ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXLIV  (Sept. 16, 2023) :  ROSARY  DEVOTION

In October of last year these “Comments”, following the example of an SSPX priest in France, presented an overview of the 13 Encyclical Letters written by Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) between 1883 and 1898 as a remedy for a Church and world moving away from God towards the century of the two World Wars. Now we are in the 21^st century, and Leo’s Encyclicals can be more precious than ever, if we pay attention to them. Here below is a brief summary of Laetitiae Sanctae from 1893, in which Leo shows how the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary successively brighten, console and support us against the miseries of our age. Leo’s general considerations can open out on many particular applications  in praying the Rosary.

Joyful Mysteries –

Modern society is threatened with a growing contempt of the homely duties and virtues which make up the beauty of a humble life. To this cause, we may trace in the home, the readiness of children to withdraw themselves from the natural obligation of obedience to the parents, and their impatience of any form of treatment which is not of the indulgent and effeminate kind. 

* For evils such as these let us seek a remedy in the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary. Let us take our stand in front of that earthly and divine home of holiness, the House of Nazareth. Here we behold simplicity and purity of conduct, mutual respect and love – not of the false and fleeting kind – but that which finds both its life and charm in devotedness of service.

Sorrowful Mysteries –

A second evil characteristic of our time is to be found in repugnance to suffering and eagerness to escape whatever is hard or painful to endure. The greater number dream of a fantastical civilization in which all that is unpleasant shall be removed, and all that is pleasant shall be supplied. By this unbridled desire of living a life of pleasure, the minds of men are weakened, and if they do not entirely succumb, they become demoralized and sink under the hardships of the battle of life.

* A powerful means of renewing our courage will undoubtedly be found in dwelling upon the Sorrowful Mysteries of Our Lord’s life. In them we behold Christ overwhelmed with sadness, so that drops of blood ooze like sweat from His veins. We see Him torn with scourges, crowned with thorns, nailed to the cross, and condemned by the voice of the multitude as deserving of death. Here, too, we contemplate the grief of the most Holy Mother, whose soul was pierced by the sword of sorrow. Witnessing these examples of fortitude, who is there who will not feel his heart grow warm with the desire of imitating them?

Glorious Mysteries –

The third evil is one which is chiefly characteristic of the times in which we live. Men of our day pursue the false goods of this world in such wise that the thought of their true Fatherland is not only set aside but banished and entirely erased from memory. Men of carnal mind, who love nothing but themselves, lose sight altogether of the world which is to come, and sink to the lowest depths of degradation.

* It is from this danger that they will be happily rescued, who keep before their minds the Glorious Mysteries. Here alone we discover the true relation between time and eternity, between our life on earth and our life in heaven; and it is thus that are formed strong and noble characters.

Leo’s Conclusion – Then amid the manifold evils which beset modern society and press on our lives, the Holy Rosary is as if tailor-made to brighten, console, and support us on our way to Heaven. May Mary, the Mother of God and of men, herself the authoress and teacher of the Rosary, procure for Us its happy fulfilment.

                                                                                                                                              Kyrie eleison

The Rosary has for centuries been around.

No Saint to disapprove it has been found.

ELEISON COMMENTS  DCCCXLIII  (Sept. 2, 2023) :  CLEAR-SIGHTED   RESISTANT

The so-called movement of “Resistance” inside today’s Catholic Church is a poor affair, humanly speaking, but it may yet be the will of God, given the unprecedented state of chaos in which Church and world find themselves today. If we say that this “Resistance” consists in a loose and unstructured union of priests mostly coming from inside the Society of St Pius X, who quit the SSPX of their own accord or were thrown out by its Superiors because they would not go along with the Society’s re-orientation at its General Chapter of 2012, then we can ask, what have these “Resistant” priests achieved since 2012 ?

Humanly speaking, the answer must be, not very much. Normal features of any Catholic organisation are structure, Superiors and subjects, internal obedience to those Superiors and external obedience to local Catholic authorities and to Rome. And up till now the “Resistance” priests seem to have achieved none of these things, as its enemies do not fail to point out. Nor can the “Resistance” boast that it is convincing many souls that it it has the true solution to the problems being left unsolved by the Newchurch or the Newsociety. Many souls may be attracted for a while to the “Resistance” by the arguments of Truth which it presents, but rather fewer will permanently stay, often due to the seeming lack of Authority behind those arguments. Catholics need their Catholic Pope, and many, destabilised without him, follow his shadow.

