Rome cannot help keeping watch on the Society of Saint Pius X

December 1, 1991

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Jiminy Cricket! If ever the writer of this letter were to fear its readers going to sleep, all he need do would be to write "Slacks III"! From "Slacks I" and "Slacks II" the mail is still coning in, continuing about evenly divided for and against women's trousers. No, this letter will not be "Slacks III", the writing of which will be held over as a threat to keep some of you in line! (Yes, Madam, I heard you — nothing will keep you in line!) However, we will be printing (anonymously) some of the very fine letters received here in praise of skirts for women. Be warned, these will be printed on brown paper, so when they arrive, whosoever wishes may direct them straight into the circular file! For indeed the writing of this letter is a tyranny, but its reading is a democracy!

Meanwhile on the Superior General's blue paper is coming to you this month an interview given last summer by the Society of St. Pius X's Superior General Rev: Fr. Franz Schmidberger, to the international magazine "30 Days". Fr. Schmidberger was asked principally about on-going relations between the Society and Rome. In his replies one can see the Society of St. Pilus X continuing along the lines laid down by Archbishop Lefebvre: openness to Rome, respect for Rome, the classical attachment of any Roman Catholic to Rome, but a firm refusal to follow today's Rome in its modernist errors.

Fr. Schmidberger tells that since Archbishop Lefebvre's death last March, there has not been much contact between Rome and the Society. Elsewhere Cardinal Oddi was quoted last autumn as saying that henceforth Rome is disregarding the Society. All honour to his Eminence and to his colleagues, but I for one do not believe him. The Pharisees pretended to disregard Our Lord, but they spied on his every step!

After all, Rome cannot help keeping watch on the Society, or on any coherent group with large numbers of Catholics keeping the Faith. The reason is not hard to find — such groups are the main obstacle to the advance of the Antichrist.

In our time towards the end of the world, the infinite Wisdom and Justice of God have allowed His enemies a great deal of control over world affairs. These enemies consider they are today on the brink of achieving their One World Government, towards which an economic crash, or threat thereof, is about to give a powerful push. However, religion has even more power than economics over men's minds and hearts. So, Roman Catholicism being amongst world religions the one with an incomparable prestige and worldwide levers of spiritual power, the One Worlders owed it to themselves to infiltrate Rome and harness it to the purposes of the Antichrist. This with Vatican II they largely succeeded in doing, as the fruits of its aftermath continually demonstrate. Another recent example in the U.S.A., quite independent of the Society of St. Pius X, is the dealings since 1988 between Rome and Queen of the Holy Rosary Chapel in Vienna, Ohio. One may hope the complete documentation of these dealings will be published which demonstrate once more that Rome is clearly out not to defend but to destroy the Catholic Faith and Catholic Church of all time.

However, to sweep all Catholics into the clutches of the One World Government, to switch them from followers of Christ into followers of the Anti-christ, Rome must deceive them. Many are willing to be deceived, but an influential minority need to have the appearances maintained for them while the contents are switched, until such time as even the old appearances can be jettisoned. In this process, it is vital that the people should be persuaded that Catholicism is only what Rune says it is, that no other Catholicism is possible, and that the old Catholicism in particular is dead and gone. Hence the vigour with which Rome stamped it out in the wake of Vatican II.

For if any group of Catholics survives or revives within the Church to demonstrate by their practice of the "old" religion that it is as true as ever, and viable, even vibrant, such a group will be the living proof that Catholicism is not automatically what "Rome" says it is, that another form of Catholicism than that of "Rome" is after all possible, and that the "old" Catholicism is neither dead nor gone. Such a group will accordingly form the major obstacle in the path of the Religious Department of the One World Government. So the more numerically important it is, the more it must be watched for a flaw, circled around for an opening, maybe infiltrated, in any case subverted and above all divided. That is what "Ecclesia Dei" and St. Peter's Fraternity were all about (poor St. Peter's! Let me spare you the latest circle-squaring woes of their Tradition-docile-to-modernism). That is why I simply do not believe Cardinal Oddi when he says Rome is henceforth disregarding the Society. As Churchill might have said, his Eminence is perpetrating a terminological inexactitude (there is a simpler word for it, but a gentleman is not meant to use such words ).

Logically, this Rome has to be casting around to find a way of dividing and destroying the Society... maybe "unheard of concessions, undreamt of ouvertures," something along the lines of Dmitri Manuilski's famous recipe for the Communists to lull and smash the decadent West ....

Ah, my dear friends, the Society is a poor affair, humanly speaking quite insignificant, but it is rich in its upholding of the Divine Truth. Until Rome unequivocally returns to upholding that same Truth, there is little or nothing Rome has with which to endow the poor Society, least of all Rome's current version of respectability, so that there is nothing that the Society has to go beg of Rome. In the Catholic Church, and, amongst all human enterprises beneath the moon, in the Catholic Church alone, the Truth is in the driving seat. Read these two blue pages for re-assurance as to the at least immediate future of the Society. And keep our Superior General in your prayers, as he dances with foxes and wolves. Dom Putts said of these Romans, "Sono tutti delinquents". Translation upon request!

As for the long-term viability of the Truth, take out your Missal, and see if it includes the wonderful Antiphons of today's Office, the first Sunday in Advent, drawn from the Prophets Joel (III, 18), Zechariah (IX, 9; XIV, 5) and Isaiah (IV 1,6), and from Deuteronomy (XVIII, 18).

Advent means the coming of the Messiah to re-build the spiritual Jerusalem (#5) which is the Catholic Church, not the physical Jerusalem which was razed to the ground in 70 A.D. for its crime of deicide. Rejoice and shout for joy, O children of the Church (#2), because no worldly miseries, not even of 1991 or 1992, can stop you from finding the Messiah if you seek him, or from slaking your spiritual thirst in the waters of his Church (#4), and in that day the mountains shall drop down sweetness and the hills shall flow with spiritual milk and honey (#1), collapse of the economy notwithstanding!

Dear benefactors, thank you for keeping the Seminary in the black through another calendar year. Have a very merry Christmas to rejoice in the Messiah being amongst us, but please do not send me a Christmas card if you wish to have mercy on my desk!

In 1992 beware of a change in the Winona summer schedule: the men's five-day Retreat of June 29-July 4 has had to be moved to July 20-25. For 1991 if this letter reaches you within a few days, join us on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in making the enclosed Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. May she obtain blessing and protection for all of your families, especially for the womenfolk who never wear trou-*!*!*BE QUIET, bishop!

Most ...most....ruefully yours in love of the Messiah,

+Richard Williamson

Seminarians keep the pilot light of the Society of Saint Pius X lit

October 1, 1991

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

..... and another school year has quietly started, with 39 old seminarians coming back from their summer vacation, and 18 new seminarians stepping into the ranks. Of these 18, eight are from the United States. The remaining ten will, for as long as they persevere over the next six years, enjoy the hospitality of the United States, but they come from all four corners of the — pardon me the expression! — Empire — two from England, one from Scotland, two from Canada, one from Nigeria, one from New Zealand, one from Australia, two from South Africa. It is certainly this Seminary's most international in-take ever. Thank you, American benefactors, it is mostly on your backs that these young men from all over the world will work their way towards the priesthood.

Eighteen young men out of today's world! Archbishop Lefebvre would have said, eighteen miracles. Some of them have had in mind for years to give the Seminary a try, others make up their minds at the last moment. Obviously not all will reach the priesthood, but it is interesting that one can never tell in advance who will persevere and who will not. Of 1989's entry of 22, only 9 were still there after one year, whereas of 1990's entry of 15, fourteen lasted their first year. A vocation is something altogether mysterious.

Of course between eighteen young men, and the needs of hundreds of millions of souls in danger of eternal damnation throughout the English-speaking world, there is no proportion, except in God's eyes. Why is it that He is not calling many more young men to the true priesthood, or to the Society's seminaries? Firstly, of course it is not He who is to be blamed. The tales told for instance of young men's true vocations being deflected or destroyed in the training grounds of today's mainstream "Church" are nothing less than horrific. A true vocation is exactly what that "Church" does not want.

