2014-03-16:Fr.Girouard-Sermon-Keep it Simple

Keep It Simple!
Sermon, March 16th, 2014.At St. Joseph “Defender of the Church” Parish.
Aldergrove, BC
Canada

By Rev. Fr. P. Girouard, Old SSPX

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen

So last week... As you know, last week after the Mass here, I starteda trip to our Resistance Mission in Seattle. Actually it is at GigHarbor which is South-West a bit from Seattle, for an evening Mass, andthere was between 25 and 30 people there including the children. And Igot lost a little bit at some point, and got into the back roads wherethe road signs are bigger than the roads themselves, and I realized thatthis was the wrong direction, as things were becoming smaller andsmaller all the time, and I tracked back and finally got on the rightpath, and I arrived there on time for confessions. And it's a very nicegroup there and we had a good talk afterwards. We had a nice meal.

And the next day I left the house of that family where I stayed, atabout eleven o'clock, and I went to Post Falls and there was some rain,and on the mountains there was some wet snow falling, but nothing toobad compared to the Coquihalla Mountains (Note: In the BC Rockies, with ahighway going up to 5,677 feet). So after you have done the Coquihallacircuit for 4 years, you can go through that little mountain. And then Iarrived at Post Falls at 4:20 p.m. and we had confessions at 5:30, so Iwas well in advance, and they rented a big conference room in a hotel,and they have a nice setup. At Seattle, they had a nice setup too. Inthe living room there was a nice little chapel there, but in Post Fallsthey are more numerous, there were about 70 people so they have a bigroom, and a smaller altar than what we have here, but nice. And theyare, (in both groups), well organized with vestments and all that, andthen they had a pot-luck. And the next day I had Mass at 8:30 in themorning and I left at 11:00, and I arrived back here at 6:00 PM. And theround trip, from this church here to all these places, back to my home,it's exactly 1,500 kilometres (= 937.5 miles).

Okay… And it's weird to me: I'm talking to you now, and it seems itwas like a year ago, and it was just last week! And both groups are veryfervent, and it helped me to realize their need, and because, well,here you are providentially lucky. You have mass every week, confessionevery week, and you are fervent, yes and all that, but there, they also,they, I could feel, I could see that, you know, they missed all that.And they really were eager and very happy to have this visit, and itencouraged me indeed to go ahead with the plan of going to that circuittwice a month, starting in May.

So I would like to just say a few words now, as I will not talk aboutthe Gospel of today. I will talk a bit on what's going on in theSociety, and make a kind of a summary of it. A quick one. There isnothing new, really, to announce right now, but
so that we can have a perspective about these things that will beeasy to remember. And that we do not get lost into 10,000 documents toread. There are a lot of documents to read. You have read a lot of thesedocuments, of course, but in fact the situation is pretty simple tofigure out, and this is what I would like to emphasize today.

Because, as you probably remember, last year on March 17th, (whichwill be tomorrow), was the first day of my suspension from active dutyin the Society of St. Pius X. On March 13th, I had beenordered to transfer to Montreal, at the District Headquarters, and tokeep silent. And to make sure I was silent they suspended me straightaway, and they sent a priest of the Society, from Post Falls, to replaceme on Sunday March 17th, so they were pretty quick in their moves. Andso, as you remember, I had a low Mass on that day, without a sermon, andthen we went to celebrate my suspension to a restaurant in Langley, andall that. And, after that, I packed my things and I went into hidingfor 2 months, while you prepared yourselves by studying the documents.And when you've been ready, I came back. So that is history.

But because of this, I would like to go back to these questions,these important questions, and to summarize them, and I think I wouldsay to the people... I would say to all of you and to everybody: "Keep it simple!"Keep it simple in your minds, and when you talk with the people,because in fact the choice to make is a pretty simple choice. The choiceto make is: Do we want to be recognized by crooks and heretics? Shouldwe want them to give us the title of Catholics?
No! I am a Catholic. I know I am a Catholic. My catechism tells me Iam a Catholic. And all the documents of the traditional Popes, so Idon't need people who promote the heresies of Modernism and Liberalism,which have been condemned by previous Popes, I don't need them to giveme the label, or not give me the label, of Catholic. I don't care whatthey think about me. I want to do what is right. I want to do the willof God. I am a Catholic, and with the help of God I will be a Catholicuntil my last breath. I will not change! With the grace of God! But Idon't need these people, who are destroying the Church, to give me alabel; a good one or a bad one, I don't care.

