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L e t t e r s
Mocking and Insulting
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This Rock
Volume 14, Number 6
 July-August 2003 
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I found Brian O’Neel’s "Holier Than Thou" (April 2003) to be a disappointing piece. Beginning with its opening sentence, "The Society of St. Pius X holds itself up as the last bastion of authentic Catholic practice"—not true, by the way—I found it mocking and insulting in tone without providing a fair hearing of the SSPX point of view. It is also not helpful in what I assume is its goal: a reconciliation of SSPX Catholics with the legitimate authorities in the Church.
Most of "those people" Mr. O’Neel defines as schismatic love God, wish to serve him, and practice the faith taught to them by their parents. When they can’t find this faith taught in their local parishes, they turn, rightly or wrongly, to groups such as the SSPX. They are then targets of incessant and often unfair attacks by critics on both the left and the right and are left feeling marginalized and persecuted. A "circle the wagons" mentality develops, and the division becomes even deeper. I suggest to Mr. O’Neel that, if he wishes to reach out to SSPXers, he do so with greater gentleness and understanding. Traditionalists need to be loved, not hit with a stick.
Jim Graves
Newport Beach, California
SSPX Straddles a Fuzzy Line
After thirty-five years away from the Catholic Church, I came back through the Traditionalist movement. For a year and a half I experienced this anti-modern and much fragmented movement, including exposure to the SSPX.
The SSPX straddles a fuzzy line drawn in the sand between the pro- and anti-Vatican II Church. Publicly, the SSPX denounces the modern Mass as bastardized. At an SSPX retreat, I was pressured to believe that the modern Mass and Communion are neither the true Catholic Mass nor the true sacrifice. The implication was that participation in the modern rite is a sin.
At that same retreat, in a private conversation with me regarding whether or not my daily assistance at Novus Ordo Mass was a sin, an SSPX priest told me, "For you, it is not." The implication that somehow I am or my circumstance is different than other Traditionalist Catholics did not prompt me to ask for further information, because I had already learned that questioning the SSPX is not encouraged.
I do recognize that I may be misled in part by the mixed messages coming from the SSPX (public vs. private) and in part by a fragmented movement whose followers, ironically, seem to pick and choose what parts of Traditionalism they want to believe.
M. F. Delaney
Massachusetts
Lefebvre a Modern-Day Athanasius?
I doubt that "Holier Than Thou" (April 2003) had the desired effect on some of your readers. Surely the author sought to defame the wacky schismatics by highlighting the key figure in the SSPX movement, Marcel Lefebvre, and attempting to paint an unfavorable picture of him.
As a poorly catechized cradle Catholic who left the faith in ignorance when I was eighteen, I admit that I have much to learn about Church history. In the five years since I returned to the Church I have heard mention of the SSPX and Archbishop Lefebvre, but didn’t really understand the movement or its history. After reading your article I must say that, based on the selected quotes of Lefebvre’s in the piece, he makes for a sympathetic character, and I am left with a favorable opinion of him. I am blessed to have an indult Traditional Mass available in my vicinity, which I discovered two years ago and attend more often as the liturgies at the local parishes continue to adopt a Charismatic Protestant flavor. For traditional Catholics who do not have access to an indult Mass, I can now understand why they turn to the SSPX in their search for a reverent and holy Mass.
Maybe the French seminarians who sought out Lefebvre had seen firsthand the havoc wreaked on their country and the Church following the Enlightenment and the French Revolution and could easily identify the ideological parallels in much of the "New Theology" that was woven into the Vatican II documents. Alarmed, they sought to find a way to preserve the faith, saving it from the inevitable destruction that would be the result of Teilhardism run amok.
In Lefebvre’s comments I see a clearsighted Catholic, one who loved the faith and wished only to preserve her perennial teachings from corruption by the modernists/naturalists/progressivists who took center stage at the Council. That heretics like Hans Küng and Karl Rahner (among several other pseudo-Catholic "periti") held key positions of influence in shaping the Council documents is all one really needs to know.
