Society Saint Pius X Communicantes May 2001 In this crisis of the Church, let us remain truly ROMAN Catholics

By Father Michel Simoulin, District Superior of the Society of Saint Pius X for Italy.

In spite of the failure of the discussions with Rome, the ideas expressed here by Father Simoulin remain true, because they stay on the level of principles and of immutable truth, which we always must keep in mind, whatever happens.

First and foremost, expressions such as “We can’t expect anything from Rome” or “Rome is returning to Tradition” having to be avoided, and everyone being always ready to honestly correct that which he believes to be true, these considerations are given here to help us not to lose our correct thinking on the Church and our love for Rome, and with the grace of God, to maybe enlighten some of our colleagues on the subject.

Indeed, for years now we have become accustomed to speak of the eternal Rome and the modernist Rome, the Catholic Church and the conciliar Church, the Catholic religion and the religion of Assisi, etc… two Romes, two churches, two religions which oppose and confront one another, having apparently nothing in common.

These comparisons are excellent. They strongly depict the drama existing in the Church for the past forty years. They are indicative and accurate, but within the limitations of an analogy. If one accentuates the strict sense of the terms, they may become a source of terrible confusion and may breed a manicheism (or over-simplification) in which the understanding of the Church, faith in the divinity and a simple sense of the supernatural would be the first victims.

Certainly it is evident that neither Rome nor the Church are made up of material substances or of henchmen, but they are societies, moral entities in which the unity consists of a unity in faith, in hope, and in charity, with a common intention and a will committed to the same goal: the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation of souls, for the glory of God.

Thus, we cannot consider here two entities which are perfectly distinct, unconformable and identifiable, but rather a single moral existence, the sole authentic Catholic Church, but poisoned by a foreign spirit which tends to corrupt and destroy it.

In fact, neither modernist Rome nor the conciliar Church exists distinctly and separately from eternal Rome and the Catholic Church. They cannot, just as the evil cannot exist without leaving its grip on the good which it would like to destroy, and it cannot destroy it without destroying itself.

In reality, what is the conciliar Church? It is precisely the disfigurement of the Catholic Church by the Council and by that which is foreign to its spirit from the interpretation of the Council. Under that which we call the conciliar Church, there still lives the Catholic Church, our mother, buried, sleeping and more or less reduced to silence.

But it remains clear – for those who keep the faith in the divinity of the Church, the Mystical Body and the Spouse of Jesus Christ – that this “non-Catholic way of thinking” of which Paul VI spoke, will always be powerless to take possession of the soul of the Church, of its thinking and of its heart, and “will never represent the thinking of the Church”. The spirit of the Council can only take over its members and its mouth, to make them profess that which she can neither think nor believe: It can penetrate to its very soul, as St. Pius X said, but it cannot and will never be able to totally gain control over it. To not believe this is to doubt the promises made by Our Lord to His Church. The Catholic Church is submerged into the spirit of the world, she lives her “Exinanivit” – abasement ‑ in the fidelity of her spouse but this does not signify that she is devoid of a wounded body which continues to be her own.

The Catholic Church is at Écône, it is true. But who, without falling into a sectarian way of thinking, would dare to say that She is only at Écône? She is also at Rome, She is primarily at Rome with the Catholic Rome.

The conciliar Church is at Rome, it is true. But it is also all over the world where the spirit of the council has been able to penetrate the Church and to dominate it.

But one cannot find the conciliar Church without finding, buried underneath, that which is at one and the same time its support and its victim – the Catholic Church.

It happens sometimes that Jesus Christ permits His Church to be victorious and to make His voice be clearly heard (on the subject of women priests, natural morality…). Alas, it happens that the conciliar Church makes itself heard even more strongly, on grand occasions (Assisi, the asking for pardon, ecumenical or inter-religious ceremonies…). But most often, the daily bread that the Church distributes is in a dosage which is a changing mixture of one voice and then the other, insipid and insignificant, sentimental and philanthropical, with vigor neither for the good nor for the bad, neither for the true nor for the false. It is our disfigured Church, too human, too worldly, not definitely Catholic and anti-modernist, nor definitely modernist and anti-Catholic.

All of this does not hinder, in spite of the general orientation given to the Church through its conciliar prelates, that the Church could become stronger, and that something good could come to the Church through the conciliar Church, without it being conscious of it and contrary to its will. It is this alone which explains why the Archbishop never hesitated to go to Rome, or to ask modernist Rome to allow Tradition, or to ask for the recognition of the Society and for the permission to consecrate bishops, etc… because he believed that the Church still resides at Rome and that She can use conciliar members to accomplish good.

