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At the end of a conference on June 28, 2015, Bishop Williamson followed with a Q&A. Addressing the first question @ 1:01:30 which was: “I go to the Latin Mass on Sunday, and during the week I go to a Novus Ordo Mass that is said in a very reverent way, where I believe that the priests believe that they are changing the bread and wine.”, Bp. Williamson at this juncture, nodded his head and spent 13 minutes to answer her question while making several remarks about the licitness of attending the “New Mass” of Paul VI.
It is reminded at this point also that Bishop Fellay had stated this very same licitness for the novus ordo mass on two separate occasions which caused the birth of a new catholic resistance to go against these, and many other, modernist errors within the neo-sspx. One quoted on January 21, 2013 by Cardinal Canizares prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship (and therefore a senior Vatican official), said that Bishop Fellay once told him that:
In return to Bp. Williamson remarks that the novus ordo mass for him is legitimate to worship God, and with fairness that he had also made an intermix of other comments that may throw one off, such as, “the new mass is a key part of the new religion and the worldwide apostasy, and to stay away from the new mass”, such comments do not refer away from his intention of legality in his mind. It is in his following arguments to answer this woman’s question that are, and yet not based on catholic principles, rather on protestant notions and revolutionary thinking.
Bishop Williamson states: “While the new religion is false, is dangerous, and it strangles grace, and it’s helping many people to lose the faith, at the same time there are cases where it can be used and is used to build the faith.”
“Therefore there are cases when even the Novus Ordo Mass can be attended with an effect of building one’s faith instead of losing it.”
“Stay away from the Novus Ordo. But exceptionally, if you’re watching and praying, even there you may find the grace of God. If you do, make use of it in order to sanctify your soul.”
“If they [the lay people] can trust their own judgement, that attending the New Mass will do them more good than harm spiritually.”
He states as the “golden rule” and “absolute rule of rules” the following: “Do whatever you need to nourish your faith.”
And: “There are Eucharistic miracles in the New Mass.”; “Ask a priest you trust and heed his advice — maybe.”; “Decide for yourself.”; “If you can trust your own judgment, use your own judgment.”; “All of this is just my opinion and almost heresy.”; “Maybe none of this should be said in public.”; ect.
It does not need to be demonstrated that the first end of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered primarily and essentially for the worship of God, and is not determined by what it does for the individual or likes or dislikes of opinion or preference. Bishop Williamson is expressing that Holy Mass is principally and essentially a spiritual aid to the believer, rather than the Church’s solemn worship of the Most Holy Trinity.
Like Bp. Fellay, Bp. Williamson had stated that the Novus Ordo Mass is legitimate to attend for the benefit of the individual and will fulfil the ends of catholic obligation toward the worship of God - “Do whatever you need to nourish your faith.”
“[As] Bishop Fellay is striving to incorporate the Society of Saint Pius X into the Novus Ordo structures precisely to work from within them, and to help bring about a conservative Novus Ordo religion, since he has no intrinsic objection to the New Mass or Vatican II. Bishop Williamson hands to Bishop Fellay on a silver platter all of the logic for such a reconciliation, and at the same time destroys the theological underpinning of his own [loose independent] resistance movement.” (excerpt from In Veritate).
Below is both the conference of Bishop Williamson and a very good article in five points from Bishop Sanborn* (In Veritate): “A Response to Bishop Williamson concerning Attendance at the New Mass”. This article explains well Bishop Williamson’s position on the New Mass which logically in itself leads to reconciliation with the Modernists.
We already know through Bishop Williamson’s many Elesion Comments that he has opened the door in compromise to serve the ideas of other trad-ecumanical groups and the novus ordo, and to advice people to go to their such priests: “As for the Mass, 20 years ago one might not have hesitated to say, it must be a Society of St Pius X Mass. Today, that is no longer so sure. I would say, go rather by the priest than by his Congregation, or label.” (Eleison Comments #431: Father's Distress stmarcelinitiative.com/fathers-distress/ ).
These foreign thoughts and position of Bishop Williamson do NOT represent the catholic resistance of antiquity to fight against the enemies of our Lord and his cross in any and all fashion of error in time and in all generations.
[*Note: as Bishop Sanborn is a sedevacantist, and in no way do I approve of his position, these five points of his article referenced is a good analysis without any sedevacantist views involved.]
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CHRIST OR BELIAL?
