FEBRUARY 2011 $4.45 “Instaurare omnia in Christo” A JOURNAL OF ROMAN CATHOLIC TRADITION THE SHROUD The Defense of Tradition as transmitted by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre Forty Years of Fidelity Bishop Bernard Fellay I Accuse the Council Fr. Scott Gardner The Popes in the Life of Archbishop Lefebvre Fr. Juan-Carlos Iscara The 40th Anniversary of the Society of St. Pius X Fr. Arnaud Rostand Education of the Youth: The Future of the Church Fr. Michael McMahon The Holy Mass, Heart of the Church Fr. Kenneth Novak Archbishop Lefebvre and the Salvation of Religious Life Fr. Cyprian, OSB A Bishop Speaks at the Council Mr. John Vennari Over the weekend of October 15-17, 2010, Angelus Press hosted its first annual conference in Kansas City, Missouri. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Society of St. Pius X, nearly 700 people convened at the Hilton Hotel near the Kansas City airport for three days of talks, socializing, and mutual support. Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior General of the Society, was the keynote speaker and offered a pontifical High Mass Sunday morning at the historic St. Vincent de Paul Church. 2010 Conference Audio set: The Defense of Tradition. STK# 8492. $49.95 What Our Customers Are Saying: “The talks were among the most profound and edifying I've ever heard.” “These CDs are displayed in a prominent place on my shelf. I've never been more impressed by the quality of talks at a conference.” “The recordings are clear and professionally mastered. It feels as if I have a front-row seat at the conference.” “A stellar success — worth every penny. My wife and I will be back next year.” “This is an event no Catholic should miss. It was truly the high-point of my year.” The “Instaurare omnia in Christo — To restore all things in Christ.” ngelus Volume XXXIV, Number 2 FEBRUARY 2011 English-language Editor and Publisher for the International Society of Saint Pius X PUBLISHER Fr. Arnaud Rostand EDITOR Fr. Markus Heggenberger ASSISTANT EDITOR Mr. James Vogel OPERATIONS MANAGER Mr. Michael Sestak Contents Motto of Pope St. Pius X 2 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Fr. Markus Heggenberger, FSSPX 3 A BISHOP SPEAKS AT THE COUNCIL John Vennari EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Miss Anne Stinnett DESIGN AND LAYOUT Mr. Simon Townshend COMPTROLLER Mr. Robert Wiemann, CPA CUSTOMER SERVICE Mr. John Rydholm Miss Rebecca Heatwole SHIPPING AND HANDLING Mr. Jon Rydholm John Vennari at the 2010 SSPX Conference 13 LETTER #77 TO FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS Bishop Bernard Fellay, FSSPX 16 ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE: IN HIS OWN WORDS St. Maximilian Kolbe, O.F.M., Conv. 20 THE TERMS OF THE CRISIS “To publish Catholic journals and place them in the hands of honest men is not enough. It is necessary to spread them as far as possible that they may be read by all, and especially by those whom Christian charity demands we should tear away from the poisonous sources of evil literature.” –Pope St. Pius X Fr. Alain Lorans, FSSPX 25 THE HOLY SHROUD Iesus Christus 26 Turin: The History of a Relic 28 How the Holy Shroud Came to Turin 30 The Holy Shroud and the Carbon 14 Controversy 31 What Is Carbon 14? 34 The Popes Speak to Us About the Holy Shroud 35 Van Dyke Was Right SUBSCRIPTION RATES US Foreign Countries (inc. Canada & Mexico) 1 year 2 years 3 years $35.00 $65.00 $100.00 $55.00 $105.00 $160.00 All payments must be in US funds only. ONLINE SUBSCRIPTIONS $15.00/year (the online edition is available around the 10th of the preceding month). To subscribe visit: www.angelusonline.org. Register for free to access back issues 14 months and older plus many other site features. The Angelus (ISSN 10735003) is published monthly under the patronage of St. Pius X and Mary, Queen of Angels. Publication office is located at 2915 Forest Ave., Kansas City, MO 64109. PH (816) 7533150; FAX (816) 753-3557. Periodicals Postage Rates paid at Kansas City, MO. ©2011 by Angelus Press. Manuscripts will be used at the discretion of the editors. Postmaster sends address changes to the address above. 37 CHURCH AND WORLD 41 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Fr. Peter Scott, FSSPX 43 THE LAST WORD Bishop Bernard Fellay, FSSPX ON OUR COVER: The Shroud of Turin Letter from the 2 Editor O n January 1, 2011, the Holy Father announced a meeting of religions for peace in Assisi. The first meeting of this kind took place in October 1986 at the same place. A jubilee after 25 years shall take place in October 2011 according to the announcement and will of the Pope. The only public protest which was published in 1986 was that of a retired Archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre. Consequently, 25 years later, it seems to be only the religious society founded by the late Archbishop, the SSPX (Society of St. Pius X) which is protesting. A commentary of the SSPX in France stated recently that all the “Ecclesia Dei communities” (and there are quite a few of them in France) keep a panic-stricken silence. They behave like the hero in a famous poem: And he comes to the conclusion: His mishap was an illusion, for, he reasons pointedly, that which must not, can not be. About the “must not,” we would easily agree with the poet. But about the “can not,” we will not agree as long as we use a philosophy of realism. We could now ask how Catholic this type of meeting is. I will not discuss this, but instead I would like to discuss the question, how pastoral it is. There are substantiated reasons to criticize the Pope’s invitation as “syncretism” (the attempt to reconcile contrary beliefs), thus not only neglecting the doctrine of the kingship of Christ, but also accepting a practical denial of his own religion. I would like to dwell on the pretended “pastoral character” of such a meeting because it is the great argument in its defense. After all: who could possibly oppose such a noble THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org cause as peace? You only have to say that Catholics pray in their own way, and other religions pray in theirs (which they would do anyway). The common cause of peace is the justification of such a common prayer. This sounds nice, and it would work if the Catholic Church were a mere political organization and not the Mystical Body of Christ. Can a Pope pursue a political end and neglect the religious character of his office, neglecting the impressions that people (Catholics and non-Catholics) will draw from his example? This is exactly the point which questions the pastoral character of such an event. Is it “pastoral” to give the false impression that the religion of Christ is only primus inter pares (first among equals) of all religions? What about His Divine character? Why should all these false religions be important in bringing about peace in the world? Peace is the work of Christ, the Savior, who came into this world and died for sinners. A story comes to mind: a priest complained to Napoleon Bonaparte that all their efforts for a national French Church were in vain, that it seemed impossible to turn Catholics away from the Catholic Church. The answer of Napoleon (who was, although an enemy of the Church, a great ruler): “Let yourself be crucified, rise after three days, and you will have success”! The “pastoral character” of the Second Vatican Council is in reality non-existant. Vatican II was the most unpastoral event which happened in the Catholic Church in recent times. The pretended “pastoral character” serves as a pretext to avoid a clear confession and position in an age when these are more important than ever. What was, after all, the pastoral result of the first Assisi Meeting? People, especially Catholics, were confused. Theologians and even bishops are teaching that you can be saved in any religion, that it finally does not matter what your religion is. Is it then very astonishing if people want to join a religion which is “easier” and that they start to water down the commandments of God? Why should I go a difficult way when there exists an easy one which is perfectly okay and permitted? Why should I not be like everyone else? Why should I not conform to the world? Things have grown wild in the Catholic Church. Still one link is not yet pronounced officially: The crisis in the Church, and even in the world, is nothing else than a consequence of the breakdown of the Catholic Faith, Catholic society, and Catholic culture. If it is true that the world was redeemed by the living Son of God, then the breakdown of faith and of the Church is really the worst case scenario that can happen to this world. A reflection on the meaning of “pastoral” can reveal all that. The Second Vatican Council called itself “pastoral” but it wasn’t. Certain ecumenical actions of John Paul II (like kissing the Koran) were not “pastoral.” Ecumenical meetings are not “pastoral”; neither are confusing declarations about condoms. Truly pastoral things strengthen the Faith. It is safe to say that the Church is in dire need of true pastors. Psalm 22 1.  The Lord ruleth me: and I shall want nothing. 2.  He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment: 3.  He hath converted my soul. He hath led me on the paths of justice, for his own name’s sake. 4.  For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me. 5.  Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly is it! 6.  And thy mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And that I may dwell in the house of the Lord unto length of days.(...) Instaurare Omnia in Christo, Fr. Markus Heggenberger 3 The Defense of Tradition A Bishop Speaks at the Council John Vennari This is an edited transcript of a lecture given on October 16 at the SSPX’s 40th Anniversary Conference in Kansas City. Archbishop Lefebvre with the International Group of Fathers during the Second Vatican Council “A Revolution in Catholic Attitudes” Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton was one of the most eminent American theologians of the first half of the 20th Century. He had been trained at the Angelicum in Rome, wrote his doctoral dissertation under the revered Thomistic theologian Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, and for 20 years–from 1944 to 1963–he was editor of the theological journal, The American Ecclesiastical Review. He defended the Church’s doctrine that outside the Church there is no salvation, and the doctrine on the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ at a time when it was becoming increasingly unpopular to do so. In the July 1961 issue of the American Ecclesiastical Review, he published a piece entitled “Revolutions in Catholic Attitudes.” He was reacting against a speech given to the Australian Catholic Press Association by a Fr. James Murtagh, who was then-president of that Association. The speech ran in the June 11 edition of Our Sunday Visitor, which was one of the most widely-read Catholic newspapers in the United States. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 4 2010 conference Here is the quote that touched off Msgr. Fenton. Fr. Murtagh said: The Church has entered the Age of Dialogue and the Age of Public Relations–dialogue with non-Catholic Christians and public relations with the community at large…I don’t think it an exaggeration to say that we are on the threshold of a revolution in Catholic attitudes and policies in the Church’s confrontation with the world. The revolution has already begun. It may well be signed and sealed and directed at the Second Vatican Council and will mark the end of the Reformation era. Fr. Murtagh’s quote concludes: When the directives of the Council are handed down, they may well call for a considerable readjustment of attitudes and ideas and a deliberate re-setting of editorial sights.1 Now, keep in mind the date this was published in Our Sunday Visitor: June 1961–nearly a year and a half before the Council opened. And Msgr. Fenton was horrified that this revolutionary notion would be proposed, as it is contrary to the entire nature and stability of the Faith. Firing back at this madness, Msgr. Fenton says: “There will not be, and there can never be, any modification of a truth proposed and defined by the magisterium.”2 He insisted in detail that there will be no change in doctrine from that proposed by Vatican I, Leo XIII, or from any of Pius X’s directives against Modernism. He even went on to say, “The statements that will come from the forthcoming Council and in the future documents of the Papal magisterium will be more adequate in the lines of clar- Quoted from “Revolutions in Catholic Attitudes,” Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, American Ecclesiastical Review, July 1961 (emphasis added). 2 Ibid., p. 123. 1 THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org ity. They will more and more effectively avoid ambiguity.”3 There is a lot we could talk about regarding Msgr. Fenton’s article, but his main and final point was: “There is not going to be any revolution in Catholic attitudes.”4 Msgr. Fenton was well aware of the many doctrinal deviations whirling throughout the Church at the time. He was not naïve, yet he insisted there would be “no revolution in Catholic attitudes.” Now, I’m opening with Msgr. Fenton for two reasons. First, I think it represents the mindset of the good churchmen at the time–I’m taking about the good men. Sure, there might be doctrinal deviations running rampant throughout the Church. Sure, there might be trouble-makers such as Hans Kung and Karl Rahner and de Lubac and Congar on the loose. But no matter what these deviations, there is no way the Pope of the Catholic Church will go along with them. There is no way the Vicar of Christ will imbibe these revolutionary attitudes himself, and there is certainly no way the Sovereign Pontiff will confirm these new attitudes by means of Council that is meant to teach the whole world. In other words, a lot of good men–men who were some of the most orthodox, learned and well-informed in the Catholic world–would have never dreamed that the Council would be the unprecedented catastrophe that it was. (In fact, Archbishop Lefebvre, in 1965, before the disaster fully hit, was still optimistic that the Pope would not confirm and adopt the new thinking.)5 Ibid., p. 124 (emphasis added). 4 Ibid., p. 128 (emphasis added). 5 In 1965, just before the fourth and final session of the Council, Archbishop Lefebvre publicly stated his belief that despite what went on at the Council and despite the progressivist “magisterium” at the Council that had done so much damage, “The Church in the person of Peter’s successor has not yet substituted the traditional Magisterium with this new one and neither has the Church of Rome.... 3 Second, I think it helps us to step back to recognize the extraordinary period in Church history in which we find ourselves. It is unspeakably abnormal. What men of the theological caliber of Msgr. Fenton considered virtually impossible is now the “norm” in our time. The Papacy itself has undergone a “Revolution in Catholic Attitudes.” We are no longer shocked when the modern Popes continually commit heretofore unthinkable acts, such as visiting synagogues, mosques, or Lutheran places of worship, or exalting the secular state. We live in an extraordinary period in Church history in which the deviations from the Faith come from the highest pinnacles. That which was deemed virtually impossible–a series of Popes promoting liberal ideas and incorporating these ideas into ecclesiastical policy—is now the norm. We live in a time of systemic aberration. In other words, we have lived, and we continue to live, in an enduring state of emergency within the Church. And the cause of this systemic aberration–the cause of this enduring state of emergency–is the Second Vatican Council. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre labored with all his strength that the Council would not become this disaster. But he was aware that he and the good bishops with whom he worked at Vatican II were not completely successful. He writes: We were able…to limit the damage, to change the inexact or tendentious assertions, to add a sentence to rectify a tendentious proposition or an ambiguous assertion. The majority of the Cardinals and especially the Cardinals of the Curia, ...do not look to the new magisterium. Neither collegiality nor the ill-conceived religious liberty, both of which are contrary to the doctrine of the Church, will succeed.” More than two decades later, when re-reading what he had said at the time, Archbishop Lefebvre said, “I admit that the optimism I showed regarding the Council and the Pope was ill-founded.” Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, Marcel Lefebvre (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 2004), p. 331. 2010 conference 5 From the very first days, the Council was besieged by the progressive forces...fifteen days after the opening sessions not one of the seventy-two schemas remained. All had been sent back, rejected, thrown into the wastepaper basket.–Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre Central Preparatory Commission by the Pope and I took an assiduous and enthusiastic part in its two years of work….This work was carried out very conscientiously and meticulously. I still possess the seventy-two preparatory schemas; in them the Church’s doctrine is absolutely orthodox. They were adapted in a certain manner to our times, but with great moderation and discretion.”7 But I have to admit that we did not succeed in purifying the Council of the liberal and modernist spirit that impregnated most of the schemas. The drafters [of these Vatican II schemas] were precisely the experts and Fathers tainted with this spirit. Now what can you do when a document is in all its parts drawn up with a false meaning? It is practically impossible to expurgate it of that meaning. It would have to be completely recomposed in order to be given a Catholic spirit.6 The Rhine Flows… I am taking for granted that you know the basic facts about Vatican II: That it was called by Pope John XXIII in 1959, and a central theme for the Council would be aggiornamento–which means a “bringing up to date” of Catholic teaching; l That the Pope formed a Preparatory Commis­s ion that took two years preparing the schemas that would be discussed by the bishops once the Council opened; and that Archbishop Lefebvre was a member of that Preparatory Commission, working with Cardinal Ottaviani, head of the Holy Office; l That the documents produced by that Preparatory Commission were in conformity with the traditional Catholic magisterium of the centuries. Archbishop Lefebvre wrote, “I was nominated a member of the l I am taking for granted you are also aware that this agenda was never followed because a group of progressivist bishops and theologians hijacked the Council from the first day it opened. These progressivists are well known: Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger, Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Dominic Chenu, Hans Küng, Edward Schilebeeckx, Cardinal Suenens, Cardinal Frings– the list goes on. The progressive theologians mentioned were invited to the Council at the insistence of John XXIII, even though a number of these theologians had been censured by Pius XII’s Vatican, and had not retracted their deviant theological positions. On this point, Archbishop Lefebvre revealed what happened at a meeting of the Preparatory Commission prior to Vatican II. The Archbishop was horrified to see a list of modernist theologians who were scheduled to attend the Council as expert theological advisors. Archbishop Lefebvre made an 7 6 Marcel Lefebvre, p. 296. Open Letter to Confused Catholics (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1996), p. 102. intervention at a meeting of the Central Commission on June 5, 1961, expressing his dismay that these theologians were to be admitted to the Council. After the meeting, Cardinal Ottaviani said privately to Archbishop Lefebvre, “I know. But what can be done? The Holy Father wants it like that. He wants experts with a reputation.”8 The progressive prelates and theologians came to the Council with an agenda to remake the Church unto their own image and likeness. They did not want to work on the original documents that had been drawn up by the Preparatory Commission, because if they had, then the discussions would have been channelled into a kind of traditionalist straight-jacket, and they could not have brought in their modernist ideas. From day one, the progressives organized a fierce opposition to these schemas, and within three days of the Council’s opening, they voted successfully to get rid of the documents that had been prepared. The progressivists also immediately manoeuvred themselves into the positions of power at the Council, by which they could steer the Council’s program. Archbishop Lefebvre, who experienced all of this first hand, tells us: From the very first days, the Council was besieged by the progressive forces...fifteen days after the opening sessions not one of the seventy-two schemas remained. All 8 Marcel Lefebvre, p. 275. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 6 2010 conference had been sent back, rejected, thrown into the waste-paper basket.9 This scrapping of the original schemas left 3,000 bishops in Rome without an agenda. The bishops then relied on the progressive theologians to draw up new documents that would be discussed by the Council. The liberal bishops and theologians drew up these documents in a new “pastoral” language that was marked by imprecision, ambiguities, deliberate omissions and a spirit of liberalism. The ambiguities, as you know, were planted in the documents so that the progressivists could exploit them afterwards. Archbishop Lefebvre called these “time bombs” in the Council texts. The documents of Vatican II are thus flawed documents because of their deliberate ambiguity, lack of precision, countless omissions, and because of the novel concepts advanced. not come about by chance and neither was it superficial, and deeper still between cardinals than between the archbishops or bishops.10 To give a quick idea of the different approach of the two groups, we will mention the rival schematas concerning religious liberty. The first was from Cardinal Ottaviani and was called “Relations between Church and State and Religious Tolerance.” There were nine pages of text and fourteen pages of endnotes with numerous quotations from the papal teaching of Pius XI and Pius XII. The other, written by Cardinal Bea’s Secretariat for Christian Unity, was entitled, “On Religious Liberty.” It contained fifteen pages of text, only five pages of notes, and no references to the magisterium of the Church.11 Archbishop Lefebvre said of these two schemas: The first [Ottaviani’s] is Catholic Tradition: but the second? What on earth is that? They want to introduce Liberalism, the French Revolution, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man into the Church. This cannot be.12 Two Opposing Forces During the preparation for the Council, two forces were working against one another. On the one side were the “Romans” with the Theological Commission of Cardinal Ottaviani, head of the Holy Office, always defending traditional doctrine. On the other was the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity under Cardinal Bea and assisted by Jan Willebrands. There were fierce battles during these two years between the two forces. For example, Cardinal Bea would attack the “scholastic language” of the original schematas written by Cardinal Ottaviani’s group. Archbishop Lefebvre witnessed these clashes first hand. He said: It was clear to all the members who were present that there was a division inside the Church. It did 9 Open Letter to Confused Catholics, p. 102. THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org Now, you will notice I said Cardinal Bea attacked the scholastic language of the text–and by scholastic language, I mean the precise language of St. Thomas Aquinas that the Church has praised and incorporated over the centuries as the clearest expression of philosophy and theology. Of scholastic philosophy, Leo XIII said: We think it hazardous that its special honor should not always and everywhere remain, especially when it is established that daily experience, and the judgment of the Marcel Lefebvre, p. 277. The original schema written under the direction of Cardinal Ottaviani is now published as an Appendix in Archbishop Lefebvre’s They Have Uncrowned Him. 12 Marcel Lefebvre, p. 282. 