Furthermore, we should not forget that the Church is not something purely spiritual. She is an incarnate reality. She has need of a juridical constitution, more or less developed, to incarnate Herself and to incarnate Jesus Christ. She has need of institutions and of men to render Her spiritual and divine reality visible, efficacious and accessible. It is precisely here, it is in this human dimension alone that the spirit of the Council can intervene and dominate to produce this conciliar Church, contrary to the Catholic spirit. But the perpetrators and the authorities who use the spirit of the Council to make the Catholic Church become the conciliar Church are coming from the Catholic Church. It is a mystery of the divine permissions, symbolized by the parable of the good seed and the bad seed: two spirits, two religions, two churches… inextricably tangled in the unique entity which is the Catholic Church, my Mother without which I cannot live and for which I would gladly suffer and endure that which She suffers and endures.

This being so, if we consider these same relations in their incarnation, what we are dealing with are human beings, people with flesh and blood, endowed with an intelligence and a will, with sentiments and passions, with emotions, qualities and faults, with sins and virtues, capable of the worst treasons but always accessible to grace.

The realities of the Church are not mere abstractions on which one can speculate at one’s ease. To say that two churches, two Romes, two religions present themselves is true, but what does such a statement concretely signify? It can mean nothing more than the fact that the Church is penetrated with a spirit which is not Catholic and which seeks to dominate it so as to destroy it more easily. To give it more signification than this would be to succumb into the temptation of that subtle and simplifying manicheism that wishes all the pure and good to be on the right, and all the impure and bad on the left (without a political connotation!). These realities are more subtle and less simple, and therefore, it is true, they are less easily grasped.

Encountering a Pope, a cardinal, a bishop, a priest, a layman, a being with flesh and blood, who would be able to tell me in all truthfulness that this or that one is absolutely conciliar to the point of no longer being Catholic; or that he is absolutely Catholic with nothing at all conciliar? Where precisely do we find the boundary line separating the two spirits, the two churches, the two Romes? From what point does one become completely conciliar or not at all?

Perhaps it is easy to answer this with sufficient probability for a certain few: on the one hand the true conciliars, doctors in heresy, conscious voluntary destroyers of the Church… and on the other hand the obvious Saints. But we must admit that these two categories have always been few in number in the Church. Only God knows the secrets of our hearts. He alone knows if the numbers are greater than we are aware of.

The majority, however, are somewhere between the two. It is this grand mass of humanity - “wavering”, of which I no doubt belong, who would like to choose, who choose sometimes, who walk from one side to the other, uncertain of themselves and of God, and are forever looking for that impossible third path where they can love God with all their heart without ceasing to love themselves a little… at times more Catholic and at times more conciliar, depending on the circumstances. It is the Church in all Her human misery, the true miracle of the grace of Jesus Christ, and continues to be the only way of salvation and sanctity.

But the conciliar Church, as such, in actuality is nothing but a very few ideologists, formal heretics, those who have formally rejected the Catholic Church. Who are they? That is God’s secret.

I wish to add, it seems to me that we are no longer in 1970, nor even in 1988. I strongly agree with Bishop Williamson that we must not belong to the seventy-ism or the eighty-eight-ism! On the one hand, although we no longer have the Archbishop with us, with all his sanctity, his wisdom, his experience with Rome and his profound understanding of the Church, we have all that is necessary to continue and we are also more numerous, stronger, and more united (at least, I hope so). Our General Chapters and meetings with the Superiors have manifested this vigor and this unity. Recently, our pilgrimage to Rome was made with splendor, giving back to our priests and to the privileged faithful an appreciation and a love for eternal Rome.