Then if the “Resistance” is not heeded in principle and barely followed in practice, what use is it ?  Here are two quotes from the Passion of Our Lord. To Pharisees rebuking him for the noise being made by His disciples, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke XIX,40). The “Resistance” is trampled upon, like stones in the street, but it is crying out, to save stones the trouble !  And to Pontius Pilate asking Him if He is a king, “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth, hears my voice” (Jn. XVIII, 37). The “Resistance” is telling vital truth no longer told by the SSPX, for instance, today’s Roman officials have lost the Faith.

Here follows what one member of the “Resistance” writes about it. One might wish there were many other members who saw the reality so clearly. Otherwise they risk playing children’s games, somewhat like the SSPX Capitulants in 2012 – and 2006 and 1994…

In effect, one cannot be “optimistic” as to what is going on here, either with regard to a certain priest in particular, or with regard to the “Resistance” in general. The Devil is working double overtime to bring down the last bastions of Tradition. We need to ask God for ourselves to keep a cool head. Nicolas Gomez Davila (1913-1994) would say, “Since everything being constructed today automatically passes over to the enemy, let us hope, before constructing anything, that time brings us materials that do not betray.”  May God grant us patience, common sense and good humour.

In other words, as the official Catholic Church passed over to the enemy at Vatican II; as the Society of St Pius X passed over to the enemy at its General Chapter of 2012; so there is every possibility, if not likelihood, of the “Resistance” in turn passing over to the enemy, even if that can hardly happen officially, because the “Resistance” has so little official about it.  One may wonder if here is not exactly why the Lord God has allowed the “Resistance” to come into existence with so little structure or organisation.

In any case, bravo to the Columbian philosopher, who never went to any “university”. And bravo to the “Resistance” member who quotes him. Neither of them are playing children’s games.

As St Paul says, “When I became a man, I gave up childish ways” (I Cor. XIII, 11).  One may ask, are there any men left ?

                                                                                                                                            Kyrie eleison

Children are innocent, their games are sweet,

But adults have the Devil to defeat !

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXLII  (Sept. 2, 2023) : WOMEN  in  SCRIPTURE  –  III

The feminisation of men and masculinisation of women, so widespread in today’s poor world, is such a  universal and radical upheaval for human nature that it would take many issues of these one-page “Comments” to do it justice. However, the propaganda in favour of this particular war on human beings is so heavy all around us that common sense needs all the help that it can get, and perhaps at least one more issue of these “Comments”, to help readers to frame the problem as it needs to be framed – in God. 

For indeed, as a number of readers may already have understood, here is the most important point of all to decipher how a whole world can fall into such madness as feminism and anti-masculinism. If God exists and if it is He who designed all creatures, spiritual and material, then of course He designed human beings as man and woman to live on earth like all other material animals, male and female, but with a spiritual soul, with reason and free-will, unlike all the purely material animals, so that he and she alike could respond to His creative love and deserve to share in His eternal bliss. Human beings are meant for eternity, no less.

Thus before God, man and woman have an equal destiny in Heaven and an equal spiritual dignity, but, for our brief life on earth, God has appointed not equality between man and woman but complementary roles, to create families, which are little societies, which require not equality but a head, with authority to lead and decide for all the family. And gifts of the head He gives in general to men, while women He usually compensates with gifts of the heart, by which to spread love and happiness throughout the family. Thus an earthly and temporary inequality for women is meant to lead to an eternal equality in Heaven.

But imagine now that human beings on a worldwide scale cut God out of their lives. There is no more Creator, no more Designer of human life and nature, no more eternity or eternal life. We are the random products of an “Evolution” which could not care less as far as design, destiny, eternity are concerned. Now mankind learned from Christ, through Christendom, all about the dignity and equality of all men, and this heritage gave human beings a keen sense of their own worth. That much they enjoyed, and they do not want to let it go. But without God, it no longer has any backing from the past or guarantee for the future. Therefore an equality of divine dimension must be crammed into this little life of human dimension, into which it cannot fit, any more than a quart of liquid will fit into a pint bottle. Hence, in all kinds of ways, the dissatisfaction of modern life.  Godless people, but formerly godly, want the fruits of God without the roots. It cannot work. It will not work. But human beings insist on trying to make it work, rather than, by returning to God, live this life on God’s terms instead of their own. In fact they are choosing Hell, and they are turning this world into a vestibule of Hell.

