Interview Fr. Niklaus Pfluger
Interview of Neue Luzerner Zeitung (Feb. 15, 2009) with Fr. Niklaus Pfluger, First Assistant to the Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X. Neue Luzerner Zeitung is a Swiss newspaper. Its questions are of a liberal tenor and very critical towards the SSPX and the Catholic Church.
Father Pfluger, the lifting of the excommunications of the four bishops of your community created a violent uproar. Do you understand this?
No. The lifting was overdue and is ultimately only the consequence of the freeing of the Latin Mass in 2007. The withdrawal of the excommunication entails in the countries of German language and especially in Germany a violent attack against Pope Benedict XVI; it is a struggle for power and an orchestrated festival of indignation. The reason is a deep resentment against the German Pope; the “anti-Roman effect” is reinstated. The SSPX is only a stalking horse.
The Pope has been heavily criticized not only in Germany, but also in Switzerland.
Every bishop tries to tell the Pope what he has to do or what he must not do. A preposterous example is the Church in Switzerland. The faithful are running away, the seminaries are empty, the bishops have the “Röschenz problem” [an apostate priest in Switzerland who receives a lot of public attention—Ed.], they have one scandal after the other, but Bishop Kurt Koch [current president of the Swiss Episcopal conference—Ed.] undertakes to prove in a “letter to the faithful” of seven pages that the SSPX is not Catholic–giving a rather frightened and whiny impression. Or consider the lecture of the bishop of St. Gallen to the Pope regarding the lifting of the excommunications. This is simply embarrassing. If the bishops feel compelled to talk all the time about the “good news” and the “love of neighbor,” why do they not apply it to us? It is a minimum of human decency not to strike someone who is lying on the ground, but that is exactly what the bishops are doing.
The debate was enhanced by the revisionist theories of your bishop, Richard Williamson.
Bishop Williamson is a unique case, but since he is a bishop, this single event is shedding an unreal light on our community; it makes it look as if the Pope rehabilitated a group of historical revisionists. This is nonsense.
Is the Church allowed to receive someone back who denies the gas chambers of Auschwitz?
To the remarks of Bishop Williamson, Cardinal Barragan rightly stated that you can be excluded from the Catholic Church only because of a serious disagreement with its teaching, not because of a sin. The Church knows many dogmas but not the dogma of the Holocaust. In any case, it is neither in the Apostle’s Creed nor in the Creed of Paul VI. Not yet!
Do I understand correctly that Bishop Williamson’s opinions about the gas chambers are not the opinion of your congregation?
Of course not. A bishop can speak about questions of doctrine, faith or morals with religious authority. In secular questions the Church does not have any teaching authority. In such questions everyone is fallible, even a bishop or the Pope. Bishop Williamson does not deny historical truth.
Is anti-Semitism one of your principles?
In view of the fact that Jesus Christ was, in His human nature, a Jew Himself, as were the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and many Fathers of the Church, anti-Semitism would go against our own existence. This is not even an option.
But this reproach is raised against your congregation.
As early as 1928, the Holy Office, the organization that preceded the actual “Congregation of the of Faith,” issued a decree in which any form of anti-Semitism was strictly condemned. Under the term “anti-Semitism” was understood any form of hatred or hostility against the people who were the chosen people by God in the Old Covenant. Anti-Semitism was and is totally outside the intentions of our founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and of the SSPX as a whole.
Why do you pray for the conversion of the Jews on Holy Friday?
If this is anti-Semitic then you have to consider all Christianity as such. The missionary commission of Christ implies the Jews as well. According to the Bible, the New Covenant, which was instituted by Christ, replaced the Old Covenant of the Jews. There are texts in the Council with a double sense; they give the impression that the Church says “good-bye” to its former teachings. This is exactly the question which we ask the Pope to answer: Is the Council opposed to 2,000 years of Tradition or is it to be understood in the context of traditional teaching? If it has to be understood exclusively in the context of Tradition, then there won’t be any theological differences. But if there is a break with Tradition, then we maintain the Catholic dogmas, because those have been proclaimed as unchanging and eternal truth. This is imperative for us.
Is it possible for your Society to recognize the Council, as you have been asked?
As I mentioned, we do not deny the Council as an historical fact, but we ask that ambiguous texts and decrees be explained and revised if necessary. In the decree of January 21, 2009, it is clearly stated that after the annulment of the excommunications, “necessary” discussions about the doctrine of the Council would have to follow. This is willed by the Pope, and we have asked for it over the last 30 years: this is why the bishops are so upset.
If the Pope follows your interpretation of the Council, a dialogue with Jews and other religions would be difficult.
There is a difference between a dialogue concerning practical, humanitarian questions–for instance, religious assistance in Christian hospitals or worldwide poverty. Why should there not be a common initiative of Jews and Christians to condemn civil war in the Gaza Strip? But in matters of eternal life, of the salvation of souls, a dialogue is not possible. Here is needed a mission and conversion.
According to your beliefs, 1.2 billion Muslims, 900 million Hindus, 500 million Buddhists, and millions of Protestants and members of other beliefs are wrong. How is that possible?
