In these days when we celebrate the advent of Our Lord Jesus Christ, may the newborn Child cover you with his blessings. More than ever, we must all see with the eyes of faith and expect everything of Him. The letter we sent to Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos in June expresses our unchanged position towards Rome.

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

In these days when we celebrate the advent of Our Lord Jesus Christ, may the newborn Child cover you with his blessings. We ask Him that He might render you a hundredfold your generosities and devotion!

The Nativity is full of lessons for our times. God among us, the True God, Eternal and All-powerful, Creator of all things and the absolute Sovereign comes in our midst to save us.

While being diligent and making the best use of the means He gives us, we must expect EVERYTHING of Him. “Without Me you can do nothing.” “It is the Father’s will that you bear many fruits.” These two phrases are not at all contradictory, but complementary — they indicate the personal effort and cooperation that should accompany the grace of God. They tell us that with Our Lord we can do everything, in whatever situation we find ourselves, and especially in this 21st century of unbelievable decadence. The times in which we live discourage many people. Rebellion against God becomes more and more open, manifest, blasphemous, through the whole world. The Church seems inert, numb and without force before this new deluge.

More than ever, we must all see with the eyes of faith, this faith which conquers the world, which gives the courage to fight, this faith by which we resist even the Devil. Cui resistite fortes in fide.

It is this faith which makes us recognize in the Newborn in the crèche our God, the Word made flesh, the Savior of the world, Who asks us to stake everything on Him. Venite adoremus!

We would like to take this opportunity to communicate to you the letter we sent to Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos in June. It expresses our unchanged position towards Rome.

May Our Lady protect you in this new year and obtain for us all this faithfulness to the end which will save us; may she bless you with the Child Jesus, as the Liturgy so well puts it: Nos cum prole pia, benedicat Virgo Maria.

With all our gratitude,

† Bernard Fellay

On the feast of Christmas, 25 December 2004

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Most Reverend Eminence,

Your letter of December 30, a letter of greetings with the new proposal of an accord did indeed reach us. We have taken some time to answer because it leaves us perplexed. Allow me to respond with the greatest frankness, the only way of making progress.

We are sensitive to your efforts and those of the Holy Father to come to our aid, and we see that this overture on your part is certainly very generous. Accordingly, we are much afraid lest our attitude and our response not be understood. When we made our request that two conditions be met at the beginning of our discussions, and when we repeated that request several times, we were simply indicating a natural and necessary order to follow: before constructing a roadway on a bridge, one must lay its foundations. Otherwise the enterprise is doomed to failure. We do not see how we could arrive at a recognition without passing through a number of steps.

Among these steps, the first seems to us to be the lifting[^1] of the decree of excommunication. The excommunication applying to the Orthodox was lifted without their in any way changing their attitude towards the Holy See; would it not be possible to do something similar in our regard, for us who have never separated ourselves from the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, which we have always recognized as defined by Vatican Council I. At the time of our^[2] consecration in 1988 we took an oath of fidelity to the Holy See; we have always professed our attachment to the Holy See and the Sovereign Pontiff, we have taken all kinds of measures to show that we have no intention of erecting a parallel hierarchy: it should not be so difficult to cleanse us from the accusation of schism…

As regards the penalty for the reception of the episcopate, the Code of Canon Law of 1983 foresees that the maximum penalty should not be applied in the case where a subject has acted on the basis of a subjective necessity. If the Holy See does not want to admit that there was a state of objective necessity, it should at least admit that we perceive things in this way.

Such a measure would be recognized as a real overture on the part of Rome and would create the new climate necessary for any progress.

At the same time, the SSPX would submit itself to what we could by analogy call an ad limina visit. The Holy See could observe us and examine our development without there being any engagement of the two sides for the time being.

With respect to the formulas that you ask us to sign, they suppose a certain number of conditions that we cannot accept and that leave us very ill at ease.

The propositions suppose that we are guilty and that this guilt has separated us from the Church. In reparation, and to certify our orthodoxy, they ask us for a sort of limited profession of faith (Vatican Council II and the Novus Ordo).

Most of our priests and faithful have been directly confronted with heresy, and often faced with grave liturgical scandal coming from their own pastors, from bishops as well as priests. The whole history of our movement is marked by a tragic succession of events of this kind up to today, as we are joined by religious, seminarians, and priests who have had the same experience. You cannot exact a justified penalty or contrition because alone, abandoned by the pastors and betrayed by them, we have reacted to conserve the faith of our baptism or in order not to dishonor the divine Majesty. It is impossible to analyze the 1988 Consecrations without considering the tragic context in which they took place. Otherwise, things become incomprehensible and justice no longer has its due.

Furthermore, it is often said that our status would be a concession, and that we would be accorded a situation suitable to our “special charism.”

Must one recall that what we are attached to is the common patrimony of the Roman Catholic Church? We do not ask nor do we seek a special status as a mark of singularity, but we want a “normal” place in the Church. So long as the Tridentine Mass is considered a particular concession, we remain marginalized, in a precarious and suspect position. It is in this perspective that we claim a right that has never been lost: that of the Mass for everyone. To reduce this right to an indult (which certain Roman voices hold to be provisory) is already to diminish it.

In the current situation, where everything of a traditional savor immediately becomes suspect, we have need of a protector and defender of our interests in the Curia. It is more a question of representing Tradition at Rome than of establishing a delegate of the Holy See for traditional matters, as in the case of Ecclesia Dei today. In order for this organization to have some credibility and to correspond to its purpose, it is important that it be composed of members who belong to Catholic Tradition.

To achieve a “recognition” without having first resolved these questions in principle would be to doom the proposed “practical accord” to failure, for we hope to act tomorrow with the same fidelity to Catholic Tradition as we do today.

Wanting to maintain the frankness with which we address these questions (which is not a matter of arrogance or of lack of charity), we would be condemned tomorrow as we were yesterday.

At baptism a contract is established between the Christian soul and the Church: “what do you ask of the Church?” “The faith.” This is what we ask of Rome: that Rome confirm us in the Faith, the faith of all times, the immutable faith. We have the strict right to demand this of the Roman authorities. We do not believe that we can truly progress towards a “recognition” so long as Rome will not have shown its concrete intention to dissipate the cloud which has invaded the temple of God, obscured the faith and paralyzed the supernatural life of the Church under the cover of a Council and subsequent reforms.

In the hope that this letter may make its contribution to overcoming the current inertia we assure you, Eminence, of our daily prayers for the fulfillment of your heavy duty in this grave hour of Holy Mother Church.

† Bernard Fellay

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1. I.e., a declaration on the invalidity of the decree, for as Bishop Fellay points out later in the following paragraph, the 1983 Code of Canon Law is clear that neither Archbishop Lefebvre, Bishop de Castro Mayer nor the four consecrated bishops of the SSPX were liable for any canonical penalties.
2. “our” refers to the four bishops of the SSPX, respectively, Bishops Fellay, Tissier de Mallerais, Williamson and de Galerreta.

There are joys in the midst of this valley of tears! We rejoice at the spread of the Society’s apostolate which can be seen as a permanent miracle. We are saddened by the persecution of the Society of St. Josaphat and by the desecration of the Fatima Shrine. As long as Rome tolerates such things, they are distancing themselves from an accord with the Society. The Society thanks all of its benefactors and begs for prayers in these difficult times.

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Miracle of the Society of St. Pius X and its spread

How happy we are to tell you from time to time about the joys of our apostolate! Each day that passes we are privileged to witness miracles of grace. Let us remember to thank Almighty God, and let us be full of gratitude for the graces afforded us by the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We dare say that the life of the SSPX is indeed a permanent miracle. It expresses the intervention of God in our small history, the intervention of Our Lady, of the holy angels, of this whole world that surrounds us, that wishes us well. Our heavenly friends, whom we see not and on whom, unhappily, we think so little, are so close, so ready to help us, so effective! They are indeed real, they are part of our lives and their sometimes tangible assistance compels us to accept the marvelous reality of the communion of saints. When we compare our own powers with the results of our efforts, we are indeed obliged to recognize that these results do not come from us.

A great many new buildings and chapels throughout the world, in the Philippines, in India, North and South America, Western and Eastern Europe are also signs of an impressive vitality of grace. Experience has taught us that even the opposition of the clergy, generally strongest in areas where we have become established fairly recently, serves the good cause. “Everything comes together for the good of those who serve God.”

Concerns: The persecution of the Society of St. Josephat

We would also like to share some pains and concerns with you.

First of all, in the Ukraine.

These last months the priests whom we support in the Fraternity of St. Josaphat have been subjected to the furious attacks of their Bishop, Cardinal Husar. The cardinal took to the airwaves to make a grand declaration of excommunication against Father Wasil and his companions, on the grounds that he has associated himself with a schismatic movement…

This is the gravest censure in the canon law of the Eastern Church. It was issued without due process. Once Father Wasil appealed to Rome the Cardinal undertook to observe the legal formalities. The whole process was designed to fill the juridical void in order to justify a ready-made sentence. Nihil novi sub sole (there is nothing new under the sun).

The ecclesiastical authorities are also trying to take back the churches, including those built by Father Wasil. This is undoubtedly a harsh blow for them, and your prayers are asked to support them in this new struggle. Up to now they have had to defend their faith against a terrible enemy, atheistic communism, but now it is their own pastors who are attacking them. Up to now, the priests have resisted bravely with the support of the faithful. But each attack unsettles souls; some turn away in disgust and give up. A familiar pattern.

And from the side of Rome?

Let us begin with Fatima. Last year the construction of a new building for the use of different religions was announced. Even if the official publication of the shrine keeps silent about the nature of the project, public actions go even further. On May 5, a group of Hindus invaded the place of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin, naturally with all the official authorizations. They made this sacred place, so dear to Catholics, the forum for their idolatry. “It is a unique event, without precedent in the history of the shrine. The Hindu priest, or Sha Tri, recited at the altar the Shaniti Pa, the prayer for peace. The Hindus can be seen removing their sandals before approaching the balustrade of the sanctuary, while the priest pronounces the prayers at the altar in the sanctuary. The bishop and the rector of the shrine were themselves decked out in Hindu prayer shawls… a fine affair.” What a provocation against Christianity!

Now, are we to speak of reaching an accord?

So long as the Roman authorities tolerate such abominations or, worse still, support them, they are distancing themselves from any accord with Tradition. We shall never give way to such affronts perpetrated against Our Lady of Heaven, the Mother of God. One sometimes wonders whether not only the faith has been lost, but common sense as well. Deus non irridetur (God is not mocked). Such actions demand reparation. We are seriously thinking of inviting you to an act of solemn protest at Fatima next year.

