JUAN KROHN: CONFESIONES Y RECUERDOS DA LA FSSPX

Confesiones de un heterodoxo: sobre mi herejía histórica (auto de fe en mi celda) (2)

29.11.10 | 18:44. Archivado en Semper Idem (en defensa propia), Historia revisionista de los dogmas (en clave nacional/catolica)

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Sigo con el rollo. Explicándome en materia teológico/religiosa (del auto de fe de mi celda, me refiero) Algo que por lo que se ve tiene más gancho (o morbo) de lo que se entiende de ordinario. "El hereje" era el título de una de las novelas de Miguel Delibes -segunda época- que más aplauso le cosecharía tras la transición política.

No es óbice que se trata de un dicterio lastrado de antiguo de una nota (teológica) infamante que se pone de manifiesto aunque sólo sea en el eufemismo -de heterodoxos- que la reemplazaría cuidadosamente en el lenguaje escrito y hablado políticamente correcto en los tiempos modernos entre españoles, como lo ilustra el titulo de la célebre obra de Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, ducho en la materia.

Por eso se puede decir que herejes no hubo propiamente hablando en la historia del catolicismo español de los últimos siglos. Los últimos se quedarían anclados (en el recuerdo) en las épocas de las guerras de religión y de la eclosión -frustrada- del protestantismo en la Península de lo que testimonia Miguel Delibes en la novela referida.

Incluso los jansenistas españoles presentes en las Cortes de Cádiz -un pre/concepto más bien que dió por sentado don Marcelino en su libro- pueden ser vistos como una de las componentes más o menos heterodoxa del liberalismo español que para lo que se da en llamar el pensamiento reaccionario (tradicionalista) de la época no dejaba de ofrecer en su conjunto una nota de crasa heterodoxia indiscutible, tanto los liberales moderados como los extremistas.

Curioso asaz no obstante lo es que el gran martillo de herejes que pretendió ser Menéndez Pelayo -en la idea que guardan muchos de él por lo menos, y a imagen y semejanza de la visión de la Historia de España que se tenía forjada en su cabeza- se viese tratado de "mestizo" en la pluma de polemistas anti-clericales de su tiempo, como lo fue Miguel De Unamuno, hasta cierta fase (relativamente avanzada) de su vida al menos.

"Mestizo" designaba a una mezcla híbrida de "carca" o integrista y de adepto de la política de la Santa Sede, más o menos tachada de liberalismo a partir del pontificado de León XII, tras su distanciamiento prudente de la causa del carlismo (vencido), que Rafael Sánchez Mazas no dejaría de poner de relieve en su libro "prohibido"

Y mas significativo aún lo es que en la polémica entre conservadores y renovadores, integristas y progresistas que encendería el concilio Vaticano II y a sus ancas el posconcillio inmediato, los progresistas -"la progresía" como se les llama ahora en España mayormente entre las nuevas generaciones- se vieran tratados por sus adversarios integristas o tradicionalistas de subversivos, de marxistas, de inflitrados, de traidores a España en rigor, y muchas otras lindezas, pero sin que llegasen a personificar, a los ojos de aquellos, "herejía" alguna.

E incuso desde las alturas teológicas (exquisitas) que pretendió guardar desde el principio la obra del seminario de Ecône del obispo Lefebvre, el progresismo posconciliar se veía tratada de modernista, un fenómeno -históricamente considerado, en el orden religioso me refiero- que guardó siempre entre los católicos españoles un sello nítidamente extranjero; o de neo/protestantes a lo sumo, pero el calificativo de herejes (en francés "heretiques") se veía reservado en su uso al círculo de los más adeptos o forofos, con mayor grado de iniciación teológica a que la mayoría de los seguidores del obispo disidente que lo empleaba de vez en cuando a penas; en su correspondencia polémica con las instancias de la santa sede en el marco del proceso canónico que se le seguiría, y en sus conferencias (semanales) a sus seminaristas.

Herejes -y paganos- llamaba el cardenal Segura a los falangistas -o si se prefiere a los franco/falangistas- pero su actitud se vería fatalmente revestida de un sello de lo mas atípico y original en la historia del catolicismo español contemporáneo. Pareja -por lo que a la nota infamante se refiere- correría la noción de excomunión (o de excomulgado)

Con la excomunión amenazó -con grandes réditos, hay que decir, en materia de política religiosa- el Vaticano a Franco y a su régimen en los años del tardo/franquismo concretamente en el asunto de la tentativa de expulsión del obispo separatista (y provocador) de Bilbao, Añoveros, que no llegó a materializarse, porque el régimen se echó marcha atrás "in extremis"; el conflicto que protagonizarían la iglesia católica y el régimen de Perón en la Argentina -preludio de su caída- bien vivo aun en los recuerdos de muchos.

¿Fui excomulgado yo mismo en Fátima? A fe mía que nunca lo supe. Teóricamente debía ser así, por lo que tengo entendido. Pero excomulgado me sentía yo ya de antiguo, de verdad; de aquella iglesia del concilio que como me lo confesó uno de los militantes brasileños de la TFP,residente en Madrid a principios de los setenta, -a solas por cierto- no era la iglesia de las promesas/de/su/bautismo.

Como sea, nunca nadie me notificó lo más mínimo en ese sentido; lo que me situaría en la práctica en una especie de limbo canónico en el que desde entonces me movería -como pez en el agua (un decir)- tal y como aquí ya lo tengo señalado. No es cierto en cambio -y salgo así al paso de ciertos rumores tenaces y persistentes por lo que veo- que me viera expulso de la FFSPX antes de mi detención en Fátima.

Salí por la mañana, el día que tomé el tren rumbo el santuario -viajando toda la noche- del priorato ("prieuré") en el que residía hasta entonces en la afueras de París (Mantes-la-Jolie), hoy día -lo que no era en modo alguno el caso entonces- uno de los principales bastiones del Frente Nacional en el cinturón suburbano que rodea la capital francesa. Y tras el estruendo en los medios que seguiría a mi detención se apresuraron a tomar distancias y a condenarme desde luego.

Los unos con más celo y apresuramiento que los otros. Los que no me veían con demasiados buenos ojos dentro de la FSSPX más si cabe desde luego. Pero la tónica no dejó de darla el propio obispo Lefebvre con el que siempre mantuve excelentes relaciones -y conjuro a quien sea a desmentirme- quien, sin duda blanco de todo tipo de advertencias y presiones por cuenta mía, declaró al poco de mi detención a los medios que "mi caso estaba ya en manos de los jueces y de los psiquiatras y que él no podía hacer ya más nada (...)

No se lo guardé ya lo saben aquí todos, y defendí siempre su memoria en mis entradas (de forma critica y con visión retrospectiva por supuesto) Sin embargo debo admitir -"sotto voce" (imitando a los de la TFP) sobre todo para los que aquí me leen- que en el momento de mi detención en Fátima, yo andaba ya por así decir en la cuerda floja en materia de ortodoxia (...)

