august 2009

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“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

A Journal of Roman Catholic Tradition

inside

The Consecration of Russia

Bishop Fellay on Rome

The Spanish Civil War

Dr. White on Solzhenitsyn

CAPUCHIN
POOR CLARES

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

The

ngelus
A Journal of Roman Catholic Tradition

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—Pope St. Pius X

August 2009
Volume XXXII, Number 8

•

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Letter from the editor. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 2

PublisheR

bishop fellay on rome . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 3

Fr. Arnaud Rostand
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Interview by Fr. Thomas Asher, SSPX

An introduction to solzhenitsyn . . Part
 .  .  .  .  .  .3 .  .  .  .  .  . 9
Dr. David Allen White

pius XII AND THE ATTITUDE OF THE cATHOLIC
cHURCH DURING WORLD WAR ii . .  .Part
 .  .  .  .  .  .  .4 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 15
Fr. Peter Gumpel, S.J.

Capuchin poor clares .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 19
Morgon, France

The consecration of russia . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 24
Fr. Andreas Mählmann

the origin and causes of
the spanish civil war . .  .Part
 .  .  .  .  .  .  .2 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 27
Scott Quinn and William F. Quinn

Church and world . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 34
catechism of the crisis in the church . .Part
 .  .  .  .  .  .  .26
 .  .  . 38
Fr. Matthias Gaudron

Questions and answers. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 43
Fr. Peter Scott

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2

Letter
from
the
Editor

In the interview with His Excellency Bishop Fellay
on April 5, 2009, some difficult questions are asked.
Because this interview was conducted at St. Thomas
Aquinas Seminary by a resident priest, it allows these
questions to be asked: the media storm around January
21, the question of reordaining priests who come from
the Novus Ordo, and the use of the Internet. These are
often relevant questions traditionalists have; we are
grateful to have direction from a Catholic authority in
order to find answers.
There is a danger that today the sense of a wellordered Catholic society has been lost, even among
so-called traditionalists. The facts of living in a state
of permanent battle and of permanent transgressions
against the rules of a Catholic society leave their
influence and marks on those who in principle would
like to have a Catholic society. Nevertheless, they can’t
help using the means of this world in order to survive.
To give an example from the publishing business:
there are “Catholic” publishers who wish to defend
Catholic principles, but when it comes to a specific
question, you discover that they have lost the ability to
obey and submit their judgment to a higher authority.
Evidently, obedience is a difficult virtue, especially
today, when we witness so many abuses of that virtue.
You cannot pretend that authoritarianism is a solution to
the problem, but it is still true that without submission
of the will, a society or a religious congregation cannot
be run in an orderly fashion. Therefore, those people
who try to achieve something with internet campaigns
and by publishing negative facts about others will not
achieve anything. They should rather wonder if they are
not playing the game of the enemy of mankind.
The difficult questions mentioned above have
existed for many years. So-called sedevacantists–in
reality, often simply individualists who find in the
errors of others a cheap excuse for having their own
agenda–have existed as long as the SSPX and were a
constant temptation to priests and laymen to lose the
sensus Ecclesiae and the sense of the common good. These
people not only harmed the reputation of Tradition, but
accused Archbishop Lefebvre of recognizing invalid rites
and sacraments! It is really admirable to see this man
amidst so many unstable ideas and minds keeping his
balance and the sense of a Catholic bishop!
Linked to the question of ecclesiastical individualism/
sedevacantism is the question of reordaining priests from
the Novus Ordo because of possible doubts about the
validity of their ordination. It seems some people have
never heard about the multitude of this kind of question
directed to Rome, especially during the time of the
THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

Catholic missions in the Northern European countries
during the Middle Ages, concerning the validity of
various kinds of baptism. Whole books were filled with
the decisions of competent Roman congregations. But
these decisions were always case-by-case decisions,
verifying whether form, matter, and intention of the
sacrament were there. Again: Archbishop Lefebvre is
the successor of the perennial Tradition of the Catholic
Church.
One of the most difficult realities of the situation
today is that there are problems that cry for a solution
but which cannot be resolved at the moment. To cite
a famous example: It has never been decided which
succession had “valid Popes” during the Great Western
Schism (1378-1417). The event that ended the Great
Western Schism was a purely practical solution brought
about by the emperor, Sigismund. From this fact I would
point out that sometimes it is not possible to give a fully
satisfactory explanation of a situation. I would even add
that this might require a certain humility of the mind
which is not always to be found. Some mysteries of faith
are certainly of this kind.
Perhaps even more important is that there is a
difference between material and formal truth. Something
might be right in a certain situation, but out of that
context, it might be wrong in a different situation.
Therefore we should always be very careful with
quotations. Holy Scripture says that Christ died for
many, but also that He died for all (e.g., Rom. 5:19 and
II Cor. 5:15). And although these things can be taken
in different senses–so much so as to be opposed to each
other like truth and heresy–it is true as well that they
can be reconciled; otherwise we would not find both
statements in the Bible.
Much harm has been done by confusing material
and formal truth. We all know from experience that
something that is true has nevertheless to be said at the
right moment. Similarly, something can be true in itself,
but placed in a wrong context. There are many examples
of this. Consider the following doubtful statements:
Vatican II is an ecumenical council. Therefore all
decisions have been made with the help of the Holy
Ghost and have to be accepted.
This sacrament is conferred by a priest in the Novus
Ordo; therefore it is invalid or, at most, doubtfully valid.

All this shows that, even in a spiritual combat
like we have today, intellectual honesty is of primary
importance. Someone who has a different opinion
should not be ridiculed or persecuted for an opinion; he
has to be proven wrong. We would very much wish this
intellectual honesty from the so-called liberals. Finally,
I would like to point out that the scholastic method of
St. Thomas Aquinas was developed primarily in order
to discuss on the level of ideas and not on the level of
personal animosity.

Instaurare Omnia in Christo,
Fr. Markus Heggenberger

Bishop Fellay
On Rome

3

Interview conducted by Fr. Thomas Asher at St. Thomas
Aquinas Seminary, Winona, Minnesota (April 5, 2009).
There are some faithful who see any kind
of relations with Rome as a compromise in
matters of faith. From their point of view,
it is dangerous to the conservation of the
Catholic Faith. Could you shed some
light on this attitude?

I would distinguish. What does
it mean to have relations with
Rome? If we have relations,
it is for a purpose. This
purpose somewhere must
mean unity. As we claim
that we do believe in the
one, Catholic, Church,
this unity means unity
with the Church.
The risk of
simplifying, or
implying from this
that we will align
ourselves with the
position of the
official Church
today, is a great
temptation. But
it is not our
purpose. We
have always said
that there is one true
Church, which has the
promise of Our Lord that
the gates of hell shall not
prevail. We are absolutely certain
that the Roman Catholic Church, until
the end of time, will be the true Church founded by
Our Lord Jesus Christ, and which we need to belong
to in order to be saved. This is the first point.
We also know, however, that it is not new that,
in the Church, there is a human side, which is weak,
with some deficiencies. You can find this throughout
history. I challenge anyone to show me a century

where there were no problems in
the Catholic Church. There is always
something.
The crisis since the Council, which
began in the 19th century and peaked
at the beginning of the 20th century,
necessitating St. Pius X’s intervention, is
very painful and brings much suffering.
For once, the Church is attacked not
only from the outside, like during
a persecution, but also from
the inside. St. Pius X said
the enemy was within, and
he tried to erect a barrier
to stop these enemies,
managing for a while.
Pope Pius XII did the
same, trying to stop
the enemies within.
But very clearly, they
were there before the
Council.
The Council
simply consolidated
ideas which were
spread into the
Church. This
means the Church
is suffering serious
diseases. It is not only
we who say this. Pope
Paul VI, John Paul II, and
Benedict XVI have all claimed
the Church was sick. Paul VI
spoke of self-demolition. He used
the term “smoke of Satan within the Temple
of God.” These are very strong words. John Paul II
spoke of heresies being spread within the Church.
Even they acknowledge, from time to time, that there
is a very serious crisis in the Church.
Let me compare it to a cancer, even to a
generalized cancer, a disease spread throughout
the whole body. If someone has such a cancer,
www.angeluspress.org    THE ANGELUS • August 2009

4
you fight the cancer. But this does not mean that
you are fighting the person who has the cancer.
It is easy to say this is not a good distinction, but
it is only a simplification, like when we say “the
modern Church,” “the conciliar Church,” or “the
official Church.” It’s an easy way to deal with the
problem. But it is not easy to locate the cancer when
it is generalized. We must maintain that the Church
is a visible body, even if we see a great part of it
going wrong. We do not have the right to say that
it is gone. Then there is no Church and we become
sedevacantists. There is a tendency to throw the baby
out with the bath water. It is linked to the terrible
situation which we live in.
It is very difficult to make these distinctions.
We don’t want any relations with cancer; we want
to deal with the holy Catholic Church which still
exists, the appearance of disease to the contrary. It
is a subtle question, and I agree that such relations
are not without danger. It is not an easy situation.
But if we want or expect the Church to overcome
this disease, we are bound to do what we can, in our
place, according to our means, to help. If by talking
we can remind some people in the Church of the
right position of what the Church taught before, we
must do it. Of course, we need great prudence. But
it is nothing to do with looking for compromise or
concessions. We only want the Church to get out
of the crisis and be what she has always been: the
beautiful Spouse of Christ, to whom Our Lord has
entrusted His mission, to bring souls to heaven.
This is why we do what we do. We know our
duty is limited; we do not pretend we will save the
Church. We do what we can in our place. Even little
things in the hands of God can accomplish more than
appearances. Consider Our Lord’s multiplication
of loaves; He could have done it on His own, but
He had a little child bring the loaves to him. We are
like this little child. The miracle is in God’s hands,
not ours. If He wants us to bring these loaves, let us
bring them. In that sense, with prudence, prayer,
and counting on God rather than ourselves, there is
hope. We can see some achievements and tremendous
results with these contacts with Rome without having
to give any concessions. We simply hope that the
Good Lord will guide and help us in these difficult
contacts and relations.

There are certain individuals within the traditional
Catholic community who are unhappy with what they
perceive as the “silencing” of Bishop Williamson.
What is the root cause of their dissatisfaction?
What do they not see?

There are several questions here. Perhaps we have
to separate them in order to see more clearly. First,
we may speak of a fact: since January, we no longer
see Bishop Williamson amongst us. By this, I mean
acting as a bishop, serving the Society. This, of course,
THE ANGELUS • Augsut 2009    www.angeluspress.org

looks like a silencing. But it is the direct consequence
of a highly imprudent statement which falls directly
under laws in different European countries, which
have, as a consequence, very severe punishments, not
excluding prison.
In February, a layman who said almost what
Bishop Williamson said was sentenced to six years in
prison. This lawsuit has already started in Germany,
and the possibility of having Bishop Williamson
arrested in Germany or, thanks to the new European
Union, in any country there, is pretty high. Even in
America or Canada, we have examples of people
making almost the same statements being extradited
and placed into the hands of German justice. Bishop
Williamson is obliged by this, after his expulsion from
Argentina.
There are a lot of political interventions of
human justice concerning these statements about
the genocide of the Jews during the Second World
War which are very serious. These statements have
not only caused a limitation on Bishop Williamson’s
movement, but they have caused severe damage to
the Society as a whole. This is seen first in different
material ways, such as having lost several churches or
Mass centers, places we rented, whose owners now
refuse to rent to us. Also, several projects which were
designed for the growth of the Society have simply
been lost because of this story. Thus, even materially,
the Society’s growth has been prevented because of
this situation.
I may say that the worst part of the situation is the
fact that our enemies and adversaries have used his
statements to make the whole Society infamous: “The
Society is anti-Semitic or influenced by Nazism.” This
is, of course, not true, but they have tried to imply
consequences on the religious level by these kinds of
statements.
I would like here to insist that this is the root
of the dissatisfaction. It is a kind of mixing of two
very different levels. We, the Society, are a religious
organization, part of the Catholic Church. Our aim,
energies, and means have to be used for the purpose
of the Church, which is the salvation of souls. This is
accomplished by preaching the truths of Revelation
given by Our Lord and through the grace of the
sacraments.
To intervene on the historical level, to judge how
many were killed in World War II, and how, has
absolutely nothing to do with Revelation. Even if we
may not be happy that there is the intervention of
civil law from certain States, and privately discuss the
matter, or fix by themselves a number, we may say
that it prohibits real science from dealing with the
problem. In any way, it changes nothing in Divine
Revelation or in the requirements we need to fulfill to
be saved. Whether 6, 11, or 20 million people were
killed in World War II, it changes nothing in what we
are bound to believe in Revelation.

5
I truly fear that to make too strong a link between
these two affairs is a dangerous deviation by which
we seem to give a new purpose or aim to the Society
which has utterly nothing to do with us. If we look
at the consequences, many people either say I am
abandoning or punishing Bishop Williamson, or that
he was very brave in daring to address this question.
To this, I would say: If you have a child who is
smashing a hornet’s nest, what happens? The hornets
sting everyone around. Once everyone has been
stung, do you call your child a hero, or do you blame
him? Everybody knows that if you hit a hornet’s nest,
there are consequences. It is not heroism.
Even Bishop Williamson himself realized that,
perhaps too late. This is why he apologized and asked
for forgiveness for what he did. Thus, I don’t think we
have to insist too much on this. It was very clearly an
awkward thing that should never have happened. We
are suffering from it. Let us continue our life and try
to do our best from here on.
What is also very clear, and what must not be
forgotten, is that it appears Bishop Williamson was
entrapped. (There was even a document circulating
in the Vatican about it.) That is, he was pushed
into these statements. These statements, made on
November 1, were not used until the middle of
January in order to jeopardize the entire lifting of the
excommunication. Enormous pressure was placed on
the Pope, trying to block his efforts in making some
restoration in the Church, going in the right direction.
I think we must keep all these different aspects
of the situation in mind. It is very complex. To see
it simply as “Bishop Williamson’s situation” would
be wrong. It must be placed in a much broader
context, which is finally the fight we are in, a fight to
protect and defend the identity of the Church and the
Catholic Faith.

With Bishop Williamson more or less incapacitated,
if perhaps a second SSPX bishop were to become
incapacitated or made unavailable, would you consider
repeating “Operation Survival” from 1988 and
consecrating additional bishops in order to continue
the Society’s work?

If the same circumstances and the same necessity
arose again, and if there were no other possibilities,
we would do it. But I do not think these circumstances
are yet present. For the time being, three bishops can
manage and solve the needs of the whole world for
ordinations, the sacraments, etc. Of course, we have to
address the question. But, simply, if we arrived at the
same necessity, we would have the same solution.

Are there any churchmen in particular who showed
great strength in the face of the media storm, of the
media reaction, after the Decree of January 21?

I think everybody put themselves under the
umbrella. I did not see many. But we know some.

And there were also some courageous words. It is
very interesting to note how things happen. First,
this storm is launched after the decree and the
manifestation of Bishop Williamson’s awkward words.
Then, fairly quickly, Bishop Williamson sends a letter
to Rome and to the Pope, apologizing. They reply
saying it’s fine and that they were pleased. Then, for
a few days, in spite of all the attacks on Rome and the
Society, Rome was content with the apology. They
resisted the storm for a few days.
But the pressure was too much. What Rome
did, through a note of the Secretary of State, without
any signature, was to redirect the pressure from the
Pope and Rome by placing us aside. They essentially
said we are not the Church and, thus, we are not
the Church’s concern. It was very clear; they simply
dropped us. That was the first step: to say we have
no canonical existence. Then they went further and
imposed a new condition, never done before so
clearly or strongly: the plain and full acceptance of
Vatican II and all the teaching thereafter. Never, until
then, was such a requirement expressed that way.
It was made that way in order to tranquilize the
progressivists. It was very clear that several bishops’
conferences had much fear when they realized there
was a kind of acceptance of us. They were scared
to lose what they had gained since and with the
Council. Within the Church, there is where the major
opposition lies. It is linked to the Council.
Even more there is a new requirement, linked to
this story of the Shoah. It has never been requested,
for the exercise of ministry in the Church, the
acceptance of an historical fact. It is very strange. I
don’t say whether it is good or bad. The requirements
in the Church, until now, were always those of the
Faith: you had to have the Catholic Faith, period.
What does the teaching of Vatican II even mean?
It was a Council that did not want to teach! It was
pastoral, not dogmatic. If you look at the notes
published during the Council, some bishops asked
whether it was infallible and what kind of authority
it had. The answer is precise, yet confusing: the
importance of the teaching is linked to the subject
and the intention of the Fathers. So if the Council
claims infallibility, it would be so. But we don’t
find that anywhere. The Council did not want to be
infallible. It thus has the lowest degree of authority
in the Magisterium. Now, this requirement that we
must accept it in order to be Catholic is very strange.
It looks like an authoritarian and almost tyrannical
gesture which is unusual in the Church.
Objectively we have the Faith and that is what
matters. This has all been done very clearly in order
to relieve the pressure placed on the Pope through
the instrumentality of the Society against the Pope.
It is very bad, but I frankly do not know how things
will continue. I have very contradictory signs even
from Rome. The next step will be to see what Rome
really wants and expects. Once we have a clear idea,
www.angeluspress.org    THE ANGELUS • August 2009

6
we will know how to behave. It will still be confusing.
We did not expect this. I expected rather, after the
excommunications being lifted, a more peaceful
situation. But this is not the case. It might be a sign,
even for us, to say let’s go even more prudently than
ever in these relations.

You mentioned the opposition in Rome. Within the
Curia, among the contacts you have among the
Cardinals and the Curia, what percentage, if you were
to guess, are behind the Pope in his efforts to try and
reintroduce some of the more traditional elements of
the Catholic Faith into the Church’s daily life? Does he
have a fairly substantial support within the Curia?

Let me distinguish between two kinds of people.
First, there are those who are really in favor of
the true restoration of the Church and who have a
real understanding of the crisis. They are ready to
do something there. There are a few. It is a great
improvement, considering ten years ago. Certain
things have been done which would not have been
accomplished had the Pope not been surrounded by
these people.
Then there is another category: those who follow.
If the Pope says so, they will follow. You cannot count
on them, but as long as the orders given from above
are good, they will be good people and do a good job.
If things which are no good come out, they will be
no good. For now, there is a certain tendency, a line
given by the Pope on the level of discipline, which is
encouraging. There will be some results.
At the same time, there are others who are
fighting this. This is a bit confusing, but, even in the
Vatican, the crisis we are in did manifest this fight.
It is very disagreeable and unpleasant even to talk
about it, but it is there. Everyone spoke about this
fight within. Let us pray for the Pope that he may
have the strength and knowledge to choose the right
persons who will help him get out of this turmoil.
It is very difficult to say whether he will be able to
manage or not. Will what he does have consequences
or a continuity after his death? Let us hope so, but
who knows? There is enough to pray about. To give a
percentage though, I cannot.

Your description of the Curia today reminds me of
the Second Vatican Council: a certain conservative
element along with a very vehement liberal element,
with many followers in between. You mentioned that
there was a handful of conservative and traditionalminded members of the Curia. On the other end, what
does it look like? Three handfuls?		

I think the example of the Council is good. But
I would say that we should hope it is the reverse
situation now. At the Council, in the beginning, the
liberals were definitely not in the majority, but they
THE ANGELUS • Augsut 2009    www.angeluspress.org

managed to take over. Let’s hope this time the little
things we see may be the start of something. There is
hope for this. My impression is that the progressivist
line is dying. They are still in power, so in that sense,
they are still dangerous. But there is no future there.
It is dying off, like many dioceses or countries
in Europe. Priests responsible for ten parishes is
now normal. Empty parishes without priests are
everywhere. This is not going to bring strength to the
liberals. On the contrary, I do see life and strength
among those who want to be much more serious,
conservative, or traditional. Of course, what I say and
see here is the human side of the Church. We must
remember that when we deal with the Church, we
don’t deal merely with the human element. The most
important element, the essential, is the supernatural
element of the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.
The Head of the Church is Our Lord Himself,
and the soul is the Holy Ghost. As long as the Church
is living, the Head is linked with the Body and the
soul is within. God can allow the Church to suffer,
but He can also allow it to be healed from these
wounds how and when He wants, whatever happens.
I therefore have no trouble or problem. Even God
may allow very hard and difficult situations where the
Church will be resurrected—one more proof of the
divinity of the Church.
I do not exclude a certain intervention from
God. How will it be? I have no idea. Usually God
uses His instruments, the saints, to do this. This will
probably be the case. But He is not bound by any of
our limitations to save His Church. Even if we are
swimming against the current and with much pain,
trying to fight in the storm, for God it is not difficult to
restore the Church at any time.