10 11 greatest men, and, to crown all, the voice of the Church, have favored the scholastic philosophy.13 St. Pius X further taught that the modernists have “only ridicule and contempt” for “scholastic philosophy and theology” and that “there is no surer sign that a man is on the way to modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for the [scholastic] system.”14 The New Theology So then, why would Cardinal Bea attack the Council text because of its scholastic language? Clearly, Bea was influenced by the partisans of the “New Theology.” It is impossible to have a correct understanding of Vatican II– and to have a full understanding of the battles Archbishop Lefebvre was fighting during the Council–unless one appreciates the New Theology, which was a repackaged version of Modernism gaining ground in the 1940s, ’50s, and early ’60s. Theologians such as Karl Rahner, Yves Congar, and, most especially, Fr. Henri de Lubac, were at the very center of the movement. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange warned in his landmark 1946 article that the New Theology leads us straight back to modernism. It’s a hugely important subject that we don’t have time to fully explore, so I will summarize the New Theology in three quick points: 13 14 Aeterni Patris, On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy, Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. Pope St. Pius X said in his Encyclical against Modernism: “We admonish professors to bear well in mind that they cannot set aside St. Thomas, especially in metaphysical questions, without grave disadvantage.” Pius even went so far as to formally proclaim in Sacrorum Antistitum, which was the document that promulgated the Oath Against Modernism, that “In the future the doctorate in theology or Canon Law must never be conferred on anyone who has not first of all made the regular course in scholastic [Thomistic] philosophy. If such a doctorate is conferred, it is to be held as null and void” (emphasis added). Pascendi, No. 42. 2010 conference 7 Liberals and Progressives like to live in a climate of ambiguity. The idea of clarifying the purpose of the Council annoyed them exceedingly. My proposal was thus rejected.–Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 1) It is the belief that theology must keep adapting itself to the changing circumstances from age to age; theology must always be in a state of flux. Fr. Henri Boulliard, a proponent of the New Theology, said in the mid-1940s: “A theology which is not current [does not keep changing] will be a false theology.”15 2) It consists of a confusion concerning the distinction between the natural and supernatural orders. 3) It consists of a rejection of the scholasticism of St. Thomas Aquinas in order to form a new synthesis between the Greek Fathers and modern philosophies. To put it simply, the system claims that scholasticism is too foreign to modern man, traditional Catholic terms are too foreign to modern man. It thus seeks to speak to modern man in a language that he understands. So in light of the little I’ve said about the New Theology, and in light of Cardinal Bea’s denouncing the “Scholasticism” in Cardinal Ottaviani’s original schemas, we can see the forces of this modernist New Theology at work at Vatican II at the most fundamental level. And the man who threatened to spoil the party more than anyone else was Archbishop Lefebvre. 15 Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, “Where Is the New Theology Leading Us?” First printed in the Rome’s Angelicum in 1946. Translated into English by Catholic Family News and published in August 1998. On line at: www.cfnews.org/ gg-newtheo.htm. Lefebvre’s Scholastic Solution Archbishop Lefebvre made, I believe, his most important intervention at Vatican II even before the Council opened (and it was reiterated in November 1962, after the close of the First Session). This intervention was fiercely rejected by the innovators, for obvious reasons. Had the intervention been successful, it would have gone a long way in saving the entire Council from being the catastrophe that it was. Archbishop Lefebvre pointed out–and he did this with clarity and great statesmanship–that the Council is attempting something extremely difficult. On the one hand, he said, the Council wants employ pastoral and ecumenical language in order to speak in a some sort of easy-tounderstand language to all men. On the other hand, the bishops of the Church have the “grave responsibility” to instill in our priests, and in our future priests, a love of “sound and unerring doctrine.” Now Archbishop Lefebvre was a magnificent pastor–Apostolic delegate to French Speaking Africa, one of the greatest missionary bishops of the 20th century, and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers. We’re talking about a man who knew how to be pastoral, and he had the decades of stupendous growth of the Church in his territories in Africa that he could point to as proof of his theological and pastoral prowess. And in so many words, he said, yes! When I speak to theologians, I speak to them in a different manner from the way I speak to lay people, or to the average man on the street. So that’s the double problem the Council faces. And the Archbishop proposed a solution. His solution was “that each Commission should put forth two documents: one more dogmatic [that is, in scholastic language], for the use of theologians; the other more pastoral in tone, for the use of others, whether Catholic, nonCatholic or non-Christians.”16 And the theological documents– drawn up in traditional scholastic language “to eliminate all ambiguity and error”–would serve as the ‘official interpreter,’ as it were, to the points in the pastoral documents.17 Needless to say, Archbishop Lefebvre’s proposal was immediately shot down. It did get the support of various conservative Fathers such as Cardinal Ruffini and thenArchbishop Roy, but overall, as Archbishop Lefebvre said, “The proposal was met with violent opposition.” The progressives bleated, “The Council is not a dogmatic but a pastoral one; we are not seeking to define new dogma, but to put forth the truth in a pastoral way…” The Archbishop saw through this ruse. He said: Liberals and Progressives like to live in a climate of ambiguity. The idea of clarifying the purpose of the Council annoyed them exceedingly. My proposal was thus rejected.18 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council, rev. ed. (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 2009), p. 6. 17 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, A Bishop Speaks, 2nd ed. (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 2007), p. 16. 18 I Accuse the Council, p. 4. 16 www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 8 2010 conference Archbishop Lefebvre at the Council As for the progressivist takeover of Vatican II, Archbishop Lefebvre would say that the Council came to be controlled by the forces of modernization. We felt it, we sensed it, and when I say “we” I mean the majority of the Council Fathers at the time; we had the impression that something unusual was going on.19 In response to this progressive onslaught, the opening of the second Session of Vatican II–October 1963–saw the formation of the International Group of Fathers. It was formed by Brazil’s Bishop Proença Sigaud, who wanted to organize the scattered conservative prelates who were resisting the liberal alliance, and Archbishop Lefebvre was a major player in this conservative group. The Archbishop himself said: The soul of Coetus was Bishop Proença Sigaud as Secretary, I myself as a former Apostolic Delegate and the Superior General, was the “public face” in the role of chairman. Bishop de Castro Mayer was vice chairman and “the thinker,” while Bishop Carli was “the pen,” with his talents, his lively mind, and his Italian know-how.20 In fact, Bishop Carli of Italy was so formidable that the progressive Cardinal Dopfner, who was one of the Four Council Moderators of the Council, would later say there was no bishop of the Council whom he feared more than Bishop Carli.21 Other bishops and theologians united themselves with this International Group of Fathers, as did eventually a number of Cardinals, and they became a substantial force resisting the liberal revolution at Vatican II. Marcel Lefebvre, p. 288. Ibid., p. 291. 21 Fr. Ralph Wiltgen, S.V.D., The Rhine Flows into the Tiber (Rockford: Tan, 1983), p. 89. 19 20 THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org They were a group of small means and modest funds, but they accomplished a great deal. They ended up with a printing press by which they could spread their writings. They held regular meetings and lectures in Rome, especially on Tuesday nights, and the Great Abbey of Solemnes was particularly sympathetic and helpful to their cause. Regarding his interventions at the Vatican, Archbishop Lefebvre said, “I consider my duty to speak out,” and he never ceased speaking out against the Vatican II revolution until death sealed his lips on March 25, 1991. Archbishop Lefebvre himself made at least twelve major interventions at Vatican II, which are contained for our benefit in this slim little book, I Accuse The Council. For some of the details of Archbishop Lefebvre’s interventions at the Council, we will look at six topics: Collegiality, Sacred Scripture, the proper ends of marriage, the condemnation of Communism, ecumenism, and religious liberty. Collegiality Collegiality was a new doctrine advanced at Vatican II. There was the “extreme liberal” version of collegiality, which held that the bishops formed a college of which the Pope was only the head, and the Pope would need to consult the bishops before making decisions. Then there was the “moderate liberal thesis,” which basically held that supreme power in the Church would be exercised by two authorities; the Pope on the one hand, and the college of bishops on the other, even though the Pope retained his personal power as defined by Vatican I. This new arrangement that gave the college of bishops a kind of juridical power in the Church that had no basis in Tradition. Archbishop Lefebvre supported the intervention against collegiality written by a traditional Vatican II theological expert named Fr. Berto. Fr. Berto explained that the Pope was the only leader of the Church with the plenitude of supreme power, and that the bishops do not constitute a college by Divine Right “in the juridical sense of being the subject of a common action.” The bishops only exercise this power in extraordinary circumstances, such as an ecumenical council. And even then, this power must be delegated to them by the Pope. At t h e t i m e , A r ch b i s h o p Lefebvre also pointed to the practical consequences of this new position. In an interview he gave to Fr. Ralph Wiltgen’s Divine Word News Service, Archbishop Lefebvre warned that collegiality “is a new kind of collectivism invading the Church…individual bishops would be so restricted in the government of their diocese as to lose their initiative.22 On the doctrinal level, he warned that if the new collegiality was accepted, it would mean that for the past 2,000 years, “the Roman Church has erred in not knowing the fundamental principles of her divine Constitution.” Despite these objections, and the opposition of the conservative Council Fathers, Paul VI insisted on incorporating the moderate liberal position into the Council document Lumen Gentium. There was even a point when the Council’s theological Commission broke the rules of the Council by ignoring a modi that the conservative Fathers had submitted regarding collegiality. Though Paul VI learned of this outrage and insisted that the conservative Fathers modi be included, he also insisted on the “moderate liberal” thesis becoming the teaching of the Council. More battles ensued. And then, very late in the game, a liberal Council peritus made the mistake of putting in writing how 22 Marcel Lefebvre, p. 322. 2010 conference 9 The refusal of this pastoral Council to issue any official condemnation of Communism alone suffices to disgrace it for all time, when one thinks of the tens of millions of martyrs, of people having their personalities scientifically destroyed in the psychiatric hospitals, serving as guinea-pigs for all sorts of experiments.–Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre he and the other liberals would interpret the new teaching on collegiality after the Council closed, which would have been along the lines of the “extreme liberal” position. That document was found and shown to Paul VI, who broke down in tears when he read it. The Pope realized that he had been deceived, and immediately insisted that an “Explanatory Note” be drawn up on the subject. This Note is not an integral part of the Council document itself; it was published in the Acts of the Apostolic See.23 And though the Note upholds papal authority as defined by Vatican I, it does not clarify exactly what collegiality is, so the confusion about collegiality remains to this day. Sacred Scripture Regarding Divine Revelation, and problems concerning a new definition of Tradition that is found in Vatican II’s Dei Verbum, it seems Archbishop Lefebvre and the conservative Fathers had to channel their energies into reaffirming the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture, which was threatened by the original liberal schemata. If Vatican II ended up reaffirming the traditional teaching on the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture, it was due to the fight from Archbishop Lefebvre and the International Group of Fathers. Marriage There was also the battle to retain the proper ends of marriage. In Catholic doctrine, and in natural ethics–if the ethician is honest–the 23 Michael Davies, Pope John’s Council, 2nd ed. (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 2007), pp. 105-6. primary end of marriage is the begetting and education of children, and the second end is conjugal love. But in the Council document Gaudium et Spes, we see that the two ends of marriage are made equal. Archbishop Lefebvre intervened that this was contrary to the entire doctrine of the Church and would lead to enormous negative consequences. The conservative Fathers lost that battle, and the error remains in Gaudium et Spes, which effectively says that procreation and conjugal love are equal ends in marriage. This has led to tremendous moral problems that we won’t discuss here.24 Communism Then there was the request for the condemna­tion of Communism, in which Archbishop Lefebvre played a major role. In October 1964, the Council was debating what would come to be Gaudium et Spes, the “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.” Chapter XIII of the text, which dealt with atheism, contained no mention of Communism, which was the most global, organized, and brutal system of evil in the modern world. So the International Group of Fathers marshaled their energies in an attempt to ensure that Communism be condemned by name at the Council. Bishop Carli wrote a letter requesting the condemnation of Communism and it was circulated by Archbishop Sigaud and Arch24 On the level of doctrine, this new approach to marriage has reaffirmed the false notion that doctrine can change. Again, we have the New Theology at work: Theology to remain alive had to “move with the times.” We see the “Revolution in Catholic attitudes.” bishop Lefebvre. Initially they collected 332 signatures requesting this condemnation, and the petition was hand-delivered by Archbishop Lefebvre on November 9. This was delivered within the proper time limit, and it ensured there would be ample time for the letter to be considered.25 But then on November 13, when the new version of the schema was produced, there was no mention of the petition for Communism’s condemnation. Bishop Carli immediately protested and lodged a formal complaint. He also decided to renew the request in the form of an amendment. The International Group of Fathers leapt into action, and their helpers drove throughout Rome hand-delivering the petition to the Council Fathers, by which they picked up even more signatures; the final count would be 454. In spite of this, no mention was made of the petition in the new schema. Upon an inquiry ordered by Cardinal Tisserant, it was discovered that the petition had been conveniently “lost” in a drawer. In fact, Msgr. Achille Glorieux, secretary for the Commission, had received the petition but did not pass it on to the commission. Because it was not passed on, there was now no more time for the paragraph condemning Communism to be added. Now the reason Communism was not condemned was due to the Vatican Moscow Agreement. This is the pact Pope John XXIII made with Moscow to secure the attendance 25 Archbishop Lefebvre was given a receipt as proof that the document had been received. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 10 2010 conference of members of the Russian Orthodox establishment as Observers. Moscow insisted–and John XXIII agreed–that in order for the Russian Orthodox Observers to be present, there would be no condemnation of Communism at the Council. The condemnation of Communism was sacrificed for the sake of a bogus ecumenism. The end result is that Gaudium et Spes only speaks in general about modern atheisms and merely footnotes Pius XI’s 1937 encyclical against Communism. But tellingly enough, the footnote only references the Encyclical’s Latin title, Divini Redemptoris. It does not mention the word “Communism” at all, ensuring that the word “Communism” appeared nowhere in the documents of Vatican II. Archbishop Lefebvre would rightly say: The refusal of this pastoral Council to issue any official condemnation of Communism alone suffices to disgrace it for all time, when one thinks of the tens of millions of martyrs, of people having their personalities scientifically destroyed in the psychiatric hospitals, serving as guinea-pigs for all sorts of experiments.26 On this note, Vatican II can truly be said to be an anti-Fatima Council. Not only did it refuse to condemn Russia’s errors by name, but Paul VI also rejected the request of the collected signatures of 510 bishops, representing 78 countries.27 This petition, which was initiated by Archbishop Sigaud, was a request for him to use the occasion of the Council to consecrate Russia and the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in union with the world’s bishops as requested by Our Lady of Fatima. Paul VI refused. 26 27 Letter to Friends and Benefactors, No. 9. Quoted from Pope John’s Council, p. 245. Frère François, Fatima, Intimate Joy, World Event, Vol. IV, Tragedy and Triumph (Buffalo: Immaculate Heart Publications, 1995), p. 82. THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org Ecumenism Then there was the new ecumenism, which was a defining element of the Second Vatican Council. Archbishop Lefebvre, true to form, presented interventions against this new spirit. He warned against what he described as a “false irenicism which tampers with the purity of Catholic teaching or obscures its true and certain meaning.” In the schema, “the most fundamental truths in this sphere are watered down.”28 The plain truths of Catholicism were being diluted in an attempt to make them more palatable to Protestants. l The Archbishop had plenty to say against the schema calling the Church a “general help to salvation.” A general help? And he reiterated the traditional doctrine–and quoted the 1951 Letter of the Holy Office– that “Our Lord indeed not only commanded all men to enter the Church” that was “divinely instituted” by Him, but that Our Lord “instituted the Church as the means of salvation without which no one can enter the kingdom of Heavenly glory.” Thus, said the Archbishop, it is obvious from this traditional teaching that “the Church is not seen merely as a ‘general help to salvation’.”29 No, it is necessary for salvation. l He further warned against the schema’s statement: “The Holy Ghost does not refuse to make use of these churches and communities.” In response, the Archbishop said: l This statement contains error: a community insofar as it is a separated community, cannot enjoy the assistance of the Holy Ghost. He can only act directly on souls or use such means as, of themselves, bear no sign of separation.30 What resulted was Vatican II’s new ecumenical approach—a revolution in Catholic attitudes—where­in Catholic prelates and clergy no longer were interested in working towards conversion of non-Catholics, but rather, in convergence with non-Catholics. In the spirit of the “New Theology,” theology, in order to remain alive, had to “move with the times”–and the times were ecumenical. It is worth noting on this point that Dr. Robert McAfee Brown, a Protestant observer at Vatican II, was quick to praise Vatican II’s new approach. Dr. Brown was well aware of the traditional Catholic teaching on Christian unity, and celebrated the drastic change of attitude that Vatican II wrought. He did not see continuity in Vatican II, but rupture with the past, and he rejoiced. In his 1967 book, The Ecumenical Revolution, he applauds the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism: The document makes clear how new is the attitude that has emerged. No more is there talk of “schismatics and heretics” but rather of “separated brethren.” No more is there an imperial demand that the dissidents return in penitence to the Church who has no need of penitence; instead there is recognition that both sides are guilty of the sins of division and must reach out penitentially to one another. No more are Protestants dismissed merely as “sects” or psychological entities alone; instead it is acknowledged that there is a measure of “ecclesial reality” to be found within their corporate life.31 This last point made McAfee Brown is precisely what Archbishop Lefebvre was warning against when 30 31 28 29 I Accuse the Council, p. 17. Ibid., pp. 17-18 (emphasis added). Ibid., p. 18. Robert McAfee Brown, Ecumenical Revolution, 2nd ed. (1967; Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), pp. 67-8. 2010 conference 11 Yves Marsaudon, the Freemason, has published the book Ecumenism as Seen by a Traditional Freemason. In it the author expresses the hope of Freemasons that our Council will solemnly proclaim religious liberty....What more information do we need?–Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre he made the intervention against the notion that “a community [that is, for example, a Protestant sect], insofar as it is a separated community, cannot enjoy the assistance of the Holy Ghost.” The Protestant McAfee Brown celebrates that Vatican II confirmed the opposite when the Council claimed that these Protestant groups have a measure of “ecclesial reality.” Archbishop Lefebvre clearly saw the danger of these new teachings at the time of the Council. In 1964, he said that the Conciliar schemas “have a spirit of rupture and suicide,” and went on to say, “There exists a spirit of non-Catholic or rationalist ecumenism that has become a battering ram for unknown hands to pervert doctrine.”32 And while so many other highlyplaced churchmen were predicting the great renewal that the Council would bring, Archbishop Lefebvre was far more realistic. He said: In an inconceivable fashion, the Council promoted the spreading of liberal errors. The Faith, morality, and ecclesiastical discipline are shaken to their foundations as the Popes have predicted. The destruction of the Church is advancing rapidly.33 Religious Liberty Of course, Archbishop Lefebvre was most active opposing the new notion of religious liberty that would emerge at Vatican II. This innovation states that all men have the positive right to practice their false religion in public. Archbishop 32 33 Marcel Lefebvre, p. 330. Ibid., p. 335. Lefebvre made numerous interventions against this novel tenet. He noted that the new doctrine shifts the focus away from the rights of the objective truth given to us through Divine Revelation to the right of the human person to embrace religious error, which is contrary to the traditional teaching of the Church. This traditional teaching is summarized by Pope Pius XII in the 1950s, who taught that “what is not in accord with truth and the moral law has objectively no right to exist, to be promoted or to be practiced,” and that “no human authority can give a positive mandate to teach or do things contrary to religious truth.”34 Archbishop Lefebvre further noted that the progressive Fr. Yves Congar openly admitted Vatican II’s new doctrine of religious liberty is a rupture with the past. Congar said: What is new in this teaching in relation to the doctrine of Leo XIII and even of Pius XII…is the determination of the basis peculiar to this liberty, which is sought not in the objective truth of moral or religious good, but in the ontological quality of the human person.35 Of special note was Archbishop Lefebvre’s predicted consequences of the new doctrine. During the Council, he warned that “religious liberty is the right to cause scandal” because it gives civil rights to spread religious error and its moral consequences. Among these consequences, Archbishop Lefebvre spotlighted the following: 34 35 Quoted from ibid., p. 310. I Accuse the Council, p. 21. Immorality: “The liberty of all religious communities in society mentioned in No. 29, cannot be laid down, without at the same time granting moral liberty to these communities: morals and religion are very closely linked, for instance, polygamy and the religion of Islam”; l The death of the Catholic States: “A civil society endowed with Catholic legislation shall no longer exist”; l “Doctrinal Relativism and practical indifferentism”; l “The disappearance in the Church of the missionary spirit for the conversion of souls.”36 l The consequences that the Archbishop predicted, and worse, have come to pass due to the Council’s new program. Cardinal Ottaviani likewise predicted that the Council’s religious liberty would result in South America’s being overrun with Protestantism. He too is proven correct. Of course, the most damning indictment of the Council’s religious liberty came from the synagogue of Satan itself. Archbishop Lefebvre noted: This very year [1965], Yves Marsaudon, the Freemason, has published the book L’oecumenisme vu par un franc-maçon de tradition [Ecumenism as Seen by a Traditional Freemason]. In it the author expresses the hope of Freemasons that our Council will solemnly proclaim religious liberty....What more information do we need?37 36 37 Marcel Lefebvre, p. 329. Ibid., p. 328. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 12 2010 ConfeRenCe An end and a beginning You remember I opened with Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, where he said with full conviction there was no way that the Council would propound a “revolution in Catholic attitudes.” Here is the sad conclusion. Msgr. Fenton was a peritus at Vatican II, working with Cardinal Ottaviani. On November 11, 1963, there was a crucial meeting between the Roman theologians: Cardinal Ottaviani and Msgr. Fenton and others on one side, and the proponents of the new teaching (Cardinal Bea, John Courtney Murray, Rahner and the rest), on the other. A vote was taken at that meeting which secured John Courtney Murray’s new teaching on religious liberty as the offi cial position at the Council. This was the position that Fenton understood well, and had consistently fought throughout the entire 1950s. Shortly after this meeting, Msgr. Fenton left the Council, returned to the United States and immediately resigned as Editor of the American Marcel Lefebvre Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais 718 pp. Sewn softcover with French flaps. 54 photographs, 16 Maps and Charts. STK# 8035✱ $22.95 Ecclesiastical Review. 38 Yesterday’s heresy had become today’s orthodoxy, and Msgr. Fenton would not cooperate in the defense of a new teaching he knew to be contrary to the Church’s traditional doctrine. He ceased writing and died in a parish in Massachusetts in 1969. Archbishop Lefebvre likewise knew that with Vatican II, yesterday’s heresies had become today’s orthodoxy. Not long after the Council he too resigned his position of Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, and quietly retired in Rome. But Providence had other plans for him, and the Archbishop always followed the designs of Providence. From giving advice in the late 1960s to troubled seminarians, who were dissatisfied with the formation they were receiving from seminaries that were ravaged by the Council’s new program, he would go on to found the Society of St. Pius X. This Society was the lone international institution preserving the true Faith and the true Mass during those dark decades 38 Michael Davies, The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty (Long Prairie: Neumann Press, 1992), pp. 11-12. I Accuse the Council Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 89 pp. Softcover. STK# 3072✱ $10.00 THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org after the Council, and which continues–and please God will always continue–the uncompromising struggle against liberalism that Archbishop Lefebvre waged manfully during Vatican II and in the tumultuous post-Conciliar period. What Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton in 1961 said was virtually impossible is now the norm in the Church. The “revolution of Catholic attitudes” comes from the papacy itself and is spread throughout the Church by means of a liberal Council. The systemic aberration continues, the state of emergency continues, and so must be our respectful and uncompromising resistance. We thank God for giving us Archbishop Lefebvre as a model who was willing to endure a constant barrage of calumny to remain steadfast in the Faith, and who publicly defended the Faith in the face of unspeakable opposition from those who should have been his protectors. John Vennari is Editor of the traditional Catholic monthly Catholic Family News. He can be reached at cfnjjv@gmail.com. Open Letter to Pope John’s Confused Catholics Council Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 163 pp. Softcover. STK# 5045✱ $11.95 AUDIOBOOK (6 CD’s) 6½ hours STK# 8477 $29.95 Michael Davies 521 pp. Sewn hardcover. STK# 8283✱ $26.95 13 Letter #77 to Friends and Benefactors H.E. Bishop Bernard Fellay Dear Friends and Benefactors, F orty years ago, on November 1, 1970, Bishop François Charrière, bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg, signed the decree founding the Priestly Society of St. Pius X. At that time, who would have thought that we would have to make our way through these forty years as we have done? For the sum of the events that our society has encountered since this date is beyond all imagining. To begin with, the unjust suppression that would strike it five years later… Cardinal Oddi summarized the reason for this situation by saying that Archbishop Lefebvre had acted out of too great a love for the Church! A rather surprising argument to explain an impressive series of condemnations. What is certain is that our society has known a destiny unique in the annals of the Church’s history. The consecration of the four bishops certainly amplified the controversy in which the Society has been involved almost since the beginning of its foundation. And yet this controversy has never ceased to touch those who hold dear the conservation of the most precious principles of the Catholic Church. They glory in their title of faithful and are so attached to these essential elements that they have merited the label of “traditionalists.” They have a horror for contestations, subversion, revolution, and, in spite of this, ever since the beginning, they appear as rebels, contestants in open opposition to authority, an authority that they claim to want to recognize sincerely and yet which they oppose firmly. Ye s , t h e s e c o n t r a d i c t i o n s encountered throughout our little history bring us to repeat with a deeply moved amazement the words of St. Paul when he retraces the trials he himself underwent: by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true, as unknown and yet known, as dying and behold we live, as chastised and not killed, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as needy, yet enriching many; as having nothing, and possessing all things. (II Cor. 6:8-10) But we can go even further in these reflections, especially when we see that we are punished precisely because of our obedience, particularly because of our attachment to the truths proclaimed by the Church of all times and because of our opposition to the errors condemned by her. This is what has won us so many curses from those who today have the authority in the Church. To the point where, even today, some consider or declare us to be schismatic. Although we wish only to spread the good news of Salvation, our actions and initiatives are considered dangerous by many; the least of our actions provokes reactions that are totally out of proportion. Would one take greater precautions to defend oneself against the devil himself?! Truly we bear in us the sign announced by the prophet Simeon to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lord’s sign of contradiction. Even if that involves much suffering in our hearts, much incomprehension, in spite of all, we rejoice at having a part in the www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 14 bishop fellay sufferings of Our Lord and in the magnificent beatitude, the last one listed by St. Matthew: Blessed art thou when they shall revile thee and persecute thee, and say all manner of evils against thee, for my sake. Rejoice and be glad, for thy reward is great in heaven. (Mt. 5:11-12) All these elements remind us that here below the Church bears the name “militant,” for she must always fight. The end assigned to her by Our Lord, which consists in saving souls, cannot be obtained without battle, a battle essentially spiritual, but very real, that suffers here and there more or less marked temporary relapses. Our Lord Jesus Christ fought a definitive battle with the devil to tear from him those poor souls that come into the world in his power, with the stain of original sin. This battle is the battle of all times; to forget it would be to condemn ourselves to be unable seriously to understand anything of the great history of men. As for us, we bear daily the stigmata of this combat, and it is an occasion of great gladness. The spiritual authors have always considered trials as a good sign and even a mark of predilection. Since today men do everything to forget and even deny these fundamental truths of the spiritual combat, we are happy to contribute our little part by keeping alive in our own flesh such a truth. Not that we do not hope for peace, which will come with time, at the good pleasure of Divine Providence, whom we by no means wish to press. In this, we follow closely in the path traced out for us by our venerated founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. A luminous path in the midst of the shadows of the most terrible trial that can come to a THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org Catholic: that of finding himself in the situation of contradicting the Roman authorities and even the Vicar of Christ. These forty years are so full of lessons that show just how right Archbishop Lefebvre’s perception was. Of the Council, the causes of the crisis, the decadence of the priesthood, the weakening of the doctrine, the Church’s unprecedented friendliness towards the world and other religions, liberalism. But also of the remedies to be applied, that depend upon fidelity to the doctrine as well as to the plurisecular discipline of the Church. Indeed, we have no inventing to do! The means given by Our Lord to His Church are still as fruitful as ever and they always will be, for they come from God, Our Creator and Savior; the faith and grace surpass all circumstances of time and place, all contingencies, for they essentially surpass human nature, its capacities and its hopes. These means are properly supernatural. That is why Archbishop Lefebvre’s path is still of the present moment. What he said thirty, forty years ago is still perfectly pertinent today. This demands of us a great gratitude to God for having given us–and to the whole Church–such a bishop. There is no doubt that, if in the Church his precious indications were followed, the whole Mystical Body would be better off and would soon come out of this crisis. But seeing what is going on in the Church, even if here and there appear gleams of hope, we must admit that, over all, the ship is pursuing the course begun at Vatican II–course a little slower, certainly, with Benedict XVI, but now hardly more than a free-fall broken by a parachute. A mong the lessons that Archbishop Lefebvre has left us, we would like to underline two that he considered intimately linked. The first is concerning the social kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in other words, the title and the rights of Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God, Creator of the entire universe, for whom and by whom all things were created (Col. 1), and true man. “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth”: these words come to us directly from His divine lips. This royalty expresses well that, even if the first mission of Jesus Christ is the salvation of men, it in no way cancels out His other prerogatives, which He uses in the service of this first end. How much easier it is for souls to save themselves when the civil society, penetrated by principles that inspire Christian law, exercises over them this beneficent influence by laws in conformity with the natural and eternal law! One need not reflect much to realize all the benefits that the temporal society can and should give to the men that make it up and that God has created for a supernatural end. His Excellency resumed this question with the lapidary sentence: It is because the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ is no longer at the center of the preoccupations and activities of those who are praepositi [leaders] to us, that they have lost the sense of God and of the priesthood. Wishing to fall in line with the world, they have lost sight of the essential, God. The same goes for the one who was chosen by God to lead men to Him, the priest. Paul VI said already at the end of the Council that more than any other, the Church has also the cult of Man. John Paul II spoke of the bishop fellay 15 The events of these past years show a certain movement towards a return, up until now still very slight, but quite real all the same. No doubt the Society of St. Pius X can offer an important contribution. But it is still quite difficult to predict anything more concrete in its relations with Rome. anthropocentrism of the Church. These few expressions show clearly the shift that has taken place since Vatican II: the Church’s new preoccupation is man. There where before, it was–and it always should be, for there can be no other end– the glory of God, inseparable from salvation. To serve God, to honor Him, to glorify Him, that was men’s reason for living, and therefore that of the Church! Following the trend of the world, it is as if we have forgotten God even in His Temple, substituting there the cult of man. Let the authorities of the Church give God, Our Lord, back His place in the world and the restoration of the Church will follow as if by miracle! Of course, one must not confuse everything; Catholic doctrine has always recognized that the Church and civil society are two perfect, distinct societies, having each its proper end and means. But that eliminates God from neither the one nor the other. The liberal and socialist world wants to free itself from the yoke of God, and there is nothing more fatal for the human creature. The present situation of the world, that has never gone so far as today in its aspirations to an independence from its Creator, spreads further every day the sorry results of its senseless designs. Everywhere there is instability, fear. Indeed, what do the rulers have in mind for the years to come? And the businessmen and economists? “If the time is not come for Jesus Christ to reign, then the time is not come for governments to last” (Cardinal Pie). All things, and not only supernatural things, find in Him their consistency. A world without God is without sense. It becomes absurd. The common end of all creatures is and will always remain in God. Consequently, the best means of obtaining a true peace and prosperity in this world is to respect and submit to Him Who made it. That is what the Church should remind today’s world of, and that is where the priest comes in, the priest whose mission Archbishop Lefebvre recalls to us. This is the second lesson, intimately related to the first. T he fallen world, like fallen human nature, cannot find its perfection outside of Him Who was sent to it by the Father. Even if the mission of Our Lord is essentially supernatural– since it concerns the salvation of men, their redemption, their purification from sin by the satisfactory sacrifice of the Cross–it addresses nonetheless men who are at the same time destined to this supernatural end and members of human and civil society. Thus, when they are sanctified, they necessarily bring the greatest good to human society. There is no place for opposition or contradiction in the plan of salvation; on the contrary, the greatest harmony is also the most desirable, each one remaining in its proper place and order. Thus the priest, totally given to the perpetuation of the sacrifice of Our Lord the High Priest, will render to God the cult and the homage due to Him, and will at the same time bring to men the benefits of God. From all time the world has needed this mediation, and it has always been the work of the priest who, alter Christus, plays a central role in men’s future. “To restore all things in Christ” cannot be an option among others; it is really and truly a necessity that comes from the nature of things, from their state of created beings. It matters little that modern society proves deaf to such a discourse! Let it pursue its dreams, the awakening will only be all the more painful! But more than ever the Church has something to say to the world. And it will always be the same thing. The events of these past years show a certain movement towards a return, up until now still very slight, but quite real all the same. No doubt the Society of St. Pius X can offer an important contribution. But it is still quite difficult to predict anything more concrete in its relations with Rome. F inally, we wish to continue our Marian bent, to confirm the necessity of the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and to pursue our prayer campaign. Let us besiege Our Lady’s throne of graces; by the multitude of roses of our rosaries let us offer her our homage, let us persist in our request and intensify our supplication: may her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart triumph! May she deign to hasten this blessed time! We do not forget you, dear friends and benefactors, in our daily prayers and thanksgivings. May God reward you a hundredfold, especially in eternal graces, for your generosity, and may He bless you abundantly. Menzingen, First Sunday of Advent, November 28, 2010 + Bernard Fellay Superior General www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 16 Part 1 Introduction M any good books have been written about the life and the doctrine of Fr. Kolbe but unfortunately access to his very own words is not easy for Anglophones who do not know Italian or Polish. This is a great shame because these words have a profound simplicity and power about them that only the Holy Ghost can give. What is more, we have a large volume of his personal writings and conferences from very sure sources which provide texts that are furnished with all the guarantees of authenticity that even the most severe critic could require, especially in what concerns his writings. The monumental Scritti Kolbiani of Fr. Cristoforo Zambelli provide an excellent Italian translation of the entire corpus of Fr. Kolbe’s writings, including all his articles and letters and even the journals he kept and personal notes of his retreats and other matters.1 There exists also in Polish a collection of notes taken by his Brothers of spiritual conferences that he gave to them in Poland and also in Japan.2 It is in order to enable English speakers to have immediate access to some of this immense treasure that this little selection of his words has been compiled. –A Dominican Friar Scritti di Massimiliano Kolbe, Editrice Nazionale M.I., Rome, 1997. References to this work will be made by the initials SK followed by a number corresponding to the number used in this edition to identify all the various writings of Fr. Kolbe. 2 Konferencje Swietego Maksymiliana Marii Kolbego, Wydwnictwo OO. Franciszkanów, Niepokalanów, 1990. References will be made to this work by the simple initial K followed by the number of the conference. Critics generally question the absolute reliability of these notes, but even though it is certain that they are not always complete and perhaps sometimes not precisely accurate, they were obviously prepared with great effort and a scrupulous care not to attribute to him things he did not say. They remain an invaluable source of his doctrine that must not be neglected, for they are a precious witness of his personal teaching to his closest disciples. 1 THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org Fr. Maximilian Kolbe O.F.M. Conv. His Very Own Words Prayer Is Necessary In order to maintain our consecration to the Immaculate and progress in it, we must constantly renew these truths in ourselves and our relationship with Her either by suitable books, or meditations, etc. But what is most important the Immaculate Herself will dictate to us in humble prayer. (K 60, 1936) The words “through the Immaculate” are a mystery and not everyone manages to understand them. (K 92, Aug. 10, 1937) This is a mystery which surpasses our intelligence, therefore we cannot fathom it. We will not learn it in books, but only on our knees. (K 71, April 25, 1937) He who loves will know the Immaculate much more than a philosopher or a theologian. (SK 983 Spiritual Exercises, October, 1937) It will be a very good thing to study Mariology, but let us always remember that we know the Immaculate more in humble prayer and in the loving experience of daily life than in learned definitions, distinctions and arguments (although it is not licit for us to neglect them). She is such a sublime person, so close to the Most Holy Trinity that one of the holy Fathers doesn’t hesitate to call Her “complementum Sanctissimae Trinitatis,” that is, “the complement of the Most Holy Trinity.” It is no wonder, then, if the limited intelligence of man should lose its bearings when it wants to investigate Her mystery and a presumptuous brain will be stupefied even more. (SK 634, July 28, 1935) Thank the Immaculate that She has given you the grace to understand practically her mystery—as Blessed Grignion says—and pray that She deign to concede this grace also to the others. In fact, it is not so much with 1 n Fr. Maximilian Kolbe our limited intelligence, as by the grace of the Holy Ghost that the conviction of these sublime mysteries penetrates our hearts and develops there. But here it is indispensable to have much, very much humility. (SK 654, November 1935) In general it can seem that we already know, that we are already acquainted with who the Mother of God is, but in reality we must confess that we know very little about Her. There are a few books about it, but all that isn’t much, they are just little first tries. It is like an unknown world.