Dear TIA,

With regard to your recent posting concerning a note attributed to Bernard Fellay, I respect your questioning of its authenticity. One could easily suspect, however, that its indirectness was planned. This would allow the author to easily deny involvement, yet still enjoy the ability to comment.

Only Bishop Fellay can verify or deny this note and he should do so publicly and without delay.

Mr. Guimarães' assessment of the Bishop's statements concerning Vatican II is correct. As explained, "to recognize" in common discourse clearly means "to recognize as legitimate."

This is easily understood if we would use a common life situation that lay persons can relate to. As it was women who brought the Bishop's note to TIA's attention, it is women whom I will address. Ladies, if your husband leaves you and your children, then returns with a new woman he wishes to live with, do you recognize her? Why not? If he "marries" her after obtaining an "annulment", will you recognize her then? Did you hesitate before saying no?

Historical fact indeed! Clearly, no one questions whether or not Vatican II actually took place. "Recognizing" the council refers only to whether or not one acknowledges its legitimacy. To recognize is to accept. Bishop Fellay, do you recognize the Council as legitimate or is she the other woman?

     Tolle Causam!

     Dr. Pamela Dettman

Dear TIA,

I read the article (Hoyos commenting in L'Observatorio Romano about the Saint Pius X Society) by Mr. Guimares concerning a possible sell-out by the bishops of the Society of St. Pius X.

Maybe you are not aware of this but it seems like some compromises have already started. I have a friend who travels often to Europe and he says he has been to Society Masses that are full of responses by the faithful and some things are said in the vernacular.

     Yours in Christ and Mary,

     G.J.

Dear TIA,

I read the two pieces - Mr. Guimarães' analysis of Cardinal Hoyos' interview and his answer to an alleged letter by Bishop Fellay. I thought they were very consistent and calm in tone, certainly no hysteria. Today, where there is so much corruption coming from bishops and priests, and that doesn't exclude the traditionalist ranks, it's good to keep one eye open to the worst possibilities.

However, I must say that I was quite shocked by the lack of charity of His Excellency. Even if he is a Bishop, how could he insult someone by calling them delirious without providing any evidence? And even if he had gone on to prove it - which he didn't - it is hard to believe that a Catholic Bishop would start his correspondence with such an insult. Didn't Jesus tell us to be charitable with everyone, even our enemies? I am very disappointed with the way Bishop Fellay treated Mr. Guimaraes. I hope that the letter will be proved to be false. My first suspicion was that it was not written by His Excellency, because of the tone and also it had so many grammar and spelling mistakes, but maybe that was just a bad translation.

Even if he was upset over Mr. Guimarães' analysis of the interview, he shouldn't have taken it so personally. ... Even if he was personally wounded, he shouldn't have stabbed like that. I can't help but think it is highly inappropriate for a Bishop to act that way.

Keep up the wonderful work you do, and don't be discouraged by this lack of charity.

     May God bless you and your families,

     J.M.H.

Let nothing trouble you,
Let nothing scare you,
All is fleeting,
God alone is unchanging.  - St. Teresa of Avila

Dear Mr. Atila,

I just read Angelqueen's attack on you for your recent criticism of the SSPX. I regret that it has come to this. Although I have not done the extensive research that you have done on the Council, I lived in the seminary under the same roof with Archbishop Lefebvre for three and half years, and Bishop Fellay was my classmate. I can say therefore that I know the SSPX intimately. I know for a fact that they have not shown any signs of capitulation.

When you first came to the United States I was impressed by the manner in which you immediately made friends among prominent traditionalists in North America, and even indirectly in Europe as a result of your work here. But little by little your influence is declining. First you lost the support of Michael Matt because you took a position on the war in Iraq that he did not like. Now you begin to attack the SSPX. Didn't you once tell me that Bishop Fellay had commended you for your book Quo Vadis, Petre?, and didn't Bishop Williamson once devote a monthly letter praising your works on the Council? Why do you now turn against the SSPX, which had at least through these two bishops supported you?