Rome demands that the Society accept a “Personal Jurisdiction”

As concerns Rome more directly, Rome demands that we accept their proposition of a “personal jurisdiction.” The problem lies not in the juridical formulation, which seems acceptable to us in principle, although we do not know the concrete elements and implications of such a “juridical formula.” The problem remains as always on the level of doctrine, of the Christian spirit that does or does not inform (and that is the whole question) ambiguous texts and reforms that have been disastrous for the supernatural welfare of the faithful. We do indeed perceive more and more sympathy from certain bishops, also in Rome. It seems to us that we are moving forward, that Tradition is making progress in the Catholic world. But that is not yet sufficient. We recently made an official request that the decree of excommunication be withdrawn as a first concrete step on the part of Rome. That would change the climate and we could better see how things develop. One thing is certain: we do not want the situation in which the Fraternity of St. Peter and the majority of the Ecclesia Dei groups have been placed. They are constrained, and it is barely permitted them to say the Tridentine Mass. Most of the time they find themselves in truly odious situations. Cardinal Castrillón is perfectly right to claim for traditionalists a status better than that of second-class citizen. But is it not up to Rome first of all to change this state of affairs?

These are all so many intentions for prayer, dear benefactors. Be assured of our profound gratitude for all your sacrifices, so precious, so pleasing to God, and which help us greatly in our apostolate. May God reward you, may the Sacred Heart bless you, and may his most Holy Mother protect you and your families.

† Bernard Fellay

Feast of the Sacred Heart, June 18, 2004

The Church has just celebrated 25 years of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. During this time, more damage has been caused by the reforms of Vatican II, than did other events such as the French Revolution. Most of the reforms were made in the name of ecumenism which, explains Cardinal Kaspar, will destroy all that is strictly Catholic in the Church, not bring back the separated bretheren. Your prayers are asked for a group of Ukrainian priests and their parishioners who are being threatened with major excommunication.

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

The Church has just celebrated 25 years of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, one of the longest pontificates of her entire history. It is also a pontificate that has presided over one of the most decadent periods the Church has ever experienced. The French Revolution, the two World Wars and Communism caused less damage to the Church than the reforms of Vatican II. This internal sickness has given rise to a greater loss of faith, a greater spiritual devastation, especially in Europe and North America, than all the ills brought about by the Church’s external enemies. Are we not right to think that the Council has had the effrontery to give the Church a new mission, a new goal: that of being “the sacrament of the unity of mankind”? Hitherto the Church’s first and sole purpose was to save souls, to wrench them from the hands of sin and the devil, and lead them to God by faith and the grace of the sacraments. Quite simply, concern for the unity of mankind is utterly foreign to her. The Church, essentially supernatural both in her aims and her means, has no business with any earthly and purely humanitarian mission. Of course she is familiar with a supernatural unity, and she does actually create a human unity among her faithful, but this is purely accessory to her purpose; it is only a consequence of their union in faith and charity. At the same time she knows how to appreciate the proper value of the bond of peace, the vinculum pacis.

The more we go on, the clearer it becomes that one of the keystones in the vault of the Conciliar and post-Conciliar enterprise is ecumenism. The Roman authorities constantly harp on it.

Most of the reforms were made in the name of this ecumenism, and the greatest “successes” are attributed to it. The liturgical reform, the new relations with Christian and non-Christian religions, the ecumenical Bible: all these things have infected the faithful with a number of attitudes and a new vision which have very little to do with the Church’s teaching and discipline that have come down to us through the centuries.

We must go further, however. Cardinal Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, recently gave a conference that throws much light on what ecumenism really is: it is a large-scale enterprise to demolish all that is specifically Catholic in the Church. It is quite clear that we are fooling ourselves if we think that ecumenism is a dialogue-based movement with the aim of bringing the separated sheep back to the fold of Holy Church.

He takes it as axiomatic that the Church is meant to be the leaven of mankind’s unity, and from that he goes on to examine the causes of division. Suddenly it becomes plain that what divides Christians and men generally are precisely the specifically Catholic things. (Wasn’t Our Lord himself a sign of contradiction and a stumbling-stone?) Kasper tells us that ecumenism is not a movement towards conversion; it is not the return of wanderers who have left the one true fold. This idea of unity is foreign to him. For him, ecumenism consists in bringing about a new unity, a unity together with these wanderers who —all of a sudden —are not wanderers at all! We must follow “a common path towards a unity in a reconciled diversity.” As for this unity, the Cardinal tells us that no one knows what it will be like, because “the Holy Spirit is always able to come up with a surprise.” Clearly, this man, who is responsible for the promotion of unity, does not know where he is going; but he does know what he is doing: he wants to remove from the Catholic Church everything that is specific to her. That means he will have a big job!

The first division, of course, comes from our profession of faith. Our good Mother, Holy Church, has produced these dogmatic formulas —as it was her duty to do —to protect the faith that saves and gives eternal life, against the deceivers and false prophets who preach a gospel that is equally new and false. Practically all the heresies have been stopped in their tracks, blocked, by a succinct and incisive formula that shows with the utmost clarity the abyss that exists between truth and error, faith and heresy. Cardinal Ratzinger, following Urs von Balthasar, wrote that the urgent issue of the moment was to “dismantle faith’s bastions,” but Kasper goes further and says that today we must transcend these “unfortunate” and divisive formulas and discover a unity that we had never really lost… sharing the one faith under different creeds… “This is the result of our efforts to reach nuanced agreements that transform yesterday’s contradictions into complementary assertions…” According to this view, the dogmas are nothing but antiquated polemical formulas.

Once Kasper gets to work, there is no stopping: the sacramental life, the ecclesiastical ministries —including the episcopate itself —and, finally the pontifical Primacy (the stumbling-stone par excellence in the way of unity) are all given the same treatment: everything must be changed in the Church and reduced to the lowest common denominator.

Kasper does not know whether tomorrow’s pope should be held to possess a jurisdiction or infallibility; it will depend on the needs of the moment. It is a “variable geometry” kind of papacy, imposed by a dogma that is now seen as historically conditioned and distinct from its permanent content. This is pure modernism.

Cardinal Kasper is the pope’s right hand man in what the latter regards as “the most important duty of his pontificate.” Even if the Cardinal gives this conference as his own personal vision, there can be no doubt that it governs his official action; furthermore, he is not the only one to think in this way. The way he presents his ideas is daring, but he is only expressing the dominant view, the “official line.”

Here is a very recent illustration of it: at the beginning of October a new inter-religious meeting took place at Fatima. It is the same thing as Assisi. But now it is at the heart of a Marian sanctuary. The building of a great multi-religious temple there has been announced, under the aegis of the Vatican and … (wait for it…) the UN!

How can any agreement [with Rome] be possible under such conditions? How can we pass over such aberrations in silence? We reject all “nuanced” agreements, we affirm the contradiction between the true and the false, and we assert our firm will to have nullam partem (no part) in such an enterprise. Why? Quite simply, because we want to remain Catholics. We must turn our backs with horror and disgust on such a way of seeing the Church and living in “communion.” How can anyone claim that modernist “Rome” has changed and is becoming favourable to Tradition? What delusion!

In our struggle to maintain the Catholic identity we have been asked to come to the aid of a group of Ukrainian priests. For some years now we have been helping them, particularly by setting up a seminary, that had been clandestine for a long time. This year our wholesome action was brought under the spotlight. Their bishop, Cardinal Husar, summoned the superior of the Fraternity of St. Josaphat and asked him to explain himself and to make his position clear: “It’s me or Bishop Fellay.” He has threatened him and all the priests (about ten of them), and the faithful who follow them (more than ten thousand) with major excommunication. This means many trials, penalties or persecution in a country where Communism is not dead. We commend them to your prayers. In November, in Warsaw, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais ordained the first priest to have come from this seminary.

On the eve of the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, let us renew our adoration and our firm will to serve Him and follow Him to the very end. Let us ardently implore His grace so that we may carry out His holy desires. Be assured of the prayers of all our seminarians, who have returned to the seminaries in good numbers this year. Taking all our seminaries together, we have sixty new entrants beginning their year of spirituality. May Our Lord deign to reward your faithful generosity with His abundant graces, and may our good Heavenly Mother deign to protect you throughout the New Year.

† Bernard Fellay

Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 8 December 2003

A non-catholic way of thinking has been the norm in the Church since Vatican II. This non-catholic way of thinking is the source of the destruction of all that is traditional. This new way of thinking has destroyed the religious and the priestly life. The Pope's encyclical on the Eucharist and Cardinal Castrillon`s Celebration of the Tridentine Mass are not a return to Tradition but rather a mixture of truth and error. Rome desires that we accept truth mixed with error as a condition of our “regularization”.

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

A catholic way of thinking is incompatible with a non-catholic way of thinking

When commenting on an incident that took place during Vatican II with respect to collegiality, Bishop Henrici declared that it “at least clearly demonstrated the opposition between two different traditions in theological doctrine, which were not, deep down, mutually compatible.”¹ This brief sentence is not a passing comment of little importance. In its very brevity, it describes the great tragedy that has overcome the Church for the past forty years. A merciless combat has been engaged between two opposing ideas, two ideas that are mutually exclusive. At stake is nothing less than the direction in which the Church is going.

Fifteen years after the Council, Pope Paul VI expressed more or less the same thought to his friend, Jean Guitton. “There is, at the present time, a great disorder in the Church, and it is the Faith that is at stake. When I consider the Catholic world, what frightens me is that it seems that a non-Catholic way of thinking seems to be becoming prevalent within Catholicism itself, and that it could even happen that this non-Catholic way of thinking could take over in the future, although it will never represent the mind of the Church. A small flock must continue to exist, as small as it might be”.² Beforehand, the Pope had wondered if we were in the last times.

In his Declaration of November 21, 1974, expressing his unshakable adherence to eternal Rome and his equally determined rejection of modernist Rome, Archbishop Lefebvre did not speak any differently.

We cannot help but be struck by the agreement in the analysis of the three persons quoted above, and especially from the fact that these three analyses come from widely disparate points of view. All three see the existence of an extraordinary rivalry between two ways of thinking, two world visions that are incompatible, but which yet exist in the bosom of the Catholic Church. One of these is nothing other than traditional Catholic teaching, which the Church has always and everywhere taught: the Catholic Faith along with all its practical consequences. The other is a modern way of thinking, denounced by Saint Pius X as evolutionary and agnostic, and which has transformed itself from the threat that it constituted at the beginning of the 20th century to a truly gangrenous wound, corrupting the entire life of the Church, during the second half of this same 20th century. At the time of the Council this non-Catholic way of thinking effectively triumphed. Since then, it has paralysed the Faith and the supernatural life, by so many reforms imposed upon the Church in the name of the Second Vatican Council.

