Bishop Terence Fulham

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Communications with the Ecclesia Dei Commission

LETTER OF 1990

I was received into the Catholic Church by Fr André Lemieux a priest of the Society of St Pius X in 1989. After that time I would receive the Sacrament of Penance from either Traditional priests or priests with faculties from the Archdiocese of Liverpool. One day I said the confiteor in Latin to a conservative Novus Ordo priest who promptly grilled me. When I informed him I attended Mass at the SSPX chapel in Liverpool he told me he would grant me absolution this one time and never again since the priests of the Society were "excommunicated and schismatic" he informed me. I wrote the following letter to the Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger):

REPLY FROM ECCLESIA DEI

Cardinal Mayer & Monsignor Perl

I include this correspondence because of an important precedent it sets. As Cardinal Mayer points out, my letter to Cardinal Ratzinger was transferred to Ecclesia Dei because the Commission "has particular competence to deal with these matters". Thus groups and / or individuals linked in any way with the Society of St. Pius X raise their concerns with this department and it alone has competence "with these matters". After this exchange I continued attending the SSPX Masses and I was confirmed the following year by Bishop Bernard Fellay, the current Superior General of the same Society.

In the Fall of 1990 I entered the Pius X seminary in Winona. I left in the Fall of 1993. After leaving the SSPX I began attending Mass (the Indult Mass at St. Mary's Highfield Street) a Mass under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Liverpool (as the previous Ecclesia Dei letter suggested I should do).

In 1994, a priest of the Archdiocese of Liverpool represented to me that I had not become a member of the Catholic Church because I was received into the Church through the Society of St Pius X which he maintained was in schism.

LETTER OF 1994

I wrote to Monsignor Camille Perl of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei again with more dubia:

REPLY FROM ECCLESIA DEI

Monsignor Perl

Three points need to be made: (1) Ecclesia Dei is the commission charged with making the reply to my Dubia (2) the reply is made based upon "counsel" of an "expert canonist" (3) Ecclesia Dei determined me to be a Catholic in 1995:

"Whoever has represented to you that you have not been validly received into the Catholic Church, however well-intentioned he was, has caused you unnecessary grief and done you a disservice."

I showed this letter to the priest who began this whole debacle in this first place. He read it and said: "That doesn't count !" with a dismissive wave of his hand and walked away as I called after him: "Roma locuta, causa finita !" (Rome has spoken, case closed !). Thereafter I presented myself for Communion to receive only half a Host - what kind of Sacramental Theology this priest had in the 1950s I'll never know... This presents itself as an example of "Catholic" obedience ??? First denied absolution, next Communion, when will it ever end ??? The sufferings of Trads today ! But wait.. there's more... a lot more !!!

Thus from January 1995, based upon a decision from a Roman Curial Dicastry, I have always considered myself a Catholic and professed that Faith entirely. However, in 2001, in a letter addressed to Bishop Robert Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida, the then Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Archbishop (since Cardinal) Tarcisio Bertone stated I was an "Anglican" who had received "priestly ordination" from the "Thuc" lineage. The CDF was presented with absolutely no proof of my Anglican Baptism or Confirmation (because I have never possessed any certificates from the Church of England), but the CDF was presented with evidence of my Catholic Baptism and Confirmation which they chose to ignore. If this statement is true then what action on my part caused me to leave the Church again as Rome stated to Bishop Lynch in 2001? Rome contradicts itself. (Which is nothing new !) In the former case Monsignor Perl stated that the Commission had consulted an “expert canonist”. Why the contradiction ?

The reason why in 2001 the then Archbishop Bertone (now Cardinal Bertone) ignored my entrance into the Church through the Society of St Pius X is because Rome changed her attitude to the Society priests in 1996. The issue became public when Bishop Brunner of the Diocese of Sion, Switzerland issued in May 1997 a copy of a reply from the Congregation of Bishops (which he had received October 31 1996) stating that the charge of schism which was previously applied only to Archbishop Lefebvre and the four bishops he consecrated was now applied to all priests of the Society and to the laity as well. Bishop Fellay responded to the matter in his Superior General's Letter to Friends & Benefactors #53, September 29, 1997. Hence since 1997 Rome’s official attitude towards the Society of St Pius X is to consider them to be in schism i.e. “not in full communion” with Rome.

When the issue of my entrance into the Church through the Society came up in 2000-2001 their standard response was to declare me schismatic and require me to enter the Church all over again. Happily I had already entered the Catholic Church through the Society in 1989, 8 full years before Rome started calling the Society schismatic. That is why in 1995 Monsignor Perl states that I am in the Church and why in 2001 (because of a change in Rome’s attitude to the Society) I have yet to join the Church. I did join the Church back in 1989 and Rome has already admitted that.

Since 2005, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos has repeatedly stated that the SSPX aren't schismatic after all, (which means I'm Catholic again) but...wait a bit... now Rome says that the bishops and priests of the SSPX enjoy "no canonical ministry" within the Catholic Church...(maybe I just left the Church again ???). Read that again: "no CANONICAL ministry" - the argument is about liceity and not about validity. As Monsignor Perl observed in 1995 in my case:

"Your reception of the sacraments of the Church in good faith cannot be construed as sacrilegious. We trust that this explanation will put your mind at rest."

It does Monsignor, however, your recent sudden and completely unexpected "retirement" (after 21 years as secretary and vice-president of the Ecclesia Dei Commission) does not !