Message from Bp. Fellay - June 14, 2018
Jun 16, 2018 0:42:25 GMT
Post by Admin on Jun 16, 2018 0:42:25 GMT
THE STRATEGY OF THE GENERAL HOUSE OR THE PROGRAM - ELECTORAL? - FROM MGR FELLAY
[Adapted and translated from here.]
Written in anticipation of a meeting scheduled in Rome on June 23, the message appears as a confirmation of the current strategy of the Superior General against the drift of the Roman authorities: the Society of St. Pius X must return to the first complaint of Mgr. Lefebvre ...
"- Holy Father, let us experience Tradition!"
This translates plainly into: "Let's stop attacking Rome!" And rather than demanding from the pope the solemn condemnation of conciliar errors and a public profession of the Catholic faith, let us demonstrate to the Church that we are the best! "
The members of the July FSSPX General Chapter are now well informed ...
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THE CRISIS IN THE CHURCH: WHAT ROOTS, WHAT REMEDIES?
by Bishop Fellay
June 14, 2018 Posted by La Porte Latine
Message from Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Fraternité Saint-Pie X, to the study day
This day of study is very useful because it is more than necessary today to go back to the roots of the crisis in the Church. Last September, when I published the Correctio filialis that I signed, I wanted "the debate on these major issues to be amplified, so that the truth is restored and the error condemned" is to say that I fully adhere to the goal that you have set for yourself: "The rejection of these errors and the return, with the help of God, to the complete and lived Catholic Truth is the necessary condition for the rebirth of the Church. . »(Presentation of the congress of June 23, 2018)
Correspondence between Cardinal Ottaviani and Archbishop Lefebvre
Your approach is in line with a little known correspondence between Cardinal Ottaviani and Archbishop Lefebvre, who can provide us with valuable insights. This exchange took place one year after the end of the Council in 1966.
On July 24, 1966, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, then Pro-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent the bishops a letter in which he listed 10 errors that had occurred after the Vatican Council II . We can read these affirmations whose news, more than 50 years later, remains intact:
"The objective and absolute truth, firm and immutable, is hardly accepted by some, who submit everything to a certain relativism and this for the fallacious reason that all truth necessarily follows the rhythm of the evolution of consciousness and of the story ". (n ° 4)
"Not less errors are prevalent in the field of moral theology. Indeed, some, not in small numbers, dare to reject the objective rule of morality; others do not accept natural law, but affirm the legitimacy of situational morality, as they say. Pernicious opinions are offered on morality and responsibility in sexual and marital matters ". (n ° 9)
The questioning of "objective and absolute truth" and "the objective rule of morality", the promotion of "relativism", the legitimization of "situational morality" - these are the roots of the crisis in the Church.
On December 20, 1966 Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre , then Superior General of the Fathers of the Holy Spirit, answered Cardinal Ottaviani with a list of doubts. These dubias were not his, but those he saw introducing themselves into the official teaching, following the Council: "That it is
- the transmission of the jurisdiction of the bishops,
- the two sources of Revelation,
- scriptural inspiration,
- the necessity of grace for justification,
- the necessity of Catholic baptism,
- of the life of grace among heretics, schismatics and pagans,
- purposes of marriage,
- religious freedom,
- last purpose, etc.
On these fundamental points, the traditional doctrine was clear and taught unanimously in Catholic universities. However, many texts of the Council on these truths now allow to doubt ".
Concerning this clarity of the traditional doctrine made uneasy from the Council, the confession - 24 years later - of Fr Peter Henrici sj, in his article "The maturation of the Council" (in Communio n ° 92, Nov. Dec. 1990, 85 and ff.), confirms the merits of Archbishop Lefebvre's concern. The Swiss theologian does not hesitate, indeed, to see in the Council "the confrontation of two different traditions of theological doctrine, which could not, basically, understand each other! ".
Practical consequences of doubts and errors
But Archbishop Lefebvre not only stated and denounced the newly emerging doubts, he immediately added to Cardinal Ottaviani: "The consequences were quickly drawn and applied in the life of the Church". Then follow, under the pen of Archbishop Lefebvre, the practical, pastoral consequences of these doubts:
- Doubts about the necessity of the Church and the sacraments lead to the disappearance of priestly vocations.
- Doubts about the necessity and the nature of the "conversion" of all souls lead to the disappearance of religious vocations, the ruin of traditional spirituality in novitiates, the uselessness of missions.
- Doubts about the legitimacy of authority and the demand for obedience caused by the exaltation of human dignity, the autonomy of conscience, freedom, shake all societies starting with the Church , religious societies, dioceses, civil society, family. (...)
