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H.J.A. Sire

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“[Archbishop Lefebvre's excommunication] may be compared with the excommunications that popes in former times pronounced on their political enemies, sentences which were formally valid but which nobody today would regard as having moral force. In fact its weight is less, for the excommunication came not from a merely secular policy but from one aimed at excluding tradition from the Church or obliging it to compromise with false principles.”

“These, then, are the reasons why we cannot accept compromises concerning Econe. Whatever may be said to us, we shall not agree to abandon the Tradition of the Church. We shall not agree to separate ourselves from all the Popes who have spoken since the Council of Trent or from the Council of Trent. We prefer to be with the Popes of four centuries than be with the present Roman Curia, which wants and institutes all kinds of novelties and thus tends to make us Protestants and Modernists. We do not want that and we are persuaded that, in so acting with the Pope. For the Pope cannot be against Tradition. It is impossible. (lecture given September 9, 1975 in Vienna, Austria)”

“In his remarks about Father Gruner at the end of the June 26 press conference, Cardinal Ratzinger had also noted that Father Gruner was no doubt suffering from angoscia - the Italian word for extreme mental anguish. Cardinal Ratzinger obviously knew of the threat of excommunication, which would indeed cause angoscia in any faithful priest who loves the Church. But Father Gruner's plight is only emblematic of the plight of the Church as a whole in the post-conciliar epoch: a priest who has committed no offense against faith and morals is personally threatened with excommunication by the very head of the Congregation for the Clergy, while throughout the Church predators in Roman collars molest alter boys or spread heresy as their bishops move them from place to place or conceal their activities and protect them from punishment; and the Congregation for the Clergy does nothing. What is to explain this outrageous disparity of justice? There seems to us only one sensible explanation, based on what we have shown thus far: In the Catholic Church of the post-conciliar Adaption, the one unforgiveable offense, just as in Stalinist Russia, is to buck the Party Line. And Father Gruner had bucked the Party Line on Fatima.”

“Here too we see the disparity of treatment as between traditional Catholics who in any way present an obstacle to the new orientation, and those who embrace the new orientation wholly and entirely. In contrast with the Vatican's pandering to the CPA, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was publicly pronounced both excommunicated and schismatic in a motu proprio prepared for the Pope's signature within 48 hours of Archbishop Lefebvre's consecration of four bishops without a papal mandate - an action the Archbishop took in an effort (however misguided some may think it to be) to maintain Catholic tradition in a Church that appears to have gone mad. The Red Chinese procure (through former Catholic bishops) the consecration of 100 bishops without a papal mandate for their pro-abortion "church" and the Vatican takes no punitive action. Quite the contrary, it sends a Cardinal (no less) as a representative to hobnob with some of the illicit bishops! Yet, when Archbishop Lefebvre consecrates four bishops to serve Catholic Tradition, he is immediately cast into outer darkness by the same Vatican apparatus, even though Archbishop Lefebvre and the four newly consecrated bishops consistently professed their loyalty to the Pope whom they were attempting to serve by preserving traditional Catholic practice and belief. Why this striking disparity of treatment? The answer, once again, is that Archbishop Lefebvre resisted the Adaptation; the Red Chinese bishops, on the other hand, exemplify it. (page 124)”

“While it is true that in normal circumstances a bishop without explicit permission or authorization from the Pope, nevertheless it is foreseen both in law and in practice over the centuries in Church history that a bishop can and sometimes must consecrate - that is, make - another bishop without explicit permission and even to go against a specific direct order of the Pope. Canon Law recognizes the right of a subject to go against an explicit order of a higher authority - even that of a Pope - in a specific instance, after due reflection and prayer, to go directly contrary if his conscience, informed by Catholic doctrine, persuades him that he must do so. (See Canon 1323, especially Section 4; and Canon 1324, especially Section 1 subsection 8, and Sections 3.) Furthermore, in law it is not ipso facto an act of schism for one to disobey in a specific instance while being subject to the authority of the Pope in general - but at most it is an act of disobediance.”

“Stranger still Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos has made the same admission. In the aforementioned interview in 30 Days he said: "The emergency of our time is to show people that the Church of today is the same as the Church has always been." But why is there such an "emergency" in the first place? When in the entire history of the Catholic Church did it ever have to be demonstrated that the Church was still the same as before? Why would such a demonstration even be necessary if there were not a very good reason to suspect that the Church has been changed? There is indeed good reason to suspect this, as we have shown: Since Vatican II the Catholic Church has undergone and Adaptation precisely along the lines predicted, plotted, and carried out by Her worst enemies. And those in charge of the Catholic Church today refuse to recognize what has happened, even if they are not conscious agents of destruction themselves . . . They blindly and stubbornly defend the Adaptation of the Catholic Church as if it were a dogma of the Faith, while the real dogmas of the Faith are being undermined throughout the Church before their very eyes, while they do nothing.”

“Understanding the Way of Story as a sacred pattern and a living event. Story can reveal a spiritual path and or the way to healing. Stories become the foundation of health, peacebuilding and vision. Learning to listen, to recognize, to understand and attend the teachings and revelations of the Stories we have been given to live guides us toward the 5th world. Our individual stories, when carefully attended, can reveal each person’s particular path of healing and transformation. Even illness is a story that can lead us to our own and to community healing. Learning to recognize the Story that we or another is living can be a worthy life work.”

“I have seen articles written by the bishops' conference of Holland about means of salvation in non-Christian religions. It is insanity to make that kind of statement. There are no means of salvation outside the Catholic religion and outside our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no salvation outside the Church. It is a dogma of our faith. Why? Because there are no supernatural graces except those that come through the Church.”

“The Message of Fatima had, quite simply, been written out of existence, transformed into slogans of the Adaptation. And in line with this Stalinist Adaptation of the Church there would be censorship of anyone who hearkened to the former understanding of the old terms. In the same letter of February 16, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos had demanded that Father Gruner "publicly retract" certain opinions in his apostolate's magazine that the Cardinal deemed objectionable. In a Church teeming with heretical literature which has undermined the faith of millions and engendered their souls, Carinal Castrillon Hoyos wished to censor the Fatima Crusader magazine! And why? Because the magazine had dared to criticize, not Catholic teaching on faith and morals, but the prudential decisions of Carinal Sodano and his collaborators - including their press conferences and dinners with the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, their cozy relations with the schismatic CPA and their attempt to bury the Message of Fatima under of mountain of false interpretation. The treatment of Father Gruner, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, Archbishop Lefebvre, the Society of St. Pius X, and other perceived obstacles to the new orientation of Vatican II illustrates that the post-conciliar epoch presents a situation very much that lamented by St. Basil at the height of the Arian heresy: "Only one offense is now vigorously punished: an accurate observance of our fathers' traditions . . ." Only one offense is now vigorously punished today: an accurate observance of the Church's constant pre-conciliar traditions . . .”

“In the spring of 1969, the sword struck from Rome. Pope Paul VI decreed a new Mass would be instituted. The letter carrying the news pierced the bishop's heart. This was not just a scandal; the preface to the description of the novus ordo missae gave a new definition of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that bordered on an unthinkable lapse into heresy. The Great Sacrifice of the Mass became a simple supper. The change in the nature of the sacrament can be understood quickly by simply counting the number of references to "sacrifice" in the Tridentine rite and comparing that number with the number of references in the new Mass. This was not only new; this was the smashing of the ancient ritual of sacrifice and the replacement with a new version.”