As most readers are by now well aware, a letter sent by Cardinal Muller to Bishop Bernard Fellay, with the approval of Francis, has been made public.
In it, Cardinal Muller states in part:
“In relation to this [regularization], with the approbation of the Sovereign Pontiff, I judged it necessary to submit to the Ordinary Session of our Congregation (which met on May 10 last) the text of the doctrinal Declaration which was transmitted to you during the meeting of June 13 2016, as the necessary condition in view of the full re-establishment of communion. Here are the unanimous decisions of all the members of our Dicastery in this regard:”
Let’s stop here for just a moment.
The points that follow in Cardinal Muller’s letter appear (from my reading) to be little more than a recap of the Declaration that was presented to Bishop Fellay on June 13, 2016 (the 99th anniversary to the day of Our Lady’s second appearance at Fatima, but more on that later).
Cardinal Muller went on to state (or perhaps better said, restate) the three “necessary conditions” Rome has put in place for the Society’s regularization:
1) It is necessary to require the adhesion of the members of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X to the new formula of the Professio Fidei dating from 1988 (c.f. annexe). Consequently, it is not sufficient to ask them to express the Professio Fidei of 1962.
2) The new text of the doctrinal Declaration must contain a paragraph in which the signatories declare in an explicit manner their acceptance of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and those of the post-conciliar period, by granting to said doctrinal affirmations the degree of adhesion which is due to them.
3) The members of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X must recognize not only the validity, but also the legitimacy of the Rite of the Holy Mass and of the Sacraments, according to the liturgical books promulgated after the Second Vatican Council.”
In reading this letter, I do not get any sense whatsoever that these “unanimous decisions” of the CDF members amount to a modification of the Declaration. On the contrary, it seems rather obvious they are simply a reiteration of the requirements that were presented to Bishop Fellay over one year ago.
So, what exactly prompted the letter?
It appears evident that Bishop Fellay responded to the Declaration with some sort of counter proposal.
At the very least, we can deduce from item #1 in Cardinal Muller’s letter that Bishop Fellay agreed to make the 1962 Profession of Faith rather than the 1988 Profession (as apparently required according to the Declaration), to which the CDF responded, “it is not sufficient.”
(I will address the Profession of Faith in more detail in a future post.)
With regard to item #2, the wholesale embrace of Vatican Council II is impossible.
So too is the requirement set forth in item #3 with respect to affirming the “legitimacy” of the Novus Ordo Missae.
An entry on the SSPX website provides the reason:
“A law is legitimate only when it is duly promulgated by the lawfully constituted authority. But to this condition must be added another of supreme importance and essential to make it a law: it must be for the common good. And precisely on this score, the Novus Ordo Missae (NOM) is most defective as was attested at the time of its promulgation by no less than Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci [the ‘Ottaviani Intervention]…’”
Cardinal Muller’s letter doesn’t provide any further substantial insight into Bishop Fellay’s response, but it does tell us that, short of an about face on Rome’s part, the discussions are effectively over.
The reason is simple:
Neither the Second Vatican Council nor the Novus Ordo Missae can be reconciled with tradition and, as such, each one poses a grave danger to the faithful.
The witness of the past five decades testifies to this truth with impeccable clarity for those with eyes to see.
Among so-called “traditionalists” no one disagrees.
This brings me back to the message given by Our Lady at Fatima where she warned us about precisely these things; Vatican II and the Novus Ordo Missae – “a bad council and a bad Mass.”
Again, among so-called “traditionalists” (aka Catholics) no one disagrees.
So why, pray tell, do we now find so-called “Fatimists” swooning over prelates who staunchly defend the supposed goodness of both the Council and the new Mass?
I suppose the answer to this was given by Our Lady as well; diabolical disorientation.
Thankfully, the Blessed Virgin also gave us the remedy.
On June 13, 1917 – 99 years before the aforementioned “doctrinal Declaration” was transmitted to Bishop Fellay, Our Lady said to little Lucia:
“[Jesus ] wants to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. I promise salvation to those who embrace it, and those souls will be loved by God, like flowers placed by me to adorn His throne … Don’t lose heart. I will never forsake you. My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”
Let us renew our consecration to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, begging her on behalf of ourselves and others to gather us therein; to protect us from all forms of deception; to grant us the grace to recognize half-truths and errors and the fortitude to condemn them for the poison that they are regardless of their source.
The cardinal just wants the SSPX to offer just a pinch of incense, that’s not too much to ask, is it? Those Catholics of old who refused to offer that pinch lost their heads but they were just being extreme, weren’t they?