A Response to Bishop Williamson concerning Attendance at the New Mass
July 29, 2015 by Bp. Sanborn
inveritateblog.com/2015/07/29/christ-or-belial/
On June 28th of this year, Bishop Williamson gave a conference to a gathering of people in Connecticut, followed by questions and answers.
A woman asked him whether it was permissible to attend the New Mass. Bishop Williamson says that, under certain circumstances, it is permissible to actively participate in the New Mass.
Here I will analyze his answer. I must quote him heavily, since I do not want to misrepresent his position in any way by presenting merely a few selected comments.
He starts out by saying that the New Mass is a “key part of the new religion, a major part of the worldwide apostasy.” Yet he states as the “golden rule” and “absolute rule of rules” the following: “Do whatever you need to nourish your faith.” He then explains: “Some Novus Ordo priests are nourishing and building the faith in the Novus Ordo parish.” “There have been eucharistic miracles with the Novus Ordo Mass. They are still occurring.”
He then enunciates this very odd principle: “While the new religion is false, is dangerous, and it strangles grace, and it’s helping many people to lose the faith, at the same time there are cases where it it can be used and is used to build the faith.”
Finally he comes to what he calls the essential principle: “Do whatever you need to do to keep the faith.”
He makes the decision to attend an entirely personal one: “You make your own judgements.” “I’ve got to make my own decisions in my own circumstances.”
He sums up by saying: “Therefore there are cases when even the Novus Ordo Mass can be attended with an effect of building one’s faith instead of losing it.” “Stay away from the Novus Ordo. But exceptionally, if you’re watching and praying, even there you may find the grace of God. If you do, make use of it in order to sanctify your soul.”
He concludes the answer to the question in this way: “If they [the lay people] can trust their own judgement, that attending the New Mass will do them more good than harm spiritually…But it does harm in itself. There is no doubt about that. It is a rite designed to undermine Catholics’ faith, and to turn their belief away from God towards man.”
Finally there is the coup de grace: “The whole of the new religion, and the Novus Ordo Mass is an essential part of the new religion, is designed to get you away from the Catholic Faith…”
Analysis of Bishop Williamson’s Statements
Point # 1. The New Mass is either Catholic worship or it is non-Catholic worship. There is no third possibility. In order that a Mass be Catholic, it must (a) contain a valid Catholic rite of consecration; (b) be offered by a validly ordained Catholic priest who is in union with the Catholic hierarchy, and who is authorized by that hierarchy to offer the Mass in the name of the whole Church; (c) Catholic ceremonies, that is, ceremonies which express the Catholic truth concerning the Mass. If any of these elements should be lacking, it would not be a Catholic Mass, and it would be a mortal sin to attend it.
If we concentrate only on the question of Catholic ceremonies, it is clear that the New Mass is non-Catholic worship. This fact has been demonstrated over the past forty-five years time and time again, mostly by Archbishop Lefebvre himself, who called it the Mass of Luther.
Bishop Williamson is right in saying that Archbishop Lefebvre never considered the New Mass to be necessarily invalid. He did consider it, however, to be a very bad thing for the precise reason that its ceremonies did not express the Catholic truth concerning the Mass and the priesthood. This doctrine was drilled into our heads by the Archbishop at Ecône. Bishop Williamson himself says it: “It is a rite designed to undermine Catholics’ faith, and to turn their belief away from God towards man.”
The Anglican communion service, for example, contains a valid consecration formula, but it is non-Catholic worship because the surrounding prayers convey error and heresy concerning the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the priesthood. The same is true of the New Mass. The same is true of the Mass of Luther.
For this reason, ever since 1969, Catholics all over the world have been avidly resisting and rejecting the New Mass, even though it was promulgated by Paul VI, precisely because it is non-Catholic worship. If it is Catholic worship, then why are we resisting it? If it is non-Catholic worship, then how could we attend it?
One cannot say that “a rite designed to undermine Catholics’ faith” is Catholic worship, and pleasing to God. It is an abomination in God’s sight, and this fact is the very reason for our decades-long persistent rejection of it.
Point # 2. The Catholic Mass is not primarily a spiritual pick-me-up. Bishop Williamson, early in the response to the woman’s question, stated as the golden rule and the absolute rule of rules: “Do whatever you need to do to nourish your faith.”
