Catholic Doctrine: Sense of the Church (2)

It Is Necessary to Believe in the Church

The Church, into which we are incorporated through baptism as member of the body of Christ, is an object of faith that cannot be reduced to a superficial, statistical, or sociological analysis. The quantitative element cannot explain the profound reality of the Church. Similarly, a too legal approach of a society ruled by laws and rites cannot account for its spiritual nature, since the Church, as the Mystical Body of Christ, rests on this mysterious bond which personally unites every soul to Christ and brings them together in Him, as members of the same body, all the sons of God.

A Visible Society

The Church is essentially a spiritual reality. Undoubtedly, it materializes before our eyes by means of visible realities. The ecclesiastical hierarchy, the sacraments, the dogmatic formulas, the ecclesiastical laws and institutions, all this ensemble of visible realities are an integral part of the constitution of the Church of Christ. Where these realities are, there is the Church of Christ, identical to the Catholic Church. Through her is spread the action of God and of Christ, herleader, her invisible head.

Let us refrain from dreaming of a purely spiritual, disembodied Church that disregards these physical realities. Dehumanized, it will evaporate. Because Christ founded his Church on Peter and his successors. He put at her head the Twelve [Apostles] who continue in the current hierarchy. It was Christ who gave the Twelve and their successors the power to teach and to govern His church. It is He who instituted the sacraments through which He sanctifies the members of His Church and unites them.

Jesuit Fr. Yves de Montcheuil explains how only the faith enables us to grasp the invisible and spiritual realities that pass through the visible realities to which they are linked:

“The unbelieving Jews saw Christ, they heard Him, that is, they saw the existence of what was visible in Him. One cannot, however, say that they believed in Christ, that they knew Christ, that they really knew who was the One they were seeing, for they saw in Him only one man among other men. Only the faithful disciples who believe that Christ is the Word made flesh, that He is the Son of God incarnate, truly know Him; only they have the right to say that they know who He is.”

“Similarly, unbelievers can observe the existence of this society called the Catholic Church: seeing it only as a human society, they do not know it. Because they do not take it for a supernatural reality which, while having a body, is not reduced to this body. For us who have thefaith, it is necessary for us to get used to always considering the Church as a spiritual, supernatural reality that manifests itself through a body. This body, this visible element is part of itself: it is indispensable to its existence and its action, just as the Body of Christ was essential and indispensable to Him. But it is not just that. Moreover, just as what gives the meaning of humanity to Christ is His union with the Word, so that one cannot say of the one who knows Christ only as a man that he knows Him, even in part, but it must be said that he completely misunderstands it,—thus the one who only sees the Church in what may be called its sociological or juridical reality, the external organization by which it more or less resembles other human societies—this person does not know half of it, but misunderstands it” (Fr. Yves de Montcheuil, Aspects of the Church, (Aspects de l’Eglise),Cerf 1949, pp. 17-18).

So, just as the skeptical Jews missed out on the reality of Christ, true God and true man, and have misunderstood the Son of God, even though they recognize his existence, so it is a total misunderstanding of the Church to reduce it to its purely visible aspects and to its human elements.

To be ignorant of the spiritual and invisible aspect of the Church is to make it a corpse, a body without a soul, to disfigure it, and to put aside the remedy and the antidote to discouragement or to the too human reactions in the face of man’s deficiencies and the betrayal of clerics.

From: Le Sens de l’Eglise (The Sense of the Church) by Fr. Gaston Courtois, Fleurus, Paris, 1950.

Next : The Supernatural Mission of the Church

Catholic Doctrine: The Sense of the Church (1)

https://fsspx.news/en/news-events/news/catholic-doctrine-sense-church-1-50763

The Church of Jesus Christ

Our Lord Jesus Christ founded the Church in calling into His service the Apostles and in making them the pillars. He chose them from among the disciples who followed him:

“And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and he passed the whole night in the prayer of God. And when day was come, he called unto him his disciples; and he chose twelve of them (whom also he named apostles): Simon, whom he surnamed Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon who is called the Zealot, And Jude, the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, who was the traitor” (Lk. 6:12-16).

To His Church, He promised many tribulations, rejection and hardship as well as persecutions. Because it is in the midst of human infirmities that the power of God appears:

“But look to yourselves. For they shall deliver you up to councils, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten, and you shall stand before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony unto them. And unto all nations the gospel must first be preached. And when they shall lead you and deliver you up, be not thoughtful beforehand what you shall speak; but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye. For it is not you that speak, but the Holy Ghost. And the brother shall betray his brother unto death, and the father his son; and children shall rise up against the parents, and shall work their death. And you shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake. But he that shall endure unto the end, he shall be saved” (Mk 13:9-13).

