$4.45

april 2009

“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

A Journal of Roman Catholic Tradition

inside

Conference by
Fr. Franz Schmidberger
Interview with Fr. Pfluger
Ed Faust–Lost and Found

Is Vatican II Indisputable?

SSPX BROTHERS

Conversion stories
Every Catholic who has found refuge
in the traditions of the Church has a story.

rom
f
w
e
n
us
l
e
g
n
a
press

Now they have a voice.

"How did I know I had found the Mass of All
Time, the Mass of the Roman Rite? First and most
obviously, the solemnity and the dignity evidenced
everywhere in the ceremony of worship. This was
not the raucous rumblings of the modern world
brought indoors on Sunday to continue to amuse
and to entertain. This was serious worship, unlike
anything in the rest of the week, unlike anything
to be found anywhere else in the world. This was
uplifting, this was spiritual, this was God-centered,
this was higher, nobler and richer than anything
the world could offer. My intellect confirmed
what my emotions first sensed–this was the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Traditional Rite of
Worship of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic
Roman Church."–Dr. David Allen White

Every Catholic who has found refuge in the traditions of the Church has a story. One doesn’t end up
at the Latin Mass by accident....The narratives...are written by Roman Catholics who have discovered
or rediscovered the riches of the ancient liturgy and traditions of Holy Mother Church, powerful
antidotes to the ecclesiastic and liturgical crises of our day. They are accounts of conversion, “reversion,”
and simple fidelity to the Faith throughout the religious and cultural upheaval that followed in the
wake of Vatican II. Many of the contributors to this book suffered for years from theological dissent
and liturgical abuse in their parishes, parochial schools, and Catholic universities; some grew up in
tradition but refused to participate in the post-conciliar revolution; some, like me, were converts
to the Faith; and all were inexplicably drawn to the beauty and mystery, the truth and holiness of
the centuries-old sacrifice of the Mass. Perhaps most importantly, these are stories of what Evelyn
Waugh has called the “operation of Grace…the unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God
continually calls souls to Himself.”–from the Preface

192pp. Softcover. STK# 8340✱ $14.95

“Instaurare omnia in Christo—To restore all things in Christ.”
Motto of Pope St. Pius X

The

ngelus
A Journal of Roman Catholic Tradition

2915 Forest Avenue

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—Pope St. Pius X

April 2009
Volume XXXII, Number 4

• Kansas City, Missouri 64109

English-language Editor and Publisher
for the International Society of Saint Pius X

Letter from the editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
Fr. Markus Heggenberger

PublisheR

Fr. Arnaud Rostand
Editor

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books and marketing

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Assistant Editor

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Withdrawal of the 1988 Excommunications
Letter of Bishop Fellay to Pope Benedict XVI .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 3
Press Release from the Superior General of the SSPX  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 4

“where do we stand?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
Fr. Franz Schmidberger

lost and found. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
Ed Faust

Society of saint pius x brothers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Winona, USA

interview with fr. niklaus pfluger . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
A Swiss newspaper

Is the Second Vatican Council Indisputable? .  30
DICI

book review: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Exile in Erin by Fr. William Barnaby Faherty, S.J.
Patrick McCarthy
Part 22 38
catechism of the crisis in the church . . . . . . . . . . . .

Fr. Matthias Gaudron

Questions and answers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  42
Fr. Peter Scott

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2

Letter
from
the
Editor

After January 21, when the Pope officially revoked
the excommunications of the bishops of the SSPX,
there was much ecclesiastical smoke surrounding the
issue of “traditionalists inside the Catholic Church.”
Two months later, the air has started to clear in a
sense. The positions are becoming more evident to the
interested viewer.
First there is the Pope. There is no doubt that
Benedict XVI, as a professor of theology and a cardinal,
was committed to a “modern line” of doctrine. It is well
known that the famous “subsistit” of Vatican II (“Ecclesia
Christi subsistit in Ecclesia Catholica”–replacing the
former “Ecclesia Christi est Ecclesia Catholica”; “the
Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church”–“the
Church of Christ is the Catholic Church”) was proposed
during Vatican II by Cardinal Frings from Cologne–
through his theological advisor, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger.
Being now in charge of the universal Catholic Church,
things may look a little bit different. This move of
the Pope with the lifting of the excommunications
can be interpreted as a political measure to prevent
the Church from collapsing from scandals, heresies
and many kinds of disloyalty. You may think of
traditionalists whatever you want, but their honesty in
matters of faith and morals is undisputed…
There is a second group: the Catholic bishops all
over the world. There might be some of them with
inclinations towards Tradition, but many are declared
enemies of it, and some of those who are not do not
dare to manifest their attitude. The watchword of those
bishops is now: “Under no circumstances will Vatican
II be negotiable.”
This means that the opposition to the SSPX is
an opposition against Tradition itself and therefore
against an “interpretation of Vatican II in the light
of Tradition.” This last formula had been used in
conversations between Archbishop Lefebvre and the
Vatican (including Cardinal Ratzinger at that time),
but it is ultimately not a solution for the reason that
the majority of Catholic bishops do not want “to
negotiate Vatican II.” In other words: Vatican II for
them is identical with the modernist interpretation of
the Council that has prevailed for the last 45 years,
with the New Mass, Communion in the hand, moral
license, etc.
Which is to say that the frontline has become
visible between the Catholic Faith and Modernism,
between bishops and authority in the Church (the
Pope), between abuse and traditionalism.
In the revolution of Vatican II, the authority is
undermined first, and when it will not comply, it will
finally be attacked, as in other revolutions. And it is
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

a very difficult process to be first considered a part of
the revolution and later to try to stop the process of the
same revolution–the revolutionaries will never forgive
you for that.
Third, there is a group of “mainstream Catholics,”
being in part those who will decide the battle. By
their long inactivity and compliance with most of
the modernist changes in the Church (introduced in
the name of obedience), they silently encouraged the
“establishment” to continue their “reforms.” At the
same time, they have a certain ignorance about the true
nature of the changes in the Church, and they often
do not see the heretical foundation. This is why there
is potential for Catholics with a certain disposition
to return to the “faith of their fathers” or simply to a
religion which claims to matter more than some kind
of “carnival-polka” entertainment.
Finally, the last group is the so-called traditionalists,
those priests and faithful who have a clear perception
of the crisis in the Catholic Church. Accounting more
for their responsibility towards God than for human
favor, they followed the duty of a Catholic in a state
of necessity. They were often outlawed simply for
not accepting Communion in the hand, going to the
traditional Latin Mass, teaching their children the
catechism, being faithful to the teaching of the Church
in dogmatic and moral questions and in sacramental
discipline. “If the recent changes are trustworthy, th
en how do I know how long they will last?”–was their
argument of common sense. Their argument from
Revelation was (and is): “If any one preach to you a
gospel, besides that which you have received, let him
be anathema” (Gal. 1:9).
It might be a difficult and painful process to correct
the situation, but “an end with terror is better than
terror without end.” This should be encouraging to
all who finally realize that they labored in the wrong
direction in the past–but that is not a reason to continue
a false path in the future. And, after all: is the Catholic
Church not a “communion,” where the members help
one another in charity?

Instaurare Omnia in Christo,
Fr. Markus Heggenberger

3

Open Letter of
the Bishops of
the Society
of St. Pius X
To His Holiness
Pope Benedict XVI
Most Holy Father,
In sentiments of thanksgiving we wish to express our deep gratitude for Your act of paternal
kindness and for the apostolic courage by which You rendered ineffective the measure which was
imposed upon us 20 years ago as a consequence of our episcopal consecrations. Your decree dated
January 21, 2009, restores in some way the reputation of the venerated founder of our priestly Society,
His Grace Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. It also procures a great good to the Church, so it seems to us,
by doing justice to the priests and faithful worldwide who, attached to the Tradition of the Church, will
no longer be unjustly stigmatized for having kept the Faith of their fathers.
Because of this combat for the Faith, we assure Your Holiness, according to the wish You
expressed, that we “will spare no effort in exploring as yet unresolved questions through requisite
discussions with the authorities of the Holy See.” Indeed we desire to begin, as soon as possible,
exchanges with representatives of Your Holiness concerning doctrines opposed to the Magisterium of
all time.
By following this path still necessary, mentioned by Your Holiness, we hope to help the Holy See
to bring the appropriate remedy to the loss of the Faith inside the Church.
The Immaculate Virgin Mary has clearly guided the steps of Your Holiness toward us, She will
continue Her gracious intercession in His favor. With this assurance, we filially ask the Universal
Pastor to bless four of His sons most attached to the Successor of Peter and to His charge of feeding
the lambs and the sheep of the Lord.
Menzingen, January 29, 2009
on the Feast of Saint Francis de Sales
+Bernard Fellay
+Richard Williamson
+Bernard Tissier de Mallerais
+Alfonso de Galarreta
www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • April 2009

4

Press R elease from
Bishop Fellay
Press Release from the
Superior General of the
Priestly Society of Saint Pius X
Pope Benedict XVI addressed a letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church, dated March 10,
2009, in which he makes known to them the motives which guided the important step of the January
21, 2009 Decree.
After the “avalanche of protests unleashed” recently, we wholeheartedly thank the Holy Father
for having placed the debate back on the level on which it must be held, that of the Faith. We fully
share his main concern of preaching the Gospel “in our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith
is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel.”
Indeed the Church is going through a major crisis which can be resolved only by an integral
return to the purity of the Faith. With Saint Athanasius, we profess that “Whosoever will be saved,
before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except everyone do keep
whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly” (Athanasian Creed).
Far from wanting to stop Tradition in 1962, we wish to consider the Second Vatican Council and
post-conciliar teaching in the light of this Tradition which St. Vincent of Lérins defined as “what has
been believed at all times, everywhere and by all” (Commonitorium), without rupture and in a perfectly
homogenous development. Thus we will be able to contribute efficaciously to the evangelization
requested by the Savior (see Mt. 28:19-20).
The Priestly Society of Saint Pius X assures Benedict XVI of its determination to enter into the
doctrinal talks recognized as “requisite” by the Decree of January 21, with the desire to serve revealed
Truth, which is the first act of charity to perform towards all men, Christians or non-Christians. It
assures him of its prayers so that his faith fail not and that he may confirm his brethren (cf. Lk. 22:32).
We place these doctrinal talks under the protection of Our Lady of All Confidence, with the
assurance that she will obtain for us the grace to hand down faithfully what we have received, “tradidi
quod et accepi” (I Cor. 15:3).
Menzingen, March 12, 2009
+Bernard Fellay

THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

5
F r .
F r a n z
S c h m i d b e r g e r

“Where
do we
Stand?”
Conference delivered at St. Vincent
de Paul Catholic Church, Kansas
City, Missouri (March 2, 2009)

The theme of our conference tonight is “Where
do we stand?” I want to give you an account of the
present situation with our Society and our stand in the
Church, including the whole situation in the Church.
If we ask ourselves “Where do we stand?” we have to
go back some decades. In fact, we have to go back to
the Second Vatican Council. At the Second Vatican
Council there were two tendencies absolutely opposed
to each other: the liberal, modernist wing united in
the Rhine alliance on the one hand and the more
conservative Council Fathers on the other hand, united
in the Coetus Internationalis Patrem, of which Archbishop
Lefebvre was the president. And already at the Council
there were very strong disagreements between those
two camps. Unfortunately, the “left wing” won the
battle due to the support of the two Council Popes,
John XXIII and Paul VI.
After the Council there was an enormous decline
in the Church: in the liturgy, in the government of
the Church, in the handing over of the Faith, in the
manifestation of the Faith, etc., to such an extent that
Archbishop Lefebvre had to make a very public
statement in 1974 in which he accuses the whole
modern orientation. He said that errors had profoundly
invaded the Church in all areas, on all levels.

You know this declaration from November 21,
1974. Here are some excerpts:
We hold fast, with all our heart and with all our soul, to
Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the
traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome,
Mistress of wisdom and truth.
We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused
to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant
tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican
Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which
issued from it.
All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are
still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the
ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of
the Mass and of the sacraments, to the disappearance of
religious life, to a naturalist and Teilhardian teaching in
universities, seminaries and catechectics; a teaching derived
from Liberalism and Protestantism, many times condemned
by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.

Two years after this, on the occasion of the
priestly ordinations in Ecône, on June 29, 1976, the
Archbishop said that the whole drama between Rome
and Ecône was the drama of the Mass. Is there not a
certain contradiction between his declaration of 1974
and this statement in his sermon of 1976? In 1974, he
said everything had been influenced by modernism,
but in 1976, he said it was mainly the Mass which is
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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

6
at stake. No, there is no contradiction between these
two statements because the Mass is essentially the
summary of our whole holy Catholic religion. It is the
synthesis of the Faith; thus to accept the New Mass
means to accept the new orientation of the Church.
Archbishop Lefebvre understood this very clearly.
Even his enemies understood it in the same
way. That is why they told him in 1976, before the
ordinations, that if he would only once celebrate
the New Mass, it would show that he accepted it in
principle. Thus, the Archbishop, in his sermon of
1976, said the following:
In proof of this, consider that six times in the last three
weeks–six times–we have been asked to re-establish normal
relations with Rome and to give as proof the acceptance of
the new rite; and I have been asked to celebrate it myself.
They have gone so far as to send me someone who offered
to concelebrate with me in the new rite so as to manifest that
I accepted voluntarily this new liturgy, saying that in this
way all would be straightened out between us and Rome.
They put a new Missal into my hands, saying “Here is the
Mass that you must celebrate and that you shall celebrate
henceforth in all your houses.” They told me as well that
if on this date, today, this 29th of June, before your entire
assembly, we celebrated a Mass according to the new rite,
all would be straightened out henceforth between ourselves
and Rome. Thus it is clear, it is evidence that it is on the
problem of the Mass that the whole drama between Ecône
and Rome depends.

Archbishop Lefebvre, understanding very well
that the whole orientation would be accepted if he
accepted the new rite of the Mass, refused to use this
new rite. Thus he was suspended after the ordinations.
He continued his work, his priestly and episcopal
ministry, realizing that the Faith was at stake, and
Faith is more than purely external obedience.
In 1978, a new pope ascended the See of St. Peter:
first John Paul I and then, very shortly after, John Paul
II, on October 16, 1978. Only one month after being
elected, the new pope received Archbishop Lefebvre
in a private audience. He told him, “Between us, there
are three problems: The first problem is that it is said
that you do not accept the pope.”
The Archbishop told him that we fully accept the
pope. We are very much attached to the See of Peter
and we accept the primacy of the pope according to
the First Vatican Council. The pope was satisfied with
this declaration.
Concerning the second point, he said: “It is said
that you refuse the Second Vatican Council.” But the
Archbishop told him, “We do not refuse the Second
Vatican Council; we accept it if is interpreted in the
light of Tradition.”
The pope was satisfied with this statement–which
he used himself only some days before the audience.
These were his own words, that the Council must
be interpreted in the light of Tradition. But the
Archbishop, I think, understood this statement a
little bit differently than the pope understood it. The
pope meant that the Second Vatican Council must
be integrated into the teaching of the Church until
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

the Council, whereas the Archbishop understood
it in the sense that Tradition is the criterion for
the Second Vatican Council: what conforms to
the constant teaching of the Church can stand.
Whatever is ambiguous would have to be defined,
made clear and reconciled with Tradition. Whatever
cannot be brought into accord with Tradition has
to be eliminated. This was the sense of Archbishop
Lefebvre’s statement.
You might ask yourself, as many people do,
whether it is possible that a Council contains
ambiguous statements or teaches things which do
not conform to what was taught by the Church until
the Council? Well, there are in fact points which are
very dubious, points which we cannot understand.
I will give you some examples; you will find them
summarized in a little booklet, Time Bombs of the
Second Vatican Council; you can read it yourself. Let
me simply summarize some of these points; for
example, concerning ecumenism, the relationship of
the Church with other Christian denominations. What
does the Council say about this?
It follows that the separated Churches and Communities
as such, though we believe them to be deficient in some
respects, have been by no means deprived of significance
and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit
of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of
salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness
of grace and truth entrusted to the Church.

If other Christian denominations–Lutheranism,
Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Calvinsim, etc.–are also
means of salvation, it is absolutely useless to try to
convert these people. Why should we? If their own
denomination is a way of salvation let them become
good Lutherans, good Orthodox, good Calvinists,
good Anglicans, and so on. That’s it. According
to the Council, they can be saved in their own
denomination.
Or perhaps consider Nostra Aetate and the
relationship of the Church with non-Christian
religions. For example, concerning the Muslims:
The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems.
They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself;
merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and
earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit
wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as
Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure
in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not
acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet.
They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they
even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the
day of judgment when God will render their deserts to all
those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they
value the moral life and worship God especially through
prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

I do not know what you think about this moral
life which is mentioned here but according to the
Qur’an, every man can have four wives at once. That
is not a moral life. Bombing innocents is not part of

7
a moral life. Or imagining heaven in a very sensual
manner: is this part of a moral life?
The Council even tells us that we adore God
together with the Moslems. Let me quote from the
document about the Church:
In the first place amongst these [whom the plan of
salvation includes] there are the Mohammedans, who,
professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us
adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will
judge mankind.

For weeks now, from all different sides, everyone
is telling us over and over that we have to accept the
Council. But how can we accept statements like these?
How is it possible? In fact, it is not possible. I could
never subscribe to such a statement. It is impossible.
These are things which are at least ambiguous
and must therefore be clarified. This is what we
consistently ask.
As another example, in Gaudium et Spes, “On
the Church in the Modern World,” it is said that
the center of all things on earth is man: “According
to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and
unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related
to man as their center and crown.”
In the text it says, “center and crown.” That man
is the crown of the visible creation there is no doubt.
But man is not the center and aim of all things on
earth. It is simply not true. The center and aim of
all things on earth is God, not man. These are false
statements. They have to be clarified. Once again, this
is what we ask all the time.
We thus come back to our private audience of
November 18, 1978. Pope John Paul II was quite
satisfied with the statement, “I accept the Council
interpreted in the light of Tradition.” But once again,
Archbishop Lefebvre had very clear ideas about how
this should be done.
But the pope said there is also a third point:
the Mass. “It is said that you refuse the New Mass.”
Archbishop Lefebvre said, “Yes, in our houses,
everywhere we only celebrate the old Mass. We
have some problems with the New Mass.” The pope
replied, “Well, this is surely a disciplinary question.
You can clarify this with Cardinal Seper.” And he
called Cardinal Seper who was at this time Prefect
of the Congregation of the Faith. He came and said,
“Holy Father, they make a banner of the Mass!
You cannot grant them this Mass. It is impossible!”
The pope then said, “Well, discuss this amongst
yourselves” and left.
Things remained in this situation from this
meeting until 1987. In 1987, the Archbishop said, on
the occasion of the priestly ordinations in Ecône, that
things could not continue as they were. He announced
that he was likely to consecrate for his succession a
bishop to ensure priestly ordinations after his death.
Of course, one year later, the Archbishop consecrated
four bishops due to the state of necessity.

When you speak about a state of necessity people
often are confused and say: “Oh, there was perhaps
a state of necessity because the Archbishop was old,
because he did not want to leave his Society without a
bishop,” etc. It is as if the state of necessity was on the
side of the Society of St. Pius X. But this is not true.
That is a false understanding of the situation. The
state of necessity was not on the part of the Society
of St. Pius X. The state of necessity was on the part
of the Church. Archbishop Lefebvre very clearly
knew that from this new church and New Mass it is
impossible to rebuild Christianity, Christian families,
Christian convents, monasteries, seminaries and
Catholic states. It is impossible to do this from the
basis of the New Mass.
There were, at the time, no bishops in the whole
world who were ready to ordain young men to offer
the old Mass exclusively. If our ordinands were
willing to celebrate one New Mass, then we would
probably have found bishops who would ordain our
seminarians. But not one single bishop was ready to
ordain our young candidates to the priesthood being
conscious that they would exclusively celebrate the
old Mass and not the new one. So there was a state
of necessity in the Church because there were no
bishops willing to do so. And without a bishop there
can be no priests, no priests who would celebrate this
Mass and rebuild Christianity. That was the question.
And so the Archbishop consecrated four bishops in
order to have priests who celebrate the old Mass and
build up Christianity from this Mass.
At this moment the Vatican thought that if they
struck us hard, the whole flock would be dispersed
and the Society would essentially dissolve. But, as
you well know, this did not happen. You are witness
to this. They issued an excommunication against
the two consecrating bishops and the four bishops
consecrated. But God blessed the work and it
continues today.
The situation basically stayed the same until
2000 when we made a pilgrimage to Rome for the
Holy Year. The Vatican authorities saw that there
was a flock praying with discipline and displaying
an absolutely Catholic spirit. This made them reflect
that they could not leave the situation as it was. Thus,
a certain dialogue began about how to resolve the
problem.
Now, on our side, we asked Rome for two
preliminary steps before we could enter into a
true discussion. We did this because we said that
confidence was very much lacking. We must first have
proof that Rome really wants to protect Tradition,
that Rome really wants to favor our movement and
not destroy it or put it in a trap. So we said, “First of
all, let Rome say that every priest has the right to say
the old Mass, that the old Mass was never forbidden.”
This was the first preliminary step. And then,
secondly, “Let these so-called excommunications be
finished.”
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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

8
Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, with whom we had
this dialogue, said, when we proposed this to Rome,
Concerning the first preliminary step, the Mass for every
priest, at this moment it is impossible. It is true that the most
important cardinals in Rome agree that the Mass was never
abolished. But there are not only the cardinals, there are
the secretaries, there are the sub-secretaries, and there are
the bishops’ conferences–and they do not agree with this.
We must go slowly, and after some years this can finally be
done. But at the moment it is impossible. Concerning the
excommunications, if you sign an agreement with Rome
it is clear that these excommunications are automatically
finished.