Let it be said, first of all, that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered primarily and essentially for the worship of God, and not as a fervor stimulant for our spiritual lives. It is accurate that any true worship of God, even Miraculous Medal devotions, will have as a side effect the increase of fervor and devotion in our souls. In no case, however, is any act of worship directed primarily or essentially toward the increase of personal piety.
The principle which Bishop Williamson gives here — “Do whatever you need to do to nourish your faith.” — is utterly protestant. For the protestant all worship consists solely of an interior act of praise and thanksgiving to God. The protestant’s altar is his heart. His worship is consequently completely subjective, as is his faith. The purpose of external protestant worship, i.e., whatever they do on Sundays at their churches, is to excite the heart towards feelings of faith. For this reason, protestant worship can vary from being very Catholic in its trappings, such as that of the High Anglicans, to being something very low and vulgar, such as that of the pentecostalists. What is the golden rule for protestants which makes all of it true worship? It is exactly what Bishop Williamson said: “Do whatever you need to do to nourish your faith.”
The statement is also modernist. Modernism utterly subjectivizes religion. Religion is your own interior religious experience, and dogma must evolve according as your religious experience evolves. To tell someone that the absolute rule of rules is to “do whatever you need to do to nourish your faith” means that our interior faith is what justifies the external worship, whatever it may be.
Consequently the modernist could just as easily say that a balloon Mass nourishes his faith, or a clown Mass, or any other kind of liturgical aberration.
The Catholic position is that what nourishes our faith is Catholic doctrine. Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical Mediator Dei: “Let the rule of prayer determine the rule of belief.” (no. 48), which means, as he explains, that the liturgy must reflect Catholic truth: “The liturgy is a profession of eternal truths.” (ibid.) The Pontiff also says in the same paragraph that the liturgy receives its doctrine from the teachings of the Church, and that it is also right to say: “Let the rule of belief determine the rule of prayer.”
Catholic liturgical doctrine, therefore, declares that there is a tight and mutual connection between Catholic dogma and Catholic liturgy. Consequently, the only liturgy which could nourish our faith, according to Pius XII, would be one which is determined by Catholic dogma.
How then could the New Mass nourish one’s faith? The only way in which it could is if it reflects Catholic truth, i.e., as Pius XII says, if “it is a profession of eternal truths.”
If the New Mass is a profession of eternal truths, however, then in what way is it bad, and why do we resist it and reject it?
It is obviously not a profession of eternal truths, as everyone knows, and especially Bishop Williamson, who said: “It is a rite designed to undermine Catholics’ faith, and to turn their belief away from God towards man.”
The conclusion is that Bishop Williamson is thoroughly mixed up, is totally inconsistent, is tainted by protestant and modernist thinking, and lays all the logical groundwork for a reconciliation with the modernists, for him the dreaded Fellay-ism.
Point # 3. Bishop Williamson’s posi-tion on the New Mass logically leads to reconciliation with the Modernists. Bishop Williamson sees the new religion and its New Mass as something gray, that is, as something designed to destroy your faith, but if properly understood, could actually nourish your faith.
He says: “While the new religion is false, is dangerous, and it strangles grace, and it’s helping many people to lose the faith, at the same time there are cases where it it can be used and is used to build the faith.”
He cites the following as proof of this general principle: “Some Novus Ordo priests are nourishing and building the faith in the Novus Ordo parish.” “There have been eucharistic miracles with the Novus Ordo Mass. They are still occurring.”
Let us analyze these statements. If Novus Ordo priests can nourish and build the faith by being conservative Novus Ordo priests, then we must conclude that the conservative use of the New Mass nourishes and builds the faith. If this is true, then certainly the use of the traditional Latin Mass in the context of the new religion would build and nourish the faith.
Logically this principle leads to this conclusion: that we must remain in the Novus Ordo, seek out conservative priests, go to Motu Proprio Masses, and try to resolve the problems of the Church from within the Novus Ordo. It means that there is nothing wrong intrisically with the New Mass, but that it is a vehicle of destroying one’s faith only when it is not offered conservatively.
Bishop Fellay is striving to incorporate the Society of Saint Pius X into the Novus Ordo structures precisely to work from within them, and to help bring about a conservative Novus Ordo religion, since he has no intrinsic objection to the New Mass or Vatican II. Bishop Williamson hands to Bishop Fellay on a silver platter all of the logic for such a reconciliation, and at the same time destroys the theological underpinning of his own resistance movement.