Since Vatican II, this non-catholic way of thinking has guided all reforms

There is in every system of thought, a logical coherence. Every system of thought tends towards a concrete realization, towards an action. So it is in the nature of things with this ensemble of changes that are called post-conciliar reforms. Reflecting the spirit of Vatican II, they have provoked the disaster, from which the Church has suffered since the Council. This way of thinking is in itself foreign to the Church. Through whatever cracks, the smoke of Satan has penetrated into the temple of God. Adorned with an ecclesiastical exterior, it plans on making itself accepted as the Catholic rule. If we have been condemned, it is because of our opposition to this new system. Catholic Tradition as we embrace it, has been rejected from the Church’s life, or at least pushed aside and disparaged as henceforth out of date.

This new way of thinking destroys both the religious and priestly life

Let us consider, for example, in order to become more aware of this, the gravity of the changes imposed upon the religious life. For the religious life is that so precious flower of the way of the counsels that expresses to ordinary faithful and men of the world the complete separation from the world which is the path of Christian perfection. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mt. 16:24) Let him sell his goods… It is not just the physical separation from the world, object of the evangelical counsels, that has been in large part lost in the desire to reform the religious life and to adapt it to today’s world. It is above all and more profoundly the rejection of the world that the Church demands of us when we make our baptismal promises, along with all the requirements of baptism that are necessary for salvation. This loss can be seen in innumerable details of the life of religious congregations, as for example in the suppression of the religious habit.

The same must be said of the priestly life. This way of thinking, so foreign to the Church, and which has pushed its way into her midst, has profoundly destabilized an element which is even more profound and necessary to the life of the Mystical Body: the priesthood. The loss of the notion of sacrifice in reparation for sins, the loss of the sense of sacrifice and even the rejection of the cross are to be found in a surprising number of priests, intimately linked as they are with the new way of thinking that has been engendered by the New Mass, the Novus Ordo Missae. The same applies to all the reforms. Everything is bound together, and with frightening internal consistency. Indeed we must say it and repeat it, the overturning of the Church’s life imposed since the Council is the fruit of the eruption in its midst of a way of thinking that is contrary to and destructive of what is specifically Catholic.

The greatest tragedy in this whole situation comes from the fact that this non-Catholic way of thinking has been assumed by the Church’s authority figures and imposed in the name of obedience. This has, alas, made its diffusion all the more efficacious and prevented a normal reaction of rejection of such a deadly poison throughout the Mystical Body.

Rome's anti-traditional line

When we consider the different events that have taken place over recent months, it seems to me important to recall the tragic plot that weaves itself through our history. In effect, our criterion of judgment by which we analyze events in the Church and the world must necessarily include this fundamental truth: we can only consider as valuable, determining and truly good those events that influence this whole series of events in a positive way. Simply put, we will believe that Rome truly reaches out towards Tradition if and when it, in one way or another, changes and corrects the general anti-traditional line that continues to infect the Church.

Is the new encyclical on the Holy Eucharist traditional?

Has the new encyclical on the Holy Eucharist had this influence? Despite appearances to the contrary, despite the very welcome reminders from the Council of Trent, despite the denunciation of many abuses, all things that are good in themselves and that we rejoice to see, the underlying way of thinking and all the circumstances that surround the encyclical oblige us to reply, unfortunately, in the negative. The Mass to which the Encyclical refers is, from beginning to end, indeed the New Mass, the Mass reformed in the name of Vatican II. This says everything. This means that there is a desire to make some cosmetic and superficial modifications, but not the radical change that is so absolutely necessary for a “return to Tradition”. Nowhere is there even a partial questioning of the liturgical reforms, even if it is admitted that there have been errors, abuses, etc. This encyclical does not plan to go backwards. It simply intends to present in a manner which is not so bad the new teaching on the Holy Eucharist. They might be ready to change the jam, but they are certainly not ready to change the moldy slice of bread upon which it is spread. This is so serious that the rest of it remains indigestible and dangerous for health.

Cardinal Hoyos celebrates Tridentine Mass on May 24th

Can the Mass celebrated by Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos on May 24 in Saint Mary Major’s Basilica, which we are happy to hear about, be seen as a sign of such a return? Could it be interpreted as a feeble expression of a firm will to change the disastrous course of events? Alas, by lack of conviction, by fear of opposition from the progressive wing, this noble gesture will remain a one time act, and is not the happy announcing of the freedom of the Mass that has been so long awaited by the traditional faithful. Indeed, the assistant priest at this Mass, he who had the honour of accompanying the Cardinal at the altar, was refused that very morning of May 24 the right to celebrate the Tridentine Mass at Saint Peter’s, and this despite the fact that he had an Ecclesia Dei celebret. This fact is eloquent in itself.

Mixture of truth and error

There is, consequently, in these events, an incompatible mixture of the old and the new, at least to our way of seeing things, in the light of Tradition. However, the modern mind, which pretends to go beyond the principle of non-contradiction, does not understand it in the same way as we do. It accepts contradictions, but on one condition only, namely that the old way cease to reject contradictions and that it cease to stand for exclusivity.

The contradictory character of the modern Church is to be found in a striking manner in this encyclical when it treats of the question of the admission of non-Catholics to Holy Communion. The distinction between a (non-Catholic) group, to whom Holy Communion must be refused, since they are outside of ecclesial communion, and an (non-Catholic) individual, to whom Communion can be administered so long as he believes in the Holy Eucharist, is unacceptable. For, both Faith and ecclesial communion are independent from the question of belonging to a group.

Theology teaches that the denial of a single truth of Faith suffices to remove the entire Faith (cf. Pius XII, Dogma of the Assumption). Consequently, it cannot be said of the non-Catholic who rejects certain dogmas that he objectively has “Faith in the Holy Eucharist”, and that this condition would be sufficient to receive Communion.

Our relations with Rome and the principle of non-contradiction

We come up against the same problem in our relations with Rome. If Rome desires to receive us, and even invites us, it is in this new broad and pluralistic perspective that accepts that contradictory points of view can coexist (for it does not accept that there is such a thing as a contradiction). This is not a question of divergent acceptable positions that make up the richness of the Church in its diversity. It is rather a question of a non-Catholic way of thinking that wants to make itself accepted at any price by everyone and for everyone.

The Catholic Faith, to the contrary, is exclusive, as is all truth. It cannot grant any rights to contrary ideas, even if exterior circumstances sometimes demand tolerance, in view of the common good.

The Catholic spirit which flows from this Faith is also exclusive, and it is incompatible with the spirit of the world, even if in the life of numerous faithful we can see the incoherence of the mixture of Catholic and worldly elements.

Rome's aim is to impose the Council and its New Mass

We are aware that our explanation is a little schematic. When we speak of modern Rome or today’s Rome, we must add that it is not modernist in an entirely rigid and invariable manner, nor do we deny that even at Rome there are a certain number of prelates who would like to stand up against this catastrophe. But so far, everything indicates that the direction remains that of the post-conciliar Reforms, in the name of the untouchable Council. It is still, implicitly and explicitly, the Council and the New Mass that Rome plans to impose upon us as a present-day and general rule of Catholic life. This is the foreign way of thinking of which we spoke above, and which they desire still and always to force us to accept. Rome has made it the condition sine qua non of our regularization. There remains for us, then, to continue our hunger strike with respect to these novelties, until such time as Rome finally agrees to give us – and to the entire Mystical Body – the nourishing bread of Catholic Tradition for which we have been begging during this already very long night. However, we will never tire of knocking. It is Our Lord Himself who taught us this. It is He who has the words of Everlasting Life. We believe in His Omnipotence, we believe in His promises.

May Our Lady, Mother of the Church, who is so great and motherly in her protection, deign to guide us along the paths of patience and fidelity and “cum prole pia”³ bless us abundantly.

† Bernard Fellay

On the feast of the Precious Blood, July 1, 2003

1. Peter Henrici, “La maturation du Concile”, Communio, November 1990. p. 85 et sq.
2. Jean Guitton, Paul VI secret
3.  “With her divine Son”

In the eyes of Rome, the Campos-Rome agreement was merely meant to be the prelude to our own “regularization” in the Society of Saint Pius X, but in our eyes what is happening to our former friends should rather serve as a lesson to us. There is a desire on the part of some Vatican officials to put an end to the downhill slide. However, it is clear that the principle governing today’s Rome is still to put the Council into practice as has been done for the last 40 years. In this letter we will also tell you a little of our activity in the missionary countries of Lithuania and Kenya.

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Our relations with Rome

Once again our letter to Friends and Benefactors is reaching you a little late. Once again we hesitated to write to you sooner for fear of leaving out an important development in our relations with Rome, especially after the Campos-Rome agreement. In the eyes of Rome, obviously, what happened in Campos was merely meant to be the prelude to our own “regularization” in the Society of Saint Pius X, but in our eyes what is happening to our former friends should rather serve as a lesson to us.

Generally speaking, Rome means, all things being equal, to come to an agreement with the SSPX. On all sides we hear that the Pope would like to settle this matter before he dies. Alas, our fears roused by the Campos agreement have proved to be well-founded, and the evolution we observe of the Campos Apostolic Administration, contrary to Roman expectations, leaves us distrustful.

Of course we are dealing with a volatile situation capable of sudden and surprising changes, like in times of political instability. And in such a situation, nobody can be certain of what turn it will take. Also we do behold in the Vatican offices a certain questioning of the way things have gone for the last few decades, and a desire on the part of some officials to put an end to the downhill slide.

However, it is clear that the principle governing today’s Rome is still to put the Council into practice as has been done for the last 40 years. Neither official documents nor general policy show any fundamental re-thinking of this principle. On the contrary, we are always being told that what the Council set in motion is irreversible, which leads us to ask why there has been a change of attitude with regard to ourselves. Various explanations are possible, but it is primarily because of the pluralist and ecumenical vision of things now prevailing in the Catholic world. According to this vision, everybody is to mix together without anybody needing any longer to convert, as Cardinal Kasper said in connection with the Orthodox and even the Jews. From such a standpoint there will even be a little room for Catholic Tradition, but for our part we cannot accept this vision of variable truth any more than a mathematics teacher can accept a variable multiplication table.

The day will come, we are sure and certain, when Rome will come back to Rome’s own Tradition and restore it to its rightful place, and we long with all our hearts for that blessed day. For the time being, however, things are not yet at that point, and to foster illusions would be deadly for the SSPX, as we can see, when we follow the turn of events in Campos. For this purpose, let us emphasize two points in the evolution of the Campos situation: firstly, how their attitude to Rome has changed since the agreement and secondly, how Campos is moving further and further away from ourselves, with all the upset that that implies.

Changes in Campos

Campos, through its leader, Bishop Rifan, is crying out for all to hear that nothing has changed, that the priests of the Apostolic Administration are just as Traditional as before, which is the essence of what they have been granted, and why they accepted Rome’s offer: because Rome approved of the Traditional position.