Yet still one may ask, given the world-wide emergency, why does the Lord God, whose grace is all-powerful, not reach through to more young men to lead them to where they can become true priests? A consoling thought which is hardly consoling: the young women reaching for the religious life seem, at any rate in the English-speaking world, to be even rarer than the young men. Maidens! Look around you at all those children of young families at the Tridentine Mass! Who is going to be their spiritual mother to put them on the path to Heaven? Of course we have some wonderful laywomen to teach them, but you do realize how much farther into their little souls a Sister in habit can reach? Physical mother of eight, or spiritual mother of eight hundred? The Sacred Heart needs you! You do realize how much more of a man He is to spend your life with and give your heart to than even the most wonderful Prince Charming that Hollywood could make you dream of? As the chief steward says at the marriage feast of Cana (John II,10), every other man puts out his best wine first, and it gets worse as one goes on, but with Our Lord the best wine is reserved for the last. Blessed the faithful Sister! What a happy life! What a happy death! But few seem to seek that happiness today.

Alright, but maidens apart, why such a mere handful of male vocations to that priesthood on which the Church's survival depends? A more consoling consolation: on Saturday, June 20 of 1992, if everything goes to plan, the fourth of the society's four new bishops to come to Winona, Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais from France, will ordain eight seminarians to the priesthood, the largest ordination yet in any one year from the Society's American Seminary, and all eight from the United States. Mark the day down in next year's calendar and plan to come to the family occasion, both to receive great graces and to show God how grateful you are for the immense gift of each new priest.

For indeed, if the Lord God seems to be calling relatively few to the Traditional priesthood, it is surely because relatively few faithful are calling for Traditional priests. Let us not deceive ourselves. We are living through, if not the Great Apostasy itself told of in Scripture (II Thess. II), at least the dress rehearsal for it. Either, way, these days are such that unless they be shortened, no flesh shall be saved (Mt. XXIV, 22). The great mass of men are turning away from God, they do not want Him, they do not want His Church, they do not want His kind of priests, so God will not impose these by force, but as a punishment He withdraws them from among mankind, as He withdraws Himself.

He is chastising, sifting, and purifying mankind, especially His Church. It has gone into a tunnel, it looks like going through a good deal more darkness before it comes out into the light again on the other side. This tunnel is the logical conclusion of centuries of Catholics' infidelity, and it is the prophesied harbinger, by God's mercy, of an unprecedented Catholic triumph. Meanwhile He is guaranteeing that His Church does not altogether perish, so the order of the day is survival, and to the fulfilling of that purpose our eighteen young men are proportionate.

I have compared the Society of St. Pius X to the pilot light on a gas stove. When the gas is turned off, the gas-rings go dead, no cooking can be done and very little heat comes off the pilot light, but so long as one can see the pilot light still lit, one knows that the action will resume as soon as the gas is turned on again. But turning on the gas is not within the power of the pilot light itself.

The stove is the Catholic Church, the gas is the grace of God which has been turned off by the fault of men, so that one gas-ring after another has gone out, and the Catholic priesthood and the Catholic Mass have been almost extinguished. However, the Society of St. Pius X like a little pilot light is still lit, and its function is to stay lit until such time as God sees fit to turn on His grace once more, at which point the clergy and faithful of the Society and its valiant companions in arms, still lit and warmed by the true Mass, however few they be, will be on hand with the true practice of the Faith to re-ignite the multitudes of men then returning to God. It is not a question of numbers. It is a question of fidelity, or faithfulness. Pray these new seminarians keep the Faith, and we will pray the same for you, especially each evening of October at Rosary and Benediction.

I am asked what I think of events in Russia. I think the "coup" of August 19 was a fraud (Since when do only four people get killed in real tussles for power?). The leading Communists have changed little more than the name of Communism. They have lost no real power. Their ability to deceive the suicidal West foreshadows the Antichrist's future deceiving of the world. The Red Army is more dangerous than ever, continually arming, arming, arming. God is not masked (Gal. VI,7). War is the punishment of sin (James IV,1).

Do, in time, an Ignatian Retreat. As you see from the inside (not from the pre-printed outside) of the enclosed yellow Retreats flyer, the Society has opened up a new Retreat House in California, in Los Gatos near San Jose. There are now these powerful retreats year round in the East and in the West. Do not turn down the call of grace to go through these gateways to Heaven. As for the enclosed violet sheet, it reproduces two texts concerning the meeting in 1967 of Padre Pio and Archbishop Lefebvre. The first text is a pack of lies currently circulating in the U.S.A. and disturbing some souls. In the second text the Archbishop sets the record straight. Of course, responsible for the lies is not Padre Pio, but the author of the book about him.

Also enclosed the Pledge Card which facilitates regular giving to the Seminary, and which brings you this letter by first class instead of by bulk mail within the U.S.A.. Always, dear benefactors, thank you, and may Our Lord repay you.

Most sincerely yours in Jesus and Mary,

Women's trousers are an assault upon woman's womanhood

September 1, 1991

Dear Friends and Benefactors:

Summer's end may not seem to be the cleverest moment to choose to write about women's dress. Surely the arrival rather than the departure of the warm weather would be the time to inveigh against immodest clothing. However, several ladies happen to have raised with me this summer the question of women wearing trousers or shorts (pants), and the problem is broader and deeper than just immodesty, grave though immodesty is.

For instance Bishop de Castro Mayer used to say that trousers on a woman are worse than a mini-skirt, because while the mini-skirt is sensual and attacks the senses, the trousers are ideological and attack the mind. For indeed women's trousers, as worn today, short or long, modest or immodest, tight or loose, open or disguised (like the "culottes”), are an assault upon woman's womanhood and so they represent a deep-lying revolt against the order willed by God. This may be least true of the long "culottes", trousers most closely resembling a skirt, and at best mistakable for a skirt, but insofar as "culottes" establish the principle of dividing woman's outward apparel from the waist down, they merely disguise the grave disorder. What disorder? ("Excellency, this time really you have flipped your lid!").

In the beginning, God created man and woman, both human but quite different, firstly man, secondly woman (Genesis I, 27; II, 22); woman to be man's help-mate like unto himself (Gem. II, 18), woman for man, not man for woman (I Cor. XI, 9), for "the man is not of the woman but the woman is of the man" (I Cor. XI, 8). Thus even before original sin happened, God ordered between man and woman distinction, inequality, and the headship of man over woman for purposes of living in society and in the family upon this earth.

Original sin, whereby Eve made Adam sin and not the other way round (I Tim II 14), entailed Eve's being punished, amongst other things, by the turning of her natural and painless subordination to Adam into a punishing domination of his over her, for she had shown by seducing him that she needed to be controlled... "thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have dominion over thee" (Genesis III, 16). Thenceforth with the transmission of original sin to all children of Adam passes to all daughters of Adam (except, of course, the Blessed Virgin Mary) this punitive subordination.

As with all problems of sin, the only true solution is the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. For instance in a Catholic marriage the painful control of man over woman, evident in all non-Christian cultures and re-emerging in our own anti-Christian culture, becomes by supernatural grace more and more that subordination of woman to man which is in accordance with their nature and which is profitable to both, which Eve had before she and Adam fell.

But away with Eden by grace! The modern world will have none of Jesus Christ's solutions to Adam's and Eve's problems. Making idols of liberty and equality, to refuse any inequality or subordination of woman to man, it will deny any distinction between them, it denies of course any order of God in His creation, any need for Redemption, and it will deny if necessary God's very existence. Today's feminism is intimately connected to witchcraft and satanism.

These considerations have taken us a long way from the question of women's trousers, and of course not every woman putting on a pair of shorts is consciously thinking of defying God or of defying her menfolk. She is, however, conscious of something. She is clearly aware that divided shorts are not like an undivided skirt, and the difference is that abandoning the skirt gives her a vague feeling — surely of unease, or emancipation, or both .... What is that feeling based on?

Clothing divided for the legs obviously liberates the mobile lower half of the body for a number of activities for which clothing undivided like a skirt is relatively cumbersome. Adam then having to earn his family's bread by the sweat of all kinds of activities outside the home, it is entirely normal for the man to wear trousers, and if a girl gets it into her head to join him in these activities, obviously trousers likewise emancipate her to do so. Shorts are the outward and visible sign of her, liberation from the restricted range of homemaking activities.

