|
The
General Chapter of the Society of Saint Pius X
COMMUNIQUÉ - LETTER TO THE FAITHFUL
- DECLARATION
Help us to offer one million rosaries to
the Holy Father
|
COMMUNIQUÉ
On Tuesday, 11 July, 2006, at the seminary of Ecône
(Switzerland), the General Chapter of the Society of Saint
Pius X elected its Superior General and his two General
Assistants.
After having verified that the forty members of the Chapter
had been convoked according to the rules and after having
heard the report by the Superior at the end of his term of
office, the Chapter re-elected Bishop Bernard Fellay as
Superior General for a twelve-year term. Fathers Niklaus
Pfluger and Alain-Marc Nély were elected first and second
assistants, respectively, also for twelve-year terms.
His Excellency The Most Reverend Bernard Fellay was born on April 12, 1958, in
Switzerland, and entered the seminary of Ecône in October
1977. He was ordained priest on June 29, 1982, and was
immediately appointed General Bursar of the Society. He was at
the same time chaplain for several youth groups and exercised
his priestly ministry in parishes. He made several apostolic
journeys throughout Third World countries. On June 30, 1988,
he was consecrated bishop while retaining his functions as
General Bursar until his first election as Superior General of
the Society in July 1994. Bishop Fellay is fluent in French,
English and German and conversant in Italian and Spanish.
The Very Reverend Niklaus
Pfluger was born on November 3, 1958, in Oensingen
(Switzerland). He entered the seminary of Zaitzkofen (Germany)
in 1978, and was ordained priest in 1984. After one year in
the priory of Oberriet, he was prior in Basel from 1985 to
1989. Superior of the district of Switzerland in 1989, he was
appointed rector of the seminary of Zaitzkofen in 1991. In
1998, he resumed the charge of district Superior of
Switzerland. Since 2004, he has been superior of the district
of Germany. Fr. Pfluger speaks French and German.
The Very Reverend Alain-Marc Nély
was born on February 18, 1950, at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre
(France). He entered the seminary of Écône in 1979 and was
ordained in 1984. From 1984 until 1994 he was vice-rector and
professor of philosophy at the school Saint Joseph des Carmes,
in southern France. From 1994 until 2004, he was dean and
prior in Marseilles. Since 2004, he has been district Superior
of Italy. Fr. Nély speaks French, English and Italian.
Father Alain Lorans, Press Bureau Director
His Excellency the
General Superior with the two General Assistants
The Very Reverends Niklaus Pfluger (left) and Alain Nély
(right)
|
|
LETTER TO THE FAITHFUL
|
Dear Faithful,
Allow me to begin this first letter of
my new term by thanking you for your many prayers for our General
Chapter. We indeed felt the spiritual support that you gave to us
throughout the whole Chapter, in an atmosphere that was serene, but at
the same time also intense.
I would like to explain to you some of
the fruits of your prayers and of the Chapter.
First of all were the elections. The
Chapter then decided to entrust to me once again, and this despite its
length, a new term as Superior General. I come to request of you an
increase of prayers in order that, with this precious help, I might
better consecrate myself to the fulfillment of this task that is at the
same time burdensome and magnificent.
The Chapter also elected two
Assistants.
Father Niklaus Pfluger,
who has two brothers and two nephews as priests with us, a third being a
religious brother, without counting two religious sisters! He is Swiss,
to whom was entrusted the responsibility of District Superior (in
Switzerland and then in Germany) and Seminary Rector (Zaitzkofen). He
has thus acquired a great deal of experience, both in the formation of
priests, and also in the government of two districts.
Father Alain Nély, first
of all teacher at the school of Saint Joseph des Carmes, then Prior in
Marseilles, and finally District Superior in Italy, has also acquired a
profound knowledge of youth and of priests, as well as the government of
a district.
The two Assistants will both reside at
Menzingen in Switzerland, where our General House has been since 1993.
They will be invaluable collaborators for the Society’s good
functioning, and will have the opportunity of traveling throughout the
world, thus enabling the General Headquarters to keep in closer touch
with the Society’s members, as well as with the faithful.
The Chapter is not just a question of
elections. It is also the opportunity of assessing our situation, of
analysing the weaknesses that ought to be improved, of establishing
rules in order that our priests might always live their priesthood
better according to our statutes, and thereby obtaining more effectively
grace and Heaven’s gifts. We also, quite obviously, considered the state
of our relationships with Rome. Out of a desire for the greatest clarity
possible, and also with the intention of avoiding all false hope and
every illusion, the Chapter unanimously decided to make the declaration
that you will find as an annex.