For our part, let us begin by noting that we are well aware that in any disagreement one tends to discredit one’s adversary. For instance in the case of our former friends in Campos, there are certainly false rumors circulating to the effect that “Bishop Rifan has concelebrated the New Mass”, or, “Campos has completely given up Tradition”. However, that being said, here is what we observe:

1. The Campos website lays out the Campos position on the burning question of ecumenism: they claim to follow the Magisterium of the Church, past and present. There are quotes from Pius XI’s encyclical letter Mortalium Animos, next to quotes from John Paul II’s Redemptoris Missio. We cannot help observing that there has been a careful selection process: Campos quotes John Paul II’s traditional passages while other passages introducing a quite new way of looking at the question are passed over. We read, “Being Catholics, we have no particular teaching of our own on the question. Our teaching is none other than that of the Church’s Magisterium. The extracts which we publish here from certain documents old and new, bear especially on points of Catholic doctrine which are in greater danger today”.

2. The ambiguity implicit here has become more or less normal in the new situation in which they find themselves: they emphasize those points in the present pontificate which seem favourable to Tradition, and tip-toe past the rest. Say what we will: there took place in Campos on January 18, 2002, not only a one-sided recognition of Campos by Rome, as some claim, but also, in exchange, an undertaking by Campos to keep quiet. And how could it be otherwise? It is clear by now that Campos has something to lose which they are afraid or losing, and so in order not to lose it they have chosen the path of compromise: “We Brazilians are men of peace, you Frenchmen are always fighting”. Which means that, in order to keep the peace with Rome, one must stop fighting. They no longer see the situation of the Church as a whole, they content themselves with Rome’s gesture in favour of a little group of two dozen priests and say that there is no longer any emergency in the Church because the granting of a Traditional bishop has created a new juridical situation…They are forgetting the wood for a single tree.

3. Bishop Rifan, in the course of a brief visit to Europe, went to see Dom Gerard at Le Barroux Abbey in France to present his apologies for having so criticized him back in 1988 when Dom Gerard condemned Archbishop Lefebvre’s consecrating or four bishops. In a lecture he gave to the monks, Bishop Rifan pretended there were two phases in the life or Bishop de Castro Mayer: up till 1981 he was supposedly a docile bishop respecting the rest of the hierarchy, from 1981 onwards he was a much harder churchman… “We choose to follow the pre-1981 de Castro Mayer”, said Bishop Rifan to the monks, some of whom were surprised at such words, and one of them was scandalized to the point of coming over to the SSPX.

4. Within this way of thinking even the Novus Ordo Mass can be accommodated. Campos forgets the 62 reasons for having nothing to do with it, Campos now finds that if it is properly celebrated, it is valid (which we have never denied, but that is not the point). Campos no longer says that Catholics must stay away because the New Mass is bad, and dangerous. Bishop Rifan says, by way of justifying his position on the Mass: “So we reject all use of the Traditional Mass as a battle-flag to insult and fight the lawfully constituted hierarchical authority of the Church. We stay with the Traditional Mass, not out of any spirit of contradiction, but as a clear and lawful expression of our Catholic Faith!”. We are reminded of the words of a Cardinal a little while back: “Whereas the SSPX is FOR the old Mass, the Fraternity of Saint Peter Is AGAINST the New Mass. It’s not the same thing”. That was Rome’s argument to justify taking action against Fr. Bisig of the Fraternity of Saint Peter at about the same time that Rome was cozying up to the SSPX. The Cardinal’s curious distinction is now being put into practice by Campos, as they pretend to be for the old Mass but not against the new. Likewise for Tradition, but not against today’s Rome. “We maintain that Vatican II cannot contradict Catholic Tradition”, said Bishop Rifan quite recently to a French magazine, Famille Chrétienne. Yet a well-known Cardinal said that Vatican II was the French Revolution inside the Church. Bishop de Castro Mayer said the same thing….

So little by little the will to fight grows weaker and finally one gets used to the situation. In Campos itself, everything positively traditional is being maintained, for sure, so the people see nothing different, except that the more perceptive amongst them notice the priests’ tendency to speak respectfully and more often of recent statements and events coming out of Rome, while yesterday’s warnings and today’s deviations are left out. The great danger here is that in the end one gets used to the situation as it is, and no longer tries to remedy it. For our part we have no intention of launching out until we are certain that Rome means to maintain Tradition. We need signs that they have converted.

Leaving the SSPX behind

Besides this wholly foreseeable evolution of minds by which the Campos priests have, whatever they say, given up the fight, we must note another occurrence, the increasing hostility between us. Bishop Rifan still says that he wants to be our friend, but some Campos priests are already accusing us of being schismatic because we refuse their agreement with Rome.

A little like one sees a boat pushing into mid-river, drifting down-stream and leaving the bank behind, so we see, little by little, several indications of the distance growing between ourselves and Campos. We had warned them of the great danger, they chose not to listen. Since they have no wish to row up-stream, then even while inside the boat things carry on as before, which gives them the impression that nothing has changed, nevertheless they are leaving us behind, as they show themselves more and more attached to the magisterium of today, as opposed to the position they held until recently and which we still hold, namely a sane criticism of the present in the light of the past.

To sum up, we are bound to say that the Campos priests, despite their claims to the contrary, are slowly being re-molded, following the lead of their new bishop, in the spirit of the Council. That is all Rome wants – for the moment.

One may object that our arguments are weak and too subtle, and of no weight as against Rome’s offer to regularize our situation. We reply that if one considers Rome’s offer of an Apostolic Administration just by itself, it is as splendid as the architect’s plan of a beautiful mansion. But the real problem is the practical problem of what foundations the mansion will rest on. On the shifting sands of Vatican II, or on the rock of Tradition going back to the first Apostle?

To guarantee our future, we must obtain from today’s Rome clear proof of its attachment to the Rome of yesterday. When the Roman authorities have restated with actions speaking louder than words that “There must be no innovations outside of Tradition”, then “we” shall no longer be a problem. And we beg God to hasten that day when the whole Church will flourish again, having re-discovered the secret of her past strength, freed from the modern unthought of which Paul VI said that “It is anti-Catholic in nature, Maybe it will prevail. It will never be the Church. There will have to be a faithful remnant, however tiny”.

Life inside the SSPX

Let us also tell you of life inside the Society, to give you a little share in our apostolic joys and labours. And let us make use of this letter to tell you a little of our activity in missionary countries. It is true that today almost all countries, especially in our old Europe, are again becoming missionary countries. Priests, in their apostolic travels, visit over 65 countries, some of them still today suffering direct persecution of the Faith. But as this letter is already long, let us confine ourselves to two new areas of our apostolate. We had been visiting them off and on for a number of years, but just recently we think they are opening up in an astonishing way: Lithuania and Kenya.

In order the better to organize our apostolate in Russia and White Russia, we have established a bridgehead in Lithuania, a country which suffered much under Russian Communist persecution and where it took heroism to keep Catholicism going. Once the Iron Curtain fell, the Eastern countries put their trust in the novelties from the Vatican, being persuaded that anything coming from the West had to be good! These countries swiftly caught up on the state of disaster inflicted by the reforms. Any reaction is rather passive than visible, so we do not see them taking action. But once our priests got over the language difficulty, they are discovering ground that promises to be fertile for Tradition, more so than our first fruitless attempts had given us to expect. Welcomed with a severe warning from the local bishops to Catholics to stay away from us, our priests nevertheless discovered numerous priests wishing to join us. These explained their bishops’ severity: it was out of fear that Catholics would come to us in large numbers. For instance we have been approached by a little congregation of Sisters, founded by Cardinal Vincentas Sladkevicius, Archbishop Emeritus of Kaunas. Before he died on May 28, 2000, he left orders with the Sisters: “When the Society of Saint Pius X comes, you must join them. They will restore the Church in Lithuania”. May God with His grace enable us to live up to the Archbishop’s expectation! The main cities now have their little Mass center where interest is slight for the moment, but becomes more pressing each day.

Kenya has been receiving sporadic visits from Society priests for the last 25 years, but we have only just discovered the existence of a group of 1,500 faithful organizing their struggle for the Faith with their refusal of communion in the hand and standing. Our first contacts with them show very clearly that they are battling not only for the right way to receive communion but also for a whole Traditional attitude. We are discovering also a number of nuns who have left their different Congregations or been chased out of them because they refused the Vatican II reforms. Living in the world they remained faithful to their vows. Now 16 of them are coming over to us in the hope of being able once more to live in community.

A young priest said to us, “If you set up a chapel here, it will empty out the cathedral. When I visit the faithful they say to me: ‘Why have you changed our Church? Say Mass like it used to be!’ But I don’t know the old Mass, I don’t know how the Church was before. When I ask older priests, they send me packing. Can you teach me to say the old Mass? Can I visit you to learn?” Another priest, also young, said in a tone of voice that spoke volumes. “I will note down in my diary for this evening: my first Tridentine Mass”.

How can the Church authorities not heed the cry of these souls thirsting for grace and the Catholic life? Beneath the ashes and ruins left by Vatican II, there are still traditional Catholic embers glowing, needing only to blaze up again. The Church does not die. God watches over it. May He grant us to be His docile instruments to spread the fire that His Heart burns to spread throughout the world!

But you in particular, dear faithful, are well aware that we cannot manage to do all we would like to do; how we need priests! Pray, pray the master of the harvest to send numerous workers into his apostolic field.

At the beginning of this new year, full of gratitude and warm thanks for all your unfailing generosity, we entrust you with praying for priests, for the sacrifice of the Mass. God bless you and all your families with an abundance of all His graces.

† Bernard Fellay

Feast of the Epiphany 6 January 2003

Many priests, seminarians and newcomers are joining the Society but it is with sadness that we report that Campos has been lost to the Society. After drawing Campos away from the Society, Rome's Cardinal Castrillon seeks a dialogue with the Society. His actions which are described in detail in this letter have created a climate of distrust, and in this climate dialogue is impossible. Rome has caused the present crisis by deviating from the doctrine of the Church.

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Catholic Tradition in its relations with the Vatican has truly lived through a number of important events over the last two years:

The sanctification and salvation of souls is the main preoccupation of the Society

Since Rome first approached us at the end of the year 2000, it seems to us that the time has now come to take stock, and to reply to a number of objections or questions which the whole issue raises. However, we would also like to mention that if we go into these questions, they are not our main pre-occupation. Celebrating the Holy Mysteries, imparting grace in abundance to your souls, being the instrument of numerous and always very touching conversions, is at the heart of our lives, and these are facts which show us to be truly Catholic, whereas all the discussions and disagreements with the Vatican are merely the expression of our will to remain Catholic.