Here is a strong argument for the existence of God. If cutting Him out, as mankind is doing today, could make everybody abidingly happy and prosperous, that might confirm that man neither comes from God or is meant to go to Him. On the contrary, if men today are deep down restless and dissatisfied, as indicated by their politicians continually promising change in one form or other, but always change, is that not an indication that men are not meant just for liberalism and materialism, or for liberty from the Ten Commandments and for the unchecked pursuit of money ?  If men could make liberalism and materialism succeed, that is when we would have to despair of human life.  As it is, we have a natural sense that there must be more to human life than just what is “nasty, poor, brutish and short” (in the words of Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679), and so the despairing condition of men all around us is even a sign of hope ! 

The feminists and anti-masculinists are visceral warriors in the great war on God. But they will not win !

                                                                                                                                       Kyrie eleison

Of multiple treasure God is the infinite hoarder,

But man would replace God with man’s own disorder.

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXLI  (August 26, 2023) : WOMAN  in  SCRIPTURE  –  II  

Surely few readers of these “Comments” realized, before reading those of last week, in just how many places the New Testament addresses directly the question, so vexed today, of man and woman. Or, when they see these quotes are gathered together, how much they say the same thing, and how far what they say departs from the teaching and practice of modern man and woman. Let us comment on the quotes :-

–   Gen. II, 18-24 : A helpmate Even before the very first woman was created, she was designed by God to be oriented towards her man; to be his faithful wife (“two in one flesh”), to enable him to have children and make a family (as no other man could do), to make a new generation (“leaving father and mother”), to continue mankind, eventually to populate the earth (and not de-populate it: Gen. IX, 1, 7). All of this Adam immediately understood. Today’s feminists try to get away from this orientation to man, but it is far too deep in their nature, and to any degree that they succeed, it is a disaster for women and men. See MIGTOW, a reaction of men to the feminism denaturing women. Man and woman are designed by God with a marvellous complementarity, as of head and heart in a human being, they need one another, and nature will always bring them together.  

Gen. III, 16 : The Fall : punishment, submission Even before the Fall, Eve was subordinate to Adam, because in God’s Creation there is everywhere order and hierarchy, not equality and disorder. To man God gives gifts of reason to make him the head of family and society, to woman He gives gifts of love to make her the heart of family and home. But while before the Fall this natural subordination of woman had been painless, after the Fall by which Eve had made Adam fall, as part of her punishment by God, this subordination became painful. By supernatural grace in a Christian marriage that pain is eased, but by pride in feminism the pain becomes only worse.  

1 Cor. XI, 3-12 :  Hierarchy St. Paul’s teaching could not be more clear: 1 God. 2 Christ. 3 Man. 4 Woman. Here is the key to feminism. If man throws off God and Christ, woman will naturally throw off man. If man wishes to restore order in hi home and society, he must start by subordinating himself to God through Christ. It is then quite reasonable to argue that the real authors of today’s disastrous feminism are rather the men than the women.  

Eph. V, 21-33 : Marriage Thus in this longer quote which serves as Epistle in the Catholic Wedding Mass, verses 24 and 33 remind the future wife of her duty to be submissive and respectful towards her husband, but all the other verses are directed to the husband, to tell him to look after his wife, as Christ looks after His own Body, the Church. That is a sublime example for a marriage to follow. It depends on the man to give the right lead to his wife.  

Col. III, 18-21 : Family Here is the essential complementarity: Husbands, love your wives; wives, submit to your husbands.  

1 Tim. II, 9-15 :  Salvation by motherhood When the men are godless, as today, then women take over, in society as in the home, and sometimes they have to do so. With the unhappy results we observe all around us, because women are natured not to exercise authority, but to give and receive love, especially through being mothers.  

Titus II, 4-5 :  Centred on the home As man needs to be creative by his work, so woman needs to be creative by making a family and home.

1 Peter III, 1-7 : Two more reasons for wives to submit One: the insubmission of wives is so unnatural, that, practised by Christians, it will discredit Christ. Two: women are weaker than men, and so should give way, while men should look after their weakness.                                                                                                                                          Kyrie eleison

Saints Peter and Paul, on women, teach the same –

It’s up to the men to lead them, in God’s name.        

