How can we see clearly in the current situation in Tradition?

PRIVATE CONFERENCE, NOT TO BE PUT ON INTERNET

The situation in Tradition today is highly confusing.

A bishop has been expelled from the Society of Saint Pius X, year 2012; periodically, priests are dismissed, sometimes following strange trials1, or leave of their own accord. Moreover, in many

chapels, faithful say that they are uncomfortable: sermons no longer attack the errors of Vatican II or

the scandals of the Pope, dangerous for the faith; the Catholic spirit is diminishing (immodesty,

worldliness, lack of conviction, especially among the young, etc.); and this is the case all over the

world.

Certain people say, on the contrary: why worry, since nothing has been signed with Rome, and since Bishop Fellay has clearly said on several occasions that there was no question of making an agreement with Rome in the current situation of the new pontificate; for example, in Le Rocher No. 88, bulletin of the SSPX Swiss District for April/May 2014, Bishop Fellay replied to the question of an eventual agreement with Rome: “Now [implied, with Pope Francis], it would be madness”.

How can we see clearly in all this?

First of all, let us state that –for our part – we are not here going to judge persons or intentions. Neither are we attacking priests or prioriesk.

What is necessary – above all – is to try to analyse the situation objectively, based on facts and official documents.

New directions

1. The heart of the fight is no longer Christ the King, but the Mass.

1.1 The combat of the Popes and Archbishop Lefebvre.

First of all, we have to ask:

What legitimates the existence of what we call “Tradition”?

1 � Trials where information has been obtained via hacking email inboxes, the use of false identities. The documents concerning this subject are to be found in Father Pivert’s book, Quel Droit pour la Tradition catholique, Self-edited, January 2014.

What is the heart of our combat?

It is the pre-Vatican II Popes who give us the answer. Thus, Saint Pius X:

Our unique goal in exercising the Sovereign Pontificate is to restore all things in Christ.

The Pope explains the necessity of such a combat:

"The nations have raged and the peoples imagined vain things" (Ps.ii., 1.) against their Creator, […]And as might be expected we find extinguished among the majority of men all respect for the Eternal God, and no regard paid in the manifestations of public and private life to the Supreme Will”2

Pope Pius XI says the same thing in his encyclical on Christ the King:

Not only has this explosion of evils [which we see today] invaded the Universe because men have banished Jesus Christ and His Most Holy Faith from their customs and their individual life as well as from the family and from the State, but even more, the hope of a lasting peace among peoples will never shine so long as individuals and States persist in rejecting the authority of Our Saviour. That is why we warned that it was necessary to seek the Peace of Christ in the Reign of Christ3.

For the Popes before Vatican II – and it was not only Saint Pius X and Pius XI: all the others say the same thing – the great combat of today is the combat for Christ the King, since the French Revolution uncrowned Our Lord, which is the cause of all the misfortunes of the contemporary world. The Royalty of Christ is what is at stake in the struggle between the City of Satan (the counter-Church) and the Catholic Church.

And this combat has become all the more important to wage that, since Vatican II, under pressure from Freemasonry, the official hierarchy has itself given up working for the Reign of Christ.

That is why Archbishop Lefebvre, who sought nothing other than to continue in the same line as all the Popes before Vatican II, wrote:

That is what constitutes our opposition [to today’s Rome], and that is why we cannot get on. It is not first and foremost the question of the Mass, because the Mass is precisely one of the consequences of the fact that they have desired to get closer to Protestantism and therefore to transform worship, the Sacraments, the Catechism etc.4

Moreover, Archbishop Lefebvre envisioned no possible reconciliation with the Roman authorities so long as they had not re-crowned Our Lord:

We should not be surprised that we are not able to get on with Rome. This will not be possible so long as Rome does not come back to Faith in the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. […] We are colliding over a point of the Catholic Faith5.

2 Saint Pius X, Encyclical E Supremi apostolates, 4th October, 1903. 3 Pius XI, Encyclical Quas Primas, 11th December, 1925. 4 � Archbishop Lefebvre, L’Église infiltrée par le modernisme, Éditions Fideliter 1993, p.70. 5 � Archbishop Lefebvre, Conference in Sierre, Switzerland, 27th November 1988. Fideliter no. 68, p.12.

When asked when there will be an agreement with Rome, my answer is simple: when Rome re-crowns Our Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot be in agreement with those who uncrown Our Lord. The day that they once more recognise Our Lord as King of peoples and nations, they will not have joined up with us, but with the Catholic Church in which we remain6.

1.2 A change of perspective.

Of course, Bishop Fellay is not opposed to the Reign of Our Lord, nor to the Encyclicals of Saint Pius X and Pius XI, and he does not accept the religious liberty of Vatican II. And, in the Society, there are still sermons on Christ the King.

However, there is an important change insofar as the heart of the combat is no longer Christ the King, but the Mass.

— The November 2013 Menzingen interview

First of all, the interview which Bishop Fellay gave in Menzingen in November 2013 and which was published in Dici on 6th December 2013, entitled: “Dans ce climat de confusion, restaurer l’Église par la messe” (“In this climate of confusion, restore the Church by the Mass”):

The first concern of the Society of Saint Pius X, is really that which makes the Church live, it is the Mass. […] If we want a restoration of the Church, that is where we must go.

And, moreover, he adds a reflection which it would have been better for him to avoid:

That is why I am profoundly indebted to Pope Benedict XVI for having reinstated the Mass7.

In this interview, whose goal is to explain the combat of the Society, there is no allusion to Christ the King.

Remember that it was not here a case of giving an opinion on the sole question of the Mass, but of explaining what was “the first concern of the Society”.

— The December 14 “Courrier de Rome” Congress

The same discourse was to be heard at the Courrier de Rome Congress in December 2014, which was

dedicated to the centenary of the death of Pope Saint Pius X. After he had recalled that “true

restoration lies in following as profoundly as possible the principle of Saint Pius X to 'restore all

things in Christ'”, Bishop Fellay does not say that the holy Pope thereby meant the re-establishment

of the Kingdom of Christ over individuals and nations. He only spoke of the restoration of the Mass:

“How can we restore? […] By transmitting the Catholic spirit, which is expressed in the great prayer of

6 �Archbishop Lefebvre, Conference in Flavigny, France, December 1988. Fideliter no. 68, p.16. 7 � Is it not more to Archbishop Lefebvre that we should be indebted for having re-established the Mass in the Church? Bishop Tissier de Mallerais wrote: “The malice of the conciliar hierarchy is consummated by its use of lies and equivocation. Thus, the Motu Proprio of Pope Benedict XVI declaring that the Traditional Mass was never suppressed and that its celebration is free, combines this freedom with conditions which are contrary to it, and goes so far as to qualify the authentic Mass and its Modernist counterfeit as ‘ordinary and extraordinary forms of the same Roman Rite’” (Le Sel de la terre, no. 85, p. 15). The misfortunes of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, would are forbidden to celebrate the new Mass, should enlighten us concerning the sincerity of Rome regarding this “freedom”.

