“Pious” Dreams – II
Politics cannot solve the Church’s woes.
The Faith alone can beat her worldly foes.
The Faith alone can beat her worldly foes.
It is indeed tempting to pretend that Catholic Tradition and Vatican II are reconcilable. In this way I need no longer be torn apart by trying to follow both Catholic Authority and Catholic Truth at the same time, because ever since that Council, as the Archbishop said, Catholics have been forced either to obey the Conciliar Popes and depart from Catholic Tradition, or to cleave to Tradition and “disobey” these Popes. Hence the temptation to pretend by one means or another that Tradition and the Council are reconcilable. But the fact that they are irreconcilable is the most important reality now governing the life of the Church, and so it will continue to be until Church Authority comes back to the Catholic Truth of all time.
In the meantime however, the present Superior General of the Archbishop’s Society, Bishop Fellay, is adamant that Catholic Tradition and the Conciliar Romans can be reconciled with one another, and ever since he approved of GREC in the 1990’s, he has been striving to bring them together. His problem is that he does not understand how modernism maintains Catholic appearances for them to act like a Trojan horse to deceive Catholic souls, while there is no true Catholic horse beneath what appears to be one. But Bishop Fellay believes that the false horse has all the makings of a true horse so that, with the tender loving care of the Society, it will become once again a Catholic horse. All too many Traditionalists have allowed themselves to believe in this mistaken policy and to follow his lead towards the Conciliar Romans, but the Romans for their part have not been deceived. They have played along with his policy by making apparent concessions to the Society and to Tradition (e.g. authorizations to confess, ordain, and marry), and by repeatedly pretending to him that he is on the brink of obtaining canonical recognition for the Society, so that for instance “only the final stamp is missing from the agreement.” But unlike him they have it clear in their minds that Catholic Tradition is irreconcilable with their Council, and so every time they have led him to the brink, they have insisted on the Society submitting to their Council.
However, with each “concession” that Bishop Fellay has accepted for the Society, the Romans have lured him further into their trap, and it has become harder for him to turn back. With each “concession” the agreement with Rome has become more and more of a practical reality, with or without the “final stamp.” By holding it back the Romans, by Bishop Fellay’s own fault, can play him like a fisherman plays a fish – how can he now unravel the “concessions” granted, and admit that his policy of 20 years has been a mistake? Yet his policy was wrong from the start. Lacking the Archbishop’s faith, he misconceived the Church’s problem and the Society’s “problem,” and trusted in human politics to solve them both. But of course the Romans with 2,000 y ears’ experience have been the more skilful politicians – “Your Excellency, enough of these games. For years we have made all the concessions, you have made none” (a big lie, since to accept Conciliar “concessions” is itself a concession to Rome). “Before July you accept the Council, or we excommunicate you, and show you up to the world as a failure. Choose!”
That is no doubt a crude version of how the cunning Romans can put pressure upon the Superior General, but it is he that should never have gone begging to Truthless Authority. In the case of the Catholic Church, Truthless Authority is in fact toothless Authority.
Kyrie eleison.
