Muller shows his contempt for the work of Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society in his overtly hostile interview just recently released. He commits hypocrisy by, on one hand, being a promoter of ecumenical unity, but on the other hand in this interview taking a non-pastoral,, polarizing, arrogant, and condemning tone to hundreds of thousands of sincere Catholics, attached to a Congregation of about 1,500 formal members around the world, as priests, brothers, sisters, oblates, and seminarians. Who are, by the way, also sincere.
How does this help anything?!? It doesn’t.
And it signals The End. That is that Leo will now do nothing but cast the SSPX into the abyss on July 1st. Otherwise, this interview would be derailing any last minute effort, which Muller would certainly not do to Leo. Therefore, it stands to reason his attitude is aligned with that of Leo, or vice versa.
This interview signals to me there will now be no last minute conciliatory efforts as asked of the Pope repeatedly by the Society. It was a long shot, but I think we can now rule that out, just 23 days before the historic ceremony.
We have reached an impasse on this spiritual battlefield onto which Divine Providence has placed us.
The interview is full of red herrings, psychological projections, and misrepresentations. I can say this having read it carefully twice, and having studied for over 25 years the conciliar Crisis and the SSPX’s critiques.
Many times he overtly misrepresents the position of the SSPX. It is embarrassing for that to come from such a prominent Cardinal in this hour, trying to promote his point of view.
He limits his portrayal of the SSPX position on religious liberty to saying it is a denial there is only one Church, and, in addition, in another recent statement, falsely claiming the Society’s objection to it is that the conciliar teaching means all religions are equal. Those aren’t precisely the main arguments made by the Society about religious liberty.
Actually, the direct criticism is that the text clearly contradicts in its language pre-conciliar papal teaching condemning the modern error of religious liberty, with no clear explanation or clarification of this to this day. Only to blindly insist on continuity without explaining how.
This is specifically relative to whether or not the State has the authority to ever restrict exercise of false religion, which it does, whether it is a natural right the State must uphold without limit, which it is not, vs. simply being a potential civil right the government can indeed grant, limit, or deny.
The conciliar doctrinal error in contrast is presented as a natural, unlimited right, and therefore must be treated as such by government in civil law, without explicitly upholding the above traditional distinctions. If you are going to charitably debate your enemies position, have the decency not to misrepresent that position and put words in their mouth.
His characterization of the Society position does not even remotely, truthfully, or factually represent the SSPX criticisms.
He mentions the idea that religious liberty is a natural right without rejecting that position, clearing implying that is his position and that of the conciliar church establishment, which frankly is at least an honest admission of the real, heterodox meaning of this conciliar teaching, which is actually what the Society points out as contradicting Tradition. Religious liberty can only be granted as a civil right, under certain conditions, not recognized as a natural right that government cannot limit through legal force, or certain forms of legitimate coercion by law.
Those are distinctions not made in conciliar or post-conciliar texts.
Or by Muller.
Muller gives the impression he hasn’t really read the positions of the Society, but is coming from a place of rage and rash judgment. His attitude is that of a vehemently anti-Protestant Catholic German, putting hyper-emphasis on obedience to the pope, reflecting the traditional apposition between Catholicism and Lutheranism in Germany.
He is projecting that dynamic onto the SSPX comparing it to Luther and a new Protestant reformation. He is injecting a legalistic, rigoristic German attitude into the situation, only making matters worse. He therefore aggravates the situation.
The SSPX does not hold there are “dogmatic errors” in the Council or New Mass, as he says, but on a much lower level “doctrinal errors.” He is therefore practically making the mistake of confusing lower level pastoral teaching and discipline such as liturgical books, with dogma itself. Again he puts words in the mouth of his decided enemy.
One thing we learned well from the example of St. Thomas, in his use of the scholastic method, which applies to every dispute, is to truthfully and charitably represent the position of your opponent, without red herrings, straw man arguments, or sophistry. For Muller, he gives little to no indication he has taken the time to seriously read or understand the SSPX positions. Or to clearly represent them in this interview.
This is in comparison to the once official SSPX visitor appointed by Rome, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, who has currently come to the defense of the Society, the orthodoxy and reasonableness of its critiques, and the fact the forthcoming consecrations, in their intent and circumstances, do not rise to the level of a schismatic act. They are specifically a different moral act, whether justified or not, than formally breaking with the Pope.
The difference between the two men is the latter is humble, especially intellectually humble in analyzing the argument, whereas the former speaks with intellectual pride. The contrast between the two approaches is striking. This is one reason why in my earlier days I tuned out such anti-SSPX rhetoric as being typically so uncharitable and intellectually unfair as to render their arguments unreasonable.
This difference would lead the inquiring person to take what Schneider says more seriously. And tune out Muller’s hostility.
Muller keeps projecting onto the Society error and shame in his interview. He accused it of Protestant rebellion, yet the conciliar reform itself, which he upholds, is fundamentally Protestant and rebellious in spirit, especially literally making every aspect of the life of the post-conciliar Church “ecumenical,” and therefore somewhat Protestant, especially the new liturgy, church architecture, and church music, and is therefore itself a rebellion from the Church and Popes prior to the Council.
It is therefore disingenuous to characterize opposition to a new kind of Protestant Reformation in the Church, as itself a new Protestant Reformation. That again is psychological projection and an abuse of his Office as a Bishop and Cardinal.
He accuses it of not being fully Catholic if it believes conciliar religious liberty and the like are errors to be resisted, yet himself has practically and strongly rejected Fiducia Supplicans on “same sex couple blessings.”
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t condemn the SSPX for finding errors in certain non-infallible Magisterial documents in the 1960’s, of a pastoral Council, while you are doing the same for certain recent non-infallible Magisterial documents.