… What can we do in order to know, with such great profit, who the Most Holy Mother is? First of all, we must not trust in our own intelligence. The intelligence is too weak to be able to manage on its own. Here it is not sufficient to think for oneself. Reasoning can lead to a detour. Grace is necessary, supernatural light is necessary, prayer is necessary. Only prayer can obtains this knowledge of who the Most Holy Mother is. This is the efficacious means to arrive at this knowledge. It is necessary, then, to pray and with humility, it is necessary to tell oneself clearly that even the just falls seven times a day (Prov. 24:16), even he who can be called just, so much more so ourselves… The Most Holy Mother is without Mediation Our dependence on Mary is greater than we can imagine. We receive all graces, absolutely all of them, from God through the Immaculate, who is our universal mediatrix with Jesus. (SK 1219, Rycerz Niepokalanej, December 1937) the least stain of sin, She is holy, full of grace, that She was worthy to become the Mother of God Himself. With such humility, then, we, unworthy, must present ourselves before Her. But also the prayer for this grace, that we might know who the Most Holy Mother is, let it be with humility, with deep humility. Duns Scotus left us a perfect example of such a prayer when he said: “Deign to let me praise thee, O Sacred Virgin, and give me strength against Thy enemies.” Therefore with such a humility we must pray to Her as to the Immaculate, as to one being in closest union with God. Let us humbly pray that She might be so gracious that she deign that we might glorify Her, that we might venerate Her. Obviously, humble prayer doesn’t exclude thinking about this, reading about it, meditating about it. Read much about the Most Holy Mother, think about Her often, meditate about Her often. But the foundation, as it were, is prayer, humble prayer. And not only read, but also pray before reading, and in the meditation ask her to enlighten us, because we are not worthy of the grace of knowing who she is. (K 103, Sept. 25, 1937) In order to understand more profoundly who the Immaculate is, it is absolutely indispensable to recognize one’s own nothingGod the Father, through the Son and the Holy Ghost, does not make supernatural life descend in the soul except through the Mediatrix of all graces, the Immaculate, by Her consent, by Her collaboration. She receives all the treasures of grace as Her property and distributes them to whom She wills and in the measure that She Herself chooses. (SK 1310, Aug. 5-20, 1940) As the first-born, the Godman, was not conceived but 17 ness, and resolve to offer a humble prayer in order to obtain the grace of knowing Her and do all that one can to experience in one’s own life Her goodness and power. It is well worth it to try. (SK 1225, Feb. 2, 1938) When you gird yourself in preparation to read something on the Immaculate, don’t forget that at that moment you are entering into contact with a living being who loves you, and who is pure, free from all stain.…She Herself will manifest Herself through the intermediary of the thoughts you will read and will communicate thoughts, convictions and sentiments that the author himself was utterly incapable of imagining. (SK 1306, Aug. 5-20, 1940) Human language must serve merely to make the soul approach Her, because it will be She Herself Who will manifest Herself more and more clearly to the soul.…Approaching directly to Her heart you will attain a greater knowledge of Her and be inflamed by a greater love for Her than all human words together could teach you. (SK 1317, Aug. 5-20, 1940) by the explicit consent of the heavenly Virgin, thus also, and not in any other way, it happens in the divine birth of other human beings, who must exactly imitate in all things their Prototype. (SK 1295, 1940) I pray you to tell the Brothers not to be afraid at all to love the Immaculate too much since…they www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 18 Fr. Maximilian Kolbe will never love Her like Jesus loved Her. Now all our sanctity consists in imitating Jesus. He who approaches Her, by that very fact approaches God, he just does it by following the shortest, surest, easiest road. (SK 542, Nov. 2, 1933) The Most Holy Mother is Mediatrix of all graces without exception.…Therefore the life of grace of a soul depends on the degree of its closeness to Her. The closer a soul approaches Her, the more pure it becomes, the more lively becomes its faith, its love becomes more beautiful and all virtues, being the work of grace, are strengthened and vivified. We cannot seek grace anywhere else, because She is its Mediatrix. (K 284, Oct. 19, 1940) The conversion and the sanctification of a soul has been, is now, and will always remain, the work of divine grace.…But grace, for ourselves and for others, is obtained by humble prayer, by mortification and by fidelity in the accomplishment of our own ordinary duties, including the simplest ones. The more a soul is close to God, the more it is pleasing to God, the more she loves Him and is loved by Him, then the more efficaciously she is able to help also others to obtain divine grace, the more easily and fully is her prayer heard. Consequently also the Immaculate—being without stain, totally belonging to God—is so absolutely full of grace and the Mediatrix of all graces for all other souls. And we, recognizing our weakness, our frequent falls, our separation from God, we turn to Her precisely for this: to obtain every sort of grace for ourselves and for others. (SK 925, Dec. 1, 1940) THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org Let us never fear to pray directly to Our Lord Jesus, to the Most Holy Trinity; precisely the more we are given up to the Most Holy Mother, the more boldly will we do this, for we have Her (to pray) for us. (K 25, June 13, 1933) All our perfection depends on the close union of our will to the will of the Immaculate. As soon as we are united to the Most Holy Mother, to Her will, to Her desires, to Her affections, then immediately we can have no doubt about our spiritual progress. The more we are with Her, the more we will be Her, God Himself, if I may speak this way, because then our will, our actions, our progress will not be ours but Hers, and therefore divine, for the Immaculate is so closely united to God that whatever is Hers is, by that very fact, divine. The way we must follow is with the Most Holy Mother to Our Lord Jesus and with Our Lord Jesus and the Most Holy Mother to the Most Holy Trinity. One can go to Our Lord Jesus or the Most Holy Trinity directly, not excluding, however, the Most Holy Mother, for to tend toward God without Mary, if it is with an express exclusion of Her, is pride and something diabolical, and the essence of sin is always pride, that is, non-conformity with the will of God and the will of God is this, that we go to Him by this road, that is, through the Most Holy Mother. Let us suppose someone wants to go to Danzig and he says: “Will I go to Danzig or will I go to the train?” Certainly, by the train to Danzig. Or someone wants to go on the roof, so he says : “Will I go on the roof or on the ladder?” Obviously, by the ladder onto the roof. Thus we also do not have a surer and easier road to heaven than the Immaculate. Let us strive only to belong to the Immaculate, to be Hers, completely Hers. If we give ourselves to Her, She Herself will lead us to the Heart of Jesus, to the Blessed Sacrament, to the Most Holy Trinity. When we approach Her, then truly will we know and love Our Lord Jesus. Precisely for this reason do we sit on the train so that we can go to Danzig.… (K 25, June 13, 1933) We know that the most perfect of all creatures is the Mother of God. She is Immaculate, full of grace, all beautiful. And God receives in her the greatest glory. She is so perfect and united to the Holy Ghost that She has been called His Spouse. Everything goes ordinarily from the Father through the Son and the Spirit and, in return, again through the Spirit and the Son to the Father. This is why we love and honor so much the Immaculate, because She is so holy and because the Holy Ghost acts through Her. That is why we offer Her everything: our whole life, our death and our eternity, so that She dispose of us according to Her will. Such a soul, who has offered herself without limits to the Immaculate, expresses by this that she wants to seek Jesus in Her and through Her alone, and through Jesus make her way to God the Father. In practice we know that the soul that is completely and without limits offered to the Immaculate understands Jesus and the divine mysteries better. For the Mother of God cannot lead anywhere else—only to Jesus. Our holy father St. Francis said “My God and my all.” But such a soul can boldly Fr. Maximilian Kolbe say also: “The Immaculate and my all, all—all.” Whatever is outside of Her cannot be the object of our love. In Her we find all. She is, in a certain sense, the personification of the Holy Ghost. That is why we love Her ardently. (K 85, June 20, 1937) The Lord God decreed that we should receive everything from God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost—the Immaculate. This is the unique route for all grace. In the Old Testament one addressed God directly in fear and trembling. Our Lord Jesus Christ came and taught us to address ourselves to God the Father through His mediation, saying that no one comes to the Father but by Him ( Jn. 14:6). And from that time Holy Church especially emphasizes the honor due to our Lord Jesus Christ and in all her prayers adds “through Christ our Lord.” Nonetheless the relation of creatures to God was not yet ideal—creature and Creator, the infinite and the finite. Thus Jesus said to the Apostles: “Now you cannot understand this and you will understand only by the Holy Ghost” (cf. Jn. 16:12-13). For far more perfect is the honor given to God through the Holy Ghost, that is through the Immaculate, His Spouse, Whom He penetrates entirely, to the point that He is, as it were, incarnate in Her, only they remain two persons and two natures. The will of the Immaculate is most intimately united to the will of the Holy Ghost, in such a way that it is completely identified with it. That is why when we give ourselves to the Immaculate and accomplish Her will, by that very fact we give ourselves to Jesus and we accomplish His will—but in the most perfect way that man can ever attain. Thus we become, as it were, immaculate, and therefore more agreeable to God and it is no longer us, but She through us and in us who offers a most sublime honor to the Most Holy Trinity. Every prayer through the mediation of the Immaculate and every act of accomplishing Her will glorifies God and adores Him in the most perfect manner, for it confesses His infinite omnipotence in creating a being so perfect, so sublime and so holy. The Immaculate is this…link, this lever that unites us to God. In so far as She is a creature She is close to us, but in so far as She is the Mother of God She touches the Divinity. That is why also the honor offered to God by the Immaculate is the highest, the most perfect, the most adoring honor and procures for Him the [greatest] glory. If we were to leave aside the Immaculate, we would greatly displease the Most Holy Trinity. In all boldness we can affirm that our highest ideal is the Immaculate. A man cannot rise any higher than this. The Immaculate is the highest degree of perfection and sanctity of a creature. No man will ever attain this celestial summit of grace, for the Mother of God is unique. However he who gives himself without limits to the Immaculate will in a short time attain a very high degree of perfection and procure for God a very great glory. All through the Immaculate, in the Immaculate and for the Immaculate. (K 180, July 3, 1938) Our acts, even the most holy of them, are not without faults, and if we wish to offer them to Christ pure and without stain, we must present them directly to the Immaculate alone and give them to Her as her property, in order that She offer them, as Her own, to Her Son. (SK 643, Oct. 10, 1935) Through the Immaculate our acts of love become without stain, since they belong to Her, just as we do. (SK 1298, first months of 1940) If we belong to the Immaculate, then everything we have belongs to Her also and Jesus accepts everything that comes from us as if it came from Her, as if it belonged to Her. In this case She cannot leave these actions imperfect, but renders them worthy of Herself, that is immaculate, without the least stain….That is why Satan wants absolutely to separate souls from 19 union with the Immaculate, because He knows that a soul who excludes the mediation of the Immaculate offers to Jesus gifts that are so full of imperfections that they are more worthy of chastisement than recompense. And the worst of it is that these gifts are poisoned with pride, because one believes that one has no need of the Immaculate. (SK 1301, Aug. 5-20, 1940) From now on it will not be just we ourselves who offer these daily affairs to God, but it will be She, the Immaculate, of whom we have become the property, who will present them to God. Mary, then, offers all this not as if it were ours, full of faults and imperfections, but as Her own personal property, since we, along with all that is ours, belong to Her.…The Immaculate, however, cannot offer to God anything that is stained with sin. We see, then, that in Her immaculate hands our imperfect actions become pure, without stain and, therefore, incomparably more precious. (SK 1226, Brochure, March 1938) The soul offers to the Immaculate its own acts of love not as one consigns an object to just any intermediary, but as Her property, as Her complete and exclusive property, since it understands that the Immaculate offers to Jesus these acts as if they were Her own, which means that She offers them without stain, immaculate; Jesus, then, offers them to the Father. (SK 1310, Aug. 5-20, 1940) www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 20 The Terms of The Crisis, The Crisis of the Terms Part 1 Text of the conference given during the latest theological congress of the Courrier de Rome, held in Paris on January 8-10, 2010, on the topic of “Vatican II: A Debate That Should Be Started?” THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org I t is my privilege to give the final presentation of this particularly busy day. Obviously I could frighten you and strike you with the coup de grace in this final hour by telling you that the subject that I will discuss, “the bracketing of the principle of non-contradiction,” will make us see the épochè and the oxymoron, and then that we will dwell on the complexity and the unifying principle, asking, of course, whether it should be immanent or transcendent. Along with that, if there are any survivors, I could also tell you that during this talk we will survey the work by Romano Amerio which, as you know, runs to almost 800 pages (Iota Unum, Sarto House, 1996). Now I see you sinking into your chair, retracting your head between your shoulders; you are getting ready to put up resistance! And yet, unlike the talks of my predecessors at this podium, what I have to tell you is extremely simple and easy, because I will take as my inspiration Romano Amerio, an author who writes clearly, and quite frankly I would like to leave you with the desire to read Iota Unum. It Fr. Alain Lorans, FSSPX is true that one can be somewhat put off upon seeing this book; you think, “I am not going to wade into that; it is enormous.” No, no. I would hope to recall a few pages and, in light of those pages, to illuminate the topic that has been assigned to me. Then you will see how lucid Amerio is. First, a word about the subtitle, “The bracketing of the principle of non-contradiction.” In Greek, “bracketing” or “placing between parentheses” is épochè (e=poch◊). We could speak even more plainly about the suspension of the principle of non-contradiction. As for the principle of contradiction: like Monsieur Jourdain in the Molière comedy, you use it all the time as he used prose…without knowing it. This is the principle that says that a thing cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. To suspend it is tantamount to a contradiction, which we designate by the Greek word oxymoron. There can be no contradiction without falling into anarchy or, if you prefer a more trivial term, into a pointless intellectual porridge in which nothing is grasped any more. So vatican II it is then that you have conceptually unusable expressions such as a squared circle, a white crow, or (pace Cardinal Kasper), a “differentiated consensus,” because either there is a consensus or else there is a difference, but “consensual difference” is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. Indeed, one may want to suspend the principle of non-contradiction, to rid oneself of it. I can tell myself, “I will not consider this principle as a law of thought, a law of intelligence; I will rise above these logical considerations and purely and simply do without them.” And I will end up uttering an illogical, incoherent discourse. Perhaps you find that very complicated, and so I will put into perspective what I have just said by quoting to you a rather provocative sentence by Fr. Gleize in an article that appeared in the July-August 2009 issue of the magazine Le Courrier de Rome. His statement will show you how the suspension of the principle of noncontradiction works. Do not think that this is a Byzantine squabble; do not tell yourself that “these are bookworms interested in things that have nothing to do with real life.” See for yourselves. Here we are at the heart of the assigned topic, namely, what sort of debate should be started with respect to the Second Vatican Council. You remember the presentation by Fr. Gleize this morning: can one speak about a living Tradition, isn’t that a contradiction, doesn’t that evolution end up denying Tradition? If one element is negated by another, then we are in effect in an oxymoron. Here is what Fr. Gleize writes: “Like it or not, say the conciliarists, we will have to make freedom of religion, ecumenism and the new ecclesiology part of the common patrimony of the Church.” You know that these are not minor problems, but indeed the problems that are being discussed during the theological dialogues between the Society of St. Pius X and Rome. These are the topics on the agenda as it has been defined by the two parties: religious freedom, ecumenism, the new ecclesiology in the common patrimony of the Church. The question that arises is the following: Can Tradition assimilate that? Or is it a foreign body in danger of being rejected? Is this assimilation by Tradition possible or not? Fr. Gleize answers: yes, it is possible, “at the price of contradiction, or rather, thanks to the contradiction that is set up as a first principle of all theological reflection.” In other words, not simply being content with suspending the principle of non-contradiction and saying “I dispense myself from this obligation to think and to say that a thing is [what it is] and cannot be its contrary at the same time and in the same respect,” but rather exploiting the principle of noncontradiction and using it to make sure that the theories of ecumenism and religious freedom are considered in continuity with Tradition. Fr. Gleize continues: “For if Tradition is living, then its movement is its being, and everything becomes possible…and imaginable.” Being is movement, fieri et esse sunt idem, it’s the same thing. And here an old evolutionist philosophy called Heraclitism reappears, which said “everything is flowing away, everything is becoming, nothing remains, there is no lasting essence.” There is no essence that abides (substat) beneath the changes that occur, the accidents. Now that the subject has been stated, here is our three-part outline. What is the connection between the question of continuity or rupture in the Church since Vatican II and the principle of noncontradiction? We will study that relationship, first, from a simply descriptive point of view. We will simply describe things as they are. Then we will turn, secondly, to the explanatory perspective. We will try to see whether there is a cause for all that or whether we must endure the facts without seeking to understand the deep meaning of what we observe. And third, we will 21 ask whether the language [discours] that we are using, borrowed in large part from Romano Amerio, with several short digressions into the present situation—whether this language is acceptable to our Roman interlocutors. Can they hear it? Do we have a chance of making ourselves understood? Or if not, let us put it bluntly, the debate cannot be commenced because we are facing a dialogue of the deaf. I. Continuity and Rupture in the Church and the Principle of Non-contradiction: Descriptive Point of View What is the connection between the two? Romano Amerio (Iota Unum, par. 318, pp. 710-712) relies on St. Vincent of Lerins (fifth century), in the Commonitorium, where he defines Tradition as “What has been believed everywhere, always, and by all (quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est).” But he tells us: that is not enough. “It is only a rough rule of thumb.” In order to define Tradition we have to go a little further on in the quotation and see what St. Vincent of Lerins adds. “The whole question comes down, basically, to the stability of essences.” Can there be stable essences? Or is it true, as Heraclitus said, that “everything is flowing away, everything passes and nothing lasts”? Amerio recalls that the fundamental question is “the stability of essences which are not changeable, as their accidents may be, which evolve at the mercy of the course of history.” In effect you have accidental changes which do not call into question the substantial perpetuity [i.e., lasting substance]. “The preservation of type is an even more fundamental concept in thought than in biology,” Amerio explains. “The whole question of the present condition of the Church can be summed up as follows: is the essence of Catholicism preserved?” Is it the same Church, is it the same religion, is there a mutation, a substantial change, or is there www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 22 vatican II simply an accidental modification: a little more or a little less incense? What is the exact nature of the “variations introduced” into the Church since the Council? Here variations should be taken in the strong, 17th-century sense that it has in the writings of Bossuet, in his History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches. “Variation” in