French SSPX Bulletin from December 24th reports a preparation for Episcopal Consecrations?

[Stone]

FSSPX prepares for the consecration of new bishops

gloria.tv | December 25, 2023

The bulletin of the FSSPX-Priorate "Notre-Dame-Du-Pointet" in Broût-Vernet, France, published on 24 December, reports that "the Superior General has asked us to prepare the faithful for the consecration of new bishops, without specifying a date".

Abbé Alain Delagneau explains that "our prelates are getting older and their ministry in the world is increasing".

He writes that this serious matter "could disturb some of the faithful, especially young people, who are not sufficiently interested in the crisis in the Church".

"We must expect to be treated as excommunicated by the [ecclesiastical] authorities," he warns, calling it "painful and disturbing for a Catholic".

Abbé Delagneau expects that the media of the oligarchs will [happily] pass on these condemnations, "but so will the Fraternity of St Peter and company."

[Stone]

Another FSSPX-Priorate Indicates: Consecration of New Bishops Ahead

gloria.tv | December 31, 2023

Father Jean-François Mouroux, prior of the FSSPX priorate in São Paulo, Brazil, is preparing his faithful for the consecration of new bishops.

He wrote in the January 2024 bulletin, according to CatolicosRibeiraoPreto.com, that consecrations without a papal mandate were an exceptional measure in 1988 and cannot become the rule.

According to him, no one knows whether future consecrations will receive Roman approval. "Whatever happens, a bishop's consecration ceremony in the current context of the Church is an event too important to be taken lightly."

Mouroux mentions that Monsignor Williamson's group already has seven official bishops - not counting those ordained secretly

The sedevacantist movement has dozens of bishops [some of them invalidly consecrated] and there are more than 40 people who call themselves 'pope'.

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Here is a Google-translated copy of the Bulletin:

Dear Faithful,

Why is the Society of Saint Pius X taking so long to decide to consecrate bishops? Dom Fellay is 65 years old, Dom Galarreta is 66 years old and Dom Tissier de Mallerais is 78 years old. They are facing an exhausting apostolate that consists of several trips around the world. In fact, to make it clear that he had no schismatic intention, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, in the 1988 consecrations, did not want to designate a specific territory for the bishops destined to continue his work. In fact, territorial jurisdiction depends on the Pope. Dom Lefebvre carried out a “survival operation” to give the Fraternity the means to offer the traditional apostolate in the Church. That is why our bishops never stop traveling, responding to the needs of the faithful who spontaneously seek the apostolate of the Fraternity, which continues to grow without stopping. We don't know whether we should be happy about this, as it is the consequence of the general decline of the Church. Be that as it may, a few more bishops does not seem excessive. So why not consecrate them, and quickly?

Assueta vilescunt; which we can translate as: when things become routine, they debase themselves.

The consecrations of 1988, without a papal  mandate, were an exceptional measure dictated by circumstances. The exception cannot become the rule, otherwise it would lose the reasons that justify it. Will future consecrations receive Roman authorization? Nobody knows. Whatever happens, a Brotherhood consecration ceremony in the current context of the Church is an event important enough not to be taken lightly.

We have examples of the opposite: the dissident Brotherhood movement known as “Resistance”, led by Dom Williamson since 2012, already has 7 bishops, not counting the secretly consecrated ones, who could come out of the hat at any moment. In the sedevacantist movement, which emerged in the 1970s, there are dozens of bishops and even popes (more than 40)! These excesses are difficult to justify due to the need for the apostolate. Rather, its origin lies in the crisis of authority. Having freed themselves from it, these people need to replace it, but that is another story… Too many bishops kill the episcopate! This is the conclusion to be drawn.

Another occasion for astonishment arises when we consider canonizations in the post-conciliar Church. John Paul II canonized more than all his predecessors combined. And since the Second Vatican Council, all popes have become saints as if by magic! The excess of (false) saints kills holiness! Even Pope Francis couldn’t help but joke about the beatification of Paul VI: “Benedict and I are in line!” What's the point? Canonize the Council or trivialize holiness? In any case, the second option has already come to fruition. Today, with little effort, everyone is a saint.

Dear faithful, in two previous bulletins we drew your attention to the danger of certain exaggerations in the field of education and piety. This bulletin highlights a type of exaggeration with much more serious consequences. In all  things, let us seek the balance that is the result of prudence. This is a grace we must ask for at the beginning of the new year. Our time and the Church are going through a period of general and profound confusion. Therefore, we must cling to the two millennia of doctrine and practice of the Church, avoiding eccentricities.

The Priory Fathers wish everyone a happy and holy year 2024!

May God bless you all.