Nevertheless, through the end of time, Our Lord has promised His indefectible assistance:

“Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Mt 28:19-20).

From the heights of heaven, ceaselessly the Son of God prays for His Church, keeping watch over her and assisting her. Jesus Christ is her leader, the head who takes care of her members: “Whereby He is able also to save for ever them that come to God by Him; always living to make intercession for us” (Heb.7:25).

Bossuet writes, “the Church is Jesus Christ spread and communicated, it is wholly Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ in His plenitude,” (Letter to a Young Lady of Metz). Continuing in her, He manifests Himself and communicates Himself through her, animating her with His spirit and nourishing her with His own flesh.

From: Le Sens de l’Eglise (The Sense of the Church) by Fr. Gaston Courtois, Fleurus, Paris, 1950.

Next: It is necessary to believe in the Church.

Transmitting what we have received

Fr. Pagliarani’s latest interview:

https://sspx.org/en/church-its-head-50632

Interview with Father Davide Pagliarani Superior General of the Fraternity of St. Pius X

Rev. Fr. Superior General, a number of important events will take place before the end of the year, such as the Synod for the Amazon and the reform of the Roman Curia. They will have a historical impact on the life of the Church. In your opinion, what place do they occupy in Pope Francis’ pontificate?The impression that many Catholics are currently experiencing is that of a Church on the brink of a new disaster. If we step back a moment, the Second Vatican Council itself was only possible because it was the result of a decadence that affected the Church in the years before its opening: a dam broke under the pressure of a force that had been at work for some time. This is what makes the great revolutions successful, because legislators are only approving and sanctioning a situation that is already a fact, at least in part.

Thus, the liturgical reform was only the culmination of an experimental development that dated back to the interwar period and had already penetrated a large part of the clergy. Closer to home, under this pontificate, Amoris lætitia was the ratification of a practice that unfortunately already exists in the Church, especially with regard to the possibility of communion for people who live in a state of public sin. Today, the situation seems to be ripe for further excessively serious reforms.

Can you clarify your judgment on the apostolic exhortation Amoris lætitia three years after its publication?

Amoris lætitia represents, in the history of the Church in recent years, what the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are in the modern history of Japan: humanely speaking, the damage is irreparable. It is undoubtedly the most revolutionary act of Pope Francis and, at the same time, the most contested – even outside Tradition – because it directly affects marital morality, which has enabled many clerics and faithful to detect the presence of serious errors. This catastrophic document was wrongly presented as the work of an eccentric and provocative personality, – what some want to see in the current pope. This is not true, and it is inappropriate to simplify the question in this way.

You seem to be implying that this consequence was inevitable. Why are you reluctant to define the current Pope as an original person?

In fact, Amoris laetitia is one of the results that, sooner or later, was to occur as a result of the principles laid down by the Council. Cardinal Walter Kasper had already admitted and stressed that a new ecclesiology, that of the Council, corresponds to a new conception of the Christian family. 1

Indeed, the Council is first and foremost ecclesiological, that is, it proposes in its documents a new conception of the Church. The Church founded by Our Lord would simply no longer correspond to the Catholic Church. It is broader: it includes other Christian denominations. As a result, Orthodox or Protestant communities would have “ecclesiality” by virtue of baptism. In other words, the great ecclesiological novelty of the Council is the possibility of belonging to the Church founded by Our Lord in different ways and to different degrees. Hence the modern notion of “full” or “partial” communion, “with variable geometry”, one might say. The Church has become structurally open and flexible. The new modality of belonging to the Church, which is extremely elastic and variable, according to which all Christians are united in the same Church of Christ, is at the origin of the present ecumenical chaos.

Let us not think that these theological innovations are abstract, they have repercussions on the concrete life of the faithful. All the dogmatic errors that affect the Church sooner or later have an effect on the Christian family, because the union of Christian spouses is the image of the union between Christ and His Church. An ecumenical, flexible and pan-Christian church corresponds to a notion of the family in which the commitments of marriage no longer have the same value, in which the bonds between spouses, between a man and a woman, are no longer perceived or defined in the same way: they too become flexible.

A POPE CONSISTENT WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF VATICAN II

Could you be more specific?

