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NOTE: Many of the links below
are to articles which were originally on Steve Hand's website. Since Mr. Hand took down his site, the links are failing.
I will try to find the original articles and create new pages on this site for them. But in many cases, this will be
impossible. Sorry for any inconvenience. ~Bill
"Exaggeration is the honest man's lie"---Anonymous
Integrism (Extreme Traditionalists) and Schismatic Views
"Schism
is proximate to heresies"
"There are an infinite number of ways to fall, but there is only one way to stand."
--G.K. Chesterton
Note on "Integrism / Integrists": There are degrees of Integrism, and not all are culpable, as Dietrich Von Hildebrand has
noted, since many have no intention of challenging the authority of the Pope and the living magisterium or the Second Vatican
Council, but only desire access to the Tridentine rite of Mass. Nothing we say here should serve as any indictment of these.
The Integrist's, however, who (exclusively) concern us at this page are the extreme traditionalists who are in doctrinal
opposition to the Roman Catholic Church, and who confuse accidentals for the substance, the part for the whole, and so
set themselves against the Holy Father, the Second Vatican Council, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, etc., in
the interests of a private judgment which the Council of Trent condemned as heretical. See our link on Neo-Modernism
also.
Please note: It is the actual writings and actions of those in error we assess
here, not any intentions which we cannot divine, nor explanations. If writings express materially schismatic or heretical
notions, that is what we address. If such writings do not really express the true intentions of the authors then such authors
have an obligation to retract and withdraw them. To continue to allow such writings to be sold or otherwise circulated is
to attack the faith in the "external forum" in violation of "canon 1321 §3 which presumes imputability, stating: "Where there
has been an external violation, imputability is presumed, unless it appears otherwise." Thus malice (dolus) is at the root
of imputability in any such public--"external"--- declarations, for there is a deliberate public intention on the part of
its authors to withdraw submission to the Roman Pontiff and to obstinately oppose the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
St. Thomas' Measure of truth
The Jansenists considered St. Thomas a heretic for rejecting a great deal of Augustinian "tradition"
and opting to assimilate part of the work of the good pagan, Aristotle. TCR exasperates some extremists for following the
methodology of the Angelic Doctor, which is the methodology of John Paul II and the Church also, namely in loving Truth wherever
it is found, assimilating truths into the Truth whenever possible. For the mind is oriented to truth, just as our hunger is
oriented to bread. TCR is party to none but the living Magisterium of the Church.
Warning to Pastors: Integrism represents the unpaid debt of liberal wishy-washy
local churches and pastors. Nature and grace abhor a vaccum, and if Father Joe is theologically in la-la land, don't be surprised
to find an "independent" catholic church flyer on your windshield someday; or maybe the kids, like Johnny Walker, will fly
to Yemen and join the Taliban, or any group with half a spiritual life and conviction. There are in fact no "conservatives,"
"liberals," and "traditionalists." There are only those who obey the living Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, which
alone can interpret tradition and scripture, and those who do not.
The Latin Liturgical Tradition: Extending and Solidifying
the Continuity
By Msgr. Arthur Calkins
Pontifical Ecclesia dei Commission, Rome
Last year, for instance, a group of American "traditionalists" published a manifesto
addressed directly to the Holy Father and entitled We Resist You to the Face [7] while another prominent American "traditionalist"
who admitted that he had "no formal theological training" presented a list of 64 questions to Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, requesting further clarifications on the Congregation's declaration Dominus
Iesus seemingly because of perceived lack of clarity in that document's presentation of Catholic doctrine.[8]
Monsignor Arthur B. Calkins on the Mass, the Council,
the Post-conciliar
Period and Tradition
Roman Catholic Ecumenism
By Stephen Hand
Catholic ecumenism — not its distortions — is of the essence of the Church
to the extent that the Church will always care for those with whom she has been related historically and sacramentally. A
Mother never ceases to long for the return of her children who have left and gone astray. Pre-Vatican II Catholics and the
Greek Orthodox — surrounded by many common enemies — prayed together for unity at the Council of Florence. How
could they not? It is the sick, not the well, who need a physician. Only the Pope and the Magisterium can judge what kind
of solicitude toward those separated from the Church is required in any given era (in some eras, strict, even harsh; in others
not so). This, again, is not to say that the Church does not risk rejection, contempt, or even behave naively herself at times.
