“An ecclesiology that is not part of the Church’s Magisterium”: Open Letter to Latin Mass Catholics – Part II
“Men of Catholic views are truly but a party in that Church.”
In the previous part of this Open Letter: I suggested that in his letter accompanying Traditionis Custodes, Francis is basically correct in the following statement:
“A final reason for my decision is this: Ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many is the close connection between the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books prior to Vatican II and the rejection of the Church and her institutions in the name of what is called the ‘true Church.’”[1] (emphasis added)
Various non-mainstream traditional Catholics hold this view. But it is unjust, tyrannical and irrational for simple “non-combatants” at mainstream old rite Masses to be punished for our conclusions.
The purpose of all collective punishment is to divide and rule. But rather than falling for this tactic, mainstream “Latin Mass Catholics” should consider forming even closer bonds with other, harder-line traditionalists.
In this part, we are going to see an awkward truth associated with Traditionis Custodes, before discussing what must come next.
Open Letter to Latin Mass Catholics
Part I – Collective Punishment
Part II – “An ecclesiology that is not part of the Church’s Magisterium”
Part III – The Judgment of Solomon
To our dear friends attending “approved Latin Masses”, and suffering at the hands of those implementing Traditionis Custodes:
In an August 2021 letter to Vincent Cardinal Nichols (who, in 2024, has forbidden the celebration of the Easter Triduum in his diocese), Arthur Cardinal Roche answered questions about Traditionis Custodes and made the following comment:
“The misinterpretation and promotion of the use of these [liturgical] texts, after only limited concessions by previous Pontiffs, has been used to encourage a liturgy at variance with Conciliar reform (and which, in fact, was abrogated by Pope Saint Paul VI), and an ecclesiology that is not part of the Church’s Magisterium.”1 (Emphasis added)
Once again, we find a truth expressed by the partisans of Traditionis Custodes. But while the truth discussed in the previous part is indeed professed by “non-mainstream” traditionalists, this faulty ecclesiology is implicit in much of mainstream traditionalism.
Amidst the mainstream Latin Mass milieu, we can find two faulty ecclesiologies often championed:
An “Anglicanised” ecclesiology
An “Old Testament” ecclesiology.
Anglicanised Ecclesiology
Since the 1960s, the various mainstream Latin Mass Catholics and Ecclesia Dei groups have all tried to negotiate coexistence and toleration with the Conciliar Reformers, so as to carve out a niche for themselves in the broad tent.
Your groups, with noble intentions, have tried to secure the existence of the Roman liturgy alongside the Novus Ordo liturgy. Some of you have sought a simple co-existence based on your preference for the old rite; others have agreed with us that the Novus Ordo is harmful to souls and should be avoided at nearly all costs.
You have tried (and even succeeded to some degree) to secure an oasis wherein the true faith could be taught and professed in its integrity, whilst coexisting with those who openly deny or obscure it.
I don’t want to disrespect these parties, or to deny the hard work, dedication and even fruits involved with this strategy.
But, without realising what is happening, these groups have accepted as a strategy the same situation which Cardinal Newman and many others lamented whilst still in the Anglican Communion:
“Men of Catholic views are truly but a party in our Church.”2
But Cardinal Roche is right: this way of thinking and operating does indeed represent “an ecclesiology which is not a part of the Church’s magisterium.”
This ecclesiology entails a changed definition of the Church and her constitution, a denial of the first and most fundamental of the four marks, and thus a denial also of her formal visibility.
Catholic ecclesiology does not countenance such parties and wings within the Church, at least in the sense entailed here. It holds that the Church is necessarily and visibly united. It is impossible that she be divided in worship, containing traditional and Catholic rites alongside those which are non-Catholic, and harmful to those who frequent them.
It also holds that she is visibly united in faith, and that it is impossible for her to be divided in faith: she teaches and professes only one faith, and that the true one. She is not a body which contains the truth alongside so many other dangerous errors, each with partisans jostling for primacy.
A church which is divided in worship and faith (and which even tries to eradicate Catholic worship and faith) is not the Catholic Church, even if it contains a “Catholic wing”, trying to continue traditional ritual and doctrine.
There exists a website dedicated to locating “reverent Masses”: but the very idea implicitly concedes the idea of a Church divided and ungoverned.
The Church is not made up only of the just and holy; but she is made up only of Catholics: those who are baptised, profess the faith and are not separated from the unity of the body. She is, in other words, wholly Catholic.
But members of a “Catholic wing” or a “traditional movement” within a wider body are – and there is no other way of putting it – trying to be Catholics in a non-Catholic Church.