In all of these questions, I think we can see agreement
on the question of the courage that Pope Benedict
has shown. Even among liberals, if they disagree
and despise him, they might still admit it was brave,
recognizing the backlash to come. And among
traditionalists, we can agree that it was courageous.
But, granted this courage, some still ask: does the
Pope have the Faith?

I would think that if you asked him this, he would
be shocked. He would be offended, even. I am certain
that he wants to have the Faith. But, on the other
hand, if people raise these questions, it is because
of different books and works he wrote when he was
younger which are truly confusing and troubling. So
I may say that, since he does want to have the Faith,
it seems to me a very difficult question. The way
he expresses it, the philosophical framework, may
trouble some people.
I think we have to make distinctions between
direct heresies which cause one to lose the Faith if
stubbornly held. It is contradiction with dogma. So,
are you asking whether the Pope directly contradicts

7
dogmas of the Faith in his teaching? My answer today
would be, if you were to ask the Pope directly, for
instance, “Do you believe in the divinity of Our Lord
Jesus Christ?” you would get the Catholic answer.
This, despite the fact that in several of his books there
are very confusing elements.

We have seen a certain gravitating towards the
Society amongst the ranks of the priests in the
Novus Ordo. It is conceivable that, now that the
excommunications have been lifted, more priests from
the Novus Ordo will look into joining the Society or, at
least, working more closely with us as collaborators.
Will the Society conditionally reordain such priests as
has, more or less, been the practice up to this point?

I would distinguish. It is an important matter. I
know the notion is spread, on a large scale, that we
consider ordinations in the Novus Ordo invalid. This is
wrong. Concerning the sacrament of the priesthood,
the correct position is the one we have towards the
New Mass: taken in itself, strictly speaking, if all the
conditions requested by the nature of the sacrament
are respected, we count on validity.
Nevertheless, we do experience—and this is not
a theory, but the reality—a certain number of these
sacraments which are performed invalidly because
one of the elements is lacking: lack of form, lack of
matter (which is unlikely for Holy Orders), lack of
intention, or a contrary intention. We have seen,
for instance, bishops today who have the wrong
understanding of the priesthood. How far does this
affect things? The validity of the priesthood they
would confer is a very difficult question.
We have had several cases where we came to the
conclusion that there was serious doubt. It was almost
certain that there were elements lacking, thus making
validity uncertain. For these sacraments, the Church
asks that we be certain—it is called tutiorism—that
validity is present. The priesthood is that important.
So we check, make an inquiry—not on every priest,
but for those who want to work closely with us—and if
we come to the conclusion that there are no doubts,
we do not reordain them. If there is a doubt, we
simply follow moral theology and the teaching of the
Church. This is our policy. We do not want to entrust
the faithful who come to us to a doubtful priest.

Do priests who come to us need
to be retrained before working with us?

Again, it is a case-by-case question. If priests wish
to work with us, we first want them to know us, to live
with us, and then we can see if there are gaps in their
formation. Where there are gaps, we try to fill them.

Among priests who come from the Novus Ordo, there
are often deficiencies in their knowledge of Latin. Is it
then tolerated that they offer Mass (whether the ’62,
’65, or ’67 Missal) in the vernacular or even the Missal
of 1969? Further, are such options available to priests
in the Society?

No, by no means are we going down this road.
Priests who work with us must say the Mass in Latin.
If they don’t know it, they will learn it. Even in Rome,
I have heard of a proposition that would impose, even
in the New Mass, that the Canon must be prayed in
Latin. I have no idea if this will actually happen, but
if, in Rome today, they are capable of considering
such a proposal, I don’t know why we would go in the
other direction.

For the faithful, and even for priests,
what advice would you give to those who
seek to maintain a balance between fighting
for Tradition and adhering to the Pope?

Very simply, pray for the Pope. Recognize that he
has the most difficult and tremendous job on earth.
The good of the whole Church depends on him and
his actions. If he gives the right orders, it will do
good for the entire Church. If he neglects to give
good orders—ignoring whether he does real harm—
the whole Church suffers. Pray for him, and in this
you will achieve the proper balance, showing a true
care for the Church insofar as you can do something.
Prayer is one of the mighty means which are at our
disposal for doing good.

What do you see as the biggest challenge to be
overcome in the Church in the next decade?

The challenge is to get out of the crisis without
provoking a greater one. The train needs to be put
back on its tracks. It is not easy. There is much
resistance and opposition. The risk of a fragmentation
is enormous. Perhaps it will happen; I do not wish
this. The challenge is to continue and reinforce the
restoration of the Church without suffering too much
damage from the present situation. If a high-speed
train is going in the wrong direction, you can’t simply
redirect the tracks at a right angle, for you will break
the train. This is the problem we face now. Let us
hope that the present direction continues. There could
be drawbacks; the fight is not finished.

Do you see Tradition being more welcomed in America
than in Europe? Or does it have an easier time taking
root in one place rather than another?

I think you have more liberal bishops and a
situation which is not so monolithic in America. So
you have bishops here who are more open and thus
give Tradition an easier opening than in Europe.
In Europe, the bishops’ conferences have a great

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8
weight and pressure on individual bishops. There
might be some greater success towards traditional or
conservative things in America in the coming years,
but this can change in Europe too. The Pope is,
little by little, nominating bishops who have a more
conservative line. If he continues, it will help.

The Internet is quite a challenge. On the one
hand, it is now a common means of communication,
even the normal method today. So we are obliged to
use it. We may not simply ignore it. There is a great
need to educate people in how to correctly use this
means.

Without trying to villainize the Internet more than
is due, in your opinion, do you see the harm that
comes to Tradition via the Internet as outweighing
the benefits that Tradition can reap from a useful
employment of it as a tool?

Regarding these websites you mention, there is a
sedevacantist website which, I was told, quotes
Archbishop Lefebvre speaking to then Cardinal
Ratzinger: “Even if you give us everything we want—a
bishop, canonical agreement—we may not collaborate
with you because you do not accept the doctrine of
Christ the King.” Can you clarify this quote?

I do not see so much of a difference between the
Internet, television, radio, the press, and the media
in general. We can basically say, for all of these
things, that the children of the world are wiser than
the children of God. Taken by itself, the Internet
is a means, and the right use of a means will bring
good fruits; the wrong use will bring bad fruits. Now,
it’s not simply a means; it’s a very powerful means
because you can reach the whole world. It’s very
impressive, but this ability is something which has
never happened before in history. The radio was seen
as a novelty because it was able to reach millions of
ears; the television was more since it could capture
eyes; the Internet makes it possible for anybody at a
very low cost. There is no comparison then between
the Internet and these other things.
That means whoever wants to say something—
whatever it is—he may do it. This is one of the truly
major problems of the Internet and of Tradition.
You have people who have an idea of Tradition—
maybe correct, maybe incorrect—and who simply
talk. Whoever has access to what is said does not
necessarily know what is right or true. This is a very
serious and grave problem.
When you talk about preaching the truth, the
Church has this mission. The Society, as part of the
Church, participates in this duty to spread the truths
of Revelation. But now everyone can pretend to
have authority with great ease. Of course, they have
no authority, but everybody imposes themselves as
Doctors of the Faith today. There is usually no way to
check the quality of the one who speaks. It is a very
embarrassing problem. We have experienced, for
years, a major problem there.
We have people who, for example, attack us
unjustly with calumnies, and there is almost no way
for us to stop them. Thus, whoever wants to listen
to them may do so. By doing so, they may endanger
their trust in the Society. I would go so far as to say
that, by putting this relationship with the Society
in danger, they easily fall into mortal sin. I do not
hesitate to say that those who get information from
sites like Traditio, they are in danger of mortal sin.
When you see the trash, hatred, and calumnies spread
there, you realize it is a dangerous place. And you
have no right to expose yourself to dangerous places.
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Archbishop Lefebvre said this in a conference to
seminarians. He related a conversation he had with
Cardinal Ratzinger in the summer of 1987. They were
already discussing the episcopal consecrations. What
is very interesting is that, after this meeting where
the Archbishop said these things, he sent a letter to
the new bishops-to-be, saying Rome was occupied
by anti-Christs. This was also the summer of 1987.
After all of this, he himself accepted and requested
a canonical visitation from Rome. He envisaged
discussions which happened in April 1988.
These quotes must be taken in their context. It
is a common practice today to make everything an
absolute, without circumstances. If you go down this
road, you can make anyone say anything. It is a kind
of intellectual honesty to try to see what he meant,
what he said, what he intended when he said that.
There is a question of principle here: we have
a hard time with Rome. It is still the same problem
today. I said to Cardinal Castrillon last year and this
year exactly what Archbishop Lefebvre said in 1987:
If you want us, you must respect out identity. If you
want us to change our identity, it won’t work.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is truly Lord. The phrase
“Our Lord” means something. He is King because
He is God and because all power on heaven and
earth was given to Him, even as man. This is a point
of faith. There are consequences to ideas like the
Kingship of Christ. But if you begin to say, “Well, the
State and social life have nothing to do with God. We
don’t care about Our Lord,” where is the Kingship of
Christ?
If He is King, He cares about His powers and
He wants them to be observed. This is also a point
of faith: we know that every soul appears in front
of the Judge, to whom they must give account. This
Judge is Our Lord Jesus Christ, the King, not only
of Catholics, but of everyone, including heads of
State, be they kings or presidents. They will have to
give an account of what they have done with their
powers entrusted to them by our heavenly King.
Even if we have to wait for years, we won’t change
the Faith.

D r .

D a v i d

A l l e n

W h i t e

9

An introduction to

Alexander
Solzhenitsyn
PART 3: One Day in the Life
of Ivan Denisovich

The novel first appeared and
became very popular because a new
reader class had been created through
the rise of a middle class with leisure
time and the availability of books
thanks to the printing press. What
these new readers wanted to read
about was themselves. What they
wanted to read about was life as they
knew it. And since those who bought
the novels were basically middleclass—coming into a little money,
proud of the world they lived in—
they liked to read about their world.
And what defines Don Quixote, the
first novel, is that it is not a fantasy
world (other than in Quixote’s poor,
dried-up brain). What we have in the novel are
the dusty roads of Spain, the inns he stops at, the
shepherds he encounters, the ladies of the evening
he bumps into: he meets the population of Spain.
He rides the roads of Spain. He eats the food of
Spain. And the Spanish loved it. They saw, in the
novel, their world. The books were about the world
they knew.

As a result, the best definition
that we can give of the novel, that
sets it apart from all other literary
forms, is that the novel is an extended
fiction with multiple characters, often
with multiple plots, that creates or
re-creates a real world. The novel
tends to be realistic.
The Iliad is not realistic. It gives us
a sense of war, but the characters are
monumental, magnificent, and heroic.
The same can be said of the Greek
drama. And even of Shakespearean
drama. The figures in these stories
are “larger than life.” Sancho Panza,
however, is not larger than life, even
if he is larger than the other Spanish
characters in the book. He is very real. And whether
he is eating his onions, or sneaking off to nap in
the bushes or do “that which no other man can do
for him,” we have a real character in a real world,
behaving in a very real way. And this was new,
beginning with the novel.
If you think about the novels that come after
Quixote, their great strength—and one reason we
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10
return to them—is that given the fact that the novel
recreates for us a specific time and place, with real
characters, life lived as it was lived; we can re-enter
those worlds. Our clearest sense of what those times
and places were like can come to us from the novel.
Thus, if I want to know what Puritan New
England was like, and what it would have been
like to live there, I can turn to the The Scarlet Letter
because Hawthorne recreates it. If I want to have
some sense of what the whaling industry was like—it
has vanished, leaving nothing behind except a little
museum and a boat or two, hardly remnants of what
was once the greatest industry in the world—there is
Moby Dick. And every single aspect of that whaling
world, from the ships to the voyages to the behavior
of the men, is captured in realistic detail in that
novel. And so we know what the whaling industry
was like.
If you want to know what Russia was like
during the Napoleonic wars, read War and Peace.
You will get the feel, the sense, of lived life in
elaborate detail. That is what the novel does. And
that is its strength. I emphasize this because what
Solzhenitsyn was doing in writing One Day in the Life
of Ivan Denisovich is what a great novelist does: he
sets down, in realistic detail, what life was like in a
very specific, enclosed world and renders it with a
vividness of imagination, and, at the same time, a
reality that recreates that world.
Why was this so controversial? Simply because
no one knew that world existed. Or, if they did, it
was being covered up. That world of the Gulag, of
the Soviet Union slave labor camps, was either a
well-kept secret, or, if you knew it was there, you
did not speak a word about it. It may have been a
great grinding mill which ground up millions upon
millions of Russians—but no one spoke about it,
because if you did, you risked becoming a statistic.
Therefore it was kept quiet.
The first thing Solzhenitsyn was trying to do,
in writing this novel, was to open up this world to
the wider world, letting the citizens of his native
land know what was happening there in vivid
detail. And then, by extension, letting the world
know what had happened in those camps. For
this reason, he takes neither the worst possible
camps that existed in the Gulag nor the best—he
talks about that world, the prison world touched
with some ease and comfort, in The First Circle, the
camp where the mathematicians and scientists were
kept. What he seeks to portray in Ivan Denisovich is
a camp somewhere in the middle, a typical camp,
set among the entire range of camps, a place you
would be likely to go to if you were arrested and
sent off. You might end up somewhere worse; if you
were brilliant, you might end up somewhere better.
It was something like Goldilocks and the Three
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Bears; Solzhenitsyn’s camp in Ivan Denisovich had the
porridge that was “just right.”
Having chosen to describe simply an average
camp, what does he do next? He chooses an
average man. He is writing–and, in this, he is very
much in line with 20th century literature—a novel
without a hero. Our hero is not heroic. He is simply
an average John (which is how the name “Ivan”
translates) with an average name, from an average
background—just another average Russian who one
day found himself astonished to be thrown into this
entire system. There is nothing exceptional about
him. There is a way in which the central character
is even bland. And that is deliberate. The focus is
supposed to be on the fact that this man could be
any man, every man, all men who, at any moment,
could find themselves sent there.
Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is thus “standing
in” for all of humanity and is representing all of
humanity; he is a kind of blank slate. He has some
personality and a past, we discover some things
about him, but he is not particularly remarkable.
And then to complete it, what do we get? Not
a history of the camp, neither how it was founded
nor how it developed—all this is saved for The Gulag
Archipelago, when he discusses all the camps. There
he gives a history of the entire system.
What we have here is one day–simply one
average day of one average man in one average
camp. This is not dramatic. And those of us who
read it now, not having lived through it and not
having the sense of the panic it caused in the Soviet
regime, or the excitement it caused among the
Russian people, look at it and first react by thinking:
there’s not much happening here. It is true, yet it is
simple and deliberate. It is part of the plan of the
novel.
In one sense, this was the first novel he
attempted to get published. He did not choose
stronger material because if you have a desperately
sick body, the first medicine you administer must be
fairly mild. Something too strong can shock and kill.
Or as St. Paul says in Corinthians: “I gave you milk
to drink, not meat; for you were not able as yet.”
Therefore, what we get here is a fairly mild dose of
the truth. Yet it is true.
Even this caused an enormous furor, for this
book does what art should do, namely, reflect
truth. In this sense, Solzhenitsyn is doing what the
great novelists have always done, simply reflecting
reality. What happened when he created this little
world, a world he had known personally? You must
understand the sheer courage, the guts needed, to
send this manuscript off in the first place. Given
the kinds of things people were being arrested and
thrown into the camps for, to actually submit, to
a literary magazine, this manuscript, could have
meant becoming a non-person the very next day,

11
with the manuscript burned, never to be released
again.
Why did he take the chance? He took this
chance in the early 60’s because, for one brief
moment in the history of the Soviet Union, there
was a thaw. The ruler was Nikita Khrushchev.
During the early 60’s, Khrushchev decided that
there had to be a little bit of truth told about
the Stalin years. Khrushchev realized that those
years were so destructive, so horrific, that what
the country had been through had demoralized
it so, that if there was any hope of prolonging the
Communist system or getting some life out of the
people again, perhaps a little bit of truth might do it.
And it was allowed to be said that maybe
Comrade Stalin had made a few mistakes. Maybe
Comrade Stalin had gone a bit overboard in some
of the things he attempted, liking ordering the
White Sea Canal to be dug in six months, including
winter, at the cost of 300,000 men, who died as
they dug and were simply thrown into the hole.
Maybe Comrade Stalin had gone a bit too far in his
pressure tactics in trying to see to it that the counterrevolutionaries didn’t get a grip on the world. The
extent of this thaw was only a few small admissions.
But there had been a break. There was a bubble
of antidote rising above the poison. Solzhenitsyn
saw this break and decided it was now or never.
He took the manuscript of One Day in the Life
of Ivan Denisovich and sent it to Novy Mir, the
prominent literary magazine. We have nothing
like this. Everybody in the Soviet Union read this
magazine. Alexander Tvardovsky, the editor, was
highly respected and he was a good man who loved
literature. For the most part, he could only publish
junk because art was controlled by the State. He
could generally only publish the garbage that was
Socialist realism. This ate him up because he loved
great literature. He shows up later in The Oak and
the Calf, Solzhenitsyn’s memoirs about trying to get
published. This man was tortured by the system he
was living under.
What happened? The manuscript showed up. It
was every editor’s dream. He opened the envelope,
pulled it out, started reading it, and realized he had
a work of absolute genius. He was holding in his
hands one of the great works of fiction ever written.
Then he realized he could not publish it. A life’s
dream come true...and there was nothing he could
do about it. The man was tormented. If he had been
smart, he would have stuck it in a safe, locked it,
and let it be discovered in the future, if truth should
ever be restored to the country. He could not do it,
partially because he felt a need to give the truth to
his readers and partially out of pride, because if he
published it, he would also make his name forever.
What he did was hand the manuscript up one
level in the bureaucracy to the figure above him

who was in charge of censoring the magazine.
Tvardovsky told his overseer he was interested in
publishing it and asked him to read it and give his
opinion. (He did not say, “This is dynamite, it will
blow up in our hands, but it is a work of genius!”)
The censor of the magazine read it, returned it,
and said, “It’s a work of absolute genius...but
there’s no way we can publish that.” Tvardovsky
insisted: “We must, we must!” The censor mildly
resisted: “Perhaps we should...but I’m not taking
responsibility for it!”
So it went up to the chain to the man who
oversaw the censor. His view was much the same:
“The man is an absolute genius, but there’s no way
we can publish it...but it must be published. A giant
has appeared among us. There’s a genius walking
among us. What do we do?” They had meetings
and conferences about this, tormented about what
they should do. Up it went through the chain
of command, until finally, at the last meeting of
everybody concerned, they decided the only course
of action was to send it to Comrade Khrushchev.
It went to the very top. Imagine, if you will, a
literary manuscript, the publication of which is
being debated, going to the White House so that the
President could give his review. We cannot conceive
of this, yet that is what happened.
Khrushchev was going off to his dacha in
the country. (“Everyone in the Soviet Union
lives equally!” “In palatial mansions and with
limousines?”) He took with him the manuscript. He
read it. He returned and said to publish it, calling it
a great work. That was his first mistake.
His second mistake occurred at almost the
same time. This was October 1962. This is when
he confronted President Kennedy over missiles
in Cuba. Khrushchev backed down in a major
confrontation with the United States. These two
things did it. Shortly thereafter, he found himself out
of power.
In the meantime, the presses had rolled.
Everybody bought up the few remaining copies.
They spread everywhere throughout Russia, causing
a sensation. Suddenly, everyone knew what that
camp system was like. And every family had had
someone, or perhaps many, who had gone there.
And suddenly everyone knew what they had lived
through. It was the first breath of truth in decades in
that country.
Let me read a part of an essay written by a
Russian man who made a pilgrimage to Vermont
to find Solzhenitsyn’s house after he had returned
to Russia. He wanted to see where Solzhenitsyn
had lived in this country because of the author’s
importance in this man’s life. Here is part of his
account:
I had always wanted to see this house. Why? The
answer can probably be found in the mass hysteria which
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12
surrounded Solzhenitsyn’s name in the Soviet Union of
my youth. All his books were confiscated from shops and
libraries, and one could easily end up in prison for simply
possessing (let alone reading) any of his works.