Our Lord, which is precisely the Mass”. Then followed a long development on sanctification through

the Mass8.

— The critical review of Father Pivert's book

This new tendancy is confirmed in an official document which came out from Menzingen December 2013. Bishop Fellay was having a critical review of Father Pivert’s book on Archbishop Lefebvre and Rome sent to the priests of the Society, making it known that “it [the review] substantially corroborates his own judgment9”. In this review, the author – who remained anonymous – reproaches Father Pivert’s book for having centred the combat of Archbishop Lefebvre on Christ the King:

The entire first part [of Father Pivert’s book] consists in showing that the principal idea which would have inspired Archbishop Lefebvre in his opposition to Rome would have been Christ the King. […] The dynamics of restoration was launched with the freedom of the Mass10.

We would have liked the anonymous author of this review to prove this affirmation.

In any case, it was published in the official bulletin of the District of France of the Society of Saint Pius X11, a bulletin destined to priests, to give directives concerning their apostolate12. Therefore, it is part of the official documents of the Society.

Here again, things are very clear: Bishop Fellay approves in substance a text which denies that the principal idea inspiring Archbishop Lefebvre in his opposition to today’s Rome was Christ the King. And he asks it to be made known to all his priests.

Objection

One could object that the Traditional Mass necessarily leads to Christ the King. We reply that at the

Council, all the Fathers celebrated the Mass (so-called) of Saint Pius V. This did not stop them

uncrowning Our Lord by the declaration on Religious Liberty and the decree on ecumenism.

Moreover, those institutes which have gone over to Rome, while remaining attached to the

Traditional Mass, do not fight for Christ the King.

*

If words still mean something with Bishop Fellay, there is certainly here a change of direction compared to the combat of Archbishop Lefebvre.

8 Nouvelles de chrétienté, number 151, January/February 2015, pp. 18-19.

9 Letter of presentation of this review, dated 20th December 2013, destined to the bishops and priests of the Society, and written by Father Thouvenot, Secretary General. 10 � Same remark as above concerning this ‘freedom’. Father de Cacquerey, more realistic, wrote in his preface to the Catechism of the Crisis in the Church (French Edition, Éditions du Sel 2010, p.7): “It is important to protect oneself against the dangers possibly coming from a certain recovery of the Traditional Liturgy insofar as it is evident at the same time that it has not been accompanied by a renunciation of the deadly errors of the Council”. 11 Bulletin no. 255, February 2014. 12 The only reservtion concerning this review is its undue apology of those groups already gone over to Rome. But Bishop Fellay took one month to react to this scandalous part of the text.

If they were questioned about the goals of their respective institutes, would the Superiors of those communities who have already gone over to Rome not say that their first aim is the Mass?

It is important to remind ourselves at this point that one of the tactics of the Revolution in breaking down Catholic resistance is to push the combat for Christ the King into the background, before making it forgotten. We do not say that Bishop Fellay would do that consciously, and we do not even think it: the cause is elsewhere – we will come back to it. In any case, the result is there, and it is very serious.

2. The distinction between “Eternal Rome” and “the Rome of Neo-Modernist and Neo-Protestant tendencies” – which is the charter of Archbishop Lefebvre’s combat – has been wiped out.

2.1 The line held in Tradition up until 2013.

Since at least his Declaration of 21st November 1974 – which is truly the charter of the fight of Tradition – Archbishop Lefebvre always made the distinction between the Catholic Church and a Conciliar Church which appeared since Vatican II, a term moreover forged by Conciliar Rome itself:

This Conciliar Church [represented by the current hierarchy] is a schismatic Church because it breaks with the Catholic Church of all time. It has its new dogmas, its new priesthood, its new institutions, its new worship, already condemned by the Church in numerous official and definitive documents. […] This Conciliar Church is therefore not Catholic. Insofar as the Pope, the bishops, the priests or the faithful adhere to this new Church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church of today is the true Church only insofar as it continues and is one with the Church of yesterday and of all time. The norm of the Catholic Faith is Tradition13.

I think that at the next meeting, I am the one who will be asking questions: “What Church are you? With which Church are we dealing? I would like to know if I am dealing with the Catholic Church or if I am dealing with another Church, with a Counter-Church, a counterfeit of the Church.” Well, I sincerely believe that we are dealing with a counterfeit of the Church and not with the Catholic Church. […] This is no longer the Catholic Church (21st June 1978).

Does Bishop Fellay ask these questions when he goes to Rome?

Let us also quote Bishop de Castro Mayer:

Since the last Council, exists a new Church, essentially different from the one we knew before the Council as the unique Church of Our Lord 14.

This notion of the Conciliar Church, of a Pope who is at the head of two Churches, is moreover not unique to Archbishop Lefebvre or Bishop de Castro Mayer. It was constantly evoked in Tradition: for example, Jean Madiran15, Gustave Corçao16, Father Bruckberger17, Father Lorans18.

13 Archbishop Lefebvre, handwritten and photocopied letter to his friends, 29th July 1976; reproduced in Le Sel de la terre, 36, p.10. 14 — Bishop de Castro Mayer, Diocesan Bulletin, April 1972.

2.2 The new line since February, 2013.

Everything changed from February 2013, because of an article in the Courrier de Rome in which Father Gleize, professor of Dogma at the Seminary of Écône, developed a (new) thesis saying that what we call the “Conciliar Church” (term first used by Monsignor Benelli), was in fact a liberal and Modernist spirit which penetrated the Church at Vatican II, an ilness affecting the body of the Church, rather than an organised society.

Of course, this question of a Pope presiding over the destruction of the Church is a great mystery; and it is not forbidden for theologians to think about it and to debate it among themselves. Let us say straightaway that, keeping to the prudent line of Archbishop Lefebvre, we disapprove of the sedevacantist solution.

But what is disturbing is first of all that Bishop Fellay no longer today speaks in the same way as Archbishop Lefebvre on this subject:

— In his letter to the three bishops of 14th April 2012, Bishop Fellay wrote:

To read you, one seriously wonders if you still believe that this visible Church whose seat is at Rome is really the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Bishop Fellay identifies “the visible Church whose seat is at Rome” with “the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ”.

— In a sermon given at Flavigny on 2nd September 2012, he said:

Faith in the Church obliges us to profess what we say in the Credo: “I believe in One, Holy Church”. We say it, and we are not talking about some airy fairy Church!

We are talking about the Church which is there, the real one, in front of us, with a hierarchy, with a Pope. It is not the fruit of our imagination: the Church is there, It is real: the Roman Catholic Church. We say, and we must profess this Church as being Holy, as being One, because the Faith obliges us to do so.