I am afraid you will soon lose all your allies and supporters among traditionalists in North America and Europe, if you do not reconsider some of your positions, and above all some of your conspiracy theories. I have just mailed you a long article relating to one such conspiracy theory, a refutation of it in fact, a refutation that is itself irrefutable. The author is someone whom you have known personally and I am sure very well for many years. I hope you will study it very carefully, and thereby be able to put all of your own research in better perspective, and, in the process, regain your former friendships which you now are beginning to lose in great numbers. And in this way perhaps the epitaph on Angelqueen will not prove to be true: "This is 2008 and none pays attention to the TIA people anymore."

I'll close with one final observation about a history that you yourself are attempting to write. Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais's 700-page biography of Archbishop Lefebvre has a very profound analysis of the role of Dr. Plinio in the crisis. Bishop Tissier de Mallerais acknowledges the leading role that Dom Sigaud and Dom Mayer had in the formation of the Coetus Patrum Internationalis, which resisted progressivism, and of which Archbishop Lefebvre became the president. In this context he further acknowledges the fact that it was their affiliation with Dr. Plinio that led to Dom Mayer and Dom Sigaud being made bishops. This was the leadership in the present crisis: Dr. Plinio influencing the two Brazilian bishops, and their joining with Archbishop Lefebvre to lead the beginnings of the "Apostolic Resistance."

And even when some of the disciples of Archbishop Lefebvre (but not Archbishop Lefebvre himself) turned against the TFP in France in the late 1970s, Dr. Plinio did not respond by declaring war on them, but, on the contrary, in the French TFP's response, had the members of the Group propose a "Union Sacrée" to resist the Revolution. Such was the spirit of Dr. Plinio, to unite rather than divide the Counter-Revolution. It is my hope that you will be guided by the spirit of Dr. Plinio in this, and not create division within the ranks of Tradition, which will only result in your own loss of influence, which is already beginning to happen, as the Angelqueen attack clearly demonstrates.

     In Jesu et Maria,

     John Parrot



The Editor responds:

Dear Mr. Parrot,

Thank you for the time you took in writing your piece. I read it attentively.

Your position differs from mine in one important point: You focus your concerns on winning friends; I focus mine on maintaining the perennial principles of our Holy Faith without compromise.

I believe that it is only worthwhile having friends when they agree on the same Catholic principles. Our Lord was a good example to follow in this regard. He ended almost without friends...

     Cordially,

     A.S. Guimarães

Dear TIA,

Yesterday I read your rebuttal of the SSPX Bishop. Congratulations, I agree with it and I was delighted to follow your argumentation.

Here in Brazil the most important part of Cardinal Hoyos' declaration was omitted on the ACI dispatch. If I am not mistaken also Zenit didn't publish it. I was surprised with the content of L'Osservatore Romano.

     In Jesus and Mary

     A.F.G.

Dear Sirs,

This is what DICI [the SSPX news agency], has to state about the said controversy of Hoyos and SSPX.

In Christo Domino et Maria,

     H.C.

[DICI first publishes an article summarizing Card. Hoyos' interview, which we do not print below; then it comments:]

"Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos very Optimistic" read the header from Apic news agency. We would add: diplomatically irenic, and displaying a cunning which is akin to a maneuver. We would prefer the realism of straight talk for which yes is yes, and no is no.

No, bishops do not misunderstand the scope of the Motu Proprio. In full awareness they are striving to make it void, by granting indult Masses parsimoniously, or in other words traditional liturgy with freedom under high surveillance.

No, the criticism of the Council by the SSPX is not a mere matter of subjective interpretation. Faced with numberless hermeneutics, there remains the objectivity of conciliar documents concerning religious liberty, collegiality and ecumenism which, before being a series of 'gestures,' is a doctrine refuted by the constant Tradition of the Church.

Yes, the bishops of the SSPX acknowledge the historical existence of Vatican II, but they never varied in their criticism of the errors of that council. And Bishop Bernard Fellay did not broach the subject of the acknowledgment of Vatican II with Pope John Paul II nor with his successor.