this case means “change.” That was the characteristic of Protestantism for Bossuet; I will return to this, and it is no coincidence that the work Iota Unum has as its subtitle Studies of the Variations of the Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century. Amerio follows the same line as the study by Bossuet. This will be important for the third part, which will again have to do with the Bishop of Meaux. Amerio poses the fundamental question: Do the variations that have occurred allow the same essence to continue in existence amidst changing circumstances, or do they turn it into something else? The mere clarification of an idea is not a shift to another idea. Here he recalls that although dogma develops, we always say that it develops in a homogeneous fashion, and not in a heterogeneous fashion; it does not change; it does not say something else. When a dogmatic definition occurs, it only makes precise what had already been contained [in the faith]: we pass from the implicit to the explicit; what was confused becomes clear, but there is no substantial change, and we do not say white then black, because then there would be a substantial change, variation or mutation, and thus a rupture. And hence it would appear to be an oxymoron if one tried to reduce white to black or black to white. That would be a suspension of the principle of non-contradiction, a contradiction in terms, like “differentiated consensus.” Listen to Romano Amerio: The mere clarification of an idea is not a shift to another idea: “Let the faithful understand more clearly,” St. Vincent of Lerins says, “There is THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org The innovators who are promoting the cause of a fundamental [i.e., essential, substantial] mutation within Christianity are obliged to uphold the historical continuity of the Church in some way or other; to admit they support a transformation of substance would be equivalent to apostatizing openly, and would confound all their arguments, because their new predicates would have no continuing subject to which they could be attached. They therefore attempt to disguise the leap to a different kind of reality by describing it in other terms... Pope Pius XII a clearer understanding of what was more obscurely believed before. Teach those same things that you have learned, and when you put them in a new way, do not say new things.” The Latin is much more striking: “cum dicas nove, ne dicas nova.” Do not say new things, but say the things in a new manner. Noviter, if you wish to use the adverbial form. “A legitimate development of an idea occurs when it expands within itself; a mutation happens when it goes beyond its own limits and moves towards something else.” This is really the problem, formulated well at the simply descriptive level; now you all know that the solution to a problem depends on the rigor with which one has stated the problem. Amerio does so remarkably: It is right, therefore, says St. Vincent, that there should be an increased awareness of the full content of the faith both on the part of individuals and on the part of the Church as a whole at successive historical periods, “but provided it be in its own type, that is, within the same dogma, and with the same meaning and the same content of belief” (eodem sensu eadem sententia). This is the traditional doctrine. “What is happening today?” Amerio asks in paragraph 319. The innovators try to look at the substance as basically just a manner of speaking, a modality, a mode of expression. Here is what he says: And how does one go about doing that? How can one mask this passage to something else, in other words, how can one make people believe, as the Council said, that we mean to enunciate not new things, but the same things in a renewed manner? Today people talk about “revisiting” traditional doctrine without specifying what they mean, but at bottom is this true or false? Amerio, very strict on this point, says that it is false: They therefore attempt to disguise the leap to a different kind of reality by describing it in other terms, namely in terms of another mode of being. They put forward the view that the new idea of Christianity is only a new mode of existence for the same religion rather than a transition to a different entity, which would imply the disruption and destruction of what previously existed. And our author gives several examples. “The idea of a purely symbolic presence of Christ in the Eucharist is presented as a new mode of understanding his Real Presence.” This is not a new mode; it is the contrary, it is something else. “The idea that the life of the Risen Christ exists in the faith of his disciples is put forward as a new mode of saying Christ really rose from the dead at a given moment of time, and this notion is alleged to be faithful to Catholic doctrine”: This is not true. Surreptitiously but effectively there is a passage from vatican II one essence to another. “The idea of original sin is simply an expression of the solidarity of the human race, which leaves each individual perfectly innocent, is put forward as being in unbroken continuity with the Catholic dogma of the corruption of man’s original condition, passed on by propagation to every human being.” At the end of a list of examples of this sort, Amerio concludes: “Besides being unsupported by the magisterium of the Church, all these ideas are riddled with logical flaws.” Therefore not only is it a break with the traditional Magisterium, because you will not find it in the constant teaching of the Church, but also it is not even logical. “For example, that saying ‘Christ did not ascend bodily’ is the same as saying ‘Christ ascended bodily.’ The one is no mode of the other; the two are contradictory.” Therefore this cunning maneuver must be exposed and rejected. “Equivalences of this sort can be sustained only by supposing,” Amerio says, and with that we return to the title of our talk, “that the human intellect can make contradictories identical, that is, that it can tell itself that being coincides with non-being. This is... Pyrrhonism.” In other words, skepticism. This pseudo-rationalism has triumphantly installed itself in postconciliar theological schools and is tending, by a fatal lack of logical force, to extinguish and annihilate the specifically supernatural character of Christianity. Amerio’s argument perhaps needs to be illustrated by a more recent, more concrete state of affairs. You can say to yourself, “These are philosophical and theological reflections, but how does that translate into specifics at the present time?” Well then! By this disputatio, this fencing match with capped foil that took place between Fr. Francis Frost, a professor at the seminary in Belley-Ars, in his book, L’Église se trompe-t-elle depuis Vatican II? [Has the Church been wrong since Vatican II?], which was published by Éditions Salvator in response to the study that the Society of St. Pius X had published on ecumenism and the silent apostasy denounced by John Paul II in Ecclesia in Europa. The book appeared in 2007. What do Monseigneur Guy Bagnard, Bishop of Belley-Ars, who wrote the preface, and Fr. Frost object to in this study by the Society? We must acknowledge first that they had the courage to respond to it, because the silence of the Roman authorities who received this document, namely all the cardinals of the Holy Catholic Church, was deafening. Admittedly there were a few little acknowledgments that the book had been received, but they left it at that. Fr. Frost, on the other hand, deserves credit for trying to respond. It seems to us, he says on pages 80-81, that this defense of the essence of the faith and of dogma undertaken by the Society of St. Pius X “is the essentialism of Duns Scotus (1268-1308) and of other Scholastic writers who followed the impulse that he gave to such a concept, disregarding the analogy of being.” The Letter to Our Fellow Priests which is the original basis for the document entitled From Ecumenism to Silent Apostasy, published in 2004, follows from this Scotist rigidity, this inability to grasp something intellectually with firmness and flexibility. Scotist and Lefebvrist thought (combined into one by Fr. Frost) is fossilized thought. He writes: This essentialism, starting with laws of being that are thought to be shared in a certain way by God and us, drives the theologian to concentrate all his attention on the deduction by pure logical reasoning of new theological theses starting from revealed truths and thus to enclose himself in a conceptual universe that is cut off from all contact with the historical dimension of a revelation that is also an economy of salvation brought to its completion not by a new philosophical-theological thesis—oh no!—but by a Person, the selfsame Person of Jesus uniting himself with his Body-Spouse- 23 Church. Of course in the sense of atemporal abstractions, the terms “ameliorate” (perfici) and especially perpoliri, “to polish, refine” (in the Encyclical Humani Generis by Pius XII) are well suited to the aim of the authors [from the Society of St. Pius X]. Here is the objection: “You are Scotists and, basically, you are Parmenideans,” in other words, for you nothing changes, nothing budges, you are completely set in concrete. What was the response of Fr. de La Rocque in his Letter to Our Fellow Priests in March 2007? “Monseigneur Frost accuses the Society of St. Pius X of theological fundamentalism. This consists in believing that it is possible, in matters of faith, to formulate conceptual propositions that have a definitive and universal value.” Now we, following Pius XII, are sufficiently backward to believe that there can indeed be definitive and universal formulations of the faith. Now in Fr. Frost’s view, such a pretension is based on an “illusion” (p. 65), because it amounts to “simply setting aside the role of analogy in the elaboration of dogmatic theology” (p. 75). The Society of St. Pius X is therefore accused of “Scotist essentialism” (pp. 80 ff.; 128). Fr. Frost objects to the “doctrinal rigidity” [“fixisme”] (p. 79) by which it “shuts believing intelligence into a conceptual universe cut off from all contact with the historical dimension of revelation.” He accuses the Society of amputating the vital dimension of the faith and thus of excluding “any possibility that believing faith can attain…new conceptual ways of looking at the contents of the deposit of faith” (p. 127). After summarizing the objection, Fr. de La Rocque responds: This is a forceful attack. It has nonetheless the real merit of making clear, on an important point, a common analysis of our differences. For if Fr. Frost accuses the Society of St. Pius X of a doctrinal rigidity on the pretence that it allows for the possibility—and the fact—of dogmatic formulas that oblige definitively and universally, that possibilwww.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 24 vatican II ity can serve as an indictment of Fr. Frost’s dogmatic relativism. In other words, the impossibility, in his view, of arriving at fixed, universal definitions. It (the Society) will therefore second Pius XII [against Fr. Frost] when it denounces those who “hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions.” Therefore, Pius XII continues, “they do not consider it absurd, but altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say.” Now, the pope continues, “It is evident from what We have already said, that such attempts not only lead to what they call dogmatic relativism, but that they actually contain it” (Encyclical Humani Generis, 15-16). To conclude this first part, I would like to direct your attention to the point of contention between Fr. de La Rocque and Fr. Frost. Actually you have seen that the disputatio is not between the Society and Fr. Frost. No. The debate is between Fr. Frost and Pius XII. This is not our doctrine, these are not our personal ideas, our ingenious inventions. No, this is the heritage that we cannot disregard, about which we cannot say, “Oh, well! Yes, for two thousand years the Church was wrong.” To cite the title of the book by Fr. Frost, one might ask: could the Church have been entirely wrong, not since, but before Vatican II? That is what is at stake in the problem. II. Continuity and Rupture in the Church and the Principle of Non-contradiction: Explanatory Perspective After that descriptive view, let us try now to go more deeply into our topic. Let us see how Romano THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org Amerio explains the situation in which we find ourselves. What cause does he assign to it? Our author says that there is a change in the Church, a substantial mutation, which he calls “secondary Christianity.” In other words, Christianity envisaged in a new and unheard-of fashion. I will let him speak (Iota Unum, par. 328, pp. 741-743). Without any doubt “the Church aided the development of European civilization, as a real but secondary effect of the practice of Christianity; it has also assisted in civilizing much of the rest of the world as well; but at Vatican II,” he tells us, “[the Church] took on the role of directly advancing man’s temporal welfare and has thus attempted to make secular progress part of the purpose of the Gospel.” The Good News is not salvation, but well-being, civilization. Populorum Progressio develops this line of thought. It claims to be a development of Rerum Novarum, which aimed to reconcile the richer and poorer classes within the ambit of individual nations; Paul VI’s encyclical aims to reconcile rich and poor nations with each other, now that increasing international awareness has led to a stronger and closer sense of fellow feeling and it is hungry races, not hungry individuals, who make demands upon the rich. In a speech to the International Labor Organization, John Paul II has also said that the chief social task of our day is the promoting of a world-wide common good (L’Osservatore Romano, June 16,1982). You see what is happening here: if we take a secondary end as our primary end, there is an inversion in the hierarchy of purposes. And then the Church will no longer direct herself chiefly toward the first end, but will be oriented toward the secondary end, what Amerio calls “secondary Christianity.” And in this secondary Christianity we begin to understand the attention paid by the Second Vatican Council to the world in its temporal aspect, to the world of this time. Amerio continues: What is more relevant to our purposes is the change in perspective that tends to undermine Catholic doctrine by making technological progress and an increase in wealth a necessary precondition for man’s spiritual perfection, and for any activity by the Church....It is true that the encyclical presents the goal of development as being “an integral growth,” a humanism destined to be integrated into Christ, thus becoming a transcendent humanism. But all this leaves the connection between man in his humanly developed state and man in his supernaturalized state quite undetermined. Blaise Pascal would say that we are in two different orders: there is the order of charity and there is the order of the flesh, which is not the same thing. The thought underlying Pope Paul VI’s encyclical [Populorum Progressio] is really that of Fr. Lebret, who drafted it: the Church’s action in improving the state of this world is not incidental or a side effect; rather, it is essential to the preaching of the Gospel; what the 1971 Synod of Bishops in Rome called “the Church’s mission for the redemption of humanity and for liberation from every oppressive situation.” This manifests a sustained, intense preoccupa­tion with temporal civilization. We see this summa­ rized even better a little earlier on in the book (Iota Unum, par. 220, p. 503). Amerio writes: It is indeed true that religion has a civilizing effect, and the whole history of the Church bears witness to the fact; but Christianity does not primarily aim at advancing civilization, that is, at achieving an earthly kind of perfection. Modern society is pervaded by a spirit of independence and self-sufficiency: the world rejects dependence on anything other than itself. Fr. Alain Lorans, FSSPX, is the editor of DICI, the international news journal of the Society of Saint Pius X. Translated from Nouvelles de Chrétienté, no. 122. The holy shroud of Turin Page 26 Page 28 Page 30 Page 31 Page 34 Page 35 Turin: The history of a relic how the holy shroud Came to Turin The holy shroud and the Carbon 14 Controversy What is Carbon 14? The Popes speak to Us About the holy shroud Van Dyke Was right 26 shroud of turin Turin The History of a Relic: The Holy Shroud Fr. Ernesto Javier Cardozo In the spring in Europe, the elegant, beautiful city of Turin suddenly witnessed the repetition of a phenomenon: millions of people met in the Duomo in the space of barely over one month to see the Holy Shroud. After registering on the Internet, the day and time is received when one can have this meeting with “the relic” of Christianity. The meeting point is the Piazzeta Real. A team of collaborators direct the visitors through a specially built passageway which opens onto the Royal Gardens behind the chapel where the Holy Shroud is kept. Appropriately placed posters give the details and important points to contemplate once in front of the object of our visit. Coming from all parts of the world, some pious individuals, others, skeptical or simply curious, walk slowly towards one of the front entrances to the ancient Duomo. Without the need of any greater instruction, the procession is slowly enveloped in THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org respectful silence. Inside the cathedral the long human line advances along the left aisle arriving close to the presbytery. There a large horizontal picture is seen in a dark frame that contains the Shroud in which the lifeless Sacred Body of the Redeemer had been wrapped. The line divides into three, which lets this marvelous relic be seen at different heights. It leaves all those who approach it speechless. We contemplate it at a distance that varies from 6 to 15 feet. We can stop a few minutes, and only a few people manage to utter one word. It couldn’t be otherwise. We are looking at Christ! Some fall to their knees, others are heard sobbing. It is difficult to leave without eyes wet with tears. The figure palely stamped on the linen shows what our redemption cost; the sepia-colored human silhouette silently shows us the wounds, the open side, the scourged body, signs of the crowning of thorns and the strangely serene Divine Face, as if the God of Peace had suffered nothing. The visit ended almost without realizing it. Suddenly we were on the outside staircase of the cathedral. We took photos of the only Renaissance building in the city, begun in the year 1498. Its plain rectangular bell tower contrasts with the adjoining sumptuous baroque buildings. We are all marked by what we have seen. The first comments are stimulated and the question arises, “Tell us the story, Father! How did this holy marvel get here?” To begin, it is already a miracle that it lasted till our days. We must not forget that, for the Jews, the objects that had been in contact with the dying were impure. Even more so for one who had been crucified as a criminal! But if they had dared to save this Holy Shroud, it must have been because the body it had enfolded was very special— so special that the legal principles against its preservation were put shroud of turin aside and the importance of the Person that had been wrapped in it took precedence. St. Peter and St. John were the first to see it. At least St. John was the privileged witness of its source, for he saw Joseph of Arimathea provide it and together they wrapped the body of the Master. And they vouched ( Jn. 20:8) that not only had it belonged to Christ but also at once guaranteed the resurrection of Christ himself. That is the greatest importance of this relic. The Holy Shroud is the most conclusive, tangible sign of the Savior’s resurrection. But we will talk of that later. What was the fate of this relic? Carefully hidden by the Lord’s disciples, it would have been taken far from Jerusalem when the Jews’ first persecutions against the Christians became more severe. In the 4th century we find letters by St. Epiphanius of Salamis, an anecdote by St. Cyril of Jerusalem and especially a decision by Pope St. Sylvester I (314-335). The first two texts clearly mentioned the existence of Christ’s shroud. Pope St. Sylvester asked for the fabric of altar cloths to be changed, to stop using silk and to use linen, so to recall the linen fabric of the Holy Shroud. Several accounts by travelers between the 5th and 7th centuries speak of great relics, among them, the Sancta Sindone. It is especially interesting to see how, starting from the 4th century, the iconographic representations of Christ appear to be made from a single model. This would be because the Holy Shroud was displayed in a support that showed the face only. This came to be called the Mandylion, and the city of Edessa (nowadays Urfa in Turkey) was known in antiquity for protecting this celebrated relic of the Byzantine world. 27 In the 6th century, Evagrius the Scholastic mentioned the existence, in Edessa, of an “acheiropoieta,” that is, an image not made by the hand of man, by which he referred to the Mandylion. This hidden image was rediscovered in the year 544. Several copies were made of the image, the true face of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them are found in Russia, Serbia, and others even reached the West. This is the case of the Holy Face in the Cathedral of Lyons, the Manoppello in Italy and also the one preserved in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. All the copies were derived from one common iconographic model. Its type is the same as the Christ Pantocrator. There are truly surprising common details that demonstrate that the Mandylion of Edessa (which is the same object as the Holy Shroud) was the model, starting from the 4th century, for A miniature by Scilites the Monk, kept in the archives of Madrid, pictured the arrival of the relic to the city of Constantinople in the year 944. The image is on a long cloth on the shoulders of a priest who presents it to the Emperor. 