Florence showed how the Church loved and "lost" in a given era.
Religious Freedom:
Innovation and Development
By Avery Dulles
Archbishop Lefebvre and the revisionists, for very different reasons, agreed that
DH was a reversal of earlier Catholic teaching. Their thesis, however, receives no support from the document itself, which
declares explicitly that it "leaves intact the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral obligation of individuals and societies
toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ." It also claims to be speaking in harmony with the tradition and doctrine
of the Church and to be developing the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the human person and on the constitutional
order of society.
On development vs. rupture
FIRST THINGS
Canonist, Liturgical Scholar:
No Tridentine
Rite Possible Without Indult
John M. Huels, OSM, JCD
...Briefly, they argue: (1) the 1570 bull of Pope Pius V, Quo primum tempore, contains
a “perpetual indult” allowing the “Tridentine” rite of the Mass to be celebrated forever; (2) Pope
Paul VI did not properly promulgate the new Missal of 1970; and (3) the Missal of Pope Pius V may be celebrated in virtue
of immemorial custom. In these same circles, others claim that those who have indults permitting the use of the 1962 Roman
Missal may use other editions before 1962. They argue: (4) indults are favors that must be interpreted broadly; and (5) Cardinal
Mayer gave informal permission to a European “indult community” to use the pre-Pius XII rites for Holy Week. OPINION:
None of these opinions is correct..."
The Tridentine Missal and the definition of Indult in Canon Law
Canon Law Society of America
Custom and the 1962 Roman Missal
Peter Vere, JCL, Fr. Michael Brown, JCL
We Lack Nothing if
We Have the Eucharistic Christ
We love all the Church's liturgies (not to be confused with their abuses) because
they issue in the Blessed Fruit Who is Jesus Christ the Lord. We must feel sincerely bad for all those, whether Neo-modernists
or Integrists, who rely on mere forms and risk missing Him, the Eucharistic Christ, in their emotional polemics (Isa 58: 5-14;
Amos 5:21-24.) The Church is today reforming the reform, and whatever she ultimately decides in this regard will be
our joy. Meanwhile we have everything and lack nothing when we have the Eucharistic Christ. The End of the liturgy
is Jesus Christ Who sanctifies the means and form. |
Congregation Issues Declaration
On Suspended
Priest
By
Nicholas Gruner, suspended by Vatican
Catholics warned against his ministries and "peace conference"
"The Congregation for the Clergy, upon the mandate from a higher authority, wishes
to state that Rev. Nicholas Gruner is under an 'a divinis' suspension, which has been confirmed by a definitive sentence of
the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature.
Sister Lucy Rejects Grunerites Once Again
Fatima: No New Mysteries
VIS
To Whose Competence Does it Belong To Interpret
Vatican II?
By Stephen Hand
This article responds to the position taken by some who believe that they can use
private judgment to determine that the Church and Council are infected with "magisterial positivism" and by false philosophies
and modernism, "the synthesis of all heresies." They arrive at these conclusions by pitting the Magisterium of the present
against that of the past. Stephen Hand explains why only the Church can interpret her own tradition, even as both the neo-modernists
and Integrists seek to subvert the Church's intentions.
Succumbing neither to the left or right
The Dialogue Proposed by the Church: Love, not compromise
Catholic
Tradition: A Mediated Gift
By Stephen Hand
For Roman Catholics Tradition is a source of revelation. This is a major and substantial
difference between Catholics and all Protestants. Unlike most Protestants, who believe that the Faith of Jesus Christ is completely
perspicuous and can be apprehended in an unmediated way by recourse of individuals to the holy Scriptures, the Church teaches
that even Scripture is part of, and a witness to, the Tradition which preceded it in the economy of salvation. This being
so, it is the task of the Church's magisterium alone to interpret this current of revelation
Mediated Tradition vs. Private Judgment
Gone With the Wind at the Vatican?
