Let us love the Angels

At least I will declare in these pages that you are all-amiable, all loving, and alas, very little loved. I will cry aloud to all who read “Come ye and join in love and devotion to the angels”

Love the angels; they are friends pre-eminently faithful, powerful advocates and protectors, most wise masters, fathers, brothers, all filled with love for us. They are the patrons, protectors, and advocates of all men without distinction, of every sate and of every class.

 Love the angels, ye apostolic men; they are the heavenly missionaries of Paradise.

 Love the angels, ye preachers and doctors, for they are the adepts in heavenly science, and in the ravishing  eloquence of eternity.

 Love the angels, ye who are the priests of the Lord; it is by their hands that the Sacrifice is offered to the divine majesty.

 Love the angels ye who dwell in the retirement of cloisters, or in the seclusion of solitude; these admirable spirits are always retired in God, and always behold His face.

 Love the angels, ye who appear in public, who live amidst the world; these pure Intelligences abide there  with you.

 Love the angels, ye married persons; the example of the holy Archangel Raphael, who conducted Tobias, admirably displays the care they take of your state.

 Love the angels, ye widows and orphans; for none may be compared to them in the charitable help they give  to those who need.

Love the angels, O virgins – yes I repeat it, love the angels with fervour, O ye virgins they are the great friends of virginity; nay they are its admirers, beholding this precious treasure in fragile vessels, and creatures so weak living on earth as they themselves live in heaven.

 Love the angels, O ye just; they are the guides of holiness.

 Love the angels, O ye sinners; they are for you a sure refuge.

 Love the angels, O ye who are afflicted, who are poor and in misery; they are the consolation and resource of all who sorrow.

 Love the angels , ye rich and powerful, ye great ones of this world; these are the heavenly luminaries who will enlighten you to see that all which passes is contemptible and that you should sigh only after a blessed eternity.

Yes O men!

 Love the Seraphim; they are the princes of pure love.
 Love the Cherubim; they are the great doctors of the science of the saints.
 Love the Thrones; they are the patrons of true repose of soul and tranquil peace of heart.
 Love the Dominations; they will teach you to become masters of yourself and of all things, raising you above all created beings by an intimate union with the creator.
 Love the Virtues; they are the masters of the way of holy perfection.
 Love the Powers; they are your defenders against the malice, the rage, and the power of the devils.
 Love the Principalities; it is they who watch so diligently over the welfare of kingdoms, states, and those who govern.
 Love the Archangels; for they are zealous for the common good, and we receive at their hands benefits without number in provinces, towns and villages, and in every part of the world.
 Love in fine the angels of the last choir (Guardian angels) they are stars whose celestial influences we feel the more often because they are nearer to us, watching over the good of each one of us in particular with an ineffable love and care. Henceforth let our love be as of fire for these pure flames of love empyreal, and let us never cease from loving those who are never weary of doing us good, and loading us with every favour.

  Devotion to the Nine Choirs of Angels - Henry Marie Boudin 1869.

Fr Dudley continued

These facts presented me with a quandary which appeared insurmountable, and which remained insurmountable. I have often been asked, since my conversion, how, in view of them, Anglican clergy can be sincere in remaining where they are. My reply has been — they ARE sincere. There is a state of mental blindness in which one is incapable of seeing the plain logic of facts. I only know that it was over a year before I acted on those facts myself. And I honestly believe I was sincere during that period. Only those who have been Protestants can appreciate the thick veil of prejudice, fear, and mistrust of "Rome" which hampers every groping toward the truth. It was about this time that there fell into my hands a book written by a Catholic priest, who himself had once been an Anglican clergyman, who had been faced by the same difficulties, and who had found the solution of them in the Catholic Church.

"But the Catholic Church CAN'T be the solution," I said. And there rose before my mind a vision of all I had been taught about her from my boyhood upward — her false teaching, her corruptions of the doctrines of Christ. The Catholic Church, though, was the church of the overwhelming majority of Christians, and always had been. If what I had been taught was true, then for nearly two thousand years the great mass of Christians had been deluded and deceived by lies. Could Christ have allowed a hoax, an imposture of that magnitude? In His name? The Catholic Church was either an imposture or — Or what?

I began to buy Catholic books. To study Catholic doctrines. To read history from the Catholic standpoint. The day came when I sat looking into the fire asking myself: "Is what the world says of the Catholic Church true? Or what the Catholic Church says of herself? Have I all these years been shaking my fist at a phantom of my own imagining, fed on prejudice and ignorance?" I compared her unity with the complete lack of it outside. Her authority with the absence of anything approaching real authority in the church of which I was a member and a minister. The unchangeable moral code she proclaimed with the wavering, shilly-shallying moral expediency that Protestantism allowed. She began to look so very much more like the church that God would have made, just as the Established Church began to look so very much more like the church that man would have made.