Si no caído (relapso) en herejía, fatalmente rodeado, es cierto, de fuertes presunciones y motivos de sospecha en la materia. No hereje en sentido estricto y en el lenguaje canónico antiguo; pero sí en cambio en el de "sapiens heresim" (con tufo a herejía) Y no lo era por cierto por culpa de modernismo teológico, por cierto, o de que me hubiera vuelto mas o menos progresista -horresco referens (hoy como ayer)- sino culpa de un autor de quien ya me habré ocupado en algunas de mi entradas, Joaquín de Flore -camino de los altares (beatificado por el propio Juan Pablo II...)- del que la iglesia a todas luces no consigue ponerse de acuerdo todavía.

Y a mí Joaquín de Flore me interesaba sobre todo por su visión de la Historia que haría recobrar sorprendentemente actualidad a su pensamiento doctrinal en las primeras décadas del siglo XX que vieron el auge de los nazifascismos. Y mas tarde aún, con ocasión del concilio vaticano segundo.

Joaquin de Flore -como Federico Nietzsche, como el francés Maurras (como la lguerra civil española)- figuró entre los grandes convidados de piedra de aquella magna asamblea. En la mente de muchos desde luego, por más que se andasen con mil precauciones a la hora de avanzar su nombre de forma explícita por culpa de la reputacion dudosa (sapiens heresim) que arrastraba desde de resultas del hundimiento del mundo que le tocó vivir, la Europa de la Alta Media, de la segunda y tercera cruzada, ésta última tras la reconquista de Jerusalén por las tropas de Saladino, a la que el monje visionario sobreviviría por muy poco tiempo.

Y lo ilustraba de forma elocuente a mi juicio el prólogo a una obra divulgadísima del padre de Lubac, jesuita francés, y una de las "vedettes" del "ala marchante" del concilio dedicada a la suerte que le seria reservada para la posteridad al legado doctrinal del célebre monje (heterodoxo)

El autor del prologo lo era otro de los teólogos que el concilio izó a la cumbre de la fama, el padre Chenu, dominico francés, que confesaba en esas páginas -de una tonalidad innegable, y era la de un homenaje crítico-que le mereceria la obra (exhaustiva y documentada) de su hermano/en/el sacerdocio, el resentimiento (sic) que arrastraba de antiguo en relación con las doctrinas y teorías de Joaquín de Flore, huella mas que presumible del mucho parecido en que había debido tenerlas en algún momento de su trayectoria (temprana) y de la evolución o maduración ulterior de su propio pensamiento teológico (e ideológico).

Y fue en Argentina sobre todo donde me fue dado el ser testigo en primera fila del problema irresoluble que Joaquín de Flore no dejaba de plantear en los ámbitos académicos de aquel pais situados dentro de la órbita de influencia de la iglesia católica, como es el el caso de la enseñanza católica universitaria del tipo confesional "urbi et orbe"

Y sería con ocasión de un congreso de "Filosofia Tomista" celebrado en las cercanías de la cudad de Cordoba durante mi estancia en aquel país -en, el invierno austral del 79 (...)- en el marco de mi ministerio formando parte la obra del obispo Lefebvre. En concreto, tras la intervención que seguí con gran interes de uno de los ponentes invitados, profesor en una Universidad caztolica alemana (hasta el punto de procurarme de inmediato copia escrita del texto) en relación con la visión de la historia del monje célebre que se vio seguida (y no es broma) de una retractación con todas las letras del interesado tras las presiones que se sucedieron a no dudar entre bastidores del congreso.

Y en la que el infortunado ponente -a todas luces intimidado y atemorizado de la cola que habían traído sus palabras- declaraba solemnemente distanciarse de la teoría hegeliana que se insinuaba o se escondían (subrepticiamente) en la visión histórica de Joaquin de Flore y de la que sin duda (de lo que creo recordar del tenor de sus retractaciones) él mismo se había hecho desgraciadamente culpable en la medida que les había servido perniciosamente de altavoz en aquel congreso, lo que lamentaba profundamente (etcétera, etcétera...)

Seguido de una profesión de acatamiento a la doctrina de la iglesia, como/dios/manda. Y está de más el decir que aquella retractatio" (teológica) -tan estrepitosa (yo la verdad que oyéndola no sabía donde meterme)- no me curó en modo alguno del problema (si se le quiere llamar así) que arrastraba yo de antiguo con la historia (con mayúsculas) antes y después de toparme con la figura y la obra de Joaquín de Flore y de su posteridad espiritual (teológica o filosófica), ancha y abundante como las arenas del mar a creer a aquel estudio al que aquí he venido aludiendo.

Un problema que no haría mas que agudizarse -un decir- en mí al socaire de la polémica levantada por la ley funesta de la memoria histórica y la polémica sobre la guerra civil en el plano memorialista) que de unos años la precedería. La salvación es histórica -cumpliéndose dentro de la Historia (de la salvación, de los hombres y de los pueblos)- o no lo es; no más a lo sumo que una salvación de mentirijillas con tufo "a domesticidad" como reprochaba Federico Nietzsche a "las experiencias de salvación" de sus ascendientes y antepasados (todos ellos pastores protestantes) No pretendo no obstante convencer aquí a nadie.

Consciente además de correr el riesgo pronunciándome como le hago de un proceso en materia de heterodoxia como el que se le siguió a la Acción Francesa; que ya veo a algunos tomando nota a toda prisa de lo que expongo en estas líneas. Exultantes de tener (¡en fin!) algo por donde "cogerme" Entre aquellos presumiblemente que más me habrán seguido la pista o mejor me conocen (de antiguo)

¿En la mirilla de la censura teológica, no directamente de los dicasterios romanos pero sí de la FSSPX? A fe mía que no lo sé. Pero esta claro para mi que en los ámbitos rectores de la obra fundada por el obispo francés disidente -bien vistos en lo sucesivo a todos los niveles de la iglesia jerárquica- se tienen formada una idea o si se prefiere un juicio de sobra por cuenta mía.

Pese al silencio (desdeñoso) que me habrán brindado durante décadas. No se puede decir en cualquier caso que no sea yo para ellos un viejo conocido (y recíprocamente también) El actual superior Bernard Fellay, hijo del ingeniero responsable de la central eléctrica de Ecóne -en el cantón suizo del Valais- del que el seminario tomaría su nombre (el mas divulgado en los medios por lo menos) solía venir a montar en trineo aún adolescente casi un niño en el cerro adyacente al seminario los primeros tiempos de estar yo allí.

Y que me perdone pero pensé y sigo pensando que en materia de catolicismo los suizos por muy católicos que se sintieran tienen pocas lecciones que dar a los españoles. Y mucho menos en punto nuestro pasado histórico. Por muy altas que sean sus montañas. Por mucho que algunos de ellos se sientan el ombligo de Europa (y del mundo)

No les estoy declarando la guerra, que conste. A lo sumo me la declararon ellos que consiguieron mi expulsión de Suiza, tras mi salida de la cárcel portuguesa -en marzo del 86- gracias a su gran valedor en los medios políticos y de la magistratura en la capital federal, Berna, el abogado (maître) Roger Lovey, proximo de "l'Office" (antigua Cité Catholique), poco conocidos en España pero tan sectarios como el Opus Dei.