In fact, if they would give me a bad one, I would be more happy! Ifthey would tell me: “You are no good... You are not a part of ourChurch”... I would say: “Well, I know I am not a part of your Church,and I don't want to be a part of your Church, but I'm grateful that youpublicized this. Okay? And if you would excommunicate me from yourChurch, I would be even happier! Because right now I excommunicatemyself. That means I put myself outside of your modernist
structure, because I don't want God, when I die, to judge me, and tosay: ‘You have given your little finger to these people. You havecollaborated in the destruction of my Church, and in the perdition ofmillions of souls. You have given your name to that organization that isdestroying my people; that is scattering my sheep!’ I don't want tohave that accusation against me!”

And the situation with the Society is very simple. They will tellyou: “Well, we have not signed an agreement!” As far as I know that'strue. They have not signed an agreement, yet. But if you look at theDeclaration of the General Chapter
of 2012, and if you look at the Declaration of Bishop Fellay, BishopTissier and Bishop Galaretta of June 27th last year, 2013, you readthese two documents and they both say the same thing. They open the doorto an official recognition,
and to an official canonical regularization of the Society, without putting, as a condition, that Rome has to convert first.
This was our position until 2012, expressed by the Archbishop andexpressed by the General Chapter of 2006. No agreement with Rome. No, toa practical agreement.

What is a practical agreement? That means a canonical regularization,that means an agreement that does not concern doctrine, and this wasconfirmed, and this is confirmed even today by the Society, in the wordsthemselves of Father Rostand in his interview "Against the Rumors". Itis still on his website. He makes the real distinction. I told you; Iwrote an editorial two or three weeks ago about it (Feb. 22, 2014). Hemakes the distinction: what is an agreement. So without agreeing ondoctrine, now the Society accepts the principle of being recognized.They opened the door. Now it only depends on Rome. They don't even ask,in their letter of June, they don't even ask to sign anything. They say:If Rome wants to just approve us, fine!

And then they would go to the Roman structure. Which kind ofstructure? The Novus Ordo structure! That's all! There is only onestructure that we're talking about here. It is the Novus Ordo structure.There is no such thing as a traditional Church in Rome. It is a NovusOrdo, Vatican II, Church, and when you deal with them that's what youare dealing with. You're dealing with the Novus Ordo. The Vatican IIChurch. The Conciliar Church. And if you want that Church to approve ofyou, what you are saying is... I don't care what: "Oh, yes, we want tocontinue to defend doctrine; and Tradition; and we want to continue tofight the errors, blah, blah, blah...” This has... You can talk pagesand pages about it, but when you say: "We want heretics to give us theseal of their approval", in practice, you accept these heresies! Youtalk big on the one hand, but your action, on the other, contradictsyour talk. You say you want to fight for the Truth, but you want to berecognized by heretics! You want to be recognized by the Vatican IIChurch. So the contradiction is there: the words versus the actions.

So the situation is really simple. Since the General Chapter of 2012the Society has officially opened the door to this. The door had beenclosed by the Archbishop. The Archbishop said: We cannot shake handswith them. We cannot have any kind of agreement with them unless they goback to Catholic Truth. Unless they go back to the teaching of theTraditional Church. Unless they condemn Vatican II. And now BishopFellay believes the contrary. You see the contradiction in BishopFellay. (You can find all these documents on the Recusant website)… Twoyears ago, in March, he sent to us priests, in the Cor Unum bulletin, abig letter about, yes, how he is so strong against Modernism and hewants to fight errors, and blah, blah, blah. Yes, yes, yes, yes! Twopages, and then, oops!! The last page: Oh yes, I am still in keepingwith the decision of the Chapter of 2006 that there should be nopractical agreement with an unconverted Rome, but the situation haschanged in Rome! So he doesn't say that the Chapter of 2006 was no good.No, no. It was good for 2006! But in 2012 it is not good anymore,because the complete situation has changed! And then he goes into hisbig dream and fantasy: That he knows many bishops who don't like VaticanII anymore, and there is a change, and the new generation doesn't evenknow about Vatican II, and all these kinds of things, and they are notattached to it, like the older generation, and that things are changingand “I receive secret encouragements from people who are close to thePope”, and all these kinds of things, so now, it has changed, we couldhave such an agreement. And we could help changing the Church from theinside. So he lives in a complete dream! In a complete illusion!

