Newsletter of the District
of Asia
Jul
- Dec 2003
Editorial
Dear Friends
and Benefactors,
A major document of the last months
which may have passed too unnoticed, is a lecture by Cardinal
Walter Kasper, in England, last spring, and published in The
Tablet of May 24th, 2003. In this key lecture,
the Cardinal goes at great length to explain that the ultimate
goal of the Church is nothing else than to unite all men, at any
cost, at all cost. Everything in the Church must bow to this goal
of the Unity of Mankind: the Creed, the Sacraments, the Papacy.
Of course, the principle of noncontradiction
(a thing is what it is and not something else, a spade is a spade
and not a horse) is unknown to these agents of the One World
Church, as St Pius X already called them in Our Apostolic
Mandate (1910). Words have lost their meaning with these people.
Also, notice carefully how they often affirm something and proceed
to deny it at the same time (a little like Martin Luther who rejected
the Papacy as an invention of the devil, but then became a 'super-pope'
himself, not tolerating any opposition to his teaching!)
The Creed: "This concept of
pluriformity within unity", says the Cardinal, "has
consequences for our ecumenical vision. Firstly it has consequences
on our understanding of unity in faith. To confess the same faith
does not necessarily mean to confess the same credal formula."
In other simple
words: to confess the same faith does not means to believe in
the same faith, or to have the same faith. Words no longer matters when we speak of faith.
As Bishop Williamson would put it, I believe that 2+2=4,
and you believe that 2+2=5, so we both believe in
something, so we both have faith, so we agree, we are united
in our faith... So says the Cardinal: "we acknowledge
our unity in faith, a unity in a pluriformity of expressions."
He gives then
an application of this in the famous Joint Declaration on Justification
with the Lutheran: "While unresolved problems remain
at issue, no Church dividing difference any longer exists with
regard to the question of justification. Hence, prior existing
divisive contradictions were transformed and reconciled in complementary
assertions, expressions, concerns and approaches. "But
the "unresolved problems" are precisely what
divide Catholic and Protestants in this serious matter
of justification!
The Sacraments: "Nor is uniformity
required in the sacramental dimension of the Church either. It
is well known that sacramental life can be expressed through different
rites." And the Cardinal goes on explaining that a liturgical
rite, such as the Assyrian anaphora of Adai and Mari, which does
not have words of consecration, can be just as valid as a Mass
that has them. So, unity in diversity means that the sacramental
form doesn't really matter any more... As long as there
is 'togetherness' as actually said Cardinal Ratzinger in his books
on the Principles of Moral Theology (1982), words are not so important
after all.
But the matter
of the sacrament is also
subject to a revision, for instance the laying
of hands at the consecration of a bishop: "The laying
on of hands is under this aspect (simply) a sign of co-optation
in a collegium". What is important is not to be part
of the Apostolic succession by an uninterrupted chain, but simply
by "collegial membership in a collegium".
Papacy too, in this context, is at
the service of unity. If unity requires it, we must be ready to
change the elements, the role, the nature of the papacy: this
work is already quite advanced if we listen to the Cardinal: "These
insights have led to a re-interpretation of the dogma of the Roman
primacy. This does not at all mean that there are still not enormous
problems in terms of what such a ministry of unity should look
like, how it should be administered, whether and to what degree
it should have jurisdiction and whether under certain circumstances
it could make infallible statements in order to guarantee the
unity of the Church and at the same time the legitimate plurality
of local churches. But there is at least a wide consensus about
the common central problem, which all churches have to solve:
how the three dimensions, highlighted already by the Lima documents
on "Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry" (1982), namely
unity through primacy, collegiality through synodality, and communiality
of all
the faithful and their spiritual gifts, can be brought into a
convincing synthesis."
And the Cardinal to conclude: "So
we are united at least in a common problem
though
the answers still differ. To find a common answer is one of the
main problems we are faced with and a challenge requiring further
clarification.
"With
this exposition of the different aspects of pluriformity within
unity and unity within pluriformity we reach the overarching concept
of a vision for Christian unity: the concept of communion."
We could say,
yes, this looks like the unity of a huge traffic jam! The needs
of the Church of the present day is really that which dictates
what ought to be sacrificed for the cause of unity.
Such is one of the major principles
which underlie a few of the important Vatican II documents, such
as Dignitatis Humanae, on Religious freedom, and Nostra
Aetate, on the Non-Christian Religions. Actually in the very
Opening Address of the Council, Pope John XXIII announced that
"the unity of humanity" was the Church's own
and proper goal.
Now such a
principle of "unity in pluriformity and pluriformity in
unity" leads to many consequences in all fields of the
Church life, in biblical documents, in canonical laws, in the
criteria of 'sainthood'. One has to remember the event at the
Coliseum on May 7, 2000, praising the Witnesses of Faith in
the XXth century: "The witness to Christ borne even to
the shedding of blood has become a common inheritance of Catholics,
Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants... This ecumenism in the giving
of one's life and in the shedding of one's
blood
is surely something new, a sign of the times which ought to draw
all Christians closer to full visible communion. Unity lived in
the endurance of persecution is a call to make further progress
towards the unity of a faith professed in life and proclaimed
in the mission to all nations." John Paul II)
Consequences
especially in the liturgical field and in the ecumenical dialogue
as we have seen above. But what people generally do not realize
is how far does this search for unity actually goes, how much
is the Faith twisted, or to say more correctly, sacrificed for
that 'sacred' ecumenical unity.