Indian seminarians join the society and also several american priests

Recently, an important group of seminarians from Bombay joined us. For their seven years at the Seminary, the existence of the Devil was denied, and the word “hell” never once fell upon their ears, any more than the words “Sacrifice of the Mass”. Their coming over to us brought down on our heads the wrath of the Cardinal of Bombay, of course. In the USA, several priests are either joining us or drawing closer. One of them said to me, “I did everything I could not to finish up with you”. That is eloquent testimony: after exhausting all of today’s alternatives, from their own diocese through the Indult Mass to the various Ecclesia Dei [Commission] congregations, these priests and seminarians have come to the conclusion, despite their disinclination and their initial fear of being connected with Traditionalists still being branded as schismatic, that to lead a fully Christian life we are the only way to go.

Traditional-minded priests and seminarians persecuted

What confusing times! Good is condemned, evil is all too often blessed. That is the experience of numbers of priests today who simply wish to remain Catholic. What tribulations! Like the two seminarians rebuked by their Rector for being caught red-handed praying the Rosary! But when they were caught attending the Indult Mass, then they were hauled before the Cardinal in person… We would like to hear of at least comparable reprimands being handed out for all kinds of real misbehaviour.

Campos has been lost; what a shame!

Yet while a number of priests draw closer to us, Campos is going back to Rome. We think that the decisive argument for Rome to win them over was the promise of a bishop alongside Bishop Rangel, now gravely ill. They wrote to me that they considered that they could not refuse the Holy Father’s wish to give them a bishop, because “that would be schismatic”. By way of a bishop, all they have is a promise: “I shall give you a successor”. Of course, nobody dares doubt such a promise, but the whole question turns on the identity of this successor; who will he be? Where will he be chosen from? One may well think that Rome will seek to ensure the future bishop’s faithfulness to Vatican II, because some of the Romans still have reservations as to the “orthodoxy” of Campos’ doctrinal stance. Suspicion reigns in Rome.

Rome backtracks on its promises to Campos

Campos had also been promised freedom to operate throughout Brazil, but when local bishops opposed the idea, then the freedom of action of the Administration granted by Rome shrank back to the limits of the diocese of Campos, period. What will Campos do? While Campos sets out on its hazardous enterprise armed with ambiguous statements, we see something of great interest happening: at the very same moment several Catholic communities in Brazil of men and women in no way connected with the priests of Campos, have contacted the Society of Saint Pius X and wish… to join Tradition! And to send their future seminarians to the Society’s South American seminary. In fact a significant number of faithful scattered all over the huge area of Brazil are beginning to react, and are asking for our help, not for the help of Campos. What a surprise development! It is as though suddenly Brazil was opening up to the Society’s apostolate. All we need is workers, meaning priests, and more priests…

Rome seeks a dialogue after drawing Campos away from the Society

Meanwhile, having succeeded in drawing Campos away from the Society and, little by little, from its doctrinal positions, Cardinal Castrillón sent us on April 5 of this year a written reply to our letter of June 22, 2001. In it he proposes to re-start the “dialogue”. Before saying a word about it, let me recall the previous exchanges:

Rome's Cardinal Castrillón fosters a climate of distrust

When Rome began by offering to the Society a Juridical structure with official recognition, then, while expressing our readiness to open discussions, we emphasized the need to re-build trust.

For indeed, tens of years of oppression, marginalization, threats, condemnations and veritable persecution because of our remaining attached to the Catholic Church’s Tradition, would not vanish all on their own. So we required by way of pre-condition for discussions a concrete gesture on the part of the Roman authorities; the recognition that the Tridentine rite of Mass was not abrogated, and that the Declaration “excommunicating” any members of the Society was null.

Cardinal Castrillón began by telling us that the Tridentine rite of Mass was liberated in principle, but not in practice. Later he told us it was liberated neither in principle nor in practice, because any such liberation would be to the detriment of the Novus Ordo. As for the nullification of the “excommunication”, that was promised us as soon as there would be an agreement.

Following on this double refusal, further re-inforcing the climate of distrust, the Cardinal wrote a letter on May 7, 2001, which I answered by saying that it was setting up a dialogue of the deaf and going nowhere.

The Society shows Rome that the crisis is the source of the problem

To help things forward, I then proposed a different approach to the whole question. In brief, we laid out that our whole disagreement with today’s Rome was being caused by no culpable ill will on our part, but by a terrible crisis shaking the Church for the last 40 years, as clearly signalled by the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar reforms; we mentioned some facts to show the reality and gravity of this crisis

Now comes the Cardinal in his letter of April 5, one month ago, with a fivefold rebuke: firstly, we are judging the Pope and the Holy See; secondly, we are stating that the Church has lost the Faith; thirdly, we are denying the Pope’s rights over the Church’s universal liturgy, because we are stating that the Novus Ordo Mass is bad; fourthly, we no longer believe in the true concept of Tradition; and fifthly, we are incapable of grasping the continuity of the Church’s past and present, in particular that of Vatican II and the liturgical reform.

Rome clearly does not wish to understand the Society's position

Obviously, these points require an answer. But at the same time this letter clearly illustrates that the dialogue of the deal is not over; how little this Rome understands our position! We might have been willing to go into these various points had the letter not been accompanied by manoeuvres making us recall Archbishop Lefebvre’s words just before the episcopal consecrations of June. 1988, when he said: “The moment for a free and open collaboration between the Society and Rome has not yet come”, words as relevant as ever. The manoeuvres were twofold: -

On the one hand the Cardinal stated in his letter that, given the gravity of the matter in hand, he had always abstained from giving public interviews; yet only a few days later in an interview given to the prominent Italian newspaper La Stampa, he declared that the Society was divided into two groups: “A large majority ardently desiring reconciliation with Rome to relieve its conscience (Letter of April 5), and a little group of fanatics wanting nothing to do with Rome” (Yet in his letter, the Cardinal expressed his desire not to divide the Society).

On the other hand a few days after sending me the April 5 letter in strict privacy (double envelope, “personal”, “confidential”), he faxed the same letter to three other members of the Society! There is no need to go looking for what he was up to, the facts speak for themselves, there is a real attempt here to divide us, which tells us clearly what we must do: keep our distance.

Circumstances do not permit fruitful discussions with Rome

In such circumstances, to begin discussions with Rome is not reasonable. It is imprudent, impossible. Truly, these Romans have no idea what we are about.

Rome has introduced novelties, not us

For us, it is truly scandalous acts, deeds and statements that have forced us to refuse all novelties and to re-double our attachment to the centuries-old teaching and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church, our Mother. So here is the answer to the Cardinal’s fivefold rebuke of April 5:

Rome is committing extremely scandalous acts

Firstly, we are not setting ourselves up as judges of the Holy See by merely laying out the facts, such as the Pope’s visiting the Synagogue or the mosque, kissing the Koran, pouring out libations in the Togo forest, receiving the tilak in India, gestures profoundly upsetting Catholics in their Faith. The same is true of numerous other statements and documents. If to mention such facts is to set oneself up as judge, then one must even stop thinking!

Even some cardinals admit Rome's departure from Catholic Theology

Then as to the liturgical reform of 1966, some Cardinals at the time went so far as to say that “it departed significantly from Catholic theology, both as a whole and in detail” (Ottaviani Intervention). And even recently Cardinal Ratzinger took it upon himself to say that “this extension of papal power in the domain of the liturgy gave the impression that the Pope, basically, was omnipotent over the liturgy, especially if he was acting based on a mandate from an Ecumenical Council.

The results of this impression were particularly visible after Vatican II, that the liturgy is in fact something given and not a reality to be manipulated at will, had completely disappeared from the consciousness of western Catholics. Yet Vatican I in 1870 had defined the Pope to be not an absolute monarch but the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The legitimacy of his power was bound up above all with his transmitting of the Faith. This fidelity to the deposit of the Faith and to its transmission concerns in a quite special way the liturgy. No authority can ‘fabricate’ a liturgy. “The pope himself is only the humble servant of its homogenous development, its integrity and the permanence of its identity” (“Spirit of the Liturgy”, Ad Solem, 2001, p.134).

Rome introduced the non-catholic notion of religious liberty

Then, as far as the continuity of modern doctrines with the past is concerned, here is what persons “above all suspicion” say concerning religious liberty, key text of Vatican II: “it cannot be denied that a text like Vatican II’s ‘Declaration on religious Liberty’ says, at least as far as the words go, something quite different from the ‘Syllabus’ of 1864, in fact just about the opposite of sentences 15, 77 and 79 of the ‘Syllabus’” (Father Yves Congar, “The Crisis in the Church and Archbishop Lefebvre”, Cerf, 1976, p.51).

Rome introduced the new definition of the Church

Then as to the definition of the Church in Vatican II’s “Lumen Gentium”, again Cardinal Ratzinger says, “One cannot, when all is said and done, fully resolve from a logical point of view the difference between ‘subsistit’ and ‘est’” (“Ecclesiology of the Conciliar Constitution ‘Lumen Gentium’”, in “Documentation Catholique”, # 2223, p. 311)

Rome has abandoned Trent and Vatican I

Then on the concept of tradition in Vatican II’s “Dei Verbum”, again Cardinal Ratzinger writes: “Vatican II’s refusal of the proposal to adopt the text of Lerins, familiar to and as it were sanctified by two Church Councils, shows once more how Trent and Vatican I were left behind, how their texts were continually re-interpreted… Vatican II had a new idea of how historical identity and continuity are to be brought about. The static ‘semper’ of Vincent of Lerins no longer seems to Vatican II adequate to express the problem” (L.Th.K., vol. 13, p. 521).

Rome has contradicted the 1864 Syllabus

Then on the Council’s key text “Gaudium et Spes”, Cardinal Ratzinger describes it as a Counter-Syllabus, in other words the opposite of the Catholic Church’s authoritative “Syllabus” of 1864. The Cardinal writes (“Principles of Catholic Theology”, Tequi, 1982, p. 426), “If we seek an over-all analysis of ‘Gaudium et Spes’, we could say that it is (linked with the texts on religious liberty and on world religions), a revision of Pius IX’s ‘Syllabus’, a sort of Counter-Syllabus… Let us recognize here and now that ‘Gaudium et Spes’ plays the part of a Counter-Syllabus insofar as it represents an attempt to officially reconcile the Church with the modern world as emerging since the French Revolution of 1789”. Thus, Cardinal Ratzinger.

Rome's doctrine is heterogeneous not homogeneous

For our part, we believe in the homogeneous development of doctrine, as the Church has always taught. But the Catholic Faith, which does not do away with the law of non-contradiction, obliges us also to reject any heterogeneous development of doctrine.

The SSPX desires a true doctrinal unity

In conclusion, we see how far Cardinal Castrillón has gone wrong… All of us desire the Church’s unity, a unity grounded in the Faith, carried out around Peter confirming his follow bishops in that Faith, and consummated in the union of Catholics in the Eucharist. To preserve that unity, all of us, to obey our Catholic conscience, have had to avoid driving onto the broad and easy highway proposed by the Conciliar reforms. It is to ease our conscience that we are where we are, and our conscience would be in no way eased if we were to suddenly set out on a path which, precisely in order to stay Catholic, we have refused for 30 years.

