The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

You've been a very,
very naughty boy !

September 9th, 2009

Gunning for me...I don't think so a little friendly humor !
But it's where the British lost a naval battle: "Oh say can you see...?"

Actually I'm only kidding. Your column said a lot more than I expected so I will say a lot more than anyone might expect in reply...

Ignace Lepp, a colorful character indeed, is probably unknown to everybody who will read this column; that is not important, but as a priest, a former atheist, a former Communist, a trained psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst who practiced extensively in Paris before his death in 1966, he once observed that he believed the Catholic Church would canonize the Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who died just over a decade earlier and is buried in upstate New york. Later, Lepp reversed his decision and said he did not believe the Church would ever have the courage do so. Whether the Church does or does not is of no particular concern either. Go up a high mountain on a fine Spring or Autumnal day and read these words:

Since once again, Lord — though this time not in the forests of the Aisne but in the steppes of Asia — I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labours and sufferings of the world. Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and trembles, and once again begins its fearful travail. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labour. Into my chalice I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits.

My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit. Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of all those whom the light is now awakening to the new day.

One by one, Lord, I see and I love all those whom you have given me to sustain and charm my life. One by one also I number all those who make up that other beloved family which has gradually surrounded me, its unity fashioned out of the most disparate elements, with affinities of the heart, of scientific research and of thought. And again one by one — more vaguely it is true, yet all-inclusively — I call before me the whole vast anonymous army of living humanity; those who surround me and support me though I do not know them; those who come, and those who go; above all, those who in office, laboratory and factory, through their vision of truth or despite their error, truly believe in the progress of earthly reality and who today will take up again their impassioned pursuit of the light.

This restless multitude, confused or orderly, the immensity of which terrifies us; this ocean of humanity whose slow, monotonous wave-flows trouble the hearts even of those whose faith is most firm: it is to this deep that I thus desire all the fibres of my being should respond. All the things in the world to which this day will bring increase; all those that will diminish; all those too that will die: all of them, Lord, I try to gather into my arms, so as to hold them out to you in offering. This is the material of my sacrifice; the only material you desire.

Once upon a time men took into your temple the first fruits of their harvests, the flower of their flocks. But the offering you really want, the offering you mysteriously need every day to appease your hunger, to slake your thirst is nothing less than the growth of the world borne ever onwards in the stream of universal becoming.

Receive, O Lord, this all-embracing host which your whole creation, moved by your magnetism, offers you at this dawn of a new day.

This bread, our toil, is of itself, I know, but an immense fragmentation; this wine, our pain, is no more, I know, than a draught that dissolves. Yet in the very depths of this formless mass you have implanted — and this I am sure of, for I sense it — a desire, irresistible, hallowing, which makes us cry out, believer and unbeliever alike: ‘Lord, make us one.’

Appropriately enough, I first read those words in the Jesuit cemetery over the road from Mount St. Michael overlooking the city of Spokane. My initial emotional reaction was a lot like Wordsworth's reaction expressed in the poem called after Tintern Abbey which Bishop Williamson so expertly analyzed here earlier this year. Even in English translation Teilhard's opening of his The Mass on the World is absolutely magnificent prose poetry, but, under closer scrutiny utter nonsense ! When I implied that I agreed with Bishop Williamson's latest assessment on the inability to marry up Tradition (his view of it) with Neo-Modernism (his view of it again) I meant I agree that the two are incompatible but not for the reasons he gives.

As you know from private correspondence over the years and from earlier columns posted on this site I share a lot more of your theological insights than might be apparent in recent columns.

Yes the Pope is the arbiter of all things Catholic. To him alone belongs the right to guarantee the Deposit of Faith. In reality the Society of St. Pius X arrogates Tradition to itself (as you have called it "privatized theology") and then submits the Pope to its "authority" or "judgment". This flies in the face of Vatican I and the definitions given about Papal Primacy by the Fathers of that Council.

However, the SSPX rightly, in my view, point out the fact that some of the magisterium of the Second Vatican Council contradicts what was previously taught. In the past, even the then Cardinal Ratzinger admitted that, however, as Pope he tells us in his latest encyclical that it is not licit to oppose one Pope to another, or one council to another, since each is a product of its own age. This is evolutionary "tradition" in my book. However, none of this is of any interest to me. This is not my reason for having a beef. It's even more basic than theology.

