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Dear Friends and Benefactors of the
Society of Saint Pius X,
Many of you have
heard of the reconciliation between the traditional priests of Bishop de Castro
Mayer, of the diocese of Campos, Brazil, and Rome, and some of you have asked
what we are to think of it. In effect, negotiations have been going on for
several months between Rome and Fr. Rifan, representative of the Priestly
Union of Saint John Mary Vianney, and its superior, Bishop Licinio Rangel, who
had been consecrated by the Society’s bishops in 1991, after the death of Bishop
De Castro Mayer. These negotiations were carried on without the knowledge, let
alone the agreement, of the Society’s superiors. As far as Bishop Fellay was
concerned, the negotiations ceased after Rome refused to even respond to his
letter of June 22.
That letter, published in the August 2001 issue of The Angelus, responded
to Rome’s refusal to grant the conditions, namely that it be stated that all
priests in the world have the right to celebrate the traditional Mass, and that
the Society was never schismatic and never broke communion. In response to
Cardinal Castrillon’s refusal to accept that we have the right to reject the
errors of Vatican II, he explained the state of necessity that is the basis of
our refusal of compromise. The response to those who attack the Society for
working on a hidden agreement is that there have been no discussions since then,
since there is no common ground to work from.
Last summer, the
priests from Campos were united with the Society, and accepted our firm
position, based upon principle. However, Cardinal Castrillon’s efforts to
contact them, and induce them to overlook questions of doctrinal and principle,
in order to come to an arrangement, bore fruit. It was on Friday, January 18,
after months of negotiation, that Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos presided over the
ceremony in the name of the Pope and in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio and
the Novus Ordo bishops of the region and of Novus Ordo priests of the diocese.
The purpose of the ceremony, as advertised by Bishop Rangel in a joint
communiqué with Bishop Guimaraes, the diocesan bishop of Campos, was to:
"sign the
letter of entrance into full ecclesial communion of the priests of Campos from
the Priestly Union of Saint John Mary Vianney and of the Catholic faithful they
minister to, being then thus considered perfectly inserted in the Holy Roman
Catholic Apostolic Church."
The theme of
this joint ceremony between modernists and traditionalists was "unity in
diversity". In fact, such is the basis of the Indult Mass, as contained in
John Paul II’s motu proprio of 1988 Ecclesia Dei adflicta, and
such is the basis for this reconciliation as described in the joint statement of
Bishops Rangel and Guimaraes:
"We further
remember the invitation of the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II: ‘All pastors
and other faithful must have a new consciousness not only of the legitimacy
but also of the riches that the diversity of charisms, traditions,
spirituality and apostolate represent for the Church. This diversity also
constitutes the beauty of unity in diversity: this is the symphony that, under
the action of the Holy Ghost, the earthly Church elevates to heaven’ (motu
proprio, Ecclesia Dei adflicta). It is thus with intense happiness
that we communicate to all this gesture of kindness of the Holy Father, the
Pope, wishing an ever-increasing union among Catholics —‘unity in diversity’
—as the Holy Father wishes, for the greater glory of God and honor of the Holy
Church".
Those of you who
regularly read this letter will have no difficulty in drawing your own
conclusion concerning such statements. The
September letter
explained that the cardinals in Rome had no intention of promoting Tradition and
of disavowing the New Mass and the post-Conciliar revolution. The
November letter
showed how Archbishop Lefebvre’s clarity of vision in this time of crisis, based
upon the spirit of the Church, as clearly taught by Saint Pius X and Blessed
Pius IX, is the basis for our present superiors’ refusal to compromise. The
December letter
explained how firmly Bishop De Castro Mayer embraced the positions of Archbishop
Lefebvre, refusing any third, intermediary position or Indult Mass as a liberal
compromise of our duty to profess the Faith.
Last month’s
letter mentioned how the situation in
Rome has worsened even further by the Pope’s own initiative, through the prayer
meeting of all religions in Assisi.
We must
certainly respect the good intentions of the priests from Campos, who have not
attacked the Society’s refusal to make a deal, but simply stated that their
situation is different, given that they are all in one diocese. We also must
acknowledge that they have not compromised in the same way that the priests of
the Fraternity of Saint Peter, who have accepted in principle the celebration of
the New Mass and the post-Conciliar theology.
Nevertheless, it
certainly saddens us that they have backed down on the clear position so well
expressed in their 1999 book Catholic, Apostolic & Roman, and that
this rift in tradition has come about for the sake of a canonical status, and
that the priests of Campos have opted for the easy way out, the path of least
resistance. So different were the heroic words of Bishop De Castro Mayer in a
similar situation, on June 30, 1988:
"I want to manifest here my
sincere and profound adherence to the position of His Excellency Archbishop
Lefebvre, dictated by his fidelity to the Church of all centuries. Both of us,
we have drunk at the same spring which is that of the Holy Catholic Apostolic
and Roman Church"
(Archbishop Lefebvre & the Vatican, p.
