“Surely, the time has come to abandon the harsh and counterproductive rhetoric that has emerged over the past years…Attention should certainly be paid to the passages of the Magisterium that seem difficult to reconcile with magisterial teaching, but these theological questions should not be the focus of your preaching or of your formation…It has been a mistake to make every difficult point in the theological interpretation of Vatican II a matter of public controversy, trying to sway those who are not theologically sophisticated into adopting one’s own point of view regarding subtle theological matters…Our souls need first to be healed, to be cleansed of the bitterness and resentment that comes from thirty years of suspicion and anguish on both sides.“

(December/2012 Letter of Archbishop di Noia to Bishop Fellay and the SSPX, and subsequently forwarded by Menzingen to all SSPX priests)

 

As I drove to Mass this morning, on my favorite Feast of the year, it was with a certain sense of melancholy, since I knew in advance that the sermon would not be what one would have expected from an SSPX priest in years past.  Sure, there was likely to be an historical review of Pius XI’s reasons for instituting the Feast.  There would probably be the usual acknowledgement of Christ’s kingship over all men and society; there may even be a vague reference to some wrong-thinking clergy, and/or to a “crisis” in the Church and world.

But I also knew there would be no linkage between that “crisis,” and Vatican II.

I knew there would be no mention at all of Dignitatis Humanae, or any explanation as to how its errors directly repudiate the very notion of the Kingship of Christ, when, for example, in Article 2 it teaches:

• “This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom.”
• “This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.”

I knew there would be no mention of Congar’s admission:

“It cannot be denied that a text like this does materially say something different from the Syllabus of 1864, and even almost the opposite of propositions 15 and 77-9 of the document.” (Challenge to the Church, London, 1977, p.44)

I knew there would be no mention of those condemned errors, which making the Kingship of Christ impossible, state:

15. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.

77. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.

78. Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship.

79. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism.

Consequently, I knew there would be no mention of how, after the promulgation of Dignitatis Humanae, the Vatican worked for change in the few remaining confessional states (Italy, Ireland, Columbia) to bring their Constitutions into line with the new Masonic doctrine of “religious freedom,” placing the one true God and King of the World on the same level as witch doctors and Satan, effectively uncrowning Him.

Apparently, it will be for laymen like myself to teach -however imperfectly- that which the SSPX (and hierarchy) is no longer willing to teach, as in the days of the Arians.

But how did I know all these things in advance?

Well, on the one hand, Archbishop di Noia’s letter to Bishop Fellay and the SSPX (forwarded by Bishop Fellay to all the priests of the Society) requests of them to drop the polemics.  In former years, SSPX priests would have been indignant at having received such a request, but when that letter was ratified by Bishop Fellay, it became an order of sorts: The Superior General did not send them this letter only so that they could ignore it:  No more preaching against the errors of Vatican II.  Got it.

And on the other hand, we have not heard any sermons criticizing Vatican II doctrine or the Roman modernists ever since.

Rather, what would have been surprising would be to have heard a priest explain how Dignitatis Humanae spelled the death of Christian society and the Kingship of Christ!

But in fact, what we have come to expect is something closer to the opposite.  For example, Bishop Fellay criticizing Fr. Pivert’s book “Our Relations With Rome” for “fixating excessively on the Kingship of Christ.”

Meanwhile, the rank and file priests, having received their orders from the boss, pass over the matter in silence (and even if they hadn’t construed the Letter in quite that way, still understand instinctively not to criticize Vatican II or the Roman modernists).

And so I wandered into church without the joy I would normally have had on this great Feast, knowing the sermon would be incomplete; that the faithful would no longer be inoculated against the error of religious liberty, and most of all, that the restoration of Christendom and the Kingship of Christ would never again be possible if the SSPX has gone mute on exposing the errors which undermine this doctrine.

Effectively, by taking this approach (i.e., deliberately refusing to teach against the errors which undermine the Kingship of Christ), the SSPX has consigned this doctrine to the dustbin of history, and every SSPX priest who follows Archbishop di Noia’s request is complicit in treason against his King.

But even more frustrating than all this, was that I knew nobody would pick up on this annual omission to condemn the errors which effectively undermine and neutralize the realization and restoration of the very Kingship the priest is preaching.

On the way out of church, someone called to me.  (They wanted to talk about my recently deceased grandfather.  I was not interested.  I put the Green Scapular in his room, so his salvation is assured.)  I abruptly changed the subject, stating, “Every year on this Feast, I leave the church angry: No mention of Vatican II or Dignitatis Humanae?  It takes cultivated skill to manage to omit reference to either one in a sermon on the Feast of Christ the King!”

I got in my car and drove off, thinking, “Even the King of Kings must be deposed, in order for Bishop Fellay to get his deal (a deal which will result not only in the death of Christ the King, but of any significant resistance to modernism)?”

No doubt, the rest of the parish went home lighthearted, thinking they had heard a great sermon.

Their souls have received the “cleansing” of which Archbishop di Noia spoke.