It is the Church who gives this Faith that we ask for at Baptism, and the Church of today! It is the Church of today which sanctifies. When we say Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside of the Church, no salvation), it is really the Church of today that we are talking about. It is absolutely certain. We must hold this.

— Same discourse in Arcadia (California) May 10, 2015:

When we say the Catholic Church, we say that Church which is in front of us, which is the visible Church with the head which is the Pope, for whom we pray.

— In Fanjeaux (France) to the Teaching Dominican sisters, August 4, 2015:

15 � Special issue of Itinéraires, April 1977: La Condamnation sauvage de Mgr Lefebvre, p.113-115. 16 � Eminent Traditionalist Brazilian philosopher, in Itinéraires, November 1974, journal with which he was a regular collaborator.

17 � L’Aurore, 18th March, 1976. 18 � Conference at the 8th SíSíNoNo Theological Congress, entitled: “A Pope for two Churches”.

Now, I think time is arrived, that Tradition has its place in the Church.

Ambiguity is at its peak.

Of course the Pope is Pope, but when he brings false religions together at Assisi, it is not in the name of the Church that he can claim to do so, nor is it by doing this that he gives the Faith and sanctifies. On the contrary, he leads souls to apostasy. The Pope who gathers the false religions together at Assisi is not the Holy Church. Archbishop Lefebvre said more simply: it is the Conciliar Church. He even specified:

Rome has lost the Faith. Rome is in apostasy. [...] We can no longer have confidence in this whole [Roman] world. It has left the Church, they have left the Church, they are leaving the Church. It is sure, sure, sure19.

Have things improved to such a point that the words of Archbishop Lefebvre could no longer apply to today’s Rome? They have got worse!

The change of discourse is radical and spectacular. We only have to re-read what Father Gleize published in Nouvelles de Chrétiente, Bulletin of the SSPX General House, in the May/June 2005 issue:

Let us be careful today of confusing the “visible Church” and the “official Church”, that is to say the hierarchical apparatus vested with the new thought of Vatican II. Tradition is the visible Church. […] Whereas, the official Church is a sect, an ideology, that of Modernism, which has occupied the posts of power in the Church and which gives itself the deceiving appearance of the Church.

Archbishop Lefebvre said:

These last times, it has been told to us that it was necessary that Tradition enters into the visible Church. I think that it is a very serious error. […] One makes a mistake confusing the official Church and the visible Church. We belong to the visible Church, to the society of faithful under the authority of the Pope, because we recognize the authority of the Pope but not what he is doing 20.

But we have to go even farther:

2.3 Bishop Fellay imposes this new line in Tradition.

Not only has Bishop Fellay changed language, but he forbids anyone to speak in the same way as Archbishop Lefebvre. We [the Domincans of Avrillé, France] have first-hand experience of it.

First of all, in April 2013 we published a Letter to friends and benefactors simply recalling what had been said since the beginnings of Tradition on the Conciliar Church. This letter caused no problems for Father de Cacqueray. But when we translated it into English for our English-speaking friends21,

19 Archbishop Lefebvre, Conference to priests at Écône for the priests' retreat, 1st September, 1987.

20 — Mgr LEFEBVRE, cité dans Fideliter 66, de novembre/décembre 1988, p. 27-28.

21 � Letter from the Dominicans of Avrillé, no. 14, September 2013.

Father Rostand, then US District Superior22, sent the following note to his priests on 14th September 2014:

This letter defends a thesis on the Conciliar Church which the dissidence has used in the past against the Society. In a remarkable article, Father Gleize has developed a completely different position (Courrier de Rome, February 2013). I see no problem with there being theological discussions between theologians, but I am opposed to the fact of putting our faithful in a dialectical situation, and for this reason I ask that these letters be taken away from your bookstalls and not be distributed to the faithful. Keep this note confidential, and suppress these letters as discretely as possible so as to avoid all dialectic.

We are not aware of what the “dissidence” has possibly said in the US. In any case, the controverted “thesis” is only the discourse used in Tradition since its existence. We see clearly here that this discourse is no longer allowed because of the new thesis given out by Father Gleize.

When we met him at Flavigny on the 18th December 2013, Bishop Fellay confirmed that he approved Father Rostand’s interdiction.

Bishop Tissier de Mallerais replied to Father Gleize in an article which he wished to publish in Le Sel de la terre 8523, concluding, based on texts of Archbishop Lefebvre, that – the Pope of course still being the Pope – the Conciliar Church is a real organisation possessing its dogmas (new ones), its priesthood, its worship, its Canon Law, etc. We are here dealing with a counterfeit of the Catholic Church, led by a sect of directors. As for the Catholic Church, She is reduced to the faithful and the bishops who have kept the True Faith.

However, in the same meeting of 18th December 2013 at Flavigny, Bishop Fellay reproached us for having published this article of Bishop Tissier in Le Sel de la terre. He even added that Bishop Tissier had finally come over to the new thesis of Father Gleize. When he came to our monastery in June 2014, Bishop Tissier told us that he had not changed his opinion, and that he still held what he had written in his article and which reflects the thought of Archbishop Lefebvre.

2.4 The consequences of this new discourse on the Church.

We cannot reproach anyone for being troubled by this new language.

Is it without consequence?

By dint of hearing that the official Church is the Church of Jesus Christ, how can one not conclude that one absolutely must get officially recognised, since you cannot remain outside of the Church of Jesus Christ?

22 � Father Rostand has been named person in charge of Communiction on 15th August 2014, and now resides in Menzingen. 23 This article, Y a-t-il une Église conciliaire? can be read in English on the Webite of the Dominicans: dominicansavrille.us

Father Pfluger, First Assistant to Bishop Fellay, has taken the plunge24. In an interview granted to Kirchliche Umschau on 16th October 2012, he said:

We suffer also from a defect: the fact of our canonical irregularity. The status of the post- conciliar Church is imperfect, nor is our status the ideal. [...] There is no denying the obligation to take an active part in overcoming the crisis. And this combat begins with us, by desiring to overcome our abnormal canonical status25.

Bishop Tissier protested in his sermon at the priestly ordinations on 29th June 2013 at Écône, in the presence of Bishop Fellay:

We are not in an abnormal situation, but in an exceptional situation.

We think, in effect, that it is normal and very meritorious to disobey the letter of Canon Law in order to obey its spirit and to keep the True Faith. It is an exceptional situation, a necessary attitude, caused by the apostasy of the Conciliar Church. There is nothing abnormal on our side. It is a healthy survival reaction.

Let us read Archbishop Lefebvre once more:

We can say that these people who are at Rome are anti-Christs. We do not have to worry about the reactions of those people, we are not dealing with honest people26.