However, she is uneasy because trousers are not the natural wear of a woman. Howsoever it be with other species, in the human species the female is designed to attract the eye of the male much more than the reverse — compare the number of male and of female beauty magazines on the market. Now original sin wounds human nature with concupiscence (unlawful desire) particularly in the senses of sight, touch and imagination. It follows for questions of clothing that what might rouse concupiscence needs more to be disguised in woman from man’s eye than in man from woman’s eye. Hence as trousers benefit the activity of the man, so skirts disguisingly loose befit the dignity and honour of the woman. Hence while donning his emancipatory trousers, she feels uneasy – at least until her conscience is dulled – as she is moving away from her identity and role and dignity as a woman. In her conscience is resounding the voice of the Lord her God pronouncing in the Mosaic Law: “A woman shall not be clothed with man's apparel, neither shall a man use woman's apparel: for he that doeth these things is abominable before God" (Deut. XXII, 5). And trousers are normally man's apparel, for reasons given above.

Of course if one denies the original sin which inflamed man's concupiscence (Gen. III, 7) and sharpened woman's subordination (Gen. III, 16), women's trousers are not so unreasonable, but see all around you the absurd consequences of denying original sin ! — sweet Polyanna goes to the office dressed fit to inflame a stone, but woe unto the poor male colleague in the office who fails to react like a stone, because with recent laws (in the U.S.A.) she will attack him in court! Insanity! Places of work will soon have to extract in advance from women sworn declarations whether they do, or do not, want to have advances made to them! But what was to be expected when women were pulled out of their home? It all serves the liberal men right for so misleading their women.

Contrast the reflective good sense of an American grandmother who said to me this summer when she was on retreat here in Winona that, looking back on her Californian youth, she could see she had often been induced to wear trousers, and now she regretted it — she could see now that each time her womanliness had been diminished. As G.K. Chesterton said, there is nothing so unfeminine as feminism. Women's trousers are a vital part, maybe the crucial break-through, of feminism.

As for the true womanliness of woman, its importance cannot be exaggerated. It all turns on women being essentially designed by God for motherhood; for the bringing of children into this world, and for their rearing; for the giving of life, warmth, love, nursing, and nourishment, everything represented by mother's milk. For this, men are not designed, of it they are intrinsically incapable yet upon it they are wholly dependent if they are to become human, as opposed to inhuman, beings. In a valuable book, "The Flight from Woman", a cultivated Jewish psychiatrist, Karl Stern, tells how he could discern in countless ills of the big city patients coming through his Toronto practice after World War II a pattern of womanlessness with which he was familiar from the works of famous modern writers such as Goethe, Descartes, Tolstoy, Ibsen — not a lack of women, but a lack of truly womanly women, because modern men and women alike are trampling upon the womanly qualities and virtues. Shakespeare distilled this spirit in Lady Macbeth, proto-feminist and satanist:­

"Come you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty.... Come to my woman's breast
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers..." (Act I, Sc. V).

Heaven help us! The womanliness of our women is being rooted out and the result is a way of life doomed to self-destruction, doomed to abort.

Girls, be mothers, and in order to be mothers, let not wild horses drag you into shorts or trousers. When activities are proposed to you requiring trousers, if it is something your great-grandmother did, then find a way of doing it, like her, in a skirt. And if your great-grandmother did not do it, then forget it! Her generation created your country, your generation is destroying it. Of course not all women who wear trousers abort the fruit of their womb, but all help to create the abortive society. Old-fashioned is good, modern is suicidal. You wish to stop abortion? Do it by example. Never wear trousers or shorts. Bishop de Castro Mayer was right.

Enclosed is a flyer of tapes made by Bernard Janzen, a Canadian friend of the Seminary with whom I have made a dozen tapes myself. The Seminary would surely not endorse every statement on each of the tapes. For instance, Malachi Martin's latest book, "The Keys of this Blood", showed him to be deeply divided between the conservative and the Traditional analyses of the crisis of the Church, two analyses which one might love to reconcile but which are irreconcilable. This reconciling of irreconcilables makes his tapes very popular, and they might greatly help someone struggling out of the Novus Ordo, but they might equally confuse someone making the last part of the climb up to Tradition. Be careful to whom you might give them. Similarly Michael Davies is conservative rather than Traditional, he is certainly not 100% behind the Society of St. Pius X, but like Malachi Martin he can reach many a listener closed to the Society, at least for now. With that proviso, these tapes can surely be recommended. Please order direct from Canada and not from the Seminary.

A new school-year opens in a few days' time. Pray for seminarian Michael Rios from Texas who on August 22, returning home from Mass, had a terrible accident which killed his mother and a friend in his car, crushed beneath a truck and which has left him paralyzed at least from the waist down. God’s way are mysterious, but in Michael’s place He does seem to be sending us some more fine young men to try their vocations at the end of this month. On their behalf, thank you always for your support, which please maintain, and for which may Our Lord continue to repay you.

Most sincerely yours in his Sacred Heart,

+Richard Williamson

The episcopal consecration in Brazil of Msgr. Licinio Rangel

August 1 , 1991

Dear Friends And Benefactors,

No doubt another great blow was struck for the liberty and exaltation of Holy Mother Church with the episcopal consecration in Brazil on Sunday, July 28, of Msgr. Licinio Rangel.

From amongst the two dozen priests formerly constituting under Bishop de Castro Mayer the diocesan clergy of the diocese of Campos which lies some three hours by road north-east of Rio de Janeiro, Msgr. Rangel was the choice of Bishop de Castro Mayer himself before the bishop died last April, and he was also elected by his fellow priests. He can be seen on the front cover of the 1991 Angelus Calendar looking over the right shoulder of Bishop Fellay, the bishop farthest to the right in the picture. Now 55 years old, he was under Pope John-Paul II in 1981 made a domestic prelate with the title of Monsignor, a reward for years of quiet and faithful labour in a series of diocesan posts which he occupied under the guidance of Bishop de Castro Mayer while the latter was still the official Bishop of Campos.

Today of course the Campos priests who remained faithful to Tradition are no longer the official priests of the diocese (because by being obedient they became "disobedient" so that without being schismatic they fell into "schism" — do you not love our 20^th century?), so the question can be raised, why did they need a bishop of their own in addition to the Society's four bishops who could on regular visits provide them with the sacraments of Holy Orders and Confirmation?

The answer is that the Campos priests are, because their dismissal by the modernist successor of Bishop de Castro Mayer was extremely unjust, continuing with their diocesan work. Now diocesan priests need a local bishop like a family needs a father. They need, to guide them, to hold them together and look after them, much more than just a provider of those sacraments which require the fullness of the priesthood to be administered. If no Traditional bishop succeeded Bishop de Castro Mayer, those priests he held together could not stay together, they would be broken up and his work would come to an end.

But his work was important not only to ten of thousands of souls in and around the city of Campos. It was, in the darkness following Vatican II, a beacon of light and hope for the whole Church, proving on the diocesan level — as Archbishop Lefebvre proved on a missionary level — that the true Faith was alive and as efficacious as ever. Hence for the souls of Campos and for the good of the whole Church, the Society's bishops decided to consecrate a Catholic bishop for Campos, as Archbishop Lefebvre had recommended before he died.

This does not mean that the Campos priests or Bishop Rangel (or the Society of St. Pius X) do not recognize the official Bishop of Campos. They recognize him in the same way that they recognize the Pope, in other words they acknowledge his authority but refuse to follow him in his grave errors. Bishop Rangel makes no pretence of having that official authority over the Traditional priests and faithful of Campos, but his moral authority will come from his being the guardian of their Faith and the guarantor of their sacraments.

Bishop Rangel is not a Society bishop, nor does he come under the Society, but he profoundly agrees with the Society's positions, just as Bishop de Castro Mayer profoundly agreed with Archbishop Lefebvre. All are aligned on the same objective truth. Twenty-five Society priests from Europe and Latin America attended Bishop Rangel's consecration, and the harmony between the Campos priests and the Society priests was complete, because objective. However, since Bishop de Castro Mayer was the only bishop to stand by Archbishop Lefebvre, the Campos priests are unique in the world, and so there is no prospect at present of the Society bishops undertaking any further consecrations.

