Burning Books

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again?

The Church has always taken action to destroy the plague of bad books. This was true even in apostolic times for we read that the apostles themselves burned a large number of books. It may be enough to consult the laws of the fifth Council of the Lateran on this matter and the Constitution which Leo X published afterwards lest "that which has been discovered advantageous for the increase of the faith and the spread of useful arts be converted to the contrary use and work harm for the salvation of the faithful." This also was of great concern to the fathers of Trent, who applied a remedy against this great evil by publishing that wholesome decree concerning the Index of books which contain false doctrine. "We must fight valiantly," Clement XIII says in an encyclical letter about the banning of bad books, "as much as the matter itself demands and must exterminate the deadly poison of so many books; for never will the material for error be withdrawn, unless the criminal sources of depravity perish in flames." Thus it is evident that this Holy See has always striven, throughout the ages, to condemn and to remove suspect and harmful books. The teaching of those who reject the censure of books as too heavy and onerous a burden causes immense harm to the Catholic people and to this See. They are even so depraved as to affirm that it is contrary to the principles of law, and they deny the Church the right to decree and to maintain it.

[Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos]

The Swiss Guards

Armour of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, (Detail of Breastplate), 1549 [2542 × 4000]

A Problem with Authority

What can one say of the tragedy of the Society of St Pius X that has not been said already, and better, by other people? Most tragically of all, I suppose, they are not actually "schismatic". Bp Schneider has confirmed as much, and in any case the delicts of schism and ordaining a bishop without permission are quite different and separate in Canon Law. More to the point, for all the bluster of the DDF, the Church is not treating them as a schismatic sect: the Church has not recognised their claim to jurisdiction independent of the See of Rome in the same way that she recognises the jurisdiction of heretical Greek-Slavic schismatics - who of course exercise de facto authority to bind and lose in matters of the sacraments of matrimony and reconciliation; nor, perhaps even more obviously, has there been any ecumenical outreach towards the supposedly schismatic group.*

The SSPX then remain very much at the heart of the Church, and there of course they persist as a stumbling block for many - a constant and unrelenting source not just of misinformation and "fake news" about the Church, her head on earth, her ecclesiastical councils, her magisterium, and her very status in the world today. They continue to issue a steady stream of blasphemies not just against the Church and the Pope but also against the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass itself. By their actions they still deny papal supremacy and/or the indefectibility of the Church. They do not cease to resist the will of the Vicar of Christ. And of course they say Mass, preach and administer the sacraments illicitly. They are cut off from the life of the Church.

The question of course is Why? Why have they done this? Or, more to the point, why are they doing this? And the only and obvious answer is Power. They simply prefer to operate under their own assumed authority than that of the Roman Pontiff. For them, authority does not come from the Pope. It comes from elsewhere. Where exactly that source is authority is is of course not clear, but there's a clear sense that it comes if not from the "consent of the governed" (i.e. literally the "audience capture" that has led to the inevitable and seemingly infinite number of "splits" in Protestantism), but at least from closer to home than "Rome".

The model of authority the SSPX have, I can only assume, is Gallican. The proof of the pudding, even if it comes across as circumstantial evidence, can easily be found in modern French politics: the three claimants to the French throne are all "traditionalists" (legitimists, Orléanists, and even the Bonapartists!), and conversely the nationalists at Action Française are themselves monarchist (Orléanists, as it happens!). And finally, the overwhelming majority of the laity who support the SSPX will almost certainly vote for the National Rally at the next French elections.

Their solution to the problems in the Church then is to be found not in the Church but in the secular realm. Restore the monarchy and the King of France will be able to sort out the Church. And, failing that, we can sort out the Church - so long as people like us (i.e. not like them) are in charge!

It has to be said, for those of us who value a stronger Church and a stronger secular state, and perhaps even more importantly a correct relationship between the two institutions. this is hardly a positive outlook.

*I have also yet to see any evidence that the new Pope has rescinded the motu proprio authorisation that his predecessor gave to their priests to hear confessions. What one Pope can grant, another can take away. Has he, though?

A British Army chaplain gives the last rites to a dying German soldier during the Battle of the Somme.