Sin rencores, y sin complejos. No por ello voy a abogar por el cierre de sus antenas en territorio español y la expulsión de sus miembros (que se merecerían)

http://blogs.periodistadigital.com/juanfernandezkrohn.php/2010/11/29/confesiones-de-un-heterodoxo-sobre-mi-he

THE SSPX AND ANTI-SEMITISM

                                             Benedict XVI in Hitler Youth uniform

                 Archbishop Lefebvre supported the pro-Nazi Vichy government during WWII



Radical Powerhouse

The Society of St. Pius X, which has chapels and schools across the United States, remains a font of anti-Semitic propaganda.

by Heidi Beirich

The powerhouse organization of the radical traditionalist Catholic world is a sprawling international order called the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), founded by the late French archbishop, Marcel-François Lefebvre, in 1970. Although there have been recent attempts by the Vatican to pull SSPX back into the Catholic mainstream, the organization, all of whose priests were excommunicated in the late 1980s, has continued to publish anti-Semitic materials, flirt with Holocaust denial and reject any reconciliation with the Catholic Church.

Lefebvre was always on the hard right. During World War II, he supported the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, a puppet government in the part of France not occupied by the Germans. He lamented the eventual liberation of the country, describing it as “the victory of Freemasonry against the Catholic order of Petain. It was the invasion of the barbarians without faith or law!”

Lefebvre later was on an advisory committee to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which enacted several liberalizing and modernizing reforms within the church. But the archbishop refused to sign the council’s final reports on religious liberty and the modern church, the first sign of a rebellion that would only grow in later years. In 1970, he founded SSPX as a seminary in Ecône, Switzerland.

In 1974, Lefebvre publicly denounced as heretical the Vatican II reforms and the subsequent adoption of the new Mass, celebrated in local languages instead of traditional Latin. As a result, Pope Paul VI ordered the archbishop to shut down his Swiss seminary. But Lefebvre refused to comply, leading the Vatican to suspend his right to perform priestly functions (a step short of excommunication) in 1976.

In 1988, Lefebvre took his most radical step yet, consecrating four bishops in defiance of the Vatican. Pope John Paul II responded by excommunicating Lefebvre and all SSPX priests, and declaring SSPX in formal schism with the church.

The following year, police arrested fugitive French war criminal Paul Touvier, who had been hidden for years by the order, at an SSPX monastery in Nice, France. Touvier was later convicted of ordering the execution of seven Jews in 1944.

Also in 1989, one of Lefebvre’s “bishops,” Englishman Richard Williamson, gave a speech to a Canadian church in which he decried the alleged persecution of Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel by the Canadian government. Williams, then rector of SSPX’s main North American seminary in Winona, Minn., told his audience: “There was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies.” The Canadian government reacted by banning all SSPX publications.

In the course of his struggle with the Vatican, Lefebvre became a hero to many, emerging as the world’s leading critic of church reforms ending the Latin Mass and reaching out to other religions. Already by the mid-1970s, priests ordained by the archbishop were starting chapels and seminaries in the United States. Today, SSPX’s American operation, headquartered in Kansas City, Kan., claims 103 chapels and 25 schools, in addition to Kansas City-based Angelus Press. Scholar Michael Cuneo has estimated SSPX has up to 30,000 U. S. adherents.

It is in The Angelus, published monthly by the SSPX press, and on SSPX’s website, that the radical anti-Semitism of the order is most evident today. One example now on the website is a 1997 Angelus article by SSPX priests Michael Crowdy and Kenneth Novak that calls for locking Jews into ghettos because “Jews are known to kill Christians.” It also blames Jews for the French Revolution, communism and capitalism; suggests a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy has destroyed the Catholic Church; and describes Judaism as “inimical to all nations.”

Another document reproduced on the SSPX’s current website is a 1959 letter from Lefebvre’s close friend, Bishop Gerald Sigaud, who also rejected the Vatican II reforms. “Money, the media, and international politics are for a large part in the hands of Jews,” Bishop Sigaud wrote. “Those who have revealed the atomic secrets of the USA were … all Jews. The founders of communism were Jews.”

The Angelus Press sells anti-Semitic tomes like Hilaire Beloc’s The Jews, which blames Jews for Bolshevism and corrupt financial practices, and Monsignor George Dillon’s Freemasonry Unmasked, which purports to explain a centuries-old Judeo-Masonic plot to destroy the Catholic Church. More recent SSPX publications include the 2005 pamphlet Time Bombs of the Second Vatican Council, by Franz Schmidberger, the former superior general of the SSPX. Schmidberger denounces Third World immigration into Western countries as “destroying our national identity and, furthermore, the whole of Christianity,” and accuses the Jews of deicide.

Other extremists published in the pages of The Angelus (and carried on the SSPX’s current website) include the late Father Denis Fahey; John Vennari, head of Catholic Family News (see profile, p. 29); and Robert Sungenis, the particularly virulent leader of Catholic Apologetics International (see profile, p. 28).

Through it all, SSPX denies all allegations of anti-Semitism.

But even some fellow radical traditionalists have accused SSPX of that and worse. Fidelity, a magazine run by hard-liner E. Michael Jones (see Culture Wars/Fidelity Press profile, p. 29), in 1992 charged a principal SSPX leader in Kansas City of Hitler worship and promoting Nazism to his students. Although the man accused by Fidelity hotly denied the charges, the students quoted by Jones stood by their allegations.

In recent months, Pope Benedict XVI has extended an olive branch to SSPX members, inviting them to return to the church. But the sect’s leaders rejected the suggestion outright. As a result, Benedict last September approved an institute for French priests who left the movement. The pope’s move marked the effective end to efforts by the Vatican to bring the SSPX sect back into the Catholic fold.

Intelligence Report

Winter 2007

http://www.romancatholicism.org/sspx-jews.htm

COTTARD: LE PROCÈS

20/10/1999 à 01h16

Cottard trop divin pour être humain. L'abbé n'a pas hésité à mettre en cause les enfants dans leur mortelle équipée.


SANTUCCI Françoise-Marie


Guingamp (Côtes-d'Armor), envoyée spéciale.

Sous le soleil qui filtrait, hier matin, dans la salle d'audience du tribunal de Guingamp (Côtes- d'Armor), Jean-Yves Cottard a fait montre d'une certaine décence, à défaut de remords. Un peu voûté, l'ecclésiastique mouille sa voix de repentir. «Je n'ai pas suffisamment pris conscience de mon incompétence, j'ai commis une erreur d'appréciation.» Ces mots, que tout le monde attendait depuis le début du procès lundi matin, l'abbé les a lâchés faute de mieux, acculé par l'insistance de la présidente Maryvonne Lecuyer. Il est jugé pour «homicides et blessures involontaires avec manquement délibéré aux obligations de sécurité et de prudence».

