The Recusant #61 - Lent 2024

[Stone]

Traditionalist “Schism”/”Excommunication”..? [Continued]


...and then finally, legal arguments aside, there remain the:

Arguments From Common Sense

Legal arguments are important, but suppose you had no understanding of canon law and no one to explain it to you- would there be no way for you to know the truth? Not everyone can be expected to understand canon law, but they don’t need to. We all can apply common sense.

1. Archbishop Lefebvre was supposedly excommunicated by people who clearly don’t believe in excommunication. How many priests and bishops since Vatican II have publicly promoted the foulest heresies and scandals? Freemasonic teachings such as a universal brotherhood of man, already condemned by the Church; Protestant teachings already condemned by the Council of Trent; the Dutch bishops with their blasphemous, heretical catechism? Jesuit priests leading communist guerilla militias in armed uprisings and carrying out terrorist attacks; we could go on. How many of them were said to be excommunicated, treated as outcasts? Not one. Today
Fr James Martin is going around teaching other priests how to bless sodomitical “unions” but neither he nor they are said to be “in schism” and neither Rome nor the local bishops warn people not to get involved.

Even the notorious Hans Kung was never excommunicated and there was never any talk of “schism” - he was merely forbidden to teach at university, something which he circumvented whilst everyone turned a blind eye and let him carry on. Genuine schismatics such as the CCP controlled ‘Chinese Patriotic Association’ are given every encouragement and treated as fellow Catholics by modern Rome. The Rome of Pius XII, before Vatican II, excommunicated the CPA and declared them in schism, just as it praised and promoted Archbishop Lefebvre.

Look at some of these recent so-called “movements” in the modern church. Some of them are openly heretical and cult-like. Opus Dei don’t allow their lay members to confess to a nonOpus Dei priest. The Neo Catechumenal Way have only their own Masses which involve their own heretical, made-up “liturgy” and which are completely separate from whatever parish they are supposed to be in, behind closed doors, invitation only.

Those are just two examples - there are many more. Can you imagine for one moment Archbishop Lefebvre or the SSPX being accused of such things? And yet these guys enjoy modernist Rome’s official approval; they aren’t called “schismatic” or “excommunicated” because they don’t oppose the Vatican II revolution. Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX did, so they were.

Just like the modernist-infested hierarchy don’t believe that you have to be in the Catholic Church to be saved, no, they’re ecumenical and tolerant and welcoming, “What unites us is stronger than what divides us!” - but when it comes to Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX, they suddenly forget all that and become the most straight-laced, hard-line clericalist authoritarians of all time! In much the same way, they clearly don’t believe in excommunication, anything goes… except they suddenly discovered that they did believe in it after all when it came to Archbishop Lefebvre and “the Lefebvrists”! This just isn’t something one can take seriously.

2. When push comes to shove, even the modernist Vatican never really believed in the “schism,” as they have shown repeatedly.

“Regarding your inquiry, I would point out at once that the Directory on Ecumenism is not concerned with the Society of St. Pius X. The situation of the members of this Society is an internal matter of the Catholic Church. The Society is not another Church or Ecclesial Community in the meaning used in the Directory.”

- Cardinal Edward Cassidy, replying to an enquiry about Rome’s “ecumenism” in relation to the SSPX - May, 1994

“The act of consecrating a bishop (without the pope's permission) is not itself a schismatic act”

- Cardinal Castillo Lara, President of the Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of Canon Law, in La Repubblica, October 1988

“From the examination of the case...it did not result that the facts referred to in the above-mentioned decree [i.e. founding a supposedly “schismatic” chapel against the wishes of the local bishop, inviting supposedly “schismatic priests to say Mass there and having one’s children confirmed by a supposedly “schismatic” and “excommunicated” bishop] are formal schismatic acts in the strict sense, as they do not constitute the offence of schism; and therefore the Congregation holds that the Decree of May 1, 1991 [i.e. the charge of excommunication], lacks foundation and hence validity.”

- Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, President of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, June, 1993.

“We are not dealing with a case of heresy. One cannot say in correct and exact terms that there is a schism. There is, in the act of ordaining bishops without papal approval, a schismatic attitude. They are within the confines of the Church.”

- Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, resident of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, November 2005

These are the most obvious examples, there are doubtless many more. Should anyone object, let us agree that the statements above may well have been “mistakes” which slipped out and were instantly regretted. Let us also agree that there are many other statements where the modernists in Rome said the contrary (“Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX are schismatics!

Don’t go there, or you’ll catch a dose of the schism and become a schismatic too!” ...or something similar!). Very well. What it does show, however, is that at the very least they weren’t consistent. It also shows that there is a difference between what they said when they were consciously towing the party line before the world and what they let slip when they thought no one was paying attention. And high ranking men who publicly represent a prominent institution - government ministers from a political party, for instance, or (as in this case) Cardinals in Rome - will often have a party line which they are expected to trot out but which they occasionally contradict in an unguarded moment, proving that they didn’t really believe it all along but were only saying it because that is what they felt expected to say. The quotations above are the equivalent of one of Mr. Biden’s cabinet admitting that, in fact, inflation is a problem and the economy isn’t in such great shape. Since there is undeniable evidence that even the highest representatives of modernist Rome didn’t really believe in the fictitious schism, why should we?

3. Holiness and Catholicity. This is so obvious and so easy to spot that it often passes us by. Back in the day, before the SSPX went soft, every once in a while a Novus Ordo critic would warn people away from the “schismatic, excommunicated SSPX” by lecturing everyone in moralising tones about how “schism and heresies are proximate” or something like that, or how schism will always lead to a diminishing of holiness, virtue, piety and so forth.

All of which are true. But what they never seemed to spot was that their own argument could be turned back on them. If schism leads to heresy (which is true, it invariably does) where was there ever an example of heresy taught by Archbishop Lefebvre or his SSPX? Name just one example. Not only is there none to be found there, in virtually any country across the globe your local SSPX chapel was about the only place in the diocese where you wouldn’t find heresies!

The same goes for the argument about holiness. If the SSPX back then (and likewise the Resistance today) are so dangerous, “schismatic” and off limits to all good Catholics, why is there so much more piety and devotion and holiness apparent among priests and people there than in any of the supposedly “non-schismatic,”  officially-approved priests and faithful and “communities”? Why so much worldliness where one ought to see holiness and why so much holiness where one ought to see worldliness?

The same is true of Catholicity, a word which really means that it transcends any human boundaries such as race, culture, language, social class and, importantly, time and era. Our ancestors in the Faith, if they were to be shown our own era, would they recognise Archbishop Lefebvre’s SSPX and today’s Resistance as believing and practicing what they believed and practiced? Would they look at a typical Novus Ordo layman and recognise him as being closer or further from what they think of as Catholic? Would a priest from past centuries, an Edmund Campion or a John Vianney, see himself more in the Novus Ordo priest of today, or in the “schismatic” “excommunicated,” “don’t-go-to-them-they-aren’t-in-good-standing” SSPX or Resistance priest? Which would they instantly recognise as a Catholic priest and which would they look on as an aberration belonging to another religion? It just doesn’t add up, does it? None of it makes sense. The only way it all makes sense is if it was never Archbishop Lefebvre and his SSPX who were “schismatic,” “disobedient,” “dangerous” etc. all along, but rather the Novus Ordo modernists. Which brings us to:

4. The onus is on them to prove that they are in good standing! Fr. Glover made this argument, and he was quite right to do so. In defending oneself from a particular charge, there is a danger of becoming self-obsessed when one’s focus should really be on attacking the modern errors and those pushing them. But it’s so obvious when you stop to think about it! Not only John Paul II in 1988, but even continuing down to our own day, the very same churchmen who so cynically practiced upon the credulity of well-meaning Catholics, trying to make them think that Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX he founded were somehow “excommunicated,”  “schismatic” or “not in good standing”, are themselves guilty of real errors and offences. They are the ones who ought to be forced to defend themselves and their actions. They are the ones who should have their ecumenism and religious indifferentism thrown at them as an accusation; along with their “religious liberty,” their brotherhood-of-man talk, their Judaising, their “synodality”, their Protestant ‘New Mass’ which offends Our Lord and which was condemned by the Council of Trent and by Popes such as Pius VI long before it ever even existed.