The new mass is pure poison and destroys all that it touches. However, the new generation of Catholics seem to love it and the entertainment it provides and how its oh so inclusive. God have mercy on their misguided souls.
You speak the truth, Louie. Consecration to the Immaculate heart is the solution. Her victory is coming, sooner or later and how glorious it will be.
Why the Profession of Faith from 1988 and not 1962? Is not our faith always the same, never changing, and eternal? But here the modernists implicitly admit that theirs is a new faith and a new religion because it requires a new profession. All professions prior to V2 are no longer valid since the faith changed. And since it is a new faith, the new priesthood and sacraments and hierarchy are no longer Catholic. Stop pretending these imposters are Catholic. Francis is not the Pope. Neither is Benedict. No true Pope would ever say the Novus Ordo fake mass.
Dearest Tom A,
Again, you present the clarity of truth in pristine fashion. There is no “Consecration of Russia” that can now occur in this time with “The Pope in union with the Bishops of the world”, because their church does not hold the One True Faith, therefore it does not profess the Apostle’s Creed and is not in Apostolic succession, and as a consequence it cannot have a true Pope and true Bishops, rather it professes the religion of the Antichrist, as it holds its faith in man, as the religion of man. Our Lady of LaSalette promised us, as the Mother of God can only do–promise–that the Church would be in eclipse, the world would be in dismay. What is it that is not patently clear about such a promise? “Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.”, “The Church will have a frightful crisis”. Can we imagine that when our Mother and our love, as the Mother of the One Who Is Love, instructs us with a promise that the Church will have a “frightful crisis”, that the crisis of which she divinely speaks, would not be the most nefarious, bellicose, and ungodly thing that we could possibly imagine? What could be more frightful than to realize, as Saint Paul inerrantly proclaimed in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 3-11, that the Chair of Saint Peter would be empty, as “he” who has warded off the mystery of Iniquity since the Apostolic Age, until the stage was set and the prophetic time had arrived, that he would then be “…removed from the enemies’ path”? That the man who deems himself, “Peter”, in that time thenceforth, could only be an imposter and his church the church of the Antichrist, and his religion the religion of Lucifer, all dressed up Catholic but devoid all the authentic and holy Sacraments. Christ Jesus commanded, “You are either with Me or you are against Me.” These emissaries of Lucifer are not with Christ. An innocent child would know that. This time of diabolic disorientation is the time when “even the most elect would fall”. May Almighty God in His Triune Personhood, grant us the reception of the grace of perseverance and fortitude in this darkest of times. In caritas.
Dearest Louie,
To quote you from above, “This brings me back to the message given by Our Lady at Fatima where she warned us about precisely these things; Vatican II and the Novus Ordo Missae – ‘ “a bad council and a bad Mass.” ‘ “. When the Mother of God, our Mother, promises us that there will be, ‘ “a bad council and a bad Mass” ‘, we know with certitude that what she speaks of cannot be “Catholic” (the “mass” and the “council”), as to be “bad” is not to be “good”, as Almighty God is Goodness Himself, as all attributes flowing from God are of His Substantial Essence, as Being Himself. We know then, as is only rightly reasoned, that “not to be good” is “not to be of God”, which is evil as metaphysically defined—“the privation of the due good”. That which is “evil” cannot be that which is “Catholic”, as that which is “Catholic” is of God Himself. God, with certitude, is “Catholic”, in perfect contradistinction to what the emissary of Lucifer, Jorge Mario Bergoglio as “Francis”, proclaims to be the reality. As God simply Is, all of His infinite attributes, as these attributes flow from His Substantial Essence, God Is Catholic, as He can only be. If all that is good was somehow not part of the Substantial Essence of God, then He simply could not be God, as something “good” would then exist apart from His giving it “being”. I pray this helps. In caritas.
Sr. Lucia (1957):
“… she (Our Lady) told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God or we are with the Devil; there is no middle ground.”
Archbishop Lefebvre:
“We have nothing to do with these people, for we have nothing in common with them . The battle we fight is that of Our Lord, continued by the Church. We can not doubt it: either we are with the Church or we are against It; We are not with this conciliar Church that has less and less in common with the Catholic Church.”