Not that such consecrations still so need to be explained as they until recently did. Thus on Saturday morning, July 27, the day before the consecration of Msgr. Rangel, the spokesman of the Campos priests, Fr. Fernando Rifan, organized a Press conference to explain the consecration. Now just a few years previously, anyone attempting to prove such a consecration to be Catholic would have been covered in ridicule. Yet here, anyone of good will listening to the arguments had to be convinced. The "new" truth was in possession. An astonishing reversal, which will continue to reverse and to astonish.

In fairness, most of the dozen journalists from all of Brazil responded very fairly to the presentation of the truth. The consecration itself received front page articles and pictures in all four major newspapers of the Campos area, and entire page articles in newspapers of Rio de Janeiro.

Outside of Brazil, however, silence. Signs are that the puppet-masters of Rome are in the process of putting some more juicy cheese on the Indult mouse-trap in order to catch us a foolish Traditionalists, so it probably sent out instructions that no-one should know of courageous mice looking after the production of their own cheese!

As for the mice of Campos, you should have seen and heard their reaction to the consecration! The people had long been fervently praying to have a bishop, so they saw in the event of July 28 the answer to their prayers. As they waited for the ceremony to begin and the three bishops, one consecrator and two co-consecrators, came in view, many women openly cried and the men held back their tears — the Church lives!

For a detailed description of the ceremony, see the September Angelus. During the ceremony the people were quiet, attentive and pious. They frequently wanted to applaud, but obeyed the ceremony commentator, Fr. Possidente, asking them from the microphone to hold their applause in check. At the Offertory he explained how the new bishop "out of his gratitude and great generosity" presents his consecrator "with gifts of bread and two barrels of wine" — the people waited to see normal-sized barrels and on came two tiny tubs the size of soda siphons - general amusement of the people! I recalled how in 1988 Archbishop Lefebvre was cheated with the same two mini-barrels being presented to him by each of the four new bishops! However, the formalized beauty of this gesture brought a radiant smile to the face of the consecrator of 1991.

At the end of the four-hour ceremony - and the people were not tired but expected more - now four bishops stood in line to be photographed and the people's exultation could be checked no longer: led by the dynamic young parish priest of Sao Fidelis, Fr. Jonas, their joy exploded in one "Vivat" after another: Fr. Jonas: "Long live the bishops!" - explosion: "VIVAT!" Fr. Jonas: "Long live the new bishop!" - explosion: “VIVAT!" — "Long live Dom Tissier!" - explosion: "VIVAT!" "Long live Dom Lefebvre!" (He is dead) - "VIVAT!" "Long live Dom de Castro Mayer!" (He is dead) -"VIVAT!" - a good two dozen explosions running through all of Fr. Jonas' heroes, like a series of fire-crackers. At this point the Society's District Superior of France, beaming all over, stepped forward to get a better view of Fr. Jonas on the sanctuary-stage above — I can see the Society's French District being instructed to take a leaf out of the book of the effervescent Brazilians!

Dear friends, let us get missionising, let us rebuild another Catholic diocese, and to the consecration of its bishop I promise to invite Fr. Jonas! We may die, but if we keep our Catholic Faith we shall not die of grief! God bless you.

In His service, sincerely yours,

Three reasons why all independant priests need not join the Society

June 10, 1991

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

Many of you have had to wait for the arrival of our May mailing from the offices of the "Angelus" in Dickinson, Texas, but I doubt if many of you were disappointed after the long wait. The "Angelus" team did magnificent work to get out the commemorative issue on Archbishop Lefebvre. It is a keepsake which will no doubt be treasured in many a Catholic home for years to come.

The "Angelus" team also did tremendous extra work to collate and get into the mail copies for the entire Seminary mailing-list (currently about 12,500 names). Well done, ladies, and thank you very much. You did the Archbishop proud! Extra copies, as many as you like, can be ordered either from the Seminary or from the Angelus (P 0 Sax 1387, Dickinson, TX TT539) at $10 each, with 10% discount for bulk orders. The "Angelus" will also have 8" x 10" or 11" x 14" colour reproductions available of the picture of the Archbishop an the cover of the commemorative Angelus.

It is the same picture as the card enclosed, of which you can also order from the Seminary here as many as you like. We have had tens of thousands of them made up. No fixed price. Donations not refused!

Also enclosed is the complete letter of Archbishop Lefebvre to Bishop de Castro Mayer from which you read the first two paragraphs in last month's Seminary letter. The complete letter shows the Archbishop's concern for the future of Catholic Tradition in the Diocese of Campos in Brazil, together with his complete respect for the independence of the Catholics of Campos. At no time since the founding of the Society of St. Pius X did Archbishop Lefebvre seek to pull into or under the Society, priests from outside the Society, unless they asked of their own free will to join the Society, and even then he was reticent.

This was, — and I think remains, despite what many of the Traditional laity think, doubly or triply wise. The laity, bless them, long to see Traditional priests all getting together, because their Catholic instinct is that priests who share the same true Faith should all be united, and what they see amongst their various Traditional priests is — I do not wish to exaggerate — a certain amount of division. Now the largest single body of such priests that they can see is the Society of St. Pius X, so friends especially of the Society are liable to wish that all independent priests would join the Society. Under normal circumstances such a wish is entirely correct, but it surely mistakes the will of God in today's particular circumstances, firstly as to the Church, secondly as to the Society, thirdly as to the priests concerned.

First and foremost, there is one man and one man alone who has from God the mission and the faculties to pull the Catholic Church together in unity, in fact to make the unity of the Church, and that is the Pope. If the Pope does not or will not unify the Church, nobody else can, because that is how Our Lord Jesus Christ designed his Church, and there is no other way upon earth in which it can be built, unless one wants to build some other "church", which for Catholics God forbid. Now the present Pope has such uncatholic notions in half of his head (like the curate's egg, it is good in parts) that he has no idea how to pull the Church together in the Faith, even if he wished to, so that for the moment the Church cannot be united. Hence the lack of unity amongst priests cannot for the moment be cured, so it must be endured. Instead of lamenting this lack of unity by hierarchy. Traditionalists might be wise to thank God for the remarkable degree of unity by Faith amongst their priests. They will be wise also to keep praying for the Pope who is so bitterly attacked by the radicals that he must be doing something right.

Secondly, these who wish independent priests would join the Society surely mistake the mission of the Society which is to preserve the Faith, the priesthood and the Mass for better times, but not to replace Rome. To be Roman Catholics, all Catholic priests must be somehow attached to Rome, but they need not be attached to the Society which has a particular origin and a particular character making particular demands, capable of wide but not of universal extension. True, a Catholic priest should normally be under a bishop and the Society has bishops, but these bishops are expressly not hierarchical, and if a priest is without bishops through no fault of his own, God clearly can give emergency graces of guidance to leaderless priests. Of course priests must be attached to the Faith to which the Society is attached, but that is a different matter. While it brings many a faithful priest alongside the Society, it does not put him into or under it. Again, rather than lament how few priests jump on board the Society train, Traditionalists might well thank God for each of those galloping alongside, and pray for more — there are many priestly Nicodemuses.

Thirdly, it is, humanly speaking, expecting a great deal of priests with maybe long diocesan or religious experience to put themselves, within the Society, under the orders of relatively young superiors. Of course inexperience is, as they say, a disease which is cured each day with another 24 hours' worth of experience, and many an old man's responsibilities resting on young men's shoulders is making the youngsters of the Society learn fast (how swiftly some lose the youthful expression and waistline they had as seminarians!). Nevertheless, with all the good will in the world an older man can hardly unlearn what he reckons it has cost him hard knocks to learn. As old Father Barrielle used to say at Ecône, there are as many standing miracles in the Society as it has houses still standing, for there is not one mistake the youngsters miss! "Eppur si muove," as Galileo is meant to have said: and yet it moves. Despite all, the Society works, a major reason again to thank God. For we face trials. Listen to this forecast: -­

"Rome will make full use of the occasion of the Archbishop's death to try to entice the sheep out of the fold. They will do it so kindly and so deviously that they will pull some of the shepherds away also .... However, we must not be dismayed in the least, regardless of the defections. It is the hand of the Good Shepherd separating more intensely the sheep from the goats. There are yet many half-breeds in the flock, neither sheep nor goat (and consequently goat!) ... they will not be allowed to remain.

