The Society of St. Pius X
Rickenbach,
February 7,1986
O God, the heathens are come into Thy inheritance,
they have defiled Thy holy temple, they have made
Jerusalem as a place to keep fruit. (Ps. 78, v. 1)
Dear Friends and Benefactors,
The past few weeks and months have been dramatic for the Church. The Extraordinary Synod which took place in Rome from the 25th of November to the 8th of December, confirmed Vatican II with all its errors and ambiguities, despite the disaster which these have brought about over the last twenty years. Here is what can be read in the final overall report: "Unanimously and also joyfully we have verified that the Second Vatican Council is a legitimate and valid expression and an interpretation of the deposit of faith such as it is contained in Holy Scripture and in the living Tradition of the Church." A further quote: "Unanimously we have celebrated the Second Vatican Council as a grace of God and a gift of the Holy Spirit: Numerous spiritual fruits spread from it throughout the Universal Church and through the particular Churches, as too for the men of our time."
And on the 25th of January, the Pope, in a sermon given in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, invited all religions to Assisi to pray together for peace.
It suffices to cast a glance over the events of the last three years to see just how close we are now approaching to the establishing of a great worldwide religion presided over by the Pope, having for its one and only dogma the liberty, equality and fraternity of the French Revolution and the Masonic lodges.
Do you think, my dear friends, that to lay out these things gives us joy? It fills us with grief to write them down, our sole concern being the welfare of Mother Church. Similarly, we are far from wishing to judge the Pope — we gladly leave this delicate task to a later judgment of the Church. We do not belong to those who hastily declare that the Papal See is vacant, but we let ourselves be led by the history of the Church. Pope Honorius was anathematized by the Sixth Ecumenical Council because of his false teachings, but no one has ever claimed that Honorius was not Pope. However, it is impossible for us to close our eyes in front of the facts.
And the secret instructions of the Carbonari like their correspondence around the year 1820 are also facts! This is what we read: "The work which we are going to undertake . . . may last several years, perhaps a century . . . what we must strive and wait for, like the Jews wait for the Messiah, is a Pope according to our needs. . . . With that, in order to smash the rock on which God built His Church . . . we have the little finger of Peter's successor involved in the plot. . . . To be sure of a Pope of the kind we wish, we must first of all make him a generation worthy of the reign that we are dreaming of for him. . . . Get yourself the reputation of being a good Catholic. . . . This reputation will gain easy access for our doctrines amongst the young clergy. . . . In a few years the young clergy will in the normal course of things have taken over all functions . . . it will be called upon to choose the Pontiff . . . and this Pontiff, like most of his contemporaries, will necessarily be imbued with the humanitarian principles . . . that we are going to put into circulation."
"We must little by little, very gradually, arrive at the triumph of the revolutionary idea through a Pope. . . . This project has always seemed to me a superhuman calculation."
Moreover, we read in the Little Exorcism of Leo XIII, in its original version: "Now most cunning enemies have filled with bitterness the Church, Bride of the Immaculate Lamb, have made her drink absinth, have laid their wicked hands upon everything beautiful within her. Where the seat of blessed Peter and the throne of Truth was established like a light for the nations, there they have set up the abominable throne of their wickedness, so that having once struck the pastor they might scatter the flock."
What are we to do, faced by this situation which from a human point of view is desperate? Pray, work and suffer with the Church. We are doing what lies within our power, which means first and foremost, in accordance with our statutes, forming holy priests for the Church. The ordinations of la Reja (Argentina), on the first Sunday of Advent, December 1, attended also by Mgr. de Castro Mayer and four of his priests, raised the total new priests ordained for the Society in 1985 to a figure of thirty. That is many and at the same time it is few if one thinks of the urgent appeals for help coming from the whole world.
Just a few weeks ago we were able to open a new house in Gabon. Soon the first two priests of ours will be installed in the priory which we have just acquired with a church in Santiago, Chile. We are envisaging further new foundations in the course of this year: in India, New Zealand, and probably in Brazil. Our outward and physical buildings are no other than signs of the inward and spiritual building up of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, His Church. That is why we shall be opening a seminary in France in the autumn, because Ecône is no longer large enough to receive the numerous vocations coming there.
However, our Sisters, too — our faithful collaborators in our apostolate in retreat houses and priories — are envisaging new foundations. They will take over the Novitiate already existing next to our Argentinean Seminary at la Reja, and in the month of July, they will found an English Novitiate at Armada, Michigan (United States). A German-speaking Novitiate should open in 1987.
Dear friends and benefactors! Be firm in the Faith, maintain your Christian hope, nourish your divine charity! Of holiness, and holiness alone, the world has need today: the holiness of priests and religious and nuns, holiness in the family and in marriage, holiness of youth and old age. "I shall give my children crosses," said the Blessed Virgin at Fatima, and she added, "I will give them numerous and heavy crosses." Undoubtedly, our task is to sow today in tribulations what others tomorrow will harvest in joys. Our present trials will come to an end. Sooner or later, progressive modernism will collapse like a house of cards. Let us start today preparing the future which belongs to Christ and His Most Holy Mother.
Do not let yourselves be taken in by false prophets, false apparitions and revelations, which are often a grave danger to the Faith, like the Pentecostal movement and the fabrications of the Charismatics. The old rosary, the true Mass, and the genuine Sacraments, these are the means given to us by God Himself to make our way to Heaven.
Of course, we are all the time counting upon the help of your charity, so as to be able to face the enormous expenses of each day. Strive to calm the sufferings of the Church bleeding through a thousand wounds, by a generous Lenten donation to the benefit of our various institutions. Almsgiving joined with fasting wipes out sins like water extinguishes fire.
We carry you all within our priestly heart. The charity of Christ makes us dwell day and night with you and your families gathered together to pray in our chapels and missions scattered throughout the world.
May Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, bless you and protect you.
Father Franz Schmidberger