I'm sure you're hearing all over the internet that the talks have stall AGAIN with the SSPX. I don't see it that way at all. What I do see is that the SSPX still have questions about the preamble.
Some say, the SSPX should just submit. Some say they are an impetuous child. Some say they are disobedient. Well, they may be disobedient, but to whom and why? Are they disobedient to the 2000 year magisterium of the Church or are they disobedient to the magisterium as envisioned since Vatican Council II? Is that the authentic magisterium or has it been infiltrated by Modernism? If it has been infiltrated by Modernism, then how can be be authentic? Read what His Excellency Bishop Fellay has to say. By the way, he desperately wants to be reconciled. That much is clear. Read on...
The
Society of St. Pius X has been founded by the Church and in the Church,
and we say this Society continues to exist, despite the fact that there
is a pretense that it does not exist; that it was suppressed in 1976
(but obviously with total disrespect of the laws of the Church itself).
And that's why we continue. And our dear Founder insisted many, many
times on the importance of this existence of the Society. And I think,
as time evolves, we must keep this in mind – and it is very important
that we keep this Catholic Spirit.
We are not an independent group. Even if we are fighting with Rome, we are still, so to say, with Rome.
We are fighting with Rome; or, if you want, against Rome, at the same
time with Rome. And we claim and we continue to say, we are Catholic. We
want to stay Catholic. Many times I say to Rome, you try to kick us
out. And we see it would be much easier for us to be out. We would have
many more advantages. You would treat us much better! Look at the
Protestants, how they open the churches to them. To us, they close them.
And we say, we don’t care. We do things in front of God. We suffer from
the Church, fine. We don’t like that, of course. But we ought to stay
there in the truth. And we have to maintain that we do belong to the
Church. We are Catholics. We want to be and we want to stay Catholic,
and it is very important to maintain that.
It’s
also important that we don’t finally imagine a Catholic church which is
just the fruit of our imagination but which is no longer the real one.
And with the real one we have problems. That’s what makes it even more
difficult: the fact that we have problems with it. That does not allow
us, so to say, to shut the door. On the contrary, it is our duty to
continuously go there, knock at the door, and not beg that we may enter
(because we are in) but beg that they may convert; that they may change
and come back to what makes the Church. It is a great mystery; it is not
simple. Because at the same time we have to say, yes, we do recognize
that Church – that’s what we say in the Creed, I believe in the Catholic Church – so we accept that there is a pope; we accept that there is a hierarchy, we do accept that.
And
practically, at many levels, we have to say no. Not because it does not
please us, but because the Church has already spoken about that. Even
many of these things it has condemned them. And so, in our discussions
with Rome we were, so to say, stuck there. The key problem in our
discussions with Rome was really the Magisterium, the teaching of the
Church. Because they say, "we are the pope, we are the Holy See" – and
we say, yes. And so they say, "we have the supreme power," and we say,
yes. They say, "we are the last instance in teaching and we are
necessary" – Rome is necessary for us to have the Faith, and we say,
yes. And then they say, "then, obey." And we say, no. And so they say to
us, you are protestant. You put your reason above the Magisterium of
today. And we answer to them, you are Modernists. You pretend that the
teaching of today can be different from the teaching of yesterday. We
say, when we adhere to what the Church has taught yesterday, we, by
necessity, adhere to the teaching of the Church today. Because the truth
is not linked to time. The truth is above it. What has been said once
is binding all times. These are the dogmas. God is like that; God is
above time. And the Faith is adhering to the truth of God. It’s above
time. That’s why the church of today is bound and has to be like (not
only like) the Church of yesterday. And so when you see the present pope
say that there must be continuity in the Church, we say, of course!
That is what we have said at all times. When we talk about tradition,
that’s precisely the meaning. They say, there must be Tradition, there
must be continuity. So there is continuity. Vatican II has been made by
the Church, the Church must be continuous, so Vatican II is Tradition.
And we say, beg your pardon?
It
goes even further, my dear brethren. That was during the discussion. At
the end of the discussion, comes this invitation from Rome. In this
invitation there is a proposition of a canonical situation that is to
regularize our situation. And I may say, what is presented today, which
is already different from what was presented on the 14th of September,
we can consider it as all right, good. They fulfilled all our
requirements, I may say, on the practical level. So there is not much
problem there. The problem remains at the other level – at the level of
the doctrine. But even there it goes very far – very far, my dear
brethren. The key is a principle. Which they say, "this you must accept;
you must accept that for the points that make difficulty in the Council
– points which are ambiguous, where there is a fight – these points,
like ecumenism, like religious liberty, these points must be understood
in coherence with the perpetual teaching of the Church." "So if there is
something ambiguous in the Council, you must understand it as the
Church has always taught throughout the ages."
