Perspectives From Rome: Understanding the Crisis and Where We Go From Here

St Peter’s Basilica pictured with a wildfire in the distance (Edward Pentin).

 

 Catholic Identity Conference, Pittsburgh, September 30, 2023

Edward Pentin

  

Introduction

Thanks largely to Covid, it’s been 6 years since I’ve had the honor of speaking at the CIC and as we know, much has changed since then.

Except one thing: Pope Francis is still waging his revolution, and with more gusto than ever, resulting in ever deepening divisions, persecution from within and from the top, a pervading atmosphere of fear, the fostering of mediocrity and hypocrisy, and the looming threat of formal schism.

“How long Lord?” has become the ever increasing refrain as the practicing faithful have looked on hopelessly, helplessly and powerlessly while they’re excluded and marginalized and we’re plunged into a crisis that could end up being worse than the Arian controversy, according to some Church historians.

Six years ago, it seemed as though matters might be coming to a head. We had had all the fallout from the family synods and Amoris Laetitia; we’d had a group of eminent Catholic scholars and clergy who had just accused Pope Francis of heresy; and we’d just had the news that Cardinal Carlo Caffarra had died and within days Pope Francis had effectively gutted the Pope St. John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family that the cardinal had founded. Also that year was the 100th anniversary of the Marian apparitions of Fatima, and there was hope that divine intervention might bring this dark period to a halt.

But, as we know, Our Lady asked for penance and reparation at Fatima and before that at Lourdes. That hasn’t happened, so the upheavals have gone on apace, whether it’s the traditional Mass that’s been quashed, the German Synodal Way that’s been allowed to continue effectively unchecked, or the scandals, both papal related and otherwise, that seem to never end.

Meanwhile those fully supportive of this revolution are pleased that it appears to have moved up a gear in recent months. Although in reality they still haven’t got much of what they’re aiming for (a clear change in Church governance, women deacons, married clergy and normalisation of homosexuality), with the Synod on Synodality, they’re rather dizzy at the thought that these seem to be finally within reach.

Of course it’s impossible to know for sure why this is all happening, or rather being allowed to happen, but in this talk I’ll be looking at some theories drawn from some trustworthy sources in Rome and elsewhere to explore what this might all mean and where we could be heading. Hopefully, through this, I can dare to at least offer some glimmers of light at the end of this seemingly interminable tunnel.

 

The Great Revealing

A few months ago, Joseph Bevan, a friend in England and a devout Catholic father of 10 — two of whom are priests and one a nun — made an interesting and thought-provoking comment in an article he’d written for Catholic media.

“The current crisis,” he said, “is absolutely essential for the ultimate triumph of the Catholic Church.” Part of God’s plan, he continued, “must be to crush the modernist heresy at the heart of the Church, and for that to happen, the heresy must be given free rein so that it can finally burn itself out. Those who are pining for Pope Francis to be replaced by another Pope Benedict,” he said, “have fundamentally misunderstood the situation.”

It’s a bold thesis but could Mr. Bevan be right? Could this seeming destruction actually be the means by which the modernist heresy that’s become so ingrained in the institutional Church is rooted out? And could Pope Francis, and only a pope like Francis, unwittingly be the means by which the Lord is expurgating the corruptions that have infiltrated the Church for so long and be restoring the Bride of Christ to her true glory?

To answer these questions is well beyond my capability as a journalist, but what I have done is obtain the opinions of others far better qualified than me. So I put Joseph’s thesis to several respected Church figures mostly living in Rome. They all agreed on one point which is necessary for Joseph’s theory to become a reality, that this period has been immensely revelatory (albeit also painful).

Cardinal Raymond Burke said, and I quote: “It’s a question I’ve often asked myself. Why does God permit this as part of his permissive will? What keeps coming back to me,” he said, “is that it is all brought out into the open — all the terrible corruption, sexual, financial, doctrinal. In that way, too, it’s opened up a lot of people’s eyes to realise how lethal and how harmful is this whole post-conciliar rebellion that took place.”

It’s also revealed the richness of the traditional liturgy, he said, and its importance at this time. The sacramental rites in the reformed liturgy are not invalid, he stressed, but many people are now realizing that “they’re not substantial like in the usus antiquior, and we need in these times the most substantial [help],” he said.

