An Answer For Dust

[cmotherofpirl]

AS long as the Church says its fine, it doesn't matter why it was agreed to .

[cmotherofpirl]

The Fall of Michael Davies

(Why he should have listened to Bishop Bruskewitz)

By Stephen Hand

The Chair of Peter and the positions of authority in Rome are occupied by anti-Christs."

--- Dossier sur les Consécrations Episcopales, August 28th, 1987, Archbishop Lefebvre

On June 15, 1988, the same Archbishop declared in a conference that John Paul II "is not Catholic."

We do not like to discuss this matter, but a new development which threatens the good people of Una Voce calls for a warning which some might want to pass on to its members and the hierarchy of the Church:

Clearly, Michael Davies, the head of Una Voce International, is moving farther and farther astray, and is openly "consorting," as one person put it, with the most extreme and distempered opponents of the Holy Father who have sprinted down the road to schism, as witness the following September, 2001, advertisements from The Remnant, the ultraist St. Paul, MN bi-weekly (published out of the editor's mother's cellar). These rabid enemies of the Holy Father are to the "right" what the National "Catholic" Reporter is to the left. Both crucify our suffering Pope and thrive financially by constant opposition to him.

From The Remnant ---September, 2001:

"Michael Davies to speak at The Remnant Forum in October.

"All the way from London, England, Remnant columnist and President of the International Una Voce Federation will be featured at this important gathering in St. Paul. Call today for details: (651) 462-8323. "The Remnant Forum is coming to St. Paul in October. "Forty Years Later: The Family, the Mass, the Church and the World through Four Decades of Vatican II." October 26, 27, and 28, 2001. "Featuring: Michael Davies, Gerry Matatics, Michael J. Matt, Christopher Ferrara, Dr. Thomas Woods, John Vennari, Dr. Marian Horvat, Atila Sinke Guimaraes, Gary Potter, Michal Semin (from Prague), John Clark."

What a nest of would-be bishops or popes Davies joins ! TFP splinters, rigorist Feeneyites, fallen away monks, theologically untrained laymen (in Catholic theology anyway; Protestant's have always been comfortable viewing themselves as a pure "remnant" vis a vis Catholicism), all together to call the Pope a heretic, according to their private judgment. Young Thomas Woods, a Lutheran just a few years ago, and who has never known the orthodox Catholic faith, is now, under the window dressing of a Harvard degree (education today!), a defender of the schismatic manifesto, written by his teachers, Atila Sinke Guimaraes, Marian Horvat, Michael Matt and Fr. Gruner's most faithful disciple, John Vennari. That manifesto (entitled We Resist the Pope to His face) as most of our readers probably know, calls for the explicit withdrawal of submission and obedience to the Holy Father, charging him, and other Popes, as well as the Council itself, absurdly, with heresies (substantial and nefarious breaks with Sacred Tradition). Woods is also a founder of a weird group which works for the "rise again" of the South, the final vindication of the southern states in the old civil war. Woods---who it appears longs for some flight from the today of his life and Church to a romantically idealized yesterday--- would now instruct the Pope in Catholicism. He is an editor of the also reactionary and theologically deviant Latin Mass Magazine (see the National Review article on this same page).

Woods joins Chris Ferrara who thinks the CDF's Dominus Iesus is a modernist-liberal (!) document (news indeed to the neo-modernists and Protestants!), and who in fact set out to Rome demanding that the Vatican take an exam on the subject which he assembled, and whose latest crusade is to demand that the Pope promptly obey him and depose (yes, really) Cardinal Hoyos, (!) the Cardinal who recently went out of his way to reconcile the SSPX! (one needs a drawer full of exclamation points when speaking of the nervous Mr. Ferrara). Gerry Matatics the "evangelist," of the rabid "remnant", as always, will attend the sect's conference too. The paper, by the way, is published out of Michael Matt's mother's cellar.

Truth is shown by who one is bedding with---and Davies, as the reader can see, beds with the most unstable and disoriented--- and by whom one attacks (whether in private or public. As the French say, part of the neurosis of the convert, in a certain percentage of cases, is that he always has to prove himself. He has to be more royalist than the king. Many in the movement under consideration here are converts, including Davies, Matatics, Woods. Others, like Michael Matt, grew up in Lefebvrist homes, with TFP and other influences too, and had little chance to find theological balance. One does not sense the overall wholesomeness, sobriety, good humor, loyalty and philosophical joy of a Chesterton or Newman, two famous late in life converts ---not an insignificant fact--- in this group. These are bitter and arrogant persons who think nothing of placing their own opinions above the Church of Jesus Christ. Many seem beyond self-criticism, occupied with their own "take" on everything, and adapt constant justifications for every turn of events; they often began acts of hostility toward the Pope shortly after their conversion under the influence of extremist tracts and magazines.)

