We are happy to be able to include in this report (the June 2001 Regina Coeli Report) the most recent statement by our Superior General, Bishop Fellay, concerning the recent discussions with Rome. You have probably heard that Rome’s refusal to make a statement that all priests the world over have the right to celebrate the traditional Mass is the reason for our refusal to accept the canonical arrangement that was proposed to us. You may wonder why. Read the bishop’s own explanation.

In effect, there are two groups of people who have questioned the Society’s decision: those who think that we should not even have entered into discussions with the Roman authorities in the first place, and those who think that we should not have broken them off. However, at the root of their disagreements are misconceptions concerning the reality of the situation in Rome.

We all know that there is presently in the Catholic Church a division between eternal Rome and modernist Rome, between the Catholic religion and the ecumenical religion, between the Catholic Church and the Conciliar Church. Rightly do we speak of this opposition and even of two churches, for we see it lived every day. However, it is a gross simplification to consider them as two separate and distinct entities. The modernist, ecumenical, Conciliar Church, like all evil, cannot exist in itself, but as a parasite it must depend upon something else to exist, namely the Catholic Church.

The post-Conciliar Church is consequently not a separate church, but the Catholic Church "poisoned by an inimical and foreign spirit that tends to corrupt and destroy it…disfigured by the Council, and that which is foreign to the Catholic spirit in the spirit of the Council" (Fr. Michel Simoulin in Bulletin Saint Jean Eudes). Hence the modernists’ insistence on retaining much of the structure, authority, teachings (at least in name) and appearances of the Catholic Church, without which their parasitical, evil, corrupting ideas could no longer be effectively spread around. Hence also our duty to deal with the modernists who have infiltrated this structure, despite our fundamental differences with them. For it is only by excising or curing the evil within this structure that the crisis can come to an end. It is this complex reality that is underestimated by those who maintain that we should act as if the post-Conciliar Church had nothing to do with the Catholic Church. Archbishop Lefebvre understood this well, for whilst never ceasing to condemn modernist Rome and the post-Conciliar Church, he always showed himself willing to meet with the Roman authorities, and explain his principles, as he did before the episcopal consecrations of 1988.

However, there are also those who feel that we should make an arrangement with the authorities and accept the practically very appealing canonical situation that they propose. They have also misunderstood, claiming that we should react to Rome in the same way as if there were no crisis in the Church. They fail to see how the gravity of the corruption in the expression of the Faith must profoundly affect the way we relate to the post-Conciliar Church. They also grossly simplify the sad reality that we are living.

There is in fact a very grave danger that the modernists will inject the deadly parasite of indifferentism in return for the guarantee of canonical freedom. It is what they did to the Fraternity of Saint Peter, which no longer opposes the errors of Vatican II nor the New Mass. The very fact of contact with the liberal protestant spirit brings with it the grave danger of parasitical infection. Here the crucial question for our superiors is not what might be offered, for it could so easily turn out to be an empty promise, but whether the authorities in Rome have retained sufficient of the Catholic spirit to truly allow us to play our role in the restoration of the Catholic Faith and Catholic life within the Church. This is manifestly not the case.

The Society did not require that the Roman authorities accept immediately all our doctrinal statements concerning the crisis in the Church, but simply that they show the good will to look at the objective principles at stake. This they have consistently refused to do, as Bishop Fellay points out, concentrating rather on their modernist, ecumenical concept of unity. By refusing to acknowledge that all priests have the right to celebrate the traditional Mass (although they know it is true) they have showed that they are simply in bad faith with respect to Catholic Tradition, that they have not retained sufficient of the Catholic spirit to see the role that the Mass and Tradition have to play in overcoming the manifest crisis in the Church and restoring all things in Christ. Hence the superiors’ very correct decision that it would be exceedingly dangerous and imprudent to deal with the hand that these parasites are dealing us, regardless of the practical advantages that it might seem to bring in the short term.

Let us not see our duty any differently than that of maintaining at all times the supernatural spirit, which is that of the Church. In this month of the Sacred Heart, let us find therein the zeal for souls, the desire for the honor of Holy Mother Church, and the love for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Let us yearn to make reparation to the Sacred Heart for so many evils infiltrated into the bosom and life of the Church, that we might find in the Sacred Heart: "a firm defense against the wicked machinations of the enemies of God and His Church…a most effective school of divine love. On this love must rest the kingdom of God which is to be established in the souls of individuals, in families and in nations" (Haurietis Aquas, Pius XII). Let us recite the Litany of the Sacred Heart every day this month that the Society’s request that the recognition of every priest’s right to celebrate the traditional Mass might soon be fulfilled, and let us renew the consecration of our families and homes to the Sacred Heart during this month.

Yours faithfully in the Sacred Heart, of whose fullness we have all received,

Fr. Peter R. Scott