Let us pass to another point, which is not less important:

3. Silence concerning the scandals of Rome.

3.1 The painful, but necessary, duty of warning the faithful against the errors of the Successors of Peter.

In a work entitled 1962, Révolution dans l'Église, Don Andrea Mancinella, priest of the official Church who joined the fight for Tradition, wrote:

This brief chronicle will above all be a chronicle of the progressive deficiencies of the “conciliar” Popes and their closest collaborators at the level of the Roman Curia.

You could ask: why concentrate our attention on them, rather than on the innumerable examples which we could list from among the dioceses and the different bishoprics?

Would it not have been preferable to [only] skim over the numerous deficiencies of the last successors of Peter, instead of calling them into question, which, further to being particularly unpleasant and painful for any Catholic trying to be faithful, also carries with it at least the

24 Father Pfluger, along with Father Nély, is now charged with preparing the dossiers for all the priestly nominations in the SSPX.

25 To know the thought of Father Pfluger, First Assistant of the Society, see the retreat he preached to SSPX Brothers in December 2013.

26 Archbishop Lefebvre, Conference to priests, Écône, 4th September, 1987.

risk of scandalising the weakest in the Faith, who do not know the Catholic doctrine on the Papacy well.

The fact is that we could not do otherwise. We have been forced to do it for a very simple reason, which we can sum up in a few words: the Pope is not just any bishop, but the Vicar of Christ. He is the one who guides the entire Church Militant [...]

Think about what the possible accession to the See of Peter of Popes impregnated with an erroneous theology, already condemned by the Church, could provoke (something which God can very well permit as a punishment for our sins). Well, it would be a catastrophe for the overwhelming majority of souls, who would continue to follow, even where they should not, to the point of risking their Faith and their eternal salvation [...]

Whence the necessary – albeit thankless – duty of warning the clergy and faithful in order that they not allow themselves be carried away, under any pretext, into the abyss by the “spirit of the Council” and by its new doctrines27.

And right throughout his work, Don Mancinella denounces the errors and acts of the Popes of Vatican II and their entourage.

This is what Archbishop Lefebvre used to do. It suffices, for example, to listen once again to the sermon of 29th June on the occasion of the ordinations in Écône:

We are obliged to observe that, for fifteen to twenty years, those who are in the highest positions in the Church – the Holy See and the Vatican itself – are turning us away from the Catholic Faith, are becoming the friends of our enemies. What remains of the Catholic Church today28?

We know who we are dealing with now. We know perfectly that we are dealing with a diabolical hand which is in Rome and which demands, in the name of obedience, the destruction of the Church. [...] I think that I have the right to ask these gentlemen who are these offices once occupied by Cardinals who were really holy people and who were defenders of the Church and of the Catholic Faith, it seems that I would have the right to ask them: “Are you the Catholic Church? Who am I dealing with?” If I am dealing with someone who has a pact with Freemasonry? Do I have the right to speak with these people29?

Cardinal Béa had official contacts, known about by everyone, with the Freemasonry of New York, with the B'nai B'rith; and these Jewish Freemasons asked him to introduce freedom of religions into the Church30.

27 Don Andrea Mancinella, 1962, Révolution dans l'Église, Courrier de Rome Publications, 2009, p. 16-17.

28 Archbishop Lefebvre, sermon of 29th June, 1977.

29 Archbishop Lefebvre, sermon of 29th June, 1978.

30 Archbishop Lefebvre, sermon of 29th June, 1985.

We could, in the same way, line up most of the sermons and public conferences of Archbishop Lefebvre.

We would have to mention also the two declarations of Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop de Castro-Mayer, made public in press conferences: their Open Letter to Pope John Paul II, 9th December, 1983, and their Warning of 31st August, 1985.

Bishop Tissier de Mallerais stated:

Archbishop Lefebvre transmitted everything he received. The entire heritage of Father Le Flo'ch31, of the [French] Seminary [in Rome], all his experience, he transmitted them via the Society, and it continues to work, but on the condition that we continue with the same spirit of combat. There is no question of giving up arms in the midst of battle; we are not going to look for an armistice while the war is raging, with Assisi III or IV, with the beatification of a false blessed, Pope John Paul II – a false thing, a false beatification, and the necessity (which is constantly being recalled by Pope Benedict XVI) of accepting the Council and its reforms, and the magisterium of after the Council32.

3.2 The silence of Archbishop Lefebvre's successors.

The situation in Rome has deteriorated considerably since Archbishop Lefebvre's time.

However, we hardly ever hear language like his anymore. We can even ask ourselves if many Traditionalists today would put up with it.

The DICI bulletin, official organ of communication in the SSPX, always mentions the least bad acts of the Pope, never the scandals. But, attacking Rome is necessary in order to maintain the great Truths of the Faith; otherwise, we will distort the combat33.

This orientation of DICI continues despite the numerous protests emanating regularly from the ranks of the Society34.

On 27th October 2011, when Pope Benedict XVI renewed the scandal of Assisi, no communiqué came from Menzingen protesting against such an abomination35. This silence is all the more surprising that,

31 Father Le Flo'ch was the Rector of the French Seminary in Rome where Archbishop Lefebvre carried out his priestly studies and where he nourished himself on the Teaching of the Popes, especially against modern errors.

32 Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, conference at the Priory of Gastines, France, 16th September, 2012.

33 Judgment of Father Jacques Laguérie, then Assistant of Father de Cacqueray, during a conference given to the priests of the Nantes region of the SSPX French District, 17th January 2014, at Le Rafflay.

34 “Three times in a meeting at Suresnes [seat of the SSPX French District], I complained of DICI to Bishop Fellay. Nothing ever happened afterwards” (Father Jacques Laguérie, ibid.).

35 This same 27th October, Bishop Fellay was presiding over a meeting of the superiors of Traditional religious communities at Saint Nicholas du Chardonnet (Paris). Even in this private meeting, he said nothing on this subject, whereas in the church of Saint Nicholas du Chardonnet the faithful were doing adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Stations of the Cross in reparation for this scandal.

in 2002, Bishop Fellay had reproached the clergy of Campos (Brazil) with not having reacted publicly when John Paul II had organised the same meeting in the city of Saint Francis (Campos had just gone over to Conciliar Rome):

We have to distinguish a lack of the virtue of Faith itself from a defect in the public confession of the Faith, which is necessary in certain circumstances, as Bishop de Castro Mayer reminded us so well on the day of the Consecrations [of 1988]. But a prevarication like that of Assisi demands this public confession...which we have not heard coming from Campos36.

Same episcopal silence on the occasion of the false “canonisations” of John XXIII and John Paul II. Bishop Fellay only criticised them to the friends and benefactors of the Society, only saying that they “posed problems to the conscience of Catholics37”, and without even saying that these canonisations were invalid. Nothing else came from Menzingen. On the very day of these pseudo canonisations, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais celebrated a Pontifical Mass at the Noviciate of the Society Sisters at Ruffec, France. In the sermon, there was not even a single word on what was taking place at that moment in Rome.