“Everything’s been weakened,” he continued, reflecting on the damage that the post-conciliar era has brought. “For instance the book of blessings, now you don’t bless anything, you bless the people who are around. There’s been a loss of the supernatural.”

But he also observed, and I quote: “Adherence to tradition is growing stronger every day, the Mass, doctrine. I’m so impressed with some out of print, solid compendiums of theology and so forth that are coming back that were out of print and seemingly selling.”

This phenomenon of revealing the ills of the institutional Church, which the Catholic writer Hilary White coined some years ago as the “Great Clarification,” is itself becoming increasingly apparent to many.

Her argument, which has also become known as the “Hilary Thesis,” is that during the pontificates of Benedict XVI and John Paul II, the status quo was clearly very much preserved. Clearly heterodox prelates, mostly but not always rebelling under the surface, were tolerated and some even promoted to top Church positions, while corruptions and abuse were carefully managed or simply covered up.

And this, White argues, was aided and abetted by middle of the road, conservative Catholics, who, though no doubt with the best of intentions, thought a “polite middle way” could be found between the modernism that had infiltrated the Church and apostolic tradition.

“But compromise,” says White, “has no place in the crystalline world of absolute truth in which God dwells and which the Church is supposed to model here on earth.” Such an approach has never worked, she says, as the Church is supposed to be a beacon of truth in a world of lies and deception.

While some might wish to debate the finer points of Hilary’s thesis, speaking as a journalist covering the Vatican it’s undeniably true that, over the past ten and a half years of Francis pontificate, the lid over so many of the corruptions in the Catholic Church has come right off. “The core principles of the Church have come into sharp focus,” a senior Churchman told me this week. Perhaps one could also say that as the times have grown darker for the Church, so the truth is beginning to shine more brightly, but rather like the Picture of Dorian Gray, it’s not a pretty image that’s coming into view.

This seems to be especially true when it comes to doctrine. As this pontificate has barrelled on into a dark void of experimentation and goodness knows what, so orthodoxy has been pushed aside and we’ve seen an inversion take place, most notably regarding the Church’s model of governance.

This has been witnessed most clearly through the Pope’s apostolic constitution for the Roman Curia Praedicate Evangelium, the German Synodal Way which made upturning the hierarchy a corner-stone of its discussions, and it now looks set to at least be further considered at the upcoming synod. The Pope, who has been nothing if not truthful about his intentions, has spoken openly and favourably about an “inverted pyramid” structure of governance, more collegial but also where the laity lead and the hierarchy follow (up to a point).

More disturbingly, morally we’ve also seen an inversion. What was always clearly sinful and wrong is increasingly encouraged, affirmed, or at least given a wink and a nod, while the practicing faithful who are trying to abide by established Church teaching are chastised, banished, and even seen as the enemy by top Church leaders. Any impartial observer could easily identify a “diabolical disorientation” happening, one that Sr. Lucia mentioned in her letters written in the early 1970s.

Regarding the liturgy, Traditionis Custodes of course played a major part in this awakening, especially when one considers why it was enacted. “They can’t tolerate the traditional liturgy because it passes judgment on what they’re doing,” I was told this week by a senior Church official. It’s also shone a light on the loss of the supernatural within the institutional Church as Cardinal Burke said earlier, largely due to a defective rite and a growing, wrong sort of humanism cherished in “classical” quarters, but ultimately laden with modernism.

In addition we’ve seen an ever more syncretistic approach to ecumenism and other religions, and, of course, an over-involvement in global politics along with submission to secular values at the expense of promoting the Church’s teaching and emphasising the salvation of souls. As this process continues, so it seems does talk of a one-world religion, helped along by papal statements such as “God wills the pluralism and diversity of religions.”

These observations I’m making come, of course, from a traditional, orthodox, or simply Catholic perspective, but even those allied to Francis’ vision can see how much has been revealed, albeit through a different lens.

Massimo Borghesi, who’s regarded as Pope Francis’ intellectual biographer, told me recently that Francis is bringing to light “the grave sins that have been hidden over the past 50 years, the ‘filth within the Church,’ which Cardinal Ratzinger spoke of before his election as Pope.”