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXL  (August 19, 2023)  WOMEN  in  SCRIPTURE  –  I    

Our times are in much confusion on the subject of man and woman.  Here below, God Himself speaks on the subject. He should know, because it is He that designed us, and not we ourselves (Ps. 99, 3).

Gen. II, 18-24:  A helpmate.
18 And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a helpmate like unto himself… 21 Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, He took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it.  22 And the Lord God made the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam.  23 And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.  24 Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.

Gen. III, 16:  The Fall: punishment, submission
To the woman also He said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee.

1 Cor. XI, 3-12:  Hierarchy
3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God…  7 The man indeed ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. 9 For the man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man.

Eph. V, 21-33:  Marriage
22 Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord;  23 Because the husband is the head of the
wife, as Christ is the head of the church. He is the saviour of His Body.  24 Therefore as the church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be <subject> to their husbands in all things…  33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular love his wife as himself: and let the wife fear her husband.

Col. III, 18-21:  Family
18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as it is fitting in the Lord.  19 Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter towards them.  20 Children, obey your parents in all things: for this pleases well the Lord.

1 Tim. II, 9-15:  Salvation, Motherhood
11 Let the woman learn in silence, with all submission.  12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence.  13 For Adam was first formed; then Eve.  14 And Adam was not seduced; but the woman being seduced, was in the transgression.  15 Yet she shall be saved through childbearing… if she continue in faith, and love, and sanctification, with sobriety.

Tit. II 4-5 : Young women / love of family
4 That they may teach the young women to be wise, to love their husbands, to love their children,
5 To be discreet, chaste, sober, having a care of the house, gentle, obedient to their husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

I Pet. III, 1-7 : The weaker sex
1 In like manner also let wives be subject to their husbands: that if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word, by the conversation of the wives…   5 For after this manner heretofore the holy
women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands… 7 Ye husbands, likewise dwelling with them according to knowledge, giving honour to the female as to the weaker vessel, and as to the co-heirs of the grace of life: that your prayers be not hindered.                                                                                                                                                  Kyrie eleison How far are modern woman and man off track !

What suffering will it take to bring them back ?

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXLIX  (12 August, 2023) :  TWO  KINDS  of  BISHOP  –  V

It is time to tie together and bring to an end this series of five issues of these “Comments”, because, circling around the theme of what kind of bishops are needed today for the survival of the Catholic Faith tomorrow, the first four issues have ranged over a variety of topics. Here they are in brief :–  

July 15 :  To obtain good bishops, changeless Catholic Truth outweighs today’s Catholic Authority.

July 22 :  Archbishop Lefebvre put Truth first. His re-oriented Society of St Pius X prefers Authority.

July 29 :  All of us must pray for that Authority, none of us may act as though we can take its place.

Aug.05 :  Nor can any ambiguous compromise with today’s Rome truly serve the interests of God.  

The conclusion to be drawn from these four issues of the “Comments” is that Archbishop Lefebvre was not only right in 1988 when he consecrated four bishops against Rome’s express disapproval, but his re-oriented Newsociety (as it may be called because of its re-orientation officially adopted in 2012) was wrong when it then chose to wait upon Rome’s approval to obtain the new bishops it so much needs. It needs them to protect the Faith of a multitude of far-flung souls turning to it as a refuge from the many and resolute heresies of a Rome held in the vice-like grip of the enemies of God. But the Newsociety will hardly serve as a refuge if it insists on negotiating with these destroyers of the Faith. Can the Newsociety Superiors really not see what liberal crusaders for evil, God has allowed, justly, to take over Rome ?  The grave underestimation of the evil around them is at the heart of these Superiors’ re-orientation.  

Archbishop Lefebvre had an idea of the danger when he resigned in 1982 as Superior General of what was still then the Society, and put its Superiorate in the hands of younger successors. For at the same time he reserved to himself all questions of relations with Rome. With his long years of direct experience of dealing as Apostolic Delegate to French Africa with Vatican officials, he suspected that the young priests of his Society might prove to be like babes in the wood amidst the wolves and sharks at work in the Vatican, and so it turned out, because the Big Bad Wolf had such lovely teeth, as Little Red Riding Hood told him !  “All the better with which to devour you, my darling,” came the answer. And since modernist minds have lost objective truth, all the more power to deceive do the “sincere” lies of Roman officials have. Subjectively, they are “sincere”, especially lovely teeth !  Objectively, they are deadly.  