In concrete terms, just as the Church of Christ “pan-Christian” would have good and positive elements outside Catholic unity, so would there be good and positive elements for the faithful also outside sacramental marriage, in a civil marriage, and also in any union. Just as there is no longer any distinction between a “true” Church and “false” Churches – because non-Catholic Churches are good although imperfect – all unions become good, because there is always something good in them, if only love.

This means that in a “good” civil marriage – especially when it is concluded between believers – some elements of sacramental Christian marriage can be found. Not that the two should be put on an equal footing; however, civil union is not bad in itself, but simply less good! Until now we have been talking about good or bad deeds, life in grace or mortal sin. Now there are only good or less good actions left. To sum up, an ecumenical Church is an ecumenical family, that is, a family that is recomposed or “recomposable”, according to needs and sensitivities.

Before the Second Vatican Council, the Church taught that non-Catholic Christian confessions were outside the fold of the true Church, and therefore not part of the Church of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (n. 8), opens a way to recognize them as partial realisations of the Church of Christ. The consequences of these errors are incalculable and still in full development.

Amoris lætitia is the inevitable result of the new ecclesiology taught by Lumen gentium, and also of the mad openness to the world advocated by the Pastoral Constitution on the Church In Today’s World, Gaudium et spes 2.  And in fact, with Amoris lætitia, Christian marriage is more and more like marriage as modernity conceives it and profanes it.

Thus, Pope Francis’ objectively confusing teaching is not a strange aberration, but rather the logical consequence of the principles laid down at the Council. He takes these principles to their ultimate conclusions… for the moment.

Has this new doctrine on the Church manifested itself in a particular theological concept?

After the Council, the notion of the People of God replaced that of the Mystical Body of Christ. It is omnipresent in the new Code of Canon Law published in 1983. But a change occurred in 1985. It appeared that the term “People of God” was becoming cumbersome, because it allowed drifts towards liberation theology and Marxism. It has been replaced by another notion, also drawn from the Council: the ecclesiology of communion, which allows an extremely elastic belonging to the Church so that all Christians are united in the same Church of Christ, but more or less, which means that ecumenical dialogue has become like a conversation in Babel, as in the meeting in Assisi in 1986. Like the polyhedron that Pope Francis loves: “a geometric figure that has many different facets. The polyhedron reflects the confluence of all the diversities that, in it, preserve their originality. Nothing dissolves, nothing is destroyed, nothing dominates anything.” 3

Do you see this same ecclesiological root at the origin of the reforms announced in the Instrumentum laboris of the next Synod on the Amazon, or in the project of reform of the Roman Curia?

Everything comes down, directly or indirectly, to a false notion of the Church. Once again, Pope Francis is only drawing the final conclusions from the principles laid down at the Council. In concrete terms, its reforms always presuppose a Church that listens, a Synodal Church, a Church that is attentive to the culture of peoples, their expectations and demands, especially human and natural affairs, specific to our time and always changing. The faith, the liturgy, the government of the Church, must adapt to all this, and be the result of it.

The Synodal Church, which is always attentive, is the latest evolution of the Collegial Church, advocated by Vatican II. To give a concrete example, according to the Instrumentum laboris, the Church must be able to assume to itself elements such as local traditions on spirit-worship and Amazonian traditional medicines, which resemble so-called “exorcisms”. As these indigenous traditions are rooted in a soil that has a history, it follows that this “territory is a theological place, it is a particular source of God’s revelation”. This is why we must recognize the richness of these indigenous cultures, because “the non-sincere openness to the other, as well as a corporatist attitude, which reserves salvation only for one’s own faith, destroys this same faith”. It seems that instead of fighting paganism, the current hierarchy wants to assume it and incorporate its values. And the craftsmen of the next synod refer to these things as “signs of the times” – an expression dear to John XXIII – which must be examined as signs of the Holy Spirit.

THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IS NOT A FORUM OR A PLATFORM

And more specifically, what about the Curia?