In fact, the emergent ecclesiology of a “wing” of the Church, acting as a doctrinal and liturgical leaven for the whole, can justly be called an “Anglicanisation“. In this sense, your mainstream Latin Mass groups have accepted a position for themselves which is equivalent to the “High Church” or “Ritualist” wing of a broad church.
This idea is openly voiced in the Latin Mass milieu. For example, Professor Roberto de Mattei has written:
“There is only one Catholic Church, in which today cohabitate in a confused and fragmentary way different and counterpoised theologies and philosophies. It is more correct to speak of a Bergoglian theology, of a Bergoglian philosophy, of Bergoglian morality, and, if one wishes, of a Bergoglian religion…”3
But who ever heard of multiple religions cohabitating within the Church of Christ?
Previously, co-existence has been possible, and even promoted to some degree by men such as Benedict XVI. But now co-existence and toleration are being rescinded, and Francis and others are forcing you to pick a side. It is tragic that, despite the best of intentions and so much dedication and charity, some of you seeking to preserve the Roman liturgy should have tried to do so with a theology adopted from Anglicanism.
Nor does this stand just for those who seek coexistence, even temporarily, with the Novus Ordo regime. Even those who hold that tradition must “reconquer” the Church are accepting the premises of this Anglicanised ecclesiology.
As we have discussed elsewhere: if the Church is not visibly one, then she is not visible at all; she would not be visible as a society, or as the society which Christ founded. Such a lack of unity entails the lack of a property which is both necessary in itself and for identifying her among false claimants. All the official and “visible” institutions in the world will not make up for this lack of a property which the magisterium and theologians teach is necessary.
I don’t say these things to be cruel or to cause pain: but we have to look at these matters frankly.
Nor are you wrong: the problem is not your apprehension of the facts. The institution headed by Francis really is subject to these divisions and disunity in faith. The problem is that these divisions are wrongly interpreted and understood, and even being marshalled as evidence against traditional Catholic doctrine and theology.
But if we can or must rethink all these things, are we not proving too much? And he who proves too much, proves nothing.
So much for the Anglican influence. Let’s consider the the second flaw in the ecclesiology.
“Old Testament Ecclesiology”
The ecclesiology of the New Testament is not that of the Old Testament. The Church does not intermittently fall away from her divine mission and constitution, standing in need of prophetic figures to call her back to herself.
But we are all aware of those laymen, still in reasonably respected positions in the mainstream, who behave like Old Testament prophets, trying to call the Church back to tradition, brick by brick, and one pinch of incense at a time.
They prolifically publish books and collections of their articles, and anxiously fly up and down the country delivering talks intended to save the Church from herself.
These would-be prophets can be commended for their zeal and many other gifts, but not for their understanding of the Church’s ecclesiology.
There are superficially similar cases in history, but none are like this. For instance, St Philip Neri did not call the Roman Pontiff back to the faith, but called the city of Rome back to right morals. St Gregory VII did not call the Church back to the faith, but called the clergy to the observance of the law of celibacy.
This is also different from those such as St Gregory Nazianzen who continued fulfilling their duties in the face of heresy and other challenging circumstances.
These examples are wholly different to these modern “prophetical” figures, who are openly “rethinking” fundamental aspects of Catholic doctrine and theology, including ecclesiology.
This “rethought” ecclesiology entails a Church which has lost her divine mission, persecutes the faithful, needs to rethink the papacy, and to be saved by our activism.
But we are not supposed to save the Church, but to be saved by her.
The very idea implicitly denies various theses of traditional Catholic theology. These theses pertain to matters beyond just the papacy, and so they cannot be passed aside as “hyperpapalism”, “ultramontanism”, or be subject to the “rethinking” advocated by some influential in mainstream Latin Mass circles.
But as above: the problem is not your apprehension of the facts. The institution headed by Francis really has fallen away from faith and practice, and does need to be called back. The problem is that this apprehension then results, in the arguments of these figures, in a “rethink” of doctrine and theology.
This would in turn entail that indefectibility did not mean what we thought it meant, and that (for example) the Catholic Church could indeed wander off the right path in some way.
It would be too long to explain the problems with this in depth here. Anyone doubting the significant difference between the traditional understating of the Church’s indefectibility is invited to read any work on ecclesiology written before the Council – several of which may be found here.
But in brief, Roche is correct on this point. This is “an ecclesiology that is not part of the Church’s Magisterium.”
Our Patrimony
Perhaps previously you haven’t even adverted to the problems raised here. But the more that Francis rescinds toleration for the traditional practice of the Catholic religion and corralls you into the Novus Ordo, the more you will see these diversions.
Once you have adverted to the problems, you cannot open Dom Prosper Guéranger’s The Liturgical Year – rightly beloved of your groups – without being faced, again and again, by our ideas. This is because they are not our ideas, nor are they Guéranger’s: they are the Church’s.