Young priests of the Newsociety, have you been given to believe that the Society of 2012 is the true Society of Archbishop Lefebvre ? If so, you resemble many young priests of the mainstream Church who were only ever taught that Vatican II is the true Catholic Church. But by the grace of God and by their own good will, a number of them are now waking up to the fact that they were sold a dummy, and they are looking for the truth, and you may know how some of them are even looking towards what was the Archbishop’s Society. By the continuing grace of God, they may realise, like yourselves, that his Society is running a grave risk by wanting to rejoin apostate Rome – and that is a grave risk because if anyone wants something for long enough, he is liable to get what he wants. Young man, beware of your wishes !  

What was the wisdom of the Archbishop himself ?  He said, it is Superiors who mould subjects, not the other way round, so to dream of rejoining Rome in order to convert it, is a dangerous dream. And on Vatican II he said, its danger is not so much even in the grave particular errors of religious liberty, collegiality or ecumenism, it is in the all-pervading subjectivism which radically undermines all objective truth together with any of the demands it makes upon us. What can possibly remain of the Catholic Faith?  

Dear young priests, get hold of any texts of the Archbishop himself, and devour them, but beware of editions so doctored by the Newsociety as to cut out anything running contrary to its Newness…                                                                                                                                      Kyrie eleison  

Getting to Heaven is a major enterprise,

Excluding even the shadow of compromise.    

KYRIE  ELEISON  DCCCXXXVIII  (August 5, 2023) : TWO  KINDS  of  BISHOPS  –  IV    

After three issues of these “Comments” (July 15, 22 and 29) it is time to go to the very heart of the split between the two kinds of Catholic bishops for the future of the Catholic Church. On the one hand are those wanted by Archbishop Lefebvre for his original Society of St Pius X. On the other hand are those wanted by the Newsociety of Bishop Fellay who will have the official approval of the Newchurch of Vatican II. By the Archbishop’s policy of “No practical agreement without doctrinal agreement” he put God in front of men, God’s doctrine of the true Church in front of any false agreement with men’s Newchurch. On the contrary, the Newsociety is liable to put men in front of God by its policy of “Since we cannot have a doctrinal agreement with the Roman officials, let us have at least a practical agreement.”  

Now some followers of the Newsociety may immediately object that ever since it adopted in 2012 the policy of practice before doctrine, it has not entered into any false agreement betraying true doctrine, so it is not putting men in front of God. True, the Newsociety has up till now refused any major false deal with Rome whenever Rome has insisted upon the Newsociety accepting the theory of the new religion, Vatican II, or its practice, by the New Mass. But the Newsociety has accepted since 2012 at least three minor agreements (over confessions, marriages and ordinations) which demonstrate to the world that it holds the apostates in Rome, in fact apostates from the Faith – so said the Archbishop — to be still servants of the true Faith. What message does that send to Catholics in confusion ?  The Romans have played skilfully.  

For in fact Conciliar Rome has abandoned Catholic doctrine, it has devastated the Church ever since Vatican II, in the person of Pope Bergoglio it is deliberately destroying the Faith day by day, and it is preparing the September Synod on synodality by which to dissolve the last remaining structures of the Church of Jesus Christ.  And the Newsociety ?  It keeps an official silence on all this demolition at work !  Why ?  Because it wants not to offend the apostates in Rome from whom it is hoping for an official approval ! Dreaming of a major approval, the Newsociety does not want, by speaking up, to throw away Rome’s three minor concessions mentioned above, by which Rome has effectively – cheaply – bought its silence. Can the Newsociety leaders not see how they have been sold a mess of pottage (Gen. XXV, 34) ?  

No, they do not see, because, one might fear, they want to have a comfortable life tucked away in a quiet corner of the wicked System presently governing world and Church. The Devil has deceived them that today’s Rome is not really all that bad, that the Newsociety is a normal Catholic Congregation fully deserving official recognition, that we are not in the thick of a pre-apocalyptic crisis with a divine Chastisement hanging over our heads, that the Vatican officials are our “new friends”, that “Pope Bergoglio loves us”, and so on. In other words at least the leaders of the Newsociety, if not also a  number of its priests and faithful, have at least half-entered into the lala-land of modern man, which is enough for their Catholic salt to have lost its savour.  In fact they have not had enough faith, not enough love of the Truth (II Thess. II, 10), to take the true measure of what is going on around them. St Thomas More might have said of them what he said of the English churchmen responsible for the collapse of the Catholic Church in England in his time : “They were not praying enough.”  