“Mass hysteria” is the correct term for what
occurred. The confiscation he refers to happened
shortly after Ivan Denisovich was published. It had a
few months and years but that was it.
I shall never forget the feeling of danger when, as a
16-year-old, I read a tattered copy of One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich. Hiding the book under the blanket in my
bed, I finished it in one sleepless night. Next morning I
had to pass it on to the next person in line by the light of
a small torch.

And, remember, this is after the book was published.
It was after people had read it. Mass hysteria,
indeed.
Let me quote Solzhenitsyn himself again: “One
word of truth outweighs the whole world.” This
small work of absolute truth, rendered in realistic
detail, began the overturning of that world. It began
the process.
After Ivan Denisovich, Solzhenitsyn finally
thought he could get everything published. He sent
The First Circle to Tvardovsky. He also sent Cancer
Ward. The editor read these longer novels and
simply couldn’t believe it—one work of genius after
another. And then he was told not to print anything
else by Solzhenitsyn. So they did get locked up in
a safe. They were not published in Russia until the
1990’s. They sat in the safe for a long time.
The editor of the magazine was hounded to
death by the authorities. He was blamed for what
had happened. Solzhenitsyn was briefly the most
famous man in the country but was suddenly
expelled from the Writers’ Union. He was attacked
from every side—his fellow writers, the government,
his former friends. He was on the road to becoming
a non-person, even though he had won the Nobel
Prize for Literature.
The book was this much of a bombshell.
Curiously, it’s just an average book: one day, in the
life of one man, in one camp. But it was sufficient
because it functions the way a great novel functions.
It tells the truth and renders that day-to-day truth in
realistic detail.
Let us take a look at that day. It’s an average
day. If you take a look at the structure of that day,
you begin to see what he is doing. For us, a day is
structured by what happens in the sky. We get up in
the dark and they get up in the dark. But when they
get up, what do they see?
The camp lights had chased the stars from the
sky, and it was as dark as before.
There is light, but it is not the light of the stars.
That is gone—it has been blocked out. God’s creation
is blocked out by the lights of the prison camp. From
such a simple reference, we are introduced to the
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battle which rages throughout the book. He puts it
that way, quietly and subtly, the totalitarian regime
lighting up the prison camp all night long because
they do not trust the prisoners. What they are doing
is blotting out God’s starlit sky. There is a battle of
the lights: the prison lights of the Communist regime
and the stars of God’s sky. The prison lights, in the
book, were winning: “It was as dark as before.”
Throughout the book, there are references to the
sky, the stars, the sun, very simple realities. They are
marched off to the work site in the morning as a dim
red sun rises over the deserted compound. You can
barely see the sun. Why? Because it is red. I don’t
think I need to explain that one to you. The color,
at that moment, radiates. The people who read this
understood these references. They knew what these
symbols represented.
“It’s sure to be twelve,” Shukhov announced. “The sun’s
over the top already.”
“If it is,” the captain retorted, “it’s one o’clock, not
twelve.”
“How do you make that out?” Shukhov asked in surprise.
“The old folks say the sun is highest at dinner time.”
“Maybe it was in their day!” the captain snapped back.
“Since then it’s been decreed that the sun is highest at one
o’clock.”
“Who decreed that?”
“The Soviet government!”
The captain took off with the handbarrow, but Shukhov
wasn’t going to argue anyway. As if the sun would obey
their decrees!

This pattern can be followed throughout the
whole book. I am giving but a few examples.
Anytime anyone in this novel looks upward, you the

13

Gulag prisoners at work under stalin
reader are finding out something more than what
the novel says directly. Even as this was published,
it was a book written in code, but it’s the simplest
code: the stars in the sky, the sun, time. These things
are the works of God—not the work of the Soviet
government.
This next passage appears after night has come
again, near the end, right before we go to bed. It is
good peasant wisdom—good humor, connected with
nature–as opposed to Soviet orders. The moon is so
bright the wolves are out “sunbathing”:
“The wolves are out sunbathing–come and try it! Give
us a light, old man!”
He lit up just inside the door and went out on the
porch. “Wolf’s sunshine” was what they jokingly called the
moonlight where Shukhov came from.
The moon had risen very high. As far again and it would
be at its highest. Sky white with a greenish tinge, stars bright
but far between. Snow sparkling white, barracks walls also
white. Camp lights might as well not be there.

By the end of the day, when night has come
again, because it has been a good day–and I’ll define
what that means later–God’s moonlight is beaming
down on that camp, turning everything white,
making it impossible to see the prison lights. They
are blotted out by God’s created glory.
These are the parameters of the day. The prison
lights that rule and reign at the beginning are finally
overcome by the bright, full moonlight at the end
of the book. And even with that moonlight, you
can see the stars again. God’s creation is there
and visible. The readers picked up on these subtle
touches.

The whole reason these people are in the prison
camps is because they have defied that perfect,
Utopian, workers’ paradise, the Soviet Union,
where “the great experiment” was first tried, and,
according to the government, had triumphed. The
book is thus loaded with Communist theory. Let
me give one example of how Solzhenitsyn treats
Communist theory in the novel. If we had grown
up there, as he did, we would have had this stuff
beaten into our heads, the way the old nuns used to
catechize the children.
What were those lies? “From each according
to his ability; to each according to his needs.”
So I work, but because I live in a “fair and just”
economic system, I get what I need, unless there
are others around who unfortunately cannot work,
and, thus, need some of it more than I do. What we
end up with, in theory, is perfect equality. Which,
of course, is a lie, which everyone knew. But you
couldn’t say it was a lie—unless you could sneak it in.
Here is how Solzhenitsyn did it:
“A good rate for the job” meant good rations for five days.
Well, four days more likely: the bosses would appropriate
one day’s rations and hand out the standard minimum for
every gang in the camp, good or bad. Fair shares all around,
they called it–fair to everybody, but they were saving at the
expense of the zek’s belly. [The zek was the poor slob of
the camp.] True enough, a zek’s stomach can put up with
anything: if today’s no good, we’ll stuff ourselves tomorrow.
That was the dream the whole camp went to bed with on
minimum ration days.

Just think, though—it was five days’ work and
four days’ eats.
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14
That is an open attack on Communist theory
and the way the Soviet system was run. We read
it as if there’s nothing to it. But it is something far
more. What it makes clear is that there may be
theory in Moscow, but here is reality in the camps,
where people were being cheated. At every turn, that
cheating was going on, proving that there is no such
thing as scientific economic theory.
Whatever happens in terms of material goods in
the world—even if you think it is the most important
element in human life—the truth is that human
beings do not operate according to theory. Men are
occasionally selfish and unfair! This is no surprise to
anyone who knows of original sin and the fallen state
of man. As the book goes along, there are places
where the situation begins to explode. Near the end,
a parcel arrives—the arrival of parcels being one of
the few sources of excitement in the camps:
Some people take the view that a man with a parcel is
always a tightwad, you have to gouge what you can out of
him. But when you think of it–it’s easy come, easy go. Even
those lucky people are sometimes glad to earn an extra bowl
of gruel between parcels. Or scrounge a butt. A bit for the
warder, a bit for the team foreman, and you can’t leave out
the trustee in the parcel room. If you do, he’ll mislay your
parcel next time around and it’ll be there a week before
it gets on the list. Then there’s the clerk in the storeroom,
where all the groceries have to be handed in–Tsezar will be
taking a bagful there before work parade next morning to
be kept safe from thieves, and hut searches, and because the
commandant has so ordered–if you don’t make the clerk a
handsome gift, he’ll pinch a bit here and a bit there... He
sits there all day behind a locked door with other men’s
groceries, the rat, and there’s no way of checking up on him.
Then there’s payment for services rendered (by Shukhov to
Tsezar, for instance). Then there’ll be a little something for
the bathhouse man, so he’ll pick you out a decent set of clean
underwear. Then there’s the barber, who shaves you “with
paper”–wiping the razor on a scrap of paper, not your bare
knee–it may not amount to much, but you have to give him
three or four cigarettes. Then there’ll be somebody in the
CES–to make sure your letters are put aside separately and
not lost. Then supposing you want to wangle a day off and
rest up in the compound–you need to fix the doctor. You’re
bound to give something to your neighbor who eats from
the same night stand, like the captain does with Tsezar. And
counts every bite you take. The most shameless zek can’t
hold out against that.
So those who always think the other man’s radish is
plumper than their own might feel envy, but Shukhov knew
what was what and didn’t let his belly rumble for other
people’s goodies.

So, you see, the system ran entirely on bribery.
As presented in the novel, not to share your parcels
with virtually everyone else in the camp was to
create a living hell. It was symptomatic of the whole
country. The people reading this must have roared
with laughter, recognizing their own experiences.
Solzhenitsyn is attacking the entire Soviet economic
system through one little parcel.
The Russians who read this realized that all of
Russia, in a way, was a camp. The whole country was
THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

under the prison lights. The whole country ran on
bribery, theft, inequality, and corruption. And if that
was the case, then the whole country should collapse.
And, eventually, it would—but it held on for so long
for a simple reason. There are larger issues here than
mere Soviet history; there are questions of human
nature:
So those who always think the other man’s radish is
plumper than their own might feel envy, but Shukhov knew
what was what and didn’t let his belly rumble for other
people’s goodies.

Our hero—not an extraordinary man—is not filled
with envy. In the midst of such corruption, in a world
where there is never enough to eat, in a world where
you are dependent on the kindness of those around
you, he feels no envy and desires nothing from
them. He does not covet his neighbor’s parcel. It is a
small thing; yet it is an enormous thing. It is a basic
decency that cannot be crushed out of some men.
In the midst of the horror and darkness, the torment
and suffering, we get tiny glimpses of human decency
and dignity. Not simply man at his worst—but man at
his best, like the stars shining in the dark sky. In this
way, we begin to get a sense of who this man is and
how he functions. He may never, in the course of
the novel, stand up and commit a heroic action, but
Solzhenitsyn is making the point that, to live in these
conditions, to go through what he goes through, to
suffer what he has suffered, and to have a belly as
empty as his belly—and not envy—is a heroism of a
kind that most of us may not be able to understand.
And maybe this small triumph of the good can have
enormous consequences.
This basic decency and dignity of man is
everywhere in the novel. Simply put, it is what the
Soviets could not stamp out, try as they might. They
couldn’t finally destroy that which was good and
the little flashes of nobility which still existed. As
Solzhenitsyn said in The Gulag:
Do you love life? Good. Then love it in the camps.
Because that is life too. Whatever is going on in the world at
large, you will find reflected here in miniature. We may be
behind barbed wire and walls, we may be freezing to death
and starving, but this is life. In this life you will find the full
array of everything you find in humanity.

Whatever the system, the nature of man does
not change. The mystery is not the economic or
political theory or the totalitarian government; the
mystery is the mystery of man. And you can discover
the extreme range of that mystery just as much in
an average slave labor camp as you can anywhere
else in the world. And this is what Solzhenitsyn
examined.
Talk originally given at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary. Audio tapes are available at www.stasaudio.org. To be continued in a future issue of The Angelus.

15

Pope Pius XII
and the Attitude of PART 4
the Catholic Church
During World War II
This is the last part of the interview with Fr. Peter Gumpel, S.J.,
the relator of the cause of Pope Pius XII.

I’d like you to comment on one of the things that
is often cited as an authority in the United States,
Hitler’s Pope by John Cornwell. I’d like you to say a
few words about your knowledge of the research done
here, and then any background information you may
have on this.

Well, I can do so, even though I am not very
enthusiastic about publicly making any facts
regarding this gentleman which are not certain. The
thing is this: I read one of his books, called A Thief
in the Night. It takes issue with another book, written
by David Yallop, who accused the Vatican of having
murdered–poisoned to be exact–Pope John Paul I.
Now this is a fable. I know why this happened: this
Pope died completely unexpectedly at seven o’clock
in the morning. I was called over to the Vatican,

where I found people in a chaotic panic. And the
fact was that the tips of his fingers had begun to turn
black, which was why people thought it was poison.
It’s not–there is a medical explanation which would
take too long to explain.
So if you read the book, you will see that
Cornwell refuted Yallop. But there are also many
sniping remarks in regard to Vatican officials.
Now, I knew this. At a certain moment, in 1998,
I got a telephone call from the chief of office of
the Secretary of State–the head of the British
department there–“Would you be willing to receive
a certain Mr. John Cornwell, who has written a book
in defense of the Holy See, an excellent man, a
practicing Catholic, etc.?” I couldn’t say no.
With regard to recommendations, I
am circumspect by nature. I never give
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16
recommendations unless I am absolutely certain of
what I’m doing. But especially with regard to certain
clerics, who, out of the goodness of their heart,
want to help a person in need, recommend them
for certain posts, without being certain that they are
capable of filling that post. So I am very cautious
with recommendations that come to me from
these kinds of circumstances. Now with regard to
Cornwell, I wanted to know more about him before
receiving him. I have several scientific collaborators
in Britain, as in other countries. I called two of
them, both trained historians, and said, “I have been
requested to receive a certain Mr. John Cornwell.
Now, I expect from you to be informed within the
next 24 hours regarding what kind of academic
degree the man has. Has he a doctorate in history?
In theology? Law? Something else? Secondly, what
is the general opinion–if any–about this person?”
Within 24 hours, I had two independent
judgments. (Neither one knew about the other.)
The judgment was similar: they both said he had
no degree in any of those disciplines. He was not
a university professor. He was a senior fellow
at Cambridge University, giving the occasional
seminar on the relationship between natural science
and philosophy. But in history–absolutely nothing.
Both of them added, independently: “Be careful,
because he is known to be a man who mixes facts
and fiction.” Now, for an historian, that is a warning.
I received the man politely, as I do to everybody
whom I receive, and I did something which I
assure you was done without malice. I said, “You
want to study these things? I can give you a series
of documents if you are interested.” I gave him an
office and gave him the series which I’ve mentioned,
of 12 volumes. I gave him a series of German
documents: Dieter Albrecht, Der Notenwechsel
zwischen dem Heiligen Stuhl und der Deutschen
Reichsregierung [The exchange of diplomatic notes
between the Holy See and the German government].
There were volumes.
I also gave him, on the formal request of the
Secretary of State, the hundred testimonies we had
collected for the cause of Pius XII. He returned in
an incredibly short time--I thought he would be
sitting there for hours and hours! I said, “You can
come back in the afternoon if you wish.” “No, I
have finished.” Later on, I found out he didn’t know
these languages. If I had done this on purpose, it
would have been malicious and absolutely incorrect.
But I frankly didn’t know this. I thought the man
was giving a seminar. So I did it in good faith, not
maliciously.
But then he left. In 1999, I read in the
Sunday Times (published in Great Britain)–and
nearly simultaneously in Vanity Fair because my
correspondents send me all these things–page-long
articles signed by John Cornwell, in which he claims
THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

he had worked in the archives of the Secretary of
State for months on end. And among other things,
he said he was the first ever to be allowed to work
there. And thirdly, he said he had found documents
that were kept in all secrecy lying there, as a time
bomb. When I read that, as a pre-announcement of
the book, I immediately called the director of the
archive of the Secretary of State, a friend of mine.
He said, “I will send you the photocopies of the
book in which everybody who enters there signs.”
And he did: he sent me photocopies right away by
messenger. So, from these results it was evident that
he wasn’t there for months on end. He was there for
approximately three weeks. He didn’t go there every
day–of course not on Sunday–and sometimes for
a very short period of time; other days, for several
hours.
Incidentally, at that time, the archives were only
open up to 1922. Therefore, it only included the
Pontificate of Benedict XV, not Pius XII. Therefore
he could at most cover the period of Pacelli only
when he was a young prelate working as a Secretary
of State and for his first five years as Apostolic
Nuncio in Germany, but not the more important
parts of it. Secondly, was John Cornwell the first
and only one to be admitted? No, absolutely not. I
had been there myself, so this was not an issue. The
director of the archive said, “This is ridiculous.”
Third, the so-called “time bomb,” the document
studiously “hidden,” lying there as a time-bomb, is a
document which, in its entirety, had been published
eight years before he ever went there, in the book
of Dr. Fattorini, a female professor of history in a
Roman University. It was published in its entirety.

What document is that?

It is a document in which Pacelli describes what
happened during the uprising of the Communists
in Germany at the end of the First World War.
But Cornwell has seen fit, in this relatively short
document, due to his lack of knowledge of
languages, to introduce no less than four very
serious mistranslations. The document was in
Italian. Of course, if you don’t know the language
properly, you ought not quote it, or else get some
competent people to translate it for you. But to have
four very grave mistranslations in a relatively short
document! It’s rather serious. As I said, the whole
thing had been published, and it is by no means
compromising–unless and until you change the text.
I will charitably attribute it to his lack of knowledge
of languages. There could be–I don’t say is–a less
charitable interpretation.

17

This is the last question that I have, which is a very
emotional question for Jews worldwide. Certainly
during the war years, there were a lot of Catholic
families that took Jewish children in. Sometimes what
they would do, I know that there were attempts to get
baptismal papers for many of these children…
Yes, I know that story, because I was directly
involved in it.

I’d like your comments on that.

Well, the whole thing really started–the upheaval
started I can tell you–by an article published, I think
it was exactly December 28th, 2004. An article
published by the leading Italian newspaper Corriere
della Sera, an article written by Professor Alberto
Melloni, who is professor at La Sapienza University,
the one which recently came into publicity on
account of the Pope’s visit. The whole university
is very left. This is obvious. Before he published
this kind of thing, or he claimed to publish, the
document sent by the Vatican to the Apostolic
Nuncio in Paris. At that time the Apostolic Nuncio
was Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII.
I read this article in the Corriere della Sera and
immediately thought there was something very fishy.
First, it is surprising that an Italian Secretary of State
wrote to an Italian nuncio in French. This might
have been something that happened during the war,
as putting things into code was then common, but
these were supposedly written much later, in 1947.
There was absolutely no reason to put anything in
code.
Secondly, there is no signature on the document.
And thirdly, it seems to be very incomplete. So I
decided to investigate this.
Now, this man did something that no trained
historian should ever do: he did not precisely
indicate his source. He merely cited “French
ecclesiastical archives.” Well, what French
ecclesiastical archives? There are dozens. This was a
very serious handicap.