Millions of Catholics were misled the world over, and not one single episcopal voice made itself heard in public to protest. What is left of the Church? It is dramatic.

In Cor Unum of November 2013 (p. 8-9), the internal bulletin for the priests of the Society, Bishop Fellay wrote:

I ask superiors to ensure that the necessity of asking for authorisation before any declaration on the Roman questions, be respected.

Never had Archbishop Lefebvre decreed such a measure.

Where does this change come from?

* First of all, there is an obvious psychological process at play: when you try to obtain a favor from

someone, you diminish your criticism of that person.

* Then, this change appears to stem from a request made by the Vatican itself. In a conference he

gave to his priests at the Seminary of Winona, USA, in February 2015, Bishop Fellay confided:

Rome wishes us to attack less; and I agree.

That’s why, in Arcadia (California) May 10, 2015, Bishop Fellay said:

When we see the Pope, Cardinal, Bishops who say silly things, are we not ready to criticize them quickly? Yes, that is correct. But do you think that will help them ? A prayer for them would help more.

36 Nouvelles de Chrétienté no. 73, March/April, 2002.

37 Letter to friends and benefactors of the SSPX, 13th April, 2014.

The simple fact of no longer denouncing the scandals of Rome, or to only do so timidly and under pressure from concerned faithful and priests, avoiding attacking the Pope by name, makes Tradition resemble more and more those communities which have already gone over to Rome and which have abandoned the combat of the Faith.

4. Relations with Conciliar Rome: practical agreement without doctrinal agreement?

4.1 The position of Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society up until the General Chapter of 2012.

july 14, 1987, Archbishop Lefebvre clearly explained to Cardinal Ratzinger why we could not get on with Conciliar Rome:

Eminence, even if you grant us a bishop, even if you grant us a certain autonomy in relation to the bishops, even if you grant us the entire Liturgy of 1962, if you allow us to continue the seminaries and the Society as we are doing now, we will not be able to collaborate, it is impossible; because we are working in diametrically opposed directions: you are working for the de-Christianisation of society, of the human person, of the Church. We are working for Christianisation. We cannot get on. You have just told me that society cannot be Christian [i.e. Catholic – in French “chrétien” means “Catholic”]38.

But for Archbishop Lefebvre, the problem was not only that of an impossible collaboration. It would not be a collaboration among equals: an agreement would put us especially under a Modernist authority, and that is what was the most serious thing for the Archbishop, and it was this with which he reproached the communities already gone over to Rome, whatever their particular nuances might have been:

This transfer of authority, that is what is serious, that is what is excessively serious. It is not enough to say: “we have changed nothing in practise39”. It is this transfer which is very serious, because the intention of the authorities is to destroy Tradition40.

We absolutely need to have ecclesiastical authorities who espouse our concerns and help us to protect ourselves against the spirit of Vatican II and the spirit of Assisi41.

It is not the subjects who make superiors, but the superiors who make subjects42.

38 Archbishop Lefebvre, conference to priests at Écône for priests’ retreat, 1st September, 1987. In this conference, Archbishop Lefebvre relates, among other things, the meeting that he had had in Rome with the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 14th July, 1987.

39 This is what those who go over to Rome say at the beginning, in order to justify themselves.

40 Archbishop Lefebvre, letter to Pope John Paul II, 2nd June, 1988.

41 Archbishop Lefebvre, conference at Écône, 8th October, 1988.

And that is why, in his letter to the future bishops before the Consecrations of 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre wrote:

I will confer this Grace upon you [the Episcopate], confident that without delay the See of Peter will be occupied by a successor of Peter who is perfectly Catholic, in whose hands you will be able to place the Grace of your Episcopate so that he may confirm it43.

This was the official position of the Society until 2012, confirmed, for example, by the General Chapter of 2006:

The contacts which [the Society] maintains from time to time with the Roman authorities have for their sole aim to help them [i.e. the Romans] to reclaim that Tradition which the Church cannot deny without losing its identity, and not the seeking of an advantage for itself [i.e. for the Society], or to come to an impossible purely practical “agreement”. The day when Tradition will have recovered all its rights, “the problem of reconciliation will no longer exist, and the Church will discover a new youth44”.

Bishop Fellay had explained this position in Fideliter of May/June, 2006, and these words radically condemn the new orientation which has been taken since 2012:

It is impossible and inconceivable to envisage an agreement before [doctrinal] discussions have resulted in shedding light on and correcting the principles behind the crisis. […] We will not sign an agreement if things are not resolved at the level of the principles. […] We cannot permit ambiguities45. The problem with wanting to make a quick agreement is that this agreement would necessarily be built on grey areas. In order to resolve the problem, it will therefore be necessary for the Roman authorities to express in a clear manner, in such a way that everyone understands, that for Rome there are not a million ways out of this crisis, even that there is only one valid way out: that the Church fully find once more its own two-thousand year-old Tradition. From the day when this conviction is clear with the Roman authorities, and even if on the ground everything is far from being in order, an agreement will be very easy to bring about (pp.40-41).

There were doctrinal discussions in Rome from 2009 to 2011, between the theologians of the Society and the Roman theologians. In fact, these meetings were a failure insofar as the Romans showed that they were not looking for the Truth. Monsignor Ocariz, one of the participants in the discussions, concluded, from Rome’s side, in the Osservatore Romano of 2nd December, 2010:

At Vatican II, there were various novelties in the doctrinal order. […]Certain of them were and still are the object of controversy concerning their continuity with the preceding Magisterium, that is to say, their compatibility with Tradition. […] The Catholic attitude, considering the unity of the Magisterium, consists in looking for a unitarian interpretation in

42 Archbishop Lefebvre in Fideliter no. 70, p.6.

43 Archbishop Lefebvre, letter to the future bishops, 28th August, 1987.

44 Archbishop Lefebvre, letter to Pope John Paul II, 2nd June, 1988.

45 No comment…

which the texts of Vatican II and the preceding Magisterial documents mutually shed light on one another. [..]

Legitimate spaces for theological freedom remain, in order to explain, in one way or another, the non-contradiction with Tradition of certain formulations present in the Conciliar texts. […] This adhesion to the Council does not present itself as an act of Faith, but more of obedience. It is not simply disciplinary, but is rooted in confidence in the Divine assistance towards the Magisterium, and therefore in the logic and under the influence of the obedience of the Faith. […] By examining the Magisterium of the Pope and the adhesion which the episcopate has given to it, a potentially difficult situation should [then] transform into a serene and joyful adhesion to the Magisterium.

The least we can say is that the question of principles, necessary to be resolved in order to conclude any agreement with Rome (according to the very words of Bishop Fellay) is not at all resolved. Logically, this observation should have resulted in the Roman authorities being notified that no agreement was envisageable, as Archbishop Lefebvre had expressed to Pope John Paul II in 1988:

We think it preferable to wait for times which are more propitious for the return of Rome to Tradition46.