Readers, Catholic or non-catholic, the situation is urgent beyond words. Pray for Our Lord to give us Catholic bishops with a real love of the Truth; with a strong faith to see how corrupt is the System being constructed by the Devil and his agents all around us; with no desire to even half-enter into the lala-land; with no inclination to keep silent when millions and millions of souls are being swept towards eternal damnation, but with a readiness to die like St Thomas More, if necessary, for the greater glory of God.  

Pray through His Mother.  Pray the Rosary.  Pray 15 Mysteries a day.  And God will bless you.                                                                                                                                          Kyrie eleison.  

In serving God, half-measures will not do.

To all that He demands we must be true.              

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXXXVII  (July 29, 2023) : TWO  KINDS of  BISHOP  –  III    

The last two issues of these “Comments” presented a version of the difference between the Newsociety of St Pius X and Archbishop Lefebvre’s original Society, in the crucial matter of obtaining future bishops capable of ensuring that the Church will survive its crisis of now over half a century since the end of Vatican II, the Church Council which let loose that crisis. This necessarily meant presenting, however briefly, a version of the crisis itself, namely as the split between Catholic Authority and Catholic Truth brought about by that man-centred Council, which should have remained, like all 20 previous Church Councils, centred on God. There are several further conclusions to be drawn for the Church’s survival, conclusions which concern all of us, and not just the clergy.  

First and foremost, The Catholic Church cannot do without Truth because nobody can save his soul without Truth (Heb. XI, 6), because no lies or untruth can enter the one and only true Heaven of the one true God, who is Truth itself (Jn. XIV, 6). However, in our fallen world Truth cannot do without Authority because the Truth makes demands on men, and all men suffer from original sin, so that they will often want not to live up to those demands, and from God alone can come any infallible Authority sufficient to oblige men to live up to the full demands of His Truth. This Truth of salvation He chose to entrust to Peter and his successors, all fallible men with a free-will still capable of sinning (Mt. XVI, 23; Gal. II, 11 etc.).  

Now, foreseeing from eternity that some Popes would be fallible and would sin even gravely against the Truth, then to ensure that His Church and its Truth would survive to the end of the world (Mt. XXVIII, 20), He must have foreseen also His own interventions to guarantee that survival by working around the failings of His fallible human ministers. And since He chose from eternity to allow even a sequence of six Popes in succession from the death of Pius XII in 1958 onwards to fall foul of the radical doctrinal error of modernism, causing the worst ever Church crisis, lasting 65 years and counting (1958-2023), then there can be no doubt that He will intervene in a very special way to bring this crisis to an end. See, for instance, the Garabandal prophecies of a great Warning, a great Miracle and a great Chastisement. But between now and then, what is the divine Shepherd doing to ensure the survival of His sheep ?  He must be doing something. We look around us in 2023 to discover what that is.  

What we observe is a tremendous variety of Catholic groups and groupings which, broadly speaking, can be classified according to the relative importance that each of them gives to Catholic Authority or to Catholic Truth. And since Truth is unchanging, then it is only when Conciliar Authority abandons Vatican II that the disastrous split between Authority and Truth can be healed. Until then, Catholics must pray urgently for the Pope, or for the restoration of the pope, so that he can restore Catholic Authority, because the papacy is today humanly broken and God alone can mend it. Until that time, as the proverb says, “What cannot be cured, must be endured.”  

Then, for as long as Authority is strangulated by Conciliar popes, Catholics are bound to be divided, so that some are 80% for Authority and 20% for Truth, others are 80% for Truth and 20% for Authority, with all possible combinations in between. But when the pope is so struck, the sheep are so inevitably scattered that whatever combination they hold to, if they are sincerely wanting to be Catholic, then God is visibly tolerating them. And Catholics, rather than play God by excommunicating one another, will do better, broadly speaking, to imitate God by tolerating one another (Gal. VI, 10), until God sees fit to end the crisis. Not that Truth does not matter, on the contrary, somebody in the Church must preserve it, but that without a functioning Authority, Catholics can that much less be blamed for not finding it.                                                                                                                                     Kyrie eleison   Souls seeking God deserve that we take heed.

Souls spurning God, of charity have need.    