But we told the Cardinal: “Your Eminence, we
have spoken about preliminary steps. Preliminary,
not accompanying, preliminary steps to re-establish
confidence.” There were letters going back and forth,
meetings and some discussions, but the situation did
not really improve.
Finally, on April 19, 2005, a new pope was
elected: Benedict XVI. Everybody knew that he was
very reserved towards the so-called prohibition of the
old Mass. He had said that it was absolutely unheard
of in the whole history of the Church that a rite was
simply forbidden like this. Moreover, it was clear that
there was a certain appreciation for the old Mass.
Soon there were rumors: Will there be a decree?
Will there be a motu proprio? Will something come
from Rome, perhaps a decision that the old Mass can
once again be celebrated? For months it was the big
question everywhere. Finally the Motu Proprio of
July 7, 2007, came. The main statement was that the
old Mass was never abrogated. The conclusion was
very clear: if it was never abrogated, every priest can
celebrate it. This was a very important step.
The next step was a logical consequence. If
this Mass was never abrogated, why were those
who celebrated it during those years sentenced,
condemned, and considered to be disobedient? Why?
It no longer makes any sense. So, as a logical decision,
the retraction of the decree of excommunication
would simply be the next step.
Bishop Fellay, in his Letter to Friends and
Benefactors in April 2008, said that, besides the liturgy
in the Church, few things have changed for the better.
This made Rome very angry. So they called Bishop
Fellay and he had a meeting with Cardinal Castrillon
Hoyos on June 4, 2008, where the Cardinal told him
“You will now accept Rome’s conditions.” “But your
Eminence, what are these conditions?”
He was not very clear in his expressions, and the
next day he handed a paper to us with five conditions:
First, we must give a proportional answer to the
generosity of the Pope. The generosity of the pope
probably meant Summorum Pontificum. But we had
already given an appropriate answer. First of all, our
faithful, before the Motu Proprio, said 2.5 million
rosaries for the Motu Proprio. Secondly, after the
Motu Proprio, we thanked the Pope. Third, our priests
celebrated 1,000 Masses in thanksgiving for the Motu
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

Proprio. What more can we give you? We always
celebrated this Mass which the Pope now declares was
never abrogated. I think this is a very appropriate and
proportional answer.
Secondly, the Cardinal said that we must give an
answer by June 30th. Bishop Fellay gave his answer
on June 26th. They also said that we must keep
ecclesiastical charity. But isn’t it ecclesiastical charity
to attack the errors which are ruining the life of the
Church? I think it is a very profound charity towards
the Church to attack the errors and to help overcome
these errors.
Next we were told that we must respect the
pope. What can we do beyond praying for him
and accepting His ministry? We cannot deny that
the present pope has a certain liberal spirit. He
was trained in this. For example, when he was still
Cardinal Ratzinger, in 1984, he said that during the
time of the Council and afterwards, we accepted 200
years of liberal civilization, brought to fruit outside of
the Church, and brought it purified into the Church.
We do not agree that this liberalism should have
entered the Church.
Moreover, last year, in September, when he went
to France, he said that laicization–the separation
Church and state–is completely in accord with the
Faith and is in fact a fruit of the Faith. But Pope Pius
XI said that this sort of laicism was a pest. This pest
is not the fruit of the Faith but is a very dangerous
sickness which brings people to death. So if one pope
says it is a pest and the other says it is a fruit of the
Faith, there is a certain contradiction.
Finally there was a fifth condition. We were told
not to establish our own Magisterium against the
Magisterium of the Church. But we never tried to
do this. We have always simply stated that there are
certain contradictions between the Second Vatican
Council, the reforms which came from this Council,
and what the Church has always taught and practiced.
There are certain contradictions. If we have made
mistakes, please show us where our errors are.
Show us; we are quite ready to correct ourselves.
But how can we, for example, accept that the other
denominations are means of salvation? The Church
always taught the contrary. Our Lord sent his apostles
to the whole world to teach all nations, to make them
all disciples. It is far from our desires or intentions to
establish ourselves as the Magisterium. At the same
time, two and two make four, not five.
So where do we stand today? I think we have
to consider the above history to understand the
complete situation. Let us first consider the situation
of the Church. I think that, from the ecumenical
movement, there is a spirit of religious relativism
which has profoundly entered the Church and in
souls. Let me read to you a little passage from a letter
I received some months ago from a lady in Germany:

9
In human beings, in animals, and in plants, there is a
divine light. That is why we are obliged, being brothers
and sisters through the divine presence in us, to tolerate
other men of other races and religions, to discriminate
against and judge nobody. Every religion has a right to
exist, being a particular way to God. Perhaps other religions
are a detour or a more difficult way, but, in any case, they
are a way to God. I have to tell you that those members
of other religions who are faithful servants of God, who
tolerate and love others and who keep the commandments
are much nearer to God than those of our own religion
who gossip about others, discriminate against them, and
call them pagans. After all, there is only one God. Why
should someone with a different religion not have the right
to call God differently? The Jews call God Jehovah, Yahweh.
Why should the Moslems not call him Allah, or the Hindu,
Brahman? It is all the same God who we adore as well and
only under a different name. Think about that.

So we have thought about that. And we found
that the Christian religion, the Catholic religion, is
quite different from the Hindus, who have thousands
or millions of gods. Whereas we, in our Creed, state
that we believe in one God. There is only one God.
We have thought about this, and we have found that
we are quite different from the Buddhists, who have
given up the idea of a personal God. We have thought
about this, and we have found that the Christian
religion is different from Islam, where the Moslems
conceiving God as one person only, whereas we adore
God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
And one is not equal to three. There is a difference.
So these are not different names but these are
different things. Things that exclude one another.
They are contradictory. God cannot be in the same
way one person or three persons. It is impossible.
I read to you those lines because I think that this
general state of mind today is absolutely common:
we just have to tolerate, we just have to be kind to
everyone, we just have to have some ambiguous
concept of religion. That’s it. The question of truth,
the question of the Faith, the question of the First
Commandment of God and the first article of the
Creed does not matter for most people. I do not know
how to remove from the Church this spirit of religious
relativism. It is profoundly rooted in people’s minds–
profoundly.
The second point I want to bring to your attention
is the knowledge of our Faith and the practice of our
Faith. I do not have precise information about the
state of things here in the United States, but I can
assure you that in Germany and in Europe, in general,
the knowledge of the Faith, generally speaking, is
extremely low. Sometime ago, a lady of Spanish–thus
Catholic–roots brought her son of 11 years to our
priory in order to prepare him for First Communion.
This 11-year-old boy and his mother, a Spanish lady,
were so Catholic, but this boy had never heard about
God. He did not know the word. He did not know the
Sign of the Cross. Or prayer. Absolutely nothing.

A priest from southern Holland–a very Catholic
area—told us that in a class of 36 children, he asked
how many could make the Sign of the Cross.
Remember, it is a very Catholic area. There was one
child who knew the Sign of the Cross. One child in
36! How can it be otherwise? In religion class, or
catechism, they teach about Moslems, they teach
about the environment, they teach about peace on
earth, things like this; but they do not teach the one
God, the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the divine
institution of the Church, the seven sacraments, the
Blessed Virgin Mary; nothing about all this–nothing.
So what is the consequence of this decline in the
knowledge of our Faith? People do not practice any
longer. The priest whom I just mentioned has a parish
of 9,000 Catholics. On Sundays, about 300 of them
attend Mass. That is only 3%. And this is more and
more common across Europe and the world. You
find some elderly people at the modern Masses,
some families who bring children, but the youth is
completely lacking. There is no longer any youth.
Except when there are special events with pop or rock
music and things like that. Then the youth come.
A little over a year ago, a priest from Germany
told me that in a neighboring parish, in Hanover, in
northern Germany, they brought a camel to Mass one
Sunday. He said the whole church was fully packed
with people to see it. So these people do not come
to see God in the church, but they do come to see a
camel.
Or consider confession. There is a well-known
canonist in Germany who always says the old Mass.
Years ago he made a statement that confession was
a lost sacrament. People no longer go to confession.
In a parish in a very Catholic area in Germany,
a new parish priest was appointed who was more
conservative than his predecessor. He established
a specific hour every week for confession. He even
called in a confessor from outside the parish. His
parish had three thousand Catholics. And only one
lady presented herself for confession. Other ladies
said, “I don’t know what I have to confess. I have
no sins. I would have to invent sins if I were to go to
confession.” So ultimately the knowledge of sin, the
consciousness of evil, has completely disappeared.
Or consider religious life. You have a well-known
book here in the United States with the statistics about
religious life here [Index of Leading Catholic Indicators:
The Church Since Vatican II–Ed.]. It shows that the
religious life is completely disappearing. In some
years, there will be virtually no religious life in the
United States, and it is about the same in Europe. The
religious are the special army of the Church; they are
witnesses to the holiness of the Church. If the Church
no longer has the strength and virtue to attracts souls
who then withdraw from all worldly business and
their families, who go behind the high walls of the
monasteries and convents to consecrate themselves to
God and His service, then the Church is no longer the
www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • April 2009

10
Catholic Church because the Catholic Church must
always have the strength to attract souls.
Finally, Eucharistic piety is also very much
disappearing. Sacramental processions, sacramental
benedictions, the adoration of Our Lord during
the day in churches. In Europe, most churches are
closed during the day. They say they do this because
otherwise there are thieves and burglary in the
churches. This might be very true. But why are there
robberies? Because there is no one in the churches
present to adore Our Lord.
Near Frankfurt, in central Germany, a new
parish priest was appointed who was similarly more
conservative than his predecessor. The first thing
he did was clean the pews of his church because
his predecessor gave Communion to everybody:
Catholics, Protestants, everybody. In many cases,
they apparently did not like the host because the
Protestants attached them to the bottom of the pews.
So this priest had to purify the pews. This was a great
sacrilege.
Where do we stand? You see where we stand.
I heard, from a lady who has close contacts in
the Vatican, that one day the Pope said to those
surrounding him, in a very private circle, that he did
not know how to re-awaken the Faith.
Where does the Society of St. Pius X stand,
especially in its relations with Rome? We have always
maintained a three-step plan. The first two steps were
preliminary: the Mass for every priest and the end of
the excommunications. Although the Motu Proprio
was not perfect, it nevertheless basically fulfilled the
first condition. Now, with the decree of January 21,
the second condition has also been fulfilled. The 1988
decree of excommunication has been taken back.
We said that when these two preliminary steps
were taken, we would ask for theological discussions.
We want to discuss the Council. We want to discuss
what does not conform to Tradition. We want to
discuss the profound sources of the evils of our time:
the decline of religious life, the loss of faith, etc. What
are the reasons for this? We want to discuss this.
In the decree of January 21, Rome said that
theological discussions are now necessary and
must follow. This is what we have always asked. It
corresponds exactly to our demands. So I think that in
the next weeks or months these discussions will begin.
They will be mainly written discussions, and not oral—
but it does not matter. We need to discuss all of these
points either way.
Let me give you an example of how things might
be clarified. In the Council’s decree on ecumenism,
there are some terrible words about the hierarchy of
truths. The modernists interpreted this in the sense
that some truths are more important than others.
Thus, when discussing things with Protestants, you
could leave out certain less important truths, such as
the primacy of Peter, the sacrificial character of the
Mass, the dogmas about the Blessed Virgin Mary,
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

etc. These “second degree” truths could be left on the
side: this was the Modernist interpretation. Rome
itself, at the beginning of the 1980s, gave an authentic
interpretation, saying that the hierarchy of truths
does not mean that one truth is more important than
another; rather, it means that one truth comes forth
from another. One truth is the source of another.
For example, the truth of the divinity of Our Lord
Jesus Christ comes, in a certain way, from the truth
of the Holy Trinity. The divine institution of the
Church comes from the divinity of Our Lord Jesus
Christ. This is very clear. You see how an ambiguous
statement of the Council must be clarified. It can be
done and must be done. This is what we mean by
theological discussions: if this statement means A, it is
wrong; if it means B, it is right.
The third and final step then would be the Society
of St. Pius X’s enjoying a canonical structure. In
Rome they have already foreseen such a canonical
structure which would absolutely satisfy us. The most
important question now is the theological discussions.
Let me now say a word about our duty in the
midst of this crisis today. What should we do? We
must first have an enormous strength of soul. The
crisis continues on. It is easy to become tired and
throw away one’s arms. My dear friends, we must be
very firm and strong in our convictions. We must ask
God every day for this strength to stand for the Faith.
We should not sacrifice to the idol of the modern,
liberal spirit of the world. Not one grain of incense—
nothing. Absolutely nothing.
We have to overcome the spirit of modernism
and liberalism. We have never looked first for our
own corner where we can live in peace, calm, and
tranquility as the Fraternity of St. Peter does. They
have this attitude a little bit. No, we do not work for
ourselves; we have always worked for the Church.
The Church is our passion. The Church is our life. We
want to see that the Church is cleansed from the spirit
of liberalism and modernism.
Amidst all these trials and difficulties, there
are profound consolations. When I consider our
pilgrimage to Lourdes in October of 2008 where we
saw a large flock gather, 20,000 faithful, in the Basilica
of St. Pius X. Children, youth, families, seminarians,
priests, the four SSPX bishops, religious, over 200
sick and infirm–to hear them all sing “Credo in unam,
sanctam, cathólicam et apostólicam Ecclésiam.” What a
wonderful manifestation and testimony to see all these
hearts lifted to God.
There are real consolations. In Germany in
November, the only Trappist monastery in the
country returned to their monastic tradition and
the old Mass. There had been much discussion and
rumors about this in the newspapers. This step was
approved by Rome, by the pope himself! They
were given special permission to completely return
exclusively to the old Mass.

11
We must also pray hard for perseverance. As an
example of what prayer brings forth: After World War
II, part of Germany and Austria was occupied by the
Soviet army. In Vienna, there was a Franciscan priest,
Fr. Petrus Pavlicek, who called for a Rosary crusade
that Austria might be freed from the Communists. More
than 700,000 people enrolled in this Rosary crusade.
The obligation was to say one decade of the Rosary
every day for the freedom of Austria. This was 1949. In
1955, Austria was freed; the Communists left without
compensation. This was the first time the Soviet army
left a country without either a fight or compensation.
This was the fruit of prayer.
I think we must do the same for the Church. We
must continue to pray that the Modernists either leave
the Church or leave their errors; the latter would
obviously be better.
The third point is that we must form ourselves by
reading. We must read solid literature and books which
nourish our soul, enlighten our spirit and enkindle our
hearts. Books like They Have Uncrowned Him and Open
Letter to Confused Catholics by Archbishop Lefebvre.
These are precious books. Here in the United States,
you have Angelus Press, which is very precious. Do not
simply read good books; read only the best books. We
all only have a certain amount of time; thus read the
most precious books.
Also, in America, you have three SSPX retreat
houses: in Arizona, Connecticut and California. It is
worth making a retreat, especially if you have never
done so or if it has been a great amount of time since
you have been on one. I invite you to do so. If you buy a
car, from time to time you must take it to the garage for
maintenance since some things need attention. Well, so it
is with our souls, and these retreat houses are like service
stations.
We must all be apostolic and missionary in these
times. God wants us to save other souls. There is no
question that the salvation of other souls depends on our
prayers, efforts and Christian examples.
Let me finally give some an account of the
most recent events. On November 1, 2008, Bishop
Williamson, in our seminary in Germany, ordained a
former Protestant pastor from Sweden to the diaconate.
For this event, a Swedish television station came to the
seminary to film the ceremony. Afterwards, they did
three interviews: one with a Swedish deacon, one with
the new deacon, and one with Bishop Williamson. In
this last interview, he was led into a trap by being asked
about the Holocaust. And he said that only 200,000
to 300,000 Jews were killed by the Nazi regime and,
further, that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz.
The Swedish station said that the interview would
not be viewed until the beginning of the new year.
So there was already a certain plan. They then took
this interview to the Lutheran and Anglican churches
in Sweden since we were renting a church from the
Lutherans in Stockholm and one from the Anglicans

L

eet me now say a
word about our duty in
the midst of this crisis
today. What should we
do? We must first have an
enormous strength of soul.
The crisis continues on.
It is easy to become tired
and throw away one’s
arms. My dear friends,
we must be very firm and
strong in our convictions.
We must ask God every
day for this strength to
stand for the Faith. We
should not sacrifice to the
idol of the modern, liberal
spirit of the world. Not one
grain of incense—nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
www.angeluspress.org

THE ANGELUS • April 2009

12
one Sunday a month for Mass. The result was that we
were no longer allowed to rent the churches.
Afterwards, Der Spiegel, a very left-wing liberal
German magazine, was collaborating with and
connected to this Swedish television station. At the
same time, I wrote a letter to the German bishops on
December 1 with a copy of Time Bombs of the Second
Vatican Council. I said therein that now that the Mass
has been granted to every priest in principle, we now
ask for theological discussions. One of the bishops
gave this booklet to the Central Council of the Jews in
Germany. Thus there was a first attack of the VicePresident of this Council against this booklet.
On January 19, Der Spiegel published an excerpt
from Bishop Williamson’s interview. The title of the
article was, “The Pope will have Problems.” They did
not say “Bishop Williamson will have Problems” or
“The SSPX will have Problems”; the focus was on the
Pope. From the beginning there is thus an obvious
orientation. Immediately after we read this interview,
Fr. Morgan, District Superior of England, published a
statement saying that in no way are we racists or antiSemites. We have members of our Society from many
different races and countries. Since Our Lord Himself,
His mother, the Apostles and the first Christians were
Jews, we cannot be anti-Semites. How could we be
anti-Semitic?
I myself also published a similar statement saying
that we are in no way anti-Semitic since Archbishop
Lefebvre’s own father died in a concentration camp.
But we maintain that the Jews must be baptized and
are called to accept Our Lord Jesus Christ. This we
state very clearly. January 20th was when both of
these statements were published.
On January 21st, the decree taking back the
excommunications was issued although the document
was signed the previous Wednesday. On this
Wednesday, the 21st, the Swedish television station
released the interview with Bishop Williamson. Thus
it is probable that even in the Vatican itself, there are
people who are against the Pope and who wanted to
attack the Pope. Perhaps they arranged things in this
manner. Or they wanted to stop the Pope because
they knew that were was a plan to remove these
excommunications. And if they could not stop it, at
least they could damage or discredit the Pope. I think
there was a certain plan.
The decree was published Saturday, January 24th.
From this moment, there was a whole wave of media
attention breaking out. It was incredible. Thus Bishop
Fellay himself, in a press release on January 27th,
said that he did not approve of Bishop Williamson’s
statements. His reasoning was thus: A bishop has
the task and duty of preaching the Faith. It is not his
duty to speak of political or historical points. I myself
had to make a similar statement because the attacks
became very violent.
Bishop Williamson, on January 28, sent a letter to
Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos:
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

Your Eminence,
Amidst this tremendous media storm stirred up by
imprudent remarks of mine on Swedish television, I beg
of you to accept, only as is properly respectful, my sincere
regrets for having caused to yourself and to the Holy Father
so much unnecessary distress and problems.
For me, all that matters is the Truth Incarnate, and the
interests of His one true Church, through which alone we
can save our souls and give eternal glory, in our little way,
to Almighty God. So I have only one comment, from the
prophet Jonas (1:12):
“Take me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will
quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this
great tempest has come upon you.”
Please also accept, and convey to the Holy Father,
my sincere personal thanks for the document signed last
Wednesday and made public on Saturday. Most humbly I
will offer a Mass for both of you.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
+Richard Williamson