This manifesto is far from a declaration of mere dissent however they have tried, after our exposure of them, to doubletalk; it shows their theological ineptness and / or clear intent to persuade people of their most irresponsible and tragic conclusion:

"In our view a possible future declaration of a sede vacante ('the period of time when the Apostolic See is empty, as a consequence of the heresy of the Pope,' CFN 7/2000) would take place automatically when the Church would become aware of the gravity of the present day errors and who is responsible for them." ---We Resist The Pope To His Face, V.3 (emphasis ours)

This is just a small sample of their constant and provocative arrogance and theological cynicism. Here is a group utterly innocent of Catholic dogmatics and theology who are allies to the most virulent Protestant fundamentalist opponents of Catholicism who quote them. The implications are grave:

"....canon 752 defines schism as "the withdrawal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or from communion with the members of the Church subject to him." What one must note here is that the canon does not distinguish between degrees of withdrawal of submission to the Roman Pontiff. In other words, one need not completely withdraw one's obedience to the Roman Pontiff in order to enter into a state of schism. For partial withdrawal of obedience in certain matters, even if one's intention in so doing is only temporary, remains an act through which one withdraws one's submission to the Roman Pontiff...

"Moreover, canon 1321 §3 presumes imputability, stating: "Where there has been an external (i.e., public) violation, imputability is presumed, unless it appears otherwise." Finally, it would appear that malice (dolus) is at the root of imputability within this public declaration, for there is a deliberate public intention on the part of its authors to withdraw submission to the Roman Pontiff, in spite of the fact their expressed intention in so doing is only temporary.

As one person wrote,

...that retired high school teacher (Michael Davies) we once thought was our best hope for a restoration of the Latin Mass; but he has been notorious for saying one thing to one group and quite another to others, depending on the audience. This is cynical at its best, I fear. The one constant in his life is his theological relationship to [excommunicated archbishop] Lefebvre. Under a veneer of calm "scholarship," Davies has arguably led more people astray than anyone else, besides Lefebvre himself. All the extremists, Sedevacantists, The Remnant, Father Gruner and so many others all began with his books, sold to this day by Lefebvre's society which lately again turned down the Church's good-faith attempt to reconcile them. All were, as you put it, "midwifed" into schism by Michael Davies.

These men are far from theologically objective and sober; they are, rather, propagandists who sift polls for proofs and the Council and Pope's teachings for proof-texts (by definition always out of context, whether immediate- textual or historical) seeking to frame the Holy Father and maintain their parallel magisterium, based on an absurd new twist on an old (mostly Eastern) heresy, sola traditio, wherein they demand that doctrinal development, as we have it throught Church history and in the Council, cease at a point in history---when they say it must (Trent or Pius X, Pius XII, it depends who of them you ask ), just as, alas, the Nestorians, Orthodox, Copts, and others set the mark at other historical points, tragically sundering the universal Church in many areas of the world. And they employ another heresy, private judgment, to say what is tradition and what is not, to say what is dogmatic development and what is not (thus the Mattities and SSPX quite seriously would not even pass High School religion class; hence my reference to "would-be bishops and popes," or parallel magisterium). But while the theological descendents of the ancient schismatics are theologically sophisticated today, and far more serious, Davies' Mattite bedfellows are theologically naive (or is it just cynical business?), beguiled laymen who now make a living by beguiling the widow of her mite under a pretext of piety and cynically selective quotes.

No one---least of all the Church---questions the right of the People of God to seek liturgical reforms, and the Holy Father has already given the 1984 Indult which restored the Tridentine Mass (through which Davies' now operates) for all who seek it. But these men go much farther. Quite over the cliffs in fact.

