BOB'S NOTES

A very good friend of mine and his dear wife (he prefers I refer to him as "Bob from Schaumburg," a town northwest of Chicago, rather than use his real name) had, in early 1993, put together a series of questions from their notes based on their observations of Society policies, operations and characters, which were gleaned from Society publications, statements from priests at the pulpit, personal conversations with mission and chapel coordinators around the country and the like.  While what follows should not be construed as an indictment of all Society priests, it does show, as Fr. Rizzo has said, that there is something terribly dysfunctional about the SSPX and its leadership and that they are not to be trusted implicitly as many have found to their dismay.

During the course of our investigations, many people have sent letters describing their experiences and they have asked to remain anonymous as they either still attend Mass with the Society or have friends or relatives that do.  From these communications we have the following:

• Supposedly there is a room draped in black (reminiscent of a Masonic shrine) and containing little else than an illuminated portrait of Archbishop Lefebvre and we've been told that this room is off limits to retreatants at the Society's Ridgefield, Connecticut center.
• On the five day retreats conducted by the SSPX, the retreatants have been denied the reception of the Holy Eucharist until the fourth day and only after they have made a general confession.  The retreatant could have gone to confession the day before and is still denied communion!  The retreat master suggests that Satan may tempt the retreatant to abandon the spiritual exercises, yet, they withhold a most powerful source of spiritual strength and courage.
• A priest who apparently dislikes hearing confessions at St. Mary's has been heard to say "the only thing I'm concerned about confession is to get it over with," and complains about the heat and the smells and has said from the pulpit something to the effect "you stupid people who don't know how to go to confession."
• We've been told that young girls, in violation of Canon Law, have been unnecessarily interrogated and asked inappropriate questions in the confessional "prodding" them to confess sins of a sexual nature - an interrogation that has caused young ladies to become hysterical and be reduced to tears.
• A former policeman who was well connected with a high-ranking Society priest arrested for sexual battery.
• A football coach, whose sordid background, we doubt, could not have been unknown, was arraigned for molesting a 14 year old girl.
• A priest has allegedly said that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality.
• We've been told that according to the nuns at St. Mary's, it is considered a mortal sin if there is any lace on the underwear worn by young girls.
• Apparently at the same location the quarters of boarding students were raided to confiscate such garments.
• In the matter of personal hygiene the young ladies were also told that the use of tampons was a mortal sin because they would lose their virginity.
• It has also been told to us that when these new rules were instituted, the boarding students were told by these same nuns  not to tell the non-boarding students or parents of them.
• One Society priest has apparently said that too many men are wearing skirts and not leading their wives and families; that too many men are boys; that men must rule over women and make her follow God's law.
• Another Society priest called the Statue of Liberty a French whore and said it should be dumped in the Hudson River.
• A priest has thrown cruet tops and yells at altar boys right at the altar; which same priest had a temper tantrum and threw dishes around the cafeteria at St. Mary's.
• A high school student was kicked out of school because it was found that, when his room was searched, he had a picture of a girl in his wallet though he had only corresponded with the young lady.
• Children have been told by a Society bishop to disobey their parents if their parents disagree (no distinctions) with the priests and sisters at St. Mary's.
• A priest reportedly told people at a Society location in Redford, Michigan, to "obey me or leave."
• And this same priest at the same parish is reported to have said to a person with a heart condition, "don't call me if you need the last rites."
• A priest is reported to have said that marriage is a legal means to fornicate.
• A priest told the boys in his class that they must learn to hate those who oppose St. Mary's Fr. Angles.
• Another priest gave a five minute lecture to the father of a newly born baby because he waited seven days to have his child baptized.  We've been told that because of this incident this family [the father was a convert] was finally driven away from St. Mary's.
• A student at St. Mary's, one Louis Massett reportedly criticized St. Mary's on television. A Society priest is reported to have said to him "Stay off this campus, you bastard!"
• Another Society priest had said that no one could hold public office in the United States and still be considered a good Catholic.
• One priest with a foul mouth and told a seven year old girl to go screw herself according to the father of the girl with whom I spoke.

Now I know that all this sounds unbelievable but from the communications I've received, I've been told this is only the tip of the iceberg.  While what has been related is shocking enough, there are things I chose not to go into such as the suicide some years ago at Ridgefield, or, the charges of homosexuality that have been alleged.  But enough has already been mentioned to give anyone good reason to pause and think "Do I really want to associate with this group?"