In Rome, they were astonished to have such a
good letter from Bishop Williamson. Nevertheless, the
media continued to attack us in all countries. It was
especially violent in Germany, France and Argentina.
What was to be done in the midst of such a storm?
We asked ourselves if we should withdraw from the
mass media entirely and not give any commentary.
Or should we try to lead things a bit? After a certain
hesitation, we decided to give some commentary to
some newspapers and television programs. One of
our confreres, Fr. Gaudron, had a discussion with an
auxiliary bishop in Germany on February 10. This
turned out quite well.
But it became very clear that there was an unholy
alliance between the Central Council of the Jews in
Germany, the bishops, and the left-wing progessivists
in the Church. This was blown up by the mass media.
Every word we said was examined. It was terrible,
diabolical. Several cardinals even said that it was
above all human means.
On February 11, the Feast of Our Lady of
Lourdes, three seminarians from Ecône died in an
avalanche. It is very curious that it was in Lourdes
that Bishop Fellay called for another Rosary crusade
to obtain the second preliminary step, the taking away
of the excommunications. But these are the ways and
mysteries of God.
More and more it became clear that the true aim
of the attacks was not so much Bishop Williamson.
This was but a pretext; a terrible pretext, but a pretext
all the same. The true aim was not even the SSPX.
The true aim was to attack the Church and the Pope.
As proof, in Austria, several weeks ago an auxiliary
was appointed to the Diocese of Linz. He was a parish
priest, quite popular, with many youth in his parish.
He says the New Mass and, as far as I know, he has
never attacked the Council. But he has conservative
reputation: he has no altar girls, which is, of course,
a terrible crime. He also said that Hurricane Katrina

13
was a punishment from God. But you should not
say things like this! A storm arose and before he was
consecrated, he stepped down from his appointment.
The Vatican gave in and accepted this. You see: this
priest says the New Mass, has never attacked the
Council, or said anything against the Holocaust,
and was nevertheless destroyed. Wherever there is
some conservative force and some resistance to the
destruction in the Church, they are punished.
Once again, on February 26, Bishop Williamson
apologized:
The Holy Father and my Superior, Bishop Bernard
Fellay, have requested that I reconsider the remarks I
made on Swedish television four months ago, because their
consequences have been so heavy.
Observing these consequences I can truthfully say that I
regret having made such remarks, and that if I had known
beforehand the full harm and hurt to which they would
give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors
and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich,
I would not have made them.
On Swedish television I gave only the opinion (...“I
believe”...“I believe”...) of a non-historian, an opinion
formed 20 years ago on the basis of evidence then available
and rarely expressed in public since. However, the events
of recent weeks and the advice of senior members of
the Society of St. Pius X have persuaded me of my
responsibility for much distress caused. To all souls that took
honest scandal from what I said before God I apologise.
As the Holy Father has said, every act of injust violence
against one man hurts all mankind.
+Richard Williamson

There are four conclusions to be drawn from
these present events. First, the statements of Bishop
Williamson are a painful circumstance of a most
joyful event. By the decree of January 21, the four
SSPX bishops were freed from a most unjust stigma.
Whosoever reads the texts sees that even Archbishop
Lefebvre and Bishop de Castro Mayer were
rehabilitated since the juridical consequences of the
1988 decree were taken back. The new decree said
that the juridical consequences no longer exist. Thus
the “excommunications” of Archbishop Lefebvre and
Bishop de Castro Mayer no longer exist.
The second conclusion is that the painful
experiences of the last weeks make us all concentrate
a bit more on Our Lord and Savior. This corresponds
exactly to the plan of God since, for as St. Paul says,
we are all predestined to become conformed to the
image of the Son of God. Jesus is the crucified Truth
and Love; persecuted, calumniated, and rejected. The
Founder of the Christian religion did not promise to
his disciples a paradise on earth. On the contrary, we
are certain of pain and crosses, to be misunderstood
and, as Our Lord said, to be as sheep among wolves.
Let us consider a few quotes:
The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above
his lord....If they have called the goodman of the house
Beelzebub, how much more them of his household? (Mt.
10:24-5).

If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before
you. If you had been of the world, the world would love
its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have
chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth
you. ( Jn. 15:18-19)
In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence,
I have overcome the world. ( Jn. 16:33)

The third conclusion is that the big sin of the
conciliar and post-conciliar Church’s orientation is
the fleeing from the cross of Christ. It seems now
that God wanted to bind the becoming known of our
Society in the whole world to the Cross. And this
all the more since we are engaged ourselves in the
defense of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in its old
and venerable form, for the sacramental continuation
of the Passion of Christ on our altars. Moreover, such
trials always mean a purification and cleansing of
both the individual soul and that of the community.
The divine husbandman purifies, from time to time,
the fruit-bearing branch so that it can bear even more
fruit. God writes straight with crooked lines. He is
never deceived in His providence.
The fourth conclusion is that the devil also does
not deceive himself. It seems that he understands,
much better than many Catholics, what is at stake for
him with the decree of January 21. Thus he mobilizes
his troops to damage the Church, to discredit the
pope, and to annihilate our Society. If you still need
proof that we are doing a good thing, here it is.
For the last 20 years, by the so-called
excommunications, God has granted us a life
relatively calm. Our adversaries considered us an
insignificant little group. By the decree of January
21, the unbroken Tradition was brought inside the
Church. Thus the storm breaks out.
But we have confidence in Our Lord assuring us
that the gates of hell will never prevail against the
Church. We also have confidence in Our Lady, who
told us that, in the end, her Immaculate Heart will
triumph.
Fr. Franz Schmidberger was Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X
(1982-94) and is currently the District Superior of Germany.

A certain question after the conference was answered
by Fr. Schmidberger in the following way.
…I think the SSPX is distancing itself from the truth. The Dominican motto is
“Veritas,” truth, because God is Truth. And what Bishop Williamson said: is that
closer to the truth than the party line as far as the Holocaust is concerned?...
I do not agree… This is not the question. We do not need to discuss this. That
is not our charge. Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops to hand down
the sacraments, to preach supernatural truths such as the Holy Trinity and the
Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He did not consecrate them to fight against
the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz! If the Archbishop were here today,
he would say to Bishop Williamson: “I did not consecrate you for this.” This is
a fight for historians—let them figure it out. We are not historians in particular.
The experts can discuss these things and consider the arguments for and against.
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14

Position Statement of the
SSPX German District Superior,
Fr. Franz Schmidberger (March 6, 2009)
At the conclusion of the General Assembly of the
German Bishops, they addressed in detail their
relationship to the SSPX and issued a Statement.
As the District Superior of the SSPX in Germany, I
would like to state the following:
1. The SSPX does not reject the whole Council.
Archbishop Lefebvre himself participated in the
Council, was in the preparatory commissions
and approved most of the documents.
2. The German Bishops’ Conference makes a
condition out of the full adoption of the Council,
including the contentious and ambiguous. That
means nothing other than to stop the dialogue
before it even begins. We see that the German
bishops do not want to discuss the controversial
points of the Council, but wish to construct
taboo zones.
3. The German bishops do not behave in a spirit
of brotherhood. Instead of dialogue and talks
in a peaceful, constructive way, they act against
the signal from Rome that was given by the
withdrawal of the Decree of Excommunication
and reject every offer of dialogue from the
SSPX.
4. The bishops are bound by the Eighth
Commandment, which reads: “Thou shalt
not give false testimony.” We therefore urge
the Episcopal Conference to take back the
defamatory accusation of anti-Semitic or antiJewish sentiments within the SSPX. In the
Williamson affair, the SSPX Superiors have
reacted immediately. The German District
stated immediately after the publication
of the unspeakable statements clearly and
unambiguously [that it] condemned any kind
of trivialization of Nazi crimes and apologized
to those who were injured by the statements.
We would again point out that the father
of Archbishop Lefebvre lost his life in the
Sonnenburg Concentration Camp.
5. The bishops are calling on the SSPX to
recognize the authority of the pope, although
the SSPX never put this authority in doubt. This
shows that the bishops have never given serious
thought to the positions of the Priestly Fraternity
of St. Pius X, substantially addressed them, nor
want to.
6. The SSPX, on the contrary, detects within the
German Episcopate a subtle rejection of papal
authority. The attitude towards papal decrees of
the recent past in this context is relevant:
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

a. The desire of the Pope to translate correctly the
falsely rendered words of consecration, was
ignored by the German bishops.
b. The Motu Proprio for the liberation of the
old Mass is implemented by some bishops so
restrictively that it almost remains ineffective.
c. The Good Friday prayers of the Pope were also
erroneously described by some theologians in
Germany as anti-Semitic.
d. The clear position of the Pope about the
ecclesiastical understanding within Protestant
communities in Germany was made
overwhelmingly misunderstood.
e. Despite repeated calls, the German bishops
do not withdraw the Königstein Declaration,
which makes the encyclical Humanae Vitae of
Pope Paul VI ineffective.
f. Finally, the declaration Dominus Jesus was
strongly criticized by German theologians
because it only talked about the unique path to
salvation offered by the Church.
7. Given these facts, we see that some bishops
reject the path of charity and reconciliation laid
down by the Pope. They apparently want the
complete elimination of all conservative attitudes
within the Church. This opposition to the Pope is
currently (still) not disclosed, but has long been
subliminally present in many utterances.
8. Faced with this situation, we thank the Holy
Father for his paternal responsiveness. We will
make every effort, on our part, to formulate the
positions of the SSPX–which are not their own,
but those of the Magisterium of the Church–in
an understandable, selfless and loving way, that
a fruitful discussion with all Catholics of good
will may be possible. We are pleased that there is
now a basis for theological discourse.
9. In order to manifest our desire to work in
the service of the eternal and true Rome, the
SSPX wishes especially to reject the untenable
accusations of illicit ordinations. These envisaged
ordinations were never prohibited, as has been
confirmed in personal conversations in Rome.
Here the bishops ensnare themselves in obvious
opposition: they emphasize that there is not yet
unity with the SSPX, while at the same time
wanting to place a ban on ordinations. One can
only refer to what Archbishop Zollitsch even
stated in his statement: It is for the Holy See–and
not the Bishops’ Conferences–to create and to
identify the conditions for full unity.

15

Edwin Faust

Lost and Found
This is an excerpt fromt Edwin Faust’s essay
which appears in Love in the Ruins, the
newest title from Angelus Press. A review
of this book will appear in a future issue.
192pp. Color softcover. STK# 8340✱ $14.95
(See advertisment on inside front cover.)

When [I was] asked...why I had come to Europe
and I had answered “Because I’m lost,” I had spoken
honestly. When I entered high school in 1963, life had
a single purpose: salvation. And salvation was only
to be found in the Catholic Church. By the time I
graduated in 1967, all of that had changed. The Second
Vatican Council had intervened. Whether the council
merely exposed the fragility of the Catholic edifice or
undermined its solid structure is arguable. It seems
that the faith must have played a somewhat superficial
role in our lives for its institutional expressions to have
been swept away so quickly and easily and on such thin
pretexts.
By the time I graduated college in 1971, the church
had plunged precipitously into its post-Vatican II
madness and society, as a consequence, had also lost
its sanity. Madness reigned. And in this madness I was
expected to find a place for myself; to chart a career,
start a family, buy a home, build equity, diversify
a portfolio, climb the ladder of success, plan for
retirement–in short, to behave in the prescribed ways
as though it all still made sense. But it made no sense.
How could a sane man acclimate himself to a lunatic
asylum? How could you set out to live life when life
appeared to have no purpose? It was a game without
rules; a play without a plot. It seemed to me and to
many of my contemporaries that we were cut off from
the past; that if we were to give meaning to our lives,
we must do so with little help from the usual quarters:
our elders and their traditions.
Going to a strange country was in its way an escape
from my native land, which had also become a strange
country. No matter where I turned, I felt alienated,
but it is somehow more bearable to feel this way in
a foreign place than in one’s own home. Travel also
allowed me to postpone making any serious decisions
about my future. I knew that my money would not last

long, but for however long it did last, I would be given
a reprieve from a responsibility I dreaded.
When I said I was lost, I meant that I had lost
a unified vision of life, and it was this I wanted so
desperately to recover. And so I looked for it in many
places: in the writings of Nietzsche and in many other
books. I tried on idea after idea, like so many changes
of clothes, to see which one suited me best. And when
I grew tired of thinking, I found respite in the riot of
the senses. But after a while, patterns form, and license
becomes habit. Even dissipation can fall into a routine.
And then one longs to escape those very things that
once were an escape. But where is there to go?
After a year of wandering about Europe, collecting
experiences, I was still lost; so I came home, or to what
remained of my home, and I tried various jobs, none
of which lasted; and I lived in various places, never
for very long. I was still postponing my life, waiting
for some event or idea or person that would lend it
meaning and direction. I lived on the East Coast and
the West Coast and parts in between; in mountains,
by the seashore, in the cities, in the country; I tried
sensuality and asceticism; gravity and frivolity; society
and solitude. But always I ended in the same state of
confusion and near despair. And I was getting older.
The world forgives the young their rootlessness and
lack of serious purpose, but there comes a time when
forgiveness ends and the no longer young wanderer is
regarded simply as a bum. I had become a bum.
My thirtieth birthday found me residing in a small
rented house in a barrio in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
working as a window washer. When we are young,
we seldom give thought to all that it means to grow
old. We can no more imagine our aging that we can
imagine our death. But at the age of thirty the thought
was powerfully borne in on me: I would live to be old.
I also knew that I did not wish to be an old window
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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

16
washer. I felt immensely tired of everything, most
especially myself; yet, I couldn’t rouse enough energy
or enthusiasm to change my situation. I had reached
rock bottom. I was nobody going nowhere.
I celebrated my birthday by walking aimlessly
around town, lashing myself with such thoughts. For
no particular reason, I wandered into a book store and
began listlessly surveying the rack that offered self-help
through psychology, diet, exercise, astrology, crystals,
aura-balancing and religion. One volume caught my
attention. Its cover bore the face of a man, a Hindu,
and I felt an intuitive connection with him. I lifted the
book from the rack and began to peruse its pages. I had
long ago run through all the New Age remedies to life’s
ills and found them wanting, but for some reason, I
bought the book and carried it home, and on my way I
became aware of some faint resurgence of my flattened
hope.
The book was a spiritual autobiography, a Hindu
counterpart to Augustine’s Confessions. Much of the
material was familiar to me, as I had studied Vedanta
and various forms of yoga, but a mysterious thrill seized
me whenever I opened its pages. The master, let’s call
him Baba, claimed that one could not become free,
moksha, without receiving the grace of an enlightened
being, a genuine guru. The book, though punctuated by
paeans of praise to his teacher, was chiefly concerned
with presenting detailed descriptions of the author’s
own experiences in meditation: experiences that he
assured his readers were available to anyone fortunate
enough to seek and receive the guru’s grace. Without
such grace, he claimed, no amount of learning or
ascetic practices could bring one onto the path that
would lead to liberation from Maya, that is, from all the
pain and delusion of this passing world.
His message was certainly not unique, but his
effect on me undoubtedly was. Why? Perhaps it was
a measure of my desperation that I felt so attracted
to him; perhaps it was something more, something
preternatural, as I later came to believe. I formed
a desire to see this man and, as though on cue, I
learned that a local group of his devotees ran a
weekly meditation session in a home not many blocks
from where I lived. I went there and discovered
that he would soon leave India for another tour of
North America. He had already established his U.S.
headquarters at a sprawling complex in the Catskill
Mountains. I was tempted to make the pilgrimage,
but hung back, remembering so many of my failed
adventures and fearing that this might prove to be just
one more.
One of the devotees had given me a picture of
Baba, which I hung in my bedroom and which came
to have an increasingly hypnotic effect on me. I would
find myself staring at his face for long periods, unaware
until later of how much time had elapsed; and during
these trances my thoughts would fall away, the clamor
in my brain grow fainter, more distant, until it was
replaced by a quiet and gentle euphoria. When my
thoughts did return, they appeared to be less important,
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

less my own, too, as though I were faintly conscious
of some senseless jabbering by an intruder. Then, one
night, I had a dream unlike any other I could recall. I
dreamt I was sitting in the house where I had grown
up, watching the staircase, waiting for something; then,
I saw descending the staircase a figure in a long orange
robe, such as that worn by Hindu monks. I did not
see his face, for as he approached I fell to the ground,
prostrated myself, reached my fingers toward his feet,
then felt his hand on my back, making some sort of
adjustment to my spine. At that instant, I awoke and
sensed heat rising in my spine from its base toward
my neck. I had the unshakable feeling that something
significant had happened to me.
At the next meeting of the meditation group, I told
a few of the devotees about my dream. They nodded
knowingly. “You’ve been given shaktipat,” one said.
This is the Sanskrit word for the guru’s grace. “It’s a
powerful form of initiation, to receive it in a dream,”
the leader of the group said. “You’d better go see
Baba.”
And so I did.
I had little money, so I hitchhiked from Santa Fe
to New York and spent my last few hundred dollars to
pay for my stay at the ashram and to attend a program
called “The Intensive.” The Intensive consists of mantra
chanting, talks by devotees, talks by Baba, translated
from Hindi by an interpreter, and the chief thing, a
meditation session during which the lights are lowered
and Baba passes through the sitting crowd, touching
people’s heads with his wand of peacock feathers or
pressing his thumb against their foreheads. The heavy
smell of musk perfume marks his approach and a
variety of noises follows in his wake: crying, laughter,
strange words, animal sounds; feelings of intense joy,
overpowering sorrow, visions of lights. Some people
simply pass out, their heads lowered to the floor,
where they remain until the end of the session. These
reactions are called kriyas and are supposed to have a
purgative effect on consciousness, freeing the subject
from all that binds him to this world: karma from lives
past and present. The purpose of the guru is to initiate
these kriyas. When the devotee is completely cleansed
of karma, he, too, becomes realized, enlightened,
a free soul, one with God. Such is the belief. But
this liberation may require a lifetime of meditation;
perhaps, several lifetimes. Above all, it requires
shaktipat, the guru’s grace.
My stay at the ashram brought me many vivid
experiences in meditation. I was told by veteran
devotees that I had been especially blessed. After a few
weeks, I left, convinced that, at long last, I had found
the real thing. Nothing seemed to matter now. If the
world regarded me as a bum or a fool, so much the
worse for the world. I had found truth. I was blessed.
All that I need do is allow the shakti to work. All else
was insignificant. I returned home, broke, and spent the
winter chopping and selling wood. The next few years
found me working a variety of jobs, getting away on
occasion for short stays at the ashram in the Catskills