For these men, for whom reality and history are simply too complex, neither the post-Nietzchean culture of moral transgression and death, nor anything else can explain widespread rebellion in the Church. They prefer to absurdly blame the Council and the Pope. It is a principle for them to put the worst possible construction on every event. In this we see our true Catholic fundamentalists. Such Integrists live in unhinged time, unable to accept the "today" of the Church's proclamation. If the Eucharist is not cloaked in their anachronistic, Gothic, Baroque, Tridentine daydreams, they would rather not see It at all. Thus they turn away from Him, the Eucharistic Christ, and attach only to the outward and the accidentals of time-bound sacred rites, neglecting the Substance, Him Who is with us "even to the end ofthe world". Sadly, the Integrist extremists are sadly like modern Essenes who have taken to the self-righteous outposts of an imagined, pure, "remnant," unlike Jesus and Mary, who rejected the self-righteous delusions of the eschatological sects and remained in the temple amidst the crosswinds of theological and political controversies. The new Essenes, like the old ones, think God is indifferent to righteousness and justice in those outside the literal walls of the temple (thus their alliance with the rigorist Feeneyites) and would rather not mix with sinners. They would keep the modern equivalent to Romans (pagans), tax collectors ("traitors"), Samaritans (heretics) and other sinners outside their "purity".

One does not know whether to laugh or cry. A little of both is needed sometimes as these men can collapse into utter disorientation without a moment's notice. His Eminence, Christopher Ferrara, for example, without blushing, summarizes Vatican II as nothing more than a "new Woodstock"! Now there is serious theology for you! Evidently the Esquire knows as little about Woodstock as he knows about the Second Vatican Council. Such ludicrous reasoning would not pass Junior High School religion class, even if he would certainly pass some SSPX or sedevacantist exam; these men probe with distorted lenses for whatever they can possibly find and construe as heresies in the magisterium, as they warn against contamination with the unclean people in the "ordinary" churches of mere Catholics. (For our answer to Ferrara's friend, Father Chad Ripperger, and the latter's essentially Protestant essay, "Operative Points of View," see To Whose Competence Does It Belong to Interpret Vatican II and the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia essay, Tradition and the Living Magisterium. )

"Whoever looks in the Church for something other than Christ is a mercenary,"

---St. Augustine

Lately they have begun issuing anonymous rebuttals. The spirit we are dealing with here is very similar to the Jansenist break. As one person observed, Davies appears these days to write the same article over and over as in propaganda technique. He seems more and more to be handing the torch over to his business "partner," Michael Matt and the SSPX (the SSPX are the only real thinkers among them in our opinion. They at least have produced a coherent literature, albeit abysmally wrong and schismatic. The others only parrot their arguments to a man. It is all SSPX rehash.)

This is all ironic because Michael Matt used to mock Davies to his Remnant writers, egg them on to attack him (and the FSSP), as a washed-up compromiser (for not rejecting outright the FSSP changes which involved communion with bishops) and worse; this was before Matt went over into outright advocacy of schism. But he ran back to Davies for solace after his errors were exposed by us and others. Tragically, all essential Lefebvrists share the same "zeal not according to knowledge," and so Davies did not disappoint.

However that may be, it has become increasingly clear to many that Una Voce has been led step by step by Mr. Davies to becoming not "one voice," but at least two, owing to its contradictory pledge of fidelity to the Church's Magisterium, and its ongoing indebtedness to----and defense/promotion---of the theological errors of the late excommunicated Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and, more recently, the Mattites. For the sake of the Church and true liturgical reform we believe the worm of Lefebvrism must be removed. Wherever one looks---whether on Mr. Bill Basile's Ctngreg / Una Voce E-List***, with its chronic pessimism regarding the magisterium, and selective misrepresentations about the Church's teachings and deeds (or its defense of extremist positions, its doubletalk, equivocal pronouncements and reported removing of posts from its archives when caught), or to the scandalously reactionary way Una Voce responded to the Church's Protocol 1411, as well as toward other recent developments in the FSSP, one sees Una Voce's ambivalence with respect to the Church hierarchy. One reads on their e-lists that the extremists seem more and more right and that the Vatican cannot be trusted especially after "what happened to Fr. Bisig," [who was deposed as a hardliner, some say] as if there were no serious theological matters involved in these decisions [see TCR's FSSP file].