ELEISON  COMMENTS  DCCCXXXVI  (22^nd July, 2023) :  TWO KINDS of BISHOP  –  II    

“Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis,” said the Latins. In English, “The times they are a-changing, and we change with them.”  And we change with them.  And since God created this whole world of ours to populate His Heaven with angels and human beings deserving to share in His eternal bliss; and since to punish the Fall of Adam and Eve He allowed the highest of fallen angels to become “the Prince of this world” (Jn. XII, 31;  XIV, 30;  XVI, 11); and since the world, the flesh and the Devil together set up a powerful current sweeping a huge number of souls to their eternal perdition; then every one of us must make sure that with time passing we may be changing indeed, but towards God and not away from Him.  

Now Vatican II (1962-1965) was a catastrophic example of millions of Catholics being misled away from God even under the appearance of being led towards Him, and the massive deception continues. Thus amidst the great decline of the Catholic Church following on Vatican II, Archbishop Lefebvre (1905-1991) achieved the miraculous feat of creating within the Church a Priestly Congregation to oppose the decline being imposed on all the Church by its highest officials in Rome and in the dioceses. This was the Society of St Pius X, officially condemned in appearance from the Popes downwards, but in reality keeping the true Faith with God’s grace, and with the support of a remnant of true Catholics all over the world. To save His Society and protect these Catholics, in 1988 the Archbishop was driven, against Rome’s express prohibition, to consecrate four bishops of His own, who for two decades gave at least outwardly faithful service to Catholic Truth and thereby to the Church.  

Inwardly, however, the times they were a-changing, and with them were changing the Society leaders that the Archbishop had left behind him when he died in 1991. Within a few years, contacts between the Society and Rome, which the Archbishop had broken off in 1988 until, he said, “Rome would return to the Catholic Faith”, were being discreetly, not to say secretly, renewed, even though Rome was enforcing the false Conciliar “renewal” more and more. The discretion or secrecy of these contacts was necessary in order not to scare away souls on either side who – quite rightly – could not believe that Catholicism and Conciliarism can be reconciled. Time had to be given to such souls on both sides for them to change sufficiently to accept that there is no irreconcilable contradiction between the Faith and Vatican II.  

Sure enough, men changed with time, and by 2012 the Society leaders at least were ready for a denial of the contradiction. And so at their non-elective Chapter of that year they officially changed their Founder’s policy of “No practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement”, putting the Faith first, to a policy of “There can be no doctrinal agreement so we must make do with a practical agreement”, putting doctrine second and agreement first, something the Archbishop himself, after 1988, would never have done. For, as noted in these “Comments” last week, in the negotiations with Rome of May, 1988, he considered that Cardinal Ratzinger’s prevarication had shown once and for all that Rome would not protect Tradition.  

But, one might object, what is wrong with a practical agreement when a doctrinal agreement proves to be impossible, as was clear after the fruitless Rome-SSPX doctrinal discussions of 2008-2011 ?  What is wrong is what the old Archbishop well understood, that from any practical agreement onwards, the lightweight Society would have tied itself to heavyweight Rome, and the Society’s one and only real weight, its doctrine of Truth, would count for less and less until it would be virtually abandoned, and the Society would be nullified, as faithless Rome, Conciliar Rome, has wished all along.  

Surely Bishop Huonder, with all his possible good will – God knows – is being groomed in 2023 by both sides to make a significant contribution to that nullification – God knows.                                                                                                                                           Kyrie eleison   They say, the leopard cannot change its spots…

Rome is in enemy hands… connect the dots ! 

ELEISON COMMENTS DCCCXXXV  (July 15, 2023) : TWO  KINDS  of  BISHOP  –  I  

Both the Newsociety of St Pius X, and the priests who left it to join the non-structured movement known as the “Resistance”, are well aware how indispensable bishops are to the survival of the Catholic Church. However, they have rather different ideas on how to ensure that there will be such bishops in the future. Vatican II split Catholic Authority from Catholic Truth, a split which is at the heart of the Church’s on-going crisis ever since the 1960’s. Generally speaking, the Newsociety favours Authority over Truth (without completely abandoning Truth) while the “Resistance” favours Truth over Authority (without completely abandoning Authority). Hence the Newsociety is still waiting on Roman or Conciliar approval for it to have the new bishops it desperately needs, whereas the “Resistance” is making bishops for itself, without that approval, as did Archbishop Lefebvre for the original Society in 1988, with great success for the Faith.