"The 'troops' who reach the final stages of 'battle-readiness' must be totally committed, fully trained and firmly convinced, body, mind, heart and soul, of the cause for which they fight. Anything less is a danger to the forces of Good.

"The Superiors must warn of the dangers from Rome, and from within, but they must not anxiously try to hold back those who would leave, nor be disheartened at the numbers lost. Our strength is not in numbers, but in each soul's full surrender to God. Many who are with us now will not soon; and many that are scorned and looked down upon by the Traditionalists now, will be the strongest members in the future. Any who have sought out the Tridentine Mass and Sacraments and then lay back, smug in their 'Catholicity', will not come through the test.

"Truly, these are glorious days, and a person burns to prepare for battle — more prayer, penance and careful attention to daily duty, thus ever closer union with God and more battle-readiness... May she who prepared Christ for His sacrifice, prepare us also for ours."

Foreboding words, but plausible. A first — class means of prayer, penance and preparation for spiritual warfare is always the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Sign up on the yellow flyers. Time is certainly running out. May Jesus bless each of you persevering.

Sincerely yours in His Sacred Heart,

Bishop de Castro Mayer, his faithfulness and his death

May 9, 1991

Dear Friends and Benefactors:

A number of you will have been wondering what happened to the Seminary's May mailing. Some of you may have guessed it would consist in a Commemorative Issue of the 'Angelus' for the death on March 25 of the Founder of the Society of Saint Pius X, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. The Seminary has had to shake out its piggy-bank to be sending it to you, but one's Founder dies only once! And then the better we appreciate God's gifts, such as a great Catholic bishop, the more inclined will God be to send us more like him: "If thou didst know the gift of God..." says Our Lord.

And now the bishop who had the honor and glory of being the only bishop in the world to stand by Archbishop Lefebvre in the Church's hour of need, Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, retired bishop of the diocese of Cameos in Brazil, has also died, one month to the day after the Archbishop, in hospital in Brazil, an April 25. Thus God has seen to it that the companions in arms on earth are also companions in heaven.

Bishop de Castro Mayer was born one year before Archbishop Lefebvre, and became bishop of the diocese of Campos, small city some 200 miles north-east of Rio de Janeiro, in 1948, when he was in his mid-forties. He was strong in canon law and theology, and a Pastoral Letter on "Problems of the Modern Apostolate”, which he wrote for his diocese in 1953, and which contained a "Catechism of Opportune Truths to Oppose Today's Errors", spread far beyond his own diocese, inside and outside of Brazil.

His strength in doctrine was the reason why, when the tornado of Vatican II Struck the Church, neither he nor his diocese were blown off course, a feat achieved by no other bishop with his diocese in the whole Church! Many a bishop during and after the Council must have felt extremely uncomfortable with the new religion being introduced, but unless he had a very clear mind he will have said to himself, "Well, I don't like it and I don't feel it's Catholic, but the Faith doesn't go by likes or by feelings, so if that's what the Pope says, I must obey." Only if he knew with a clear mind that the doctrine of the Faith itself was gravely endangered by the changes, could he quietly and steadily resist them, as did Bishop de Castro Mayer.

What is more — what is much more — his priests stayed with him. When the New Mass came in, they followed him in keeping to the Tridentine Mass, and when he reached the age of 75 and was obliged by the new Church's rules to step down, still the great majority of his two dozen priests kept the Tridentine Mass. No doubt thanks to him, they had understood.

He was replaced by a modernist bishop who proceeded to drive all Bishop de Castro Mayer's priests out of their parishes. A few of them gave up the fight, but it was again the great majority of them who literally took to the streets, and when they decided to build new churches from nothing, then -­ further testimonial to the former bishop and his priests - they were followed by the great mass of the people, so that there are now 11 brand-new churches being built. I saw three of them when I was in Brazil last December. They are not small, and the one that I saw finished was very fine — and already too small! What one good bishop can do!

No doubt Dom Antonio's last great moment was when he stood by Archbishop Lefebvre's side to co-consecrate in the Consecrations of June, 1988. In the course of the ceremony he gave a brief sermon stating why he had come. He said he had been under much pressure to stay away, but for him it was such a duty that he considered he would have committed a mortal sin had he not come.

Archbishop Lefebvre was immensely appreciative of his assistance. Bishop de Castro Mayer was in all respects so completely independent of Archbishop Lefebvre, that when he stood with him against all the world, it was the clear demonstration that the Archbishop was not just inventing everything out of his own head. Quite uninfluenced by the Archbishop, one other Catholic bishop facing the same confusion had arrived at the same dramatic decision: better incur "excommunication" than remain inactive. Thenceforward nobody could dismiss the Archbishop as a lone ecc

Just how much the Archbishop appreciated his companion in arms, let this extract tell, the beginning of a letter written by the Archbishop from Switzerland on December 4 of last year to Dom Antonio, bed-ridden in Brazil:

"Very dear Monsignor Antonio de Castro Mayer,

"Rumors reach me from Brazil concerning your health which they say is declining! Is the call of God drawing nigh? The mere thought fills me with deep grief. How lonely I shall be without my elder brother in the episcopate, without the model fighter for the honor of Jesus Christ, without my one faithful friend in the appalling wasteland of the Conciliar Church!"

"On the other hand there rings in my ears all the chant of the Traditional liturgy of the Office of Confessor Pontiffs!... heaven's welcome for the good and faithful servant! if such be the good Lord's will."

Little apparently did Archbishop Lefebvre guess that he would be the first one home, but from there he clearly did not wait long to draw his companion after him. "Lovely and comely in their life, even in death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions" (II Sam. I,23).

The Archbishop's funeral which I attended in Ecône on April 2 was solemn, but consoling rather than sad. There are several pictures in the enclosed `Angelus', and a little of the scene at the graveside is evoked in the piece entitled, "What he stood for could not die". The time for sadness will be when, if ever, his work dies.

It continues. There will be Confirmations in the U.S.A. this year as follows: by Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta in E1 Paso (TX) on June 9 (contact Fr. Gonzales (915) 544-7385), in Ridgefield (CT) on June 16 (Fr. Lafitte (203) 431-0201); by myself in Livingstone (NJ) on May 26 (Fr. Paul Wickens (201) 675-1317); in Philadelphia (PA) on June 2, a.m., and in Pittston (PA) on June 2, p.m. (Fr. Young (203) 431-0201); in Atlanta (GA) an June 9, a.m. (Fr. Kimball (913) 437-2471), and in Richmond (VA) on June 9, p.m. (Fr. Terry Marks (804) 222-9533); finally in Colton (CA) on October 13 (Fr. Pazat (602) 268-7673).

This announcement is late because there was no place for it in the letter for April. Worry not, there will be Confirmations next year, God willing. What matters is that the youngsters know and love their Faith. Better — hungry souls, take note — love the Sacraments and not have them than have them and not love them, insofar as God is drawing close to the first state but drawing away from the second.

May Our Lady bless you for what remains of her own month. She will triumph, as we shall see.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

The life and death of Archbishop Lefebvre

Holy Week, as of April 1, 1991

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

As the great majority of you surely know already, Archbishop Lefebvre died in the early hours of Monday morning, March 25, Western European time. He was in his 86th year and he felt he had fulfilled his mission on earth, so for his part he was quite ready to depart this life. Yet for us his death was still a shock.

For many years he had seemed in such good health that few if any of us took seriously his own repeated references to his coming death. We readily imagined his living for another ten years to continue guiding the Society of St. Pius X with his irreplaceable experience and wisdom, especially through the next few years. Truth to tell, whenever he were to have died, it would have seemed too soon. But now he is gone from amongst us here on earth.