Point # 4. Miracles are performed by God only in confirmation of the truth. Bishop Williamson cites four eucharistic miracles, claiming that there are yet others, which have taken place at the New Mass. He does this in order to prove that the Novus Ordo Mass has the ability to give grace and sanctify souls.
It is Catholic doctrine that God performs miracles only in confirmation of the truth. It would be blasphemous to assert that He does so in confirmation of error, since it would be against His holiness and truthfulness to do so.
Yet Bishop Williamson condemns the New Mass as something pernicious: “The whole of the new religion, and the Novus Ordo Mass is an essential part of the new religion, is designed to get you away from the Catholic Faith…” “It is a rite designed to undermine Catholics’ faith, and to turn their belief away from God towards man.”
What, however, is the conclusion from Bishop Williamson’s claim that there have been eucharisitic miracles at the New Mass? The answer is very simple: The New Mass is a holy Catholic Mass which sanctifies souls. God says so with His miracles!
If this be so, then why on earth are we resisting the New Mass? Why do we not just go to it, and be happy with it? According to Bishop Williamson, God has given His stamp of approval to the New Mass.
Point # 5. Who am I to judge? Bishop Williamson reduces the question of attendance to a completely personal judgement. For him, the New Mass and the new religion in general are not intrinsically wrong. They are wrong only in certain circumstances, that is, when they threaten your interior faith. If you take measures to deflect these dangers, then the New Mass and new religion can actually give grace and sanctify your soul.
For this reason he divorces the decision about attendance at the New Mass from all objective reality, and makes the whole thing a personal choice: “You make your own judgements.” “I’ve got to make my own decisions in my own circumstances.”
Although he complains in the same speech of Bergoglio’s subjectivization of morality, is not Bishop Williamson doing exactly the same thing here? Indeed, if the New Mass is objectively non-Catholic worship — and we firmly hold that it is — then to attend it would be a far greater sin than that of sodomy. Bergoglio pronounced his unforgettable “Who am I to judge?” about an allegedly sodomite priest in the Vatican. Does not Bishop Williamson, in saying that you must judge for yourselves, detach attendance at the New Mass from any objective and clear norm?
We see again in Bishop Williamson the protestant and modernist influence by making the decision about the central act of Catholic worship a purely subjective judgement.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the Q&A segment of that conference.
It is reminded at this point also that Bishop Fellay had stated this very same licitness for the novus ordo mass on two separate occasions which caused the birth of a new catholic resistance to go against these, and many other, modernist errors within the neo-sspx. One quoted on January 21, 2013 by Cardinal Canizares prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship (and therefore a senior Vatican official), said that Bishop Fellay once told him that:
And the other in Bishop Fellay’s Doctrinal Declaration of April 15, 2012:
To understand that the new mass is illegitimate and why Archbishop Lefebvre always contested the legitimacy of the liturgical revolution of 1969, there is an article [still up] on the sspx.org website that explains this here sspx.org/en/new-mass-legit
In return to Bp. Williamson remarks that the novus ordo mass for him is legitimate to worship God, and with fairness that he had also made an intermix of other comments that may throw one off, such as, “the new mass is a key part of the new religion and the worldwide apostasy, and to stay away from the new mass”, such comments do not refer away from his intention of legality in his mind. It is in his following arguments to answer this woman’s question that are, and yet not based on catholic principles, rather on protestant notions and revolutionary thinking.
Bishop Williamson states: “While the new religion is false, is dangerous, and it strangles grace, and it’s helping many people to lose the faith, at the same time there are cases where it can be used and is used to build the faith.”
“Therefore there are cases when even the Novus Ordo Mass can be attended with an effect of building one’s faith instead of losing it.”
“Stay away from the Novus Ordo. But exceptionally, if you’re watching and praying, even there you may find the grace of God. If you do, make use of it in order to sanctify your soul.”
“If they [the lay people] can trust their own judgement, that attending the New Mass will do them more good than harm spiritually.”
He states as the “golden rule” and “absolute rule of rules” the following: “Do whatever you need to nourish your faith.”
And: “There are Eucharistic miracles in the New Mass.”; “Ask a priest you trust and heed his advice — maybe.”; “Decide for yourself.”; “If you can trust your own judgment, use your own judgment.”; “All of this is just my opinion and almost heresy.”; “Maybe none of this should be said in public.”; ect.
