April
2005
Dear Friends and Benefactors of the Society in Ireland,
His Excellency the Most Reverend Richard N. Williamson,
auxiliary bishop of our priestly society, will be visiting Ireland
in the middle of May, and he has graciously agreed to administer the
sacrament of Confirmation in our church of St. John's in Monkstown /
Dun Laoghaire, on Saturday May 21, 2005.
The ceremony will start at
11 AM, and a Solemn Mass will follow.
Since all the Society priests of Ireland will be
present, all pastoral activities outside of Dublin will be cancelled
for Friday 13th and Saturday 14th of May.
Sunday Masses will be as usual in all churches and chapels.
The parents of those children who are to be confirmed
and any adults who are not yet confirmed will fill out the enclosed
registration form and mail it to us in such manner that we receive
it before May 15, 2005. Please fill it carefully and make sure your
telephone number is legible, since we must ring you to confirm
details and notify you of any eventual changes of schedule.
*
The profound crisis of faith in which we are submerged,
indeed the "silent apostasy" detected yet undiagnosed by the late
Pope John Paul II himself, for whose soul we fervently pray, is
fundamentally a fruit of that revolution within the Church which was
promoted by the new spirit issued from the Second Vatican Council
(1962-1965).
Its more visible consequences are a new mass, a new
bible, a new code of canon law, a new catechism, a new pontifical
and ritual of the sacraments, a new martyrology, a new spirituality
and ecclesiastical discipline, the suppression of the
Anti-Modernistic Oath, communion standing and in the hand, lay
Eucharistic ministers, liturgical inculturation, the forced
secularization of Catholic states, and the stupefying glorification
of the condemned errors of ecumenism, collegiality, and religious
freedom, much to the confusion and scandal of clergy and faithful.
The gathering of all religions in Assisi, 27 October 1986, and the
pagan Hindu worship at the chapel of the apparitions in Fatima, 5
May 2004, are the most strident public exponents of what one could
view as a new religion.
In a clear break with the multisecular tradition of the
Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, these innovations have led as
well to the depopulation of seminaries and religious institutions.
The devastation in our own country, once the strongest supplier of
priests and missionaries, is well known to you. Maynooth, the only
remaining seminary in Ireland, with 600 seminarians in the 1960s
(not counting the other seven seminaries then still flourishing, now
empty and closed if not sold for real state exploitation) counts
only 60 students, of which fewer than two-thirds are expected to
finish the seven-year course. Our archdiocese of Dublin, with one
million Catholics, ordained one priest only last year, and none at
all this year. It is a mystery to me why the Rector of Maynooth
would declare in a recent article that there is no crisis of
priestly vocations in Ireland. We will only mention in passing the
tragic loss of vocations to the religious life, which is leading
Irish monasteries and convents to a swift extinction.
To those external, undeniable changes and their
disastrous consequences we must add the invisible desolation of the
souls and their final apostasy. After all, if one can be saved in
any religion, why bother?
And
what about obedience? Aren't we suppose to obey the pope and the
bishops no matter what? To this monstrous conception of obedience we
simply reply with the words of the First Vatican Council, in the
Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, chapter IV, article
6, 18 July 1870: For the
Holy Ghost was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they
might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by
His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound
the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles.
Among the
many concerned bishops who were personally opposed to these lethal
changes, only one raised his valiant voice for the rights of Christ
the King and His Church, facing the innovators with his public
declaration of November 21, 1974:
We hold firmly with all our heart and
with our mind to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and
of the traditions necessary to the maintenance of this Faith... We
refuse... and have always refused to follow the Rome of
Neo-Modernist and Neo-Protestant tendencies which became clearly
manifested during the Second Vatican Council and after the Council,
in the reforms which issued from it...
Because of his refusal of the new mass and the
postconciliar orientations, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was treated
like a criminal, the only great criminal of the postconciliar years,
and his Society of St. Pius X, canonically founded and officially
praised by the few remaining traditional Vatican prelates, was
illegally suppressed. And yet, in December 1987, Cardinal Edouard
Gagnon, apostolic visitor in the name of Pope John Paul II,
did not hesitate to
write
in
the book of honour of the seminary of Ecône
this limpid panegyric: May the Immaculate
Virgin hear our prayers so that the work of formation so
marvellously accomplished in this house will shine for the life of
the Church.
Since the Council, we have been compelled to make a
painful choice between the Faith of our baptism and a false notion
of obedience. I myself entered the seminary of Ecône when it became
obvious that nowhere else could I find a Catholic formation. And
you, my friends, waiting and praying for better times and a true
renewal, you came to the priests of the Society of St. Pius X
because in your local parishes you could not find anymore the
integrity of the Faith and the Sacraments of our Fathers. You do not
need permission to be Catholic, you do not require indults or
privileges to exercise the rights of your baptism.
This is why we are so grateful to Archbishop Lefebvre
for giving us bishops who in this time of extreme necessity ordain
priests and confirm our children. And this is why we thank
wholeheartedly Lord Williamson for coming to visit us and administer
confirmation.
For those scrupulous souls who need canonical
reassurances, I give you as arguments ad hominem four canons
of the New Code of Canon Law of 1983:
·
Can. 213: Christ's faithful have the right to be
assisted by their Pastors from the spiritual riches of the Church,
especially by the word of God and the sacraments.
·
Can. 214: Christ's faithful have the right to worship
God according to the provisions of their own rite approved by the
lawful Pastors of the Church; they also have the right to follow
their own form of spiritual life, provided it is in accord with
Church teaching.
·
Can. 1335: If a censure prohibits the celebration of
the sacraments or sacramentals or the exercise of a power of
governance, the prohibition is suspended whenever this is necessary
to provide for the faithful who are in danger of death. If a latae
sententiae censure has not been declared, the prohibition is
also suspended whenever one of the faithful requests a sacrament or
sacramental or an act of the power of governance; for any just
reason it is lawful to make such a request.
·
Can. 1752, the very last canon in the code: (...),
always observing canonical equity and keeping in mind the
salvation of souls, which in the Church must always be the supreme
law.
Your
priests in Dublin wish you and your dear ones every blessing, in
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Father Ramón
Anglés