This ambivalence is most conspicuous when one looks to the overall theology of Una Voce International's President, Michael Davies, who wrote recently regarding Protocol 1411, opposing the Holy Father:

"Archbishop Lefebvre withdrew from the 1988 agreement with the Holy See because he felt that the Vatican could not be relied upon to keep its promises. It would appear that there are now powerful forces in the Curia determined to prove that he was right" (See Violation of Natural Justice Below)

Nor would Davies listen to Bishop Bruskewitz who declared the views of his Remnant mates unorthodox; Bruskewitz even excommunicated SSPX along with neo-modernists in his diocese. Would that he would listen to the Pontifical Commission, Ecclesia Dei, to which he was morally oblidged as a promoter of the Indult (at times) Clearly this is because Davies remains heavily indebted to and rooted in Lefebvre's errors of disposition, suspicion, and fact. Indeed, Davies' entire theological outlook (as we will see in part below) is thoroughly colored by his long and lasting debt to his mentor. More recently he has taken to bed with the Mattities, speaking at their conferences with the signers of schismatic screeds against the Pope, with Feeneyites also. Much of the Integrist bacteria has been spawned in Davies' old glass. For years---up to and after Lefebvre's death----Davies was and remains the microphone and press agent / apologist for the errors of Lefebvre, which is why he has never repudiated the SSPX (even if Una Voce is inclusive of others), why he allows that organization to continue to sell his books to this day. Nor has he repudiated the organization's lesser clones, like The Remnant whose editor, being a young man, was confirmed by Lefebvre and who never knew any but a sectarian Catholicism in opposition to "modernist" Rome growing up. Michael Davies has never repudiated the SSPX schism; indeed, as we shall see below---he scandalously continues to argue that they are not in schism, just as he has not repudiated The Remnant's recent declarations charging the Pope with schism, i.e., substantial breaks with tradition in several dogmatic areas, and their urging a public "suspending of obedience" to all the "conciliar Popes".

When TCR, more than once, asked Davies to repudiate these Remnant errors with a view to helping his friends, he refused, reducing it all to a mere "feud," as if no serious dogmatic matters were at stake. Davies still writes for that schismatic paper and is working with them on upcoming tours according to The Remnant's webpage and paper's advertising. He still defends the SSPX. He has not repudiated their most basic theological errors, even if he has disputed some fine points regarding the Mass with some SSPX priests.

Does Michael Davies accept the Catechism of the Catholic Church?. This question needs answering. Does Una Voce stand by it? One way or the other the answer will have implications for his / their associations. It is, indeed, a crime that Mr. Davies, on behalf of Una Voce, has not publicly repudiated especially the most recent schismatic excesses of Michael Matt's brand of theological kookiness. Davies allows the most outrageous slurs to be made against the Holy Father in the same paper his writings continue to appear in and thus has led many good people in Una Voce into genuine and scandalous confusion. It is tragic.

Thus the errors of Marcel Lefebvre (esp regarding tradition and the Magisterium) are the remaining worm in Una Voce's apple and this accounts for its chronic pessimism and ambivalence about the Ecclesia Dei Commission and the Vatican in general.

Michael Davies, long ago, simplistically compared the Second Vatican Council to "Cranmer's Revolution," (!) and in so doing has not ceased to generate rebellion and eccentricities in the Church to this day when his books are sold, rather than the constructive liturgical restoration, ala Cardinal Ratzinger, and the Holy Father. Everyone from The Remnant to the SSPX to all kinds of Sedevacantists quote Michael Davies. The reasons are clear. He boasts (to some) he has not changed. Precisely. He has been steadfast in the errors of Lefebvrism, which is our point. And he has worked to manipulate the Indult movement, granted by the Holy Father, in that direction. Thank God a legion of men and women, including many priests, have seen through this and changed, grown out of the Davies-SSPX-Remnant sectarian approach and tunnel vision.

What follows below are examples of Michael Davies' being on the wrong side of the theological tracks to this very day. We begin with the Pope's own judgement of the Lefebvre schism before proceeding to Mr. Davies' subsequent rejection of the Pope's statement. All of the writings here date to after the 1988 Lefebvre schism. We urge the reader to take the time to read all of the following in order to see how Una Voce, especially in the person of Michael Davies, has created a lot of ambivalence in people with respect to the Church. Indeed many who have come out of Integrist circles agree that it was the apparent scholarly style of one Michael Davies which in part induced them into Lefebvre's errors before a way out of the maze and back into unconditional communion with the Church was found. We hope he will now publicly repudiate those errors and reconsider his associations and correct his longtime friends who seem to be getting worse by the day. If so, our criticism will have been worthwhile. ----revised, updated October 2001