Dear TIA,

I've just recently read the analysis of the alleged comments of Bishop Fellay. It struck me primarily as a miscommunication mainly on the use of the word "accept" vs. what I believe would have been a better word namely, "acknowledge." I had not found any difficulty in the comments of Bishop Fellay and took for granted that his use of "accept" was synonymous with acknowledgement of the historicity of the event called Vatican II and it's designation as an Ecumenical Council.

From my understanding of Bishop Fellay's vocabulary, he was using a much looser definition regarding accept than that understood by Mr. Guimaraes. This would correspond with the many other comments of Bishop Fellay that are publicly available and demonstrate his unwillingness to compromise on any doctrinal issues as well as the insidious language used in the documents of Vatican II. I'm specifically thinking of his U.S. conference at St. Isidore the Farmer Church in Colorado and it is available on their website.

Could this apparent miscommunication be understood better in a reading of Bishop Williamson's column of March 22, 2008?? I've reproduced the pertinent quote below:

Question 4 - Did not Archbishop Lefebvre sign on finally to all the supposedly heretical documents of Vatican II? Was he not then also a heretic?

Answer - Firstly, the Archbishop always said that he never signed on to two of the worst documents, namely "Gaudium et Spes" and "Dignitatis Humanae", and when people used to say that he did sign on to them, he replied that he himself should know what he did or did not sign on to.

Secondly, what more than anything characterises the Council documents is their ambiguity (see the first Volumes of Prof. Dormann's series on the theology of John Paul II, and of Atila Guimaraes' series on the Council). Countless propositions in those documents can be read in a Catholic or in a non-Catholic way. Whatever the Archbishop signed on to, he no doubt signed on to in its Catholic sense.

I hope this letter contributes to the good of the discussion.

     God Bless you and your work,

     G.H.

TIA,

Vatican II is a virus on Catholicism. This virus has morphed by this irrelevent 'Motu." It carries small weight. Overall it offends Sacred Traditions, and along with Sacred Scripture is all the weight necessary for salvation.

Since the Vatican II apparatus has declared traditional Masses valid, they've sided with St. Pius V, and Council of Trent as well with previous Councils. The precedent has been set, in stone.

The position of illicitness comes from this insidious, invalid, dictatorial council of the 20th century of men. Hoyos is plain and simple, a ferret for Vatican II-ists.' A Henry the VIII henchman!

     A.R.

Dear Mr. Guimaraes,

I was amazed by your April 1, 2008 piece on the SSPX, but I am flabbergasted by your April 11, 2008 piece defending the April 1 piece.

First of all, you insult your two lady correspondents by throwing doubt on the authenticity of the brief statement from Bishop Fellay on your April 1 piece that they sent you, and strongly imply that they are just ditsy women that Bishop Fellay is humoring. But then you go on to treat the statement as the gospel truth for purposes of attacking Bishop Fellay -- as well you might, because it certainly reflects what he and the SSPX have been saying during the five or so years in which I have looked primarily to them for guidance. So you treated these ladies badly for no good reason. Is this an example of the old-fashioned civility and good manners that Tradition in Action is wont to preach?

As for your critique of Bishop Fellay's remarks, his judgment that your April 1 remarks are "delirium" can all too justly be applied to your latest piece.

You pounce upon Bishop Fellay's "admission" that the SSPX bishops accept that Vatican II was an ecumenical council, treating it as a vindication of Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, while entirely ignoring the further point that according to Bishop Fellay this "admission" has no practical significance, a point that you could readily verify in his previous writings, conferences and intereviews if you wished to. Bishop Fellay is in effect telling you that Cardinal Castrillon is trying to make his audience think that the "admission" is something important, when according to Bishop Fellay it is not at all important. Do you accept Bishop Fellay's account of his own thinking, or at least investigate the issue? No! You brush aside the unambiguous words of the Bishop, and accept the slippery words of the Cardinal.

