Recent weeks have done much to explain this curious remark in the rector's November 2012 MHT Newsletter:
Now that Bp. Williamson is leading the newly formed Resistance Movement and appears ready to consecrate three new bishops, we can see the above declaration is not the same-old-same-old gaseous, overheated air that blows up monthly from the swampland. It's the confused wail of the doomed. His Excellency's triumphant entry into non-SSPX Catholic traditionalism spells the end to all the false hopes the rector and "One-Hand" have self-deceivingly harbored."What we do not want or need from Bishop Williamson is a rump SSPX."
Maybe the rector doesn't want or need the competition, but the faithful surely do.
Like most of the rector's analyses, this one suffers from incurable tunnel vision.* He seems to think that Bp. Williamson aims at getting "hard-line SSPX-ers to quit the comfort of the big Society for a breakaway group....which is meeting in Holiday Inns." The rector fails (or is afraid) to realize that there's plenty of low-hanging fruit ripe for the picking in traditional Catholic communities unaffiliated with the SSPX, including his own small cluster and "One-Hand's."
Many, perhaps even most, Traddies will abandon the malformed, Mammonite control-freaks who feed upon them when priests associated with Bp. Williamson come near their hometowns. (Traddies are very enthusiastic trekkers, you know.) Very soon after arrival, they won't need to meet in Holiday Inns because the laity will establish permanent chapels. (You might say, If they come, the laity will build it.) That's the real fear of sede honchos.
All this may explain the rumors floating around about some recent tête-à-tête between Bp. Williamson and the out-0f-luck rector. Pistrina asked a few very wise heads and long-time SSPX watchers for their analysis of the chances of Bp. Williamson's heeding the rector's yelp to "declare for sedevacantism." They all agreed His Excellency is just too smart to bite at that putrid bait. Remember: this is a man with a real education and solid credentials (he's a graduate of Cambridge University). He knows the safest position is one very close to our own aliquid-pravism: something's very wrong in the Church, and we must fight it. To come out for sedevacantism now would place him in some very bad, undignified company. Besides, he'd lose support from the very well funded Resistance Movement organizing under his guidance, which is declaredly not sedevacantist.
No, Bishop Williamson will just sit back and prosper, supported by the luxury of the best of all possible traditional positions: defend the "pope" yet resist. His group will grow. Its new seminary will flourish as the pesthouse decays and falls prey to an unforgiving tropical climate.
The beast will starve in agony as it watches a no-longer submissive flock scramble to the shelter of the well-formed, well-led, and very well-bred Resistance.
*Were we given t0--and we're not!--a deconstructionist interpretation of discourse, viz. that accidental features of a text betray and subvert the text's essential message, we'd be inclined to conclude that so much attention and so much unsolicited, off-point advice suggest the rector tacitly acknowledges Bp. Williamson as the de facto spiritual and moral leader of all non-SSPX Traddies.
Hey Craig, why don't you call up Bp. Williamson and show him your "Model Bylaws for Lay Governance", and see if he's interested in that kind of arrangement for the chapels he's going to have (according to you) in his new movement? I'm guessing he's going to send you packing. The SSPX doesn't operate with lay governance, and I doubt he will either. After he tells you to drop dead, can you please come back and explain to us again why he is your great hope for the future?
ReplyDeleteThe Readers both admire Bp. Williamson for his intellect and courage and perfectly understand that he and the ex-SSPX clergy may be averse to lay governance. For that reason, our team members would never join one of their chapels: as you know, we do not believe in giving Traddie clergy unsupervised control of assets.
ReplyDeleteOur remarks are cold observations, not heated editorial expressions. Bp. Williamson's moral leadership of the Resistance Movement will furnish traditional Catholics with an alternative to the failed apostolates of the wrangling sede wandering bishops, whose analyses have fallen woefully short of the mark.
Although we value very highly lay governance and are certain it is the only way to preserve the laity's treasure until we have a true Sovereign Roman Pontiff, ending the influence of malformed sede cult masters is by far the greater good at this time. The faithful need relief.
Once the cults are shuttered, there'll be plenty of time to persuade a better class of clergy of the soundness of lay governance. We're sure right reason will prevail in men who have the benefit of a genuine priestly formation.