17
until, one summer, I was invited to join the staff as a
night security guard. I accepted....
....I was now and again assailed by doubts: could
it be that the truth was known only by a few thousand
devotees of a Hindu holy man? Did it not seem
improbable? Yet, there were precedents, as with the
apostles. And why had God created a world of illusion
in the first place? The answer was that the world was
the Divine Lila, or play. It was a form of amusement
for the deity. The answer seemed superficial and
unsatisfying. And what about evil? Well, that was just
karma. But what was karma? How did it originate? The
reasoning appeared to be circular. We were told, of
course, that the mind was the enemy; that were we to
give it free rein, it would lead us into endless torments
and delusions. Trust the guru. Trust the shakti.
....I had not frequented the library, for I had a large
collection of my own books, but I thought I might take
a volume with me to help pass the hours until dawn.
My eyes fastened on a title: Ascent of Mount Carmel, by
St. John of the Cross. I had tried to read it many years
before and had found it exceedingly strange and almost
unintelligible. But I took it with me and perused it as I
sat at my security desk by the front entrance, waiting
for my relief.
As I read, I felt the sort of thrill that had seized me
seven years earlier when I had first read Baba’s book.
I had the sense that Providence had placed this book
in my hands for a purpose I could not yet discern.
When I returned to my room, I read until my eyes
grew tired and sleep overcame me; when I awoke, I
immediately picked up the book and resumed where I
had left off. The early chapters seemed to confirm me
in my path, as they dealt with the necessity to detach
oneself from the pleasures of the senses. All their advice
and admonitions accorded with my ascetic practices.
It was when St. John began to treat of experiences
in meditation and contemplation that I realized he
was counseling me to reject all that I had accepted
as the guarantee of the authenticity of the guru and
his teachings. He even named specific experiences
highly prized by devotees, such as the visions of lights,
the waves of bliss, inner sounds and apparitions. All
of these, the saint warned, are rooted in the senses,
internal or external, and in the imagination. They may
come from God, or the demons, or be the product of
our own invention. His standing order is to reject them.
Totally. One is neither to become attached to them in
memory, reason about them nor desire them. To do
so is to open oneself to delusions, human or demonic.
Even if the experiences come from God, he warns, we
may misunderstand their meaning and allow them to
become a source of vanity. We will lose nothing by
turning away from them, he assures us, for God will do
His work in our souls as He pleases, and He prizes our
good intentions above our curiosity and longing for the
exotic.
I found St. John’s reasoning simultaneously
comforting and troubling. It freed me from my
thralldom to the admittedly fascinating occurrences in

meditation, but it also stripped me of my certainty that
I had found the true path to God. I could not doubt
that St. John was right, yet, he cast me into a spiritual
no-man’s land. What was I to do now?
Reading the Ascent, however, had another effect
on me: it roused memories of my boyhood devotion.
I began to re-examine the claims of the Catholic faith,
casting aside all the stupidities of the post-conciliar
debacle and concentrating on essential doctrine. I
bought a copy of the New Testament and spent most of
my spare time reading and pondering passages from the
Gospels, particularly that of St. John. I felt increasingly
uncomfortable in the ashram and studiously limited my
contacts with other devotees. I avoided the dining hall
and subsisted mostly on a cache of fruit, rice cakes and
bottled water.
One afternoon, shortly after waking, I felt a strong
desire to take a long walk, to get away from the ashram.
It was winter, but I decided to brave the cold and
stuffed a few provisions into my pockets along with
the New Testament. I made my way to a dense wood
beyond the bounds of the ashram property. A rough
path led into the forest for about a hundred yards, then
ended; I proceeded into the trackless wilderness until
the ground began to climb and rocks and boulders
appeared. I came to a clearing amid a grove of oak
trees where I found an outcropping of rock like a flat
table jutting from the hillside. I climbed onto it and sat
there cross-legged and began to read St. John’s Gospel.
Thus, I formed a daily routine. I spoke very little to
anyone, and my job afforded me the solitude I desired.
One afternoon, after assuming my accustomed perch
atop my rock table, I read the passage in which St. Peter
denies Our Lord. A terrible sadness overwhelmed me: I
felt sorry for Peter and thought of how, later, he would
have given anything if only he could take back those
words of betrayal. I felt a kinship with Peter, and then a
realization of my own betrayal swept over me. I wept,
as Peter must have wept. But I knew, as Peter must have
known, that I was forgiven.
When I returned to the ashram, I knew that I was
finished with it. I resigned my post and, once again,
headed out into the world with no prospects, having
only a few dollars, a half-formed faith, but a great hope.
I tried to return to the Church; went to confession for
the first time in nearly two decades, talked to priests
and read voraciously, but I was ill at ease. Something
was fraudulent, either in my conversion or in the new
teachings I was receiving. Eventually, I came to realize
that the faith had been altered by those charged with
its protection and propagation. The new Mass became
a torment to me, as did many of the homilies I suffered
through, but I tried to make the best of it. There
seemed no other place left to go.
I had, meanwhile, gotten a job on the copy desk
of a daily newspaper, the resort of many ne’er-dowells. When it was learned that I had an interest in
religion, a rare thing in a newsroom, I was asked to
contribute a weekly feature on the subject. The paper
published a page every Saturday with announcements
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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

18
of church services and an article on some personality
or event of an ecclesiastical nature. While casting
about for my weekly topic in the summer of 1988, I
came upon a story about a French archbishop who had
been excommunicated for disobeying the pope. In my
researches, I learned of outposts manned by the Society
of St. Pius X and by independent priests where the
Traditional Latin Mass was said and the full Catholic
faith preached and practiced.
I wrote my article, a rather transparent apologia
for Archbishop Lefebvre, but as it was only a religious
matter, the agnostic editors either didn’t mind or
didn’t notice its tendentious nature and allowed it to
be published. I also traveled that Sunday to the nearest
Tridentine Mass at an independent chapel about eighty
miles distant.
After Mass, I remained in the chapel to make my
thanksgiving and I remembered something ironic the
guru had once said: that it doesn’t matter if the teacher
is false, so long as the disciple is true, for the true
disciple sooner or later finds the true teacher.
I had been lost for so many years, had traveled
down so many dead-end streets and lived through so
many desperate hours, but God had never let me go,
for no matter how far astray I went, I carried in my
heart a longing for the truth, a desire to know God.
And as St. Augustine wrote: “He who seeks God has
found Him.”
And so, on the verge of middle age, with my
unified vision restored, I felt ready to begin life in
earnest. I married, had three children in quick order
and resigned myself to my job in the newsroom, which
I regarded with a measure of gratitude for enabling
me to support my family and granting me a modicum
of respectability. It was, in other ways, purgatorial:
slogging my way through all the dull and poorly written
copy I regarded as a way of expiating my sin of sloth.
God had given me a small talent for writing and I had
never developed it, partly because I was confused but
largely because I was lazy. And so I was now reduced
to the school-marmish task of correcting the grammar
and punctuation and syntax of the marginally literate.
But God is merciful, and St. Paul wrote truly that all
things work together for good for those who love God.
I continued to read about and ponder the condition
of the Church and came to know some well-informed
traditional Catholics. One of them suggested that, as I
was in the newspaper business, I should write articles
for Traditional Catholic publications. I had never
considered doing so, but the idea grew on me and, at
long last, I submitted a piece. It was published and
became the first of more than a hundred such offerings
during the past fifteen years.
I know little of theology or philosophy, so I write
about what I do know: my life. For I realize that I am
but one of many children in this sorry epoch who has
felt abandoned by Mother Church and has wandered
through strange lands, physically and spiritually, trying
to find her again. I tell my stories and try to find in each
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

anecdote something instructive, a bit of good counsel
that might be of use to others.
And in doing so I have discovered that nothing
goes to waste in the economy of salvation; that every
idea, whether it come from Nietzsche or Baba, contains
some truth, or else it would have no substance and be
inexpressible. I am, in a way, still guided by the notion
of eternal recurrence as I now realize that all we do in
time gives shape to our eternity; that all of my actions
indeed have an everlasting character; that I will forever
taste their sweetness or bitterness in heaven or in hell.
And all of my hours of mediation in the ashram
taught me how to sit quietly. It is sad how few of
us know how to do this, for it is a prerequisite for
contemplation, which is the goal of the spiritual life and
the vocation of every Catholic. Heaven, after all, will be
simply unbroken contemplation. Our Lord told us that
eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ whom He
has sent, and we cannot know God if we are constantly
bustling about, full of our own thoughts and plans and
desires. We have to empty ourselves of all this and
make room for God. So the Desert Fathers and the
great Carmelite mystics tell us. And so the lure of false
mysticism rests on a solid truth: that our true nature can
only be realized when we surrender our will in silence
to our Creator.
And I learned something else from my years of
attachment to Baba: how to be a disciple. This sense of
closeness to the master is what so moved the apostles
and the early Christians, and is so lacking among many
modern Catholics, even those loyal to Tradition. We
may disdain the sentimentality of certain Protestants
who talk volubly about their “personal relationship with
Jesus Christ,” mostly because Protestants don’t really
know Christ or His Church. But a personal relationship
with Our Lord is the only way to salvation: “I am the
way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father
except by me.”
And I also now realize that one must be patient
with those who lack faith, ever hoping for their
reclamation and refraining from judgment. For
many years I remained away from the Church and
the sacraments. I gave ample reason for those who
loved me to despair of me, and little promise that I
would ever right myself and do anything in the least
worthwhile. But God waits for us, sometimes through
the greater part of a lifetime, and we never know who
He has marked out for His saving grace. Nor can we
be certain of our own perseverance. It is part of the
mystery of Providence that God sometimes allows us
to fall and to wander far away, only to bring us back to
Him, wiser through our fall than we were in our former
virtue. We learn mercy by receiving mercy....
Edwin Faust has worked as a newspaper journalist for the last twenty-two years.
He also writes for Catholic Family News and Latin Mass Magazine and was,
some time ago, a columnist for The Remnant and a regular contributor to The
Angelus magazine. Ed and Kathleen, his wife of 21 years, have three children
and live in Northfield, New Jersey.

Traditional
Religious
Orders
19

Brothers of the
Society of St. Pius X

Winona, Minnesota, USA

A

rchbishop Lefebvre drew his inspiration for the Brothers of the Society
of St. Pius X from his own Congregation, the Holy Ghost Fathers. The
Brothers of the Holy Ghost Fathers were of inestimable service in the
African missions as carpenters, woodworkers, mechanics, architects, and
teachers. The Congregation put its Brothers to good use in running many
trade schools throughout Africa and providing training in the varied arts of
woodworking, tailoring, brick-making, shoe-making, beer brewing, tanning,
weaving and printing. The quality of these schools is amply illustrated by the
fact that the Brother-Director for the school at Zanzibar became the private
technical advisor of his Royal Highness the Sultan. Like the Brothers of the
Society of St. Pius X, the Holy Ghost Brothers were not contemplatives; this
was because they carried out an external, active apostolate as missionary
Religious who aided the missionary Priests by their technical expertise.
However, they knew from their training as Holy Ghost Brothers that all
external action is submitted to and dependent upon the spiritual life of
prayer and contemplation for which their rule provided.

20

Profession
Ceremony
Postulants
Archbishop Lefebvre realized, though, that
Brothers’ vocations “are rare in our age
because they require a spirit of faith which
is tending to disappear from a world wholly
obsessed with human advancement” (Marcel
Lefebvre, p.456). One wonders if this might
not be because we do not really appreciate
the beauty and joy of the consecrated life,
and how necessary it is, not just for the
Society, but for the life of the Church itself.

The Religious Is Free
One of the reasons why young men
shy away from a religious vocation
is the feeling that the Brother’s life is
horribly constraining, that it is made up
of unbearable restrictions, that it stands in
the way of being able to do as one wants,
that it prevents one from developing one’s
personality, that it stifles all natural feelings,
that it makes one into little better than a
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21
This is why the religious vocation is radically
different from the priestly vocation, and why the
religious is not at all to be considered as a man who
does not have the aptitude for Seminary studies and
who cannot become a priest. His is quite simply
a different vocation. The priest is consecrated to
the service of the Church, so that no man has a
right to priestly ordination. This is why it is the
first duty of the Seminary Rector to exclude from
ordination any seminarian who does not have the
requisite learning, piety and uprightness of life.
However, every Catholic man has a right to the
religious life, provided that he seeks it for the right
reasons and uses it to strive for perfection, and has
no impediments. Furthermore, if it is true that no
religious can be lazy, some are more educated and
others less so. There is absolutely nothing to stop
a more educated Catholic who is not called to the
priesthood from applying to enter the religious life.
Indeed, it would be a great blessing for the Brothers
of the Society to receive as vocations men with
academic degrees, for it would enable the Brothers
to play an even more active role in the education of
boys.

The Religious Thinks
and Merits for Himself

slave, that it takes all the fun out of life and gives very
little in return.
Nothing, indeed, could be further from the truth.
Far from hampering personal freedom, far from
holding a man back in a state of puerile dependence,
the religious state has the exact opposite objective and
truly accomplishes it. It is a state of perfection in which
a man commits himself to take the means necessary
to strive for perfection every day. This is in fact what
makes the religious free, free to make a total and
perfect gift of himself, free from the obstacles of his own
disordered attachments, free to love God, free to place
the divine Honor, Glory and Holy Will over and above
every created thing, free to make of himself “a sacrifice
of perpetual praise to the divine majesty” (Brothers’
profession).
Indeed the religious who is not a priest has the
ultimate freedom, for without the direct responsibility
for others’ souls, he gives himself entirely to the striving
for personal perfection through the living of the vows of
poverty, chastity and obedience. If the Church presumes
the priest to be free through his detachment and through
his consecration to God, the religious actually takes the
means to become so.

By practicing obedience to the rule as to
the will of God and to his superiors as to God’s
representatives, the religious in no way loses his
own will, nor do his acts become any less voluntary
and meritworthy. Much to the contrary. For it is
by his own generous sacrifice that he embraces
the rule as the will of God, that he joyfully and
generously sees in the commands of his superiors
the manifestation of God’s plan for his life and
activities. Indeed, just as the vow of poverty
makes voluntary and meritworthy the religious’
state of possessing nothing of his own, so likewise
does the vow of obedience make more willing
and meritworthy everything that he does. The
rule of life, including the Divine Office, prayers,
meditation and meals in common, is embraced
as the signified will of God; and the decisions of
superiors, as God’s will of good pleasure. However,
in both cases the religious knows with absolute
certainty the will of the Almighty, and this gives
to his acts and duties a willingness impossible for
those who are wandering uncertain, and often
aimless, amongst the vagaries of the world.
Nor is there anything childish about the
religious’ dependence. It is a whole and complete
abandonment to the will of Almighty God. This
is accomplished through the living of the vow of
poverty, which is nothing less than the generous
response to the invitation of our Divine Savior
mentioned in the Brothers’ profession ceremony:
“If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and
give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

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heaven: and come follow me” (Mt. 19:21). Truly, the religious life
makes a man free.
Nor is it to be thought that the religious life somehow
discourages a man from thinking for himself or making his own
decisions. Again, the truth is entirely the opposite. Obedience
is not at all a blind virtue, and the religious learns to always
consider the ultimate reasons for decisions and duties as they
fall into God’s plan. The religious is thus trained in the virtue of
prudence–namely, how to govern himself for heaven and how
to govern those for whom he is responsible. This requires the
humble seeking of counsel both from his own spiritual director
and from his superiors; it requires the ability to make the right
judgments as to how to overcome his faults, bad habits and
disordered attachments, as well as to fulfill his duties; it requires,
finally, follow-through, or the ability to execute both with respect
to his own spiritual duties and with respect to his responsibilities
for the apostolate and for the community. These are the three
acts of prudence that the Brother must be trained in, as a thinking
man, without which he cannot be faithful to his vocation.

The Joy of the Religious
The practice of poverty and detachment, of willing and
obedient submission, necessarily presupposes a community
in which the religious lives along with superiors and fellow
religious. A community is both a mortification, as is any
family life, but also and especially a great treasure, for it is a
supernatural family that shares its life together. The community
is indeed an incomparable consolation for the religious who has
vanquished his self-centeredness.
Archbishop Lefebvre had this to say about the Brothers’
living of community life, when he wrote their rule:
Let the Brothers make efforts to manifest in the community their
profoundly religious spirit, one of silence, of union with God, of fraternal
charity, of zeal to give service to others, but without neglecting the service
of God. May all those whom they approach, and all those in the midst of
whom they live, be edified by their behavior, and never disedified. Let
them be like the guardian angels of our communities. (§20)

There is certainly nothing inhibiting in such an ideal, nor could
there be anything sad, depressing or lonely about a community
of men who share together the same magnanimity, who live
side by side the absoluteness of self-sacrifice. Indeed, if natural
family life is enjoyable and consoling, how much more is the
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supernatural family life that is open to the
man who has willingly offered up the passing
natural joys of this earth for the unchanging
ones that will never perish. This is powerfully
impressed upon the soul by the following
counsel, also contained in the Brothers’ Rule:
namely, that the Brothers
strive to understand the profoundly supernatural
nature of this life.…May they find in this
conviction and in this reality, more heavenly than
earthly, their unchangeable joy, their unceasing
consolation, their steadfast serenity. (§§4-5)

23

Manliness in the Religious
The modern world holds the mistaken idea that
the man who is willing to make the vow of perpetual
chastity is somehow lacking in virility, that he is less
of a man, that he hates women, or is someone who
finds it difficult to love, or who refuses to take the
responsibility of supporting a family. Again, nothing
could be further from the truth. Such a person, not a
real man, could never be a candidate for the religious
life. Furthermore, manliness is not just a prerequisite
of the religious life, but the religious formation
positively strives to develop and perfect it. Grace
does not suppress nature, nor does the religious
life suppress the manly desire to support, help and
cherish the weak, especially the sick and the elderly,
women and children. But it does purify it from all
disordered or self-centered attachments, and it does
encourage the elevation of the sensitivity by the
appreciation of art, music and beauty, starting with
the Liturgy and the Gregorian Chant, in which all the
Brothers are trained.
Modern psychology uses the term sublimation for
what it describes as a psychological process, without
understanding any of the reality, considering it to

be but the substitution of one emotion or interest in
order to make up for the lack of another. However,
in the etymological sense of tending towards the
sublime, it is eminently true of the religious life. Far
from suppressing natural feelings, life in community
and the vow of chastity indeed elevate them to a
much higher plane. They are not substituted for, but
purified from the selfishness so easily inherent in
purely human relationships. The religious is indeed
indifferent with respect to himself, but he cannot
afford to be with respect to others. He must have a
true concern, affection and care for the members of
his community, as for all souls with whom he enters
into contact.
Thus a Brother is in no way unmoved by
suffering and hardship. To the contrary, he is very
familiar with it, thanks to his constant meditation on
the Passion of Our Divine Savior. Without in any way
denying the reality of human pain, he will constantly
strive by his words and example to encourage others
to sanctify it by offering it up in reparation for
their sins and in union with our Divine Savior on
the Cross. His human feelings find their perfection
in their union with those of Our Lord. In this he
learns to scrupulously avoid all particular friendship,
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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

24

destroying as it does any true community and
undermining his ability to imitate Our Lord, who
loves all without exception, “who will have all
men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge
of the truth” (I Tim 2:4). Sublimation it is, if by
this is meant the lifting of the natural affections
to the sublime affections of God truly made
man, the bearing in one’s heart of His own love
of truth and beauty and of His hatred for the
ugliness of sin.
However, it is especially in the formation
of a sense of responsibility that this manliness
consists: responsibility for one’s own soul,
for one’s spiritual family, and for edifying
one’s neighbor. This sense of responsibility is
characterized in particular by the manly moral
virtue of fortitude, manifest in the strength of
character of the mortified religious. The Brother
constantly emulates the martyrs, who lived
this virtue to perfection, for the religious life,
a constant dying to oneself, according to the
words of St. Paul “I die daily” (I Cor 15:31), is
an ongoing martyrdom, as said St. Anthony of
Egypt, disappointed when he could not endure
the martyrdom of blood. This manly fortitude
is manifest in his striving for perfection in the
ordinary duties of state of every day.
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Who Is Called?
I think, then, that it is clear what kind of men God calls to
the religious life. It is not the weak, inconstant, effeminate who
cannot make a go of it in the world, who do not have the desire
to marry and raise a family. No, God calls to the religious life
strong, virile, responsible men; men whose feelings, convictions
and passions are firm and unshakable, yet under control; men
who would like to raise a family if it were the will of God, but
men who would like much more to consecrate themselves to
His service, to His honor and Glory if this is the will of God;
men who would much prefer to joyfully and willingly “humbly
ask for the favor of consecrating myself totally to God the
Holy Trinity, to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Holy Church
by the three vows of religion” (Brothers’ Profession). God is
seeking for those truly prudent men who are willing to devote
all the energy of their manhood to striving for perfection, to the
practice of the holy virtue of religion.

Questions and Answers
What is a Vocation to the Brotherhood?

A religious vocation is based on one sublime and
continuous act: the complete gift of self to God. Since the

25

daily Schedule
Brothers workshop,
Zaitzkofen, Germany

virtue of religion is founded upon acts which render
to God the worship that is due to His divine majesty,
St. Thomas Aquinas defines Brothers as “certain men
who vow to give their entire life to the worship of
God, detaching themselves from the world” (Summa
Theologica, II-II, Q.81). By immolating themselves for
the greater glory of God and the good of souls, the
Brother, like the priest, becomes a man consecrated
solely to the service of the Divine Will.
In fact, the Brother embraces a higher state of
perfection than the secular priest by taking the three
solemn vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience (the
secular priest only vows chastity). Most souls realize
that they must obey God’s commandments in order
to save their souls; the Brother not only fulfills this
obligation, but, in his desire to attain perfect union
with Our Lord, embraces the evangelical counsels.

What vows do Brothers take?
...and why do they take them?