Chris Ferrara's Hermeneutics of Evasion
The Fall of Michael Davies
Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani and the Novus Ordo after Paul VI's elucidations regarding the dogmatic presuppositions /
foundations of the Roman Missal of 1970
TCR Note: Here we see how Cardinal Ottaviani ended up repudiating the so-called
"Ottaviani Intervention" initiated and written by men who would later fall into schism & Sedevacantism (Lefebvre, M.L.
Guerard des Lauriers, et al) after Paul VI's declarations and elucidations. Integrists have been vainly trying to explain
away Ottaviani's action ever since. For more see Pope Paul VI's Credo of the People of God, Encyclical Mysterium Fidei,
etc., at TCR
"I have rejoiced profoundly
to read the discourse by the holy father on the question of the new ordo missae, and especially the doctrinal precisions contained
in his discourses at the public audiences of november 19 and 26, after which I believe, no one can any longer be genuinely
scandalized. As for the rest, a prudent and intelligent catechesis must be undertaken to solve some legitimate perplexities
which the text is capable of arousing. In this sense I wish your ‘doctrinal note' [on the novus ordo] and the activity
of the militia sanctae mariae wide diffusion and success." -- Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani
----from James Likoudis and Kenneth Whitehead, The Pope, The Council and The Mass, The Christopher publishing
house, w. Hanover, Massachusetts, 1981, p. 74.
And later: "The beauty of the church is equally resplendent in
the variety of the liturgical rites which enrich her divine cult when they are legitimate and conform to the faith. Precisely
the legitimacy of their origin protects and guards them against infiltration of errors. . . the purity and unity of
the faith is in this manner also upheld by the supreme magisterium of the pope through the liturgical laws."
---ibid, ibid., p. 129, ‘letter from his eminence alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani to Dom Gerard Lafond, o.s.b., in Documentation
Catholique, ‘#67, 1970, pp. 215-216 and 343
Tradition and Living Magisterium
From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912
"The living magisterium, therefore, makes extensive use of documents of the past,
but it does so while judging and interpreting, gladly finding in them its present thought, but likewise, when needful,
distinguishing its present thought from what is traditional only in appearance. It is revealed truth always living in the
mind of the Church, or, if it is preferred, the present thought of the Church in continuity with her traditional thought,
which is for it the final criterion, according to which the living magisterium adopts as true or rejects as false the often
obscure and confused formulas which occur in the monuments of the past. Thus are explained both her respect for the writings
of the Fathers of the Church and her supreme independence towards those writings--she judges them more than she is judged
by them."
Worth reading carefully
New Advent.Org
Heresy,
Schism and Apostasy
By Colin Donovan, STL
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines these three sins against the faith in this
way:
2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the
willful refusal to assent to it. "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed
with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation
of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of
the Church subject to him." [Code of Canon Law c.751]
The Church's teaching on Heresy, Schism and Apostasy
EWTN FAQ's
WHAT'S A CATHOLIC TO DO AS ALLURE
TO SCHISM GROWS STRONGER?
By Paul Likoudis
"Matatics, of course, is just one of many Catholics who, since the excommunication
of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, have been abandoning the Catholic Church for various "traditionalist" groups. Such groups as
the Society of St. Pius V and the Society of St. Pius X, particularly in the United States, continue to grow rapidly, especially
since the problems flowing from dissent and liturgical abuses have become worse in many dioceses."
The lure of schism propelling men overboard
The Wanderer
To love the Church more than ourselves.
