The Powerful Witness of Persecution

I was talking to a friend last Friday after our holy hour for priests and she made a brilliant point about what's happening these days in the modern, post Vatican II Church. Here's the question. In the history of the Church over the millennia, who were persecuted and martyred? Who were executed in the Roman Coliseum and covered with pitch and set on fire to light Nero's garden? The Pharisees? The Sadducees? 

No indeed! It was those who were faithful to Christ and His Church -- completely faithful! You know, the believers who refused to the point of death to offer a pinch of incense to the false gods.

What about today? Who gets persecuted? Not liberal and cafeteria Catholics! Not the synodal German bishops! Not those promoting modernism or the gay agenda or abortion. Not the false Chinese bishops chosen by the Communist government. Have any of them been threatened with disciplinary action or excommunication? No! In fact, some of those whose actions out them as obvious enemies of the Church are welcomed, coddled, and even offered positions on Vatican academies or invited to address ecclesial meetings.

How about on the traditional side? Is anyone persecuting the sedevacantists or the FSSP and Ecclesia Dei groups? No. The sedevacantists are ignored and the traditional groups in union with Rome are supported. Ironically they make useful allies in the attack on Sacred Tradition  the position they ostensibly uphold.

So who exactly are the targets? Where is the persecution? Who's under constant threat and media attack from the Vatican, the liberal (including Catholic) media, the modernists, and even from other traditionalists.

Anyone? Anyone?

The SSPX! 

There's a constant barrage of attacks from all sides. Combine that with the additional strategy of setting up FSSP communities near SSPX chapels in hopes of recruiting the faithful with their pocketbooks back to the diocesan churches.

Has the FSSP set up any chapels near sedevacantist churches? Have any bishops invited them them to organize parishes near modernist churches like Holy Trinity in Georgetown? Not that I've heard. Enlighten me, please, if you know of any.Nothing points to the truth of the SSPX mission more graphically than the on-going persecution as my wise friend said. 

The second sign, of course, is the abundant fruit from their ministry. The SSPX attracts more and more laity to their chapels due to their faithful adherence to doctrine and tradition, their excellent preaching and catechism, and the wisdom of their confessors.

Meanwhile the leaders of the SSPX make it clear that they only want to serve Holy Mother Church and bring her back to who she is, the Bride of Christ committed to the truth and adhering to the faith as taught by Jesus Christ and the apostles without the corruption of novelty and error. As Archbishop Lefebvre always said, he only wanted to pass on what he had been given. Meanwhile the truth is inadvertently demonstrated like the blowup sinking Titanic the pope saw when he visited the summer Bible camp. What savvy Catholic didn't laugh and shake his head over the obvious visual message? Is that the barque of Peter under our modernist version of the Arian heresy?

But there is no cause for despair. Jesus has not abandoned His Church! He continues, through the fire of the Holy Spirit, to raise up authentic shepherds for His Bride. 

And who are the allies of faithful clerics when the Church reels under the weight of error? Who fights the diseases infecting the Body of Christ along with the true shepherds and doctors of the Church? The faithful laity, of course. 

We are in a situation today much like the Arian heresy of the fourth century when the entire Catholic world seemed to be owned by the heretics. St. John Henry Newman  wrote about that terrible era:

In that time of immense confusion, the divine dogma of Our Lord's divinity was proclaimed, enforced, maintained, and (humanly speaking) preserved far more by the Ecclesia Docta [laity] than by the Ecclesia Docens [hierarchy]...The body of the episcopate was unfaithful to its commission, while the body of the laity was faithful to its baptism....At one time the pope, at other times the patriarchal metropolitan, and other great sees, at other times general councils, said what they should not have said, or did what obscured and compromised revealed truth, while, on the other hand, it was the Christian people who, under providence, were the ecclesiastical strength of Athanasius, Hilary, Eusebius of Vercellae, and other great solitary confessors, who would have failed without them. [The Arians of the Fourth Century, 1908]

Yes, my wise friend hit the nail on the head with her comment. And it is our job as laity to proclaim the truth and remain faithful to the Gospel. We must work to bring the leaders of Holy Mother Church back to their senses. The Church is indefectible and cannot err; the men who lead her are not indefectible and can be in grievous error. As St. Robert Bellarmine wrote, those who attempt "to destroy the Church" must be resisted and opposed:

"Just as it is licit to resist the pontiff that aggresses the body, it is also licit to resist the one who aggresses souls or who disturbs civil order, or above all, who attempts to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by preventing his will from being executed; it is. not licit, however, to judge, punish, or depose him, since these acts are proper to a superior." [De Romano Pontifice, book 2 chapter 29]

Whether the pope intends to destroy the Church is a question for God and the pope's conscience. There is no denying, however, that many actions and statements from both Francis and Leo (and other past popes) are, in fact, scandalous and damaging. The laity as Newman says are the "ecclesiastical strength" of faithful shepherds. 

What Dietrich von Hildebrand said about our shepherds also remains true. Those who maintain and live the authentic Catholic faith should be the joy of our spiritual fathers. Instead, we are treated like disobedient and errant stepchildren, a nuisance and a bother. If we are excommunicated along with the bishops on July 1st, I think they will be happy to be rid of us. What a sad thought! But it's nothing new. How many faithful sons and daughters were thrown out of their churches during the Arian heresy? So many that St. Athanasius consoled them they saying they [the Arian heretics] own the buildings, but we possess the faith.

Our duty today is to persevere, pray, and do penance for the salvation of souls including the pope and the unfaithful magisterium. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. Let us do all we can to stop the hirelings chopping at the trunk. If you want to do something more, always speak the truth in charity about what's happening in the Church. I will be posting some comments from sites on social media and websites by those who refuse to remain silent. Are you one of them? Share links to your responses to the novelties and evils infecting Holy Mother Church. Inspire others to join the battle and defend the faith -- always, always in charity without rancor or bitterness. And thank God if you are found worthy of being persecuted for the Word.

Come Holy Spirit!

Mary, Seat of Widsom, pray for us.

St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, pray for us.