As stated above, all religious take the vows of
poverty, chastity, and obedience. Through these vows,
the Brother strives to strip himself of all self-will in
order to prepare a foundation upon which he will build

6:00 AM Rise
6:30 AM Prime and Meditation
7:15 AM Holy Mass
8:00 AM Breakfast
9:00 AM Classes
12:15 PM Sext
12:30 PM Lunch
1:00 PM Recreation
2:00 PM Study / Work
3:30 PM Coffee Break
3:45 PM Study / Work
5:30 PM Spiritual Conference
6:00 PM Rosary
6:30 PM Dinner
7:00 PM Recreation
7:45 PM Study
8:45 PM Compline
10:00 PM Lights Out

an intimate union with God, a union that can only
develop when pride and selfishness have been totally
eradicated. These three vows are recommended by
Our Lord in the New Testament and are the surest road
to sanctity for a generous soul.
Poverty: “If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell whatsoever
thou hast and give to the poor: and thou shalt have
treasure in heaven. And come, follow me.” (Mt. 19:
16-21) The vow of poverty detaches the religious from
all exterior goods and attachments that might be an
obstacle to his service of God.
Chastity: “All men take not this word, but they
to whom it is given [for] there are eunuchs who have
made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven.
He that can take it, let him take it.” (Mt. 19: 11-12)
Since the religious desires to completely give himself to
God, he gladly forgoes the joys of raising a family.
Obedience: “If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
(Mt. 16: 24-28) Through the vow of obedience the
religious strives to imitate our Lord Jesus Christ, who
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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

26
for our sake became obedient unto death. The religious
renounces his own will in order to be completely docile
to the movements of the Holy Ghost in his soul and the
will of God expressed through his superiors.
Consequently, even the most menial acts gain
a religious value and special merit because they are
performed by a consecrated soul for the glory and
honor of God. This is the beauty and grandeur of a
religious vocation. No doubt God readily inclines His
ear to the prayers of such generous souls.

What is the Role of the Brothers
in the Priestly Society of St. Pius X?

First and foremost, Archbishop Lefebvre founded
the Society of St. Pius X in order to ensure the
continuation of the Catholic priesthood in these
troubling, modern times. The Brothers of the Society
are, therefore, meant to come to the aid of the priests
in all their duties, facilitating their apostolic task.
According to the Statutes of the Society, Brothers are
to relieve the priests of material jobs (for example,
handling finances, gardening, cooking, upkeep of
buildings, secretarial work, etc.), as well as participate
more directly in the apostolate by directing a choir,
teaching catechism, working in the sacristy, teaching
in primary schools, and other related tasks vital to the
priestly ministry.
These are the temporal functions of a Brother in
the Society, but governing these daily activities is the
overarching spiritual goal that must inspire all of the
Brother’s life. Archbishop Lefebvre established this goal
in the Brothers’ rule of life:
The Brothers, consecrating themselves to God in the
religious life, have as their primary goal and purpose the
glory of God, their own sanctification, and the salvation of
souls. Since their entire life and all their actions are offered
to God through Our Lord, especially at the holy altar, they
must strive to understand the profoundly supernatural nature
of this life, whatever their exterior activity may be. May they
find in this conviction and in this reality, more heavenly than
earthly, their unchangeable joy, their unceasing consolation,
their steadfast serenity. May they avoid looking for any other
solution to their desire for perfection.

Whatever his temporal function may be, the
Brother is above all a consecrated soul and, in the
words of the Archbishop, must be a “guardian angel
of the community,” always manifesting his profoundly
religious spirit through silence, union with God,
fraternal charity, and zeal to serve others while never
neglecting the service of God.

How does one become a Brother?

No impediment should hinder the aspiring Brother
in his total gift of self to God, such as outstanding debts,
administrative responsibilities concerning temporal
affairs, or primary care for a family. To become a
Brother of the Society of St. Pius X, the applicant must
be at least 18 years of age. It is strongly encouraged
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

that, before entering the Brothers’ Novitiate, the
applicant make a five-day Ignatian retreat and
visit St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary to get a better
understanding of the vocation of a Brother. To begin
the process of application, the aspirant must contact
the District Superior of the United States to explain his
vocation and obtain a letter of recommendation from a
traditional priest.

What is the Brothers’ Novitiate?

The novitiate is the first stage of a Brother’s
religious life, where he receives the religious formation
which will serve as the foundation for his future life in
religion. However, before a layman becomes a novice,
he spends at least one academic year at St. Thomas
Aquinas Seminary as a postulant. During this time he
tests his vocation and thoroughly studies the catechism
and spirituality. If at the end of the postulancy he is
found sufficiently disposed to the religious life, the
Brother takes his first vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience before the Blessed Sacrament on the feast
day of St. Michael the Archangel, September 29. At
this time he also takes the traditional habit, donning the
cassock, collar, and a tassel-less sash. These first vows
last for one year, the duration of his novitiate.
During the novitiate, the new Brother will be taught
the importance of his three vows and will continue his
study of spirituality. Additionally, he will attend classes
on the psalms sung daily in the Divine Office. At the
end of the year, he will renew his vows for another year,
thus concluding his training as a novice.
A third and final year at St. Thomas Aquinas
Seminary follows, during which the Brother receives
professional development in the field where he shows
most promise. He also studies apologetics and masters
the catechism so as to be able one day to teach it
effectively to others.
His formation complete, the newly forged Brother
is sent to one of the schools or priories of the Society
where he begins his apostolic life.
After renewing his vows annually for three years,
the Brother twice renews his vows for a period of three
years (six years total) and then takes perpetual, lifelong
vows.
Throughout his religious life, the Brother takes a
month-long vacation every year with the approval of his
superior. Also, an annual six-day retreat of prayer, rest,
and recollection is held at Our Lady of Sorrows Retreat
House in Phoenix, Arizona, for all Brothers.
Compiled from a Letter from the Novitiate by then novice-master Fr. Timothy
Pfeiffer, an issue of the Southern Sentinel by then Holy Cross Seminary rector Fr.
Peter Scott, and from the Brothers’ page on the website of St. Thomas Aquinas
Seminary.
For information:
Fr. Philippe Pazat
St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary
21077 Quarry Hill Road
Winona, MN 55987 USA

27

Interview

Fr. Niklaus
Pfluger
Fr. Niklaus Pfluger accompanies Bishop Bernard
Fellay during the Pilgrimage to Lourdes (2008).

Interview of Neue Luzerner Zeitung (Feb.
15, 2009) with Fr. Niklaus Pfluger, First
Assistant to the Superior General of the
Society of St. Pius X. Neue Luzerner Zeitung
is a Swiss newspaper. Its questions are of a
liberal tenor and very critical towards the
SSPX and the Catholic Church.

Father Pfluger, the lifting of the excommunications
of the four bishops of your community created a
violent uproar. Do you understand this?

No. The lifting was overdue and is ultimately only
the consequence of the freeing of the Latin Mass in
2007. The withdrawal of the excommunication entails
in the countries of German language and especially in
Germany a violent attack against Pope Benedict XVI;
it is a struggle for power and an orchestrated festival
of indignation. The reason is a deep resentment
against the German Pope; the “anti-Roman effect” is
reinstated. The SSPX is only a stalking horse.

The Pope has been heavily criticized not only
in Germany, but also in Switzerland.

Every bishop tries to tell the Pope what he has to
do or what he must not do. A preposterous example
is the Church in Switzerland. The faithful are running
away, the seminaries are empty, the bishops have the
“Röschenz problem” [an apostate priest in Switzerland
who receives a lot of public attention—Ed.], they have
one scandal after the other, but Bishop Kurt Koch
[current president of the Swiss Episcopal conference—
Ed.] undertakes to prove in a “letter to the faithful” of
seven pages that the SSPX is not Catholic–giving a

rather frightened and whiny impression. Or consider
the lecture of the bishop of St. Gallen to the Pope
regarding the lifting of the excommunications. This is
simply embarrassing. If the bishops feel compelled to
talk all the time about the “good news” and the “love
of neighbor,” why do they not apply it to us? It is a
minimum of human decency not to strike someone
who is lying on the ground, but that is exactly what
the bishops are doing.

The debate was enhanced by the revisionist
theories of your bishop, Richard Williamson.

Bishop Williamson is a unique case, but since he
is a bishop, this single event is shedding an unreal
light on our community; it makes it look as if the Pope
rehabilitated a group of historical revisionists. This is
nonsense.

Is the Church allowed to receive someone back
who denies the gas chambers of Auschwitz?

To the remarks of Bishop Williamson, Cardinal
Barragan rightly stated that you can be excluded
from the Catholic Church only because of a serious
disagreement with its teaching, not because of a sin.
The Church knows many dogmas but not the dogma
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28
of the Holocaust. In any case, it is neither in the
Apostle’s Creed nor in the Creed of Paul VI. Not yet!

Do I understand correctly that Bishop
Williamson’s opinions about the gas chambers
are not the opinion of your congregation?

Of course not. A bishop can speak about
questions of doctrine, faith or morals with religious
authority. In secular questions the Church does
not have any teaching authority. In such questions
everyone is fallible, even a bishop or the Pope. Bishop
Williamson does not deny historical truth.

Is anti-Semitism one of your principles?

In view of the fact that Jesus Christ was, in His
human nature, a Jew Himself, as were the Blessed
Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and many Fathers of the
Church, anti-Semitism would go against our own
existence. This is not even an option.

But this reproach is raised against your congregation.

As early as 1928, the Holy Office, the
organization that preceded the actual “Congregation
of the of Faith,” issued a decree in which any form
of anti-Semitism was strictly condemned. Under the
term “anti-Semitism” was understood any form of
hatred or hostility against the people who were the
chosen people by God in the Old Covenant. AntiSemitism was and is totally outside the intentions of
our founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and of the
SSPX as a whole.

Why do you pray for the
conversion of the Jews on Holy Friday?

If this is anti-Semitic then you have to consider
all Christianity as such. The missionary commission
of Christ implies the Jews as well. According to the
Bible, the New Covenant, which was instituted by
Christ, replaced the Old Covenant of the Jews. There
are texts in the Council with a double sense; they give
the impression that the Church says “good-bye” to its
former teachings. This is exactly the question which
we ask the Pope to answer: Is the Council opposed
to 2,000 years of Tradition or is it to be understood
in the context of traditional teaching? If it has to be
understood exclusively in the context of Tradition,
then there won’t be any theological differences. But
if there is a break with Tradition, then we maintain
the Catholic dogmas, because those have been
proclaimed as unchanging and eternal truth. This is
imperative for us.

Is it possible for your Society to recognize
the Council, as you have been asked?

As I mentioned, we do not deny the Council as
an historical fact, but we ask that ambiguous texts
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and decrees be explained and revised if necessary.
In the decree of January 21, 2009, it is clearly stated
that after the annulment of the excommunications,
“necessary” discussions about the doctrine of the
Council would have to follow. This is willed by the
Pope, and we have asked for it over the last 30 years:
this is why the bishops are so upset.

If the Pope follows your interpretation of
the Council, a dialogue with Jews and other
religions would be difficult.

There is a difference between a dialogue
concerning practical, humanitarian questions–for
instance, religious assistance in Christian hospitals
or worldwide poverty. Why should there not be a
common initiative of Jews and Christians to condemn
civil war in the Gaza Strip? But in matters of eternal
life, of the salvation of souls, a dialogue is not
possible. Here is needed a mission and conversion.

According to your beliefs, 1.2 billion Muslims,
900 million Hindus, 500 million Buddhists, and
millions of Protestants and members of other
beliefs are wrong. How is that possible?

I am much more worried about those Christians
who are baptized in the name of Jesus but do not
live according to the Christian Faith. They are living
a kind of practical atheism and a spiritually lethal
indifferentism–the Jews would call it paganism. For
them, the saying of Christ in St. John’s Gospel applies:
“If you were blind, you should not have sin: but now
you say: ‘We see.’ Your sin remaineth.”

Is such a rigorous attitude not disseminating hatred?
Is tolerance not proper to Christianity?

The concept of tolerance which you mention
is alien to all monotheistic religions, not simply to
Christianity. For all these religions, the question of
truth has precedence. This truth became a person
in Jesus Christ: you can say it became visible. This
is the reason why it is exclusive without exceptions,
so that Christ could say: “He who believes in me
will be judged according to his works. He who does
not believe is already judged, because he does not
believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Indifference to truth is not a religious attitude, but an
expression of lack of religion, of unbelief in God. And
it is certainly not encouraged by the Bible.

The Catholic Church is losing members with
its attitudes towards celibacy, birth control,
and female ordination...

Please excuse my expression, but that is nonsense.
The Catholic Church does not lose members because
of celibacy or its stand on the question of ordaining
women, nor because of its moral teaching. Not one

29
single person. If this were true, then the Protestants
and Old Catholics [a liberal Protestant group in
Switzerland—Ed.] would not have to sell their churches
but would instead have to build bigger ones.

Nevertheless, you want to maintain ultraconservative
teachings against the mainstream trend?

After 50 years of changes in the Church, in the
sense of the Council, the results are devastating. In
Germany and Switzerland the ecclesiastical structure
can only be maintained with Church taxes–without
religious zeal. If you look at France, the average age
of the clergy in many dioceses is far past 60; a pastor
has to take care of 50 to 60 parishes–even more in
some regions. In the German speaking countries
the situation will be the same in 10 to 20 years;
everything will be shut down. There will no longer
be a shortage of priests because there will be no more
“official church” and no faithful. And it is the same
thing in other countries.
For instance, I came just back from India. Regions
which formerly had a Catholic majority have relapsed
into paganism. Catholic bishops and priests are the
leaders of this trend; these are the achievements of
the Council. Or take Brazil as an example: Those
who practice religion in that country are evangelicals
or traditional Catholics. Since the 1960s and ’70s we
have not witnessed a flowering of Christianity, but a
unique decline. This is evident to anyone who looks
at statistics.

Are you happy about a “conservative Pope”?

This is the essential office of the Pope. He has to
decide whether he wants to maintain the course of the
last 50 years in the face of reality or whether he has
the courage to change course. We can suppose that
Pope Benedict XVI recognizes this decline, which
is unique in the whole history of the Church. And
apparently he realizes that the Church is not able to
survive without returning to Tradition. That is why we
had the re-admission of the Tridentine Mass and the
lifting of the excommunications. He preludes the era
of “post-Vatican II.”

The return to Tradition will mean that even more
Catholics will leave the Church. What do you want
in the end: a small conservative and exclusive
group at the heart of the Church or a broad,
heterogeneous foundation?

When the storm grows strong, the dry wood splits
first. And that is okay. We are in the presence of a
healthy shrinking process of the Church–which was
overdue. A shallow and pale Christianity is bound
to die. In the present crisis of faith those who do not
have roots and reduce religion to a kind of humanism
will leave. This is certainly not a real loss. You may
have pity on the bishops and priests in the official

church. Typical is the frightened tenor in the letter of
Bishop Koch mentioned above. Instead of awakening
enthusiasm for the Faith, and instead of giving a
Christian example, they are grieved about the loss of
church taxes. What counts is not the number of those
who leave, but those who practice their Faith.

Is this the reason why churches
and monasteries are empty?

The majority of those who left the Church in
the 1960s and ’70s, who did not go to Mass any
longer, who did not live according to Catholic moral
standards, were thrilled by the reforms after the
Council. Nevertheless they left. You cannot assess a
religion like a political party by means of evaluation
of public sympathy. In that case, Islam would not
be a challenge to us. What we need is consistently
practiced Christian Faith. Read Gaudium and Spes,
the longest decree of the Council: what an outdated
document! A Church that wants to keep up with
modern times will always be behind and too late. The
illusions of the Council have broken. We do not have
to be sad about it.

A last question: The Pope is lifting the
excommunication of your four bishops. Would
he not have to rehabilitate Hans Küng as well?

Of course, in the province of Lucerne, people
think it is not possible to bypass Hans Küng. I am not
sure whether Küng really wants to be rehabilitated.
After all, he made a lot of money by losing his
ecclesiastical teaching position. His merit consists
in the reduction of the Christian Faith to a shallow
system of ethics without any importance; in a
euphemistic attempt he calls it “global ethics.” To be
honest, I think that the ethics of the Buddhist monk in
the new movie Mongol by Sergei Bodrov is much more
true and convincing; he dies at least for a noble and
unselfish cause.
May I add a personal memory? I recall a
conversation with a bishop from Switzerland who
is still in office. Hans Küng was mentioned, and the
prelate said that everyone knew that Küng would be
upset with the Church and the Pope simply because
he did not have an ecclesiastical career; unlike his
former colleague, Joseph Ratzinger. So you see: it
is all about money and power. Even a priest is not
exempt from that. Not even after Vatican II.
Fr. Niklaus Pfluger was ordained for the Society of St. Pius X in 1984. He has
been superior of the district of Switzerland, rector of the SSPX seminary in
Zaitzkofen, Germany, and superior of the district of Germany. He is currently
the First Assistant to the Superior General of the SSPX, Bishop Bernard Fellay.

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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

30

Is the Second
Vatican Council
Indisputable?

To this question, the French bishops answered in a
statement issued by the Permanent Council of the
Bishops’ Conference dated January 28: “Under no
circumstances will Vatican II be negotiable.”...

On the other hand, the decree from Rome on January 21 spoke of the “requisite
discussions” to “explore as yet unresolved questions”! The note from the Secretariat of State
on February 4, on its part, stated:
A full recognition of the Second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul
VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI himself is an indispensable condition for any future
recognition of the Society of Saint Pius X.

Yet it affirmed again what was said in the decree of January 21:
The Holy See will not fail, in ways judged opportune, to engage with the interested parties in
examining outstanding questions, so as to attain a full and satisfactory resolution of the problems
that caused this painful rupture.

Since then, journalists, always quick to offer hasty summaries, have based themselves
on an interview granted by Bishop Fellay to the Swiss daily Le Courrier in its February 26
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

31
edition, to conclude: “The Society is not ready to
recognize Vatican II.” This phrase was the headline
for the article, and though placed between quotation
marks, is not to be found in the answers of the
Superior General. It does not matter! The phrase
was deliberately repeated by French news agencies
and newspapers, which even saw the confirmation
of a hardening position in the Letter of the Four
Bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X to the Holy
Father on January 29.
The news agency France Presse even gave the
following headlines to its reports: “Society of St. Pius
X (fundamentalist) not ready to recognize Vatican
II (Fellay)” concerning the interview published by
Le Courrier (AFP, Geneva, February 27, 2009) and
“Four Fundamentalist Bishops Not Ready to Accept
Vatican II” for the Letter of January 29 (AFP, Paris,
March 1, 2009). The French daily Le Monde in its
March 1 edition repeated: “The Four Fundamentalist
Bishops Whose Excommunication Has Been Lifted
Do Not Accept Vatican II.” On March 2, La Croix
took the cue: “Lefebvrite Bishops Expressed Their
Rejection of Vatican II to Pope.”
To the reporter of Le Courrier, Bishop Fellay only
recalled the constant line of conduct followed by
the SSPX since 2000: no canonical status before the
doctrinal discussions which must deal precisely with
the conciliar texts which are a source of difficulties.
The Superior General precisely declared:
The Vatican has acknowledged the necessity of
preliminary talks so as to deal with the root questions
which come precisely from the Second Vatican Council.
To make of the recognition of the Council a preliminary
condition is to put the cart before the horse.

The problem, again, stems from the fact that
the Note, issued by the Secretariat of State, on
February 4, states that for any future recognition of
the Society of Saint Pius X, “a full recognition of
the Second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of
Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul
II and Benedict XVI himself [were] an indispensable
condition”; while it affirmed, according to the
decree of January 21, the determination of the
Holy See “to engage with the interested parties in
examining outstanding questions, so as to attain a
full and satisfactory resolution of the problems that
caused this painful rupture.”
This raises two questions: 1) Are the discussions,
which the decree even calls “requisite,” not
intended to deal with the Council? In that case,
we wonder what their purpose will be. 2) Did the
Second Vatican Council, which was intended to be
“pastoral,” become an unquestionable dogma? In
this hypothesis, the French bishops are right: “Under
no circumstance will Vatican II be negotiable.”
Rather than try to answer these questions with
the arguments proposed by the Society of Saint
Pius X for several years, let us consider those of an

Italian religious who is attached to the Council and
strongly in favor of the “hermeneutic of continuity”
propounded by Pope Benedict XVI in his address to
the Curia in December 2005. Fr. Giovanni Scalese,
of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul, after having taught
in Bologna and Florence, is presently a missionary
in Asia. On his blog, in June 2008, long before the
decree of January 21, he devoted a study to the
question of the Council and of its “spirit.” This text
shows both an intellectual honesty and a sense of
the distinctions to be made which are rare today. It
proves, if it were necessary, that the Society is not
the only group to wonder about the fruits of the
Council, its worth, and its interpretation. We give
below some excerpts from this study (subtitles and
emphasis ours).

