My Dear Brethren,

Bishop Fellay has recently made some further changes in the appointments of different priests of the Society in Australia. 

As announced very many months ago Father Edward MacDonald has been appointed to our Mission in Zimbabwe.  For various reasons this has had to be delayed but we now expect him to leave quite soon for Africa.  Father has spent more than eleven years in Australia in charge of our parishes in Sydney, Perth and Brisbane and his devoted work has been much appreciated.  He will certainly find a very different apostolate in Africa and our prayers and good wishes go with him. 

Father Louis Bochkoltz is also to depart from Australia.  After having spent barely four months here he has been re-assigned to Wanganui, New Zealand.  Father Todd Anderson, an American priest who is presently in Wanganui and who was ordained last year has been appointed to Brisbane where he will assist Father Pepping.  Father Raymond Taouk will leave Tynong where he has done valuable work in charge of the Primary Department of St. Thomas Aquinas College and take up a new position at Hampton where he will assist the new Prior, Father James Doran.  I am very happy to announce that Father Belisle will remain here in Australia and will be responsible for the parish at Tynong.

It is already two months since the meeting of the superiors of the Society at Albano took place to discuss the proposal which the Vatican made to restore canonical status to our Society.  In my previous letter I explained that this offer was subject to our acceptance of a Doctrinal Preamble which was delivered in September.  Since that time various rumours have circulated as to whether the Society would or would not accept the Vatican conditions (which however were subject to further negotiations).  As Bishop Fellay has not yet published details of his response I am unfortunately unable to give you further information in this regard at the time of writing this letter.  However, Bishop Fellay did give a very revealing sermon at our seminary at Econe in Switzerland on 8th December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. I will now paraphrase this for your interest. 

During the sermon the Bishop encouraged the seminarians to invoke the power of Mary in her victory over Satan and the struggle against the spirit of the world which, by a great mystery, has penetrated into the Church itself in a very dramatic manner since the Second Vatican Council.  He invoked the words of Pope Paul VI who, a very long time ago now, stated that the smoke of Satan had entered into the Church.  Now, years later, the Church Authorities even invite Catholics to take part in activities (ecumenical gatherings etc) which previously had been forbidden under severe penalties e.g. excommunication.  This is why Archbishop Lefebvre would not take part in this as it offends God and is contrary to the mark of Holiness of the Church.  We, on the contrary, must assert with Christ that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against His Church even although this contrary spirit has entered into its body like an illness.  A healthy body reacts to defend itself but the hierarchy of the Church of today tells us not to rally to its defence but to accept and swallow all the aberrations of the last fifty years. 

Although, humanly speaking, there is not much hope that the hierarchy will change its position in these matters in the foreseeable future, it is remarkable that the Vatican has offered to accept us but subject to a condition which, although it has varied over the years in its formulation, remains ever the same i.e. we must accept the Second Vatican Council.  It is as if the authorities were saying to us that we may criticise the Council but only on condition that we accept it!  However, what can be subjected to criticism thereafter?

Hence it is not difficult to guess what our response to the Roman proposal is likely to be.  Certainly, the Vatican authorities seem to appreciate more and more our position and therefore are moving closer to understanding the depths of the present problem.  Therefore they propose to us to recognise, with regard to the points which we find difficult to accept in the Council documents, that the only way to understand them is “in the light of Tradition” or according to the teaching of the previous Magisterium.  Accordingly, any interpretation of the Council which is opposed to the perennial Magisterium is to be rejected. However this is to be based on the authority of the New Catechism.  Unfortunately this Catechism receives its authority from the same Council!  Thus an attempt is made to have an agreement on principles which will be put into practice by each party in ways which are opposed to each other.

This difficulty stems from the fact of the same words i.e. Tradition and Magisterium being used with different meanings.  The Church has always understood her Tradition (in regard to doctrine) as an objective reality i.e. the content of what is transmitted by her and which is to be “believed by all, everywhere and always”.  Consequently it can never change.  However Tradition has now been made subjective in order to refer to the act of transmission together with the persons who perform such an act.  Thus Tradition in this sense is described as  “living” and therefore subject to change like all living things e.g. times change, Popes change etc.  According to such a concept truth itself changes and therefore results in the self contrary notion of a changing Tradition!  This is opposed to what the Church has always taught and understood.  The First Vatican Council defined that the Holy Ghost was promised to the Popes not in order for them to make a new revelation but to give the power to conserve and faithfully transmit that which cannot change.

All of the above provides some explanation as to why, although the Doctrinal Talks which the Vatican has held with the Society over the last couple of years underlined serious disagreements, the former still proposes an accord with us as a consequence of their seeming disregard for objective reality.  This is the real problem.  It is not the Society which is the problem.  We have become a problem merely because we state that there is a problem. 

Unfortunately there is no sign that the authorities in the Church wish to resolve the true problem.  Perhaps they will be obliged to do so by the fact that the Church is dying before their eyes and Christianity is disappearing from society.  The priests, monks and nuns are aged and are not replaced by young people.  In a short space of time in many places the Church as we have known it will simply disappear.

Having read this paraphrase of Bishop Fellay’s sermon, we must renew our spirit of prayer, particularly by participating in the Rosary Crusade which he announced earlier this year and which will end at Pentecost 2012.  I have asked the priests to take a tally of all the Rosaries recited in Australia at the end of this year so that we may see how this is progressing.

I wish you all a most happy and blessed Christmas with every blessing in the New Year.

Yours most sincerely in Christ,

Fr Edward Black
District Superior