In the name of the Faith of our baptism, in the name of our baptismal pledges to which we promised to remain faithful, we say “No” to anything that does not ensure our salvation. Such is our right. Such is our duty.

May the Sacred Heart fill you with his burning charity, with an unfailing love for the Church and for its hierarchy however much they are presently making us suffer, with a love for souls, souls to be saved at the price of our uniting with Our Lord’s Sacrifice, the Holy Mass that will make us ever stronger in the Faith and in Our Lord’s love, bringing about reparation and satisfaction.

All for Jesus, all for Mary, all for souls.

† Bernard Fellay

Feast of the Sacred Heart, June 7, 2002

We had the joy of seeing a magnificent church in the heart of Brussels restored to Catholic worship. It sums up where we are and what we are doing – restoring Catholic Tradition as best we can within the Church. Already a considerable number of priests, especially young ones, and even some bishops, are looking with favour upon our work. We represent an encouragement for them and a glimmer of hope, because many of them feel overwhelmed by discouragement, not to say despair, at seeing the indescribable obstinacy of so many bishops in preventing all rescue attempts.

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

On the occasion of All Saints’ Day, anniversary of the founding of our Society of St. Pius X, we had the joy of seeing a magnificent church in the heart of Brussels restored to Catholic worship. This church, with an area of some 25,000 square feet, built in the middle of the 19th century, was for a long time Belgium’s national shrine dedicated to St. Joseph. Kept by the Redemptorists, it was the religious edifice in which the traditional Mass was celebrated officially for the longest time in Belgium’s capital city, well after 1969. We were able to acquire it from a Syriac group which worshipped there for some fifteen years

Acquiring this church seems to us highly symbolical. As it were, it sums up where we are and what we are doing – restoring Catholic Tradition as best we can within the Church.

That may seem presumptuous, and, no doubt, if it were something we were trying to do by ourselves, we could hardly avoid the accusation of presumption. But the facts are there: we remain faithfully and steadily attached to Catholic Tradition, in particular to the Tridentine rite of Mass bearing abundant spiritual fruit And now that the crisis in the Church is becoming more obvious by the great lack of priests in eastern and western hemispheres and by the immense emptiness at the heart of the faith as it is being handed down to future generations, the Tridentine rite is becoming like a statement pointing out how to put a massive end to the crisis in the Church, and to bring about a lasting restoration.

Already a considerable number of priests, especially young ones, and even some bishops, are looking with favour, in most cases without yet making themselves heard, upon our work. We represent an encouragement for them and a glimmer of hope, because many of them feel overwhelmed by discouragement, not to say despair, at seeing the indescribable obstinacy of so many bishops in preventing all rescue attempts, be it in the teaching of the catechism, in the introducing of a little more respect in the receiving of holy Communion or in the celebration of Mass.

For thirty years now all over the world, we have been watching how the least recovery attempt is met by an often savage opposition on the part of those who anonymously but efficaciously wield power. Stop anything that looks like turning the clock back: all too often the authorities watch out for nothing else. If only that was not the case! But very few of them stand up to the all-round pressure of the reforms and their aftermath.

Even in Rome, if any of the churchmen become aware of the disaster, they hasten to state that there is no turning back, as regards for instance the Mass or ecumenism. It is a little as though a baker were to complain of the low nutritional value of some new bread, only to declare that there is no going back to making the old kind of bread. Why not?

Why should the ecumenism being practiced today be irreversible? Why should general freedom for the so-called mass of St. Pius V be refused, when its grandeur, beauty and all-round fruitfulness are known to all? The reason we are given is that that would be to devalue the new rite of Mass. That is a poor reason, coming from suicidal reformers who would rather cling to the reforms they brought about than get out of their misery.

Well, for our part we are resolved to be just as obstinate, for the sake of the Church, the Roman Catholic Church which we love because she gave us the Faith, the life of grace, the sacraments, supernatural life, the pledge of eternity. In one word, because she is our Mother. We wish her to be like Our Lord wishes her to be, stainless, without spot or wrinkle (Eph V, 5), but we also know such beauty comes at a price. We know that a restoration of the Church will not happen without suffering, without the Cross, as we follow in Our Lord’s own footsteps: “For unto this you are called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps. ‘Who did not sin, neither was guile found in his mouth’. Who, when he was reviled, did not revile: when he suffered, he threatened not: but delivered himself to him that judged him unjustly. Who his own self bore our sins in his body on the tree: that we, being dead to sins, should live to justice: by whose stripes you were healed” (I Pet. II, 21-24).

We are not looking for an easy or highly visible success. Ours is an undertaking that calls for souls ready to give everything, including life; souls ready to sacrifice and suffer. Our Lord gave us no other way to follow, no other remedy. And all Church history is full of such heroes, such victories “in reverse.” We seek no other way than this one, because it is Our Lord’s way. “Regnavit a ligno Deus”. God reigned from the Cross. We preach Christ, and Christ crucified, such is the line taken by the Apostle of the Gentiles. “For I judged not myself to know any thing among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (I Cor. II, 2).

However, Brussels is not the only place where the Church’s restoration is symbolically expressed: we rejoice in a number of church blessings and consecrations this year. Let us take just the most typical: in Denver, Colorado, a magnificent neo-Romanesque church was built with the help of some 300 Denver Catholics, and consecrated on August 18; the seminary church in La Reja in the Argentine, a neo-colonial jewel, will be consecrated next December 8; also in the Argentine, Mendoza is getting a new priory and a splendid church; in Switzerland, Fribourg now boasts a beautiful chapel, as does Veneta in the USA, while in Mexico the transformation of our church in the capital city is being completed. In France, three handsome buildings will soon be ready for purposes of worshipping God: in Toulon, Saintes and Saint-Malo. So here and there all over the world are rising up beautiful buildings for our priests and people the more easily to lift up to God their worship through the prayer of the liturgy. It is most consoling to see scattered across all continents the same fervour, the same zeal to honour God as handsomely as possible. The numerous buildings are clear testimony to your admirable generosity.

However, we rejoice far more yet in the building up of your souls. In all ages Mother Church has seen in the building of a church a symbol of herself. The souls are stones cut to fit one another, resting firmly on the Rock, Peter, laid by Our Lord Jesus Christ Peter, on whom the Redeemer built his Church, describes this mystery in his first epistle: “Unto whom coming, as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen and made honourable by God: Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices…” (I Pet. II, 4-5).

So even if times are hard, God is granting us many consolations, such as conversions, the education of our children, the opening of their hearts towards their heavenly Father; Christian families set upon living according to God’s commandments without holding back, at the cost of great sacrifice; abundant fruit also in the various religious congregations close to us all this is a consolation to us because it consoles the heart of God.

So let us continue, dear friends, let us continue to do as much good as possible, especially good to souls our own souls, those of our relatives and of many others too. The day will come when what we are witnessing to will be recognized. May Our Lady hasten that day!

With my blessing,

† Bernard Fellay

November 2001

The new language of the Second Vatican Council is being used to convey a new theology which contradicts what the Church has always taught. The Society has sought to lay the axe to the root of today's present crisis by bringing Rome back to sound doctrine but Rome has refused. Instead Rome desires a unity of communion without a unity of doctrine, a practical agreement, which the Society has consistently refused and that is why the Society has been marginalized.

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Current assessment of the Society's relations with Rome

This letter is coming to you somewhat late. We did not wish it to reach you before we could give you news as accurate as possible on the state of our relations with Rome. It seems to us that the time has now come to assess the situation. Many rumors have been circulating, a number of them false. Also we are aware of how much is at stake, and how decisive it can be for our future. We will lay out here various aspects of the question.

Society marginalized because of its doctrinal stance

For our part, we have been marginalized by the authorities in Rome, not to say rejected, because of our refusal of Vatican II and the post-conciliar reforms, for reasons of doctrine.

How the new language of Vatican II affects doctrine

When we say that we refuse the Council, we do not thereby mean that we totally reject the letter of all the Conciliar documents, consisting as they do in large part of simple repetitions of what has already been said in the past. What we are attacking is a new language, introduced in the name of the “pastoral” Council. This new language, being vague and much less precise, conveys a different philosophy and it is the basis of a new theology. It rejects any stable way of looking at the essence of things, to base itself rather on the state of their existence at any given moment, which is bound to be changing, varied, and more difficult to grasp according as it varies. As change and movement are part of the life of all living things, so change will come to the forefront and be considered a necessary part of the Church. Dogmas previously untouchable then become liable to correction and improvement… They are shut into the age in which they were pronounced as though they ceased to be binding once that age was over… To insist on understanding them in the same sense and the same way they have always been understood becomes a thing of the past. The ensuing temptation to make an absolute out of the particular, out of the human person, becomes great… finally that human person, i.e. man, gets put in the center and God is pushed to one side. A new religion is dawning.

Same words, different meanings

The modernist is clever enough to avoid direct confrontation between the new and the old. He presents the new as though it were the enrichment of an under-nourished way of thinking now surpassed by the new concepts. Almost all words – “redemption”, “grace”, “revelation”, “sacrament”, “mystery”, take on a new meaning.

New liturgy Is man-centered not God-centered

In the Church’s life, this process is particularly striking in the case of the new liturgy, which in its physical movements centers on man, and is no longer hierarchically directed through the priest towards God. Sacrifice is no longer mentioned, being replaced by “Eucharist”, a word that used to apply only to the consecrated host: henceforth the emphasis is on the meal.

New concept of religious liberty cannot stand up to wave of secularization

In these very changes we see the origin of today’s collapse of what still remained of Christendom, and the cause of the present crisis of the Catholic Church. Religious liberty is radically incapable of standing up to the wave of secularization sweeping through the modern world, a world in effect without God, making itself into God: for, the creature once having cut off its dependence on its Creator in order to establish its autonomy and liberty, it has no further basis for its intrinsic and absolute dependence on its God. So to save the human person from the totalitarianism of the modern state, the creature has sought to establish that the person and its liberty are superior, at which point it can no longer reconcile this very real liberty with the absolute dependence on God. Then, perforce, sin, as the misfortune of the creature rebelling against its Creator, is no longer understood, the creature’s responsibility becomes very vague, and the Redemption, God’s answer to that misfortune, is turned inside out.

Since man is so great there is no room for God

The whole life of man becomes much easier; God’s commandments are consigned to oblivion ; all discipline, strictness, austerity and renunciation fade away. Once the human person’s greatness is affirmed in this way, his relation with his God, which is his religion, will take on a completely different look. This new look at the person and his acts seeks to be so positive, and such an effort is made to discover “seeds of the Word” in all directions, that the idea that everybody is saved is now firmly implanted in numbers of Catholics’ minds, and all the ecumenical celebrations and inter-religious declarations merely go to corroborating this new vision of life. The effect, if not the intention, is a frightening spread of the belief that it does not matter what religion one belongs to.