The Fruits of the Council
It was a pious illusion to think that it would just
need a council to renew the Church. On the contrary,
it would seem that the effects of the Council were quite
the opposite of what was expected: the liturgical reform
caused empty churches; the catechetical renewal spread
religious ignorance; the reform of priestly formation
emptied seminaries, the opening of the Church to
the world, far from fostering the conversion of the
world, meant ‘the banalization’ of the Church herself.
It is true that we must consider things with a certain
detachment and with an historical sense: in the past, the
Church faced many other difficulties and always happily
overcame them. This is why we believe that there is no
need to worry overmuch. But one fact is certain: we were
expecting a “new Pentecost,” and Holy Week came; we
were expecting the “springtime of the Spirit,” and the fog
of autumn came upon us. (querculanus.blogspot.com)

Bishop Fellay said in his interview granted to Le
Courrier:
These gains [of Vatican II] are pure losses: the
fruits of the Council were the emptying of seminaries,
novitiates, and churches. Thousands of priests have left
the priesthood, millions of faithful ceased practicing
or turned to sects. The beliefs of the faithful were
denatured. Really, these are odd gains!

A Pastoral Council
Vatican II was called and was introduced as a “Pastoral
Council.” As far as I know, this was the first time in
the history of the Church that a pastoral council was
convoked. At most, there had been disciplinary councils,
which, as if by chance, were all resounding failures (such
was the case with the Fifth Lateran Council, which,
before the Council of Trent, had vainly tried to reform
the Church of that age); but never had we heard of
pastoral councils. Usually councils were convoked to
define the doctrine to be believed. On the contrary,
this was excluded ex professo: “The main objective of
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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

32
this Council is not to discuss such or such a topic of the
fundamental doctrine of the Church….For this, there is
no need of a Council….It is necessary that this certain
and immutable doctrine, which must be faithfully
respected, be explored more thoroughly and presented
in such a way as to answer the demands of the age….
We will have to have recourse to a manner of presenting
the things which best corresponds to a teaching which
is especially of a pastoral character” (Pope John XXIII,
Address on the occasion of the solemn opening of the
Most Holy Council, October 11, 1962).
Hence, the problem was not to define the doctrine
(since it was already defined), but to find a new way of
presenting it. An objective more than legitimate on the
part of the Church, whose duty is not only to define
and to keep the truth, but also to spread it far and wide.
Then we could object once more, using the very words
of the Pontiff: Was there need of a council for that?
Could they not realize that, since it was not a matter
of doctrinal issues, but only of pastoral strategy, they
were running the risk of putting forth an immense effort
destined to become very soon outdated by new events?
Didn’t they realize that by acting so, they were giving
to the Council a resolutely contingent character, bound
to the transitory character of the historical moment?
No one can ignore that today’s world is completely
different from what it was forty years ago. Can we still
consider the Constitution Gaudium et Spes, with its naive
optimism, as relevant for today’s world, characterized by
disillusion, if not pessimism and despair? (Ibid.)

Consequently, doesn’t it amount to
dogmatically imposing upon the Church a “pastoral
strategy” already obsolete today when it is affirmed
that under no circumstances, “will the Council be
negotiable”?

How to Interpret the Council?
The Council must be interpreted at the light of the
uninterrupted tradition of the Church. Nothing can be
said against this, unless other criteria of hermeneutic
are pointed out.
Precisely, the consideration of the specific character of
the Council comes first: if we wish to interpret Vatican
II correctly, we must always bear in mind that it is, as
we have said above, a pastoral council; this means that
it has a contingent character bound to the conditions
in which the Church and the world were at the time it
took place. We cannot make an absolute of Vatican II.
And the very reverse happened: what intended to be
and was indeed a pastoral council (consequently with
all the limitations this implied) became at a certain
juncture more constraining than a dogmatic council. All
the dogma of the Catholic Faith could be questioned, but
let him beware he who would question Vatican II. As an
example of this absurdity: to this day, the reconciliation
with the Lefebvrites is subordinated to an unconditional
acceptation of the Council. But can’t they see the
absurdity of this? In ecumenical dialogue, we strive
precisely to determine the essential points on which we
can all agree (in necessariis unitas), ignoring accidental
diversities (in dubiis libertas); inside the Catholic Church
what is uniting us would no longer be the same Faith,
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

but the acceptance of a Council which defined itself as
pastoral! (Ibid.)

No comment!

Returning to the
Letter of the Council
There is no question here of criminalizing whomever,
even less so poor Paul VI, who did all he could to
oppose extremist interpretations of the Council. But
unfortunately, such was the climate, that all were in
some way contaminated, and, maybe in all good faith,
they were led to detach themselves from the letter of
the Council.
The “spirit of the Council” was like a poison which
permeated all the fibers of the Church. If we now want
to purify the Church, we must not annul the Council,
but free it from the alleged “spirit of the Council.” What
is the antidote? A return to the letter of the Council, in
which is expressed the true spirit of the Council, which
is also the spirit of the uninterrupted tradition of the
Church.…
Consequently, inasmuch as it is legitimate to discuss
about the Council, we must admit that, if we want to find
a balance between the different “souls” of the Church, it
will probably be found only in the letter of the Council
itself, the fruit of the efforts of the Council Fathers, of
the wise mediation of Paul VI, and especially, of the
assistance of the Holy Ghost. (Ibid.)

Here we disagree. Fr. Scalese, like Benedict
XVI, believes that a return to the letter of the
Council would serve as an antidote to the “spirit
of the Council,” a spirit of rupture, moving away
from a letter in continuity with Tradition. It seems
to us that the letter of the Council was too often the
fruit of a compromise between progressivists and
traditionalists for it not to be compromised itself,
that is to say, at the very least ambiguous. And about
this question there must be room for “requisite
discussions”!
Reprinted from DICI.org, the official news bureau of the Society of Saint Pius
X. Edited by Angelus Press.

I Accuse The Council
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
A major player at Vatican II, Archbishop
Lefebvre made these 12 official statements at
the Council exposing the danger of its documents. He warned that the faithful would
become confused, doubting the necessity of
the Church, the sacraments, the conversion of
non-Catholics, and the necessity of authority.
Covers collegiality, the priesthood, marriage,
religious liberty, and ecumenism.
89pp. Softcover. STK# 3072✱ $10.00

BOOK

33

Review

TITLE: Exile in Erin
author: Fr. William Barnaby Faherty, S.J.
Publisher: Missouri Historical Society Press
Reviewer: Patrick McCarthy
SUMMARY: The little-known story of the unsung priest-hero on both sides of the
Atlantic, Fr. John Bannon (1829-1913). Coming to St. Louis, Missouri, from Ireland at age
29, Fr. Bannon built a church there, then had to escape it (wearing a false beard!) with the
Feds in hot pursuit to chaplain 1500 of his boys enlisted for the renowned First Confederate
Missouri Infantry with which his Irish experience led him to identify politically.

March 7, 1862, had been a bad day for the
Confederate forces, 16,000 strong, led by Major
General Earl Van Dorn at the Battle of Pea Ridge. The
previous day had been much more promising. Missouri
troops led by Brigadier General Sterling Price had
successfully flanked the Union position on Pea Ridge.
Unfortunately, those men were exhausted, and an
intended pincer movement by remaining Confederate
forces failed; by day’s end, all of Van Dorn’s forces
were in full retreat. The consequences were enormous:
the Union army under Brigadier General Samuel
R. Curtis “had secured Missouri to the Union for all
time….”1 Evidently, the roughly 2,000 Confederate
soldiers who had died during the two-day struggle had
given up their lives in vain.
If possible, the engagement had been worse for
an Irish artilleryman, a baptized Catholic named
McGolfe. The evening before, he turned down a priest–
also, Irish–who had offered to hear his confession. A
“rammer and sponger,”2 McGolfe had confused the
fire of a neighboring cannon with his own, leading
to a terrible–and, fatal–wounding. What exacerbated
McGolfe’s death agony was his placement beside
a dying Union soldier, a pious German Catholic
who “kissed fervently the crucifix….” Ironically, the
same Irish priest whose offer of confession McGolfe
had refused heard the German’s last confession, the
German “intensely grateful at meeting with a Catholic
priest.” Not so with McGolfe: “Well, take away this
Yankee; I can’t make my confession with this Yankee
close to me. He disturbs my mind; take him away!”
The Irish priest left.

The next day, by happenstance, the priest
encountered a very different McGolfe. He was full of
remorse: “I can’t help thinking about that poor Yankee. I
behaved like a brute to him. He died last night, but after
you left him he never stopped saying his prayers,and he
prayed like a good one. He made me think, I can tell
you. I’m just sorry for the way I treated him.”
Clearly, McGolfe was prepared to make a good
confession. An hour after doing so, he died.
War with all its evil is God’s punishment of man
for man’s sin. Nevertheless, as the above episode
suggests, God can extract eternal good from terrible
suffering. Ironically, the German Unionist and the Irish
Confederate, mortal foes on the battlefield, returned to
their baptismal brotherhood at death’s dread door. The
priest who played an indispensable part toward that
glorious end was Fr. John B. Bannon, CSA.
A quick sketch of Fr. Bannon’s life as displayed in
Fr. William Faherty’s (S.J.) biography, Exile in Erin–
available from Angelus Press–suggests an ordinary
priest just doing his ordinary duty for much of his
clerical career. Father was born to James and Fanny
Bannon on December 29, 1829. After his ordination
in 1853, he immigrated to the United States, assuming
pastoral duties in rapidly growing St. Louis. Father
became chaplain of a militia. He shepherded a
temperance society. He raised sufficient funds to build
a new church. Doubtless, many priests of that era
accomplished similar things. After the Civil War, Fr.
Bannon returned to his native Ireland. Here, too, while
the detail varies, Father’s priestly pattern seems very
conventional. In 1865, he began his Jesuit novitiate.
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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

34
When Father took his final vows in 1876, he spent most
of the remaining thirty-seven years of his priesthood in
residence at the Jesuit House on Upper Gardiner Street
in Dublin. In fact, his biographer Fr. Faherty feels a bit
pressed at times to enlarge Fr. Bannon’s status through
association with the celebrities of that era. Fr. Bannon
engaged in friendly correspondence with the famous
Jesuit missionary to the American Indians, Fr. De
Smet. When Gerard Manley Hopkins, famous poet and
fellow Jesuit, took up residence at University College
in Dublin, Fr. Faherty devotes paragraphs trying
to determine if Fr. Bannon had ever met Hopkins.
Similarly, the James Joyce short story “Grace,” found
in Dubliners, mentions a priest giving a retreat at
precisely the Upper Gardiner Street church where Fr.
Bannon offered Mass for so many years. Perhaps, the
biographer speculates, his subject formed the model for
Joyce’s art.
In effect, much of Fr. Bannon’s pastoral life is
regarded as too meager in significance to stand on
its own. To be sure, Fr. Faherty furnishes piquant
offsetting detail. During his parish work in St. Louis, Fr.
Bannon overcame numerous obstacles in constructing
his church. First of all, the idea itself came from
Father’s superior, Bishop Peter Kenrick, who wanted
a church “large enough for pontifical functions and a
rectory suitable enough….”3 for an auxiliary bishop.
Fr. Bannon obliged. The obstacles he confronted and
overcame were daunting. Shortly after the laying of the
cornerstone, a workman fell off a construction scaffold
and later died. The original architect quit when he
discovered that Fr. Bannon intended to consult with
a rival. Perhaps most difficult of all, the project ran
out of money. Fr. Bannon, displaying a decisiveness
later evident on numerous Civil War battlefields, told
his parishioners that, further money failing, “he would
suspend work on the church at whatever position it was
at the time and leave the church unfinished.”4 Additional
funds were subscribed, and the church was completed.
One could make similar comments about the
interest of Fr. Bannon’s subsequent work back in his
native Ireland, superficially undistinguished while full
of underlying drama. One too easily forgets that the
Ireland of the 1860s continued under British colonial
control. While the Irish population was Catholic, the
Anglicans controlled the pulpits, at least the wealthier
ones. Until 1871, all Irish had to pay for the frequently
empty Protestant churches: “Two hundred and eighteen
parishes–nineteen of them in Dublin–did not have a
single Protestant pew holder.”5 No surprise, English
Protestants captained the Irish industry while the Irish
performed the manual labor, as Fr. Bannon directly
experienced at the mining town of Castlecomer. In
effect, Catholic Ireland’s very knowledge of the faith
had considerably eroded, so Fr. Bannon and other
Jesuits had important labor as traveling missionaries.
The work was hard, exhausting. To get from town to
town, Father and his fellow priests could only partially
rely on Ireland’s nascent railroad lines; frequently, the
priests had necessary recourse to “bians,” “horse-drawn
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

conveyances,” to jolt them into the Irish interior, where
most of the population still lived. Food was a daily
sacrifice: as one priest joked about Killeary cuisine:
“It varied all week–between mutton with potatoes and
potatoes with mutton.” Nor were the socially dominant
Protestants particularly accommodating: “Penal laws
forbade Catholic processions, but the Orangemen (i.e.,
Protestants) could and did hold anti-Catholic parades.”
To even conduct a May procession, as Father and his
associates did, required considerable courage.
Granted all the genuine interest of Father’s work
among Irish immigrants in St. Louis of the 1850s
and lapsed Catholic Irish in Ireland of the 1860s,
the heart of Fr. Faherty’s absorbing biography is Fr.
Bannon’s Civil War work. Immediately, the interested
Catholic reader must confront Father’s efforts for the
Confederacy, the very display of whose flag today
is routinely associated with the evils of slavery and
racism. Fr. Bannon, it must be acknowledged, did more
than tend dying soldiers, Union as well as Southern, on
diverse battlefields. In July, 1863, Fr. Bannon was with
General John A. Pemberton’s army which surrendered
to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at the crucial battle
of Vicksburg. Paroled with the rest of the Confederate
army, Fr. Bannon immediately proceeded to Richmond,
capital of the Confederacy, where he readily agreed
to assist Confederate diplomacy. From Richmond,
Father took a steamboat to his native Ireland, where he
worked hard and, if Fr. Faherty is accurate, successfully
to discourage fellow Irishmen from immigrating to the
North and enlisting in the Union armies. The moral
dimension of Fr. Bannon’s support for a slaveholding
society cannot be avoided.
Fortunately, his reasons for doing so hold up
pretty well at the remove of a century and a half. To
reduce the complexity of the Civil War to the single
dimension of slavery is to engage in procrustean
moralizing, not serious moral analysis. For Fr. Bannon,
“the basic struggle consisted of the capitalists of the
Northeast trying to dominate the agricultural…South
and West for their own selfish benefit.”6 The Union
won and proceeded to impose high tariff barriers to
the predominant benefit of Northern manufacturers
until President Wilson, himself a Southerner, began–
somewhat–to reverse the process in 1913. To Fr.
Bannon, Yankee abolitionism was inseparable from
anti-Catholic nativism: “They shouted ‘No Popery’
as loudly as ‘No Slavery.’”7 Modern history textbooks
suggest substance to his view. In 1834, the popular
Congregationalist minister Lyman Beecher–father of
Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the abolitionist novel
Uncle Tom’s Cabin–successfully “provoked a mob to
attack and burn the Ursuline convent in Charlestown,
Massachusetts.”8 The anti-Catholic Know-Nothings of
the 1850s had their greatest popularity in New England,
New York and Maryland.9 No wonder in 1854, when
papal representative Archbishop Bedini was burned
“in effigy in the public square in Cincinnati…,”10 that
the freshly ordained and newly arrived Fr. Bannon

35
concluded that a leading Northern characteristic was
anti-Catholicism.
In 1864, a diplomatic delegation from the
Confederacy including Fr. Bannon arrived in Rome
to ask Pope Pius IX to formally recognize Southern
independence. The Pope had many reasons to be
very sympathetic. During his long pontificate (18461878), Pius had no illusions about the fangs concealed
behind the pieties of modern liberalism. When he
ascended Peter’s chair, Pius, who, according to the
French historian Henri Daniel-Rops, possessed a “true
liberality of soul,”11 amnestied political prisoners in the
Papal States. The liberals of the day applauded him:
“Mazzini, in the name of Young Italy, declared himself
his loyal supporter….” Such enthusiasm wilted in the
glare of the Revolution(s) of 1848, when Piedmont
(northern Italian state) launched a campaign in the
name of Italian unification against Catholic Austria,
then an occupying power in Italy. Pius could hardly
side with one Catholic state against another. He paid
for that secular “sin” during the rest of his pontificate.
Public opinion was extremely hostile towards him.
A furious press campaign, in which all contemporary
liberal elements took part, began in Italy, France,
Germany and England.…
Simultaneously, this attack in ink was supplemented
by attacks in blood. In 1853, papal police foiled a
plot to assassinate the pope; two years later, Cardinal
Antonelli, the papal secretary of state, “barely escaped
death at the hands of a Carbanaro who tried to plunge
a large kitchen knife into his breast.” In 1864, the
pope’s temporal sovereignty, which had extended over
central Italy for centuries, had been reduced to a small
territory about Rome, with his only protection the
troops of France’s Napoleon III, hardly an unwavering
supporter.
In 1864, the year the Confederate embassy with
Fr. Bannon arrived, Pius IX had shed whatever
vestiges of philosophical liberalism he had possessed
when he became pope. He expressed his rejection of
such ideology in Quanta Cura with an accompanying
Syllabus of Errors. The latter concludes with the ringing
declaration:
If anyone thinks that the Roman Pontiff can and should
reconcile himself and come to terms with progress, with
liberalism and with modern civilization, let him be anathema.12

Why wouldn’t the Pope be sympathetic to the
South’s bid for independence? He himself was directly
experiencing the “liberation” entailed in uniting the
historically separate Italian states. Why shouldn’t he
have seen a direct parallel between the violence of
Sherman’s “march to the sea” (taking place in 1864)
and the violence of Mazzini’s military associate,
Garibaldi (only stopped by French troops in 1862)?
Clearly, Fr. Bannon, notwithstanding he
represented the slaveholding Confederacy, had a
diplomatic and moral case he could plausibly make
for his people. Fr. Faherty, his biographer, furnishes
interesting details about Fr. Bannon’s Irish mission,

which began in the summer of 1863. Father’s moral
case could begin with the Union’s disgraceful recruiting
policy. The North, lacking a draft, relied on volunteers
who, if wealthy enough, paid $300 for a substitute.
Poorer Northerners had no such means of evasion.
Among them were the Irish: according to New York
Archbishop John Hughes, his Catholic laity were
“‘willing to fight to the death for the support of the

Pius IX The man and the myth
Yves Chiron
One of the most interesting and complex individuals to
ever become Supreme Pontiff. His pontificate included
the proclamation of the dogmas of the Immaculate
Conception and papal infallibility, the convocation of
the First Vatican Council, the publication of the Syllabus
of Errors, the beginnings of Catholic Action, and the
development of the foreign missions.
327pp, Softcover. Illustrations and photos.
STK# 8126✱ $12.49

constitution…’ but not ‘for the abolition of slavery.’”13
In fact, during the summer of 1863, terrible race riots
broke out in New York City, leading to the deaths
of hundreds and the necessary recall of a portion of
General Meade’s troops, ironically recently victorious
in the Gettysburg campaign.
Fr. Bannon had other arguments he could–and,
did–use before fellow Irish considering immigration.
He readily cited the slaughter of General Meagher’s
(entirely) Irish brigade at the terrible Battle of
Fredericksburg (December, 1862). He publicized
the previously cited 1854 burning in effigy of papal
representative Archbishop Bedini as well as other
instances of Northern hatred for Catholicism.
Additionally, biographer Fr. Faherty shows that Fr.
Bannon readily understood the limits of merely
printing such arguments in Irish newspapers. Most
prospective immigrants to America were illiterate or
barely literate. Fr. Bannon accordingly harangued
Irish men at major ports of embarkation, perhaps
most famously at Cork, where “one thousand sturdy
Irishmen, with their bundles and packs….” stood
waiting for the “Cunard Steamer from Liverpool, to
take them to Boston.” When Father finished his speech,
“all of the young fellows dropped to their knees, with
the cry, ‘Your blessing, Father.’ When it had been
given, they quietly shouldered their packs and bundles
and marched away to their homes.”14
In the end, Pope Pius did not feel he could choose
sides during the American Civil War: too many
Catholics resided on both sides of the Mason-Dixon
Line. At the same time, he expressed great respect for
both Bishop Lynch and Fr. Bannon when he formally
received them. All facets of the 1860s duly considered,
one can certainly understand why.
Possibly, even more impressive than Fr. Bannon’s
diplomatic work was the work he heroically performed
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36
on Civil War battlefields–and hospitals–during 1862
and 1863. When Father joined General Price’s Missouri
brigade in January, 1862, he did not draw a salary;
rather, he depended on the voluntary donations of far
from wealthy men. That situation continued for nearly
a year until a sympathetic Mobile bishop successfully
lobbied the Confederate government to commission
Father. Food, or absence of food, constituted another
hardship. When General Price successfully invaded
the Union depot at Iuka (Mississippi), Fr. Bannon
greatly appreciated his replenished stores. Among his
“treasures” he listed: “‘mustard, catsup and vinegar’ as
well as ‘carrots and pickles.’”15
Fr. Bannon repeatedly risked his life on behalf of
his lay soldiers, on and off the battlefield. He implicitly
disagreed with Fr. Peter Tissot, a Union chaplain, who
did not approve of priests on the front lines:
If he (the priest) does expose himself he may be of service
to a few–which is doubtful–but if in so doing he is killed,
he will deprive numbers of others of his services after the
battle…16