Moreover, it appears to me that the Council’s “triumphant” hour of the 70’s is past. We are in the hour of the “tottering” Council, as the Holy Father incarnates it. The “doctors” of the Council are passing away. Aside from this, the Pope himself and his loyal Ratzinger treat of us today with the disciples of the Council, those who have received nothing else but the Council. They have been nourished with that; some are more faithful to it than others, either from conviction, from obedience, for interest, or simply naïve followers, because they don’t know anything else. At any rate, they are more open-minded to other opinions, if only out of curiosity. They no longer say “obey”, and they willingly listen to a Catholic sermon. Obviously, they don’t understand, but they no longer have a hostile prejudice. At Rome, even if nothing is officially changed on the procedure to follow and it is staunchly adhered to by the Council’s ideologists, they still feel less enthusiasm for the conciliar ideals, repeated as in a well-learned lesson, but with perhaps less illusion than before. We have not yet arrived at a nullifying of the Council, but it is said that a flaw will soon be brought in which will permit the seed of this nullification to be introduced. In short, little by little Rome is losing its last “living relics” of the Council. There remain a few profiteers of different sorts, the real heretics, the secret enemies, and then there are the majority of the Council’s disciples, some more convinced than others, who have the desire and the enthusiasm to work for the Catholic Church.

In a word, everyone notices, and it is even seen in the congregational committees at Rome, that the young clergy are more desirous than their predecessors for a priestly life modeled after the sublime Heart of Our Lord.

I’ve been told that our “excommunication” with the conciliar Church is the best guarantee of Catholicity that we could give to the faithful. This is true, and it is why in 1988 we asked to participate in the “excommunication” of our bishops. That being so, thirteen years later, must we persist in demanding this appellation? Our faithful know what it signifies, and I hope that they have the formation to conserve its signification in spite of its possible disappearance. I dare to hope that for them, the principle is more important than the name. As for the other faithful, those who are frightened by this appellation, it seems to me that they do not make the distinction between the Catholic Church and the conciliar Church. For them, we are excommunicated, and that is enough to frighten them. The withdrawal of this appellation, without basically changing anything, will bring them liberty.

What is more important, if tomorrow the conciliar Church, out of scorn or even with hidden motives, yet through Providence, gives us the means, without us having to deny anything, change anything or promise anything – other than to serve the Church and the truth – if it gives us the means to serve the Catholic Church buried beneath it, to help it to reawaken itself with all its supernatural strength (Mass, sacraments, doctrine, morals, discipline) and to rid itself little by little of the spirit of the Council, would we truly be obliged to refuse contact with them, or refuse to consider a reconciliation of our situation, under the pretext that they all are villains? Would the Catholic Church at this point be deprived of divine assistance to no longer have the strength to help members of the conciliar Church, who are also Her own, to remove their enemies and to distinguish themselves to the world with all their renewed vigor? Mustn’t we help them if we are given the possibility?

It is certainly true that we already work for the Catholic Church. We have safeguarded all so as to serve Her in all that we have received from Her, in all Her most beautiful treasures. But why have we safeguarded them? For us? No, for Her. And we must realize that all the limitations that the conciliar Church has placed upon us create real obstacles to our zeal for the Church. If we procure that modernist Rome retract these obstacles to our efforts, without us having to change anything, would we refuse to consider this possibility of a more generous and greater service to the eternal Rome? If, for example, modernist Rome grants to us a canonical recognition, this would clearly be for us the means for working to reestablish doctrine within the Church in the fullness of Catholic truth. Will this be done without us? God could certainly do it, considering so many prayers, sacrifices and lives offered for the Church during so many years. But this would be a miracle on the moral level, and we cannot count on that. Most often God uses secondary instruments to accomplish His designs. Wouldn’t we like to be numbered among those ministering to the most noble of causes, thus adding our part to the work of grace in the Church and in souls?

I have also heard: Let Rome convert, and then we shall see. My answer is the same: It is not Catholic to assure ourselves of a miracle. Rome will not convert if no one labors for it, if no one is acknowledged as a valid negotiator in a legitimate theological debate, to bring the truth back to its throne. Furthermore, there are many ways that lead to conversion. “There are some souls who go from light to love, and others who go from love to light” as the holy priest Father Berto penned so beautifully. Some are converted by using their intellect: Hungry for truth, they wish to acquire it to render it homage by making all their life depend on it, and afterwards their knowledge turns into love, because the light that is in them seeks to diffuse itself to others and thus make them love. But there are others who begin with love and desire to give, but to give more than themselves because they know their limitations and cannot be satisfied with giving less than the infinite. Therefore they make themselves avid searchers of truth to be able to give God, thus placating their love and satisfying the hunger of those whom they love, for the Spirit of Truth. The writings of the Doctors of the Church, of the great mystics, from St. Thomas to St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, passing through St. John of the Cross, all agree on this. Have we the right to wait for a doctrinal conversion without trying to lead them to the light, through the heart or through the intellect? "