La veille au soir, il s'était essayé à la gratitude. L'audience touchait aux moments tragiques, ceux du 22 juillet 1998 où quatre scouts et un plaisancier trouvèrent la mort après une virée en mer ordonnée par l'abbé. Les deux plaisanciers de l'Alphin, le voilier qui porta secours aux scouts en perdition, finissaient leur déposition. Cottard se lève et dit: «Quoi qu'il en soit, merci.» Le skipper Yves Bécognée lui répond sèchement: «Je dois indiquer au tribunal que ni Corneloup [le troisième équipier à bord de l'Alphin, ndlr], ni Sigogneau [la mère de Guillaume Castanet, le jeune homme qui mourut dans le sauvetage, ndlr], ni moi-même n'avons reçu aucune lettre d'un parent d'enfant mort ou rescapé. Je vous remercie de vos remerciements, je ne peux que constater qu'ils sont un peu tardifs.» Malgré ces deux jours d'audience calamiteux pour elle, la maison intégriste tient bon dans l'adversité. A défaut de reporter les fautes sur l'encadrement du camp scout, pourquoi ne pas charger les enfants eux-mêmes? Cottard lance: «S'ils sont partis ce matin-là, c'est parce qu'ils en avaient envie.» Son avocat renchérit: le drame ne résulterait-il pas d'une erreur de navigation imputable aux scouts? L'un d'entre eux justement, le rescapé Grégoire A. au visage crayeux, ne se risque pas à écorner la version divine. Le drame, selon lui? «Une vague et un coup de vent.» Et quand Yves Bécognée, rappelé pour une confrontation avec Grégoire A., entre à nouveau dans la salle d'audience, il embrasse avec émotion le «petit scout». Celui-ci se raidit instinctivement, corseté, comme ses proches, dans une foi qui lui fait oublier la moindre humanité. Cheveux ras. Pas une fois les regards des proches de Cottard ne se tournent vers Dominique Sigogneau, la mère de Guillaume Castanet, cachée derrière de grosses lunettes de soleil. Chez les hommes en soutane et les familles des scouts, on porte le cheveu ras et le menton fier, on lit la Bible pour conjurer la réalité humaine. Ainsi la maman d'un enfant décédé, malgré la succession d'erreurs pointées depuis lundi, malgré les faux-fuyants de Jean-Yves Cottard, le décharge-t-elle encore. «Nous avons eu le malheur de perdre un enfant, l'abbé en pleure quatre.» Seul Dominique Lasnet de Lanty, un grand barbu aux yeux tristes, semble parfois abattu. Il a perdu un enfant cette nuit-là ­ sa femme s'était constituée partie civile, elle a préféré ne pas venir. Trop de pression dans ce milieu intégriste? Jamais l'audience ne se hasarda sur ce terrain glissant: pourquoi de tels camps, quasi militaires, existent-ils? Pourquoi tant de cruauté envers ces enfants, pour soi-disant en faire des hommes? Et quels hommes? Mais il ne s'agissait pas d'instruire le procès de l'intégrisme, ses affidés eussent été trop heureux d'y voir un complot, et cela risquait d'exonérer un abbé plus que jamais responsable de tout. Responsable et coupable? Sûrement, selon le procureur Michel Belin qui, au terme d'un réquisitoire d'une heure et quart, lance à Cottard: «Puissent ces cris d'enfants et ces noms de victimes hanter à tout jamais vos nuits.» Selon lui, «les scouts furent envoyés à la mort. Rien, dans ce qui est arrivé, ne relève du destin». Et d'accuser l'abbé d'être l'instigateur d'une «doctrine» réservée à «un groupuscule d'individus enfermés dans leurs certitudes et coupés du reste du monde», où «la prise de risques était érigée en méthode éducative». «Gourou d'une secte». Michel Belin a requis cinq ans de prison dont deux ferme pour Jean-Yves Cottard (avec affichage du jugement dans les locaux de l'organisation scoute), assortis de l'interdiction, à tout jamais, d'encadrer des jeunes. Un peu plus tôt, l'avocat de Dominique Sigogneau avait désigné l'abbé comme le «gourou d'une secte», qui «obligeait les gamins à dire des choses extravagantes pour ne pas lui nuire». Evoquant la mort de Guillaume Castanet et la douleur de sa mère, qui «parvient à respirer mais ne vit plus», Me Yann Gasnier a demandé en son nom 300000 F de dommages et intérêts. Jugement le 6 décembre.

http://www.liberation.fr/societe/0109295969-cottard-trop-divin-pour-etre-humain-l-abbe-n-a-pas-hesite-a-mettre-en-cause-les-enfants-dans-leur-mortelle-equipee

LÁBBÉ COTTTARD DÉCLINE LA RESPONSABILITÉ

Société 19/10/1999

L'abbé Cottard charge son prochain. L'accusé répète qu'«il n'est pas responsable» du raid tragique des scouts.

SANTUCCI Françoise-Marie


Guingamp, envoyée spéciale.

Une belle prestance et beaucoup d'incohérences. Hier, au tribunal de Guingamp (Côtes-d'Armor), l'abbé Jean-Yves Cottard, 52 ans, n'a en rien varié sa ligne de défense, la sienne depuis le drame qui coûta la vie, le 22 juillet 1998 au large de Perros-Guirec, à quatre scouts marins et un plaisancier. En substance: «Je ne savais pas, je ne suis pas responsable», et les familles des scouts morts comme les ecclésiastiques réunis dans la salle d'audience communient avec lui, attachés à ce guide spirituel d'un autre âge, cet homme habillé d'une soutane et de maigres mots qui ne sait plus rien, ou alors si peu. Accusé d'«homicides et blessures involontaires par manquements délibérés à des obligations de sécurité et de prudence», Jean-Yves Cottard, qui risque cinq ans de prison, n'a cessé de louvoyer.

Pas de diplômes. Personne, dans ce camp de scouts marins, n'avait les diplômes nécessaires à l'encadrement d'une activité nautique. Tous s'en remettaient à l'abbé, qui lui-même s'en remettait aux autres. «Mais vous faisiez quoi exactement?» finit par lancer le procureur Michel Belin à un abbé qui perd de sa superbe au fil des heures. Pas grand-chose. Superviser. Et la sécurité, les compétences? Qui décidait quoi dans ce camp de Trédez-Locquemeau? L'abbé se défausse sur son adjoint, Jean-François Pepe, dont le témoignage fut, involontairement, le point d'orgue d'une journée de dupes.

Un air de Tintin à lunettes, mais sans aucune malice, Pepe lâche n'y rien connaître en voile. La présidente Maryvonne Lecuyer, pugnace, le reprend: «Depuis ce matin, je cherche désespérément à savoir qui était le responsable de ce camp.» Le nez dans ses chaussettes, Pepe bafoue: «Je faisais confiance à l'abbé.» Un abbé qui, malgré ses fanfaronnades juste après le drame (il affirmait être un ancien officier de marine, être rompu à la navigation), n'a plus d'autre alternative: avouer son incompétence. Le mauvais état des bateaux? «Je ne savais pas.» Les tests de natation? «Je n'ai pas vérifié.» Les enfants en surnombre sur les caravelles? «Je n'ai pas fait attention.» Assis juste en face des trois magistrats, Jean-Yves Cottard, aussi droit qu'un prie-dieu en début d'audience, s'affaisse peu à peu.