Whatever the merits of Fr. Tissot’s argument, when
the pickets fired and the cannons roared, Fr. Bannon
went directly to the battlefield. Once, during a battle
leading to the siege of Vicksburg, he learned that a badly
wounded Confederate officer at the opposite end of the
Confederate line wanted last rites. Father mounted his
horse and spurred directly to the dying layman:
His commanding figure, of course, enabled him to be
recognized, and the troops on both sides, Federal and
Confederate, struck by his heroism, started up from their
trenches, ceased firing, and cheered him loudly.17

When Father, religious mission accomplished,
returned to his original station he received a similar
ovation.
Danger followed him behind the lines, particularly
during the Union siege of Vicksburg (spring of 1863).
At the hospital, a Union shell burst between Father
and two doctors, John A. Leavy and J. H. Britt: “The
shell stunned Leavy and tore away part of Britt’s leg.”18
Fr. Bannon, on the other hand, miraculously escaped
injury. Sadly, Union artillery did not even spare houses
of religious worship. During that same Vicksburg
campaign, Father prepared for Mass at St. Paul’s
Catholic Church. An entering worshipper lost his arm
to an entering 132-pound parrott shell. While the Mass
itself was in progress, another missile “‘went in one side
and out the other of the church.’” Fr. Bannon himself
“‘continued saying Mass as if nothing had happened.’”
He clearly had the true priest’s belief that, whatever
happened, he should stay right where he was.
Throughout the sacrifices he made and dangers he
incurred, Father was very conscious that he comprised
but one part of Christ’s Mystical Body. He needed the
assistance of other Catholics to do his work fully. In this
regard, Fr. Bannon paid special tribute to the nuns who
performed so selflessly in the Confederate hospitals. As
Father later remembered, “‘More than eighty percent
of the Protestants who entered the Sisters’ hospitals
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became Catholic.’”19 The Sisters’ very dress proclaimed
that they comprised a different order of women. They
had a remarkable effect on the Protestant patients, Fr.
Bannon recounted: “They looked on the Sisters almost
as superior beings, and it is something incredible how
they submitted their will and their reason to them–
these men who from their cradles had been reared in
intellectual pride and spiritual independence.”20
Father then talked about a remarkable event.
From one of the Sisters, he learned that a Protestant
patient wanted to become Catholic. Initially, Father
encountered considerable theological resistance from
his prospective convert. The patient, not sure he could
accept a thorny Catholic dogma, asked his attending
nun: “‘Sister, this man (Fr. Bannon) tells me so and so.
Is that true?’” “‘Oh yes,’ said the Sister smiling, ‘quite
true.’” When she further affirmed she believed the
doctrine, the Protestant was satisfied: “‘Very well,’ he
said, turning to me, ‘all right, I believe it.’” Conversion
subsequently completed, Father concluded that the
Protestant’s baptism “might be said to be rather in fidem
Sororum, than fidem Ecclesia.” (That is, the Southern
soldier believed more in the faith of the Sister than in
the Church!).21
This exchange occurred in 1862. Forty-four years
later (1906) the Irish writer James Joyce completed the
short story “Grace,” later included in the collection
Dubliners published in 1914.22 The biographer Fr.
Faherty is persuaded that Fr. Bannon formed the model
for the priest found in Joyce’s tale. If so, the depiction is
not flattering. In “Grace,” Dublin friends of a Protestant
convert drunkard persuade him to attend a retreat at
the Upper Gardiner church, where Fr. Bannon worked
during most of the last four decades of his life until his
death in 1913. In Joyce’s story: “A powerful-looking
figure, the upper part of which was draped with a
white surplice, was observed to be struggling into the
pulpit.”23 Fr. Bannon in his prime stood a formidable
six feet, two inches and possessed a burly frame. In
1906, Father would have been 77 years old, suggestion
enough for “struggling” movement. Joyce’s priest
proceeds to give a retreat sermon which reeks of crass
commercialism: “He came to speak to business men
and he would speak to them in a businesslike way.”
While at the Gardiner Street church, Fr. Bannon’s
favorite sponsorship was the “Young Businessmen’s
Sodality.” Even when he retired as rectory superior (1889),
Father continued his association with the sodality.
So far, the parallel works. One hesitates to go all
the way with Joyce, however, to his sneering dismissal
of the priest’s metaphorical use of an accounting ledger
to evoke the balance between virtue and sin. In part,
one acknowledges the critique of a Dr. David Allen
White: “Joyce was a liar.” True enough, Joyce might
well have abused creative license in fashioning his
priest’s sermon. As well, one wonders if God’s demands
on a soul are equal at every stage of that soul’s human
existence. Fr. Bannon very clearly had given his all
in the Civil War years of 1861-1865, during his Irish
traveling missions of the late 1860s and through the

37
numerous fund-raising speeches he gave during the
1870s and ’80s. Perhaps, by 1906 (the date of “Grace.”)
when he turned 77, Fr. Bannon was simply tired. He
himself derived little money out of the substantial sums
his talks elicited. Fr. Faherty notes: “Fr. Bannon lived
frugally. In 1892, he purchased new trousers and a
cassock, and had his boots and umbrella mended.”24
Presumably, Father maintained the trousers, boots
and umbrella to his death in 1913. Additionally,
Father, in considerable contrast with the politicians
and clerics of our day, kept precious few notes of his
accomplishments. Indeed, when aspiring historian Yale
Snowden visited him in the early 20th century to learn
about Father’s role in the Civil War, the priest confessed
“that he had little data and that his memory was not
sharp.”25 Given how readily Father acknowledged the
contributions of others–such as the hospital nuns–to
his own priest’s work, turn about is fair play. In sincere
respect for Father’s accumulated toils, this writer would
like to credit him for two impressive efforts he never
claimed as his public due. One is very easy to prove;
the other in contrast is somewhat mysterious.
The St. Louis church–St. John the Apostle and
Evangelist–which Father managed to have built in the
1850s is still in use. If you visit the church, you will
find a dedicatory plaque noting that the cathedral was
“dedicated by Archbishop Kenrick–1860, restored
by Cardinal Ritter–1960, and blessed by Archbishop
John Cardinal Carberry–1973.”26 Not a mention of Fr.
Bannon: as this article (I hope) makes clear, without
Fr. Bannon’s sustained efforts, the church would
never have been finished. On the other hand, Fr.
Bannon’s relationship with a Civil War general, John
Bowen, is certainly more mysterious and, possibly, more
noteworthy.
John Bowen, born in Georgia in 1830, graduated
from West Point in 1853. He served in the US military
until 1856, when he resigned to become an architect.
He relocated to St. Louis where he established a
successful practice, good enough to enable him to
marry a local Catholic girl, Mary Kennerly, apparently
without converting to the faith himself. When the Civil
War broke out in 1861, Bowen immediately offered his
services to the Confederacy. He had excellent military
aptitude, quickly rising to the rank of general where he
acquitted himself admirably: at Shiloh, historian Shelby
Foote notes, “he led his brigade of Missourians with
distinction.”27 He performed equally well at Grand Gulf
on the Mississippi River, forcing Union General Ulysses
S. Grant to find a different landing site to launch his
Vicksburg campaign.
Sadly, from that point forward all of General
Bowen’s fortunes sagged. While Union General Grant
complimented his defensive efforts at Port Gibson,28
Bowen and his men were nevertheless forced to retreat.
General Bowen was as little successful at the ensuing
engagements of Big Black River and Champion Hill,
after the loss of which he and his army had to retreat
to Vicksburg, there to endure with the rest of the
Confederate forces the privations of a two-month siege

culminating in surrender. Worse for General Bowen,
he contracted a fatal case of dysentery. The Union
enemy’s gallantry faded alongside his dying body. In
his St. Louis days, Bowen had materially assisted an
impoverished fellow West Pointer, Ulysses S. Grant.
That personal tie was not enough to even get an
audience with the victorious Grant, who through an aide
insisted on harsh terms.29 General John A. Pemberton,
CSA, overall Confederate commander at Vicksburg,
duly surrendered the fortress on July 4th, 1863.
At just this point, the biographer Fr. Faherty ceases
mention of General Bowen, who died shortly after the
Siege of Vicksburg on July 13, 1863. At his deathbed
were his Catholic wife, who had been summoned from
St. Louis, and…Fr. Bannon.30 What took place in the
last moments of John S. Bowen’s life? Had he already
become Catholic and Fr. Bannon simply performed his
priest’s duties in administering Extreme Unction? Or,
did Father follow the delicate role he had so ably–and,
successfully–performed at the Vicksburg hospital by
the bedside of another dying Protestant? This writer
does not know. He does know that Fr. Bannon did not
idly speculate on hell’s emptiness or allow a doctrine of
universal salvation to sap his pastoral zeal. When one of his
flock was in dire trouble, Father was there. In conclusion, it
has been an honor and a pleasure for this Yankee reviewer
to study the life of Fr. John B. Bannon, CSA.
Mr. Patrick McCarthy is a retired high school history teacher, who resides in
Annandale, Virginia. He received a B.A. from Georgetown University in 1973 and
an M.A. from George Washington University in 1981, both degrees with history
concentrations. Before retiring in December, 2006, he had taught for 27 years
1

Shelby Foote, Civil War: A Narrative–Fort Sumter to Perryville (New York: Vintage
Books, 1986), p.292.
2
William Barnaby Faherty, S.J., Exile in Erin (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society
Press, 2002), p.69. The additional quotations in this and the following paragraph can be
found on pp.69-70.
3
Ibid., p.16.
4
Ibid., p.22.
5
Ibid., p.174. The other quotations in this paragraph can be located in the same source:
pp.163, 169 and 158.
6
Ibid., p.131.
7
Idem.
8
George Brown Tindall and David E. Shi, America: A Narrative History, 6th ed. (New
York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2004), p.480.
9
Ibid., p.481.
10
Faherty, p.133.
11
H. Daniel-Rops, The Church in an Age of Revolution–1789-1870, tr. John Warrington
(New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1965), p.239. The remaining quotations in this paragraph
can be found in the same source: pp.241, 269 and 268.
12
Ibid., p.284.
13
Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People, Vol. 2 (1789 through
Reconstruction), (New York: New American Library, 1965), p.451.
14
Faherty, pp.135-136.
15
Ibid., p.91.
16
Ibid., p.88.
17
Ibid., p.107.
18
Ibid., p.111. The other quotation in this paragraph can be found in the same source:
p.114.
19
Ibid., p.78.
20
Ibid., pp.78-79.
21
The entire episode can be found in the same source: pp.79-80.
22
I used the on-line Concordance for Dubliners, www.doc.ic.ac.uk.
23
Ibid., “Grace,” lines 6150-6151.
24
Faherty, p.205.
25
Ibid., p.208.
26
www.romeofthewest.com.
27
Foote, Civil War, p.347.
28
Ibid., p.350.
29
Ibid., p.608.
30
Rebecca Blackwell Drake, “The Death of General John Bowen,” http://battleofchampionhill.org.
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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

PART 22

38

F r .

M a t t h i a s

G a u d r o n

The conclusion of Chapter VIII,
on the priesthood, examines the questions of
the ordination of women and priestly celibacy.

Catechism
Of the Crisis
In the Church
(Continued from The Angelus, March 2009)

l Are there any recent documents on the
impossibility of the ordination of women?
Incorporating the teaching of different synods,
the Code of Canon Law states the principle: “A
baptized male (vir) alone receives sacred ordination
validly.”1 In his Apostolic Letter Ordinatio
Sacerdotalis of May 22, 1994, Pope John Paul II also
restated the traditional doctrine:
Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed
regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which
pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in
virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf.
Lk. 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority
whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and
that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the
Church’s faithful.2

l What is the authority of this teaching?
Like all the popes after Vatican II, John Paul II
was loath to engage his authority infallibly. Despite
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

certain appearances, he did not do so here. He
recalled the traditional doctrine, but by invoking
the authority of the ordinary magisterium of the
Church instead of personally exercising the charism
of infallible teaching with which he was endowed as
pope.
l Is this teaching then fallible or infallible?
The teaching of the Church on the impossibility
of the ordination of women is indeed infallible,
but its infallible character comes from the fact that
this truth has always been the object of its ordinary
magisterium and not from Pope John Paul II’s
document.3

77) What is the fundamental reason
why women cannot be priests?

The fundamental reason why women cannot
become priests is rooted in the order of creation.
The relation between man and woman reflects the

39
order of creation. Man is the symbol of God, and
woman, that of creation. Consequently, the woman
by her very nature is not capable of being the
authorized representative of God.
l Isn’t such a position discriminatory against women?
It is not a matter of establishing a priori
principles (like discrimination or nondiscrimination), but of observing reality and of
acting in conformity with it. Only rank ideologues
refuse to admit the difference that exists between the
sexes.
l How do the differences between man and
woman have a bearing on divine worship?
To the unbiased observer, it is clear that man
has a more active, enterprising, and commanding
nature. His part is to act upon the world and to
transform it. That is why his role is to govern and
direct society. Woman’s nature, on the contrary, is
more passive and receptive. Her domain is firstly the
close circle of family and children; her lot is more
to be directed than to direct. That is why St. Paul
says: “...the husband is the head of the wife” (Eph.
5:23). This is also why, in sacred Scripture, God is
represented with the traits of a man.
l God transcends the distinction of sex: He is in
Himself neither male nor female. Could He not
also be represented under the traits of a woman?
In fact, in holy Scripture, God is represented
with masculine traits. He is the Father and Spouse
of the Chosen People. Praying “Our Mother,” as is
done in some places, goes against Revelation and
blasphemously parodies the Gospel. All the religions
that believe in a creator God conceive a masculine
idea of Him, at least as regards the principal
deity. Female deities are found, on the contrary,
in pantheistic religions that discern no essential
difference between God and the world. It is not by
chance that, becoming incarnate, God became a
man, and not a woman.
l Does the fact that Jesus Christ is man
imply that priests must be men?
Since the fall of the first Adam, who, as head
of the human race, dragged it down in his wake,
Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and
men, the only Pontiff, the only High-Priest. The
priests of the New Testament are only instruments
He has chosen to continue His work, and whom He
associates with His priesthood. From the fact that,
in order to be “the new Adam,” the Word of God
became incarnate in a male nature, only men can
share in His priesthood.
l What does contemporary woman’s
clamoring to be ordained reveal?
The polemics surrounding the ordination of
women reveals the false idea of priesthood that
holds sway today. If the priest is considered to

be merely a social leader presiding over the local
assemblies of the People of God, consoling the
afflicted and fostering the religious sentiment of
the faithful, there seems to be no good reason why
a woman could not fulfill this role. But a priest is
something else entirely: an alter Christus (another
Christ).

78) Cannot the Church be accused of
keeping women in a state of inferiority?
Women were kept in a state of inferiority in
pagan societies. This is still the case today amongst
the Jews and the Moslems. Christianity, on the
contrary, has given woman her nobility: she enjoys
the same dignity as man, of whom she is–especially
in marriage—the companion and not the servant. But
this recognition does not exclude that she is different
from him and has other duties to fulfill.

l But has it not been said that man symbolizes
the Creator; and woman, the creature?
Here it is a question, as the word indicates, of a
simple symbol. By his nature, man is just as much
a creature as woman and so must, like her, learn
obedience and submission.
l How did the Church render to woman her dignity?
The Catholic Church honors the woman beyond
all measure in the person of Mary, virgin and
Mother of God. She venerates her as the queen of
all saints, elevated above every creature—apostles,
bishops, popes, and even every rank of angels. The
honor paid to Mary naturally overflowed to all
women—in the measure that they resemble Mary.
l In this vein, what in particular should be
said about the honor paid to the Blessed Virgin?
Mary’s principal title of glory, the one that
allows her to be honored above every creature, is
specifically feminine: she is the mother of God (and,
subsequently, the mother of all men in that they are
called to be incorporated in her Son Jesus Christ).
Unlike the “feminists,” the Church exalts woman in
that which specifies her feminine nature, and not by
denying it. On the other hand, Mary is not a priest.
Pope Innocent III wrote a letter on this subject to
the Bishop of Burgos: “Though the Virgin Mary
is above all the Apostles taken together, the Lord
entrusted the keys of the kingdom of heaven to
them, and not to her.”4
l What should be said about contemporary feminism?
In its so-called “women’s liberation,”
contemporary feminism in reality manifests the
utmost contempt of womanhood since it tries to fit
it to the masculine model rather than to develop
properly feminine values. Indeed, woman then does
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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

40
find herself at a disadvantage: a woman will always
make a poor man!

79) Why does the Church
require priests to be celibate?

As another Christ, the priest must belong
entirely to God and to our Lord Jesus Christ. Since
he goes to the altar every day to offer the sacrifice
of divine love, he must also offer his heart to God
in an undivided love. An additional reason is that
the priest must be at the disposition of all souls, as
the father and brother of all, which would not be
possible if he had to take care of his own family.
The Catholic priest thus perfectly resembles
Jesus Christ, who was not married either, and
who lived entirely in the love of His Father and of
immortal souls.

l Are there other reasons why
priests should be celibate?
Our Lord, who was a virgin, desired that both
St. Joseph and our Lady, with whom He lived for
30 years, be virgins; that His precursor, St. John
the Baptist, be a virgin; that the disciple whom He
loved, St. John, also be a virgin. From this the rule
can be drawn that to draw close to our Lord one
must be a virgin. Now, the priest is the minister of
the holy Eucharist.
• Isn’t celibacy a great sacrifice for the priest?
Celibacy is undoubtedly a sacrifice, but sacrifice
is the law of natural life (nothing can be chosen
without, by the very fact, renouncing something
else) and still more so of supernatural life and
fruitfulness. Just as Christ redeemed the world by
His passion, so also the priest will not be able to do
very much for the Church and the salvation of souls
unless he lives a life of sacrifice. Our age, so inclined
to see in human love and sexuality the only joy
of life, has for this very reason a great need of the
example of priests and religious, who remind people
of higher values and ideals.

80) Isn’t celibacy an inhuman
constraint against nature?

Marriage is an image of the love that should
exist between God (or Christ) and the soul. But it
is, precisely, only an image, and not the reality.
That is why marriage is ended by death. In heaven
there will be no more marriage (Mt. 22:30); then
everyone will live in the love of God only, which for
consecrated souls is already the only love. Celibacy
is thus an anticipation of what life will be in eternity.

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l But doesn’t marriage respond profoundly
to the needs of human nature?
Human nature also gives man understanding
and free will which allow him to dominate his
passions and sometimes to fight against them for the
sake of a higher ideal. But man can (and often must)
renounce the satisfaction of his sensible passions for
a greater good. If he does not do so, he sinks to the
level of the animal.
l Why is the absolute celibacy of priests
not found outside the Catholic Church?
When young men renounce the happiness of
founding a family so as to give themselves totally
to God, they give a beautiful proof of the Church’s
vitality and of the enthusiasm the Faith can
communicate. If the communities that separated
from the Church abandoned celibacy very quickly,
it is because they were unable to communicate this
strength to their adherents.

81) Wouldn’t the suppression
of celibacy help remedy
the shortage of priests?