Truth dismissed as being old-fashioned and out of date

Hence, on our side, our firm attachment to everything that the Church taught even recently, to everything that used to guide Christian life but is now dismissed as being old-fashioned, out-of-date, antiquated, narrow-minded. We do not deny that a certain amount of change is part of any society’s life, which therefore includes the Church, but we state that the apple-tree’s life will produce apples, and that it is absurd to expect the changes bound up in the life of the apple-tree to suddenly produce coconuts.

Rome approaches the SSPX

The Christian life of the Society of St. Pius X is producing undeniable fruits of salvation, as even Rome recognizes. That there is a grave crisis in the Church, an appalling falling off in the preaching of doctrine, a lack of interest on the part of the Christian people, Rome also recognizes. That one of the motives of the Vatican’s approach to us may lie in these two considerations, is not to be excluded; and if Rome calls upon us as firemen to help put out the fire, we will not refuse our services, but before we get involved in the blaze we do ask for the gasline which is the source of the fire to be cut off!

However, deep down, the Romans were coming to us for a different reason.

Rome wants a unity of communion without a unity of doctrine

On Rome’s side, they are at present concerned above all to establish unity. All their efforts are going in that direction. One bold, shocking, scandalous act follows another in their attempt to draw together Christians disunited and torn apart. The determination to overcome doctrinal differences by liturgical acts in common very much expresses this new ecumenical thrust. One cannot help thinking they wish to give secondary importance to questions of truth in order to get on with living. Howsoever that be, there is an explicit desire to overcome doctrinal differences by joint action. Here is probably to be seen the motive for the Vatican’s approach to us last autumn.

We are being offered a practical solution not to be held up by points of dispute. Rome neither denies that there are points to be disputed, nor does it refuse to deal later with such questions, but it is inviting us to “re-enter the fold” without further delay. As a sign of good-will, we are being offered a solution acceptable in itself, in fact a solution which would suit us down to the ground from a purely practical point of view.

Reasons why the Society cannot accept a practical agreement

Yet it is an offer we must refuse, for the following reasons: the whole history of the Society of St. Pius X shows how much we are a sign of contradiction, how much our existence can raise violent reactions, even hateful reactions from Catholics, especially the hierarchy. The attitude of many bishops who are open to all kinds of ecumenism on the one hand, but treat us on the other hand with a harshness that has no name, is profoundly contradictory.

We suffer from this situation through the division to be found in almost all our families. But this division cannot be healed by a merely practical agreement. We embody the contradiction without meaning to do so, and a practical agreement will not change this basic situation. The solution to the problem is to be sought elsewhere. Deep down, Rome does not understand our attitude towards the New Mass and the conciliar reforms. Rome holds our attitude to be the manifestation of a rigid narrow-mindedness.

Whenever we try to tackle the deep-down problem, we find ourselves every time up against a brick wall: we are not allowed to call in question the reforms of the Council; we might be allowed a certain degree of criticism, but certainly not accusations so broad and grave as we keep on raising.

In other words, if we accepted Rome’s solution today, we would find ourselves up against exactly the same problems tomorrow.

Rome is missing the point

For our part, we are and we mean to remain Catholic. Our seeming separation from Rome is of minor importance compared with the major problem shaking the Church to her foundations, and of which we are despite ourselves merely an outstanding sign. For Rome’s part, to settle the question of the seeming separation is of primary importance, and takes priority over all else; doctrinal questions will be talked about later. Through this pursuit of unity, Rome has indeed changed its position towards us, it is indeed seeking for a solution, but as far as we are concerned it is missing the point. For sure, we wish to see this crisis come to an end. For sure, we wish to cease being opposed to Rome. But that calls for a different approach altogether.

Rome’s failure to understand our position is such that if today we accepted their agreement, tomorrow we would have to undergo exactly the same treatment as St. Peter’s Fraternity, which is muzzled, and being led where it does not want to go, slowly but surely towards Vatican II and the liturgical reform. If St. Peter’s Fraternity and the other “Ecclesia Dei” movements still manage to survive, as best they can, they will owe it to the firmness of our stand.

Rome seeks to uphold the Council at all costs

Certainly we are grateful for everything well-meaning in Rome’s approach, but it is our judgment that things are not yet ripe for us to be able to go ahead. The reasons we were given for their refusing to grant our pre-conditions for re-establishing trust, are highly significant: “It would raise too much opposition, it would mean giving up the whole work of the Council”.

The Society desires a unity based on truth

There is always an immense amount of work on our hands, which is why we would by no means refuse a true discussion with Rome of the real questions, but we have not yet reached that point.

We too have a profound desire for the Unity of the Mystical Body; Our Lord’s prayer “that all be one” is our prayer too, but while the practice of charity can greatly help to promote the cause of unity, nevertheless it is only when minds are agreed on the truth that wills can be united in seeking the common goal apprehended as such.

Citation of St. Pius X's Encyclical “Haerent Animo”

“Our eyes raised to Heaven, we often renew on behalf of all the clergy, Jesus Christ’s own entreaty: Father sanctify them. We rejoice in the thought that a very large number of faithful of all classes, taking to heart their clergy’s good and the good of the Church, join us in this prayer; it is no less agreeable to us to know that there are also many generous souls not only inside convents and monasteries but also living in the world who offer themselves unceasingly as holy victims to God for this purpose.

May the Most High accept as a sweet perfume their pure and sublime prayers, and may He not disdain our own most humble entreaties; may He in His mercy and providence come to our aid, we beg Him, and may He pour out upon the clergy those treasures of grace, charity and every virtue enclosed in the most pure Heart of his dearly beloved Son”. (St. Pius X, Hærent Animo)

Prayer recommendations

We strongly recommend to your prayers what we have no doubt you have already been greatly praying for, that the Church recover her true visage, serene, eternal, shining with the holiness of God and setting the earth on fire with the love of a God who so loved us. May Our Lady who presides so clearly over the destiny of the Church at this beginning of a millennium protect you and bless you with the Child Jesus, “cum prole pia”, as the Liturgy says.

† Bernard Fellay

Feast of St. Pius V,  May 5, 2001

Thirty years ago the Decree of Erection of the Society of St. Pius X was signed. Within two years the Vatican itself was undertaking the first steps towards granting the Society pontifical status. After this promising start there soon came years of trial through which our Founder’s determination not to compromise on principles has inspired the Society to this day. The last 30 years have been full of persecution as well as of action. 

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Thirty years ago on the first of November 1970, Bishop Charrière of Fribourg in Switzerland signed the Decree of Erection of the society of St. Pius X. What a series of events the Society has seen since then! Starting with the Church’s recognition and praise of the Society in its early days, both at diocesan level in the first dioceses where it was set up, and at pontifical level in Rome. Within two years of the Society’s erection, the Vatican itself was undertaking the first steps towards granting the Society pontifical status at a time when it was setting up its first priests overseas.

After this promising start there soon came years of trial. While the Seminary in Ecône was fast filling, Church authorities on high prepared to cause trouble. In 1974, Bishop Etchegaray told some Catholics: “In six months, Ecône will be dead and buried”. So our fate was decided in advance. But they had reckoned without the tenacity of our valiant Founder, who in the name of the highest principles would stand up to the steam-roller that was meant to crush from the outset his work of priestly renewal. It began with the scandalous canonical visitation of autumn 1974, scandalous in the sense that the visitors from Rome scandalized Ecône’s professors and seminarians by their modernist remarks. The result was the famous Declaration of November 21, 1974, which is always astonishingly up-to-date. Meetings in Rome with a Commission of Cardinals confirmed Archbishop Lefebvre in his anxiety over the line of action being followed by the Roman authorities at that time: they seemed less concerned with saving souls or with nourishing them at the sources of liturgical grace or the integral Faith than with imposing the recent Church reforms, however devastating these might prove to be.

“I do not want to be part of destroying the Church”, said the Archbishop more than once, like a heart-rending musical refrain.

The unjust suppression of the Society in 1975 would impel the Archbishop to carry on courageously with the work he had just begun. The media mockery and insults would rain down on him, the threats and commands from Rome and the Pope would make no difference: remaining under fire as calm and gentle as ever, the Archbishop soon to be suspended from saying the new mass went ahead regardless. The splendid priestly ordinations of June 1976, on the occasion of which it became absolutely clear that for him merely to have celebrated once the New mass “would have arranged everything”, showed our Founder’s determination not to compromise on principles. From those years of war the Society drew the determination which has inspired it to this day.

Those same years show also the Archbishop’s superior wisdom, foresight and grasp of events: in those circumstances, to “obey” would have been quite the opposite of practising the virtue of obedience, it would have been to render the Church a grave disservice by inflicting one more wound, by depriving it of a means of salvation it could well one day be in need of in the middle of a shipwreck one does not throw away the lifejackets. If then Rome pretended that the Society’s attitude was a problem of Church discipline, the Society for its part saw in Rome’s attitude the tip of an enormous iceberg, no less than the anti-christian Revolution within the Church — did not Cardinal Suenens say that Vatican II was the French revolution of 1789 inside the Church?

The introduction of freemasonic principles, the harmonization with the world, the way of looking kindly on everybody previously considered by the Church to be dangerous enemies such as liberals and even communists, together with the opening to the east, modern philosophy, a new way of dealing with other religions no longer to be called false, and ecumenism’s dropping of the exclusiveness of the Catholic Church’s mission to save souls — all of this made clear to the Archbishop the gravity of the hour, and would make him a few years later take further action along the same lines to save the situation: the consecration of four bishops. When we speak of emergency in connection with these consecrations, we mean the state of emergency in which the whole Church is to be found, an unprecedented state of havoc (which Rome quietly admits), from which suffer above all those Catholics who no longer know whom to turn to for the spiritual bread which will nourish and save their souls.

At those consecrations, Rome predicted and counted on a mass departure of souls from the Society, and, at the Archbishop’s death, on the Society falling to pieces from within. On the contrary, the Society quietly continues sanctifying souls and forming priests.

Over the same period of time up to today, certain bishops discreetly recognize what the Society is accomplishing, while others tell us of the Church’s death-agony in several countries of Europe. And Rome? What position does Rome takes towards the Society? Towards the Traditional movement? What line of thinking lies behind the silence in which it smothers us?

Rome’s action towards the Fraternity St. Peter is a good indication.