[Boanerges]

Dear friends:

Before starting I want to warn that I am new to the forum. Also say that I am Spanish and that my knowledge of the English language is limited, so I use a simultaneous translator, so, for now, I apologize for any possible errors in writing.

I wanted to briefly share with you my concerns, which I assume we share to a large extent. The SSPX is in a critical situation. Even if a desired excommunication occurs, as the shared French bulletin suggests, the internal situation is actually fragile and there is no clarity on fundamental issues. Especially with regard to the sacrament of orders, both the new rite of priestly ordination and, above all, the new rite of episcopal consecration. There we see the whole problem with Huonder, the priests who are not ordained sub conditione... In short, it is the main problem, I believe, that joins others of lack of firmness in all kinds of issues: doctrinal, moral, traditions...

On the other hand, the Resistance, which this year will mark a decade since the creation of the beautifully named Union Priestly Marcel Lefebvre (USML), has turned out to be a failure. Almost nothing has improved the inconsistencies and weaknesses that the SSPX had. And, although I understand the decentralized organization of the apostolate, I believe that from there to a total atomization of individual priests there is a middle ground. Anyway, now Bishop Williamson, recently according to his Eleison comments, has improved some of his doctrinal positions, as he doubts the new rites of order, he has called his controversial opinion (albeit not convincingly, but oh well) Eucharistic miracles in the Novus Ordo and well, let's say that it has corrected some of its errors a little. In short, I don't know what we can expect from the new bishops consecrated by him, namely Ballini, Stobnicki and Morgan. To which the until now conservative Viganó joins, in the absence of confirmation of his subconditione consecration.

As for Sedevacantism, well, I consider that we have not had a Pope since 1958. Now, the Thuc lineage seems dubious to me and I do not share the dogmatization of Sedevacantism of the groups that come precisely from the Thuc lineage. I sincerely believe that it is impossible to prove the validity of Thuc's consecrations due to his mental state and lack of qualified witnesses.

So what can we expect? In this blog, what position do you have? What does Father Hewko think of this? The point is that we need bishops, without bishops the Church simply becomes extinct. We know that God will not allow this, but for the salvation of souls it is necessary to do something. Yes, you have to pray the Rosary, but, as we say in Spain: pray to God and hit the hammer. That is to say, we have to organize ourselves better, even if we maintain a certain independence, even if we are several groups, fine, but we must have a more solid organization. How about? Bishop Faure seems to have that intention, I don't know, I just think we should be prepared for a possible total debacle of the SSPX.

In Christ.

[SAguide]

Welcome to the forum boanerges (sons of thunder). I agree with much of what you say.  Yes, the USML indeed has been much of a failure.  Here in the states Fr. Hewko is doing all he can taking care of souls in the U.S. & Canada, which is a huge territory.  Also England, Ireland & Wales when he can get there.
There  is one thing you may want to consider in the future if you are able.  In the summer months Fr. Hewko holds Ignation retreats in the U.S.  The dates for this year have not been posted as of yet, but will be posted on The Catacombs forum.  The first week is for women & the second week for men.
Fr. Ruiz and Fr. Rafael, who speak Spanish, have assisted Fr. Hewko for these retreats.
One question for you.  In the area of Spain, do you have any non-compromising traditional priests?

[Boanerges]

Good morning:

Thank you for offering the retreats, but the truth is that they are far away for me. I have spent these two consecutive summers going to Ignatian retreats with the SSPX and they have been beneficial as such; Now, the instructions regarding the crisis of the Church and the function of the SSPX were not good, nor disastrous, but they were certainly ambiguous and incoherent. Well, you can already imagine.

In Spain we have Don Ramiro Ribas. He is already a little over 70 years old, but he is a good priest. He was diocesan, ordained sub conditione by Williamson, he was in the Resistance but left. He is a sedevacantist, but does not accept the Thuc lineage. He maintains some contact with Bishop Faure and sent a boy to this bishop's seminary in France.

[Stone]

Dear friends:

Before starting I want to warn that I am new to the forum. Also say that I am Spanish and that my knowledge of the English language is limited, so I use a simultaneous translator, so, for now, I apologize for any possible errors in writing.

I wanted to briefly share with you my concerns, which I assume we share to a large extent. The SSPX is in a critical situation. Even if a desired excommunication occurs, as the shared French bulletin suggests, the internal situation is actually fragile and there is no clarity on fundamental issues. Especially with regard to the sacrament of orders, both the new rite of priestly ordination and, above all, the new rite of episcopal consecration. There we see the whole problem with Huonder, the priests who are not ordained sub conditione... In short, it is the main problem, I believe, that joins others of lack of firmness in all kinds of issues: doctrinal, moral, traditions...