It does not need to be demonstrated that the first end of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered primarily and essentially for the worship of God, and is not determined by what it does for the individual or likes or dislikes of opinion or preference. Bishop Williamson is expressing that Holy Mass is principally and essentially a spiritual aid to the believer, rather than the Church’s solemn worship of the Most Holy Trinity.
Like Bp. Fellay, Bp. Williamson had stated that the Novus Ordo Mass is legitimate to attend for the benefit of the individual and will fulfil the ends of catholic obligation toward the worship of God - “Do whatever you need to nourish your faith.”
“[As] Bishop Fellay is striving to incorporate the Society of Saint Pius X into the Novus Ordo structures precisely to work from within them, and to help bring about a conservative Novus Ordo religion, since he has no intrinsic objection to the New Mass or Vatican II. Bishop Williamson hands to Bishop Fellay on a silver platter all of the logic for such a reconciliation, and at the same time destroys the theological underpinning of his own [loose independent] resistance movement.” (excerpt from In Veritate).
Below is both the conference of Bishop Williamson and a very good article in five points from Bishop Sanborn* (In Veritate): “A Response to Bishop Williamson concerning Attendance at the New Mass”. This article explains well Bishop Williamson’s position on the New Mass which logically in itself leads to reconciliation with the Modernists.
We already know through Bishop Williamson’s many Elesion Comments that he has opened the door in compromise to serve the ideas of other trad-ecumanical groups and the novus ordo, and to advice people to go to their such priests: “As for the Mass, 20 years ago one might not have hesitated to say, it must be a Society of St Pius X Mass. Today, that is no longer so sure. I would say, go rather by the priest than by his Congregation, or label.” (Eleison Comments #431: Father's Distress stmarcelinitiative.com/fathers-distress/ ).
These foreign thoughts and position of Bishop Williamson do NOT represent the catholic resistance of antiquity to fight against the enemies of our Lord and his cross in any and all fashion of error in time and in all generations.
[*Note: as Bishop Sanborn is a sedevacantist, and in no way do I approve of his position, these five points of his article referenced is a good analysis without any sedevacantist views involved.]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHRIST OR BELIAL?
A Response to Bishop Williamson concerning Attendance at the New Mass
July 29, 2015 by Bp. Sanborn
inveritateblog.com/2015/07/29/christ-or-belial/
On June 28th of this year, Bishop Williamson gave a conference to a gathering of people in Connecticut, followed by questions and answers.
A woman asked him whether it was permissible to attend the New Mass. Bishop Williamson says that, under certain circumstances, it is permissible to actively participate in the New Mass.
Here I will analyze his answer. I must quote him heavily, since I do not want to misrepresent his position in any way by presenting merely a few selected comments.
He starts out by saying that the New Mass is a “key part of the new religion, a major part of the worldwide apostasy.” Yet he states as the “golden rule” and “absolute rule of rules” the following: “Do whatever you need to nourish your faith.” He then explains: “Some Novus Ordo priests are nourishing and building the faith in the Novus Ordo parish.” “There have been eucharistic miracles with the Novus Ordo Mass. They are still occurring.”
He then enunciates this very odd principle: “While the new religion is false, is dangerous, and it strangles grace, and it’s helping many people to lose the faith, at the same time there are cases where it it can be used and is used to build the faith.”
Finally he comes to what he calls the essential principle: “Do whatever you need to do to keep the faith.”
He makes the decision to attend an entirely personal one: “You make your own judgements.” “I’ve got to make my own decisions in my own circumstances.”
He sums up by saying: “Therefore there are cases when even the Novus Ordo Mass can be attended with an effect of building one’s faith instead of losing it.” “Stay away from the Novus Ordo. But exceptionally, if you’re watching and praying, even there you may find the grace of God. If you do, make use of it in order to sanctify your soul.”
He concludes the answer to the question in this way: “If they [the lay people] can trust their own judgement, that attending the New Mass will do them more good than harm spiritually…But it does harm in itself. There is no doubt about that. It is a rite designed to undermine Catholics’ faith, and to turn their belief away from God towards man.”
Finally there is the coup de grace: “The whole of the new religion, and the Novus Ordo Mass is an essential part of the new religion, is designed to get you away from the Catholic Faith…”
Analysis of Bishop Williamson’s Statements
Point # 1. The New Mass is either Catholic worship or it is non-Catholic worship. There is no third possibility. In order that a Mass be Catholic, it must (a) contain a valid Catholic rite of consecration; (b) be offered by a validly ordained Catholic priest who is in union with the Catholic hierarchy, and who is authorized by that hierarchy to offer the Mass in the name of the whole Church; (c) Catholic ceremonies, that is, ceremonies which express the Catholic truth concerning the Mass. If any of these elements should be lacking, it would not be a Catholic Mass, and it would be a mortal sin to attend it.