Sa voix se fait plus sourde, plus nasillarde. Pourtant, en vingt-cinq ans de prêtrise, cet homme a su en forger, des caractères. Responsable du prieuré Saint-Jean à Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines), l'abbé dirigeait parallèlement un mouvement de jeunes garçons, Marine Education Jeunesse, affilié à l'Association française des scouts et guides catholiques, qui n'est reconnue ni par les instances du scoutisme, ni par le ministère de la Jeunesse et des Sports. Malgré ses fréquentes références à Baden-Powell (le fondateur du scoutisme), l'ambition de Cottard se voulait plus martiale. Il s'agissait de «prévenir la délinquance juvénile et la toxicomanie par les activités de mer; de préserver ces jeunes garçons des dépressions et autres prédispositions à la déchéance ou à la destruction de soi». Quitte à user de méthodes radicales. Ainsi, un témoin raconte la fatigue sur les visages de ces gamins, quand ils furent obligés de camper sur un mauvais sol de galets, le premier soir du raid, l'ordre venait de Cottard, mais évidemment, il ne s'en souvient plus très bien.

Lecture de la bible. Au théâtre de Guingamp où est retransmis le procès, les proches de l'abbé, s'ils sont là, se font discrets. Pas comme dans la salle d'audience, où quelques prêtres en soutane lisent silencieusement la bible (en latin), quand les familles des victimes, toujours aussi soudées derrière Jean-Yves Cottard, ricanent à l'exposé de la vie dans le camp. Une semaine avant le drame, un simulacre d'accident d'avion occupe la trentaine de garçons. Le but: savoir qui sont les traîtres à l'origine du crash ­ on apprend que tous l'étaient, à la fin de ce petit jeu qui dura trois jours. Autre anecdote: un témoin croise, mi-juillet 1998, quatre des scouts en maraude dans la campagne. Sans un sou, sans nourriture: «Juste une botte de carottes pour tenir pendant les deux jours de ce raid terrestre.» Et Cottard? La seule chose qui le chiffonne, c'est l'emploi de ce mot: raid. «Ça fait trop militaire.» Ce même fatal été, un second témoin trouve sur sa route un petit scout. Seul, il doit parcourir une cinquantaine de kilomètres. Il crève de faim. Quatre de ses condisciples le rejoignent: à cinq, ils n'ont pour toute nourriture qu'une boîte de raviolis et une pastèque. Et toujours pas d'argent. L'abbé bafouille ­ que peut-il encore dire?

Le procès doit se poursuivre jusqu'à ce soir.

http://www.liberation.fr/societe/0101295864-l-abbe-cottard-charge-son-prochain-l-accuse-repete-qu-il-n-est-pas-responsable-du-raid-tragique-des-scouts

FSSPX FÁTIMA PILGRIMAGE

HOW THW SSPX PERSECUTED FR JOHN RIZZO

How the SSPX Persecuted Fr. John Rizzo taken from:

In The Line of Fire: Fr. John Rizzo, Ex-SSPX

by Michael J. Mazza

Fidelity Magazine, May 1995 Issue

(Note: We have condensed what follows from the original article written by Michael J. Mazza. We have left the story of Fr. Rizzo essentially intact, but we have removed Mr. Mazza's commentary on the SSPX being in schism because Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops on June 30, 1988. While we agree that the SSPX is indeed in schism, it is our conclusion that they are in schism not because of the consecration of bishops, but because of other acts, such as the granting of marriage annulments and the imposing of censures on laypeople. In order to concentrate here on the question of cult-like behaviour in the SSPX, we have decided to treat the whole question of schism elsewhere.)

Fr. John Rizzo woke up early the morning of Monday, February 8, 1993. It was 40 degrees below zero in Crookston, Minnesota, and he could hear the howling winds outside as he vested for the 5:30 a.m. Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows chapel. He had spent the previous night in the basement of the church, but really hadn't slept all that much. The moment of his carefully-planned escape from the Society of St. Pius X was almost upon him; yet his excitement was tempered by an overwhelming anxiety over his immediate future. He had in his pocket exactly $37 and a borrowed credit card, and a long drive ahead of him.

He knew Fr. Harber would be expecting him back at the Society's rectory in Browerville, Minnesota no later than noon, a good three hour drive away. He only hoped Harber wouldn't discover he had emptied his room of all his belongings two nights before, packing them into his Subaru at 2 a.m. so as not to alert anyone of his plans. After Mass, he hopped into his frozen car, thanked God as it turned over on the first try, and sped out of town and south onto interstate 29. Twelve hours and only a couple of rest stops later, he arrived at his brother's house in Bellvue, Kansas. Though exhausted mentally and physically, he was glad to be free and at last out from under the sway of the Society. Or so he thought.

Some days later, he found himself at a Colorado retreat house run by another former priest of the Society. On the night of February 13, he remembers, a phone call came for him. A little surprised, he took the receiver from the seminarian who had answered the phone. The voice at the other end of the line belonged to a man, who said in a deep voice: "If you come anywhere near us, you're one dead priest," and hung up.

THE ACOLYTE WITH AN ATTITUDE

John and his twin brother Joseph Rizzo were born on December 7, 1960 in Weymouth, Massachusetts, the fourth and fifth children (respectively) of Tony and Millie Rizzo. Both attended the parish grade school, St Francis Xavier, until the sixth grade. They were in the same classroom until the second grade, when at last the "nuns in the long habits," the Sisters of Divine Providence, separated them so they could tell them apart. When the Junior high closed due to lack of enrollment in the late 1960s, their parents sent them to the local public school. John and Joe were confirmed in the 9th grade, and voluntarily continued their religious education by attending CCD classes for the next three years until they graduated from Weymouth South High School in 1979.

John had been disturbed by some of the transformations in parish life during his high school years, particularly, he says, "Communion in the hand." So much so, in fact, that when serving as an altar boy he would hold the paten under the chin of all communicants regardless of how they were in fact, receiving.

This practice drew the ire of his pastor, who publicly reprimanded John for his stubbornness. Rizzo's growing alienation with the form of Catholicism he experienced in his parish was to put him in touch with the faction most disaffected by the changes that occurred within the Church in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.

In search of a traditional seminary, John first turned to a family friend, a Boston area priest who had been suspended by the archdiocese for refusing to take an assignment in which he would be expected to offer the Mass in the vernacular. The priest urged the young Rizzo, now 18, to write to Fr. Frederic Nelson in Powers Lake, North Dakota, who in turn recommended he contact a man by the name of Fr. Dan Dolan in Oyster Bay Cove on Long Island, NY. Dolan was a priest of the Society of St. Pius X, an organization begun by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in France in 1970 to "preserve tradition" in the Church in the years following Vatican II.

Shortly before Christmas in 1978, John and his brother Joseph boarded the Amtrak and visited Dolan in Oyster Bay. John remembers feeling uncomfortable with the impromptu atmosphere surrounding the superficial interview process and the aloof attitude of Dolan himself. The two brothers were promptly put to work after they arrived, and remember spending the rest of their four or five days there stuffing envelopes for the Christmas Appeal and moving furniture. Nevertheless, both were happy to be welcomed into the Society's six-year seminary program, which was at that time moving from Armada, Michigan to Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Though his brother Joe left after a year ("I was there for the wrong reasons"), John Rizzo stayed. He was receiving sound formation in Catholic spirituality, philosophy, and theology: training which he now credits with helping him discern years later the reasons for leaving the Society.