He was hospitalized in Martigny in the Canton of the Valais near Ecône in Switzerland on March 9, as a result of violent pains in the abdomen. The doctors having discovered an alarming lump, they decided on an operation which took place on Monday, March 18. A large cancerous tumour was removed. For several days he seemed to be slowly recovering until on Sunday morning March 24 he fell into a high fever. Antibiotics reduced the fever but also overwhelmed the organism - at 11 pm on Sunday night he lapsed into a coma. Reanimation could not save him. At 3:30 am in the early hours of Monday morning on the day which is normally the Feast of the Annunciation he breathed his last, and gave back to God his heroic and pure soul —

"Here cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

No doubt they did. Imagine, whenever it took place, the Archbishop's triumphal entry into heaven! Was it coincidental that a specially bright Aurora Borealis lit up the Northern sky in Europe and in parts of the U.S. on the night of his death? It was a suitable omen for a world-wide event, because the whole world has lost in him one of those great pontiffs whose intercessory prayer shields us from the wrath of God. In 1968 Padre Pio died, in 1969 arrived the Novus Ordo Missae... What new peril draws near this time ?

The Catholic Church also enters into a new era without him. Since for the last twenty years he has stood for the Truth as no other bishop has done and as none other than a Catholic bishop can do, and since the Catholic Church revolves around the Way, the Truth and the Life as no other institution on earth does, then willy nilly, these last twenty years of the Catholic Church have been, as history will show, the era of Archbishop Lefebvre.

For during this time even his enemies within the Church have depended upon him. For instance, had he not consecrated bishops in the summer of 1988, "Ecclesia Dei" and St. Peter's Society would not even exist, and all those conservative Catholics who condemn his disobedience or hubris would have no Indult Mass from the comfort of which to spurn those consecrations. Similarly had he not braced the whole Traditional wing of the Church in the 1970's, the left-wingers would have swept the middle-of-the-roaders and themselves to destruction years ago, they would all by now be One World social workers, and there would have been, had it depended upon them, no official church left standing from the platform of which to suspend or excommunicate him.

He sustained his enemies even as he nourished his friends, for he sustained the Truth, and even liars need a half of truth to market their wares. He passed for being the greatest enemy of recent Popes — certainly he was the only one they excommunicated — yet by resisting their corrosive Liberalism, he alone will have saved their Papacy which, left to themselves, they would have destroyed. Thus friend and foe in the Church leant on him. Now he is gone. Mother Church moves into the post-Lefebvre era.

As for his own foundation, the Priestly Society of St. Pius X, of course the enemies of Tradition have long been waiting for the Archbishop's death to ensure its disintegration, and humanly speaking, given the value of Archbishop Lefebvre's presence and advice right up to the end, they will normally be right. However, before he died Archbishop Lefebvre provided his Society with all that it needed by way of structure and successors to carry on his work.

Firstly, as Superior General to run the society, he had himself replaced as far back as 1982 by Fr. Franz Schmidberger for a 12-year term running until 1994, for the first two thirds of which term the Archbishop was always available to help and advise him. Now Fr. Schmidberger is on his own. We must pray for him in earnest, especially as Rome is bound to start up the carrot and stick routine all over again.

Secondly, in his functions as bishop the Archbishop consecrated four successors to ordain and confirm, on that famous June 30 of 1988. How wisely he provided! Imagine where Tradition would now be without those four. Yet it was a truly agonizing decision at the time, and a stupendous achievement. Single-handed, for such decisions are absolutely lonely, the Archbishop created out of his faith and courage and thin air a viable future for Catholic Tradition, and for the Catholic Church.

So by this historic action the Society was equipped with all that it needs to continue operating as the Church's emergency lighting system, until such time as the main lights get turned on again. If it too fails, it will not have been the Archbishop's fault.

Will it fail? If it depends on human weakness, yes; if it depends on God's grace, no. And what does the Lord God have in mind? Only He knows. We had fondly thought he would conserve the Archbishop to guide us for many years yet, but the Archbishop was right, it was not to be. We may now fondly think that the Society is meant by God to be His light-bearer until the Church's crisis is over, but the Lord God is not short of alternatives, and He may have in mind still more darkness. It would not be undeserved.

However, it is never to be forgotten that, as St. Augustine said, He abandons nobody who has not first abandoned Him. With or without the great Archbishop, with or without his little Society, no sheep that seeks the Good Shepherd will be forced to lose Him. That is an intrinsic impossibility. "Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom" (Lk XII, 32). Then while grieving for the loss of the Society's founder and father, let us thank God that we had such a leader for so long, and let us rely on God's grace to carry on where he left off.

The Catholic Church cannot fail, so for the machinery of its continuance God will provide, even as He provided us with the Archbishop. When we see how God has steered us through the last twenty years, it is not difficult to put our trust in Him for the next twenty.

Concerning the Archbishop personally, a journalist asked recently what was my outstanding memory of the man. I gave maybe a surprising answer: his objectivity. He had of course a uniquely attractive personality because he was a saint - gentle, simple, kind, humble, humorous and so on without a trace of sentimentality, but that was not the point. Underneath all that lay a great intelligence and faith and firmness of character, but that was still not the point. Essentially he was a man empty of self and full of God. To meet him, to talk to him, was to see, through him, the Truth, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church. He was like a window on the interests of God. Not he, but Christ, lived within him, and yet he was Marcel Lefebvre and nobody else. And what a marvellous man he was! Shakespeare again :-

"His life was gentle and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, `This was a man'."

However, even these noble lines on the stoic hero fall a long way beneath doing justice to the supernatural hero, the saint who has left us ...

... left us in a darker world without him? Yes and no. Sanctity is infectious, saints breed saints. We are the legacy that the Archbishop bequeaths to the world. Oh no, we are not saints, but we of the Society of St. Pius X have had a marvellous saint amongst us, we should have caught the infection, and if we have, then we need only spread it for what was marvellous in him to continue. Archbishop Lefebvre lives!

When I accompanied him once on a journey to Ireland, our-plane waiting to take off from London Airport was being shaken by the thunderous roar of the supersonic Concorde leaving just in front of us. What a marvellous piece of work is man, I commented, to have invented the Concorde. The Archbishop quietly replied, how much more marvellous the God who invented the inventor. Similarly, if it has been so marvellous to know one of Jesus' great saints and master-creations here on earth, how much more marvelous to know Jesus himself in heaven!

With much serenity I shall attend the Archbishop’s funeral on April 2. Count on me to lay by his casket all that I can imagine of your gratitude, affection, and prayers.

Sincerely yours in the Divine Master’s service,

The faithful remnant in Latin America

March 1, 1991

Dear Friends and benefactors,

In Latin America the faithful remnant is faithful but it is only a remnant. Such was the conclusion from the journey I made there from late November to early January.

The first stop was Columbia. This was the third time I had visited Latin America. Each time I visit I get a sense of the extraordinary accomplishment of Spain in setting up a rosary of Catholic nations from Mexico in the North to the foot of Chile and the Argentine in the South. Today Catholicism and colonialism are heavily devalued, so that in Latin America they are regretting that the continent was opened up by the Spaniards. It is the exact opposite of matter for regret. From the stand-point of the Faith, how many millions of souls must have gone to heaven from these countries, thanks to the Spanish "Conquistadores" having brought with them the Faith, and missionaries and priests, to plant it firmly amongst the local peoples.

This sense came over me again soon after landing in Columbia. True, this country which at the turn of the century had a highly Catholic Constitution, was in November just about to elect a majority of Communists to re-write that Constitution; true, Columbia is presently preyed upon by the drug trade which is also protected from on high by the Revolution; nevertheless, not far beneath the surface of Columbia, the values, history and mentality are Catholic. What a blessing for a country to have been founded in the Faith! The practice may be corrupt, but deep down lie good principles which shed light even when they are abandoned. The hall-mark of Protestant countries is that even with the best will in the world men believe in principles that will tear any society apart.

Pray for the Society's two young priests in Columbia, both in their mid-twenties, Fr. Martinez ordained one year ago, Fr. Zendejas (the Superior!) ordained two years ago, neither of them Columbians, both several hours by aeroplane from the next closest Society priest, between them carrying two priories on their shoulders and the defence of the Faith in a whole country collapsing under the Revolution! Ordinarily speaking, it makes no sense at all, but there they are, and that is the Society. May Our Lady protect them and reward them!