“The fact,” Borghesi said, “that the misdeeds of priests and religious have been hidden for so long reveals a ‘clerical’ conception of the Church, that of a closed world that considers itself perfect, immune from all sin.” Did he give Fr Rupnik, Bishop Zanchetta, Bishop Baros, Theodore McCarrick as examples? No, but he said Francis was revealing all of this, moving along a road of transparency that Benedict began and which, Borghesi contended, owes itself “to the Second Vatican Council.”

Although it’s important to add that Francis tends to reveal things when pushed by events. When it’s his initiative, he tends to hide things or not apply sanctions (if they’re modernists or friends), or make them work for him as accomplices. He’s helped to reveal financial crime that has rotted the Vatican and corrupted not a few dioceses, for example, but only because events forced him to.

Isolating Modernism and Rooting it Out

But to return to the doctrinal corruption: for many practicing, catechised faithful, and I suspect that includes everyone here, the clearer and more profound revelation has been the extent to which modernism has entered the Church, something of course that Pope St. Pius X drew attention many years ago and then Archbishop Lefebvre, but which seems to now be coming into clearer focus.

It’s perhaps helpful here to define modernism: an attempt at reconciling Catholicism with modern culture, rejecting traditional beliefs and practices seen as outdated, emphasising individualism and subjectivity, and accomplishing all of this by using Catholic terms but twisting or emptying them of their true meaning in order to weaken the Church’s revealed doctrine. St. Pius X warned it would extinguish the light of faith were it allowed contaminate the minds and hearts of the faithful. (It’s interesting that the reading at Mass today is 2 Timothy 4 1-8 which sums up well this time I think: “For there will be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine; but according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears”).

Before Francis, many faithful and I include myself in this, especially those attending the Novus Ordo Missae, probably had little idea what modernism was and thought it was just a part of normal modern life. Now, more have come to realise how much it has infiltrated the Church. We can now see more clearly how it’s been a leading factor in causing Church leaders to steadily depart from scripture and tradition and become increasingly focused on man rather than God, above all failing to honour the First Commandment, and trying to make the truth of the Gospel fit the world rather than the other way around.

The result of this modernist infiltration is a widespread realisation, both inside and outside the Church, that the Church is an institution adrift, almost going through a faith crisis of her own, and becoming ever more irrelevant to society, especially in the West, despite countless and costly programmes and, dare I say it, synods. The world, it seems, and understandably so, largely sees the institution as little more than another non-governmental organisation, an institution of social workers, still with some moral weight, but devoid of supernatural power and hard to differentiate from the UN or World Economic Forum.

Perhaps in a sense what we’re witnessing is modernism being identified, isolated, and primed for ejection.

As a slight digression, modernism is said to be a rather outdated word. The respected Catholic philosopher Professor John Rist told me recently that he doesn’t like the word bandied about because, and I quote: “Although the modernists had something in common with our present deviants, the latter are very different since they have imbibed many poisons unavailable to the modernists: primarily the globalization factor and the sexual revolution. That means that our deviants want to follow the modern world in far wider and more dangerous ways than most of the modernists dreamed of.” Perhaps we should therefore call it “neo-modernism.”

Amidst this decline, another factor that’s been helpfully revealed is papolatry, or hyperpapalism, distorting the Petrine office into something it was never meant to be, according to eminent Church historians and academics such as Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, Professor Rist, and Dr Peter Kwasniewski.

Exposing Papolatry

Interestingly, problems with papolatry and modern-day ultramontanism have become so blatant under Francis it’s prompted Professor Rist, who is reputed to be one of the Church’s foremost patristics scholars especially on St Augustine, to write a book this year dedicated to the topic.

Called Infallibility, Integrity and Obedience: The Papacy and the Roman Catholic Church, 1848-2023, Rist believes problems over our understanding of papal infallibility go to the root of our current crisis. It’s a regression, he said, that has led the Church’s leaders and many laity to become so corrupted by servility to the Pope that they have lost any ability to face reality.

One of his central arguments is that we’ve witnessed what he calls “creeping infallibility” since the First Vatican Council when papal infallibility was defined, leading to a kind of “papal absolutism.” So now we have a kind of autocratic papacy along with what Rist calls “a self-deluding servility, easily identifiable as plain bad faith among the ‘lower ranks.’”