For its part, the Curia’s reform project advocates a Church that resembles much more a human enterprise than a divine, hierarchical society, depositary of supernatural Revelation, with the infallible charism of guarding and teaching the eternal Truth to humanity until the end of time. As the text of the draft expressly states, it is a question of “updating (aggiornamento) the Curia”, “on the basis of the ecclesiology of Vatican II”. It is therefore hardly surprising to read from the pen of the group of cardinals in charge of this reform: “The Curia acts as a kind of platform and forum for communication between particular Churches and Bishops’ Conferences. The Curia gathers the experiences of the universal Church and, from these, encourages the particular Churches and the Bishops’ Conferences… This life of communion given to the Church is the face of synodality… The people of faith, the Episcopal College, the Bishop of Rome are all listening to each other, and they are all listening to the Holy Spirit… This reform is established in the spirit of “healthy decentralization”… The Synodal Church is “the People of God walking together”… The service provided by the Curia to the mission of the bishops and to the communio is not one of vigilance or control, neither one of decision-making as a higher authority…” 4

Platform, forum, synodality, decentralization…, all this only confirms the ecclesiological root of all modern errors. In this amorphous magma, there is no longer any higher authority. It is the dissolution of the Church as Our Lord has established it. In founding his Church, Christ did not open a forum for communication or a platform for exchange; he entrusted Peter and his Apostles with the task of feeding his flock, of being columns of truth and holiness to lead souls to Heaven.

How can this ecclesiological error be characterized in relation to the divine constitution of the Church founded by Jesus Christ?
The question is vast, but Archbishop Lefebvre provides us with an answer. He said that the structure of the new Mass corresponded to a democratic Church, and no longer hierarchical and monarchical one. The synodal church of the Franciscan dream is truly democratic. He himself gave the image he had of it: that of an inverted pyramid. Could there be a clearer manifestation of what he meant by synodality? It is a Church that on its head. But let us insist, it only develops the seeds already present in the Council.

Do you not think you are forcing your reading of the current reality, wanting to bring everything back to the principles of the Second Vatican Council, held more than fifty years ago?

It is one of the closest collaborators of Pope Francis who gives us the answer. This is Cardinal Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa and coordinator of the “C6” group of cardinals. He says that: “After the Second Vatican Council, the methods and content of evangelization and Christian education change. The liturgy is changing. (…) The missionary perspective changes: the missionary must establish an evangelizing dialogue (…). Social action changes, it is no longer only charity and the development of services, but also the struggle for justice, human rights and liberation… Everything changes in the Church according to the renewed pastoral model. “And he adds, to show in what spirit these transformations are being accomplished: “The Pope wants to bring the renewal of the Church to a point where it will become irreversible. The wind that pushes the sails of the Church towards the high seas of her profound and total renewal is mercy.” 5

However, it cannot be denied that many voices have been raised against these reforms and it is reasonable to assume that this will continue in the coming months. How do you rate these reactions?

One can only rejoice at such reactions and at a progressive awareness on the part of many of the faithful and some prelates that the Church is approaching a new catastrophe. These reactions have the advantage and merit of showing that the voice that advocates these errors cannot be that of Christ, nor that of the Magisterium of the Church. This is extremely important and, despite the tragic context, encouraging. The Society of St. Pius X has a duty to be very attentive to these reactions, and at the same time to try to avoid misguidedness and failure to achieve anything.

Conciliar pluralism makes any opposition structurally ineffective

What do you mean by that?

First of all, it should be noted that these reactions systematically come up against a brick wall and one must have the courage to ask why. To give an example, four cardinals had expressed their dubia about Amoris lætitia. This reaction had been noticed by many and hailed as the beginning of a reaction that would produce lasting results. In fact, the Vatican’s silence has left this criticism unanswered. In the meantime, two of these cardinals have died and Pope Francis has moved on to the other reform projects we have just mentioned, – which means that attention is shifting to new subjects, leaving, by necessity, the battle over Amoris lætitia in the background, forgotten, and the content of this exhortation seems de facto accepted.

To understand the silence of the Pope, we must not forget that the Church that emerged from the Council is pluralistic. It is a Church that is no longer based on an eternal and revealed Truth, taught from above by Authority. We have before us a Church that is listening and therefore necessarily listening to voices that may differ from each other. To make a comparison, in a democratic system, there is always a place – at least apparent – for opposition. They are part of the system because they show that we can discuss, have a different opinion, that there is room for everyone. This, of course, can promote democratic dialogue, but not the restoration of an absolute and universal Truth and an eternal moral law. Thus, error can be taught freely alongside a real but structurally ineffective opposition which is unable to replace the errors with truth. It is therefore from the pluralist system itself that we must emerge, and this system has as its cause, the Second Vatican Council.

In your opinion, what should these prelates and faithful do who have at heart the future of the Church?

