Book Review: Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman

Title: Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman
Author: Various
Publisher: Angelus Press
Excellence: 2 stars
Why: A short apologia for the "resistance" branch of Traditionalism
Summary in a Sentence: Why the crisis has provoked extraordinary solutions to extraordinary circumstances.

A review of this pamphlet cannot be done in isolation from the realities of the present time, in which the priests who wrote this pamphlet have utterly repudiated this pamphlet in pretty much its entirety in order to "sign a deal" with "Rome." As such, it is read with a certain amount of irony, especially with a preface written by Fr. Aulagnier, of the Institute of the Good Shepherd, another "motu" group.

As much as one would like to say "look at the message, not the messenger" as I am so wont to do, the problem here is that there was such a wholesale defection on these priests' part. If the people who wrote this declaration couldn't stand by their own words, how can we really expect the arguments to be that good? It didn't convince them - and it was only 2 years between writing this and their sellout.

Be that as it may, the book can in a way serve as a primer for those new to SSPX ecclesiology, vis-a-vis discussions of the idea of "resistance," as well as the ever-hackneyed question of supplied jurisdiction, and the consequent validity of confessions and marriages.

It also serves, within a few pages, to explain the necessity of the episcopal consecration of Bishop Rangel, the former head of the priests in Campos.

A couple passages bear repeating:

1) A citation from Dom Gueranger that appears on page 16:

"When the pastor becomes a wolf, it is first of all for the flock to defend itself. Without a doubt, doctrine normally descends from the bishops to the faithful people, and the subjects, in the order of faith, are not to judge their leaders. But in the treasure of revelation there are essential points concerning which every Christian, by virtue of his very title as a Christian, has the necessary knowledge and obligatory custody.

The principle does not change, whether it concerns belief or conduct, morality or dogma. Treasons like that of Nestorius are rare in the Church; but it can happen that the pastors remain silent, for one reason or another, in circumstances where religion itself is at stake. The true faithful are those who, in such circumstances, draw from their own baptism the inspiration for a line of conduct, not those pusillanimous persons who, under the specious pretext of submission to the estabished powers, await a program - which is not at all necessary and which ought not to be given them - before chasing away the enemy or opposing his undertakings."

Would that these priests had read and understood that text.

2) The two principles of solution to the crisis, listed on page 21:

"A) To affirm that the pope is teaching heresies; and thus that he is not the pope; he is thus an interloper; thus we ought not to obey him.

B) To ask oneself: in what measure the promises of our Lord Jesus Christ to help the pope allow the possibility of accomplishing certain acts or of saying certain things which, by their very logic, make the faithful lose their faith? In what measure are the promises compatible with the destruction of the faith by negligence, omission, equivocal notions, etc.? Given the difficulty of resolving all these difficult and delicate questions, I do not dare make an absolute division between these different opinions and hypotheses. I do not feel myself capable, because I do not know sufficiently well the circumstances which surround the pope's actions to determine in a certain manner that we do not have a pope."

It seems as though the Fathers of Brazil (I won't blister St. John Vianney's name by association) since the writing of this document have come up with a third option:

C) Completely abandon the heroic work of Bishop de Castro Mayer in resisting the non-Catholic thieves, usurpers, and robbers who attempted to take the Faith from their faithful to sign a deal with men and hirelings who do not demonstrably believe in the Faith expostulated in this document. Utterly repudiate the work of decades in favor of "legitimism."

Blue pill taken. Lobotomy complete.