But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema! (Galatians 1:8-9)
Not once, but twice, does St. Paul warn the Galatians against those amongst them who would preach a false doctrine.
I recently came across a document which was posted on the Society of St. Pius X United States District home page on 20 December of this year that was so stunning that it deserves worldwide attention. This document was written by Father Regis de Cacqueray, SSPX, District Superior of France and is entitled Keeping Calm Amid the Storm, which was translated into English from the original French (see link here) to be posted on the District website. This document coincides with similar themed ideas circulating within the Fraternity of St. Peter, who are pleading with their faithful from the pulpit not to "jump off the ship during the storm." What is utterly disconcerting is the standard operating procedure of the Fraternity to withhold publicly the name of the priest in this sermon, since fear of reprisal from the modernist gestapo in Rome suffocates their order like a polluted smog.
It does not take a strong imagination to sketch out in one's mind the thrust of Fr. de Cacqueray's four-part plea. It is obvious that with each revelation given by Jorge Bergoglio that it is becoming ever more distressing for the faithful who have even the most remote semblance of a traditional sensus Catholicus to reconcile this man purporting to be the Pope as a Catholic.
Those of us who have put in time with the SSPX know that Fr. de Cacqueray is well-respected, and is no doubt a devout priest who regularly writes about matters concerning the Society. So it is not surprising that the US District would put his piece front-and-center on the home page in an effort to calm down the natives who are justifiably becoming restless. What is surprising is the blunt and frankly, damning admission it makes, and the gravity of what it means for those who assist at the SSPX.
The first part of the document, entitled The Revolution is rather benign and par for the course for SSPX writings: an overview of the effect of evil on society, rebellion against the Divine Order, and a short exposé on the revolution. So far so good; nothing unusual. Then we come to the second part of the document, entitled The Pope is a Revolutionary. In this portion lies the "meat of the matter" that we wish to discuss.
Part two of the document begins with a comparison of Bergoglio to Jean-Jacques Rosseau and his (Bergoglio's) comments made this past autumn about atheists, good and evil, and man following his own conscience about what he believes to be good and evil. And to this, Father de Cacqueray writes:
Pope Francis, like all his predecessors since the Council, is a revolutionary. He is in rupture with the immutable Tradition of the Church and he is teaching in its stead a new doctrine that is poisoning souls.
In that one sentence, Fr. de Cacqueray has brought the whole "recognize and resist" house of cards ecclesiology - which serves as the structure of everything the Society of St. Pius X stands upon - via a free fall collapse into its own footprint. Father admits, as does the Society of St. Pius X who he is representing in this article, that Jorge Bergoglio is teaching a false doctrine: a doctrine which is not Roman Catholicism. Father is also admitting that just like all of Bergoglio's post-Vatican II predecessors, he is not a Catholic, but a revolutionary who has broken with the sacred Tradition of the Roman Catholic Church. What would St. Paul say about such a situation? Answer: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.
However, what is most disturbing and should horrify the faithful who sit in Society pews is the admission that Father is making which is not in this article: the Society of St. Pius X is in union both in spirit and in the Canon of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with a man they now publicly admit is teaching a false doctrine!
The cracks in the foundation are rendering the structure to the point of failure, and Father knows it. Make no mistake, there is a reason why such an article is appearing on the District web site. Making the assertion that a person they view as the Pope to be teaching false doctrine is no small matter.
This truly is "the emperor has no clothes on" moment, and in light of these statements, it is long overdue that all of those who call themselves traditional Catholics, particularly those who assist at the SSPX, take hard looks in the mirror and begin to ask themselves serious questions. Society faithful have been desensitized to such statements as Fr. de Cacqueray's because they are a matter of routine. A recent example is one made by Bishop Bernard Fellay, who at the 2013 Angelus Conference in Kansas City, described "Pope" Francis as a "genuine modernist." While that statement is completely correct, in the minds of everyone involved, does it mean anything? Do words have meaning? For the patron of their order, they certainly do!
Pope St. Pius X, in his encyclical for the ages, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), writes:
We have had to give this exposition a somewhat didactic form and not to shrink from employing certain uncouth terms in use among the Modernists. And now, can anybody who takes a survey of the whole system be surprised that We should define it as the synthesis of all heresies?
With that definition in mind, what Bishop Fellay is truly saying is: what we have before us is a genuine heretic. It has taken seven years, but Bishop Fellay is finally in public alignment with another of his confreres, Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, who in a watershed interview with Stephen Heiner admitted that Francis' predecessor Benedict XVI is a heretic. These of course, are decades behind Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who in the summer of 1976, had this to say regarding a Pope who was teaching false doctrine:
“If it happened that the pope was no longer the servant of the truth, he would no longer be pope.” (Homily preached at Lille, August 29, 1976, before a crowd of some 12,000)
The idea that somehow one can divorce words from their meanings (that ideas have no consequences) is very much a state of mind that the Society has cultivated for generations now, it permeates their clergy, religious and faithful, all of whom have logically adopted this line of thought.
