The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

The Caputvacantist Magical Mystery Tour

October 19, 2006

During a sermon last Sunday in the "capital of caputvacantism" trying to raise money for the construction of a caputvacantist seminary the self-styled rector lashed out at Fr. Philippe Laguérie the superior of the Institute of the Good Shepherd. The "rector' claimed that Fr Laguérie had sold out to the forces of modernism. He went on to state that he had trained with Fr. Laguérie in the 1970s at Ecône and that Fr. Laguérie used to be "the most ardent. He used to be the most ardent." Before attempting to teach any theology I think a course in basic English is required here. "Ardent" is not a noun, it is an adjective. An adjective modifies a noun. Thus the expression just quoted ought to have had a noun in it which the adjective "ardent" would have qualified. What the interlocutor was trying to do was suggest that Fr. Laguérie had been in point of fact an "ardent" caputvacantist.

Happily we have Fr. Laguérie's own response to this allegation during an online forum chat with fellow French Traditionalists yesterday evening:

Sur le sédévacantisme

Je n'ai jamais été sédévacantiste. En 1979, date de mon ordination, éclate dans la Fraternité la querelle sédévacantiste. Aucun confrère, je dis bien bien aucun, de la Fraternité n'avait les moyens de répondre théologiquement à cette querelle. Les professeurs de dogmatique à Ecône enseignaient que le Magistère Ordinaire Universel n'était pas infaillible, ou qu'il dépendait du consentement de l'Eglise alors que le Concile Vatican I dit exactement le contraire. N'ayant pas alors les moyens intellectuels de réfuter les sédévacantistes, j'ai pris deux ans pour étudier la question. A la fin, j'ai conlu que le MOU est infaillible mais que Vatican II n'est pas du MOU, quoiqu'en ait dit l'abbé Lucien (le plus brillant théologien de l'époque). Depuis, je n'ai plus jamais eu d'état d'âme. Et ce que je déteste chez les sédévacantistes, c'est qu'ils n'osent même pas s'avouer tels.

Concerning sedevacantism

I have never been a sedevacantist.In 1979, the date of my ordination, the sedevacantist quarrel broke out in the Society. Not one of my confreres, I say again and again not one, in the Society had the means to respond theologically to this quarrel. The Dogma Professors at Ecône used to teach that the Universal Ordinary Magisterium was not infallible, or that it depended upon the consent of the Church whilst the First Vatican Council says exactly the contrary. Not having at the time the intellectual means to refute the sedevacantists, I took two years to study the question. In the end I concluded that the Universal Ordinary Magisterium is infallible but that Vatican II was not part of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium, even though Fr. Lucien, (the most brilliant theologian of the time) used to say it was. Since then I have never been of that mindset. What I detest about the sedevacantists is that they do not even dare to confess their own guilt.

That Fr. Laguérie is an old "bruiser" - ready to fight modernism to the death - is beyond question. Elsewhere in the forum during the same chat session he announced that the Institute of the Good Shepherd would "never retreat" - them's fighting words !

Father had a lot of other interesting tidbits:

The document from Rome is imminent - no amount of opposition will persuade the Pope to back down - he is committed to the return of Tradition

The number of priests in the community is now 8. 3 more SSPX priests have joined up. One more in South America may soon bring over ten or so more.

The foundation of the seminary at Courtalain (Diocese of Chartres) was approved by Rome - the local bishop has no jurisdiction over its functioning.

They have a seminary / house in Rome.

The Archbishop of Paris has tried to block a foundation in the city - Rome apparently has steamrollered him.

The Institute will spread to more French dioceses and opposition from the local bishops will be handled by Rome on a "case by case basis".

They have a number of seminarians with ordinations by Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos soon to take place.

The Pope has a number of people running scared: "Round up the usual suspects" (the famous line from Casablanca's Captain Renault).

First: the SSPX - if they continue their "on-the-outs-with-Rome" policy they very well might lose a lot more priests and seminarians.

Second: the liberals - they stand to lose all the "achievements" of the post-Vatican II era - declining Mass attendance, no vocations, abuse scandals of all kinds

Third: the caputvacantists: if the Pope brings back a more traditional and conservative Church, why on earth would any Catholic, with his head screwed-on correctly, resist what we have always been fighting for ? Namely the right to worship as our forebears did. If that right were returned the fight is over.

Thinking of the caputvacantists again reminds me of another line from the "rector's" sermon - "We're turning a corner !" He was evoking the idea that somehow caputvacantists are beginning to convince droves of other Trads of the logic of the caput position.

Not long ago a lady told me she had heard the local caput chapel had doubled its attendance. I suggested an explanation: install mirrors down one side of the church and it will certainly appear that the congregation has doubled. No - all the empirical evidence points to an exodus in caput chapels and it can only get a lot worse for them from here on in.

"We're turning a corner !" again...I was suddenly reminded of the famous Görlitz speech of Dr Josef Göbbels the Nazi propaganda minister of the German Third Reich. Just weeks before the close of the war, Göbbels made a trip to the rapidly advancing front (a front that was advancing in the wrong direction as far as Germany was concerned) to see for himself the collapse of the German resistance. After viewing the chaos he made one of his most impassioned speeches in the Görlitz town hall. Old movie reels captured his fine rhetoric. He said (and I am paraphrasing) that he could quite believe Hitler who just the other day had told him that the German forces were about to "turn the corner", climb into the tanks and cast out of German soil those who had murdered and violated so many German women and then the whole world would see the final victory of the German people. In the old movie reels shots of an enthusiastic populace are interspersed with his rhetoric. All seem deeply moved and ready to give their all. Then the camera captures the face of an old German Nun, whose impassive face shows the agony of the German people in their death throes and reality breaks in. Unfortunately for those who believed they were turning a corner, a few weeks alone remained, the rest is history.

I suggested the other night to a friend that the caputs think they're turning a corner, he responded with great humor (but appositely enough): "or throwing themselves off the cliff !"

+TF