Anyway, it appears to me that Lefebvre is a sort of modern-day Athanasius. While he is currently the subject of ridicule and disgust, one day he could be named a great saint. After all, would God condemn a man to hell who simply wished to preserve the faith from the architects of apostasy? As is clear to us now some forty years after the Council, those architects, those infiltrators, have been resoundingly successful in their quest to morph our Church into something unrecognizable.
This Rock is becoming an apologist not for the Catholic faith but for the change agents who wish to use slander and derision in order to promote the "New Church," the new non-Catholic ecumenical orientation. I have acquired a negative opinion of Catholic Answers over the past few months and will not be renewing my subscription.
Eileen Spatz
San Clemente, California
The Useful Idiots at This Rock
Cancel my subscription! I’m fed up with your relentless attacks on traditional Catholics ("Holier Than Thou," April 2003). The modernists who continue to throw salt on the festering wound (known as the Second Vatican Council) on the Mystical Body of Christ are manipulating the "useful idiots" (known as neo-Catholics), at This Rock and elsewhere, to hold the front lines against traditionalists who are the only ones courageous enough to recognize the root problem (Vatican II) rather than merely the symptoms (innovations and novelties).
Scott Drewes
Idaho Falls, Idaho
Why Do You Reject the Legitimacy of the SSPX?
I cannot express how disappointed I am with your scholarship in regards to the supposed "excommunication" of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre ("Holier Than Thou," April 2003). I would like to quote an expert in Catholic theology, Fr. Malachi Martin. The late Fr. Malachi Martin wrote: "In the spiritual reality of the Church, neither Marcel Lefebvre, nor his bishops and priests, nor the people who frequent the SSPX chapels suffered, or suffer, excommunication. History will record that the attempt to impose such an excommunication was invalid and illicit."
In addition, I would like to point out an error by author Brian O’Neel. Fr. Donald Sanhorn is not a member of the SSPX. Fr. Donald Sanhorn is a sedevacantist. SSPX members are not sedevacantists and have denounced sedevacantism. In addition, St. Joseph House in Armada, Michigan, is not an SSPX seminary. The only SSPX seminary in the United States is St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Minnesota.
I would also like to ask a question: Why do you reject the legitimacy of the SSPX? They stand for what the Catholic Church was before the errors of Vatican II. The post-Vatican II Church has lost all tradition and, as a result of the errors, has been in free fall. Return to tradition!
Jasen Wallace
Allegan, Michigan
Editor’s reply:
The supreme pontiff’s words are why we reject the legitimacy of the SSPX: "I wish especially to make an appeal both solemn and heartfelt, paternal and fraternal, to all those who until now have been linked in various ways to the movement of Archbishop Lefebvre, that they may fulfill the grave duty of remaining united to the vicar of Christ in the unity of the Catholic Church and of ceasing their support in any way for that movement. Everyone should be aware that formal adherence to the schism is a grave offense against God and carries the penalty of excommunication decreed by the church’s law" (Ecclesia Dei 5c).
Water Working Beyond Its Capabilities
In reading "Is Baptism Merely a Symbol?" ("Step by Step," April 2003), I couldn’t stop thinking of Naaman in 2 Kings 5. Here is an example of water doing something far beyond the natural capabilities of the water itself. This seems to be a good example of how obedience in the physical realm can bring about spiritual effects. Naaman was not only physically cured but also converted to the God of Israel through his "baptism."
Keep up the great work in This Rock.
Marty O’Connor
Greenville, Pennsylvania
Hasty Generalizations
I just re-read the article "Sharing the Gospel with Muslims" (January 2003). I hope all Catholics who read that article questioned the statement, "Christianity is a religion of love; Islam is a religion of fear." The latter part of this statement is not true for all practicing Muslims. According to the article, that statement is only one opinion based on one convert’s experience with his religion of origin.
As an RCIA director and Catholic Bible study leader, I try to avoid hasty generalizations and judgments about non-Catholic religions. I respect (not agree with) all spiritual journeys. I am confident that all religions and spiritual practices will eventually lead to Christ. The Church teaches this truth (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 848).
Janis Parker
Squaw Valley, California
Editor’s reply:
The Catechism actually seems to refute the point you are making. Here is the entire paragraph 848 to which you refer: "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men" (emphasis added). If it were true, as you maintain, that "all religions and spiritual practices will eventually lead to Christ," why would it oblige us to evangelize all men?