John Paul II, the Pope who brought out Ecclesia Dei Adflicta in July 1988 to inform the world that Marcel Lefebvre had excommunicated himself (he hadn’t!) according to what the 1983 Code of Canon Law says (it doesn’t!), is the same man who had no problem consorting with and encouraging all sorts of enemies of God and of mankind during his life. Pro-abortion politicians received communion at Mass during his various trips around the world, and it didn’t end when he died: the godless mainstream media praised him to the skies and
politicians such as the Blairs and the Clintons attended his funeral. Cherie Blair, nominally a Catholic, was by then well known as a pro-abortion feminist who had used her husband’s prominence to push causes such as “women’s ordination” in the mainstream media. She received communion at the funeral of John Paul II, as did Brother Roger of Taizé, a lifelong Protestant and the leader of an ecumenical sect (which John Paul II had praised while he was still alive), from the hands of soon-to-be Pope Benedict XVI. Poor old Archbishop Lefebvre. If only he had been an ecumenical Protestant, if only he had publicly promoted feminism, abortion and women’s ordination, he would have found himself “in good standing” and not “excommunicated”! Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi... Even the infamous Robert Mugabe, a self-described Marxist who murdered legions of his own countrymen in Zimbabwe, was given communion at the Mass in St Peter’s where John Paul II was (supposedly) beatified. So he’s OK. Well, at least he wasn’t a Lefebvrist!

Indeed, one is left with the impression that there is no crime too great, there is nothing anyone can do which will earn an excommunication from the post-Vatican II Popes, except the crime of supposedly being too Traditional (as though such a thing were even possible!). With all those people who feel duty bound to stay away from the “Lefebvre schism,” does it ever occur to them to wonder whether it wasn’t Archbishop Lefebvre who was the problem? That is the reality, the horrifying truth. Forget about make-believe, trumped-up  schisms.”

One only has to look at the Popes and the hierarchy since Vatican II to sense a real schism - there really is no better word to describe it. But it is all on their side, they are the ones guilty of it. They forget that the Church exists not just throughout space, horizontally, but also through time, vertically (like a cross). Where is their unity with their predecessors? Previous Popes condemned ecumenical prayer gatherings even if it was only with Protestants; these recent Popes, Cardinals and bishops have all been taking part in ecumenical prayer gatherings with Muslims, Jews, pagans and (from Benedict XVI onwards) non-believers. Previous Popes taught that the state has a duty to be officially Catholic, whereas they have spent time and energy making sure that as many states are officially secular and pluralist as possible. Previous Popes condemned the globalists and masonic revolutionaries, whereas these modern Vatican II Popes have embraced them. We could go on. It is not Traditionalists who need to defend themselves. We are guilty of being unwilling to abandon the beliefs and practices of our Catholic forefathers, nothing more. The irony is that, in talking of there being a “schism” between themselves and us, the modernists are in fact condemning  themselves, whether they realise it or not. They need to repent, they need to return to the Catholic Faith free from error and heresy, they need to return to Catholic practice, free of scandal and novelty and syncretism and paganism.

Archbishop Lefebvre famously said that it is the modern Popes who are disobedient to their predecessors, to all the Popes from nineteen centuries up to Vatican II, and who can doubt that he was and is right? He said “We are condemned by those who are themselves condemned.” I also recall hearing somewhere that when asked one time by a journalist about “the schism,” he replied simply “Schism from what?” That is about the neatest three-word summary one can imagine. Schism from what? From all your novus-bogus blasphemies? From your newfangled conciliar church, the church of the new advent, the church of the new springtime, the church of the global brotherhood of man, the church of religious pluralism and empty sentimentality, the church of B’nai B’rith -sponsored Religious Liberty? Fine. We never asked to be a part of that in the first place. But from the Catholic Church which Our Lord Himself founded? No, in that case it is the ones handing out condemnations who are in fact condemning themselves, since their talk of “schism” reveals a very real schism between themselves and their predecessors. It shouldn’t worry us in one sense, but it should spur us to greater zeal and charity in trying to convert them from their errors.


Conclusion

Common sense is a wonderful thing, it cuts to the heart of the matter and leaves no room for scruples. In order to believe in and take seriously the “excommunication” of Archbishop Lefebvre and the “schism” of all the priests and faithful who agree with him, you first of all need to be convinced that:

1. There is nothing wrong in the modern church. It isn’t carnage everywhere. Everything’s basically fine and not much different from how it was before the Council.

