ARTICLE OF Fr. D'ABBADIE FSSPX
P. d'Abbadie FSSPX, Priest of the District of France
Unfortunately,
it is not uncommon to hear in our midst that a too long separation from
the Council authorities would eventually cause us to break unity by
adopting a schismatic spirit. Some
reminders of Christian doctrine in this regard will not be superfluous,
so that our judgment is not dictated by our feelings, but rather by the
faith that enlightens our reason.
If
we open a catechism of Saint Pius X, we find that the definition of the
Church requires the union of the baptized into one faith, one
sanctification (the sacraments), one hierarchy (government). This order (faith-sanctification-hierarchy) is not given at random: it is primordial. For
if the Church is a society (which, like every society, involves a
government), it belongs, however, to the supernatural order: this
government which assures the unity of the members can not be exercised
outside the profession of the same faith, "which is the Radical and
absolutely primordial bond of the social unity of the Church "(1). The principle of the unity of the Church is therefore faith, taught by the Magisterium. In
this way, the hierarchy has the function of keeping the members in
obedience to this same faith (indispensable for salvation). The hierarchy can not then go against faith, because its function is subordinate to it.
What is this faith? It
is an adhesion of our intelligence to the truths that God asks us to
believe, precisely because it is He who commits us to it with all his
authority: we believe in the authority of God, who can not "neither
deceive nor deceive us." These
truths are transmitted to us by the Magisterium of the Church, divinely
assisted in its task of teaching: "The Holy Spirit has not been
promised to the successors of Peter to make known a new doctrine under
his revelation; Help them to keep holy and faithfully expose the
Revelation transmitted by the Apostles, that is, the deposit of faith. "
Faith,
revealed by God and committing all its authority, transmitted by the
assisted Magisterium of God, should not be confused with opinion, which
has no authority other than our own intelligence or our arbitrary whim,
which is quite fragile ! We can not put the two in the same plane.
If
we reject the Second Vatican Council, it is precisely because it
departs from the old doctrine until contradicting it, under the pretext
of "reinterpreting" it, in order to make it tasteful today. Our opposition is due to our adherence to the faith. However,
today's Rome would like to reduce this adherence to a simple opinion
that we could certainly defend, but in the sense of opinion : it would be "open questions" (being that the Magisterium has always already pronounced on these issues). Here
we find a revolutionary tactic denounced by Jean Ousset (3), which
consists in attacking truth (which excludes error), before gradually
leaving him a right of citizenship, but on the condition that he is in
the range of a simple opinion Do not exclude the contrary opinion: truth
placed on the same level as error.
To
relativize faith in this way is to destroy it, and it is by the very
fact to destroy the very foundation of the unity of the Church and its
government: "a unity of government, without unity of faith, would
therefore be a purely legal unity And legalistic, contrary to the very
nature of the Church. A unit more apparent than real. Such is the ecumenical unity dreamed up by Paul VI, John Paul II and his successors. This would also be the unity of the "full communion" which the Holy See has long offered to the heirs of Monsignor Lefebvre " (4).
Our
true union with the Church therefore requires the intact profession of
faith, even if it is contradicted by the present authorities, and causes
our marginalization: "this unity [of faith], which is the very unity of
the Church, must Preserve primacy over all pseudo-canonical
arrangements "(5). It is relativizing the faith that we will lose true unity (and this is what is called schism) and compromise our salvation.
These
principles allowed the founder of the Fraternity to preserve, in the
midst of the conciliar storm, a clearly Catholic line, which he
expressed on the eve of the consecrations: "The official tie with
modernist Rome is nothing beside the preservation of the Faith! " (6).
***
1. Unity or legality? By Fr. Gleize, Courrier de Rome (CR) n ° 599, May 2017, p. Four.
2. Vatican I, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor æternus, DS 3070.
3. Jean Ousset, For Him to reign, p. 93 et seq.
4. CR, p. Four.
5. Ibid.
6. Marcel Lefebvre, A Life, by Mons. Tissier de Mallerais, p. 589.