Next stop was Chile, where the Society has a priory with three priests in the capital, Santiago. Chile is very different from Columbia. Well led by General Pinochet — yes, well led by General Pinochet — Chileans had worked themselves into such a favorable economic situation as even the Liberals were obliged to admire, but that of course did not stop them using their vile media to get him out of office in a vote genuinely free such as only a non-Communist will allow. Now Chile is no doubt getting back into the bankers' debt, into the communists' clutches and into the media's favour, unless the people rise up to restore Pinochet. I was taken to the spot where he was waylaid in a highly professional ambush on a country road some 40 minutes out of Santiago in 1985. Five men of his escort were killed, and gun fire rained down accurately on the back window of the car in which he was riding. The protective glass was battered but did not give way. The Chilean people were indignant at the vile assassination attempt, and the figure of the Madonna and child seemingly punched out on the glass by the bullets — copies of the picture on demand — suggest that she at least is not afraid of mixing politics and religion!

Then why did Pinochet fall from power a few years later? Maybe, just maybe, because although three Society priests separately urged him to consecrate Chile to the Sacred Heart, he failed to do so. "O ye of little faith..." It is heart-breaking to visit in Santiago a great and handsome convent building occupied by a handful of nuns only holding on because of a Mother Superior heroically resisting the diocesan authorities who are doing all they can to fill the whole convent, like its church, with dust .... When Mother Veronica ten years ago opened the church to Society priests arriving in Chile, they and she must have hoped in a popular reaction, in an up-swing of the Faith, in the re-filling of the dusty pews. It was not to be. "My thoughts are not your thoughts”, saith the Lord.

From Chile to the Argentine, circumstances enabled me to make the passage by road over the majestic Andes, the same pass taken by the much impressed St. Frances Cabrini on her missionary travels years ago. What labour for men to cut a pass by road or rail over such heights, but, for the mountains themselves, what insignificant and fragile surface scratching such a pass represents. "O Lord, how great are thy works! Thy thoughts are exceeding deep… Thou hast multiplied thy wonderful works, O Lord my God; and in thy thoughts there is no one like to thee. I have declared and I have spoken, they are multiplied above number” (Ps. XCI, XXXIX).

The Argentine is the Society’s base of operations in South Amnerica. It is the most European of the Hispano-American countries, having received for instance many post-colonial immigrants from Italy, and it boasts a depth of Christian civilization and Catholic culture which the financial manipulators and engineers of corruption have not yet succeeded in destroying. The inland city of Cordova had a magnificent Jesuit baroque church and university long before Harvard University was even a gleam in a heretical preacher’s eye.

Today, I was told, the uncrowned king of the Argentine is the American Ambassador, and the present Argentinian President is a theatrical puppet. Just before I arrived a failed military putsch had, one may think, been laid on to persuade the visiting President Bush what good democrats the Argentinians are, yet when the financiers will have passed away with all their pomps and all their works, the baroque church, one suspects, will still be standing.

Meanwhile the Society profited by the Argentine's Catholic leadership of the continent to launch there in the late seventies its mission to South America. Now the Society has a thriving parish in the capital, Buenos Aires, another parish in Cordova, and a Sisters' Noviciate and a priestly Seminary a little way outside the capital. Alas, a rigourist putsch within the Seminary in 1989 emptied it of half its seminarians. Of the two dozen left, I was privileged to ordain in mid-December an Argentinian for Mexico and a Mexican for Columbia. Youngsters, to minister virtually unaided to an aging and ailing world... Sheep sent out amongst wolves... "Eppure si muove".

The next stop was Brazil, where I was to spend three days as the working guest of the Traditional Catholic priests of the diocese of Campos, a city lying a few hours by car to the north-east of Rio de Janeiro, city little in size but great in faith, having given to the world over the last thirty years the living proof that no diocesan bishop or diocese was obliged to follow Vatican II in its soft apostasy. It is well-known that Dom Antonio de Castro Mayer, bishop of Campos from 1949 for over thirty years, is the only bishop in the world to have stood in public beside Archbishop Lefebvre in his resistance to the neomodernists' destruction of the Church; it is also known that Dom Antonio's diocesan priests stood behind him and maintained the Tridentine Mass when the rest of the Church was dropping it; what is less well-known is how after Dom Antonio's resignation the large majority of those priests, driven out of their parish churches by Dom Antonio's modernist successor, have since hung together and, with the vigorous support of their people, are rebuilding eleven new churches, from ground zero, to continue keeping the Faith!

I was able to meet a good number of these priests. Humanly speaking they are ordinary enough men, humble and solid workers in the Lord's vineyard, but divinely speaking, the example of Catholic fidelity which they are giving to the world is an extraordinary accomplishment. As always, the disproportion between the humility of the instrument and the sublimity of the achievement demonstrates the finger of God. May He richly bless and long preserve these faithful priests!

They are the fruit of Dom Antonio's episcopacy. Dom Antonio, now in his 87th year, is mostly confined to bed where his priests will let no-one else look after him and where I was able to visit him. His mind is completely alert and with his twinkling good spirits he continues to be the supernatural inspiration of his priests. They are seriously considering consecrating one of their number to succeed him, and that is another thing that might divert Archbishop Lefebvre from North America this spring. But successor or no successor, the story of Catholic resistance in the Diocese of Campos is no less than an epic.

Last stop on the way back to U.S.A. was Mexico, maybe the most privileged of all the Catholic nations in Latin America. Our Lady of Guadalupe is Patroness of the Americas. However, in God's Providence Mexico has also been severely tried by the proximity of its immediate nonCatholic neighbour to the North, from where Freemasons have repeatedly interfered in Mexican history, for example in 1929 when they helped to frustrate the Cristeros of their imminent victory in their bloody three-year struggle for the Faith. But the Faith is still alive in the Mexican people, so that hundreds of Catholics attend Mass in each of the Society's two largest and most recently purchased buildings in Mexico City and Guadalajara. The Society landed in Mexico like by parachute, but it is putting down roots, thanks especially to our retreat-house near Colima, and to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.

For these Exercises for men in Easter Week in Winona, see the enclosed yellow flyer, giving also the dates for the Exercises for the rest of the year in Winona, and in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Sign up. There is also a flyer for the summer camps being held by the Society of the United Statues this year for boys and (separately) for girls: Next on blue paper is a Profession of Faith for the 1990's by our Superior General, Fr. Schmidberger, most usefully addressing itself to the errors attacking the Faith today. This Profession of Faith should be valuable to put into the hands of Catholics asking what "Tradition" is all about. Lastly, the twice-yearly S.C.S.F. or Seminary Continous Support Fund card is enclosed for those of you wishing to pledge regular support to the Seminary with the help of a return envelope reaching you each month by first-class mail. By all means return the card if you wish to make an address correction but then kindly make it clear you are not making a pledge.

We are full into Lent and Passiontide begins soon. Profit by the graces of the season. There is nothing like the Passion to help understand this crisis of the Church, and nothing like this crisis to help understand the Passion It is through weakness, humiliation and defeat that love emerges triumphant. Divine mystery!

Sincerely yours in Our Crucified Lord,

The Gulf War and the state of the Catholic Church today

February 1, 1991

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

So we are into 1991 and into the Gulf War. There is much to fear. Now matters military and political are not the Church's immediate domain, and events can take unexpected turns, but there are underlying factors which do not change. Let us take a few supernatural sight-lines.

Most naturally, one may fear bloodshed, especially of kith and kin. Now as the attack on Iraq began, pilots could be heard on our radios describing the dropping of bombs like the scoring of goals in a football game, but the bombardment has caused no immediate surrender and in at least one institution of the American military the mood is turning from euphoric to serious as they realize the war will not be over in a week. So without predicting the course of such an unpredictable as war, one may fear the battlefield turning from football-field into killing-field.

As World War Il raged, a privileged soul in Italy who could converse with Our Lord, complained to him of the number of young men being cut off in the prime of life. Yes, replied Our Lord, but think how many of them will save their souls this way who living on in a sinful peace would certainly have lost them. Good news from Saudi Arabia is that the chaplains are working hard. Catholics must pray that the war be the occasion for many souls to be saved, and that does not exclude one's enemies.

