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Dear friends and benefactors,
In a few days
we will celebrate the happy coming of the Nativity of Our Lord
Jesus Christ. The holy liturgy of Advent and the Christmas season
is filled with faith in the divinity of Our Lord. Citing above all
the Old Testament passages where His coming is foretold, it imbues
our minds and hearts with the infinite grandeur of the
prerogatives and the rights of the newborn Child.
He who from
all eternity is born of a Father without a mother, is born in time
of a Mother without a father!
(Profession of faith of the Eleventh Council of Toledo)
Receiving His
human nature from the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, His Mother, whose
Virginity He preserves, He thereby proves that He has lost nothing
of His Divinity. “In the burning bush that Moses saw and that
was not consumed, we recognize your praiseworthy Virginity that
was preserved.” (Antiphon at Lauds, January 1). The Church is
pleased to welcome the Savior Jesus, true God and true man,
honoring Him with the title of King.
The King of
peace, Rex pacificus.
Here we would like to elaborate somewhat on this truth, which is
so to speak at the heart of the crisis that is shaking the Church
and affects the relations of the Society of St. Pius X with the
Holy See.
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Indeed, it
seems to us that the basis for the current problem can be summed
up as a loss of faith in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh! Of course many people protest that they believe that Jesus is
God, but very few are ready to draw the practical consequences of
that truth which will manifest itself in the sight of the whole
world at the end of time. At that moment, He will finally allow
his glory to shine forth in all its perfection. The extent of His
powers over every creature will be such that all human
beings—pagans, Christians, atheists, infidels, bandits and
believers—all will be prostrate before Him, for at the mention of
His Name every knee shall bend on earth as in heaven (cf.
Phil 2:10).
For the short
space of His earthly life, during which He was pleased to be among
us, He partially hid His sovereignty. But that was only the time
of testing, the time to accomplish His redemptive mission: “He
died for our sins” (1 Cor 15:3).
But during that
time when He hid His omnipotence from our eyes, He lost none of
it. “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth” (Mt 28:18)
is a statement to be taken literally; He is the one who created
all things, for whom all was created, without whom was created
nothing that was made (cf.
Jn 1:3).
The practical
rejection of the divinity of Our Lord is often manifested in human
history by the rejection of His
Kingship; this was
already the title and reason for His death sentence: “Jesus of
Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (Jn 19:19).
And very often
in history the rejection of God is manifested in the refusal to
submit to Our Lord Jesus Christ.
It was not
until the mid-twentieth century that mankind witnessed that
unbelievable event that let us see a Council which, supposedly in
the name of adapting to the concrete situation of human society,
which was thoroughly decadent, changed the perennial proclamation:
“For He must reign” (1 Cor 15:25). People claim that this
way of acting would be in harmony with the Gospels, whereas it is
quite the contrary.
The sophists of
liberalism have sent out the word that the State, human society,
which is also a creature of God, ought to treat the one true
religion on a par with all the false religions, granting equally
to each the right to exist, to develop without restrictions and to
conduct its worship.
It was claimed
that this was in opposition to the abuses of the totalitarian
State which unjustly crushes human beings and oppresses the
conscience of each individual. The Freemasons themselves expressed
their joy upon hearing these theses, which are their own, resound
beneath the cupola of St. Peter’s Basilica (cf. Yves Marsaudon,
L’oecumenisme vu par un franc-macon de tradition,
1964).
Quite
obviously, there is an element of truth in the evil that is
denounced. But the remedy is the one that the Church has always
pointed out: tolerance. The right to religious liberty, as
proclaimed at Vatican II, is something else. That is one of the
points over which we come to grief with the Holy See.
