Father Abdoo: Open Letter to the Catholic Bishops of New Zealand (1987)
It is now thirty years since Father Stephen Abdoo died in a motor
accident in New Zealand. He was the first priest of the Society of St
Pius X, formed in 1970, to die.
Would that the SSPX today still had defenders of the Faith like Father Abdoo.
His Open Letter still has application in our time, thirty years
on; the Church is in a worse crisis now with the very Faith under attack
from the Pontiff himself.
Please read what Father Abdoo wrote in 1987, and then forward
this email to all on your list. The original appeared in the Australian
journal Catholic for September 1987
An Open Letter to the Catholic Bishops of New Zealand.
The Catholic Bishops of New Zealand have written a Pastoral
Letter attacking the work of the Society of St Pius X. We publish this
month the reply prepared by Father Stephen Abdoo who was the Superior
for the Society in New Zealand.
These same Bishops obviously prefer the faith-destroying RENEW
process, they introduced it to New Zealand a little over a year ago.
Already its disastrous effects are being felt, the exodus of faithful
from the parishes is increasing.
Fr. Abdoo died as the result of a motor accident on his way to
celebrate Holy Mass at Wellington on Sunday, July 26, 1987, the Feast of
St. Anne. He was buried at Econe, Switzerland on August 6, the Feast of
the Transfiguration of Our Lord.
Your Eminence and Lordships,
Over the last few weeks you have published in parishes throughout
the country a Pastoral Letter warning Catholics about the activities of
the Society of St. Pius X. As Superior of this Religious Congregation
here in New Zealand, I wish to submit to Your Eminence and Lordships
some points for your consideration.
It was some months ago that I visited you, Bishop Gaines, to point
out that an inaccurate version of our ‘position’ was emanating from your
secretary’s office. I said that I had no objection as to your informing
the Catholic people of our rejection of certain reforms of Vatican II
and the Novus Ordo Missae of Pope Paul VI, but requested that it at
least be accurate information. Unfortunately, I find myself once more in
the necessity of replying to mistaken information, on this occasion
however, to all the bishops of New Zealand.
Your Pastoral Letter centres around two premises. The first is
that our ‘position’ depends upon ‘private interpretations of the
Council’ and hence that we ‘depart from the fundamental Catholic
principle that the Pope and bishops of the world acting collectively are
the ones to whom is entrusted the responsibility and the charisms, for
deciding what is ultimately Catholic and what is not.’ I can only say
that it is not true that we depart from this principle; on the contrary,
it is precisely because we follow this principle, and not our own
private interpretation, that we are compelled to reject certain reforms
of Vatican II.
In fact for 200 years, eleven Popes who foresaw this crisis (from
Pius VI to Pius XII) have rejected the principles of Religious Liberty,
Collegiality and Ecumenism as formulated during and after the Council,
declaring them to be detrimental to the Catholic Faith, affirming on
many occasions that they contribute to the formation of a naturalistic,
humanitarian Religion. The encyclicals Mirari vos of Pope Gregory XVI; lam vos omnes, Quanta Cura, and the Syllabus of Errors Pope Pius IX; Libertas praestantissi, Humanum Genus, Immortale Dei of Pope Leo XIII; Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Lamentabili and the letter 'Our Apostolic Mandate' of Pope St. Pius X; Mortalium Animos, Divini Redemptoris of Pope Pius XI and Humani Generis
of Pope Pius XII are but some of the documents of the Magisterium of
the Church rejecting such principles. Clearly this is by no means a
“private interpretation” by Archbishop Lefebvre or his “followers”.
Moreover, Cardinal Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in his book, les principes de la Theologie Catholique
Tequi 1985 p 426 ff.) admits to this deviation from the preceding
Magisterium of the Church and summarises this with the following
formula: “Vatican II is the anti-Syllabus.” (It must be noted that Pope
Paul VI explicitly refused on more than one occasion to engage
infallibility as regards the conciliar decrees, which, at a council of
this kind, in unprecedented in the history of the Church. There was not
therefore that special assistance of the Holy Ghost to preserve it from
such deviation.)
The second premise of your letter is the following: “Without
compromising the essentials of our Faith, we are obliged to find new
ways of exposing it, teaching it and celebrating it that make it more
accessible to people.” In this we are in total agreement with you.