++Lefebvre:
“The world wants liberty. The world wants to save itself as it pleases. The world wants to give itself up to all ideologies, to all its desires; it wants no more neither of the Law of Our Lord Jesus Christ nor of His truth. And then we are to believe that people who refuse Our Lord Jesus Christ can be saved! Our Lord Jesus Christ said Himself: “No one can be saved if he does not pass by Me. To go to the Father, I am the Way.” There is no other way. And Saint Peter said after the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ: There is no salvation outside of the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ – no salvation. There is no salvation outside of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
So we must keep the faith: faith in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is very important and this is why we must follow our Shepherd, who is Our Lord Jesus Christ. And if it should happen that those who are intermediaries between the Shepherd, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and ourselves want to turn us away from Our Lord Jesus Christ, then we must say no. We shall not accept it. We want to follow Our Lord. We do not want to become protestants, of those who doubt the divinity of Our Lord. We do not want to be of those who doubt the Resurrection of Our Lord. We do not want to be of those who doubt the Real Presence of Our Lord with His Body, His Blood, His Soul and His Divinity in the Holy Eucharist. We do not want this!
“[…] No! We shall never accept such things! We want to be faithful to Our Lord Jesus Christ! We want to follow Him wherever He may lead us and we want to keep His teachings. This is what we must take as our resolution, no matter who may seek to contradict us.
For this much is certain: If we remain faithful to our Creed; if we remain faithful to our catechism – to our old catechism of the past, which flowed from the Catechism of the Council of Trent, that Council which made such a magnificent catechism, the summary of the whole Catholic Faith – if we remain faithful to this catechism; if we remain faithful to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the Church has always celebrated it, so as to be sure that Our Lord Jesus Christ is present on our holy altars and that in the Holy Eucharist we are receiving the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ; if we remain faithful to the Sacraments and to devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin, then we are sure of being in the right. We are sure of following the true shepherd, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
And if any shepherd – whoever he may be, whatever may be his authority on this earth – wants to turn us away from these truths, we must say no! Impossible! We cannot turn away from Our Lord Jesus Christ. And this should be for us an absolute resolution. Because that is not possible; we cannot be wrong.”
The Second Vatican Council was a vehicle used by the enemies of Christ to destroy His Church. Anyone who promotes this horror (willingly or unwittingly) plays a role in this destruction with varying degrees of guilt. In my 20 year association with the SSPX, I always felt that I (in some small way) belonged to the Army which was leading the fight to “restore all things in Christ”. I am sorry to say that I now feel the Generals are holding up the white flag and I am left with nothing but the bugle. I know Mary’s Immaculate Heart will triumph. That is my consolation.
Well said, my2cents!
I prefer to view the SSPX as continuing to turn out high quality Catholic Priests. The SSPX has been waging a Rosary Crusade since January and it’s not the first one! Negotiations are ongoing with the idea that Our Lady will guide the outcome. I think all of the talk about surrender and betrayal are premature and show a real lack of trust in the spiritual component in all of this.
Exactly what is the… “trust in the spiritual component in all this”… that you refer to above? Do you believe, as Bishop Fellay apparently does, that the SSPX is destined to save the Church?
Rushintuit—I also view the SSPX as continuing to turn out high quality Catholic priests. However, these dedicated hard-working “foot soldiers” need strong Generals who do not negotiate with the enemy. If the SSPX is destined to save the Church, the leadership must recognize the enemy as “the enemy” and be extremely cautious and prudent. Those who worry over developments between Modernist Rome and the SSPX are legitimately and rightfully concerned. Let’s us pray that Our Lady will guide the outcome which does not include compromise, concessions or anything that validates the enemy which is the post-conciliar “church”.
Well, lets just say that the Society has kept the Church afloat since Vatican II and there is absolutely no room for doubt on that score. Our Lady’s Triumph will save the Church but She predicated that on many Rosaries being said for that intention. How many nominal Catholics even say the Rosary anymore do you think? I can imagine that it is seldom said by many outside of Tradition. So let’s see, there is the Society and those Novus Ordo institutions that basically would not exist if it were not for Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX. The only reason they were established was in an attempt to destroy the Society that the Archbishop founded. Then there is the practice of the First Saturdays which is not likely to be found outside of Tradition either. So, since in God’s providence, He gave us the Archbishop and the SSPX to keep Tradition afloat, and since Tradition IS the Church, for no new religion can claim to be Catholic, then I would guess to your question is yes. And thank God for it.
my2cents, I agree with you. I am absolutely against any negotiations. But I think there is no doubt that Our Lady will have Her way with the Society and that all these Rosaries we have been saying will be highly instrumental in saving the “Generals”. I do not believe for a minute that they will agree to these things that are being required and I disagree with Louie that they were the same things that were required before. They were not. They are new things that are being required. So I say good. Let them require things the Society cannot agree to. Let the negotiations cease once and for all. Let us wait until Our Lady accomplishes the conversion of Rome, then nothing further will be necessary. Meanwhile, God and His Holy Mother bless us and keep us Catholic!