Along the same lines, the Chapter
asks me to communicate to you the following ambitious project: The
Society has the intention of presenting a
spiritual bouquet of a million Rosaries to the Sovereign Pontiff for
the end of the month of October, month of the Rosary.
These Rosaries will be recited for
the following intentions:
1. To obtain from Heaven for Pope
Benedict XVI the strength required to completely free up the Mass of all
time, called the Tridentine Mass.
2. For the return of the Social
Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. For the triumph of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary.
We are calling you, therefore, to a
true Crusade of the Rosary. This prayer has been so many times
recommended by the Most Blessed Virgin Mary herself, and has been
presented as the great means of support, of protection and of salvation
for today’s Catholics in this time of crisis. For centuries, since the
opposition between the world and the Church has become more and more
clearly apparent, this prayer has appeared as the weapon given by Heaven
for us to defend ourselves, to sanctify ourselves, and to vanquish.
We consequently request urgently that
you begin without delay to bud forth the spiritual roses for our
bouquet. Shortly, the priests will give you the directions required to
put together this treasure.
By this obviously symbolic quantity, we
desire also to make it clear to the authorities in Rome, as well as to
Heaven, that we have the will and the determination “to pay the price”.
Confident that our good Mother in
Heaven will hear the assiduous prayer of her children, and that she
cannot but be touched by the harshness of the present time, as well as
the spiritual misery that surrounds us, and that sooner or later she
will hear our prayer and respond to our cry, we have entrusted all the
Chapter’s decisions to the motherly kindness of the Immaculate Heart of
Mary and to the protection of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in order that
He might bless them, and make them more efficacious for the greater
glory of God and for the salvation of us all.
Nos cum prole pia benedicat Virgo
Maria.
+ Bernard Fellay
July 16, 2006, on the feast of
Our Lady of Mount Carmel
|
|
|
COMMON
DECLARATION
OF
THE
FATHERS
OF THE
GENERAL CHAPTER 2006
For the glory of God, for the
salvation of souls and for the true service of the Church, on
the occasion of its Third General Chapter, held at Ecône in
Switzerland, from July 3 to 15, 2006, the Priestly Society of
Saint Pius X declares its firm resolution to continue its
action, with the help of God, along the doctrinal and
practical lines laid down by its venerated founder, Archbishop
Marcel Lefebvre.
Following in his footsteps in
the fight for the Catholic Faith, the Society fully endorses
his criticisms of the Second Vatican Council and its reforms,
as he expressed them in his conferences and sermons, and in
particular in his Declaration of November 21, 1974: “We
adhere with all our heart and all our soul to Catholic Rome,
guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary
for the maintaining of that Faith, to eternal Rome, mistress
of wisdom and of truth. On the contrary, we refuse, and we
have always refused, to follow the Rome of neo-modernist and
neo-protestant tendencies, which showed itself clearly in the
Second Vatican Council and in the reforms that issued from
it.”
Contacts held with Rome over
the last few years have enabled the Society to see how right
and necessary were the two pre-conditions
[1] that it laid
down, since they would greatly benefit the Church by
re-establishing, at least in part, her rights to her own
Tradition. Not only would the treasure of graces available to
the Society no longer be hidden under a bushel, but the
Mystical Body would also be given the remedy it so needs to be
healed.
If, upon these pre-conditions
being fulfilled, the Society looks to a possible debate on
doctrine, the purpose is still that of making the voice of
traditional teaching sound more clearly within the Church.
Likewise, the contacts made from time to time with the
authorities in Rome have no other purpose than to help them
embrace once again that Tradition which the Church cannot
repudiate without losing her identity. The purpose is not just
to benefit the Society, nor to arrive at some merely practical
impossible agreement. When Tradition comes back into its own,
“reconciliation will no longer be a problem, and the Church
will spring back to life”.
[2]
In the long haul to victory,
the Chapter encourages all members of the Society to live, as
its statutes require, ever more intensely by the grace proper
to it, namely, in union with the great prayer of the High
Priest, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Let them be convinced,
along with their faithful, that in this striving for an ever
greater sanctification in the heart of the Church is to be
found the only remedy for our present misfortunes, which is
the Church being restored through the restoration of the
priesthood.
In the end, my Immaculate
Heart will triumph.
|
[1] Unconditional freedom
for the traditional Mass, and withdrawal of the decree of
excommunication of the Society’s four bishops.
[2] Letter from
Archbishop Lefebvre to Pope John-Paul II, June 2, 1988.
The 40 Fathers of the General Chapter
|
|
|