When I was passing Westminster Cathedral one day I went in and knelt for half an hour before the Blessed Sacrament. I came out terribly shaken — spiritually shaken. It is impossible to describe; but in that short half hour what, until now, I had contemplated as a problem had suddenly assumed an aspect of imperativeness. A problem that had to be solved, not played with. For within those four walls there had loomed up before my spiritual vision an immensity, a vast reality, before which everything else had shrunk away. The church whose clergyman I was seemed to have slipped from under my feet. I returned to the East End dazed. That night amongst the hoppers I felt like a stranger moving about. I went about for weeks in a state of uncertainty, undecided in my conscience as to whether I was morally bound to face things out or not — wretched under the suspicion that what "Rome" said might be true — that I was no priest; that my "Mass" was no Mass at all; that I was genuflecting before . . . ? That my "absolutions" were worthless. The more I prayed about it, the more unreal my ministry appeared.

I decided to consult a certain very "extreme" clergyman, whom I believed to be sincere beyond question (as he was), and a man of deep spiritual piety. I had three or four talks with him in all, the general result of which was to leave me more confused intellectually than ever, but spiritually more at peace; though it took me months before I realized that this peace was a false one, and that I had shelved the matter not from its intellectual difficulties, but for worldly reasons. For those talks had opened for me an unpleasant vista of what might happen if I went "over to Rome" — the loss of my position, my salary, friends and all; not only the burning of all my boats but the wounding of my mother and father cruelly. Even more, "Rome" might not accept me for her priesthood; in any case it would be starting all over again, possibly from baptism. (In this last, I was completely mistaken. Whatever else, Anglicans, or Episcopalians as they are known in America, administer a valid Baptism.) If she did not want me for a priest, I should have to . . . My whole being revolted against the prospect. It was impossible — such a demand. I had been carried away by my emotions. It was a snare of Satan. I should be a traitor to the church of my baptism. God had placed me here in the Church of England. He was blessing my work as its minister. He had given me endless graces. I buried myself in that work again, and for a time succeeded in forgetting, or at least stifling, the fears that had been my torment — until the haphazard remark of a photographer (registering my features), an agnostic, I believe, opened my eyes to my inability honestly to defend the Established Church’s position; it was to the effect that if Christianity were true, obviously the Roman Catholic Church, with her authority, was right. It was the testimony of a man who had no axe to grind.

A Jewish dentist made the same remark in effect to me shortly afterward. The man in the street testified the same with his: "If I were religious, I'd be a Roman Catholic." Whether it was the photographer or not, my fears were released once more from their repression, abruptly and acutely, and this time I resolved that it should be a fight to the finish, either way — that no worldly or material considerations should interfere. The clergyman whom I had consulted had already made one thing clear in my mind — that the issue between Rome and Canterbury, the crux of the whole problem, was the claim of Rome to be the infallible teaching authority appointed by God, and the denial by Canterbury of that claim.

The whole question boiled down to the question of infallibility, and on that everything else hung. I entered upon an intensive study of the point. I read the history of the doctrine, the Fathers and the Councils of the Church, and what they had to say; examined its rationality. At the end of some months I came to this conclusion — that, as far as Holy Scripture, history, and reason were concerned, the Catholic Church could prove her claim to be God’s infallible teacher up to the hilt. It is difficult after all these years to recapture the exact mode of its appeal to my reason; but it was the appeal that the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church inevitably presents to any man who is prepared to lay aside bias, prejudice, and preconceptions. I will try to state it in the fewest words possible. Infallibility is the only guarantee we have that the Christian religion is true. Actually, if I, at this moment, did not believe in an infallible teacher appointed by God then nothing on earth would induce me to believe in the Christian religion.

If, as outside the Catholic Church, Christian doctrines are a matter of private judgment, and therefore the Christian religion a mere matter of human opinion, then there is no obligation upon any living soul to believe in it. Why should I stake my immortal soul upon human opinion? For that is all you have if you refuse the infallible Church. In itself her claim may be reduced to this: the Catholic Church, when she defines a doctrine of faith or morals, when she tells us what to believe and what to do — in a word, what the Christian religion is — then, and then only, she is prevented by God from making a mistake, from teaching untruth. The Church is God’s mouthpiece — His voice. Could God's voice speak untruth?

