J.M.J.
August, 2005

Dear friends and benefactors of Holy Cross Seminary,

Allow me to take a few moments during this busy exam week to keep you up to date with events at Holy Cross Seminary. The first Semester of the year comes to an end this week, to be completed by the retreat that prepares for the taking of the cassock by the two first year seminarians on the feast of the Assumption. The good news is that we have lost neither Major nor Seminarian nor Brother Postulant since the beginning of the year, but instead picked up one pre-Seminarian, giving a total of 38 young men in formation.

UPDATE

Your generosity has enabled us to bring the work on the St. Joseph’s House practically to completion, with interior painting, plumbing and electrical fixtures now complete. We also undertook, at the end of July, the underpinning of the building’s foundations, damaged by a large plane tree that we have since removed, to prevent any further movement from settling or cracks from forming. However, we will not make our August 15 deadline, since the installation of carpet inside, and obligatory fire escapes outside, will not be completed until the end of the month. Consequently, the official blessing and inauguration is set for  the family weekend, Sunday September 18.

Father Sayed Elias, who spent three years as a seminarian at Holy Cross
celebrates a First Solemn High Mass on Sunday August 7.
The photo is taken at the Agnus Dei.

As this month, the Society’s Superior General, Bishop Fellay, will be leading an official pilgrimage of the bishops, priests and faithful of Tradition to Fatima for the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, let us not forget to unite ourselves to them and to their renewal of the act of consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, as already performed in 1987 and 1997.

FATIMA – IS IT RELEVANT?

You might wonder why it is that the message of Fatima is so important. The usual objection of the modernists (repeated by Cardinal Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) is that it is only a private revelation, and that consequently it is not a part of the deposit of the Faith, and that consequently it cannot be a requirement, to which we must obligatorily give an assent of Faith. While being true in itself, this argument entirely misses the point as to why the message of Fatima and the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart are not a facultative, optional extra, but truly the answer to the crisis in the Church and the world. §53 of the traditional Dominicans’ magazine Le Sel de la Terre explains this at great length.

It was Our Lord Himself who, in speaking to Sister Lucia, makes the parallel with the requests He had made in the revelation of His Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary, asking of Louis XIV the consecration of France to the Sacred Heart. The consequence of his refusal, as well as that of his successors (except Louis XVI, about to undergo the guillotine, and hence only privately), was the French Revolution of 1789, which was not only a direct attack on the Catholic religion in France, but the overturning of the entire supernatural order of revelation and grace, of the Cross and of charity, of submission and of obedience, and this for the entire world. Secularism, the adopting of the false, naturalistic principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, as the basis for all modern life, is the consequence. This liberalism, and civil society’s subsequent “apostasy from God”, to use the term employed by St. Pius X, constantly condemned by all the Popes from Pius VI (1790) until Pius XII, was “approved” by Vatican II.

The present crisis is, therefore, a direct result of the refusal of the consecration to the Sacred Heart, which is why Our Lord said to Sister Lucia concerning the Popes’ refusal to make the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary precisely as requested: “They will repent, as did the King of France and they will make it, but it will be very late”. It is true that Pope Leo XIII consecrated the world to the Sacred Heart in 1899, and that various Catholic countries such as Ecuador (1875), Spain and Portugal did likewise. However, France was never publicly consecrated to the Sacred Heart by the highest civil authorities, and she spread her errors throughout the world, most particularly the freemasonic error that civil authorities do not have to be Catholic and do not have to be consecrated to any authority other than themselves, let alone to any divine authority.

CONSECRATION NOT DONE

The same can be said of the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart. The closest to come to fulfilling the requests of heaven was Pope Pius XII. Already in 1942, he had consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart, but without special mention of Russia. Yet, he was to mention Russia by name. It came after he had received the grace of a repetition of the miracle of the sun, which was given to him personally in the Vatican gardens at the time of the definition of the dogma of the Assumption in 1950, and after Our Lady had spoken to Sister Lucia in May 1952 and stated: “Let the Holy Father know that I am still waiting for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart. Without this consecration, Russia will not convert and the world will not have peace”. It was, in effect, only two months later that in an apostolic letter to the peoples of Russia, Sacro vergente anno, Pius XII stated: “We consecrate and offer all the peoples of Russia in a very special manner to this Immaculate Heart”. However, Sister Lucia later stated that the requested consecration had not been accomplished, for it was not a collegial consecration, with the Pope ordering the world’s bishops to participate, nor was it done with any particular ceremony or solemnity.