28 shroud of turin How the Holy Shroud Came to Turin The House of Savoy was already too famous to remain isolated in the tiny duchy under French influence. Political events at the time moved the center of gravity of Savoy’s purely profane interests to the Italian region of Piedmont. Besides, Piedmont’s capital,Turin, in the very center of the territorial possessions already conquered in Italy, was much better located than Chambery. A pampered capital but also very easy to defend, the city ofTurin irresistibly attracted the Holy Shroud—in spite of fears and opposition from the people of Chambery. Turin, the first city of the State founded by the House of Savoy, did not possess its lords’ most important treasure, while Chambery, relegated to the category of a peripheral city, guarded it zealously. The people of Turin dreamed of being able to house the Shroud. Move the relic? It was easy to say. A decision in that direction should not take long, but the Duke of Savoy, Emmanuel Philibert, remained indecisive, even though he was quite eager to bring it from Chambery.The decision was forced by a famous pilgrimage that became a new turn in the agitated history of the Holy Shroud. The then Cardinal of Milan was Charles Borromeo, a true saint, a man whose prayers had prevented a dreadful epidemic from laying waste the lands of his diocese. On that occasion he made the promise to walk to Chambery to thank God in front of the Holy Shroud for having removed the terrible calamity. So the holy Cardinal started to walk. Informed of the fact, Duke Emmanuel Philibert in turn conceived the plan to fulfill that ancient saying which mentions the mountain and Mohammed. [The Spanish refrain says, “If the mountain doesn’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain.”] In order to reduce the Prelate’s exertion, to relieve his fatigue a little, he ordered the trajectory to be shortened by bringing the Shroud to Turin. Nevertheless, to do so—as, in any case, he feared a violent reaction from the Savoyans—he sent his own counselor, Louis Milliet, in his place.This ex-Ambassador of the House of Savoy to the Swiss cantons was given the secret mission of taking the Holy Shroud with him. Milliet’s difficult mission was successfully fulfilled on September 5th, and eleven days later the Holy Shroud arrived in Turin to await the eminent pilgrim from Milan there. And so the encounter took place in Turin in the month of October, 1578. Deposited in theTorinese chapel of San Lorenzo, the Holy Shroud received St. Charles Borromeo’s visit. It was conducted with extraordinary solemnity and celebrated in the immortal verses by Tasso, who witnessed the event. The final stage in the existence of the Shroud of Turin, its modern history, could now begin. THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org the reproduction of the Redeemer’s face. One observes that until that date, Christ was represented with short hair and no beard, as can be seen in the catacombs of St. Callixtus. When the iconoclast crisis broke loose, the Byzantine Empire was furiously shaken, including the city of Edessa. The crisis destroyed the greater part of the icons but the Mandylion was saved. Therefore, strictly speaking, it was not considered an icon, that is, a figured representation but rather a reality. In the year 944, the Mandylion or Holy Shroud was transferred to Constantinople in the midst of great celebrations. A miniature by Scilites the monk, preserved in the archives of Madrid, describes the arrival of the relic to the city. The image is painted on a long fabric, carried on the shoulders of a priest who presents it to the Emperor. We know for sure that the Holy Shroud was kept in Constantinople in the Church of St. Mary of Blachernae. In 1204 Constantinople was taken by the Latin crusaders of the Fourth Crusade. According to medieval mentality, the crusaders strove especially to “secure” relics for themselves. It is unthinkable that the great relics had been destroyed or lost. In fact we know what the evolution of some of them was, such as the crown of thorns that later ended in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, (presently in the Notre Dame Museum). Beginning in 1205, the Byzantines complained bitterly to the Pope about the disappearance of their treasures, first of all their relics. The Emperor’s nephew, deposed by the crusaders, wrote: “The relics of the Saints, all that was the most sacred, and among them, the Shroud in which Our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after his death and before his resurrection...the Sacred Shroud was taken to Athens...let the looters carry off gold and silver, but let them return what is sacred to us...without these relics, Constantinople is nothing!” The imperial city could easily subsist without gold, but not without relics. The Shroud was probably taken by Otto de la Roche, one of the Crusade leaders, a knight of the Frankish county of Burgundy, made Duke of Athens, who occupied the Palace of Blachernae where the Shroud was kept. Did he then come into possession of one of the most important objects in the Christian world? What did he do? No vestiges of it exist in the East; therefore it was taken to the West like other great relics. When and where are mysteries... In the year 1357 the Holy Shroud reappeared just as we see it today. Geoffrey de Charny, a nobleman from Champagne, according to the custom of the times, founded a chapel in Lirey for the salvation of his soul and the souls of his family. He is not an unknown personage, but rather, one of the most courageous gentlemen of France, a diplomat, writer, and counsellor to the King. He died in the battle of Poitiers, having saved the royal pennant. The chapel he founded was raised to a collegiate church, thanks to the support of King Philippe VI. Pope Innocent VI endowed it with indulgences. shroud of turin 29 After the glorious death of Geoffrey de Charny in 1356, his w i d o w , Je a n n e d e Lirey (AD1530) Vergy, proceeded to show a relic deposited Chambery in the chapel called (AD1453) the Shroud of Christ. Constantinople The crowds turned up Turin (AD1578) or Istanbul to venerate it. Lead (AD944-1250) medals were cast for the pilgrims representing the Shroud. Ruined by the death Urfa or Edessa (AD50-944) of her husband, with a child under her care and unable to be supported by the King, Jerusalem (AD30) Jeanne de Vergy was desperate. Undoubtedly she tried to earn money by showPlaces and dates of the Holy Shroud’s consecutive moves ing the Shroud, but these exhibitions created questions in the Church. The bishops intervened. to note how its veneration grew, to it. Pope Julius II authorized an Was the relic authentic? The case reaching the ends of the Catholic office and feast day for the Holy Shroud on May 4th. The fire of was spread abroad. The Pope, world. In the first stage, the relic 1532, which left signs on the fabric, King, and Parliament in Paris were alerted. The Bishop of Troyes, accompanied the travels of the did not decrease its veneration. In 1578 the cloth was transPierre d’Arcis, intervened stating Duke and Duchess of Savoy, which, that it was a falsification. Finally in like all the royal courts of the time, ferred to Turin. A chapel was built 1390, Pope Clement VII imposed were constantly moving. Later the to keep it. It was venerated, among silence on Pierre d’Arcis under pain relic was deposited in the chapel of others, by St. Francis de Sales. Startof excommunication and autho- the castle of Chambery. Showings ing in the 18th century, devotion to rized the showing of the relic under increased after the year 1506. Saints the relic diminished. The Shroud certain conditions. According to and kings came to venerate it and was rarely shown. The danger of numerous miracles were attributed being somewhat forgotten weighed him, the Shroud was authentic. on it, as on so many other relics that We see that the appearance of in olden times moved the masses, the Holy Shroud did not take place and which were no longer menclandestinely, or in completely tioned. unknown surroundings. There was Nevertheless there was a showeven a “question of State” and that ing in 1898, when photographs shows the importance conferred were taken by Secondo Pia. Develon the case. The political-military oping the negative of the image circumstances of the time and the provoked much commotion. The situation of the family explain sevHoly Shroud became a real enigma eral vicissitudes of the relic that in the scientific world. The work of accompanied its showing, even as historians increased parallel to the far as present-day Belgium. Finally, labor of scientific specialists. Devoafter many incidents, Margarita de tion had an important renovation. Charny, Geoffrey’s granddaughter, The rest of the story is well known. who had no descendents, sold the It only remains to be said why the Shroud to Duke Luis de Saboya in Holy Shroud is an irrefutable sign the year 1453. of the resurrection of Christ. After this date, the history of the Holy Shroud presents no difficulties. But it is never uninteresting Pope Julius II www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 30 shroud of turin The Carbon 14 Controversy Fr. Bruno Yavi In October 1988, we woke up one day to news that at least to us Catholics seemed like a scandal and a treacherous lie. The media was delighted to repeat it: “The Holy Shroud, according to studies made using carbon 14, is not from the first century, but rather from the fourteenth century. Therefore, it would not have wrapped the body of the Redeemer, but would be, at the most, a mere object of piety from the Middle Ages.” Dr. Michael Tite, a member of the British Museum in London, gave a press conference about it and behind his back, on a blackboard, were written the dates: “1260-1390.” Accompanied by other scientists, he explained the results of the measurement using that method, taking for granted that the Holy Shroud had not been Christ’s burial cloth. The scientific community didn’t take long in making themselves heard, warning that this method was more than variable and imprecise. We will not delve now into the technical field of analysis carried out by the three laboratories in charge of the examination, but we can affirm that it is impossible for the Holy Shroud of Turin to be from the 14th century. Here are some of the reasons: 1) The Holy Shroud is linen twill. According to the textile specialist, T. H. Walsh, this type of weave didn’t begin to be made in Western Europe until after the 14th century. Therefore, how could the Shroud be from the beginning of that century? Did the artist who made it, perhaps, go buy the cloth in the East? 2) The Shroud contains pollen from plants peculiar to Jerusalem, the Jordan River Valley, Urfa (ancient Edessa), Constantinople and also from Central Europe. Max Frei, a specialist in palynology (the study of pollen), wonders: did the alleged falsifier take his cloth, before or after preparing it, through all those regions, which are very different from one another, to capture the pollen typical in each one, and Prof. Edward Hall, Dr. Michael Tite, and, Prof. Robert Hedges, at the announcement on October 13, 1988. THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org shroud of turin thus deceive 20th-century scientists? The problem is that in the 14th century, no one even knew what pollen was! 3) Many arterial and venous blood stains are found on the Shroud. How could its alleged creator have put them there, centuries before Cisalpino and Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood? Or must we presume that the falsifier crucified a man in the 14th century in order to transfer these differences, unknown to him, to his linen? 4) The forensic doctor and pathologist Dr. R. Bucklin, a practitioner at hospitals in Los Angeles and Houston, declared that the images on the Shroud are anatomically correct. Their pathological and physiological characteristics are clear and reveal medical knowledge unknown before 150 years ago. So we return to the same question. How could the 14th-century falsifier know that? Did he crucify one or several men? 5) Photography was discovered just in the 19th century. However, the Shroud is a photographic negative made several centuries before photography was invented, and therefore, before anyone knew what a photographic negative was. It is impossible for an artist to consciously fashion a photographic negative without knowing what he was doing, besides its being unintelligible to the on-lookers of the time. Nor were those wanting who tried to copy the Shroud as a negative such as Refo and Cusetti, but who failed. 6) Due to its antiquity, the Holy Shroud is a strawcolored yellow. The pieces of linen sewn to it to cover the burns from the fire of 1532 are much whiter. This is a sign that the Shroud is much older than the patches and, so, quite previous to the 14th century. 7) One of the most amazing findings about the Shroud is that the image presents tridimensional characteristics. This implies that the degree of the image’s luminosity is mathematically related to the distance of the body from the linen. From this it follows that the image reaches the maximum degree of brightness in those areas where the body touched the cloth, and less where it did not touch. This indicates that the image was formed from a three dimensional object, such as an inert body....No normal photograph has these characteristics. 8) Tiny objects are clearly perceptible in the tridimensional photograph of the linen, such as buttons placed over The leptons / mites were coins issued by Pontius Pilate in the year 29 after Christ. 31 What Is Carbon 14? With the techniques available in the 19th century, geologists at that time could only compose a relative time scale. However, shortly after the discovery of radiation, radiometric methods of dating were developed. Using them, the relative geological time scale could begin to be gauged, producing an absolute one. The carbon 14 method was developed at first by the US chemist Willard Frank Libby and his group of collaborators from the University of Chicago in 1947. This work won him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960. The discovery was that through metabolic activity, the level of carbon 14 in a live organism is kept in balance with that of the atmosphere or with that of other parts of the dynamic terrestrial reserve, such as the ocean. Starting with the death of an organism, the radioactive isotope begins to disintegrate at a known rate without being replaced by carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide. Its quick disintegration generally limits the dating period to about 50,000 years, although sometimes the method is extended up to 70,000 years. The uncertainty of the measurement increases with the age of the sample. Although the method adapts to a great variety of organic materials, its precision depends on contamination and on the value used for the half life of the variations in carbon 14 atmospheric concentrations. In 1962, the half life of radiocarbon was redefined from 5,570 ± 30 years to 5,730 ± 40 years.Therefore, some previous determinations required adjustment. And due to the radioactivity introduced in the atmosphere in recent years, radiocarbon dating is calculated from 1950. The carbon 14 time scale includes other sources of uncertainty that can produce errors between 2,000 and 5,000 years. The most serious problem is posterior contamination in the sediment.This can be caused by groundwater infiltration, the incorporation of older or younger carbon and the capture of impurities from the land or in the laboratory. Then, like in all live organisms, radioactive carbon is absorbed, an unstable form of carbon that has a half life of about 5,730 years. While living, an organism continually renews its supply of radiocarbon by breathing and eating. After death, the organism becomes a fossil and carbon 14 decreases without being replaced. To measure the quantity of carbon 14 remaining in a fossil, scientists incinerate a small fragment to change it into carbon dioxide gas. Radiation meters are used to detect the electrons emitted from the decrease of carbon 14 in nitrogen. The quantity of carbon 14 is compared to carbon 12, a stable form of carbon, to determine the quantity of radiocarbon that has disintegrated, and in that way to date the fossil. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 32 shroud of turin the eyelids. These were Roman coins of little value which the Jews used to close the eyes of the deceased. Their characteristics correspond to two mites or “leptons,” that, according to the Kadnam Numismatic Museum in Tel Aviv, were coined only in Pontius Pilate’s time. So then, their date takes us back to the first, not the fourteenth, century. 9) Bear in mind that a 14thcentury artist would not have put the nail in the wrist, as is shown in the Holy Shroud, but rather in the palm of the hand, as was customary in paintings and statues in those times. 10) One’s attention is drawn to the regularity of the image, which is the same in the front as in the back (neck and back). By natural law, the back should have been flatter, and consequently have obvious deformations proper to a dead body of 176 lbs. But all of it is regular in its lines, without the least deformation. This can only be explained if the body did not touch anything nor was heavy at the moment the image was imprinted. That is, if it was weightless or if it levitated at the instant the flash was produced which fixed the image. But gravity was unknown in the 14th century, and weightlessness is a product of the space era. “...This can only be explained if the body did not touch anything nor was heavy at the moment the image was imprinted.That is, if it was weightless or if it levitated at the instant the flash was produced which fixed the image....” 11) The 40 North American scientists, some from NASA, who studied the Shroud in depth with the most sophisticated equipment, saw that its image is not a painting or a work of art made by any known technique. Could it be that the ingenious artist took the secret of his technique with him to the grave and it still has not been discovered? Besides, must the use of this technique be reduced to just one work by the artist? Why didn’t that artist apply it to other creations? As a matter of fact, the existence of anything similar is unknown in the whole world. 12) Let us suppose, nevertheless, that it was a painting. J. H. Heller, Ph.D. in physics at Yale University, states: It is impossible to see the figure on the Shroud except from three to six feet away. At a closer distance the figure dilates and cannot be Professor Max Frei’s Conclusion Prof. Max Frei, a famous criminologist, director of the Scientific Police Laboratory in the city of Neuchatel and a highly reputed specialist in the study of micro traces, obtained permission to collect samples of very fine dust particles, whose practically invisible traces could still be found on the Holy Shroud. Later he analyzed them on November 24, 1973, in the presence of members from the commission in charge of the study. Prof. Frei succeeded in identifying grains of pollen that belonged to plants that do not live in Western Europe. When he finally finished his study two and a half years later, he declared: “The presence of pollen grains belonging to six Palestinian plant species, a plant species from Turkey, and some eight Mediterranean species, now authorize us to formulate the following definitive conclusion: The Holy Shroud cannot be a falsification!” THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org seen. But an artist cannot paint if he does not distinguish the lines he makes with his brush. The presumed artist would have had to use a brush one or two yards long.... Besides, it would have had to be made of a single hair, for it only stained tiny isolated fibers of ten or fifteen microns in diameter. The finest hairs of a brush that I know come from sable. And the hair of a sable has a large diameter compared to a tiny fiber of this fabric. Besides, the presumed painter had to use paint that did not contain oil or water, because there are no signs of capillarity on the Shroud. Moreover, to distinguish what he was painting, he would have needed a microscope with a large magnification, under which he would have had to move his brush. But the laws of physics that govern optics exclude such a microscope, unless it was attached to a color television, for the straw-colored yellow (of the tiny colored fibers) is too weak to be registered in black and white. Another obstacle the presumed artist would have had to overcome is the limits of the human nervous system. No one can hold such a long brush with the necessary firmness to paint the end of a tiny fiber. A micro-manipulator from the 20th century would have been needed, which would operate hydraulically at a distance of three to six feet. And this apparatus would have to have been mounted on a special mechanical arm, an invention of the atomic age. Similarly, the artist would have to have known what quantity of microfibers he should paint, and to have done it inversely, like in a negative. All the tiny colored fibers have the same intensity shroud of turin of color. The figure comes from a greater or lesser grouping of colored fibers. Our hypothetical artist would have had to use pre-mortal as well as post-mortal blood and have painted using serum albumin which is only visible under ultraviolet rays. One must also suppose that he would have used a medium that was invisible under white light. The conclusion was reached that the images were the product of oxidation. Sulfuric acid is an oxidizing agent, but it is evident that no one can paint with sulfuric acid because it would destroy the hair and leave signs of capillarity. Heat can also cause the same type of oxidation as sulfuric acid, but any source of heat irradiates diffusely and could not explain the tridimensionality of the features of the man in the shroud or the neatness of the straw-colored yellow found only on the ends of the microfibers. Thus far the biophysicist Dr. J. H. Heller. 13) The scientists did not analyze this radiation. They only said it was “unknown.” They did not want to enter the field of religion: Who is the Man on the Shroud? They desired to remain in the purely scientific realm. But a dead body cannot emit such radiation. Therefore, this must deal with a very singular radiation. Supposing that the deceased person wrapped in the Shroud was Jesus Christ, there is no problem. This special irradiation could have been an emergence of light and heat that left Christ’s body at the moment of his resurrection. In fact, although the scientists did not want to enter this field, they all thought of Jesus Christ, as Dr. Mula, the team coordinator, confessed. That is why he himself said that this radiation produced an enormous impact on them all. 14) If it had been 14th-century fabric, an inscription from the 11th century would have no explanation, written with a quill above the right knee: “Santissime Jesu, miserere nostri,” discovered and dated—due to the type of lettering—by Aldo Marastoni, professor at the Uni- 33 SHROUD TOMB’S STONE TABLE versity of Milan, who had no part in the studies on the Holy Shroud. 15) Presupposing the integrity of the three laboratories that examined the cloth using carbon 14, there are innumerable irregularities that could alter the results. For example, not having cleaned the Shroud of organic impurities, such as fungus and the other superimposed organic matter it contains. The Shroud was exposed an infinite number of times to the sun and the air, which affects the composition of cellulose. It had also been surrounded by lit candles, underwent burns, was handled by people and stained by the sweat of those who held and touched it, as St. Francis de Sales tells. All this necessarily altered such dating notably, to the precise point that the Nobel prizewinner himself who invented the carbon 14 dating method, Dr. W. F. Libby, thought that apply- “…that special irradiation could be an emergence of light and heat which left Christ’s body at the moment of his resurrection...” ing it to the Holy Shroud was not reliable. In fact, he thought that it could not be applied at all because it was too altered. Besides, one lone proof against the authenticity of the relic cannot throw out hundreds of proofs that bear witness to the contrary. In conclusion, the Holy Shroud fulfills a most important role in our times. In this holy relic unbelievers and skeptics can find reasonable and scientific arguments that bear witness to the event that divided the history of mankind into “before Christ” and “after Christ”—the birth, death and resurrection of the Redeemer. But, just as Cardinal Newman said, the truth is shown only to those who search sincerely... Dr. Willard Frank Libby, granted the Nobel Prize in 1960 for having invented the carbon 14 dating method, was not in favor of using that method on the Holy Shroud. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 34 shroud of turin The Popes Speak to Us About the Holy Shroud Seventeen centuries separate us from Pope St. Sylvester’s (314-335) dispositions requesting the Holy Sacrifice to be celebrated on white linen instead of painted cloth or silk in remembrance of the white linen that wrapped Christ’s body. In the year 769, Pope St. Stephen spoke in one of his sermons of the “Lord who extended his entire person on a cloth as white as snow, on which his glorious image, face and body in its whole length, was divinely printed so that just seeing the reproduction on the cloth would suffice to all who could not see him in flesh and blood...” Pope Boniface VIII also alluded to the Holy Shroud, although in his case veneration was consciously directed to a “duplicate” preserved in St. Paul’s Church in Rome. Paul II granted a plenary indulgence on February 24, 1466, to all the faithful who visited the chapel in the castle of Chambery where the Shroud was then kept. His successor, Sixtus IV, honored it likewise, while Leo X extended its celebration to all of Savoy. Pope Gregory XIII went even farther, granting the benefit of that celebration to all the Duke of Savoy’s States “on this side and the other side of the mountains” (referring to the Alps). In 1506, Pope Julius II approved the office and the Mass that related the Shroud directly to the Cross and that justified its unique veneration. He simultaneously conceded the Holy Chapel of Chambery the right to honor the Shroud in an annual celebration. In our times, Pope Leo XIII conceded it particular attention. In his pontificate, contact was established between the Shroud and science due to Secondo Pia’s photographs in 1898. THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org Pope Pius XI, who dealt personally with Enrie, the photographer of 1931, declared on September 5, 1939, referring to the photographs that this professional had taken, that they were of “that still mysterious object, but certainly not of human making, which is the Holy Shroud of Turin....We say mysterious because great is the mystery that still surrounds this sacred object, although it is surely more sacred than any other. And certainly it can now be most categorically affirmed... that it is not the work of a human being....” The same Pope would also confess on December 5, 1937, to Fr. Righini of the Society of Jesus: “We did not believe in the authenticity of the Holy Shroud...but now, the revelations of the photos and critical research have convinced Us. We believe in it!” Although when the year 1931 had passed and the 1933 showing at Turin was being prepared, when the Holy Year would be celebrated, Cardinal Fossati manifested some doubts. The Pope himself explained his thinking like this: “Be at ease! Now We speak as a researcher, not as the Pope. We have personally followed the development of the studies made on the Holy Shroud and we are persuaded of its authenticity. There was opposition, but it lacked consistency....” Pope Pius XII, in turn, in 1950, on the occasion of the celebration of the 14th Italian National Eucharistic Congress, praised the city of Turin as the place “that preserved the esteemed treasure of the Holy Shroud, which offers, for our emotion and consolation, the image of the lifeless body and the divine face...of Jesus” (See Speeches and Radio Messages [Rome: Ed. Poliglotta Vaticana, 1954], p. 295). SHROUD OF TURIN 35 Van Dyck Was Right All crucifixes, and especially paintings and statues that represent Jesus on the Cross, show him fastened by nails that perforate his hands and feet according to the descriptions given in the Gospels. Certainly, according to Sacred Scripture, the nails would have pierced the Savior’s hands and feet. And all Christian iconography places them in the very palm of his open hands while, quite often, a single nail penetrates both feet. One great artist alone, the Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) painted the nails in Jesus’ wrists. By doing so, he left aside the tradition of an erroneous interpretation of the incomplete details in Scripture. He was inspired directly by the man of the Shroud. In fact, during a trip to Italy, the painter attended a showing of the Holy Shroud in Genoa. This other vision was motivated, then, by the fact that, in contrast to the way Christ is most frequently shown, the man of the Shroud is a crucified person whose hands are pierced in the main fold of the wrists by the fastening nails. The “imprint” of the Shroud shows with complete clarity not only a man who was crucified, but also precise details of the way that crucifixion was performed. The nails that fastened him to the horizontal bar of the Cross went through his hands at the exact place that corresponds to its union with the forearm. Why there? Because those condemned to that terrible, supreme torture were crucified that way. It is the only way that human anatomy can justify, and not the more elegant manner or perhaps the most shocking way from the psychological viewpoint imagined by artists or simply by Christian exegesis, which was not the real way. Actually, a body crucified through the center of the palm of the hands would never have remained on a cross. According to Roman custom in crucifixions, the condemned person was fastened first to the horizontal crossbeam of the cross. He was nailed to the patibulum and then, after “raising” the latter and embedding it at the point especially prepared in the vertical post, his feet were nailed. That means that the body remained suspended only by the nails that pierced the hands for Destot’s space X-ray of a hand seen from the front with a shadow over Destot’s space www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 36 shroud of turin Van Dyck’s painting a long, and by no means tranquil, while. Imagine a body of medium weight of some 155 to 175 pounds—a detail calculated from the estimated height of the man of the Shroud— suspended from two nails sunk into the extremity of the hands, manipulated, and raised with the crossbeam and then, once put into place, suddenly falling along the vertical post before they fastened the feet. All this allows us to suppose a certain resistance to tearing in the tissues of the hands affected by the “points” of fixation. Implantation of the nails in the palms of both hands could not have assured the necessary support. Simply due to its weight, the body would have become detached from the cross. Anatomic details revealed by the Shroud attribute a reciprocal position of the arms and body corresponding to an angle of approximately 65 degrees between the arm and the vertical post of the cross. This proves in short that the body falling in a fast slide down the post was restrained by the arms THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org and stopped when they reached that angle to the vertical post. In such circumstances it is easy to calculate the force of traction exercised by the weight of the body on each arm. Assigning 85 pounds to each arm, a force of traction is developed of a value of some 198 to 209 pounds.1 Both hands fastened at the palms would not have resisted such traction, given the nature of the tissues, which is not the case in the wrists. On the other hand, the executioners knew that detail perfectly. The wrist itself offers the necessary point of great resistance and also a very easy, less destructive penetration by the fixation nail. This is in reality the famous Destot’s space, known to all anatomists. Dr. P. Barbet, who conducted a large number of experiments, definitively verified this aspect. More than a dozen times, he repeated crucifixions from the wrists of hands recently amputated from corpses. A nail implanted in the palm of the hand would not have allowed both distended hands to support the weight of a 175 pound body without the flesh tearing rapidly and the crucified person falling to the ground. But putting the nail in the fold of the wrist meant, on the contrary, fastening it in a highly resistant place. It meant nailing it in the very center of a group of bones maintained by a very powerful annular ligament that offered a solid point of suspension in a small bony gap, easy to pierce. The point or space is called Destot’s space. It is enough to put a 0.4 inch thick square nail, resting the point on the inside of the wrist, to pierce it right through. The nail sinks without encountering greater resistance, although it undergoes a slight deviation making the point slide upward toward the forearm and the head incline toward the fingers. But, as Dr. Barbet showed so well, the nail’s normal spontaneous deviation automatically prevents the small semilunate carpal bone from fracturing. Without the slightest doubt they proceeded that way to crucify the man of the Shroud. In fact, thumbprints cannot be seen by examining the marks on the Shroud. It would seem as if the thumbs were turned toward the interior of the hands and hidden by “the shadow” of the other fingers. Why? Simply because as soon as the nail passed through the soft space, the first flaccid wrist tissues, the thumb was sharply projected toward the inside, in pronounced opposition to the other fingers of the hand, due to the nail reaching the median nerve. This fully justifies the absence of thumbprints on the Shroud. It is easy to calculate the atrocious suffering caused by that brutal aggression to the tissues of the hand, all the more since that median nerve is not only a motor, but also a sensory, nerve. Any lesion that affects that nerve generates pain whose intensity is impossible to imagine. No, Jesus Christ could not have been crucified the way they invented with all the details, who wanted to describe with their imagination the rather scarce data the Evangelists give about the particular circumstances of the Passion. The Man of the Shroud was crucified instead by the wrists, which expresses all the savagery of his executioners and the atrocity of his horrible suffering. Taken from the book El Sudario de Turin (The Shroud of Turin), by Pierre Carnac. 1 This value is obtained by applying the relationship: 85/cos. 65 = 85/0.422 = 209 pounds. All articles on the Holy Shroud were translated and reproduced with permission from Iesus Christus, No. 129. Church and World Assisi Revisited According to Catholic News Agency, Pope Benedict XVI is planning a renewal of the ecumenical prayer meeting in Assisi: “The Pope invited religious leaders from around the world to Assisi, Italy, to renew their commitment to peace. Pope Benedict announced plans for the peace summit in his words before the Angelus on Jan. 1. The October gathering will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the first World Day of Prayer for Peace, reported Vatican Radio. “The Pope’s announcement came shortly after suicide bombers in Egypt killed 21 Coptic Christians leaving Mass on Jan. 1. In addition to calling for the October meeting, Benedict XVI asked Catholics to pray ‘for peace throughout the world.’ “‘I invite all of you to join in heartfelt prayer to Christ the Prince of Peace for an end to violence and conflict wherever they are found.’ The Pontiff then prayed that those gathered receive ‘God’s abundant blessings’ in 2011.” On August 27, 1986, Archbishop Lefebvre wrote to eight cardinals in view of the first Assisi meeting. It is good to recall this in its entirety [right]. On October 28, 1986, the Assisi meeting took place, and on December 2, Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop de Castro Mayer publicly protested: Public sin against the unicity of God, the Word Incarnate, and His Church makes one shudder with horror: John Paul has encouraged false religions to pray to their false gods: it is an unprecedented and immeasurable scandal...an inconceivably impious and intolerable humiliation to those who remain Catholic, loyally professing the same Faith for twenty centuries. (Declaration signed in Buenos Aires) We might wonder why there is nothing but silence from the Ecclesia Dei communities regarding this upcoming event. Even Fr. Giovanni Scalese, a well-known Italian priest who runs a famous blog (querculanus.blogspot.com) has publicly wondered at the prudence of such an event. 37 Archbishop Lefebvre’s Letter to the Cardinals in 1986 Your Eminence, Confronted with events taking place in the Church that have John Paul II as their author and faced with those he intends carrying out at Taizé and Assisi in October, I cannot refrain from addressing you and begging you in the name of numerous priests and faithful to save the honor of the Church never before humiliated to such an extent in the course of her history. The speeches and actions of John Paul II in Togo, Morocco, and the Indies cause a righteous indignation to rise up in our heart.What do the Saints, the holy men and women of the Old and New Testaments make of this? What would the Holy Inquisition do if it were still in existence? He who now sits upon the Throne of Peter mocks publicly the first article of the Creed and the First Commandment of the Decalogue. The scandal given to Catholic souls cannot be measured.The Church is shaken to its very foundations. If faith in the Church, the only ark of salvation, disappears, then the Church herself disappears. Is John Paul II to continue ruining the Church, in particular at Assisi, with the planned procession of religions in the streets of the town of Saint Francis and the sharing out of religions in the chapels of the basilica with a view to practicing their worship in favor of peace as conceived by the United Nations? It is what Cardinal Etchegaray, in charge of this abominable congress, has announced. Is it conceivable that no authoritative voice has been raised in the Church to condemn these public sins? Where are the Machabees? Eminence, for the honor of the one true God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, make a public protest, come to the help of the still faithful bishops, priests and Catholics. Eminence, if I took the step of contacting you it is because I do not doubt your sentiments in this matter. I am also addressing this appeal to those Cardinals named below so that eventually you may be able to work together. May the Holy Ghost come to your aid, and please accept, Eminence, my devoted and fraternal greetings in Christ and Mary. Archbishop Lefebvre Emeritus Bishop-Archbishop of Tulle Ecône, August 27, 1986 www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 Church an 38 A note from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith on the pope’s remarks about condoms One month after the publication of the book-length interview of Benedict XVI with Peter Seewald, Light of the World, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued, on December 21, 2010, a Note “On the trivialization of sexuality–regarding certain interpretations of Light of the World.” This Roman document reframes the Pope’s statements on condom use, which had given rise to contradictory commentaries: encomiums on the part of activists against the spread of the AIDS virus, and critiques on the part of those who defend Catholic morality. Here is the complete text [see sidebar below]. Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith On the trivialization of sexuality: Regarding certain interpretations of Light of the World Following the publication of the interview-book Light of theWorld by Benedict XVI, a number of erroneous interpretations have emerged which have caused confusion concerning the position of the Catholic Church regarding certain questions of sexual morality. The thought of the Pope has been repeatedly manipulated for ends and interests which are entirely foreign to the meaning of his words–a meaning which is evident to anyone who reads the entire chapters in which human sexuality is treated.The intention of the Holy Father is clear: to rediscover the beauty of the divine gift of human sexuality and, in this way, to avoid the cheapening of sexuality which is common today. Some interpretations have presented the words of the Pope as a contradiction of the traditional moral teaching of the Church. This hypothesis has been welcomed by some as a positive change and lamented by others as a cause of concern–as if his statements represented a break with the doctrine concerning contraception and with the Church’s stance in the fight against AIDS. In reality, the words of the Pope–which specifically concern a gravely disordered type of human behaviour, namely prostitution (cf. Light of the World, pp. 117-119)–do not signify a change in Catholic moral teaching or in the pastoral practice of the Church. As is clear from an attentive reading of the pages in question, the Holy Father was talking neither about conjugal morality nor about the moral norm concerning contracep- THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org tion. This norm belongs to the tradition of the Church and was summarized succinctly by Pope Paul VI in paragraph 14 of his Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae, when he wrote that “also to be excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.” The idea that anyone could deduce from the words of Benedict XVI that it is somehow legitimate, in certain situations, to use condoms to avoid an unwanted pregnancy is completely arbitrary and is in no way justified either by his words or in his thought. On this issue the Pope proposes instead–and also calls the pastors of the Church to propose more often and more effectively (cf. Light of the World, p. 147)–humanly and ethically acceptable ways of behaving which respect the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meaning of every conjugal act, through the possible use of natural family planning in view of responsible procreation. On the pages in question, the Holy Father refers to the completely different case of prostitution, a type of behaviour which Christian morality has always considered gravely immoral (cf. Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, n. 27; Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2355). The response of the entire Christian tradition–and indeed not only of the Christian tradition–to the practice of prostitution can be summed up in the words of St. Paul: “Flee from and World The Note from the Generalate of the Society of St. Pius X dated November 26 hoped that the Pope’s remarks would be clarified and corrected. According to Vatican-watcher Sandro Magister, George Weigel, the biographer of John Paul II and member of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., likewise called on the Holy See, in an article in the magazine First Things, to publish as soon as possible a “substantial clarification.” Along the same lines, Professor Luke Gormally, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life and former director of the Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics in London, deemed the idea 39 (expressed by the Pope) of “humanizing sexuality” to be “rather vague” and confusing. In an open letter available at Sandro Magister’s website, he affirms that condom use cannot be permitted in any case by the Church, not even for those who want to protect their health or the health of others. This is exactly the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church. In response to this turmoil, the note from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith speaks about erroneous interpretations and manipulation. It does not repeat the most controversial expression in the response of Benedict XVI to Peter Seewald: the “moralization” of the fornication” (1 Cor. 6:18).The practice of prostitution should be shunned, and it is the duty of the agencies of the Church, of civil society and of the State to do all they can to liberate those involved from this practice. In this regard, it must be noted that the situation created by the spread of AIDS in many areas of the world has made the problem of prostitution even more serious. Those who know themselves to be infected with HIV and who therefore run the risk of infecting others, apart from committing a sin against the sixth commandment are also committing a sin against the fifth commandment–because they are consciously putting the lives of others at risk through behaviour which has repercussions on public health. In this situation, the Holy Father clearly affirms that the provision of condoms does not constitute “the real or moral solution” to the problem of AIDS and also that “the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality” in that it refuses to address the mistaken human behaviour which is the root cause of the spread of the virus. In this context, however, it cannot be denied that anyone who uses a condom in order to diminish the risk posed to another person is intending to reduce the evil connected with his or her immoral activity. In this sense the Holy Father points out that the use of a condom “with the intention of reducing the risk of infection, can be a first step in a movement towards a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.” This affirmation is clearly compatible with the Holy Father’s previous statement that this is “not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.” male prostitute who uses a condom (The media campaign surrounding Light of the World by Benedict XVI and the Pope’s remarks about condoms: the intention and the context). Thus it shows, on the contrary, that it is at the very least imprudent, in a work intended for the general public, to deal with hypothetical interior dispositions in certain “particular cases,” in the course of a subjective “moralization,” since that inevitably opens up a breach in the defenses against all who demand that the Church change the Ten Commandments. (Source: DICI) Some commentators have interpreted the words of Benedict XVI according to the so-called theory of the “lesser evil.” This theory is, however, susceptible to proportionalistic misinterpretation (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis splendor, n. 75-77).An action which is objectively evil, even if a lesser evil, can never be licitly willed.The Holy Father did not say–as some people have claimed–that prostitution with the use of a condom can be chosen as a lesser evil. The Church teaches that prostitution is immoral and should be shunned. However, those involved in prostitution who are HIV positive and who seek to diminish the risk of contagion by the use of a condom may be taking the first step in respecting the life of another–even if the evil of prostitution remains in all its gravity. This understanding is in full conformity with the moral theological tradition of the Church. In conclusion, in the battle against AIDS, the Catholic faithful and the agencies of the Catholic Church should be close to those affected, should care for the sick and should encourage all people to live abstinence before and fidelity within marriage. In this regard it is also important to condemn any behaviour which cheapens sexuality because, as the Pope says, such behaviour is the reason why so many people no longer see in sexuality an expression of their love: “This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being” (Light of the World, p. 119). (Source: vatican.va) www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 Church and World 40 John paul ii beatification could be possible in 2011 Rome, Italy, Jan. 5, 2011 (CNA).