I have an apocalyptical view of the world. Like Sister Lucy of Fatima, I believe we are in the end times and that basically the crisis is spiraling out of control. I do not believe that this Pope will fix the mess. Cardinal Bertone, the script re-writer for everything that comes out of the Vatican these days, recently said we should not place the blame at the Pope's door for the faults of others within the Church. Harry Truman said where the "buck" stops in American politics. In British politics there is the principle of collective responsibility, that as a member of the Prime Minister's Cabinet, even if you disagree about a policy you publicly defend it and if the issue blows up in your face the Prime Minister is supposed to take the blame. Since the days of Margaret Thatcher, that idea was well and truly ditched.

We are assured that in the end Mary's Immaculate Heart will triumph (the Fatima message) but at La Salette, the Mother of God said that a pope would be shot, seem to fall, would rise again and that neither he nor his successor would see "the triumph". Fatima makes clear what that triumph is.

For myself, I was asked whether I was inclined to seek regularization just after Benedict XVI's election. I was disinclined to do so but accepted an offer in this regard. My disinclination stemmed from the fact that I had already initiated similar moves 10 years ago but the people involved, one in particular, exacted such terrible conditions which he knew would torpedo the whole affair and the whole thing fell through. 10 years later and the personnel involved have been shuffled a little, but essentially it's the same old status quo.

In addition, Benedict XVI is overly cautious and this will prove to be the undoing of his entire pontificate. Caution is seen as weakness and entire episcopates have seen this dithering as a weakness which necessitated the Pope having to write a letter (earlier this year) to every bishop explaining his initiatives with the Society of St. Pius X. The fact that he had to write a letter was a further sign of weakness. Weakness makes for paralysis and that's what has happened to Benedict XVI.

Benedict talks frequently about the need for unity with Peter, but that's all it is talk. A traditional priest friend calls me to discuss the latest verbal Papal blunder and I can honestly say I haven't seen it or read it because I've given up following his writings. They were excellent theological meditations from the mind of a brilliant scholar, but without action it's all meaningless. Traditional Catholics want to be under him. With all of the corruption I've documented in this column for more than a year, I have a quaint expression: I want to be in the Church but not of the Church if you get my drift.

Brian it's easy to suggest this or that course of action when you're an unattached but busy lecturer who somehow finds the time to write an excellent blog. You can vote with your feet. If your priest starts spouting Modernism you can go somewhere else. I for my part have souls who depend upon me for the Traditional Faith and Sacraments. As I explained last year to the American bishop who was kind enough to support my petition for regularization, I'm not in his diocese, I'm where I am and I cannot change the liberal atmosphere all around. I've seen priests kicked around for trying to be a little conservative, I've seen the abuse of authority that Vatican II was supposed to correct. I've seen the immodesty and irreverence that passes for "Catholicism" in Florida. A mandatory document came out from Rome about the need for Sacred Music at Mass 2 years ago - the closest modern church (on the same street in fact) issued a statement from the pastor that from now on once a month there would be one Sunday when more contemporary music would be used at Mass. Total disobedience and I'm the dissident ? I don't like the canonical situation I'm in but we're in a war between the Woman and the Devil and I'm not going to surrender now. This might sound like a "siege mentality" so redolent of many SSPXers but I really believe we're living Revelation 12 & 13 right now !

The bishop who received me kindly was 1 in a million. I hear tales of clerics who mistreat laity all the time. I tell them priests are only human - and so am I ! We all need forgiveness or conversion if you will - the "boss" included. I blame no-one. I hate no-one. I want to love everyone, but it's so hard to like everyone.

So you see why I agree with Bishop Williamson - nothing will come from this - its not the theology it's the personalities involved. My sincerest conviction is that all the Novus Ordo apparatus want is to shut down the Society of St. Pius X and anybody (like me) who shares a similar outlook. That's what Bishop Williamson said to us the day after the Archbishop died and it's been their policy ever since. To quote Margaret Thatcher at the 1981 party conference...

+TF

P.S. In chat rooms over the years, people I wouldn't know if I fell over them have suggested that Fulham should visit his local bishop, write to Rome... I've done all of that and nothing has ever happened ! The only thing I can do, is keep doing what the author of Hebrews says:

"And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us: Looking on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who having joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and now sitteth on the right hand of the throne of God. For think diligently upon him that endured such opposition from sinners against himself; that you be not wearied, fainting in your minds. For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin:"

Hebrews 12:1-4