The paranoia exhibited by the leadership of the Society reminds me of what I read about Herod in a book about Christmas. Let me quote from it briefly.

"Herod, like all tyrants killed thousands of innocent people whom he suspected of plotting against him. He was so suspicious of his own subjects and terrified at the thought of rebellion that he ordered the people by decrees to keep busy at all times. He forbade them to meet together, to walk or eat in groups, and he had his spies everywhere, watching every move of the citizens."

This mind set is familiar to veterans of Chicago and St. Mary's. One tyrant isn't too much different than another. In the Chicago mission an individual was still standing spy duty as noted during a funeral in the Fall of '93, but all the outcasts had left before the first of the year.

Fr. Goettler said in a letter that the Society had not changed. That says a lot about either the Society or Fr. Goettler. If things are the way he says, and the Society has not changed, then what is the reason why all those priests and laity have fled the Society?   There is to much evidence for Fr. Goettler's claims to be true.  Mr. Thomas Case understated the situation in his article for Fidelity magazine - the Society isn't just sick, it reeks putrefaction and corruption.

MORE SOCIETY DISINFORMATION

Is the Society now taking counsel of Satanists and Freemasons? We have every reason to ask the question after the printing of an article in the October '93 Angelus. The following information is courtesy of Michael Hoffman II.  The Angelus article in question was entitled "Should Catholics Be Conservatives?" and was written by a Mr. Charles Coulombe.

Mr. Hoffman tells us that the article "is an anti-American polemic, peppered with errors and mistakes in history of a rudimentary nature." Mr. Hoffman submitted his own piece entitled "The Historical Illiteracy of Catholic America Bashers" in November of '93 only to have Fr. Kenneth Novak, editor of the Angelus, write back that "I will not publish your piece without his (Coulombe's) response."   As might be expected, no response from Mr. Coulombe was forthcoming.

Editor's Note: February, 2000 - An objection has been raised recently that, supposedly, when the Society found out about Mr. Coulombe's other writings than those for Society publications, he was no longer allowed to write for the Society and that I failed to mention this.  The reason I failed to mention this is that I wasn't aware that the Society had taken this step.  Given his association with the Society leadership though, I find it hard to believe they didn't know about the things he had written, but, I guess it is possible.  So you may take it for what it is worth.

Of Mr. Coulombe, Mr. Hoffman tells us this: "Coulombe claims that our Republic was founded by subversive occultists" that "he (Coulombe) has also been an agent of opposition to Republican government in traditional Catholic circles" and that "Charles Coulombe is a confidant of top clerics in the Society of St. Pius the Tenth in the U.S. Furthermore, Mr. Coulombe is a follower of the very Gnostic and Satanic precursors of the Freemasons he claims to oppose."

Disturbingly, Mr. Hoffman says that evidence of this "can be found in an essay Mr. Coulombe wrote for the San Francisco based Gnosis Magazine, in its summer 1990 issue. In an article entitled 'The Esoteric Orthodoxy of Catholicism' Coulombe argues that Neo-Platonism, magic, alchemy, astrology, and Kabbalism are integral components of orthodox Catholicism. Many of the best known humanists of the Renaissance -- Reuchlin and Pico della Mirandola...were at once Cabalists and good Catholics." Hoffman informs us that these two that Coulombe holds up for edification, "Reuchlin and Mirandola, are heroes of the Freemasons and Jews. As Dame Frances Yates in her histories of occultism in the Renaissance era points out, no one did more for the penetration of Judaic magical practice into the West than men like Reuchlin and Mirandola."

"Mr. Coulombe states that Catholicism was about to give its formal blessing to a 'baptism of Hermeticism (see below for explanation of this term) by the Church, when according to Coulombe, 'disaster intervened' (the Council of Trent)." Mr. Hoffman informs us that Hermeticism has its roots in Egypt and that its anthropomorphic (attributing human characteristics to inanimate objects) deity is the legendary Hermes Trismegistus (thrice blessed), who is one of the gods in the pantheon (all the gods of a people) of the Freemasons. He is also the patron of trickery and propaganda. Hermeticism is the overarching principle of executive occult hierarchy informing all Western Satanic groups from the masons to the Jewish Kabbalist and New Age Gnostics."