As we have come, in our series of
Asian Newsletters, to deal with the Indian Missions, we will address
the question of Hinduism (Hinduism is the main religion of India
(83%), compared to 1.71% for Catholicism!). The reader will see,
in various articles, the contrast between the attitude of St Francis
Xavier and his successors, and of the Conciliar Church. When we
speak of conversion, what does it mean? It certainly meant different
things to a St Xavier and to a modern Indian priest. To quote
the Bishops of Brazil again (see our Oct.
- Dec. 2002 editorial) "Today, missionary activity
discovers in the indigenous culture evangelical values, to the
extent that not only is the Indian evangelized, but is also able
to evangelized us, ... by the education of liberty, ...by the
links with the religious... The Bishops hold the thesis that the
principal mission of the Church is not to catechize and to convert
the Indian but to guarantee his values and to guide his cultural
progress in order to avoid conflicts and syncretism."
Some of our
readers have heard of the four Indian vocations that have entered
Holy Cross seminary, in Australia, last March. These four young
men spent between 5 and 8 years in the Bombay Major Seminary,
and thus have had a direct experience of what inculturation means
in the Indian context. Elsewhere in this issue you will find two
articles about Hinduism written by one of them. The actual story
of their life in the Bombay seminary and the reasons of their
exodus will appear in the next issue of this Newsletter.
Since inculturation and its disastrous
consequences are put in practice essentially through the activity
of priests and religious, it will not be out of place to recall
the message of Our Lady of La Salette who did announce the priestly
tragedy that was to come. Rarely do we hear of the message of
La Salette. Its authenticity is even denied at the La Salette
sanctuary itself! Of course, texts as the following are not the
most pleasing for modern day clerics:
"The
priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their bad life,
by their irreverences and their impiety in celebrating the holy
mysteries, by love of money, love of honor and of pleasures, the
priests have become cesspools of impurity. Yes, the priests are
asking for vengeance, and vengeance is suspended over their heads.
Woe to the priests and to persons consecrated to God, who by their
infidelities and their bad life are crucifying anew my Son! The
sins of persons consecrated to God cry out towards Heaven and
call for vengeance, and see how vengeance is at
their doors, because there is no longer found anyone to
implore mercy and forgiveness for the people; there are no longer
generous souls, there is no longer anyone worthy to offer the
Victim without blemish to the Eternal on behalf of the world.'
'Rome
will lose the faith and become the seat of the antichrist.'
'The
Church will be eclipsed, the world will be in consternation"
But were these texts not added by
Melanie, at a later date, as some are saying today (in order to
escape becoming the target of these texts)? Therefore, could they
be un-authentic, apocrypha? Very recently — as recently as 1999
— a French priest, Fr. Michel de Corteville, did a research in
the Vatican archives to try to find the original letters that
the two children of La Salette had written to Pope Pius IX, in
1851. After months of efforts, he did find the original documents
in some stacks of papers of the time. He wrote a thesis on the
secret of La Salette, which he published in 2000. In brief: the
words quoted above, from the 1879 version of the Secret, correspond
perfectly to what the children wrote in 1851, 6 years after the
event. We give, after the Dossier on India, a book review of a
second more popular book written by Fr. Corteville, which will
be followed by the exact text of the documents discovered in the
Vatican Archives with their translation. To our knowledge, it
is the first time that these recent documents have been translated
in English.
Our Blessed
Lady rightly cried at La Salette foreseeing the XXth century's
loss of Faith.
Finally, since we are on the subject
of priests leading souls astray, how did priests and bishops fall
so low, as to even, as it is a sad reality, join the ranks of
the enemies of the Church, the Freemasons? Historians (such as
E. Barbier) have mentioned that already back in the XVIIIth c.
some priests were Masons. No surprise if today then the clergy
is full of them. But, how, in the name of God, can a member of
the hierarchy, actually become a Mason? The book AA 1025
(Tan Books) tells us how a communist can infiltrate a seminary
and become a priest. It is certainly the same for a Freemason.
But how does a good priest and a good bishop all of a sudden become
a Mason? Can it be? Well, unfortunately yes. However, St Bernard
said that no one becomes very bad suddenly, and St Cyril of Jerusalem
wrote "he who plays with the devil will have no share with
Christ". The devil knows what is our weak point and unless
we have a solid spiritual life, we risk greatly to fall. Read
the article by Mr. A. de Lassus
and many things will become clear.
To sum up and to conclude: this madness
for unity at any cost - even at the cost of the truth - suddenly
makes sense in the light of Mr. de Lassus' article and of the
following text of Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical Humanum
Genus, on Freemasonry, 1884:
16. If
those who are admitted as members are not commanded to abjure
by any form of words the Catholic doctrines, this omission, so
far from being adverse to the designs of the Freemasons is more
useful for their purposes. First, in this way
they easily deceive the simple-minded and the heedless,
and can induce a far greater number to become members. Again,
as all who offer themselves are received whatever may be their
form of religion, they thereby teach the great error of this age
— that a regard for religion should be held as an indifferent
matter, and that all religions are alike. This manner of reasoning
is calculated to bring about the ruin of all forms of religion,
and especially of the Catholic religion, which, as it is the only
one that is true, cannot, without great injustice, be regarded
as merely equal to other religions.
Let us pray and remain humble, let
us take Our Blessed Lady's words at La Salette, Lourdes and Fatima
seriously, the daily rosary in particular, and we will be among
her victorious children, and will see the Holy Priesthood reflourishing
for the glory of the Church. To end on a good note: this year
2003, the SSPX has received in its seminaries 60 seminarians in
the first year, one of the biggest number in the 33 years of its
existence. The grace of God is still flowing in the Mystical Body.
Fr. Daniel Couture District
Superior
Daniel Couture
District Superior
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