The consecrations of Pope John Paul II of 1981 and 1982 were of the whole world, as also was the consecration of 1984, with a vague mention of “nations that are specially in need”, that could be understood of Russia, as of many other countries. The success of détente and the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 were seen as the fruit of this “consecration”. Yet, there is no peace, and Russia continues to spread its atheistic errors throughout the world, and refuses the right of existence to the Roman Catholic Church, and her right to form dioceses and have bishops. The Immaculate Heart has not triumphed.  The consecration requested has not been accomplished. The consequences in these latter times, in which it is the devotion to the Immaculate Heart that will alone save the world, will be no less devastating than the refusal of consecration to the Sacred Heart. The refusal to believe in Our Lady’s demands and to fulfill her requests may not be a heresy, but it is most assuredly grave disobedience that can only be explained by a blindness to the supernatural order of which she is the Queen.

A panoramic view of the exterior and grounds of Holy Cross Seminary,
where the first priestly ordinations will be held on December 27, 2005.

CATHOLIC DOCTRINE & FATIMA

In order to illustrate this point, it is not without interest for us to enumerate some of the doctrines of the holy Catholic Faith that are explicitly expressed by the apparitions in Fatima, and to see that they are indeed the key to the understanding of the supernatural order, especially at the present time. It is in this light that fidelity to Our Lady’s requests in Fatima can be seen as the clear sign of the Catholic spirit.

The importance of angels as God’s messengers to prepare for the apparitions of Our Lady is a clear sign of the supernatural. Likewise the continual preoccupation with eternity; first of all hell, whether it be the vision of hell, into which many souls fall, “for they have no-one to sacrifice and pray for them”, that Our Lady showed the children on July 13, 1917, or the prayer to Jesus to “save us from the fires of hell” to be added to each decade of the Rosary; secondly, heaven, whence the beautiful Lady came and whither she promised to take the children.

The apparitions in Fatima also teach horror for sin, the sense of its gravity as an offense against God Our Lord, and the constant request for prayers for the conversion of poor sinners, which is the whole purpose of promoting devotion to the Immaculate Heart. The spirit of reparation, so essential to Fatima, is the immediately consequence. The offering of daily sufferings in reparation for the sins by which God is so offended is likewise united to the perfect reparation of Our Divine Savior, as in the prayer taught by the Angel to the children before the administration of Holy Communion: “O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I offer Thee the most precious body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the earth, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference with which He is offended…horribly outraged by ungrateful men”. There could hardly be a clearer statement as to the necessity of good works, justification, reparation, of the Cross, of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, of the sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist for eternal salvation – all which Catholic doctrines are profoundly anti-Protestant, and entirely opposed to false ecumenism.

Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to her Immaculate Heart is likewise intimately associated with Our Divine Savior and His Sacred Heart. Our Lady declares that it is Jesus who wants to use the children to establish throughout the world devotion to her Immaculate Heart. Likewise are they taught to pray: “By the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I ask for the conversion of poor sinners.” Finally our Faith is summarized in Our Lady’s revelation that she is “Our Lady of the Rosary”, in whose 15 Decades all the mysteries of our Redemption are contained. Nothing, indeed, could be more contrary  to the Protestant heresy, and hence likewise to Ecumenism.

CATHOLIC DOCTRINE & THE CONSECRATION OF RUSSIA

We find also some fundamental Catholic doctrines contained in the request for the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This presumes that there can and ought to be the consecration of a country, a civil entity, in the temporal order rather than just simply in the purely spiritual domain. This is effectively a proclamation of the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as against secularism and separation of Church and State, an indictment of the religious liberty promoted by Vatican II.

This consecration also presumes that the Church has authority over Russia, a country in schism for more than 900 years, proclaiming thereby the universality of the jurisdiction, authority and real primacy (and not just one of honor) of the Roman Pontiff who is to make this consecration. It is consequently not only a condemnation of the Orthodox schism, but also of ecumenism with the Orthodox and of the Balamand agreement of non-proselytism towards the Orthodox accepted by Rome in 1993.

It is, furthermore, a profession of Papal Primacy as being a true and universal authority of government, requiring submission, since the consecration request is collegial. For it is not collegial in the sense that the bishops get together to decide what they want to do, but collegial in the sense that the Pope is to give the order and all are to obey and to make the consecration in a public way together with him. This is essentially opposed to the democratic spirit that underlies the error of collegiality adopted by the Vatican II document on the Church (Lumen Gentium), and practiced ever since, in which the bishops all together are considered as having supreme authority of government in the Church. This has created the present day disunity of the hierarchy that would make such a collegial act of submission a true moral miracle.

This request for the consecration of Russia is also directly opposed to the atheism of Russia, especially under the form of communism, that is its radical materialism, which is a denial of the whole spiritual domain. This has not changed since the fall of the Berlin wall. It is likewise opposed to the errors of liberation theology, that attempts to convert the Catholic religion into a means of social justice, demeaning it to become an instrument to attain a purely human, earthly peace. To the contrary, the world peace promised by Our Lady is not the fruit of the new humanism and dialogue, the equally respectful acceptation of all cultures, ideas, opinions, beliefs that has renounced conversion and penance. Neither is it the worship of man that Paul VI claimed to practice more than anybody, nor is it in any way dependent upon human efforts and negotiations. To the contrary, it is trust in an entirely supernatural intervention from heaven. It is to place our entire hope and confidence in the all-powerful intercession of the Mother of God, Queen of heaven and earth.