Fr. Rizzo was ordained a priest on May 19, 1985 in Ridgefield. He spent the first two years of his priesthood in England, teaching catechism classes and offering the Tridentine Mass across the country. In 1987 he was made pastor of a Society parish in Post Falls, Idaho.

A short time after this, Fr. Rizzo made a visit to his brother's house in Kansas. While he was there, he met Fr. Ramon Angles, the new rector of the parish and school at St. Mary's. In August of 1989, Rizzo met with Angles in his private apartment on campus. After settling down in their chairs with their drinks, they began a rather ordinary conversation. John describes:

"All of a sudden, without any provocation whatsoever, he got up and went over to his bookshelf. He pulled out this huge book with the title The Life of Adolf Hitler and a big picture of Hitler on the cover giving his salute. He put it on the bridge of his nose, the same way the sub-deacon holds up the Book of the Gospels at a solemn High Mass. He walked around the coffee table in his apartment, making the noise of a thurible (ching, ching, ching, ching). After he sat down, he says: 'Well, Rizzo, what do you think of that? Isn't this great?' He was laughing quite devilishly. He then asked, 'What else do you want to talk about?'"

Rizzo, who was more than a little alarmed by the proceedings, concluded that the opportunity for meaningful discussion was just about over and politely excused himself. But the occasion for another stimulating conversation with Fr. Angles would soon present itself. In January of 1990, Fr. Rizzo received a disturbing phone call from an extremely distraught mother in his parish. She said one of her sons had just received what he perceived to be a love letter from one of his teachers at St. Mary's, where he was enrolled as a student. As she related the story over the phone to Rizzo, the priest grew more furious, especially since the teacher and author of the letter was a man. Rizzo promptly called Fr. Angles at St. Mary's and demanded action. Rizzo recalls Angles' promising that the teacher would be removed at the end of the school year.

Rizzo objected, saying he felt the man should be removed immediately. Rizzo claims Angles responded by telling him, in effect, to mind his own business. When it became clear to Rizzo that Angles was more interested in guarding his turf than the moral lives of his students, he telephoned Fr. Peter Scott, the District Superior for the Society in Kansas City, Missouri. Scott reportedly responded: "What can I do? I'm afraid of Fr. Angles."

THE HATE FAX

When word got back to Fr. Angles that Rizzo had gone over his head and spoken with Fr. Scott about the problem, he was livid, and, according to Rizzo, composed an angry letter in ecclesiastical Latin and faxed it to the lumber company across the street from Fr. Rizzo's rectory in Idaho. Rizzo remembers the lumber company secretary knocking on his door, bearing what he thought was a top secret document in light of the fact that its contents were in Latin. When he began reading it, he recalls, he broke out laughing. "See how those Christians love one another," he joked later.

Fr. John Rizzo soon became the lightning rod for disaffected parents all over the country. He had become a rather well-known figure in his years with the Society, having traveled widely on Mass circuits and in the summers by offering youth camps in New Hampshire and Kansas. After the love letter incident, when parents would ask him about sending their young people to St. Mary's, he would ask: "Is your child a boy or a girl?" If they chose the first response, Rizzo said that he could not in conscience recommend they send him to St. Mary's. Confused parents would also call him, saying their children were wanting to leave and were complaining that the school wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. Fr. Rizzo claims even students began to contact him and ask him for help. He says boarders at St. Mary's began to sneak out in the middle of the night and place collect calls from pay phones off campus to the rectory up in Idaho pleading, "Father, can you do something?"

News of all this discontent, of course, eventually found its way to others within the Society, who did not look kindly on Rizzo's actions. In August of 1992, he found himself "re-assigned" and on a one-way flight to England.

"HELL ON EARTH"

During Fr. John Rizzo's period of exile in England in August of 1992 following his conflict with St. Mary's rector Fr. Angles, his seminary training began to come back to him. He started to reflect on the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas he had received there and to re-read papal documents.

Six weeks into his stay in England, he telephoned both Fr. Peter Scott, District Superior for the United States, and Fr. Franz Schmidberger, the Superior General for the Society all over the world, saying that he was having problems in conscience remaining in the Society. Rizzo said both Scott and Schmidberger denied his request for a leave of absence and refused to allow him to return to the States. He persisted, however, and when he discovered the Society had canceled his credit card, making him a virtual economic hostage in a foreign country, he borrowed his brother's card number and bought his own ticket home.

His journey out of the Society not yet complete, either in his own mind or in actuality, he went to Kansas City to live with Fr. Peter Scott for two months of, as he would later describe, "hell on earth." He saw all that was wrong with the SSPX in a new way. The manipulative, deceitful, and arrogant tendencies he felt he saw within the sect became increasingly more repulsive to him. Meanwhile, Fr. Scott was telling the SSPX faithful in the pews that Rizzo had a rare kidney disease and was slowly dying.

Rizzo asserts that he was forbidden to see his twin brother, who lived a mere 90 minutes away from where he was staying in Kansas City, but one time while on the route of a Mass circuit went to see him anyway. A complete report of this visit was made to Fr. Scott by some SSPX informants in St. Mary's, including the evidently crucial information that Rizzo had purchased grapes and apple juice while at a grocery store before heading out of town. Scott was waiting with his indignant reprimand of Rizzo when the priest returned from his circuit, along with the information concerning the subversive sundries. Fortunately for Rizzo however, he had consumed the evidence of his crime before arriving home.

The Society's obsession with Rizzo's "treason" evidently drove them into even stranger types of conduct. One afternoon Joe Rizzo went over to St. Mary's for confession. As he knelt behind the screen and intoned the words "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," Fr. Angles' voice came from the other side: "Are you here for your sins, or the sins of your brother?" On several occasions, Joe Rizzo remembers Fr. Peter Scott, the former medical student turned SSPX priest, tell him he was concerned about John, and that he felt his twin brother was "mentally incapacitated," "unstable," and was going to see to it that the Society's physician put John on Prozac, an anti-depressant drug. John was eventually given samples of Prozac and was ordered to take them, but had instead hidden them in the glove compartment of his brother's truck. When Fr. Scott discovered the pills there one day, John began flushing them down the toilet.

THE GREAT ESCAPE

Using the excuse that he wanted to get out of the city, Fr. Rizzo asked to be given an assignment in a small town in order to get out of the Kansas City headquarters. He arrived at the Society's northern Minnesota outpost, a rectory in a rural area just outside of Browerville, Minnesota (population 693) on December 15, 1992. There he was placed under the supervision of a young priest by the name of Fr. Michael Harber, who had been ordained just seven months previous. Rizzo claims he was allowed no private phone calls whatsoever; all incoming calls had to be screened. When going out for errands or to offer Mass, he says he was instructed to make no unauthorized stops or phone calls and to return home by a specific time. During the week, he remembers being expected to be a second shadow for Fr. Harber, riding with him in the car twice daily as Harber drove to the neighboring convent just a few miles away in downtown Browerville.