Protestantism, claiming the Holy Ghost and presenting a jumble of contradictions, declares, in effect, that God DOES speak untruth. And only blinded reason prevents its adherents from seeing and admitting that unpalatable fact. Sanity alone should compel every thinking man to halt before the Catholic Church’s very claim. It is commonly assumed that submission to an infallible authority in religion involves slavery, that Catholics cannot think for themselves, that their reason is stifled, that they commit intellectual suicide. "No educated man could accept the medieval dogmas of the Catholic Church." Examined in the light of horse sense and human reason, that shibboleth of the modernist leaders is revealed in all its naked stupidity, as an irrational and unscientific piece of snobbery for gulling the masses and blinding them to the claims of the Catholic Church.

In intent, since the dogmas are the same today, it means: "No educated man could submit to what the Catholic Church claims to be infallibly true": or, more simply, "No educated man could submit to infallibility in the matter of religion." For acceptance involves submission to the one Church that claims it. The obvious reply is: "In the name of all that is sane — why not?" When in every other department of life he is submitting to infallible truth already? Is slavery involved; is reason stifled; is it intellectual suicide to submit to the infallible truth of the law of gravity; do men jump off cliffs on the chance of going up instead of down? To submit, as every scientist does, to the fixed data of science, believing them to be infallibly true; could he be a scientist at all, if he refused to submit? To submit, as every educated man does, by eating, to the infallible truth that the human body needs food? To submit, even if he was not there and never saw it, to the infallible truth of the Great War? To submit, as every mathematician does, to the multiplication table? To the axioms of Euclid? To submit, as every honest businessman does, to the infallible principles of business honesty? As all businessmen do to the infallible requirements to conduct a business at all? Were a businessman to conduct his business as the modernists conduct their religion, he would close down as the modernists have closed down Christianity for themselves and their adherents.

Examples could be multiplied to show that in every department of life every rational being is already submitting to infallible truth. Is it rational or irrational to proclaim that no educated man could submit in the hundredth case, that of religion, when he submits in the other ninety-nine? On the face of it the rationality lies with those who submit in the hundredth and most vital case of all. Is it a sign of education to submit to human opinions in preference to the revealed truths of God, who Himself declared that they were to be taught and accepted or refused under pain of eternal damnation? To prefer the negations of modernism to the dogmas of the Church that must teach infallibly if she teaches Christianity, i.e., the revealed truths of God? Of the Church that must be infallible when she teaches truth, since truth is an infallible thing? When, as far as reason was concerned, I was satisfied as to the unique claim of Rome, upon which all else depended, I decided to present my case for no longer remaining in the Church of England to one or two prominent scholars among its clergy.

I did so. As far as I can recollect, the "refutation” given me made no impression whatever. Though easily my superiors in scholarship, I had sufficient knowledge and logic to perceive that the great chain of scriptural and historical evidence for the Catholic claim remained unbroken by excerpts from St. Augustine, St. Cyprian, and others, conveniently interpreted according to the will of the reader and not to the mind of the author. It is little less than amazing to me now that scholars of repute should endeavor to counter the vast weight of evidence against them with what they themselves must in honesty admit is the less likely interpretation — to fit the rock to the pebble rather than the pebble to the rock. To my case for leaving a church which was so plainly devoid, in view of its contradictions, of any divine teaching authority, I received no valid answer at all. Every conceivable "argumentum ad hominem" was presented; sentiment, "Roman fever," "intellectual suicide," treachery to the "church of my baptism," "corruptions of Rome," the whole well-worn gamut of objections was paraded. I had read them all, though, already and found them untrue. The great facts about the Catholic Church were left standing — unassailable. And those facts demanded submission. I have been asked again and again, since I became a Catholic, why I left the Church of England, and often the implication behind the question, if not actually expressed, has been that my motive for doing so could not have been based on reason.

There is a prevalent idea that converts to Rome are in some mysterious manner "got hold of" or "caught" by "Roman priests." I would like to assure any non-Catholic who may happen to read this that converts are not "got hold of" or "caught." In my own case I had rarely even spoken to a "Roman priest," before, of my own free will and with my reason already convinced, I went to consult one at the London Oratory. It is true that in doing so I was still full of Protestant suspicion and imagined that he would be extremely gratified to "get hold of" a real live Anglican clergyman; I should make a splendid "catch." The priest in question received me most calmly. He showed no sign of excitement; he did not stand on his head or caper about. He did not even appear to regard me as a particularly good "catch." He answered my questions and invited me to come again, if I cared to, but no more. I left, feeling several sizes smaller. I learned many things, however, from that interview. It was so entirely different from the interviews with the Anglican scholars. For the priest there was no difficult case to bolster up. Not a single question that I put to him presented "difficulties." There were no awkward corners to get around. I believe his candidness about the human side of the Catholic Church almost startled me.