A Message to Our Visitors
Humility is to put the teachings of our Mother, the Church, of the living Magisterium,
(distinguishing those teachings from any abuses / distortions of them) above our private judgment and above any liking or
disliking of persons. It is to love the teachings of the Church more than ourselves. That is the unanimous teachings of the
saints and fathers. Pride (often hidden, often not) is to prefer self above the living Magisterium, to insist on one's own
opinions. Our Lord said "Hear the Church". A truly satanic crescendo of pride is that which insists on one's own private judgment
to such an extent that one even comes to believe the Holy Father and living Magisterium are all gone astray from the Faith
and only I am right, or my group, and that my / our opinions represent some invisible true church! That way
lies Luther. Whether one does this via an erroneous "sola fide," ala Luther or the vile National Catholic Reporter,
or via a more pious sounding "sola traditio," (tradition interpreted by private judgment) ala Archbishops Lefebvre or Thuc,
The "Remnant," et al, makes little difference. The end is to prefer one's own opinions and self above and against the
Mystical Body of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church, which exists in time and space! It is tragic.
At TCR we aim to faithfully present, not out own teachings, but the teachings of
the living Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, and we reject all temptation to pride in the form of private judgment.
This is why we reject both neo-modernism and Integrism (extreme traditionalists). We do not proffer our own opinions
where Catholic doctrine is concerned. Only the living Magisterium can interpret and mediate Catholic tradition http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15006b.htm
Many people agree with us (we receive over a thousand hits a day and many posts of
support) and some, sadly, disagree.
The point, then, is to love the Church and not misrepresent her positions or intentions,
or confuse them with abuses; nor to prefer our own opinions, private judgment and pride over her. The gates of Hell shall
not prevail over the visible Church, nor any errors leading to such an impossibility. Christ has given Peter the keys to the
Kingdom of Heaven, the divine "whatsoever" (Mt. 16). And He promised to guide the Church into all truth (Jn 16:13; Mt 16:
18) and to be "with" her "always, even to the end of the world" (Mt. 28:20). We stand firm and in peace in this divine "always"
and "whastoever". What more could we ask?!
We have done many, many, stories, articles, that deal with all sorts of issues touching
on errors of the left and right. We elaborate on what the Church teaches, reject schism and the private interpretations
which lead to it. We seek when we can to correct misconceptions of the left and the right, whether regarding the matter of
Catholic authority, the Council, the Novus Ordo, etc and to defend the intentions of the Church in regard to all of this.
We do not preach ourselves, nor turn selfward, ghetto-like, but, as the Holy Father wishes,
we try to address matters which engage a culture of death.
Thank you for your support.
Marian Horvat: The "Nice Girl"
By A. Gerard Nordskoven
Watching a Catholic community autodestruct is wrenching. The Society for Tradition,
Family & Property, or TFP, is eating Kansas City alive. It is a scenario played out all over the world. TFP is an
all-male secret society promoting a "higher" calling than the priesthood, the warrior-monk. TFP is a cold-blooded vocation
killer. Not one priest has arisen from their "conservative" formation of young men anywhere in its international ranks since
its founding in the early sixties. None. One of TFP's slickest Screwtapes has been a woman, Marian Horvat. Horvat, president
of the TFP's California offshoot, Tradition in Action, distinguished herself as one of four collaborating signatories
to "We Resist You to the Face," a manifesto for Catholic schism. Before that, Horvat's duties were in the heartland...
Of wolves and sheep & Integrists Show Their
Hand
Ultramontanism,
Beyond the Mountains Execrabilis and Vatican II
John Loughnan's illuminating glimpses of
two wrongs that don't make a right
It is interesting that many, on both the left and right, suggest a de facto conflict
between faithfulness to the living Magisterium and history as it pertains to the Papacy. That is, liberals use history as
an excuse to mock and disobey the Magisterium while Integrists protest their utter faithfulness to the Papacy in the abstract
(of bygone eras!) and yet remain largely innocent of history and what it reveals about theological and ecclesiological development.