Certainly if this only were the case, there would be no reason to oppose
the reforms. But clearly this is not the case, clearly we are
compromising articles of our Catholic Faith, we are diluting it to make
it more acceptable to Protestants. and the result is that, by thousands,
Catholics are losing their Faith.
We need only to look around us to see the truth of this; since
the Council, vocations to the priesthood and the religious life have
dropped dramatically; Priests and nuns have abandoned their vocations by
the tens of thousands; there are countless Faithful throughout the
world no longer practising their Catholic Faith. In the Zealandia of
July 12, New Zealand Mass attendance figures for 1986 were published. In
Auckland there were 156,000 Catholics and only 33,000 attend Mass; in
Hamilton diocese out of 75,000 Catholics there are only 15,000
practising; in Palmerston North diocese out of 70,446, there were only
19,000; in Wellington out of 83,000, 28,000 are practising; in
Christchurch out of 68,000 there are 21,000 and out of 40,000 Catholics
in Dunedin diocese, only 14,000 practise their Faith. Is this what is
meant by the second Pentecost of Vatican II? At the first Pentecost St.
Peter and the Apostles converted souls to the True Faith by the
thousands, currently they are being driven away by the thousands. Surely
you must at times ask yourselves why this is occurring? Why the great
RENEWAL has resulted in such a decline?
It is because we have compromised, firstly, by this false
Religious Liberty. By it we have dethroned Our Lord. He is no longer
considered as King of the Universe with right over all His creatures.
The Doctrine of the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ is now a thing
of the past, overthrown by the decree of Religious Liberty which is a
false Religious Liberty; for it puts the Religion founded by God on the
same level as religions founded by men. By giving error and truth equal
rights, it gives men the right to violate God’s right to be adored by
His creatures in the way He Himself wishes to be adored. This decree and
its consequences have instituted a new pantheon of all religions in the
same way as the pagan emperors of Rome made their pantheon of all
religions. The Italian Concordat of 1984, signed by the Secretary of
State, Cardinal Casaroli, is an example of this.
From the false notion of Religious Liberty flows the
Post-conciliar conception of Ecumenism. It consists in laying aside what
divides us from our separated brethren and, concentrating on what
unites us so as to bring about unity—or as you put it, Bishop Brown, at
Holy Trinity Cathedral on Saturday, March 21 to launch the Luis Palau
Mission to Auckland “to come together in a unique way, so that
differences can be put aside and the unifying message of Jesus Christ
can be proclaimed.” It all sounds very good and charitable, but the
history of the last two decades shows that in practice, this means a
watering-down of the Faith as regards its specifically Catholic content
so as to facilitate this unity.
This is more easily seen in the obvious deficiency in
catechetical instruction for our children, I am by no means exaggerating
in saying that you allow them to be taught a naturalistic, humanitarian
version of Religion which teaches vague notions of love, sharing, joy,
peace, social justice, human dignity, the rights of man, life in
community etc., which is devoid of sufficient knowledge of the
Commandments of God, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the life of grace
in the soul—in fine, the supernatural and truly Catholic dimension of
our Religion.
Our Liturgy has also suffered this dilution. The prayers have
been stripped of their specifically Catholic meaning and replaced by
ambiguous and Protestant terminology. No longer are we to offer to God
the “Pure Victim, the Holy Victim, the Immaculate Victim“, but the
“fruit of the vine and work of human hands”; no longer is the priest to
be the man set apart to, offer the Holy Sacrifice, but the ‘president’
of the Assembly, who will do no more than “commemorate the memorial of
the Lord.” (General Instruction to the New Mass no. 7, 1969 ed.) Was it
not Cardinal Ottaviani who stated in a letter to Pope Paul VI on
September 25, 1969, accompanying the “Critical Study of the New Mass by a
group of Roman Theologians” that the “Novus Ordo represents,
both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the
Catholic Theology of the Mass as it was formulated in session 22 of the
Council of Trent”? And if on the other hand, we are not compromising our
Faith, if it is purely a new formulation, a new expression of the same
Faith, as you say, then why, why is there so striking a similarity
between the New Mass of 1969 and Cranmer's 1549 Communion Service and
the new Anglican Series III Communion service? Why is it that Max
Thurian, a member of the Protestant monastic Community of Taize is
reported in La Croix (May 30, 1969) as stating that “the Novus Ordo Missae now makes it possible for non-Catholics to celebrate the Lord’s Supper with the same prayers as Catholics”?