A view of Father Elias and the ministers who assisted him on the altar for his First High Mass at Holy Cross Seminary
– in the cloister surrounding the Sacred Heart statue.

FATIMA NEUTRALIZED

Is it any wonder, then, that present day Rome has attempted to neutralize the message of Fatima, to pretend that the consecration having been already made, it is a purely historical question? For, in effect, in the modernist system of thought, it is precisely and in a systematic manner those Catholic truths highlighted by Fatima that have been eliminated, pushed aside, downgraded, considered as medieval and irrelevant. Negative theology has been removed, for it cannot be understood other than in a supernatural sense, and cannot be the basis for dialogue. Consequently, the justice and holiness of God, in the light of which sin is such a grievous offense, have been evacuated. Hell and purgatory are no longer relevant. Reparation and satisfaction for sin have no place whatsoever in such a refined spirituality. The Mass is a meal and not a sacrifice, and Christ’s presence in the community now takes precedence over his Real Presence, body, blood, soul and divinity in the Blessed Eucharist. All this being the case, there can no longer be any place for devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, let alone for her heart. At any rate, she is a major obstacle to ecumenism.

This is the thinking behind Cardinal Ratzinger’s June 26, 2000 explanation of the Third Secret: “Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is shown to be the means towards this goal (the salvation of souls) in a manner that is surprising for persons who come from the Anglo-saxon and German cultural ambit…It is a help that is given to us, but which we are in no way obliged to make use of”. Without denying Fatima, he effectively relativizes it, considering it as not that important after all. It is, moreover, hardly surprising for those who deny the Social Kingship of Christ, who promote religious liberty and the separation of Church and State, who refuse to condemn Communism as intrinsically perverse and cooperate with its materialism, who strive to rethink Papal primacy under the guise of collegiality and who have effectively made ecumenism the ultimate goal of their endeavors.

Devotion to the Immaculate Heart and consecration of Russia remain in this modernist 21^st century the sign of the Catholic spirit, the Church’s supernatural life, just as was consecration to the Sacred Heart in the Jansenist 17^th century in France. It is true that we do not have the authority to prevent the terrible consequences of disobedience for a world in rebellion against God and for so many Catholics whose Faith is being destroyed by the cold indifferentism of the post-conciliar church. Nevertheless, we do have the duty to do all in our power, namely to live the message of Fatima, by our daily Rosaries, by a life of prayer and penance, by praying for the salvation of poor sinners and the conversion of souls, by our assistance at the Sacrifice of the Mass, by frequent reception of Our Divine Savior’s sacred Body and Blood, but most importantly by a true, fervent, profound, continual devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Let us renew the consecration of ourselves and our families to her Heart of love, that we might proclaim her Heart, Universal Mediatrix with her Divine Son, as Queen of our hearts.

Yours faithfully in the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts,

Father Peter R. Scott

Brother Joseph filling in with a shovel some of the holes left after the underpinning of the St. Joseph House by pouring cement under the foundations.		An electrician installs the firm alarm system in the main recreation room downstairs in the St. Joseph House.

IGNATIAN RETREAT DATES AT HOLY CROSS SEMINARY DURING THE UPCOMING MONTHS:

COME & BRING YOUR FRIENDS!

IMPORTANT UPCOMING EVENTS

Monday August 15, 2005: 10:30 a.m.
Taking of the cassock for 1st year seminarians

Saturday September 17 & Sunday September 18, 2005:
Family weekend

Saturday September 17:
10:30 a.m.	Procession in honor of the Blessed Virgin Renewal of the Consecration of the Seminary to the Immaculate Heart of Mary Solemn High Votive Mass of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
1:00 p.m.	Lunch provided by the Seminary for everyone
3:00 p.m.	Presentation for the centennial of Archbishop Lefebvre
5:00 p.m.	Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament & all night adoration
Sunday September 18:
10:30 a.m.	Procession with the relic of the True Cross Solemn High Votive Mass of the Holy Cross
12:30 p.m.	Picnic lunch (bring your own)
2:00 p.m.	Soccer tournament

Thursday December 8, 2005: 10:30 a.m.
First Engagements in the Society of Saint Pius X

Friday December 23, 2005: 9:30 a.m.
Ordinations to the Tonsure and Minor Orders

Tuesday December 27, 2005: 9:00 a.m.
Ordinations to the Diaconate and Priesthood

The faithful are warmly invited to participate in all these important events
in the life of the Seminary and of the Society of Saint Pius X.