The suppression of celibacy might lead in
the short-term to an increase in the number of
ordinations, but the problem would not thereby be
resolved; one would have only capitulated before
it. Many would be ordained who were not truly
called by God, or who would not avail themselves
sufficiently of the means to respond to His call.
Rather, we should ask why there used to be enough
men ready to make the sacrifice of celibacy, while
this is no longer the case today.

l Doesn’t celibacy remain, nevertheless, a barrier?
Celibacy is a very useful barrier to those who
are not called. Without it, many men would tend
towards the priesthood for futile reasons: a sure job
enjoying a good reputation; a social promotion (this
is the case in many Third World countries), etc. For
the greater good of the Church and of the faithful,
these people are kept far from the priesthood, at
least for the most part, by the obligation of celibacy.

82) Is celibacy of apostolic origin?

Celibacy is of apostolic origin (this is at least
very probable); it was consequently the rule in
the Church from the start. In the beginning of the
Church, married men could become priests and
bishops, but they had to abstain from marriage after
their ordination; if they could still live with their
spouse, it was only as brother and sister.

41
l Doesn’t St. Paul speak
explicitly of the bishop’s wife?
When St. Paul cites amongst the qualities
required to become bishop or deacon the fact of
being “the husband of one wife” (I Tim. 3:2; 3:12),
this does not mean that deacons and bishops could
continue to live in marriage after their ordination.
It means rather that the fact of being remarried
was considered as the sign of an inability to live in
continence. One who still feels the need to remarry
after the death of his first spouse does not seem to
be able to live in celibacy. This prescription can
have no other meaning, for if the churchman could
continue to exercise the marriage right, a second
marriage could not be an impediment to ordination.
l Did the Fathers of the Church address this question?
One Father of the Church, St. Epiphanius of
Salamis (c. 315–403), testifies:
Priests are chosen firstly from among virgin men,
or else from among monks; but if persons apt to fulfill
this service are not found among monks, priests are
customarily chosen from among those who live in
continence with their spouse or who, after one marriage,
have become widowers.5

l Was this rule observed everywhere?
The same Father of the Church laments that this
rule is not observed everywhere, and makes this
comment:
In several places, priests, deacons and sub-deacons
are still begetting children. I answer that this is not in
accordance with the rule, but it happens because of the
heedlessness of men.6

l Don’t the laws concerning ecclesiastical celibacy
date from the fourth century?
The first explicit laws that we know of on the
celibacy of clerics indeed were promulgated in
the fourth century. It should be noted, however,
that they were not presented as a novelty, but as a
reminder of the ancient discipline. The Fathers of
the African Council of 390 referred explicitly to
the apostolic tradition when they taught anew the
obligation of celibacy.7
l How do you explain that some authors date
priestly celibacy from the 12th century?
The affirmation according to which celibacy
would be an invention of the 12th century contains
only one element of truth: In 1139 the second
Lateran Council decided that marriages contracted
by clerics having already received major orders
would no longer be only illicit, but henceforth also
invalid. (Previously, the marriage of a priest or
deacon was gravely sinful but nonetheless valid.)

83) Why are priests of the Catholic
Eastern Rites allowed to be married?

The Church in the East, in a council held in the
seventh century at Constantinople (the Council in
Trullo of 691), made concessions to a widespread
practice: it allowed priests to continue to live in a
marriage concluded before their ordination. This
Council kept the ancient discipline of celibacy
for bishops only. Subsequently, this rule was then
tolerated by popes for priests of the Eastern Church
who returned to unity with Rome.

l The Oriental usage is then only a tolerance?
The Oriental usage is only a tolerance, and it
marks a break with the primitive ideal. The Church
of the Orient has, however, kept some vestiges of
this ideal: the deacon or priest may continue to live
in a marriage contracted before his ordination, but he
cannot contract a marriage. If his wife dies, he must
then observe celibacy. Most of the time, bishops are
selected from among monks, for these are always
celibate. Were a married man to become bishop,
however, he would have to separate from his wife.
l What do the faithful think of these married priests?
The faithful of the Eastern Church often
consider married priests as inferior to priest-monks.
They feel more or less that the celibate priest
perfectly realizes the ideal of priesthood, and they
prefer to go to confession to them.
Translated exclusively for Angelus Press from Katholischer Katechismus zur
kirchlichen Kriese by Fr. Matthias Gaudron, professor at the Herz Jesu Seminary of the Society of St. Pius X in Zaitzkofen, Germany. The original was
published in 1997 by Rex Regum Press, with a preface by the District Superior
of Germany, Fr. Franz Schmidberger. This translation is from the second edition
(Schloß Jaidhof, Austria: Rex Regum Verlag, 1999) as translated, revised, and
edited by the Dominican Fathers of Avrillé in collaboration with the author,
with their added subdivisions.
1917 Code, Canon 968, 1 (1983 Code, Canon 1024).
“On Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone,” English version
online at www.vatican.va/holy_father/ john_paul_ii / apost_letters/
documents.
3
On the ordinary and universal magisterium of the Church, see Question 19 of this catechism.
4
Decretal Nova quaedam, X.
5
Expositio Fidei, 21; PG 42, 824.
6
Adversus Hæreses, 54, 9; PG 41, 1024.
7
See further the excellent book by Fr. Christian Cochini, S.J., Origines
apostoliqlues du célibat sacerdotal (Paris-Namur: Lethielleux, 1981).
1

2

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THE ANGELUS • April 2009

42
F R .

p e t e r

What did Bishop Fellay mean when he
called the Jews our “older brothers”?

This expression was used by a journalist, who
wrongly presumed that this expression came from
the Second Vatican Council, whereas Pope John
Paul II used it first. The Superior General of the
Society of Saint Pius X, in an interview that he
gave to a French magazine by the name of Famille
Chrétienne on February 14, 2008, responded by
commenting on the expression in itself, separated
from the context in which it was used by Pope John
Paul II. The interviewer’s direct question was as
follows: “With respect to Judaism, do you accept
the formula that came from the Council, and that
presents the Jews as ‘our older brothers’?”
The issue has become important because
Bishop Fellay has been attacked by some as if he
had gone soft and compromised with Rome. He is
consequently falsely accused of saying that the Jews
are “our older brothers in the faith” and that they
“share the covenant with us.”
Here is a literal translation of Bishop Fellay’s
response to the question above:

R .

s c o t t

salvation or for supernatural Faith, on account of
their blindness to the real meaning of the Scriptures,
as St. Paul points out:
Because of unbelief they were broken off. But thou
standest by faith…blindness in part has happened in
Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in.
(Rm. 11:20, 25)

Q

Can I advise friends to attend the traditional
Masses of priests ordained in the new rite?

It is a great grace for priests ordained in the
new rite to discover Tradition for the first time, as is
frequently happening at the present time. In general,
they have a strong faith and firm principles; they do
not want to compromise, and are learning little by
little about the crisis in the Church. Of course we
must encourage them to celebrate the traditional
Mass, for it is by this means that the crisis of
modernism will be reversed little by little.
However, it is true that there can be a problem
with priests who have been ordained in the Novus
Ordo rite. There are frequently doubts about the
validity of their priestly ordination (but not always),
particularly if the ordination was done in English.
These are called positive, for there is a reason
to doubt, albeit only slight. This reason can be a
possible defect of the intention of doing what the
Church does. The traditional rite repeats in many
different ways in different ceremonies the Catholic
intention, defined by the Council of Trent, of
ordaining a priest to offer sacrifice, and not just of
appointing a presider on behalf of the community.
This intention is obscured on purpose and by
omission in the new rite. An example of this is at
the handing over of the chalice, at which time in the
traditional rite the bishop confers upon the newly
ordained priest the power to offer the Holy Sacrifice
of the Mass for the living and the dead. These
words are omitted from the new rite, instead being
substituted with “Accept from the holy people of
God the gifts to be offered to him.” Who cannot see
that this is a radical and highly symbolic change?
There can also be a doubt about the form of
ordination in the new rite. Although the words
in the Latin are essentially the same, the prayer
requests the “dignity of the priesthood,” and it
can very well be wondered if the post-conciliar
church gives the same meaning to this phrase “the
priesthood.” The modernists have repeatedly tried
to hide new concepts under the same words so as
to confuse orthodox Catholics. In the New Mass
and new rite of ordination, the priest is regarded as
a leader of the assembly, the representative of the
people, and not as a mediator, offering an unbloody

A

The expression (our older brothers) can be
understood in two ways. It is ambiguous. The first way
of understanding it is correct and the other incorrect.
Sacred Scripture contains both the Old and the New
Testament. Everything that God passed on to the chosen
people is found in the first Covenant. But it has been
replaced by the New Covenant, the Good News, that is
the Gospel. We Catholics have everything, both the Old
and the New. The Jews are faithful to the Old Testament
with respect to the letter. But something new happened
afterwards, and Judaism stopped there. Something
essential happened: the coming of the Messias. The Jews
are our older brothers inasmuch as we have something
in common with them. However, for as much as that,
this does not suffice to be saved.

Note that Bishop Fellay does not say that the
Jews are our older brothers in the Faith, nor that
they have the Faith, nor even that they are faithful to
the Old Testament. All of these opinions are a part
of the incorrect understanding, to which he alludes.
Much to the contrary, he affirms that refusing the
Messias announced by Abraham, the Jews no longer
have the Faith of Abraham. Nor does he say that
they share a covenant, for he clearly states that
they refuse the New Testament. All that is common
is the Old Testament, and this “with respect to the
letter” only, that is in a purely material sense, and
not in reality, in its spiritual and real meaning.
Hence, understood in the correct sense, all that this
expression, “our older brothers,” means, is that the
Jews have the literal text of the Old Testament as
we Catholics do; yet this is entirely insufficient for
THE ANGELUS • April 2009 www.angeluspress.org

43
sacrifice in the person of Christ. Add to this the
manifest and deliberate ambiguity in the translation
of “priesthood” by the English word “presbyterate”
(as in the original ICEL translation), of manifestly
different meaning and connotation than the word
“priesthood,” and it can readily be seen that there is
a reason to doubt if it symbolizes and accomplishes
the same thing, namely, the transfer of the power of
holy orders.
There can also be doubts about the episcopal
consecration of the ordaining bishop, either because
the form of consecration of bishops was radically
changed or because the Catholic intention is no
longer clearly expressed. Every theology textbook
explains the principle that we cannot allow any
doubt to hang over the validity of the sacraments.
It would be a sacrilege to do so deliberately, for
it would expose the sacraments to invalidity. That
is why we must follow a “tutiorist” position with
respect to administration of the sacraments, namely
the safest possible course. Since it is generally not
possible to resolve these doubts with certitude, the
Society of St. Pius X will in such cases recommend
a conditional ordination, not only to avoid any
danger of sacrilege but also because it would be of
potentially great harm to souls to allow any doubt
in the administration of the sacraments by these
priests.
The sedevacantists exaggerate in this, and
maintain that all these ordinations are quite simply
invalid. There is no logical or theological basis
for this opinion. It is rather a doubt that we can
have in individual cases, concerning the validity of
particular Novus Ordo ordinations, either because
of ambiguity in the meaning or translation of the
words that make up the form, or because there is a
doubt as to whether the ordaining bishop was really
a bishop and really had the intention of doing what
the Church does.
Since it is generally not possible to resolve these
doubts with certitude, the Society of St. Pius X is
obliged in such cases to recommend a conditional
ordination in order to remove all doubt. However,
it would be wrong to maintain that these priests are
not priests at all; or to treat them as if they were not

priests; or to regard this doubt, positive but very
slight, as if it were a certitude.
Consequently, we are obliged to follow two
different paths of action. One path of action is
for our own selves and for our reception of the
sacraments. Here we must follow the safest path, and
so if we cannot know with certitude of the validity
of the priestly ordination of the priest, we ought
not to receive the sacraments from him, except in
danger of death. It is for this reason that the Society
establishes with certitude the validity of priestly
ordination before allowing a priest to celebrate Mass
in its chapels. This is becoming increasingly difficult,
as most priests were now ordained in the new rite
and the ordaining bishops, for several generations of
episcopal consecrations, were ordained in the new
rite also. Investigation of the form and intentions of
these ceremonies is not easy.
The other path of action is for other faithful
Catholics who are not yet traditional. Such
traditionally minded priests, who are now turning
towards Tradition, are much better for Catholics in
the modern Church than any other priests, and so
we should have no hesitation in recommending that
people who are still in the Novus Ordo church receive
the sacraments from them. It would be only if asked
by traditional Catholics, or if the person is seeking
to find out about it, that we could mention the
doubts that we might eventually have concerning
the validity of ordinations in the Novus Ordo church.
We are not obliged to say anything, for we are not
responsible for the doubt, and it is certainly much
less of a doubt than elsewhere in the Novus Ordo
church. Moreover, if we were to insist too much on
this point (remember that it is only a doubt, and
frequently only a slight doubt) we would risk putting
off Catholics of good faith who are turning towards
Tradition, and who would consider this doubt as a
relatively minor detail in the whole picture that they
are discovering.
Fr. Peter Scott was ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988. After assignments as seminary professor, US District Superior, and Rector of Holy Cross
Seminary in Goulburn, Australia, he is presently Headmaster of Our Lady of
Mount Carmel Academy in Wilmot, Ontario, Canada. Those wishing answers
may please send their questions to Q &A in care of Angelus Press, 2915 Forest
Ave., Kansas City, MO 64109.

The Mass of All Time
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

A collection of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s sermons, classes, and notes on the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass–its rites, spirit, prayers, theology, spirituality, and grace. Part One is a running commentary on the
prayers, parts, and actions of the entire liturgy. Part Two covers the New Order of Mass and includes
commentary on liturgical history, the liturgical revolution and the history of the SSPX’s defense of the
old Mass. Here we see the love and depth of understanding that Marcel Lefebvre had for the Mass of
All Time. With the release of the motu proprio, it seems there has never been a more ideal time for
traditional Catholics AND those who are being introduced to the “Old” Mass to reflect on this side of
Archbishop Lefebvre. This book proves his love of truth and the Mass that fueled his battle to defend them.

325pp. Softcover. Indexed. 795 footnotes. STK# 8249✱ $16.95

Way to Inner Peace Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

In this classic we find many nearly forgotten age-old truths surprisingly and specifically
apropos to the needs of our own times. Rich in psychology and richer yet in New
Testament spirituality, these pages will provide an invaluable guide to all those who,
for whatever reason, are seeking the way to inner peace.
215pp. Softcover STK# 8263 $7.95

Family Retreat DVD Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

The only retreat by Sheen recorded on video. 12 conferences on the following topics:
 Confession  The Devil  Love  The Mass  Making the Right Choice  The
Our Father  Youth and Sex  “Wasting Your Life for Christ”  Our Lady  Kenosis
 “Old Pots”  The Cross.

In this moving presentation he speaks about topics that apply to everyone.
DVD, color, running time 6:04. STK# 8265. $19.95

Successful Fathers James Stenson

This booklet gives men much-needed directions on problems fathers face, and
reveals “twelve commandments of successful fathers.” He details what fathers must
do–and not do–in order to instill the Faith in their children.
64pp. 4" x 7¼". Softcover. STK# 8270 $2.99

Some Notes for the Guidance of Parents
Fr. Daniel Lord, S.J.
l The importance of your child’s first actions l Training your child’s speech l How
to meet, greet, and eat l Body consciousness l Work in your home l The dawning of adolescence l Parents must not dodge forming children in purity; what to
say and when to say it l Teaching respect for others l The road to good manners
l Partnership with your child’s teacher l Laughter and liveliness in your home.
252pp. Softcover. STK# 8291✱ $23.95

The Christian Father Fr. W. Cramer

Explains the honor and responsibility of Fatherhood and its necessary virtues.
His God-given role cannot be stressed enough. Fathers will understand the great
obligation of their vocation which they will be asked to render an account of, and
will turn to this book time and time again for advice on raising children, heading
their family, and setting a good example. The prayers a father should pray for
himself and his family.
208pp. Gold-embossed hardcover. 24 illus. STK# 8230 $18.99

Restoration of Christian Culture Dr. John Senior

“Dare we hope for a restoration?” Dr. Senior answers with a resounding “yes!”
He warns of the extinction of the cultural patrimony of Greece and Rome and
medieval Europe, owing to the bureaucratization, mechanization, and standardization of life today. He offers ideas for recapturing and living the cultural traditions
of classical and Christian civilization.
142pp. Softcover with dust jacket. STK# 8256✱ $21.95

Exile in Erin Fr. William Baraby Faherty, S.J.

The little-known story of the unsung priest-hero on both sides of the Atlantic, Fr.
John Bannon (1829-1913). Hot-as-gun-lead American/European history with
bishops, soldiers, priests, politicians, and even a pope, all in the mix. Great for
boys and young men.
237pp. 6” x 9”. Softcover. 81 photos, maps & illustrations. STK# 8308 $19.95

Fatherhood & Family Integrity Magazine

The question is, “What do fathers do?” The tragedy of our society is that it can’t
answer the question and neither can most Catholics. Forward-thinking Integrity
Magazine gives answers.
200pp. Softcover STK# 6721✱ $11.95

Motherhood and Family Integrity Magazine

A book for girls, young ladies, and women of all ages who look to enjoy the privilege
of being a woman, or who are prayerfully desiring to discover it or to recover it.
Practical spiritual reading for the privileged female who wants to learn all the angles
of God’s beautiful call, “Woman.”
208pp. Color softcover. STK# 8335✱ $11.95

Mary Was Her Life Sister Mary Pierre, R.S.M.

The life of the party, a dancer, an expert tennis and basketball player, popular, Maria
Teresa Quevedo wanted more–eternal glory. She entered Carmel before finishing
high school and her cause for canonization is under examination. Mary was her
secret. A female St. Dominic Savio. Learn how a holy and happy young girl finds God.
249pp. Hardcover with color dust jacket. Photographs. STK# 8312 $18.00

The Valiant Woman Msgr. Landriot

Proverbs 31 describes the “valiant woman.” Here is a collection of talks for women...
each begins with a theme drawn from Proverbs 31 followed by the moral of
the passage particularly suited to the characteristics of the feminine soul. What
emerges is an achievable ideal for every Catholic woman.
213pp. Softcover. STK 8141Q $18.95

The Christian Mother Fr. W. Cramer

Begins at the door of the Church with a mother who has come for God’s blessing.
Continues to explain along with this beautiful ceremony, the vocation of Motherhood and the virtues necessary to fulfill it. How should a young woman approach
the sacrament of Matrimony? How to provide the proper formation to her children.
Includes prayers requesting graces for her family.
165pp. Gold-embossed hardcover. 26 illus. STK# 8231 $17.99

The World’s First Love Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

This moving portrayal of the Blessed Virgin is one of the best ever written; combining spirituality with history, philosophy and theology. Mary’s whole life is lovingly
portrayed in this book that is a never failing source of information, consolation and
inspiration. While considering the different phases of Mary’s life, Sheen discusses
various problems common to mankind of every age and reveals clearly that every
problem can be resolved by recourse to her.
276pp. Softcover. STK# 8264 $14.95

The Immaculata, Our Ideal Fr. Karl Stehlin, SSPX

On St. Maximilian Kolbe’s life-long apostolate of spreading devotion to Our
Immaculate Lady following the method of St. Louis de Montfort. Father debunks
the myths of this so-called “Saint of Ecumenism” and shows his concern with
combatting heresy, liberalism, modernism, Freemasonry and the need to convert
heretics and Jews.
192pp. Softcover. 24 illustrations. STK# 8133Q $16.95

Forgotten Household Crafts John Seymour

The best we’ve come across. Beautiful descriptions, diagrams, and
photos of the art of housewifery, the honored vocation, almost
sacred. It recognizes and records the diligence, high skills, and love
of sacrificial women who create and nurture the family home, the
basis of Christendom.
256pp. 7” x 8½”. Hardback with color jacket. Hundreds of illustrations.
Indexed. STK# 8309 $22.00

All for the Love of Mothers Lisbeth Burger

The stories are grippingly historical, but their purpose is educational and moral, making
it a book for everybody. Forty years of stories about real people in real situations.Young
adults, learn from the experiences of others instead of making your own disastrous
mistakes. A can’t-put-it-down easy-to-read book, convincing readers that happiness on
earth is only possible when the order of the Divine Creator regarding Human Life is
respected. 305pp. Hardcover with dust jacket. STK# 8313 $16.00

The
meditations
of
Archbishop
Marcel
Lefevbre

#1053

Celebrate Paschaltide

Shipping & Handling

In these meditations Archbishop Lefebvre speaks about the life of
Christ, His mind and will, the love He had for His Father, and His thirst
for souls. How can Christ be a pattern for us? Why is it good for us
that Jesus Christ is both divine and human? How can His heart be our
heart? What was Christ’s mission and what does it have to do with ours?

176pp. Softcover. STK# 5046✱ $10.95

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