If Francis made any positive contribution to the Church, it ironically was by inserting certain doctrinal errors into his documents that were more explicit and outrageous to everyone who espouses orthodoxy, traditionalist or not, than the conciliar popes before him had ever done. This fact alone then vindicates the doctrinal analysis of the Society that certain doctrinal errors in certain conciliar and post-conciliar documents do exist.
And CAN exist.
Yet this irony seems to escape the all compassionate and kind Cardinal Muller.
He falsely accuses the Society of not accepting dogmatic teachings in Vatican II, literally suggesting by not accepting the pastoral teachings on religious liberty and ecumenism, that the Society does not accept certain dogmas and therefore cannot be in full communion.
But that is taking an erroneous view of the pastoral Council and certain low level pastoral teachings and making them De Fide. That is being necessary to believe in order to be in full communion.
That is imposing a false view of how the Council viewed itself, and how the Popes viewed it ever since, and therefore himself, in an abstract sense, erects a false version of the Church, based on novel pastoral teachings misconstrued as dogma, while essentially falsely accusing the Society of promoting a false, schismatic, and Protestant view of the Church. It is ecclesiastical bullying again in the form of hypocrisy and projection.
He also calls into question the SSPX position of the necessity of an officially Catholic State, which is by the way the traditional teaching, based on the Tradition’s teaching against religious liberty, as being unrealistic, suggesting no country today would adopt that model. And so he once again misrepresents either intentionally or recklessly the Society position.
The Archbishop and the Society raised the alarm from the beginning how conciliar religious liberty would result in the secularization of certain Catholic States after Vatican II, like would happen with Spain and Italy, through a “separation of Church and State,” which was/is a stated goal of the modernists. By correcting the error, in due time, the Society wishes this to be reversed. It obviously doesn’t expect any current nation to realistically become a Catholic State now or any time soon, as Muller suggests as if to mock the Society view, but instead one day.
This kind of anti-SSPX screed is a very old and annoyingly overused trope that accomplishes nothing, except rallying one side vs. another.
So be it.
I interpret this former head of the traditional Holy Office, by the way who supports liberation theology which is Marxist and heretical, as shooting a gun in the air like one of the generals speaking for and to the conciliar establishment, which treats Vatican II as a permanent super-dogma. He is preaching to the choir, and rallying together going forward those who oppose the SSPX, the traditional Mass as more than a personal preference, and who are trying to silence legitimate traditionalist critiques.
So be it. The dye has been cast. Leo will surely not answer the Society’s recent letter asking to confirm them in central dogmas of the Faith, to show we can trust him going forward. Either he does not firmly believe them, doesn’t believe them, or doesn’t care about confirming them to prevent an unnecessary appearance of “schism.”
Like Muller, he will maintain a polarizing posture to the Society by not really taking the time to truly understand what it really has said or done. Francis in contrast is said to have read three times the 1000 page biography of Archbishop Lefebvre. Influencing later his mindset of mercy towards the Society.
But now this is just more “dialogue of the deaf,” a term used by the Society to characterize how Rome tried to engage doctrinal discussions after the lifting of the 1988 “consecrations.” More internal Church war. Post July 1st, even more division! Much more than the division caused by the last pontificate, in the first year of Leo’s “pontificate of unity.”
Church history and future popes and ecumenical councils will be the final judge, looking back. And God is the ultimate judge.
Until then, by means of the diabolically unjust act that Leo WILL perform in a few weeks on July 1st (which is obvious when contrasting the recent open, filial efforts on the side of the Society towards the Pope, compared to his and Tucho’s heavy hammer approach), it will be clear more than ever before that in this spiritual war there are, in a sense, two versions of the Church in opposition.
On one side is the SSPX and other like-minded Catholics, standing together in defense of the Faith and theirs rights. They in this war help to represent, though of course not exclusively, the true Church and the true Faith.
On the other side stands the armies of Mordor, Satan’s legions of devils, and those modernists and liberals in Rome and in the highest positions of authority (like that of a Cardinal!). While they may officially and validly occupy the seats of authority within the juridical structure, those like Muller, Tucho, Francis, or Leo himself practically represent the side that is new false Faith and Church.
The “Ape of the Church,” as the Venerable and soon-to-be Blessed Archbishop Fulton Sheen once termed and predicted.
They are the aggressor, and we with Christ are on the receiving end. They created this spiritual battlefield across the Church, not us. And we WILL NOT fade backwards into quietism or cowardice. They will lie, defame, persecute, gaslight, and divide Christ’s Church, while we will stand up publicly to their heresies, doctrinal errors, bad theology, sacrileges, and betrayals of Christ the King. Our spiritual weapons of DEFENSE are the traditional doctrine, traditional Mass, prayer, and penance.
We will maintain humility, charity, the supernatural vision, truthfulness, intellectual honesty, a fair representation of the conciliar side, continue our rosary crusades and pilgrimages for the restoration of Tradition, and in support of our unending mission to see Tradition fully restored once and for all to the papacy and to the Vatican.
In conclusion, Cardinal Muller’s interview falls short and is offensive to pious ears. It accomplishes nothing. After July 1st, after the “excommunications,” and to what extent they are imposed, it will be a time of great thanksgiving and peace. This persecution of the SSPX, and indirectly all Catholics who support them and the traditional doctrine in question, will be a Sign of Contradiction. A crystal clear line in the sand and reference report reminding us God has blessed us traditional Catholics with clear signs we belong to the True Catholic Church of Jesus Christ.
As St. Athanasius once said, “They may have the churches. But we have