John Loughnan's article, while dealing with Pope Pius II's "Execrabilis and Vatican II, glimpses of the fatal weakness
of both tendencies.
Ultramontanism, Excrabilis & Vatican II
Traditionalism: True and False
By Colin B. Donovan, STL, EWTN
... recalling the dream of St. John Bosco who foresaw our times , we know that those who remain in the barque of Peter with the Eucharistic and Marian Pope will
be secure, whereas as those who act independently, even if on the winning side, risk being swamped
Of gold and fools gold
EWTN
FSSP & The Mystical Body of Christ
A Concise and Timely Confession of the Faith by
The Priestly Fraternity of
St. Peter
In this time when more than a few have succumbed to the temptations and exaggerations
of both neo-modernism and Integrism, the Fraternal Society of St. Peter has proved a mainstay of orthodoxy. In the following
Confession of the Faith we find the cure to what ails so many. The Fraternal Society of St. Peter is a sure guide who, with
Peter, has shown that it can navigate even the stormiest of waters.
FSSP: A wellspring of orthodoxy
FSSP
The Fruits of Vatican II!
A look back at World Youth Day 2000
Watching the truly amazing pilgrimage of the youthful Church in Rome--surpassing
all expectations!-- Cardinal Francis Stafford (photo to right) spoke some significant words during the exuberant, joyous welcoming
celebration at St Peter's Square with the Pope. He mentioned how so often the Pope, as a young bishop, would see these welcoming
"arms" of Bernini's collonade as he went to session after session of the Second Vatican Council. Now, Cardinal Stafford said--pointing
to the gathered multitude of youth--"here are the children of Vatican II!"
Transcending Modernism / Integrism
Gerard Serafin Website
No "Catholic Woodstock" !
Gerard Serafin Website
The "Mass of all Ages"
By Justin Martyr
The Authority of Papal Encyclicals & Councils
Pieran Press / Catholic Encyclopedia
Veritatis Splendor and the Risk of
Losing One's Soul
It is often erroneously asserted by extremists that John Paul II teaches a "universal
salvation" by virtue of Christ's "uniting Himself in some way with every human being".....
Truth of Church vs. Integrism
Vatican Document Corrects both
Liberalism and Integrism
"THE UNICITY AND SALVIFIC UNIVERSALITY
OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE CHURCH"
CDF
"The Church's constant missionary proclamation is endangered today by relativistic
theories which seek to justify religious pluralism, not only de facto but also de iure (or in principle). As a consequence,
it is held that certain truths have been superseded; for example, the definitive and complete character of the revelation
of Jesus Christ, the nature of Christian faith as compared with that of belief in other religions, the inspired nature of
the books of Sacred Scripture, the personal unity between the Eternal Word and Jesus of Nazareth, the unity of the economy
of the Incarnate Word and the Holy Spirit, the unicity and salvific universality of the mystery of Jesus Christ, the universal
salvific mediation of the Church, the inseparability — while recognizing the distinction — of the kingdom of God,
the kingdom of Christ, and the Church, and the subsistence of the one Church of Christ in the Catholic Church....
Unity and Necessity of the Church for Salvation
Vatican CDF, Sept 2,000
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Why is the Lefebvre factor so important
for those who love traditional
liturgy?
A Canonical History of Archbishop Lefebvre's Schism
By Peter John Vere, JCL
A Canonical History of Archbishop Lefebvre's Schism, containing an important letter from Msgr.
Camille Perl of the Eccesia Dei Commission. This study shows that the Society of St. Pius X was not even established as
a priestly fraternity among other interesting facts such as the excommunication of Lefebvre and the Society's schism.
A Canonical History of Archbishop Lefebvre's Schism |
What is the True Catholic Remnant?