The book is a fascinating and helpful exploration into the current crisis. And again, were it not for the depth of the crisis made visible by Francis, the opportunity to address the problem would probably not have arisen. Rist himself told me that he sees the exposure of such issues as quite possibly part of a purification of the Church but stressed the importance of identifying exactly “what needs to be purified” before tackling it.

But there’s no denying that the chief human protagonist of this apokalupsis — to use the Greek word meaning to uncover or reveal — has been Pope Francis, a pope I like to call the Great Revealer as opposed to the Great Reformer, the title of Austen Ivereigh’s biography.

A respected traditional Rome priest close to the Vatican, I’ll call him “Father Ernesto” (sorry for all the anonymity – but it’s good indicator, as someone once said, of how being orthodox in Rome these days makes one an enemy in occupied territory), told me: “It’s because Francis is a pope that he’s so effective in showing up the apostasy of the post-conciliar Church. No one else could do it so effectively. God takes advantage of bad things to make things better, and God never ceases to rule.”

The Catalysing Council

Other catalysts for revealing so much have been COVID of course, but also, as Borghesi said, the Second Vatican Council which, interestingly, is often quoted by the so-called revolutionaries to justify their actions. In so doing, they unwittingly reveal the extent of corruption and heterodoxy that entered through the Council, whether the “Spirit of the Council” or the ambiguous texts themselves, and which then infected the highest levels of the Church.

And again, it was only a pope like Francis who could bring this to light. As one Rome theologian told me, “We had to have a Pope who shows us the logical consequences of the Council, and who implements them in such a way, and to such a degree, that only a Pope, and no one else, could do.” But he said what’s happening now is actually causing more catastrophic harm to souls than if the warnings of Archbishop Lefebvre and others had been heeded earlier and not been dismissed as alarmism.

Perhaps that’s no clearer seen than in the upcoming Synod on Synodality, widely viewed as a fruit of the Council. I don’t need to go into this in any great detail as Eric and Diane have covered it so well but the process — this “hostile takeover” of the Church as Cardinal Gerhard Müller has called it — has managed to bring all the dissenters out into the open. No longer are they sabotaging the magisterium from below but attacking it from above, as it were, and for everyone to see.

The rebellion we’re witnessing is also more potent than, say, in the 1970s, now that we have a pope like Francis is in charge. Older priests and laity will say that today’s crisis reminds them of what it was like in the 70s and 80s but that it’s actually better now as so much more of this rebellion and dissent is now visible. “The borders were still clear back in the 70s and the rebels were often more discreet,” a Latin American priest told me, “but now anything goes, and people are now discovering just how rotten that something is in Denmark.”

He noticed that, with Pope Francis in charge, people can now be “open about processes,” allowing people well-formed and with the eyes of faith to clearly see just what the problems are. “We now see fully the illness that these dissenters are showing us,” the priest said, “and by seeing the illness, we have the cure.”

The very fact that anyone who criticizes the synodal process from the vantage point of 2,000 years of apostolic tradition tends to be seen by the synod’s organizers as “the enemy” and opposed to the Second Vatican Council — and so mustn’t be included in their much vaunted global project of listening, inclusions, and accompaniment of the “People of God” — is nothing if not revealing of this malady, and the depths to which it runs.

Incidentally, we saw this remarkable censoring of the Church’s established teaching at the Synods on the Family at the beginning of this pontificate, but it’s interesting and illuminating, I think, to observe how it’s progressively worsened, with the time bombs within Amoris Laetitia now going off, and that now the Holy Father has finally revealed himself to be the main protagonist.

From a more supernatural perspective, we know that this is essentially a spiritual battle that’s being waged by Satan against all that is good — especially marriage and the family, as Sr Lucia told Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, but ultimately against Christ Himself and of course His Church. The pace is also increasing, and it could be, as a Dominican priest told me some years ago, because the demons know their time is short, they’re becoming frenetic and overplaying their hand — “motus in fine velocior,” the ancient Romans used to say: “movement is faster toward the end.” By the demons revealing themselves, the first step to banishing them has begun, just like in any exorcism, he said.