Finally deciding that enough was enough, Fr. Rizzo packed his belongings into his car late at night on Saturday, February 6, 1993. He got to bed at 2 a.m. and woke up three hours later in order to drive to St. Cloud and offer two Sunday morning Masses there. Before he left the rectory, he positioned a table behind his bedroom door in order to deter Fr. Harber from opening it up and seeing his room empty before he had a chance to make his getaway. After the Masses in St. Cloud had been concluded, he drove three and a half hours north to Crookston for a Sunday evening Mass.

The privilege of spending the night in the basement of the Crookston chapel had only recently been granted him. Fr. Harber had previously insisted that Rizzo return to Browerville from Crookston that same night, but the thought of having one man drive over eight hours by himself in one day on the lonely country roads of northern Minnesota after saying three Masses was too much for even the Society to allow. Fr. Scott gave in, and that gave Fr. Rizzo the break for which he had been looking.

He woke up early Monday morning, still nervous about how he was going to survive outside the Society and wondering if he were doing the right thing. He asked God for some kind of sign. After the 5:30 a.m. Mass, an elderly woman approached him, pressed $230 in small bills into his hand, and asked him to offer Masses for her deceased husband. She was the last person with whom he spoke as a priest of the Society of St. Pius X.

John arrived at the house of his twin brother late Monday night. The very next day he telephoned Fr. Scott to inform him he had formally left the Society. In saying good-bye, Rizzo said: "God bless you, Father." Scott's reply is burned into the memory of Fr. Rizzo: "I will not bless you, because I know God will not bless your work." After a few more days with his brother and his family, he went to spend some time at a retreat center in Colorado.

It was while he was on retreat that he says he received his first death threat. In a March 1993 interview with reporter Joe Taschler of the Topeka Capital-Journal, Rizzo claimed that a phone call came for him the night of February 13, and that the caller warned: "If you come anywhere near us, you're one dead priest," and hung up. Feeling a mixture of fear, pity, and frustration that the caller wasn't a bit more specific (just where is "near us?" he wondered), Rizzo continued his journey up north to Montana, where he had hoped to join the Helena diocese. Because the diocese was waiting for a new bishop to be appointed there, and because his own situation was becoming increasingly urgent, and because a groundswell of people back in Kansas were pleading for him to come back and offer them an alternative to the SSPX, he returned to Kansas in March of 1993.

THE SSPX GETS NASTY

The last Saturday of that month, March 27, 1993, found Fr. Rizzo hearing confessions in the community room of a local bank in St. Marys, which some of the faithful had rented in order to provide a place for Fr. Rizzo to celebrate the sacraments. A little after 7 p.m., two law enforcement agents entered the room and asked those assembled the whereabouts of Fr. Rizzo. The priest had heard the commotion, so after his penitent had left, he emerged from the makeshift confessional. John remembers that the sheriff did not waste any time in issuing his warning: "I highly recommend that you leave town immediately. There's a posse of men coming from over there (he motioned to the St. Mary's campus) and I believe they have more fire power than we do."

Needless to say, the penitents made a collective act of perfect contrition as they sprinted out the exits of the bank, as did Fr. Rizzo himself. Believing tempers had cooled by the next morning, though, Fr. Rizzo came back into town and proceeded to go over to the bank's community room to offer Mass. Someone had squirted Super glue into the locks, however, making it impossible to enter the building, according to police at the scene. One of the associate priests from St. Mary's was observed in a van parked across the street with some other SSPX loyalists, laughing and pointing. According to the local sheriff, two members of St. Mary's initially confessed to the crime, but recanted when they found out how serious the penalty was for vandalizing the doors of a bank. The real perpetrators have not yet been found.

Fr. Rizzo says he began to wear, on the advice of the legal authorizes, a bullet-proof vest. Throughout the summer of 1993, Rizzo and his neighbors would be regularly awakened by the sound of exploding firecrackers in the driveway of the house he was renting. He says he received dozens of obscene phone calls, and one night even caught two men in the act of what the phone company later wagered was an attempt to place a tap on his phone. On the evening of October 24, 1993, his house was peppered with bullets from a 22 caliber gun, at least two of which entered the bedroom area and one of which pierced a pillow on one of the beds. Fortunately for him, he was out of town celebrating Mass the night of the incident. Authorities later came to the judgment that the violence was gang related and only coincidentally related to the dispute between Rizzo and the SSPX. The local sheriff, however, says he continued to patrol the facility in which Rizzo was saying Mass for some time after these incidents.

The Society's fixation with Rizzo apparently also pushed them into the arena of ecclesial espionage. A couple of Society priests in Kansas City had secured the services of a Missouri woman named Vicky Story, whose first contact with the Society had come over the television two years earlier. "Channel surfing" early one Saturday morning, she came across Fr. Clarence Kelly's show "What Catholics Believe" on BET (Black Entertainment Television).

Vicky kept watching. Kelly, for all his faults and quirks, seemed to have presented Catholic doctrine in a way that made a deeper impression on Vicky than the "hug a tree, kiss a whale" theology she says she had received in the Catholic parishes she had drifted in and out of since converting to Catholicism from Protestantism at the age of 18. Through the toll free number on the show, Vicky got in touch with the local SSPX chapel (Note: this is actually a very large church) in Kansas City. Early in the summer of 1992, she and her husband went to visit Fr. James Doran at St. Vincent's. Two years later, in the summer of 1994, Vicky found herself attending Fr. Rizzo's Masses at the behest of some Society priests to see how correctly Rizzo was following the rubrics of the Mass. Fr. Scott wanted to know where he stood when reading the Gospel, whether or not he performed the correct number of bows, what kind of vestments and shoes he wore, etc. "You know," Vicky quipped later, "the real important stuff."

"THEY HATE THE CHURCH"

Rizzo claims he is still periodically receiving abusive phone calls, as well as others in the middle of the night from young men who claim to be "struggling with the virtue of purity" and who want to come over and "visit." Rizzo is concerned he is being set up for a pedophilia charge. Furthermore one of the associate priests at St. Mary's, Fr. Edward MacDonald, has written to Rizzo and demanded the return of $2,400 in donations MacDonald had made to Rizzo for help with his college expenses. Fr. Peter Scott has also written a letter which was made public by the Society stating that Fr. Rizzo is a vagus (meaning wandering, unsettled) priest, having broken "his vow of obedience," and is violating canon law. Scott's charges are interesting in the light of his own situation as a priest in a schismatic sect, but he is evidently unfamiliar with the old adage about residents of glass domiciles and the propulsion of certain kinds of mineral deposits.

Scott's letter is particularly difficult for Rizzo to swallow. "They use terminology to deceive the faithful," he complains. "They said I broke vows. The Society of St. Pius X doesn't have vows. There is what is called an 'engagement' ceremony that is taken every December 8 to renew one's engagement in the Society, but even Archbishop Lefebvre once said the engagement promises did not bind under pain of sin." Furthermore, he adds, two weeks before he left the Society he drove the four hours to Winona from Browerville to meet with Fr. Schmidberger, who was visiting the SSPX seminary there, and asked him permission to take a temporary leave of absence, which Schmidberger denied. Rizzo then told him that in conscience he could no longer work for the Society. "You're a damn liar," Fr. Schmidberger reportedly concluded. "You're a no good priest and a damn liar."