This was not done and, in September 2011, Cardinal Levada, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, presented Bishop Fellay with a doctrinal preamble which was a preparation for an agreement. He increased the pressure in the months which followed.

Concerned about the evolution of the situation, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, Bishop de Galarreta and Bishop Williamson signed a common letter addressed to the General Council of the Society on 7th April, 2012:

For several months now, as everyone knows, the General Council of the Society of Saint Pius X is seriously considering Roman proposals in view of a practical agreement, given that the doctrinal discussions proved that a doctrinal agreement is impossible with today's Rome. [...]

[If there were an agreement, the Pope] would accept us in the framework of relativistic and dialectic pluralism, on condition that we remain in “full communion” with authority and in relation to the other “ecclesiastical realities”. That is why the Roman authorities can tolerate the Society continuing to teach Catholic Doctrine, but they will absolutely not put up with it condemning Conciliar doctrine. That is why an agreement, even a purely practical one, would necessarily progressively silence all criticism of the Council or the New Mass, as far as the Society is concerned. By ceasing to attack the greatest victories of the Revolution, the poor Society would necessarily cease opposing the universal apostasy of our appaling times, and would itself flounder. In the last instance, who would guarantee that we remain as we are by protecting us from the Roman Curia and the Bishops? The Pope? [...]

Excellency, Fathers, beware, you are leading the Society to a point where it will no longer be able to turn back, to a profound division of no return, and, if you end up making such an agreement, to profound destructive influences which it will not be able to bear.

46 Archbishop Lefebvre, Letter to Pope John Paul II, 2nd June, 1988.

4.2 Change of direction.

On 14th April, Bishop Fellay replied to the three bishops, telling them of his disagreement with them47. And on 15th April, he signed a Doctrinal Declaration destined to allow an agreement with Rome and which challenged the combat which Tradition had fought up until now: recognition of the legitimacy of the promulgation of the New Mass and the new sacraments, of the new Code of Canon Law, implicit recognition of the new Profession of Faith required by Rome for all superiors48 (insofar as it is quoted without criticism), declaration that “Vatican II enlightens - in other words deepens and subsequently makes explicit - certain aspects of the life and doctrine of the Church” (No. 4).

This Declaration created consternation in the Society. A new General Chapter was called in July 2012, which turned out to be a compromise Chapter to save the structure of the Society, which was on the point of imploding.

A compromise Chapter because it did not put Tradition back on the solid footing on which it had rested until the 2006 Chapter and because it gave way to the new orientations which had been inserted little by little into the Society over the years (see above), and which probably had the backing of very many members. Thus, the distinction between the Catholic Church and the Conciliar Church is not mentioned, the combat for Christ the King is not placed once more at the centre of our action, the current deviancies of the official hierarchy, dangerous for the Faith, are no longer attacked and, “whereas things are not resolved at the level of the principles49”, a practical agreement with Rome is no longer excluded, thus contradicting what Bishop Fellay was still saying in 2006. What is new is that the Chapter even issued conditions which would allow a practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement: sine qua non conditions and other conditions which are termed as “desirable”.

The first sine qua non condition is:

The freedom to preserve, share and teach the sound doctrine of the constant Magisterium of the Church and the unchanging truths of Divine Tradition, and the freedom to accuse and even to correct the promoters of the errors or the innovations of modernism, liberalism, and Vatican II and its aftermath.

One year later, on 27th June, 2013, on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Consecrations, in their common Declaration, Bishop Fellay, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais and Bishop de Galarreta substantially, and more concisely, repeated this requirement of the 2012 General Chapter:

[That Rome] recognise explicitly our right to to integrally profess the Faith and reject the errors which are contrary to it, with the right and the duty to publicly oppose errors and those who spread them, whoever they may be (No. 11).

47 His reply should be read and studied.

48 Here is its most questionable extract: “What is more, with a religious submission of the will and intellect, I adhere to the doctrines expressed by the Roman Pontiff or by the College of Bishops when they exercise the Authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to pronounce it by a definitive act”.

49 Bishop Fellay in Fideliter of May/June, 2006.

Five days later, during the meeting of the superiors of religious communities at Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet in Paris, Bishop Fellay said that this requirement protected us insofar as it would only be granted by a converted Pope.

We note that:

*Dom Gérard, superior of the French Benedictine Monastery of Le Barroux, when he obtained official recognition of his monastery in 1988, had demanded and obtained from Cardinal Ratzinger “that no silence be imposed on [his] antimodernist preaching50”, which did not stop him going silent as soon as he signed up and then, with time, justifying the errors of Vatican II, as all the communities who have gone over to Rome have done, without exception.

*We can also note that even before signing anything, the General House of the Society has stopped fighting the scandals of Rome and this has been the case for years (see above). Trying to obtain recognition, it does not want to indispose its interlocutors by continual attacks; once having obtained a recognition after so many efforts, it would be all the more silent in order not to lose it: attacking scandals would result in a general outcry (at the very least) on the part of the various episcopacies, which would lead to Rome silencing the Society. In 2011, a simple fit of temper on the part of Cardinal Levada concerning Father de Cacqueray's very firm and courageous communiqué against the Assisi meeting51, was enough for Menzingen to make no communiqué against this scandalous meeting.

*Finally, it seems that this sine qua non condition of the 2012 Chapter, repeated by the declaration of the three bishops in June 2013...was forgotten during the meeting between Bishop Fellay and Cardinal Mueller on 23rd September 2014: the Pope is far from being converted and “the parties [...] have agreed to proceed by stages, but in a reasonable time-frame towards overcoming difficulties. And this in the perspective of a full reconciliation52”.

The General Chapter of 2012 had also issued “desirable conditions” for accepting an agreement with Rome. It is incredible to see that the capitulants asked for “the exemption of the houses of the Society of Saint Pius X from the diocesan bishops”, only as a desirable condition, and not a necessary one.

Abandoning the principle of “no practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement” puts Tradition in an extremely dangerous situation.

In search of a common thread.

50 Declaration of Dom Gérard OSB in the Présent newspaper, 18th August, 1988.

51 Incident reported by Bishop Fellay at the meeting of the religious superiors which took place at Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet on 27th October 2011. Bishop Fellay was relating the meeting which he had had with the Cardinal in Rome on the preceding 14th September.

52 Communiqué of the Vatican, published without any reserve on the website of the General House of the Society of Saint Pius X.

Of course, all these changes have a cause. How can we explain them?

It is not necessary to imagine a meeting of the Council of the Society which one fine day would have decided on this new orientation.

Things happened rather progressively, because of the extremely frequent contacts with the Conciliar Church.