2. Authority is something totally arbitrary. It has no purpose in particular and can be used by the one who wields it for whatever end he sees fit, no matter how arbitrary or perverse. It is the mere plaything of whoever happens to be in office.

3. The Church’s law is not something which applies equally to all Catholics. It can be totally ignored in 99.9% of cases, cases which are huge, stinking and indefensible and which richly deserve punishment, but then scrupulously and minutely applied with no benefit of the doubt whatever in one particular case. Straining at gnats and swallowing camels comes to mind.

Whereas, any Catholic with common sense can see that:

1. Things are about as far from “fine” and “normal” as one can imagine. We have gone from the crisis in the Church to the zombie apocalypse in the Church. There has never been a time in all human history where the Church has suffered as she is suffering now. It is just about possible to think that things are more or less “normal” in the Church, but only from a position of virtual ignorance. To see that all is not well, one has only to look; and the closer one looks, the worse things are.

2. No authority is arbitrary, even that of the Pope (especially not that of the Pope!) It exists for a reason, for a purpose and that purpose will be fulfilled or thwarted depending on how the authority is used. Does the Pope’s authority exist to spread masonic ideas about brotherhood of man throughout the world, to spread the gospel of climate change, welfare state socialism, “tolerance and diversity” and so on? (And if you think those things are unique to Pope Francis, think again! John Paul II was guilty as sin when it came to that stuff too!) Or does it exist for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, to convert the sinner, to help the Holy Souls in Purgatory, to encourage virtue and help extinguish vice, and so forth?

The father of a family does not have authority over his wife and children just so that he can amuse himself or live a life of ease - his authority serves the responsibility which he carries of getting his family to heaven. The high court judge may not pass whatever sentence he wishes however ridiculous, in order to amuse himself according to his own whim or fancy, but is himself bound to observe the law of the land, legal precedent, and so on. Likewise, a Pope does not have arbitrary authority, he only has authority in order
to guard Christ’s flock and is himself bound by the law of God and Tradition, as the Papal Coronation Oath makes explicitly clear.

3. If all the Blairs, Bidens, Mugabes and “brother” Rogers (to name just four of literally hundreds) in the world, and all the Fr James Martins, Fr Pedro Arrupes and Hans Kungs (again: many, many more could be cited) are somehow not guilty, not worthy of excommunication, not worth warning people away from, but Archbishop Lefebvre is, along with Bishop de Castro Mayer and anyone who agrees with them; if the Neocatechumenal Way with their mystery religion-esque invitation only, Protestantised “Mass” (which is Protestant and liberal even by the standards of the New Mass!) are not off limits to unsuspecting Catholics, but the SSPX with their Tridentine Mass are… then the law has been turned on its head: subverted, to use the proper term. Worse, it is not only not being used for purpose for which it exists, it is being used deliberately to thwart that same purpose.

Archbishop Lefebvre was excommunicated by a Pope who clearly didn’t believe in  excommunication. The SSPX was accused of being outside of the Catholic Church by men who clearly don’t believe in the Catholic Church. They were treated as somehow non-Catholic, by people who are busy trampling underfoot anything which is actually Catholic. SSPX and Resistance Masses are labelled “illicit” by people who themselves offer and assist at the New Mass. The Tridentine Mass requires permission from bishops who don’t believe in the need for permission when it comes to literally anything else, LGBT drag queen Masses come to mind, and other horrors. Who would want to be in good standing with people like that? Let the indult “extraordinary form” Mass goers take heed and think on it. Are you proud of being in the good books of such men? Why do you think they give you permission for your Traditional Mass when they hate Tradition so much, doesn’t that strike you as odd? Why might that be, do you think? It doesn’t take any great amount of intellectual book-learning to work out what is really going on; all that is really needed is a little bit of honesty.


A Final Word

The astute reader will notice that throughout all this we have been talking about the old SSPX, the SSPX of Archbishop Lefebvre, the one which ceaselessly warned about the errors of the Second Vatican Council and took to task the Pope, the Cardinals and the bishops for their errors and scandals, for leading the sheep astray.

By contrast, the new SSPX of recent years seem to be becoming less “in schism” from the modernist hierarchy by the day, and one need hardly add that is not a good thing! They appear to have become ashamed of what should be their pride and glory: “When the world [and the modernist hierarchy] hates you for my sake…”

St. Pius X, ora pro nobis![/align]