You likewise pounce on Bishop Fellay's "admission" that the SSPX emphasizes the ambiguities of Vatican II, treating it as a vindication of Cardinal Castrillon; but ignore the fact that according to Bishop Fellay, the SSPX critique goes far beyond ambiguities, a fact that you could readily verify if you wished to. Bishop Fellay is in effect telling you that Cardinal Castrillon is trying to make his audience think that the differences between Econe and Rome are minor, when in fact the differences are profound. Do you accept Bishop Fellay's account of his own thinking, or at least investigate the issue? No! You brush aside the unambiguous words of the Bishop, and accept the slippery words of the Cardinal.

Your focus on the ambiguities point seems particularly strange inasmuch as you are famously the author of a book demonstrating -- the ambiguities of the documents of Vatican II! Are your own differences with the Vatican therefore also minor, and can we expect any day to see you reconciled to Rome and hand in hand with Bishop Rifan at Una Voce meetings? Why is it that Bishop Rifan is a snake and a Judas, while Cardinal Castrillon, the man who handled the sell-out of Campos for the Vatican, is utterly worthy of credit?

Finally, you pounce on Bishop Fellay's "admission" that some have left the SSPX and made their peace with Rome, treating it as a vindication of Cardinal Castrillon, but ignore the fact that according to Bishop Fellay such losses, though always occurring, are few and of no great significance. Bishop Fellay is in effect telling you that Cardinal Castrillon is trying to make his audience think that there is significant desertion from the SSPX, but that in fact this is not the case. Now perhaps Bishop Fellay does not know about certain things, or perhaps he is lying (or is it only the Cardinal and not the Bishop who needs to worry about his credibility?); but why do you brush aside the Bishop's unambiguous words, and embrace without further investigation the slippery words of the Cardinal, which would still be literally true if there were in fact few desertions?

For some unaccountable reason you are so prejudiced against the SSPX that everything that its leadership says, including repetitions of what it has been saying right along -- must be rejected out of hand, while a man whose whole function in life is to break tradition to the Vatican II halter must be trusted implicitly.

So when it comes to the SSPX, you too are not to be trusted. You make things up, as with your insinuations in your piece of December 3, 2007, that Bishop Rifan has influence in the SSPX and is a trial balloon for its own betrayal. You embrace dubious evidence and reject plausible evidence out of hand, as in your April 1 and April 11 pieces. You give every indication that you never read the pronouncements of the SSPX bishops of the publications of the Society in recent years, even though (or is it because?) they notoriously give absolutely no support to your delirium. My only comfort is that your irrationality is so obvious that I doubt that it will do much damage except those who already share your prejudice, which puts you just about exclusively in the company of the sedevacantists and poseurs like the Fathers (if there is more than one of them, and if they are in fact priests) of the infamous Traditio website, with its sneering at "Bernie" Fellay.

But if I can't trust you about one thing, can I trust you about anything else?

     In Christo,

     John McFarland



The Editor responds:

Dear Mr. McFarland,

I amiably recommend that you calm down, and when you are in a better emotional state, to read again what I wrote. It seems that your sensibilities are obliterating your reasoning.

I give you an example: You declared that you are flabbergasted because I offended the two ladies who forwarded the alleged letter by Bishop Fellay to me. Then, you elaborated on the reasons for the offense and on its consequences.

I know from the e-mails of these very ladies to a list forum to which they belong, which were forwarded to me, that they did not feel personally offended by the point you raised. One of them did not like the journalistic headline TIA put on my response, she thought it would be lacking in respect to the Bishop's dignity. But no spontaneous reactions came regarding the point you imagine so deeply offensive to them. So, at present your sensibility reveals itself to be more delicate than the feminine sensibility of the involved ladies.

With this kind of hypertrophy of emotions, I don't think it is productive to enter an interchange of opinions with you. Let's try again another time.

     Cordially,

     A.S. Guimarães

Dear Mr. Guimaraes,

I have been a long time admirer of your and Tradition In Action's extraordinarily well-researched Catholic Apologetical works (having purchased and made personal use of a variety of TIA's books, pamphlets and audio-tapes toward didactic ends).