They
go even further and say, "one must reject whatever is opposed to this
traditional teaching of the Church." Well, that is what we have always
said. Amazing, isn’t it? That Rome is imposing on us this principle.
Amazing. Then you may wonder, then why don’t you accept? Well, my dear
brethren, there is still a problem. The problem is that in this text
they give two applications of what and how we have to understand these
principles. These two examples that they give to us are ecumenism and
religious liberty, as they are described in the new Catechism of the
Catholic Church, which are exactly the points for which we reproach the
Council.
In
other words, Rome tells us, we have done that all the time. We are
traditional; Vatican II is Tradition. Religious liberty, ecumenism is
Tradition. It is in full coherence with Tradition. You just wonder,
where do we go? What kind of words will we find to say, we agree or we
don’t? If even the principles which we have kept and said, they say, yes
it’s ok you can say that, because this means what we mean, which is
exactly the contrary of what we mean.
I
think we could not go further in the confusion. In other words, my dear
brethren, that means that they have another meaning with the word
“tradition,” and even maybe even with “coherence.” And that’s why we
were obliged to say no. We’re not going to sign that. We agree with the
principle but we see that the conclusion is contrary. Great mystery!
Great mystery! So what is going to happen now? Well, we have sent our
answer to Rome. They still say that they’re reflecting on it, which
means they’re probably embarrassed. At the same time I think we may see
now what they really want. Do they really want us in the Church or not?
We told them very clearly, if you accept us as is, without change,
without obliging us to accept these things, then we are ready. But if
you want us to accept these things, we are not. In fact we have just
quoted Archbishop Lefebvre who said this already in 1987 – several times
before, but the last time he said it was in 1987.
In
other words, my dear brethren, humanly speaking, difficult to say how
the future will look, but we know that when we deal with the Church, we
deal with God; we deal with divine providence, and we know that this
Church is His Church. Humans may cause some disruption, some
destruction. They may cause turmoil, but God is above that, and He knows
how to, out of all these happenings – these human happenings – these
odd lines, God knows how to direct His Church through these trials.
There
will be an end to this trial, I don’t know when. Sometimes there is
hope that it will come. Sometimes it is like despair. God knows when,
but really, humanly speaking, we must wait for quite a time before
hoping to see things better – five, ten years. I am persuaded that in
ten years things will look different because the generation of the
Council will be gone and the next generation does not have this link
with the Council. And already now we hear several bishops, my dear
brethren, several bishops tell us: you give too much weight to this
Council; put it aside. It could be a good way for the Church to go
ahead. Put it aside; forget it. Let’s go back to the real thing, to
Tradition.
Isn’t
that interesting to hear bishops who say that? That’s a new language!
It means that you have a new generation which knows that there are
things that are more serious than Vatican II in the Church, and that we
have to go back to this more serious, if I may say so. Vatican II is
serious because of the damage it has caused, yes it is. But as such it
wanted to be a pastoral council, which is over now. We know that someone
who is working in the Vatican wrote a thesis for his academic grades
and it was about the magisterium of Vatican II. He himself told us and
nobody in the Roman universities was ready to take that thesis. Finally a
professor did, and the thesis is the following: the authority of the
magisterium of Vatican II is that of a homily in the 1960s. And he
passed!
We
shall see my dear brethren. For us it’s very clear. We must stick and
hold to the truth, to the Faith. We are not going to give that up –
whatever happens. There are some threats, of course, from Rome now. We
shall see. We put all these things in the hands of God, and in the hands
of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Oh, yes, we have to continue our crusade of
rosaries. We count on her, we count on God. And then whatever happens,
happens. I cannot promise a beautiful spring. I have no idea what’s
going to be in this spring. What I know is that the fight for the faith
will continue, whatever happens. If we are recognized or not, you can be
certain that the Progressives will not be happy. They will continue and
we will continue to fight them too.
The SSPX wants to be authentic. They believe they are being so. Rome doesn't want them to simply submit, why should we expect it? Their issues are valid. Their resistance is also valid. I will wait for Rome to decide. The argument will continue until there is something definitive. There will be arguments long after there is something definitive. All I know is, there is room in the Church for them.
If the Neo-Cats can do what the Neo-Cats do, well...I'm sure that the SSPX can find a place too. But here's the fun question...who would the Church Father's recognize first? The Neo-Cats or the SSPX?
We are Catholic. We are not Protestant. Please start talking to your pastors. If they don't listen, please start talking to your bishops. They do listen.