Did you see my article about Fr. Paolo Farinella? He is the Italian priest who said that in lifting the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops, Pope Benedict perpetrated a "rape" of the Church.
A reader, and old friend, sent a translation of the whole thing.
Here is the note my friend sent. We should take a look at it before getting to actual translation.
As requested.
I think you should publish this hateful thing in its entirety. It is good to shine bright sunlight on the rot.
I also think you should mention, for your non-Italian based readership, that La Repubblica has long been a clearing house for this type of hate-filled anti-Church drivel. The editor/founder, Eugenio Scalfari, has publicly called His Holiness “a thoroughly second-rate thinker.”
Is it not interesting how Don Farinella is perfectly free to be a “conscientious objector” to the magisterial pronouncement of the Pope in Summorum, and yet the Lefebvrists are mysteriously not free to be “conscientious objectors” to the Council? (Of course, neither position is acceptable.) At the end, after declaring that the Pope has abandoned the Catholic faith, he declares himself free to not recognize the authority of the Pope, in exactly the same way as the radical splinter groups like the SSPV did. Fundamentally, the devil’s bag of tricks is pretty small.
Also, I would appreciate it, if you do publish this, if you could just mention that I tried to be very literal, and that no translation can really do justice to the vicious and sarcastic tone of this vile screed. Some of the expressions (arrampicarsi sugli specchi, truppe cammellate) are pregnant with sarcasm in a way that doesn’t come out in English without a lot of explanatory notes.
That is a good preabmble.
Keep in mind my observation that, now that the implications of the news is really hitting the dissenters and progressivists, the real vitriol will start pouring out.
Let’s read Fr. Farinella’s observations. Mind you that what I sent was a bit unclear, insofar as the divisions of the article and translator’s comments are concerned, but you are smart and can sort it out.
The Pope, the Lefebvrists, the Council
by Don Paolo Farinella
Is the Pope still catholic?
I should feel satisfaction in saying “I told you so”, but instead I feel bitterness and anger. On September 14, 2007, opposing with all my might the introduction of the pre-conciliar Mass desired by the current Pope, I wrote in (the newspaper) “24 ore” a pamphlet (Return to the Old Mass, Gabrielli Editore) in which I declared myself a conscientious objector, and, while everybody else played around with the legends about the “Mass in Latin”, I demonstrated that the explicit goal of the Pope was the abolition of the ecumenical council Vatican II. Some people spoke of “exaggeration”. Today, those who did not believe (me) at the time have the proof, and I hope no-one will reduce what his happening to merely internal affairs of the Church which have no interest for the rest of the world.
a) The return to opposition to the council
The revocation of the excommunication of the four schismatic Lefebvrists bishops is a rape perpetrated by the Pope against the Church, because, of his own initiative, he approves the position and defines that Vatican II never happened. The Pope in fact does not ask the Lefebvrists beforehand for any act of acceptance of the teaching of the council as a condition for the revocation of the excommunication, but simply readmits them as if nothing had happened, taking a position against the Popes who suspended them a divinis (Paul VI) and excommunicated them as schismatics (John Paul II). Either the Lefebvrists were schismatics, or the Pope who excommunicated them did so illicitly, since the conditions of the excommunication have not changed. Or, the current Pope has made a mistake, a very big one. On the same day of the revocation of the excommunication (January 24, 2009), the head of the schismatics, Fellay, in two different communiqués to his followers, writes:
[WHAT FARINELLA WRITES IN HIS ARTICLE, AS IF IT WERE A QUOTATION OF BISHOP FELLAY:]
“We are ready to write the Creed with our own blood, to sign the anti-modernist oath, we accept and make our own all the councils up to the First Vatican Council. Yet we can but express some reservations concerning the Second Vatican Council a council “different from the others.” In all this, we are convinced that we remain faithful to the line of conduct indicated by our founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, whose reputation we hope to soon see restored.
In the same way, in the talks that will follow with the Roman authorities, we wish to examine the deep causes of the present situation, and, in finding and appropriate remedy, to reach a solid restoration of the Church. … Our Fraternity wishes to be able to help the Pope ever more to put an end to the unprecedented crisis which is currently shaking the Catholic world. … We are also happy that the decree of January 21 2009 recognizes as necessary “meetings” with the Holy See; these meetings will allow the FSSPX to set forth the basic doctrinal reasons which it considers to be the source of the Church’s current difficulties. In this renewed climate, we have the firm hope to quickly reach a recognition of the rights of the Catholic Tradition” (Menzingen 24 gennaio 2009. Bernard Fellay).
[WHAT BISHOP FELLAY ACTUALLY WROTE:]
“We are ready to write the Creed with our own blood, to sign the anti-modernist oath, the profession of faith of Pius IV. We accept and make our own all the councils up to the First Vatican Council. Yet we cannot but express some reservations concerning the Second Vatican Council which intended to be a council different from the others. (cf. Addresses by John XXIII and Paul VI) NB how Farinella, by omitting the words in italics, and citation of the Popes, makes it seem like “different from the others” is tendentious assertion of the Lefebvrists, rather the Popes’ own definition of the Council. In all this, we are convinced that we remain faithful to the line of conduct indicated by our founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, whose reputation we hope to soon see restored…."