Fortunately, the next day, the French newspaper
Le Monde published a furious article by a lady who
wanted to be kept anonymous but who said, “I see
Professor Melloni has published the documents
which I found in the archives.” And she indicated
the exact archive. She indicated that in this
document a whole page was missing. Further, she
had no idea how this professor came to have it since
she had given it to a French scholar who intended to
investigate the matter further.
It was a useful thing for me, that within 24
hours, without my doing, I was able to find out
where exactly this document had come from. I
was able to locate a telephone number, but when I
called, I encountered my second setback: those who
staffed the archive were on holiday and thus I had to
wait!
In the meantime, I left a message for the
Director to call me immediately. On January 7th,
he did. He told me that he was not sure how even
this lady obtained the document since the archives
were closed. He said it must somehow have been
stolen! Not necessarily by that lady, of course, but
by someone. I told him that was all his business, but,
under the circumstances, I inquired if I could have a
copy. He replied, “Well, Father, it is a closed period.
We have orders even from the French bishops not to
hand out anything to anyone.” So I replied, “Well,
you know, I am investigating for the Vatican and
am a somewhat high-ranking personality so I have a
right to see this.” He was hesitant and finally said he
would make inquiries.
Finally he was convinced to release the
document so that I could study it. We formed
a team: Professor Napolitano, a professor of
diplomatic history; Dr. Tornielli, a journalist with a
solid scientific background; and myself. These two
people published a book exposing the whole thing.
If you can see the alleged document coming
from the Holy See, and you can compare it to
the real document found in the archives, and
you can compare it to the Italian version in the
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18
Vatican archives, you see that the whole thing is a
mystification.
Substantially, the orders given by Rome and
sent to Roncalli, the Apostolic Nuncio in France,
amount to this: Many Jewish children, even infants,
have been entrusted to Catholic institutions. If the
parents or close relatives reclaim them and can
prove that they are the close relatives, the children
have to be returned immediately, especially if
they have not been baptized. If they have been
baptized, of course, there is a problem. According to
Catholic doctrine, a person who has been baptized
in the Catholic Church becomes a member of the
Catholic Church and has a right to be educated in
the Catholic Faith. However, it is also a fair question
to ask whether these children were legitimately
baptized. The French bishops had given orders to
all the convents, etc., not to baptize any child unless
the parents had formally requested it or given
permission. Unfortunately, some less educated and
overenthusiastic Sisters went against this order and
baptized some children.
So what should be done with them? So the
question became whether this illegitimate baptism
was sufficient reason not to return these children
to their relatives. But the real question was much
deeper: what will happen to these children if
nobody claims them? This was the intervention of
the Chief Rabbi, Isaac Herzog. He visited the Pope
and asked that all these children be returned to
Israeli institutions. The Pope said he would study the
matter and that he would do what he could, but the
issue needed careful reflection.
The reason it needed careful reflection was the
following: Take, for example, a newborn baby. Let
us say it has been entrusted to a Roman Catholic
family. He begins to grow up and believes the two
adults taking care of him are his parents. The other
children in the family he considers his brothers and
sisters. Once a child reaches the age of four or five,
can you tell him, “No, these are not your parents.
You are going to be taken to an orphanage.” That
was the proposal.
After the terrible losses they had suffered in the
Holocaust, the Jewish community understandably
wanted as many Jews as possible to go to Israel
to increase the population, etc. This is all very
understandable. It is the right attitude. On the other
hand, you must understand that, from a simply
human point of view, there is this question: Can you
do this to children? Will you not traumatize them?
To take them out of a safe environment which they
consider natural, tell them they do not belong, and
put them into an institution. Therefore the solution
was not to force the issue; each case was to be
determined on its own merits. Let these children
continue to live with their families—those without
THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

relatives who were on the verge of being sent to
institutions—

These are the children who were not claimed?

Right. So it was decided to let them be until they
were a certain age, perhaps 10 or 12 years old. Then,
explain the situation to them very honestly without
exercising any pressure and explain the advantages
and disadvantages. Even a rabbi was called in to
speak to them so they could hear the other side.
And then, in those cases, let them decide.

Coincidentally, I happen to know two men, one of
whom is in Rome, who found out they were a Jewish
baby and who converted back to Judaism. The other is
the Chief Rabbi of Serbia in Belgrade. He was raised in
the Orthodox faith only to find out he was Jewish, so
he became an Orthodox Jew.

Yes, there is a great variety in these possibilities.
If one of these children, however, after having lived
in a Catholic family and being treated well, heard
about his roots being so different, and after studying
more about Judaism and having the opportunity
to speak with a rabbi or other Jewish authorities,
decides to return to Judaism, well, he is old enough
to make these kinds of decisions now. He is not a
little child who will be traumatized. This was the
proposal.
In practically all circumstances, however, the
children were returned at least to their parents. The
famous French Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, when
this book was published and caused such a storm,
said in his experience there were hardly any Jewish
children who had not been returned to Jewish
environments. And he, a Jew, is not particularly
favorably disposed to the Roman Catholic Church.
There was one case, that of the French Finaly
brothers, whose foster parents did not want to give
them up after developing such an attachment to
them. The matter was taken to court; the parents
were condemned by the French court, and they
were ordered to return them to relatives. And they
refused. Then these children were taken to Spain.
By order of the French bishops, they were returned,
and it caused much sorrow to the Brun family. But
obviously the relatives had the first right.
This was really something that could have been
avoided if Melloni had taken care to investigate the
matter properly. And not to rush to print based on
a document of very dubious origin, mutilated, not
written in the proper language, without a signature,
etc. The assumption is that a less capable person who
received the Vatican document made a summary of
it in French, etc.

This is an edited transcript of a video interview of Fr. Gumpel with Pave the
Way Foundation, which owns the copyright to this material.

Traditional
Religious
Orders
19

Capuchin
Poor Clares
Morgon, France

A

t the very beginning of his conversion, while St. Francis was repairing the walls of San
Damiano, God revealed to him that “Sisters will live there a life of such holiness that they will
shine like a light in the whole Church.” Six years later the prophecy’s fulfillment began:

Clare was eighteen years of age when St. Francis came to preach the Lenten course in the church of San
Giorgio at Assisi. The inspired words of the Poverello kindled a flame in the heart of Clare; she sought him
out secretly and begged him to help her that she too might live “after the manner of the holy Gospel.” St.
Francis, who at once recognized in Clare one of those chosen souls destined by God for great things and who
also, doubtless, foresaw that many would follow her example, promised to assist her. On Palm Sunday Clare,
arrayed in all her finery, attended high Mass at the cathedral.…That was the last time the world beheld Clare.
On the night of the same day she secretly left her father’s house, by St. Francis’s advice, and accompanied by
her aunt Bianca and another companion, proceeded to the chapel of the Portiuncula, where St. Francis and
his disciples met her with lights in their hands. Clare then laid aside her rich dress, and St. Francis, having cut
off her hair, clothed her in a rough tunic and a thick veil, and in this way the young heroine vowed herself to
the service of Jesus Christ. This was March 20, 1212.1
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20

The new followers of St. Francis’s radical
observance of holy poverty and the Gospel
were first placed with Benedictine nuns
for a short while. St. Clare’s younger sister
Catherine—Sister Agnes in religion–came
to join Clare and her companions a short
while later. (Eventually her mother and
younger sister Beatrix would also join the
Poor Ladies). They remained for a time at
a Benedictine monastery at Sant’ Angelo,
where other fugitives from the world joined
them. Soon they were provided a rude
dwelling adjoining the poor chapel of San
Damiano, which St. Francis obtained from
the Benedictines as a permanent dwelling for
his spiritual daughters. “Thus was founded
the first community of the Order of Poor
Ladies, or of Poor Clares, as this Second
Order of St. Francis came to be known.”
In 1215, Clare was made superior at San
Damiano, and was abbess until her death
nearly forty years later, in 1253. She was a
model of all virtues, “a living copy of the
poverty, humility, and mortification of St.
Francis.” She learned by heart the Office
of the Passion composed by St. France.
She lived a life “hidden with Christ in
God.” According to the historians, there is
no reason to believe that she ever left the
convent of San Damiano, yet her renown
as “the chief rival of Blessed Francis in the
observance of Gospel perfection” was so
great that she was solemnly canonized just
two years after her death by Alexander IV,
on September 26, 1255. Construction on the
church of Santa Chiara was begun shortly
afterward.

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The Two Observances
The Ladies of San Damiano at first had a rule of life that
was essentially the practice of the counsels of the Gospel.
During her lifetime, St. Clare was for the Ladies of the San
Damiano convent a living rule, their life patterned on the
Franciscans’ life and rule, with its high ideal of absolute
poverty. But other communities were soon formed in imitation
of the convent of Poor Ladies at San Damiano, and the need
for a rule was felt. Estates were being donated to these women,
but the administration of the property presented difficulties.
The Pope decided that Cardinal Ugolino, who was the
cardinal-protector of the religious, should accept the estates in
the name of the Church. So it was in response to this situation
that a second rule, the Rule of Ugolino, the future Pope
Gregory IX, was written. This Rule did not raise the question
of the ownership of property by the various monasteries, a
point about which St. Francis and Cardinal Ugolino did not
agree. Many convents were formed under this rule.
The Rule of Ugolino was subsequently modified by
Innocent IV in 1247 and finally by Urban IV in 1263. The

21
St. Clare’s Rule was directed to the Sisters of San Damiano
alone, so at the closing of the first period of the Second Order’s
history, there were two observances, the primitive observance
and the Urbanist observance.

Colettines and Capuchin Poor Clares
The order suffered very much during the Great Schism
of the West (1378-1417), which was responsible for the general
decline of discipline. But God raised up a reformer, St. Colette of
Corbie (1381-1447) in Picardy, France. Her great life’s work was
the reform of the Poor Clares. In 1406, Benedict XIII appointed
her reformer of the whole order and gave her the office of
Abbess General over all convents she should establish or reform.
She founded 17 new monasteries to which, in addition to the
Rule of St. Clare, she gave constitutions and regulations of her
own, which were confirmed by Pius II. This is the origin of the
Colettine Poor Clares.
In the 16th century, at Naples, Italy, Blessed Maria Longo,
a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, had built a convent
and founded a community of Third Order Franciscan Sisters.
When their direction was given over to the Capuchins, the friars
advised the Sisters to adopt the primitive rule of St. Clare, which
they did in 1538. They received constitutions based on those of
the Capuchin friars and were placed under the jurisdiction of the
Capuchin vicar-general: the Capuchin Poor Clares were born.

most important one of the changes
made by Innocent IV “to secure unity
of observance and peace of conscience”
was to grant express permission to every
convent to hold possessions. Then “on
18 October of [1263] the sovereign
pontiff issued the rule which is in the
most general observance among the Poor
Clares and which has been given the
name ‘Urbanist’ to a large division of the
order.”
Meanwhile, St. Clare had written
her own rule for the Poor Ladies of San
Damiano and had secured its confirmation
by Pope Innocent IV. She had valiantly
defended their essential Franciscan
characteristic—devotion to holy poverty.
When Cardinal Ugolino became Gregory
IX, he offered possessions to the convent
of San Damiano. Clare refused them and
petitioned the Holy See to be able to
continue in holy poverty. On September
17, 1228 (two years after St. Francis’
death) Clare received “the privilege of
most high poverty.” A few days before her
death, Clare placed the convent under a
rule embodying the spirit of St. Francis
more perfectly than did Ugolino’s Rule.
Pope Innocent IV hurried the rule’s
approbation, confirming it just two days
before St. Clare’s death.

The Poor Clare
Capuchins of Morgon
In 1990, five aspirants to the Poor Clare vocation presented
themselvs to Rev. Fr. Antoine de Fleurance, Capuchin at
Morgon, France.2 For their formation in the religious life he sent
them to a convent of traditional nuns for two years.
The time having passed, they returned to Morgon, where the
Capuchin Fathers lodged them temporarily at the Portiuncula,
a small guest house which till then had served to accommodate
guests passing through. After a novena to Rev. Fr. Viktricius,3
in January 1993 a vine-grower’s house just ten minutes by foot
from the Capuchin Fathers’ convent was acquired. Thanks to the
Fathers’ devotion and their benefactors’ generosity, the house
was transformed into a monastery; and on August 31, 1993, the
Poor Clares of Morgon left the Portiuncula to settle there.
The solemn benediction of the monastery and the cloister
took place in 1995.

St. Clare’s Spirituality
The Litanies of St. Clare afford a glimpse at the spiritual life
of that great pursuer of evangelical perfection:
“St. Clare, Disciple of Christ”: This was shown by her great
love of poverty, her complete abandonment to God’s care; by
her love for Jesus Crucified—she taught her Sisters to always
remember the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross; and by her love for
the Eucharist—at a time when frequent reception of the Blessed
Sacrament was rare, “She loved to receive often the Holy
Sacrament of the body of our Lord with such great wonder that
she trembled all over” (Process of Canonization).

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22

“St. Clare, image of Jesus Christ’s mother”: This
she was by her hidden, silent life and by her humility
and kindness. “When Mother Clare ordered the Sisters
to do anything, she commanded with such fear and
humility that it amazed us.” She was the image of her
whose Magnificat is the most perfect expression of
gratitude by her gratefulness to our Lord and to St.
Francis and to her Creator. Her last words were “Be
praised, my Lord, for having created me!”
“St. Clare, little plant of St. Francis”: St. Clare
received in plenitude St. Francis’s seraphic spirit
according to Father Exupery. Her life was a life of
amazing, joyful penance. St. Clare was always full of
joy because she knew she possessed Jesus, the source of
all joy and life. “She was never seen disturbed; her life
was totally angelic” (Process of Canonization).

The Life of a Poor Clare
The life of a Poor Clare is based on the Gospel
with the observance of obedience, total poverty,
chastity, and enclosure. It is a life of simplicity of heart,
humility, and poverty. Poor Clares do not leave the
THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

monastery; they are subject to the rule of enclosure.
They lead a contemplative life of silence and prayer,
spending two hours in adoration before the Blessed
Sacrament exposed every day. They recite the whole
Divine Office in Latin, arising at midnight for Matins.
It is a life of penance, fraternal love, and joy. The
nuns sleep on straw mattresses and go barefooted
(except in winter). They observe perpetual fast and
abstinence all year long, except on Sundays and
holydays of obligation. They work with their hands,
and depend upon the alms and charity of the faithful.

In the Footsteps of St. Clare
The minimum age for becoming a postulant is 18.
There is a pre-postulancy, postulancy, and novitiate
of one year. After temporary vows, solemn profession
is made. Aspirants to the contemplative life following
the Rule of St. Clare should have good physical and
psychological balance, a good temper, valor, docility,
and simplicity. The Capuchin Fathers of Morgon
provide spiritual direction for the convent.
The Order of St. Francis is one of the most ancient
and honorable in the Catholic Church. The Seraphic

23

daily Schedule
4:35 AM Rise
5:00 AM Lauds

			Oraison (Mental Prayer)
			Prime, Terce, Mass
8:00 AM		Frustulum
8:30 AM		Spiritual Reading
8:50 AM		Obedience (assigned duties)
10:55 AM		Sext and None
11:35 AM		Dinner
12:55 PM		Recreation
1:25 PM		Tasks
2:00 PM		Vespers and Rosary
2:40 PM		Obedience
5:30 PM		Compline and Oraison
6:55 PM		Collation
7:20 PM 		Pardon
8:15 PM		Retire
midnight		Matins

Order is said to count more saints than any other
order (over 400 saints and blessed). Some of the
most famous Poor Clares are St. Agnes of Assisi (St.
Clare’s sister), Blessed Isabella of France (sister of St.
Louis IX, king of France), St. Agnes of Prague (13th
century), St. Catherine of Bologna (15th century), St.
Colette of Corbie (15th century), Blessed Mother Mary
Lawrence Longo (16th century), St. Veronica Giuliani
(18th century), and Venerable Sister Mary Celine (19th
century).
In the 20th century, several Capuchins have been
the glory of the Order: St. Leopold of Castelnovo,
“hero of the confessional” (1866-1942); St. Pio of
Pietrelcina, the first priest to bear the stigmata (18871968), whose motto was “Sanctify yourselves and
sanctify others”; and Venerable Sister Mary-Consolata
Betrone (1903-1946), whose mission was to spread
“the little way of love” taught by our Lord Himself, by
the practise of the unceasing, smiling, and confident
prayer “Jesus, Mary, I love you; save souls.”
Interested persons may come for a stay at the
guest house, but reservations must be made far in
advance. There are also some hotels in the village of
Morgon, which is about 30 miles from Lyons, France.

Generous souls, listen to St. Clare, who tells you:
“Our labor here below lasts but a while, while the
reward is eternal….Don’t let yourself be taken in by
the false appearances of a deceitful world” (Letter to
Ermentrude).
For information:
St. Clare Monastery
Morgon
69910 Villie-Morgon
France

1

The historical background on the Poor Clares is taken from The Catholic
Encyclopedia as made available online by New Advent, s.v. “St. Clare” and
“Poor Clares.”
2
See The Angelus, September 2005.
3
The Reverend Father Viktrizius Weiss, Capuchin, born at Eggenfelden on
December 18, 1842, and died in the odor of sanctity on October 8, 1924.
He was the Father Provincial of the Capuchin Province of Bavaria.

www.angeluspress.org    THE ANGELUS • August 2009

24
F r .

A n d r e a s

M ä h l m a n n

The

Consecration
of Russia
Why Is the Consecration of Russia
to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
the Key to the Solution of the
Current Crisis in the Church?

THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

25

Why pray for a consecration of Russia? Where did this
idea originate?

Bishop Bernard Fellay sees the attainment of the
consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of
Mary as the key to overcome the crisis in the Church.
This needs to be explained. He draws this conclusion
from the apparition of Mary at Fatima in the year
1917, officially recognized by the Church. On the 13th
of July Mary told the seer Lucy:
God is going to punish the world with war, famine, and
persecution of the Church, even the Holy Father himself.
To avoid this, I come to ask for the consecration of Russia to
my Immaculate Heart....In the end, my Immaculate Heart
shall triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia,
which will be converted and a time of peace will be given
to the world.

Why is it necessary to consecrate Russia specifically?

Because it is the Will of God! Sister Lucy
explained:

Russia will be the instrument of punishment for the world
if we do not succeed in converting this poor nation....Our
Blessed Mother warns us that if the consecration of Russia
to the Will of God is not achieved, then the errors of Russia
will spread over the entire world. Wars and persecutions
of the Church will be the consequences. The good will be
martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, many
nations will be destroyed.

As Sister Lucy revealed in her recently released
letters:
The Lord Himself let it be known that Russia will
not be converted until the consecration is fully
consummated....“While it is my Will that the entire
Church acknowledge this consecration as a triumph of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary..., that next to the devotion to
my Sacred Heart, the devotion to the Immaculate Heart
will find its place.”

In what particular way will the consecration proceed?

As promised, Mary appeared once more (on June
13, 1929) to Lucy [who had, in the meantime, taken
Orders in Tuy] to give her this message:
The moment has come when God bids the Holy Father
to unite all bishops of the world to consecrate Russia to my
Immaculate Heart. In this way, it shall be saved.

The words in this way are decisive because these
words point to the only way the conversion of Russia
can be achieved. Mary concluded:
If the consecration is not completely achieved Russia
will not convert, and the scourge of punishment for the
world will be released culminating in the destruction of
many nations.

Hasn’t the consecration of Russia already been
achieved?

Actually Pope John Paul II, after the attempt
on his life (May 13, 1981, the feast of Our Lady of
Fatima), did try twice to initiate this consecration.
He did this on May 13, 1982 and March 25, 1984.

From this it is clear that he did take the message
from Fatima in earnest. Unfortunately, he called for
the consecration of the entire world without naming
Russia specifically. The pope himself knew that this
was not sufficient because during the consecration
ceremony (March 25, 1984) he admitted, regarding
the Russian people, that “Our consecration is still to be
expected and hoped for” [see L’Ossevatore Romano, May
14, 1984]. He also knew that his handling of the
procedures was not what the Mother of God expected.
Moreover, Sister Lucy stated in an interview in
September 1985: “The bishops did not take part nor
was Russia mentioned.” Thus things stand till the
present moment.
High church circles tried to silence the warnings
of Lucy through counterfeit letters and a counterfeit
interview in which Lucy suddenly stated the complete
opposite of what she had been telling the popes
time and time again. Such a position taken by Lucy
especially after the appearance of the Blessed Mother
in 1929 in untenable. The failure of Russia to convert
shows clearly that the consecration has not been
achieved as Heaven expects.

Is not the end of the Cold War seen as a sign of the
beginning of the conversion of Russia?

Absolutely not. The fruit of this collapse of the
Iron Curtain merely achieved a powerful swing to
the Left in the governments of Europe, most of which
are in the hands of the Socialists. In Germany, we are
particularly involved, [though nominally Christian in
name] supporting time and time again pure socialist
politics. The position of the Catholic Church in Russia
has deteriorated drastically since the collapse of the
Soviet Union. In 1997 a law went into effect in Russia
that discriminated against the Catholic Church while
the Orthodox, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism have
been enhanced. In all of Russia today there are fewer
than 300,000 Catholics; fewer than in 1917 when Our
Blessed Mother appeared at Fatima and promised the
conversion of Russia.

Isn’t it a little too late for the consecration of Russia,
since the errors of Russia have already spread across
the world?

No. Our Lord Himself saw this coming, and in
August 1931 confided in Sister Lucy in Rianjos:

They [the popes] do not wish to achieve My wish (i.e.,
the conversion of Russia).... Like the king of France, they
will repent and will finally do it. It will be late. Russia will
have already spread her errors over the world.

