(Resistance) Open Letter to SSPX Members, Faithful & Friends

Open Letter to SSPX Members, Faithful & Friends

Dom. Rafael Arizaga, OSB

THE THOUGHTS OF BISHOP ANTONIO DE CASTRO MAYER REGARDING THE

CRISIS OF THE SSPX :

“Being uncompromising is to virtue what the instinct of self-preservation is to life. Any virtue without intolerance or with hatred towards intolerance, means that such a virtue either does not exist or that it barely keeps the mere appearances of virtue. Faith without intolerance is either dead, or it is only a faith in its exterior form; because it will have lost its spirit. Faith being the foundation of the super-natural life, if we have any kind of tolerance in matters of faith then that tolerance represents the point of departure for every other evil, especially for heresies”. 

(Pastoral letter, June 1953, true sentence number 37)

Sometimes with words and sometimes with deeds, but with increasing frequency, the SSPX has shown that it is no longer uncompromising or intolerant in matters of Faith towards the enemies of the Catholic Church which have occupied her. In abandoning that necessary uncompromising stance concerning matters of Faith, to take the above-quoted words of the Bishop de Castro Mayer, the SSPX has lost the Catholic spirit, the spirit of its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Therefore the supposed “defence of the Faith” on the part of the SSPX is either dead or pharisaical, and therefore they are defending only the appearances the true Faith.

This pharisaical spirit, using the words of Bishop de Castro Mayer, “is the point of departure for every other evil,” that is, we can see the “Pandora’s Box” being unleashed by and upon the SSPX.

Unfortunately the SSPX is falling into the same attitude as the modernists, in attacking those of us who firmly defend intolerance in the Faith. On the other hand they show tolerance and sympathy towards the enemies of the Church who now occupy the See of Peter as wolves in sheep’s clothing. Fulfilling those words of Garrigou Lagrange: “Catholics are intolerant in doctrine because they believe, yet they are tolerant regarding charity because they love. The enemies of Christ are tolerant in doctrine because they do not believe, but intolerant in charity because they do not love”.

This is the contradiction into which the enemies of the Church always fall, since they tolerate every opinion except that of those who say that the Faith is intolerant. If this is for them only an opinion like any other, why then they do not just tolerate it? And if for them this “opinion” is only false, why they do not just ignore it, therefore tolerating it?

 

Dom. Antonio de Castro Mayer explains that this failure to be uncompromising and intolerant in matters of Faith, which every one of the enemies of the Church has in common, “must open our eyes to the tremendous importance that intolerance in matters of doctrine has for the life of the Church.” It was for precisely that reason that the great Cardinal Pie told the French Catholics in the 19th century:

“Battles are won or lost at the doctrinal level. The error of French Catholics was to wait to see what the consequences of the false principles of the French Revolution would be before reacting.”

If we wait to see the consequences of the SSPX’s doctrinal tolerance before reacting, it will already be too late to react, too late to do battle against the revolutionaries. We must not wait until there is a visible agreement between Conciliar Rome and the SSPX before reacting if we wish to continue to defend the Reign of Christ the King, through Faith, Hope and Charity. (In the present circumstances in fact, such an agreement would be a practical agreement necessarily tolerant regarding principles, since those occupying Rome have not yet converted.)

The service which we members of the RESISTANCE have provided towards the SSPX, in warning them about the very grave error into which they are falling, has been a huge act of Charity and the most important issue of our times: the defence of the Faith, the life of the Church and raison-d'être of the SSPX. What we have been trying to do is to rescue the SSPX from the grip of the enemies of Christ, from the snares of the devil, from the appearances of good. And this, at the expense of our own well being and reputations. 

This is one of the works of mercy: to correct those who are in error. With great disappointment however, we members of the Resistance have seen that instead of gratitude for the charity we have shown towards them, we have received in return only punishments, expulsions, anathemas and persecution. Does this attitude not confirm clearly that the SSPX is in a state of diabolical disorientation and has lost is reason for existing?

They accuse us of over-reacting, but we respond with Cardinal De Lai, Secretary of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation during the pontificate of Saint Pius X: “Its is always better to go too far warning in warning about a danger than to keep silent and let it become worse”.

For all these reasons we are launching a new call to our brothers in the SSPX to return to true defence of the Faith which is intolerance in matters of doctrine, as much in theory as in practice, before it is too late!

We leave them with those words of their own Patron, Saint Pius X, directed at the catholic periodical L’Unitá which was created to preserve the Catholic Faith. These words can also be applied to the SSPX:

“Everything is fine when it is a question of respecting persons, but I do not want the love of peace to lead to compromises, and that in order to that avoid hatred you may neglect the true mission of l’Unitá (the SSPX) which consists of keeping watch on principles, being the forward sentries and raising a voice of warning, though it be only like the geese on the Capitol, awakening those who are half asleep. If that were the case, l’Unitá (the SSPX) would no longer have any reason to exist”

(Disquisitio, page 107, apud Penseé Catholique No. 23, page 84)

Fr. Rafael, OSB