Newsletter of the District of Asia

 November-December 1999

Press Release

In a letter of protest delivered to the Pope on October 27, Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, opposed the neeting of religions which took place in Rome last week. The Bishop also condemned the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification to be signed on Oct. 31 between Catholics and Lutherans as it had already been "anathemiatized" previously at the Council of Trent.

Most Holy Father,

In 1986, Mgr. Lefebvre and Mgr. De Castro Mayer thought it their duty to withstand You publicly following the example of St. Paul (Gal.2, 11) for the prayer meeting of Assisi, to which you had convoked the main world "religions". This public sin (the meeting of Assisi) against the First Commandment and against the first article of the Credo, which was a great offence made to the Sovereign Majesty of the Only True God, One and Triune, was moreover an immense scandal to the faithful.

How could You, Vicar of Christ, Vicar of the Solus Sanctus, Solus Dominus, Solus Altissimus, mingle Yourself with representatives of "religions: which deny His Divinity? How could You humiliate the Catholic Church, Our Lord Jesus Christ's only Spouse (Eph. 5, 26-27) depreciating it to the rank of societies founded by the mere will of man (Jn 1,13) and not by God? How could You invite followers of "religions" to pray to God, they who refuse the One Mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus (1 Tm 2,5) or who, denying the existence of a personal and unique God, are nothing else than atheism and idolatry? How could You justify this invitation by stating that the Holy Ghost dwells mysteriously in every man, contrary to the teaching of St. Paul (Rm 8, 9)?

At the moment when You are about to renew, this October 28, the scandal of Assisi in St. Peter's Place, in Rome, we dare to solemnly protest against this sin and, invoking the authority of Your recent predecessors, to oppose You with their condemnation of it as well as of its underlying errors: Pius IX, in the Syllabus (prop. 16-18), Leo XIII reproving the "Congress of Religions: in Paris (Letter of Sept. 15, 1899), and Pius XI in Mortalium animos.

By these "interreligious" meetings, you do not confirm Your brethren in the faith; on the contrary, You encourage a great indifferentism and provoke divisions inside the Church. Moreover the humanistic, earthly and naturalistic themes of such meeting debase the Church from its wholly Divine, eternal and supernatural mission to the level of the Masonic ideals of a world peace without the only Prince of Peace, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The deplorable event of Assisi was for Archbishop Lefebvre one of the "signs of the times" permitting him to proceed legitimately to the episcopal consecrations without Your consent, and to write to You that "the moment of a frank collaboration has not yet come." The 13 years of Your Pontificate since have by no means removed the signs, their disastrous consequences for the Church or the wound they are causing to the hearts of faithful Catholics.

To this first cause of our sadness is added the signature on the "Common Declaration of the Catholic Church and the Worldwide Federation" next October 31. After the fact that Cardinal Cassidy, in the name of the Catholic Church, has contradicted the text of this declaration on serious points, discovering in it errors and ambiguities, how can You authorize its signature?

Thus, by ratifying the error already anathematized of the simul justus et peccator, the ambiguity on the nature of grace and on the free and meritorious cooperation with it, Your Teaching Authority (Magisterium) looses its credibility.

It is the love of our Mother, the Holy Catholic Church, of the Holy Apostolic See, of the Pope, which dictates to us these very serious lines.

Deign to accept, Most Holy Father, this expression of our filial respect.

+Bernard Fellay

Auxiliary bishop at the service
of the Fraternity St. Pius X
Superior General

 


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