thereby being intimated in terms sufficiently vague so as to avoid becoming obvious to the average reader. And if you think you've seen this technique before, you have: it's
Vatican II speak.
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These superiors now claim that we must join them in order to beat them!
Again, this is false in its obvious meaning. In a qualified way it is true, but equally true of Archbishop Lefebvre's position when so qualified. If it means that if the Vatican recognised the SSPX as it is, demanding no compromise, then this would be a good outcome, well this is the position of both Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Fellay. If, on the other hand, it means that Bishop Fellay takes the opposite point of view to that of the Archbishop, then it's obviously false. In any case, even a school student would know to bolster such claims with quotes.
And now the central thesis of the piece appears:
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The irony of it all is that the way the current SSPX superiors have acted towards those who have spoken out against a canonical regularization and the way most of these priests (and faithful) have responded have only demonstrated how right the Archbishop was.
In plain English, the assertion here is that the superiors of the SSPX have brutally suppressed any opposition to their supposed plans, and those who have suffered from this terrible treatment have mostly reacted in a cowardly and supine fashion.
We have already seen that the "plans" of the superiors are totally misrepresented by this Resistance writer. The vague phrase, "the way the current SSPX superiors have acted towards those who have spoken out" is left without further support or clarification. The reader is meant to supply his own sanguine images. Now, what of the supposed cowardice of those who fail to protest against the long-dead deal?
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Back around the Spring/Summer of 2012, two bishops and several priests had spoken out against a canonical regularization, but where are they now? After the July 2012 General Chapter, they are no longer fighting the good fight.
So, Bishops Tissier and de Galarreta are "no longer fighting the good fight". No support is offered for this apparently self-evident assertion. It apparently means that these men are no longer protesting against a deal. Yet there is no deal and no prospect of one. I asked Bishop Tissier directly, a few months ago when he was visiting here, whether the danger has passed, and he averred that it has. So, there's no chance of a deal? No. Now, any individual may well form a different judgement from that of Bishop Tissier. Any individual may well judge that Bishop Tissier is mistaken, and that a deal is still in the offing. Such an individual would have to be in possession of occult data, for everything known publicly or privately indicates that the Vatican gave up last June and has no interest in reviving the deal, but I repeat, it is entirely possible for an individual to form a different judgement than Bishop Tissier has formed. But what is totally illegitimate and actually irrational, is to accuse Bishop Tissier of giving up a fight which he does not recognise to exist. I recall when I was a child several occasions on which the news media reported that a Japanese soldier from World War II had been discovered living on some island in the Pacific, unaware that the war had ended. The "Resistance" reminds me of those Japanese soldiers - but with a difference: I don't recall any of those soldiers turning and accusing their demobilised comrades of failing to keep fighting the war.
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Some of them have even come to make excuses for the SSPX leadership
No data is offered to support this assertion, which is evidently meant to be an
allegation, but may well, and probably does, objectively constitute
praise.
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or, even worse, have jumped on board the Bishop Fellay train.
What does that even mean? Vatican II was clearer than this!
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There are also those priests who watched from a distance and never took a public stance one way or another, but were privately against a canonical regularization.
And no canonical regularization occurred, so the point is?
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They cringed at the way their brother priests had been treated for speaking out.
Actually, I know a fair number of priests in the SSPX, and I can say that I do not know even
one that took that view. Even those who were against the deal (that is, the majority) did not agree with the terrible things said about Bishop Fellay, or the open displays of dissent, and especially they didn't agree with Bishop Williamson's activities.
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I am sure many of us know some of these priests as we had come to respect them in their preaching of the truth and defence of the Faith prior to this SSPX crisis. We thought them to be warriors. However, to our disappointment, they never took a public stance in agreement with their private one. Instead, they became either too busy making excuses for the SSPX leadership or have also jumped onto the Bishop Fellay train, albeit with one foot still not firmly entrenched on it.
What a confused mess! We are being told that some significant number of priests privately expressed some view which is not stated here, and then publicly said the opposite, or perhaps didn't quite, or something.
In any case, given the vagueness noted above, there has been enormous scope for misunderstandings between individuals in all of this. A priest who was against the deal, when it was on, is perhaps taken as agreeing with public dissent, even though he did not dissent publicly himself and expressed no opinion on the decision of others to dissent publicly. That is just one possible misunderstanding. Then, his subsequent failure to support dissenting priests publicly is taken as cowardice. This would be malice resting upon confusion. Many other similar possibilities could be suggested, and
this is because of the vagueness and confusion of thought which characterises the "Resistance."Quote:
Then, several weeks ago, the April 15, 2012 Doctrinal Declaration of Bishop Fellay came to light. We thought we finally had what we needed to clearly demonstrate that Bishop Fellay had deviated, no longer simply from a position of prudence but from Catholic doctrine itself. Our confidence was even further strengthened when Bishop Williamson, unjustly booted from the SSPX, wrote an open letter to SSPX priests that they ought to speak out against Bishop Fellay’s Doctrinal Declaration for the sake of the faithful. “Yes! The priests have to speak out now”, we declared. But….unfortunately….’til this day, there has been hardly a whimper coming from the priests. Instead, we hear Resistance priests telling us that they had spoken to several priests who had either defended Bishop Fellay’s Doctrinal Declaration or had brushed it off. What a disappointment!
Has it even occurred to this writer employing his royal "we", that he might simply be mistaken in his judgement "that Bishop Fellay had deviated, no longer simply from a position of prudence but from Catholic doctrine itself"? Could it be that the judgement of 500 traditional Catholic priests and a couple of bishops carries sufficient weight to create some doubt in the mind of this layman? No? None at all? No, apparently not. Bishop Fellay must have deviated from the faith, in writing, and 500 graduates in theology have not noticed.
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I ask, “What has happened to the SSPX of old? Where did it go?” Barring a miracle, I think it is now safe to say that it has gone down the memory hole.
Again, what does this even mean? Was this writer familiar with the SSPX twenty or thirty years ago? What exactly is he alleging to have changed? We are forced to guess. Again, Vatican II speak, on steroids.
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I hope to be proven wrong, but I am afraid not.
How could he be proved wrong? He hasn't said anything cogent. This is like hearing from Teilhard de Chardin that he hopes to be proved wrong about the inevitability of the world reaching his Omega Point...
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The slide of the SSPX will continue until it is in the arms of conciliar Rome. And most of priests will go along for the ride until they find themselves at a point of no return. Very sad indeed – the years after Vatican II all over again.
This is clever rhetoric but blatantly unfactual. Bishop Tissier is not going to go along with any compromises. He's not protesting because he judges that there is nothing to protest about. If that changes, expect him to alter his stance.
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Archbishop, you were right. The superiors do make the subjects. What has transpired in the past year within the Society you founded is just a case in point.
I suggest that this writer has a look at who the "Resistance" priests are (that is, the few who were actually members of the SSPX to begin with, unlike Fr. Voigt [Novus-ordained as he was] and Fr. Ringrose [independent]), and takes note of their relationships with one Bishop Williamson. They are what their
leader has made them.