A veteran exorcist said what was happening was “in a sense” like an exorcism but the premises are different given an exorcism presupposes a body or entity and not a mystical one like the Church. His view, though, was that eventually, “God will have to intervene personally or through Our Lady.” He said: “God will tolerate the kinds of evil we are seeing for only so long and then historically He has intervened.” He then might send Our Lady or an angel to drive the devil out, but he also said we stand the possibility that, as many of the Fathers predicted, Rome would be destroyed” – not the Church of course, but Rome — the Vatican, the administration.

Phoenix from the Ashes

A Rome priest friend, a learned theologian and historian whom I’ll call “Father Michael,” predicted that much of the institutional Church as we currently know it will be destroyed but not completely. He compared the crisis to the fall of the Roman Empire and how Christian architects at that time used fragments of pagan temples to turn them into churches. You see this in many churches in Rome – balustrades, for example, taken from old Roman temples and of different shapes and then used to line the nave.

Similarly he believes that the post-conciliar Church will decline into irrelevancy and appear to be all but ruined, and a new Church will be built up like a phoenix from the ashes. This would also align with what many believe is happening: that the Church as an institution is going through her Passion.

As this internal suffering of the institutional Church continues, Father Michael predicted that her various administrative organs would become weaker, and the faithful will see even more open discord and the loss of authority.

“What those currently in charge are doing,” he said, “is using all their own moral authority to undermine their own moral authority.”

As an example, he noted that officials at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, now headed by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, no longer see themselves as defenders and promoters of the faith, but instead simply enforcing the “recent magisterium.” He therefore expects some, though of course not all, bishops, priests and others to eventually just ignore any directives coming from the DDF and other dicasteries, as happened with Traditionis Custodes because, he said, “They knew it was ridiculous, based on a lie and unjustified.” (It may not be as simple as that though, and the most sensible and usual solution is a conclave).

But Fr Michael believes this process will actually give the next pope, or the one after that, the opportunity to reshape the DDF and other Vatican dicasteries once this “self-demolition of the Church” — to use Pope Paul VI words let’s not forget — is all over. They can then rebuild the Vatican and the universal Church in ways faithful to apostolic tradition, scripture and the perennial teachings of the Church, though that’s unlikely to be straightforward.

I asked him about the well-being of souls as this “creative destruction” process continues. This is also a concern of a number of cardinals, bishops and others. Could many souls be lost by the visible devastation and scandal? Father Michael conceded that this is a real danger until a better organized “Church exterior,” as he called it, arrives. But this is why, he said, it’s important to distinguish between the fallible institutional elements of the Church versus the truth of God that always remains, because the Church herself is indefectible.

But the road to rebuilding will also be a hard one, and the process of apokalupsis, which is beneficial but also painful, still might have a long way to go to. Father Ernesto said that as most cardinals and bishops have been poorly formed since the Council, they’re likely to continue tolerating the crisis, unless a future pope calls a halt to it. They’re also just waiting for the next pope. “None of them are tearing their garments, he said, “but this is a punishment we amply deserve.” Like others, he sees this time as both a chastisement as well as purification.

People are becoming more aware of the crisis, he said, but not the hierarchy, bishops and priests, and he argued that if they don’t wake up, don’t expect the laity to do so in any great numbers. “The clergy are the ones in power and can carry on without the faithful even,” he said. “They can go on and on, destroying more and more, eating the bones and entrails, as they are priests, they’re the hierarchy.”

All the revelations of this pontificate have been helpful Father Ernesto said, but he believes the bishops and priests are not well formed enough to see their meaning. “What have been the tangible consequences so far of all the corruption that’s been exposed? Next to nothing,” he observed. And he stressed, and I quote, “The more we don’t stand up to it, the more chastisement (which, he stressed, comes from the word to chasten) we deserve.”

Another factor likely to extend this process is Pope Francis’ residual popularity. He continues to be popular with the vast majority of Catholics and people worldwide . Most people don’t follow Vatican news closely, are likely poorly catechized, or like so many today, are unable to reason properly. They unquestioningly welcome what they see in the mainstream media: Francis’ outreach to the materially poor, those on the periphery, but also his upending of the Church’s hierarchy, persecution of traditionalists, and looser approach to morals. He emits to the world all the “right signals” and speaks their language — a pope of fraternity, equality, seemingly boundless moral freedom, and inclusion. This not only makes things seem easier and undemanding for the average Catholic but also for passive bishops and priests.