For instance, here is an extract from Dom Guéranger for the Wednesday after Whitsun:
“In order to understand the whole marvel of this supernatural influence, it is not enough to know the extrinsic results as told us by history; we must study it in its own divine reality. The unity of the Church is not like that which a conqueror forces upon a people that has become tributary to him. The members of the Church are united in oneness of faith and submission, because they love the yoke she imposes on their freedom and their reason.”4
And the Thursday after Whitsun:
“[T]he Holy Ghost is the principle of the Church’s life; and He, being the Spirit of Truth, preserves and directs her in the truth, so that both her teaching and her practice cannot be other than expressions of the truth.
“He makes himself responsible for her words, just as our spirit is responsible for what our tongue utters. Hence it is that the Church, by her union with the Holy Ghost, is so identified with Truth that the Apostle did not hesitate to call her the pillar and ground of the Truth. (1 Timothy 3:15)
“The Christian, therefore, may well rest on the Church in all that regards Faith. He knows that the Church is never alone; that she is always with the Holy Spirit who lives within her; that her word is not her own, but the word of the Spirit, which is the word of Jesus.”5
Such ideas are incompatible with the ecclesiology of a disunited church, whose universal disciplinary and liturgical laws are not protected by God, which tolerates and imposes errors and an evil liturgy which corrodes the virtue of faith in those who attend it, and which persecutes those who adhere to the traditional liturgy.
If you think that it is the Church doing these things (and this cannot be evaded by talking of “churchmen”, obedience or infallibility), then you cannot accept texts like the above from Dom Guéranger – at least, not without reducing them to meaningless formulations.
But embracing the true ecclesiology opens up, at last, the theological and spiritual tradition of the Catholic Church. Before, one accepts these difficult ideas – which form the stated reasoning behind Francis’ progressive suppression of the old rite – one can only be confused and reserved when reading about the Church in classics like Dom Guéranger’s The Liturgical Year, works of Cardinal Newman, pious works like that of Fr Kearney, and all the works of traditional ecclesiology.
But after one has seen the truth of this ecclesiology, one accepts this patrimony, understands – and rejoices. Once we have seen that the Church truly is as she is described in her traditional doctrine and theology, we see where she is and where she is not today; and we see that she does not need us to rethink anything about her at all.
“Rejecting the Church”
This is why Francis is right to note that many traditionalists reject both the liturgical reforms and Vatican II, and claim “that it betrayed the Tradition and the ‘true Church’.“
But is it true that we do so “with unfounded and unsustainable assertions”? Is it true that this represents “the rejection of the Church and her institutions in the name of what is called the ‘true Church'”
Or is it not in fact well-founded, sustainable and correct to say that the body headed by Francis is distinct from the Church of our grandparents?
Let us be clear that the Roman Catholic Church – the Church which counted as her members the Apostles, St Augustine, St Thomas, St Ignatius, and Pope St Pius X – this visible Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and his one true Church. May we all live and die in her maternal embrace.
Some might call what I am writing an apology for schism from this Church of Christ. But the schism has been around for decades, and all traditionalists are more or less implicated in it. The question is: who is on the right side?
We are not rejecting the Church, but we are indeed rejecting a false thing posing as the Church and intruding her various institutions.
We would say that, of course: who could admit to rejecting the true Church?
But that doesn’t prove that we are wrong. And we are not wrong: we are right.
The points already discussed partly prove this, but our arguments are older and more compelling than this. I have set some of them out here already. They are based on the Church’s theology, and the analysis of those who rejected the conciliar reforms in the earliest days. They include:
The doctrine of membership of the Church – who is, and is not, a Catholic
The impossibility of non-Catholics holding jurisdiction and authority in the Church
The absence of the four marks of the Church in the body headed by Francis, most particularly the mark of unity, as discussed
The actions of this body – including its teachings, disciplinary and liturgical actions – which are very difficult (if not impossible) to reconcile with what the Church teaches about herself.
For these reasons, we reject this false thing posing as our Mother, and to do so for Christ’s sake is a source of peace, joy and light. No doubt, it makes us the subject of insults from liberals (and even from some of you), and causes us to be accounted as worthless, proud and foolish schismatics.