Fun
Evangelizing is fun. Yes, I say, fun. I’ve been going door to door for thirteen years to thousands of homes, and it is almost always an enjoyable, uplifting experience. Almost all of the people are kind, considerate, and friendly.
Here’s how it goes: I knock on the door and say, "I’m from St. John’s Church on Grand Avenue. We’re conducting a survey in the neighborhood. May I ask, is anyone in the household Catholic or baptized Catholic?" If the answer is yes, I ask in an offhand way, "Would you say you attend Mass daily, weekly, monthly, now and then, or not at all?" If the answer is daily or weekly, I say thank you and leave. If the answer is less than weekly, I leave a bulletin and maybe a little booklet. At present I’m using Catholic Answers’ Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth. If the answer is "No Catholics in the house," I ask, "Do you have a church you’re attending at the present time?" If yes, I say thank you and leave. If no, I leave the bulletin and booklet and say, "You’re always welcome at St. John’s."
You can go door to door singly or in pairs. If you get only a few people to return to church or go to RCIA, it is well worth it. It is also good exercise, and a stroll through another neighborhood can be a pleasant experience. Give it a try.
Bob O’Donnell
Joliet, Illinois
Request from Down Under
I live in southern Victoria, Australia. Recently I found a magazine among a pile of papers someone had thrown out. It was called This Rock and dated May 1994. I found it good reading. I already subscribe to several periodicals in Australia, and the rate of exchange puts your magazine out of my budget. If any of your subscribers would like to send me any old copies, I would like to read them and then pass them around our parishes. Thank you and may God bless your work.
William Campbell
5 Aurel Rd. Deans Marsh
Victoria, Australia 3235
Very Real Impact
My first issue of your magazine arrived, and I quickly read it from cover to cover. You were kind enough to send a free subscription, for which I am truly, deeply grateful. (Receiving This Rock would be an impossibility for me otherwise.) I’m not the least bit deserving of such generosity, but because of this I’m that much more grateful.
A couple of years ago, when I was assigned to a different facility—North Carolina has about eighty prisons, and the inmates are moved among them quite regularly—Catholic Answers sent a big box of material to the chapel. That material was instrumental in the conversion of two Protestant inmates, one of whom was an anti-Catholic, King James Version–only Fundamentalist with the nickname of "Terrible Tom the Catholic Basher."
I’ve seen miracles before, but Thomas’s conversion was uniquely impressive to me. I just want you to know the very real impact your work has on the lives of people behind bars.
Joshua Stancil
Morrison Correctional Institution
Hoffman, North Carolina
Make a Deal
Hmm . . . the conversion story of Deal Hudson, editor of Crisis magazine—if not a direct competitor than at least an indirect one—in This Rock ("The Harmony of Faith and Reason," April 2003)? There’s got to be some sort of deal going on here. When should we expect to see Tim Ryland’s conversion story in Crisis?
Alton Blankenship
Bethesda, Maryland
Editor’s reply:
My family converted in toto when I was six; it would be a very short story.
Infallible Politicians
I would like to thank Mary Jo Anderson for a wonderful article ("When Bishops Teach," May-June 2003). I am a prisoner in California and have been following the anti-Catholic actions of the governor here.
When Bishop Weigand made the statement that Governor Gray Davis should refrain from receiving Communion until his precepts came in line with the Church, I applauded him. I have to say that even the print and electronic media portrayed the facts correctly. But the greatest piece of evidence that the governor (as may be true of many so-called Catholic politicians) has forgotten his Catechism teaching was the statement made by his spokesperson, who questioned the bishop’s authority to make such a statement.
It was a sad but true commentary on the state of affairs here in California, and I dare say throughout the nation. Politicians who were elected to office by the citizenry have developed a sense of infallibility. Whatever they say is right and should not be questioned, least wise by a religious leader such as a bishop. A very sad state of affairs.
I thank Mary Jo Anderson for a wonderful article and look forward to more great articles from This Rock.
Eric Lewis
Soledad, California
Greatest Tool
Please, please continue publishing "Step by Step." It is the greatest tool ever for evangelizing.
Fred Steinkirchner
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
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