I presently share your and your staff's published concerns pertaining to a manifestly deafening 'silence' now indisputably apparent in previously powerful and public "Resistance" Headquarters (and particularly with a previously Traditionalist Bi-Monthly Newspaper, whose Editor and several regular journalists you, yourself, have collaborated with in the past).

However, I am a regular SSPX Chapel attendant myself and do not presently sense nor have I been witness to any compromising of "resistance" on the part of the several SSPX priests under whom I serve.

Having personally met and conversed with His Excellency Bishop Bernard Fellay, H.E. Bishop Richard Williamson and Rev. Fr. Franz Schmidberger in the not too distant past; none of these meetings or conversations has ever left me with the slightest belief or suspicion that any one of these past and proven Defenders of the Faith, two of the three who willing suffered unjust and unlawful "excommunications" from Conciliar Rome expressly for their personal and uncompromising fidelity to the fullness of our One True Faith, is presently prepared to unconditionally surrender to the Modernists in Rome in the manner of the FSSP, SSJV, the ICK, or the IGS.

If this were not the case, or (worse yet), should I have been so deceived (not an easy thing to accomplish as I am a retired Warden from one of the largest and most violent Jail Systems in this Nation): my conscience would compel me to reformulate my often professed support and loyalty to the Society in general.

However, my always active conscience remains untroubled at this time.

In the event that you might have possibly missed reading this very recent release from the SSPX' DICI informational site: I am attaching DICI's most recent "Commentary" on the Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos' interview whose topics embraced both the Motu Proprio and the SSPX.

I hope that this provides you with a more official response from the SSPX on these several significant matters, than you perceived to be the case pursuant to the two (2) unofficial letters that you recently received from two (2) other Society loyalists, both of whom attached somewhat casual correspondences to TIA purportedly from Bishop Fellay himself.

I close in fraternal support of your explicit declaration that Tradition, at this particular point in the Conciliar Church's nefarious history; has to be scrupulously recognized and publicly resisted with greater vigilance and zeal than ever before, whenever it's endangerment via the workings of Rome's currently reigning pseudo-traditionalists or progressivist-traditionalist theological schizophrenics is plainly observed.

For, as the most holy and venerable Pope Leo XIII so inspiringly observed:

"There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by Our Lord and handed down by Apostolic Tradition." Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, (#9), June 29, 1896

And the spiritual discernment required by the faithful to judge those suspected of heresy, regardless of whether the heresy's 'form' assume a verbal, a written, or a gesture-generated nature; does not involve a knowledge of rocket-science either:

"...for men are not bound, or able to read hearts; but when they see that someone is a heretic by his external works, they judge him to be a heretic pure and simple, and condemn him as a heretic..." (or, if he be a consecrated cleric, a serial soul-killer - MS). St. Robert Belermine, Church Doctor, De Romano Pontifice, Book II, Chapter 30.

Hence, as Pope Benedict XVI's first visit to the United States is imminent and his itinerary and agenda for this tour already a matter of public record: will he engage in any of these perennially condemned "ecumenically-driven" activities, which were recently identified by TIA's own Margaret C. Galtizin in her 3/31/08 article: Praying With Heretics: Where Is The Resistance?

1. Prayer with Non-Catholics Forbidden

Are heretics and schismatics excommunicated? Yes; they have no part in the Communion of the Saints. St. Thomas Aquinas, Catechism of the Summa If any ecclesiastic or layman shall go into the synagogue of the Jews or to the meeting-houses of the heretics to join in prayer with them, let them be deposed and deprived of communion. If any bishop or priest or deacon shall join in prayer with heretics, let him be suspended from communion. II Council of Constantinople

That Christians and ecclesiastics should pray for Christian unity under the direction of heretics and, what is worse, according to an intention which is radically impregnated and vitiated with heresy, is absolutely impossible to tolerate! Ven. Pope Pius XI