How can we interpret Rome’s recent action against St. Peter’s Fraternity except as an over-all determination to continue driving up the blind alley of the new mass? Rome shows a coherence in its line of action matched only by its blindness: at all costs the new mass must be imposed everywhere. Only when souls submit to this condition will some of them be allowed a rare taste now and again of the old rite of the Mass, henceforth ranked as a museum-piece! While on all sides breaches are made in the teaching and transmission of Catholic doctrine, while Catholic morals in numerous countries are reeling under unheard-of blows destroying marriage and normalizing homosexuality, we are given to understand that the only thing prohibited, the only behaviour forbidden is a normal Catholic life, entirely faithful to the teaching and discipline which go back centuries! The fruits are there for all to see: what is Rome waiting for to change direction, and recognize the legitimacy of our refusal to slash to pieces the religion received from our ancestors? In the name of the Holy Ghost, Rome still refuses even to begin discussing our questioning of the Council, its ambiguities, its errors, its application in the post-conciliar reforms, and this at a time when at least one Cardinal recognizes that the Society’s fruits are good and that the Holy Ghost is at work in the Society! Why continue to brand us or let us be branded as Enemy Number One? All around, the true destroyers of the Church are at work and the true rebels against papal authority are given free rein as they openly defy the henceforth virtually futile attempts to call them to order.

“Those Society people are dangerous”, said the Abbot of St. Paul Outside the Walls, when we were there on pilgrimage in August. Dangerous to who?

Over the last 30 years the Church has undergone a spectacular change of direction: putting Vatican II into practice by a series of reforms affecting all domains of Church life has changed the face of the Church. That is why the differences are notable between priests and laity of the Novus Ordo and those of the Society. These differences were obvious during our pilgrimage this summer to Rome. The contrast between our Roman visit and the World Youth Days was a contrast between two worlds. The Vatican frankly had to undo its moral regulations concerning dress to let those young folk into the roman basilicas...

Indeed the last 30 years have been full of action. And we must thank God especially for having allowed us to keep our Catholic identity amidst such upheavals. And we thank you, dear friends and benefactors, for your generous support without which our dramatic story could never have achieved the results we see. We number now over 400 priests scattered all over five continents, with 60 countries receiving the support of Tradition, 50 of them by the regular apostolate or passage of priests. Gradually garages everywhere are making way for buildings more worthy to be called churches. The effort going into building is quite simply immense: over the last few years the Society has built some 50 churches throughout the world, while an even greater effort is going into our 70 odd schools. Will we have enough priests to continue the effort? Our seminaries number some 180 seminarians, but that figure falls well short of our needs. We entrust this important intention to your prayers.

However, the spiritual building up of your souls, which is not to be measured in numbers, counts much more than any material advance in the eyes of God and of ourselves. The welfare of your families is more dear to us than all these buildings.

On this Feast of All Saints, we ask the Immaculate Heart of Mary to repay your generosity with graces: graces of charity, of peace, of untiring courage which will not give way. May the same Heart to which the Society is consecrated deign to protect it and make it grow ever more, and inspire it ever better with the zeal that drove the Apostles to set alight in all places the fire that Our Lord burned to see it everywhere.

May God bless you abundantly.

+ Bernard Fellay, Superior General

Zaitzkofen, Feast of All Saints

The Society mourns the death of Bishop Lazo. He recognized the crisis which the Church was undergoing and sought by every means to inform the Philippine Clergy and others about it. He died a holy death in the arms of the priests of the asian district and was buried at the priory in Manila. We have established a pre-seminary, made some changes at the priory of Manila and concluded a successful medical mission. Join us for a pilgrimage to Rome!

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Death of Bishop Lazo: A courageous soldier of Christ

A few days ago, God recalled to Himself the soul of Bishop Salvador Lazo, retired bishop of San Fernando de la Unión in the Philippines, joined in the fight for Tradition in 1995. With an admirable courage he took up the pen to try to tell the clergy of his own country, priests and bishops, what he himself had been given the grace to discover: an enormous crisis is overwhelming Mother Church, and the time has come for action. To this he gave witness as best he could all over the world, but especially by lectures in English-speaking countries.

Despite pressure brought to bear on him by his fellow-bishops and even by Rome, he faithfully continued to defend the Truth which he had re-discovered after spending a quarter of a century under the influence of the Council. He explained how for the most part bishops are buried beneath administrative paperwork and hardly have the time to think. Most of them follow orders coming down from above, from Rome, from the Episcopal Conference which makes sure to give out only news selectively screened: for example, it was only after he re-joined Catholic Tradition that Bishop Lazo learned, around 1996, that in 1984 the old Mass had been allowed again under certain conditions.

His courage was a great consolation and source of strength for all of us over the last few years, especially for our priests in Asia. His unreserved support for the work of Archbishop Lefebvre and his developing a solid and deep friendship with our priests earned him in addition the animosity of the bishops of his own land, albeit tempered by their respect for his seniority. However, he was always under pressure.

Bishop Lazo's holy death

Our priests in Manila kept watch by him day and night for the last month of his painful illness. He would give his soul back to God in the arms of our priests, in our priory. “I offer these sufferings for the conversion of bishops. I wish to go home”, he said to our priests who were faintly puzzled – “Yes, I wish to go to Heaven… My God, if you wish, you may come and fetch me. The Nuncio may come and visit me… I shall tell him that I am dying for Jesus Christ and not for men”.

In accordance with his last wishes, we had the honor of burying him in our church in Manila, named after Our Lady of Victories, a programme in itself. There he lies waiting for the resurrection of the dead and for the Last Judgment which will show forth the grandeur of soul of this upright bishop, esteemed by his fellow-bishops for “his wisdom, prudence and undeniable achievements.” Yet none of them were there to accompany him as he was buried according to the Pontifical Mass with five absolutions. No doubt they feared to be infected by Catholic Tradition, at the same time as they dare to invite pagans and idolators to enter the very Cathedral of Manila!

One of our priests dared in all simplicity to ask if the bishop thought he knew where the grace of his conversion to Tradition had come from. He replied with the same simplicity that he thought that his Holy Hour every day was partly responsible, also his devotion to the Holy Rosary.

Let us hope that his prayers and sacrifice will soon be answered, and that the day is not too far off when we see an army of bishops rejoining the ancient Tradition of the Church. What immense good would come of it!

Establishment of a pre-seminary; changes at Manila priory; medical mission

While in Manila, we took the opportunity to look at life in the priory. Since September of 1999, two priests have been taken away from Manila to look after the pre-Seminary which we have set up on another island to the South. From there, they prepare future seminarians and brothers, and also look after Catholics in the region of Cebu. So the Manila community has been somewhat reduced, to five priests, reaching from Japan to Hong Kong, not forgetting Korea. They also prepare young women who think they have a vocation to the religious life, who live together in two houses not too far away from the priory. In addition, they continue to promote parish life and the medical missions in Manila itself. The latest of these missions was a huge success: in one day more than 900 patients form poor parts of the city were treated. About three times a year doctors, dentists and parishioners of Our Lady of Victories devote one full day to this good cause. A whole street is sealed off by the township. A large tent is set up and from sunrise to sunset an uninterrupted stream of poor people comes from nearby to be treated. After a brief questioning, they are directed towards the different doctors present. One can only admire such Christian charity at work!

If only today’s world could see everywhere this charity in action, seeking only to relieve, by giving without expecting anything in return. Charity comes up with all kinds of new devices! The capital city of White Russia recognized the same devotion to the welfare of men when it honored one of our priests for his humanitarian action in the city of Minsk!

Although such humanitarianism is not our primary concern, doubtless something would be missing from Catholic Tradition if such temporal works of mercy were lacking. But that is not the case. Indeed the numerous marks of fraternal charity to be found amongst our faithful, and reaching outside the boundaries of Catholic Tradition, are reason for profound gratitude to God on our part: charity will overcome our world of wickedness and lies, cowardice and deceit. We well know, God is infinitely greater than the evil of the crisis shaking our age to its roots in which we cannot help seeing a foreshadow of the terrible time of the Antichrist. Yes, God will conquer, the Church will triumph once more. What an honour to be able to take part in today’s great battle! Christ must reign, families must once more become Christian. The whole world must recongnize its Creator and Saviour and bend at last beneath His gentle yoke. Let us all set to work, each of us in his appointed place, to undertake this great task. Charity cannot be restrained.

We must maintain hope despite Rome's ecumenical scandals

For despite the incredible stunts of a Rome making us ask with an ever greater anxiety “Quo vadis?”, “Rome, where are you going?”; despite the curious and stunning spectacle of certain Jubilee ceremonies turning into a sort of masonically flavoured madness, such as the humiliating request for forgiveness of March 12 corresponding so exactly to the reproaches long flung at the Church by her enemies that it is impossible not to make the connection; despite expressions such as “the globalization of solidarity” uttered by Mr. Kofi Annan last April 7, suggesting that the global economy and whole world are about to be forced into line with the United Nations; despite Mr. Gorbachev’s inviting socialists to follow John Paul II, an invitation certainly not to be taken lightly; despite all these things and much besides, we firmly maintain our hope.

SSPX pilgrimage to Rome

And our August pilgrimage will be our proclamation that we cleave to Eternal Rome, to the Church’s immemorial Tradition, to the Catholic Faith. Come in large numbers to show your lively faith and your unshakable will to remain Catholic, cost what it may.

“In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph”, said Our Lady at Fatima. When times are so tragic, let us know how to find in Our Lord, in the Immaculate Heart of Our Lady, in the Sacred Heart, the strength, vigour and enthusiasm of the followers of Christ. The world will pass away, but God and the Word of God will not pass away.

Nonetheless our duty to pray and to make sacrifices is urgent; to pray for our salvation an fidelity, to pray for priests and bishops. So we would like to bring this letter to an end with a prayer for priests (see below), written in the last century by a priest, and which we suggest you pray from time to time. May God repay your ever ready generosity with an abundance of graces and blessings.

† Bernard Fellay

Feast of the Resurrection, April 23, 2000

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Prayer for Priests

O my God, pour out in abundance Thy spirit of sacrifice upon Thy priests.

It is both their glory and duty to become victims, to be burnt up for souls,

to live without ordinary joys, to be often the objects of distrust, injustice and persecution.

The words they say every day at the altar, “This is my Body, this is my Blood”,

grant them to apply to themselves, “I am no longer myself, I am Jesus, Jesus crucified.

I am, like the bread and wine, a substance no longer itself but by consecration another”.

O my God, I burn with the desire for the sanctification of Thy priests.

I wish all the priestly hands which touch Thee

were hands whose touch is gentle and pleasing to Thee,

that all the mouths uttering such sublime words at the altar

should never descend to speaking trivialities.

Let priests in all their person stay at the level of their lofty functions,

let every man find them simple and great, like the Holy Eucharist,

accessible to all yet above the rest of men.

O my God, grant them to carry with them from the Mass of today a thirst

for the Mass of tomorrow, and grant them, laden themselves with gifts,

to share these abundantly with their fellow-men.

Amen.