I am much more worried about those Christians who are baptized in the name of Jesus but do not live according to the Christian Faith. They are living a kind of practical atheism and a spiritually lethal indifferentism–the Jews would call it paganism. For them, the saying of Christ in St. John’s Gospel applies: “If you were blind, you should not have sin: but now you say: ‘We see.’ Your sin remaineth.”
Is such a rigorous attitude not disseminating hatred? Is tolerance not proper to Christianity?
The concept of tolerance which you mention is alien to all monotheistic religions, not simply to Christianity. For all these religions, the question of truth has precedence. This truth became a person in Jesus Christ: you can say it became visible. This is the reason why it is exclusive without exceptions, so that Christ could say: “He who believes in me will be judged according to his works. He who does not believe is already judged, because he does not believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Indifference to truth is not a religious attitude, but an expression of lack of religion, of unbelief in God. And it is certainly not encouraged by the Bible.
The Catholic Church is losing members with its attitudes towards celibacy, birth control, and female ordination...
Please excuse my expression, but that is nonsense. The Catholic Church does not lose members because of celibacy or its stand on the question of ordaining women, nor because of its moral teaching. Not one single person. If this were true, then the Protestants and Old Catholics [a liberal Protestant group in Switzerland—Ed.] would not have to sell their churches but would instead have to build bigger ones.
Nevertheless, you want to maintain ultraconservative teachings against the mainstream trend?
After 50 years of changes in the Church, in the sense of the Council, the results are devastating. In Germany and Switzerland the ecclesiastical structure can only be maintained with Church taxes–without religious zeal. If you look at France, the average age of the clergy in many dioceses is far past 60; a pastor has to take care of 50 to 60 parishes–even more in some regions. In the German speaking countries the situation will be the same in 10 to 20 years; everything will be shut down. There will no longer be a shortage of priests because there will be no more “official church” and no faithful. And it is the same thing in other countries.
For instance, I came just back from India. Regions which formerly had a Catholic majority have relapsed into paganism. Catholic bishops and priests are the leaders of this trend; these are the achievements of the Council. Or take Brazil as an example: Those who practice religion in that country are evangelicals or traditional Catholics. Since the 1960s and ’70s we have not witnessed a flowering of Christianity, but a unique decline. This is evident to anyone who looks at statistics.
Are you happy about a “conservative Pope”?
This is the essential office of the Pope. He has to decide whether he wants to maintain the course of the last 50 years in the face of reality or whether he has the courage to change course. We can suppose that Pope Benedict XVI recognizes this decline, which is unique in the whole history of the Church. And apparently he realizes that the Church is not able to survive without returning to Tradition. That is why we had the re-admission of the Tridentine Mass and the lifting of the excommunications. He preludes the era of “post-Vatican II.”
The return to Tradition will mean that even more Catholics will leave the Church. What do you want in the end: a small conservative and exclusive group at the heart of the Church or a broad, heterogeneous foundation?
When the storm grows strong, the dry wood splits first. And that is okay. We are in the presence of a healthy shrinking process of the Church–which was overdue. A shallow and pale Christianity is bound to die. In the present crisis of faith those who do not have roots and reduce religion to a kind of humanism will leave. This is certainly not a real loss. You may have pity on the bishops and priests in the official church. Typical is the frightened tenor in the letter of Bishop Koch mentioned above. Instead of awakening enthusiasm for the Faith, and instead of giving a Christian example, they are grieved about the loss of church taxes. What counts is not the number of those who leave, but those who practice their Faith.
Is this the reason why churches and monasteries are empty?
The majority of those who left the Church in the 1960s and ’70s, who did not go to Mass any longer, who did not live according to Catholic moral standards, were thrilled by the reforms after the Council. Nevertheless they left. You cannot assess a religion like a political party by means of evaluation of public sympathy. In that case, Islam would not be a challenge to us. What we need is consistently practiced Christian Faith. Read Gaudium and Spes, the longest decree of the Council: what an outdated document! A Church that wants to keep up with modern times will always be behind and too late. The illusions of the Council have broken. We do not have to be sad about it.
A last question: The Pope is lifting the excommunication of your four bishops. Would he not have to rehabilitate Hans Küng as well?
Of course, in the province of Lucerne, people think it is not possible to bypass Hans Küng. I am not sure whether Küng really wants to be rehabilitated. After all, he made a lot of money by losing his ecclesiastical teaching position. His merit consists in the reduction of the Christian Faith to a shallow system of ethics without any importance; in a euphemistic attempt he calls it “global ethics.” To be honest, I think that the ethics of the Buddhist monk in the new movie Mongol by Sergei Bodrov is much more true and convincing; he dies at least for a noble and unselfish cause.
May I add a personal memory? I recall a conversation with a bishop from Switzerland who is still in office. Hans Küng was mentioned, and the prelate said that everyone knew that Küng would be upset with the Church and the Pope simply because he did not have an ecclesiastical career; unlike his former colleague, Joseph Ratzinger. So you see: it is all about money and power. Even a priest is not exempt from that. Not even after Vatican II.
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