On the other hand, the Resistance, which this year will mark a decade since the creation of the beautifully named Union Priestly Marcel Lefebvre (USML), has turned out to be a failure. Almost nothing has improved the inconsistencies and weaknesses that the SSPX had. And, although I understand the decentralized organization of the apostolate, I believe that from there to a total atomization of individual priests there is a middle ground. Anyway, now Bishop Williamson, recently according to his Eleison comments, has improved some of his doctrinal positions, as he doubts the new rites of order, he has called his controversial opinion (albeit not convincingly, but oh well) Eucharistic miracles in the Novus Ordo and well, let's say that it has corrected some of its errors a little. In short, I don't know what we can expect from the new bishops consecrated by him, namely Ballini, Stobnicki and Morgan. To which the until now conservative Viganó joins, in the absence of confirmation of his subconditione consecration.

As for Sedevacantism, well, I consider that we have not had a Pope since 1958. Now, the Thuc lineage seems dubious to me and I do not share the dogmatization of Sedevacantism of the groups that come precisely from the Thuc lineage. I sincerely believe that it is impossible to prove the validity of Thuc's consecrations due to his mental state and lack of qualified witnesses.

So what can we expect? In this blog, what position do you have? What does Father Hewko think of this? The point is that we need bishops, without bishops the Church simply becomes extinct. We know that God will not allow this, but for the salvation of souls it is necessary to do something. Yes, you have to pray the Rosary, but, as we say in Spain: pray to God and hit the hammer. That is to say, we have to organize ourselves better, even if we maintain a certain independence, even if we are several groups, fine, but we must have a more solid organization. How about? Bishop Faure seems to have that intention, I don't know, I just think we should be prepared for a possible total debacle of the SSPX.

In Christ.

Welcome to The Catacombs, Boanerges!

A few replies to your comments. 

It has been disappointing, or rather tragic, to see the compromise and decline of the SSPX. Indeed, decline usually (always) follows compromise, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but the decline is evident. Hence, the utter importance of clinging to uncompromising clergy for direction and guidance. 

We have seen the similar compromises in many members of the fake resistance (USML), particularly by it's nominal head, Bishop Williamson, who makes great allowance for the New Mass and (it necessarily follows) the New Mass Eucharistic 'miracles.' In fact, what was quietly known for some time was made public some months past that belief in the New Mass 'miracles' is a prerequisite for obtaining any episcopal assistance from Bishop Williamson [see here]. 

A more blatant compromise is hard to imagine. And yet this is the current status of those priests who left the compromising SSPX and either continued to compromise under Bishop Williamson though with the veneer of resistance, or continued the path of Archbishop Lefebvre in opposing the errors of Rome since Vatican II [such as Frs. Hewko and Ruiz]. 

It was something of a scandal when Bishop Williamson announced some years ago: 

· Congregations and seminaries are not needed today. They are outdated. God does not want there to be a structure or congregation for the Resistance.

· Seminarians who are ready for ordination should not be ordained, because there is no structure or congregation for them to be ordained into.

· We shouldn’t try to get priests to work together. It’s bound to fail, so it’s better not to attempt it at all.

This mentality is not Catholic. It is well known fact that people working in isolation, working in silos, are not as effective as those working together. It is a sabotaging mentality to say the things Bishop Williamson has about priests in this regard. During the many heresies affecting the Church, no prelate encouraged priests to work alone in fighting the Arians, for example. And this is certainly not how Archbishop Lefebvre functioned. Again this mentality is a novel one among Catholics.

While we are glad to see that Bishop Williamson's Eleison Comments often repeat traditional Catholic teaching, there have been many, many times they have not [see here and here, for example]. And it is this double-tongued speech that gives rise to much confusion. The things of God do not create confusion.

Both Bishop Williamson (publicly) and Bishop Zendejas (privately) have encouraged people to go to the New Mass, all the while talking out of both sides of their mouths by praising the traditional Mass. Again, this simply sows seeds of confusion. Where exactly do they stand and what exactly are they 'resisting?' If you are not familiar, The Recusant has done a phenomenal job exposing this doublespeak and oblique abandonment of tradition.

As for sedevacantism, The Catacombs holds fast to the position of Archbishop Lefebvre and now Archbishop Viganò, who both have stated that the dire situation of the Church will be resolved in the future by a truly Catholic pope once again. We know that during Archbishop Lefebvre's lifetime, Popes Paul VI and John Paul II wrecked unprecedented damage on the Church. And after much study of the Doctors of the Church and the Saints, and after much prayer and reflection, Archbishop Lefebvre did not say these hellish popes were not popes. We know in these last ten years Francis is continuing and finalizing the destruction begun under Paul VI and JPII. Francis constantly cites Vatican II to implement his radical interpretations of the time bombs placed in those Vatican II documents. He has no creativity on his own, he simply continues to implement the blueprint of destruction begun at the Second Vatican Council.