Never once was he on the defence. All that I had been groping toward so painfully and laboriously was so obvious to him as to leave me wondering how it could ever have not been obvious to myself. I realized, too, from that interview that "going over to Rome" would be very much more than stepping out of a small boat onto an Atlantic liner. It would be no less than coming into the kingdom of God on earth — and the Catholic Church was that kingdom of God. I was not coming in on my own terms, but on hers. I was not conferring a privilege upon her; she was conferring an inestimable privilege upon me. I was not going to make myself a Catholic, the Catholic Church was going to make me one. There would be a formal course of instruction, a real testing of my faith, and finally, a real submission to a living authority — the living authority of God on earth.

A great convert and Catholic author

Rev. Fr. Owen Francis Dudley

Born in 1882.

Became Anglican minister in 1911.

Received into the Catholic Church in 1915.

Ordained a priest in 1917.

Chaplain of British Army.

Saw service on the French and Italian fronts and was wounded.

Active in Catholic Missionary Society after that war.

Elected Superior of the Catholic Missionary Society 1933.

World Lecturer. Novelist.

Died 8 December 1952

In his own words

My first introduction to the Catholic Church was being spat in the eye by a Roman Catholic boy at school. He was bigger than I; so I let it pass. But I remembered he was a Roman Catholic. My next was at a magic-lantern entertainment to which I was taken by my mother. In the course of it there appeared on the screen the picture of a very old man in a large hat and a long white soutane. I must have asked my mother who it was, and been informed briefly that it was the "Pope of Rome." I don't quite know how, but the impression left in my mind was that there was something fishy about the "Pope of Rome." At school, I learned in English history (which I discovered later was not altogether English and not altogether history) that there was something fishy not only about the Pope of Rome, but about the whole of the Pope's Church.

I gathered that for a thousand years or more the Pope had held all England in his grip, and not only England but all Europe; also that during that period the "Roman," "Romish," or "Roman Catholic" Church had become more and more corrupt, until finally the original Christianity of Christ had almost disappeared; that idols were worshipped instead of God; that everywhere superstition held sway. No education; no science. Everything and everybody priest-ridden. I read of how at last the "Glorious Reformation" had come; how the light of the Morning Star had burst upon the darkness; how the Pope’s yoke had been flung off, and with it all the trappings and corruptions of popery; of the triumph of the Reformation in England; of the restoration of the primitive doctrines of Christ and the "light of the pure Gospel"; of the progress and prosperity that followed in the reign of "good Queen Bess"; of the freeing of men's minds and the expansion of thought released from the tyranny of Rome. All this, as an English schoolboy, I drank in. And I believed it. Next I did a thing that we all have to do: I grew up. And I grew up without questioning the truth of what I had been taught.

The time came when I decided to become a Church of England clergyman. For this purpose I entered an Anglican theological college. And there I must confess I began to get somewhat muddled; for I could not find out what I should have to teach when I became an Anglican clergyman. Even to my youthful mind it became abundantly clear that my various tutors were contradicting each other on vital matters of Christian doctrine. My own fellow students were perpetually arguing on most fundamental points of religion. I finally emerged from that theological college feeling somewhat like an addled egg, and only dimly realizing that the Church of England had given me no theology. I appreciated later that it had no system of theology to give. It was during that period at college that I first of all went out to Rome, on a holiday. And while there I managed to see no less a person than the Pope of Rome himself. It was Pope Pius X — being borne into St. Peter’s on the "sedia gestatoria". He passed quite close to where I was standing, and I could see his face very clearly. It was the face of a saint. I could only suppose that somehow he had managed to keep good in spite of being the Pope of Rome. That incident left a deeper impression on my mind than I was aware of at the time. I kept a diary of all that I saw in Rome, and wrote in it: "I can quite imagine a susceptible young man being carried away by all this, and wanting to become a Roman Catholic." I myself was safe from the lure of popery, of course. [Pope Pius X has, of course, since been canonized.]

As a full-fledged Anglican clergyman I first of all worked in a country parish. At the end of a year, however, my vicar and I came to the conclusion that it would be wiser to part company; for we were disagreed as to what the Christian religion was.