It is also known that this consecration will finally
take place. There is no “too late.” In this connection
one must see the vision of the second visionary child
of Fatima–who has been beatified–Jacinta Marto, who
saw regarding the pope:
Do you not see the many streets, the by-ways and fields
full with people who cry from hunger, for they have nothing
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26
to eat, and the Holy Father in a church praying before the
Immaculate Heart of Mary? And so many people that pray
with him.

In this witness, the Mother of God allowed the
visionary to see in what tragic situation the pope
would finally make the consecration.

What significance does the “Conversion of Russia”
have for the fruit of the consecration promised us by
Heaven?

When Heaven speaks of conversion, it means
naturally the conversion to the one eternal Church
founded by Jesus Christ–the One, Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic Church. “Conversion of Russia” means
that Russia, after 1,000 years of schism, will become
Roman Catholic. St. Maximilian Kolbe had this vision
towards the end of his life: “One day you will see the
Statue of the Immaculate on the highest battlements
of the Kremlin.” The Immaculate referred to is, of
course, the Immaculate Conception of Mary. The
dogmatic status of the Immaculate Conception of
Mary does not exist in the Orthodox Church. Thus by
seeing this vision, the return of Russia to the Roman
Church was clearly indicated by St. Maximilian
Kolbe.

However, how is it that the consecration of Russia
is also the key to the healing of the world and the
Church?

Without a doubt the healing that is mentioned is
not only of Russia, but rather Russia with the entire
world. The word world is the center of the message on
July 13, 1917, and is used four times. In the world God
wills the beginning of the devotion to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary. If man does not obey, the world will
be punished for this crime. Russia will spread her
errors to the world. At the end, the world will be given
a time of peace. Thus the words “In the end, my
Immaculate Heart shall triumph” do not only concern
Russia, but have a universal meaning for the whole
world and also for the Church. The Church suffers
today more than ever under the ecumenical error
which no longer requires conversion from error and
return to the one Sheepfold of Christ, as those outside
of which feel no compulsion to acknowledge the holy
throne of Peter (Pope Pius IX). Roman authorities
agreed with the Orthodox authorities in the Balamand
Declaration ( June 23, 1993) that the Church is no
longer seeking the return of the Orthodox to the
Roman fold. Having made this false step, one could
extricate oneself through the consecration of Russia
because in so doing, one would assert once again
the conversion of the Orthodox as the ultimate goal.
The accomplishment of the consecration of Russia
by the pope and all the bishops of the Church would
be a significant turning from all errors, offering an
opportunity to examine and rescind faulty steps taken
at the Council. In that way the consecration of Russia
THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

would be a healing for the whole Church as well. St.
Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort went another step:
He saw at the end of time in his fiery prayer for a
worldwide conversion to the Catholic Church:
Mary must dispense more than ever before her mercy....
to the poor sinners and those in error, bringing them back
and receiving them lovingly, converting them back to the
Catholic Church. Give strength to fight against the enemies
of God: the idolaters, the schismatics, Mohammedans, Jews,
and the hardened godless.

He spoke of a flood of graces and of love which
would flow over the entire world. Then there would
be one sheepfold and one flock. When will this be?
The holy man gives indications of the time when this
will happen: after
a great crisis in the Church God’s laws will be set aside,
the Gospel abandoned, the stream of crime will flood the
earth and pull God’s servants with it, the entire earth will
be without consolation. Godlessness will be enthroned, the
sanctuary is defiled, and the horror enters the holy city.

This prophesy shows–in the deep crisis of belief–a
hopeful glimpse of the future with a Christian and
Marian age to come. It is the pope, however, who by
Heaven’s command, must lead us there–no one can
replace him.

Can we have hope that this will transpire?

From the mouth of Mary and Our Savior comes
the promise that the consecration will be achieved
someday in the correct way: “The pope will dedicate
Russia to my Immaculate Heart; however, it will be
ever so late....In the end, my Immaculate Heart shall
triumph” and the entire Church will acknowledge the
triumph of Mary. It will also be a triumph for the
Church.
[This prophecy] has come to pass already: We
are in the year 2009 and we see how late it is for this
consecration. The Church finds itself in “a process of
self-destruction” [Pope Paul VI] and almost the entire
world, particularly Europe, is contaminated with the
errors of Russia and finds itself in socialist hands.
In view of the financial crisis, a new, intensive drive
for a new world order is in the works, an order where
nothing good is said about Christians. Therefore all
the more reason for a world-wide “Gulf offensive”
of prayers. All Catholics that love their Church are
thereby called out for a united emergency prayer to
save the Church: the Holy Rosary. It is up to us to pray
that the promised consecration will happen as quickly
as possible and that the coming triumph of Mary will
be thus hastened. Encouraging are the words of Our
Savior to Sister Lucy:
Make it known....It will never be too late to have recourse
to Jesus and Mary.
Fr. Maehlmann is an SSPX priest in Germany (ordained in 2001). Since 2006
he has been involved in various campaigns of the German district of the SSPX,
providing information nationwide to Catholic priests about the celebration of
the Traditional Latin Mass, etc.

27

S c o t t
W i l l i a m
f.

Q u i n n
Q u i n n

The
Origins
and PART 2
Causes
of the
Spanish
Civil War,
(1936-39)

A Brief Summary of the Civil War
While Spaniards waited nervously for events to play out,
two pretty young women climbed into a Dragon Rapide in
England and were flown to what they thought was a summer
holiday on the west coast of Africa. In reality, they were
unwitting participants in one of the greatest plots in modern
history. As part of General Franco’s punishment for his role
in quashing the revolt of 1934, he was banished to the Canary
Islands, a remote archipelago off the African coast far from the
intrigue of Madrid, and far from his beloved and loyal troops
of the Army of Africa, which included the Foreign Legion
and Moroccans (the Moors). Franco’s high prestige among
these troops meant that a highly disciplined and effective
fighting force would be at the service of the Nationalists. The
only problem lay in getting Franco from the Canary Islands
to Spanish Morocco secretly. Any indication that Franco was
reuniting with the Army of Africa would have jeopardized
the success of the revolt and most likely cost Franco his life.
To use a military plane was obviously out of the question, and
so a private plane was chartered from London to the Canary
Islands, complete with young women whose presence would
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28
not have raised suspicion. The plan worked, thanks
to careful planning and a bit of good luck. Franco
arrived in Morocco to the cheers of his troops, who had
secured the town of Tetuan. General Franco and his
men were now ready to take back Spain.1
Within days of the revolt, the battle lines were
drawn in what was to be a protracted, bloody war.
The Nationalists held the northern-central and western
parts of Spain, while the Republic held Barcelona,
Madrid, and other key cities. From the beginning,
Madrid, the capital, was the goal of the Nationalists.
Franco, who was commanding troops from Morocco,
was to take Madrid from the south, while General
Mola, stationed in Pamplona, was to take Madrid
from the north. Franco’s creativeness as a general was
highlighted in the early moments of the war when he
led the first mass airlift of troops in world history to
southern Spain from Africa after the navy’s sailors took
the side of the Republic and murdered their officers.
Franco was making good time towards Madrid when
he received word that the ancient fortress in Toledo
known as the Alcazar, which was defended by roughly
1,000 Nationalist troops and supporters, was besieged
by Republican troops. He knew that any detour from
Madrid would very likely give the Republic enough
time to set up defenses and repel his attack. Still, he
could not leave his fellow soldiers to face certain
slaughter, and so the decision was made to head to
Toledo to save the heroic defenders of the Alcazar.
Meanwhile, Mola’s drive towards Madrid went much
slower than expected as the Basque country proved
more treacherous to traverse than had been anticipated.
The Nationalists’ attack on Madrid ultimately failed, as
did the prospect for a quick, decisive battle to end the
war.
The rest of 1936 and 1937 saw the armies engage
in a slow war of attrition. The Republicans claimed
several victories in 1936, but by early 1937, the
tide began to turn in favor of the more disciplined
Nationalist troops. First, the Basque country fell to
Franco’s forces, providing him with precious raw
materials. Next fell the rest of the north of Spain,
which gave the Nationalists control over the Atlantic.
Counterattacks by the Republicans failed, and
desertions and in-fighting further undermined the
Left’s chances. In April 1938 the Nationalists split the
remaining Republican territory in two. Despite furious
last-ditch counterattacks, the days of the Republic were
numbered. The cause for which the Nationalist troops
fought prevailed, and on April 1, 1939, General Franco
announced to an exhausted Spain that the war was
over.

The Catholic Holocaust: “It
would make your blood boil”
Once the war began, anyone identified as
a Catholic in a town controlled by the Left was
essentially handed a death sentence. All civil wars
are infused with a degree of savagery that repels the
outsider, and the Spanish Civil War is full of examples
of cruelty and sadistic murders, especially of priests and
religious. Ernest Hemingway, in For Whom the Bell Tolls,
describes a real massacre at the beginning of the war.2
The town in question, Ronda, in the south of Spain,
fell into Leftist hands. One of the main characters,
Pilar, recalls how a mob converged on a small group
of prisoners, men whose political and religious beliefs
had marked them for death. One by one, the men
are led out of their makeshift prison and marched
through a line of Leftists, who beat and taunted them
until they reached the end of the line, where they were
thrown over a cliff to their deaths. The mob saves its
most ferocious aggression for the priest, whose poise
at the hands of his attackers wins for him Pilar’s (and
Hemingway’s) admiration.3
With propaganda and the vilest fabricated charges
against the Spanish clergy receiving widespread
circulation, churches were torched or appropriated
for secular uses. No area was exempt from these
detestable attacks. Churches were burned to the ground
in Malaga, Cordoba, Murca, Cadiz, Palma del Rio,
Granada, Almeria, Badajoz, and Cartagena. Some of
these cities had several churches destroyed. In Yecla
alone, all 15 Catholic Churches were destroyed, leaving
the entire city without a Catholic place of worship.4
Priests and nuns suffered greatly, even to the point of
death (many nuns were both raped and murdered), and
it is these priests and religious women who are being
championed for sainthood by the Vatican today. A
Spanish woman reflected on her experience as a young
girl in Barcelona during the early stages of the Civil
War:
They [the mob] dug up the nuns’ corpses, too, and
displayed the skeletons and mummies....In the Passeig de
Sant Joan, they were exhibited in the street….We kids would
make comments about the different corpses—how this one
was well-preserved, and that one decomposed, this one older;
we got a lot of amusement out of it all…5

One Irish volunteer for the Nationalists wrote
home: “Well, mother, it is terrible to see the way the
Reds smashed up the chapels here, it would make
your blood boil.”6 Another Nationalist volunteer from
Ireland wrote,
2

Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, p.263.
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (Scribner’s, 1940), Ch.10. Some
on the Left never forgave Hemingway for his honest depiction of the Left’s
crimes.
4
Payne, The Collapse of the Spanish Republic, p.388, n.24; and Bolin, Spain:
The Vital Years, p.149.
5
Frasier, Blood of Spain, p.152.
6
Robert A. Stradling, The Irish and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (Manchester University Press, 1999), p. 71.
3

1

Bolin’s thrilling account of Franco’s return to Morocco is covered in the first
five chapters in his Spain: The Vital Years.

THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

29

Was Franco a “Fascist”?
It is a cliché among historians that history is written
by the winning side in a war. While that is often the case,
the opposite is true when it comes to the history of the
Spanish Civil War. Jacques Maritain, in his preface to Alfred
Mendizabal’s The Martyrdom of Spain, predicted that the
truth of the Leftist government’s complicity in the murders
of “more than three hundred thousand” would be revealed
once the history of the war was written.1 Instead, Franco
and the Nationalists were from the earliest stages of the
war cast as “Fascists” in league with Hitler. Liberal Catholics
published in 1936 a pamphlet on the war featuring
the opinions of Spanish and British Catholic politicians,
professors, and priests. The writers condemned Franco’s
rebellion against the “legitimately constituted government”
and claimed that “Spanish democracy is fighting Fascism.”2
Almost any book or article written since 1936 that
mentions Franco will identify him and his regime as “Fascist.”
What is the truth? Was Franco a fascist? Did he and
Hitler share the same ideology?
In any discussion about Franco simplistic, rigid labels are
impossible to pin on him. “Pragmatic” may be the best term
to describe the way Franco approached his professional life,
but even that is insufficient to describe his political views.
Franco’s pragmatism was subordinate to his Catholicism.
Hitler, for example, loathed the Church and counted her
among his most bitter enemies. He was annoyed that the
Communist threat had forced him to intervene on the side
of the Nationalists; otherwise, he was certain, the clergy
would have been exterminated, and a “curse” in Spain
lifted.3 In contrast, it was Franco who offered a public prayer
to God during a victory Mass in Madrid in May, 1939:
Lord God, in whose hands is right and all power, lend
me thy assistance to lead this people to the full glory of
empire, for thy glory and that of the Church. Lord: may all
men know Jesus, who is Christ son of the Living God.4

In terms of ideology, Hitler and Franco were
diametrically opposed. Franco never shared Hitler’s racialist
ideas and in fact played a key role in saving the lives of

thousands of Jewish refugees who were on the run from
Hitler.5 Even Hitler would not count Franco as a fellow
traveler, declaring, “One must be careful not to put the
Franco regime on the same level as National Socialism
or Fascism.”6 Franco understood that a sincere Catholic
could never promote such a perverse political, social, and
economic philosophy as Hitler’s National Socialism.
Instead, Franco bestowed on Spain a conservative state
linked closely with the Church:
[He] did not ask for a rigorously ideological state, but
only for a general theory of authoritarianism. His formula
was a conservative syndicalism, bounded by all sorts of
state economic controls, spiritually tied to Catholicism,
ready for any kind of practical compromise, and always
backed up by the Army.7

The writer Franz Borkenhau, a liberal Austrian who
published his eyewitness account of the civil war in 1937,
made a perceptive analysis of the budding Franco Regime.
After identifying the key features of the German and Italian
regimes that characterized them as fascist–a one-party
system, an ambitious leader who exalts himself over his
rivals, a totalitarian state that involves itself in the minute
details of public and private life, and an overemphasis
of modernization and efficiency–Borkenhau arrived at a
sensible conclusion. He declared that “Hardly any of these
features have their counterpart in the Franco regime.”8
He pointed out that Franco’s “party” actually consisted of
a fusion of the Falange, a small fascist party founded by
Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the late dictator’s son, and
the Carlists, who sought the restoration of the legitimate
monarchy. Neither party was Franco’s party, yet he created
a single party of the two opposing camps in order to unite
the various groups who were fighting against the enemies
of the Church. In terms of political ambition, Franco was
remarkably low key: He scorned overtures from senior
military conspirators to play a leading role in the revolt and
did not even commit to the revolt until less than a month
before it occurred.9 Finally, Borkenhau noted that a regime
that relied on support from the Church and the Army
could be anything but modern. He pointed out that “the
first thing genuine fascism would do would be to subdue
both army and Church to the Totalitarian party–as it had
done in Germany and Italy”10 and that “in order to become
genuinely fascist, the Franco regime would first have to
destroy itself.”11
By any reasonable definition of the term, Francisco
Franco, then, was not a fascist.12

5

1

Mendizabal, The Martyrdom of Spain, Preface by Jacques Maritain, p. 16,
n. 1. The liberal Catholic Maritain managed a couple of feeble criticisms
of the Leftist government for its actions vis-à-vis the Church, but the rest
of his essay represented a text-book example of an “on the other hand”
way of thinking. Whatever sins Maritain judged the Left to have committed
were offset by those of the Right. Maritain ultimately issued a verdict of
moral equivalency between the Catholic Nationalists and the anti-Catholic
Leftists.
2
A. Ramos Oliveira, Catholics and the Civil War in Spain: A Collection
of Statements by World-Famous Catholic Leaders on the Events in Spain
(Three Arrows Press, 1936), p.4, 7.
3
Payne, Franco and Hitler, p.171.
4
Quoted in Payne, Spanish Catholicism, p.179.

Payne, Franco and Hitler, pp. 271-272. Jane and Burt Boyar, in Hitler
Stopped by Franco: 40,000 Jews Saved by Franco (Marbella House, 2001),
is an excellent study of Franco’s admirable charity towards the Jews.
6
Ibid., p.172.
7
Stanley G. Payne, Falange: A History of Spanish Fascism (Stanford University Press, 1961), p.224.
8
Franz Borkenhau, The Spanish Cockpit: An Eyewitness Account of the
Spanish Civil War (Faber & Faber, 1937), p.278.
9
Payne, The Franco Regime, pp.92-3.
10
Borkenhau, The Spanish Cockpit, p.280.
11
Ibid., p.281.
12
Arnold Lunn has an interesting perspective on “The Use and Abuse of
Labels,” wherein he mockswww.angeluspress.org
the tendency of political
discussions
to focus
    THE ANGELUS 
• August
2009
on epithets (labels), not facts. See his Spanish Rehearsal, pp.99-105.

30
You should see the chapels here; their altars torn down
and burned and the graves dug up and the skulls of the
nuns all about the place. It’s awful. It would make your
blood boil.7

International Participation
The extent of international involvement in the
Spanish Civil War is difficult to discern in some
instances. This is due to a reluctance of both the
Nationalists and the Republicans to admit to the
presence of foreign fighters in their armies. Both sides
accused the other of recruiting and enlisting foreign
nationals who were “fighting against the people of
Spain.” In addition, two major foreign participants,
Germany for Franco and Russia for the Republic, had
major enemies throughout the world and both Spanish
sides sought to keep their alliances with these countries
as hushed as possible so as not to jeopardize foreign
aid.
Despite this fog of reporting, historians like Stanley
G. Payne and Judith Keene lay out a relatively clear
assessment of both the numbers and the influence of
these foreign fighters. Payne states that the number
of men in the International Brigades fighting for
the Republicans was 42,000,8 while Keene cites the
number of international volunteers fighting for Franco
as “a most likely understated 1248.”9 With these
numbers it is tempting to infer that the impact of
international volunteers was negligible in a war that
took the lives of some half a million people. In reality,
these troops served as valuable entities to both sides,
though not—as we shall see—in actual battle. Of major
significance, particularly to the Spanish government,
was the fact that the foreigners were volunteers—unlike
the Spanish conscripts whose commitment to the
Republican cause oftentimes was suspect or lacking
altogether. In Franco’s forces these volunteers, mainly
from Catholic countries, demonstrated international
Catholic support for the Nationalists, and this was a
very important weapon in the battle for the hearts and
minds of the Spanish people, as well as in keeping up
pressure on foreign governments to remain neutral lest
they lose the support of an important constituency.
For the Republicans, especially, the influx of
foreign fighters was a boost to morale. The Republican
forces, made up as they were of a hodgepodge of
militias, anarchists, conscripts, and Communists with
different commitment levels, could not match Franco’s
troops in discipline and military experience. The most
disciplined troops of Franco’s forces—the Moors and
the Foreign Legion—consistently struck terror in the
hearts of the Republicans, who were new to military
7

Ibid.
Stanley G. Payne, Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany and World War II
(Yale University Press, 2008), p.7.
9
Judith Keene, Fighting for Franco: International Volunteers During the
Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (Manchester University Press, 1999), p.8.
Keene does not provide another estimate.
8

THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

culture and combat. In the early phases of the war,
the Republicans broke ranks and fled whenever they
knew the Legion or the Moors were approaching.
Only by the force of officers’ guns could these troops
be prevailed upon to stay and fight. The addition of
more experienced foreign fighters in the form of the
International Brigades brought an immediate change
to the discipline and fighting spirit of the Left.10
Generally speaking, the Spanish reaction to the
foreigners’ involvement in the civil war was a wary
tepidity. It could probably be likened to a marital
spat with some neighbors stopping by to get involved.
Neither party would really welcome this intrusion, but
the party failing to get a particular neighbor’s support
would be especially suspicious of outside involvement.
Despite all this, however, the Spanish tried their best
to assimilate the crusading foreigners into their fighting
forces.