FSSP Responds to Misrepresentations of Latin Mass
Magazine
FSSP
Latin Mass Magazine & schismatics, join in public feeding frenzy of malicious
criticism revealing new brand of anti-catholicism
Latin Mass Magazine Attacks Pope
25-page
Attack Startles National Review
National Review Compares Attack to
Pope bashing by Gary Wills
TCR: In another context it is even worse: A Lutheran not long ago, Thomas Woods now
would instruct the Pope, and defends the schismatic manifesto "Resisting [the Pope] to the Face...suspending obedience" to
Popes since John XXIII, and serves as a leading apologist for the Mattities, mocks the Ecclesia Dei Commission and
Vatican.
Collapsing into Integrism
National Review
A Review of Lefebvre's "They Have Uncrowned
Him"
By Fr. Brian Harrison
While every orthodox Catholic who understands his Church's teaching will sympathize
to a large extent with Archbishop Lefebvre's zeal for Christ the King, and his indictment of that secularism which (in different
ways) has come to dominate both the Eastern and Western blocs of what used to be Christendom, it should be recognized that
he exaggerates the extent to which "liberalism" has come to influence the Catholic Church's leadership. In particular, one
must take issue with his contention that Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Liberty Dignitatis Humanae is irreconcilable
with the doctrine of previous Popes on the subject of Church-State relations.
The errors of exaggeration
Roman Theological Forum
THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL
AND
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
Fr. Brian Harrison reviews Michael Davies',
The Second Vatican Council and
Religious Liberty
(The Neumann Press: Long Prairie, MN, 1992),
While TCR accepts that ambiguities in the Concilar document on Religious Liberty
exist in some places, there can be no question of heresy since the Holy Spirit, de fide, protects the Churchs' Councils against
heresy. Any ambiguities, we believe, may be easily resolved by authoritative CDF footnotes in future editions of those documents.
Fr. Harrison elucidates the Church's teaching here.
Fr. Harrison and Mr. Davies
Roman Theological Forum
Cardinal Ratzinger on the Lefebvre Schism, 1988
Vatican
Pope St. Pius V and Quo Primum
On Papal Authority and the Mass
By Jeff Mirus
Because so many confuse what they may not like for the truth of the Catholic Faith,
we must ever be reminded that not only can the Church, de fide, not promulgate invalid Sacraments, but that no valid rite
of the Church is exclusive of any other, even if one might, arguably, be superior to another. The document QUO PRIMUM, not
by its "in perpetuity clause" but by its "We DECLARE, BY OUR APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION..." bound the Faithful to one rite of Mass
for a time, but certainly not future Popes from making changes in the rite. TCR advocates a general permission for the return
of the old Mass for all who desire it in all parishes in the world, as well as improvements in the Pauline Mass of 1970, as
advocated by Cardinal Ratzinger.
Limits of Quo Primum
EWTN
NCR: Vatican Officials Favor Elements of Older Mass
NCR
SSPX Forbids its Chapel Goers to Attend Indult
Mass
"Remember that if you cannot get to a true (sic) Catholic Mass celebrated by a good
(sic) traditional priest, you should not attend the New Mass or the Indult Mass, and this even if it is the only traditional
Mass available." ---Fr. Peter Scott
Nothing that shows real communion with Rome
My
Journey out of the Lefebvre Schism
By Pete Vere, JCL
If you’re a Catholic who’s faithful to the Church’s teaching Magisterium,
you’ve probably met up with followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s 1988 schism, known as the Society of St.
Pius X (SSPX). They’re filled with devotion to the Blessed Mother, extremely conservative with regard to most moral
issues afflicting the Western world today, and quite reverent before the Blessed Sacrament during their old Latin liturgies.
In short, on the surface, adherents to Archbishop Lefebvre’s schism appear to be devout Catholics...
All tradition leads to Rome
Envoy
LEFEBVRISM: JANSENISM REVISITED?
By Fr. Anthony Fisher
Jansenism and Lefebvrism arose in profoundly different worlds. Yet there are striking
similarities between them in beliefs and practices - common tendencies, attitudes and assumptions.
Lefebvrism and Jansenism
Other Interesting Links
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