First of all, they should have the lucidity and courage to recognize that there is a continuity between the teachings of the Council, the popes of the post-conciliar era and the current pontificate. Citing the magisterium of “Saint” John Paul II, for example, to oppose Pope Francis’ innovations is a very bad remedy, one that is doomed to failure from the outset. A good doctor cannot simply use a few stitches to close a wound without first evacuating the infection inside the wound. Far from despising these efforts, it is a matter of charity to indicate where the root of the problems lies.

To give a concrete example of this contradiction, it is sufficient to mention one name among others: that of Cardinal Müller. He is presently the most virulent opponent of Amoris lætitia, the Instrumentum laboris and the Curia’s reform project. He uses very strong language, even talking about “breaking with Tradition”. And yet, this cardinal who has the fortitude to publicly denounce these errors is the same one who wanted to impose the acceptance of the whole Council and the post-conciliar magisterium on the Society of Saint Pius X (in continuity with his predecessors and successors at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). Regardless of the Society and its positions, Cardinal Müller’s criticism, which focuses only on the symptoms without going back to their cause, gives rise to a most damaging and illogical situation.

The charity of wanting to “transmit what we have received”

It is often objected that the Society only knows how to criticize. What does it propose positively?

The Society does not criticise systematically or a priori. She is not a professional misanthrope. She has a freedom of speech that allows her to speak openly, without fear of losing benefits she does not have… This freedom is essential in the current circumstances.

The Society has above all a love for the Church and souls. The present crisis is not only doctrinal: seminaries are closing, churches are emptying, frequentation of the sacraments is falling dramatically. We cannot remain spectators, arms folded, and say to ourselves: “All this proves that Tradition is right”. Tradition has the duty of coming to the aid of souls with the means given to it by Divine Providence. We are not driven by pride, but by charity to “transmit what we have received” (1 Cor 15:3). This is what we humbly strive to do through our daily apostolic work. And, it is in the course of this work that we denounce the evils that afflict the Church as being necessary to protect the flock abandoned and dispersed by bad pastors.

What does the Society expect from the prelates and faithful who are beginning to see clearly, in order to give a positive and effective follow-up to their positions?

It is necessary for them to have the courage to recognize that even a sound doctrinal position will not suffice if it is not accompanied by a pastoral, spiritual and liturgical life consistent with the principles to be defended, because the Council has inaugurated a new way of conceiving the Christian life, consistent with its new doctrine.

If true Catholic doctrine is reaffirmed in all its rights, one must begin to live a real Catholic life in conformity with what one professes. Otherwise, this or that declaration will remain only a media event, limited to a few months, even a few weeks… In concrete terms, one must exclusively embrace the Tridentine Mass and all that it means; one must exclusively embrace the Catholic Mass and draw all the consequences from it; one must exclusively embrace the non-ecumenical Mass, the Mass of all time and let this Mass regenerate the lives of the faithful, communities, seminaries, and especially let it transform priests. It is not a question of simply restoring the Tridentine Mass because it is the best theoretical option; it is a question of restoring it, living it and defending it until martyrdom, because only the Cross of Our Lord can rescue the Church from the catastrophic situation in which it finds itself.

Portæ inferi non prævalebunt adversus eam!

The gates of hell will not prevail against her!

 

Father Davide Pagliarani, Superior general

Menzingen, September 12, 2019, feast of the Holy Name of Mary

Heaven

St. Alphonsus Liguori:

In this life, the greatest pain which afflicts souls that are in desolation and love God, arises from the fear of not loving Him, and of not being loved by Him. “Man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred.” (Eccles. 9: 1). But in Heaven the soul is certain that it loves God, and that He embraces it as a beloved child and that this love will not be dissolved for all eternity. These blessed flames will be augmented by the increased knowledge which the soul will then have of the greatness of the love of God, in becoming man and dying for us; of His love in instituting the Most Holy Sacrament, in which a God becomes the food of a worm. Then also will the soul clearly see all the graces which God has bestowed upon it in delivering it from so many temptations and so many dangers of perdition; it will then understand that the tribulations, infirmities, persecutions, and losses, which it called misfortunes and divine chastisements, were all love, all means intended by divine Providence to conduct it to Heaven. It will see particularly the patience of God in bearing with it after so many sins, and the mercies He had shown it in giving it so many lights and invitations to His love. From that blessed mountain it will behold so many souls in Hell, condemned for fewer sins than it had committed and will see that it is saved, that it is in the possession of God, and secure against all danger of ever losing that Sovereign Good for all eternity.