Here we must mention the meetings of GREC (Groupe de Réflexion Entre Catholiques – Group for Reflection Among Catholics), which started in 1998. From 1998 to 2010, in other words for at least53 twelve years, “discreet, but not secret” meetings took place in Paris, sometimes once per month, between representatives of the offical hierarchy (especially the French Bishops), those in charge of the Ecclesia Dei institutes, and members of the Society of Saint Pius X. The goal: “to speak without anger of things which cause anger” in order to favour the “necessary reconciliation”54. On Rome's side, the Secretariate of State was updated from 1998 onwards, then Cardinal Castrillon-Hoyos, President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, Cardinal Ratzinger, then President of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and numerous Vatican personalities. When Cardinal Ratzinger was elected to the Sovereign Pontificate, GREC had direct contact with the Pope.

To understand what was the spirit of these meetings, it is enough to consult the letter which those in charge of GREC sent to Benedict XVI on 20th October, 2008. Far from begging the Pope to accept to call the Second Vatican Council into question, the leaders of GREC sent him a very ambiguous letter implying that it was the Society of Saint Pius X which was in an abnormal situation. Thanking Benedict XVI for the Motu Proprio of 2007 on the Traditional Mass55, and apealing for the lifting of the “excommunications” of 1988, they concluded:

Hoping that this will be for the Society of Saint Pius X the opportunity to regularise its canonical situation and to be able to manifest thus its will to come back into full communion with the Holy Father56 (Father Lelong, p.52).

It is important to underline here, as Father Lelong revealed, that Father Lorans was part of the directing committee of GREC, with the authorisation of Bishop Fellay, so we can suppose that he signed this letter. In any case, he did not deny it.

How could we not think that twelve years of conversations carried out in this spirit would not end up undermining the authorities of the Society?

53 We specify: until 2010 at least, because we do not know if these meetings continue to this day or not.

54 See the book of Father Michel Lelong: Pour la nécessaire réconciliation, Paris, Nouvelles Éditions Latines, 2011. A detailed review of this book can be found on the Website of the Dominicans : dominicansavrille.us

55 The misfortunes of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, forbidden from celebrating the Traditional Mass, against the very letter of this famous Motu Proprio, should moderate enthusiasm. These events clearly show the value of “favours” granted by those whom Archbishop Lefebvre called the “assasins of the Faith” (letter to the Father Prior of Avrillé, of 7th January, 1991, published in Le Sel de la terre, No. 0, p.4.

56 Father Lelong: Pour la nécessaire réconciliation, ibid., p.52.

We must add to this Bishop Fellay's very frequent trips to Rome dating from his meeting with Cardinal Castrillon-Hoyos at the year 2000 Jubilee.

At the meeting of the religious superiors at Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet on 27th October 2011, Bishop Fellay related the words said to him by friends at the Vatican: “If you knew what is going on in Rome, you wouldn't go there”. Undoubtedly, he should have put this advice into practise, if not to the letter, at least by only going there “occasionally”, as the 2006 General Chapter said.

Deep down, surely, there seems to be a profound lack of understanding of Archbishop Lefebvre's combat.

On 7th April 2012, Bishop Tissier, Bishop de Galarreta and Bishop Williamson wrote to Bishop Fellay: “Do we not see in the Society symptoms of a decrease in the confession of the Faith?”

In the Adresse aux fidèles (Address to the faithful) signed on 7th January 2014 by a certain number of Society priests and priests friendly to the Society, and by the superiors of several religious communities, it was indicated that, faced with the rapprochement of the authorities of the Society of Saint Pius X with Modernist Rome, the signitaries declared that, for their part, they were carrying on the “Operation Survival” begun by Archbishop Lefebvre, and were putting their priesthood at the disposal of all those who wanted to remain faithful to the combat for the Faith.

It is indeed this rapprochement with Modernist Rome, with the desire of a canonical recognition, which is the cause of the new orientations of which we have been speaking: the doctrine of Christ the King which is no longer at the heart of our combat, the Conciliar Church confused with the Catholic Church, the silence faced with the scandals of today's Rome.

The priestly apointments accentuate this tendency, since the supporters of the new spirit are now in most of the key-positions.

The differences with the communities who have already gone over to Rome are gradually becoming blurred. We are becoming Ecclesia Dei without even having signed anything. This is even manifested outwardly by the increasing immodesty present in an ever greater number of chapels.

Towards a progressive canonical recognition? A new phase seems to have opened up on 23rd September 2014, during the extremely cordial

meeting of Bishop Fellay and his two assistants in Rome with Cardinal Müller, Prefect of the

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and three archbishops:

− The final press release, published on the same day by the Vatican, tells us that “it was

decided to proceed gradually and over a reasonable period of time in order to overcome difficulties and with a view to the envisioned full reconciliation ”.

− Firstly (is this the first step?), Rome asks the members of the Society to have informal meetings with bishops57.

On 6th October 2014, La Porte Latine, official website of the French District of the Society of Saint

Pius X, published a document of a certain Don Pio Pace (priest), which made the following analysis:

We can even say that the contacts between the SSPX superiors and the Roman offices in

charge of the SSPX files had never reached such a high level of cordiality. Jean-Marie

Dumont, a correspondent for French Catholic monthly Famille chrétienne, even mentions a

discreet visit by Abp. Guido Pozzo, Secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, to Écône (he

more likely means to the General House of the Society of Saint Pius X in Menzingen, also in

Switzerland).

In fact, this fashion of considering the "Lefebvrist question" is itself "pastoral". To ask of Bp.

Fellay, as it was done under Benedict XVI, to sign laborious "doctrinal declarations" was only

essential insofar as the SSPX fell into line with the "hermeneutic of continuity". But, as

paradoxical as it may seem at a first untrained glance, freed from all "restorationist" fixations

and scruples, there is no further unease with the gap between pastoral and dogmatics.

So much so that the criticism of the Council in the name of dogma by the Society of Saint

Pius X, that disturbed Benedict so much, does not disturb Francis at all. In the worst case, it

actually strengthens him58.

According to this analysis, which seems to reflect the frame of mind of the current pontificate, the

doctrinal question is so secondary for Pope Francis that he could end up recognizing the Society. This

scenario is all the more conceivable given that the Society is less and less bothersome for the

Conciliar Church, hardly ever attacking its scandals anymore, and with its chapels resembling more

and more those of the communities which have already gone over to Rome, even as regards

immodesty.

Stages

These last months have witnessed the setting up of a certain number of stages:

* “ Informal “ meetings

— Already on 5 December 2014, Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, Emeritus President of the Pontifical Council for Historical Sciences, visited the Seminary of Zaitzkofen (Germany). Moreover, he had already been there at the beginning of the year, when he gave a conference to the seminarians.

— Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana in Kazakhstan and familiar with

57 An internal memo advised all the priests of the Society of this on 2nd

October 2014.