One thing that may speed up this whole process, however, is when the money runs out and/or the Vatican starts receiving it from corrupt sources instead, something that appears to have already begun. As a Polish friend and Church expert often says, recalling the days of Communism: “They can only keep the party going for as long as there’s money coming in. Once it runs out, the party’s over.”

But once that happens, like Joseph Bevan, Father Ernesto believes that another conservative, middle-of-the-road pope like Benedict XVI would be dangerous as he would not only merely perpetuate the modernist heresies but return the Church to the status quo, and possibly deceive some faithful into thinking such modernist teaching is acceptable. On the other hand, he may restore tradition and provide other means for grace to act, which could help the restoration of the Church.

What Could Happen to the Council?

One key element, which of course I must mention in all of this is the Second Vatican Council and whether, when the Church comes to be rebuilt, it will be consigned to the ecclesiastical garbage can. Those I spoke to largely held views similar to those of Bishop Athanasius Schneider: that the Council was valid but any ambiguity in the Council texts needs to be rooted out by reading and interpreting them correctly, in continuity with the Church’s tradition. That will also mean officially correcting some of the documents. In other words, what good from the Council can and should be salvaged, but they believed it has to be a Pope who does the salvaging and correcting, not another Council. Others believe the Council must be denied as it’s in contrast with the truth, and perhaps they’re right.

But again, Pope Francis has been the ideal Pope to set this all up. As Father Michael said: “God is currently allowing someone to occupy the See of Peter in order to fix the state of the Council without him knowing it, discrediting the errors of the Spirit of the Council and the Council itself,. But there’s no distinction,” he believes. “Not only are documents of the Council problematic but the event is as well.”

The veteran pro-life and pro-family campaigner, retired medical Doctor Thomas Ward, told me he thought Pope Francis is a godsend for showing the reality of Vatican II. “Poison is 98% water, 2 percent arsenic,” he said, and although many could “smell a rat” early on, he said it’s taken a while for the reality to get through to most people.

All of these issues are therefore coming to a head. “It’s like Pope Francis is injecting a vaccine to eradicate a virus and the body is reacting,” said the Latin American priest I quoted earlier. “The reaction,” he said, “feels as if something is not working and the reaction can be a disaster, but at least there’s a reaction.” And from his perspective as a liturgist, he welcomed the fact that it was destroying the ‘reform of the reform,’ the hermeneutic of continuity, and other positions that have grown up since the Council but which he believes are unsustainable.

The Laity’s Role

Now if this process is theoretically working to the good in the long term, rooting out the modernist heresy, exposing other ills in the Church, and helping to purify her, shouldn’t it just be allowed to continue, painful though that might be? What should the laity do? What can they effectively do, given the immensity of the crisis? Should they fight or is this a time similar to when Christ was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and the Lord told Peter to put away his sword?

For an answer to this I turned again to Dr Ward, a formidable Scottish warrior for the faith and for life. He strongly believes we have to resist at this time, adding that resistance is “seldom wrong.” Speaking as a doctor, “human life is messy,” he said, “but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. A revolution has taken place.”

But what was especially poignant, at least to me, was what he said about the consequences of Catholics not resisting enough for the past 60 years.

“Look at the cultural and bioethical situation in the world now,” he said. “If we were to add up all the surgical abortions since the 1960s, they’d probably be more than the population of India. Throw in chemical-induced abortions, and we’d be well beyond that figure. We have gender ideology and the mutilation of boys and girls, and all of this is the consequence of the moral silence of the Church.

“She is the moral pacemaker of the world,” he added. “If we have this industrial scale evil, if this is the consequence of moral neutrality and silence, of priests not condemning abortions, of contraception for 50 years, if this is the beautiful situation after the silence of the Church despite the blips of Humanae Vitae, the beautiful pontificate on life of John Paul II and the pontificate of Benedict XVI, what is it going to be like when we say the immoral is moral, and the moral is immoral? If we have this number of abortions after mostly silence during the 50-60 years when the Church was neutered, what is it going to be like after the Bergoglian revolution?”