When the soul has once entered into the happy kingdom of God, “there will be nothing to molest it. God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and death shall be no more, not mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more; for the former things are passed away. And He that sat on the throne said: Behold I make all things new” (Apoc. 21:4).
In Heaven there is no infirmity, no poverty, no distress; there are no longer the vicissitudes of days and nights, nor of cold and heat; but a perpetual day always serene, an eternal spring always delightful. There are no persecutions; no envy. In that kingdom of love, all love one another tenderly; and each rejoices in the good of the other as if it were his own. There are no fears; because the soul, being confirmed in grace, can no longer sin nor lose her God. “Behold I make all things new.” Everything is new; everything gives consolation and content. The sight will be filled with delight in beholding this city of perfect beauty. How delightful the view of a city in which the streets are of crystal, the palaces of silver, the ceilings of gold, and all adorned with festoons of flowers! Oh! how much more beautiful the city of paradise! how splendid the appearance of these citizens, who are all clothed in royal robes; for, as St. Augustine says, they are all kings. How delightful must it be to behold Mary, who will appear more beautiful than all paradise! But what must it be to see the Lamb of God, the Heavenly Spouse, Jesus! St. Theresa had one transient glimpse of one of the hands of Jesus Christ, and was struck senseless by its beauty. The smell will be regaled with odors but with the odors of paradise. The ear will be delighted with celestial harmony. St. Francis once heard from an angel a single stroke on a violin, and almost died through joy. What then must it be to hear the whole choir of saints and angels chanting the glories of God! ”They shall praise Thee forever and ever” (Ps. 83:5). What must it be to hear Mary praising God! St. Francis de Sales says that, as the singing of the nightingale surpasses that of all of the other birds, so the voice of Mary is far superior to that of all the other saints. In a word, in Heaven are found all the delights which can be desired.

When, therefore, the crosses of this life afflict us, let us animate ourselves with the hope of Heaven to bear them patiently. St. Mary of Egypt, being asked at the end of her life by the Abbot Zozimus, how she had been able to live for so many years in such a desert, replied: “With the hope of Heaven.” When the dignity of Cardinal was offered to St. Philip Neri, he threw up the cap in the air, exclaiming, “Paradise! Paradise!” At the mention of paradise, Brother Giles, of the Order of St. Francis, was raised up from the ground through joy. Let us likewise, when we are afflicted by the miseries of this life, raise up our eyes to Heaven, and console ourselves, saying with a sigh, “Heaven! Heaven!” Let us reflect that if we be faithful to God, all these sorrows, miseries, and fears will one day have an end, and we shall be admitted into that blessed country, where we shall enjoy complete happiness as long as God will be God. Behold, the saints are expecting us, Mary is expecting us, and Jesus stands with a crown in His hand, to make us kings in that eternal kingdom

The model & guide of the Papacy

https://fsspx.news/en/news-events/news/celebration-pope-st-pius-x-his-feast-september-3-31854

Today more than ever, the Church finds in St. Pius X, pope from 1903 to 1914, a true saint of the papacy, a model, and a guide

In the brief of beatification (June 3, 1951), Pius XII lists the chief traits deserving the attention and the admiration of the crowds:

1. His concern about the sanctity of the clergy, the key to renewing all things in Christ, according to his sublime motto.1
2. The renewal of ecclesiastical studies. Pius X exhorts Christian philosophers to defend the truth under the banner of St. Thomas Aquinas. He founds in Rome the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and encourages the theological sciences, inspired exegesis and carefully prepared preaching on the part of the clergy.
3. His preoccupation with the eternal salvation of souls. If Pius X desired a holy clergy, it was with a view to the instruction of the faithful, to whom he gave a catechism designed for both adults and children. To the latter he would forever remain the Pope of the Eucharist, promoting Communion at an early age, but also—and for everyone—frequent and even daily Communion.
4. The defense of the Faith in its fullness and purity. The false teachings that recycled a compendium of errors were unmasked, labeled as Modernism, and wisely repressed (Encyclical Pascendi, September 8, 1907). In these circumstances, as well as in his battle against anticlerical laws and the secularist separation of Church and State, St. Pius X was, in the words of the Angelic Pastor, an “infallible teacher of the Faith”, the “fearless avenger of religion” and the “guardian of the Church’s liberty”.
5. His love of the liturgy. The initiator of an authentic liturgical movement, Pius X renewed sacred music, but also the breviary and the calendar of feast days, so as to orient the Church decisively “toward a liturgical life that is thoroughly imbued with traditional piety, sacramental grace and inspired beauty”2.