We firmly believe these words of Archbishop Viganò, in his recent sermon for the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter in Rome, January 18, 2024:

And while our hearts are broken in contemplating the ruins caused by the devastation of the innovators to the detriment of so many souls and the glory of the divine Majesty; while we implore from Heaven a light that will allow us to understand how to combine Our Lord’s promise Non prævalebunt with the steady stream of heresies and scandals spread by the one whom Providence has inflicted on us at the head of the ecclesial body as punishment for the sins committed by the Hierarchy in these decades; while we see the division between those who deluded themselves that they still had a Pope segregated in the Monastery and the schism in the Dioceses of Northern Europe with their wicked synodal journey strongly desired by Bergoglio, we remember the prophecy of Leo XIII of happy memory, who wanted to insert in the prayer of the Exorcism against Satan and the apostate angels those terrible words that at the time must have sounded almost scandalous, but that today we understand in their supernatural sense:

Ecclesiam, Agni immaculati sponsam, faverrimi hostes repleverunt amaritudinibus, inebriarunt absinthio; Ad omnia desiderabilia ejus impias miserunt manus. Ubi sedes beatissimi Petri et Cathedra veritatis ad lucem gentium constituta est, ibi thronum posuerunt abominationis et impietatis suæ; ut percusso Pastor, et gregem disperse valeant.

'Terrible enemies have filled the Church, bride of the immaculate Lamb, with bitterness, they have poisoned her with absinthe; they have laid their wicked hands on all desirable things. There where the See of Blessed Peter and the Chair of Truth was established to enlighten the nations, there they have placed the throne of their abomination and impiety, so that by striking the Shepherd they might also scatter the flock.'

These are not randomly written words: they were written after Leo XIII, at the end of Mass, had a vision in which the Lord granted Satan a period of time of about a hundred years to test the men of the Church. They echo the message of the Blessed Virgin at La Salette, fifty years earlier: “Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist,” and precede by little more than a decade that third part of the Secret of Fatima in which, in all likelihood, Our Lady predicted the apostasy of the Hierarchy with the Second Vatican Council and the liturgical reform.

God will raise up good bishops, even if for a time, we must suffer under weak or bad ones. Look at Archbishop Viganò, who kind of came out of nowhere. How traditional he is remains to be seen but so far, he looks promising. He denounces the New Mass without compromise (unlike Bishop Williamson) and he is starting a seminary as well. All the attributes we look for in a good bishop. 

At Our Lord's triumphant entry to Jerusalem on the Sunday before His Passion, the Gospel tells us "And some of the Pharisees, from amongst the multitude, said to him: Master, rebuke thy disciples. To whom he said: I say to you, that if these shall hold their peace, the stones will cry out" [Luke 19: 39-40]. God will raise up who He will to lead the faithful. But Hell will always throw chaff to confuse and blind as many souls as possible.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, the priests and bishop of tradition should be working together and remain united in their disavowal of all things modernist and all things Vatican II. We do not hear much from the other bishops consecrated by Bishop Williamson, some of which occurred in secret. This secrecy is also troubling as God does all things in the light. Christ healed and taught publicly.

Our Lady has always shown Herself to be such a tender and caring Mother. May we mightily implore Her that we may remain faithful in these days of confusion.

[Boanerges]

Thank you Stone for your response and sorry for the delay.

Certainly the organization of the Resistance has been catastrophic, as have also been some statements by Bishop Williamson to which you allude. However, I believe that through him the apostolic succession will be clearer and I trust that some of his successors will be able to improve and correct some of his outbursts. It must also be recognized that in the last year and a half in some of his Eleison he has corrected or modified, even if only slightly, some of his most problematic statements.

That said, I consider that this is what we have left, since of the current SSPX I do not believe that any of the three remaining bishops will resist Bergoglio's imminent unilateral agreement.

As for Viganò, it is true that he is improving, but I would like the consecration sub conditione to be confirmed, precisely by Bishop Williamson, since the sacrament of orders, especially that of the new rite of episcopal consecration, is seriously doubtful.

Regarding Bishop Williamson's secret consecrations, I believe they were not so minimalist and had enough to be considered valid. At least that's how I have proof of it regarding Paul Morgan or Michal Stbonicki. I suppose the same thing will happen with Giacomo Ballini.

Regarding Sedevacantism, I understand that the position must be one of a certain tolerance. Sedevacantism is an understandable and logical position, as long as it does not aim at conclavism or similar issues. The big problem of the sedevacantists is, in my opinion, the dogmatization of this conclusion and the dubious lineage of Ngo Dinh Thuc.

In Christ.