Because between 2006 and 2012, and today, what did we have? We hadAssisi III. We had, I don't know how many World Youth Days, by BenedictXVI, and the new Pope. Do you see a change in the Novus Ordo Church? No!No! Not me. It is the same Novus Ordo, Vatican II, Liberal, Modernist,Church. So the situation is exactly the same. And therefore things arenot complicated. The Society, because of its leadership living in adream, and in an illusion, unfortunately they have changed the laws ofthe Society. They have changed the Society themselves. They have openedthe door to this. So when you open the door, one day, something is goingto happen! Just the fact that you opened the door means what? It meansyou have renounced your principles. A door is there to protect your homeagainst the invaders. We are in a time of war! We're not surrounded bythe friends of Christ here!

And that opening of the door of the Society reminds me of John XXIIIopening the windows of the Church. In 1959, he said: "We need a breathof fresh air!" Remember? And he said: "I want to open the windows of theChurch." Later on his successor, Pope Paul VI, said: "I wonder whathappened to the Church... but somehow, through some cracks in the walls,the smoke of Satan has entered the Church!" But I if I would have beenthere, I would have said: "Well, your Holiness, it was not through somecracks in the walls that the smoke of Satan has entered the Church. Itwas through the windows that John XXIII has opened!" And now we haveBishop Fellay, and the 40 Capitulants who signed the Declaration of theGeneral Chapter, who have opened, not only a window, no! That was notenough for them! They opened the door of their house! The door of thecastle that has been erected by Archbishop Lefebvre to protect, and tofight, as a base of operation, to fight outside and to protect inside,for Christ the King, for the Catholic Church. Now they have opened thedoor. When will the enemy come in? I don't know. I am not a prophet. Butif you leave your door open, the enemy will come. You are basicallyraising the white flag. That's what you're doing: You are surrenderingyourself!

This is... When you read history, you read about... It's even in theBible, there's many histories and stories of sieges in the Bible. Andwhen you read all the other history, the conquerors always asked onething to the cities that they were besieging: "Open the gates! If youopen the gates, we will not kill you. We will not utterly destroy thecity but, if you resist, we will continue the siege and then, when weget in, nobody will survive!" That was always the same choice that theyput. And now what do we have with the General Chapter? We have all theseSuperiors of the Society on the ramparts, on top of the wall, lookingdown at the army besieging the Society and saying to them: “We areagainst you! We are against you! We don't like your doctrine!” But theyhave opened the door! What will these words, these fighting words, whateffects will they have, if you open the door of your castle to theenemy?

They are, right now in Rome, I am sure, laughing at the Society, andthey are really having a good time! Because they know that the Societyhas been defeated! That's all! They're laughing at Bishop Fellay!They're laughing at Bishop Williamson! They're laughing at everybody!They have their field day, and it doesn't matter how long it's going totake before they get inside the castle, but the door is open. So thesituation is very, very simple. And I will finish with quoting for youfrom a document of Archbishop Lefebvre addressed to his priests, onSeptember 6th, 1990. So, two years after the Consecrations and sixmonths before his death. So it's only a few parts of it. You can find iton the Recusant website.
But I will... I have selected a few quotes to show you what was hismind and that, really, what we are doing here and in Seattle, and PostFalls and everywhere else, we are only following what the Archbishopsaid.

So he says here: "Certainly the question of the liturgyand the sacraments is important, but it is not the most important. Themost important question is the question of the Faith. This question isunresolved in Rome. For us it is resolved. We have the Faith of alltime, the Faith of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, of theCatechism of St. Pius X, hence the Faith of the Church, of all theChurch Councils, of all the Popes prior to Vatican II. Now the officialChurch is persevering, we might say pertinaciously, in the false ideasand grave errors of Vatican II, that much is clear." (It's the same thing today: they are still believing Vatican II.)

"And it is striking to see how our fight now is exactlythe same fight as was being fought then by the great Catholics of the19th century, right after the French Revolution, and by the Popes, PiusVI, Pius VII, Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, and so on, PiusX, down to Pius XII. Their fight is summed up in the encyclical 'QuantaCura' with the ‘Syllabus’ of Pius IX, and 'Pascendi Dominici Gregis' ofPius X. These are the two great documents, sensational and shocking intheir day, laying out the Church's teaching in face of the modernerrors, the errors appearing in the course of the Revolution, especiallyin the 'Declaration of the Rights of Man'.”

