Eleison Comments: Two Kinds of Bishop, Part II

They say, the leopard cannot change its spots…Rome is in enemy hands…connect the dots!

Bishop Vitus Huonder, credit SSPX YouTube

Two Kinds of Bishop, Part II

They say, the leopard cannot change its spots…Rome is in enemy hands…connect the dots!

Original publication date: July 22, 2023

“Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis,” said the Latins. In English, “The times they are a-changing, and we change with them.” And we change with them. And since God created this whole world of ours to populate His Heaven with angels and human beings deserving to share in His eternal bliss; and since to punish the Fall of Adam and Eve He allowed the highest of fallen angels to become “the Prince of this world” (Jn. XII, 31; XIV, 30; XVI, 11); and since the world, the flesh and the Devil together set up a powerful current sweeping a huge number of souls to their eternal perdition; then every one of us must make sure that with time passing we may be changing indeed, but towards God and not away from Him.

Now Vatican II (1962-1965) was a catastrophic example of millions of Catholics being misled away from God even under the appearance of being led towards Him, and the massive deception continues. Thus amidst the great decline of the Catholic Church following on Vatican II, Archbishop Lefebvre (1905-1991) achieved the miraculous feat of creating within the Church a Priestly Congregation to oppose the decline being imposed on all the Church by its highest officials in Rome and in the dioceses. This was the Society of St Pius X, officially condemned in appearance from the Popes downwards, but in reality keeping the true Faith with God’s grace, and with the support of a remnant of true Catholics all over the world. To save His Society and protect these Catholics, in 1988 the Archbishop was driven, against Rome’s express prohibition, to consecrate four bishops of His own, who for two decades gave at least outwardly faithful service to Catholic Truth and thereby to the Church.

Inwardly, however, the times they were a-changing, and with them were changing the Society leaders that the Archbishop had left behind him when he died in 1991. Within a few years, contacts between the Society and Rome, which the Archbishop had broken off in 1988 until, he said, “Rome would return to the Catholic Faith,” were being discreetly, not to say secretly, renewed, even though Rome was enforcing the false Conciliar “renewal” more and more. The discretion or secrecy of these contacts was necessary in order not to scare away souls on either side who – quite rightly – could not believe that Catholicism and Conciliarism can be reconciled. Time had to be given to such souls on both sides for them to change sufficiently to accept that there is no irreconcilable contradiction between the Faith and Vatican II.

Sure enough, men changed with time, and by 2012 the Society leaders at least were ready for a denial of the contradiction. And so at their non-elective Chapter of that year they officially changed their Founder’s policy of “No practical agreement without a doctrinal agreement,” putting the Faith first, to a policy of “There can be no doctrinal agreement so we must make do with a practical agreement,” putting doctrine second and agreement first, something the Archbishop himself, after 1988, would never have done. For, as noted in these “Comments” last week, in the negotiations with Rome of May, 1988, he considered that Cardinal Ratzinger’s prevarication had shown once and for all that Rome would not protect Tradition.

But, one might object, what is wrong with a practical agreement when a doctrinal agreement proves to be impossible, as was clear after the fruitless Rome-SSPX doctrinal discussions of 2008-2011? What is wrong is what the old Archbishop well understood, that from any practical agreement onwards, the lightweight Society would have tied itself to heavyweight Rome, and the Society’s one and only real weight, its doctrine of Truth, would count for less and less until it would be virtually abandoned, and the Society would be nullified, as faithless Rome, Conciliar Rome, has wished all along.

Surely Bishop Vitus Huonder, with all his possible good will — God knows — is being groomed in 2023 by both sides to make a significant contribution to that nullification — God knows.

Kyrie eleison.

Editor’s note: Bishop Huonder passed away in April 2024. We pray for the repose of his soul.