One must neither pray nor sing psalms with heretics, and whoever shall communicate with those who are cut off from the communion of the Church, whether clergy or layman: let him be excommunicated. Council of Carthage

No one shall pray in common with heretics and schismatics. Council of Laodicea

Since you are not of my religion, I ought not to join in prayer with you; but I will pray heartily for you: that God would enlighten you, bring you back to His Church, and dispose you for His mercy. Ven. Henry Walpole

I will not pray with you, nor shall you pray with me; neither will I say "Amen" to your prayers, nor shall you to mine! St. Margaret Clitherow

I refuse to pray with you, but I desire all Catholics to pray for me, and I mean Catholics of the Catholic Roman Church. Ven. George Haydock

We decree that those who give credence to the teachings of the heretics, as well as those who receive, defend or patronize them, are excommunicated. [...] If anyone refuses to avoid such accomplices after they have been ostracized by the Church, let them also be excommunicated. IV Lateran Council

2. Interfaith Unions Condemned

To know whom to avoid is a great means of saving our souls. [...] Thus, the Church forbids the faithful to communicate with those unbelievers who have forsaken the faith by corrupting it, such as heretics, or by renouncing it, such as apostates. St. Thomas Aquinas

Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with different seeds, lest both the seed that thou hast sown and the fruit of the vineyard be sanctified together. Deuteronomy 22:9

And the good seed are the children of the kingdom; and the cockle are the children of the wicked one. St. Matthew 13:38

If you eat the words of God in the Church, and also eat them in the synagogue of the Jews, you transgress the commandment which says: "In one House shall it be eaten" (Exodus 12:46). Origen

Is it permitted for Christians to be present at, or to take part in, conventions, gatherings, meetings, or societies of non-Catholics which aim to associate together under a single agreement everyone who, in any way, lays claim to the name of Christian? In the negative! [...] It is clear, therefore, why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics. There is only one way in which the unity of Christians may be fostered, and that is by furthering the return to the one true Church of Christ for those who are separated from her. Pope Pius XI

Those who are members of the Church are not to be permitted to go into the cemeteries of any of the heretics for the purpose of prayer or veneration. If they do, they are to be excommunicated. Council of Laodicea

Wherefore, since outside the Catholic Church there is nothing perfect, nothing undefiled, the Apostle declaring that "all that is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23), we are in no way likened with those who are divided from the unity of the Body of Christ; we are joined in no communion. Pope St. Leo the Great

Do not work together with unbelievers, for what does justice have in common with injustice? II Corinthians 6:14

There are some, you know, who are accustomed to go around with the Name on their lips while they indulge in certain practices at variance with It and an insult to God. You must shun these men as you would wild beasts: they are rabid dogs that bite in secret; you must beware of them! St. Ignatius of Antioch

Whoever is separated from the Church must be avoided and fled from; such a man is wrong-headed; he is a sinner and self-condemned. [...] But if some of the leaders of schism persist in their blind and obstinate foolishness, and if advice for their own good fails to bring them back to the way of salvation, let the rest of you [...] break away from their ensnaring falsehood. [...] One must withdraw from those who are engaged in sin; rather, one must fly from them, lest by joining in their evil course and thus taking the wrong road, one should [...] become involved in the same guilt oneself. St. Cyprian

May the Holy Ghost's Gifts of Wisdom and Fortitude fill the mind and the spirit of all Catholics, so that they may be both inspired and strengthened to publicly identify and to publicly resist all Evil, and most particularly, those Church-generated Evils via Her human element, those Sins Against The Faith, and thus, in open and hateful rebellion against God and in grievous offense against His Divine Majesty.

      Instaurare ominia in Christo

      M.S.

     (the DICI comment reproduced above follows)

Follow us

  Fellay to Guimarães: Your Critique Is a Delirium

  Cardinal Hoyos and the SSPX Acceptance of Vatican II

  Where is the Catholic Resistance?

  The Motu Proprio, after the Emotions

  Heading to a Hybrid Mass

  Bishop Rifan's Betrayal

  Rifan, Quo Primum and the New Mass