Last month I mentioned the parallel that certainly exists
between the clarity of vision of Popes Pius IX and Saint Pius X and that of
Archbishop Lefebvre. This month I believe it useful to bring to your attention
another parallel, one that is very clearly illustrated by H.E. Bishop
De Castro Mayer, the 10th anniversary of whose death we also celebrated this
year.
In 1952 His Excellency wrote an article
explaining how the heresy of Jansenism prepared the way for the French
Revolution of 1789, a direct parallel of how the heresy of Modernism prepared
the way for the Second Vatican Council, that even Cardinal Ratzinger has called
the French Revolution within the Church. It was published in the Campos diocesan
magazine, Catolicismo, no. 20 & 21, August & September 1952.
Here is how he began his article:
"At first sight, the struggle at the end of
the 18th century would seem to have been very straightforward: on one side was
the Church and on the other all the openly impious ideas and sects —Protestantism, Rationalism, etc.- that we could call the counter Church. In
reality the scenario was more complex. For in effect, the counter Church did
not have all its disciples in explicitly heterodox groups; it had placed a
large number of them inside the Catholic Church itself." (in Bulletin
des amis de saint François de Sales, #107).
He further explained that these enemies of
the Church were organized within her very bosom to form a fifth column, the
purpose of which was to undermine the Catholic reaction.
Such is the wicked heresy of Jansenism, that
by the means of cynical subterfuges, it evaded the different condemnations
directed by the infallible Magisterium against it, striving to maintain itself
within Catholicism in order to corrupt Catholicism at its very foundation.
The interesting aspect of this study is not
simply the well known fact that the proud and rash Jansenists had infiltrated
into the Church during the 18th century, in order to constitute a kind of church
within the Church, working against real Catholics by an unceasing guerrilla
warfare of subtle reasonings and sophisms. The value of this study is in
pointing out, based on many examples, how there existed in between the orthodox
Catholics, faithful to Rome, and the Jansensists, a "third party" of
ecclesiastics, who were not Jansenists and did not adhere to their theories, but
who were likewise opposed to Rome’s disciples, accusing Rome of exaggerating,
being intransigent, fomenting strife and lacking charity, based upon the
presumption that if the anti-Jansenists would stop fighting them and if the Holy
See would abstain from its rigorous actions against them, then Jansenism would
disappear all by itself. Such bishops made no effort to uproot Jansenism from
their dioceses, but concentrated on maintaining peace and charity amongst
everyone. Bishop De Castro Mayer’s point is that it was not so much the openly
Jansenist bishops but the pacifist bishops who were largely responsible for the
spread of Jansenism throughout France.
His Excellency’s conclusion is that
conciliation at any price is doomed to failure, and furthermore that it was this
spirit of private judgement, indifference and independence from Rome which
became the gate through which liberalism entered into the Church throughout the
18th century, preparing the way for the overturning of the Catholic order at the
time of the French revolution:
"Peace is only true when it is nourished
by the sap of the truth. In the contrary case, it is only a veneer, under
which the division of minds will eventually bring back to life convulsions
that can be volcanic. In order to maintain peace in France, Fleury (the
Cardinal, who was the effective leader of this third group, and who was
responsible for the appointing of the French bishops) avoided as much as
possible the triumph of truth over error, by a policy of pseudo-equilibrium
between the two sides. Just 20 years later the situation had become such that
the King and the Pope agreed that it was no longer possible to apply purely
and simply the teachings of the Popes. In effect, liberalism in the things of
religion was born. Fleury had nourished in France the serpent that would
poison it in 1789." (Ib.)
Bishop De Castro Mayer was perfectly aware
that the modernists used the same tactics to infiltrate the Church, as Saint
Pius X himself explained, and that after the death of Saint Pius X they
succeeded in this tactic, finally emerging from their dissimulation at the time
of Vatican II. He consequently saw just as clearly through the post-Conciliar
revolution, deciding to assist Archbishop Lefebvre in the consecration of four
bishops. He could easily have taken refuge in the intermediary third group,
neither traditionalist nor modernist, which refuses to openly speak out about
modernism for the sake of peace and harmony, which by pacifically getting on
with the modernists in positions of authority in the Church feels that the
problems and the crisis of Faith in the Church will simply disappear. Such was
not his naiveté. Those who did chose the Indult and the Ecclesia Dei
Commission did not even need 20 years of liberalism to prove that they could no
longer apply purely and simply the teaching of the Popes. Twelve years sufficed.
Since then Quo Primum is out the window, and these priests are obliged to
celebrate the New Mass, at least from time to time, and they have come to defend
the aberrations of Vatican II, such as religious liberty, collegiality and
ecumenism. Never are they to be heard to teach purely and simply the
anti-liberal and anti-modernists encyclicals of the pre-Vatican II Popes, with
the condemnation of the post-Conciliar revolution that it necessarily implies.