To prove that the Newsociety is still waiting on Rome’s approval for it to have new bishops, a quote from Bishop Fellay early in  2022 to a Spanish journalist in Madrid should be enough. Asked what he is going to do for new bishops, his reply was, in substance: We are going to do exactly the same as Archbishop Lefebvre did in his time. When the urgency and need arise, we will do as he did, by turning to Romeand then, depending on the response, we will do as the Good Lord tells us. I see a new opening, which may have become more visible over the last few years, namely, I do not rule out that in the near future bishops of the Catholic Church will support us even in public, and if that happens, it may make it unnecessary for the Society to consecrate its own bishops.

Two points call here for comment.  Firstly, it is true that the Archbishop did negotiate with Rome in May of 1988, in order to obtain a green light from Roman Authority for the planned Consecration of four bishops for Tradition, i.e. for Truth. However, at a given point in those negotiations he realized that Cardinal Ratzinger was so stalling to fix a date for the consecrations as to be refusing in practice to grant Rome’s theoretical permission for one bishop. At that point it became once and for all clear to the Archbishop that Roman Authority was refusing to look after Truth, and until his death in 1991 he stopped all contact with the Romans, unless they would return to the Catholic Faith, he said. Now by 2023 have they so returned ?  Obviously not – Pachamama and Traditionis Custodes are just two examples of their war on Catholic Truth being more bitter than ever. Then how can Bishop Fellay claim that he is doing “exactly the same” as the Archbishop ? 

And secondly, in the quote above, not only does Bishop Fellay have a quite different idea from the Archbishop of what faithless Authority will do to serve the Faith, but also he clearly envisages the possibility for the Newsociety to resort for valid episcopal consecrations to bishops of the Newchurch, who will themselves normally have been consecrated as bishops only in the post-conciliar rite of consecration, fabricated by Freemasons like Archbishop Bugnini to introduce a shadow of doubt as to its validity. Does Bishop Fellay think that the Archbishop would have resorted to any such insecure rite ?

On the contrary, the “Resistance” has followed the Archbishop’s pioneering example in 1988 by taking its own bishops for Truth and Tradition. Between 2015 and 2017 there were Bishops Faure, Tomas and Zendejas, who have surely laboured successfully for Tradition since then, and more recently, but privately, Bishop Ballini for Ireland (2021) and Bishop Stobnicki in Poland (2022). But why the privacy ?  Indeed privacy is not natural for ceremonies of consecration of Catholic bishops, but the 2020’s are no longer the 2010’s, let alone the 1980’s. The reasons were, firstly, to enable more and more Catholics to catch up with the Church’s crying need to follow Archbishop Lefebvre’s example by giving more priority to Truth and less importance to that Conciliar Authority which is without the Truth; and secondly, to delay waving a red rag under the nose of the New World Order, which is more powerful and more malicious with each day that passes. Here below is Bishop Stobnicki’s brief autobiography:–

I was born in 1987 into a Polish Catholic family,  I graduated from school in 2006 and joined the SSPX on the advice of old Polish priests.  In 2008, I was abruptly removed from the SSPX seminary in Zaitzkofen, because I was in too close contact with Bishop Williamson, but I continued my priestly formation under the direction of the senior Polish priests, and two Traditional bishops. Meanwhile, in 2014 I graduated from law school and I did some work as a lawyer for a while. In 2013 I had again contacted Bishop Williamson when he was expelled from the FSSPX.  In 2016 he began coming to Poland regularly, and he saw fit to ordain me priest on July 1, 2017. For the next five years, such were the fruits of my priestly ministry in Poland (and – surely a good sign – the violent opposition to it) that I was consecrated by him as a bishop, in private but with witnesses, on August 15, 2022. With one fellow priest also ordained by Bishop Williamson, we serve now 17 Mass centres in Poland, which includes so far nine Confirmation ceremonies, and the conditional re-ordination of six priests. The violent opposition has continued also, up to and including the possibly murderous slashing of a tire of my car. Establishing the “Resistance” in Poland has been hard work, but my colleague and I are now helping to look after many good souls.  Thanks be to God, and to Our Lady, Queen of Poland.                                                                                                                                                            Kyrie eleison.

When bishops come from enemies of the Truth                                                               How can they ever defend the Faith, forsooth ?