Volunteers from Ireland
An examination of the fighters from Ireland
illustrates the effectiveness of foreign volunteers. This
is possible because the cases of the Irish volunteers
in the war mirror almost exactly the experiences of
foreign nationals from other countries who came to
Spain on one side or the other. Moreover, the Irish
provided troops for both the Republicans and the
Nationalists, and this provides an insight into both
sides’ use of international contingents.
What prompted men to leave the country of
their births and fight in another country’s civil war?
First and foremost—for Catholics—was the religious
consideration. “As a Catholic I would fight for
my faith at any time,” declared a young Irishman
who spoke for nearly all of the volunteers for the
Nationalists.11 The Irish media took up Franco’s
insurgency as a crusade against the Communists and
were aggressive in broadcasting the news of their role
in the murders of nuns and priests throughout Spain.
Catholic Ireland reacted predictably to these news
reports—accompanied by gruesome pictures in many
cases—and the majority swung their support to Franco.
Although the Irish government was officially neutral,
its opposition to recruiting for the war was feeble, and
authorities regularly turned a blind eye to the military
and medical support organized for Franco.
The Spanish Republicans also enjoyed fertile
recruiting ground in Ireland for much the same
reasons as the Nationalists—once again due to effective
propaganda efforts. The Republicans significantly
played up the charges that Franco was a fascist along
the lines of Mussolini and Hitler, both of whom were
providing aid in personnel and materiel to him. In
this case, guilt by association was enough to convince
many in Ireland to side with the Republicans. Though
Franco never embraced the ultimate tenets of fascism
10
11

Jackson, The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931-1939, p.346.
Stradling, The Irish and the Spanish Civil War, p.28.

31
as did his two allies in the War, he was painted with
the same brush as they were in propaganda releases.
The Falange (a Spanish version of fascism, with
few adherents) was, indeed, fighting on the side of
Franco during the war, but he was never completely
comfortable with either Fascists or Fascism and never
gave them a significant voice in his military or, later,
in his government. The efficacy of this particular
propaganda onslaught, though, can still be seen to
this day in the form of the many scholars who apply a
double-standard in alleging that Franco was a fascist.
To accept this allegation one must completely ignore
the reality of Franco’s actions, not only in forming
his insurgency and his government, but also his later
conduct during WWII. These scholars, of course, will
have a difficult time reconciling the West’s alliance with
Soviet Russia during the Second World War. They fall
victim to the fallacy that Franco, by turning to Hitler
and Mussolini for military help, reflected their values
and political beliefs as well.
Once in Spain, the two groups of Irish volunteers
performed well for their respective armies, though the
time they actually spent in Spain, particularly during
battle, was not great. It would appear that their value
as a morale boost or propaganda aid exceeded their
military accomplishments.
The Irish, by all reports, were good fighters. but
they were never widely accepted within the Spanish
Nationalist ranks, especially the Foreign Legion. The
reasons for this lack of assimilation were many, but we

can include the difference in language and their lack of
discipline when not in battle. Needless to say, this did
little to endear them to General Franco or to the rest of
the Nationalists.
On the Republican side, the Irish volunteers—
numbering about 1,000—were assigned to fight within
the International Brigades and were assigned to the
English/Welsh battalions. Initially, this led to some
problems when the Irish refused to fight alongside the
English, who had only recently been driven out of 26
of the 32 counties in Ireland by many of these same
Irish fighters. This was a very similar predicament to
the Irish volunteers on the Nationalist side refusing to
fight the Basques, and it was handled in the same way—
the Irish in the International Brigades were transferred
to fight within the Abraham Lincoln Battalion made up
of Americans.
It is apparent from this review of the Irish forces
involved with both sides of the Spanish Civil War that
the Irish volunteer did not have much of an impact
on the actual fighting of the War. The differences in
cultures, languages, motivations, and climate, as well
as the negative perceptions of outsiders’ interference,
all combined to place insurmountable barriers in the
path of foreign cooperation with one side or the other.
To make matters worse, the foreign volunteers tended
not to stay long in Spain. For a variety of reasons, short
stays in Spain were common. Although most of the
foreigners had previous military experience in their
own countries’ military units, many were shocked at the

The Carlists
The Carlists are members of the Basque race who live in
the north of Spain and extreme southwestern France. The
Basques hold the distinction of protecting fiercely their right to
local self-government, and neither the Romans nor the Visigoths
nor the Muslims could ever conquer them. Another distinction
of the Basques is their strong attachment to the Church, which
became a central issue in the years during which armies of rival
claimants to the throne fought. St. Ignatius, the founder of the
Society of Jesus (Jesuits) was a Basque, as was St. Francis Xavier;
and as liberal monarchies throughout Europe kicked out the
Jesuits, the Basques’ reaction was to denounce liberalism and its
rude cousin, secularism. Roughly half of the Basques supported Carlos (thus the word “Carlists”) against the liberal Queen
Isabella II, and for the next 100 years they occupied themselves by fighting two civil wars (1833-40; and 1873-76). However,
both civil wars ended in defeat for the Carlists, and in 1876 the reigning leader, Don Carlos, Duque de Madrid, escaped to
France and the Carlist movement remaining in Spain began unraveling for the next 60 years.
As Spain descended into anarchy on the eve of the civil war, the Carlists again took up the mantle of the Church against
the anti-Catholic holocaust. Carlist troops marched to battle crying, “Long live Christ the King!” These modern-day Carlists
proved to be valiant fighters for Franco and, early in the Civil War, were instrumental in the taking of Irun, a vital railroad
center on the border with France, which, until their arrival, had proven impossible for the Nationalists to take. Some attacking
Nationalist forces had been almost completely wiped out in the attempts but the Carlists–almost 40,000 strong–got it done.
From there their reputation soared, and they continued to be a major asset for Franco during the rest of the Civil War as
their intense embracing of the Conservative cause, their dedication to their Catholic Faith, and their utter detestation of
liberalism spurred them on to be one of the most effective fighting forces for Franco.
Today, Carlism’s support for the Church, local rights against an antagonistic, secularist central government, and attachment
to a rural and agrarian way of life, places the movement outside the “progressive” attitudes
that govern Spain.
www.angeluspress.org    THE ANGELUS • August 2009

32
brutality shown by both sides in this conflict. Prisoners
were routinely shot and, as discussed above, the nonacceptance of foreigners by Spanish troops also did
not encourage longevity in the foreign ranks. Though
the volunteers on the Republican side came mainly
for ideological reasons, the anti-Catholic practices
perpetrated by their comrades shocked many of them
and likely caused some early departures, as did a lack
of medical treatment for illnesses and wounds. It is
important to note that these short stays were mostly
a factor of the foreign volunteers. Countries that sent
their regular forces—Germany, Italy, and Portugal on
Franco’s side, and Russia on the government’s side—

had a much greater influence on the war and proved to
be the only outsiders who mattered much in battle.

The Church Irritating
The Spanish Civil War is one of the most
misunderstood historical events of the 20th century.
Situations leading up to the conflict and the
accompanying reasons for the very premise of the
war and the way it was played out were not studied in
depth due to other world events taking center stage.
We refer, of course, to the early tides of World War II.
These tides were a rapid run-up to World War II close

International Catholic Support
for the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War
One of the enduring myths of the Spanish Civil War is
that intellectuals (philosophers, writers, artists) were of one
opinion concerning the SCW and supported overwhelmingly
the Republican side against Franco. Of course, it is easy to
find partisans of a particular stripe if one simply ignores
people who could provide a contrary perspective. What is
rarely discussed, however, is the support that Franco received
from those who condemned the murderous activities of the
Republic. Any list of supporters of Franco’s crusade will reveal
a wide variety of accomplished men and women whose
talents are well-known internationally. Here is a sampling:
Evelyn Waugh,1 the great Englishman convert and author
of Brideshead Revisited and, later, fierce opponent of the
Second Vatican Council; Robert Brasillach,2 French novelist,
journalist, literary critic, and propagandist for Franco; Joseph
Kennedy,3 United States of America Ambassador to Great
Britain; Surrealist artist Salvador Dali;4 South African poet and
convert Roy Campbell;5 Anglo-French historian and essayist
Hilaire Belloc;6 novelist, poet and journalist G. K. Chesterton;7

Catholic convert and apologist, and inventor of the downhill
ski slalom, Arnold Lunn;8 Frs. Ronald Knox, S.J.9 and Martin
D’Arcy, S.J.,10 renowned scholars; influential American priest Fr.
Charles Coughlin11 (the “Radio Priest”), whose vocal support
on behalf of Franco thwarted President Roosevelt’s attempt
to formally supply arms to the Republic; Joaquin Turina,12
one of Spain’s greatest composers of the 20th century; Fred
Elizalde, 13 pioneering Jazz musician from the Philippines who
fought in Spain with Franco; Christopher Dawson,14 the great
historian and convert to Catholicism; Irish General Eoin
O’Duffy,15 who volunteered to crusade on behalf of Franco;
and Eleanor Smith, a popular novelist during the 1930’s and
1940’s and early champion of Waugh. She was asked to
respond to a survey of writers to the question, “Are you for,
or against, Franco and Fascism?” She replied impishly, “I was
delighted to receive your unprejudiced brochure. Naturally, I
am a warm adherent of General Franco’s, being, like all of us,
a humanitarian.”16

1

Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (Modern Library Paperback Edition,
2001), p. 334, n. 1. See also Valentine Cunningham, editor, Spanish Front:
Writers on the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 57. For Waugh’s
views on Vatican II see Selena Hastings, Evelyn Waugh (Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1994), pp.616-27.
2
Alice Kaplan, The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach
(The University of Chicago Press, 2000), p.35.
3
Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain (Penguin Books Ltd., 2006), p.242.
Ambassador Kennedy was instrumental in persuading President Roosevelt to
impose an arms embargo during the civil war. Roosevelt supported the LeftCommunists in Spain but believed he needed the Catholic vote to remain in
office.
4
Fleur Cowles, The Case of Salvador Dali (Little, Brown and Company, 1959),
p. 145. See also Salvador Dali, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali (Dover Publications 1993), pp.351-68 for Dali’s commentary on the Spanish Civil War.
5
See Roy Campbell, Light on a Dark Horse (Henry Regnery Company, 1952),
pp. 276-312 for Campbell’s haunting description of life in Toledo, Spain, on
the eve of the Spanish Civil War. See also Joseph Pearce, Bloomsbury and
Beyond: The Friends and Enemies of Roy Campbell (HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), pp.181-201, and 205-11.
6
Pearce, Bloomsbury and Beyond, p.217.
7
Although Chesterton died in June 1936, his sympathies were made clear in
an essay published in 1935, in which he, with typical insight, noted that the
fundamental divide in Spain was between those who respected the rights and
authority of the Church and those who hated the Church. See G. K. Chesterton,
The Well and the Shallows (Ignatius Press, 2006) “My Six Conversions,” Part
THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org
VI, “The Case of Spain,” pp.52-6.

8

Arnold Lunn, Spanish Rehearsal: An Eyewitness in Spain During the Civil War
(1936-1939) (The Devin Adair Company, 1937). Lunn’s brilliant assessment
of the war provides a point-by-point refutation of left-wing propaganda.
9
Joseph Pearce, Literary Converts (HarperCollins Publisher, 1999), p.203.
10
H. J. A. Sire, Father Martin D’Arcy: Philosopher of Christian Love (Gracewing, 1997), pp.88-9.
11
Wolfram Kaiser, Christian Democracy and the Origins of European Union
(Cambridge University Press, 2007), p.135. See also Dominic Tierney, FDR
and the Spanish Civil War: Neutrality and Commitment in the Struggle that
Divided America (Duke University Press, 2007), pp.63, 92.
12
The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography (Houghton Mifflin Reference
Books, 2003), p.1531.
13
Ivor Brown, British Thought, 1947 (The Gresham Press, 1947), p.300.
14
Pearce, Literary Converts, p.204.
15
Judith Keene, Fighting for Franco: International Volunteers in Nationalist
Spain During the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 (Leicester University Press,
201), pp.115-29. Robert A. Stradling’s The Irish and the Spanish Civil War,
1936-1939 (Manchester University Press, 1999) covers O’Duffy’s expedition
to Spain on behalf of Franco.
16
Cunningham, Spanish Front, p.230.

33
on the heels of the Spanish Civil War. The pre-eminent
positions occupied by two of the major belligerent
allies in the Spanish Civil War—Russia and Germany—
in the Second World War, colored the judgments
concerning the Spanish fight as perceived by the
world.12 The easy description, though most certainly a
false one, was that the Spanish Civil War was a dress
rehearsal for the Second World War. With that war
coming at the world at a dizzying pace, there was little
interest in looking deeply at the roots of the Spanish
conflict when it could be explained away and bundled
up so easily with the Second World War. What can be
said with certainty, however, is that if the Spanish Civil
War was indeed a dress rehearsal
for the Second World War, the war
did not follow the script.

with the collusion of those who profess to be faithful
Catholics.
The story of how General Franco healed a
country from the wounds of civil war, how he steered
Spain towards an alliance with what remained of the
Christian West, how he was betrayed by the modernist
Church of the 1960’s, and the utter collapse of the
Spanish Church in the post-Franco era must wait for
another day. For now, it is worthwhile to meditate
on the fundamental issue over which Spain fought a
savage civil war: “There is the one supremely inspiring
and irritating institution in the world; and there are
its enemies. Its enemies are ready to be for violence

One thing that the Spanish
Civil War proved to be, as we can
now recognize by recounting the
world events and movements of
the remainder of the 20th century
and on into the 21st century, is a
dress rehearsal for attacking the
Catholic Church. To be sure, the
violence against the Church in the
Spanish Civil War has not yet been
repeated on such a grand scale.
The massacre of Catholic priests
was the worst since the French
Revolution, with more than 7,000
clergy murdered.13 In more recent
decades, attacks against the Church
have become political and allJanuary 27, 1939.The first public Mass in
encompassing, particularly in the
Barcelona since the start of the war was
West in what is known as the “free
celebrated in the Plaza de Cataluña.
world.” The methods of political
attacks against our Catholic Faith
have assumed familiar tactics which
or against violence, for liberty or against liberty, for
were first forged in the strategies of the Republicans
representation or against representation; and even for
in the Spanish Civil War. Today, in Western Europe
peace or against peace.”14 The enemies of the Church
and in the United States and Canada particularly, we
are
perpetually irritated; it remains to be seen whether
see similar methods used to attack the Church. These
today’s
Church will prove the truth of Chesterton’s
attacks are subtle but effective, and come in the form
words
and
be correspondingly inspiring.
of assailing our Catholic values in the media, the stage,
the screen, and in teaching institutions, many times
Scott Quinn assists at St. Vincent de Paul in Kansas City with his wife Jane and

12

Burnett Bolloten was a scholar’s scholar whose painstaking research led
him to conclusions that were at odds with the orthodox interpretation of
the Civil War among academics that downplayed the Soviet Union’s role in
the Civil War. As he reflected in the Preface to his The Spanish Revolution:
The Left and the Struggle for Power During the Civil War (University of
North Carolina Press, 1979), p.xvi, he remained indebted to several brave
academics who defended his earlier work The Grand Camouflage in 1961,
“at a time when the unorthodox conclusions expressed or implied therein
were unacceptable or even shocking to a large segment of the academic
world.” Bolloten’s career suffered as a result of telling the truth.
13
Michael Seidman, A Republic of Egos: A Social History of the Spanish Civil
War (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), p.29; and Jose M. Sanchez,
The Spanish Civil War as a Religious Tragedy (University of Notre Dame
Press, 1987), p.199.

daughter Elizabeth. He holds an M.A. in History from Creighton University,
where he studied modern European and U.S. colonial history. His father, William
Quinn, is a long-time friend of the Society of St. Pius X. Both men have a love for
Spain: her people, her culture, and her history. The authors wish to thank David
Nuffer, Stephen E. Page, and Pat Quinn for their comments and suggestions.

14

Chesterton, The Well and the Shallows, “My Six Conversions,” Part VI, “The
Case of Spain,” p.56.
www.angeluspress.org    THE ANGELUS • August 2009

34

United States:
Parishioners
Appeal to Vatican
The parishioners of eight American dioceses have united to ask the
Vatican to intervene against the closure of their parishes. Peter Borre,
the co-president of the American
Council of Parishes in Boston–an
organization founded in 2004 to
oppose the closure of parishes–has
presented Rome with an 18-page
document which has been sent to
several Vatican offices. Besides the
archdiocese of Boston, the threatened parishes are located in the
archdioceses of New York and New
Orleans, and in the dioceses of Allentown, Buffalo, Cleveland, Scranton,
and Springfield.
The parishioners are asking
Rome to mediate to oblige the bishops to negotiate with the faithful
of the parish before taking a final
decision. They emphasize that the
decision to close hundreds of parishes across the country will cause
permanent damage to the American
Church and lead to an “irreversible
decline.” The Council of Parishes
estimates the number of churches
which have been closed these
past years, or which will be closed
shortly, at more than a thousand.
This is the latest attempt by the
organization to halt these decisions
to close churches, which are due to
financial problems, the lack of diocesan priests, and the decline in the
numbers of faithful assisting at Mass.
(DICI, 6/6/2009)

Quebec: Carmel
Closes due to
Lack of Vocations
The Carmel of Belle-Croix in
Danville, south-east of Quebec, will
close before the end of the year
because of the dwindling number
THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

Church a
of Carmelites and their old age.
The Carmel was opened when Carmelites from Vietnam arrived in
Canada. Fleeing before the Communists of North Vietnam, they came
to Montreal in 1954. At the time,
there were 20 Sisters: 14 Vietnamese
and 6 Canadian. The Archbishop
of Sherbrooke, Georges Cabana,
received them in Danville in 1957.
Today, only 2 of the 14 Vietnamese are left, and only 1 of the 6
Canadians is still alive. Other Sisters
belonging to other monasteries are
also present in Danville, but this is
not sufficient to ensure the survival
of the Carmel. A letter of support
to the Sisters is presently circulating
in the area—“an affective support,”
observed the parish priest of St.
Ann, Fr. Leo Durocher. “It is a pity.
It gives you a shock, but we must
resign ourselves to the situation,”
he said.
(DICI, 4/7/2009)

Germany: Priestly
Ordinations in
Significant Decline
For the first time since 1962, the
number of ordinations to the priesthood in Germany fell below 100 in
2008. Peter Birkhofer, the director
of the Center for Vocations Pastoral speaks of a “massive decline.”
In 2008, the 27 dioceses of Germany registered 93 ordinations to
the priesthood, compared with 110
in the previous year. Over a 20-year
period, the decline is even more
patent. In 1989, Germany numbered 297 new priests–that is, 204
priests more than in 2008! A reversal of the trend, so much hoped
for after the World Youth Day in
Cologne in 2005 and the initiatives taken in the dioceses to bring
about a change for the better, did
not happen, said Peter Birkhofer.
However, current surveys show
that the priestly vocation is highly

regarded in society. “But this has had
no effect in terms of positive decisions for entry into the seminary,”
lamented the director of the Center
for Pastoral Vocations. The number
of ordinations is also in decline in
male religious communities: in 2008,
19 Brothers became priests compared with 39 in 2007.
(DICI, 6/6/2009)