This view of Fr. Rizzo's priestly character is evidently not shared by Archbishop Kelleher of the archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas. Kelleher gave permission to Fr. Rizzo to work in the archdiocese in the fall of 1993. Months later, in February of 1994, Rizzo became a member of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, and on Easter Sunday that April, Archbishop Kelleher granted him full faculties to minister in his archdiocese. Fr. Rizzo now travels across Kansas, offering the Indult Mass hearing confessions, and teaching catechism, and is acting as a conduit of reconciliation for those who want to return to the Church. Over 200 people have followed him back into the Church so far. He also runs a K-12 school in Maple Hill, Kansas. One of his students at Our Lady of Compassion school recently told him: "I like the way you talk about the Church rather than the way they do at the Academy (at St. Mary's). I can tell you love the Church and they don't. Father, they hate the Church."

EXTRA ECCLESIAM NOT MUCH CARITAS

Since schism is, among other things, a mortal sin against the virtue of charity, one would expect that a schismatic group would be torn apart by a profound lack of this particular charism. The lack of a central authority deprives a body of its living source of unity; the absence of concern for objective truth in such a situation breeds totalitarianism. In such an atmosphere, more schisms are bound to occur, as the continual fragmenting of the Society clearly shows. Beyond this, however, the state of being extra ecclesiam through schism also means a loss of grace, which eventuates in more and more disturbing violations of the virtue of charity.

The list of people claiming to have been harassed after they have left the SSPX has been growing longer in recent months. One has to conclude that either the above analysis is playing itself out or that the supposed victims are either imagining things or misrepresenting themselves. Regardless, it is beyond dispute that many people who have left the Society (e.g., Rizzo and his supporters) have often been condemned by name from SSPX pulpits. In addition, Vicky Story says she received dozens of crank phone calls after she stopped spying on Fr. Rizzo, including one that she understood to be a thinly veiled threat on her life. Susan Convery, another former Society member and now a vocal critic of St Mary's, might very well have been killed in December of 1992 had she not been slowing down for a stop sign in downtown St. Mary's when one of her front wheel tires began to fall off. Mechanics at the scene informed her they thought the lug nuts had been intentionally loosened.

Susan's daughter also became the object of abuse. On the evening of July 5, 1993, at the Whistlestop convenience store in St Mary's, a teacher at St Mary's Academy grabbed the buttocks of the 17-year old Convery girl in front of her 13-year old companion and the cashier of the store.

The man admitted to the contact on the stand during the course of the trial that September, though he claimed he didn't do it in a "rude" manner. The court evidently disagreed, as he was found guilty of simple battery. His conviction, however, was subsequently overturned on appeal because of a "technical defect" some months later and the State of Kansas chose not to pursue the matter any further.

THE ST MARY'S WAVE

Joe Rizzo, John's twin brother, has also been on the receiving end of caritas (esteem, affection, dearness), a la St. Mary's. For many years, though, Joe was a strong supporter of St Mary's, even writing author Tom Case a scathing letter after an article critical of the SSPX appeared in the October 1992 issue of Fidelity. He now regrets his comments, claiming that he had been "brainwashed" by the people at St. Mary's. Joe also says that he and his family now regularly receive the "St. Mary's wave" from Society supporters when driving through town, a curious form of greeting that employs only the tallest of the five fingers.

One particularly memorable episode in this ongoing saga of hostility occurred on Wednesday afternoon, March 31, 1993, a few days after the lock gluing incident. Joe was invited to appear before a panel consisting of Fr Angles and three other SSPX clerics in the St. Mary's cafeteria. According to Joe's account, Angles was visibly upset: "When are you going to get balls, Rizzo?" he said, pounding his walking staff on the floor. Joe said he asked: "Why don't you sit down with my brother and talk this thing out?" Angles responded: "Before I sit down and with your brother, I will swing first" (motioning with his fist). "I will swing first!" "Rizzo," he continued, "there's an old Arab saying: 'You sit by the door and the body of your enemy will be carried by.'" One of the maintenance men on campus who reportedly owns an AK-47 assault rifle, then asked: "Do you need me?" Angles responded: "Put away the gun. . . I don't need it now. I don't need it yet." Then, turning to Joe, he said "You want bloodshed, Rizzo? I'll give you bloodshed." Joe left the "interview" feeling more than a little threatened, and after contacting police, filed a complaint on the following Sunday, April 4. The local sheriff said he and a special investigator from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation questioned Angles the next day but the matter went no further. About that same time, Joe said he discovered the lugnuts on his family's car had been loosened as well.

Besides breeding more schisms and fostering various forms of violence, the lack of grace and charity resulting from schismatic behavior also demands, so it seems, a fair amount of logical gymnastics from its proponents as well. As one example, let us take the election of Bishop Bernard Fellay as the Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X in the summer of 1994. Many members of the Society were shocked at the action, since Archbishop Lefebvre had promised that such a thing would never occur. Lefebvre claimed he did not want to give the impression he was creating a parallel church by bestowing on the head of the Society powers of jurisdiction, as such a move could be construed as setting up a rival to the pope.

Our authority for this comes from no less a source than Fr. Peter Scott, District Superior of the SSPX, in his letter to the editor of Fidelity magazine in December, 1992. According to Scott, "Archbishop Lefebvre made it perfectly clear that the Superior General was not to be one of the bishops, so as not to give the impression that the bishops that he consecrated had any jurisdiction." Fr. Carl Pulvermacher, writing in the Society's own magazine, the Angelus, concurs. In the September 1988 issue, the question arises why Fr. Schmidberger, the reigning Superior General, was not made a bishop by Archbishop Lefebvre in June of 1988 along with the other four. He writes: "Because, as Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, he has a form of jurisdiction."

Fr. Scott was to later claim to Vicky Story that Archbishop Lefebvre had changed his mind about making a bishop Superior General, and gave his permission for this action on his deathbed. Vicky noted, however, that Scott's letter to the editor in Fidelity appeared in December 1992, over a year and a half after Archbishop Lefebvre died, and made "perfectly clear" the Archbishop's intention to not have the Superior General be a bishop, an event which occurred less than two years later. Readers are left to their own devices to figure out this apparent contradiction.

The downward trajectory the Society of St. Pius X has followed in recent years should serve as a lesson. Schism eventuates in violence - spiritual and physical. Those within the Society who, like Fr. John Rizzo, had the courage to employ their God-given intellects and recognize this fact were silenced.

Fr. Rizzo stands on the steps of St. Joseph's parish in Topeka, his rose-colored vestments flapping about him as the stiff wind rolls off the Kansas prairie. It is Laetare Sunday, and Rizzo is vigorously pumping the hands of the faithful as they slowly file out into the sunshine. "Good to see you, take care, God bless you" he sings out in his heavy Bostonian accent. The atmosphere is light, even joyous; children run up and down the steps and play tag amidst legs belonging to parents who are busy sharing the week's news and the day's weather forecast. A white statue of St. Joseph, the protector of the Church, silently watches the proceedings. Behind him, the doors of the church stand wide open. Inside, there is hope.

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