“This is the fight we are in the middle of today. Exactlythe same fight, and Cardinal Ratzinger has said that as far as he isconcerned Vatican II is 'an anti- Syllabus'. Therewith the Cardinalplaced himself clearly amongst those who are against the Syllabus. Ifthen he is against the Syllabus, (our so-called traditional Benedict XVI)he is adopting the principles of the Revolution. And besides CardinalRatzinger goes on saying, 'Indeed we have now absorbed into Churchteaching, and the Church has opened herself up to, principles which arenot hers, but which come from modern society.'” (So wehave two Churches. The one that has accepted the principles of 1789, theFrench Revolution, and the one, the Catholic Church that still fightsthem! The situation is not really complicated).

And he talks about illusions. He talks about dreams, like those Bishop Fellay has, and he says: "Well, we find ourselves in the same situation. We must not be under any illusions. (Let us not dream. Let us not have wishful thinking. Let us see what is real.) Consequentlywe are in the thick of a great fight, a great fight. We are fighting afight guaranteed by a whole line of popes. Hence we should have nohesitation or fear, hesitation such as: 'Why should we be going on ourown? After all why not join Rome, why not join the pope?' Yes, if Romeand the Pope were in line with Tradition. (That is the condition!)If they were carrying on the work of all the Popes of the 19th and thefirst half of the 20th century, of course, yes! But they themselvesadmit that they have set out on a new path. (It's not only us saying it!) It is the fight of Satan against the City of God. (See how strong he is!) So we do not have to worry. We must trust in the grace of God."

And he said that "we must choose." (I told you the choice is simple, I will quote Archbishop Lefebvre, what he said to Paul VI): "Wehave to choose between you and a Council on the one side, and yourpredecessors on the other; either we go with your predecessors whostated the Church's teaching, or with the novelties of Vatican II."(This is the choice. The Catholic Church or the modern, heretic,liberal Church. And here's what he says about those who want to berecognized, and those who left us to be recognized... The Fraternity ofSaint Peter): "They are betraying us - they are shakinghands with the Church's destroyers. They are shaking hands with peopleholding modernist and liberal ideas condemned by the Church. So they aredoing the devil's work!" (The words of ArchbishopLefebvre about those who are recognized by those crooks and heretics ofRome: "They are doing the devil's work!" And they are! And then hesays): "One cannot both shake hands with modernists and keep following Tradition. It is not possible." (And I repeat: "It is not possible." This condemns the dream of Bishop Fellay and his friends. I repeat): "One cannot both shake hands with modernists and keep following Tradition."

I continue his quote: "This is what causes us a problem with certain lay folk (and today I would add with priests of the Society and with the hierarchy of the Society), whilevery nice, very good people, they are all for the Society, theyaccepted the Consecrations, but they have a kind of a deep down regretthat they are no longer with the people they used to be with, people whodid not accept the Consecrations and who are now against us. They say:'It's a pity we are divided. Why not meet up with them. Let's go andhave a drink together, reach out a hand to them.' (And he says): That'sa betrayal! Those saying this give the impression that at the drop of ahat they would cross over and join those who left us. They must make uptheir minds." But unfortunately they did make up theirminds. Bishop Fellay, and all that. They opened the door to the enemy.Wide open, with the General Chapter. They made up their minds. What theywant is the whole of the Society following them. Instead of leaving us,like those who founded the Fraternity of St. Peter, instead of leavingus alone to continue the fight, they are trying to bring with them allthe Priests, all the Sisters, all the Brothers and all the lay folks.

So it's pretty clear, you see? There is only one more quote… Here!About what should we do in the future and all that, and he says aboutRome: "However..." (if we continue, the Society, to be faithful to the Catholic Church, to the Popes of all times), "However,one day they will be obliged to recognize that the Society represents aspiritual force and a strength of the Faith which is irreplaceable andwhich they will have I hope, the joy and satisfaction to make use of,but, when they have come back to their traditional Faith."Until then there is no shaking of hands. There's no having drinks ormeals even with them. We should not even talk to them. You go back tothe Catholic Faith, to the traditional Faith, and then we talk!

And we should close the gate of the castle before it’s too late. Andsince they don't want to close that door, that they have opened twoyears ago, those who want to save their souls, those who want to remainfaithful to God, to the Catholic Church, those who do not want, inanyway, to participate, to give their names to the destruction of theChurch,
those will have to get out of the Society. As we had to get out ofthe official structure of the Modern Church, now we have to get out ofthe official structure of the Modern SSPX. Because we don't want God tosay: "You have remained silent! You have remained inside! And,therefore, you have cooperated in the destruction of the Church!"

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.