Germany:
Fr. Schmidberger
Responds to
Attacks from
German Bishops
Fr. Fr a n z S c h m i d b e r g e r,
District Superior in Germany of
the Priestly Society of St. Pius X,
denounced the negative attitude of
certain German bishops. The lifting
of the excommunications must not
have as consequence “to stifle the
daily life of the Society,” he stated
in a declaration made a few days
after the bishop of Regensburg, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, had called
“a provocation” the ordinations of
deacons and priests announced for
June 27 at Zaitzkofen, in his diocese, in a declaration made on the
airwaves of Radio Vatican on June 1.
“The withdrawal of the excommunication of the four bishops of the
Society of St. Pius X on January 21 of
this year did not solve all the difficulties, yet it is a significant measure for
the restoration of confidence. On the
way toward a complete normalization, there never was any intention
on the part of the Holy See to stifle
the daily life of the Society, as some
German bishops patently desire,”
affirmed the former Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X.
Bishop Müller had judged that
new ordinations should no longer
take place until the canonical situation of the Society had been clarified.
On this past March 28, ordinations

nd World
to the subdiaconate should have
taken place in Zaitzkofen. But as a
token of good will, the present Superior General of the Society, Bishop
Bernard Fellay, decided to transfer
the ordination to Ecône in Valais.
On this occasion, he said that “he
was particularly disgusted with the
attitude of the German bishops who
never cease to show toward us a
hostility devoid of charity and continually incriminate our intentions.”
On Sunday, June 7, a new chapel of
the Society of St. Pius X was blessed
in Fulda. The local bishop, Heinz
Josef Algermissen, opposed the celebration, judging this blessing “provoking” and calling it “an act jeopardizing the unity of the Church”
because of the feast of St. Boniface
taking place on the same day in
Fulda. He recalled that the building
of a chapel must be submitted to the
local bishop for authorization, and
that the latter was responsible for
his consecration. Now, according to
him, the Society of St. Pius X never
addressed itself to him concerning
this chapel.
Fr. Franz Schmidberger gave a
public answer broadcasted on June
5. The Society had tried “unfortunately in vain” to enter into a
dialogue with the bishop to find a
solution satisfactory to both parties.
Concerning the coincidence of the
date of the blessing of the chapel
and of the feast of St. Boniface, it was
“completely fortuitous,” he assured.
We cannot speak of provocation.
The Society of St. Pius X had until
June 10 to vacate the building which
had been used as a chapel till then.
This is why the blessing of the new
chapel was scheduled on the preceding Sunday.
(DICI, 6/20/2009)

Fr. Franz Schmidberger

Germany:
Jewish Distinction
Awarded to
Hans Küng
On June 18, in Berlin, the Swiss
anti-establishment theologian Hans
Küng, age 81, received the AbrahamGeiger Award for all of his work.
According to the press release from
the Abraham-Geiger College, Hans
Küng, in his book Judaism, proposed
one of the most convincing monographs on Judaism as a universal religion. As chairman of the Foundation
Weltethos (World Ethics), the progressivist theologian was a symbol of the
way in which “life in common must
be successful beyond every religious
barrier.” On this occasion, the VicePresident of the Central Council of
Jews, Dieter Graumann, judged
Hans Küng to be “genuine, credible,
and convincing.”
(DICI, 4/7/2009)

Poland: Vocations
Keep Dropping
On April 28, the Polish Council for Vocations published their
report on vocations for 2 00 8.
The Catholic Church in Poland,
which for many years witnessed a

35

rising curve in priestly vocations,
has recorded another fall in the
number of new seminarians in 2008:
to the preceding decline of about
25% observed in 2007 can be added
a further drop of 10% for 2008.
For the academic year 2008-2009,
diocesan seminaries received 695
new candidates, compared with 786
in the previous year (2007-2008).
The total number of seminarians
has thus dropped in one year from
4,257 to 4,029. The number of new
candidates for the monastic life is
also in decline, 653 compared with
708 a year ago for men, and 362
compared with 424 for women.
Bishop Wojciech Polak, the auxiliary bishop of Gniezno and president of the Council for Vocations
in Poland, attributes this decline
to four principal factors: a dip in
the demographic curve, the emigration of many Poles in search of
work abroad, the negative image of
the Church given by the media, as
well as an “anti-vocations culture”
which is predominant among young
people and prevents them from
making restrictive lifelong commitments. Today this is manifested by
a crisis of confidence in the Church.
This decline in vocations is a challenge for the Church, the bishop
said. He drew attention to the necessity of attending to the quality of
the pastoral care of the young, but
also to the quality of the parish and
the family. In Poland, a country of
38 million inhabitants, more than
90% of the population claim to be
Catholic.
(DICI, 6/6/2009)

Poland: No Concert
for Madonna
in Warsaw on
August 15
Polish Catholics do not want
the American singer Madonna to
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36

give a concert on the day on which
the Catholic Church celebrates the
feast of the Assumption. Consequently, they set up a protest committee to have the concert cancelled.
“To make money by organizing,
on that precise day, a concert by
a singer wearing such a name is
morally questionable,” declared Fr.
Grzegor Kalwarczyk, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Warsaw.
Even if the concert will probably
take place, it is not surprising that
people voice their discontent and
that they protest.” Krysztof Zagozada, a Catholic layman and spokesman for the Catholic Polish Association Unum Principium, warned
the authorities, pointing out that the
protest committee would do everything it can to prevent the concert.
Aged 50, Madonna sought to give
scandal on several occasions. In
2006, the Vatican protested when
she appeared crucified on a gigantic
cross in the Olympic stadium in
Rome, close to St. Peter’s Square.
Last April, the director of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg,
Mikhaïl Piotrovsky, asked the
singer to “promise that there would
be no blasphemy” during the show
on the Palace Square scheduled for
August.
(DICI, 4/7/2009)

Ivory Coast:
Archbishop
Condemns
Liturgical Abuses

In September 2008, Msgr. Jean-Pierre
Kutwa, the archbishop of Abidjan
(Ivory Coast), wrote a pastoral letter
to parish priests, parish leaders of
liturgical chant, and choir masters,
which was published in the May 7,
2009, edition of the Ivory Coast daily
Nord-Sud.

This pastoral letter, entitled De la
divine liturgie, is to serve as a “guide”
for a liturgy “more Catholic and
THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

Church a
more holy.” Pointing out “several
liturgical deviations which need to
be corrected,” the archbishop listed
his concerns: “all sorts of songs are
performed”; the faithful no longer
make the “distinction” between rousing hymns, the songs of other religious denominations, and liturgical
chant. During the meditation, the
psalm recommended is “spurned”
in favor of any old song. At the
Offertory, “the Offertory procession looks more like recreation time,
during which dance demonstrations
and comic acts are performed.”
In view of these practices which
“lead away from the Sacred Liturgy,”
Archbishop Kutwa has ordered that
there be no more performance of
songs “of other religious denominations or lively songs” during the
Eucharistic Celebration, because it
must be understood that “liturgical
chant alone is allowed.” So the psalm
must never be replaced and should
be executed according to “the psalmodic mode.” During the Offertory
procession there “must no longer
be bare-chested girls or transparent
clothes”; the men “will no longer
wear just their underwear,” and no
disguise will be worn or anything
else which might cause amusement.
The archbishop concluded by drawing attention to the multiple signs
of the cross which the faithful make
during the Mass, outside of the liturgy.
(DICI, 6/20/2009)

India: Dramatic
Plight of Catholics
in the State of
Orissa
Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of the Catholic diocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar in India granted
an interview to Church in Asia on
the occasion of his visit to Paris in
March. The archbishop had been

invited by Aid to the Church in
Need to the “Night of Witnesses”
held on March 24 in the Church of
St. Sulpice in homage to the Catholic missionaries murdered in 2008.
In the district of Kandhamal (State
of Orissa), the center of anti-Christian violence since August 2008, the
situation is calm again today. But
these are deceptive appearances,
warned Archbishop Cheenath:
“Christians fear to go back home
because they do not want to be
subject to blackmail by the Hindus,
who promise to give them back their
properties if they convert to Hinduism.” In the camps for displaced
people set up by the government,
the Christians do not feel any more
secure. The authorities wish to close
the camps and bring strong pressure
to bear upon the refugees so that
they agree to go back home. On the
other hand, no culprit having been
brought before the tribunals, Christians are afraid to live next door
again to their former persecutors.
If some Hindu extremists had been
arrested, they were quickly set at
liberty, the archbishop stated.
“Today, Christians in Kandhamal have nothing more to expect
from a material point of view. Some
have lost dear ones. They have
seen their houses set on fire, their
belongings plundered, destroyed,
or stolen, and their lands are henceforth taken away by others,” said
Archbishop Cheenath, who sees in
this, ironically enough, a refutation
of the theses of the Hindu religion.
“These Christians have lost everything, and if they agree to ‘convert’
to Hinduism, Hindus promise that
they will recover their goods, their
lands, and that they will no longer
be harassed. Now, Christians refuse
such a bargain, they remain true to
their Christian Faith. This is proof
enough that they did not become
Christians for the sake of improving
their material conditions,” the archbishop went on, and he added that he

nd World
was sure that 99% of the Christians
who agreed to “be reconverted” to
Hinduism will return to the Christian Faith as soon as the pressures
brought to bear upon them cease.
Asked about the conditions which
would make a return to a normal
situation in Kandhamal possible,
the archbishop said: “When governments are weak, prospects are
gloomy.” The persecutions against
religious minorities in India respond
to the mottoes and political program
of the Sangh Parivar, the organization at the heart of Hindu circles.
As soon as the federal government
in Delhi and the local government
of a State show themselves weak,
Hindus take action,” he added.
. . . The murder o f Pr a b h a t
Panigrahi, on this past March 19,
fueled anti-Christian hostility again.
Archbishop Cheenath affirmed that
“the unstated program of the members of the BJP (Party of the Indian
People) is to drive Christians out of
Kandhamal, which is the district of
Orissa in which most of them live….
This is what they clearly attempted
to do before the elections, and if
they win again, there is no doubt
that they will continue in the same
direction.”
...On Saturday, May 16, a few
hours after the results had been
announced, the Catholic Bishops
Conference of India (CBCI)...
declared itself “satisfied” with “the
good choice” of Indian electors, who
gave a quasi majority to the United
Progressive Alliance, the formation led by the Congress Party. The
bishops announced that they trusted
the new government to keep the
promise made during the electoral
campaign of preserving the country
from any sectarian deviation and to
bring back serenity within the population, and most particularly among
religious minorities....
In the morning of May 29,
Benedict XVI granted private audience to several ambassadors near
the Holy See who had come to

present their accreditation letters. In
a message handed to Chitra Narayanan, the diplomat representing
India, the Holy Father had written:
“I express my deep anxiety for the
Christians who have suffered during
the outbursts of violence in some
areas within your frontiers,” and
he “appealed to all to show proof
of respect toward human dignity
by rejecting hatred and renouncing
violence under any form.” Benedict
XVI mentioned the recent legislative elections, expressing the wish
that the newly elected MPs...“be
ready to overcome particular interests, taking the wider viewpoint of
the common good which is an essential and indispensable objective of
political authority.”
(DICI, 6/20/2009)

El Salvador:
Church supports
constitutional ban
of homosexual
marriage
The Catholic Church in El Salvador has backed the constitutional
ban on homosexual marriage. It
delivered to the government of the
small Central American country
a petition signed by more than
200,000 people opposing the legalization of homosexual unions, in
advance of the Salvadoran parliament giving its decision on this
amendment to the Constitution at
the end of April. The proposal was
to be ratified before May 1.
“With this collection of signatures, we hope to protect the institution of marriage and the family,”
said Msgr. José Luis Escobar Alas,
archbishop of San Salvador and
president of the Salvadoran Bishops’ Conference. For months, in
the country’s places of worship petitions have been made available
for the faithful to sign. “A union

37

between persons of the same sex
cannot be a marriage. If in fact
it exists, it is something else; we
cannot prevent it and people may
be united de facto, but these unions
cannot be called marriages,” said
the archbishop of the capital. It is
not a matter of opinion or strategy
or ideology, nor is it a question
of partisan bias, but rather “it is a
question of the common good.”
The Church thus asked parliament
to ratify a constitutional bill forbidding legal union between two
persons of the same sex. The Salvadoran Constitution up to the present time guarantees the protection
of marriage between a man and a
woman. This amendment would
simply permit the ban on homosexual marriage. This project was
launched three years ago by the
Christian Democrats. Archbishop
José Luis Escobar had asked the
faithful to pray that the legislative
assembly would ratify the constitutional reform. “Our concern is
of an ethical nature. This is not a
denominational question, but concerns the very nature of the human
person; this is why it must affect
everyone, whatever his creed. The
defense of the institution of marriage as a union between a man
and a woman born as such is a
defense of the family, which is the
basic unit of society,” he declared.
On May 3, Archbishop Escobar
Alas gave thanks to God for the
government’s decision to commit
themselves to the ratification of the
amendment banning homosexual
marriage and especially thanked
members of all parties for having
approved this bill.
(DICI, 4/7/2009)

www.angeluspress.org    THE ANGELUS • August 2009

PART 26

38

F r .

M a t t h i a s

G a u d r o n

This part of the Catechism deals with the charismatic
movement, its origins, historical development, and
infiltration into the Catholic Church.

Catechism
Of the Crisis
In the Church
l Doesn’t the Charismatic Renewal accomplish some
good, bringing back to the practice of Catholicism a
certain number of souls and nurturing the piety of
others?
The devil in his perspicacity knows how to lose
a few to gain many. This is the teaching of Blessed
Marie of the Incarnation:
Ecstasies, visions, and revelations are not a sure
argument for the presence or assistance of God in a soul.
How many have we seen who have been deceived by
these sorts of visions? Even though they were the cause
of the conversion or even the salvation of a few souls, it
is nonetheless a strategy of the evil Spirit, who is content
to lose a few to gain many.1

l What advantage can the devil find in these displays
of piety?
Pentecostalism not only revived and revitalized
a moribund Protestantism, which risked leaving
the Catholic Church an open field, but today it is
allowing him to progressively take hold of Latin
America2; the devil finds obvious advantages.
Likewise, “Catholic” Charismatism perpetuates
within the bosom of the Church the errors that are
destroying it.
THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

l Isn’t the Charismatic movement against the postconciliar desacralization of the Church?
It is precisely because it reacts against certain
excesses that the Charismatic movement attracts
Catholics troubled by the crisis, but only to bring
them round to the conciliar errors! (in the same way
that Pentecostalism brought back to Protestantism
those who fled its excessive rigidity in droves).
l Can you provide an example?
The Emmanuel Catholic Charismatic
Community has reintroduced in many places
adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the Rosary,
confession, etc. These “conservative” devotions
have rallied very many disoriented Catholics. But
this conservatism merely serves to conserve…
the conciliar novelties! Who would deny that the
sentimental scenes that the Charismatics know how
to stage so well are the principal crutch still holding
up the new liturgy?
l What is the link between Vatican II and the
Charismatic movement?
Vatican II is fully responsible for the
introduction of the Pentecostal rite within
Catholicism. Not only because John XXIII desired a

39
“new Pentecost,”3 or because the Pentecostal pastor
David du Plessis—who had worked so effectively
to infiltrate the “baptism in the Spirit” into all the
Protestant confessions—was invited to the Council
as an observer (he was influential in introducing
several passages on the charisms into the conciliar
documents)4 but it was especially the Vatican II
decree on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, that led
the Catholics of Duquesne University to receive “the
baptism in the Spirit.”
l How could this decree lead Catholics to “the
baptism in the Spirit”?
Speaking about the communities separated
from the Catholic Church, the Decree Unitatis
Redintegratio states that “the Spirit of Christ has not
refrained from using them as means of salvation.”5
It also says that “whatever is wrought by the grace
of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our separated
brethren can contribute to our own edification.”6
These passages convinced the Catholics of
Duquesne University to ask the Protestants for the
imposition of hands on February 20, 1967.7
l How does Charismatism promote the errors of
Vatican II?
Like Vatican II, the Charismatic movement
contributes to the upholding of a false ecumenism
(Charismatism springs from ecumenism), to the
confusion of the orders of nature and grace in
every domain, to the weakening of the hierarchical
authority willed by God, and to the forgetting of the
ascetical side of the spiritual life.
l How does Charismatism contribute to confusing
nature and grace?
The desire to feel the action of grace (per se
intangible) is to expose oneself to the danger of
confusing faith and religious sentiment (as the
modernists do8), as well as divine inspiration and
imagination, the theological virtue of hope and
optimism, the life of grace and psychological wellbeing. Psychology, as it so happens, occupies an
important place in Charismatic communities.9
l What can be said definitively about the rite of the
baptism in the Spirit?
The Charismatics themselves do not quite
know how to explain the rite of the baptism in the
Spirit. It cannot be a sacrament since Jesus Christ
instituted only seven. Thus they see it as a means
of conversion, a reactivation of the sacraments
of baptism and confirmation, or else a religious
experience. But none of these explanations can
account for the efficacy of a rite that seems to act of
itself like a sacrament.
l Can the baptism in the Spirit really be compared to
a sacrament?
By linking spiritual effects to a specific rite, the
baptism in the Spirit resembles the sacraments. But

the latter transmit a grace that is not sensible (they
leave us in the order of faith), while the other rite
claims to make the action of God felt. Thus it can be
defined as a caricature of a sacrament that transmits,
not the grace of God, but a perceptible illusion of
this grace. We know that the devil has the power to
create this illusion in those who seek to experience
physically the divine action.
l Should the Charismatics be considered as possessed
by the devil?
Those who receive the baptism in the Spirit are
not for that reason possessed by the devil, nor even
necessarily guilty of mortal sin (because of a certain
ignorance of what they are doing). But they open
themselves nonetheless to a diabolical influence that
establishes them in an illusion, risks falsifying their
spiritual life and blinding them to the crisis in the
Church and to their own personal duty. Some give
up the Christian life when, years later, the mirages
vanish.
l Should the healings and prodigies worked by
charismatics be attributed to the devil?
The devil cannot work miracles strictly speaking
(which manifest an absolute power over nature),
but he can produce prodigies (which use the laws of
nature ingeniously). Undeniable miracles are not to
be found among the charismatics. They themselves
acknowledge that a good number of healings that
happen during their gatherings do not last.10 Besides,
these outpourings in unknown languages during
some charismatic meetings have been identified as
blasphemies by people knowing the languages who
happen to be present.

88) Can the Church change
the rite of the sacraments?

The Church cannot touch the essential part
of the sacraments (that is, that which is absolutely
necessary for their validity). It can modify the
accidental rites, but this must be done for the
purpose of more clearly expressing the essence
of the sacraments and of facilitating their worthy
reception.

l Why can’t the Church touch the essential part of the
sacraments?
Pius XII explained:
For these Sacraments instituted by Christ Our
Lord, the Church in the course of the centuries never
substituted other Sacraments, nor could she do so, since,
as the Council of Trent teaches (Conc. Trid., Sess. VII,
can. 1, De Sacram, in genere), the seven Sacraments of the
New Law were all instituted by Jesus Christ Our Lord,
and the Church has no power over “the substance of
the Sacraments,” that is, over those things which, as is
proved from the sources of divine revelation, Christ
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40
the Lord Himself established to be kept as sacramental
signs.11

l For what purpose may the Church modify accidental
rites?
The Council of Trent declares:
This power has always been in the Church, that in
the administration of the sacraments, preserving their
substance, she may determine or change whatever
she may judge to be more expedient for the benefit of
those who receive them or for the veneration of the
sacraments, according to the variety of circumstances,
times, and places.12

l What are the sacraments the rites of which have
been changed since Vatican II?
All the sacraments were changed following
Vatican II. There are a new rite of Ordination
(1968),13 a new Mass (1969),14 a new rite of Baptism
(1969),15 a new rite of Marriage (1969),16 a new rite
of Confirmation (1971),17 a new rite of Extreme
Unction (1972),18 and a new rite of Penance (1973),19
as indeed there are a new Breviary (1970),20 a new
calendar (1969),21 new holy oils (1970),22 a new Code
of Canon Law (1983),23 a new Way of the Cross
(1991),24 a new Catechism (1992),25 a new rite of
Exorcism (1998),26 a new Martyrology (2001),27 and
a new Rosary (2002),28 not to mention the “new
Evangelization” or, in France, the new Our Father,
the new Creed (the expression “consubstantial with
the Father” was replaced by “of the same nature as
the Father”),29 the new “Rejoice, O Virgin Mary,”
etc.–Vatican II has made all things new, as if to
found a new religion.