- The doubts about the necessity of the grace to be saved cause the underestimation of the baptism henceforth postponed, the abandonment of the sacrament of penance. (...)
- Doubts about the necessity of the single source Church of salvation, on the Catholic Church only true religion, stemming from the declarations on ecumenism and religious freedom, destroy the authority of the Magisterium of the Church. Indeed, Rome is no longer the unique and necessary Magistra Veritatis.
Faced with these evils, Archbishop Lefebvre respectfully proposes to the Sovereign Pontiff concrete remedies: "May the Holy Father (...) deign by important documents to proclaim the truth, to pursue the error, without fear of contradictions, without fear schisms, without fear of calling into question the pastoral provisions of the Council "
He asks the pope to support the faithful bishops effectively: "Deign the Holy Father:
- to encourage the bishops to straighten up the faith and manners individually, each in their respective dioceses, as befits any good pastor; - to support courageous bishops, to incite them to reform their seminaries, to restore there studies according to Saint Thomas;
on "the roots of the crisis in the Church", Rome, June 23, 2018.
- to encourage the superiors general to maintain in novitiates and communities the fundamental principles of all Christian asceticism, especially obedience;
- encourage the development of Catholic schools,
- the press of sound doctrine,
- associations of Christian families;
- finally reprimanding the error-makers and silencing them ".
At his humble level, in the Fraternité Saint-Pie X, which he founded in 1970 , Archbishop Lefebvre endeavored to implement these remedies: Thomist teaching in seminaries, Christian asceticism and obedience inculcated to seminarians; and around the priories: Catholic schools, Catholic press, associations of Christian families.
This practical implementation was essential for the founder of the Fraternity: to do what is possible at his level, with the graces of his state, but never forgetting - as he writes to Cardinal Ottaviani - that "the Successor Peter and he alone can save the Church. "
It should be added here that, in the eyes of Archbishop Lefebvre, this practical implementation is an effective remedy for relativism. He wants to respond to the doctrinal plan, but also to the pastoral plan because he is aware of the ideological dimension of the new postconciliar. But one can not answer in an purely speculative way to an ideology, because it will see in this answer only an opposite ideology and not the opposite of an ideology. Such is the mode of reasoning of this subjectivist relativism which dilutes "objective and absolute truth" and "the objective rule of morality".
In fact, the "doubts" denounced above have the consequence of calling into question the essential, namely the salvific mission of the Church, by the promotion of this "secondary Christianity" so well analyzed by Romano Amerio. This loss of sight of the essential blurs the doctrinal and moral teaching hitherto clear. When the salvific mission of the Church is no longer central or priority, nothing is hierarchical or harmoniously structured, and one tends to justify contradictions, inconsistencies - which are much more than doubts. !
Therefore, we will make sure that in the mouth of Our Lord was exclusive: or one or the other ("No one can serve two masters, because he will hate the one and love the other, or he will cleave to one and despise the other. " Mt 6: 24 ), become reconcilable or inclusive, as they say today. One or the other will be replaced by the formula and the one and the other "which combines the sky and the world in a compound, of which the dominant part which gives the compound its character, is the world" ( Romano Amerio, Iota Unum, Study on the Variations of the Catholic Church in the 20th Century, New Latin Publishing, 1987, 417). - In the name of "pastoral mercy", encompassing immigration, human rights and ecology ...
This is why Archbishop Lefebvre insisted so much that the Brotherhood of Saint Pius X be given complete freedom to "experience Tradition". Faced with the relativist ideology and its sterilizing consequences for the Church (vocations in decline, religious practice in constant decline ...), he knew that it was necessary experimentally to oppose the fruits of the two thousand years tradition. He hoped that this return to Tradition would one day allow the Church to reclaim it. To go back to the roots of the crisis is, at the same time, to go back to Tradition: effects to causes, fruits to the tree, as our Lord invites us to do. And there is no ideology that holds, because the facts and figures are not "traditionalist", let alone "Lefebvrists", they are good or bad, like the tree that produces them.
That from this modest but irrefutable experience, The Church can reclaim its Tradition, this is the goal of Archbishop Lefebvre and his work. And we can only make ours the conclusion of his letter to Cardinal Ottaviani:
"No doubt I am foolhardy to express myself in this way! But it is with ardent love that I compose these lines, love of the glory of God, love of Jesus, love of Mary, of his Church, of the Successor of Peter, bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ ".
Bishop Bernard Fellay