If we concentrate only on the question of Catholic ceremonies, it is clear that the New Mass is non-Catholic worship. This fact has been demonstrated over the past forty-five years time and time again, mostly by Archbishop Lefebvre himself, who called it the Mass of Luther.
Bishop Williamson is right in saying that Archbishop Lefebvre never considered the New Mass to be necessarily invalid. He did consider it, however, to be a very bad thing for the precise reason that its ceremonies did not express the Catholic truth concerning the Mass and the priesthood. This doctrine was drilled into our heads by the Archbishop at Ecône. Bishop Williamson himself says it: “It is a rite designed to undermine Catholics’ faith, and to turn their belief away from God towards man.”
The Anglican communion service, for example, contains a valid consecration formula, but it is non-Catholic worship because the surrounding prayers convey error and heresy concerning the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the priesthood. The same is true of the New Mass. The same is true of the Mass of Luther.
For this reason, ever since 1969, Catholics all over the world have been avidly resisting and rejecting the New Mass, even though it was promulgated by Paul VI, precisely because it is non-Catholic worship. If it is Catholic worship, then why are we resisting it? If it is non-Catholic worship, then how could we attend it?
One cannot say that “a rite designed to undermine Catholics’ faith” is Catholic worship, and pleasing to God. It is an abomination in God’s sight, and this fact is the very reason for our decades-long persistent rejection of it.
Point # 2. The Catholic Mass is not primarily a spiritual pick-me-up. Bishop Williamson, early in the response to the woman’s question, stated as the golden rule and the absolute rule of rules: “Do whatever you need to do to nourish your faith.”
Let it be said, first of all, that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered primarily and essentially for the worship of God, and not as a fervor stimulant for our spiritual lives. It is accurate that any true worship of God, even Miraculous Medal devotions, will have as a side effect the increase of fervor and devotion in our souls. In no case, however, is any act of worship directed primarily or essentially toward the increase of personal piety.
The principle which Bishop Williamson gives here — “Do whatever you need to do to nourish your faith.” — is utterly protestant. For the protestant all worship consists solely of an interior act of praise and thanksgiving to God. The protestant’s altar is his heart. His worship is consequently completely subjective, as is his faith. The purpose of external protestant worship, i.e., whatever they do on Sundays at their churches, is to excite the heart towards feelings of faith. For this reason, protestant worship can vary from being very Catholic in its trappings, such as that of the High Anglicans, to being something very low and vulgar, such as that of the pentecostalists. What is the golden rule for protestants which makes all of it true worship? It is exactly what Bishop Williamson said: “Do whatever you need to do to nourish your faith.”
The statement is also modernist. Modernism utterly subjectivizes religion. Religion is your own interior religious experience, and dogma must evolve according as your religious experience evolves. To tell someone that the absolute rule of rules is to “do whatever you need to do to nourish your faith” means that our interior faith is what justifies the external worship, whatever it may be.
Consequently the modernist could just as easily say that a balloon Mass nourishes his faith, or a clown Mass, or any other kind of liturgical aberration.
The Catholic position is that what nourishes our faith is Catholic doctrine. Pope Pius XII said in his encyclical Mediator Dei: “Let the rule of prayer determine the rule of belief.” (no. 48), which means, as he explains, that the liturgy must reflect Catholic truth: “The liturgy is a profession of eternal truths.” (ibid.) The Pontiff also says in the same paragraph that the liturgy receives its doctrine from the teachings of the Church, and that it is also right to say: “Let the rule of belief determine the rule of prayer.”
Catholic liturgical doctrine, therefore, declares that there is a tight and mutual connection between Catholic dogma and Catholic liturgy. Consequently, the only liturgy which could nourish our faith, according to Pius XII, would be one which is determined by Catholic dogma.
How then could the New Mass nourish one’s faith? The only way in which it could is if it reflects Catholic truth, i.e., as Pius XII says, if “it is a profession of eternal truths.”
If the New Mass is a profession of eternal truths, however, then in what way is it bad, and why do we resist it and reject it?