Why is it also that the famous joint Catholic-Lutheran Commission
of West Germany (1985) affirmed that a common liturgy was now possible
between the two confessions?
How can you, Bishops of New Zealand, palm this all off by saying
that it is only our own private interpretation? The results of this
Liturgical ‘Renewal’ are before our very eyes in the figures for Mass
attendance quoted above. The New Mass is devoid of the supernatural,
reduced to the banal, but worst of all, Catholics no longer pray like
Catholics, but more like Protestants. As a result they end up believing
like Protestants. In support of this, I need only quote to you a passage
from the ‘Angelus’ newsletter of St. Mary of the Angels in Wellington
of May 24, 1987, entitled “The Mass we celebrate”: “The Institution
Narrative (what we used to call the Consecration) . . . is a
proclamation, not a dramatic re-enactment, and as the Priest relates
what Christ did, he holds up the bread and the chalice for the people to
concentrate their gaze. Only afterwards does he kneel or bow in
adoration, pausing for the people's Memorial Acclamation.” This is, as
you have undoubtedly noticed, pure protestantism.
But it is not only in catechetics and the liturgy that this
ecumenism is practised. This 'Renewal' has penetrated every fibre of the
Church. We see ecumenical meetings and services now on a regular basis.
You yourselves have now joined this new ecumenical body.
However, the most startling example of this is undoubtedly the
World Congress of Religions at Assisi to pray for peace, organised by
the authorities in Rome. There they invited representatives, not only of
the Christian denominations, but also of pagan religions. There were,
for example, jainists present who adore the rising sun. In St. Peter’s
Church, the bonzes adored the Dalai Lama (reincarnation for them of the
Buddha) with his back turned to the Tabernacle where a sanctuary lamp
signalled the Real Presence; in St. Peter’s also, a statue of Buddha was
placed atop the tabernacle on the main altar;* in St. Gregory’s, the
Red Indians prepared their peace-pipe on the altar; in Santa Maria
Maggiore’s, Hindus sitting around the altar invoked the whole range of
Hindu gods; in Santa degli Angeli’s, the Vicar of Christ sat in a
semicircle of wholly identical seats amidst the leaders of the other
religions so that there should be “neither first nor last.” Newspaper
titles read amongst others: “Our Fathers who are in heaven . . . ”; “In
the name of all gods. . . ” ,- “The peace of the Gods“, “All mankind's
gods Assisi meeting”, etc. (from Si Si, No No, December 15, 1986) One
can certainly understand Pope Leo XIII condemning such meetings as far
back as in 1893 in Chicago, and again in 1900 in Paris; for surely this
is a great dishonour proffered against the One True God; surely God’s
right and those of His Son are being violated to an eminent degree by
this false Religious Liberty and ecumenism, where we Catholics place Our
Lord on the same level as pagan idols, and encourage pagans to invoke
them. Does this not contravene the First Commandment and the first
article of our Creed? Pope Pius XI certainly thought so. In 1929 he was
invited to such a meeting. Not only did he refuse to attend, but he
wrote an Encyclical Mortalium animos which is the most explicit
condemnation of ecumenism this century. In it he stated, concerning
those who undertake such meetings, that they “are not only in error;
they distort the true idea of religion, and thus reject it, falling
gradually into naturalism and atheism. To favour this opinion therefore,
and to encourage such undertakings is tantamount to abandoning the
religion revealed by God.”
How can you therefore pass it all off by saying that it is just a
different expression of the same Faith? Surely we are compromising for
the sake of unity some of the most basic tenets of our Catholic
Religion?
It is in the light of all this that I find your statement to the
effect that our “actions constitute a sin against the unity of the
Church” quite incredible.
It is not considered a sin against the unity of the Church for you,
Bishop Brown, to go and pray at the Evangelical Mission of Luis Palau,
who is an apostate Catholic, and encourage the Catholics of Auckland to
attend; or for you to go anti preach at the Milford Methodist Church on
August 8; neither is it considered a sin against the unity of the Church
for you, Bishop Cullinane, to be on this ecumenical body and so to
reduce the Catholic Religion to the level of one denomination amongst
others; or for you all collectively to allow the E.J.D., as it seems, to
finance Communist organisations in the Philippines, or to push what is
pagan in Maori culture. Perhaps if we adored the rising sun or a statue
of Buddha you would even invite us to a prayer meeting.