124).
Different also
were the words written by the same priests on the occasion of the episcopal
consecration of Bishop Rangel:
"Given the
present situation of extraordinary crisis through which the Church is passing,
with its hierarchy directly and indirectly bringing about its destruction
—‘auto-demolition’ —and for this very reason systematically and only naming
bishops that have compromised with progressism, this extraordinary episcopal
consecration is imposed upon us as an act that we call ‘Operation Survival of
Tradition’".
Dom Laurenço
Fleichman, OSB, formerly of the monastery in Barroux, France, in an open letter
to Bishop Rangel and the priests of Campos, dated October 30, 2001, draws a sad
parallel between Dom Gerard’s betrayal of Archbishop Lefebvre and this decision
by the priests of Campos. The full text will be published in the February issue
of the Angelus. Allow me simply to quote his conclusion here:
"In 1988 I
said to Dom Gérard, and I repeat it to you today: thousands of Catholics wait
anxiously for you to confirm them in the Catholic Faith, in the combat
required of us by Divine Providence, without allowing yourselves to be
overcome by tiredness, weakness or without becoming entrapped by the chant of
the bewitching singers of legality. Our Lord requires martyrdom, drop by drop,
and the full and clear profession of the Catholic Faith, without compromise
with the modernists in the Vatican.
"Yes, we are for the Papacy,
and yes we are for juridical legality. But above all else, let us respond to
the clear call of God for the combat for the Faith. The day the Pope truly
converts, it will appear more clearly than the light of the sun. Clearly, it
is not by kissing the Koran or by going to pray in a mosque that he shows us
this conversion…"
Furthermore, we
cannot help but deplore their implicit acknowledgement that they were outside of
full ecclesial communion until this ceremony took place. The Society had
insisted, as a matter of principle, on a statement that the excommunications
were null and void, that Archbishop Lefebvre had sufficient reason to consecrate
bishops and that we are and have always been Catholics in good standing, as a
pre-condition for any arrangement to be even discussed. This principle has been
abandoned. Moreover, the modernist concept of degrees of communion has been
accepted in the place of the traditional teaching of being either inside or
outside the Church contained in the dogma "Outside the Church no salvation".
Before Vatican II, there was no such thing as perfect or imperfect ecclesial
communion. One was either a Catholic, inside the Church, or excommunicated,
outside the Church, on the way to eternal perdition. There is no in between.
However, for the modernists other Christians and other believers are in various
degrees of imperfect communion although not actually members of the Roman
Catholic Church. This is the concept that destroys the whole idea of one true
Church that underlies the statement that the Campos priest are only now in full
communion.
However, worst
of all is the acceptation of the Indult principle of "unity in diversity",
namely that we can be one with other "Catholics" in their diverse expressions of
religious experience, including charismatics and modernists of all kinds. The
principle of unity is not diversity. This is a pure contradiction for anybody
who does not hold to the modernist conception of religion is the collection of
everybody’s personal experiences from within. To the contrary, the principle of
unity is Catholic Tradition, as expressed in the catechism, namely "to
profess the same Faith, have the same sacrifice and sacraments, united under one
and the same visible head, the Pope". We are only one with Novus Ordo
Catholics inasmuch as they hold fast to these truths, despite the revolutionary
direction given by the modernists in the Church, and we are certainly in no way
one with any that knowingly and willingly depart from any one of them.
The coincidence
of Assisi II, last month’s world prayer meeting for all religions, with this
ceremony of regularization, just adds to our sorrow. If it was Assisi, in 1986,
that convinced Archbishop Lefebvre of the destruction of the sense of the Faith
and the gravity of the crisis in the Church and decided him to consecrate
bishops, it is Assisi II that is our wake up call that ecumenism is still alive
and well, that it continues to destroy the Church within, at its very marrow,
and that it is our duty to stand firm and make reparation for it. It is
certainly not by accepting to be united in diversity with ecumenists that we
will do this. It is for this reason that Bishop Fellay has asked that in our
priories and principal chapels a day of reparation be held. Since it is the duty
of adoring the one true God, contained in the first commandment, that this
ecumenical prayer meeting denies, the best reparation is an hour of adoration
before the Blessed Sacrament. If all of us would do this, it would have a
powerful effect on the all-merciful Sacred Heart to pour forth in abundance the
divine light needed to overcome the blindness and paralysis of ecumenism, and
the pretension that we can please God in any religion. I do hope that all of you
will take this to heart.
Yours faithfully in the
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary,
Fr. Peter R. Scott
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