The Fraternity of the Society of St. Peter (FSSP) seems to find itself at a turning point in its history. In PART 1, I explained why the recent reports that Jorge Bergoglio (Francis) will permit the FSSP to continue celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass is nothing more than a strategic move to neutralize the traditional movement as he moves forward with the final step in his attempt to destroy the Catholic Church with the Synod on Synodality.
In this post, I will show how the key to Bergoglio’s strategy hinges on acceptance of all the errors of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), especially the notion of “living Tradition.” This is going to be used to silence the FSSP and what he thinks will be any credible traditional opposition to the Synod on Synodality.
Ecclesia Dei- a document based on “Living Tradition”
In PART 1, I pointed out that the FSSP press release indicated that a part of the conversation FSSP leadership had with Francis centered around the founding principles of the FSSP:
the Pope expressed that he was very impressed by the approach taken by its founders, their desire to remain faithful to the Roman Pontiff and their trust in the Church. He said that this gesture should be “preserved, protected and encouraged”.
Let’s dig in to what is being stated here. Recall that the FSSP was founded as an Ecclesia Dei community. This is in reference to Pope John Paul II’s motu propio dated July 2, 1988 issued in response Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s consecration of four traditional bishops for the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) without Vatican approval. Several SSPX members opposed Archbishop Lefevbre’s efforts to preserve the society and tradition contrary to the wishes of John Paul II with these consecrations and formed their own communities. One of those “break-away” traditionally-minded communities was the FSSP.
The 1988 Ecclesia Dei moto propio established a commission, which for many years oversaw traditional groups that sought to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass while claiming to remain obedient to Rome. Curiously, Ecclesia Dei stated the following:
The root of this schismatic act [referring to Lefebvre’s consecrations] can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, “comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth” (emphasis added). Ecclesia Dei, para. 4.
First of all, Archbishop Lefebvre’s consecrations were not a schismatic act, but that is a topic for a different day. What’s important here is the notion that Tradition has a “living character.” Does it? It then quotes from the Vatican II document Dei Verbum, note 8, as its authority for this statement.
Read that quote from Dei Verbum carefully. This “growth in insight” comes from three sources according to Vatican II: (1) the “contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts”, (2) “the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience,” and (3) the “preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth.”
This IS the heresy of Modernism condemned by Pope St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis. Contrast Ecclesia Dei and Dei Verbum with this warning from Pius:
“But this doctrine of experience is also under another aspect entirely contrary to Catholic truth. It is extended and applied to tradition, as hitherto understood by the Church, and destroys it. By the Modernists, tradition is understood as a communication to others, through preaching by means of the intellectual formula, of an original experience (emphasis added).” Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Para. 15.
Let’s look at one more statement in the Ecclesia Dei document:
I should like to remind theologians and other experts in the ecclesiastical sciences that they should feel themselves called upon to answer in the present circumstances. Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council’s continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church (emphasis added). Ecclesia Dei, para. 5.
Now, compare this with a few decrees of the First Vatican Council that directly contradicts Ecclesia Dei:
For the holy Spirit 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…
Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.
May understanding, knowledge and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along, and greatly and vigorously flourish, in each and all, in the individual and the whole church: but this only in its own proper kind, that is to say, in the same doctrine, the same sense, and the same understanding.
Synod on Synodality and “Living Tradition”
Now that we established that the Ecclesia Dei document upon which the FSSP was founded, specifically grounded in a principle of “living Tradition,” a concept condemned by the Catholic Church, let’s bring the focus back on the Synod on Synodality.
Regarding the Synod on the Vatican’s own website:
Together, we are inspired by the Word of God, through the living Tradition of the Church, and grounded in the sensus fidei that we share (emphasis added).
Notice the word “Tradition” is capitalized. This is intended to show that the Synod is talking very specifically about the notion of Tradition—i.e. including dogmas of the Church—that have been handed down to us over the course of centuries.
In the Synod’s Preparatory document, it states the following:
Even in the second millennium, when the Church emphasized more strongly the hierarchical function, this way of proceeding did not cease: if, alongside the celebration of ecumenical councils, and that of diocesan and provincial synods is well attested, when it came to defining dogmatic truths, the Popes wished to consult the Bishops in order to know the faith of the whole Church, by appealing to the authority of the sensus fidei of the entire People of God, which is “infallible ‘in credendo…The Second Vatican Council is anchored in this dynamic of Tradition (emphasis added).’” Preparatory Document, para. 11-12.
The Synod on Synodality is nothing more than the natural progression of the Second Vatican Council. It’s based on the notion of “living Tradition,” a condemned and destructive idea.
Francis knows that the only opposition to the Synod and this attack on the Catholic Church is going to come from traditional quarters. No one in the secular world or even in “conservative” circles is likely going to oppose this agenda with any vigor or boldness.
Right now, Bishops (even the so-called conservative ones) around the world are implementing the first phase of scheduling meetings with the faithful to discuss “synodality,” whatever that means, so that when “living Tradition” happens to discover the “truth” of the goodness of homosexual marriage, abortion-tainted medicine, contraception, divorce, communism and Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset the hierarchy of the Church can declare that this was the will of the sensus fidei.
Everyone is going to appear to be on board with this “synodal process” except those rigid traditionalists. That is—until the largest and most influential of the Ecclesia Dei communities (the FSSP) stays silent as the final phase of the attempted destruction of the real Catholic Church is imposed.
As any shrewd politician would do, Francis is attempting to buy the silence of the FSSP and other Ecclesia Dei communities with the “right” to continue to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass. And to pull this off with any legitimacy, Francis is exploiting the weakness in their founding principles—their acceptance of the “living Tradition,” which is the fuel of the Synod itself.
St. Joseph: Patron of the Universal Church
Today, March 19, on this Feast of St. Joseph, we must remember to ask for his intercession to help all those priests in the FSSP and other traditional societies who may feel conflicted and compromised with what Francis and even their own superiors are and will be asking them to accept with the Synod of Synodality. Pray that these good priests have the moral courage to stand strong in the face of the spirit of hell and not cave-in to political pressure—no matter the costs.
St. Joseph is the Head of the Holy Family, Terror of Demons and Protector of Holy Church. While the virtue of fatherhood has been almost destroyed in our secular culture and within the Church itself as our spirtual fathers continue to abandon the faithful and the faith itself, we must ask St. Joseph for help.
For more information on the compromises Ecclesia Dei communities have been forced to make in order to maintain the “right” to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, check out this excellent video produced by the SSPX in its Crisis in the Church series, which devotes an entire episode to this topic.