A lot of people have called me and were concerned about the goings on with what’s going on with the Society of St. Pius X and Rome these days. So I just wanted to make a couple of comments about that.
For those of you who don’t know, and I know many of you do know, but the Society and Rome have been in a series of doctrinal discussions now for quite a while. And they found they had very little to talk about, I guess, when it came down to it, because, as it turns out Rome no longer is able to speak the language of scholasticism that the theology of the Church is based upon. The Pius X delegates to this discussion basically said they don’t speak Catholic anymore. When we try to speak of some Catholic theology or principles in terms of classic theology, they don’t understand what they are talking about. And the kind of stuff that the Roman people are talking about is basically pure modernism.
Well, anyway, whatever about the discussions. On September 14th, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross of this year, they had their final meeting at which Cardinal Levada handed them a sealed envelope with what they called a Preamble in it, some document about a Preamble to them getting a Canonical status in the Church. Remember that it was declared that they were not excommunicated, but they gave them no status within the Church. They said, Okay, you are not excommunicated, but you are not exactly employed at this point.
So, they left it at that. Well, this is to see about giving them a canonical status within the Church. So Cardinal Levada handed them this sealed envelope that Bishop Fellay did not make public. In fact, he refused to discuss any details of it, and he has called together the District Superiors for what could go on for as long as a two-week meeting on this Preamble.
And this is what people are concerned about. So, I might say, first of all, you need to pray. You have to pray for Bishop Fellay and the other people who are involved in this thing. That’s our main duty. Wild speculation isn’t going to get us anything but upset really. But prayer will help to the extent that our prayers are being heard to this end. And what people are afraid of is that there are conditions in there which we really could not accept as traditional Catholics, which Bishop Fellay may cave in to and accept just to kind of get it over with. We don’t know.
But I think it’s fair to say that, because similar documents have been given to every other of the traditional organizations that have joined the Church, and one of the conditions is that you must absolutely accept Vatican II and its’ documents, and they say, ….”when viewed in the light of tradition”. Now, what does this mean? Well, for me that would mean, if you told me, You must accept Vatican II in the light of tradition, that means that I would reject Vatican II, because when you look at Vatican II in the light of tradition, there are errors in it and, in fact, some pretty bad errors, especially in the Document of Religious Liberty.
So, Vatican II accepted in the light of tradition means you reject Vatican II. But that’s, of course, not what the Roman officials mean. What they mean is that if anything seems to you to be contrary to the faith, you have to shut up basically. That’s what it means. You have to just believe somehow that it is in line with the faith, and go on and do other things, you know, concelebrate and everything that you’ll be doing at that point.
So, that’s kind of what we’re a little bit worried about because that has been in every one of the documents that has been given to people who wanted to make a similar deal since Rome has been doing that.
So that is cause for more prayer. Like I say, wild speculation is not called for. But, we must remember at the same time, we have to pray for a spirit of — we don’t have to accept whatever deal they are going to make if they make a deal that’s not with tradition. But, we have to be accepting of the fact that it happened, because we have to recall that this is a chastisement we are undergoing. We are being punished. We are being brought to our knees so the Church will come back to God.
Now, it’s interesting because I was thinking about this the other day. Several nations, their district superiors, have already said to Bishop Fellay and come out publicly, they say, Whatever you decide, we’ll go with you. So, if he sells out, they have already promised publicly to go with him and accept whatever it is that he negotiates with Rome. Well, the reason I was thinking about it is, I said it’s a chastisement. What about Fatima? What about the nations being lost? That’s kind of an interesting angle on this thing. Because certainly the SSPX is the mainstay of tradition, kind of the backbone. So, what if, you know, the annihilation of nations, the chastisement is actually that Our Lord will let the Church go into this and let this happen as part of our being brought to our knees and taught humility.
In any case, we need to pray and then see what comes out of this. So don’t go and say, Well, I think they are going to compromise, Oh, we’re sold out, and panic just yet. It will certainly not be pleasant if it happens. But, once again, it will be something that comes from God that we have to accept.