I then went to a parish in the East End of London, down among the costermongers, hop pickers, and dock laborers. I went down there full of zeal, determined to set the Thames on fire. I very soon discovered, though, that the vast mass of East Enders had no interest at all in the religion that I professed. Out of the six thousand or so in the parish not more than one or two hundred even came near the church. Our hoppers’ socials in the Parish Hall were well patronized, however. Great nights, and a thrilling din of barrel organ, dancing, and singing. I found the Donkey Row hoppers immensely lovable and affectionate. We had wonderful days with them each September in the hop-fields of Kent. It was social work. The mass of them we could not even touch with religion. I grew somewhat "extreme" in this parish under the influence of my vicar, to whom at first I was too "Protestant." I remember he disliked the hat I arrived in — a round, flat one. The vicarage dog ate the hat, and I bought a more "priestly" one.

For a year or two things went fairly smoothly and I suffered from no qualms about the Anglican religion. How far I sincerely believed that I was a "Catholic" during that period I find it difficult to estimate now. Sufficiently at any rate to argue heatedly with Low Church and "modernist" clergy in defense of my claim. And sufficiently to be thoroughly annoyed with a Roman Catholic lady who, whenever we met, told me she was praying for my conversion to the "True Church," and a Franciscan friar in the hop-fields who told me the same. I felt like telling them they could pray until they were black in the face. I remember, too, that whenever I met a Roman Catholic priest I experienced a sense of inferiority and a vague feeling of not quite being the real thing, or at least of there being an indefinable but marked difference between us. It was when I could no longer avoid certain unpleasant facts with which I was confronted in my work as an Anglican clergyman that the first uneasiness came. One day I was in the house of a certain dock laborer who lived exactly opposite our church but never darkened its doors. I chose the occasion to ask him why not? His reply flattened me out; it was to the effect that he could see no valid reason for believing what I taught in preference to what the "Low Church bloke down the road" taught. I could not give a satisfactory answer to his challenge. I don’t suppose he believed in either of us really; but he had placed me in a quandary. We were both Anglican clergymen, and we were both flatly contradicting each other from our respective pulpits.

It set a question simmering in my mind: "Why should ANYBODY believe what I taught?" And a further question: "What authority had I for what I was teaching?" I began, for the first time with real anxiety, to examine the Anglican Church. And with that examination I found I could no longer blind myself to certain patent facts, which hitherto I had brushed aside.

The Established Church was a church of contradictions, of parties, each of which had an equal claim to represent it, and all of which were destructive of its general claim to be part of the Church of Christ — directly one affirmed its unity. As far as authority was concerned, it was possible to believe anything or nothing without ecclesiastical interference. You could be an extreme "Anglo-Catholic" and hold all the doctrines of the Catholic Church except the inconvenient ones like papal infallibility; you could be an extreme modernist and deny (while retaining Christian terms ) all the doctrines of the Christian religion. No bishop said yes or no imperatively to any party. The bishops were as divided as the parties. For practical purposes, if bishops did interfere, they were ignored, even by their own clergy. If the Holy Ghost, as claimed, was with the Church of England then logically the Holy Ghost was the author of contradictions: for each party claimed His guidance.

To be continued

Where does SSPX stand with Rome

On November 1, 2012, on the feast of All Saints, Bishop Bernard Fellay celebrated Mass at the seminary in Ecône.  During his sermon, after recalling the spiritual meaning of this feast, he explained the status of the relations of the Society of Saint Pius X with Rome.  – The title and subtitles are by the editors of DICI. 

some excerpts -  for the full sermon go to the dici website

…Now, to speak about the future, what we will try to do with the Roman authorities is to tell them that it does no good to pretend, for the sake of the faith, that the Church cannot be mistaken.  Because, at the level of faith, we are entirely in agreement about the assistance of the Holy Ghost, but you have to open your eyes to what is happening in the Church!  It is necessary to stop saying:  the Church can do nothing bad, therefore the new Mass is good.  It is necessary to stop saying:  the Church cannot err, and therefore there is no error in the Council.  But look at reality then!  There can be no contradiction between the reality that we apprehend and the faith.  It is the same good God who made both.  Therefore if there is an apparent contradiction, there is certainly a solution.  Perhaps we don’t have it yet, but we are not going to deny reality for the sake of the faith!  Now this is truly the impression that one has with regard to what Rome is trying to impose on us today.  And here we reply:  we cannot.  That is all.

And therefore we continue, come what may!  We know very well that one day this trial—a trial that affects the whole Church—will end, but we do not know how.  We try to do everything that we can.  Don’t be afraid.  The good Lord is above all that;  He is still the boss.  That is the extraordinary thing.  And the Church, even in this state, is still holy, is still capable of sanctifying.  If today, my very dear brothers, we receive the sacraments, grace, the faith, it is through this Roman Catholic Church, not through her faults but certainly through this real, concrete Church.  It is not an image, it is not an idea, it is a reality, the most beautiful aspect of which we are celebrating today:  Heaven.  Well!  Heaven is prepared here below.  That is the beauty of the Church, this terrifying, extraordinary combat with the forces of evil in which the Church finds herself, and even in this state of terrible suffering in which she is today, she is still capable of transmitting the faith, of transmitting grace, the sacraments.  And if we give them—these sacraments and this faith—it is through this Church, it is in the name of this Church, it is as instruments and members of the Catholic Church that we do so.