It is obviously not a profession of eternal truths, as everyone knows, and especially Bishop Williamson, who said: “It is a rite designed to undermine Catholics’ faith, and to turn their belief away from God towards man.”
The conclusion is that Bishop Williamson is thoroughly mixed up, is totally inconsistent, is tainted by protestant and modernist thinking, and lays all the logical groundwork for a reconciliation with the modernists, for him the dreaded Fellay-ism.
Point # 3. Bishop Williamson’s posi-tion on the New Mass logically leads to reconciliation with the Modernists. Bishop Williamson sees the new religion and its New Mass as something gray, that is, as something designed to destroy your faith, but if properly understood, could actually nourish your faith.
He says: “While the new religion is false, is dangerous, and it strangles grace, and it’s helping many people to lose the faith, at the same time there are cases where it it can be used and is used to build the faith.”
He cites the following as proof of this general principle: “Some Novus Ordo priests are nourishing and building the faith in the Novus Ordo parish.” “There have been eucharistic miracles with the Novus Ordo Mass. They are still occurring.”
Let us analyze these statements. If Novus Ordo priests can nourish and build the faith by being conservative Novus Ordo priests, then we must conclude that the conservative use of the New Mass nourishes and builds the faith. If this is true, then certainly the use of the traditional Latin Mass in the context of the new religion would build and nourish the faith.
Logically this principle leads to this conclusion: that we must remain in the Novus Ordo, seek out conservative priests, go to Motu Proprio Masses, and try to resolve the problems of the Church from within the Novus Ordo. It means that there is nothing wrong intrisically with the New Mass, but that it is a vehicle of destroying one’s faith only when it is not offered conservatively.
Bishop Fellay is striving to incorporate the Society of Saint Pius X into the Novus Ordo structures precisely to work from within them, and to help bring about a conservative Novus Ordo religion, since he has no intrinsic objection to the New Mass or Vatican II. Bishop Williamson hands to Bishop Fellay on a silver platter all of the logic for such a reconciliation, and at the same time destroys the theological underpinning of his own resistance movement.
Point # 4. Miracles are performed by God only in confirmation of the truth. Bishop Williamson cites four eucharistic miracles, claiming that there are yet others, which have taken place at the New Mass. He does this in order to prove that the Novus Ordo Mass has the ability to give grace and sanctify souls.
It is Catholic doctrine that God performs miracles only in confirmation of the truth. It would be blasphemous to assert that He does so in confirmation of error, since it would be against His holiness and truthfulness to do so.
Yet Bishop Williamson condemns the New Mass as something pernicious: “The whole of the new religion, and the Novus Ordo Mass is an essential part of the new religion, is designed to get you away from the Catholic Faith…” “It is a rite designed to undermine Catholics’ faith, and to turn their belief away from God towards man.”
What, however, is the conclusion from Bishop Williamson’s claim that there have been eucharisitic miracles at the New Mass? The answer is very simple: The New Mass is a holy Catholic Mass which sanctifies souls. God says so with His miracles!
If this be so, then why on earth are we resisting the New Mass? Why do we not just go to it, and be happy with it? According to Bishop Williamson, God has given His stamp of approval to the New Mass.
Point # 5. Who am I to judge? Bishop Williamson reduces the question of attendance to a completely personal judgement. For him, the New Mass and the new religion in general are not intrinsically wrong. They are wrong only in certain circumstances, that is, when they threaten your interior faith. If you take measures to deflect these dangers, then the New Mass and new religion can actually give grace and sanctify your soul.
For this reason he divorces the decision about attendance at the New Mass from all objective reality, and makes the whole thing a personal choice: “You make your own judgements.” “I’ve got to make my own decisions in my own circumstances.”
Although he complains in the same speech of Bergoglio’s subjectivization of morality, is not Bishop Williamson doing exactly the same thing here? Indeed, if the New Mass is objectively non-Catholic worship — and we firmly hold that it is — then to attend it would be a far greater sin than that of sodomy. Bergoglio pronounced his unforgettable “Who am I to judge?” about an allegedly sodomite priest in the Vatican. Does not Bishop Williamson, in saying that you must judge for yourselves, detach attendance at the New Mass from any objective and clear norm?
We see again in Bishop Williamson the protestant and modernist influence by making the decision about the central act of Catholic worship a purely subjective judgement.
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Here is the Q&A segment of that conference.
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