This religious
liberty, in placing what is true and what is false on equal
footing, deliberately dispenses the State and human society from
their duties to honor and to serve God, their Creator. It opens
the door to all sorts of license in religious matters. It is as
though, within the Church, they had renounced the prerogative of
being the unique path of salvation for all mankind. Those who
still believe this no longer say it. Many even lead you to think
the contrary. This concession to today’s world is made at the
expense of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Another
consequence, which follows directly from what has just been said,
can be seen in the practice of ecumenism. On pretence of being
able to be closer to our “separated brethren”, Catholics not
longer proclaim these truths, which are nonetheless salvific,
because they are difficult for them to hear. Catholics no longer
even deliberately seek to convert them. Ecumenism NO LONGER WANTS
TO MAKE CONVERTS. This word has been banished; it is still
tolerated, but in the name of religious liberty! Where, then, is
the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ? Where has the pride of
Catholics gone? And their leaders are the ones who are making them
faint-hearted! As everyone could observe recently in France, when
they should have condemned some blasphemous dramas. If similar
offenses had been committed against the Moslems, the country would
have been set on fire and drenched in blood! The Christians today
have become so soft that they allow anything to happen! People are
attacking the honor, not of a worldly king, but of the King of
kings, the Lord of Lords, our Savior from whom we have received
everything!
Quite obviously
we have at heart the salvation of all those souls that are so dear
to the Heart of Our Lord and their return to the fold, since He
redeemed them at the price of His life! But the current way of
doing things no longer has anything in common with the concern for
the unity of the Church in past centuries. The whole world is
supposed to be good and, consequently, the prospect that some of
them could be eternally damned causes the wise of this world to
inveigh against the scandal. They preach that hell is empty, or
nearly so. The teaching of the Church is entirely different….
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A third
stumbling block is also connected with the diminishment of
authority.
Our Lord is the
Head of the Church. But since He willed that His Church should be
visible, after His ascension into heaven, He gave her a visible
head, who is His Vicar on earth, Peter and his successors…. To him
alone did Our Lord give the power to feed the sheep and the lambs,
he alone has full, sovereign, and immediate authority over each
and every member of the Church. That is why the Church has always
proclaimed herself to be a monarchy, governed by
one man. Certainly, the human character of government makes
it quite understandable to seek counsel and the advice of wise
persons, but a form of democracy imported into the Church by
collegiality and by the parliamentary parody of bishops’
conferences allows all sorts of abuses and subjects to group
pressure the decrees of Divine Law that declare that each diocese
has only one head, the bishop of the locality.
Authority today
is seriously shaken, not only outside, through the litigation of
secular leaders who claim a share in government, but also within
the Church, through the addition of a number of councils and
commissions which, in today’s atmosphere, prevent the just
exercise of the authority delegated by Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Isn’t it
startling to note, with each of these stumbling blocks, that we
find basically the same problem? In order to please the world, or
at least in order to adapt to it and get along with it, they
sacrificed in one way or another the authority of Our Lord Jesus
Christ over believing Christians, over all the human beings for
whom He shed His Blood, over all the nations of which they are
members.
This is what is
doing such harm to the Church. In order to overcome this crisis,
it is necessary to “re-establish all things in Christ” (Eph
1:10). Everywhere and in all things to give Him first place, to
Him who wants to be all in all. As long as people are unwilling to
leave this liberal atmosphere that is poisoning the Church, she
will continue to waste away.
It is because
of this painful reality that our relations with Rome are
difficult.
This is why in
the Society we speak so often about the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus
Christ, for it is the summary, in practice, of our recognition of
His Divinity. To put it purely and simply: He has all rights over
us.
It is to Him
that all human beings, pagans or Catholics, young or old, rich or
poor, powerful or weak, all, absolutely all will give an account
of their life here below, to Him, their sovereign Judge and their
God from whom they received everything. Let us hope that these
lines show how relevant the doctrine of the Kingship of Our Lord
is, that the battle for this Kingship of Our Lord is not
out-of-date but on the contrary very necessary. Today it is an
obligation if we are to survive.
May Our Lady,
the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of God, deign to hear our prayers
for the glory of her Son. May she protect us, may she guard our
little Society in the midst of so many perils, and may she be our
guide, our advocate, our victory over ourselves and our
faint-heartedness. May she be our hope, while awaiting her triumph
for which we pray constantly, so that she may be our joy here
below and for eternity.
Nos cum
Prole pia benedicat Virgo Maria.
[May the Virgin Mary bless us with her dear Child.]
+Bernard Fellay
On the Feast of
St. Thomas Apostle, December 21, 2011 |