These are chief traits of the sanctity of Pius X, the sanctity of a reign that was thoroughly imbued with the grandeurs and the supernatural riches that are the Church’s treasure. Pius XII likewise recalls the work of reform that he accomplished in the Roman Curia, in the schools and the parishes, the formidable work of compiling the hitherto scattered laws of the Church into one corpus adapted to the conditions of society (the Code of Canon Law, promulgated in 1917). Not to forget the attention that he paid to evangelization in the missions and also his appeals to the “separated Oriental Christians” for unity.

Pius XII canonized this pontifical sanctity for a very precise purpose: in order to “dispose minds to confront our own struggles and to assure our victories and those of the generations to come”.3 Now that he is proclaimed a “saint and guide of men today”, “the apostle of the interior life”, St. Pius X is held up as a “providential example for the modern world where earthly society, which has increasingly become a sort of enigma to itself, anxiously seeks a solution so as to reacquire a soul!  May it therefore look for a model to the Church gathered about her altars.”4 For this pope “inspired everywhere an immense movement of return to the splendors of the sacred liturgy and of sacred music, and banished ugliness from God’s holy temple.”5

More than ever today, as she did 60 years ago, the Church finds in St. Pius X, a true saint of the papacy, a model and a guide.

For the clergy, so that they might rediscover the meaning of their eminent dignity and of their vocation to be first and foremost men of God, devoted to the worship and praise of Him. The sacrosanct rituals of the liturgy constitute in the first place public worship offered to the Divine Majesty, the same act of sacrifice offered by the one Savior of mankind. This is not about organizing a more or less Protestantized Last Supper, without grandeur or clearly defined priesthood.  It is about restoring to each priest his own identity: the fact that he is another Christ, mediator between God and men, charged with pardoning sins, distributing divine blessings to souls and leading them to Heaven.

For the faithful and the Christian people as a whole, so that they might understand the burning necessity of saving their souls, of sanctifying their home, their work and their city. Wisely instructed by their holy religion, may they know how to keep themselves from the corruption of the world, especially from moral and intellectual corruption. St. Pius X wanted the people to pray with the help of beauty and to “recognize in the Eucharist the power to feed their interior life substantially”.6 On a sound basis he organized Catholic Action and promoted the social and professional activities of Catholics within a denominational framework.

For the peoples of the world and for all men of good will, so that they might find in the Church access to Jesus Christ. This was his primary concern, Pius XII again explains, for God “is the origin and the foundation of all order, of all justice, of all law in the world.  Where God is, there order, justice and law reign.” Hence the great construction project during the pontificate of St. Pius X to organize the law of the Church. Hence also the primacy of faith and of sound doctrine which was “a service of the utmost charity, rendered by a saint, as head of the Church, to all humanity”.7

For the enemies of the Church, finally, so that they might know the fearlessness and the strength that God alone can give to his Vicar on earth and, though him, to his children spread throughout the world. Symbolic of this was the courage with which Pius X rejected the laws separating Church and State; he “gave new bishops to cruelly persecuted France, and resists the attacks of the wicked”.8

The Reformer Pope

A very good article about Pope St. Pius X:

It was the dawn of the 20^th century. The hedonism of the Belle Époque whirled through Europe’s capitals; like Poe’s raven, the precursors of civilizational decay tapped at the windows of the West. The ideologies originating in the Age of the Enlightenment were nearing full fruition in what American historian Lawrence Sondhaus would term the “global revolution”: the Great War, only a few years off.

An influential leader wrote in 1903 of the gathering clouds:

We were terrified beyond all else by the disastrous state of human society today[.] … Who can fail to see that society is at the present time, more than in any past age, suffering from a terrible and deep-rooted malady which, developing every day and eating into its inmost being, is dragging it to destruction?

Who can avoid being appalled and afflicted when he beholds, in the midst of a progress in civilization which is justly extolled, the greater part of mankind fighting among themselves so savagely as to make it seem as though strife were universal?

On all sides, voices called for peace, but fruitlessly. “To want peace without God is an absurdity,” he declared. “[W]here God is absent thence too justice flies, and when justice is taken away it is vain to cherish the hope of peace.”