May the saints in Heaven, may the angels come to our aid and support us!  Obviously it is not easy, obviously we are fearful.  This is what today’s Gradual says.  It is necessary to have fear of God.  To those who fear Him, the good Lord gives everything.  Let us not be afraid of having fear of the Lord.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  May it lead us through the labyrinths of life here below toward Heaven, where the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of all saints, Queen of angels, is really our protectress, truly our Mother.  If we say about Our Lord that He wants to be all in all, we must say almost the same thing about the Blessed Virgin.  We have a mother in Heaven who has received from God an extraordinary power, the power to crush Satan’s head, to crush all heresies.  Therefore we can also say that she is the mother of faith, the mother of grace.  Let us go to her.  Let us consecrate to her our lives, our families, our joys, our sufferings, our plans, our desires.  May she lead us to that eternal haven so that we might always enjoy eternal happiness with all the saints, that vision of God which is the beatific vision.  So be it.  Amen.

In order to preserve the character of this sermon, the oral style has been retained. 

(Source: FSSPX/MG – Pictures : Seminary of Ecône – Transcription and translation by DICI no. 264 dated November 9, 2012) http://www.dici.org/en/

WISE WORDS FROM DOWN UNDER

My Dear Brethren,


As most of you will be aware I recently attended the General Chapter Meeting of the Society which took place at Econe Switzerland from 3rd to 14th July. After a five-day retreat the various Superiors of the Society were able to discuss and assess various matters, most particularly the recent relations with Rome and the question of a possible canonical normalization of the Society and its recognition by the Vatican as a Personal Prelature.

It was not that long ago, in October of last year, that we met to discuss the same question. It appears that the present Pope wanted to find a solution to the fraught relations between our Society and the Vatican and to that end presented us in September of last year with a Doctrinal Preamble which we were to accept in view of a canonical regularization. However, the Rome meeting concluded that this could not, in fact, be accepted without compromising the position which the Society has always adopted in regard to the reforms which have devastated the Church since the Second Vatican Council. However, this was not the end of the matter as Rome’s proposal was open to negotiation which was subsequently conducted between the Vatican and our Superior General and his Assistants. Unfortunately, the fact that this was conducted in secret for various diplomatic reasons gave rise to wild speculation and although details of these negotiations were not revealed the general understanding seemed to be that Rome was becoming more and more generous in our regard with the result that it was soon being affirmed that the Society would shortly be erected as a Personal Prelature.

This situation was greeted with enthusiasm by those Traditional Catholics who perceived something of a return to the Church’s traditions during the present pontificate and who looked forward to the day when the stigma of being “excommunicated”, “schismatic” and the like would be lifted and a much wider apostolate would be opened up to the Society. Others regarded this development with dismay, arguing that any return to Tradition is purely superficial, that the basic policies of the Vatican have not changed since the Council, that the general state of the Church continues to deteriorate and that it would be foolhardy and premature to entrust ourselves to the ecclesiastical authorities who have continued to persecute us. Many priests and laity in different countries became vociferous about the matter with various declarations appearing on the Internet. This confusion was compounded when it was revealed that even the four bishops of the Society were not in agreement in regard to the question.

I quite deliberately made no public observation about these matters as so much speculation made it unclear as to what was the reality of the situation, the full details of which were yet to be revealed. I also congratulate you all in being calm and patient and thus the Society in Australia was spared much useless controversy. This was well advised, as shortly before the Chapter Meeting the Vatican advised Bishop Fellay that, in substance, the conditions expressed in the Doctrinal Preamble of September were, in fact, non-negotiable and this effectively brought the whole question to an end even before the Chapter was convened.

The Chapter Meeting therefore was conducted in a manner which was far less charged with contention than might otherwise have been the case and the unity and peace of the Society has providentially been preserved. At the end of the Meeting the following declaration was released:



At the conclusion of the General Chapter of the Society of St. Pius X, gathered together at the tomb of its venerated founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and united with its Superior General, the participants, bishops, superiors, and most senior members of the Society elevate to Heaven our heartfelt thanksgiving, grateful for the 42 years of marvellous Divine protection over our work, amidst a Church in crisis and a world which distances itself farther from God and His law with each passing day.