The priests I contacted all agreed that prayer is of course vital, especially the Rosary, making reparation, and the imperative to grow in personal holiness. “We have to pray that the Lord will intervene,” said Father Ernesto. “He can produce some effects but it’s dependent on prayer. If we don’t pray enough those effects don’t happen. If we don’t pray we will have to suffer more. Also think of your own judgement,” he said. “Have I prayed enough?”

The bottom line, he said, “is to pray, pray a lot and do penance, and certainly not succumb to the temptations of sedevacantism.”

The priest also believes that the more the old Mass is celebrated the better, so that the glory of God is truly at the centre of the liturgy and the First Commandment is properly honoured. If the supernatural is truly present and always central, he said, the rest will then come from that, following the principle, Lex orandi, lex credendi (The law of what is prayed [is] the law of what is believed).

“What also matters of course, is grace,” he said. “The current situation is a vicious circle: we need to respond to the grace we receive at this time, but if we lack graces, we won’t react.”  So again, he stressed the importance of prayer to receive the graces to respond to what the Lord is allowing through his permissive will. And for that, he believes it’s important to attend the traditional Mass. “The more people look for the Mass, the more traditional priests will be there, given through Providence,” he said.

And one final point: he stressed how little we know of God’s sublime plans, and how we can be at peace allowing ourselves to be merely His instruments – meek and a bit ignorant – but adhering to what has been handed down to us through tradition. In other words, we have to trust in the Lord that all will work to the good according to His divine will.

Again, this doesn’t mean being passive, he and others said. Prayer, while clearly important, needs to be coupled with action. I asked Bishop Schneider what the best course of action would be, and particularly if he thought laypeople should remain silent and let this play out, much like at Christ’s crucifixion. He replied, and I quote:

“Remaining silent like the apostles at Christ’s crucifixion is surely the wrong way and a pious illusion. People are confusing two different situations: at the crucifixion there was no real possibility of resisting and Christ forbade the apostles to resist, since His Passion was the will of the Father and His passion the condition of our salvation.

“The crisis of faith and apostasy within the Church is not salvific, and against the will of God.  When some are mocking the holiness of God in worship or in His teaching, Christ Himself gave us the example of an exterior protest (He threw out the merchants from the temple). And the Apostles did the same. Many faithful lay saints publicly denounced heresies and sins within the Church, e.g. St. Hildegard of Bingen, St. Brigid of Sweden, St. Catherine of Siena.

“In our day it is the hour of the prophetic mission of the lay faithful, in virtue of the sacrament of confirmation, to publicly defend the sacredness of our Faith and the Liturgy. Yet it must be done in a respectful tone and not in anger, always keeping an outward respect towards the Church’s authority. Canon Law gives the laity the right to do it (see can. 212).

At the same time as denouncing the abuses and defending the faith, the lay faithful should offer all their sufferings as reparation and as a penance for the renewal of the Church, thereby suffering together with Christ and His Bride the Church, who is passing in our day the hours of a spiritual Golgotha.”

Conclusion

To conclude, I’ve tried in this talk to convey some potentially positive, though of course very theoretical, perspectives on the crisis.

What people have told me, and which I’ve tried to convey, is not only how helpful this period of clarification has been for those with eyes to see, but how much of it really could not have happened without Pope Francis.

In an article I had to rush out on the night he was elected, one of my editors added a hopeful sentence at the end: “Given all the challenges that lie ahead,” he wrote, “it is perhaps fitting he chose the name of the saint whom Christ urged, ‘Rebuild my Church.’”

Well that certainly hasn’t happened. But perhaps for all the trauma, abuse, persecution and upheaval we’ve witnessed over the past decade, this Pope could oddly and inadvertently be serving as a highly effective instrument through which our Lord is destroying all that is so rotten and corrupt in the post conciliar institutional Church.

And once this clarification is over, and once adequate resistance has taken place, perhaps the rebuilding can begin in earnest, restoring the Bride of Christ after years of modernist and neo-modernist infiltration to truly being what the Lord intended her to be: “The Light of the World.”