Let’s not forget that Francis has repeatedly condemned us all – yes, even you – in the most frightful terms. In August 2022, he said:
“Tradition is the life of those who have gone before us and who go on. Traditionalism is their dead memory […] this is a paganism of thought!”6
Soon after, he said:
“[T]radition is the living faith of those who have died. Instead, for those people who are looking backward, who call themselves traditionalists, it is the dead faith of the living.”7
That was 2022. It would be tiresome and unnecessary to assemble the various other insults which he has levelled at you since. But it doesn’t matter, because as St Ignatius said:
“I desire and choose poverty with Christ poor, rather than riches; insults with Christ loaded with them, rather than honours; and to be accounted as worthless and a fool for Christ, rather than to be esteemed as wise and prudent in this world. So Christ was treated before me.”8
Once we have seen that love for the Church requires us to have no part whatsoever with the Conciliar reformation, a great path opens up to us. On this path, we can walk free from the anxious activism of would-be prophets, and free from the confusion which you are unfortunately experiencing. There, we are free to offer ourselves serenely and peacefully in the service of our Holy Mother.
This is no appeal to mere emotion. Removing a pair of spectacles which we never needed and finally seeing clearly would make anyone happy.
But this happiness is merely a secondary result – not the primary result, nor cause, reason or proof – of clear vision.
Final Questions
In the last part I offered you a series of questions. In the next part, I will begin to offer help in answering them – but in the meantime, here they are again:
Are you trying to live the liturgical, devotional and spiritual life of a Catholic, against the will of your supposed superiors?
Are you trying to hold the Catholic faith in a church which wants to teach you something different?
Are you trying to find pious explanations to defend an anti-Catholic church?
Are you trying to be Catholics in a church which doesn’t want you to be Catholic – and in fact, doesn’t want you at all?
You are being forced – and not by us – to choose a side.
You cannot choose the side which embraces a new religion which is opposed to the true religion and persecutes those who practice it. You cannot choose this side, which denies reality, and which calls good “evil” and calls evil “good”.
But equally, you cannot embrace what Roche rightly calls “an ecclesiology that is not part of the Church’s Magisterium”.
So what are you to do?
These questions and this period might be painful for you. In the meantime, we are with you, and want to help you in your suffering and confusion. But while you endure this suffering out of love for the Church and her divine Spouse, recall the words of St Paul:
“I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8.18)
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Further Reading
Open Letter to Latin Mass Catholics
Part I – Collective Punishment
Part II – “An ecclesiology that is not part of the Church’s Magisterium”
Part III – The Judgment of Solomon
The Anglicanisation of Catholics – are we the “high-church wing”?
A Note for Confused Catholics – Apologetics and Dogmatic Theology
Archbishop Lefebvre and the Conciliar Church – The Archbishop’s Words
Archbishop Lefebvre and the Conciliar Church – Visibility, the Four Marks and Membership
The Roman Liturgy: Septuagesima – The Babylonian Captivity and the Crisis in the Church
On the immorality of labelling other Catholics as “radical traditionalists”
Visible Unity of Faith – Part I: How is the Church “visibly united in faith,” according to Cardinal Billot?
Visible Unity of Faith – Part II: Why is it essential that the Church is visibly united in faith?
Arthur Roche, Letter to Vincent Cardinal Nichols, dated 4 August 2021, p 3. Available at https://onepeterfive.com/a-letter-from-the-vatican-on-traditionis-custodes/
John Henry Cardinal Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, J.M. Dent, London, 1930. p 203
Roberto de Mattei, Love for the Papacy and Filial Resistance to the Pope in the History of the Church (henceforth LPFR), Angelico Press, Brooklyn NY, 2019. Ebook version, pp 202
Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Vol 9 (Paschal Time – Book III), St Bonaventure Publications, Great Falls, Montana, 2000. Thursday after Whitsun, p 385. Available at iPieta.
Just above this passage, we also find the following:
“A Decius may succeed in causing a four years’ vacancy in the See of Rome; anti-popes may arise, supported by popular favor, or upheld by the policy of Emperors; a long schism may render it difficult to know the real Pontiff amidst the several who claim it: the Holy Spirit will allow the trial to have its course, and, whilst it lasts, will keep up the faith of his children; the day will come when he will declare the lawful Pastor of the flock, and the whole Church will enthusiastically acknowledge him as such.”
Ibid. p 395-6.
Francis on July 29 2022, in Antonio Spadaro, “Walking Together: Francis in conversation with Jesuits in Canada”, La Civilta Cattolica, 4 August 2022. Accessed 6 August 2022. Available at https://web.archive.org/web/20220804180235/https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/walking-together-francis-in-conversation-with-jesuits-in-canada/
Francis on 30 July 2022, conversation with journalists on the return flight from Canada, ‘Pope Francis: It was a genocide against indigenous peoples’, Vatican News, 30 July 2022. Accessed 4 Aug 2022, available at https://web.archive.org/web/20220804000922/https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2022-07/pope-francis-apostolic-journey-inflight-press-conference-canada.html
St Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, n. 167. Included in Christian Warfare, Society of St Pius X, 2009, pp 384-5.