Secondly, behind the Gulf War one may fear Russia. Russia's military help to Iraq is well-known; not only a mass of tanks, radar-transmitters and rockets, etc., but also thousands of "technical assistants" to operate them, and, for instance, an outstanding tank warfare General to guide and ensure the swift success of the original invasion of Kuwait. What is less well-known is Russia's military help to the United States: for instance, the reported lending of two heavy transport ships to help get U.S. war material across the Atlantic, and the revealing to Secretary of State James Baker in Moscow in October of key information concerning that same Russian war material supplied to the Iraqis.

It becomes easy to imagine Russia playing at balancing the war which way she likes by supplying further equipment to the Iraqis or further information to the Americans. Certainly it is in Russia's interest not only to see Iraq destroyed as an obstacle between herself and the Oil Gulf, but also to see destroyed as much as possible of the American forces that stand between Russia and the invasion of Europe, and also to have world attention diverted from her own brutality in her Baltic front-yard. "...If my requests are heeded (for the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart and the five first Saturdays' Communion of Reparation), Russia will be converted and there will be peace. If not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church... " (Second Secret of Fatima).

May we not fear then that as World War II pretended to be making the world safe for democracy but in fact was making it safe for Communism (e.g. the take-over of Eastem Europe), so the Gulf War pretends to be in defence of Kuwait (since when did democracy there get a fair sheikh ? ) but is in fact designed to kill with one stone two - or three - obstacles to the advance of International Socialism?

Supernaturally, one must reply that the Western nations have only themselves to blame for their suicidal blindness if Russia marches through the now unguarded gateway to Europe. This blindness comes from their apostasy and their materialism whereby they, are gravely offending God. Communism is no more nor less than a divine scourge permitted by God to embody His justice. While then nobody in his right mind may rejoice in the suffering as such which it causes, one may well rejoice in any salutary shock administered to the once Christian nations such as may awaken them from their sinful Slumber. Such an awakening is the necessary prelude to the triumph of the Immaculate Heart, also promised by Our Lady at Fatima.

However, behind the Gulf War and even behind Russia, may one not, thirdly, fear the looming figure of the Anti-Christ? Before hostilities are over in the Gulf, expect Israel to be looking to "solve" the Palestinian problem by removing King Hussein of Jordan, by turning Jordan into a client Palestinian state and by forcibly moving there all Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, to "make room" for the Jewish immigrants from Russia (cf. Washington Post, August 26, 1990). Imagine how such an idea appeals to the Arabs ! In which case one understands why so many friends of Israel in the U.S.A. were and are whooping for the United States to break the Arab strong-man.

Supernaturally seen, such a scenario, capable of many adaptations, represents one more in many steps of the Jewish people towards their appointment with God at the end of the world, when, maybe converted by the heroism and endurance of the Catholics undergoing persecution by their Anti-Christ, they will at last convert (Romans XI) and discover their own true Messiah, Jesus Christ, who has never ceased to love them as his own people. However, until they re-discover their true Messianic vocation, they may be expected to continue fanatically agitating, in accordance with their false messianic vocation of Jewish world-dominion, to prepare the Anti-Christ's throne in Jerusalem. So we may fear their continuing to play their major part in the agitation of the East and in the corruption of the West. Here the wise Catholic will remember that, again, the ex-Christian nations have only their own Liberalism to blame for allowing free circulation within Christendom to the enemies of Christ. As these make society more and more oppressively anti-Christian, he will profit to raise his sights above this world and look to the things of heaven –“When these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption is at hand” (Lk XXI,28). Remembering also that Anas and Caiphas induced but never obligated Judas to betray Jesus, and that the Apostle's betrayal was a crime far worse than the Jews' deicide, He will look at the state of the Catholic Church today, and see why the enemies of Christendom are being given so much power....

The mainstream Novus Ordo church is falling apart. There are recent signs in Canada of current priestly difficulties reaching up to a higher level, which fits Novus Ordo doctrine. When I teach that all sin is social, what individual behavior is still sinful? In at least one American seminary, crucifixes are having to be replaced with "resurrexifixes", and seminarians' spiritual direction is by women. In New York, besides spiritual direction, women are also taking over visiting of the sick and diocesan administration - when they are sufficiently in control, they plan to declare that they can say Mass.

The conservative Novus Ordo is little better. "Opus Dei" attracts decent Catholics in distress, pushes a pacifier of conservative appearances into their spiritual mouths, and then feeds them a pro-capitalist, pro-banks, pro One-World doctrine of worldliness that is the same Revolution, only better disguised.

As for the "traditional" branch of the Novus Ordo, it is paralysed by internal contradiction. As head of "Ecclesia Dei", Cardinal Mayer wrote recently to an American layman that Mass said facing the people, or with the 1970 Lectionary, is not an unlawful intermingling of rites; whereupon Novus Ordo priests obviously feel free to import into the Indult Mass little doses of the Novus Ordo; which makes the true Mass as attractive as a barrel of whisky with a little gasoline poured into it; which chases away souls thirsty for Tridentine whisky; which enables "obedient" bishops to close down the Indult distillery they never wanted open in the first place. Rename it - the Indulterated Mass.

Similarly, a St. Peter's Fraternity priest tried last March to use his "Ecclesia Dei" Tridentine permit in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, to say the Tridentine Mass. Permission refused. The priest - reasonably - complains to "Ecclesia Dei". "Ecclesia Dei" in April consults the Vatican Secretary of State. May 1990 the Holy Office comes back to Ecclesia Dei with the answer: in St. Peter's Basilica, what the Basilica authorities say, goes. Ecclesia Dei is at the 24-hour mercy of the local bishops.

As for St. Peter's Fraternity, I am told that its Seminary in Wigratzbad recently lost thirty one seminarians including thirteen Americans (I cannot vouch for these figures), whether by its choice or theirs. Those who chose to leave gave apparently a variety of reasons, for instance the introduction of subtle little items of the Novus Ordo. Poor St. Peter's ! As the product of a cross between the noble steed of Tradition and the asinine Novus Ordo, they should have known that mules cannot produce little ones, but then they would not listen to Archbishop Lefebvre's horse sense!

In brief, conditions are worsening, the rape of the official Church continues at speed, the individual Catholic within it has no institutional pick-up or back-up. Of the official Church one may come to say: in the framework is death.

For refreshment, take a few long draughts of another interview given recently by Archbishop Lefebvre, enclosed. It comes to you without divisions or sub-headings, but there are a few high-lightings. What is not Catholic whisky is horse sense, and what is not horse sense is Catholic whisky!

Alas, it is not certain he will be able to visit Winona in the spring (it would be around April 15 to 20), but it is certain that four present deacons are scheduled for ordination to the priesthood at Winona by Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta on Saturday, June 22 of this year. As last year, Northwest Airlines are offering a special 5 - 40% discount on air fares to and from Rochester, MN, or LaCrosse, WI, between June 15 and 29. For reservations call 1(800) 328-1111 between 7 am and 12 noon daily (Central Time), and quote the Identification Code number, 04531.

Note also that the U. S. District of the Society of St. Pius X is taking to the air-waves. The half-hour "Voice of Catholic Tradition" is on WCKY radio out of Cincinnati, Ohio (1530 AM) on Sunday evenings at 8:30 PM, with a signal reaching east to Norfolk, Virginia, and south to Atlanta, Georgia; and it is on KCKN radio out of Roswell, New Mexico, on Saturday evening at 10:30 - the signal reaches north to Denver. It is also on Mrs. Patricia Morley's weekly Tuesday evening program in Hawaii, no doubt familiar to local Catholics - I hear she is on the brink of being officially and personally excommunicated for her valiant defence of Catholic Tradition! If you like the program, or the idea of it, kindly send a contribution to "The Voice of Catholic Tradition", PO. Box 6952, St. Louis, MO 63123. The Society's District Superior will be grateful. The program's extension depends on listener response.

And last but not least — for that is what this letter is primarily about — many thanks to all of you for your great support of the Seminary over the Christmas and New Year season. We are praying for all of your intentions, each day. Keep us in your prayers also, for we are in the thick of a spiritual desert storm, and we could more easily do without your pocket-books than we can do without your prayers.

God bless you, and give you many graces in Lent. It is by our fidelity and example that we will resist the enemies of Christ and finally overcome evil with good. Our Faith is our victory over the world.

Most sincerely yours in Christ,


+Richard Williamson