89) Do the new rites better express the
substance of the sacraments?
Far from making the sacramental action more
readily understandable and facilitating its worthy
reception, the new rites do the opposite: they
relativize the truths of faith, make commonplace the
sacred mysteries, and weaken the respect due to the
sacraments.

l Do the deficiencies of the new rites affect all the
sacraments?
The deficiencies of the new rites affect not only
all the sacraments (more or less), but also other
ceremonies such as funerals and exorcisms (which
are not sacraments, but sacramentals).30 So as not
to be over long in our discussion, we shall limit
our examination to four examples: the new rites of
baptism, extreme unction, exorcism, and burial.31

THE ANGELUS • August 2009    www.angeluspress.org

l What modifications were made by the new ritual of
baptism?
The new rite minimizes those elements that call
to mind the supernatural effects of the sacrament; it
suppresses several of the preparatory ceremonies,
notably the triple exorcism that authoritatively
wrests the candidate from the influence of the devil.
l Why does baptism need preparatory ceremonies?
“Whoever purposes to do a work wisely,
first removes the obstacles to his work; hence it
is written ( Jeremiah 4:3): ‘Break up anew your
fallow ground and sow not upon thorns.’ ”32 Great
transformations require great preparations. That is
why the catechumens of the first centuries were not
only instructed in the Creed, but also subjected to
a period of probation, examinations, and a series
of rites and exorcisms over the course of their
advancement.33 All of that was incorporated into the
traditional ritual of baptism.34
l Are the preparatory ceremonies of baptism effective
in themselves or do they merely signify what the
baptism properly does?
Several of the preparatory ceremonies of
baptism, especially the exorcisms, are efficacious
in themselves, distinct from baptism properly so
called. Thus, says St. Thomas, they ought to be
administered to those who were baptized in haste
and therefore could not receive them.35
l What is the specific effect of the preparatory
ceremonies of baptism.
The preparatory ceremonies remove the
obstacles to receiving the full effects of baptism: an
external obstacle—the devil, who possesses a certain
power over nature; and an internal obstacle—the
resistance offered to the realities of salvation by a
disordered sensibility (the senses are, as it were,
closed to the supernatural).36
l What ceremonies remove these obstacles?
The exsufflation (with the command: “Depart
from him, unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy
Ghost, the Consoler”) and the two other solemn
exorcisms, which command the devil not only to go
out of but to depart from the baptized person to be,
effectively remove the evil spirits.37 The imposition
of salt (on the tongue), of saliva (on the nostrils and
ears–the “Ephphetha”), the imposition of hands (on
the head), and the signs of the cross (on the forehead
and breast) contribute to making the person
receptive to the mysteries of salvation.
l What ceremonies did the new ritual of baptism
suppress?
In the new ritual, the priest does not wear the
violet stole to meet the candidate at the church
door. It omits the exsufflation, the two additional
exorcisms, and the blessing of the salt. It no longer

41
renews the gesture of the Lord in healing the deafmute with His saliva and telling him “Ephpheta.”
l What does the priest’s wearing of a violet stole at
the entrance of the church signify?
This welcome manifests that the unbaptized
cannot enter the house of God without being
purified of his sins. But in our age of ecumenism and
universal salvation, no one wants to hear of this.
l What does the blessing of the salt signify?
The salt, symbol of wisdom, is to protect our
nature from the corruption of sin, while at the same
time imparting a taste of the supernatural realities.
But this symbolism demands the spirit of faith. The
innovators have thus eliminated it.
l What does the “Ephpheta” accompanying the
imposition of saliva signify?
“Ephpheta” means “Be opened.” This ceremony
helps to perceive “the good odor of Jesus Christ”
and to open the ears of the soul to the teaching of
the faith (teaching that comes from hearing, says St.
Paul,38 that is, by an exterior teaching). But for the
modernists, the truths of faith, on the contrary, come
from the depths of the conscience.
l What other changes did the rite of baptism undergo
in the new ritual?
Instead of addressing the future baptized
through the godparents, (N., what do you ask of the
Church of God?; N., do you renounce Satan?; N., do
you wish to be baptized?), the new ritual addresses
the questions to the parents (What do you ask for N.
of the Church of God?).
l Isn’t this manner of speaking to the parents more in
conformity with reality?
Though the newborn makes no act of his own
will in receiving baptism, the orientation of his will
is changed by the sacrament. His soul acquires the
moral dispositions of someone who would have
voluntarily turned away from sin to adhere to Jesus
Christ. In this sense, everything the godparents say
in his name is realized in the infant’s soul (just as
it had really contracted the state of someone who
had turned away from God yet without personally
committing the act of original sin). This is the
mysterious and supernatural change that the Church
manifests by having the godparents speak in the
baptized person’s name. The new ritual abandons
this profoundly supernatural vision for a purely
superficial one.
l Can you give a last example of changes made to the
rite of baptism?
In the traditional rite the priest makes the sign of
the cross on the child’s forehead and breast, saying:
“Receive the mark of the cross on your + forehead
and within your + heart. Embrace the faith with
its divine teachings. So live that you will indeed be

a temple of God.” In the new rite, the sign of the
cross is made on the forehead only, and the priest
declaims: “N., the Christian community welcomes
you with great joy. In its name, I mark you with the
cross which is the sign of the Christ, our Savior. And
you, parents, will mark him after me with the same
sign.”
l What does this last example show?
This last example shows the same tendency to
weaken the expression of the supernatural realities
the sacrament produces in the soul to emphasize the
superficial aspects of the ceremony (here: the joy of
the community welcoming a new member).
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.
Blessed Marie of the Incarnation (Madame Acarie), quoted by Arnaud
de Lassus, Le renouveau charismatique aujourd’hui., Supplement to Action
Familiale et Scolaire, No. 162, p. 154. Blessed Jordan of Saxony (1190-1236)
had to exorcise a certain Brother Bernard. Possessed by the devil, he
preached in such a penetrating manner, with such a touching accent,
such a pious air and such profound words that he brought everyone
who heard him to tears. Once the possession was discovered, however,
he switched tone and pronounced only obscenities. When the Blessed
asked him “Where are your beautiful speeches?” he answered: “Since
my ruse has been discovered, I want to show myself as I am.” ( Jordan
of Saxony, O.P., Libellus de principiis ordinis praedicatorum, §110-119.)
2
See Question 1 of this Catechism of the Crisis in the Church.
3
John XXIII, Apostolic Constitution Humane Salutis officially convening
Vatican Council II (December 25,1961).
4
The Constitution Lumen Gentium (on the Church), §12: “It is not only
through the sacraments and the ministries of the Church that the
Holy Spirit sanctifies and leads the people of God and enriches it with
virtues, but, ‘allotting his gifts to everyone according as He wills,’ He
distributes special graces among the faithful of every rank. By these
gifts He makes them fit and ready to undertake the various tasks and
offices which contribute toward the renewal and building up of the
Church, according to the words of the Apostle: ‘The manifestation of
the Spirit is given to everyone for profit.’ These charisms, whether they
be the more outstanding or the more simple and widely diffused, are
to be received with thanksgiving and consolation for they are perfectly
suited to and useful for the needs of the Church.”
5
The Decree Unitatis Redintegratio (on Ecumenism), §3, in The Documents
of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., editor (New York: The America
Press, 1966), p.346. See above Question 47.
6
Ibid., §4, p.349.
7
“As Catholics, they had been reassured by the Council, which had stated:
‘Whatever is wrought by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of
our separated brethren can contribute to our own edification.’ After
studying the matter, they decided to ask a group of Pentecostalists to
pray for them and over them.” Mario Panciera in Présence Chrétienne,
No. 12 (April 1989), cited in the Courrier de Rome (SiSiNoNo), No. 111
(February 1990), p.2.
8
The confusion between faith and the religious sentiment is the fundamental error of modernism condemned by St. Pius X. See above,
Question 11.
9
The members of the Well of Jacob community conduct P.H.R. sessions (Personality and Human Relations) in the spirit of the American
psychologist Carl Rogers (who played an important role in the elaboration of the techniques of group dynamics). De Lassus, Le renouveau
charismatique, p. 69-70. The New Way community, which recruits
heavily among health professionals, proposes a medicine integrated
1

www.angeluspress.org    THE ANGELUS • August 2009

42
with spirituality. The Beatitudes community is also heavily involved in
psychotherapy. It is paradoxical that to perpetuate itself a movement
that identifies itself as “charismatic” should need to specialize in human
psychology which the Holy Spirit, on the contrary, should be able to
move effortlessly and alone.
10
One of them explained it thus: “We sometimes see someone begin
to be cured but then relapse several days later; that person preferred
being sick and helped by others to a healthy autonomy, or else refused
to make the efforts to persevere and progress towards complete health,
physical, psychic, or spiritual.” (Yves Jehanno, L’Enjeu du renouveau
charismatique [Paris: Fayard, 1988], p. 93.) It could not be more clearly
manifested that it is a question not of miracles but of simple prodigies
(which help nature to produce an effect, but do not have power over
it).
11
Pius XII, Sacramentum Ordinis, §1.
12
Council of Trent, Session XXI, cap. 2; Dz. 931.
13
Apostolic Constitution Pontificalis Romani of June 18, 1968. The forms
of priestly ordination and episcopal consecration were modified.
14
The Novus Ordo Missae was promulgated April 3, 1969.
15
May 15, 1969; AAS, LXI, 548. For the baptism of adults, January 6,
1972; AAS, LXIV, 252.
16
March, 1969. But a new rite of marriage was also published in 1990
by John Paul II.
17
Apostolic Constitution Divinae Consortium Naturae of August 15, 1971;
Decree of August 22, 1971, AAS, LXIV, 77.
18
Apostolic Constitution of November 30, 1972; Decree of December
7, 1972, AAS, LXV, 275.
19
Decree of December 2, 1973, AAS, LXVI, 172.
20
Apostolic Constitution Laudis Canticum, November 1, 1970; Decree of
April 11, 1971, AAS, LXIII, 712.
21
Motu Proprio Mysterii Paschalis of February 14, 1969.
22
Decree of December 3, 1970, AAS, LXIII, 711.
23
Apostolic Constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges of January 25, 1983.
24
Inaugurated by John Paul II in 1991, this new Way of the Cross has
fifteen Stations instead of fourteen, several of which were changed. It
was used for the Jubilee in the year 2000.
25
Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum of October 11, 1992.
26
See Documentation Catholique, 2198, pp.159-160.
27
Published on June 29, 2001, this new Martyrology includes the names
of 6,538 saints and blessed, of whom 1,717 (almost a third) were proclaimed such by John Paul II himself.
28
Encyclical Rosarium Virginis Mariae of October 16, 2002.
29
In July 1965, the philosopher Etienne Gilson published in the France
Catholique an article provocatively titled “Am I Schismatic?” in which
he challenged this bad translation. The article created a stir, but nothing
was changed. He returned to the subject in 1967: “The new Symbol

fails to affirm the unity of the Trinity. It does not deny it, certainly, but
neither does it teach it, and by imposing this omission on the faithful it
prevents them from continuing to profess it as they had always done
since the Council of Nicea. For if the Son is of the same nature as the
Father, He is God like Him, but if He is not of the same substance or
of the same being as the Father, He might be a second God, just as the
Holy Ghost might be a third….For [ Judaism and Islam], Christianity is
polytheistic. Until now the Christian could deny the accusation, since
the three divine persons are but one and the same God; he can no
longer do so if he is French, for if the three persons have in common
their nature only and not their substance or being, each of them is
God like the other two. Just as a father and son are two men of the
same nature, the Father and the Son are two Gods….The object of
the Symbol is not to make the mystery understandable, it is to define
it. It is not defined by saying that the Son is of the same nature as the
Father, for this is true of every son. What would be an unfathomable
mystery would be a son who was not of the same nature as his father.
By affirming that they are, nothing is being said….” (Etienne Gilson,
La société de masse et sa culture [Paris: Vrin, 1967], pp.128-129.)
30
Unlike the sacraments (instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ), the sacramentals have been instituted by the Church. They do not cause grace
directly themselves, but they favor its reception.
31
For an examination of the Holy Eucharist (attacked by Communion
in the hand, the reduction of marks of adoration, the shortening of the
Eucharistic fast, etc.), see Chapter 7 on the New Mass.
32
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, Q.71, Art. 2.
33
Cf. Dom Bernard Marechaux, O.S.B., Le baptême.
34
This is precisely what the innovators sought to destroy: Annibale Bugnini
boasted that “for the first time in the history of Catholic liturgy,” a rite
for the baptism of infants had been prepared that was not “an abridged
form of adult baptism” (DC 1544, 676). It was a question of applying
the conciliar constitution on the liturgy, which requested that the rite
for the baptism of infants be adapted “to circumstance that those to
be baptized are, in fact, infants” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, §67).
35
ST, III, Q.71, Art. 3.
36
Ibid.
37
The anointing (done before the baptism on the breast and between the
shoulders with the oil of catechumens) is also a ceremony for fight. The
catechumen is anointed in the manner of boxers in order to be prepared
for the fight against the devil (whereas the anointing made on the head
after the baptism with the holy chrism expresses the consecration of
the Christian: “christ” = anointed). See St. Thomas, ST, III, Q.66, Art.
10, ad 2. In the new ritual, the anointing of catechumens is no longer
made between the shoulders but on the breast only.
38
Fides ex auditu (Rom. 10:17).

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43
F R .

p e t e r

Is Confession to a post-conciliar priest valid?

This question is poorly worded. It should read:
Is confession to a post-conciliar priest profitable for
one’s soul?
The requirements for the validity of the sacrament
of penance are that there be an ordained minister,
who has jurisdiction to hear confessions, who has
the intention of doing what the Church does, who
uses the correct words of absolution, and a penitent
who accuses himself of sins committed after baptism
and expresses his contrition. The fulfillment of these
conditions is generally not difficult. The form of the
sacrament of penance was not determined precisely
by our Divine Savior, so that any form that includes
the words “I absolve you from your sins” is valid. The
difficulty with modern priests lies in their intention.
Do they truly have the intention of absolving from
sins, which means, do they really believe that God
has committed this power to them? Here there can
certainly be a doubt, especially given that the very
nature and gravity of sin has been so undermined
by modernism, as well as the necessity of expiation,
through penance, and the sacramentality of the
sacrament of penance (cf. St. Pius X, Lamentabili,
§§39-47). Is it not for this reason that they rarely make
themselves available for confessions.
However, given the correct intention, there will
generally be no reason to doubt the validity of the
absolution. The real problem is the spiritual direction
that accompanies the administration of what is now
called “reconciliation.” This name is not entirely false,
for it is certainly true that the sinner is reconciled to
God when his sins are forgiven. However, the change
from the traditional title of “penance” is an immediate
consequence of the devaluing of the role of making
up for sin by a firm purpose of amendment, by
avoiding the occasions of sin, by the performance
of good works, and most particularly by works of
satisfaction such as those imposed by the priest.
A confessor influenced by the post-conciliar
theology, desiring to be exclusively a friend and
not also a judge, will consequently fail to reprimand
the sinner, as we all need to be reprimanded from
time to time. He will fail to give a penance in
proportion to the gravity of the fault. He will fail
to insist on the avoiding of the occasions of sin,
and he will fail to take into account the wounds
of original sin, exacerbated by actual sin. He will
not believe sufficiently in his authority to be an
effective instrument. Brainwashed by the “God is luv”
mentality, he fails to appreciate the extraordinary
power and sublime greatness of the Divine Mercy
of which he is the vehicle, through which reparation
is truly made to divine justice for the horror of our
sins, in which reparation we must play at least some,
albeit a small, part. Moreover, he will demean the

R .

s c o t t

regular “confessions of devotion,” in which we confess
our venial sins, even indeliberate, every couple of
weeks in our efforts to strive for perfection. He will
not consider our sins as sufficient matter, but rather
will treat us as bothersome, obsessive compulsive,
scrupulous and legalistic, nor will he understand our
combat to mortify every attachment to venial sin.
Consequently, a traditional Catholic may go to
Confession to a Novus Ordo priest, but only in a case of
necessity, when no traditional priest is available and
when he has to go to Confession on account of mortal
sin. In the absence of this necessity his soul will
greatly profit from the delay while he waits to find a
good traditional confessor. This does not, however,
take away from the fact that there still do remain in
the Novus Ordo some good confessors, who have not
understood the gravity of the crisis in the Church, but
who have not accepted the modernist watering down
of the sacrament of penance.

Q

What is to be done with holy things
that are no longer needed?

The virtue of religion requires that we treat all
sacred things with respect. However, the Church
makes a distinction between those items that have
been blessed and those that have not, such as books,
pictures of saints, or holy cards. There are no
particular rules for the disposal of unblessed items, for
they are not properly speaking sacred. However, it
is always good to throw them into a fire or otherwise
break them down to their component parts, so that
they are no longer recognizable and cannot be treated
irreverently.
The Church, does, however, have special
regulations for those items that are blessed with a
“constitutive blessing,” which is a blessing that sets
things apart permanently, by whose use the faithful
obtain spiritual help. This includes such things as
holy water, blessed statues and pictures, rosaries,
scapulars, and other such sacramentals. The Church’s
law concerning such items is found in Canon 1150 of
the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which states that such
blessed things “must be treated reverently, nor may
they be used for any profane use, or for any use for
which they were not blessed, and this even if they
belong to private persons.” They consequently cannot
be simply thrown into the trash, nor used for secular
decoration. This would be a desecration or irreverent
treatment. If the 1983 Code (Canon 1171) limits this
prescription to items destined for divine worship (the
Liturgy), thus excluding most sacramentals, we will
follow the traditional and much more demanding
rule, for it protects the sanctity of all blessed items,
and hence the value of all the Church‘s blessings.
Two things can be done with blessed times. The
first thing is that they can be entirely destroyed, as

A

www.angeluspress.org    THE ANGELUS • August 2009

44
for example in a fire. There is no disrespect, since
there is no irreverent use, and the blessing simply
disappears. However, this is not always possible,
for example, with statues, crucifixes, or rosaries. In
such a case they can be broken into pieces so that
they lose the form and use that they previously had.
According to Canon 1305, §1 (1917 Code), blessed
articles automatically lose their blessing when this is
done. The pieces are not blessed and cannot be used
irreverently, and so they can be disposed of in any
way. It is likewise possible to shred holy pictures if
it is not convenient to burn them in a fire, and by

the very fact they will lose their blessing. There are
certain items that it may not be possible to break up
into pieces, such as blessed medals. In this case, they
can be discarded by burial in the ground, which
prevents any disrespectful treatment of these items.
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.

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Q Ifeverintention
Q Can
be sure that the sacraments we receive are valid?
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derived from immoral activities?
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did the Catholic Church
the consecration of Russia to
Q How
get its name?
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the Immaculate Heart requested by
Our Lady been accomplished?
Q Why do Catholics not eat meat on Fridays?
Q Didn’t the early Church have “deaconesses”?
are the poor in spirit”
Q “Blessed
Q Why light votive candles before the tabernacle or a picture or statue?
(Matt. 5:3): What does it mean?
Q Is it wrong to be an organ donor?
Q Does chewing gum break the ecclesiastical fast?
Q Why does God allow some to suffer mentally and physically more than others? Is this fair?
it permissible to go to confession
Q Is it accurate to say that Our Lord was a Jew?
Q Isduring
Sunday Mass?
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Q How
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a “born-again” Protestant strikes up a conversation
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relationship with Him?” what is a good way to reply?

Q What is the authority of Canon Law?

Spiritual Nourishment for the soul
Saint George: Knight of Lydda
Anthony Cooney

Here we rediscover St. George as Giorgios Theognosta, the Roman cavalry officer from Lydda in Palestine, a
Christian during the last days of the pagan Empire, a brave man who stands up for his faith during the final great
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The Spiritual Writings of Raphael Cardinal Merry del Val
Cardinal Merry del Val was the Secretary of State to Pope St. Pius X (1903-14). He led a penitential, hidden life and
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the Church in ten years, and working tirelessly in the Sacred Heart Association he had founded for destitute boys.
This is what he asked to have inscribed on his tomb in the crypt of St. Peter’s. “Souls, souls, give me souls; take all
else away.” The letters of direction he wrote to his penitents, converts, and spiritual children demonstrate that he
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Catholic Tales for Boys and Girls and
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Caryll Houselander

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Parochial and Plain Sermons
John Henry Cardinal Newman

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Christ’s
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Rev. Fr. Francis Mueller

These “ignorant” Twelve,
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#1058

First published in 1945, now completely retypeset and
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In the Garden of Gethsemani on Mt. Olivet, Our Lord said to His Apostles:
“My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Stay you here and watch with
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The Sacred Heart of Jesus said to St. Margaret Mary: “Make reparation for
the ingratitude of men. Spend an hour in prayer to appease divine justice,
to implore mercy for sinners, to honor Me, to console Me for My bitter
suffering when abandoned by My apostles, when they did not watch one
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