The leader in question was Giuseppe Sarto, better known as Pope St. Pius X, writing his first encyclical, E supremi apostolatus (1903). The cancer in society to which he traced all the ills of his time was quite simply apostasy from God.

“We find extinguished among the majority of men all respect for the Eternal God, and no regard paid in the manifestations of public and private life to the Supreme Will — nay, every effort and every artifice is used to destroy utterly the memory and the knowledge of God,” he lamented, in words that might justly be applied to the 21^st century.

He singled out the evil of humanism: “Man has with infinite temerity put himself in the place of God, raising himself above all that is called God[.] … [H]e has contemned God’s majesty and, as it were, made of the universe a temple wherein he himself is to be adored.”

Historian Yves Chiron points to E supremi apostolatus as a kind of manifesto. “We have no other program in our Supreme Pontificate,” St. Pius X proclaimed, “but that ‘of restoring all things in Christ,’ so that ‘Christ may be all and in all.’ … The interests of God shall be Our interest, and for these We are resolved to spend all Our strength and Our very life.”

How did he propose to carry out this program? Not by self-styled parties of order. “There is but one party of order capable of restoring peace in the midst of all this turmoil, and that is the party of God,” he declared.

Rather, it would be accomplished in “bringing back to the discipline of the Church human society, now estranged from the wisdom of Christ; the Church will then subject it to Christ, and Christ to God.”

To this end, Yves Chiron identifies three concrete steps proposed in E supremi apostolatus. First, a reformation of the clergy, that they might truly “bear stamped upon themselves the image of Christ.” Pius X adjured bishops to govern their seminaries in such wise that they might “flourish equally in the soundness of their teaching and in the spotlessness of their morals.”

Secondly, holy and well formed priests were to provide better and more thorough religious instruction for the faithful. Cardinal Raymond Burke wrote of this mandate in the preface to Cristina Siccardi’s 2014 biography of St. Pius X: “The Holy Father identified ignorance of Christian doctrine as the chief cause of the decline of faith, and therefore judged that sound catechesis was of primary importance in its restoration. It is easy to see how current the observations and conclusions of St. Pius X are today.”

Thirdly, Pius X asked lay Catholics to offer every assistance to this work of religious education. He insisted that all lay Catholic initiatives keep as their primary goal the maintenance of Christian life among their own members.

“It is of little avail,” he told them, “to discuss questions with nice subtlety, or to discourse eloquently of rights and duties, when all this is unconnected with practice. The times we live in demand action — but action which consists entirely in observing with fidelity and zeal the divine laws and the precepts of the Church, in the frank and open profession of religion[.]”

Like another leader in a time of crisis, Winston Churchill, Pius X held that nothing could be permitted to stand in the way of success. “[W]e must use every means and exert all our energy to bring about the utter disappearance of the enormous and detestable wickedness, so characteristic of our time — the substitution of man for God.”

Thirty-seven years later, Churchill would rally wartime Britain in not dissimilar terms: “to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime …”

Like Churchill, Pius X refused to set his sights on anything less than victory. “No one of sound mind can doubt the issue of this contest between man and the Most High,” Pius X declared with confidence. “Man, abusing his liberty, can violate the right and the majesty of the Creator of the Universe; but the victory will ever be with God[.]”

The restoration of all things in Christ would mean that “the upper and wealthy classes will learn to be just and charitable to the lowly, and these will be able to bear with tranquillity and patience the trials of a very hard lot; the citizens will obey not lust but law; reverence and love will be deemed a duty towards those that govern.” This was Pius X’s vision of peace.

“The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our life-time,” British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey mused as the first guns of August rang out. Pius X died scarcely two weeks later; the darkest years of the century, for the world and the Church, were still to come.

The apparently universal rejection of Christ’s rule might prove a temptation to despair, as it was for Matthew Arnold 50 years earlier. “Dover Beach,” his lament for the retreat of faith in God that once embraced the earth “like the folds of a bright girdle furled,” ends in despair: “the world … hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light / Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain …”

The reality that paralyzed Arnold spurred Pius X to action. His program gives the ordinary Catholic concrete measures to take in the face of civilizational collapse: to maintain the practice of Christian life, to seek out true Catholic formation for oneself and those under one’s charge, and to proclaim the sovereign rights of Christ over human society.

It is not too much to hope that in making St. Pius X’s manifesto our own, the lamps of Europe and the world will be relit, one by one; and that when all things are restored, the nations will enter a new Golden Age under the scepter of the sole Sun of Justice, the Light of the World.