NB: We also hope enter into these “discussions” – which the decree recognizes as “necessary” – on the doctrinal questions which are opposed to the perennial teaching of the Magisterium (au magistere de toujours). We cannot fail to recognize the unprecedented crisis which is shaking the Church today: the crisis of vocations, the crisis of religious practice, of catechism, of the frequenting of the sacraments. Before us, Pope Paul VI spoke of an infiltration of the “smoke of Satan” and the “self-destruction” of the Church. John Paul II did not hesitate to say that Catholicism in Europe was almost in a state of “silent apostasy” A short time before his election to the Papacy, Benedict XVI himself compared the Church to a “ship that was taking on water from every side. All of these words in italics are omitted by Farinella, who seems to want us to believe that the “crisis” exists only in the minds of the FSSPX and the “apostate” Benedict XVI, not, of course, in his immediate predecessors, whom Farinella alone truly loves and understands.
So also, in these discussions with the Roman authorities, do we wish to examine the deep causes of the present situation, and, finding therein an appropriate remedy, to achieve a solid restoration of the Church.[BACK TO THE ARTICLE]
b) Someone is shamelessly lying
Those like the Vatican Press Office, and the president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who talk about a gesture of clemency and magnanimity on the part of the Pope, lie, knowing that they are lying, because they know all too well that the problems here are doctrinal, and have to do with only one question: “Is Vatican II at least a council like the others, the acceptance of which is essential to be Catholic, or else is it ad libitum, that is, at the discretion of each persons sensibilities, being only a minor council for a select group?”. How can one reconcile the declarations of the head of the Lefebvrists, who, on the same day as the excommunications were revoked, publicly declared that they will never accept the Vatican II and its teaching for “basic doctrinal reasons” ?
There are no alternatives: either the Pope is lying, or the head of the Lefebvrists is lying, or they are both lying. If the Lefebvrists can lay aside and disdain an ecumenical council, is it licit for a Catholic, while remaining Catholic, to refuse for doctrinal reasons the teaching of Benedict XVI, if he considers it harmful to the Catholic faith? I think here we see can see pretty clearly what Don Farinella really wants out of all of this.
If the Lefebvrists can be re-admitted into the Catholic Church without having to explicitly accept the teaching of an ecumenical council, why does the Pope not make a similar “gesture of mercy” towards those Catholics who have been thrown out of the Church for “excessive progressivism”, guilty of considering the Council unfinished business? What place in the Church do the liberation theologians have, who have been persecuted, demeaned and driven out? If the Council is not definitive, why use ‘two weights and two measures’ ?
Can I insist that my theological positions, diametrically opposed to those of the Lefebvrists, must have the same citizenship rights within the Church, thus putting an end to an ostracism and isolation that have lasted more than a quarter of a century? Since all of the “prophecies” which I wrote in 2007 and earlier are coming true, should the bishop not ask for pardon and restore to me my dignity as a full-fledged Catholic which I believe I deserve?
From my point of view, I foresee and predict (as is said in the law: nunc pro tunc) that Benedict XVI’s next move will be a declaration that the Tridentine Mass must be regarded as the “ordinary form”, and the reformed Mass of Paul VI as the “extraordinary form” , this in order to reach within a reasonable time of about ten years the abolition of the latter, and the restoration of the Tridentine climate, to go out to the re-conquest of the modern world with the troupes of the traditionalists, trusted warriors of the restoration of medieval Christianitas.
c) Anti-Semitism as a theological foundation
Of the schismatic bishops, suspended a divinis, a certain Richard Williamson, had the impudence to deny the Holocaust on the very eve of his readmission to Catholic communion, which, by kind concession of the Pope, coincided with the eve of the Day of Remembrance of the Shoàh. Nothing happens by chance, everything has a meaning and a symbolism. Following the reactions within and outside the Church, the Vatican, the Italian Episcopal Conference, and the other “interested parties” manned the barricades to ‘make square the circle’ , without realizing that this is impossible. For the Lefebvrists, anti-Semitism is a characteristic note of their theology, according to which the Jews are “deicides”, for eternity, unless they convert and recognize Jesus Christ as their Messiah and God. In the letter of apology sent to the Pope by the confederate and head of the Lefebvrists, Bernard Fellay, he asks forgiveness of the Pope, but not of the Jewish people and all of the Jews who died in the concentration camps at the hands of the Nazis. “The patch is worse than the tear” . The Lefebvrists completely reject the conciliar document “Nostra Aetate” which speaks in positive terms of the Jewish religion, and in which is rejected for the first time the “deicide” as a fault of the whole people of Israel, assigning the responsibility only to the “Jewish authorities and their followers” at the time of Jesus (n. 4/866).
d) Popes make mistakes
In the Catholic Church, from a Catholic point of view, the Lefebvrists and Vatican II cannot coexist. If they come in, It must go out; if It remains, they cannot enter. In my opinion, in fact, the difficult part of the problem has not yet been resolved, and this reconciliation will bring more ruptures that anyone can imagine. I pray that the Pope will retread his steps and take up again the Catholic faith which he has knowingly abandoned on the doorstep of the Lefebvrists’ Fraternity. Otherwise, we consider ourselves dispensed from recognizing his authority, as the Lefebvrists, have refused and continue to refuse authority of John XXIII, Paul VI, and in part of John Paul. All of this demonstrates that confusion reigns in the leadership of the Catholic Church, proves that Popes often infallibly make mistakes. Big time.
Remember folks, in the days ahead you will hear a mantra surrounding the theme that the Pope only excersises his ministry of unity when he tries to reconciled the left.