58 This is the original text published by Rorate Caeli and subsequently translated into French for La Porte

Latine: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/10/pope-francis-pastoral-on-synod-and-on.html

Ecclesia Dei circles59, went to the Seminary of Flavigny (France) on 16 January 2015, giving two conferences to the seminarians and even visiting the Dominican Teaching Sisters in nearby Pouilly-en-Auxois. Then he went on 11 February to the Seminary of Winona (USA), meeting the priests of the District who were gathered there around Bishop Felllay on that occasion.

— On 5 March 2015, Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, was in the Seminary of Écône (Switzerland), welcomed by Bishop Fellay and Bishop Tissier de Mallerais.

— On 17 April 2015, a meeting took place in the Priory of Oberriet (Switzerland) between Bishop Fellay and his Assistants, Bishop de Galarreta and several priests of the Society on one hand, and Bishop Vitus Huonder of the Diocese of Chur (Western Switzerland) on the other.

It must be remarked that, during these meetings, Bishops Schneider and Huonder – at least – insisted on the advantages of a canonical regularization.

*Letter of the Archbishop of Buenos-Aires to the Argentinian Government

A second step seems to have been taken with the letter of Cardinal Mario Aurelio Poli, dated 9 April 2015, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship of the Argentinian Republic60, saying that, in order to obtain visas, the Society of Saint Pius X could be considered “as an association of diocesan right until a definitive juridical status be granted to it in the Universal Church”.

The Cardinal wrote this letter “following a personal intervention of Pope Francis, Bishop Fellay revealed in a sermon given in Arcadia (California) on 10 May last. Don Pio Pace makes the following commentary:

It is a remarkable juridical step. In the language of canonists who are concerned with the institutional fate of the SSPX, the "Chinese" approach is often recalled. The word refers to the fact that … [in order to artificially put an end to schism!] a growing number of the bishops named by the "Patriotic Church" [in the pay of the Communists] have secretly received...papal investiture […] In an analogy...in the perspective of a gradual canonical recognition, we could perhaps also imagine that "powers" be granted provisionally to the bishops of the SSPX, […] The administrative-canonical recognition in Buenos Aires - set up, absolutely without a doubt, by the Pope himself -- could create precedent and be repeated on this or that diocese for SSPX groups61.

In the same sermon given in Arcadia, Bishop Fellay, moreover revealed that he had received a canonical power from Rome, confirming the words of Don Pio Pace:

59 �

� —Bishop Schneider is recognized as being « the best student of Benedict XVI », according to Sandro

Magister, reknowed Vaticanist (L’Homme Nouveau, No.500).

60 This letter is to be found in the official Newsletter of the Argentinian Republic on 9 April 2015.

61 Rorate Caeli, 29 April 2015: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-society-of-saint-pius-x-

recognized.html

I was appointed by Rome, by the Congregation of the Faith, to make judgements, canonical Church judgements on some of our priests62.

* Public declaration of Bishop Schneider

The “informal” meetings with prelates had not been the subject of any public declaration on their part. The silence was broken on 12 August by Bishop Schneider in an interview granted to the Ecclesia Dei website, Rorate Caeli:

The Holy See asked me to visit the two [seminaries] of the SSPX [Flavigny and Winona] […] I am keeping a good impression of my visits. […] I was glad to see in both places in the entrance area a photo of Pope Francis, the reigning Pontiff. In the sacristies there were plates with the name of Pope Francis and the local diocesan bishop. […] To my knowledge there are no weighty reasons in order to deny the clergy and faithful of the SSPX the official canonical recognition, meanwhile they should be accepted as they are63.

Special envoy of the Holy See, it could not have been without permission obtained from on high that Bishop Schneider was able to make such a public declaration, which was, moreover, immediately echoed on the Society's websites.

* New juridical step: the decision of Pope Francis for the Jubilee of Mercy

On 1 September, at the end of his Bull of indiction of the Jubilee of Mercy, the Pope declared:

I trust that in the near future solutions may be found to recover full communion with the priests and superiors of the Fraternity. In the meantime, motivated by the need to respond to the good of these faithful, through my own disposition, I establish that those who during

the Holy Year of Mercy approach these priests of the Fraternity of St Pius X to celebrate the

Sacrament of Reconciliation shall validly and licitly receive the absolution of their sins.

On this occasion, on 3 September, La Porte Latine published the commentary of Father Petrucci, District Superior of Italy, without any reserve:

What the Pope has done is incredible, magnificent. We are all very happy. […] What is important is that, on the part of the Pope, there is a juridical recognition without demanding anything in return from us'64. In fact, it is the recognition, in a certain sense, of the lawfulness of our ministry, which had been questioned65.

62 In an interview granted to the newspaper Présent on 27 June 2015, Bishop Fellay specified that this Roman

power had already been accorded to him ten years beforehand.

63 Rorate Caeli, 10 August 2015: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/08/bishop-athanasius-schneider-there-

are.html

64 Is this enough? Le Barroux, and others, were recognised without having to give anything in return. We have

witnessed the slide which followed.

65 However, on Sunday 7 September 2015, Father de la Roque gave a sermon at Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet,

which incriminated the same Jubilee for the reason that it celebrates the fifty years of Vatican II. It was put

up on La Porte Latine. Within 24 hours, it was removed by order of the General House.

— Does this act of the Pope not amount to a (more or less) canonical recognition for a year ad

experimentum? What will happen after this one-year experiment, when so many priests and faithful will have appreciated to be accepted by the official Church ?

— Or will we have this recognition before the end of the jubilee?

Be not surprised if, one day, you wake up and you will be in Rome 66.

Are we not heading, step by step, towards a progressive dissolution into the Conciliar Church “of this family which represents what remains of the true Catholic Church67”?

May Our Lady preserve us from such a thing!

Conclusion

It is certain that this painful crisis is the punishment inflicted by God on a Tradition which has become worldly and comfortable over the years and which is now seeking a recognition so that it will no longer be persecuted, in order to lead a quieter life where the Modernist authorities will accept us “as we are”, that is to say, as we have become: no longer denouncing their errors, therefore no longer bothering them. But if the bishops and priests of Tradition no longer denounce the words and actions of Conciliar Rome which destroy the Faith, the latter is a danger for the faithful of Tradition and for souls of good will all over the world. For those Catholics who want to keep intact the Faith of their Baptism, the consequences are clear: study their religion, form themselves on the crisis in the Church with the help of good books (alone, in their family, setting up a doctrinal study-group), and above all maintain a true and fervent, not worldly, Catholic life, starting with regular attendance at spiritual retreats; finally, pray much for priests.

66 — Fr Wegener, Superior of District of the United States, Conference in Houston, November 1, 2015.

67 Archbishop Lefebvre, Exposé de la situation concernant ce que Rome appelle la «réconciliation » (Exposé of

the situation concerning what Rome calls the “reconciliation”), a document given to the superiors of the

religious communities gathered together at Le Pointet (France) on 30 May 1988.