But for Roman Catholic Priests to celebrate the same Mass as you
yourselves celebrated on the day of your ordination, a Mass which has
sanctified the Church for so many centuries, and produced so many holy
men and women, the Mass for which so many martyrs poured out their blood
over the centuries to protect, now that that you consider to be a sin
against the unity of the Church. And I suppose then, it must also be a
sin against the unity of the Church to hold with all our hearts to the
Solemn Teachings of so many Popes, the most outstanding of whom is a
canonised saint, Saint Pius X. For that you say we have incurred
canonical penalties? What canonical penalties can Catholic priests
incur for upholding the traditional teaching of the Church? Where does
this put St. Pius X?
On the other hand, what has happened to your Religious Liberty,
to your freedom of conscience which you talk about so much in your
Pastoral Letter? It works for Hindus and Luis Palau -- why not for
Traditional Catholics?
Furthermore, we are Roman Catholics -- we will live and die as
such.We pray for John Paul II, that God may grant him the necessary
graces for his charge, but this does not prevent us from seeing the
contradiction in the principles of Vatican II and the Solemn Magisterium
of past centuries, guided by the Holy Ghost. All those Popes preceding
the Council cannot be wrong.
In closing I wish to make just one request: that you make a
reasonable reply to this letter, instead of furnishing the Faithful with
a distorted version of our ‘position’. If you can frankly prove to us
that we are in error, we will desist from our apostolic activities here
in New Zealand; otherwise we will continue our work, confident that we
cannot render a greater service to the Roman Catholic Church, to the
Supreme Pontiff and to the future Catholic generations of this country.
Yours Sincerely in Jesus and Mary
Stephen Carl Abdoo FSSPX
Superior in New Zealand
The below listed were signatories to the document headed:
“Pastoral letter concerning the position of Archbishop M. Lefebvre and his followers in New Zealand.”
The document was dated May 1987, but was not released immediately.
Thomas Cardinal Williams DD,Archbishop of Wellington
Denis Browne DD, Bishop of Auckland
Edward Gaines DD, Bishop of Hamilton
Peter Cullinane DD, Bishop of Palmerston North
Leonard Boyle DD, Bishop of Dunedin
Matthew Duggan, Diocesan Administator Christchurch
Footnote
* We have made previous reference in this journal to the placing of
a statue of Buddha atop the tabernacle at St.Peter’s, Assisi. This was
hotly denied by a priest of ‘Opus Dei’ in Sydney in a private letter.
We are in possession of a photo which clearly shows this event. Ed.
An Appreciation to the parents of the late Father Stephen Carl Abdoo, priest of God, Member of the Society of Saint Pius X.
God alone knew the grief in our hearts and the incredulity of our
minds when the news was broken that your son, our beloved priest was
not attending a motor car tragedy to administer the Last Rites, but was
himslef the victim of it.
Only thirteen months since his ordination day at Econe, clothed
in Christ, he returned to the Father on the Feast of Saint Anne, Mother
of Our Lady -- a day which was significant as, just that very morning in
Christchurch, he had preached a memorable sermon on the Mass, the
Blessed Virgin and the Rosary.
Our hearts are heavy as we contemplate the irony of the tragedy
and his sudden death as we had grown to love his youthful exuberance,
his maturity and intellect, and his courage of conviction. Now this
young priest would walk no more amongst us. Each day as we pass that
place of tragedy we wonder anew at God’s ineffable plan for His beloved,
and we are moved to pray for our beloved priest so that, even in death
he leads us in prayer.
Father Abdoo had a fruitful mission amongst us, and we thank
Almighty God and His Blessed Mother for this, and we offer you our
sincere condolences in your loss, and our grateful thanks for sharing
your only son’s life with us. His short time with us has enriched our
lives and the lives of many in New Zealand.
Father Stephen Abdoo will always have a cherished place in our
hearts and in our prayers as we pray earnestly that God in His mercy
will admit him to His Holy Presence so that we can rejoice in having a
new advocate amongst the Blessed in Heaven.
Saint Michael’s Chapel, Wellington, New Zealand.