Additionally, Mr. Hoffman tells us that "the English state church and court of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I had 'baptized Hermeticism' from the beginning of her reign. The Queen's astrologer, John Dee, was the founder of Freemasonry, one of the leading necromancers (communication with the dead to find out future events, etc.) of the age and an ally of the Prague Kabbalist Rabbi Judah Loew."

"Coulombe himself," Mr. Hoffman says, "confirms non-Catholic, bible-Christian criticism of the Church when he upholds the historic accusation that the Mass is a blasphemous act of conjuring. On page 39 (of 'The Esoteric Orthodoxy of Catholicism') he (Coulombe) declares 'for if the Mass is not magical, then what is?'"

If this is not enough to call into question Mr. Coulombe's credentials, there is more. He has the gall to attack scholasticism and even St. Thomas Aquinas as the precursor of the heresy of Modernism. In the article, Mr. Coulombe goes on to say that occultism saw a great revival in France during the nineteenth century mentioning one Eliphas Levi, an ordained deacon as a faithful Catholic. According to Mr. Hoffman, "Eliphas Levi was the foremost Satanist of 19th century Europe. He was the author of some of the most diabolic and depraved 'black magic' texts ever published. He was adored as a prophet of the demonic by the Order of the Golden Dawn, the Ordo Templi Orientis and Aleister Crowley. Levi designed the famous Satanic image worshiped by black magicians worldwide - the Sigil of Baphomet."  (Sigil - an image or sign supposed to exercise occult powers)

Edward Alexander (Aleister) Crowley -- "The Great Beast"  Cause of death - complications of age.  Icon of contemporary occultists; born, 12 October 1875; Leamington Spa, England; died, 2 December 1947 -- Aleister Crowley was raised in a strict "Christian" family, but discovered the occult while an under graduate at Cambridge. Combining eastern mysticism with western science, he came up with a religious system called The Law of Thelema. Referring to himself as "The Great Beast" and "the wickedest man alive" earned him a few disciples, but the rumors of drugs, orgies and magic ceremonies didn't make him too popular among the straight set. His many philosophical and occult writings form the backbone of the contemporary movement called "magick." 

Most will be familiar with this sordid image, which is one of the most recognized Satanic symbols of all time. It consists of a depiction of the hermaphroditic (having both male and female genitals and secondary sexual characteristics) goat-god of the Knights Templar, the bearded, horned, bare-breasted, monster that adorns countless rock album covers and satanic grottoes. Its designer, popularizer and chief magical theorist, according to Society of St. Pius the Tenth essayist Charles Coulombe, was an 'always faithful Catholic.'"

Concluding his article in Gnosis, Mr. Coulombe advises that "One cannot tell with complete accuracy what will happen. But we can know what must happen if the Church is to function properly. She must return to the... magical view of life; and the process of baptizing Hermeticism, interrupted by the Reformation, must be completed."

One can legitimately wonder if now the SSPX is moving into a new phase in the creation of their own church; if they are finally coming out of the closet with their true beliefs; if there are really Masonic influences within the Society as some have suggested. Time will tell.

Hermetic literature, or Hermetica (circa 50-300 AD) is a body of works in Greek and Latin on philosophical, theological, and occult subjects attributed to Hermes Trismegistus (or Trismegistos) which is a Greek name for the Egyptian god Thoth (see below), patron of the literary arts and originator of all mystical wisdom and reputed author of the Hermetic Books - encyclopedic works on Egyptian religion, art, and science. His reputed works are both popular - dealing with alchemy and astrology - and learned - concerning divine revelation and the redemption of humanity through knowledge of God or Gnosticism.

Although set in Egypt, the Hermetic writings are entirely Greek in origin and reflect the then prevalent respect for Egyptian wisdom and occultism. Hermetic literature is frequently alluded to in medieval and Renaissance writing and is now regarded as an important source of information on the social and intellectual history of the early Roman Empire.

Thoth was the Greek name for the Egyptian deity Djhowtey, god of learning, wisdom and magic. In late Egyptian mythology he was the creator and orderer of the universe and the inventor of writing, arithmetic, and astronomy. Thoth was depicted as an ibis-headed man carrying a pen and an ink holder or as a dog-headed baboon. In the Hellenistic period he was identified with the Greek god Hermes and in later European lore with Hermes Trismegistus, patron of magicians. "The Book of Thoth" is a traditional name for tarot cards.