We wish to express our gratitude to each and every member of our Society: priests, brothers, sisters, third order members; to the religious communities close to us and also to our dear faithful, for their constant dedication and for their fervent prayers on the occasion of this Chapter, marked by frank exchanges of views and by a very fruitful common work. Every sacrifice and pain accepted with generosity has contributed to overcome the difficulties which the Society has encountered in recent times. We have recovered our profound unity in its essential mission: to preserve and defend the Catholic Faith, to form good priests, and to strive towards the restoration of Christendom. We have determined and approved the necessary conditions for an eventual canonical normalization. We have decided that, in that case, an extraordinary Chapter with deliberative vote will be convened beforehand.



We must never forget that the sanctification of souls always starts within ourselves. It is the fruit of a faith which becomes vivifying and operating by the work of charity, according to the words of St. Paul: “For we can do nothing against the truth: but for the truth” (cf. II Cor., XIII, 8), and “as Christ also loved the church and delivered himself up for it… that it should be holy and without blemish” (cf. Eph. V, 25 s.).



The Chapter believes that the paramount duty of the Society, in the service which it intends to offer to the Church, is to continue, with God’s help, to profess the Catholic Faith in all its purity and integrity, with a determination matching the intensity of the constant attacks to which this very Faith is subjected nowadays.

For this reason it seems opportune that we reaffirm our faith in the Roman Catholic Church, the unique Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, outside of which there is no salvation nor possibility to find the means leading to salvation; our faith in its monarchical constitution, desired by Our Lord Himself, by which the supreme power of government over the universal Church belongs only to the Pope, Vicar of Christ on earth; our faith in the universal Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Creator of both the natural and the supernatural orders, to Whom every man and every society must submit.



The Society continues to uphold the declarations and the teachings of the constant Magisterium of the Church in regard to all the novelties of the Second Vatican Council which remain tainted with errors, and also in regard to the reforms issued from it. We find our sure guide in this uninterrupted Magisterium which, by its teaching authority, transmits the revealed Deposit of Faith in perfect harmony with the truths that the entire Church has professed, always and everywhere.



The Society finds its guide as well in the constant Tradition of the Church, which transmits and will transmit until the end of time the teachings required to preserve the Faith and the salvation of souls, while waiting for the day when an open and serious debate will be possible which may allow the return to Tradition of the ecclesiastical authorities.



We wish to unite ourselves to the other Christians persecuted in different countries of the world who are now suffering for the Catholic Faith, some even to the extent of martyrdom. Their blood, shed in union with the Victim of our altars, is the pledge for a true renewal of the Church in capite et membris, according to the old saying sanguis martyrum semen christianorum.



“Finally, we turn our eyes to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is also jealous of the privileges of her Divine Son, jealous of His glory, of His Kingdom on earth as in Heaven. How often has she intervened for the defense, even the armed defense, of Christendom against the enemies of the Kingdom of Our Lord! We entreat her to intervene today to chase the enemies out from inside the Church who are trying to destroy it more radically than its enemies from outside. May she deign to keep in the integrity of the Faith, in the love of the Church, in devotion to the Successor of Peter, all the members of the Society of St. Pius X and all the priests and faithful who labor alongside the Society, in order that she may both keep us from schism and preserve us from heresy.



“May St. Michael the Archangel inspire us with his zeal for the glory of God and with his strength to fight the devil.



“May St. Pius X share with us a part of his wisdom, of his learning, of his sanctity, to discern the true from the false and the good from the evil in these times of confusion and lies.” (Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre; Albano, October 19, 1983).



Given at Ecône, on the 14th of July of the Year of the Lord 2012



Therefore the Society will continue its work much the same as before until God’s Providence decides that the propitious moment has come when the Church Authorities recognise the disastrous impact which the Second Vatican Council and the new liturgy have had upon the Church and our Society can be recognised and work with them for a true restoration of all things Catholic.



Various administrative changes will soon take place in the Society in Australia. Many of you are aware that the Superiors of the different countries are appointed for terms of six years. I am about to complete my second term as Superior of Australia and I will be replaced in that role by Father John Fullerton who is an American priest who has already served a term as the Superior of the United States and who is at present the Rector of St. Mary’s College Kansas. Once Father Fullerton arrives in Sydney, which may not be for several weeks yet, I will take up my new position at Hampton in Melbourne. It has been a great privilege for me to serve you during these last twelve years during which time I have become very fond of Australia. I am most grateful for all of your prayers and support and therefore I am very pleased I will be staying with you for a little while longer.



Several further changes will take place amongst the priests. As previously stated I am to go to Hampton where I will replace Fr. Doran who has been transferred to Canada. Fr. Todd Stephens will replace Fr. Taouk who in turn will go to Brisbane to replace Fr. Anderson who has been appointed to the United States. We welcome to Australia a newly ordained priest, Fr. Christopher Polley, who will come to Rockdale to take the place of Fr. Todd Stephens. It is envisaged that at the end of the year an exchange will take place between Fr. Polley and Fr. Vachon who is presently at Park Ridge.



New appointments have also been made amongst the Sisters at Rockdale. Sister Mary Gemma who has spent many years with the community here and latterly as Superior will soon leave Australia for the United States where she will become the Superior of the convent at Browerville. She will be succeeded by Sister Mary Theophane, an American, who at present is Superior of the community at Marseille in France. We welcome back to Australia our own Sister Mary Michael, the first member of the Sisters of the Society of St. Pius X who has spent the last few years at St. Mary’s Kansas. Sister Mary Joachim recently left us for America and will be replaced shortly by Sister Mary Monica from the Philippines.



Our heartfelt thanks and prayers go with the Priests and Sisters who are leaving us and we wish them every grace, strength and blessing in their new apostolate.



I am delighted to announce that our Superior General Bishop Fellay will be visiting Australia very soon from 4th until 21st August and will visit our principal churches in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne (Hampton and Tynong) Sydney and Brisbane. He will also spend several days at the seminary in Goulburn. Precise details of his visit will be announced at these different centres.

With every good wish and blessing,

Yours most sincerely in Christ,



Fr Edward Black

District Superior

We must avoid doubtful things.

A Sermon delivered by His Grace,  Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. on Sunday, May 2,1976 before an association of Catholic families in Southern France.


In these critical moments, we must remain with that which is surest. We must avoid doubtful things.

We must make our stand on things that are certain, absolutely certain, without a thousandth per cent of doubt: our Creed, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments, devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin. We cannot go wrong there. If we are firmly attached to these things we can work out our salvation. Our Lord willed these things for our salvation. So let us adhere to these things with all our heart.

Let us adore Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Let us have respect for Our Lord, our God, Our Saviour, our Creator: for Him Who is everything for us. How should we dare to present ourselves standing before Him Who will be our Judge at the end of time? Let us kneel before Our Lord with profound devotion. Let us receive Him in our hearts as the greatest treasure that we can have here below. Let us thank God for coming into our poor bodies, into our poor souls, sinners that we are. May God deign to reside in us for some time in His Body and in His Blood—this is the most beautiful, the grandest thing that God could do. And along with this respect for Our Lord Jesus Christ, let us love Him with our whole heart. Let us serve Him. Let us consider Him truly as our Shepherd.

Let us ask this of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary— of the Most Blessed Virgin who had only one name on her lips, only one name in her heart, that of her son, Jesus. Let it be for us as it was for her. Let us have one love only here below, one genuine love, in which we love all other creatures—but all other creatures should bring us to this love and not remove us from it. Let us love Our Lord Jesus Christ with our whole heart, with our whole soul, with our whole strength.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

 

An edifying life proves the preacher sincere

St. Spiridion – AD 348 …The bishops of Cyprus being on a certain occasion assembled together, Triphillius, Bishop of Ledri was engaged to preach a sermon; and mentioning that passage, “Take up thy bedf and walk”, he made use of a word to express the sick man’s bed, which he though more elegant and beautiful than in the original text. Spiridion, full of resentment at this false nicety, and attempt to add ghraces to what was more adorned with simplicity, arose and asked whether the preacher know better the right term than the evangelist? Our Saint defended the cause of St Athanasius In the council of Sardica in 347 and shortly after passed to eternal bliss.

Sacred learning is necessary in a minister of the Church, but sanctity is not less necessary. Nothing is so eloquent or powerfully persuasive as example. A learned man may convince, but to convert souls is chiefly the privilege of those that are pious. There have been few ages in which polite literature has been cultivated with greater ardour than the present wherein we live. How many great orators, how many elegant writers have made their appearance in it! If these were all saints, what a reformation of manner should we see among the people!

It is sanctity that possesses the art of softening the heart and subduing all the powers of the soul. An edifying life proves the preacher sincere, and is alone a sermon which obstinacy itself will find it hard to hold out against; it stops the mouth of the enemies of truth and virtue. The life, vigour, and justice of a discourse are the fruit of wit, genius and study, but unction in words is produced only by the heart. A man must be animated with the spirit of God to speak powerfully on divine things; the conversion of hearts if the work of God. Butlers lives of the saints first published in 1759, a work of thirty years.Images show the relic of St Spiridion the right hand.