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ecclesia Dei

APOSTOLIC LETTER OF JOHN PAUL II

(English translation: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, N. 28 (1047) 11 July 1988)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre

by Michael Davies

The Church has been compared to a house, the House of the Living God, and that house is built upon a rock, the rock of Peter. If we are to be Catholics we must be in communion with the successor of Peter. It makes no difference what we think of the Pope, we are bound to remain in communion with him as long as he is the Pope. But the Pope is not Christ, he is the Vicar of Christ. The Pope is infallible when he proclaims to us solemn teaching on faith or morals, but he is not inerrant, which means that he is not protected from making mistakes or errors of judgment; and he is not impeccable, which means that he is not protected from committing sin. In Galatians 2, verse l1, we read of how St. Paul stood up to St. Peter and rebuked him to his face. St. Thomas, commenting upon this verse, remarks:

Paul who was Peter's subject, rebuked him in public on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning the faith, and , as the gloss of St. Augustine says: "Peter gave an example to superiors that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path they should not disdain to be rebuked by their subjects."

Where obedience to any superior is concerned, St. Thomas Aquinas gives us these principles as a rule of thumb. If our superior commands us to do something that is wrong, we have a duty to disobey. If a superior makes an unjust command we have a right to disobey. We are not obliged to disobey, but could submit humbly to the unjust command. Every ruler including the Pope is bound to rule his subjects justly. The Pope has supreme authority, but he does not have absolute or arbitrary authority. During the debate which took place at the First Vatican Council prior to the promulgation of the dogma of infallibility, objections were made that this would endow the Pope with arbitrary power and he would be able to rule the Church in a tyrannical manner. The relator to the Council, the bishop charged with explaining the meaning of the proposed dogma, stated that the Pope's power was not arbitrary, and that the principal restriction upon it is that he must use his position only to build up the Mystical Body, and must do nothing that could undermine it. The Pope is bound to ensure that al1 his teaching and all his legislation build up the Mystical Body, and that he rule his subjects justly....

As has been explained the Pope has an absolute obligation to rule justly. St. Thomas and the consensus of Catholic theologians and canonists teach that legislation, and this would include liturgical legislation, is unjust if it is not conducive to the public good or is too burdensome for those subject to it, which means that it must not only not be impossible to carry out but not too difficult or distressing. The liturgical reform that followed the Second Vatican Council was unjust. lt was not conducive to the public good, and was too difficult and distressing to be accepted by countless faithful Catholics as it robbed them of their greatest spiritual heritage, the traditional Mass of the Roman Rite. After the Council these faithful made their spiritual need for the traditional Mass known to the sacred pastors. They asked above all to be allowed to have recourse to the traditional Mass of the Roman Rite that goes back in all essentials to the pontificate of Pope Gregory the Great at the end of the sixth century. The faithful asked for bread and were given stones.

Of all the bishops in the world, only Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Bishop de Castro Mayer, of Campos in Brazil, refused to compromise in any way with the revolution masquerading under the guise of reform and which was manifestly destroying the Church. Archbishop Lefebvre established a seminary, with the approval and encouragement of the Holy See, in which priests could be trained to celebrate the Tridentine Mass. lts immediate success evoked the fury of liberal bishops who pressured the Holy See into ordering the Archbishop to close his seminary in a manner that not only ignored the requirements of Canon Law, but those of natural justice. The Archbishop refused to comply unless he was accorded the canonical hearing which is the right of every Catholic, a request which was ignored. This gave rise to the painfully ironic situation of a respected prelate being condemned without a trial for an offense that had not been specified, and then having his amply justified refusal to comply cited as an offense to justify his condemnation!

Archbishop Lefebvre has been compared rightly to St.Athanasius. He is the Athanasius of our times. Like St.Athanasius and like St. Eusebius of Samosata, he went into the dioceses of bishops who were not acting as good shepherds, to give the people the instruction, the sacramental grace, and the pastors that they needed. For one bishop to intrude into the diocese of another is a very serious matter. It can only be justified if there is a state of necessity. A state of emergency, urgency, or necessity occurs in the Church when its continuation, order, or activity are threatened or harmed in an important way, and the emergency cannot be overcome by observing the normal positive laws. The emergency would relate principally to teaching, the liturgy, and ecclesiastical discipline...

(TCR Note: suffice it to say that Michael Davies has never repudiated these remarkable statements which were made after Lefebvre was excommunicated for doing what no other saint in history ever did, namely refuse to obey an explicit order of a Pope in matters dogmatic. Davies is invested in the Society of St. Pius X which sells his major books.) Today he encourages and raises money for the most vociferous extremists and leads those who only want liturgical integrity far astray.

Traditional Catholic Reflections

[musturde]

You may receive communion in mass by hand only in America and only if your hands are clean.