A number of ideas flow forth from this school of thought - none of which are Catholic:
- The "Roman Authorities" ≠ The Pope, or the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth
- Modernist ≠ heretic
- Magisterium ≠ current members of the hierarchy whom they consider valid
- Newchurch ≠ false church
- Conciliarism ≠ false religion
- Bastard rite/Illegitimate rite ≠ false/non-Catholic worship
- Canonizations ≠ infallible proclamations of the Roman Catholic Church
Infected by these false ideas, the Society continues to operate under the premise that they will address the effect, but never the cause. It also provides the supreme convenience of allowing the SSPX to craft reality to suit them, rather than addressing it based upon the way it actually is from a purely doctrinal basis. A Catholic must solve problems by working forward from the point of Catholic principle, not backwards using gut reaction or dismissive platitudes.
My dear Fr. de Cacqueray, during the scriptural episode you mentioned, while the apostles were afraid, they were not poking holes in the ship or bringing water on board. Your astonishing failure to identify false shepherds continues to lead many astray and into the waiting arms of the wolves: those preachers of a "new doctrine" that you rightly identified. We pray that in the new year the scales may drop from your eyes.
The sedevacantist position is clear, and possibly correct. There are smart priests in the SSPX, and their position may rather be the correct one. It is difficult to imagine there is precedent in history for the decades-long behavior of either group (and when either group cites analogies as precedents, they sound equally convincing to me).
It does seem that sedevacantists make a pure, abstract deduction of what MUST be; reality is then held up against this abstraction, and it appears it cannot BE the reality. A material circle contains the perfect 'form' and the imperfect 'matter'; no one says the concrete, whole thing is not a circle.
The SSPX certainly teach the immutability of Catholic doctrine (which is explicitly rejected by post-Vatican II theologians), but paradoxically may exercise the more modern scientific way of thinking by remaining open to new data (i.e. according to the books, a pope cannot teach false doctrine, and yet he DOES).
Think of the last illness for which you were treated: if at any time the doctor had made a pure deduction to what MUST BE according to the books, he might have killed you. Perhaps you were tested for allergies? The book tells the doctor how to mix a perfect allergy shot according to the test results, and yet he doesn't administer it to you–he pricks your arm and measures the reaction so as not to cause anaphylactic shock. None of us live our modern lives based on pure deductions, immutability, or perennial philosophies; theology and ecclesiology are sciences, and though I find sedevacantist claims convincing, I think the SSPX position is not so obviously dismissed. Their movement is alive and appears to be flourishing (think of the seminary they are building in Virginia).
I will continue to read the SSPX position, and cannot dismiss all the priests as completely unaware of Catholic teaching on the papacy and the Church.
For me, at least, what is most surprising is not the realization–nor even the admission—, by partisans of the SSPX that Francis teaches new (read: false) doctrine; we all know that. What is surprising is that, given this, there is not an uproar in your comments section on the part of Traditionalist Catholics, so called. Your site has a lot of viewers. Is the apathy towards heresy, the greatest of sins, such that these things don't matter any more? The disposition that "Well, I've got a family to raise; I've got a job to maintain; and besides, I've got access to the Sacraments, so I'm okay… etc.", doesn't cut it in grand scheme of things.
It is obedience to the Catholic Faith and good works performed in the state of sanctifying grace by which we are saved, not the True Mass alone.
I'd half expect this article, alone, to generate dozens of comments.
Unfortunately, I think that as time progresses, the general laid back disposition to Catholic matters is increasing, not decreasing.
I daresay that this does not portend well for those desirous of remaining–or becoming—for that matter, truly Catholic.
On a positive note, this article was very good and thought provoking.
Dear Doge
I don't understand what "smart priests" have to do with it. Surely we have had brilliant heretics before. Being smart is no guarantee of orthodoxy. The reality is that no priest in the SSPX, smart or otherwise, have found a way to refute Fr. Cekada's "Traditionalists, Infallibility, and the Pope," which has been out since 1996.
I also don't use "flourishing seminaries" as a yardstick. When I was in the Novus Ordo I visited the Legionaries of Christ, who at the time had 4000 seminarians and over 500 priests. They were filled to overflowing.
Catholics make decisions based on PRINCIPLES and PRECEDENT not on GUT and SENTIMENT.
Read – if you can find any priest to take on a refutation, I will personally publish it on TR.
http://www.traditionalmass.org/images/articles/TradsInfall.pdf
Doge of Venice: "according to the books, a pope cannot teach false doctrine, and yet he DOES" (emphasis added by me).
Doge of Venice, not "according to the books" but "according to The Book". You can't simply put The Bible among other books. Your words sound like you don't believe The Bible to be alone 100% the word of God.
So according to The Book and its verse Galatians 1:9 "if any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.".
Now, Doge of Venice, if as you testify Bergoglio preaches false Gospel (which isn't Gospel at all -> Galatians 1:6-7) doesn't he fall under any one who preaches false Gospel and is anathema?
On what ground do you exempt Bergoglio from any one of Galatians 1:9?
If you don't exempt Bergoglio from any one of Galatians 1:9 on what ground do you claim for Bergoglio having anything to do with The Catholic Church when anathema is complete and absolute separation from The Catholic Church?
In sum, Doge of Venice, you and all who claim that the Pope can overall teach false doctrine directly contradict Divine revelation, the very word of God, from Galatians 1:9 and that is a heresy. In case you persist in spite of warning, it becomes formal (willed) and you a public heretic and anathema according to Galatians 1:9.