There is always an explanation to excuse the modern authorities upon whom they
depend, and who seem to be advancing further and further into the subjectivist
insanity of indifferentism.
In this regard, it is interesting to re-read
Bishop De Castro’s remarks at the time of the episcopal consecrations, which
would without a doubt be no different now, since the crisis in the Church has in
no way improved, but actually worsened dramatically:
"My presence here at this ceremony is caused
by a duty of conscience, that of making a profession of Catholic Faith…When
the Faith is in danger, it is urgent to profess it, even if it be at the risk
of one’s own life. Such is the situation in which we find ourselves. We live
in an unprecedented crisis in the Church, a crisis that attacks her inner
essence, in her very substance which is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the
Catholic priesthood, two mysteries essentially united because without
priesthood there is no sacrifice of the Mass and therefore no form of worship.
It is also on this foundation that the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ
is built…It is painful to witness the deplorable blindness of so many confrères in the episcopate and in the priesthood who do not see or do not
want to see the present crisis nor the necessity to resist the reigning
modernism in order to be faithful to the mission entrusted to us by God…" (Archbishop
Lefebvre and the Vatican, p. 124)
If we really want to listen to Bishop De
Castro Mayer’s words, let us avoid the temptation of attending the traditional
Mass without condemning the New Mass as evil, of receiving on the tongue without
standing up against the innumerable sacrileges that take place at the New Mass,
of professing that outside the Church there is no salvation without condemning
the practice of ecumenism, of teaching the Social Kingship of Christ without
speaking out against religious liberty, in a word of trying to be traditional
without standing up against the Pope’s and the modernists’ abuse of authority.
It is not a question of denying the Pope’s
infallibility, for the Church has defined the limited conditions under which it
exists, nor is it a question of denying the Church’s visibility and
indefectibility, for the Church will continue despite the failures of its
visible head as well as of its members, nor is it a question of denying the
Pope’s supreme power of government for the salvation of souls (although he seems
incapable of exercising it).
In this regard, it is interested to quote
from an article written by Bishop De Castro Mayer in 1983. After stating the
Catholic doctrine that the Pope is the Vicar of Jesus Christ, "being His
representative, His lieutenant", he further explains:
"This aspect is of the very essence of the
papacy. It cannot be put aside. Forgetting it would have the worst
consequence, leading people to believe that the pope is master of the Church,
that he can do what he wants, ordain and rescind according to that which might
seem best to him, the faithful being always and absolutely obliged to obey
him. Upon reflection, it is clear that this conception attributes to the pope
omniscience and omnipotence, exclusive attributes of God. It would be
idolatry, transferring to the creature that which is proper to divinity. This
is why the First Vatican Council, in defining the power of the pope, took care
to also define its purpose and its limits…In this regard it is not wrong to
think that, precisely in order to well define the vicarial powers of the pope,
Providence has permitted that individuals hold the see of Peter whose doctrine
or actions have been gravely prejudicial to faith or morals…To resist such
teachings and bad examples is not to refuse obedience to the pope, nor to his
person. To act thus is to show one’s adhesion to the Vicar of Jesus Christ.
For it is only as Vicar of Jesus Christ that the pope has been endowed with
powers of jurisdiction over the whole Church…"
(From Heri et Hodie,
no. 3. Quoted in Catholic, Apostolic & Roman, p. 25).
This is also what the priests of Campos,
formed and instructed by Bishop De Castro Mayer, had to say in their declaration
of August 22, 1999:
"There is not, on our part, a systematic
refusal of submission to the pope and the bishops. We absolutely reject any
intention, desire for, or spirit of schism. We constitute no ‘Lefebvrist’ or
‘traditionalist’ party. We are apostolic Roman Catholics. We repeat: our
resistance to the ecclesiastical authorities is circumstantial, temporary, and
limited to those points on which those same authorities distance themselves
from the doctrine of all times. When the ecclesiastical authorities return
without condition to teaching and doing that which the Church has always
taught and done, we…will all be at the complete disposition of those same
authorities."
(Catholic, Apostolic & Roman,
43)
Nevertheless, it is a question of speaking
the pure and simple defined Catholic truth, outside of which there is neither
peace nor harmony (as the innumerable divisions in the post-Conciliar church
clearly illustrate) and upon which the salvation of souls depends. This is why
the Society’s superiors demanded of Rome, at the very least, that all priests
throughout the world be granted the right to celebrate the true Mass, the
entirely Catholic Mass of all time.
In this regard, Bishop De Castro Mayer made
two joint statements with Archbishop Lefebvre, the following passages from which
illustrate their common determination to avoid any kind of intermediary third
position between Catholicism and Modernism. The first is from an "Open Letter to
Pope John Paul II", dated November 21, 1983:
