This is the third part of an analysis I wrote on a recent letter from Archbishop Viganò to a layman. Archbishop Viganò’s words are in italics. My words are in bold orange font below. AB. Viganò’s full letter without my additions can be found here.
Dear Mr. Kokx, 1 Sept 2020
…continued from part 2…
It is therefore not a question of working from within the Church or outside it: the winemakers are called to work in the Lord’s Vineyard, and it is there that they must remain even at the cost of their lives; the pastors are called to pastor the Lord’s Flock, to keep the ravenous wolves at bay and to drive away the mercenaries who are not concerned with the salvation of the sheep and lambs.
Indeed, there are some bishops who are concerned with the salvation of their sheep. For example, some of the faithful bishops of China were left so destitute by the relatively-recent China-Vatican deal that they were left homeless. Watch this short and inspiring video of this Chinese bishop blessing his persecutors:
https://twitter.com/breeadail/status/1302958487417356289?s=20
This hidden and often silent work has been carried out by the Society of Saint Pius X, which deserves recognition for not having allowed the flame of Tradition to be extinguished at a moment in which celebrating the ancient Mass was considered subversive and a reason for excommunication. Its priests have been a healthy thorn in the side for a hierarchy that has seen in them an unacceptable point of comparison for the faithful, a constant reproach for the betrayal committed against the people of God, an inadmissible alternative to the new conciliar path. And if their fidelity made disobedience to the pope inevitable with the episcopal consecrations, thanks to them the Society was able to protect herself from the furious attack of the Innovators and by its very existence it allowed the possibility of the liberalization of the Ancient Rite, which until then was prohibited. Its presence also allowed the contradictions and errors of the conciliar sect to emerge, always winking at heretics and idolaters but implacably rigid and intolerant towards Catholic Truth.
Again, a mutiny against a mutiny is not disobedience but rather: It is obedience to the original course charted. And what was the original course charted for this ocean-liner? The salvation of souls…on all 7 Seas, on all 7 continents, seeking every man, woman and child who was made to have a relationship with Jesus Christ and His One Church…which is everyone. And internally, each pagan, Jew, Protestant, Muslim and Catholic is truly hungry for the Church as She has only always presented herself in the unchanging faith, morals, doctrine and liturgy found in every century (before our own mutinous one and minus the Arian crisis.) That is called “traditional Catholicism” whether people like it or not. No Pope can change this eternal course, even if they temporarily change it to please mankind.
I consider Archbishop Lefebvre an exemplary confessor of the Faith, and I think that by now it is obvious that his denunciation of the Council and the modernist apostasy is more relevant than ever. It should not be forgotten that the persecution to which Archbishop Lefebvre was subjected by the Holy See and the world episcopate served above all as a deterrent for Catholics who were refractory toward the conciliar revolution.
See that Archbishop Viganò is being persecuted not only by the left, but even by the neo-con non-trad right who is threatened by the truth he speaks. For example, Fr. De Souza who writes for National Catholic Register—that is, the conservative one, not the liberal one, National Catholic Reporter—again Fr. De Souza who writes for the National Catholic Register, a service of EWTN news has this hit piece on Archbishop Viganò. When you’re over the target, you get the most flack. And the flack that is thrown at any of us who speaks the truth is always the same: gaslighting. Gaslighting is when you can’t answer someone’s claims, so you claim he is crazy. Look at what was not below Fr. De Souza (who couldn’t answer Archbishop Viganò) to write about him in the above article: “Some people, even former admirers, think he may have become a bit unstable, yet rendering an accurate assessment has been near impossible, given that he has been in hiding since 2018.” Did you catch that? “Unstable.” That is the same gaslighting CNN pulled on Kanye West when they threatened the black narrative on abortion. This is shameless and dishonest reporting from NCR/EWTN. But they are threatened and have no rebuttal, so they gaslight truth-speakers like the liberals to do their own formidable enemies.
I also agree with the observation of His Excellency Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais about the co-presence of two entities in Rome: the Church of Christ has been occupied and eclipsed by the modernist conciliar structure, which has established itself in the same hierarchy and uses the authority of its ministers to prevail over the Spouse of Christ and our Mother.
The push-back against the modernist mutiny has slowly grown strong under covid, for the ones who hijacked the ship are now revealing themselves as the effeminate hijacking cowards that they are, in manifestly caring more for their health in a “pandemic” than the salvation of the souls entrusted to them. We who were once gaslit as “crazy” and sat by quietly and obediently (wondering if indeed there was something wrong with us!) now see light on the horizon that Christ is coming for His Bride, partly in the words of Archbishop Viganò. But it will have to be more than just him. We must expect what Our Lady of Good Success called the “complete restoration of the Church” and what Our Lady of Fatima basically referred to as “the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart.” Or the return of Christ Himself.
The Church of Christ – which not only subsists in the Catholic Church, but is exclusively the Catholic Church – is only obscured and eclipsed by a strange extravagant Church established in Rome, according to the vision of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich. It coexists, like wheat with the tare, in the Roman Curia, in dioceses, in parishes.
Vatican Council II claims the Church subsists in the Catholic Church. The Council of Trent holds that the Church is the Catholic Church. This is the rub that Archbishop Viganò refers to above. Indeed, Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich (19th century) saw a vision not too far in the future of “a strange extravagant Church” established in Rome that looked nothing like the Church of the 19th century. Viganò calls the unbelieving hierarchy “a parallel Church” to the true Church (is there a reference to Lefebvre here?) This is similar to Our Lord’s analogy of the wheat and the tare in the Gospels. But now it’s even more pronounced, as moral and doctrinal scandals are unchallenged and out-in-the-open.
We cannot judge our pastors for their intentions, nor suppose that all of them are corrupt in faith and morals; on the contrary, we can hope that many of them, hitherto intimidated and silent, will understand, as confusion and apostasy continue to spread, the deception to which they have been subjected and will finally shake off their slumber. There are many laity who are raising their voice; others will necessarily follow, together with good priests, certainly present in every diocese. This awakening of the Church militant – I would dare to call it almost a resurrection– is necessary, urgent and inevitable: no son tolerates his mother being outraged by the servants, or his father being tyrannized by the administrators of his goods. The Lord offers us, in these painful situations, the possibility of being His allies in fighting this holy battle under His banner: the King Who is victorious over error and death permits us to share the honor of triumphal victory and the eternal reward that derives from it, after having endured and suffered with Him.
All 2019’s fence-riding neo-cons have fallen in 2020 onto one side of the political fence. Perhaps this is because 2020 has become the great unveiling of everyone who pretended to follow the truth, but secretly believed many lies. In any case, those not convicted of the truth were prime targets for the lies to move into their brains in 2020, especially if they were not living in sanctifying grace in 2019. I’m sure there’s exceptions to this, but it was easy to trick weak Catholics by the scandemic, the riots, the false-accusations of racism to police, the ideas that the California fires were started not by climate change, the lame opposition to Fr. Altman who rightly said that “one can not be a Democrat and a Catholic.” In short, it seems that 2019’s un-convicted conservatives have become 2020’s fully propagandasized liberals, perhaps because they didn’t believe anything orthodox in the first place. I mean, do we really believe Jesus rose from the dead and conquered death? I do! But the veil has been pulled back to see if every Catholic fears covid or God more. To be sure, there are surprises on both sides of the fence: There are indeed neo-cons I never thought would land in traditional Catholicism. But there are also mask-loving “pro-life neo-cons” who now appear to be against everything from the police to Viganò. In any case, I am thankful to 2020 for dropping the façade for us all to see what Catholics truly believe.
…to be continued in one final post of this series…