– Pope John Paul II could be beatified in 2011, Vatican expert Andrea Tornielli is reporting. In the Jan. 4 edition of the Italian newspaper Il Giornale, he reports that medical advisers of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints have ruled favorably on a miracle attributed to John Paul II’s intercession. The documentation has also passed the scrutiny of theologians. The case involves the healing of a French religious sister from Parkinson’s disease. Sr. Marie Simon-Pierre was diagnosed with an aggressive form of the disease in 2001. Her order prayed to John Paul II after his death for help. After writing the Pope’s name on a piece of paper one night in June 2005, she reportedly awoke the next morning cured and was able to resume her work as a maternity nurse. Vatican expert John Allen Jr., writing in the National Catholic Reporter, said that media reports have implied that the French sister had become ill again and at least one physician questioned her original diagnosis. The outcome of the medical consultants’ examination suggests that those doubts have been resolved. The cause for beatification will now advance to the bishops heading the congregation. They will vote on the matter in several weeks. In theory, it is possible that Pope John Paul II could be beatified on April 2, 2011, the sixth anniversary of his death. Other possible dates are the late pontiff ’s birthday, May 18, or the Oct. 16 anniversary of his 1978 election to the papacy. A beatification Mass would draw huge crowds and would require significant preparation. This makes a later date more likely. Pope John Paul II was declared “venerable” in December 2009. If he is beatified, another recognized miracle would be required to declare him a saint. (Source: Catholic News Agency) Statue of John Paul II at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, Colorado. bishop calls for a new syllabus A Bishop Athanasius Schneider THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org non-public theological conference took place in Rome, near St. Peter, some days before Christmas. The order of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate–known to traditionalists because of the unusual fact that, after the motu proprio of Pope Benedict, they officially announced their intention to say the traditional Mass–had organized this conference, which presented a number of qualified speakers. Notable among them were the speech of Msgr. Gherardini, the author of a critical book about Vatican II, and that of Roberto De Mattei, an Italian historian who recently wrote a critical book about Vatican II also (which is available only in Italian). But the most stunning contribution came from Bishop Schneider, an auxiliary bishop from Karaganda. According to him, the abuses of the post-conciliar era can only be corrected by the infallible magisterium of the Church (meaning by a general Council or the Pope). He even proposed to draw up a new syllabus, which would be a list of condemned errors along with the correct orthodox interpretation. (Source: Osservatore Vaticano) QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 41 Fr. Peter R. Scott, FSSPX Is a person always obliged to profess his Faith publicly? The answer to this question is of fundamental importance. Every Catholic is aware of the obligation of professing one’s Faith outwardly, since this obligation is clearly taught by our Divine Savior himself: “Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 10:32-33), and by St. Paul: “For if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt by saved. For, with the heart, we believe unto justice; but with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation” (Rm. 10:9-10). A person who would not be willing to profess his Faith outwardly would be just as much a hypocrite as a person who performs works but does not believe in his heart. Moreover, it would be a grave irreverence to Almighty God, who reveals the Faith to us, and a grave sin of charity against one’s neighbor, deprived as he would be of the possibility of knowing the true Faith. Yet by the same token, a person who would constantly be professing his Faith regardless of the suitability of the time, place and persons would rightly be regarded as a fanatic, unable to carry on normal conversation and affairs, potentially causing scandal and giving offense to others who do not share the true Faith, potentially bringing odium to the Church, and potentially suffering many unnecessary adverse effects himself. It is for this reason that St. Thomas Aquinas considered this question in the Summa Theologica IIa IIae, Q. 3, a. 2. His resolu- tion depends upon the distinction between an affirmative and a negative precept. A negative precept, of the kind “Thou shalt not,” binds us always and at every time and in all circumstances. However, an affirmative precept, “Thou shalt,” only binds in appropriate circumstances. Here are St. Thomas’s words: Since confession of the Faith is something affirmative, it can only fall under an affirmative precept. Hence its necessity for salvation depends on how it falls under an affirmative precept of the divine law. Now affirmative precepts…do not bind for always, although they are always binding; but they bind as to place and time according to other due circumstances, in respect of which human acts have to be regulated in order to be acts of virtue. Thus then it is not necessary for salvation to confess one’s faith at all times and in all places, but in certain places and at certain times, when, namely by omitting to do so, we would deprive God of due honor, or our neighbor of a service that we ought to render him: for instance, if a man, on being asked about his faith, were to remain silent, so as to make people believe either that he is without faith, or that the faith is false, or so as to turn others away from the faith.… The application of this principle will enable us to resolve the question as to when a man is bound to confess the Faith, and also when he ought to, although he may not be bound. The first consequence is that it is never permitted to deny one’s Faith, whether it be directly (in words) or indirectly (by actions, as did weak Christians of the early centuries when they burnt incense before idols to avoid martyrdom, thereby committing a mortal sin), for such denial is always a grave irreverence and dishonor to Almighty God and to our Divine Savior. This obligation is so grave that it is contained in the traditional code of Canon Law, Canon 1325, §1: “Christ’s faithful are bound to openly profess the Faith as often as their silence, hesitation, or way of acting would mean an implicit denial of the Faith, contempt of religion, insult to God or scandal to one’s neighbor.” It is hardly surprising that the modernist 1983 Code contains no mention of this grave obligation in the divine law. As a consequence of this the moral theologians teach that a man is bound to profess his Faith when questioned by the public authority (as did the martyrs), or when a person motivated by hatred of the true religion strives to make him act in some way against the Faith, or when the spiritual good or edification of one’s neighbor requires it (Prummer, Manuale theologiae moralis, I, pp. 355-356). However, it is certainly not necessary to volunteer information and to profess the Faith in other circumstances, in which case it might be irrelevant, harmful, upsetting or dangerous. Consequently it is perfectly permissible on occasion to hide the fact that one is a Catholic, when no profit would come to the Faith or to the faithful in mentioning it. It is the case of priests and religious hiding their identity in times of persecution. It is likewise the case of the Catholic businessman who, in business deals with non-Catholics, sees no utility in revealing the fact that he is Catholic, or the Catholic employee who does not tell his employer his religious convictions. It could be a cause of difficulty and would be of no advantage. Prummer (op. cit., pp. 358-359) gives the follow example: The Catholic who eats together with non-Catholics is not bound to say the customary prayers before and after the meal and thus betray the fact that he is a Catholic, if grave inconvenience would come from so doing. The reason is obvious: the Catholic is not bound by any strict www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 42 precept to recite these prayers, and the omission of these prayers does not include a denial of the Faith. Of course, a fervent Catholic is not going to be content with simply doing the minimum, and by publicly professing his Faith only on those occasions when failure to do so would be a mortal sin. He wants to profess his Faith, always seeking to know the will of God as to whether he should show himself to be Catholic or not. This is a decision of the virtue of prudence, which must consider fi rst and foremost the honor of Almighty God, that of our Divine Savior, the Blessed Mother and Holy Mother Church, and secondly the good of souls, and finally the temporal and spiritual advantages to oneself, either of professing or of not professing the Faith. Supernatural prudence is not brash and presumptuous. Although it prefers to profess the Faith publicly, and will generally consider it much better to (discreetly) make the sign of the cross, wear medals and say prayers in public, for much good generally comes from this and little or no harm, it will nevertheless act with discernment, recognizing those particular situations in our secular society in which the show of Faith, not necessary for God’s honor, will be considered excessive and out of place, and consequently not appropriate or motivated by the spiritual good of one’s neighbor. Can a priest forgive the sin of abortion? Abortion is not just a sin. It is a monumental crime, and one which the Church punishes in a very special way, more than other sins, such as murder. The gravity of this sins lies in the perversity that characterizes it: killing deliberately the unborn child in its mother’s womb is so radically opposed to the desire of nature itself as to be a direct revolt against God, the author and giver of life. Consequently, abortion is punished with a censure, that is an ecclesiastical punishment, and in particular the censure of excommunication, which excludes the Catholic from receiving any of the spiritual benefits and blessings of the Church, most particularly the sacraments. Consequently, a person who has knowingly and deliberately cooperated in an abortion, and who is aware of the censure attached to it, is automatically excommunicated. He cannot receive the valid absolution from his sin until such time as the censure of excommunication is remitted. This is also a part of the Church’s power to bind and to loose, but it is in the Church’s law reserved to the bishop of the diocese. However, to protect the anonymity and the reputation of persons who have committed such grave crimes (in cases where there is no public scandal), the Church allows the censure of excommunication to be absolved in the confessional. Normally, the priest has to obtain authorization from his bishop to grant this absolution, although generally it is delegated to all those priests who have jurisdiction. Once the censure has been absolved, then the priest is free to absolve from the sin, for there are no longer in the Church any reserved sins. Consequently, it is generally the priest, who will give absolution from the censure and also from the sin of abortion, with two separate penances, in the process of sacramental absolution. Since traditional priests, who use supplied jurisdiction, cannot have recourse to a local Ordinary to obtain permission to absolve from the censure, the Church considers this impossibility of recourse as being sufficient reason for them to grant the absolution themselves. Thanks be to God the Church is all-merciful, and always makes it possible for the true penitent to receive absolution. Furthermore, the Church has a special precaution that is applied by every traditional priest when he administers sacramental absolution. He always uses a conditional formula, absolving from any excommunication or interdict that a person may perhaps have incurred, so as to be on the safe side and to ensure that the absolution from sin that immediately follows is valid. It is unfortunate that this precaution, like so many other assurances of God’s mercy, is omitted from the new rite. Let, then, no person who may have cooperated in this crime hesitate for an instant to approach the tribunal of mercy. 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. The Best of Questions & Answers The book our readers wanted. The best questions and the best answers of 30 years of The Angelus are printed in this hardback edition. This will be a family’s heirloom reference book for everyday Catholic living to match the Catholic Faith we believe and the Latin Mass we attend. Over 300 answers classified under 30 subtitles, authored by Frs. Pulvermacher, Laisney, Doran, Boyle, and Scott. 344pp. Hardcover. STK# 8343✱ $23.95 THE ANGELUS • February 2011 www.angeluspress.org TheLastWord 43 Bishop Bernard Fellay “The Society of St. Pius X is part of the Church Militant.” O n this day we have a double joy. First of all the joy of the liturgical feast that we celebrate today, All Saints’ Day. The Church wishes to gather together in one feast all her children who already enjoy eternal beatitude, the Beatific Vision. An extraordinary feast, for it is the accomplishment, the fulfillment of the Church! In it we see her reason for being and her mission realized. And we hope that this will be our end as well. At the same time, this feast of All Saints’ Day procures for us another joy: we celebrate an anniversary, that of the foundation of our dear Priestly Society of St. Pius X 40 years ago. On this day, and it is certainly not by chance for we know well that for Divine Providence there is no such thing as chance–even if it is not always easy to see what are the intentions of the Good God, what links we can make between events, and what links we must make only from a distance. But certainly for the Good God, under His gaze, everything has its place. And there is a reason that it was on this feast of All Saints’ Day that the Society was founded. Let us try at least to catch a glimpse of it. How can we establish a relation between this truth and the Society? It is not so difficult really, my dear brethren. When we speak of the Society, when we look around us, what is our Society for the people of the world? It is a bunch of trouble-makers, rebels, excommunicate schismatics…; in short, terrible sons of the Church… or something close to it. They are always grumbling, groaning, attacking, criticizing. That is how they see the Society. And we can say that during these 40 years of existence, we can find a good Bishop Bernard Fellay number of battles and elements of this war. That is where we see to what extent the Society is part of the Church militant, at a time when it is precisely this combative aspect of the Church that people want to forget. It is striking to note that in this age that is our own, and especially since the Council, they are trying to eliminate this militant aspect. They do not want to talk about it any more, they want to present a very pleasant Church, nice to everyone, to all religions, to all men, to all sinners, as if there were only one devil who remained, the Society of Saint Pius X! Yes, with them we will stay at war! It is fairly impressive to see this contrast. On our side, certainly the idea of the “battle for the Mass” and the “defense of the Faith” is very visible, even just in our vocabulary, for if we make a list of our sermons, very often we find these ideas of combatting, battling, warring. But we are almost the only ones to speak of that. With us, one can easily see this aspect of the Church militant. And at the same time, we know that we are not only fighting for the pleasure of fighting. We do not give the impression–I say, the impression–of disobeying for the pleasure of stating our personal opinion. We are in search for something else. We are in search for salvation. We are in search of God. If we engage in this battle, it is because we want to please God, it is because we want the glory of God and thereby our salvation. The Society is a heritage. Here as well, there is a link with the Church. The Church is a tradition in the sense that, from generation to generation, what Our Lord Jesus Christ entrusted to the Apostles is handed down to future generations. It is really a tradition, the passing down of a deposit, of a treasure that we call the “revealed deposit,” which God entrusted to men for their salvation. And exactly the same thing is repeated to us in our Society, as a faithful echo, and nothing different since we are in the Church. The Archbishop told us–and this is what he wished to see written on his tombstone–“I have handed down what I have received” (I Cor. 11:23). So have we received this treasure and we still live by it today... In this environment, in this shipwreck, it is truly extraordinary to see that this little Society in this battle where it is attacked from all sides, nevertheless manages to make the Good God’s light shine forth, the light of the faith, and succeeds in giving to men the courage to resist in the midst of all that, to live a life pleasing to God, a life of grace. Yes, it is something absolutely extraordinary coming close to a miracle. We really have something to give thanks to God for today, that is, give thanks to God for having given us an Archbishop Lefebvre. Sermon of Nov. 1, 2010, the 40th Anniversary of the Founding of the SSPX. Reprinted from DICI. www.angeluspress.org THE ANGELUS • February 2011 Audio books from Angelus Press Anecdotes & Examples for the Catechism Fr. Francis Spirago Today, examples are more necessary than ever. Our Lord taught the multitudes through stories and examples. In The Commandments of God, you will hear and understand the catechism in the same manner Our Lord Jesus Christ preached on earth. Listen in the car or at home to 186 riveting stories which help to illustrate the meaning and importance of the 10 Commandments. Both children and adults will love this professional—and highly entertaining—recording. This audiobook makes the perfect gift for your family or your friends. Every Catholic family should own this audio gem. 4 CDs (almost 5 hours of listening!) STK# 8408 $29.95 Available for the first time in a durable DVD case to protect your discs during travel. Four vivid designs for each CD. Nearly 5 hours of listening! “These things Jesus spoke to them in parables... and without parables he did not speak to them.”–Mt. 13:34 Visit angeluspress.org to hear a sample Open Letter to Confused Catholics Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre Archbishop Lefebvre’s popular study of the crisis in the Church written for all to understand. Covers the Mass, Sacraments, Priesthood, the New Catechisms, Ecumenism, etc., and demonstrates the new spirit in the Church which has caused doubt and confusion among the faithful. Has served as a beacon for thousands; certain to become a classic. 6 CD’s (over 6½ hours). STK# 8477 $29.95 Essential listening for Catholics everywhere. The definitive introduction to the 20th century’s crisis in the Catholic Church. The Catechism in Pictures A unique pictorial catechism of 66 chapters, each covering a different topic of the Creed, the Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, the Commandments of the Church, Prayer, the Last Things, Sin, Virtue, and the Works of Mercy. All of the basic truths of Faith and Morality are covered. The Faith is presented via 66 huge (12" x 8½") full-color classic pictures. The text facing the picture explains the Church’s teaching on the matter and then explains the applicable symbolism of the picture. An excellent way to pass the Faith on to your children who will find the pictures very engaging. Children can look at the picture as you point out how the lesson is pictorially presented. Includes an index to the pictures and a topical index. 125 pp. 14½" x 10". Hardcover. 66 full-color pictures. Ribbon. STK# 8483. $25.00 LIMITED QUANTITY AVAILABLE RING! NEW OlpFFtoEsu pport the Proceeds he int Pius X in India a Society of S Michael Davies: The Liturgical Revolution Cranmer’s Godly Order Liturgical Revolution: Volume I & ed s i v Re ded n a Exp Michael Davies King Henry VIII and Thomas Cranmer understood that if you change the way people pray, then you will change what they believe. Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer (1549) began a process that changed the Catholic Church in England to the Anglican sect. Davies compares these changes to the modern liturgical “reform,” and the similarities are shocking. Cranmer’s Godly Order sets the stage for the next two books of the “Liturgical Revolution” trilogy. 372 pp. Color hardcover. Illustrated. STK# 3069✱ $29.95 $24.95 Pope John’s Council Liturgical Revolution: Volume II d& e s vi Re ed nd a Exp Michael Davies For those who have read it, it is already a classic. Few books can rival its clarity and objectivity. An incredible pattern emerges: a pastoral Council hijacked by a clique of theological liberals who consign to the trash the documents of the Council Preparatory Committee (of which Archbishop Lefebvre was a member), shut off the microphones of those who attempt to defend the Faith (suffering this indignity was no less than the illustrious Cardinal Ottaviani), and co-opting the media so that their spin became “reality.” Michael Davies spent the last year of his life updating this book. Indispensable to understanding Vatican Council II. 521 pp. Color hardcover. STK# 8283✱ $29.95 $26.95 Pope Paul’s New Mass Liturgical Revolution: Volume III Michael Davies A veritable liturgical encyclopedia. Demolishes the case for the New Mass and deepens your faith by presenting the teaching of the 22nd session of the Council of Trent on the Sacrifice of the Mass. “...I had the good fortune to meet him several times and I found him to be a man of deep faith and ready to embrace suffering. Ever since the Council he put all his energy into the service of the Faith and left us important publications especially on the sacred liturgy....”— Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 2004 752 pp. Color hardcover. STK# 8424✱ $28.95 3-volume LITURGICAL REVOLUTION set, STK# 8446✱ $59.95 My Catholic Faith The classic 1954 edition. Perfect for adults and children. The perfect way to pass on the Faith. An excellent tool for dealing with liberal Catholics because two subjects of utmost importance are thoroughly treated: the true nature of the Catholic Church (today denied by false ecumenism) and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (today obscured by the New Mass). Profusely illustrated ! 415 pp. 8" x 11". Hundreds of illustrations. Gold-embossed hardcover. STK# 3006✱ $42.00 Anecdotes and Examples for the Catechism Fr. Francis Spirago The author weaves over 650 short but brilliant examples and anecdotes throughout 36 chapters drawn from the four traditional areas of catechesis: Creed, Sacraments, Commandments and Prayer. Indispensable for parents of young children. 596 pp. Foil-stamped hardcover. Index. STK 8040✱ $29.95 Catechism of the Summa Theologica Fr. R. P. Pegues Pope Benedict XV enthusiastically endorsed this book which aims to put the heart of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica into the hands of the laity. In the familiar Q&A catechism format, but the difference is that the answers are from the Angelic Doctor himself. Cross-referenced to the Summa for those wishing to study further. 315 pp. Foil-stamped Hardcover. STK# 5906✱ $19.95 Illustrated Guided Tours of Fifty-One of the Most Important Churches in Rome THE PILGRIM’S GUIDE TO ROME’S PRINCIPAL CHURCHES T his monumental work is back in print after more than 15 years. Updated and checked for accuracy by the author. A must have if you plan to visit Rome. Each detailed church tour includes the history of the building, numbered floor plan, color photographs, and details of the church’s spiritual, architectural, and artistic treasures. 448pp. Sewn Softcover with rounded corners. Maps, floor plans and 310 color photographs. STK# 8481✱ $29.95 The author, Fr. JOSEPH N. TYLENDA, S.J., has spent a good part of his professional life in Rome. He is a member of the Historical Institute of the Society of Jesus. 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